Excerpt – The Moidart Sniper, to be launched September 18

This was a night that would come back to haunt my father for the rest of his life. Sergeant John Grey was duty NCO in charge of the section of the line which included Shiel Cottage.

Sergeant Grant would change the guards in this section every two hours. The guard on duty would jump up on the fire step, on watch in case of an attack. This would mean being fully exposed from your chest upwards with your rifle at the ready.

This was the routine for those left behind in the frontline trench every evening from dusk to dawn.

There were flakes of snow in the air and a severe frost, and Ton was first on watch. Sergeant Grant was doing his rounds and gave the order to change the guard, so Ton jumped down and Rancan jumped up on the fire step and took his position.

Ton reckoned it was only a matter of a few seconds before Rancan came crashing down from the fire step and landed at the bottom of the trench stone dead. The bullet passed straight through his neck.

“I had never witnessed so much blood.” Ton talked about this tragic event for the rest of his life, always referring to the mobilisation night when Rancan would not wake up and had to be physically pulled from his bed, never to return to Moidart. He often said that Rancan should never have gone to war; he wasn’t supposed to get out of his bed that night that Ton had gone for him; it wasn’t his time.

He wondered if Rancan had some inkling of the fate that awaited him.