After a long few minutes, Derek Marchand and Tom Leath appeared, working their way down a grassy slope from the other direction. Leath bent over the body, taking Alasdair's wrist between his fingers. "What did you do?" he asked.
"Nothing!" Denny said, as if that were a virtue.
"Should we radio for help?" asked Marchand, kneeling on the other side of Alasdair. "Perhaps an emergency helicopter?"
"No," said Leath. "Our radio isn't strong enough. We can just reach the next island. Trust the medic to be the first casualty!"
"I suppose we'll have to get Dawson to take him off by boat, then. He's still here, is he not?"
Denny caught sight of Cameron's red anorak on the path above them. "He's just coming now!"
Leath glanced at Denny. "We need blankets from camp to cover him up. I expect he's in shock. Is there anything in the medical kit that would help? I suppose not. These scratches aren't serious."
"When we get on the boat, I will clean them," Gitte said calmly. "I am going with him."
Denny ended the silence that followed. "Well. . . right,'' he said. "I'm off to fetch the blankets."
Marchand didn't quite like the paleness of Alasdair's face— although it was a better face now that the scornful look was gone. He looked much younger somehow. "Should we make a stretcher of some sort?"
Leath shrugged. "From what? It might be better to waste no time. Just carry him to the boat as carefully as we can."
Marchand looked up at the lowering sky. "I hope the weather holds."
Elizabeth and Cameron spent their last few minutes together clearing space in the cabin of the boat for Alasdair. They found a stack of white woolen blankets in the chest with the life preservers, and Elizabeth was spreading them out on the floor, smoothing out the creases as best she could. Cameron was looking at sea charts. "I suppose I could make for Skye," he murmured, tracing his finger along the map. "But it's twice as far, and there's no hospital there. I think there's one on Lewis, but if he's badly hurt, he ought to go to Inverness anyway."
Elizabeth nodded, still smoothing blankets. "When will you be back?''
"Next Saturday," said Cameron. "I really can't come any sooner! I have to go to the mainland for supplies, and I expect I'll look in at hospital and see how Alasdair is doing. I need to get some work done on my project this week as well. I simply haven't time."
Elizabeth said nothing. She seemed intent on her work, but he could tell from the stiffness of her movements that she was listening.
"Of course, if there's an emergency, you can always call me on the radio."
"Not much chance for intimate conversation there," she said lightly.
"No. I am sorry. I know you're upset. And, of course, worried about Alasdair."
Elizabeth shrugged. Being worried about Alasdair might have been preferable to the guilt she felt for her slight concern. When she did not like a person, no misfortune that befell him could make her like him any better. "I hope he isn't seriously hurt," she said carefully.
"He shouldn't have gone climbing those cliffs alone."
"That was the whole point of it, Cameron," Elizabeth said. "Alasdair liked being alone, and he liked leaving people out of things. I think secrets made him feel superior. That's probably why he was studying medicine."
Cameron grinned in spite of himself. "You'll be all right here, won't you?"
"I suppose so. I'm coming down with a cold. Will you bring me some tissues?"
"I'll put them on the list.'' A movement up the hill caught Cameron's attention. "Here they come, Elizabeth. Gitte seems to be coming with him—she's carrying her duffel bag.''
Elizabeth got to her feet and slid her hand into Cameron's. "Leath and Denny are carrying Alasdair. He's still unconscious."
''It was a bad fall," Cameron said. ''I wonder how he lost his balance."
Elizabeth watched the silent procession make its way toward the boat. "I wonder if he did," she said.
"And then there were five," Denny said, as they walked back to the stone circle.
Elizabeth frowned. "Five?"
"You, me, Callum, Leath, and Derek Marchand. I'm not counting Owen until he comes back day after tomorrow."
"We'll manage," said Elizabeth. "I can hold the prism and do the chalk marks."
"I know. Certainly Alasdair and Gitte were more expendable than, say, Callum and I. Bad luck for him, taking a fall like that. Head injuries are funny things. I've known people knocked out like that who came to ten minutes later and went right about their business."
