Murdo's War (32 page)

A few minutes’ descent through the wood, and the three emerged between the grey stone bridges at the shore. A dozen heads swept in their direction. Men shifted, as if glad of the diversion, and watched them with interest.

A man of distinguished appearance was leaning on the parapet of the southern bridge studying a map.

The taller of the two soldiers addressed him as they drew close.

‘Colonel,’ he called.

The man looked up, then turned from his map and regarded with attention the little group that approached him. His cap was in his hand, his silver hair stirred a little in the breeze.

Murdo hurried forward. Anxious to get his tale told, he had eyes for no-one but the Colonel. But something in the attitude of one man, half seen, stopped him dead in his tracks. The blood drained from his cheeks. Spinning round, he found himself staring straight into the face of big Bjorn Larvik. Beside him stood Arne, the half-albino, pink-eyed and alert.

It hit Murdo like an electric shock, and he reeled visibly.

Not five yards away, Henry Smith, dressed in the uniform of a British officer, relaxed and broke into a broad smile. Other men were smiling too. One stepped forward and took him by the arm.

In an instant Murdo burst from him and dashed away across the second bridge – but men were coming towards him from the far side.

He was trapped, completely.

Terrified, like a wild creature facing capture, he sprang on to the parapet of the bridge. The peaty waters leaped from the confines of the arch beneath him in a dizzying torrent that redoubled in turmoil as it poured headlong into the second flood fifty yards below. For an instant he poised there, fierce and wild-eyed, heedless of the revolver hanging at his waist. Then they were upon him. Hands reached out to pluck him back, and he sprang forward. For a moment he fell, then the raging, icy waters twitched him away and closed over his head.

Down towards the sea he swept, tumbling over and over in the savage current. Sharp rocks dashed against his body, the huge muscles of water thrust him now to the very bed of the river, now to the surface. He could do nothing, his struggles were futile. Down and down he tossed and rolled, numb, choking, half-paralysed with the cold. On – and on. Then almost abruptly the waters slackened and levelled as the flood ran into the body of the rising tide. Through glazing eyes Murdo found he was near the bank, and somehow managed to writhe and drag himself half out of the water among the boulders at the river mouth. Then he collapsed.

And there he lay, face downwards in the weed and mud, limp as a sodden sack, as the soldiers came up to him. They looked down, nobody was smiling now. Then bending, Bjorn lifted him in his arms and carried him effortlessly up the shore to the twin bridges. Too weak to struggle, too shocked to protest, Murdo slumped against the man’s shoulder. He was numb, his mouth hung open, his dark eyes were blank with despair. A car door opened, they laid him inside, it slammed shut. And a moment later off they set with him – back, towards Strathy.

IT WAS A FIFTY MILE drive from Ber
riedale to Strathy, for the road had to circle the mountains. But as the clouds rolled back and the sun shone forth on that early February afternoon, Murdo had no eyes for the road he was travelling. Slumped in the back of the car he had given up all hope, and made no effort to pull himself together. The cold water drained from his clothes, gobbets of mud slid down his chest and legs, his mouth was gritty from the river sludge. After all his efforts, all he had endured, in the end they had been too clever for him. Everything had been a waste of time. The thought weighed on him like a leaden blanket. It was too much to bear. His lips trembled, from disappointment and shock as much as the cold, for the car was warm. Periodically his stomach cramped, making him shudder.

Mile followed upon mile. They passed through the fishing village of Helmsdale, and turned inland up the broad deserted straths of Kildonan and Halladale. The car bucked on the bad road, swerving and braking for occasional sheep and snow patches that impeded their progress. From the front seat came the inter- mittent murmur of German voices, but Murdo paid them no heed; everything was swamped, drowned, in the feeling of utter defeat that enveloped him.

Eventually he had to move, however, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was half surprised to discover that he had been sprawled across the knees of Bjorn Larvik, which now were smeared with the same cold mud as himself. The German was dressed in the uniform of a British army sergeant, his own equivalent rank, with three chevrons on his muddy arm. Gingerly Murdo removed a clot from his own jacket, looked for a place to deposit it, then smeared it against his knee.

