by Susan King
And then she knew the source of her unease.
* * *
Gauntleted hands careful on the curving slope of the rock, Dougal followed its contours. The water was neither as clear nor as still as he liked for the task, but he could see well enough to judge the dimension of the flaw.
Evan pointed to a particular area, and Dougal made his way there, his steps clumsy, a strange slow dance to the click and cadence of the air that rushed in and out of his helmet valves.
Nearby, the two platforms that had lowered the divers banged rhythmically against the side of the rocky underwater hill. Higher on the incline, the single dressed stone that had tumbled into the sea was trussed with heavy ropes, ready to be craned back to the surface. Seeing that, Dougal realized and appreciated how much work his crew had done in his absence.
Turning back to check the rock face, he soon saw the long black fissure. It split the rock from well above his head to the ocean floor, which varied in depth here, rolling like the hilly land above the water.
He walked up the slope with Evan, so that he stood not far beneath the surface. He could easily see the dark mass of the rock rising above the water, could see a boat or two on the surface while waves rushed overhead. The water was flowing much faster, he noticed. They could not stay down long.
From the canvas bag at his belt, he removed a measuring tape made of oiled cloth and stretched it over the crevice. Floating there, tugged by the underwater currents even in his heavy weighted suit, he managed to estimate the length of the crack, moving hand over hand along the rock. Reaching his arm deep into the fissure, he realized it was nearly as long as his arm. A few small fish drifted out of the crevice, and he waved them away.
Making his way toward Evan, he caught his attention with gestures. Floating, sinking, Mackenzie measured the rock with Dougal, then signaled that they should go up to the surface.
Dougal returned a wave. He had seen what he needed to see down here. The split in the rock was large enough to be of some concern, particularly considering the weight of the gigantic tower that would be erected on its surface.
"Dougal." Alan Clarke's voice came through the speaking tube, surprisingly clear through yards of tubing.
"Aye," Dougal answered. "All is well down here. Up there?"
"A storm is brewing in the west. It will not reach us for an hour or more, Norrie says, but the wind and waves are strong. Come up. We are preparing to return to Caransay."
In the few minutes that he and Evan had been underwater, the water had grown murky as light faded above the surface, and the water currents had become strong and noticeably colder.
"Aye, Alan," he answered. "We'll come up."
Dougal pointed upward, and Mackenzie motioned that he understood. They walked slowly toward the wooden platforms suspended on ropes and hovering nearby. Dougal stepped onto the wooden deck, tugged three times on one of the ropes to indicate his readiness, and held on.
Within a minute or so, he felt the platform being drawn upward through the water. Holding on to the ropes, he glanced down to see Evan stepping onto the second platform.
A strong wave washed through like a train, smashing Dougal's platform against the broad side of the sea rock, knocking so hard that he was nearly thrown from the wooden planks. He held on, bending his knees to keep his balance. Reaching out with one foot, he shoved the platform away from the rock, where it had wedged and slowly felt it rise again.
The crew who craned his platform upward, and Evan's as well, halted the divers' ascent often as a precaution. Feeling the deck stop again, Dougal clung to the ropes and took slow breaths, giving his lungs time to adapt. With a lurch, the platform began to move again.
Another wave cracked the planking against the rock. This time the impact spun him outward, and his boots slid off the wooden deck.
Scrabbling up the rocky slope, breathing as carefully as he could, he snatched the rope of the platform again and tried to step onto the shifting deck. Seeing Evan ascend slowly past him, Dougal gave him a reassuring gesture to show that all was well.
Well enough, he told himself, if he could get back on the platform. Propped precariously against the steep incline of the hillside, with a wealth of water sweeping around it, the deck bucked like a horse. Moments later, Dougal managed to climb on and tug at the rope again, signaling to be lifted upward.
A horrible sound grew to a loud rumble, and the world shuddered all around him. He glanced up to see the trussed granite block break loose from its moorings and begin to slide down the rocky slope. Dougal swung his weight to yank the platform out of the way, but as the stone grazed past, it caught the platform ropes and ripped the deck away from him.
