Atlantic Fury

CHAPTER THREE

(March 7)

Thinking of him, remembering moments that I’d thought obliterated from my mind, the time passed, not quickly, but unnoticed. I got the weather forecast just after midnight — wind north-westerly force 3, backing westerly and increasing to 4. Fog. Cliff Morgan at 01.00 was more specific: Fog belt very extensive, but chance of clearance your area mid-morning. The wind was westerly force 4 already and my problem remained — how to locate the island.

Between two and three in the morning I became very sleepy. I had been at the helm then for over twenty hours and it was almost impossible for me to keep my eyes open. The engine noise seemed to have a brain-deadening quality, the compass light a hypnotic, sleep-inducing effect. Every few moments I’d catch my head falling and jerk awake to find the compass card swinging. This happened so many times that I lost all confidence in my ability to steer a course, and as a result began to doubt my exact position.

It was a dangerous thing to do, but I took a pull at the flask then. The smell of it and the raw taste of it on my dried-up tongue, the trickle of warmth seeping down into my bowels — I was suddenly wide awake. The time was 02.48. Was it my imagination, or was the movement less?

I picked up the chart, marked in my DR position for 03.00 and then measured off the distance still to go with a pair of dividers. It was 4.8 miles — about an hour and a half.

I hadn’t noticed it while I had been dozing, but the wind had definitely dropped. I could, of course, already be under the lee of Learg if my speed had been better than I’d reckoned, but I’d no means of knowing. The fog remained impenetrable. I switched off the compass light for a moment, but it made no difference — I was simply faced with darkness then, a darkness so absolute that I might have been struck blind.

With my ETA confirmed now as approximately 04.30, I no longer seemed to have the slightest inclination to sleep. I could easily be an hour, an hour and a half out in my reckoning. At that very moment I might be heading straight for a wall of rock — or straight past the island, out into the Atlantic.

I topped up the tank so that there would be no danger of the engine stopping at the very moment when I needed it most, and after that I kept going. There was nothing else I could do — just sit there, staring at the compass.

Four o’clock. Four-fifteen. And nothing to be seen, nothing at all. If this had been a night like the last, the bulk of Tarsaval would be standing black against the stars. There would have been no difficulty at all then.

At four-thirty I switched off the engine and turned out the compass light. Black darkness and the boat rocking, and not a sound but the slop and movement of the sea. No bird called, no beat of waves on rock. I might have been a thousand miles from land.

I had only to sit there, of course, until the fog cleared. But a man doesn’t think that rationally when he’s bobbing about in a rubber dinghy, alone in utter darkness and virtually sitting in the sea. My grandfather’s voice again, telling us of fogs that had lasted a week and more. I switched on the torch and worked over my figures again, staring at the chart. Was it the tide, or an error in navigation or just that, dozing, I had steered in circles? But even a combination of all three wouldn’t produce an error of more than a few miles, and Learg was a group of islands; it covered quite a wide area. The only answer was to cast about until I found it. The search pattern I worked out was a simple rectangular box. Fifteen minutes on my original course, then south for half an hour, east for fifteen minutes, north for an hour. At four forty-five I started the engine again, holding my course until five o’clock. Stop and listen again. Steering south then, with the grey light of dawn filtering through and the sea taking shape around me, a lumpy, confused sea, with the white of waves beginning to break.

The wind was freshening now. I could feel it on my face. At five-fifteen I stopped again to listen. The waves made little rushing sounds, and away to my left, to port, I thought I heard the surge of the swell on some obstruction — thought, too, I could discern a movement in the fog.

It was getting lighter all the time, and I sat there, the minutes ticking by, straining to listen, straining to see. My eyes played tricks, pricking with fatigue. I could have sworn the clammy curtain of the mist moved; and then I was certain as a lane opened out to starboard and the fog swirled, wreathing a pattern over the broken surface of the sea. Somewhere a gull screamed, but it was a distant insubstantial sound — impossible to tell the direction of it.

I continued then, searching all the time the shifting, wraith-like movements of the fog. A gust of wind hit me, blattering at the surface of the sea. A down-draught? I was given no time to think that out. A sudden darkness loomed ahead. A swirling uplift of the fog, and there was rock, wet, black rock ahead of me and to port.

I pulled the helm over, feeling the undertow at the same instant that I saw the waves lazily lifting and falling against a towering crag that rose vertically like a wall to disappear in white, moving tendrils of mist. Laerg, or Fladday, or one of the stacs — or was it the western outpost reef of Vallay? In the moment of discovery I didn’t care. I had made my land-fall, reached my destination.

