The Hill of the Red Fox (21 page)

“When I last saw Dr Reuter,” I burst out triumphantly, “he was lying flat on his back with two men standing guard over him.”

A vein in his forehead started to twitch, but he never raised his voice.

“So your friends have got Reuter, eh?” he said thoughtfully.

“Yes, and all the rest of your gang,” I said boldly.

“In that case I must thank you for providing me with a way out, Master Cameron,” he said smoothly. “Your friends would like to shoot me, yes, but they will not shoot you. You and I will take a walk to the shore, and I don’t think any obstacles will be placed in our way.”

“But …” I started, when there was a clattering of feet in the
passage
outside and the door was swung back violently on its hinges. Duncan Mòr stood framed in the opening.

Looking at him with a glad smile of recognition, I was happy that I was on his side. His great figure filled the doorway, and what
reassurance
I found in his imposing bulk. He must have run all the way from the shore, but his breath came evenly enough despite the quick rise and fall of his chest. He was soaked to the waist, and his trousers clung wetly to his legs. His shirt was stained red with blood, and I saw that he had a long, jagged cut across his cheek. In his right hand he carried a rifle.

I suppose it took me only a fraction of a second to take in these details, and at the same time the Russian snapped, “Drop that gun, or the boy dies.”

I looked into the muzzle of his revolver and saw that his finger had tightened around the trigger, and I gazed at that crooked index finger like one hypnotized. There was a dull thud as Duncan Mòr let his rifle slip to the floor, and only then did I manage to tear my eyes away from the unwavering barrel of the revolver in the Russian’s hand.

“Kick that rifle away,” he ordered, “and then get back against the
wall.”

Duncan Mòr kicked the rifle across the room and backed slowly to the wall. He met my eyes and showed his white teeth in a
reassuring
smile.

“Well, Alasdair Beag, we managed it right enough,” he said calmly. “They are finished, the lot of them, but I only wish I could have got my hands on the Red Fellow before the bridge went up.”

“Not finished,” corrected the Colonel grimly. “Not all of them. You have forgotten me.”

“Not at all,” retorted Duncan Mòr contemptuously. “You are
finished
along wi’ the rest of your crowd. You’ll never blast your way out wi’ that wee pea-shooter in your fist.”

“I think I will,” said the Russian evenly. “I took good care to
prepare
for all eventualities. I have been in touch with the Commander of the submarine that was to pick up Reuter, and she will lie out in the Sound until two a.m.” He glanced swiftly at his watch. “It is now ten past one. We have plenty of time, my friends.”

“Time for what?” asked Duncan Mòr grimly.

“Time for us to get to the shore and for you to row me out to the submarine,” said the Russian calmly.

Duncan Mòr threw back his head and laughed his great,
booming
laugh, and I stiffened in my chair, appalled by the incongruity of the scene. The Russian was crouched forward tensely, the revolver clenched tightly in his fist, and I was sitting bolt upright in the straight-backed chair, dazed with fright, whilst Duncan Mòr was shaking with laughter, his head thrown back and his hands on his hips, in a relaxed, almost careless attitude.

I could not understand the reason for it until I saw a dull flush spreading over the Russian’s face, and the nervous twitching of his mouth. Without a weapon in his hand Duncan Mòr had succeeded in shaking Colonel Zaborin’s confidence.

“Perhaps you will laugh some more if I squeeze the trigger and put a bullet through the boy,” he rasped. “Enough of this foolery, MacDonald. I have no time to waste. You will lead the way to the bay. Master Cameron will be a few yards behind you and I shall
be directly behind him — with this revolver in his back. One false move on your part and the boy dies.”

“Good enough,” said Duncan Mòr soberly. “But the boy stays on the shore. Myself will row you out to the submarine.”

The Russian laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh and it revealed his thoughts more eloquently than words.

“The boy goes with us,” he stated.

“And what guarantee have I got that he won’t be shot the minute you board the submarine?” demanded Duncan Mòr.

“You have no guarantee, and you are in no position to ask for one,” said the Russian flatly. “My actions will be in accordance with my duty to the Soviet state.”

