Black Cross

16

McConnell’s driver arrived in Oxford at six A.M. as Brigadier Smith had promised. One hour later he deposited his passenger and two extremely heavy suitcases at the entrance to King’s Cross Station in London, with instructions to board Train 56, which departed at 7:07 A.M. for Edinburgh, Scotland.

The station echoed with the voices of servicemen from ten different countries wearing dozens of different uniforms, and all apparently more lost than McConnell. He did not see how he could possibly find Smith — or how Smith could find him — in the throng. Yet as he sidestepped a Canadian in the midst of bidding a tearful farewell to an English girl six inches taller than himself, he felt someone tug at his arm. He turned and looked into the twinkling blue eyes of Duff Smith. The SOE chief wore a natty tweed jacket with the left sleeve pinned to the shoulder.

“No uniform today, Brigadier?”

Duff Smith smiled but said nothing. He led McConnell to a private compartment, a luxury beyond price on the crowded train. Jonas Stern sat sullenly beside the window. After closing the door, Smith shook McConnell’s hand and said in a jovial voice, “Glad to have you aboard, Doctor.”

McConnell nodded at Stern, but the young man offered no greeting. McConnell’s trained eye instantly noted the faded hematomas beneath his skin. Obviously Stern had not spent a peaceful week since their last meeting.

“What’s all that rubbish?” sputtered Brigadier Smith, pointing at McConnell’s bags. “You’re not going to Brighton for the month, you know.”

“I know. It’s equipment, and it’s necessary.”

“We’ll be supplying your gear for this trip, Doctor. You’ll have to leave these behind.”

“You can’t supply this equipment, Brigadier.”

Smith looked intrigued. “Let’s have a look, then.”

McConnell turned the heavy suitcases on their sides and opened them. One contained what appeared to be a pile of folded rubber, topped by some type of transparent rain gear for the head. The other case held two yellow cylinders about twenty inches long, and some corrugated rubber tubing.

“Is that German printed on those tanks?” Smith asked.

“Yes. These are portable oxygen cylinders taken from crashed Luftwaffe bombers. I figured if we’re trying to pass ourselves off as German, we should be carrying German equipment.”

“Good thinking, Doctor. Really. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen a gas suit quite like that.”

“It’s the latest American impermeable suit.”

“How in God’s name did you get hold of it?”

“I still have a few friends Stateside, Brigadier. Edgewood Arsenal in Alabama. I’ve been experimenting with this suit for a month now. The clear vinyl gas mask was developed for soldiers with severe head wounds. I modified it to accept a hose from these oxygen cylinders, using some new equipment from the underwater diving field. I also developed and installed a specially trained acetate diaphragm to enhance speech capability. You’re looking at the only airtight suit in the world that allows soldiers to see each other’s faces and speak while fighting.”

Brigadier Smith looked at Stern. “I told you he was the right man for this job, eh?”

For once Jonas Stern had no glib remark ready. “Do you have two of those suits?” he asked.

McConnell closed the cases and sat down opposite him. “Yes. And you’re damn lucky we’re about the same size.”

Brigadier Smith picked up a straw basket from the floor. “Rations in here, lads. I won’t be making the trip with you, but I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

“So where are we going?” Stern asked. “Can’t you tell me, now that he’s finally here?”

Smith stuck out his lower lip. “If you must know, you’re going to Achnacarry Castle.”

“Where in God’s name is that?”

Duff Smith smiled. He’d heard that question repeated a hundred times before. Achnacarry. The name alone was enough to send some men into a cold sweat. “Some say it’s the end of the world,” he said. “But there’s others who claim Achnacarry’s the next thing to heaven. Mostly Scotsmen. Camerons, at that.”

McConnell looked up sharply at the name Cameron.

“Why the hell are we going there?” Stern pressed.

Smith stopped smiling. “First, secrecy. Second, training. Third, time. Gentlemen, I cannot tell you why, but the time factor has suddenly become critical. In eleven days, the target of our mission will cease to have any strategic value.”

“But if time is a problem,” Stern argued, “why go all the way to Scotland? For God’s sake, just tell me what you want done and put us into Germany. I’ll make sure it gets done.”

