The Hill of the Red Fox

by Allan Campbell McLean

  I opened the door cautiously, trying to breathe steadily, and shut it carefully behind me. I leaned against it feeling sick and dizzy. No sound came from the house. I peeled off my coat and hung it on the nail, and tiptoed across the lobby to my room.

  There was still no sound as I flung off my clothes and crawled into bed. Oh, the blessed ease and comfort of those rough, grey blankets and that hard chaff mattress! I closed my eyes, listening to the wild hammering of my heart. The burning pain in my side eased to a dull ache.

  How long I lay there before I heard the scrape of the door opening, I don’t know. Perhaps it was no more than a few minutes.

  Murdo Beaton’s voice called, “Have you been out, boy?”

  Like a fool I cried, “No,” and I had no sooner spoken than I could have bitten off my tongue.

  It was almost three o’clock. What would he think, when he heard me answer him readily at a time when I should have been asleep for hours?

  I heard the spurt of a lighted match and then — it seemed hours later — footsteps moving across the lobby to the kitchen.

  I thought of my raincoat hanging in the lobby, dripping wet and plastered with mud and slime, and I was sick with the knowledge of my own folly.

  Chapter 14

  I dreaded meeting Murdo Beaton for I could not think of a reasonable excuse to account for the mudstains on my coat, and I was sure he would question me. I was glad it was Sunday. Mairi had told me that they all stayed in bed until after midday on the Sabbath and I had the whole morning in which to concoct a tale. I racked my brains, but no matter how hard I tried I could not think of an excuse likely to deceive him.

  It was nearly one o’clock when I plucked up courage to creep into the kitchen. Murdo Beaton was sitting on a chair in the far corner of the room with the big family Bible resting on his knees. Mairi was preparing the breakfast things. He glanced up as I came into the kitchen, and I fought down a sudden desire to turn tail and run and walked self-consciously to the bench and sat down.

  I steeled myself for the expected onslaught, but it never came. The silence was worse than all my imaginings, and I found myself wishing he would speak so that I could get it over and done with. I shot him a quick, sideways glance and saw that he was immersed in the Bible. His eyes were intent on the printed page, and his lips moved soundlessly.

  Mairi took a tray in to the cailleach, and when she came back he shut the Bible and we sat in to breakfast.

  The grace was even longer than usual, but apart from that it was like any other breakfast. If he was suspicious of me, he did not show it, and he even unbent so far as to remark on the fine weather, which was something I had never before heard from him.

  After breakfast, he went out and brought home the cows himself and milked them. I went down to the byre to see if there were any eggs, and when I came back Mairi had changed into her Sunday best. When I saw Murdo Beaton again he was wearing a blue serge suit and a stiff white collar.

  I wondered if he would take me to church with Mairi, and as if reading my thoughts, he said, “You had best stay at home, boy. The service is in Gaelic.” At the door, he turned, and added, “No playing outside, mind. Remember this is the Sabbath Day.”

  In the evening they went to another church service — the meeting, as he called it. When they got back, and had changed into their working clothes, Mairi went out to fetch home the cows for milking. I sat sullenly on the bench, determined to endure the silence of the kitchen, rather than ask him for permission to go.

  He looked across at me, and said, “You had best go with her, boy. It is not good to be staying indoors all day.”

  I was surprised by his consideration, and stammered my thanks and raced after Mairi.

  I caught up with her just past the dyke, and she glanced round in surprise.

  “Does he know you are here?” she said.

  “He told me to come with you,” I replied, feeling suddenly alive again after the long, dull day indoors.

  “Well, well,” was all she said, and I could understand her surprise.

  She giggled suddenly, and said in a whisper, “Where did you go last night?”

  “What do you mean?” I countered, trying to hide my confusion.

  “You went out after my father,” she said. “I heard you.”

  I did not know what to say, and I stammered stupidly, “Did your hear your father go out?”

  She nodded. “And I heard you, too.”

  “Well, I went to see what he was doing,” I said defensively.

  I expected her to be angry with me, or to show some surprise, but I never believed she would laugh.

