The train journey was a memorable one. Philip reserved a lower sleeper and slept like a top, as the Flying Scotsman puffed its way northward to the magnificent wilds of Scotland and its Atlantic Islands. The following morning, he rose refreshed and ready for an early breakfast. After a shave and general toilet in the men’s washroom, he dressed and entered the dining area as hungry as a wolf. This was true luxury at its finest. He was seated alone at a table facing the engine. The table linen was gleaming white, the cutlery sparkling and of ornate high quality, and the glassware of graciously designed cut crystal. Outside, the early morning was glorious and the view magnificent.
            As he worked his enthusiastic way through a fruit cocktail, a small platter of delicious tiny grilled fish and the main dish of aromatic bacon and eggs with mushrooms and fried tomatoes, he revelled not only in the superb quality of such a royal feast but in the glorious scenery through which they were speeding. By the time he’d finished his third cup of tea and polished off the toast and jam, he was sure he’d never be able to eat again but didn’t regret a single hedonistic moment of his matchless breakfast.
            At Edinburgh, he changed trains for Inverness, and the surrounding scenery became even more breathtaking. On enquiry from his fellow-travelers he was informed that these were the legendary Trossachs. How fascinating, he thought: this was the romantic locale of Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Lady of the Lake’ and ‘Rob Roy,’ and he revelled in the picturesque wild countryside to the limits of his imagination and the reading memories of his childhood. As they passed into the untamed northeastern highland country, he felt a desperate urge to get outside and paint or photograph the glory that Mother Nature now spread before them in careless abundance. There it was, heaped slope on craggy slope, forest on mountain meadow, up and up into the mists of legend.
            At Inverness, he changed trains once again, this time bound for the western shores and the Kyle of Lochalsh. The final train journey traversed the starker northern highlands: land of heroic vistas and the aura of myth and mystery. Scotland was truly a land of abiding splendor, and he could understand the Scots’ fierce pride for their unique homeland, where the skirl of pipes calls out to the wild winds of the North in a dialogue of timeless history.
           The McBraine steamer that ferried him across the choppy waters of the Minch was surprisingly small, and carried only about two dozen passengers. As they journeyed northward, the seas got rougher and the ferry boat’s chugging engine seemed to labor. Once, it actually stopped and Philip wondered if the exhausted pistons had finally given up. Far from it; it took more than angry seas to stop these intrepid seamen and their flimsy craft. Looking out over the port side rail, he could barely make out the lone oarsman heaving his small rowboat against the snarling seas and approaching the McBraine steamboat at his peril. The boat had come from one of the tiny islands dotting the Minch. When it got dangerously close and in imminent hazard of being dashed against the larger vessel, the lone mariner lowered his oars and transferred a package into the long-handled net lowered from above. It must be some mail in a waterproof wrapping. Then, in return, mail for his lonely speck of sea-encircled land was lowered carefully by the same means. The notorious Captain Bligh could have done no better!
            Philip found the rising excitement of the trip winning hunger’s fight against the threat of seasickness, and when they were well under way once more, he opened up the coverings of his giant Cadbury chocolate bar, broke off a piece and took a generous bite. He also offered his chocolate in unthinking generosity to several of his fellow passengers on deck, but they fled as though offered a dose of poison.
            At last they came in sight of the Isle of Lewis and Harris, then the port of Stornoway itself. The smell of dead herring assaulted him like a massive blow, and for a few moments he found himself unable to breathe. Despite the choking miasma, it appeared that the town’s entire population had come to greet the steamer’s arrival and welcome the passengers ashore. On enquiry, he was told by a crewman that this was standard procedure. After all, this was their lifeline to the outside world, and it reduced their sense of isolation and abandonment.
           He soon spotted the McEwens waving madly at the back of the crowd and they helped him into their borrowed car, an ancient Austin Minor. Scotty gave him a great big welcoming kiss and he tasted his blood in the Hebrides for the first time. It tasted of dead herring, as would everything else for the first few days. Hamish laughed his head off when Philip mentioned the problem.
    "It’s destroyed even my celebrated appetite. I doubt if I’ll be able to eat anything while I’m here."
    "You’ll get used to it, Phil," Scotty assured him, "and then you’ll be eating our good plain food with a healthy appetite and enjoyment."
    "Without its herring trade, you must remember, poor Stornoway would probably just fade away."  Hamish informed him, and Philip remarked, "I suppose the dreadful odor of dead fish must be like an expensive perfume to the local population."
            Mrs. Grant’s boarding house was all he could have wanted. She was a buxom widow in her sixties, full of good humor and anxious to take good care of her young guest, the "important London surgeon."  Philip assured her that he was only of hospital resident status and begged to be addressed at all times as "Phil."  She, in turn, never called him anything other than "Dr. Bosnar."  The bedroom assigned to him was spacious, and the old iron bed with its huge mattress most comfortable. The bathroom was close by and there was no shortage of hot water. After a great night’s sleep, he awoke early, obtained unchallenged access to the bathroom, and came down to breakfast with a hunger that was only partially neutralized by the all-pervasive smell that lingered in every corner. It took two more days before he became cheerfully immune to the fishy miasma, and his morning oatmeal porridge, bacon and eggs, no longer tasted of expired Clupia harengus.
