A Small Death in the Great Glen

by A. D. Scott

  After she had some fun putting a few scares into him, Joanne shouted over her shoulder, “This is a great bike, immaculate condition, as we in the classifieds would say.”

  Rob left her to strike the deal. His role was to hand over the cash.

  “You owe me one. I’ll add it to the ever-growing list,” Joanne reminded him.

  “You can always borrow my bike.”

  “I’ll hold you to that, but meanwhile babysitting would be a good payback.”

  “Don’t you need someone for tonight? You’re off to the Highland Ball, aren’t you?”

  “Thanks, but I’m fixed. The girls are going to my sister’s. They love being with their cousins, so it’s fine.”

  They waved their cheerios. Rob roared off on his new Triumph. Joanne drove the McLeans’ car back, looking forward to a chat and a cup of tea with Rob’s mother.

  The tip had come from Don McLeod. As ever.

  “Right, laddie, I’ve set it up, just mention my name.”

  “Great, I’m looking forward to a run on the new bike.”

  “Why you want to go chasing after some Polish seaman is beyond me; he’ll be just another manny wanting to get out of his country—not that I blame him.”

  “McAllister wants some human interest stories.”

  “This is a weekly newspaper, not some women’s sob-sheet,” Don shouted. But too late—Rob’s motorbike boots could be heard at the bottom of the stairs.

  The trip down to the harbor to meet Don’s informant was Rob’s chance to try out his new image. He fancied himself as Scotland’s answer to Marlon Brando. I’m off down the waterfront, he joked to himself. He drove out of town, past the old fort and the Black Watch barracks, crossed the rail tracks, opening up the throttle along the shore road through the salt marsh fields with tinkers’ ponies dotted around like clumps of dirty melting snow. Quarreling gulls and feeding migratory birds took no notice as he sped past the town dump toward the harbor. Right in front of the window of the Harborside Café, he propped the Triumph, hoping everyone would notice the gleaming machine.

  A blast of steamy warmth hit Rob as he opened the door. His cheeks and ears tingled with the sudden change in temperature.

  “Were ye born in a barn, Rob McLean?” Mrs. McLeary, the café’s owner, cook, waitress and cashier, shouted. He shut the door quickly. She was a scary woman. A man in work overalls sat alone at the corner table. He grinned up at Rob.

  “So you’re Rob. How’re you doing?” They shook hands. “Maybe it’s nothing, but Mr. McLeod is always interested in tips.”

  “I bet he is.”

  “Aye, that’s right. But usually of the horse variety.” The man laughed. “Let’s order. It’s been a long night.”

  “Sorry I’m late. I just bought a bike.”

  “It looks grand. So, breakfast?”

  “Aye, on the Gazette.”

  Rob nodded toward the wharf as they tucked in. “Another world out there.”

  Three ships, six fishing boats and a filthy dredger stood along the busy wharf where the river flowed into the firth. Timber from Scandinavia, coal from Newcastle, cement and building supplies were the main cargoes in, grain for the distilleries the main cargo out. Its ancient beginnings, its connections with the Baltic Hanseatic League, the departure of emigrant ships during the Clearances, the everyday trade of centuries, had made the deep harbor the most important in the north. For a small town, the port brought the exotic: foreigners who spoke no English, who looked different; romantic names and ports of registration painted above the Plimsoll line, strange flags flapping. An Eskimo from a Greenland fishing boat, resplendent in traditional sealskins, had once come into the café. Mrs. McLeary had served him the usual fare of a big fry-up and stewed tea. He paid in coin of the realm like anyone else, she said.

  Over extra-strength tea and light fluffy rolls bursting with bacon, Rob took notes, trying to keep the grease stains off his notebook. Born nosy, he was good at this part of the job, the chatting, the questioning; he was intrigued by the minutiae of other people’s lives—excellent traits for a journalist.

  “So what made you go and look?”

  “The boat’s registered in Danzig, their last port was Tallinn, but they were shouting in Russian. I could hear them clear. Sound carries across water at night.”

  “Are you sure it was Russian?”

