Terrified, like a wild creature facing capture, he sprang on to the parapet of the bridge. The peaty waters leaped from the confines of the arch beneath him in a dizzying torrent that redoubled in turmoil as it poured headlong into the second flood fifty yards below. For an instant he poised there, fierce and wild-eyed, heedless of the revolver hanging at his waist. Then they were upon him. Hands reached out to pluck him back, and he sprang forward. For a moment he fell, then the raging, icy waters twitched him away and closed over his head.
Down towards the sea he swept, tumbling over and over in the savage current. Sharp rocks dashed against his body, the huge muscles of water thrust him now to the very bed of the river, now to the surface. He could do nothing, his struggles were futile. Down and down he tossed and rolled, numb, choking, half-paralysed with the cold. On – and on. Then almost abruptly the waters slackened and levelled as the flood ran into the body of the rising tide. Through glazing eyes Murdo found he was near the bank, and somehow managed to writhe and drag himself half out of the water among the boulders at the river mouth. Then he collapsed.
And there he lay, face downwards in the weed and mud, limp as a sodden sack, as the soldiers came up to him. They looked down, nobody was smiling now. Then bending, Bjorn lifted him in his arms and carried him effortlessly up the shore to the twin bridges. Too weak to struggle, too shocked to protest, Murdo slumped against the man’s shoulder. He was numb, his mouth hung open, his dark eyes were blank with despair. A car door opened, they laid him inside, it slammed shut. And a moment later off they set with him – back, towards Strathy.
The Smoking Cliffs
IT WAS A FIFTY MILE drive from Berriedale to Strathy, for the road had to circle the mountains. But as the clouds rolled back and the sun shone forth on that early February afternoon, Murdo had no eyes for the road he was travelling. Slumped in the back of the car he had given up all hope, and made no effort to pull himself together. The cold water drained from his clothes, gobbets of mud slid down his chest and legs, his mouth was gritty from the river sludge. After all his efforts, all he had endured, in the end they had been too clever for him. Everything had been a waste of time. The thought weighed on him like a leaden blanket. It was too much to bear. His lips trembled, from disappointment and shock as much as the cold, for the car was warm. Periodically his stomach cramped, making him shudder.
Mile followed upon mile. They passed through the fishing village of Helmsdale, and turned inland up the broad deserted straths of Kildonan and Halladale. The car bucked on the bad road, swerving and braking for occasional sheep and snow patches that impeded their progress. From the front seat came the inter- mittent murmur of German voices, but Murdo paid them no heed; everything was swamped, drowned, in the feeling of utter defeat that enveloped him.
Eventually he had to move, however, and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was half surprised to discover that he had been sprawled across the knees of Bjorn Larvik, which now were smeared with the same cold mud as himself. The German was dressed in the uniform of a British army sergeant, his own equivalent rank, with three chevrons on his muddy arm. Gingerly Murdo removed a clot from his own jacket, looked for a place to deposit it, then smeared it against his knee.
He indicated the mess on Bjorn’s uniform. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
The big man looked at him, then smiled wryly. Leaning forward he pulled a sergeant’s greatcoat from behind his back.
‘Put this around yourself,’ he said.
Murdo fumbled with the stiff, mud-caked buttons and tugged off his sodden battledress. Then he peeled off his ragged sweater and shirt. At the bridge he had forgotten the revolver, and now the holster was empty. It had slipped around his belt so that he was half sitting on it. He pulled it back to the front where it was more comfortable. Bjorn looked down and regarded it with interest, but said nothing. Murdo did not explain. He pulled the khaki great-coat around his bare shoulders. It was blanket-thick and scratchy, but immediately he felt better. Holding it close with one hand, he pushed the hair from his eyes and rubbed a sleeve over the steamy window.
They were running parallel to the railway line. Already they had passed Kinbrace and the empty lodge, the loch into which he had fallen through the ice, and the spot where he had stood and watched the troop train roar past. Gentle hills rolled up from the valley floor, blotched with snow and sparkling in the winter sunlight. Occasional cataracts foamed in the gullies.