I celebrated with a drink from my flask and ate some chocolate as I motored south-west, keeping the cliff-face just in sight.

It wasn’t one of the stacs, that was obvious immediately. That darkening in the fog remained too long. And then it faded suddenly, as though swallowed by the mist. I steered to port, closing it again on a course that was almost due south. The wind was in front of me, behind me, all round me; the sea very confused. Then I saw waves breaking on the top of a rock close ahead. I turned to starboard. More rock. To starboard again with rocks close to port.

A glance at the compass told me that I was in a bay, for I was steering now north-west with rock close to port. The rocks became cliffs again. Four minutes on northwest and then I had to turn west to keep those cliffs in sight. I knew where I was then. There was only one bay that would give me the courses I had steered — Strath Bay on the north side of Laerg itself.

I checked with the survey map, just to be certain. There was nowhere else I could be. Confirmation came almost immediately with a ninety degree turn to port as I rounded the headland that marked the northern end of Aird Mullaichean. Course south-west now and the sea steep and breaking. I hugged the cliffs just clear of the backwash and ten minutes later the movement became more violent.

I was in a tide-rip, the sound of the engine beating back at me from hidden rock surfaces. An islet loomed, white with the stain of guano, and as I skirted it, the wind came funnelling down from the hidden heights above, strong enough to flatten the sea; and then the downdraught turned to an updraught, sucking the fog with it, and for an instant I glimpsed a staggering sight — two rock cliffs hemming me in and towering up on either side like the walls of a canyon.

They rose stupendous to lose themselves in vapour; dark volcanic masses of gabbro rock, high as the gates of hell, reaching up into infinity. Sheer adamantine rock. Wasn’t that how Milton had described it? But before I could recall the exact words, I was through, spewed out by the tide, and Eileann nan Shoay had vanished astern, mist-engulfed as the fog closed in again.

I had marked the geo on the survey map, guessing at the position from the stories my grandfather told of how he had stumbled on it by accident and as a result had sometimes been able to bring in lobster when the waves were so big in Shelter Bay that nobody dared put to sea. ‘I didna tell them, ye ken. A tur-rible thing that in a community as close as ours.’ And his eyes had twinkled under his shaggy brows. ‘For ken it was a secret and I’m telling it to ye the noo so it willna die wi’ me. There’ll come a day mebbe when ye’ll need to know aboot that geo.’

For me, that day was now. I closed in to the cliffs, the engine ticking over just fast enough to give me steerage away. South of Eileann nan Shoay he’d said, about as far as it is from the Factor’s House to the old graveyard. Measured on the map that was just over six hundred yards. The middle one of the three — he had described the other two as full of rock and very dangerous to enter.

I saw the first of the gaping holes, black with the waves slopping in the entrance. It was a huge yawning cavity. The other two were smaller and close together, like two mine adits driven into the base of the cliffs.

Geo na Cleigeann, the old man had called it. ‘And a tur-rible wee place it looks from the water wi’ a muckle great slab hanging over it.’ I could hear his words still and there was the slab jutting out from the cliff face and the black gap below about as inviting as a rat hole with the sea slopping about in the mouth of it. It took me a moment to make up my mind, remembering the old devil’s dour sense of humour. But this was no place to hang about with the wind whistling down off the crags above and the tide sweeping along the base of those fog-bound cliffs.

I picked up the torch, put the helm hard down and headed for the opening. A gull shied away from me and was whirled screaming up the face of the cliffs like a piece of windblown paper. The fog, torn by an up-draught, revealed crag upon crag towering over me. I had a fleeting impression of the whole great mass toppling forward; then the overhanging slab blotted it out and I was faced with the wet mouth of the cave itself, a grey gloom of rock spreading back into black darkness and reverberating to the noise of the engine.

The hole was bigger than I had first thought — about fifteen feet wide and twenty high. The westerly swell, broken on the skerries of Shoay Sgeir that jutted south from Eileann nan Shoay, caused only a mild surge. Behind me the geo was like a tunnel blasted in the rock, the entrance a grey glimmer of daylight.