"I thought we might try to get Cameron on the radio tomorrow night and see what news he has of Alasdair. No, he said he's going to the mainland after supplies. The night after, then."
"Alasdair might be ready to come back by midweek," Denny said, "Unless he's one of the self-dramatizing types."
"Cameron said he isn't coming back until Saturday," Elizabeth said.
"Well, he's a very serious sort, is Cameron. He was always at the books at Fettes. Looked a bit like an owl in those days. Big glasses. Funny haircut. Terminal case of adolescence."
"He has improved considerably since then," said Elizabeth.
"Yes. I was very relieved to find that you weren't a seal or a porpoise," he told her. "Cameron has indeed progressed."
"I wish I understood him better. Sometimes I think that the British and the Americans do not speak the same language."
"So Cameron was telling me. When he first began driving in Virginia, he saw a sign that said drive on the pavement . . . something like that. Well, of course, in Scotland the pavement is the sidewalk. He thought they were mad."
"It isn't only that. You can learn that a jumper is a sweater, and a banger is a sausage, and that a trunk call means long distance. Even Americans have different names for things.
Try ordering a hoagie in New York sometime. But there are cultural differences that you don't learn, because you don't know they're there."
Denny looked puzzled. "Like what?"
"I don't know." Elizabeth sighed. "I told you: I don't know they're there. I just feel it."
The mood for the remainder of the day was subdued. When Callum returned, they told him about the accident in brief, understated terms, and he nodded and said that it was unfortunate. Derek Marchand, leaning on the surveying staff and looking a bit like Moses, made a little speech to the effect that while their thoughts were with Alasdair, they ought to continue with the work at hand, that Alasdair would want it that way, and so on. Everyone listened politely; no one had anything to add, and work went on as usual, despite a sharp wind from the darkening sky.
"I should have been an Egyptologist,'' Tom Leath thought for the hundredth time.
"Is Owen settled in on the island all right?" Elizabeth asked Callum.
"He has everything he needs,'' Callum said. I let him take my one-man tent. A few cold meals won't hurt him."
"Can we see him from the cliffs?"
"No. His camp is on the other side, where the shore is open for landing. He didn't want to carry his things too far from that."
''Good,'' said Denny, who had stopped to listen. ''If we're lucky, the hills will muffle the sound of his piping."
Callum smiled and began to adjust the lens on his camera.
"Do you think we ought to tell him about Alasdair?" Elizabeth asked.
Denny gave her a sour smile. "Let's save it for a surprise when he comes back."
The rain came by late evening, so that it was impossible to tell when the day's dark clouds turned into an overcast night. Elizabeth lay huddled in her sleeping bag, the cold making her feel even more alone, and listened to the soft thud of rain on the tin cylinder. She was thinking about Cameron, in a sort of backward rehearsal of all the things she could have said, but she kept thinking about old war movies from the Forties, the ones where the handsome American pilot falls in love with an English girl. They always had chestnut brown hair, these English girls (even in black and white you could tell), and sweet soprano voices, and
they always wore head scarfs. Sensible. Ordinary. Wholesome. Perfect noses. Elizabeth knew for a fact that she looked like a pumpkin in a head scarf. She didn't think she was reassuringly ordinary, either, not that she was to blame for that. Southerners are not known for being wholesome or ordinary. Too much imagination, she thought. I could be a quiet, sensible girl who'd be perfectly happy staying home and baking bread and weeding the garden. If I had a lobotomy, she thought grimly. She wondered just who it was that Cameron actually wanted, and if she had a chance of being that person.
For a moment, as she closed her eyes, she thought she heard the wail of Owen's bagpipes, but it might have been the wind.
