Murdo's War (36 page)

of stiffly nodding whins to Strathy Water, winding like a silver ribbon from the southern hills where so much had happened. His gaze moved across the hall and down to his trouser legs and feet, filthy toes protruding from his socks. He felt at his wet pocket for the bulge of the knife. In that strange yet so familiar setting his adventure began to take on the elements of a dream.

But his father was speaking to Army Headquarters. ‘Is that Intelligence?’ he said. ‘Get me the adjutant, please. It’s important.’ He stroked a fair moustache while he waited. ‘Hello... Yes, good afternoon, sir. This is Sergeant Mackay, Sergeant Sandy Mackay – of the Second Battalion, the Sea forth Highlanders.’ He looked round at Murdo. ‘It’s rather a long story. I’m speaking from Strathy.’ He paused, thoughtfully considering the face of the youth who regarded him from the foot of the stairs. ‘Look, you’d better speak to my son. Just a minute.’ He held the receiver towards Murdo.

For a moment surprised, then appreciating the significance of his father’s gesture, Murdo rose and crossed the hall with as firm a step as he could manage. He was not accustomed to using the telephone: by nature not a talkative boy, he did not handle it well.

‘Hello,’ he said, more gruff than the occasion warranted. ‘Is that the army?’

He held the receiver close, his brow wrinkled with concentra- tion. His fierce reflection confronted him from a gilt mirror above the hall table.

‘My name’s Murdo Mackay. Can you come to Strathy right away?’

The captain of Intelligence had been called from a noisy crowd at the officers’ bar. In wry tones, half amused by the earnest bluff- ness of the appeal, he wanted to know why and at first treated the country boy lightly. But his sense of fun faded as Murdo’s story began to unfold, and at last the threat of ‘Operation Flood-Tide’ was revealed to the British military authorities. Though he told the tale clumsily and with many breaks, its truth was transparent in every word.

A few feet across the hall his father lit a cigarette and was still. Clutching the medicine chest with which she had treated all their childhood scrapes and bruises, his aunt subsided on to his abandoned seat at the foot of the stairs.

Beyond the diamond-leaded window at Murdo’s back the waves crawled up the bay, from the foam-edged crags at the point to a white crescent of shore – where even as he put down the tele- phone, the first men from the village drew close to Hector and Colonel von Kramm. The sun was setting above the high moors making the bracken glow. Long blue shadows spread across the heather and broad patches of snow. A gull whirled past, calling loudly, caught by the wind that blew from the sea.

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