            Once his appetite returned full force, he was afraid that all of Mrs. Grant’s magnificent food would make him gain too much weight, so he filled his days with long walks and occasional tennis games on a nearby hard-court that had seen better days. Sometimes these activities were shared with the vivacious Scotty, sometimes with her athletic brother, and sometimes all three joined forces.
            On the fourth day, he was introduced to their charming mother, a thin little gray-haired lady looking old far beyond her years. Her tiny waterfront house was spotless, and all its humble contents were neat and tidy, down to the last carefully preserved knickknack. The old lady wore the conventional Stornoway black attire, and her traditional black shawl was hanging on a peg in the corner. She thanked Philip in English - with a heavy Scottish accent - for his small bouquet of local wildflowers, but seemed far more at home with her native Gaelic, into which she lapsed when addressing her devoted children. They all shared a large pot of tea with her, then left for a tour of Lever Castle, more a historical art museum than a castle.
           Lord Leverhulme’s gift to the islanders was a beautiful edifice, built in tasteful architectural style and located by the edge of a quiet stretch of water. The furnishings, paintings and artifacts were all of high quality and Philip was impressed. This was a gift in the grand manner and the people of Lewis were proud and grateful.
            One morning, Hamish invited him to go "handline fishing."  He warned Philip it might be very cold, and that warning turned out to be accurate in the extreme. Despite extra layers of clothing and a heavy mackintosh covering, his teeth were soon chattering with the penetrating chill; as the sea breezes found their way through every weave and seam of his protective attire. Even the brilliant sunshine seemed unable to combat the frigid air. Hamish had set his stage carefully.
    "Sorry, Phil,"  he said apologetically, "if I sound oldfashioned, but I have to ask you the direct question."
    "Fire away," Phil replied, keeping his voice cheerful, as he knew full well what was coming.
    "What are your intentions toward my sister? In spite of her spunkiness, she’s easily hurt and I know she’s much keener on you than she shows."
    "Let me put it this way, Hamish. I find her a good friend and an enjoyable companion. Any romantic overtones are quite non-binding, and I’ve never shown the slightest intention of entering into a serious affair with Jeannie, much less any suggestion of marriage."
That seemed to satisfy his sturdy oarsman and the subject was never raised again.
            Once in a while, on an afternoon stroll together, Phil and Scotty would pause and sit down on a grassy hummock to enjoy the tranquil scene. The only disturbances to their peaceful serenity were the screaming wild seagulls and an occasional threatening ram. The gulls were reputed to be unusually fierce, while the rams looked huge to Phil’s untutored eyes, and were armed with great menacing horns. The atmosphere was otherwise idyllic and Philip was careful not to encourage the growing amorous tendencies of his lively companion. On one such occasion, Scotty broke through his reserve.
    "I’m quite aware you’ve no intention of marrying me, Philip, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make love, does it?"
To emphasize her point she kissed him hard on the mouth and he found himself once more tasting his own blood with the distinctive flavor of dead herring. Perhaps, he thought, this was an ancient Hebridean love potion, recaptured from the mists of time. In any event, they both shed their clothing impediments on the spot and made love to the point of exhaustion, while the magical landscape smiled on their pleasure.
            As the days passed by, Philip began to spend an increasing amount of time on his own, and that was quite agreeable to the young McEwens, as they had many business items to take care of in connection with the family finances, and would be driving into the center of town quite often. On one such day he took the vaunted bus trip to the southern end of the island and the hills of Harris.
            The journey proved a spectacular foray into travel sickness and dire peril. As the rickety vehicle careened recklessly over the narrow potholed winding highway, Philip stole an occasional glance through the window and kept himself pressed against it so that he could maintain his stability on the lurching turns. He caught his breath when, at what felt like dizzying heights, great chunks on the side of the road appeared to have dropped away, and one could gaze straight down at an unimpeded panorama of the valley far below.
            As if that weren’t enough to give his passengers a thrill, the intrepid driver engaged in a lively Gaelic conversation with an old fellow behind him, often turning to face his chatty passenger, with the bus rattling ahead unerringly as though it remembered the way. Showing a keen understanding of the inexorable laws of nature, the driver stopped his bus once in a while, so that the distressed travelers could heave up their insides by the roadside to their hearts’ content, while others obtained alternative visceral relief on the opposite side of the vehicle.
            Harris was a bit of a disappointment. Philip had expected to see a host of busy crofters weaving their sturdy tweeds of worldwide fame. He even wore his impressive rust-brown suit of ‘Genuine Harris Tweed’ for the special occasion. Sad to say, the native crofters were few, forlorn and far between, and he learned that most of this precious fabric was now produced in the mechanized looms of Manchester. Only the wool came from this area, but the ancient skilled craft was disappearing and the romance would soon be gone forever.
