The Dangerous Islands

by Ann Bridge

  ‘Yes, and do ask him where the English Professor is digging,’ the Colonel added.

  ‘All in good time,’ Julia replied easily, and continued to converse with the bodach in his incomprehensible lingo. At last—‘His daughter will give us tea at his croft; it’s just down the road,’ she told them. ‘And then he’ll take us to where the digging is going on.’ She began to laugh.

  ‘He says the stones are full of evil powers. Years ago a great Professor from ‘Caambridge’ came up here and wished to spend a night among them; everyone begged him not to, because his soul would be in danger, and his life too.’

  The croft where they were given tea was one of the old Lewis houses; of one storey, very long, with stone walls five feet thick; but the thatched roof abutted on the inner side of the walls, and was tied down with heather ropes fastened to large stones. Colonel Jamieson commented on this curious arrangement.

  ‘Oh, the wind is the great enemy up here,’ Edina told him. ‘You’ve no conception of the force of the gales; a hundred miles an hour is commonplace. If the roof came down onto the outer edge of the wall the wind would get in under it and rip it off in no time; this way the wind hits the wall and is deflected upwards, so that it misses the bottom of the roof.’

  The old man’s daughter, with the untroubled courtesy of the Highlands, laid the table, boiled the kettle, and gave them a sumptuous tea—scones, butter, jam, and home-made cake; she urged boiled eggs on the party, but they declined these, since they had had lunch. The young woman was of the generation that spoke English, but she couldn’t, she explained, get away to Stornoway for the herring-gutting because she couldn’t leave Father. ’Twas a pity; the money was so good, and it was ‘lively’ to be in Stornoway for a while—she liked ‘the pictures’.

  Edina, brought up in the West Highlands, knew that even today it is in very poor taste to offer money for a meal, though now it is occasionally accepted—in the past it was always refused. On these yachting trips, therefore, she armed herself with a variety of gifts, and now drew out from her haversack a pretty coloured head-scarf for the mistress of the house, and a big red-and-white cotton handkerchief for the old man. The young woman fingered the scarf delightedly; the old man rattled away in Gaelic.

  ‘My Father is saying, will he blow his nose on this, or put it round his neck?’ she said laughing. Julia told him in Gaelic to use the thing for whichever he preferred, but not both at once!

  ‘Ah, the young lady has the Gaelic? Isn’t that wonderful, now? Is she Hielan’ born?’

  It was the daughter who eventually led them to where ‘The English Professor’ was digging, having snugged the old man down on a wooden settle by the fire. She tied the new kerchief over her head, and peered at herself in a small clouded mirror hanging on the wall beside the mantelpiece. ‘It’s lovely,’ she said to Edina; ‘ten thousand thanks.’

  The ‘dig’ was out on a blunt promontory projecting westwards into the loch. There was no road, not even a track; they ploughed across soggy ground. On the way Julia, at the Colonel’s instance (muttered in French) asked the young woman what The Professor was doing?

  ‘Ah well’—their escort, displaying true Highland caution, paused, and obviously considered her words carefully.

  ‘He says that he’s digging up ancient things; this is an ancient place. But there are those that say he could be an enemy.’

  ‘Why should they say that?’ Julia enquired.

  ‘’Tis what is thought.’

  Presently they came to the dig. A small mound had been trenched across, bisecting it in two directions, and in its centre an old white-haired gentleman was grubbing away very carefully with a trowel in the peaty soil round what appeared to be a cist, one of those box-like constructions of stone slabs which constitute minor Bronze-Age burial-places. At their approach he looked up, and Julia, when she saw his face, greeted him with delight.

  ‘Professor Burbage! What fun!—how good to see you.’ She ran forward and gave him a kiss. ‘What have you got there?’

  The old gentleman returned her kiss, but even as he did so he was looking at her companions. Rather to her surprise, instead of answering her question, he asked—‘Who are your friends?’

  ‘Oh, how stupid of me! Don’t you know my cousin Edina Monro?—well she’s Mrs. Reeder now. Edina, this is Professor Burbage, an old friend of Mrs. Hathaway’s.’ She paused—something in the tone of the Professor’s question troubled her, coming on top of what the woman from the croft had just been saying—but old Burbage, whom she had known all her life! All the same—‘And this is Mr. James, a friend of ours,’ she said.

