Burghead stands on a promontory sticking out into the Moray Firth. We visited because we had read of the ancient chambered well there.

To visit the well requires picking up the key from the visitor centre. This, it transpired, was hard by the remains of a Pictish Fort though to be the oldest in Scotland. Apparently about half the Fort was destroyed when the town was built in the early 19^th century.

Plaque by edge of Fort:-

Site of Fort. The Visitor Centre can be seen beyond. (It’s the white building.):-

In between Ballindalloch and Criagellachie Bridge we turned off the A 95 to find Inveravon Church and its Pictish Stones.

The stones were once in the open but are now kept in a porch:-

Information Boards:-

In the churchyard I found two Commonwealth War Graves.

Private A G Patterson, Seaforth Highlanders, 10/3/1915, aged 18:-

Private J A Cantlie, Gordon Highlanders, 30/5/1918, aged 20:-

Principia:-

Commander’s Residence:-

Barracks:-

Bath-House:-

Granary:-

Annexe:-

Beyond the Wall:-

Defensive ditch to north of Roughcastle Fort:-

Defensive pits:-

Views of fort remains:-

Burn to west of Roughcastle Fort. Antonine Wall to right:-

Just before we reached the Antonine Wall at the Falkirk Wheel we saw signs for Roughcastle Roman Fort so decided to follow the path. It took us a while and I was beginning to wonder if we wouldever get there but we did. Only the outlines of the fort still remain.

The Information Board shows what it would have looked like:-

Fort (south of Antonine Wall):-

Wall before fort:-

Southern Gate:-

I mentioned in an earlier post, about the Falkirk Wheel, that the boat trip through the Roughcastle Tunnel takes you under the Antonine Wall.

It’s only a short walk uphill from the Tunnel’s entrance to some remains of the wall. Unlike its perhaps more famous counterpart further south, the stone built Hadrian’s Wall, the Antonine Wall was only ever a turfed barrier with a ditch. It’s all overgrown now:-

Information board:-

Four Square/NEL, 1967, 221 p.

This novel of aerial combat in the Great War focuses on Sergeant Paul Chamay of the 322^nd Escadrille in the Service Aéronautique and Leutnant Sebastian Kupper of Jasta 76 of the Luftstreitkräfte. Early in his combat experience Chamay sees his friend and mentor, Raymonde, killed by a German flying an Albatros with a distinctive target painted on its fuselage. Chamay is enraged since, though Raymonde’s aeroplane was incapacitated, he might have survived had Kupper (the Albatros was his) not come in to fire at him again, hitting him in the head. Chamay is from then on fixated on seeking out that Albatros and killing its pilot.

While that is the bare bones of the plot the book as a whole is much more nuanced than this might suggest, as it also explores – if only briefly – other characters, Chamay’s inventive but slightly hare-brained mechanic Babarin and forgetful armourer Susotte, his commander, the formal Captain Jourdan, and a lover, Denise, Kupper’s relationship with his wife Marie via her letters, his stolid batman Private Pilger, and the wily scrounger Feldwebel Groos. There is also a sequence involving a ham from Kempinsky’s, a gift to Kupper from Marie that is coveted by all at the front and manages to pass through several hands.

Gann outlines the vicissitudes of a Great War fighter pilot, always on the lookout, never able to let his guard down, the rigours of open cockpit aerial warfare, swathed in warm clothing, the cramp induced by the controls.

There is also a brief account of the catastrophic Nivelle offensive of 1917, of the French units which fought in it, and died, the calamity which led to mutiny and refusal to undertake any more offensive operations.

Later in the book we find that Kupper thought he was performing a mercy on Raymonde, saving him from a fiery death, though of course Chamay never gets to know this.

The final encounter, to which the book was always leading up, unfolds in a way which is a touch unexpected.

I have long held in interest in the aerial aspect of the Great War having read the histories They Fought for the Sky by Quentin Reynolds and The Friendless Sky by Alexander Mckee in my youth. Though fiction, In the Company of Eagles is as good an introduction to the subject as any.

Pedant’s corner:- The cover illustration isn’t quite spot on. There are two [red] Fokker Triplanes depicted on the wraparound cover but none appears in the text – though an attack by new [black] RNAS Sopwith Triplanes on Kupper’s airfield does. In addition I believe only Manfred von Richthofen flew a red-coloured Fokker Triplane.

