Consequences Unforeseen

In the beginning - how it all began

IN THE BEGINNING – how it all began

COLD DAWN IN AYRSHIRE - Dawn in Dalrymple, April 1956

It was a cold day in Hell....

The shot cracked out, deafening to the five year old's ears and the small custom made gun, a 22, kicked in his sturdy wee arms. The mother crows launched squawking in anger out of their nests, fearing that once again Farmer Arthur had decided to cull their eggs and future offspring.

The boy had lain for what seemed hours to him in a perfect sniper’s position with his groin comfortably nestled in a hollow in the damp meadow grass – his legs spread out behind him feet splayed and leveraged to provide the balance his Grand Uncle John had been grinding into him for weeks now.

The barrel of his rifle was resting on his bean bag – a leftover from his earlier lessons at the direction of his much loved hero - Uncle John. He knew he'd later hear the wrath of his mentor though, since his breathing had lapsed from controlled perfection to jumpy and rapid characteristics of profound excitement and anticipation.

Not that that thought concerned him right now! Bill Douglas had just made his first ever kill. Better still - it would prove to be the head shot demanded by his tormentor Colonel John Douglas (Ret.). - “Ye can’t eat a rabbit that's gut shot laddie, so ye better be true to your teachin’.”

The rabbit lay dead in the mist down by the creek

The feeling of sheer pleasure and power power coursed through him and he felt the warm pee running out of him and into the ground below. Shoot naked he had been trained. Feel the connection you have with the ground and the earth beneath you.

This had been a lot for him to take in with all of his 234 weeks on this God's Earth, but he knew, just knew that the last 50 weekends of trudging at dawn with his pal and mentor Uncle John had been worth it.

“Get up ye wee pussy” roared John and slapped him on his backside.

“Pissin' yersel an breathin' like a lassie is not

the way to impress me” He smiled at the wee fella though and hugged him like a bear in the arms that continued to do over 500 push ups a day - at the ripe old age of 65, as young Bill liked to remind him - often and with a twinkle in his eye.

“Here put these trousers on so's a blackbird doesn’t come and take away that wee worm oh yours” laughed big bad John “an let's get down tae the creek and see what kind a mess you've made o’ that poor wee rabbit”

Bill was too carried away to even bother with a response and off they went with big grins and respect for each other that went so deep in their hearts. To John it was like this boy had jumped generations. He had jet black hair with dark eyes as black as coal and a determination and demeanor far beyond his years. He truly was a visual credit to his lineage which went back to the Black Douglas and earlier still as time would tell. Like his grand uncle the warrior blood was in his veins.

From the day and hour big John had held the boy after his birth, the chemistry and spark had existed. Even Bill's

father Jim Douglas could never have the comfort of family saying “Jim, he looks just like you”. Jim lived for his boy and would love him all the 84 years of the life that he was to have, but never would he deny that the boy was his grand uncle's double!

They meandered through the wet meadow and wet grass enjoying the sharp air and silence that that would hold until the sky went from pink to yellow to blue. The rabbit was dead and the birds were now quiet at its passing. The boy watched the mists swirl down in the valley and move like ghosts into the trees of the ridge on the other side of the burn. The sun, pale and transparent – you could look directly at it at this time of day in Scotland – was floating ever upwards, chasing the misty ghosts on their way. God the wee man loved this world. (He had other “worlds” but this was his favorite by far. Other boys played at soldiers, but when he was with uncle John he WAS a soldier.

“See here ye wee menace. Ye've only gone and surpassed yoursel’. Ye've taken the wee thing right through the head” John said with total glee. “That’s going to make a great dinner the night – an tae hell wi yer mother.”

At the mention of his mother Bill came back to reality with a visible jolt. He lived in sheer terror of her. Oh she loved him no doubt, but the strict disciplinarian that she was made his blood run cold and he shivered – nothing to do with the air temperature. She would have a hairy fit when they marched through the door carrying the kill.

The Douglas family were Presbyterian in faith, and what his father did marrying a Roman Catholic and an Italian to boot was a mystery to the already devout Glasgow Rangers supporter that the he had become.

Big John just ruffled his hair and said “dinnae ye worry 'bout it wee man. Ah'll deal wi her, an anyway she'll be away back tae civilization by the time we get back. She can only take two days here in the sea air an coo dung an she misses her home comforts too much”.

“Let's get back up the hill noo and we'll go see whit mischief yer cousin Janice has been up tae makin' eggs an that”

“Ye'll be needin’ some rest anyway for the night;

you and me are goin' after that bloody fox”

At that Bill Douglas forgot all about his mother and his heart started to do its job again taking the chill out of his bones.

The former Black Watch soldier and his young trainee smiled at each other and started the steady incline up from the valley

of the burn, killing ground as it was

to the youngster, back to the farm and the animals he had grown to love on these week end and sometimes week or month long visits to this wonderful playground.

He was glowing, for he knew deep inside he had won the respect of John this morning and the lessons would only get better as the year progressed.

April would fly bye now and soon it would be July and big John had promised him that they and his cousin Janice would spend as much time up at Stonehaven as they possibly could. Janice was John's grand daughter and two years older that Bill. He loved her, was fascinated by her and was constantly amazed that this “girly” could fight like a tiger and climb like a monkey in the woods on the hill beyond the farm.

Stonehaven and its rocky beaches and cliffs (another “world”) were as far from the sands of the Ayrshire coast in distance as they were from common land characteristics. The people too were different in the way that only East coast and West coast could define.

The boy loved both of these havens. He escaped the wrath of his mother during these “holidays” and he missed his father but even at that early age he had no sympathy for the man because he'd made his own bed and would have to lie in it. A phrase he often heard his mother use in reference to his own tendency to fight his way into and out of every corner and confrontation he could become involved in.

The next 12 weekends or so he knew they'd be at the caravan in Artgarden to the west of Arrochar on Loch Long. The two day climbs and subsequent camping on the Cobbler were now uppermost in his anticipating mind. “I am a lucky boy” he thought “with a man as old as my grandfather willing to play soldiers with me endlessly”.

He grinned like a hyena and his stomach growled in anticipation of breakfast. The rabbit was now incidental. It was the kill that had counted.