In the front seat of the car sat Henry Smith and the distinguished man whom the soldier had addressed as ‘Colonel’. Clearly he was the officer in charge of the present operation. Henry Smith was driving, but it was the colonel who attracted Murdo’s attention. Among his men on the bridge he had seemed a figure apart, and now there was something about even the back of his neck that displayed authority. He sat easily, like a squire being driven over his estate, as if he had a right to be there. He seemed to be enjoying the drive. Scraps of their fragmentary conversation reached Murdo’s ears, but it was all in German and he could not understand a word.
Bjorn gazed out of the window beside him, broad-chested, great spade-like hands resting in his lap. Murdo’s glance flickered across the side of his good-natured, peasant face. A fading pink scar near his eye bore witness of the deep scratch he had received when the Lobster Boy went down. He was a fine man. Since they first met on Island Roan, Murdo had admired him. He seemed more like a friend than one of the enemy. Twice the boy drew breath, on the brink of asking a question, then let it go again, too sick at heart to make the effort.
Realising something of how he felt, after a time Bjorn said, ‘You have led us quite a chase.’
Murdo looked across and half nodded, wrinkling his brow. ‘It didn’t do much good.’
‘But it is remarkable. Did you have no help – apart from the old shepherd at... I forget the name of the place?’
‘Corriebreck. No, only him.’
‘No-one else?’
‘No.’
‘But that was before the blizzard. Where were you then?’
‘In an old house up the river.’
‘For all that time – by yourself. What did you eat?’
Murdo told him about the sheep. There was even a scrap of meat in the pocket of his discarded jacket. He produced it, grey and sodden, and dropped it out of the car window with disgust.
‘And you saw nobody. What about –’ Bjorn’s eyes turned towards the hidden holster at Murdo’s waist.
‘Well, I meant no-one…’ Suddenly Murdo saw that he was being led on to divulge information the Germans did not possess. Angry that he should have been betrayed by feelings of kindness and sympathy, he turned and looked out of the window beside him.
‘I am a German soldier,’ Bjorn said simply. ‘That is all I wanted to know.’
He waited for a minute to let the justice of his words sink in, then said, ‘You have been ill, I can see it in your face. But your eye, where Voss hit you, that is better.’
Still looking out of the window, Murdo put up dirty fingers and probed his yellow cheekbone. Only a faint twinge remained.
‘It’s all right,’ he muttered, then half turned round. ‘That man, Voss, was he at the bridge? Will he be coming up with the others, after?’
‘No. I am afraid he had an accident – on the moors. You have no more to fear from Carl Voss.’
Murdo’s eyes opened wide in an unspoken question.
‘No, don’t ask. He was shot, I will tell you that.’
Murdo remembered the unexplained crack of the rifle he had heard on his flight to Strath Halladale.
‘Somewhere near two high hills and a pass?’
‘I believe so, yes. And Peter is still missing.’
Though they did not know it, the likable young pilot was never to be heard of again. Nor was his body found. Only crows visited his remains in the heathery gully where at length he had crept for shelter from the blizzard and numbing wind. The empty moors keep their secrets well.
For a
few moments they were silent, lost in private thought. Then Bjorn said. ‘You will be wondering about your old friend, Mr Gunn.’
Eagerly Murdo looked up.
‘He is all right,’ Bjorn reassured him. ‘A prisoner in the cave. I am afraid Carl Voss hit him rather hard when you escaped, but he came round. He is a tough old man.’
‘He is that.’
‘He is a relative – your uncle perhaps?’
‘No, just a friend of my dad’s – and me now.’
‘Your father, he is in the army?’
‘Aye, a sergeant in the Seaforth’s,’ Murdo said proudly.
Then with genuine interest Bjorn asked about all the members of his family, and produced a wallet to show Murdo a few well- thumbed photographs of his pretty wife and two young children.