I probed ahead with the beam of my torch, expecting every moment to see the shape of the lobster boat. I was so certain Iain must be ahead of me, and if I’d been him I thought I’d make for the geo rather than Shelter Bay. The surface of the water was black and still, and falling gently; rock ahead and I cut the engine. The roof was higher here, the sides further away. I was in a huge cavern, a sort of expansion chamber. No daylight ahead, no indication that there was a way out. The bows touched the rock and I reached out to it, gripping the wet surface with my fingers and hauling myself along.

In a westerly, with the waves rolling clean across the reef of Shoay Sgeir, this place would be a death trap. The rock round which I hauled myself had been torn from the roof, now so high that my torch could barely locate it. I probed with an oar. The water was still deep. Beyond the rock I paddled gently. The walls closed in again. The roof came down. And then the bows grounded on a steep-sloped beach, all boulders. I was ashore in the dark womb of those gabbro cliffs and no sign of Iain.

In the tension of the last hour I had forgotten how stiff and cramped I was. When I tried to clamber out I found I couldn’t move. I drank a little whisky and then began to massage my limbs. The enforced wait made me increasingly conscious of the eeriness of the place, the slop of the sea in the entrance magnified, and everywhere the drip, drip of moisture from the roof. The place reeked of the sea’s salt dampness and above me God knows how many hundred feet of rock pressed down on the geo.

As soon as I was sure my legs would support me, I eased myself over the side and into the water. It was knee-deep and bitterly cold; ashore I tied the painter to a rock, and then went on up, probing with my torch, urgent now to discover the outlet to this subterranean world. It was over thirty years since my grandfather had been here; there might have been a fall, anything.

The beach sloped up at an angle of about twenty degrees, narrowing to a point where the roof seemed split by a fault. It was a rock cleft about six feet wide. The boulders were smaller here, the slope steeper. I seemed to cross a divide with mud underfoot and I slithered down into another cave to find the bottom littered with the same big rounded boulders.

It took me a little time to find the continuation of the fault, and it wasn’t the fault I found first, but a rock ledge with the remains of some old lobster pots resting on a litter of rotted feathers. On the ground below the ledge was a length of flaking chain half-buried amongst the skeletal remains of fish. All the evidence of the old man’s secret fishing, all except the boat he’d built himself and had abandoned here when he’d left with the rest of the islanders. And then, probing the farther recesses of the cavern, I saw a blackened circle of stones and the traces of a long-dead fire. Though the planking had all gone, the half-burnt remains of the stem and part of the keel were still identifiable, rotting now amongst a litter of charred bones.

I was too tired then, too anxious to locate the exit to the geo to concern myself about the wanton destruction of the boat, vaguely wondering who had made that fire and when, as I scrambled up the last steep slope to see a gleam of sunlight high above me. The slope was almost vertical here and slabs of stone had been let into the walls to form a primitive staircase, presumably the work of some long-dead generation of islanders.

The cleft at the top was wet and grass-choked, the crevices filled with tiny ferns; a small brown bird, a wren, went burring past me. And then I was out on a steep grass slope, out in the sunlight with the fog below me. It lay like a milk-white sea, lapping at the slopes of Strath Mhurain, writhing along the cliff-line to the north of Tarsaval, and all above was the blue of the sky — a cold, translucent blue without a single cloud. The sun had warmth and the air was scented with the smell of grass. Sheep moved, grazing on the slopes of Creag Dubh, and behind me white trails of vapour rose and fell in strange convoluted billows above the cliff-edge where fulmars wheeled in constant flight, soaring, still-winged on the up-draughts.

I stood there a moment filling my lungs with the freshness of the air, letting the magnificence of the scene wash over me — thanking God that my grandfather hadn’t lied, that the exit from the geo had remained intact. I thought it likely now that Iain had landed in Shelter Bay and because I was afraid the fog might clamp down at any moment, I stripped off my oilskins and started out across the island. I crossed the top of Strath Mhurain, skirting black edges of peat bog, and climbed to the Druim Ridge with the sun-warm hills standing islanded in fog and the only sound the incessant wailing of the birds.

From the Druim Ridge I looked down into the great horseshoe of Shelter Bay. The Military High Road was just below me, snaking down into the fog. To my left Creag Dubh, with the pill-box shape of the Army’s lookout, rising to Tarsaval; dark scree slopes falling to the dotted shapes of cleits and, beyond, the long ridge of Malesgair vanishing into the milk-white void. To my right the High Road spur running out towards the Butt of Keava, the rocky spine of the hills piercing the fog bank like a jagged reef. It was a strange, eerie scene with the surge of the swell on the storm beach coming faint on puffs of air; something else, too — the sound of an engine, I thought. But then it was gone and I couldn’t be sure.

