It was 6am and the mist rolled off the lochside like butter curling beneath a hot knife. Panting and sweating I followed the single track road round by the side of the water. Struggling for breath I cursed the day I started smoking and wondered how many more days the Sergeant would make me do this run. I stopped jogging and decided to walk awhile. The mountains which huddled around the Lochside looked stern and grim, foreboding. ‘I guess that’s why I have to do this’ I thought, ‘You wanna be a cop and be part of Mountain Rescue too, you gotta be fit’. Picking up the pace again I could feel a stab in my chest, the heart and the head wanted to push on but the lungs were saying ‘Whoa!’. Once more I thought about why I was doing this ‘Do you really wanna be a cop?’ the lungs were asking my head. My head was entertaining doubts…’Five more miles to go, five more miles! You can’t make it, you won’t make it, give up you really dont wanna do this’. The doubts weighed so heavily upon my body that I ground to a halt.
‘Jeez Ben!’ I said out loud and thought I heard the faint echo of the words on the mountainside. ‘I can’t do this’ I thought ‘Why are you doing this? What’s the point of day after day running 15 miles round a Lochside in the Scottish wilderness and all to be a cop who gets spat on, knifed, abused and generally hated by the population of slumland Glasgow?’

Five miles to go and I could no longer find a reason for doing so. Off to my right I heard a stirring, with the absolute certainty that no fool other than myself would be found on the Lochside at this time of the morning I froze in apprehension. What I then saw transfixed me. A true Monarch of the Glen, King of the mountainside, emerged from the mist, reddish brown and the largest antlers I have ever seen he strolled majestically out onto the road before me. He saw me I have no doubt of that. And yet having seen me he did what Stags rarely do, he beckoned a small one to step forward. Together they stood on the roadside and I watched mesmerized. Slowly but with purpose the Stag made it’s way to the water’s edge and the little one followed. The Monarch stepped into the icy cold waters until only it’s majestic antlers and head could be seen above the waterline. He called for the little one and together they ploughed through the Loch. I watched as the Stag made sure that at all times it was beside the little one. It let the little one drive on and spent most of its time looking in the opposite direction to where it was going so that it never lost sight of the little one. I know the depths of those waters, I know the undercurrents and I watched with baited breath as they reached the most turbulent stretch across the middle. The stag every now and then moved it’s antlers to touch the little one, was it pushing it on? Was it re-assuring it? I don’t know….possibly both. Clearing the mid section I began to lose sight of them in the mist and as if by some divine intervention it started to lift and I watched as both made shore on the other side. Gently, quietly they made their way to the foot of Ben Vrackie and pushed their way through the trees and safety.

Still motionless I thought hard on what I had seen, my own thoughts from just fifteen minutes earlier came back to rattle around in my head ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘We have a duty of care to the little ones’ came the reply. It was the fastest five miles I have ever run in my life.