“And if I refuse?”

“If you refuse — and I will give you five minutes to decide if you want to condemn the boy to death — I will pull the trigger. Master Cameron is about seven feet away from me, and this pea-shooter as you call it, is a very effective weapon.”

“I know your kind, Cassell,” barked Duncan Mòr. “There would be no coming back for either of us, if we stepped into that coble.”

“The choice is yours,” said the Russian shortly. “You have four minutes.”

“You could shoot the boy, right enough,” went on Duncan Mòr, in a quieter tone, “and maybe you could shoot me, too. But you haven’t a chance of getting away.”

“I know how to die,” said the Russian curtly. “But at least I would have the satisfaction of disposing of a bungling idiot who has ruined my plans,” and he directed a look at me of such concentrated venom that I felt the goose-pimples rising on my flesh.

I thought I had been afraid before, but at that moment, for the first time, I knew the meaning of real fear. Colonel Zaborin would shoot me down like a dog, and enjoy doing it. There was no mercy in those cold, unblinking eyes.

“But what if twenty odd men, all armed, came bursting into the Lodge?” persisted Duncan Mòr. “You couldn’t kill the lot o’ them; you would be dead meat before you could squeeze that trigger a
couple o’ times.”

“Why do you think Communism is on the march all over the world?” said the Russian fiercely. “It is because it is greater than the life of any one of us. We Russians would never let an idiot of a boy stand in our way, but you would. If any attempt is made to take me, the boy goes first. But you would be afraid to sacrifice him. That is why you British and the Americans are doomed. You place too high a value on worthless skins.” He shot a quick glance at his watch. “Two minutes.”

“Before we go I would like to know one thing,” said Duncan Mòr easily. As he spoke he took several swift paces across the room until the Russian halted him with a menacing jerk of the revolver. “Tell me, was it yourself had that money put in my house for the police to find, or was it that red rogue of a Murdo Beaton?”

“Beaton placed the money there on my orders,” said the Russian coldly.

“Do you know,” said Duncan Mòr, inching forward, “it was the first time in all my life I was ever accused o’ lifting as much as a penny piece?”

“I am not interested in your personal history,” returned the Russian.

As he glanced again at his watch, I saw Duncan Mòr take another quick step forward.

“One minute.” The Russian’s voice was flat, completely emotionless.

“I swore I would break in two the man who did that to me,” went on Duncan Mòr, and I noticed the beads of perspiration on his upper lip. “I am a man of my word, Cassell, whatever.”

I thought I heard voices in the distance, but neither of them seemed to have heard anything. The muzzle of the Russian’s revolver still pointed unwaveringly at my chest, but his eyes were riveted on Duncan Mòr’s face. As for Duncan Mòr, he was standing poised on the balls of his feet, leaning slightly forward from the hips. He glanced at me and smiled, and raised his right hand to his head and let it fall again to his side. I thought he was brushing back a lock of hair, but it was also the gesture he always made whenever we parted.

Colonel Zaborin drew a deep breath.

“You have got exactly thirty seconds,” he said, in the same even, controlled voice.

I was paralysed with fear. It gripped my stomach so that I was almost physically sick, and my tongue felt like a dry rag in my mouth.

“Thirty seconds is it?” said Duncan Mòr, smiling still. “Well, well, many a better man than me had less.”

I don’t quite know how it happened, but Duncan Mòr launched himself forward in one swift leap, and even as he started to spring, his long right arm reached out and grasped the back of my chair,
upending
it. I was catapulted out of the chair across the room. As I fell, I felt the hot blast of the revolver and was almost deafened by the report.

I struck my head on the floor, half stunning myself, but I tried to struggle back to my feet. As I raised my head, I saw that Duncan Mòr’s broad back was between me and the Russian. Then the revolver spoke again and the room was full of the acrid smell of cordite. The shot must have caught Duncan Mòr in the chest, for he half spun round and seemed to crumple at the knees. His hands were at his sides and I saw them clench and unclench, then he took a step forward and half sprang, half toppled over the desk. His hands sought Zaborin’s throat and the Russian crashed to the floor beneath his weight.

