Кит Мори - Flotsam and Jetsam

‘Eyes peeled?’ the driver repeated.

‘Aye, you need to keep your eyes peeled,’ Ewan told him firmly. ‘That is what a good driver needs to remember. It doesn’t matter if it is on one of those fancy motorways that they have on the mainland, or one of these back streets in Kyleshiffin. You have to be prepared for anything.’ He gave them both one of his sternest looks. ‘Please do not think of us as a bunch of yokels. We respect the law here on the island – and we impose it!’

The driver nodded. ‘Understood, Officer. And we’ve learned our lesson. We’ll have our eyes peeled from now on.’

Ewan gave them a final steely look then returned to Nippy to continue his journey up on to the moor.

Five minutes later he was doing his series of warm-up exercises. Then, after another five minutes he was whirling his hammer round and round before letting it fly up, out and away over the moor in a pleasingly long parabolic path to disappear in the heather. He grimaced at the splash of its landing, for there was always a chance of him losing it. But fortunately, its pole was sticking up in the air; a decided advantage that the Highland hammer had over the ball and wire design of the Olympic hammer.

He immediately started to pace out the distance, a grin spreading across his face as he did so, since it was a big throw.

‘The porridge is working well today,’ he mused to himself, as he reached the spot where his hammer was protruding from the other side of a tussock of gorse and heather. He reached over thigh high gorse and prepared to pull the hammer out of the bog. He grasped the handle and tugged so that it came away with a sucking, squelchy noise.

But, as it came out, so too did something else. A hazy cloud of midges suddenly rose from the bog and within moments Ewan was enveloped.

‘Away with you all!’ he cried, running backwards a few paces and almost tripping up. ‘This new deodorant I have on is supposed to repel you little scunners.’ He slapped himself where he felt bites and scratched his mane of hair. He turned and lifted his hammer so that he could beat a hastier retreat. Then he noticed that the ball was covered in a thick red fluid. He winced.

‘Ugh! Blood?’ he asked himself. ‘Don’t tell me I managed to land it in a dead sheep or something?’

Gingerly he crept back towards the tussock, waving his free hand for all he was worth to try to cut a swathe through the midge swarm. He peered over the gorse and then gasped in horror.

A man’s body was lying face down in a bog pool, the brackish waters of which had been turned dark red by blood that had oozed out from a nasty head wound.

Ewan felt bile rise in his throat, for it was an ugly sight. He recognized the clothes only too well.

‘My God! I killed him with my hammer!’ he muttered, as he stared at the blood-soaked ball that dangled from its pole, then at the crushed head injury.

He stood for a moment in total shock, oblivious to the innumerable bites of the midge swarm.

Cora had been almost dead on her feet by two o’clock in the morning when she and Calum had finally written up all of the articles and columns for the special issue of the West Uist Chronicle . Although it was officially a twice-weekly newspaper, whenever Calum felt that a special was needed, he duly produced it and the good folk of the island readily paid up and avidly read the extra gossip. Some weeks it was a daily event.

The main news that Calum wanted to impart related to the events surrounding the calamitous Flotsam & Jetsam TV show the previous evening. This in itself would not justify a whole paper, so he had shown Cora how to produce copy at the drop of a hat. To her delight he had allowed her to contribute, by writing up about the vandalism at the Chronicle office, as well as a short column about Crusoe the abandoned dog that Torquil McKinnon had found. He had been encouraging in his comments about her flowery style, which somewhat sweetened the bitter pill that she was forced to swallow as he slashed her 2,000 word article to a mere 1,000 with a few strokes of his blue editorial pencil.

‘Brevity, lassie! That is the thing that you must concentrate on in a local paper. When you are the editor of a paper then you can let your literary juices flow freely. Until then, be concise, accurate and pithy. Like me!’

Cora had taken his words and his editing on the chin. She was determined to make a success of her journalism and was sure that her great-aunt Bella’s advice to listen and learn from Calum Steele made great sense. She recalled the old lady telling her that although Calum Steele could be a puffed up little pipsqueak, yet he had a knack for telling the news. She remembered the exact expression she had used to describe his journalistic manner: ‘He could speir the inside out of a clam!’

Cora had laughed at her great-aunt’s use of the vernacular, for the word ‘speir’ actually meant to ask, to badger, rather than to use a weapon. Effectively, Calum could hector someone so mercilessly that they would give him a story as if their life depended upon it.

When Calum had insisted that she go home at two o’clock she had gone with some reluctance, promising to return by seven at the start of the new day. Calum had bartered for eight, which he thought would give him an extra hour to recover from the very large whisky that he had mentally promised himself once he had completed and printed the special issue, then mobilized his paper boys.

As it happened, it was three large whiskies, so he was in a deep sleep when Cora mounted the stairs in a state of great excitement at eight in the morning with a copy of the Chronicle bought from Staig’s.

‘My first ever proper published story!’ she cried, mounting the stairs three at a time. ‘Oh thank you, Calum! Thank you!’

‘Wh-What!’ Calum stammered, blinking and fumbling to find his wire-framed spectacles which had fallen astray when he had slumped back on his camp-bed. He held up his hands to stop her further advance, as if she was a bounding puppy about to hurtle herself at him. ‘Look, Cora lassie, you are making a habit of this.’

Cora giggled. ‘Of what? Seeing you in bed?’

Calum squirmed with embarrassment. ‘Ah – er – don’t be cheeky, lassie. I’ll have you know that I—’

‘I was just kidding, Calum.’ She replied. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Great-aunt Bella.’

‘Tell what to Miss Melville?’ he asked quickly, his eyes wide open in alarm behind his spectacles.

‘That you like to drink whisky so early in the morning.’

Calum looked at her in shock. ‘What are you talking about, lassie? I never drink too early. I drink a bit late sometimes. What is late to a journalist may seem early to someone else.’ He wagged his finger in admonishment. ‘If you want to be a good journalist, you have a lot to learn. I insist on accuracy from my staff, Cora.’

He stood up and hiccupped. ‘So, how about a cup of tea and then I will treat you to a really good greasy breakfast at the Friar Tuck Café?’

Cora grimaced. ‘That’s kind of you, Calum, but I am a bit of a vegetarian, actually. And I never eat anything greasy, not even chips.’ Then she gave him one of her sudden smiles. ‘But I’ll put the kettle on for a cup of tea.’

And before he could take in what he considered her admission of food heresy, she disappeared into the kitchenette.

‘That was a great article you wrote, boss,’ she called out. ‘That Dr Digby Dent will have a horrible headache when he wakes up. I expect he will feel such a fool.’

‘Aye, it is always best to avoid a hangover,’ Calum replied with a yawn, as he massaged his own aching temples.