He indicated the mess on Bjorn’s uniform. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

The big man looked at him, then smiled wryly. Leaning forward he pulled a sergeant’s greatcoat from behind his back.

‘Put this around yourself,’ he said.

Murdo fumbled with the stiff, mud-caked buttons and tugged off his sodden battledress. Then he peeled off his ragged sweater and shirt. At the bridge he had forgotten the revolver, and now the holster was empty. It had slipped around his belt so that he was half sitting on it. He pulled it back to the front where it was more comfortable. Bjorn looked down and regarded it with interest, but said nothing. Murdo did not explain. He pulled the khaki great-coat around his bare shoulders. It was blanket-thick and scratchy, but immediately he felt better. Holding it close with one hand, he pushed the hair from his eyes and rubbed a sleeve over the steamy window.

They were running parallel to the railway line. Already they had passed Kinbrace and the empty lodge, the loch into which he had fallen through the ice, and the spot where he had stood and watched the troop train roar past. Gentle hills rolled up from the valley floor, blotched with snow and sparkling in the winter sunlight. Occasional cataracts foamed in the gullies.

In the front seat of the car sat Henry Smith and the distinguished man whom the soldier had addressed as ‘Colonel’. Clearly he was the officer in charge of the present operation. Henry Smith was driving, but it was the colonel who attracted Murdo’s attention. Among his men on the bridge he had seemed a figure apart, and now there was something about even the back of his neck that displayed authority. He sat easily, like a squire being driven over his estate, as if he had a right to be there. He seemed to be enjoying the drive. Scraps of their fragmentary conversation reached Murdo’s ears, but it was all in German and he could not understand a word.

Bjorn gazed out of the window beside him, broad-chested, great spade-like hands resting in his lap. Murdo’s glance flickered across the side of his good-natured, peasant face. A fading pink scar near his eye bore witness of the deep scratch he had received when the
Lobster Boy
went down. He was a fine man. Since they first met on Island Roan, Murdo had admired him. He seemed more like a friend than one of the enemy. Twice the boy drew breath, on the brink of asking a question, then let it go again, too sick at heart to make the effort.

Realising something of how he felt, after a time Bjorn said, ‘You have led us quite a chase.’

Murdo looked across and half nodded, wrinkling his brow. ‘It didn’t do much good.’

‘But it is remarkable. Did you have no help – apart from the old shepherd at... I forget the name of the place?’

‘Corriebreck. No, only him.’

‘No-one else?’

‘No.’

‘But that was before the blizzard. Where were you then?’

‘In an old house up the river.’

‘For all that time – by yourself. What did you eat?’

Murdo told him about the sheep. There was even a scrap of meat in the pocket of his discarded jacket. He produced it, grey and sodden, and dropped it out of the car window with disgust.

‘And you saw nobody. What about –’ Bjorn’s eyes turned towards the hidden holster at Murdo’s waist.

‘Well, I meant no-one…’ Suddenly Murdo saw that he was being led on to divulge information the Germans did not possess. Angry that he should have been betrayed by feelings of kindness and sympathy, he turned and looked out of the window beside him.

‘I am a German soldier,’ Bjorn said simply. ‘That is all I wanted to know.’

He waited for a minute to let the justice of his words sink in, then said, ‘You have been ill, I can see it in your face. But your eye, where Voss hit you, that is better.’

Still looking out of the window, Murdo put up dirty fingers and probed his yellow cheekbone. Only a faint twinge remained.

‘It’s all right,’ he muttered, then half turned round. ‘That man, Voss, was he at the bridge? Will he be coming up with the others, after?’

‘No. I am afraid he had an accident – on the moors. You have no more to fear from Carl Voss.’

Murdo’s eyes opened wide in an unspoken question.

‘No, don’t ask. He was shot, I will tell you that.’

Murdo remembered the unexplained crack of the rifle he had heard on his flight to Strath Halladale.

‘Somewhere near two high hills and a pass?’