  When she had finished laughing, she said, “I could have told you, if only you had asked me.”

  I stopped and faced her, and echoed incredulously, “You could have told me?”

  There was a tiny streamlet trickling through the moor at our feet, and she did a little skip and hopped over it, and turned and looked at me.

  “Yes, I could have told you,” she said. “He went down to the salmon fishing station, didn’t he?”

  My heart gave a sickening leap, and I might have blurted out the whole story there and then if I had not been so dazed.

  All I said was, “How do you know?”

  “Och, I heard him twice before, going out late on a Saturday night,” she said, carelessly. “The second time it happened I was a wee bit frightened, so I ran after him and asked him where he was going. He said a wind was springing up, and he would need to take in the coble because the salmon fishermen would not be out until Monday morning.”

  “Oh, I see,” I said slowly.

  So there had been other Saturday nights when Murdo Beaton had rowed out into the darkness of the Sound! I had wondered how Duncan Mòr had suddenly appeared on the scene and now I knew why. He had known all along that the midnight meeting would take place at the salmon fishing station, and he had gone straight to the gorge knowing that Murdo Beaton would be there.

  I remembered how Murdo Beaton had urged me to accompany Mairi, and I wondered if he had coached her to tell me this tale. For all he knew, I might not have succeeded in following him to the gorge, and her story might be intended to lull my suspicions. I glanced sharply at her. She was humming a snatch of song, and her dark eyes looked straight into mine, and I was sure there was no deceit in her smile.

  “Race you to Cnoc an t-Sithein,” I cried, and we ran madly shoulder to shoulder and collapsed in a laughing heap at the foot of the green mound.

  I was glad when Monday came, and I was free to go to see Duncan Mòr. I stood in the doorway of the cottage, looking around. Murdo Beaton was working well down the croft hoeing the potatoes, and Mairi had gone to feed the hens. I was about to race up the croft when I remembered that Duncan Mòr wanted to see the mysterious message.

  I hurried into my room and took my wallet from my jacket and thrust it into my trouser-pocket. Nobody saw me, as I left the house and ran up the croft to the dyke.

  Duncan Mòr was sitting on the river bank with a flat red tin by his side. It was filled with fishing hooks.

  I sat down beside him, and said, “What are you doing?”

  He glanced up, as if I had been with him all the time, and said, “Just sorting out a few flies.”

  The hooks did not seem big enough to hold a fish, and I said so.

  “Wait you,” he laughed, holding a tiny hook between his thumb and forefinger, “the same fellow will land you a fine brown trout. Peter Ross never failed me yet.”

  “Who is Peter Ross?” I asked curiously.

  “Yon’s Peter Ross,” he answered, stroking the teal wing of the fly on the hook. “A fancy name to be sure, but there are fancier ones than him.” He picked up the tin and shook it. “Why, there is Teal and Silver and Black Spider and Grenwell’s Glory and Royal Coachman, and this black lad here with the red tail is known as Bloody Butcher.”

  He snapped the lid shut, and I saw that the laughter had gone from his eyes.

  “Let�
�s be seeing your message,” he said quietly.

  I took out my wallet, surprised to find that my hands were trembling. I had folded the message into a small square, and hidden it inside a book of stamps, and thrust the stamp book back into the back of the wallet. At first I could not find it, and I had a sudden fear that I had lost it, but it was only hidden behind my mother’s letter. I took out the stamp book and shook it open, but nothing dropped out. I turned over each page, but the folded slip of paper was not to be seen. In desperation, I emptied my wallet, scattering the contents on the grass, but the message had vanished.

  “I doubt the Red Fellow was there before you,” said Duncan Mòr slowly, “unless it dropped out of your wallet.”

  “But it couldn’t have,” I protested. “It was folded up inside that book of stamps and I haven’t taken my wallet out of the house since I came to Achmore.”

  “Ach, well, you know well enough what was written on it,” he said quickly, seeing my crestfallen face.

  “Indeed, I do,” I cried. “I can see it before me now, just exactly as it was written.”

