Mackinnon and Rattray drove to several vantage points above Strontian and showed professional firefighters the terrain. A new deployment was made to ensure the fire frontage remained north and east of the Polloch road, before Rattray confirmed that direct responsibility for firefighting would henceforth be borne by the newly arrived Commission specialists, while he retained overall direction in the area. This was digested by the Daily News and others with disappointment. Efficiency of organisation made disinteresting news.
Indeed this announcement gave temporary relief from a questing media, positioning themselves as seekers after truth with insinuations of rustic incompetence and the bold ‘WHO IS THE FIRE RAISING KILLER?’ campaign led by the Daily News. This lead was maintained by the local news organ being retained to pass their reporter’s unedited copy to Nic immediately it came in. No matter the content, remuneration was high.
For the planting squad, as for all others under Mackinnon’s direction, it was not ‘over’ as many had thought. The efforts about to be undertaken required a large complement of labour to support the professionals, and Mackinnon himself became temporarily subordinate to the Commission Fire Chief.
Rattray decided to immediately repatriate the majority of remaining men imported from outlying regions, beginning with men from Kingussie not involved at the farmhouse fire. Any lessening of the pressures on locally committed resources would be welcomed. It also indicated that the crisis was over and all was again under Commission control. He intended to so inform the media as soon as the Fire Chief had made his appreciation of the situation and decided upon the final tactical phases.
The marquees would remain, however, and accommodate the handful of original volunteers that remained together with the specialist firefighting men newly arrived.
Baby-face found that he was second row in a media scrum, several of the nation’s ‘celebrity journalists’ with their long tails of staff having arrived with varying degrees of pomp. He had fielded the “so what’s been going on young man? Do share with a fellow scribe” approach with care as his photographer had counselled. When it was thought he had been pumped dry, he was largely ignored, as his worldly-wise mentor had predicted.
Longstanding routines existed amongst the travelling news corps, tied to hours of going to press in the case of newspaper correspondents, and the timed updating of bulletins in the case of television reporters. The circus followed its conventions and became the usual huddle who gesticulated their way through working days and drinking nights. The regime held to its longstanding practice, and recognisable yarns were routinely spun by the usual storytellers to the usual listeners.
International news continued to offer little sensationalism, and national news remained scandalously meatless. So forest fire journalism instantly became a global industry which the Daily News spearheaded for several days.
For the remainder of that week the Commission in Lochaber regrouped. Many of the emergency influx of men were returned to their respective establishments, twelve by funeral undertakers at Commission expense. Rattray thanked each man individually as he boarded the bus taking him home, and later stood stiffly outside the funeral parlour as twelve black hearses departed in a solemn convoy bracketed by police motorcyclists.
The paying of his respects at the procession’s departure went unreported. Rattray’s absence at the procession’s arrival in Kingussie, however, drew many column inches of critical disdain from a lordly Press.