The brigadier shook his head. “You may have harried the Germans in North Africa, laddie, but you don’t beard the lion in his den without some specialized training. We have eleven days. You are about to spend seven of those with the toughest men in the British Army. The C.O. at Achnacarry — which is now called the Commando Depot, by the way — is a friend of mine, and he has generously agreed to have his instructors pound their hard-earned knowledge into your thick skull. In seven days you will be a different man, Mr. Stern, a better man, and just possibly ready to accomplish the mission I’m sending you to do.”

Smith ended the argument by stepping out of the compartment. “Change trains in Edinburgh,” he told them. “You want Spean Bridge station. There’ll be someone waiting for you. I’d conserve those rations. Charlie Vaughan runs a tight ship. If you reach the castle late, there may not be supper.”

The brigadier looked at his two recruits for several moments. “Cheer up,” he said. “By the time you reach Spean, you should be fast friends.”

He laughed softly as he marched off down the corridor.

McConnell leaned back into the corner of the compartment. He wasn’t sure exactly where Spean Bridge was, but he thought it was well up into the Scottish Highlands, possibly near Loch Ness. It was going to be a long trip.

The train lurched forward exactly on time and gathered speed rapidly as it moved north out of London. The day was clear and cold, the sky gray. After several minutes, Stern said, “What changed your mind, Doctor? What made you decide to come on this mission?”

McConnell kept looking out of the window. “None of your business,” he said in a neutral tone.

“Are you sure you’ve got the nerve for it? This mission could get bloody, you know. I wouldn’t want your pacifist sensibilities to be offended.”

McConnell slowly turned from the window. “You obviously like fighting,” he said. “But I’m not your problem. Whoever you’re mad at, take it out on them. This is going to be a long ride.”

He settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. Stern stared furiously at him for a while, then turned to the window and watched the winter countryside as the swaying train rumbled past Alexandra Palace.

The two men did not speak again for the next eight hours.

“Spean Bridge!” shouted a high-pitched voice, stretching out the syllables until the words were barely recognizable.

When McConnell blinked himself awake, Stern, the picnic basket, and one of the suitcases were gone.

“Spean Bridge!” shouted the conductor for the third and last time.

McConnell snatched up the other case and scrambled out of the compartment. He found Stern on the station platform, huddled beneath a green awning, eating a soggy sandwich from which the bread crust had been cut away. Cold rain poured relentlessly from a slate sky. Dark, forbidding hills rose on all sides of the village of Spean. They looked to be made of solid rock, cloaked with frost and crowned with snow.

It was still early in the afternoon, but McConnell had the feeling night was coming on. Then he realized that it was. Darkness fell early in the Highlands in winter, and dawn came very late. As the train chugged out of the station, he looked around the platform. It was as deserted as the green-and-white station building, which was locked tight.

“Smith said there would be someone to meet us,” McConnell said. “I don’t see anybody.”

Sour-faced and puffy from sleep, Stern said nothing. McConnell reached into the picnic basket and took out a sandwich. Just then he saw a tall figure wearing a kilt and a green beret standing motionless at the end of the platform. The tartan was predominantly red, with highlights of yellow and forest green.

“Doctor McConnell?” the man called, rolling the r with a Highland burr.

“That’s me.”

The kilted man marched toward them. McConnell had never dreamed he would be intimidated by a man wearing a dress, but he was. Well over six feet tall, the newcomer stopped and stood in the freezing rain outside the awning as casually as if he were basking in May sunshine. There was an unsettling, animal strength about him. His chest was high and broad, and the calves that stretched his stockings looked sculpted from bronze. Short-cropped hair framed a chiseled, handsome face illuminated by sea blue eyes.

“Sergeant Ian McShane,” the giant said mildly. “You’re Stern, I ken?”

Stern nodded.

McConnell held out his hand, but the sergeant just looked at it.

“I dinna ken much about you,” McShane said, “and I dinna need to know more. Our business has nothing to do with who you really are. From now on, McConnell, you’re Mr. Wilkes.” He looked at Stern. “You’re Mr. Butler.”

The Highlander eyed both men from head to toe. “Either of you ever in the military, then?”

Stern straightened. “I’ve had some experience.”

“Have you now? Well. We’ll find out tomorrow what we have to work with. It’s fallen to me to shepherd you two through a wee bit o’ training. Quite irregular, actually. Still, the MacVaughan ordered it. That’s the way it’ll be.”