Four tons of granite scraped to a halt, bumping past Dougal's shoulder and knee in a near miss. Silt and debris clouded the water to midnight darkness, and Dougal could feel the barrier of the immense stone just in front of him. The monster had missed him by inches. Breathing a sigh of shaky relief, he pushed upward to float past it.
But he could not move. His lead boot was caught by its thick toe ridge just under the corner of the granite block.
Chapter 23
The wind grew stronger, blowing Meg's cape, flapping the ribbons of her bonnet. The western sky condensed and thickened into a dark, boiling mass.
"That storm will blow over this way before nightfall, I am thinking," Norrie said, standing beside her.
She nodded, unable to shake her deep sense of fear. "Oh, thank God, they're coming up now," she said, seeing the commotion at the rim of the cliffside, where the diving platforms had been lowered. With Norrie, she ran to the iron railing embedded near the edge and looked down.
A diver burst out of the water, clinging to his platform ropes, and the men hauled him upward. The man gestured insistently as Alan and others unscrewed the bolts that secured his helmet to the wide brass collar that covered his shoulders.
Meg saw Evan's head emerge, saw him gasp in a breath. "Dougal," he said. "He's caught! The block broke loose."
"Oh God!" Meg rushed forward. "Is he hurt?"
"I don't know yet," Evan replied, shaking his head.
Alan ran to the speaking tube and set the funnel to his mouth. "Dougal! Are you there!" He pressed it to his ear for a reply, then nodded, waving to the others to show that he heard something. "His foot is caught, he says," Alan told them. "He's not harmed, but he cannot get free."
"What of his hoses?" Evan snapped.
"Open and fine so far, though pressed between the incline and the stone block," Alan replied, after asking.
Mackenzie grabbed his helmet from the man who held it. "I'm going back down."
"If you do that, man, you risk your own life," Alan said. "Your lungs cannot take the up and down of the pressures. Let someone else go down."
"Who else is there to do it?" Evan growled. "No one else is trained to use this equipment but Dougal, me, and you, Alan. And—well, you've got a dread of the water."
Alan frowned. "I'll go doon the deep if it's needed."
"Good man," Evan said. "But I'm suited up." He put the helmet back on, gesturing for the crew men to screw it into place. Within seconds, he was ready and waiting on the platform, which was quickly lowered back into the water.
Alan called orders to those manning the air pumps and hose cranks. "Give Dougal as much slack as you can, and keep the airflow steady," he reminded them. "Aye, that's it." He spoke into the funnel, then listened to Dougal's answer.
Meg paced, watching while the platform surged down into the water. She whirled, skirt billowing, and came face-to-face with Sir Frederick, who grabbed her hard at the elbow.
"What do you want?" she snapped. "Let me go."
"Come away from the edge," he said. "It isn't safe."
"Leave me be!" She broke loose and began pacing again.
"I want to help," he said.
"That seems hard to believe. Just stay back and let them do what must be done."
"I am not so heartless as you thin
k," Frederick said. "I was wrong. I was desperate, loving you. I may have acted poorly—"
"Poorly!" She laughed bitterly.
"Madam, I regret my behavior. I thought ill of Stewart, but now he's in great difficulty. Let me help."
She stared at him in mistrust. Norrie joined them, and stood staring equally at Frederick, who looked uncomfortable.
"If you've had a change of heart," Norrie said, "go help with the cranks and the pulleys—and leave Meg be."
Frederick turned away with a brisk nod, and took off his coat, quickly offering to lend a hand on the crank arm of one of the giant spools that held the hoses and ropes. Norrie turned away to help the men who were guiding the ropes and hoses that spilled over the side of the rock into the water.
Noticing that Alan was still speaking to Dougal through the funnel and hose, Meg ran to him. "Please, let me talk to him," she said, and Alan handed her the funnel.
She held the metal cone to her mouth. "Dougal," she said. "Dougal!" Then she moved the cup to her ear for the reply.
"Meg?" His voice sounded strange, tinny, so far away. The funnel smelled of the rubber hosing.
