Duncan Kyle - Terror's Cradle

My strength was going, though. My arms and hands were beginning to exhibit the slight numbness of muscles becoming starved of blood. Each pull required fiercer efforts, greater concentration.. How on earth had anyone done this trip with a sheep in the cradle!

How far to go? I glanced back, then stared up the rope. More than halfway, but more than halfway to exhaustion, too. I knew if once the cradle slipped back down the rope, I was beaten. If just once my grip failed, I'd be whipped back down to the Holm with a force beyond my power to hold.

The something caught my eye off to the right. The searchlight beam was moving! The fishing vessel must be easing forward towards the north end of the Holm. Once it got there, I'd be caught in the light! I pulled and pulled again. Each heave seemed to drain more energy, as though somebody had turned on a tap to draw my strength away and each wrenching effort squirted its quota into the void below. Twelve feet to go. Ten. Eight. Light all around me, but

not the full beam. Not yet. Six – and I was caught, almost blinded again, held in the centre of the light beam. Four, and something buzzed by me and an almost simultaneous crack hit my ears. The cradle jerked as a second bullet actually struck. One more heave!

Not enough. Wood splintered just behind me. Heave! And suddenly I was over' the lip, shielded by the cliff itself, holding on to the rope and clambering awkwardly over the raised front of the cradle. With a sudden zipping sound the cradle whipped away under its own weight, back down the heavy rope. I heard shots but didn't wait to look. I began to stumble instead up the short steep slope ahead of me. I must somehow reach Catriona and get off the island. But Catriona was a mile and a half away. I groaned at the thought end tried to will myself forward with promises to my weary body that if I could just get to the top, it was all downhill. I fell, forced myself up and fell again, scrambled for grips with my skinned and aching hands, dug my toes into the slope, struggled, fell and struggled some more.

I got there on my hands and knees and stayed still for a long moment, letting my eyes roam over the long incline before me. Gravity would do it, if I could stay on my feet; gravity and the wind behind. I forced myself upright and let it happen, leg forward and down, body following, leg forward. After the hell of the rope, the desperate weary upward scramble, this was almost easy! Effort was scarcely needed at all. I was swaying oddly, my body almost out of control, but gaining speed, becoming almost drunk with the sudden wonderful ease of it. That's why I bloody nearly broke my neck. Head high and eyes anywhere but where they should be, I stuck my foot into a rut and crashed down heavily, jarring bones I didn't even know existed, driving the breath from my lungs. I lay there dazed for long moments, incapable of movement, gasping, thinking almost dreamily of the endless madness I'd been through that day, hearing the shots again in my imagination. Then suddenly it wasn't a dream and I was cold and wet from the dew, shivering, thinking about that damned fishing boat and what it would be doing while I lay there. It would be heading the way I was heading, that's what it would be doing! Marasov would want to know, if he hadn't already guessed, what had happened on top of the Holm of Noss. He'd be landing men on Noss to find out. And it was fifty-fifty he would land on Noss Voe, where Catriona was waiting! If not there, the other beach was only a couple of hundred yards away. I must get moving again!

Slowly I dragged myself to my feet and set off down the slope. The slight euphoria had gone. I swayed as I stumbled on but no longer drunkenly. This was pure physical weariness, slack muscles wavering and giving, no longer under real control. Yet my mind was clear. I had no difficulty in concentrating, no difficulty in picking out the next place for each foot to fall. The difficulty lay in placing the foot there accurately. My legs were like jelly, and I was only lurching forward, yet I was covering ground, and quite quickly, too. And after a while a little control came back. Perhaps it was because each step was no longer hard labour and I'd stopped gasping for every breath. There was cool air in my lungs, oxygen flowing into me. My feet began to land where I intended them to land and I found I was in altogether better balance.

I didn't look round. Wherever Marasov's fishing boat might be, I wouldn't be able to see it because it would be hidden beneath the cliffs, and I didn't dare to look anywhere but at the next few feet of ground ahead. I fell again, several times, but never as painfully as the first time, and by now the sheer hard urgency of the need to get away focused my mind on the other need, the need to roll up again and hurry on. I was astonished by the resilience of my own body. With each passing minute it was allowing control to return to my mind. My ribs ached from the rope, my hands were badly chafed and very sore, my feet were developing blisters in Lincoln's awkward, lumbering boots. But I was getting there. Would I be there in time? Damn it, I must be there in time! I needed every second I could gain and quite coldly and consciously I allowed gravity more play; let my body go forward faster. I stumbled again, and was up, almost exhilarated by the speed, and hurrying down that long slope.

Then, quite suddenly, the headlong plunge had ended and I was running uphill again, climbing the little saddle that lay between me and the beach at Nesti Voe. For a few yards my momentum carried me forward, but then I was slowed to a walk and the weariness began to creep again among my muscles and tendons. God, I'd only to go over the fifty-foot contour line, and after that it was downhill again ! I must keep going. I breasted the top of the slope, staggered forward a few yards, and let go again, flogging my weary body on.

From where I was the moonlight lit the beaches. Catriona was still there, and afloat not aground. Thank God for that! And then I saw something else, something that momentarily stopped me in my tracks.

For a few seconds I could see the other beach, too. And another boat lay there, a little Shetland model, the dark thread of her mooring line curving to the beach!

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

So Anderson was on Noss!

Oh, God!

Where the hell was he? Why hadn't I seen him on my way down the slope? But I knew why – I hadn't been looking at anything but the way down. He'd have seen me, probably. Or would he? Maybe he'd been on lower ground, working his way round the southern cliffs while I came down the great central slope.

As I forced myself to move again, my mind was racing. Marasov would land on Noss if he believed anybody was there. Maybe Anderson could hide successfully, climbing, perhaps, down some cliff chimney he knew. But his boat would be found, he'd be trapped there and sooner or later

they'd reach him. The fishing boat would circle the island, men ashore would search. Anderson would be finished. I wondered briefly why it had taken Anderson so long to reach Noss.

I reached Catriona, pulled the anchor clear of its rock, waded into the shallows, slung it aboard and climbed over the low stern. Then I bashed the starter, swore as the engine failed to fire, pushed it again and gave a whooshing grunt of relief as it spun and caught. Did the bloody thing always fail first time and go the second?

Now, astern! I flung the lever over and heard the water swishing under the propeller blades. The beach receded slowly as I backed Catriona off, waited, then flung the lever forward and brought her head round.

Where was the fishing boat? I stared over my shoulder and was appalled to see she was no more than a few hundred yards away, barging across the mouth of the little bay beyond the beach, her bow wave glistening. I'd already half-decided, in a rational, if selfsacrificial moment, that if I could make it follow me, Anderson's chances would improve. Now the option wasn't even open. It was roaring towards me at full speed, big and powerful, searchlight knifing into the night. I opened the throttle as wide as it would go and slowly Catriona began to pick up speed. So far as I could tell the island of Bressay, only two hundred yards away across the channel, was all cliffs. Not high cliffs, but they didn't need to be, high to stop me. I reached for the chart and ran my eyes feverishly down the Bressay coastline. Yes, there! A gap in the cliffs at a spot called Grut Wick. I must get there. How far? A mile, perhaps more. I'd never make it. There was only one way — I'd have to blast Catriona straight across the Noss channel and try to get ashore as she struck.