Otherwise; wiith (with,) Mercedes’ (Mercedes’s,) Albatros’ (Albatros’s,) “Jourdan hesitated so, that Chamay was certain he was trying to communicate ….” (no need for the comma.) “None of the items were used” (none … was used,) after the Nivelle offensive another German tells Kupper the French troops were mutinying (at the time they occurred the Germans were ignorant of the French mutinies,) Gros (elsewhere always Groos,) Barbarin (elsewhere always Babarin.) “Every French aeroplane was not flown by a man named Chamay” (at least one French aeroplane was, though, so that sentence isn’t true. It ought to read ‘Not every French aeroplane was flown by a man named Chamay’,) jettys (jetties,) pistules (pustules.)

Innerpeffray Chapel lies off a minor road about halfway between Crieff and Auchterarder. It is contiguous to Innerpeffray Library, the oldest library in Scotland.

This is a view of the chapel alone:-

In its graveyard there is a gravestone with a dedication to David McKendrick, missing at Cambrai, 30,11,1917:-

Since we were in the area we thought we’d have a look at Burns’s Cottage again – only this time we would go inside.

Cottage from road:-

Tam O’Shanter planter outside Burns’s Cottage, Alloway:-

Cottage from rear:-

Burn’s Cottage sign on Poet’s Path:-

This information board says how Burns’s father planned to develop the field beyond:-

In the field is this wicker sculpture of Burns’s most famous character, Tam O’Shanter, on his mare, Meg:-

Silhouettes in wall of field:-

David and Charles, 1965, 254 p including 8 p Index, 2 p Appendix of Nelson’s Ships and Captains and 1 p Appendix Note on Sources.

As its title implies the book concentrates on the sea fights in which Horatio Nelson took part. While some details of his life outside the navy are mentioned these are very much by the way as far as Warner is concerned as they did not impact on Nelson’s conduct at sea. Warner contends that it was Nelson’s victories that made the winning of the Napoleonic Wars possible. Without British sea superiority Napoleon could have threatened India or even invaded Britain. He certainly had plans to do so if the Royal Navy were to be neutralised. Though Warner does not mention it the prosecution of the Peninsular War would also have been impossible without British control of the  seas.

Nelson first made his tactical acumen known at the Battle of Cape St Vincent where he moved his ship out of the battle line without orders as he realised to do so and make direct for the nearest Spanish ships would disorganise the opponent and – somewhat paradoxically – allow his commander’s ultimate intentions to be fulfilled. To naval men the line of battle “was sacred” so this unparalleled (and never repeated) leaving of the line without a direct order was a court-martial offence and meant probable disgrace, the more so since that commander, Jervis, was an extreme disciplinarian. Two other ships joined Nelson’s move however, and Jervis received him afterwards “with the greatest affection.” (He had after all won a victory due to it.)

Nelson’s next major encounter was the Battle of the Nile (more strictly of Aboukir Bay) where he split his force in two to attack both sides of the French fleet simultaneously, not as hazardous an endeavour as it might have been since the French ships were at anchor – at least at the battle’s start – and consequently unable to manoeuvre effectively. The result was confirmed when the French flagship L’Orient blew up spectacularly.

Nelson was famously to repeat disobedience at the Battle of Copenhagen. (“I have only one eye. I have a right to be blind sometimes.”) His Commander there, Parker, fully expected Nelson to ignore his signal to break off, though, if that was the correct course. However, others in the fleet of necessity obeyed it; to their cost. In many respects – the Danish ships were at anchor, and under the cover of shore guns – this was similar to the Nile, though Nelson’s tactics were slightly changed. This time he asked his ships to line up against their counterparts one by one, starting at the fifth Danish ship, the next two going on to the Danish 6 and 7 while others took on ships 4 to 1. In this way the least supportable part of the Danish fleet could be overwhelmed before the rest of it could affect the outcome. More remarkably the time elapsing between these orders being issued and their execution was extremely short. The victory cemented Nelson’s reputation.

Trafalgar was an altogether different affair; a full sea battle, one Nelson had sought for a long time. His plan was to cut the French and Spanish line in three (in the event only two such incursions were made) by the use of columns of British ships and so ensure a pell-mell battle in which he was convinced – correctly as it turned out – he would be victorious.

The details of the sea fighting of the times are gruesome. The casualties and wounds inflicted by cannonballs and splinters from wooden hulls pierced by them horrific. There was little shelter on the gun decks and no barriers to shot barrelling through them from one end to the other if raked by a broadside. On the open deck sailors and the soldiers the ships carried were even more exposed, Nelson himself felled by a rifle shot, and his national hero status thus guaranteed.  Britain’s naval supremacy was not to be seriously challenged for over one hundred years.

Whatever the faults in his private life (mercifully little of which does this account deal with) Nelson’s effect on his subordinates – not to mention the ratings – was inspiring.

Pedant’s corner:- “the Times’” (the Times’s,) “she had not formerly declared war” (‘formally’ makes more sense,) Guadaloupe (on a map. Now spelled ‘Guadeloupe’.)