"Dougal!" she gasped, and Alan set a cautioning hand on her shoulder. She drew a breath and calmed herself. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine. My boot is caught. Evan is here. We will work it free, my love."
"My love," she echoed. "I'm here. I'm waiting." She handed the speaking tube back to Alan and stood by while he spoke with Dougal about what was next to do with the ropes and the great steel crane, which the men were now wheeling into place to help haul the stone away and free Dougal.
The wind tore over the rock, whipping at her skirts and cape. Meg set a hand on her bonnet and braced her other arm over her chest, looking west, seeing where the sky roiled, gray and foreboding. Far out to sea, the breakers rose, white with froth, peaking and rushing toward the reef. Droplets of rain spattered her, cold and stinging.
She remembered, suddenly, vividly, standing on top of this very rock in another lashing storm. Dougal had been with her then, his body and his courage shielding her.
Alan spoke into the funnel again and looked toward the crews who worked furiously on the machinery, ropes, and hoses behind him. "We need more hands on the ropes to help Evan haul that stone off of Dougal!" Men moved around quickly, intensifying the effort above the water.
Meg turned to Alan. "How can they move that stone at all down there? I don't understand. Can we not just lift it up using the ropes and cranes?"
"It's not so easy," he said grimly. "The stone has to be trussed with ropes to lift it. But Evan and Dougal can shift it just enough to free Dougal's foot."
"But it weighs tons!"
"On land," he said. "Down there 'tis different, the weight of things is lighter. The stone can be shifted by two men." He stripped off his coat as he spoke and unbuttoned his vest. "I beg your pardon, Miss MacNeill—er, Lady Strathlin, but I'm going down there to help." He pulled off his boots and tossed them aside, so that he stood in shirtsleeves and stockinged feet. His thick ash-blond hair ruffled in the wind, and his linen shirt blew flat against his broad chest and heavily muscled arms.
"But Alan," she said, "you are... bothered by the water."
"My friend is in danger and I canna stay up here a moment longer," he said firmly, and turned to inform the men that he was diving in to help. "Dougal is but forty or fifty feet down!"
"You have no gear," Meg said.
"A man can go down that far without gear, just holding his breath—but he canna stay down for long. I'll do what I can, then come up for a breath." He handed the funnel to Meg. "Talk to him. Let him hear your voice. And pray for us, lass. It is a grim thing, this, and I will not lie to you." He turned away.
Pausing on the cliff edge, beaten by winds and dappled by the rains, Alan then dove cleanly over the side. Meg watched him cut through the water.
"Dougal," she said into the funnel, "Alan is coming down."
"What the devil!" Dougal replied.
"He says he can help you push the stone," she told him.
"Aye," Dougal replied. Then there was silence.
"Dougal?"
"Meg—air..."
"Dougal!"
Silence. Meg caught her breath, then looked down over the side. Bubbles rose where the various hoses and ropes entered the water, and she saw shadows moving far below. The surface of the water was increasingly agitated. "Dougal?"
She turned, saw Frederick and the other men busy on the cranks and pulleys and hoses, saw Fergus with Iain close at his side, watching from a distance, saw Norrie hurrying toward her.
"He's not answering me," she said. Norrie took the funnel.
"Dougal Stewart!" he called. "Dougal!"
Meg looked down at the greenish, slopping surface of the water, roiling with peaks and waves. He had to live—had to. She could not bear to stand on the rock and wait, listening, watching, hoping, while he was so far below, in trouble.
She could not live without him now.
She wanted to do what Alan had done, tear off her clothing and dive down there too. Dougal had saved Iain and so many others. He had saved her, too, over and over, from the first moment she had met him—saved her, body and soul.
Tearing off her bonnet, she set it aside, hardly caring when it skittered over the edge into the water. She was already working the buttons of her cape and bending to undo the loops and buttons that fastened her ankle boots.
"What are you doing?" Norrie asked. He lifted the funnel again. "Dougal Stewart, answer me!" he called.
