Murdo's War (16 page)

Waves flooded in, men staggered with the impact and fell in a tangled heap. Murdo saw a figure lurch backwards and go over the side, head-first into the black rock. All was confusion. Waves swilled, foaming to his knees. Then the boat was gone, and he was struggling in the icy water.

His clothing hampered him, the great boring waves thrust him downwards, tumbling and fighting, unable to breathe. Water everywhere. Suddenly his head was clear for an instant and he gasped a lungful of air, and half a lungful of water as the waves tugged him down again. He struggled with his sea-boots; one came off, the other stuck. With bursting chest he kicked out wildly and his head rose above the surface. He opened his mouth, but before he could breathe another wave swept over him, bearing him down, a wild jumble of arms and legs and clothes, spinning helplessly, not even knowing where the surface was. Still he kicked out. Thick seaweed brushed around his face. He pushed it away, but it was everywhere, all around him, trapping his hands, arms, legs. Down, down, down the waves bore him. His head reeled. His lungs were on fire. Blind in the black water, choking, writhing, he felt his senses slipping away. A warm glow started somewhere at the back of his brain, sliding down into his muscles, comforting, easing – peace. He gave himself up to the water.

SUDDENLY, WITH A SHOCKING pain, something smacked Murdo across the front of his face. His back wrenched and twisted. Again the hard thing struck and ripped him acr
oss the ear like fire. Blindly, instinctively, he flung out both arms and encountered rock. Unaware of razor-sharp barnacles he clung tight. His head was clear of the water. Lungfuls of sweet air struggled into his body. The waves poured, foaming, across him. He hung on, every muscle forcing, clinging, against the rock. The water receded. Flashes of sense glimmered at the back of his brain and he crawled higher. More waves seethed around him, no longer cold. Flashes of vision – black rocks, tumbling water, white hands. The waves dropped away and he crawled higher still and clung there, mouth and face against the harsh stone, shuddering violently.

He had panicked, and it came again, gluing his arms and legs, stomach and chest and face to the streaming rock. But slowly it passed, very slowly, ebbing like a spent flood from mind and limbs. The waves no longer broke over him. Raising a streaming head, Murdo looked around the terrible place. He breathed convulsively, nearly sobbing. The beautiful air pumped into his lungs. He peered into the moonlit darkness. Cliffs rose sheer from the tossing sea thirty yards away. He was on a rocky outcrop, the black surging water all around. Something pale and sluggish, a lolling white face and shoulders, washed heavily on the waves a few yards off. It disappeared. Further over, to the left of the exploding crags, the waves broke with a roar on the boulders of a small beach.

His stomach cramped and more than a pint of water came gushing from his mouth.

For minutes he clung, shuddering, to the peak of rock. A semblance of thought struggled into his mind as the blanket of fear slowly withdrew. Two smaller outcrops spanned the stretch of water between the beach and himself. He could swim to one, and then to the other. He had to get to the shore, and soon. The cold
was eating into him; with his returning senses he could feel it now. He could not last there much longer. He kicked off the remaining sea-boot and tugged at his oilskins. They clung about his body but at length came clear and he tossed them aside into the sea. For a minute longer he hung on, waiting for the sea to level, building up his courage. The moment came. With gritting teeth he launched himself into the water, striking out strongly towards the first out- crop. Now the boy had overcome his panic he was in control, his body rising with the surging wave, sinking back into the trough behind. Suddenly his arm struck something soft and yielding, and a dim shape rolled over against his face and chest. With a disgusted cry he thrust the thing from him and swam from it in horror.

Then the first rock was before him. For a moment he trod water before it, and as the wave lifted him forward, grabbed and clawed for a handhold, his feet trailing in the weed. The wave sank and his body sank with it, his wrists tearing on the barnacles, hip crashing against a little bulge of rock. But he was held, and was again clear of the water, more than a third of the way in towards the beach.