            Exciting as this hair-raising and memorable trip proved to be, an even greater thrill was to follow. One warm morning, around 10 o’clock, he took his swimsuit and towel with him and walked along to the nine hole golf course. Then he wandered down to the beach, known locally by a Gaelic name which sounded to his ear like ‘The Cocheleb.’  He’d always been a poor swimmer with no buoyancy whatever in fresh water. The sea was something else entirely, a watery paradise of pounding waves and heaving swells, carrying him up and down to its own restless rhythm, refreshing his body and renewing his vitality with its primordial solution of metallic salts and dissolved oxygen. It was a miraculous liquid that so closely matched his own blood plasma and internal body fluids.
            When he entered the seductive blue-gray billows that surged toward him, he gasped at the incredible chill of these northern seas. Despite his most intense efforts at adjusting to the freezing embrace numbing him to the bone, he soon had to withdraw in abject defeat, his skin matching the color of the waves. Running back to his pile of towel and clothing he rubbed himself dry and continued toweling vigorously until he felt his circulation restored, then began dressing and felt warm again. It was at this moment of tingling exhilaration that Philip Bosnar made his big mistake.
            The deserted wide sandy beach was covered with every conceivable variety of seashell in untouched and unspoiled splendor, and he bent down eagerly to pick up some choice specimens. In an instant they were upon him, wave upon screeching wave of attacking seagulls, fierce beyond any dreams, bent upon pecking him to shreds, but aiming mostly for his eyes. These fearsome predators were much closer to their dinosaur ancestors than the friendly scavengers of his childhood experiences around the Thames and southern seasides. He covered his head with his towel, picked up his clothes and ran blindly away from the shore and in the direction of the golf links. Only when he was safe from renewed attack did he remove his cover. He found himself stared at curiously by a foursome of golfers on the adjoining fairway, and he didn’t feel like offering any explanation.
           That afternoon, he visited the small Stornoway hospital as a matter of interest, and found the resident in charge an informative fellow from Aberdeen. He had his Edinburgh F.R.C.S. and was capable of a wide range of general and traumatic surgery. When he heard about Philip’s experience on the beach the resident told him he’d been pretty lucky.
    "Last year," he related, "a visiting golfer wasn’t so lucky. He hooked his ball onto the Cocheleb and as he picked it up the gulls attacked him and he lost an eye."
When his listener looked horrified, he explained.
    "You see, that stretch of sandy beach is the main nesting ground of the local seabird population, and if they believe you’re threatening one of the many eggs buried just below the surface, they attack in force. They go mostly for the eyes and what you did to protect yourself was exactly right."
            Despite the extreme comfort of his bed at the boarding house, Philip found it very difficult - after the first dreamless night - to fall asleep. Outside at this late hour, it was still as bright as midday. The sun shone in insistent brightness through his drawn blinds and curtains, beckoning him outside. Once or twice he surrendered to temptation, got dressed and walked the half mile down to the main jetty. He strolled among the fishermen fixing up their small boats and endless nets for the following morning’s trawling and marveled at their patience.
            Lately, he’d become engrossed in a recently purchased book, and fell asleep still reading it, night after night. The name of the new work by A.J.Cronin was ‘The Citadel’, and Philip lost himself in its fascinating depths. Here was a man who could write with deep understanding of his subject, involving his readers in the central character’s conflicts of conscience and ambition, of service to his fellow mortals versus the dizzying climb to power and affluence.
            The story was obviously a fictional autobiography. It carried its protagonist, an idealistic young Scottish physician, through the stifling penny-pinching back country of mine-contract practice in South Wales, and up into the venal heights of ‘high society’ private practice in the fashionable West End of London. Philip was familiar with the locales described in the South Wales segment of the novel, and he wondered how much things had changed since the early 20s, the period described by Dr. Cronin, as seen through the eyes of his imperfect hero, Dr. Manson. As for the lucrative type of so called ‘fashionable practice,’ Philip had seen for himself the endless array of brass plates on the front of those imposing Victorian residences in such places as Harley Street and Wimpole Street, where great specialists had their offices. He also knew that most of these plates represented pretenders: vulgar types who paid exorbitant prices for the borrowed eminence of an impressive address but occupied the premises for as little as one hour a week.
           ‘The Citadel’ was a brand new work by this physician-turned-author, like so many doctors before him, and Philip understood why the critics were so effusive in their praise. By the time he’d finished the book he knew what he must do when he returned to London. He would search the advertisements in the Lancet and B.M.J. (British Medical Journal); first, for a locum in the mining country of South Wales; then, in the elegant medical salons of fashionable practice in London. In this way, he could duplicate the earlier experiences of the fictional Dr. Manson and reach his own conclusions. It seemed an excellent way of shaping his future path in the exciting profession he’d chosen.
            On the journey back to London he reflected on the message of moral maturation he’d received from Cronin’s inspired pen. Such development and growth could only come from a rich diversity of medical practice in various environments, not just the ivory tower of a major teaching hospital in London. He found himself wondering how he’d behave if, like the leading figure in this tale of ideals, temptations and strife, he might ultimately find himself confronting the forces of organized medicine in a conflict of principles.