I hurried on then, following the road down into the fog, iridescent at first, but thickening as I descended until it was a grey blanket choked with moisture. Without the road to follow the descent would have been dangerous, for the fog was banked thick in the confines of the hills and visibility reduced to a few yards. It lifted a little as the road flattened out behind the beach. I could see the swell breaking and beyond the lazy beds the outline of the first ruined cottage, everything vague, blurred by the dankness of the atmosphere. And then a voice calling stopped me in my tracks. It came again, disembodied, weird and insubstantial. Other voices answered, the words unintelligible.

I stood listening, all my senses alert, intent on piercing the barrier of the fog. Silence and the only sounds the surge of the waves, the cries of the gulls. Somewhere a raven croaked, but I couldn’t see it. Ahead of me was the dim outline of the bridge. And then voices again, talking quietly, the sound oddly magnified. The fog swirled to a movement of air from the heights. I glimpsed the ruins of the old jetty and a boat drawn up on the beach. Two figures stood beside it, two men talking in a foreign tongue, and out beyond the break of the waves I thought I saw the dark shape of a ship; a trawler by the look of it. Two more figures joined the men by the boat. The fog came down again and I was left with only the sound of their voices. I went back then, for I was cold and tired and I’d no desire to make contact with the crew of a foreign trawler. Looting probably, and if Iain had landed in Shelter Bay he’d have hidden himself away in one of the cleits or amongst the ruins of the Old Village. Wearily I climbed the hairpin bends, back up to the Druim Ridge and the sunlight, nothing to do now but go back down into the bowels of that geo and bring up my gear.’ My mouth was dry and I drank from a trickle of peat water at the head of Strath Mhurain.

And then I was back on the slopes of Aird Mullaichean, walking in a daze, my mind facing again the mystery of that fire, conscious of a growing sense of uneasiness as I approached the rock outcrop that marked the entrance to that dark, subterranean fault. Had the crew of some trawler rowed into the geo and made a fire of the boat just for the hell of it? But that didn’t explain the bones unless they’d killed a sheep and roasted it. And to burn the boat…. On Laerg itself and all through the islands of the Hebrides boats were sacrosanct. No man would borrow so much as an oar without permission.

I picked up my torch and started back down the slabbed stairway. Darkness closed me in. The dank cold of it chilled the sweat on my body. I tried to tell myself it was only the strangeness of the place, my solitary stumbling in the black darkness and the cavernous sound of the sea that made me so uneasy. But who would come into that geo if he hadn’t been told about it? Who would have known there was a boat there, firewood to burn? I was shivering then, and coming to the cave where the boat had been, I was suddenly reluctant, filled with a dreadful certainty. Twenty-two days. I’d had only a night at sea, a single cold night with little wind. But I knew what it was like now — knew that he couldn’t possibly have survived … And then I was into the cave, my gaze, half-fascinated, half-appalled, following the beam of my torch, knowing what I was going to find.

Down on my knees, I reached out my hand to the bones, touched one, plucked it from the blackened heap with a feeling of sick revulsion as I recognised what it was. The end of the bone disintegrated into dust, leaving me with a knee joint in my hand. I poked around — a hip bone, femurs, pieces of the spinal column, the knuckles of human fingers. It was all there, all except the head, and that I found tucked away under a slab of rock — a human skull untouched by the fire and with traces of hair still attached.

I put it back and sat for a moment, feeling numbed; but not shocked or even disgusted now that I knew. It had to be something like this. I was thinking how it must have been for him, his life soured by what had happened here, the prospect of discovery always hanging over him. And then automatically, almost without thinking, I stripped my anorak off and began to pile the grim relics of that wartime voyage on to it. There was more than the bones — buttons like rusted coins, the melted bronze of a unit badge, a wrist watch barely recognisable, all the durable bits and pieces that made up a soldier’s personal belongings. And amongst it all an identity disc — the number and the name still visible; ROSS, I. A. Pres.