When he had regained his breath he launched himself once more into the glinting water. The thick trousers clung awkwardly about his legs, his battledress jacket hoisted itself beneath his armpits and hampered his movements. But a minute later he was swimming past the second rock and striking in towards the shore. The waves rose in the shallow water, broke and foamed. A current bore him towards the bottom of the crags thirty yards to his right, and for a moment Murdo felt the under-tow tugging at his feet. He redoubled his efforts and broke clear of it. Eight or ten yards out he reached for the bottom, but the water was still too deep and he sank for a moment, the foam swilling over his head.

Then the boulders of the beach were beneath his feet. As he tried to stand a wave came and banged him forward off balance, sprawling in the shallow water. He clutched at the smooth rocks, but the retreating wave sucked him back again. Another wave broke over him. As his body lifted he rode the crest and in a moment was dumped unceremoniously higher up the boulders. This time the back-wash was weaker and he crawled forward. The next wave lapped round his body for a moment, then was gone. He tried to stand, make his way clear of the water, but his legs would not support him and he fell back. On hands and knees he crawled a few yards further, then collapsed on his face. And there he lay, in the shadow of the cliff, sprawled among the rocks like so much trash washed up by the high tide.

Slowly Murdo pulled himself to his knees and stood up. He was very shaky. He leaned a hand against a rocky spur that rose from the boulders a few yards from the cliff. There was a taste of blood in his mouth. He spat, and wiping his lips on a sodden sleeve raised his head and looked wretchedly about him. It was a small rocky inlet. Cliffs rose on either hand and a gentle snow slope, gleaming in the moonlight, rolled up behind to the white moors. The wind, slight in the bay but cruelly cold, blew straight from the sea. Two figures moved slowly over the rocks below the cliff at the far side of the beach, another staggered about in the froth of the waves.

‘Hector!’ His voice sounded strangely loud and not like his own voice at all. ‘Over here!’

He let go of the rock and took a step forward. The figure at the water’s edge looked all around unable to distinguish where the cry was coming from.

‘Over here,’ Murdo called again.

‘Is it you?’ The old man stumbled across the awkward boulders in the direction of the voice. He had still not seen Murdo in the shadow of the crag.

‘Here,’ Murdo said. He stepped out into the moonlight and nearly fell.

Hector clasped his arms about the boy’s shoulders. ‘God be thanked!’ he cried. There were tears in his voice. ‘You’re not badly hurt?’

Murdo swallowed and shook his head. It was the first time he had even thought about Hector. Over the old man’s shoulder he saw the two men along the beach joined by a third, who appeared at the foot of the cliff on the far side of the bay.

‘The sea was too strong,’ Hector said. ‘You went out into deep water. I saw you go down.’ For a moment he was nearly over- come, then he sniffed hard and pulled himself together. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf, boy. Come on, get walking. Warm yourself up a bit.’

He took Murdo’s arm across his shoulders and together they moved up the beach, slipping and stumbling on the boulders. It was hopeless, for they kept tripping each other up and moved so slowly that there was no warmth in it. Murdo removed his arm from Hector’s neck. He flapped his arms about his chest and rubbed the thick sodden cloth of his trousers. A little warmth stole into his shoulders but otherwise he remained as cold as ever.

The Germans crossed the cove towards them. Despite the brightness of the moon, Murdo could not distinguish who each man was until they came close.

Carl Voss was in the lead, limping slightly from a twisted knee. He walked up to Hector and stopped. Then he struck the old man full force across the side of the head with his fist. It was a terrible blow and Hector reeled to the ground. Shocked, Murdo turned to face Voss himself. He saw the arm swing back and before he could move there was a flash behind his eyes and a loud noise, and he found himself lying on the boulders beside his friend.

‘Pigs!’ The German’s boot lashed into Hector’s side. ‘Stupid, stupid pigs!’ Again the boot thudded into the old man.

Twisting like an eel Murdo grabbed Voss’s foot as he drew it back, and wrenched it round, digging his fingers in. It swung near to his face and he bit savagely into the ankle, as hard as he could. The cloth was in his mouth, the kicking leg dragged him over the rocks till it broke free.

With an oath, for the struggle had hurt his damaged knee, Carl Voss turned on the boy, and the heavy boot hacked time and again, with sickening force, into his stomach and ribs.

