Light At The End | Book 2 | Light To Dark

by Benson, Tom

  “How is it looking?”

  “It’s a Mark 4, Bill.”

  He laughed at her upbeat tone after the disappointment of their first installation. “I hope that’s a good thing—you’re away ahead of me with these. I need the diagrams and numbered instructions.”

  Cherry turned and smiled. “This is a digital and manual hybrid. The most delicate circuits are encased in a titanium casing and are protected by multiple trip-switches.”

  “Of course, they are,” Bill murmured, “and in English that means ….”

  She laughed. “Unless there is a direct hit on this little building, it will survive a lot of punishment. Combined with that, all the main wiring feeds are within protected underground cabling.”

  “I can tell by the sparkle in your eyes that you’re excited or you’ve already plugged yourself in—how long will you need to check it over?”

  “It might take about twenty minutes to do the preliminaries before we think about the power supply.”

  Bill handed over his flashlight. “Check it over but don’t switch on yet. I’ll go up and make sure our friends and the signal box are safe. I’ll be back shortly.”

  Jay-Dee waited until Bill was within a short distance. “A lot of the barbed wire around the steps was rusted, so it was easy for us to get rid of it. We haven’t gone upstairs yet.”

  “Thanks, guys.” Bill gave Victoria and Jay-Dee a rapid briefing on what Cherry had said before he ascended the ladder up to the antiquated signal box. The trapdoor needed only a firm push, and it gave way.

  Bill stood for a moment, looking around at the basic layout. A window ledge ran around the front and two sides. The exception was that the front had an electrical connection to its console of buttons and rocker switches.

  The back wall which had no windows was covered up to halfway by a long cupboard and on the wall were two framed pictures. One showed a view of the signal box with a long steam locomotive coming along the track. The other picture was an interior shot which showed the long-handled, manual signal switching levers which would at one time have been fitted along under the front window. The area was now covered with the more modern switching console. Marks had been etched onto a large metal plate on the floor by an enthusiast. The etchings showed which levers would have been there.

  Bill located the few pieces of electrical wiring in the small building and decided that there would be no danger if power was passed to them. A small fusebox was situated on the wall, and a glance was enough to confirm that it only held three microswitches and the main trip switch. He climbed down again.

  “You guys could dig a hole and get our meal underway if you like. I’ll go and see how Sparky is doing down there.” He set off down the gradient to the transformer.

  “I’ll be ready in a few minutes, Bill.” Cherry turned back to the massive block of wiring and connections. “Everything in here looks like it’s perfectly preserved and probably because the windows haven’t been broken—there’s no moisture anywhere.”

  “Take your time.” He paused. “I don’t want to ruin your concentration, but we’ve got dinner being organised up the hill.”

  Cherry stepped back to the doorway. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

  “What’s next?”

  “There is a set of trip switches which govern everything from street lighting in a large local area to domestic housing and other buildings which have an electricity supply.”

  “Surely anything underwater will trip out immediately again?”

  “Yes, such places will, but anywhere above the waterline with a power supply should be okay. I’ll trip the different circuits one at a time and each time apply the main trip—that big red one.”

  “Okay, so if an individual circuit is damaged the small trip will go and the big one too?”

  “Yes, and if we do that with each one separately to fault find, we should hopefully end up with something accepting the power supply.”

  “Am I right in thinking that as long as one circuit operates then the big red lever will stay up and that will show on Des’s panel?”

  “Exactly. If we supplied the power to a single building and the lights were to blow out, it will still tell the hydro-electric installation back at Auchcarn that this place is in use.”

  “What would you like me to do?”

  “Stand outside.”

  “Seriously?”

  Cherry nodded. “I’m confident, but that doesn’t make me infallible or invulnerable.”

  Bill nodded and went outside, but as he turned, it was to see the door closing.

  Two minutes later there was a loud ‘clunk’ followed by a louder one.

  The door opened, and Cheryl popped her head out. “One down, eleven to go.” She closed the door.

  Bill stood back and was filled with admiration for this young woman who seemed to be at home in such dangerous situations. “The makings of a good soldier,” Bill murmured as he heard another two loud clunks from inside the building. As the sequence continued, he found himself counting off the failures.

  The door opened. “Number nine is good, Bill, but I’m switching it off to test the final three.”

  Bill gave her a thumbs-up signal and waited to hear more clunks.

  There were two more noises from inside, indicating failure, and then the door opened. “I can’t be sure what the feed will do,” Cherry said, “but we’ve got three lines of power leaving here and doing something somewhere.”

  “Well done,” Bill said. “You’ve impressed me yet again so come on up to the railway line, and I’ll buy you dinner.”

  The pair climbed the grassy slope to find Victoria and Jay-Dee serving up hot cooked vegetables along with a boiled egg and chunk of cheese.

  “Oh well, Jay-Dee,” Victoria said, “it looks like we only have single servings after all.”

  “That’s a terrible thing to say,” Jay-Dee responded, but Bill and Cherry were grinning.

  Cherry said, “We might not see a result, but the important thing is that Des or Tracey will be on shift. Whoever is on will have had a visual and audio alarm to tell them that somebody has been working with the sub-station here.”