‘I believe so, yes. And Peter is still missing.’

Though they did not know it, the likable young pilot was never to be heard of again. Nor was his body found. Only crows visited his remains in the heathery gully where at length he had crept for shelter from the blizzard and numbing wind. The empty moors keep their secrets well.

For a few moments they were silent, lost in private thought. Then Bjorn said. ‘You will be wondering about your old friend, Mr Gunn.’

Eagerly Murdo looked up.

‘He is all right,’ Bjorn reassured him. ‘A prisoner in the cave. I am afraid Carl Voss hit him rather hard when you escaped, but he came round. He is a tough old man.’

‘He is that.’

‘He is a relative – your uncle perhaps?’

‘No, just a friend of my dad’s – and me now.’

‘Your father, he is in the army?’

‘Aye, a sergeant in the Seaforth’s,’ Murdo said proudly.

Then with genuine interest Bjorn asked about all the members of his family, and produced a wallet to show Murdo a few well- thumbed photographs of his pretty wife and two young children.

They were passing along a particularly desolate stretch of road when the Colonel glanced at his watch and Henry Smith pulled into a passing place beneath a bank of heather. As he switched off the engine a soft roar of water rose on the moorland air. He walked back to the boot and a moment later appeared carrying a coiled up aerial and grey steel radio, similar to the one Murdo had seen in the schoolroom on Island Roan. Soon it was set up on a rock a dozen feet away and he ran the aerial to the car. The Colonel joined him, leaning with casual elegance against the bonnet and smoking a cigarette. Bjorn returned the wallet to his breast pocket and turned down the window. As Henry Smith tuned in Murdo heard the hissing crackle of the set and passing scraps of other programmes. At last he found the station he was seeking and stood back as the last bars of ‘Workers’ Playtime’ rang cheerfully across the glen. They were followed by the weather forecast and programme news, then the chimes of Big Ben. The Colonel checked his watch as the last notes faded, to be followed by the single reverberating stroke of one o’clock.

In that lonely setting the familiar sound – a symbol of British character and resistance during the dark days of the war, and heard by Murdo almost every morning and evening of his life – seemed strange and unreal. So did the well-known voice of the announcer.

‘This is the BBC
Home Service. Here is the one o’clock news for today, Friday the fifth of February, 1943, read by Alvar Liddell.

‘News now coming in suggests that the build-up of German troops along the Channel coasts of France and Belgium is nearly complete.
raf
reconnaissance aircraft report that roads inland, which for the past week have been heavy with infantry, artillery, armoured cars and tanks, are more quiet. It is estimated that the invasion force presently assembled along the hundred mile stretch of coast between Dieppe and Ostende numbers 200,000 men, supported by flotillas of ships, landing craft and other vessels. More than 2,500 bombers and fighter aircraft of the Luftwaffe are believed to have assembled on airfields within a hundred miles of the coast.

‘British troops throughout the country have been withdrawn from their camps and drafted to the Kent and Sussex coasts to resist the threatened invasion.

‘In a speech from his underground headquarters in London last night, the Prime Minister warned of the very real threat posed by the German build-up, and counselled families throughout the land to prepare their weapons of defence. For the details of his speech I hand you over to Nicholas Abbot...’

Henry Smith raised his eyebrows and glanced towards the Colonel, who did not respond. At Murdo’s side Bjorn Larvik was very still. Their expressions were sombre as they continued listening to the news, inwardly considering its implications and visualizing all too vividly the struggle and bloodshed that lay ahead. The invasion of Britain now seemed inevitable, either from within or without. It only remained for the guerilla groups to trigger it off by supplying the German prisoners – at that moment working on the farms and roads of Britain – with rifles, ammunition and explosives. Then they would storm the armouries, and in a matter of hours an army of tens of thousands would be unleashed within the heart of the country. Swift strikes, as Henry Smith had foretold, at the radio stations and telephone exchanges, key bridges and roads, and in little more than a day the country and its defences would be brought to a standstill. Chaos would reign. While across the Channel, like a pack of wolves, the might of the German army was gathered ready to attack.