  Duncan Mòr’s grey eyes looked at me reflectively.

  “Would that be what the lawyers would call a considered statement?” he asked.

  I thought for a moment that he was teasing me, but his face was serious.

  “I mean, can you really remember how it was written?” he went on.

  “I’m sure I can,” I said eagerly. “I read it hundreds of times and I know just how it was written.”

  Duncan Mòr handed me a crumpled notebook and a pencil.

  “On you go,” he urged. “Take your time and write it down.”

  I held the notebook on my knee, and wrote carefully in block capital letters, “HUNT AT THE HILL OF THE RED FOX MI5.”

  Duncan Mòr watched me, and when I had finished he said quickly, “Are you sure the MI5 was written like that: a capital M and a single stroke and a figure five?”

  “Certain,” I said, puzzled.

  I could not understand what he was driving at, and his next words did not make it any clearer.

  “Then how d’you know it was meant to be a one?” he demanded.

  “What else could it have been?” I retorted.

  “It might well have been an I,” he said thoughtfully. “Well yes, it might have been MI5.”

  “MI5?” I echoed. “But it doesn’t make sense.”

  Duncan Mòr regarded me gravely.

  “Oh, there is sense in it, right enough,” he said. “It could be a sort of signature, did you but know what signature to look for. You see, Alasdair, there is a special branch of the Military Intelligence at the War Office whose job it is to keep an eye on all the enemies of this country.”

  “You mean spies?” I interjected.

  “Aye, spies, and maybe others who are more dangerous than spies,” he said slowly. “Well, then, this special branch of the War Office works very much on the quiet. People don’t talk about it, and even if a man’s best friend were an agent he would never tell him so. All that folk know about it is that it is called MI5.”

  “Then you mean the man with the scar may have been a secret service agent of ours?” I gasped.

  “I mean just that,” he said deliberately, “and I would lay all the tea in China to a plate o’ salt herring an’ tatties that I am right.”

  I jumped to my feet.

  “Then we must go to the police,” I cried.

  Duncan Mòr sighed.

  “The polis, is it?” he said. “Right you are, a bhalaich, we go to the polis. We tell them the man with the scar gave you a message. Good enough. The polis — mind you, they are an awful suspicious crowd — the polis ask to see the message.” He spread out his hands. “We haven’t got it.”

  “Yes, but I can remember it,” I said hotly. “Every single word.”

  “Aye, but it is evidence the polis are after,” he countered. “Where’s your evidence, Alasdair?”

  “I saw the man with the scar jump off the train,” I cried, “and I saw the other man pull the communication cord and go after him.”

  “Aye, you saw him jump off the train,” agreed Duncan Mòr, “but who else saw him?”

  “Nobody else saw him,” I said. “But several people saw the other man jump out. I heard them talking to the guard.”

  “But you were the only one to see the man with the scar jump off,” insisted Duncan Mòr. “I can imagine fine what the polis would say. They would say you talk about a message you can’t produce and a man, that nobody else saw, jumping off a train.”

  “But you were with me on the cliff,” I protested. “We both saw Murdo Beaton take two men out in the coble, and only one of them came back with him.”

  “Right enough, Alasdair,” he agreed, “so the polis ask Murdo Beaton and he denies that he was out on Saturday night. Well then, it is the Red Fellow’s word against ours, so the polis decide to investigate. They are great lads at investigating, the polis. They go to the big man in the district to find out about us. They go to Major Cassell. Now, the Red Fellow has done many a job for the Major; sometimes he goes with a party from the Lodge as their ghillie. Good enough. So the Major tells the polis that Murdo Ruadh is a fine, upstanding man, but that Duncan Mòr MacDonald has the name of being a black rogue of a poacher. No, no, a bhalaich, it won’t do. We must bide a while on our own until we are better fixed.”

  “I see that,” I admitted glumly, sitting down again. “But if only we knew what it was all about. What happened to the man in the boat, and who was the other man with Murdo Beaton, and what has the Hill of the Red Fox got to do with it?”

