Murdo's War

by Alan Temperley

  The rough, icy feel of the cloth jerked him back into consciousness, Black eyes wide with alarm, he pulled himself back from the brink of sleep. No – no sleep! He could die if he fell asleep, more than once he had heard the men say it: as you grew colder you sank deeper and deeper into unconsciousness, and did not wake up. But he must have rest, his body craved for it. Brushing the snow from beneath him, Murdo pulled his jacket close and huddled into the shelter of the rock.

  His stomach ached, hot fires burned in his throat. Time and again he sucked a lump of snow to cool it down. It would have been good if he had held on to the whisky bottle to put some warmth into him, but that too was gone into the depths of the loch. He wondered where the Germans were. Wherever they might be, there was nothing he could do about it.

  Murdo need not have feared. By the time Gunner and Arne had reached the summit of the slope above Strath Halladale, his tracks were no more than slight irregularities in the snow-smooth wilderness of heather and long grass. The bog had defeated them completely. Worn out and black to the waist, they had turned their backs to the wind and headed down into the comparatively sheltered country of the strath. An hour and a half before Murdo found shelter behind the rock, they were smoking cigarettes in one of the stables at the lodge, keeping themselves warm beneath a good thickness of clean straw. Two pairs of foul and miry trousers hung over one of the beams, frozen rigid and not drying out at all.

  Henry Smith joined them an hour later, smothered in snow and in savage mood, though a second troop train had roared past him on its way south, revealing the success of the German plan. There had been no sign of the wretched boy or Peter. He had discovered, however, that the telephone was working in the village of Kinbrace, three miles to the south. Having heard Gunner’s discouraging report, he set out after a short rest to report to Colonel von Kramm.

  When he returned, late on that Saturday afternoon, his face was pale and pinched, from the conversation as much as the blizzard. He shook the snow from his jacket and flung himself down in the straw, too depressed even to swear. As he had anticipated, the colonel had not been impressed by his story. He had not said very much, that was not his way, but he had a certain way of saying it.

  ‘I see. A boy of… fourteen, did you say?… And four men dead?… You told him all about ‘Flood-Tide’ and now you don’t know where he is... How old did you say?… and there were ten of you… Yes, I appreciate there only seem to be a handful left. And Bjorn Larvik isn’t with you – that’s a pity… Well, there isn’t much one can say. None of the other groups seem to be having your trouble: everything has gone splendidly. I’ll get in touch with the Inverness group and they can come up and help – anyone who remains by then… I agree, one doesn’t want to say more than necessary on the telephone… Yes, you can expect me tomorrow… There is no need? You realise, I take it, that there was a hold up in – down the line, and there are still seven days to go. The boy has to be silenced. If you can’t do it any other way, take a leaf from Carl Voss’s book… Oh, I see, he is no longer with you. Ah, a great loss indeed… I will see you at the hotel, then. I trust the food is acceptable. Do they have a good cellar?’

  Henry Smith flushed as he recalled the cultured voice, and the fiery home-made whisky which was the best he had been able to scrounge from the innkeeper. For Colonel von Kramm, he had no doubt, the man would have been able to find something better. He was disgraced. When Arne asked how he had fared he was suddenly angry with his subordinate and told him to shut up and mind his own business. Burrowing into the straw, he pulled huge armfuls around himself and closed his eyes. At least he could get some rest. But for a long time he lay awake, remembering the events of the past ten days, cursing the boy and his old fisherman friend, the colonel’s ironic words burning in his mind.

  Meanwhile, out on the moors, a few hundred feet beneath the eastern summits, Murdo saw that daylight was beginning to fade and the snow was easing off. Guessing that it must be some time after three, he dragged himself to his feet. The world spun about him and his legs felt so weak that he had to steady himself with a hand against the rock. He brushed the snow from his jacket with vague fingers, and set off up the gentle hill ahead. His knees buckled and his feet dragged in the patched heather.

  In an hour he made at most one mile of ground. The effort was supreme, but the snow was easing off and at length it stopped. Around him the landscape opened up to the last pale veils of the dusk.

