Chapter 3: Contact

He ran directly at me and launched the spear, screaming wildly. I threw myself sideways to avoid the weapon, shrugging my rucksack off and bouncing to my feet in one motion.

I don't know which of us was the more surprised at the situation, probably me, because he had reacted first. Having now lost his weapon, he seemed to recalculate the odds, turning tail and fleeing back the way he had come. After being attacked with a spear, adrenaline was suddenly coursing through my body and I took off after him, flat-out. As I ran my brain was processing what I had seen. He seemed relatively short, perhaps only five foot four or five. He was wearing a kilt and what I guessed must be a plaid, a sheet of tartan loosely worn over the shoulder and diagonally across the body. His feet were covered with some kind of hide, tied on with what looked like leather thongs. His spear had been metal tipped so that gave me a clue that I was at least in the Iron Age or beyond.

It was clear that I was by far the quicker and the gap between us narrowed within seconds. I gathered myself and launched my body at his back, smashing into him and bringing him down hard. Once again I sprang to feet quickly, ready to take him on.

"Get up you fuck!" I screamed at him, hopping around, anticipating the fight. "Come on ya bastard! Come on!"

He didn't move. I stopped hopping like a maniac and approached him slowly. It was then that I noticed the unnatural angle of his head, turned towards me, the eyes open, staring, unblinking. I fell to my knees and vomited into the grass, sickened by the fact that I had killed another human being. I remained on my hands and knees, retching up the remains of my recently eaten fish and shaking at the enormity of what I had done.

It had all happened so fast. One second I was on a high after catching and cooking my fish and starting out once more on my walk, the next I had murdered a man. The adrenaline was rapidly leaving my body and I sat back on my heels, my body shaking with the shock of what had happened.

After several minutes I pulled myself together and started to try and come to terms with what I had done. In an unconscious attempt to protect itself, the organism that was I, began to rationalise my actions.

"He threw a spear at you. He was trying to kill you, so it was really self-defence. And anyway, you didn't mean to break his neck, you were only stopping him from running, it was an accident." These thoughts ran through my head as I tried to make myself feel better about the death.

I forced myself to turn his body over and searched for anything that might help me. Nothing, no jewellery, no sporran. Only his kilt, plaid and what looked like deerskin moccasins. I walked back to recover my rucksack and also recovered his spear. Examining the spear I found the head was moulded to allow the shaft to be fitted more securely. My knowledge suggested this was quite advanced in terms of metal work and might indicate I was late on in the Iron Age or even later.

I used the trenching tool from my camping gear to dig out a shallow grave, rolling the body into it and covering it over. I replaced the tool and hoisted my rucksack, forcing myself to start walking again.

"That's a great start. I set out looking for civilisation to try and figure out what time I'm in and the first person I meet I kill him. Why did he react the way he did? Fuck!"

I reviewed the scene over and over in my head and came to the conclusion that the man had acted out of fright. I was considerably taller and larger than he was and with the rucksack on my back I would have looked even bulkier to him. I suppose my clothes would also have appeared very outlandish to him. Whatever, the combination of things seemed to have made him panic and he had thrown his spear and then run off.

My own reaction was just as panicked. The surge of adrenaline brought on by being confronted by somebody and having a spear thrown at me had let loose energy beyond what I had previously experienced. I had been running at an incredible speed when I leapt on him and the combination of speed and my greater bulk had contributed to the force with which he had been driven into the ground. Perhaps he had been in the act of looking over his shoulder when I hit him so that his head was badly positioned when he hit the forest floor. I wasn't sure but I realised I would have to be more careful or risk being caught off-guard again.

Within an hour or so I passed between the two hills I had been using as my guide and stood on the edge of what my map suggested was the Eredine Forest. I was far more vigilant and was walking at a much slower pace, almost creeping along. I decided to climb to the top of a hill once more to spy out the lie of the land ahead. Choosing An Suidhe, I made the five hundred-foot ascent, carefully crossing an expanse of loose scree and scrambling over a ring of rocks at the summit. I sat and took a long pull at one of my water bottles, catching my breath from the climb. Turning, I gazed westwards again, taking in the sweep of Loch Awe as it passed horizontally before me. It stretched as far as my eyes could see from Northeast to Southwest but appeared to be relatively narrow, certainly no more than a mile wide and at one point a promontory reduced that even further. According to my map, there should have been a road, the B840, running along this side of the loch and four or five small villages. None of these were evident at all.