  “I was on the Murmansk convoys. I can tell Polish from Russian. And German.” His tone was sharp, not used to being doubted by a boy.

  “As I was saying, there was fierce arguing. Then it went quiet. I did ma rounds so it would have been maybe half an hour afore I heard a big splash from round the other side o’ the ship. Across the river there was a boat, a salmon cobble it looked like, waiting for the turn in the tide to take them upriver, so I thought. Then a short whiley later I saw two folk pulling summat aboard.”

  “What was it?”

  “Couldn’t tell, the moon was keeking in and out from behind the clouds. I still had to check the Bond House and by the time I got back there was nothing and nobody.”

  Rob paid for the nightwatchman’s breakfast and, intrigued by the romance of the port, the ships, the foreign sailors, he made for the wharf.

  I really need a leather motorbike cap and jacket, he thought.

  Slipping past the guard’s hut, making his way down the line of huge iron bollards squatting like sumo wrestlers along the water’s edge, he noticed one ship lying separate from the others.

  “It’s yerself,” Constable Grant shouted from the top of the gangplank. Not much older than Rob, Willie Grant was front-row-forward big.

  “So where’s this runaway Russian, Willie?”

  “He’s Polish.”

  “Thanks.” Rob grinned.

  Realizing he’d let on to something he wasn’t supposed to, Willie Grant sulked. Rob changed tack with “Did you see thon new goalie Thistle has? Jammy hands. They’ll put one over on Caley next week, you’ll see.”

  Five minutes of minute detail followed as to why Caledonian Football Club would always beat Thistle. Rob judged his moment as Willie blethered on.

  “So where is he now, Willie, this Polish fellow?”

  “No one knows nothing ’cept that the sailor is no here. The captain doesnae speak English an’ Peter the Pole, yon engineer manny, he came down to help us ’cos he speaks a bit o’ Russian an’ all. But the ship’ll be sailing bye ’n’ bye, no reason not to. The Polish fella just wants a better life, most like.”

  “Ta, Willie, you’re a pal.”

  “You never heard nothing from me, mind.”

  Frozen from the biting wind, Rob returned to the café to jot down some notes. He sat staring out of the steamed-up window, nursing another mug of tea. The vista of harbor, river and firth seemed to be melting, cranes alongside the wharf looming like giant storks; distant fishermen rowing out their nets were tiny figures dissolving in and out of the watery scene of sea mist and steam. He tried to picture that night. Someone, something, thrown overboard at the right time of the tide would drift with the flow of the river straight to any waiting boat. The swift currents where the river met the narrow waters of the firth were notorious. Maybe they were smuggling, Rob hoped. Vodka in unlabeled bottles was readily obtainable. Usually in this very café.

  Rob was a romantic. He looked and thought like a nineteenth-century romantic; very out of place in a small Scottish town. He had once been told by a teacher at the academy that his curiosity and wild imagination would one day land him in a lot of trouble. Instead it had landed him a job. This will make a good story, he decided.

  “Do you know where I can find Peter the Pole?”

  “Mr. Kowalski to you,” Mrs. McLeary informed him. “He’s away up Strathpeffer fishing, is what I heard.”

  “I heard it’s Glen Affric he goes,” someone else joined in.

  “Up the glens anyhow.” She never missed out on a conversation, overheard everything and was known locally as “radar lugs.” Her cruel metal cu
rlers, half covered by a headscarf with a Stags at Bay Scottish landscape, were rumored to be antennae.

  “Anyone heard anything about the sailor that jumped ship?” Rob asked around.

  They had all heard of it, the police had been round asking questions, but Mrs. McLeary had to reluctantly admit to knowing nothing new.

  “Thon big tinker camp down by the shore,” one customer suggested. “The river could have washed up a body or such like along there.”

  “Nah,” said another. “A body would float down the firth on the ebb tide and be well upriver on the flood tide.”

  “The tinkers miss nothing. Tell ye nothing neither.” The local gave Rob a mock finger wag. “An’ if you go nosying around, mind the dogs don’t get ye, and don’t bother takin’ thon shiny bike o’ yours. It’ll be stripped for spare parts afore you can blink.”

