Murdo's War Read online

  Murdo made his way from the bows, clinging to one of the tarpaulin lashings as they shot dizzily up and dropped like a stone down the back of a roller.

  ‘It’s too rough,’ he cried above the noise of the storm, his mouth close to Hector’s ear. ‘We’ll never make it around Strathy Point in this.’

  ‘You’re right. But I’m not going to sit out a storm on that island for anybody.’ Hector ducked as a huge slice of icy water slapped over the boat, then looked up again, his oilskins streaming. ‘We’ll put in to Farr Port.’

  ‘What are they going to say about it?’

  ‘By the time we get to Torrisdale Bay they’ll be glad to put into any port at all,’ Hector cried, his voice whipped astern by the wind. ‘We can sit the storm out well enough in Clerkhill.’

  Murdo settled himself securely on the lee side bench near Hector, and turned his shoulder and sou’wester into the main force of the wind. From beneath his brows he regarded the Norwegians. They looked scared and miserable, all except Carl Voss. His face hard set, he stared out over the water as though daring it to try to do him any harm. It was a dangerous face. Henry Smith was being sick, and as Murdo watched, Arne too, with the albino face, suddenly jerked convulsively and vomited into the bottom of the boat. Murdo looked away, it made him sick to see it.

  ‘They’re the ones who wanted to come,’ Hector said. ‘They’ll be glad enough to put ashore in half an hour or so.’

  Eilean Neave crawled past, a dark shape to starboard. The cliffs dropped away, and as the moon vanished into the clouds they were completely out of sight of the land. Suddenly Murdo became aware that the atmosphere had changed. It was no longer fun. The Lobster Boy seemed infinitely small and frail, a nut-shell on a big and dangerous ocean. The circle of lamplight illuminated the timbers and huddled fligures like a painting. The light was comforting, yet made them more vulnerable, as if beyond its gleam, where they were, blind, dark forces were watching. Looking across, Murdo found the eyes of Carl Voss fixed like a hawk’s on his own. He stared straight back for a moment, his own black eyes shining in the lamplight, then looked away over the water.

  Suddenly, without any warning, a huge wave rushed in from the darkness, towering above them, with another foaming on its tail. Lobster Boy had no time to turn head-on and slithered sidways up the massive wall of water. For a moment she poised on the crest, then slewed down the back into the black trough. The second wave was right above them. Two men cried aloud, then all was confusion and water. Great gouts of breaking sea surged over the gunwale. The lamp was extinguished. Suddenly the boat was very heavy, wallowing.

  Murdo was flung to the deck. Struggling to get up he sprawled on his back as the water they had shipped surged from side to side and end to end of the boat. For a moment he thought they were going down. A man cannoned into him. Then out of the confusion he heard Hector calling for light. He fought his way to the for’ard locker and dragged out the spare lantern. Hector was still at the tiller, struggling to keep his boat’s head into the wind at half throttle. He thrust his matches into Murdo’s hands. But Murdo was sodden and awkward and could hardly handle them. As he opened the box, half the matches tipped out and fell into the water. Then he managed to light one, but as he opened the lamp the match fell from his fingers and was extinguished.

  ‘Come on, Murdo!’ Hector called sharply. ‘Pull yourself together.’

  Forcing himself to be calm then, the boy turned his back into the wind and knelt in the water, holding the lantern against his stomach. Very carefully he extracted a match, closed the box, struck it, and quickly held the sputtering light to the wick. It flared. He snapped the lamp shut and adjusted the flame.

  The light, casting its warm yellow rays over the boat and enabling them to see, made things much better. It was not so bad as it had seemed, they had got off lightly. Though Lobster Boy had shipped nearly a foot of water, they were by no means swamped. The boat was very heavy, though, and floundered up and down in the waves, making no headway. If another giant wave came they would not ride it so well; indeed, they might not ride it at all. The sooner the water was out of her and they put into harbour the better.

  ‘Come on, Murdo,’ Hector called again. ‘The bucket. Find them something to bale with.’