A pebble rattled in the darkness behind me and I turned. But there was nothing, only the swell sloshing about in the great cavern of the geo, a faint, hollow sound coming to me from beyond the narrow defile of the fault. The last thing I did was to scatter the blackened stones about the cave, flinging them from me. Then, the pieces of bone bundled into my anorak, the last traces removed, I scrambled to my feet, and picking up my burden, started for the faulted exit that led to the geo.

i I was halfway up the slope to it when the beam of my torch found him. He was standing by the exit, quite still, watching me. His face was grey, grey like the rock against which he leaned. His dark eyes gleamed in the torch beam. I stopped and we stood facing each other, neither saying a word. I remember looking to see if he were armed, thinking that if he’d killed Braddock … But he’d no weapon of any kind; he was empty-handed, wearing an old raincoat and shivering uncontrollably. The sound of water in the geo was louder here, but even so I could hear his teeth chattering. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

‘Cold, that’s all.’ He took a stiff step forward, reaching down with his hand. ‘Give me that, I’ll do my own dirty work, thank you.’ He took the bundled anorak from me.

‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘Braddock?’ My voice came in a whisper, unnatural in that place.

‘Give me the torch, will you.’

But I’d stepped back. ‘Who was it?’ I repeated.

‘Man named Piper, if you must know.’

“Then it wasn’t Braddock?’

‘Braddock? No — why?’ He laughed; or rather he made a noise that sounded like a laugh. ‘Did you think I’d killed him? Is that it?’ His voice was hoarse, coming jerky through the chattering of his teeth. ‘Braddock died two days before we sighted Laerg.’ And he added, ‘You bloody fool, Donald. You should have known me better than that.’ And then, his voice still matter-of-fact: ‘If you won’t give me the torch, just shine it through here.’

I did as he asked and he went through the narrow defile in the rock, down the slope beyond into the geo, hugging the bundle to him. The falling tide had left my dinghy high and dry. The bows of his boat were grounded just astern of it. There were sails, mast and oars in it, two rusted fuel cans, some old lobster pots; but no clothing, not even oilskins. ‘Got anything to drink with you?’ he asked as he dumped the bundle.

I gave him my flask. His hands were shaking as he unscrewed the cap, and then he tipped his head back, sucking the liquor down. ‘How long had you been there?’ I asked.

‘Not long.’ He finished the whisky, screwed the cap back in place and handed me the empty flask. ‘Thanks. I needed that.’

‘Were you watching me all the time?’

‘Yes. I was coming through the fault when I saw the light of your torch. Luckily it shone on your face, otherwise …’ Again that laugh that had no vestige of humour in it. ‘You reach a certain point … You don’t care then.’ He waded into the water, swung a leg over the side of the boat in a moment. Deep water … if I’d been able to do this at the time …’ he swung the engine and it started at once, the soft beat of it pulsing against the walls. He pushed the gear lever into reverse. The engine revved and the bows grated and then he was off the beach and reversing slowly, back down that geo towards the grey light of the entrance. He backed right out and then disappeared, and I stood there in the half-darkness of the cavern’s gloom, wondering whether he’d come back and if he did, what would happen then. Did he trust me? Or did he think I was like the rest of the world — against him? My own brother, and I wasn’t sure; wasn’t sure what he’d do, what was going on in that strange, confused mind of his — wasn’t even sure whether he was sane or mad.

And all the time the drip, drip of moisture from the roof, the slop of water never still as the swell moved gently against the rock walls.

The beat of the engine again and then the boat’s bows nosing into the gap below that hanging slab. It came in, black against the daylight, with him standing in the stern, a dark silhouette, his hand on the tiller. The bows grated astern of my dinghy and he clambered out, bringing the painter with him. ‘Is the tide still falling?’ he asked.

• ‘For another two hours.’

He nodded, tying the rope to a rock. ‘No tide table, no charts, nothing in the lockers, and bloody cold.’ He straightened up, looking down at the rubber dinghy. ‘How did you make out in that thing — all right?’ And then he was moving towards me, his eyes fixed on my face. ‘Why?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘Why did you come here?’

‘I knew you were headed for Laerg.’ I had backed away from him.

‘Did you know why?’

‘No.’

‘But you guessed, is that it?’ He had stopped, standing motionless, his eyes still on me.

‘How could I?’ I was feeling uneasy now, a little scared, conscious of the strength of that thick-set body, the long arms. Standing like that, dark in silhouette, he reminded me of my grandfather — and the same crazy recklessness, the same ruthless determination. ‘I just knew there was something, knew you had to come back.’ And I added, ‘Twenty-two days is a long time….’