  He was standing on the top of the hill. Behind him a long curving ridge, miles long it seemed, swept down and around, its roots merging invisibly with a limitless expanse of shadowy plain – the bogs: far off, the advancing shadows welded sky and plateau, a dark barrier which made its awful size seem greater still. Ahead lay a huge valley, with an impressive mountain rising sheer on the far side, its ragged flanks heavy with the mantle of snow. Right and left the hillsides fell steeply away, down and down, until in the half-light they levelled into a desolation of moor. Through the opening clouds a bitter sky, ice-pale with frost and glittering brilliantly with a host of tiny stars, promised a blindingly cold night. It was very beautiful, and as inhospitable as the moon. Over the endless miles of waste, limited only by encroaching darkness, not one light gleamed, not one animal moved. Then a hundred yards below, a solitary red grouse burst noisily into the air. ‘Go-back go-back go-back’ it called, sailing over the valley towards the mountain beyond. In seconds it was gone, the harsh call faded into silence. The wind stirred the boy’s hair, the dusk and mountain solitude closed round him once more.

  Murdo was swaying where he stood, and sat sideways in the snow to steady himself as he surveyed the scene. He could not go much further, he had to have shelter for the night. But there was no shelter.

  At length he chose the long hillside on the left. There appeared to be a sizable stream at the bottom, studded with rocks and half frozen over. With luck there would be sheep fanks or some old ruin down there. Slowly he headed across the shoulder of the ridge and began to descend the steep slope.

  His legs would carry him properly no longer. Time and again he stumbled and fell headlong, sprawling head over heels down the hillside, landing with a sickening jolt against some boulder. The hidden stones tricked his feet so that he turned his ankles with a wrench. The angle of the slope taxed his already exhausted muscles, so that by the time he was halfway down his knees had lost the last of their strength and his legs trembled uncontrollably.

  And then they would support him no longer. As he tried to stand his knees buckled and he pitched forward into the snow again.

  Yet somehow, crawling and tumbling, he arrived at the bottom of the hillside and huddled, shaking, on the bare bank of the stream. His breathing was fast and shallow, and this time the shuddering did not pass, but grew worse as the cold of the night and the earth felt through his wet clothes.

  He pulled himself to his knees. ‘I must get shelter,’ he whispered, his voice convulsive. Half rising he tried to walk up the bank. ‘I must get shelter!’ Over and over the four words revolved in his mind and waves of darkness rolled across the sky. Painfully slowly, yard after yard, he dragged himself down the broad brink of the river.

  He did not see the little suspension bridge at first. Then with wakening awareness, as his eyes focussed, there it was before him, two black stakes against the snow, a flimsy catwalk of boards slung across invisible ropes. Murdo looked across, and for a moment did not realise what he was seeing. Then his heart stirred, too weary to surge with joy or relief. There, half hidden among a few stunted trees, a little patch of light gleamed in the darkness.

  ‘Help! Hello!’ But his voice would not come. Desperately he struggled forward. Clutching the swaying ropes with all his little strength, he dragged himself over the stream and stumbled towards the light. A fallen stone wall was before him. Heedless of the snow he crawled over the rocks and fell through the rough, cutting branches of the old trees beyond.

  It was a small croft house. The green-curtained window shone
cheerfully in the gloom. Reaching the door, Murdo pulled himself up and banged on it loudly with the flat of his hand.

  A dog within was already barking at his approach and now redoubled its noise. A man’s voice told it to shut up and for a moment there was silence. Then there was the sound of footsteps and a light glimmered in the hallway. A bolt shot back, and an old man holding a lantern appeared in the doorway.

  ‘I... I... Can you...’ said Murdo. But the words were not there. He took a stumbling half-step forward, reeled, and fell senseless into the arms of the old man.

  Blizzard over Carn Mor

  WHEN MURDO WOKE it was just getting light. He found himself in a small whitewashed room in the warmth of a clean bed. He blinked sleepily, and looked from the dark beams across the ceiling to the lightening, rose-patterned curtains over the little window. A table and chair stood against the wall beneath two framed pictures of Summery scenes. His white bed-spread was covered by a crumpled red eiderdown. He curled up in the luxury of the warmth and pulled the sheets and rough blankets closer about his neck.

