‘Effie Gillies!’ Her father’s voice rebounded around the caldera. His legs might no longer have much strength, but there was no doubting the power still in his lungs; she had grown up to the sound of his instructions bellowing around the hills, competing with the winds and the birds to be heard. He hadn’t seen her halfway up Ruival, one arm around Poppit and a rope around them both. The granite bluff on which she sat gave onto precipitous scree. A fall from here wouldn’t kill them but they wouldn’t walk away from it either. (Not that Poppit walked from much these days; her leg had set badly from the break and she didn’t now stray far from the cottage.)

Still Effie didn’t stir.

The collie leant into her, warm and trembling, as though she understood the mortal threat, and Effie’s arm tightened around her as they watched the happenings in the bay. These were the death throes of their lives here.

The evacuation had been going on for days. Ever since the Dunara Castle steamship had rounded the headland the villagers had been packing up, frenzied by the prospect of departure. She had watched her neighbours carrying tables, chairs, beds and spinning wheels on their backs, seen the potatoes dug up several weeks too early (still better to have than to leave). She had even laughed as the cows were towed through the water behind the dinghies, ropes around their horns, protesting loudly as they were dragged to the ship.

The three hundred sheep had been brought over last from Glen Bay. Mhairi and Flora had gradually herded them from their scattered perches into the enclosures on the far side and Effie, along with Lorna, had brought them over the ridge a herd at a time to the fanks at An Lag. The holdings there were large and not far from the jetty where they could be transferred in batches to the dinghy and rowed to the ship. But even that painstaking method hadn’t been foolproof, the dinghy almost capsizing a few times as the sheep jostled in panic on the water, and Uncle Hamish now sported a black eye from where he’d been headbutted numerous times by the simple creatures. The activity had been incessant all week and when the villagers weren’t packing, they had been in the kirk, the minister leading prayers asking for the protection of their souls as though they were heading for the Seven Circles of Hell and not the Scottish mainland. Sleep this past week had been as fleeting as rainbows, until now there was nothing left to be done but . . . go.