Peter May - The Chessmen

Of course, we’d have been in trouble if the water-bailiff had caught us, though they weren’t so bothered in those days. Poaching wasn’t the problem it became, and the rivers and lochs were teeming with trout. The worst that might have happened would have been a kick up the backside and getting our fish confiscated. But if they’d caught us with salmon that would have been another story. So we contented ourselves with the trout, and kept our eyes skinned for the water-bailiff or the gamekeeper.

It had taken us nearly two hours to walk up to the loch. The peaks of Mealaisbhal and Cracabhal and Tathabhal above us were lost in the clouds. Water was cascading down the track in gushing rivulets, exposing the bed of big sea pebbles that were its foundation, swirling in frantic eddies and churning up potholes that could break an axle. Deep drainage channels dug in the peat were overflowing with the thousands of gallons of brown rainwater running off the mountains.

Although we wore waxed jackets with hoods, and wellies, and waterproof leggings, we were both soaked by the time we got there. I could see Whistler’s big plump cheeks, pink and shining with the rain, grinning at me through the circle of hood that left his face exposed, black hair smeared across his forehead. But I also saw caution in his eyes, and he nodded towards the gate at the foot of the track leading up to Loch Tathabhal.

There was a Land Rover parked there. We scanned every horizon, then, but saw no one, and approached the vehicle in silence. Whistler put his hand on the bonnet. ‘Cold. It’s been here a while.’ I wiped the rain away from the side window and peered inside. The keys were dangling in the ignition. On the passenger seat there was a copy of that day’s newspaper, and a fisherman’s woollen cap with homemade flies pinned all along its skip. Useless as protection in these conditions. But I recognized it immediately.

‘It’s big Jock Macrae’s,’ I said. The water-bailiff.

Whistler nodded. ‘Better be careful, then.’

We made our way up the track towards the loch, following the line of a stream that in summer was not much more than a trickle. Now, though, it was a thunderous flow of water, breaking and splashing over the rocks and boulders that tumbled down the slope in a series of dramatic drops towards Loch Raonasgail below. The stream had burst its banks where the land levelled out towards Loch Tathabhal, swelling to a width of ten or twelve feet where it left the loch, sweeping in full spate towards the falls.

By the time we reached the loch itself, we saw that the level had risen to the point where the water was passing just inches below the old wooden bridge. Normally it had a clearance of four or five feet. If it got any higher, it would sweep the flimsy structure away, leaving just the drystone stanchions at either side. But even those were in danger, water flowing around them with a power that filled the air with its fury. Whistler raised his voice to shout above it. ‘Let’s cast from the bridge. Loch side. The currents are bound to draw the fish this way.’ We were rank amateurs in those days.

I nodded, and we clambered up over the stones and on to the bridge itself. There was a wooden rail that ran along the loch side of it that we could lean on and cast. We dropped our bags and assembled our rods, the water rushing beneath our feet in a torrent. Scary in its power and proximity. I didn’t dare look at it, or it made me giddy.

Whistler grinned. ‘This is the life, eh?’

I grinned back, and for some extraordinary reason took a step backwards before casting. I was gone in a second. A momentary sense of flying through thin air, before hitting the water and feeling the power of it sweep me away. The cold took my breath with it and I couldn’t even cry out. And then I was under, and knew with absolute certainty that I was going to die.

I have heard people say that in the seconds before a crash, or a life-threatening accident, time seems to stand still and you have all that you need of it to rewind your life, spooling back through those moments that exist only in your memory and are about to be lost for ever. I didn’t experience it like that.

The first thing I felt was pain as I was dashed against a rock dividing the flow of water. The force of the impact and the current of the water itself lifted me out of it for a few vital seconds. I could see how the stream dropped away below me, white water breaking over boulders and cascading in spumes and spray through the rain that continued to fall. And I found myself almost beached on the slab of rock which had broken my downward momentum, sliding over its slippery black surface, face down, feet first, knowing that unless I could hold on to it I would certainly be smashed and broken by the succession of drops that lay ahead.

As I slid inexorably across the angle of its face, water breaking all around me, I tried desperately to find a handhold, fingers seeking anything they could grab. I felt myself going, and the conviction of death returned before, at the very last, my fingertips found a seam that broke across its smooth surface, and they locked into the two inches of ledge it provided.

For those few vital seconds, I felt my body washing about below me in the flow, as if hands were trying to grab me and pull me down. But my tenuous grasp on the rock stopped that downward drag. At least long enough for me to swing my right arm across the rock and find a crack in the gneiss that gave me something more substantial to hold on to.

It seemed somehow incredible to me, that only seconds before I had been about to cast a line to fish for trout, without a care in the world. And here I was now, fighting for my life, against what felt like impossible odds.

In the speed with which it had all happened, I hadn’t given Whistler a single thought. Now, above the roar of the water, I heard him shouting. ‘Hang on, Fin! For Christ’s sake, hang on!’ I inclined my head to my right, water breaking over it and almost obscuring my vision. I saw him on the bank, no more than six or eight feet away. He had one foot forward in the flow of the water, an arm outstretched. But it was a long way from reaching me, and I knew that if he tried to wade into it, the force of the water would sweep him away. I could see the desperation in his face. It would be suicide to try to reach me, but there was a limit to how long I could hold on, a limit that was not far away now.

His thought processes were almost visible in his eyes. There had to be something he could do.

Suddenly he bellowed, ‘I’ll be right back. I promise. Just don’t let go.’ And he was gone. Out of my field of vision. And in that moment I felt as lonely as I have ever felt in my life. The sight and sound of the water filled my eyes, my ears, my mind, and I focused very hard on maintaining my hold on the rock. I trusted absolutely that Whistler would be back with some way of getting me out of this, but I doubted my ability to hold on for long enough. I could feel the cold numbing my body, the strength ebbing from my arms. I had almost no sensation in my hands now at all.

I let my head rest against the rock and closed my eyes, total concentration on not letting go. In a strange way, I could almost have slept and just released my hold, like drifting off in a dream from which there would be no waking. And there was something oddly comforting in that thought. Until I was startled to consciousness by the revving of a motor that felt very close.

A Land Rover was backing up to the very edge of the water, wheels spinning and sliding, and then locked suddenly in place with the ratcheting sound of a handbrake. I heard a door slam, and Whistler came running around to the back. He had a coil of rope in his hands. He quickly tied one end around his waist, and knelt down to loop the other around the tow bar to secure it. He stood up, then, and without a moment’s hesitation came wading through the water towards me. Almost immediately he was swept off his feet by the force of the flow. As he went down, I saw his outstretched arm, and the rope looped around his hand and wrist, preventing him from being carried off.