  Both Edina and Colonel Jamieson were startled by this return to the Tobermory atmosphere, though neither gave any sign.

  ‘Is this a cist?’ Edina asked. ‘I see the lid is still in position.’

  ‘Ah, you know about cists?’ He relaxed a little. ‘Yes—so I hope it may be unrifled.’

  ‘What do you expect to find in it, if it is?’ ‘Mr. James’ asked.

  ‘Either a burial-urn, or one of those curious doubled-up skeletons, so common in Bronze-Age burials.’

  Julia asked if they couldn’t help?

  ‘Well, you could take that second trowel and dig round the farther end. I want to get the sides clear before I prize off the lid.’

  Julia knelt down and used the second trowel. This left the Colonel and Edina rather at a loose end, and they strolled away together; the woman from the croft, after polite farewells, had taken herself off.

  ‘Who’s that man James?’ the Professor asked, when the others had left them.

  ‘Oh, a boy-friend of mine.’

  ‘And what are you all doing up here?’

  ‘Just cruising,’ Julia said airily. She couldn’t believe that the dear old Prof. was up to anything sinister, but his pertinacious questions were a little odd. ‘We broke our boom two days ago off West Loch Tarbert,’ she went on; ‘Philip Reeder and Colin have gone to Stornoway today to see about getting a new one.’

  ‘Colin? That’s Edina’s brother, surely?’ Julia nodded. ‘Isn’t he in the Foreign Office, or something?’ The old man put down his trowel as he spoke, and looked earnestly at her.

  ‘Yes, Prof. darling—and not much good at it, if you ask me.’ But something in his attitude troubled her more and more—why should he be so curious about what Colin was doing?

  ‘And this James? What does he do?’ Professor Burbage pursued.

  ‘He was in the Army, I believe; now I think he’s something in the City,’ Julia lied recklessly, thoroughly disconcerted.

  ‘My dear child, you ought to know more than that about the man you are going to marry,’ the Professor said.

  ‘I don’t know that I am going to marry him; I only said that he’s a boy-friend,’ Julia said. ‘Prof. dear, come on and dig, and leave my love-life alone!’

  The old man laughed rather reluctantly, and took up his trowel again. But at intervals he kept raising his head and watching Edina and the Colonel’s progress; when a fold in the ground hid them from his view—‘Why did you come to Callernish?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Oh, Edina’s been longing to see it for years. I wanted to, too —I expect you know Geoffrey Consett? He’s always telling me how wonderful it is.’

  ‘Ah yes—I think Mary told me that you knew Consett. A most intelligent young man.’

  ‘Yes, he’s another boy-friend,’ Julia said cheerfully. ‘Well rather an ex-one, now.’

  ‘What precisely do you mean by that?’

  ‘That I’m definitely not going to marry him. But Prof. darling, bother my boy-friends! I want to ask you about Callernish.’

  ‘What about Callernish?’

  ‘What relation it has to the extraordinary shape of Celtic Crosses.’ She expanded on her newly-formed theory; this so interested Professor Burbage that for the moment he gave his whole attention to her. Yes, he had long thought that Callernish might have given its characteristic shape to the Christian symbol in the We
st Highlands; he in his turn expanded and expounded. Then they went on digging, more happily.

  Meanwhile the Colonel and Edina wandered about, their main direction seawards. Really this was a hopeless proposition, Jamieson thought; you would want at least thirty men to quarter the ground for days to find what he was looking for. True, he had been given the Professor as an indication; but there was nothing to be seen in the immediate neighbourhood of the mound which the old man was excavating.

  ‘Hullo!’ Edina exclaimed suddenly. ‘Look—there’s another stone circle. One of those small ones where the stones hardly show.’

  She was right. Half-buried in grass and heather, lumps of stone formed an unmistakeable circle; they trod out the perimeter, occasionally pulling away tufts of heather to reveal half-buried stones.

  ‘We must tell old Burbage about this, if he hasn’t seen it already,’ Edina said.