  Duncan Mòr rose to his feet, and I noticed how swiftly and easily he moved for a man of his size.

  “You are the boy for the questions, Alasdair Beag,” he said, smiling. “But I am thinking it is safer not to know the answers to some o’ them.”

  “But we’ve just got to find the answers,” I said.

  “We will find them, never fear,” he assured me, “but see how fine and clear the hills are looking, and just a wee blow of wind from the sou’east. On your feet, a bhalaich, and we will see if Peter Ross will be after lifting you a fine brown trout from the loch.”

  Duncan Mòr took me up into the foothills to lonely Loch Liuravay. We tramped along a track by the river, until the river swung away to the south, then cut across rough country with the heather chest high in places. I had not realized how high we had climbed until I looked back and saw the whole of the Mealt valley spread out before me. I could see the five white houses at Achmore, and the green crofts of Maligar and Marishadder, and the blue peaks of the Quiraing.

  Loch Liuravay lay at the foot of the Hill of the Red Fox, and I gazed up at the towering peak, and told Duncan Mòr we should be searching it instead of wasting our time fishing.

  But he only laughed, and said, “Time enough for that, Alasdair, when you have the spring o’ the heather in your legs, and you can stride the hill wi’ the best o’ them. If I am spared and well, I will be after putting legs on you fit to tackle Sgurr a’ Mhadaidh Ruaidh.”

  Duncan Mòr laid down his split cane rod and fitted a cast with three flies to his line. I looked across the still, silent waters of the loch, and I felt sure that no man-made ripple had ever broken its dark surface. The hill rose sheer out of the water, casting a shadow over the loch, and there was an eerie silence about the place. If only the silent loch could speak and tell us the secret of the Hill of the Red Fox. I looked up at the black forbidding face of the hill, and shivered. One man had died already trying to find that secret.

  Duncan Mòr started at the south end of the loch and worked his way north. I admired the deft way he made his cast, so that the fly alighted gently on the water, making no more than a faint ripple. The fish were not rising and he had covered half the loch before I saw him land a speckled brown trout. Two more rose to the fly in quick succession, but he had worked his way to the north end before he hooked another one.

  He laid his
rod aside and slipped the fish into a small canvas bag.

  “Well, Peter Ross didn’t do so badly, eh?” he said. “It is a fine meal of fresh trout for you and me when we reach the house.”

  We sat down in the heather and he lit his pipe and puffed at it contentedly. I stretched out in the heather with my hands clasped behind my head, gazing up at the towering peak of Sgurr a’ Mhadaidh Ruaidh. How I longed to be able to climb that dark peak — treasure or no treasure — and gaze out across the Minch to the blue hills of the Outer Isles. If only Duncan Mòr would lead me to the summit. It never even occurred to me, at that time, that I might climb the Hill of the Red Fox alone.

  I rolled over on my side, and said suddenly, “How do you suppose people can work in offices all day long when … when …”

  “When they could be lying in the heather wi’ a few fresh trout in their bag?” laughed Duncan Mòr. “Aye, it is strange, right enough, but it is a strange, strange world, a bhalaich. See you, it is the fellows in the black jackets and the striped pants that make the big noise in this world. Myself now, I could shout my big head off, but who would take any notice of me — a poor loon of a crofter?

  “Oh, I can hook a trout, right enough,” he hastened to add, seeing that I was about to speak, and guessing what was in my mind, “and plough a fair furrow, and build a stack and shear a sheep, and the work of the hands is good work, but it counts for little in the eyes of the world. The Lord Himself was born in a byre, but you will never see the great ones of the world with dung on their boots.”

  He looked down at me, and went on slowly, “This may seem a good enough life to you, Alasdair, but if ye’re wanting to make a big noise in the world it is the striped pants you’ll be needing.”

  I saw his keen grey eyes flicker past my face to the hills above, and he bent forward and knocked out his pipe on the heel of his boot, and said quietly, “Don’t look surprised, but maybe we are more important than I think. Take your time about it, but glance over at that hill beyond the end o’ the loch.”