Then there were raised voices, a scuffle of feet by Murdo’s head, and a man landed heavily on the boulders a dozen feet away. It was Carl Voss.

Murdo felt an arm round his shoulders. It raised him until he was sitting, coughing, slumped against the cloth of a man’s jacket. Flashes of red and black came and went in the darkness. There were dim voices. Slowly the waves of nausea and dull pain rolled back and he became aware of Hector bending over him.

‘You’re all right,’ he said. ‘It’s all right.’

Murdo pressed his lips together and nodded slightly. Then the man who held him tightened his arm and lifted him to his feet as easily as if he had been a child. Looking round Murdo saw that it was big Bjorn. The German looked down into his face. Murdo saw the tangle of wet blond hair, the blood of a deep scratch down the side of his eye.

‘I am sorry,’ Bjorn said. ‘We are not all like that.’ He glanced contemptuously to where Carl Voss was pulling himself to his feet, one hand carefully holding the side of his face. ‘I hope you are not too much hurt.’

Murdo shook his head and pulled his shoulders from the clasp of Bjorn’s arm.

‘I’m all right,’ he said.

When Bjorn saw how Murdo turned away from him he stood for a moment, then walked across to Henry Smith several yards along the beach. They were joined a minute later by Carl Voss, still feeling the side of his face.

Slowly Murdo made his way to a rocky outcrop and sat down, sheltered from the wind. As the dizziness passed off he became aware once more of the terrible cold, and the water still draining through his clothes.

A rattle of stones at the head of the cove made everyone turn. A dark figure was silhouetted against the snowy slope, which he had clearly just descended.

‘Gunner?’ Henry Smith called. ‘Ja.’

Murdo watched the man stumble down the beach on the treacherous boulders. As he approached there was a rapid exchange of words in German.

‘Nein... nein,’ he said.

Whatever the three had been saying, Henry Smith was now very angry. He struggled with his life-jacket but the knots had jammed. Leaving it fastened he thrust a hand beneath and pulled the heavy service revolver from inside his coat. He crossed to where Hector was standing and levelled it at his chest from point blank range, linger on the trigger.

‘I could shoot you,’ he said. His face was very still, his voice tight, as if he was holding himself in control against his inclination. ‘Right now!’ He pushed the muzzle of the revolver into the old man’s ribs. His breathing grew hard. ‘You would make fools of us! Well, two of my men are missing – Dag and Haakon. They might be dead,
You
might have killed them. They might be drowning at this very minute! So, we are going to look for them. You and the boy will come with myself and Bjorn Larvik. We will go that way.’ He nodded in the direction of Strathy Point. ‘But you have had your last chance. You tried, and you failed. Any more trouble –
any
more trouble – and I will shoot the boy.’ He turned to Murdo. ‘Up, on your feet!’ he said roughly.

As they walked the few yards to the shore at the north end of the beach, staring towards the wave-swept rocks and calling, Murdo could not rid his mind of the soft yielding figure with a moon- white face that had bumped against him in the water. It must have been Haakon, Haakon with the big hands and big features, pre- maturely balding. Now a waterlogged corpse. The thought made him sick, but he said nothing.

He turned back to the beach, and looked across the cove at Gunner and Carl Voss clambering over the rocks at the far side. Suddenly, forty yards away, a dark shape rolled sluggishly at the edge of a wave, bumped over the stones on the backwash and vanished among the breakers. He pointed. The others turned and Bjorn Larvik started forward, but by the time he reached the spot the body had gone. Heedless of the waves he waded in, peering about him. He saw nothing and moved along a few yards, the water to his thighs. Suddenly he stopped, then bent, feeling for something at his feet. A wave broke over his head and shoulders. As it retreated a dark heavy shape appeared in Bjorn’s hands. He backed to the shore pulling the body behind him. As he came into the shallows Henry Smith joined him and took a grip on the man’s shoulders and limp hanging arm. A minute later they laid him on the boulders well above the reach of the waves. It was Dag, young laughing Dag, with the red hair. He was quite dead.