Bruar's Rest

to her, so that his tone and choice of insult hit a raw nerve. He breathed a sigh of relief at hearing Mackenzie’s horse trotting along the road. If the doctor saw his shaking hands, his lectures would be stern, so he quickly scraped the porridge into the fire, clasped his hands behind his back and smiled broadly.
    ‘Come on, lassie, clean your face, get the kettle boiled, here’s the doctor. Maybe there will be news from Bruar,’ he said, gingerly touching her arm. She raised her eyebrows at the oatmeal sizzling in the fire and thought, ‘What a waste.’ Their argument was forgotten, though, and she ran to welcome the only link they had to news about the war.
    ‘You haven’t the buggy with you today, doctor, is a wheel broke?’
    ‘Er, no, lass, it’s just that my old mare hasn’t been lasting the pull these days.’
    Something about his tone seemed uneasy, he didn’t hold out a hand with letters or anything else. He tried to avoid her stare as she searched his face for news.
    Big Rory had seen that look before—the old Seer had it when he said his lassie wouldn’t see a dawn! Megan was pulling at the doctor’s coat. ‘Still no news?’
    Rory stepped forward and dropped a bombshell, ‘When?’
    ‘What do you mean, when?’ Panic swelled in her breast like a giant wave crashing upon a wild beach. It swallowed her whole body and dashed it to pieces. In her head were visions of bullets ripping through her husband; of him chased by demons with no faces, plunging bayonets up and down his body, the horrors were out of control. ‘What do you mean—answer me, damn you!’ She bolted at her father-in-law, pulling at his limp arm. Instinctively he held her close. But she needed answers.
    Breaking away she grabbed at the doctor and begged him to tell her.
    ‘I’m sorry that it had to be me, but who else knows the heart of you? Forgive me, Megan, for this is a bad day.’
    ‘No! No! I don’t want this news.’ She slipped to the ground, shaking.
    O’Connor emerged from his tent and draped a shawl around her shoulders. He shook his head at the news bringer, who had hardly taken the time to alight from his horse before the blow of his message had struck the threesome.
    Rory moved a small wooden seat next to the fire for their visitor and asked again, ‘When?’
    ‘According to this telegram—oh, I hope you don’t mind, I opened it, seeing as none of you read. I hope that’s fitting with you.’
    ‘Yes, yes, now what does it say?’
    Not wishing to prolong the agony further, he read: ‘We regret to inform you that sometime on the 18th of March 1915 Private Bruar Stewart sustained serious injury resulting in his death.’
    Rory had lost everyone: his lovely wife, Jimmy, a mild-mannered son hardly into adulthood, and now Bruar, his first-born. Filled with sorrow he wondered if the curse of the one-eyed seer had followed him like a plague-stricken victim. ‘Too much pain,’ he said, retrieving his jacket from a nearby fence-post. ‘O’Connor, I can’t take this, see to the lassie.’
    The Irishman poured a cup of tea into an empty cup held by Doctor Mackenzie. He knew no amount of alcohol or company of seductive females would help his friend. A sense of complete uselessness enveloped him, as he watched his friend disappear among the shadows of trees and scattered sunbeams.
    He took off his torn cap, slipped it into his pocket and said, ‘What manner o’ God can justify the pain that this country has inflicted upon these folks. The poorest among us, yet such sacrifice would only be expected from the highest of people, not humble tinker-folk who scrape a living among the worms.’
    ‘I have no answer, O’Connor. But keep a watchful eye on this heartbroken lassie, there’s no telling how deeply she’s been wounded.’
    Megan drew a hand across her tear-stained face and spoke in whispering tones. ‘Don’t underestimate me, good friend. You see, me and Bruar, we always said if time wasn’t on our side, then he’d live in my heart and me in his. You worry about Kirriemor, I am sure there’s a wife or mother who’s about to get the same news as us. Away with you now. I think it’s a day to be among my hills, me and Bruar always spent the best times in our hills.’ She went inside her small tent and came out with a black shawl a woman had given instead of money for scourers, wrapped it around her shoulders, smiled reassuringly to O’Connor and the doctor, and then set off to mourn in her