Murdo's War (6 page)

So Murdo worked alongside Hector on the
Lobster Boy
, and with little success tried to prompt him into doing something about his neglected croft, where the shed roofs leaked, the tools grew rusty, and rank grass and weeds were only kept at bay by marauding sheep. Soon they were together so much that Murdo started taking his meals there, and gradually settled in until at length he had his own room and kept most of his belongings at the house.

Not surprisingly, his aunt disapproved of the situation, but her remonstrations went unheeded, and after she had written to tell his father about it she said no more. Now Murdo saw her only occasionally.

But Hector’s activities were not confined to lobster fishing and tending his sheep on the hills. Periodically the two would sally out in the dark hours with a twenty yard length of salmon net in the boot of the car; or perhaps, if the time of year and the weather were right, with a couple of sharp knives and a pony, and a rifle slung in the crook of an arm. The following Sunday a dozen cottages in Strathy would be filled with the savour of roast venison. This, however, was the first time Hector had let the boy cross the dangerous Pentland Firth with him to Orkney, to bring back a load of the moonshine whisky.

Murdo stirred, then stood, warming his legs at the glowing peats. His hand found a crumpled, much-read forces letter in his back pocket. He smoothed it, looking at his father’s handwriting, and set it behind a tin on the mantlepiece, then changed his mind and decided to take it upstairs. He yawned, without putting a hand up.

‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

‘Aye, it’s high time,’ said Hector, glancing at the old chiming wag-at-the-wa’. ‘No hurry in the morning, though.’ He mused for a moment. ‘What did you make of yon chap – Smith?’

Murdo shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It all seemed a bit fishy to me
– the caves and that. And that big black car outside the Captain Ivy – it must have been his.’ He poked a corner of peat into the flames with the toe of his stocking. ‘He seemed all right, though. The money should be good.’

Hector nodded, looking across at the youth who already meant so much to him. For a moment he felt a disturbing twinge of uncertainty, but with careless optimism he quickly cast it aside. Murdo was looking down into the flames, his dark face glowing in the firelight.

‘What do you say if we give him a go?’ Hector said. ‘A bit of excitement, eh? Give him a run for his money.’

Murdo looked over, smiling. The old seaman’s blue eyes twinkled like a mischievous boy’s in the lamplight.

‘Good,’ he said.

IT WAS A FUNNY
business. The previous evening Hector and Murdo had kept their appointment with Henry Smith at the Captain Ivy, and the deal was confirmed. To their surprise, they learned that the machinery, along with nine men, had already been sitting out on Island Roan for the best part of a week. Now Mr Smith was waiting for them up at the graveyard, and in two and a half hours they would be out on the island themselves. What would they find?

Still, twenty pounds a trip with a bonus at the end was not to be turned down. Not if you were in Hector’s position. In his mind Murdo had half of it spent already; a better tractor, new roof for the barn, a couple of loads of hay. Perhaps they would be able to get the croft going again, properly this time. Though Hector was promising nothing, his hopes were high. Eight or ten trips, Mr Smith thought. Well, better hope the weather held.

Hector came downstairs, struggling with a safety-pin to hold his braces. As they drove through the deserted scattering of houses and forked left on the track to the graveyard, Murdo pulled off his nailed boots, tucked the thick blue trousers into his socks, and reached for his seaboots.

Henry Smith was waiting for them, his big car parked on the green opposite the graveyard gates. The earth was hard as stone as they walked around the end of the old graveyard wall. Then they were descending the dunes. The world was black and silver: the dry-stane dykes on the headland were sharp-etched above impenetrable cliffs; the beach below shone white as a cornfield. Though all three carried torches, they had no need of them as they dropped to the shore, and passed beneath the high stacks on the smooth carpet of sand.

Murdo led the way, happy in the face of such an adventure. The bitter breeze, slight as it was, froze his face and clouded his breath, but within the layers of clothes he glowed with warmth.

‘Go straight in and when we get there,’ called Hector. ‘Light the lamp.’

