“Down to the south end and back?” He asked.
“Sure,” I agreed. “You set the pace.”
We waded in and pulled our goggles into place. The water wasn’t as chilly as Loch Duntelchaig had felt the day before, a pleasant surprise. It definitely wasn’t the Med, but if we kept out of the deeper water, we’d be very comfortable once we got going. Conall set a steady, sustainable rhythm, and I stuck with him, enjoying the underwater view between breaths. There was a lot of healthy green algae covering the scattered rocks, and I spotted a few white-spotted sea hares (slugs) browsing down there. There were also occasional shanny and butterfish as well as clustering molluscs, anemones and small, bottom crawling, five-armed brittle stars. Once we got back up to the north end, I planned to head east along the rocks there, where there would be a lot more to look at. I wasn’t an expert freediver or anything, and I’d only go down a few metres to avoid compression issues, but I could stay down for three or four minutes at a time without any trouble.
A couple of small boats went past as we swam, trippers heading back to town after a day of sightseeing or fishing. Each time one did, we’d be lifted briefly on a surge of swell shortly afterwards as the wash rolled in our direction. They were far enough away for it to be a smooth little free ride, and it didn’t bother us at all. I saw one of the paddleboarders take a tumble, caught off guard. After twenty minutes or so, Conall stopped to tread water and look around properly.
“That’s about a kilometre,” he decided. “Let’s head back up but pick up the pace a bit.” That suited me fine. I stayed with him until we could stand up again, pretty much where we’d first started. “You go and have your little diving session. I’m good. I think I’ll just dry off and call Caitlin, see how things went with Philips today.”
“Okay, say hi from me.”
He waded out, and I turned east, eager to do some exploring among the rocks. I knew there was a good chance there might be some grey seals around, and it was always fun to watch them in the water, so long as you managed to keep your distance. You could get a nasty infection from a warning bite, and I didn’t like what antibiotics did to my poor, innocent gut bacteria. Some grey seals could be pretty nasty too. One adult male had been observed killing and eating eleven pups in a week in the North Sea a few years before, and the behaviour wasn’t that uncommon among them. Nature might be amazing, but I’d never accused it of being kind.
I didn’t see any seals, although there were plenty of other things to look at. Lots of edible crabs and a couple of small octopuses, sea urchins and an unexpected, colourful colony of jewel anemones. I gave myself a good twenty minutes before I decided that it would be a bit selfish to keep my cousin waiting for much longer.
“What did Caitlin have to say?” I asked as we walked back up to the car after I’d got dry and dressed again. Conall shrugged.
“Not much. She was too busy pestering me with every detail of my day. I think they’re all fine. Philips got them all together for a little chat first thing, then spoke to them one by one, getting updated on all our open cases. She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about him, but she wasn’t actually complaining either. I showed her this place, and she said it looked great… if we could just bump the temperature up to the mid-twenties.” He grinned. “Can you imagine it! The whole place would be ruined in no time. I sent a few of our Callanish shots over to da too. He texted back that we should all come over for a mini-break sometime.”
We dumped our wetsuits into the boot, and I finished emptying my water bottle before we got in.
“Great minds think alike,” I told him. “I was thinking the same thing on our drive down to Tarbert. We could hire some scuba gear in Skye, maybe hit North Uist and Benbecula, and spend a day doing the Clisham horseshoe. Some of the gang might like to tag along too.”
“Next year?” Conall got the car started. “I don’t fancy it in winter, and you’re not going to want to go anywhere until the house is finished.”
“No, I’m not. Next year sounds good, though. Pull in by the Gress Raider’s Memorial for a minute on the way back, will you?” I wanted to see that properly.
“Sure,” he agreed readily.
After World War I, the returning servicemen from Lewis had found, surprise, surprise, that government promises were as worthless as ever. Some things never change. The new owner of the island, Lord Leverhulme, wanted the area divided into large modern farms, and the crofters weren’t getting the land and homes they’d been told would be theirs. They hadn’t taken the news lying down, not after surviving the horrors of the trenches, and not after growing up seeing so many of their community starving through the bad times. Eventually, in 1922, The Board of Agriculture had stepped in, dividing the disputed and much-raided land into a hundred crofts for them. I did like a story with a happy ending, and there weren’t enough of those in the real world.
The memorial was by the main road, adjacent to