  Slowly the events of the day before came back to him, so vivid, but unreal, almost as if they had been bad dreams. The heavy lassitude of his limbs and the ache in his head were enough in themselves to assure him that they were not. Again he clung to the cliff, struggled in the icy water, stood to his shins in the mud looking into the swirling snow. The memories frightened him afresh, and he tried to think of other matters. What had become of Hector? He wished they could be back as they had been – fishing off the point in the Lobster Boy, running the old croft – before that meeting in the Captain Ivy turned their lives upside down. He remembered Hector’s rash words, spoken so lightly: ‘Let’s give him a run for his money.’ And he thought of his father, goodness knows where, and wished that somehow he could materialize to take the load off his shoulders. He would know what to do.

  But his father was not there. The only help he was likely to get must come from the old shepherd in whose cottage he now found himself. Dimly he recalled his arrival the night before, the door opening and the old man standing there, a dog barking some- where in the background. Even more dimly he seemed to remember shouting out in the darkness, and light coming, and somebody there beside him until he fell asleep again. He stretched his legs down the bed and pressed his feet against a still warm hot-water bottle, turned over, and closed his eyes.

  He did not sleep, and fifteen minutes later pushed back the bedclothes and sat up, feeling the air of the bedroom chill against his bed-hot chest and shoulders. He had not considered what he was wearing, and was surprised to find himself in a pair of baggy blue-striped pyjamas. He felt a tight dressing about his leg where the bullet had struck him, and pushing down the pyjama trousers, found a broad bandage bound neatly over the wound. A blister niggled against his heel, and when he pulled up his foot he saw it was as big as a half-crown and dark with blood. All things considered, however, he did not feel too bad, though somewhat light-headed and swimmy. It was a sensation he had not known for years and took him back to days of childhood fever and sickness at his aunt’s house. Unheralded he had a sudden vision of the bedroom and drawn blinds, and could almost taste the boiled fish and hated junket. With a new and unexpected affection he recalled his aunt’s patient nursing. She had done her best for them all. The memory faded. He swung his legs to the floor: the feeling would soon go away, he thought. But when he stood up he found that he was weaker than he had realised, and had to sit on the side of the bed for a moment to let the dizziness pass.

  A brown dressing gown, unexpected in a shepherd’s house, hung on the back of the door. He put it on and fastened the frayed cord about his waist. Then, feeling rather shy, he padded barefoot on to the landing and down the steep flight of stairs to the hallway. He wondered how he had ascended the night before, whether he had been carried or had walked, for he had no remembrance of it. He scratched his head and brushed the hair from his eyes.

  It was a little croft house, built to the same pattern as Hector’s and ten thousand more, with the front door facing the stairs and a room at each end of the narrow hallway. A faded rag rug lay on the brushed boards. The door leading into the parlour was ajar, and through it Murdo could see a china cabinet and a little table with lace mats and ornaments upon it. The other door was closed. He knocked gently and pushed it open.

  The old man sat at the far side of a dying peat fire. His face was Highland, brown and deeply lined, and he was balding. He wore a collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled back from his forearms, an old waistcoat, and thick baggy trousers. He looked up as Murdo entered, and though he scarcely smiled, his manner was kind.

  ‘Come over to the fire,’ he said.

  Murdo perched himself on the edge of an old leather armchair and leaned towards the grey ash. A fawning collie crept forward and sniffed at his foot. When he put a hand down it backed, then sidled forward again and allowed itself to be petted. Growing quite frenzied with instant pleasure, it jumped up and tried to lick his face.

  ‘Get down, Corrie,’ the old man growled. ‘Go on!’

  The collie backed away to a rough box in the corner spread with an old hair-covered jacket and some rags of curtain.

  ‘Pull the chair in,’ the old man said. ‘Keep yourself warm.’ He stirred the cinders to a glow and reached across for some small pieces of peat to make the fire burn up quickly. Then he brushed the hearth tidy.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘I’ve just woken up,’ said Murdo.

