The Dangerous Islands

by Ann Bridge

To Julia’s surprise, Edina spoke up in support of her suggestion. She would like to see her friends the MacIans, since they were so near; they could get milk and cream and bread, and probably chickens, or even ducks—at the worst a leg of mutton. ‘Someone has to look after the commissariat,’ Philip’s wife said, looking rather firmly at her husband. ‘And you’ve never seen all those carved tombstones in the Abbey at Inch-Ian, have you? They’re very remarkable.’ Philip never had, and didn’t much mind if he never did; but he realised that his wife wanted to put in at Ullin, and gave way. Anyhow it was a superbly safe and sheltered anchorage.

  Julia’s surprise at Edina’s intervention was largely due to the fact that she knew, positively, that Colin had had no opportunity of speaking alone to his sister since they came on board. Colin was a great one, she knew from past experience, for binding other people to silence, and then saying whatever he thought appropriate himself—but this time she had been with Edina, dishing up the supper, from the moment they climbed the hanging steps onto the deck. She had combed out her rather long lion-coloured hair and powdered her face in the galley, without going through to the cabin which she and Edina shared—Philip, like a conscientious skipper, slept in an extremely public bunk at the foot of the companion-ladder, opposite the lavatory-cum-washroom; the Captain and Colin on the squashy and most comfortable seats in the saloon.

  What she had failed to reckon with was Edina’s intense per-cipience where her brother was concerned. Mrs. Reeder had noticed his abstracted manner at supper, and seen him jerking his double-jointed thumb in and out, always a symptom of nerves or worry; above all she observed the extreme concentration with which he looked on while Julia put forward the proposal to land on Ullin—when Philip opposed this Colin’s thumb had jerked furiously and audibly. Obviously for some reason the beloved brother wanted desperately to get ashore, presumably on the island with the heronry; so she put her oar in, and gained her point—or rather his.

  When supper and coffee were over, and the men were washing up—this was part of the routine on the yacht—the two young women went on deck. It was a calm evening; the steady breeze which had carried them racing up past Iona had died away, and only faint movements of air brought the smell of seaweed from the boulder-strewn shores, and occasional puffs of the strong odour of sheep—a broad red band on the northern horizon indicated the brief absence of the sun. They smoked, in silence, for a time.

  ‘What’s fussing Colin?’ Edina asked presently. ‘Why must he land on Ullin? I’m sure you were organising that for him.’

  ‘Why do you think so?’

  ‘Oh, he looked as if he had seen a ghost! And he was in a frenzy about getting it arranged.’

  ‘Well you played up splendidly,’ Julia said. She paused, thinking what best to say. ‘I gather he remembered something he’d forgotten—anyhow he simply must get ashore and telephone tomorrow. The MacIans have got a telephone, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes—in the drawing-room! He’d much better go ashore to the Post Office at Inch-Ian, if it’s some official performance—though I expect half Mull will listen in to that!’ She paused, and lit another cigarette. ‘You can’t tell me what the trouble is?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I can’t Edina. But he certainly won’t want to pour it all out from the MacIans’ drawing-room, in front of everybody. You fix it that he gets put ashore at Inch-Ian, will you? On the Q.T.?’

  On the following morning Edina did precisely that. Colin, she stated firmly, wanted to look at the tomb-slabs on Inch-Ian; Julia and he would row ashore in the dinghy, while the rest of them tied up the Mary Hathaway at the pier on Ullin and made contact with the MacIans. ‘I’ll do some purchasing, and Captain Benson can go and listen to the herons, and look for phalaropes. I daresay we shall get a free lunch; the Mac-I.s are madly hospitable, and anyhow they never see anyone—guests are a gift.’

  Ullin’s Isle is long, low, and grey-green; opposite, across the narrow sound, the landward shore is the same. Julia rowed Colin to a point which the chart showed as nearest the village; ignoring the Abbey and its tomb-slabs they made straight for the Post Office. This contained a far from sound-proof telephone-booth; Colin entered it, and asked for a London number.

  ‘Is it London you’re wanting?’ said the post mistress, coming out from behind the counter where she dispensed stamps, Postal Orders, Old-Age Pensions, and Heinz’s products with impartiality.

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Ah, well I’d better speak to Salen myself.’ She did what is known in the West Highlands as ‘speaking over the line’.