With a last appraising look at his charges, Sergeant McShane turned and walked back the way he had come.

Stern and McConnell looked at each other, then snatched up their bags and hurried after him. At the end of the platform, they saw the Scotsman climb into a covered jeep and start the engine.

“Hey!” McConnell yelled. “Sergeant! Wait!”

McShane leaned out and said, “Follow this road west across the Caledonian Canal, turn north at Gairlochy, march along the loch till you sight Bunarkaig, then up the switchback road to the castle. It’s about seven miles, all told. You can’t get lost.”

“But there’s plenty of room in the jeep!” Stern objected.

McShane’s blue eyes seemed to grow tired. “That’s no’ the point at all, Mr. Butler. Nobody rides to Achnacarry their first time up. All transport is by foot.” He glanced at Stern’s worn leather shoes. “We’ll get you some proper gear at the castle. I will take those bags for you, though.”

McConnell loaded the heavy suitcases into the jeep, then tossed Stern’s leather bag after them.

“But it’s pouring rain!” Stern shouted.

Sergeant McShane looked skyward and smiled. “Aye. It’s pissin’ it down, all right. I suggest you get used to it, Mr. Butler. It always rains at Achnacarry.”

Stern whirled toward McConnell, perhaps to suggest that they try to board the jeep by force, but the American was no longer standing behind him. He was walking toward the main road, leaning grimly into the rain.

“See you at the castle, Mr. Butler,” Sergeant McShane said. The jeep spun its tires and fishtailed onto the road, headed west, leaving Stern standing alone in the mud.

Stern slung the picnic basket over his shoulder and trotted after McConnell, catching him on the stone bridge for which the village had been named. “Where are you going?” he yelled. “Let’s wait for the rain to stop!”

“It may not stop,” McConnell said, walking faster on the rising grade.

Stern quickened his pace and punched McConnell on the right shoulder. “Do you really want to walk seven miles through freezing rain?”

“No, I don’t. So I think I’ll run it. Even with these hills, it probably shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half. Two hours at the most.”

“What?”

McConnell broke into a trot, leaving Stern fuming in the road, his dark hair plastered to his head. Stern took the last sandwich from the basket and wolfed it down. He watched the American top a ridge, disappear, then reappear a quarter mile farther on, a dim shadow against the gray wall of rain, growing steadily smaller.

“Arschloch,” he muttered. In Africa he had walked over endless miles of desert without water when forced to, but schlepping up these mountains in a driving rain when there were surely options available was insane. He kicked the empty picnic basket and began jogging up the road.

He kept up his pace for about a mile and a half, then slowed to a lopsided walk so that he could massage the knifelike stitch in his right side. All he could see ahead was more hills, a long black lake, and a few tiny stone houses. No traffic on the road. No sign of McConnell. No castle.

Then he saw the bicycle.

McConnell reached the top of the switchback road that led to Achnacarry Castle exactly sixty minutes after he started running. The steep hills combined with the thrashing wind and rain had nearly beaten him. But he’d made it. The outlines of a great baronial house emerged from the darkness. Warm yellow light glowed in one upper window. He slowed to a walk and made for the building. Down the shallow slope below the castle, the gleaming tin roofs of prefabricated Nissen huts made a strange contrast to the medieval landscape he had seen so far.

As he neared the castle, something else caught his eye. It was a row of graves. The graves followed the line of the drive. Each was marked by a white cross and a board which bore a name, rank, and brief epitaph. The first one McConnell stooped over read: He showed himself on a ridge line. The second read: Failed to take appropriate cover under mortar barrage.

As he stood puzzling over the inscriptions, he heard a slow creak. Then a familiar voice called out of the darkness: “The dead dinna mind the rain, Mr. Wilkes!”

Sergeant McShane.

“But I’d advise the livin’ to get indoors!”

McConnell jogged up to the great wooden door, wiped his muddy shoes, and squeezed past McShane’s broad body. He found himself in a spacious entrance hall which had been stripped of all furniture.

“Where’s your friend, then?” McShane asked. “Mr. Butler.”

McConnell shrugged. “Back out there somewhere, I guess.”

The Highlander eyed him with new interest. “I’m not surprised. You must have set a cracking pace to make it that quickly.”

“I’ve done a little running.”

