Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Loch Ness

He was surprised when Hynd tapped him on the shoulder, as he thought only minutes must have passed, although his watch said nine when he checked.

“All clear, Cap?”

“All clear.”

“If you get tempted to play a hand, watch out for Cally tonight,” the sergeant said. “He’s on a hot streak and has already got most of Wiggo’s fags and half of mine. Says it’s his lucky day.”

Banks picked up the coffee mug from his feet, poured out the half-inch of rainwater that had gathered there, and, leaving Hynd at the door, went back to the fire, sitting as close as he dared until he felt some heat reach into his bones. Wiggins handed him another coffee, but didn’t ask if he wanted a game. Banks sat on his haunches, smoking, sipping coffee and staring into the fire until tiredness took him. He got his sleeping bag from his pack, wiggled inside without even taking off his boots and, with his rucksack as a pillow, was asleep in minutes.

McCally shook him awake sometime in the depths of the night.

“Cap?” the corporal whispered. “I think there’s something outside.”

Banks rose quickly, squirmed out of the sleeping bag and rose, his rifle already, instinctively in hand. He went with McCally to the doorway, careful not to kick anything loose that might give away their position. Hynd stirred but didn’t wake, and Wiggins’ snoring didn’t miss a beat. He left them sleeping.

“No sense waking them if it’s a false alarm,” he said quietly and McCally nodded.

“It might just be a stray dog,” the corporal said. “I heard loud barking, twice, the second time closer than the first. But the weird thing is, I think it was coming from out on the loch rather than on land.”

“Fisherman with his dog in the boat maybe? You know some lads like a bit of night fishing?”

“Aye, maybe, but there’s been no other sounds, no light of any kind. It’s got me fair spooked, and I’m not feert to admit it.”

They stepped through the rubble and ventured to the open wall looking out over the loch. The rain had stopped, but there was still cloud cover, so no chance of moonlight or stars to shed any light on the dark waters.

“Barking, you said?” Banks asked.

“Aye, Cap. And just like a dog. Not angry, just curious.”

As McCally spoke, Banks heard it for himself, a sharp but deep-throated bark. Then there was a loud splash, not too far out on the loch. Banks switched on his gun light and panned the beam across the surface, catching an outward roll of large ripples from a point no more than 10 yards away. Whatever had made the disturbance in the water had to have been huge, but there was no sign of anything there now. The ripples lapped against the shore, the first few of them raising small splashes on the bank, then everything fell quiet again.

“What the fuck was that, Cap?” McCally said. “A big seal maybe?”

“We’re a hell of a long way from any access to the sea,” Banks reminded him. “I can’t see a seal getting over the hills, can you?”

“Otter then?”

“It would have to be a bloody big otter to make a splash like yon.”

McCally’s voice went quiet, higher pitched, almost childlike.

“Maybe it was a kelpie.”

Banks looked over at him in the darkness, checking to see if the corporal was kidding, but he appeared to be deadly serious.

“Don’t talk pish, man. That’s just a story to frighten the bairns.”

“You’re not from the Highlands, Cap,” McCally replied. “There’s more things in this land than we know, or care to know. My auld great gran worked a croft on her own out on Lewis after Great Granddad never came back from the war. She had stories to tell that would turn your hair white, of handsome young men by loch-sides who turned into vicious, horse-like monsters if you gave in to their advances, kelpies that were fiercely territorial, and murderous as hell. She said that everybody out on the islands knew about them and avoided dark pools at night. But every so often a bairn would be taken anyway and, man, was I scared that one day I would be one of those bairns, because I saw the truth of her stories in her eyes.”

“I don’t believe in such things.”

“Aye, and I don’t believe in Nazi ice zombies, giant sea lice, snakes the size of trains, or fucking abominable snowmen, but look where that’s got us these past few years.”

“Changing your bet from big cats, are we, Cally?” Banks said, trying to lighten the corporal’s mood, but the big man was clearly rattled. Banks had seen him stand up, not fazed in the slightest, under an attack of hundreds of Afghan mountain bandits. To see him so disconcerted by little more than a splash in the water had Banks confused. He covered his confusion by offering McCally a cigarette, and they smoked in silence for a bit.

“I’m just saying, Cap,” the corporal said, breaking the quiet, “here in the Highlands, we’ve sometimes got other things to worry about than the purely physical. If my auld grannie was still here, she’d say we’d just been given a sign, a portent, and that we shouldn’t dismiss it lightly.”

“Still, fucking kelpies? That’s a stretch even for us, isn’t it, Cally?”

“All I’m saying is we should keep an open mind,” McCally replied. “Until we ken better.”

“And there you have got something we can agree with.”

Banks checked his watch. Two-thirty, and he was now wide awake.

“I’ll take the early shift,” he said. “Let Wiggo snore. Just fetch me a coffee first, then you get your head down for a bit. We’ll see what there is to see in the morning.”

After McCally brought him a coffee and returned to his sleeping bag, Banks stood at the open wall, looking out toward the loch. Once his eyes adjusted properly to the gloom, he was able to see as far as the edge where it lapped against the bank so if anything did come from that direction, he’d see it coming. But the night had fallen completely still now, only Wiggins’ snoring carrying through from the back of the cottage. He sipped his coffee, smoked a cigarette down to the butt, and waited for a recurrence of either the barking or the splashing, but none came.

By around four, the coffee had worked its way through and he felt the need to go. He walked over to the bank and did his business in the loch, sending ripples back out toward where the splash had been earlier.

Still nothing replied.

“Here I am, pishing in your wee pond,” he said out loud. “Does that not bother you?”

He’d have got a shock if anything replied, and as he turned back, he was thankful for the continued silence.

The night was turning toward dawn when Wiggins finally woke, crawled out of his bag, and headed to do the same thing in the loch that Banks had done earlier. As he came back to join Banks in the doorway, he already had a cigarette in his mouth, puffing away on his first of many for the day.

“All clear, Cap?”

“Just about, Wiggo,” Banks replied. “There was a splash in the loch in the early hours. Cally thinks it’s got a kelpie in it.”

“What’s one of them when it’s at home?”

“A water spirit; a handsome man that turns into a spectral horse after it lures the unwary to their deaths.”

Wiggins laughed.

“Just as well, we’re not partial to handsome men, or are particularly fucking unwary then, isn’t it?”

Banks left the private on watch and went to get a pot of coffee on, then wake the other two. The fire was almost out, but he didn’t bother stoking it; he intended to be out on the hill as soon as the sun was fully up.

Breakfast was a simple one of coffee, dry biscuits, and another smoke, then they quickly packed up their gear and headed out into thin, watery sunshine.