  ‘Is that Salen? Good morning, Mary Anne. How’s your Mother? Oh, that’s grand. I’m so glad. Give her my love. Listen, Mary Anne, could you get me Oban? I have a gentleman here that wants to speak with London.’

  After more of these warm-hearted exchanges—one of the Oban operators was a niece of the Inch-Ian post mistress, so further family enquiries—Colin was at last put through to his London number. Julia could hear every word; so of course could the post mistress, and some antique creatures who had come in to draw their pensions—though one at least of these was deaf.

  Colin first checked on the number; then he asked for Major Torrens, but by a letter and three numbers—Julia didn’t realise who he wanted till Colin said—

  ‘Hugh? Colin here. Look, we’ve seen something rather extraordinary. I think it should be checked—at once … Oh, me and Julia … From an intensely public call-office at a place called Inch-Ian.’ … Colin gave his still-youthful giggle. ‘All right—I’ll wait while you look it out.’ There was a surprisingly short pause, during which Julia slid into the box behind her cousin, and muttered—‘Hold the thing a little away from your ear, and I can listen too.’ Presently she heard Hugh Torrens’ so familiar voice say—‘I’ve got it. There?’

  ‘No; on an island some distance out to sea—we’re sailing.’

  ‘Oh, on the rich ex-merchant seaman’s yacht! Listen, Colin, you must try to give me some idea of what you’ve found, or I shan’t know who could check, satisfactorily.’

  Colin gulped. ‘Well, someone in Brown’s department, I should think,’ he said.

  ‘You really mean this?’

  ‘Like hell I do! Do you remember that nonsense we found last year on the Berlengas?’

  ‘Oh that.’

  This name evidently produced an effect on the Major; even in the Secret Service a spark is occasionally kindled.

  ‘Oh, if that’s the line of country, Jimmie is the man to come up. I’ll see if he’s in—hold on.’

  There was another pause—this time more prolonged.

  ‘Where is he to come to?’ Julia muttered to her cousin over his shoulder. ‘Heskeir is only a lighthouse, with Grey Seals!—he can’t get there, and that’s where Philip wants to go next.’ Then they both heard Major Torrens’ voice again.

  ‘He’s out. Where can I get you?’

  ‘Oh God, how can you get a yacht?’ Colin exclaimed exas-peratedly. ‘I told you we’re sailing.’ Julia leaned out of the box.

  ‘Mrs. Macsporran, what is Sir Ian MacIan’s number?’

  ‘Inch-Ian 2, Miss.’

  She leaned into the box again, and snatched the receiver from Colin’s hand.

  ‘Hugh, till 2.30, or perhaps 3, you can almost certainly get Colin at Inch-Ian 2.’

  ‘Oh Julia, is that you? My dear, how are you?’

  ‘Brilliantly well.’

  ‘On the job, as usual?’

  ‘Yes. But I agree with Colin—someone must come up to see these dotty doings.’

  ‘You’ve seen them?’

  ‘Oh God, yes! Too peculiar for words. Look, if Colonel J. rings up the number I’ve given you, warn him that it’s in the drawing-room, with a large house-party sitting round listening!’

  ‘It seems to me that the one point is to settle where he is to meet the yacht,’ Major Torrens said, very sensibly.

  ‘How right! But it’s not my yacht,’ Julia said. She paused. ‘Listen, Hugh—I t
hink this may turn out nasty; I don’t know why I think so, I just have a hunch. What I suggest is a pub in Tobermory, tomorrow evening; everyone goes to pubs, and if he catches a train to Oban tonight, he can make it easily. We’ll find out about the best pub, ready for when he rings. Do you want to talk to C. again?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Goodbye, my dear.’

  Colin, like Julia, had heard both sides of this conversation.

  ‘How you do like taking things into your own hands, don’t you?’ he said rather irritably, when she had put down the receiver.

  ‘Only to be useful. Come on—let’s pay, and row over. You’ll have to ring Hugh up again if the Mac-I’.s don’t ask us to lunch.’

  The call to London cost twenty-seven shillings—startling and delighting the post mistress. Very few small West Highland post offices can often record a call for such a sum. As they rowed across the sound—

  ‘You’ll never get Philip to go into Tobermory,’ Colin said gloomily.

  ‘If I can’t, Edina will, if you ask her,’ Julia replied. ‘Don’t be so defeatist, Colin darling.’