  ‘Oh no we mustn’t,’ Jamieson exclaimed—‘not on any account.’ He had walked out into the centre of the circle; there, half-concealed by the deep heather, was the all-too-familiar plastic cap or dome, just as he had seen it on Erinish Beg. He drew it carefully aside; below was the same metal cone, with the spiky saucer below it—he replaced the cap.

  ‘What is this?’ Edina asked, coming up to him.

  ‘An installation for giving exact information on the course of satellites. May have been planted by a Russian trawler, like the one we met coming in, or by the Professor.’

  ‘It couldn’t be the Professor,’ Edina protested. ‘He’s an old, old friend of Mrs. Hathaway’s.’

  Jamieson ignored her; he was stepping about, scanning the rough ground for the rest of what he expected to find. He found it all: the square of stamped-in turfs covering the long-life batteries—he knelt, prized up the turfs, and checked on this—and, after a further search, the little metal socket from which the small aerial would emerge to report back to Moscow. Of course, he explained to Edina, the satellite would send its own report; but this was an on-the-ground check, and therefore invaluable. ‘Your husband has a pretty good idea about it all,’ he added, with a faint grin.

  ‘Philip? Who told him?’

  ‘No one—he guessed. He’s very clever.’ The Colonel was thinking, ruefully, that at some point he would have to pay Philip Reeder five pounds.

  He now took out a prismatic compass and a notebook, took bearings, and wrote them down.

  ‘Good,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘What a piece of luck. And how amusing to plant it in an Ancient Monument.’

  ‘But you can’t think that old Burbage did it? It’s incredible!’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t. Someone did. And you heard what that nice woman who gave us tea said about his possibly being “an enemy”.’

  Edina was very much upset.

  ‘He isn’t working here. There’s no sign of any excavation.’

  ‘Except the hole for the batteries, and that metal box with all the mechanism. But I agree—he looks too old and frail to have done that manual labour himself. I imagine teams have been sent ashore from the so-called Russian trawlers, at night, to instal the machinery.’

  Edina looked relieved. The Colonel opened his mouth to say something else, which would have checked her relief; then he shut it again.

  ‘We’d better be getting back,’ he said. ‘If possible I should like to use that lighthouse telephone.’

  ‘To get on to London, and report this?’

  ‘Precisely. That, after all, is what your husband has so kindly brought me here for.’

  Edina frowned, drawing her dark eyebrows together above her dead-white face.

  ‘You won’t talk about the dear old Professor?’

  ‘My dear Mrs. Reeder, the “dear old Professor” is already under suspicion in London—as well as here, on the spot, as you heard for yourself. What I report will neither add to, nor subtract from, that suspicion; what I can also report is the Russian trawler which we met leaving the loch, without lights, two mornings ago.’

  ‘Yes, that’s something,’ Mrs. Reeder said. ‘All right—only do keep the Prof. out of it as much as you can. I’m positive he could never be mixed up in any sort of treachery.’

  ‘I expect that’s what the Macleans thought about their boy in the Foreign Office,’ the Colonel said grimly, as they walked back towards the dig.

  Julia and the Professor were still grubbing away; the cist was almost completely exposed now.

  ‘Would you like me to help you off with the lid? It looks pretty heavy,’ the Colonel asked politely.

  ‘Oh, thank you very much—no. I can usually get some help locally when I need it.’

  ‘Oh, I wish we could have seen the lid come off!’ Julia said. ‘Would there be jewellery?’

  ‘Conceivably—not very likely,’ the Professor replied. ‘How are you getting back to Carloway? Have you a car?’

  ‘No—on our flat feet. So we simply must go now,’ Edina said firmly. They were all rather silent during this long trudge: Julia was dying to ask Jamieson whether he had found anything, but refrained. However she got her answer when Edina led them to the Shore-Station of the distant lighthouse; she took the Colonel in and introduced him.

  ‘He wants to telephone,’ she informed Julia when she came out.

  ‘Then you did find it? How splendid! Where on earth was it?’

  ‘In a very minor stone circle—we went to look at that, and there it all was. But J., it’s rather horrid; he says that Professor Burbage is under suspicion in London.’