I put the binos up to my eyes and took a closer look at the area where the loch narrowed. I was sure I could see a stream winding its way from the foot of this hill I was on down to that area. I looked away to the Southwest and even with the binoculars I couldn't see the foot of the loch. That made my mind up. It would be worth it to at least have a closer look at whether I could cross the loch rather than walk round it. I swept the binos across the top of this An Suidhe and it looked as if I could walk round the summit easily enough to try to find the source of the stream. Thereafter it should be a relatively easy job to follow the water to the loch-side. There was the added advantage I thought of keeping to the high ground for a bit longer too. So far I had seen no sign of life other than animals and birds.

I found the source of the stream after only twenty minutes walking along the summit and followed its descent down to the forest floor. It was a small stream and fast moving as it made its way into Loch Awe. The descent and trek from the base of the hill to the loch-side were uneventful although I remained extremely cautious.

It was still early evening but I decided that I would pitch the tent for the night and then prospect the possibilities for crossing the loch. The tent went up quickly and I dumped my rucksack inside it, keeping the spear and the binoculars with me. The narrowest point was only some two hundred yards or so further along and I estimated the loch was just over three-quarters of a mile wide here. Using the binos I checked the opposite shore to make sure there was a way up the bank. It looked fine.

There was plenty of dead wood lying around me and I thought it would be a relatively simple job to lash a raft together using the rope I had with me. A raft would let me push my pack ahead of me, keeping it dry and also help keep me afloat for the long swim. I was a strong swimmer but had never really swum this far before. Satisfied that the attempt looked doable I headed back to the tent.

I examined the spear once more and decided the dull head could bear sharpening up and I found my sharpening stone and started trying to hone the thing to two fine edges. It didn't take me long before I could slice through a blade of grass with the blade without applying much downward pressure. It might not be perfect but it was certainly much better and potentially more effective for it.

I had noticed some rabbits hopping around a small mound as I followed the stream and I determined that it would be worthwhile trying my skill with the brass wire snares. Following the stream I returned to the spot and watched as half a dozen coneys bolted for their burrows. I had brought three snares and three spare tent pegs and proceeded to peg the snares adjacent to some of the burrows.

When I returned to the tent and sat down I admitted to myself that I had been trying to keep busy, to occupy my mind rather than give it time to think about the death of the highlander. When I sat, I felt my body shaking again in reaction. Guilt has an uncanny way of eating you up from the inside, finding your weakest spots and gnawing away at them. Guilt comes from your own conscience and it preys on those things that your subconscious identifies as the most emotionally sensitive.

"Who will miss him?" I wondered. "Was he a husband, father, brother? Who will his death affect? Was there a wife, children relying on him? Have I created a widow? Orphans?"

I shook my head, realising I was going to get nowhere by beating myself up other than to become increasingly depressed. I would need to toughen up my attitude to things quickly or I was going to have a hard time surviving mentally never mind physically. Whatever time I was in, I knew life must be far harsher and adapting to that was probably going to be crucial.

Setting up the stove I boiled some water and forced myself to eat one of the remaining freeze-dried meals, despite the fact that food was the last thing I wanted. I hadn't eaten since the fish at lunchtime and had lost the benefit of that when I had thrown up shortly afterwards. I also made a cup of tea, a great British cure for every problem, and managed to get both it and the meal to stay down. It was still quite light so I thought I would make a start on constructing a raft.

Gathering enough fallen wood for a raft proved easy enough but lashing them together to form anything that vaguely resembled a raft proved much trickier. My first couple of attempts ended with a pile of branches that fell apart too easily. Eventually I realised that I had to lash the branches together individually if I was going to achieve a stable platform and after around an hour and a half I at last managed to produce something that held together - the Kontiki it was not. I had strung together two squares of branches with a divider in between to give the raft some height. Hopefully that would keep my stuff out of the water and dry.

"That's enough for tonight," I thought, leaving the raft on the shore of the loch.