Below, Alan burst out of the water, gasping, treading in the waves. "The hoses!" he called. "Dougal's hoses are caught! I need a lever to move the stone!" One of the men climbed downward and extended a long iron rod. Alan snatched it, then dove down againt.
Meg lifted her skirts and reached beneath to undo the tapes of her petticoats. Without a crinoline, four petticoats provided fashionable fullness, and she wished desperately that she had worn the simple garments common to Isleswomen. She tore at the buttons of her blouse.
"What in blazes are you doing?" Frederick called, his hands busy on a cranking handle. "Here, you cannot do that, madam!"
She ignored him, slipping out of her blouse, dropping her skirt to stand in chemise and knickers. "Get this thing off me," she said to Norrie, yanking at the laces of her stays.
"Madam!" Frederick said. Some of the other men protested.
"Turn away," she said over her shoulder as her grandfather gave the corset cords a yank, "though I'm sure you've all seen a lady in her knickers. The men are needed on the equipment. There is no one else to spare. Fergus, keep Iain with you, or he'll fall in," she called, as Fergus ran toward her with Iain chasing behind him.
She had to do this. She could not bear to watch this any longer, knowing that she could help as well as any of the men, and better than some, with her smaller frame and nimble hands and her ability to swim and dive. Not all the men could help, she knew. Fergus, for all his fishing skills, did not swim well.
"Lady Strathlin!" one of the commissioners in black called.
"I'm going in," she insisted, while the men stared at her in dumbfounded shock. She walked to the edge of the cliff.
"Dougal Stewart," Norrie said into the funnel, "your lass is coming down there after you. Go find your kelpie, girl," he added to her.
The wind bit cold and cruel through the thin cotton layers of her garments. She stood in the open, looked down at the water below, bent her knees and poised her hands.
* * *
Eerie and murky, the strange watery world around him grew chilly and dim. He shivered, felt the deep cold entering his bones. The rubber suit, normally inflated with air to add buoyancy and warmth, had torn along the sleeve and now filled with water, growing heavy and exposing him to the cold brunt of the water. The valves in his helmet clicked and whooshed, the reassuring sound of air—and life—but the air seemed odd, thin, and he could not fill his lungs.
; Nor did he have strength left to shove. Evan pushed beside him, and Alan Clarke had appeared not long ago to lend his power to the effort, setting his bullish shoulder to the block. Now they repeated the attempt, and he heard the scrape of the stone on the underwater hillside, felt his lead boot give way. He pulled it back, motioning sluggishly to show that it was free.
But he could not escape to the surface. Shifting the block from his foot had trapped his hoses, compressing the flow of air into his helmet. And the world was growing dimmer.
Alan surged upward for fresh air, came down again, carrying a long iron rod used for levering stones into place. He set its narrow tip against the base of the stone and directed Evan and Dougal to push again.
A strange buzzing began in his ears as he pushed. He tried to fill his lungs but could not. The airflow had diminished so much due to the compressed hose that he was in serious jeopardy now.
The stone shifted a little, and a burst of fresh air came through. Dougal gasped it in, exhaled, heard the clicking valves. The stone shifted again, and the air valves quieted ominously.
He had to get free, had to, or die here, at the base of the reef where his parents had died so long ago. He had faced risks, stared down enough danger in his life to realize that sooner or later the wheel of fortune would spin away and he would lose.
But he had far too much to live for now. The woman he adored, who held his heart in her keeping, waited for him on the sea rock. Their son waited with her.
He could not leave them. Gasping for breath, the air stale and still, he gestured to the others—he was suffocating. There had to be some way—he would not die here like this.
He looked up,where the water swirled fast, heavy, the sea an obscure and dusky green. His lungs were burning.
Alan burst away and surged upward. Dougal pressed his strength into the unyielding stone. The dimness in his head alarmed him. He clutched at the valves, ready to tear out the hoses, tore at the bolts in the helmet.
The stone shifted again and a trickle of air came in, enough for him to breathe, enough to clear his head for a moment. Alan came back, and the men shoved once more at the granite block.