  Soon they were all baling as hard as they were able. Murdo used the bucket, Sigurd had a tin, and Henry Smith a wooden box that poured from the seams as soon as he lifted it from the water. Carl Voss sliced himself a square of canvass from the end of the tarpaulin, and holding it by the corners was scooping up the water and tipping it over the side very efficiently. Though a good deal fell back inboard, and occasionally they shipped a little more, the level steadily fell and soon the boat was rising to the waves less sluggishly.

  ‘Hey!’ Hector beckoned to Henry Smith. ‘Come down here a minute.’

  The Englishman handed his leaking box to Peter – he seemed little more than a boy in the lamplight, with the fair hair stuck across his face – and lurched awkwardly down to Hector in the stern.

  ‘There’s a little harbour over there.’ Hector shouted above the noise of the engine and the gale. ‘As soon as we’ve got the water out of her I’m putting in.’

  Henry Smith nodded, agreeing. Fearing they might become storm-bound on the island, he had taken the precaution of telling the innkeeper’s wife that he might be away for a day or two. Salt spray ran down his face.

  ‘It’s a quiet sort of place,’ Hector cried. ‘We can put up at Donald’s house in Clerkhill. He’s a friend of mine – away just now. The neighbours know me, there’ll be no-one bothering us. Stay there for a day or so till the storm dies down a bit.’

  ‘Will the cases be safe so near to a jetty?’

  ‘It’s not that sort of harbour. Just a beach. Have to pull the boat up on the winch. It’s safe enough, though. No-one goes round there much this time of year.’ Spray caught him across the side of the face. ‘Anyway, I don’t see we’ve got much choice.’

  Again Henry Smith nodded his agreement.

  Hector leaned back and once more gave all his concentration to the wind and waves.

  Soon they were riding light, little more than a swill of water rushing about in the bottom of the boat. Hector watched the sea like a hawk. At length the long, strong roller for which he was waiting bore down upon them, towering against the sky. In one movement he flung the throttle wide and thrust the tiller hard across. The Lobster Boy leaped up the wave, sheered round as she fell away, and almost before the others knew it they were racing for the shore.

  The waves now roared from astern with what seemed the speed of an express train, sweeping past them and rolling on ahead into the darkness. Lobster Boy rode them like the wonderful sea boat she was. Suddenly it was exciting again. And ten minutes later they were in calmer waters behind the sheltering rocks of Farr Point.

  Henry Smith and the Norwegians, all except Carl Voss, glanced at each other with relief. Murdo had rigged the hand-pump and was ridding the boat of the last of the sea water as it drained into the bilge. He looked up at Hector, but the wrinkled face showed no more emotion than it had when the waves were leaping about them on the open sea. He knew this trick of countenance of old, and that inside Hector was as glad as he was himself to be out of the storm. He reached over with one foot and kicked him lightly on the boot. Hector looked humorously at the boy from beneath his brows, and winked conspiratorially.

  In another five minutes they were turning into the small cove known as Farr Port. Sheltered by a series of high headlands from the easterly gale, the sea here was little more than moderate, a low, rolling swell that rimmed the rocks with foam. They slipped past a little concrete jetty into the inner haven of the cove itself. Huge sea cliffs rose on either hand. Ahead, in the cleft beyond the shingle beach, a narrow fishermen’s path zig-zagged to the cliff tops. Glancing up at the night sky, Murdo saw that the stars had disappeared.

  Hector cut the engine. For forty yards the little boat glided forward. With a gentle crunc
h her bows drove up the smooth pebbles of the shore and she lurched softly to a halt.

  Murdo leaped out with the painter and led it up the beach. The Norwegians stood, uncertain what to do.

  ‘Come on, everyone lend a hand,’ Henry Smith called, climbing down to the stones rather shakily. A wave broke roughly, swilling around his legs and making the boat rock.

  They jumped ashore and gathered along the sides of the boat. As a succession of waves came in, they heaved her as far as they were able up the shore.

  ‘There’s a winch up by the path,’ Hector called out. ‘We’ll be able to haul her up, but we’ll need to take the boxes out first.’

  Peter was frozen. He clapped his arms about himself and stamped his feet to try to get the circulation going. Sigurd did the same.

  Carl Voss climbed back into the boat and removed the ropes and tarpaulin from the boxes. Splashing to and fro in the shallow water, the rest carried them up the beach and made a stack a few yards from the overhanging cliff, well above high tide. When it was complete they flung the canvas over the top once more and lashed it down firmly.