  ‘You’d like a cup of tea.’

  Without waiting for an answer he carried the teapot through to the back kitchen and tipped the slops into a waste bucket, rinsed it out, and brought it back dripping. A big kettle steamed on the hob. He reached for the caddy on the mantlepiece and soon had a pot of fresh tea standing on a trivet in front of the fire. Then he unhooked a couple of willow pattern cups from the dresser behind him and poured out. Without asking he added milk and two big spoonfuls of sugar to Murdo’s cup, stirred it up, and passed it over.

  ‘I suppose that’s how you take it,’ he said. ‘I never met a boy that didn’t.’

  Murdo’s chest felt strangely tight. He swallowed and smiled. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re looking better, anyway.’

  Murdo pulled the dressing gown about his throat and sipped at the boiling tea. He looked up at his clothes hanging from a pulley above their heads.

  ‘They’ll be a bit wet yet,’ the man said to him. ‘They were lying there on the floor for a while and the snow melted into them. I gave your trousers a bit of a rinse out.’ He ran a hand over the weathered crown of his head and straightened the fringe of white-grey hair with his fingers.

  Embarrassed by the trouble he was giving and the old shepherd’s kindness, Murdo felt the tightness rise into his throat. He looked down at the hearth once more. His boots, thoroughly cleaned, stood at the side drying slowly.

  ‘I’m sorry to be such a bother,’ he said.

  For several moments, regarding him, the old man was silent. ‘I think maybe you were lucky to find the house,’ he said at length.

  ‘Yes – very.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where you are?’ he said gently.

  ‘No.’ The tears rushed into Murdo’s eyes and he turned swiftly away so that the old man should not see. But his shoulders shook. He saw the cup of tea spilling on to the dressing gown and could not stop it. A hand took it from him. A huge lump welled up in his throat and the tears streamed down his face. Two or three drops landed on the arm of the chair and he wiped them off with the sleeve of the dressing gown.

  A minute later, ashamed of himself, he rubbed the back of a hand across his cheeks and turned back, keeping his eyes fixed on the hearth and fire.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, his chest still jumping a little.

  ‘That’s nothing to be ashamed of, boy,’ the old man said. ‘Anyone worth calling a man will have a cry sometime.’

  Murdo s
niffed and picked up his cup of tea from the hearth.

  ‘You can take some breakfast, anyway.’

  Half smiling, Murdo glanced quickly across and nodded. He rubbed again at the streaks his tears had left on the old leather arm of his chair.

  ‘Well you get yourself away back to bed and I’ll bring it up. Take the tea with you.’

  Murdo protested. ‘No, really, I can’t…’

  ‘Off you go. You’re worn out, boy.’

  And no sooner did Murdo’s head hit the pillow than he was sound asleep again.

  He was woken three hours later by a hand gently shaking his shoulder. Startled, he struck it off and leaped up in the bed, his eyes staring, not knowing for a minute where he was.

  ‘All right, all right, son. It’s only me.’

  His heart still thudding, Murdo subsided into the blankets. The old man pulled them straight. Murdo smelled bacon, and saw a breakfast tray on the little table against the wall. He propped himself on the pillows and the old man brought the tray across and set it on his knees. It was loaded, a large plate full of crinkly bacon, with two eggs and a slice of fried bread; another plate piled with toast made at the fire, with fork marks in the middle and a lick of soot around some of the crusts; a dish of home-made butter and a pot of marmalade.

  ‘You tuck in, son,’ the old man said. ‘You’ll have a fair appetite, if I’m not mistaken.’ He turned back to the table and poured them both a large cup of tea, put Murdo’s on the tray and seated himself on the little chair against the wall. ‘Don’t worry yourself about my ration book. There’s half a side of bacon down there, and I’ve got two cows and a dozen hens. It’s a relief to get someone to eat it all up.’

  Murdo took him at his word, and soon the plate of bacon and eggs was empty. He made a start on the toast and marmalade.