They were passing along a particularly desolate stretch of road when the Colonel glanced at his watch and Henry Smith pulled into a passing place beneath a bank of heather. As he switched off the engine a soft roar of water rose on the moorland air. He walked back to the boot and a moment later appeared carrying a coiled up aerial and grey steel radio, similar to the one Murdo had seen in the schoolroom on Island Roan. Soon it was set up on a rock a dozen feet away and he ran the aerial to the car. The Colonel joined him, leaning with casual elegance against the bonnet and smoking a cigarette. Bjorn returned the wallet to his breast pocket and turned down the window. As Henry Smith tuned in Murdo heard the hissing crackle of the set and passing scraps of other programmes. At last he found the station he was seeking and stood back as the last bars of ‘Workers’ Playtime’ rang cheerfully across the glen. They were followed by the weather forecast and programme news, then the chimes of Big Ben. The Colonel checked his watch as the last notes faded, to be followed by the single reverberating stroke of one o’clock.
In that lonely setting the familiar sound – a symbol of British character and resistance during the dark days of the war, and heard by Murdo almost every morning and evening of his life – seemed strange and unreal. So did the well-known voice of the announcer.
‘This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the one o’clock news for today, Friday the fifth of February, 1943, read by Alvar Liddell.
‘News now coming in suggests that the build-up of German troops along the Channel coasts of France and Belgium is nearly complete. raf reconnaissance aircraft report that roads inland, which for the past week have been heavy with infantry, artillery, armoured cars and tanks, are more quiet. It is estimated that the invasion force presently assembled along the hundred mile stretch of coast between Dieppe and Ostende numbers 200,000 men, supported by flotillas of ships, landing craft and other vessels. More than 2,500 bombers and fighter aircraft of the Luftwaffe are believed to have assembled on airfields within a hundred miles of the coast.
‘British troops throughout the country have been withdrawn from their camps and drafted to the Kent and Sussex coasts to resist the threatened invasion.
‘In a speech from his underground headquarters in London last night, the Prime Minister warned of the very real threat posed by the German build-up, and counselled families throughout the land to prepare their weapons of defence. For the details of his speech I hand you over to Nicholas Abbot...’
Henry Smith raised his eyebrows and glanced towards the Colonel, who did not respond. At Murdo’s side Bjorn Larvik was very still. Their expressions were sombre as they continued listening to the news, inwardly considering its implications and visualizing all too vividly the struggle and bloodshed that lay ahead. The invasion of Britain now seemed inevitable, either from within or without. It only remained for the guerilla groups to trigger it off by supplying the German prisoners – at that moment working on the farms and roads of Britain – with rifles, ammunition and explosives. Then they would storm the armouries, and in a matter of hours an army of tens of thousands would be unleashed within the heart of the country. Swift strikes, as Henry Smith had foretold, at the radio stations and telephone exchanges, key bridges and roads, and in little more than a day the country and its defences would be brought to a standstill. Chaos would reign. While across the Channel, like a pack of wolves, the might of the German army was gathered ready to attack.
Without speaking they listened until the end of the broadcast. Then Henry Smith coiled up the aerial, replaced the radio in the boot, and they drove on. Bjorn wound up the window.
Half an hour later the first patch of the North Atlantic appeared, dark blue and still a good way off, between the dappled ridges of the glen. The Colonel murmured a few words to Henry Smith, who half turned his head and spoke to Bjorn.
‘He says you are to get down on the floor,’ Bjorn translated.
‘We will soon be in a village near to your home. There must be no chance that you will be seen.’
There was no arguing. Murdo pushed his muddy clothes out of the way and settled himself on the floor of the car. There was a smell of old cigarette ash and mud. The hard road struck up through the matting and the door handle pressed uncomfortably into his back. ‘No chance of being seen – huh!’ he grumbled under his breath. ‘Fat chance it would be with my luck. Just rotten uncomfortable, that’s all.’ He shifted and wriggled his shoulders, but still the door handle jabbed into his spine. In the cramped space behind the front seats there was no option but to put up with it.
The idea came out of nowhere. Soon they would be in Melvich. Hidden from Henry Smith’s stare in the driving mirror, he glanced up at the soldier beside him. Abstractedly Bjorn gazed out of the side window, watching the countryside pass by. Murdo examined the door handle beyond his big legs, noting which way it opened. The handle at present sticking into his back would turn the same way. Pretending to make himself more comfortable, he drew up his knees and twisted his shoulders a few inches, ready to make a grab for it when the time came.