“Have you now? Well. That’s a handy thing to have done if you’re required to spend any time at Achnacarry, Mr. Wilkes. There’s many a man who wished he’d done more of it. I’ve seen university distance runners fall flat in these hills.” The Scot’s lips cracked into a tight smile. “’Course, eighty pounds of gear on their backs doesna help much.”

Suddenly the front door was shoved open from outside. McConnell turned and saw Jonas Stern standing in the doorway with a satisfied smile on his face. He was wet to the skin, but didn’t look at all winded.

Before McConnell or Sergeant McShane could speak, he said, “Butler reporting for duty, Sergeant.”

McConnell looked at the sergeant with bewilderment, but the dour Scot was an old hand at appearing unflappable. “You made good time, Mr. Butler,” he said. “I was about to lock the door.”

“Go ahead.”

McShane did, then led them through a hall dark with wainscoting and turned up a wide staircase. “You’ll stay in the castle until further notice,” he said. “You’ll see hundreds of men coming and going in all manner of kit, speaking several languages. They’re commando trainees. You leave them be, they’ll do the same. Some will be instructors. They’re not marked as such, but you won’t have any trouble tellin’ who they are.”

Not if they all look like you, McConnell thought. Sergeant McShane looked like a Highland clan chief who’d stepped straight out of the eighteenth century.

“Remember,” the Scotsman said, “you’re Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Butler. Dinna be givin’ those names unless you’re asked. The C.O. of the depot is Colonel Vaughan. You two may not be military, but you’d better snap to if he comes near. The MacVaughan doesna suffer fools gladly.”

They stopped in a dim passage with heavy wooden doors on either side. McShane pointed to the second door on the right. Stern pushed it open. Inside the small, square room were two cots, a paraffin lamp which had been burning for some time, and a bare clothes rack.

“Bath’s up the passage,” McShane said. “No hot water in this part of the castle.” He put his forefinger between Stern’s shoulder blades and shoved him into the room.

McConnell quickly followed, so as to stop any overreaction on Stern’s part.

“You two must be important,” the sergeant mused. “You’re the first civilians I know of to pass through Achnacarry.”

McConnell bent over one of the cots and picked up a horsehair rope about four feet long, with a permanent loop at one end and a straight wooden handle about six inches long attached to the other. An identical rope lay on the other cot.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Toggle rope,” McShane said. “Every commando carries one at all times. You’ll soon see why. I dinna want to see you without it. That’s it then. I’ll see you at breakfast. Six a.m.”

He turned and started back toward the staircase.

McConnell went after him and called, “Is a Brigadier Duff Smith staying in the castle tonight, Sergeant?”

McShane didn’t break stride. “I canna charge my memory about that just now, Mr. Wilkes.”

Realizing he would learn nothing else until morning, McConnell went back to the room and began taking off his wet clothes. He stripped to the skin, as his shorts were soaked through, then climbed into bed. Stern paced the hall for a few moments, then did the same. McConnell thought it odd that Stern turned off the lamp before removing his clothes. It was almost as if he were trying to hide his body.

McConnell lay silent in the dark for some time. But he could not go to sleep without asking one question. “How’d you make it up here so fast?” he said finally. “You found someone to give you a ride?”

Stern answered in English, giving a fair rendition of McConnell’s Georgia drawl. “None of your business, is it, Mr. Wilkes?”

McConnell took the barb in silence. He wondered if Stern realized that their code names had been taken from Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. It had been the biggest picture of 1939, but God only knew what corner of the desert Jonas Stern had been living in then. Duff Smith had obviously selected the code names, knowing that McConnell would realize the significance of being named after the milquetoast Ashley Wilkes.

He was nearly asleep when Stern’s disembodied voice said: “Did you see those grave markers?”

McConnell blinked in the chilly darkness. “I saw them.”

“Nothing but dirt under those crosses.”

“What do you mean? The graves are empty?”

“Right.”

“How do you know?”

“I know the British Army. Fought with them in Africa. On their side, if you can believe it. Those graves are typical of their crap. They put those crosses there to scare recruits. ‘Showed himself on a ridge line.’ What rot. The British Army’s just like those graves.”

McConnell saw nothing to be gained by arguing with Stern about the British. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” he said.

Stern grunted contemptuously in the darkness. “Sweet dreams, Mr. Wilkes,” he said in German. “Come morning, I’ll show those limey bastards commando training.”