  While they did so, Murdo went up to the old hand winch at the foot of the path. It was covered with snow, and he had to brush it clear with a frozen hand to find the end of the wire. Having done so, and stabbed his finger painfully on a broken strand, he put the machine out of gear and walked back down the beach, heaving the wire behind him. He led a rope strop through a ring-bolt in the boat’s stem-post and shackled it to the wire, then walked back to the winch.

  ‘Give him a hand,’ Henry Smith called.

  Peter went up to join Murdo on the winch handles, while the others gathered along the boat’s gunwale. It was hard work on the handles, and soon the cold was gone from their bodies as they forced them round and the boat slowly ploughed a turtle-like track through the stones of the shelving beach. At length she was lying in the snow of the upper shore, well above the bare pebbles of the last high tide.

  ‘That’ll do,’ Hector called.

  Panting, and smiling to each other, Murdo and Peter left off winding and joined the others by the boat. Murdo examined the bruised palms of his hands, and pushed them into the sodden pockets of his trousers, then pulled them out again.

  While they were winding, the snow had started once more. Soon the air was thick with whirling flakes. The inlet closed about them. It was a bleak and a lonely place.

  ‘I think we could all do with a warm and a cup of tea,’ Hector said. ‘It’s a wee bit on the nippy side tonight.’ He nodded towards the steep track up the rocky cleft and started forward.

  Henry Smith turned to Peter. ‘You stay with the cases,’ he said. ‘We’ll give you a relief in a couple of hours.’

  Peter was shivering. Already the glow of the exercise had faded and the cold was eating into his body. He clasped icy arms about his chest and nodded.

  Hector had stopped. He turned to face Henry Smith. ‘For heaven’s sake!’ he cried, exasperated. ‘I don’t know why the boy listens to you. What on earth do you want him to stay here for? Who do you think is going to walk all the way down here in the middle of the night, in a blizzard, on the off-chance of finding thirty cases of whatever it is – machine parts.’ He held the lantern high so that the light fell on their wretched, bedraggled figures, the clothes clinging about them. ‘Good God! Look at him. He’s frozen and soaked to the skin. We all are. If he stays down here for two hours he’ll catch pneumonia. The lad needs a hot drink and a set of dry clothes. If it matters that much, why don’t you stay yourself? They’re your cases.’

  Henry Smith drew in the corners of his mouth and stared at the ground, then looked again at the men about him. He nodded. ‘All right.’

  Once more Hector set his face towards the fishermen’s track and started forward. Obviously relieved, Peter fell in with the rest behind him.

  For a moment Murdo lingered, looking back at the boat and the pile of cases, already shrouded with snow. Then he, too, set off up the steep path. Carl Voss stepped out of the shadows behind him and brought up the rear.

  The Boy in the Night

  THE LANTERN SWINGING in Hector’s hand, threw dizzy patches of light on the flanking crags, ledged with snow. Slowly the shivering chain of men plodded up behind. Though it was commonly used throughout the summer, the snow and ice made the winding patch treacherous. Murdo rested his hand against the rocky wall and waited for Sigurd, who was carrying a box of provisions, to negotiate an awkward corner.

  They had climbed into the gale, buffeting and roaring above the cliffs. Murdo thrust his hands inside his oilskins and came up to Hector. A heavy lock of hair fell from under his sou’wester and flapped in his eyes. He was shivering, and cramping in his stomach with the cold.

  ‘Watch you keep above the cliff,’ Hector shouted back above the noise of the wind. ‘The gullies cut a long way in. Keep high up.’

  He set off walking diagonally up the side of the hill. Murdo hunched forward and kept pace at his side. The snow whipped horizontally through the swinging circle of lamplight and plastered their sides and backs.

  Ten minutes later, having climbed two stone walls and a wire fence, they arrived at the tiny cluster of houses that made up the village of Clerkhill.

  ‘I’ll just let the neighbours know it’s me,’ Hector said. ‘They’ll wonder what’s happening, otherwise.’