‘Yes, too long.’ He seemed to relax then. He was looking about the cavern now and I could see his mind was back in the past. ‘Thirteen days it took us. And then in the dawn I saw Tarsaval. God! I thought I’d never seen anything more beautiful.’ He glanced about him, moving his head slowly from side to side, savouring the familiarity. ‘This place — brings it back to me. We were five days … Yes, five, I think.’

‘In here?’

He nodded, handing me back my anorak, empty now.

‘How many of you?’

‘Just the two of us — Leroux and myself. Alive. The other — he died during the night. We were grounded, you see. On one of the rocks of Eileann nan Shoay, out there. Hadn’t the strength to get her off. It was heavy, that raft. The tide did that, some time during the night, and when the dawn came we were right under the cliffs. That dawn — there was a little breeze from the nor’-east. Cold as ice, and the stars frozen like icicles fading to the dawn sky — pale blue and full of mares’ tails. We paddled along the cliffs. Just got in here in time. The wind came out of the north. I’d never have stood that wind. We were frozen as it was, frozen stiff as boards, no heat in us — none at all. We hadn’t fed for six days, a week maybe — I don’t know. I’d lost count by then.’ He turned his head. ‘What made you come?’ he asked again.

I shrugged. I didn’t really know myself. ‘You were in trouble.

He laughed. But again there was no humour in that laugh. ‘Been in trouble all my life, it seems. And now I’m too old,’ he added, ‘to start again. But I had to come back. I didn’t want anybody to know — about that.’ And he added, ‘Not even you, Donald. I’d rather you hadn’t known.’

I stared at him, wondering how much was remorse, how much pride and the fear of discovery. ‘Did you have to do it?’ I shouldn’t have asked that, but it was out before I could stop myself, and he turned on me then in a blaze of fury.

‘Have to? What would you have done? Died like Leroux, I suppose? Poor little sod. He was a Catholic. I suppose if you’re a Catholic …’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, man — the chance of life and the man dead. What did it matter? Lie down and die. I’m a fighter. Always have been. To die when there was a chance…. that isn’t right. Not right at all. If everybody lay down and died when things got tough — that isn’t the way man conquered his world. I did what any man with guts would have done — any man not hidebound by convention; I had no scruples about it. Why the hell should I? And there was the boat — fuel for a fire ready to hand. I’ll be honest. I couldn’t have done it otherwise. But life, man — life beckoning…. And that poor fellow Leroux. We argued about it all through the night, there in the cave with the wind whistling through that fault. God in heaven, it was cold — until I lit that fire.’ He stopped then, shivering under that thin raincoat. ‘Colder than last night. Colder than anything you can imagine. Cold as hell itself. Why do they always picture hell as flaming with heat? To me it’s a cold place. Cold as this Godforsaken geo.’ He moved, came a step nearer. ‘Was the old man right? Is there a way out of here?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If you’d only tried…. ” I was thinking of the sheep that roamed the island wild. ‘Didn’t you try?’

‘How could I? We only just had strength to crawl through to that cave. We were dead, man — both of us as near dead as makes no odds. You don’t understand. When the ship went down … I wasn’t going to have anything to do with the boats. I’d an escort. Did you know that? I was being brought back under escort. I saw those two damned policemen make bloody sure they got into a boat. They weren’t worrying about me then. They were thinking of their own skins. I saw this Carley float hanging there, nobody doing anything about it. So I cut it adrift and jumped. Others joined me just before she sank. It was late afternoon and the sun setting, a great ball. And then she went, very suddenly, the boilers bursting in great bubbles. There were seven besides myself.’ He paused then, and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to interrupt him. Nobody to confide in, nobody to share the horror of it with him; it had been bottled up inside him too long. But he was looking about the place again and I had a feeling that he had slipped away from me, his mind gone back to his memories. And then suddenly: ‘You say the way out is still there — you’ve been up to the top, have you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, let’s get out of here. Up into the fresh air.’ He started to move up the beach towards the fault, and then he paused. ‘What’s it like up there? Fog, I suppose.’

