Alistair MacLean - When Eight Bells Toll

He nodded very slowly, then said: "You will be a very brave man, Mr. Calvert, but you do not know the terrible men who will wait for you."

"If I ever earn a medal, Mr. MacEachern, it- will be a case of mistaken identification, but, for the rest, I know very well what I am up against. Just try to believe me, Mr. MacEachern. It will be all right. You were in the war, Mr. MacEachern."

"You know. You were told?"

I shook my head. "Nobody had to tell me."

"Thank you, sir," The back was suddenly very straight. "I was a soldier for twenty-two years. I was a sergeant in-the 51st Highland Division."

"You were a sergeant in the 51st Highland Division," I repeated. "There are many people, Mr. MacEachern, and not all of them Scots, who maintain that there was no better in the world."

"And it is not Donald MacEachern who would be disagreeing with you, sir." For the first time the shadow of a smile touched the faded eyes. "There were maybe one or two worse. You make your point, Mr. Calvert. We were not namely for running away, for losing hope, for giving up too easily." He rose abruptly to his feet "In the name of God, what am I talking about? I am coming with you, Mr. Calvert."

I rose to my feet and touched my hands to his shoulders. "Thank you, Mr. MacEachern, but no. You've done enough. Your fighting days are over. Leave this to me."

He looked at me in silence, then nodded. Again the suggestion of a smile. "Aye, maybe you're right. I would be getting in the way of a man like yourself. I can see that." He sat down wearily in his chair.

I moved to the door. "Good night, Mr, MacEachern. She will soon be safe."

"She will soon be safe," he repeated. He looked up at me, his eyes moist, and when he spoke his voice held the same faint surprise as his face, "You know, I believe she will."

"She will. I'm going to bring her back here personally and that will give me more pleasure than anything I've ever done in my life. Friday morning, Mr. MacEachern."

"Friday morning? So soon? So soon?" He was looking at a spot about a billion light years away and seemed unaware that I was standing by the open door. He smiled, a genuine smile of delight, and the old eyes shone. "I'll not sleep a wink to-night, Mr. Calvert. Nor a wink to-morrow night either."

"You'll sleep on Friday," I promised. He couldn't see me any longer, the tears were running down his grey unshaven cheeks, so I closed the door with a quiet hand and left him alone with his dreams.

I had exchanged Eilean Oran for the island of Craigmore and I still wasn't smiling. I wasn't smiling for all sorts of reasons. I wasn't smiling because Uncle Arthur and Charlotte Skouras together made a nautical combination that terrified the life out of me, because the northern tip of Craigmore was much more exposed and reef-haunted than the south shore of Eilean Oran had been, because the fog was thickening, because I was breathless and bruised from big combers hurling me on to unseen reefs on my swim ashore, because I was wondering whether I had any chance in the world of carrying out my rash promise to Donald MacEachern. If I thought a bit more I'd no doubt I could come up with all sorts of other and equally valid reasons why I wasn't smiling, but I hadn't the time to think any more about it, the night was wearing on and I'd much to do before the dawn.

The nearest of the two fishing boats in the little natural harbour was rolling quite heavily in the waves that curled round the reef forming the natural breakwater to the west so I didn't have to worry too much about any splashing sound I might make as I hauled myself up on deck. What I did have to worry about was that damned bright light in its sealed inverted glass by the flensing shed, it was powerful enough to enable me to be seen from the other houses on shore… But my worry about it was a little thing compared to my gratitude for its existence. Out in the wild blue yonder Uncle Arthur could do with every beacon of hope he could find.

It was a typical M.F.V., about forty-five feet long and with the general look of a boat that could laugh at a hurricane. I went through it in two minutes. All in immaculate condition, not a thing aboard that shouldn't have been there. Just a genuine fishing boat. My hopes began to rise. There was no other direction they could go.

The second M.F.V. was the mirror image of the first, down to the last innocuous inch. It wouldn't be true to say that my hopes were now soaring, but at least they were getting up off the ground where they'd been for a long time.

I swam ashore, parked my scuba equipment above the high-water mark and made my way to the flensing shed, keeping its bulk between the light and myself as I went. The shed contained winches, steel tubs and barrels, a variety of ferocious weapons doubtless used for flensing, rolling cranes, some unidentifiable but obviously harmless machinery, the remains of some sharks and the most fearful smell I'd ever come across in my life. I left, hurriedly.

The first of the cottages yielded nothing. I flashed a torch through a broken window. The room was bare, it looked as if no one had set foot there for half a century, it was only too easy to believe Williams's statement that this tiny hamlet had been abandoned before the First World War. Curiously, the wallpaper looked as if it had been applied the previous day — a curious and largely unexplained phenomenon in the Western Isles. Your grandmother — in those days grandpa would have signed the pledge sooner than lift a finger inside the house — slapped up some wall-paper at nine pence a yard and fifty years later it was still there, as fresh as the day it had been put up.

The second cottage was as deserted as the first.

The third cottage, the one most remote from the flensing shed, was where the shark-fishers lived. A logical and very understandable choice, one would have thought, the farther away from that olfactory horror the better. Had I the option, I'd have been living in a tent on the other side of the island. But that was a purely personal reaction. The stench of that flensing shed was probably to the shark-fishers, as is the ammonia-laden, nostril-wrinkling, wholly awful mist — liquid manure — to the Swiss farmers: the very breath of being. The symbol of success. One can pay too high a price for success.

I eased open the well-oiled — shark-liver oil, no doubt — door and passed inside. The torch came on again. Grandma wouldn't have gone very much on this front parlour but grandpa would cheerfully have sat there watching his beard turn white through the changing seasons without ever wanting to go down to the sea again. One entire wall was given up to food supplies, a miserable couple of dozen crates of whisky and score upon scores of crates of beer. Australians, Williams had said. I could well believe it. The other three walls — there was hardly a scrap of wall-paper to be seen — was devoted to a form of art, in uninhibited detail and glorious Technicolor, of a type not usually to be found in the better class museums and art galleries. Not grandma's cup of tea at all.

I skirted the furniture which hadn't come out of Harrods and opened the interior door. A short corridor lay beyond. Two doors to the right, three to the left. Working on the theory that the boss of the outfit probably had the largest room to himself, I carefully opened the first door to the right.

The flash-light showed it to be a surprisingly comfortable room. A good carpet, heavy curtains, a couple of good arm-chairs, bedroom furniture in oak, a double bed and a bookcase. A shaded electric light hung above the bed. Those rugged Australians believed in their home comforts. There was a switch beside the door. I touched it and the overhead lamp came on.