Turbulence by Giles Foden Page B

werelifted to see the loch beach on one side and the high hills thick with trees on the other. Scattered scraps of cirrus, the thread-cloud, garlanded sunlit, spruce-covered hilltops. Some showed signs of forestry work, with gaps where trees had been cut down.
    â€˜First time up in these pairts, then?’ asked Mackellar.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘I was brought up in Africa.’
    â€˜Africa, eh? That’s a fair distance, eh? Well, you’ll find difference, tha’s for sure. Sun and cloud always smirring each other here.’
    Coming round Strone Point – which separated the foot of Loch Long from the opening into the Holy Loch – we passed into a long strip of road half covered with vegetation.
    â€˜The folk here call this Midge Lane,’ said Mackellar, who seemed to switch randomly between Scots and English. ‘Fine now, but gin the wind dinna blaw nae mair, the midgies come. They ging oot for biting the incomers.’
    There was a pause as I tried to translate this to myself. During the hiatus the clipping noise of the horse’s hooves filled the hedge-lined lane. A dog barked as we passed a gate and the horse shied, pulling at the leather traces.
    â€˜Don’t be frichtened,’ Mackellar said, softly. ‘He disnae like the dugs. Nor the midgies either. Great smokin’ crowds of them, we get here.’
    â€˜I saw something like that in Africa,’ I said eventually, remembering my boyhood in Nyasaland. ‘On a large lake there, they have big clouds of midges.’
    Mackellar gave a low chuckle.
    â€˜Ah dinna ken aboot Africa, but ah’ll tell ye whit’s whit aboot the midgies here. Ye’ll see if ah’m wrang. I swear if ye leave the midgies alane, they willnay bother ye. They come tae where there’s chappin’ in the air, so though they micht dance aboot ye, keep still yersel. Every dunt ye gie them, they’ll gie ye back wi interest. Whit’s mair, they love the mochy weather, so ginthe sun comes oot, ye gae oot too. And they dinnae fly ower salt watter.’
    He gave the horse a proper crack with the whip and round the bluff, as if by inches, Holy Loch angled into view. I saw the heads of two seals stick up out of the water. They looked like soldiers’ helmets.
    â€˜Why’s it called Holy Loch?’ I asked.
    Mackellar shrugged. ‘Thair’s mony a tale.’ He did not elaborate.
    The Loch was dominated by the sight of three grey navy ships, each with a covey of submarines moored alongside. The village of Kilmun was strung out in front of them.
    We weren’t supposed to talk about ship names then – there were warning posters about this everywhere – but I would soon learn that the motherships were HMS Forth, Titania and Alrhoda . From here the submarine clutch would disperse on their deadly and dangerous missions into the Atlantic Ocean, many never to return.
    â€˜Ye have business wi’ the Prophet?’ asked Mackellar.
    â€˜You mean Professor Ryman?’
    â€˜We ken him as the Prophet.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    â€˜He gies us advice,’ said my nut-brown chauffeur. ‘When tae plant oor crops. When the moon’ll mak a cow drap her calf. When the salmon run’ll start. How tae mak your ain weedkiller and whit’ll keep the midges aff ye. That sort a thing.’
    â€˜But surely country people know all that anyway?’
    â€˜Auld wives’ tales,’ he said dismissively, upturning the prejudice I had formed of him. ‘Folklore and the like. God knows, my wife has faith in it. She thinks milk boiling o’er means somebody is going to fall ill, that snails an’ smoking are unlucky, an’ maist of a’ that if the burds skirl before a flaw, a stronger blaw’s on its way, sic as could tip ye heelstergowdie.’
    After asking him what ‘heelstergowdie’ meant, I deciphered all this as meaning something like ‘if the birds whirl around