‘No, it’s above the fog. The sun’s shining.’ ‘The sun?’ He was staring at me as though he didn’t believe me. ‘The sun. Yes, I’d like to see the sun … for a little longer.’ I can’t describe the tone in which he said that, but it was sad, full of a strange sadness. And I had a feeling then — that he’d reached the end of the road. I had that feeling very strongly as I followed him up the slope and through the fault, as though he were a man condemned. ‘Give me the torch a minute.’ His hand was on it and I let him have it. For a moment he stood there, playing the beam of it on that recess, standing quite still and searching the spot with his eyes. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t bear to go, you see, with the thought that somebody would find that. It wouldn’t have mattered — not so much — if I hadn’t changed my identity. But taking Braddock’s name … They’d think I’d killed the poor bastard. Whereas, in fact, I saved his life. Pulled him out of the water with his right arm ripped to pieces. Managed to fix a tourniquet. He was tough, that boy. Lasted longer than most of the others despite the blood he’d lost. Do you know, Donald — I hadn’t thought of it. But when he was dying, that last night — he was in my arms, like a child, and I was trying to keep him warm. Though God knows there wasn’t much warmth in me by then. The other two, they were lying frozen in a coma, and young Braddock, whispering to me — using up the last of his breath. You’re about my build, Iain, he said. And his good arm fumbling at his pockets, he gave me his pay book, all his personal things and the identity disc from round his neck, and all the time whispering to me the story of his life, everything I’d need to know.’ The beam of the torch was still fastened on the recess and after a moment he said, ‘When a man does that — gives you a fresh start; and he’d got such guts, never complaining, not like some of the others, and none of them with so much as a scratch. Hell! You can’t just pack it in. Not after that.’ And then he turned to me suddenly. ‘Here. Take the torch. You lead the way and let’s go up into the light of day.’ But instead of moving aside, he reached out and grabbed my shoulders. ‘So long as you understand. Do you understand?’ But then he released me and stepped back. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It’s finished now.’ And he gave me a gentle, almost affectionate push towards the cave’s exit. ‘We’ll sit in the sun and listen to the birds. Forget the years that are gone. Just think of the old man and the way it was before he died. The island hasn’t changed, has it? It still looks the way he described it to us?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It looks very beautiful.’ And I climbed up through the continuation of the fault, up the slabbed stairway and out through the, final cleft into the sunlight. The fog had thinned, so that it no longer looked like a sea below us, but more like the smoke of some great bush fire. It was in long streamers now, its tendrils lying against the lower slopes, fingering the rock outcrops, turning the whole world below us a dazzling white. Iain stood quite still for a moment, drinking it in, savouring the beauty of the scene just as I had done. But his eyes were questing all the time, searching the slopes of the hills and seaward where the rents in the fog were opening up to give a glimpse of the Atlantic heaving gently to the endless swell. The sunlight accentuated the greyness of his face, the lines cut deep by fatigue. He looked old beyond his years, the black hair greying and his shoulders stooped. As though conscious of my gaze he pulled himself erect. ‘We’ll walk,’ he said gruffly. ‘Some exercise — do us good.’ And he started off towards the head of Strath Mhurain, not looking back to see if I were following him. He didn’t talk and he kept just ahead of me as though he didn’t want me to see the look on his face.

At the top of the Druim Ridge he paused, looking down into Shelter Bay where the fog was still thick. And when I joined him, he turned and started up the High Road, heading for the Lookout. He went fast, his head bent forward, and he didn’t stop until he’d reached the top of Creag Dubh. Then he flung himself down on the grass, choosing the south-facing slope, so that when the fog cleared he’d be able to see down into Shelter Bay. ‘Got a cigarette on you?’ he asked.

I gave him one and he lit it, his hands steadier now. He smoked in silence for a while, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs, his head turned to feel the warmth of the sun, his eyes half-closed. ‘Do you think they’ll have guessed where I was going in that boat?’ he asked suddenly.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Probably.’

He nodded. ‘Well, if they have, they’ll send a helicopter as soon as the fog clears. Or will they come in a ship?’ I didn’t answer and he said, ‘It doesn’t matter. From here you’ll be able to watch them arrive.’

‘And then?’ I asked.

‘Then …’ He left the future hanging in the air. He was watching two sheep that had suddenly materialised on an outcrop below us. They were small and neatly balanced with shaggy fleeces and long, curved horns. ‘It would be nice, wouldn’t it,’ he said, lying back with his eyes closed, ‘if one could transform oneself — into a sheep, for instance, or better still a bird.’ Startled by his voice, the sheep moved with incredible speed and agility, leaping sure-footed down the ledges of that outcrop and disappearing from view.

‘You’ve nothing to worry about — now,’ I said.