  The MacIans had invited the whole party to lunch in their large, vaguely Georgian house, with lofty rooms and high windows. Sir Ian was a good deal older than his wife, and rather deaf—one less to overhear, Julia thought; his wife was tall and thickly-built, with pretty curly grey hair and a square, gay, amusing face. She would be the useful one, Julia decided, and over the pre-lunch drinks she concentrated on her hostess—the only other guest was an ancient lady with a hearing-aid, staying in the house. Really Captain Benson was the only serious menace to the telephone call, apart from Philip; she asked Lady MacIan if he had been to the heronry?

  ‘No, not yet—my husband is taking him after lunch. But he has seen my lily-border.’ Lady MacIan’s ruling passion was for lilies, which she grew with outstanding success; Julia glowed about lilies for some time, and then ventured a question about the telephone.

  ‘Is that your only instrument?’ she asked, indicating a cream-coloured set on a desk in the window.

  ‘Oh no—I got my husband to have one put into his study downstairs only last month; it was getting rather toilsome for him to have to climb up here for all his estate calls. Why?’ she asked, with a rather acute glance.

  ‘Oh, my cousin Colin is expecting a business call presently; he ventured to give this number, on the off-chance that you might be so very kind as to ask us to lunch.’

  ‘Now Miss Probyn, that is unkind of you. If Edina is anywhere within my reach, it is not in the least an ‘off-chance’ that I shall ask her to a meal, or to stay; it is a certainty,’ Lady MacIan pronounced. ‘How interesting Colin’s job must be,’ she added.

  ‘Actually I think it all rather a bore,’ Julia said, with careful carelessness. ‘They seem to make such a fuss about things that so often prove to be nonsenses, in the end.’ Her hostess laughed—but Julia had an uncomfortable feeling that she had not been deceived. At that moment a bell boomed through the house, proclaiming luncheon, and they all trooped down the wide stone staircase—in Highland houses of that period the drawing-room is usually on the first floor—and into a big dining-room whose windows gave onto the island side, away from the Sound and towards the pine-wood which held the heronry. Julia was relieved that her humble unmarried status prevented her from having to sit next to her host; comfortably established on Lady MacIan’s left, with Captain Benson opposite her, she listened to poor Edina shouting at Sir Ian, and Sir Ian positively bellowing at the old lady with the deaf-aid, repeating all Edina’s observations, inaccurately. A very old, flat-footed butler, who reminded Julia of Forbes at Glentoran, handed round a perfect lobster Newburg, accompanied by faultless buttered rice.

  ‘Goodness, how exquisite!’ Julia exclaimed after her first mouthful. ‘Have you got a Spanish cook?’

  ‘No. I know Edina has her wonderful Olimpia, but I only have a Scottish cook—myself,’ Lady MacIan added, with an engaging grin.

  ‘Well I do congratulate you,’ Captain Benson said. ‘This is marvellous.’

  ‘It’s really so easy,’ said Lady MacIan. ‘That wonderful affinity between sherry and lobster—and then lots of cream. I admit scraping all the fat out of the lobster-shells and beating it into the cream is rather toilsome, but I have taught my local kitchen-maid to do that.’

  ‘But the rice,’ the Captain persisted.

  ‘Ah yes—well that I have to do myself.’

  The lobster was followed by a chicken casserole with red wine—equally perfect.

  ‘Madam, you are a genius!’ Captain Benson exclaimed.

  ‘Casseroles are the salvation of the modern house-wife,’ said Lady MacIan calmly. ‘This took hours— but I made it yesterday. I always cook a lot at a time, in case people turn up—if they don’t, casseroles go on and on.’

  The shouting at the other end of the table had momentarily died down; through the open windows came that strange sound, as of shingle on a beach, that nesting herons make.

  ‘Oh listen—there they are!’ Julia said.

  ‘There are what?’ Captain Benson asked.

  ‘The herons—don’t you hear them?’

  He cocked an ear towards the windows. ‘But can that be—’ he began, when Edina thought of something else to shout at Sir Ian, and all outer sounds were drowned.

  ‘Yes, it was,’ said Julia.

  ‘I must get out there,’ said Captain Benson urgently.

  ‘You shall—just have coffee first,’ said his hostess. ‘How nice it is to have people here who care about birds and lilies,’ she added, with a friendly smile at Julia.

  As they were going up to the drawing-room for coffee the telephone rang, loudly, both upstairs and down. Sir Ian started to shuffle down again towards his study.