  Talking to the tinkers was a great idea, Rob thought. He’d do it. But first he had to work out an approach. You didn’t just walk into a tinkers’ camp. All the old tales from childhood surfaced. Not that his parents had ever said anything. But the myths of tinkers kidnapping bairns, stealing everything not nailed down, and the all-round general mischief that ensued whenever their horse-drawn caravans appeared—the stories were still vivid. He had once asked his mother, after a tinker woman had come to the door selling lucky white heather, were the tinkers Gypsies? Scotland’s Gypsies maybe, she had said, but no, she went on to explain, not the same people as Romanies. An old, old race of Gaelic-speaking people was all she knew.

  So, yes, he’d go to the camp and ask questions. Impress McAllister. Make this a real story. His confidence in his ability to charm had yet to be dented.

  Along the burns and rivers that tumbled through the glens, autumn reigned in bright scarlet and dull gold. Birch, oak, beech and rowan formed small thickets dotted among the rusting bracken. Higher on the hillsides, bands of gloomy conifers followed the contours of the land. A purple watercolor wash of heather softened the boulder-strewn hills of the upper glen, with snow lying lightly on the tops and deep in the shadowed corries.

  Peter Kowalski knew this wild empty landscape well from his time on the construction of the hydro dam. Gangs of displaced men, locals and foreigners alike, lived and worked in the remote glen, dealing with the cold, the backbreaking work, the scars of war, desperate to earn a stake for the future. Poland was lost to him, and he had worked hard for his new life. He shared the pain and he shared his skills with those who had neither country nor family to return to. He taught simple engineering, filled in forms in English, helped men apply to the Red Cross for news of lost family. And he listened.

  Pleasure came from the small things; tickling for trout, watching the birds, the eagle hunting, stalking the deer. Cloudscapes of great beauty highlighted the four-seasons-in-one-day phenomenon that was called weather in Scotland, but often it was dreich for days, sometimes weeks, on end.

  “Dreich, I like that word,” Peter had said when it was explained to him. The rolled “r” and the harsh “ch” conveyed the texture and color and feeling of the days of gray. He thought Scotland much like Baltic Poland in weather, if not landscape—drawn-out rains, mists and damp, cold, dreich days with an absence of light.

  The directions from the tinkers were good and clear; trees, rocks, turns in the river were the markers. He had reached his destination.

  A note had come to Peter’s office. He had read the Polish words, surprised by the letter, but had agreed without thinking to help a fellow countryman. He knew that deportment to labor camps, imprisonment on false charges, starvation, any number of horrific things were still happening to those in occupied Poland. Escaping was no easy matter either. Peter Kowalski had no hesitation in making his decision.

  The tinker boy who had brought the message told him the man was sheltering with them, that the man was well but frightened of being found by the police. The necessities listed in the letter were boots, cigarettes and vodka. Whisky would have to do.

  He had picked up the man on the north side of the canal, agreed with the plan to move him away from the town into another county and had taken him to the deserted croft in his work van. The tinkers were unhappy having him at their encampment; the town and the police had a bad enough opinion of them without giving another excuse to raid their caravans and campsite.

  “A good hiding place.” Peter looked up to the high fold in the hills for the clump of birch and rowan that obscured the entrance to the hanging glen.

  Now midafternoon and turning very chill, it had been two days since he had taken his fellow countryman to the ragged cottage and outbuildings. Even in the seventy years or so since the last of the Clearances, a small area around the fading settlement was clear of vegetation. As with the graves on the battlefield of Culloden, the heather had not grown back. Locals were reluctant to go there. Memories of exile were fresh in these parts. And this glen was the realm of the faeries, another good reason to keep away.

  Peter whistled a well-loved tune from his childhood. Silence, then a figure materialized under the lintel of the long-gone doorway. Meeting his compatriot for the second time reminded Peter of approaching an unbroken horse. Food, whisky and cigarettes were offered. The gifts were accepted, but no thanks were given.