Murdo turned from the moonlight into the shadow of the cliffs and switched on his torch. The cave mouth loomed up before him. Six tides had washed the sand since he had sat there on the crate of whisky and heard the cough in the fog; and four since the following evening when four men and two boys had removed the whisky to a safer spot in the shed behind Hector’s cottage.

He paused for a moment and looked back towards the beach. His footprints scarred the sand, sharp-etched with shadow. An idea struck him. He stepped aside to a rock and pretended to pull up one of his socks.

The men passed into the cave ahead of him. As soon as they were gone he stepped back and turned his torch on the two sets of footprints. They were very distinct in the damp sand. Hector’s, like his own, showed the barred imprint of a sea-boot. But Henry Smith’s! Murdo’s heart thudded. He crouched to examine one more closely. It looked exactly the same as those they had followed below the dunes, where the intruder had been walking; the shape of the toe, the curve of the heel, the little drag where it had been put down and lifted. If only he could be sure.

‘Murdo!’ Hector’s voice echoed in the depths of the cave.

‘Coming.’ He rose and scuffed his own tell-tale prints, then shone his torch back along the winding tracks, resolving to tell Hector as soon as he had a chance.

As he pushed through the narrow neck into the inner chamber, Hector was putting a match to the lantern. He settled the mantle and adjusted the flame to a fish-tail of brilliant white.

Murdo knew the cave, the whole beach, like the back of his hand. He clambered to the broad ledge, sat in his usual place and shone the torch about. The shelf was about nine feet above the sand, high enough to ensure that only a northerly storm or a big spring tide with the wind on-shore could reach it. The waves broke their force on the narrow entrance, spurting and heaving impotently through the main body of the cave.

Since the war started, children had been kept away from the beaches, for what looked like a box or a mooring buoy might not be so innocent. More than once a mine had exploded on the rocks with a force that blew in the windows quarter of a mile away; and several times the navy had towed a stranded mine out to sea for detonation. After all, the naval base of Scapa Flow was only thirty miles away across the Pentland Firth.

Murdo was recalled from his day-dream by a light flashing in his face. Hector and Mr Smith were peering over the edge of the shelf.

The Englishman nodded. ‘Yes, it will do very well.’ With surprising agility for a man whose appearance was so sedentary and urban, he climbed up and shone his torch around the shelf. Then from this vantage point he surveyed the whole cave, turning slowly, his torch winkling into corners that the lantern light did not reach.

‘Yes, very good.’ He nodded again and climbed down. ‘And you say no-one will come nosing around.’

Hector was sitting on a boulder. He looked up at Murdo and back to Henry Smith.

‘None of the men in the village,’ he said. ‘Not at this time of year. It’s just the old fogies left, all the young ones are away. And the children don’t come down here much nowadays.’

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘It will do very well. Now for the island.’ A few minutes’ walk along shelving rocks brought them to the
Lobster Boy
, bobbing at her mooring in the black water of the inlet. Their creels, which they had lifted in the morning, formed a dark mound against the crag, well above the reach of any winter storms. The moon cut a glittering track across the wet sand at the edge of the sea, and silvered the boards of the old boat. Hector pulled her over with a rope and they clambered down.

Murdo sat on the side bench and the thick hoar frost crunched beneath his oilskins.

‘She’s going to be cold tonight,’ he said.

‘You’re right there, boy.’ Hector turned to his passenger. ‘You’ve got plenty of clothes on?’ he said.

The Englishman pulled up the fur collar of his splendid coat in reply and showed the thickness of the material. ‘This should keep the cold out well enough,’ he said.

‘Mm.’ Hector was unconvinced and reached into the locker for his ancient oilskins. With long familiarity he stepped into a ragged pair of trousers and tied an equally shabby coat around himself with a length of cord.

‘Well, all ready?’ he said.

A moment’s careful adjustment and the motor shuddered into life, freezing though the night was. For a moment it faltered, another tiny adjustment, and it settled to a fast throb. Clouds of white vapour puttered from the exhaust. ‘Good old girl.’ Hector replaced the engine cowling and patted it. ‘Just give her a minute or two to warm up.’