I was suddenly very tired; perhaps the excitement of the day was catching up with me. My heightened state of awareness and alertness must also be taking something out of me and I knew it was time to hit the sack.

I decided to try a little trick I had used successfully in the past. If I had a problem I was trying to work out, or if I wanted to wake up at a certain time in the morning, I could repeat the problem or time over and over in my head before I fell asleep and invariably I would wake up in the morning at the right time or with an answer to the problem in my head. I think my unconscious brain was able to remain processing despite the fact I was asleep. This had been really helpful over the years and I thought that I might try and use it now to condition myself to the circumstances I might find myself in. As I crawled into my sleeping bag I began to repeat certain phrases over and over inside my head.

"I need to be tougher to survive here. Death is going to be more common here, get used to it. I need to be tougher to survive. Death is common, get used to it. Toughen up or die. Get used to death."

With such pleasant thoughts swimming around in my head, I eventually fell asleep. I don't know whether it was because I was so tired or whether my little mind trick was working but I managed a good sleep and woke up feeling refreshed and positive in the morning. So far this trip was proving to be a little manic - I was experiencing extreme highs and lows. Highs over simple things like catching a fish and lows over my complete lack of experience and of course the dead highlander. Everything, every emotion, seemed to be amplified somehow.

As I lay there pondering this, a thought came to me. I had been staring idly at the fly-screen netting in the tent and I found myself focussing on it.

"I wonder if I could use that? Could I remove it and use it as a fishing net?"

Smiling, I realised I was already thinking differently, seeing things from a different perspective, trying to find an angle as to how things could help me survive. Maybe it was my little mind trick working. I hoped so.

My watch showed it was six thirty but I could see it was already light outside so I dressed quickly and pulled on my boots. My first job this morning was to check my snares and I walked back towards where I had staked them out.

"Fucking yeeessss!" I said out loud, grinning to myself as I could see that two of the snares held quite plump looking rabbits. "Chalk another one up for Scott 'Daniel Boon' MacDonald."

Again, the degree of satisfaction seemed out of proportion to the achievement but I wasn't questioning it this time. I had now proven I had two successful methods of providing food for myself and that was very heartening. Loosening the snares from around the rabbit's necks was easy enough and I retrieved all three of the snares, returning to the tent carrying the dead rabbits by their hind legs. I debated with myself what to do with the rabbits and decided to 'dress' them both (at least that's what I thought gutting and skinning them was called) and cook one for breakfast.

Walking down to the loch-side, I opened my knife, locking the blade in place and opened up the stomach cavity of the first rabbit. I held my breath as the guts and contents poured out and then continued to cut lengthways to remove all of the internal organs. I'm sure I had read somewhere that the liver and kidneys were very nutritious but I wasn't taking any chances eating them, deciding instead just to keep to the muscle tissue. I cut off the feet and carefully used the knife to start separating the fur from the flesh. Once started it was surprisingly easy to pull the fur off the main part of the rabbit and soon I was hacking off Mr Bunny's head, leaving myself with a carcass and the fur mostly in one piece. Setting the fur to one side, I rinsed the rabbit in the waters of the loch and started on the second one, making short work of that too.

Now was the time to test my fire-starting skills I thought. I used my trenching tool to dig out a shallow circle and ringed it with stones from the loch-side. I searched for my bag of birch lichen tinder and set a small mound of it in the centre of 'pit'. Looking round I gathered sticks of various thicknesses and used my knife to strip bark off of some dry branches. I used the flint and steel to strike sparks directly onto the tinder, leaning closely over it to blow on any sparks that seemed to catch. After a couple of minutes trying I managed to ignite the tinder and carefully fed strips of bark onto the flame to begin to build the fire up, adding smaller sticks and eventually some thicker branches.

I found myself humming the tune 'Firestarter' by the Prodigy and giggled to myself childishly. There was something immensely satisfying about lighting a fire I found, a definite boy-thing and I realised I had drifted off simply staring into the flames. I roused myself and banked the flames with more of the thicker branches, pleased to see that there was virtually no smoke. I ran a straight-ish stick through one of the rabbits and held the carcass over the flames. It quickly became apparent that this wasn't going to work well so instead I laid the rabbit on the stones and watched as the flesh slowly cooked.