  “The police are questioning everyone at the harbor, especially your captain and shipmates.”

  “The police!” The man flashed a look of pure hatred. He had used the Polish slang word for the militia, the hated occupiers of their homeland. He was edgy, defensive; he paced through two cigarettes, glowering resentment at his rescuer.

  “It’s not like that here, they’re decent local lads. And you did jump ship. No papers, no nothing.”

  “What about that thieving murderous bastard of a captain? He tried to kill me. Why is he not locked up?”

  “Because he has papers. According to the law he’s done nothing wrong. He reported you missing a whole day after the event. Late, but not illegal.”

  “He only reported me to keep the ship’s manifest in order—and to spite me. He stole everything. My papers, all the money I had left, and he took . . .” He stopped, lit another cigarette. “He meant to kill me.”

  “He pushed you overboard. Maybe it was an accident.”

  “He beat me. Hit me on the head. Put me into the water semiconscious, in the dark.”

  “The ship sails this afternoon.”

  “Now you will abandon me.” This was a statement. No blame was implied.

  “We are Polish. You need help. I will do all I can to get you legal here.”

  Of course Peter would help, had already helped, but the stranger’s surly manner did not aid his own cause. And Peter suspected he could not talk about it. Whatever the reason, the man was a walking suppurating wound. He had briefly told Peter of his escape from the Polish coast to Tallinn, through the Baltic marshes, through the minefields that studded the coastal waters. He mentioned the Nazis, years in a Russian labor camp and a large bribe. Why he had to leave and not endure as his fellow Poles were still enduring was another mystery.

  “I must return to town. I’ll get you out of here as soon as possible, but I still think you should turn yourself in. They are good people here.”

  “No.”

  The man turned and faded back into the black of the ruins without farewell.

  Gino Corelli could feel the heat of the tears hovering on his daughter’s long thick lashes. She was his life and his soul, he would often declare, but this time he could not reassure her. He had promised.

  “Where is he?” Chiara asked again. “You’re treating me like a child. Why all the mystery?”

  “Maybe your future husband couldn’t cope with any more discussions about bridesmaids’ dresses.” Joanne walked into the middle of the argument and hugged her dearest friend.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Too busy harassing your poor dad.”

  “Peter is supposed to be here. Now I hear he’s off up the glen fishing. Hon
estly, I thought he wasn’t like some other men”—she glared at her father—“disappearing whenever I want to talk about our wedding arrangements. It’s only six weeks away.”

  “Well, I hope you’ve not forgotten your promise to help me get ready for the ball,” Joanne reminded her. “That’s tonight.”

  “I’ll leave you two beautiful girls to talk.” Gino kissed them both, glad of the reprieve from his daughter’s questions. The sooner Peter got back the better. He hated secrets. For him, the marriage of his only child was sad and joyous all at the same time. Peter Kowalski was a wonderful man, Gino knew this. But Chiara was his only child, all he had left. His wife, his parents, two brothers and a sister had disappeared along with most of their village during the liberation of Italy. Gino had been lucky. Captured in North Africa, he had ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp in Scotland. Along with British Italians interned for the duration, he had worked on local farms, made friends in the camp and stayed on as there was nothing left, nothing to go back to. He sent for his daughter and his only surviving sister after the war had ended.

  “The band, Papa,” she called after him. “Don’t forget, that is your job. I want Italian dancing. Scottish as well.”

  “Your cousins from down South bring their accordions. We’ll have Italian-Scottish dance music.”

  Chiara grumbled to Joanne about her elusive fiancé but was soon distracted by the problem of the bridesmaids’ dresses.

  “Two of my cousins are so short and round that most dresses make them look like the dancing baby elephants in Fantasia. Anyway, enough. I’ll punish Peter by asking him to decide on the designs. Let’s get you ready for tonight.”

  Laughing, teasing, gossiping, Chiara finished the hem on Joanne’s dress, laid it on the bed, then started on her hair.

  “This is the first real dance I’ll have been to since we were married, nearly ten years.”