CHAPTER
13
Sunday was cloudy and dark, but the rain held off until early evening, so that they were able to get much work done at the site. Elizabeth thought that it went more smoothly with fewer people jostling each other about. She was becoming much more experienced at surveying now, and since it seemed certain that there would be no work in her own specialty to keep her busy, she had to make herself useful in other ways. She missed Cameron very much. His brief visit the day before, attended by so much chaos, was worse than no visit at all. Even communication by radio had been denied her because the weather Sunday night was not good, and, in her opinion, Tom Leath was too lazy to make the effort to try to raise the other island in difficult broadcasting conditions. Even her protests of concern for Alasdair (more useful than true) had been met with a shrug and Leath's opinion that it was too soon to learn much anyhow. He'd try Monday nigh he said, even if the weather had not let up, and Elizabeth had to be content with that.
On Monday it had rained off and on most of the day, but they had worked anyway. Marchand was anxious to get the major portion of the measuring finished in case a real storm appeared. Elizabeth listened off and on during the day for the sound of bagpipes from the smaller island, half expecting to hear taps sounded in screeching desperation. Surely Owen must be chilled and tired of cold food by now, she thought. He had been working alone there for two days and a half. She decided that he had more endurance than she had given him credit for, but she doubted that he was taking it in cheerful pioneer spirit. She had not heard his bagpipes since his first night over there. Either he was playing quietly, or—as she suspected—he was sulking in his tent with his murder books.
On her trips from the Nissen hut to the stone circle, she had once or twice seen the seal, but she had not caught a glimpse of Owen at work on the menhir on the smaller island. If, as she suspected, he was refusing to work during drizzle, he might be there a long time completing his work. She suspected that the prospect of more days in an unheated tent, with canned food, would persuade him to brave the elements.
When about five o'clock Monday evening the drizzle turned into a downpour, she even began to feel sorry for Owen. "Aren't you going to go and get him, Callum?"
He squinted at her through wet eyelashes. "What? In this muck? By tomorrow it may clear off."
"Aye, but he hasn't signaled for us to come and get him.''
"We haven't heard him," Denny said. "You know fine we spend most of our time out here at the circle, Callum. I doubt we'd hear him here."
"Go and get him, Callum," Elizabeth said. "He needs a hot meal at least. If he isn't finished, you can always send him back."
"All right!" said Callum. "And you're wanting me to go before supper, too, I suppose."
Elizabeth nodded. "If you wouldn't mind," she said politely, because she was sure that the matter was settled.
They trooped back to camp across the soggy peat fields, with the wind blowing a steady stream of water in their faces. "What you need is a nice cup of tea!'' Denny shouted, nudging her arm.
"Right! I'm going to pour it over my head!" Elizabeth shouted back, pulling her rain hood tighter about her face. It was no use. She was soaked to the cervical vertebrae, she thought.
"Well, this is a nasty evening!" Derek Marchand announced when they were inside the Nissen hut. "I'm thinking we all ought to bunk in here for the night, or be drowned in our beds."
"It'll be a bit crowded," Tom Leath said, "but I'll take crowded over wet any day."
"Do you think you can raise anyone on the radio in this storm?" Marchand asked.
Leath shrugged. "I'll have a go at it after dinner."
"Good idea. Poor Callum, having to put out to sea in this, but I suppose we couldn't leave the American boy over there Elizabeth, who was brewing tea, smiled to herself. If it hadn't been for me, you would have, she thought. She began to take packets of dried-noodle dinners out of the supply box, calculating how many she would need to feed six people, and how much water that would require. A sudden sound carried on the wind made her look up from her task. "That's odd," she said. "Hasn't Callum left already?"
"Three quarters of an hour ago, at least," Denny said. "Why?"
"Just now ... I thought I heard Owen^ bagpipes playing taps."
Denny shook his head. "He's left it a bit late, hasn't he?"
Callum Farthing had not enjoyed the rain-sodden, heaving journey from Banrigh to the smaller island, and he hoped that he would not have to prolong the visit any further by having to track down Owen Gilchrist. He had hauled the boat up out of the water no farther onto the stony beach than necessary not to risk its going adrift again. Through the sheets of rain he could see the orange of Owen's tent farther inland among the rocks. Oh, Christ, I'll have to help him take it down, he thought.
Cupping his hands against his cheeks, he shouted Owen's name against the wind. No one answered.
