Hammond Innes: Atlantic Fury

From the Druim Ridge I looked down into the great horseshoe of Shelter Bay. The Military High Road was just below me, snaking down into the fog. To my left Creag Dubh, with the pill-box shape of the Army’s lookout, rising to Tarsaval; dark scree slopes falling to the dotted shapes of cleits and, beyond, the long ridge of Malesgair vanishing into the milk-white void. To my right the High Road spur running out towards the Butt of Keava, the rocky spine of the hills piercing the fog bank like a jagged reef. It was a strange, eerie scene with the surge of the swell on the storm beach coming faint on puffs of air; something else, too — the sound of an engine, I thought. But then it was gone and I couldn’t be sure.

I hurried on then, following the road down into the fog, iridescent at first, but thickening as I descended until it was a grey blanket choked with moisture. Without the road to follow the descent would have been dangerous, for the fog was banked thick in the confines of the hills and visibility reduced to a few yards. It lifted a little as the road flattened out behind the beach. I could see the swell breaking and beyond the lazy beds the outline of the first ruined cottage, everything vague, blurred by the dankness of the atmosphere. And then a voice calling stopped me in my tracks. It came again, disembodied, weird and insubstantial. Other voices answered, the words unintelligible.

I stood listening, all my senses alert, intent on piercing the barrier of the fog. Silence and the only sounds the surge of the waves, the cries of the gulls. Somewhere a raven croaked, but I couldn’t see it. Ahead of me was the dim outline of the bridge. And then voices again, talking quietly, the sound oddly magnified. The fog swirled to a movement of air from the heights. I glimpsed the ruins of the old jetty and a boat drawn up on the beach. Two figures stood beside it, two men talking in a foreign tongue, and out beyond the break of the waves I thought I saw the dark shape of a ship; a trawler by the look of it. Two more figures joined the men by the boat. The fog came down again and I was left with only the sound of their voices. I went back then, for I was cold and tired and I’d no desire to make contact with the crew of a foreign trawler. Looting probably, and if Iain had landed in Shelter Bay he’d have hidden himself away in one of the cleits or amongst the ruins of the Old Village. Wearily I climbed the hairpin bends, back up to the Druim Ridge and the sunlight, nothing to do now but go back down into the bowels of that geo and bring up my gear.’ My mouth was dry and I drank from a trickle of peat water at the head of Strath Mhurain.

And then I was back on the slopes of Aird Mullaichean, walking in a daze, my mind facing again the mystery of that fire, conscious of a growing sense of uneasiness as I approached the rock outcrop that marked the entrance to that dark, subterranean fault. Had the crew of some trawler rowed into the geo and made a fire of the boat just for the hell of it? But that didn’t explain the bones unless they’d killed a sheep and roasted it. And to burn the boat…. On Laerg itself and all through the islands of the Hebrides boats were sacrosanct. No man would borrow so much as an oar without permission.

I picked up my torch and started back down the slabbed stairway. Darkness closed me in. The dank cold of it chilled the sweat on my body. I tried to tell myself it was only the strangeness of the place, my solitary stumbling in the black darkness and the cavernous sound of the sea that made me so uneasy. But who would come into that geo if he hadn’t been told about it? Who would have known there was a boat there, firewood to burn? I was shivering then, and coming to the cave where the boat had been, I was suddenly reluctant, filled with a dreadful certainty. Twenty-two days. I’d had only a night at sea, a single cold night with little wind. But I knew what it was like now — knew that he couldn’t possibly have survived … And then I was into the cave, my gaze, half-fascinated, half-appalled, following the beam of my torch, knowing what I was going to find.

Down on my knees, I reached out my hand to the bones, touched one, plucked it from the blackened heap with a feeling of sick revulsion as I recognised what it was. The end of the bone disintegrated into dust, leaving me with a knee joint in my hand. I poked around — a hip bone, femurs, pieces of the spinal column, the knuckles of human fingers. It was all there, all except the head, and that I found tucked away under a slab of rock — a human skull untouched by the fire and with traces of hair still attached.

I put it back and sat for a moment, feeling numbed; but not shocked or even disgusted now that I knew. It had to be something like this. I was thinking how it must have been for him, his life soured by what had happened here, the prospect of discovery always hanging over him. And then automatically, almost without thinking, I stripped my anorak off and began to pile the grim relics of that wartime voyage on to it. There was more than the bones — buttons like rusted coins, the melted bronze of a unit badge, a wrist watch barely recognisable, all the durable bits and pieces that made up a soldier’s personal belongings. And amongst it all an identity disc — the number and the name still visible; ROSS, I. A. Pres.

A pebble rattled in the darkness behind me and I turned. But there was nothing, only the swell sloshing about in the great cavern of the geo, a faint, hollow sound coming to me from beyond the narrow defile of the fault. The last thing I did was to scatter the blackened stones about the cave, flinging them from me. Then, the pieces of bone bundled into my anorak, the last traces removed, I scrambled to my feet, and picking up my burden, started for the faulted exit that led to the geo.

i I was halfway up the slope to it when the beam of my torch found him. He was standing by the exit, quite still, watching me. His face was grey, grey like the rock against which he leaned. His dark eyes gleamed in the torch beam. I stopped and we stood facing each other, neither saying a word. I remember looking to see if he were armed, thinking that if he’d killed Braddock … But he’d no weapon of any kind; he was empty-handed, wearing an old raincoat and shivering uncontrollably. The sound of water in the geo was louder here, but even so I could hear his teeth chattering. ‘Are you all right?’ I said.

‘Cold, that’s all.’ He took a stiff step forward, reaching down with his hand. ‘Give me that, I’ll do my own dirty work, thank you.’ He took the bundled anorak from me.

‘Who was it?’ I asked. ‘Braddock?’ My voice came in a whisper, unnatural in that place.

‘Give me the torch, will you.’

But I’d stepped back. ‘Who was it?’ I repeated.

‘Man named Piper, if you must know.’

“Then it wasn’t Braddock?’

‘Braddock? No — why?’ He laughed; or rather he made a noise that sounded like a laugh. ‘Did you think I’d killed him? Is that it?’ His voice was hoarse, coming jerky through the chattering of his teeth. ‘Braddock died two days before we sighted Laerg.’ And he added, ‘You bloody fool, Donald. You should have known me better than that.’ And then, his voice still matter-of-fact: ‘If you won’t give me the torch, just shine it through here.’

I did as he asked and he went through the narrow defile in the rock, down the slope beyond into the geo, hugging the bundle to him. The falling tide had left my dinghy high and dry. The bows of his boat were grounded just astern of it. There were sails, mast and oars in it, two rusted fuel cans, some old lobster pots; but no clothing, not even oilskins. ‘Got anything to drink with you?’ he asked as he dumped the bundle.

I gave him my flask. His hands were shaking as he unscrewed the cap, and then he tipped his head back, sucking the liquor down. ‘How long had you been there?’ I asked.