I struggled to get to my feet, but my legs seemed to have turned to rubber. An ornate silver inkstand on the desk had been
overturned
in the struggle and the ink was dripping steadily on to the carpet, forming a little black pool. I watched it inanely, feeling the room swimming about me.

Once again I thought I heard voices, and somehow or other I raised myself to my feet. The voices seemed to draw nearer and I was sure that I heard footsteps clattering up the stone steps of the Lodge.

I took an unsteady step forward, wondering why the two figures behind the desk were so still. The floor seemed to come up to meet me, and something like a shooting star exploded before my eyes. I sank into a black pit and knew no more.

When I opened my eyes again I was lying on a sofa in a strange room. The light hurt my eyes and I shut them again quickly. My forehead seemed to be on fire and my head was throbbing madly. I felt weak and sick and dizzy.

I opened my eyes again, shielding them with my hand against the glare of the light, and looked around the room. Hector MacLeod was standing with his back to the fire. He crossed quickly to the sofa and bent over me.

I noticed with a shock of surprise that he seemed suddenly to have become a very old man. His face was grey with fatigue, anxious and careworn. For the first time I noticed the sagging pouches of skin under his eyes and the deep wrinkles that lined the corners of his mouth.

“How are you feeling, Alasdair Beag?” he asked, attempting a wan smile.

“Fine,” I said, “except for my head. It’s aching a bit.” I shivered. “And it’s awfully cold in here.”

Hector drew the blankets up to my chin. They had been draped over my legs and I had not even noticed they were there.

“The doctor from Staffin is here,” said Hector. “He will be in to see you in a wee while.”

I tried to blink away the white spots that kept dancing in front of my eyes.

“Where am I?” I asked.

He looked at me thoughtfully. “At the Lodge,” he said slowly.

The memory of all that had happened in the Major’s study came flooding back, and I cried, “Is Duncan Mòr all right? And the Major? He didn’t get away, did he?”

Hector MacLeod scrubbed at his bristly chin with his fist. It
made a sound like sandpaper on wood.

“Duncan Mòr saw to the Major,” he said at length. “No, no, he didn’t get away. When we got to him his neck was broken. He was dead,
a bhalaich
.”

“And is the doctor seeing to Duncan Mòr?” I wanted to know.

Hector swallowed, and said in a strangled sort of voice, “Aye, that’s it. The doctor is seeing to Duncan Mòr.” He patted my head awkwardly. “Just you rest now, Alasdair Beag. It is rest you are
needing
.”

I watched him as he walked back to the fire, noticing once again how old and tired he looked. He took out his pipe and stared at it absently, then thrust it back into his pocket again. I shut my eyes thankfully and I believe I would have gone straight to sleep if the doctor had not come into the room.

The doctor was a tiny man with a face like a wrinkled gnome. He sat on the sofa and took my pulse and chatted about my father whom he said he had known well. He had a cheerful, easy manner, and he did not seem a bit like a doctor, not even when he started to ask the sort of questions doctors always ask.

Hector MacLeod accompanied him to the door and they stood there for a few moments, talking together in low tones, and the
doctor
handed something to Hector. Then they shook hands and the door closed behind the little man.

Hector came back to the sofa. “We will get you home now, Alasdair,” he said. “The doctor says you are suffering from shock and nervous exhaustion, but you will be right enough after a good long sleep.”

He helped me to my feet and wrapped the blankets around my shoulders. Once I was on my feet the sickness rose in my throat, and I was grateful for the strength of his supporting arm as we made our way to the door.

Calum Stewart was waiting outside the door, almost as if he had been on guard there, and he smiled at me and took my arm on the other side. As we crossed the hall I glanced down the passage and saw that the study door was closed.

“I’d like to see Duncan Mòr before I go,” I said.

“Not now,” they said in unison, and hurried me out of the Lodge.

There were several cars parked outside the Lodge, but I was too tired to ask what they were doing there. The three of us climbed into the back of a black police car, and I noticed that the constable in the driving seat was the man who had tried to arrest Duncan Mòr. He nodded to me as I got in, and I felt more than ever that I was sleepwalking; ever since I had entered the Lodge there had been an unreal, dream-like quality about the events of the night.