Unfortunately he could not see out of the window, but a moment later the car swung heavily to the left and accelerated down a slope. Clearly they had just hit the north road, a single track even though it was the principal route of the district. With a rattling jolt they swept on to the Halladale Bridge, and Murdo saw the iron girders flash past above him. ‘Now up the hill again... and to the right,’ he murmured beneath his breath. They were only four miles from Strathy, he knew every turn in the road. Henry Smith accelerated: imperceptibly Murdo nodded – every- one took the straight bit fast. He waited. ‘Slow down at the thirty mile an hour limit... now the sunk bit of road at the drain – there!’ He looked through the opposite window and saw bare tree-tops swish past – they were in the village. He prepared himself, waiting for the power lines. There they were!… ‘Now!’
In one leaping movement he twisted, wrenched the door handle at his back, and tried to fling himself into the road.
‘Help! Help!’
For an instant he saw the crossroads and the Melvich Hotel, then powerful arms plucked him back, a hand of steel clamped over his mouth, and the door slammed shut. He could not move. There had been no-one there, anyway.
Ten minutes later the car drew up at the graveyard gates above Strathy beach. Far across the water the hills of Orkney were blue on the horizon. They descended the dunes to the deserted shore, and on white sand passed through the stacks and outcrops of rock beneath the eastern crags.
The mouth of the cave was piled with boxes and crates. While the Germans lingered in the wintry sunshine, Murdo was led into the chill darkness. Soon Knut was putting the finishing touches to knots that bit painfully into his ankles and wrists.
‘You’ll not get away this time,’ he said viciously, looping the end round yet again and jerking it as tight as it would go. ‘The lorries will be here in a couple of hours.’
Murdo did not speak. After all he had been through he no longer felt frightened. He looked up at the guard’s bowed silhouette, almost invisible outside the circle of torchlight, and kicked his bound feet against the man’s legs as hard as he could, raking his studs across the shin. Knut cried out and stu
mbled, then replied by hacking his own boot into Murdo’s hip and side – once, twice.
‘Kick me, would you!’ he snarled. ‘You animal!’
‘You’re just like Carl Voss,’ Murdo cried, and spat up at the dark shape. ‘I hope you end up like him, too, with a bullet in you.’ Knut’s boot struck him again with vicious force. Then he bentN and caught at the ends of rope and pulled them tight. The gold buttons and braid glinted on his naval uniform. His fair hair, snub nose and dark curly beard moved in and out of the shadows. In a minute the work was finished. Taking Murdo by the lapels of his greatcoat, Knut dumped him against the wall of the cave and stood back.
‘Now, let’s see you get out of that,’ he challenged. ‘The old man’s been in here for a week and he hasn’t moved.’ He cleared his throat noisily and moved away down the cave, a lean shape behind the torchlight. For a moment his body blocked out the patch of light that glimmered at the narrow turning, then he was gone.
Murdo stared about him, but the darkness was almost com- plete and he could distinguish nothing.
‘Hector?’ he said.
The only sounds were the drip of water, the soft roar of the sea, and the murmur of men’s voices at the cave mouth.
‘Hector! Are you there?’
This time a long grunt issued from the blackness at the other side of the chamber.
‘Hector, it’s me – Murdo. Are you all right?’
There was a slow, rattling cough and the noise of laboured breathing before the words came.
‘Yes, I’m fine.’ His voice was choked and weak. ‘How are you boy?’
‘I’m all right,’ Murdo said, his own voice strong in comparison. He squirmed across the pile of smooth boulders that blocked the inner end of the cave.
‘What – happened?’
‘Nothing,’ Murdo said, his eyes still unable to penetrate the gloom, though Hector could only have been an arm’s length away. ‘They were after me and then the snow came. We were in the hills. I didn’t see anybody.’
‘Two men dead and one missing… it sounds like a bloodbath. Anyway… you gave them a run for their money.’ The old man’s voice was little more than a wheeze, and broke off into an uncontrollable fit of coughing that left him struggling for breath.
Murdo's War Page 24