  ‘Ian, I think this call may be for Mr. Monro—he’s expecting one,’ his wife said to him. She did not have to shout, as others did; she aimed her voice at him, and he heard her—but so did everyone else except the old lady with the deaf-aid, in this instance.

  ‘All the same, I’d better go and see,’ the old gentleman said, continuing his unsteady progress down the staircase.

  ‘Edina, sit on the drawing-room telephone!’ Julia hissed in her cousin’s ear. ‘Don’t let anyone listen-in up there.’

  ‘O.K.’

  Suddenly the bell stopped ringing; the old butler emerged from the study into the hall.

  ‘A personal call from London for a Mr. Monro. Have we a Mr. Monro here, my Lady?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes—tell them he’s coming. Down you go, Colin.’ She went down and took her husband by the arm. ‘It is for Edina’s brother,’ she told him. ‘Now come up and have coffee.’

  Julia had had no chance so far to plan anything about Tobermory—as they all proceeded upstairs she whispered again to Edina.

  ‘We may have to put in to Tobermory tomorrow night for Colin to meet someone. It’s the quickest place, and it’s pretty vital. Can you guarantee that Philip will, or must Colin land and go by bus? I must tell him, now, while he’s telephoning.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll guarantee that,’ Edina murmured back. ‘I love Tobermory, and there are the MacAllens, too—it would be heavenly to see them. What’s the good of coming all this way if one only sees Shearwaters and Grey Seals, and not one’s chums? Tell Colin it’s all right.’

  ‘Bless you!’ Julia flew down the stairs into the hall after Colin, but he had disappeared; she tried three or four doors before she opened the one into the study, where she saw her cousin standing at the telephone.

  ‘Well I’m not absolutely sure where, yet,’ he said as she came in … ‘Yes, I know Julia said Tobermory, but there’s been no chance to settle anything … Oh, hold on—Julia’s nudging my elbow.’

  ‘Better let me speak to Julia,’ the girl heard Hugh Torrens say; Colin handed over the receiver.

  ‘Hugh, is it Colonel J. who’s coming?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is he there with you? If so I’ll tell him
what to do—no good repeating everything twice over. Just tell him who I am.’

  ‘He knows that—he says he knows you.’

  ‘Oh yes—Berne three years ago, for ten minutes! All right—put him on.’

  A fresh voice spoke. ‘Miss P.?’

  ‘That’s right. You know the small town you’re to come to?’

  ‘I know what has been suggested.’

  ‘Well, it’s confirmed. When you get there, go to a very good tweed-shop—really the only one—and ask the proprietor for the best and quietest pub. We will check with him, and meet you there at opening time.’

  ‘You don’t know it’s name?—the pub, I mean.’

  ‘No—and I shouldn’t mention it if I did! But Hugh says you know me by sight.’

  ‘Of course. Who could forget you?’

  ‘Very kind. Look, bring an oilskin and sou’-wester; it often turns rough up here.’

  ‘Sea-boots?’

  ‘Not unless you want to be drowned! Any form of sand-shoe or tennis-shoe is much better.’

  ‘Right. I shall be seeing you, which is very nice. Au revoir.’ He rang off.

  ‘How do you know Tobermory’s all right?’ Colin asked.

  ‘I asked Edina to fix that, and she guaranteed it. She’ll cope with Philip,’ Julia replied easily. ‘She has friends there she wants to see.’

  ‘How are we to manage this pub business? It all sounds very sketchy to me.’

  ‘Well I rather think the tweed merchant sells bottled drink as well, so he might have a small back room; if not, we meet up in the pub, and then we can bring the Colonel back onto the boat for supper. Too simple.’

  ‘Well thank God he knows you by sight,’ Colin said fervently.

  Chapter 2

  Entering the Sound of Mull from the north can be rough, especially if the wind is setting against the tide, which runs strongly round Ardnamurchan Point; once inside the Sound all is usually smooth going, and a swing to starboard brings one into the small, completely sheltered harbour of Tobermory—the little town stretching along one side of it, and gentle hills rising all round.

  The Mary Hathaway ran pleasantly up from Inch-Ian, but off Ardnamurchan it was quite rough; they had to reef, and Philip needed all his skill. Poor Captain Benson became violently seasick, and was not quick enough to arrange this performance to leeward—the deck became embarrassingly messy, hampering the crew’s dealings with the sails.