  He left them sheltering in the lee of a little croft house and vanished around the corner of the barn. They were a wretched group, but thankful to be out of the wildness of the storm. Peter beat his arms against his sides and swore softly under his breath. Arne pulled the soaking, snow-covered collar of his jacket up his cropped neck, and hugged his elbows against his body for warmth. A little apart from the others, Carl Voss stood motionless, then crossed to the end of the barn and looked across the thirty yards of snow to where Hector was standing at the door of the nearest house. Murdo also went to look, standing a few feet back. The door opened and a shaft of light spread across the snow. ‘Hello, Chrissie,’ he heard Hector say, but the rest of the conversation was drowned by the wind.

  A couple of minutes later the old man was back. He lifted the iron door key from a nail in the barn and led the way into the house.

  ‘Try not to make a mess of the place,’ Hector said, stamping the snow from his boots and brushing it off his oilskins in the tiny passage. ‘You can leave your coats here. I’ll get some blankets for you.’ Like most seamen of the old school, Donald was very tidy.

  The fires were laid in the two downstairs rooms and Hector put a match to both, piling the peats high as soon as they had caught properly. In quarter of an hour they were roaring up the chimneys and starting to throw out the heat. Murdo, stripped of most his clothes and wrapped in a blanket, padded barefoot into the kitchen to make cocoa. Soon they were all roasting themselves in front of the blaze in the sitting room, scalding their tongues and throats with the thick, sweet drink. In the other room next to the kitchen, the fire was masked by a circle of sweaters and trousers, hanging from a pulley and draped over the backs of chairs. The air was thick with steam and the smell of wet wool.

  To one side of the fire, half in the shadows of the tilly lamp, sat Murdo. The heat scorched his legs pleasantly as he gazed about the room. His eyes lingered on a calendar of a girl in a red swimming costume which hung beside him. Over the months he had found himself in some odd company with Hector, very odd company for a boy, but nothing remotely as strange as this. For a long time as he sat there, half-listening to the desultory conversation, his mind ran back and forth over the events of the past week. It was a real adventure. So much had happened: so much was still a mystery. If they did not contain machine parts, what was in the cases down there on the beach? Holding his mug in both hands he lowered his head and took a good mouthful.

  Suddenly, with a shock of realisation that made him slop the cocoa on the blanket, it came to him that now, for the first time, the cases were unguarded. Piled up down there in the gully, an
d no-one within half a mile. How reluctant Mr Smith had been to leave them so. If only, Murdo thought, he was able to get out of the house for an hour, he could return to the shore and examine them for himself. Then he thought of the blizzard and almost dismissed the idea. He had been out in blizzards before; indeed he was just in from one, and glad to escape the wildness and cold. The audacity of the scheme appalled him, but even as he shivered with sudden nerves by the side of the fire, he knew that he would go.

  Hector had seen him tremble. ‘Are you still cold, boy? Here, I’ll make another cup of cocoa for you. Have a drop of whisky in it to warm you up.’

  Murdo shook his head. ‘I’m okay. I’ll have another cup when I’ve finished this.’

  ‘There’s a couple of beds upstairs,’ Hector said. ‘Away up there and get yourself some sleep.’ He smiled. ‘He likes his comforts, Donald; there’ll be a hot water bottle about somewhere.’

  Murdo nodded. ‘Aye. In a while.’

  ‘Not too long, then,’ Hector said. ‘Don’t want you catching pneumonia.’

  Murdo took another drink. Forcing himself to appear casual he glanced around the circle of Norwegians. Clad in blankets, their clothes in the other room drying – surely he would be safe. Sigurd, fresh-faced, with hard blue eyes and a mop of curls growing low on his forehead, said something to Arne and laughed loudly. They were too busy talking to be bothered with a boy.

  Half an hour later, when his second mug of cocoa was finished, Murdo rose to his feet and stood for a moment, yawning heavily. Hector looked up. For a fleeting second an odd, penetrating expression flickered across his weather-beaten face, but it was gone so quickly that Murdo thought it must have been his imagination.

  ‘Donald won’t mind, will he?’ he said. ‘Me using his bed?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Hector replied. ‘He’d be annoyed if you didn’t. Go on, get yourself away. Got a hot water bottle, have you?’