Duncan Kyle - Terror's Cradle

Elliot seemed to sag suddenly. He bent and looked at the tiny flakes of ash, already scattered in the wind. 'Jesus!' he said mournfully.

`You stupid bastard!' Willingham snarled. 'You pathetic bloody clown. Do you realize what you've—'

I said, 'Anderson's been shot. He needs help. Help me carry him —'

`Carry him your bloody self !'

A moment later Anderson and I were alone. The two of them simply stamped off and left us and I blinked after them stupidly, not really blaming them. The only blame was mine and at that moment the burden of it seemed unendurable. Àlsa! Alsa!' I muttered. Beside me, unexpectedly, Anderson whispered, 'They've gone?'

I bent quickly beside him in a sudden flood of relief. `Yes. Are you— ?'

Ìt's my shoulder . . I could hear the pain in his voice. `Can you stand?'

Àye. I think ... .' Anderson held out his hand and I helped him up. He gave a sudden grunt. 'I'm all right, I think. It's just . . . let me stand still a while.'

He leaned his back against the wall and slipped his left

hand inside his coat, feeling gingerly at his right shoulder. I said, 'Let's get you to the hospital, wherever it is.' 'No,' he said.

`Come on, man! You need attention.'

He pulled out his hand. 'Bleeding, but I can manage, I think.'

'Put your arm round my shoulders,' I said. 'I'll help you get there.'

'I'll have to wait.'

'Wait? Why? There's nothing to do now.'

'Oh, but there is.' In the deep shadows I couldn't really

see his face, but there was something in his voice .. . I said, 'But they got it. Burned it. You saw them!' Anderson pushed himself away from the wall. 'Aye. They got one.'

CHAPTER TWENTY

'You made a copy of a transparency?' I said. To copy transparencies isn't easy. You need a good photo-lab and a deal of skill.

'We don't wear skins up here,' Anderson said.

'All right. Where?'

'there's a man processes my pictures. He's got a good lab. I used it.'

'I mean, where's the copy transparency now?'

His answer was to lengthen his stride. At the end of the alley he stopped, looked round the corner into the street. Satisfied, he walked quickly out. A hundred yards more, a quick turn down another alley, and he was knocking on the back door of a house. A man opened the door. Sixtyish, with a face seamed by long exposure to sun, wind and sea. He looked at Anderson, nodded, then stepped back to let us in. Anderson said, 'I have to get to my boat, Tom. But quietly.' He didn't introduce us. The man Tom nodded. 'She's in the harbour yet?' Àye.'

Àll right.' Then he noticed the way Anderson stood. `What's wrong with your shoulder?'

`Nothing. Come on Tom.'

Ì've seen a bullet hole before,' the man said quietly. Anderson sighed. 'Aye. It's not serious.'

`Maybe. A little look, that's all, Jim. Let me see.' `There isn't time!' Anderson said impatiently.

`Don't be a bloody fool !' Tom was already unfastening Anderson's blue donkey jacket. He took off the coat carefully, then peeled Anderson's sweater upward. Both the sweater and Anderson's back were bright with blood. Tom looked at the wound carefully, then moved to examine it again from the front. 'It'll no' kill you. Can you move it?'

Not much.'

`Collar bone's gone. Aside from that it's in and out and probably clean, unless fibres from your clothes were forced into a wound. Minute, Jim.'

He opened a drawer and took out a big first-aid box, applied penicillin powder liberally, then taped big wads of gauze in place, back and front. 'I heard they were looking for you. Anything I can do?'

Anderson shook his head. 'just hurry.'

Tom didn't hurry, but his broad, work-worn, spatulate fingers were remarkably deft as he worked. He pulled the sweater down again. 'You need a sling, man.' Then he buttoned the arm inside the coat. 'Can he sail?'

It was the first time Tom had shown he was even aware of me. Ìt'll be all right, Tom. Just hurry.'

A minute later, with Anderson's right arm slung and buttoned securely, his loose sleeve hanging, Tom nodded and opened a door. He led the way, Anderson followed. I brought up the rear, thinking we were going down into a cellar. Instead we entered a low corridor, a tunnel almost, with bare earth walls and roof shored up at intervals with curved staves. We went along it, crouching. At the end, Tom stood upright, slid back a bolt, eased open a trapdoor and climbed through. From outside I could hear the soft swish of water. Anderson climbed through next, then I followed. A small fishing boat was tied up hard against the wall. Tom was already bent over at the starting handle and Anderson lay on the bottom boards.

I climbed in, too, and Anderson said, Tie like this.'

I crawled down beside him and waited. The engine started, then Tom spread a tarpaulin over us and the light was blacked out.

`Where are we going?' I demanded.

Anderson said quietly, 'Tom will drop us at my boat. Maybe it's being watched. Maybe it isn't. When we reach it be ready to jump.'

`But where — ?'

He cut me off. 'Until we get there, only I know. When we get there . . .' he paused and added after a moment, 'you'll see.'

boat was moving off now. The engine puttered quietly, and water swished along the boards beside my ears. The trip took only three or four minutes. Then Tom lifted the end of the tarpaulin. 'Seems quiet,' he said softly, 'but I don't know. There's a Russian purseseine-setter half a cable away.'

`Can you see anybody on her?'Anderson asked.

`No. But . .

But there would be somebody. All three of us knew it. Anderson said, 'We'll have to try it. Go ahead, Tom.'

The engine's power increased for a few moments, then died back to a slow throb. '

Coming on her now,' Tom's voice said.

`Right.' Anderson flung back the tarpaulin and we sat up then stood, then jumped as the boat came neatly alongside Anderson's big Shetland model. Anderson put his foot on the thwart and stepped easily across. I followed a good deal less gracefully and a lot more noisily. But at least I was aboard.

`Get the anchor up!' Anderson ordered briskly, himself bending to the engine. Obediently I hauled on the chain, the metallic racket loud in the stillness as it fell through my hands into the little chain locker. Then the motor was going and we were off. I secured the anchor and went back to join Anderson and we both stared back at the lines of tied up vessels.

It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I thought savagely, that I'd been doing exactly this, trying to sneak unobserved out of Lerwick harbour. Apparent success; no success at all. I thought about the events that had followed, the ghastly cradle-ride, the desperate race over Noss, the final exhaustion from which only the helicopter had saved me. I remembered I hadn't thanked Elliot and Willingham for saving me; hadn't even asked where they'd got the helicopter or how they knew where I was. Nor, I realized then, had they ofiered to tell me! My eyes strayed involuntarily upward to search the night sky for lights, but it was dark and empty. The only lights were in the town. High on the hill I could see the glow of flaring torchlight from the Up-Helly-Aa procession. Or maybe it was the galley, already burning. Somehow in that moment it seemed a bad omen.

Tom's boat was already almost out of sight, and soon we were coming under the Bressay cliffs, leading south towards Bard Head. Anderson's face was pale and determined. He was fighting shock and fighting it well, but there would be a penalty to be paid. I said, thinking of the night before, Ìs there anything aboard. Tea? Whisky?'

`Both.'

Ì'll make some tea.' I went into the little cabind and put the kettle on. The whole thing was like some nightmare

re-run of the earlier trip. The kettle boiled, I made the tea, poured it into a mug, stirred in a lot of sugar as treatment for shock and handed it out to him. When he'd drunk half, I laced the remainder with Scotch, and watched him finish it.