  “So,” Victoria said, “are you saying that you didn’t cause that then?”

  “Cause what?” Cherry said.

  “Those bright coloured things,” Victoria said and pointed.

  Cherry and Bill both looked along the railway line to see red, amber and green lights at various points on signals snaking off into the distance in both directions.

  Bill said, “I don’t know what any of them meant to railway people, but they mean you’re a clever girl.” He winked at Cherry.

  Once again, the four friends sat around their campfire, sharing a hot drink while they chatted. As the daylight faded, each of them took turns to look along the railway line and say something humorous about the lights, numbering at least six in either direction. The darker it got, the more vibrant the lights became.

  Bill had explained about the signal box and suggested that it might be tighter than their first sleeping area but once the trapdoor was closed all four of them would have space to bed down, and it would be safe. It was dark by the time they’d all got up inside the box.

  At such a height from the ground, they were able to see a long way in both directions. The tiny lights were illuminated on their old poles for as far as the eye could see.

  Bill said, “I reckon we’ve got power going out to about five or six miles in both directions.”

  “And over there,” Jay-Dee said, pointing to one of the side windows.

  A small line of street lighting could be seen on the high ground out to the west.

  .

  Wednesday 3rd August

  Breakfast was simple and over quickly. Once again, Victoria and Jay-Dee gathered gravel and large stones to create a large ‘A’ on the track. The team pulled on their individual packs, ready.

  “Our third day,” Bill said, “and this one will be hard go
ing. The objective for today is to reach the halfway point to Dalwhinnie.”

  Victoria said, “Is this the trek over the higher ground and then we see if the two lochs on the other side have joined together?”

  “It can officially be called, Cherry’s Nightmare,” Cherry said.

  Jay-Dee said, “We’ll get you through it whatever it takes.”

  “Try not to worry,” Bill said. “If it looks like it’s a non-starter for us we’ll work out another route.”

  “No,” Cherry said, “you said that the loch to the north was massive already and it would take at least two more days to detour around either the north or south if they’ve joined up.”

  “Cherry, we’ll judge it when we see them, but however we deal with it, I don’t want you having to deal with trauma.”

  “I can swim a little bit, but we’ve got backpacks and—”

  “Hey, enough,” Bill said and winked. “We’ll gain some height and see how it looks from above.”

  “Okay, thanks, Bill.”

  There was no easy way to get underway, so they crossed the railway line and walked on the northeast bearing that Bill had set on his compass. Before leaving the relative comfort of the railway, Bill had suggested timed breaks instead of distance. And so it was that at least two of the team were hoping the first hour would end soon.

  They reached a small plateau between two steep hills when Bill called a halt. “I appreciate that this is hard work. If you’re all okay with the idea, we’ll stick to a fifteen-minute break each hour until we can see the lie of the land where the troublesome lochs are.”

  All three nodded, not one feeling ready to chat, but if asked, they’d agree that the two weeks of training had prepared them for what they were now doing.

  Five hours into their physical efforts for the day and Bill paused atop a ridge. He pulled out his water bottle and sipped as he looked at the massive valley down below. He put his bottle away and turned to his companions who sat drinking on the slope behind him, out of the breeze, but unable to see the view ahead.

  “I’m proud of you guys, you’re all doing bloody great. We might not be on full rations, but you’re all giving every ounce of effort, and that says a lot about you.”

  Cherry spoke up about her primary concern. “When will we know about the lochs, Bill?”

  “Come on up here when you’ve had a drink.”

  All three of them finished at once and stood to join Bill on the ridge.

  “Oh, my—” Cherry was lost for words.

  “Shit,” Jay-Dee said.

  Victoria surveyed the land ahead of them from left to right. “Well, so much for the idea of going across the gap between two lochs?”

  Bill said, “Loch Ericht takes up the left-hand section which goes out to the west a little and then northwards. From about the middle and going east is Loch Rannoch. What you see down there are two big lochs which have joined together and swamped an area of about five miles across. They’re now a super-loch if there is such a thing.”

  “How far is it across at the narrowest point?” Cherry was still nervous about how they would cross the central part.”

  “It’s about ten miles of hiking just to reach that narrowest point,” Bill said. “Judging from the contours even the narrow part is about a mile across—we’re not crossing the water.”

  “How will we deal with it?” Victoria said.

  “If you look to the east, or if you prefer to the right, there is water as far as the eye can see. The end of Loch Rannoch meets the River Tummel which sits in a low valley so we can guarantee that it will have expanded all the way to Pitlochry and beyond. There’s no telling how long it would take before we could cross to go north.”

  “What happens if we go to the left,” Jay-Dee said, “to the west?”

  Bill handed over his binoculars. “I’d like you all to take a look towards the west side of Loch Ericht … you’ll see large elements of forestry and though it’ll be hilly and rough to hike through it’s our most efficient way to go.”

  Victoria was peering through the binoculars. “It looks like we’d at least have shelter for tonight.”

  “We would,” Bill said. “I’d be happy if we could reach the far side of the loch and get into the forest before dark. We could set up camp, eat and get a well-deserved rest.”