‘No?’ He raised himself on one elbow, staring at me. ‘You think I should go back, do you? Tell them I’m not Braddock at all, but Sergeant Ross who deserted in North Africa. Christ! Go through all that.’ He smiled, a sad, weary smile that didn’t touch his eyes. ‘Funny, isn’t it — how the pattern repeats itself? Lieutenant Moore, Colonel Standing…. I wonder if that little bastard Moore is still alive. Ten to one he is and ready to swear he gave the, only order he could. Probably believes it by now. No,’ he said, ‘I’m not going back to face that.’

He was silent then, lying there, smoking his cigarette — smoking it slowly, his face, his whole body relaxed now. I thought how strange the human mind is, blank one moment and now remembering every detail. The sun, shining down into the horse-shoe curve of Shelter Bay, was eating up the fog. The whole world below us was a blinding glare. And high in the brilliant sky above an eagle rode, a towering speck turning in quiet circles. ‘Well …’ He shifted and sat up. ‘I’ll leave you now.’ He looked around him, turning his head slowly, taking in the whole panorama of the heights. ‘God! It’s so beautiful.’ He said it softly, to himself. Then, with a quick, decisive movement, he got to his feet. I started to rise, but he placed his hand on my shoulder, holding me there. ‘No. You stay here. Stay here till they come, and then tell them … tell them what you damn well like.’ He dropped his cigarette and put his heel on it. ‘You needn’t worry about me any more.’

‘Where are you going?’ I asked.

But he didn’t answer. He was staring down into the bay where the fog had thinned to white streamers with glimpses of the sea between. ‘What’s that? I thought I saw a ship down there.’

‘I think it’s a trawler,’ I said.

‘Are you sure it isn’t …’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s a foreign trawler.’ And I told him how I’d been down into the bay and heard the crew talking in a language I couldn’t recognise.

He stood for a moment, staring down into the bay. The streamers of the fog were moving to a sea breeze and through a gap I caught a glimpse of the vessel lying at anchor with a boat alongside.

‘Yes. A foreigner by the look of her.’ Another rent and the view clearer. I could see men moving about her decks and a lot of radar gear on her upper works. And then his hand gripped my shoulder. ‘Donald my Donald,’ he said, and the way he said it took me back. ‘Thanks for coming — for all your help. Something to take with me. I’d rather be Iain Ross, you know, and have a brother like you, than stay friendless as George Braddock.’ And with a final pat he turned and left me, walking quickly down the Druim Ridge.

I watched him until he disappeared below the ridge, not moving from my seat because there wasn’t any point. A little later he came into sight again crossing the top of Strath Mhurain, walking along the slopes of Aird Mullaichean until he reached the outcrop. He paused for a moment, a small, distant figure standing motionless. And then he was gone and I sat there, seeing him still in my mind going down that subterranean fault, back to the geo and the waiting lobster boat. The bright sunlight and the warm scent of the grass, the distant clamour of the birds and that eagle still wheeling high in the vaulted blue; the whole world around me full of the breath of life, and I just sat there wishing I could have done something and knowing in my heart there was nothing I could have done.

I watched the fog clear and the trawler lift her boat into its davits. She got her anchor up then and steamed out of the bay. She was flying a red flag, and as it streamed to the wind of her passage, I thought I could make out the hammer and sickle on it. She rounded Sgeir Mhor, turned westward and disappeared behind the brown bulk of Keava. And later, perhaps an hour later — I had lost all track of time — a helicopter came in and landed on the flat greensward near the Factor’s House. Men in khaki tumbled out, spread into a line and moved towards the camp. I got up then and started down to meet them, sad now and walking slowly, for I’d nothing to tell them — only that my brother was dead.

They found the lobster boat two days later. A trawler picked her up, empty and abandoned about eight miles northeast of Laerg. Nobody doubted what had happened. And in reporting it there was no reference to my brother. It was Major George Braddock who was dead, and I think it was the story I told them of what had really happened in North Africa that caused the various officers concerned, right up to the DRA, to be so frank in their answers to my questions. And now it is March again here on Laerg, the winter over and the birds back, my solitary vigil almost ended. Tomorrow the boat comes to take me back to Rodil. I finished writing my brother’s story almost a week ago. Every day since then I have been out painting, chiefly on Keava. And sitting up there all alone, the sun shining and spring in the air, the nesting season just begun — everything so like it was that last day when we were together on Creag Dubh — I have been wondering. A man like that, so full of a restless, boundless energy, and that trawler lying in the bay. Was he really too old to start his life again — in another country, amongst different people?