  ‘All this local rubbish!’ Julia said vigorously. ‘You heard what that woman said.’ But she did not feel the confidence which her words suggested. Why had the Professor seemed so suspicious, and asked all those questions about Colin and the Colonel? It was all rather disquieting—oddly enough she too thought of Burgess and Maclean, and the people who had loved and trusted them. One never knew, today, where treachery would strike.

  In the Shore-Station the Colonel was again talking to Captain Brown in London.

  ‘Yes, the complete outfit … I know, pretty quick; been lucky. No,j’ enverrai tout cela par le courrier,’ he said in French … ‘Yes, compass-bearings … Yes, fairly near by … Only confirmation of what you already had … Quite; but I’ve also got something from another angle … Well I don’t know where from; we’ve broken our boom, so we’re rather lame; got to get round to have a new one fixed … No idea how soon … What about that other boat? … Oh, you have? Yes … Yes … Yes; well send me your stuff to Poste Restante Stornoway … All right, I’ll ring when I can.’

  When they got down to Lord Leverhulme’s ill-placed quay the Stornoway party had just returned.

  ‘No, there’s nothing big enough here,’ Philip reported to his wife. ‘But I got on the telephone to Aberdeen and ordered one from there; and by the greatest piece of luck a boat is sailing north-about for Stornoway tomorrow, and will bring it. There’s an excellent ship’s carpenter here too—he’s got our metal ends, and he will fix it for us.’

  ‘When will it come?’

  ‘Oh, two or three days. I think we’d better get round there as soon as we can, to be on hand. Let’s get aboard and hear the weather report, and look at the tide-table; the tides are pretty strong round the Butt.’

  The dinghy wouldn’t really hold five large adults. Colin rowed the skipper and Edina out first; the skipper to listen to the wireless, Edina to start preparing supper. Julia and the Colonel waited, sitting dangling their legs over the side of the quay—he told her in detail about the discovery of the second installation. But Julia was worrying about what Edina had repeated about Professor Burbage being ‘under suspicion’ in London, and pressed Jamieson on this point.

  ‘Well yes, my dear, he is.’

  ‘It’s nonsense! There can’t be anything wrong with him. Just based on the local natter here, I suppose?’ He looked sadly at her.

  ‘Not only on that, though that has come in.’

  ‘Then on what, for goodness sake?’ Julia deman
ded angrily.

  ‘I can’t tell you, at this stage. “They” have all sorts of hideous means of putting pressure on people.’

  ‘I’ve known him all my life—I can’t believe it,’ Julia said. But alas, there had been something odd about the Prof. this afternoon—and nowadays one could believe almost anything.

  Reeder might have appeared to have forgotten why they had come to Loch Roag, in his preoccupation with getting a new boom; but he hadn’t. After supper he once more invited the Colonel up on deck.

  ‘Do any good?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, we found it. Your wife noticed a rather obscure stone circle, and there it was, sitting in the middle of it! I’m most awfully grateful to you.’

  ‘So you’ve done all you want to here?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. I’m enormously obliged to you—you’ve been most good.’

  ‘Want to get back to London?’

  ‘Well, when I can. I’m expecting some mail at Stornoway.’

  ‘Ah! Well if you can give us a hand round the Butt I shall be quite glad of it—Colin’s not a great seaman.’

  ‘Of course I shall be delighted to do that.’

  ‘Good. We’ll get off tomorrow; I’ve worked out the tides—it will mean another of these all-night trips, damn it. But one can’t travel fast with a jury-rig. The weather report is good,’ he added.

  Chapter 5

  To get a big yacht round the Butt of Lewis on a try-sail is quite an undertaking, but Philip Reeder was experienced, and took such things in his stride. Unfortunately the weather forecast proved to be mistaken; well before the Mary Hathaway, creeping along under her jury-rig, came into the heavy tides round the northern point of the Long Island a strong wind blew up. This produced uncomfortable choppy seas, which increased in violence when the yacht encountered the ferocious tides—Edina, who was sometimes seriously seasick, took to her bunk with a basin, with Julia in attendance. Presently the girl opened the hatch and shouted to the Skipper.

  ‘Philip, where do you keep that anti-seasick stuff? I can’t find it, and I think she ought to have it.’