  “All of that sounds good to me,” Cherry said, “especially the last part.”

  “Come on then, gang,” Bill said in an upbeat tone. “Let’s get a marker of stones set up on this ridge, and we’ll get on our way.”

  For fifteen minutes, they gathered rocks and created an ‘A’.

  Victoria chirped, “Time to get weight on our shoulders and start the descent.”

  Two hours of hard work saw them reach a point not far from the water’s edge of what used to be Loch Ericht.

  “What is that beautiful big bird?” Cherry said.

  “Fish-eagle,” Victoria said, “the white head and tail feathers are good recognition features.”

  “And where there are Fish-eagles, there are fish,” Jay-Dee said. “Bill, have you tried fishing with one of these?” He held up the laser rifle.

  “No, I haven’t, but if you’d like to try your luck we can afford the time, and I’m sure we’d all like to see you succeed.”

  “I’ll leave this here,” Jay-Dee said as he unbuckled his bergen. “The water is only a few hundred metres away, and there are some big rocks so it might be deep there.” He held out a hand to Victoria. “May I borrow your spear?” The long, stout wooden stick which Archie had loaned her was a defensive weapon but used by Victoria as a support for walking on rougher terrain. Importantly, it had a pointed end. Cherry had borrowed Tina’s spear.

  Jay-Dee set off over the rugged piece of land and onto the large slabs of rock.

  Bill, Cherry and Victoria pulled off their packs and built a stone marker. Afterwards, they sat on a grassy mound to watch the fisherman trying his hand. The three sat in silence while Jay-Dee balanced on the distant rocks, occasionally jabbing the spear into the water.

  “He must be seeing fish in there,” Victoria said. “That’s about five times he’s tried to catch something.”

  Bill said, “Now that I think about it I reckon he’s got the right idea. Consider that we’re on the banks of a loch that is twice the size, it used to be, and any fish in there will not have been disturbed for at least six years.”

  “He’s got one,” Cherry said. “Look.” She waved, and Jay-Dee waved back before removing the fish from the spear and trying again.

  It was half an hour, their most prolonged rest period when Jay-Dee returned triumphant with his catch, once again on the pole, but together.

  “Three freshwater trout,” Jay-Dee said, “split four ways with baked potatoes will give us a decent meal.”

  “Good for you,” Victoria said. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself.”

  “I wasn’t doing it for fun, but it did feel good to know we’d get a tasty meal if I were successful.”

  After the fishing stop, they set off once again and climbed steadily through the forest. The only exception to their loads was that Victoria was now carrying a pole with three fish speared onto it.

  Bill cut out some low fir branches and designed a shelter between two trees. As he worked, he glanced across at his three companions who were pitching in to build a small campfire, prepare the fish and make a hot brew.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” Bill said. “I’ll just ensure we’re not next door neighbours to a pack of wolves.”

  Victoria said, “Bill, that is not funny.”

  He was grinning as he set off to perform a perimeter check several metres out from the campsite. Bill was conscious of hearing his friends’ chat, but his gaze was taking in every print in the area. He squatted to check a set of clear tracks which were overlaid with smaller prints of the same type. “Fox and cubs,” he murmured and got up to set off again. A few minutes later, he stopped again and got down to ju
dge the size and type of creature which was in the area. “Deer … which I would expect.”

  Bill had almost completed a full circle around the campsite when he saw tracks which didn’t belong in this Scottish forest. He followed the tracks for a few minutes until they faded when the creature had gone into denser clumps of trees.

  “All good?” Cherry said as Bill strolled back towards the campfire.

  “Yes, I think I’m ready for dinner.” He was alert and keeping a wary eye in every direction, having seen the strange tracks. Closer to home, he didn’t realise that Cherry was watching him.

  They all ate heartily, and as had become their habit, they sat around the fire for a while.

  “I have to tell you,” Victoria said, “this has been a hard day.”

  “I’m with you there,” Cherry said.

  “Well,” Jay-Dee said, “I’m getting up early to catch fresh fish for breakfast.”

  The others laughed but were grateful for his earlier efforts—and success.

  Bill turned to Cherry and Victoria, “We’ve got two string hammocks, so if you two would like to use them, I’ll set them up.”

  “Where are you and Jay-Dee sleeping?” Victoria said.

  “Under that pine shelter, I set up earlier.”

  “Is there room for four?” Cherry said and winked at Victoria. “If there is, we’ll be in there keeping warm between you two.”

  “I’ll climb in shortly,” Bill said. “You guys get comfortable and get some sleep. I’ll put out a perimeter wire just in case any elephants or giraffes wander through later in the night.” Leaving a space of three metres out from the campfire, he pulled out the fishing line. He secured it to a stout tree before going around at different angles and heights in a circuit. When completed he attached mess tins at two different places to act as alarms should anything try to breach the simple security.

  Bill sat in the centre of the small campsite, but he’d let the fire burn down and fade to ashes. Night vision would be as crucial as his regular senses as he tried to relax and become at one with his surroundings. Unlike his overnight session at the caves, this vigil was on a different level.