Hand over hand Murdo pulled the heavy boat through the water until he reached the little buoy to which she was moored. At a word from Hector he cast off and hauled the dripping line aboard, his fingers aching with the cold. As the end flicked in, scattering a shower of drops across his face, Hector slipped the engine into gear and moved the throttle forward. The motor throbbed into low power. Moving from the anchorage they slid slowly through the rocky channel and out into the swelling waters of the bay.

Thirty minutes later they were heading west on the twelve mile haul from Strathy Point to the island. The waves blew on to the starboard beam and they rolled a little in the troughs. The swell was slight, but now the
Lobster Boy
rose and fell as well, a pitching, yawing movement, perfect for making the landsman clutch his stomach and hang his head over the water.

They rarely spoke. Sitting a companionable arm’s length from Murdo, Hector placidly puffed his pipe and occasional wafts of rich smoke came to the boy’s nostrils, mixed with fumes from the exhaust. At the other side of the engine, Mr Smith pulled his collar close and pressed his feet against the metal casing to try to find a little warmth.

As they crossed the western bays the land sank into the sea. The coast was dark, lit only by the stars and the moon on the port bow. Every now and again a pinpoint of light shone out where someone had failed to observe the blackout restrictions.

‘Keep her head out a bit,’ Hector said. ‘You’re heading for
Eilean Neave. See that big crag there, on the right?’ Murdo nodded. ‘Craig Dubh – nasty wave-bounce if there’s a sea running. Coming in this way you want it about half a mile to port. Island Roan’s always further out than you think.’

Murdo swung the boat’s head a point to starboard and lined it up against a star. The dark bulk of Island Roan loomed beneath, a night monster heaving itself infinitely slowly from the sea. He glanced down and checked the compass heading.

‘West by north?’ Hector said.

‘Magnetic?’ Murdo watched the compass card for a few moments. ‘Threequarters north,’ he said with a smile.

Craig Dubh and Eilean Neave drew abeam and fell astern. Murdo re-aligned the boat’s head on the middle of the dark island that slowly climbed up the wall of sky ahead.

As they drew close Hector pointed to what seemed a nick in the battery of sheer cliffs that faced the sea, and a few minutes later they were heading in. Murdo passed the tiller to Hector and leaned forward, throttling back the engine to half revs.

Hector glanced critically at the height of the tide on the barnacled rocks and swung his boat neatly around a patch of tangle and surge at the entrance to the channel. The cliffs drew ever closer, towering above them so that as they reached the gap Murdo had to crane back his neck to see the sky above them. The moon was blotted out and it was dark. The water swelled against the crags with an oily menace. Then they were through and chugging across the moonlit levels of Candle Bay.

It was a small bay, ringed by steep rocky slopes. A little shingle beach lay at the head. Murdo throttled back still further until the boat was barely under way. Small ripples spread from the bow. Hector swung the
Lobster Boy
in a tight circle to starboard and headed straight towards the base of a precipitous spur a little to the left of the bay entrance. When it seemed they must surely strike the crag and damage the boat, a pale glimmer of starlight appeared ahead through a hole in the rock face.

‘Stop the engine,’ Hector said.

Murdo pushed the throttle right back, threw the engine out of gear, and switched off. The sudden silence clapped about their ears: then they heard the musical lap of waves under the bow, the murmur of the sea on the rocks, the complaints of a disturbed sea-bird on the cliffs high above them.

Slowly the boat drifted into a long dark fissure. Using their finger tips, all three guided her through. A minute later they slid out of the other side into a big rock pool protected from the sea by a wilderness of shore rocks. As they reached the middle, Hector dropped the anchor over the side.

‘Fender, Murdo,’ he said.

Murdo slung the two half motor-bike tyres over the side on their ropes, and took up the end of the painter. Gently they bumped. He sprang out on to a surprising concrete jetty built along the rocks.