He's not out working his site in weather like this, Callum told himself. I'd have seen him. Not likely anyhow! Trust him to have found some dry little cave to hole up in, and I'll be freezing my bum off going in search of him.
He decided to look at the tent first, to see if Owen had left his tools or his food there. It might give him a better idea of on them for warmth and thrust them into the pockets of his anorak. They'd be cold again soon enough; he'd have to use his hands for balance to clamber up the rocks to the tent. The rain made everything slick as glass.
Callum took his time negotiating the jutting rocks, losing his footing more than once and thinking what a nuisance it was going to be to carry the gear down to the boat. Perhaps they could pitch the unbreakable stuff off the rock onto the beach. He didn't fancy making half a dozen trips of it.
"Hallo! Owen!" he shouted, as he neared the tent. "Are you in there, man? I've come to fetch you."
Callum eased open one of the tent flaps, and in the shadow of the light from outside he saw Owen lying peacefully in his sleeping bag. "What a time for kipping! Have you not heard me yelling myself hoarse for you?" He reached down to shake him awake, but the shoulder was stiff to the touch. "Owen, damn you, man—"
Then he saw Owen's face, bluish in the storm's gray light. The swollen tongue pushed its way through bared teeth, and Owen's eyes stared through Callum at nothing. Callum did not know how long he had been dead. The cold eased the smell of sickness. The body would lose heat quickly here. He did not want to touch it anyway. He turned away from the ugly sight of the corpse, without any conscious thought except some vague instinct to summon help. The bagpipes lay cast off in one corner of the tent. Callum, who had been a piper in Scouts, crawled out of the tent, dragging the instrument behind him.
Outside in the cold, clean rain, he lifted the mouthpiece to his lips and played taps as hard as he could. The effort eased the tightness in his chest and emptied his lungs of the urge to scream and go on screaming.
He had no sensation of time or rain or coldness on the trip back to the larger island. His mind was filled with questions about Owen and with wondering if he had done the right thing. He was scrambling up the rocks toward the Nissen hut before he realized that the others would not have understood his signal. He had told Owen to play taps as a sign that he wanted to come back, and of course they would think that it had been an impatient Owen who had sent out the message by bagp
ipes. He wondered if anyone would want to see the body. If so, they could go without him.
He thought he must look like the ghost of a drowned sailor as he flung open the door of the hut and stood staring at the cozy scene inside. Four people were seated at the wooden table playing cards, with steaming cups of tea in front of them.
Elizabeth looked up and smiled. "Good!'' she said. "Now I can start dinner. Where's Owen?"
Callum shrugged off his wet rain gear and left it where it fell. "He's back on the other island," he told her. "He's dead."
The others looked not at him but at each other, as if trying to decide what to make of this announcement. If anyone laughed, then it would be understood as a grisly joke. No one laughed.
Finally, Derek Marchand motioned for Callum to sit down at the table and pushed his own cup of tea in front of the young man. "Tell us exactly what has happened," he said quietly.
Callum recounted his trip over and his annoyance when Owen did not answer his shouts. He described his slippery climb up the rocks to the tent, and—in halting tones—he told diem what he found inside.
"But we heard him playing the bagpipes," Denny said.
"No. That was me," Callum said. "I just ... I was thinking about it, I suppose, and I just did it without knowing why. I suppose I thought you would understand it as a signal, but, of course, you didn't. . . I put the bagpipes back in the tent with him, and I came back."
"And you left him there?" Elizabeth demanded, her face pale except for two spots of color on her cheeks.
Derek Marchand nodded. "That was wise of you, Callum."
Tom Leath spoke up. "I quite agree," he said. "We've no idea what he died of. Pneumonia, perhaps. Drugs, for all we know. But we must take precautions. The authorities can deal with all that when they get here in a few hours." He slid off the bench and knelt in front of the radio, now sitting on two wooden crates in the corner.
"Yes, do call for help now, Tom," said Marchand. "We seem to be having more man our share of bad luck."
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