Suspecting some kind of test, Philip grits his teeth and soldiers on.
Meanwhile Murdoch walks ahead with a steady, untiring tread, apparently unbothered by midges or rain or anything else. His weathered face is unreadable beneath his tweed cap. Every now and then he stops and takes out binoculars to scan the hillside, which at least gives Philp a chance to try and ease the agonising rub of the rough sock on his blister.
It is a huge relief when Murdoch indicates that they should stop for lunch. Sitting with their backs to a massive boulder, they share a venison pie and a flask of tea. Murdoch is evidently not much of a one for conversation and Philip is so tired he is happy to sit silently and study the majestic sweep of the mountains, where subtle shades of gold and brown blend seamlessly with grey rocks and purple heather.
There is a kind of beauty to it, he grudgingly admits to himself, though frankly he would have preferred to admire it from his bedroom window.
‘It doesn’t look as if we’re going to see any deer today,’ Philip suggests at last, slapping at his neck where a crowd of midges are dive-bombing like a plague of Messerschmitts. He is hoping Murdoch will suggest they go back but the ghillie only finishes his mouthful of pastry before answering.
‘It’s a wee bit early to give up yet,’ he says. ‘Unless you want to, sir?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ says Philip hastily. ‘Let’s go on.’
***
‘Terrific,’ he says when Elizabeth asks him how he got on.
‘Any luck?’
For Philip the luckiest part had been the moment when Murdoch had finally decided there were no deer to be had that day. And then being met at the foot of the hill by a comfortably upholstered car to be driven back to Balmoral. Stripping off his sodden clothes and limping along the endless corridors to find tea laid out on a table in the drawing room: shrimps and scones, bannock cakes and hot sausage rolls. That had felt like luck.
‘Afraid not,’ he says.
‘Oh, poor you. Better luck tomorrow.’
About to take a bite of sausage roll, Philip pauses and looks at her more closely. ‘You knew what it would be like on the hill today.’ He pretends to scowl. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
Elizabeth gives in and laughs. ‘A little bit, maybe. Usually I’m the one who feels out of place,’ she confesses. ‘Now you know how I feel at parties. Was it awful?’
‘What, you mean apart from the incessant rain and the midges and a blister the size of Paris on my heel?’
She grimaces with sympathy. ‘A blister? Ouch. Try padding it with some fleece, Philip. You’ll find bits on the hillside wherever the sheep have been. But you don’t have to go again. Stalking isn’t for everyone.’
‘Oh yes I do,’ Philip says grimly. ‘There is no way I’m going to tell your father I gave up after one day. I’m going to bag a deer if it kills me. I’m thinking of it as my quest,’ he adds, only half joking. ‘I need to slay a deer to win my princess.’
***
So day after day he slogs up the hillsides with Murdoch. The ghillie teaches him how to scan the landscape for the deer that are so perfectly camouflaged against the moorland. He shows Philip how to drop onto his stomach and wriggle through the heather inch by inch, ignoring the black boggy water and the flies and the sheep droppings. For most of the time Philip is wet and cold and uncomfortable but the challenge of stalking a wild beast across the hillside has captured his imagination. There is something primordial about what he is doing. It reminds Philip of sailing at Gordonstoun, struggling to keep control of the cutter as it bucked over the waves and the wind screamed and threw spray viciously at his face. Stalking may not feel as dangerous, but it is man against nature again, and nature definitely has the upper hand.
Sometimes Murdoch gestures to Philip to freeze and drop to the ground. He passes him the binoculars and points, and when Philip brings them into focus, he sees a herd in the distance. But they always scatter before they are close enough to take aim.
‘I had a stag in my sights today,’ he tells Elizabeth at tea one day. ‘He must have got a whiff of us or something because he took off before I could pull the trigger.’
‘Oh, what a shame!’
‘Ye-es.’ Philip chews a fish-paste sandwich thoughtfully. He is oddly torn. ‘Part of me wanted to take the shot and prove I could do it. But another part of me was glad he got away. He was such a magnificent beast. I didn’t want to kill him. It’s a pity we can’t have the challenge of stalking and the reward of taking a photograph at the end.’
‘We need to shoot them to manage numbers,’ Elizabeth says. ‘I understand what you mean: to see an animal like that in the wild is a thrill, but if we let them breed unchecked, half of the herd will starve or succumb to diseases and that is a much grimmer death than a clean shot. It’s not just shooting for the sake of it: we manage the deer and the habitat, we eat the venison … it’s part of the natural order of things.’
She loves Balmoral, that is obvious to Philip. She is out all day, whatever the weather, and returns as wet and windblown as everyone else, her eyes shining and her skin glowing. It is frustrating not to be able to spend time alone with her, but the days at Balmoral are organised with military precision. At breakfast, everyone is assigned to join a group activity of some kind. The notion that you might want to spend a wet day lying on a sofa reading a book appears not to have occurred to the King. No, they are all dispatched outside to hike up mountains, shoot grouse, catch fish or, like Philip, to stalk deer.
Philip’s favourite time is the tea, which is usually his first chance of the day to talk to Elizabeth, but even their conversation has to take place under the disparaging eyes of the other guests, most of whom have evidently decided that Philip is not ‘one of us’. The Queen’s brother, David Bowes-Lyon, is particularly bloody to him, but Philip hasn’t survived Gordonstoun and the war without being able to tough out snide references to his lack of wardrobe or his German relatives.
His sisters might be married to Germans but they are a damned sight more fun than the Balmoral crowd, Philip tells himself.
The dismal weather tends to clear into soft, golden evenings, but by then there is barely time for a bath in the frigidly old-fashioned bathroom at the end of the corridor and to change for pre-dinner drinks in the drawing room, decorated in the ubiquitous tartan and hung with the dreary landscapes favoured by Queen Victoria. They eat roast grouse every bloody night, as far as Philip can tell, and when dinner is finished a ghastly caterwauling starts up as the King’s seven pipers march through the hall and twice around the dining table. Philip feels his jaw tense and makes an effort to look as if he is appreciating the ritual as much as anyone else, but it is hard. He keeps his eyes on Elizabeth, always seated as far away from him as possible, and tells himself she will be worth it.
The bagpipes aren’t the end of the evening either. Nobody is allowed to slope off for a quiet cigarette or a stroll. No, they have to gather back in the drawing room and play charades or sardines. At least sardines gives Philip the chance to grab Elizabeth’s hand. ‘Let’s hide together,’ he says.
‘Philip, we’re supposed to be looking, not hiding!’
‘All right, let’s look together,’ he concedes. There must be plenty of rooms where they won’t be disturbed. ‘I never get a chance to see you,’ he grumbles.