We drove to Achmore in silence. I was too weary to speak and I suppose the men were tired too.

When we got to the cottage I was surprised to see that Donald Alec MacDonald was sitting on the bench. Mairi and the
cailleach
were still up. Mairi’s small face was pale and drawn and there were black shadows under her eyes. Hector asked her to heat a glass of milk and she went off obediently after an anxious glance in my direction. The
cailleach
was sitting hunched forward in the rough wooden chair, holding out her hands to the peat fire flames. Donald Alec MacDonald spoke to her in Gaelic, but if she heard him she made no reply. She seemed to be withdrawn within herself, lost in brooding thought.

When I had undressed and got into bed, Hector MacLeod came in with a glass of warm milk. He handed me two white tablets.

“The doctor says these will make you sleep,” he said, “and there is to be no getting up in the morning until we have seen how you are.”

I swallowed the tablets and gulped down the warm milk. A dozen questions rose to my lips, but my body was desperate for sleep. I felt my eyelids drooping, but I forced them open again.

“Does Mairi know about … about her father?” I asked.

Hector MacLeod was tiptoeing carefully out of the room, and at the sound of my voice he swung round. He looked at me for a long time before he spoke, and I felt my eyelids start to droop again.

“Aye, she knows,” he said gravely, “but she is wise beyond her years, that one.”

He swallowed, and I thought he was about to go on, but he
turned on his heel and left the room abruptly.

I rolled over on my side, and I believe I was asleep before he reached the kitchen.

It was exactly two o’clock in the afternoon when I woke up. I lay on my back rubbing one foot against the other, drowsily content, letting wakefulness steal over me slowly like the wash of an
incoming
tide. It was the low murmur of voices in the kitchen that finally roused me. I leapt out of bed and threw on my clothes and dashed across the lobby to the kitchen.

I stopped short in the doorway. All the men of Achmore were crowded into that little room. Hector MacLeod, Calum Stewart, Lachlan MacLeod, Donald Alec MacDonald, Roderick MacPherson; they were all there. Even Iain Ban MacDonald, with his arm in a sling.

They all looked at me, but Hector MacLeod was the only one who spoke, and I noticed that his face still had a grey, drawn look.

“What are you doing out of your bed?” he demanded.

“But I feel fine,” I protested. “I’m … I’m just hungry, that’s all.”

Mairi was sitting in a corner and she rose without a word and made me a big bowl of brose. I sat in to the table and took the brose, and ate several girdle scones and drank two cups of strong sweet tea.

All the time I was eating, the men were strangely silent. They did not even speak to one another, and I thought at first that it was on account of Mairi having lost her father that they were so subdued.

When I had finished my breakfast, I looked round the ring of silent faces and the first faint, gnawing doubt crept into my mind.

“How is Duncan Mòr?” I asked.

Nobody spoke.

Hector MacLeod bit his lip. Calum Stewart looked down at his boots. Lachlan MacLeod, that dark, silent man, I didn’t expect to speak, but even his eyes refused to meet mine, as if afraid of what I would see there. Donald Alec MacDonald stared fixedly at the
ceiling
. Roderick MacPherson chewed at his nails. Iain Ban MacDonald fingered the bandage of his sling.

The six men of Achmore were silent.

“How is Duncan Mòr?” I repeated shakily, the bitter gall of fear gripping my stomach and rising up in my throat.

Nobody spoke.

I looked from one to the other of these men I knew so well. Some of them, like Calum Stewart and Donald Alec MacDonald, were big men. All of them were strong men. Like Duncan Mòr they worked with their hands, and like Duncan Mòr they feared no man. They would stand their ground and look prince or pauper in the eye, but not one of them would look at me. I know now that every one of them would willingly have faced the Devil himself rather than answer that question.

It was left to Mairi to speak. She was standing at the other side of the table clearing away the dishes. She put down a cup and saucer with unsteady hands, and I saw her hands grip the edge of the table.

“Duncan Mòr is dead, Alasdair,” she said, in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

“No,” I cried. And again, “No.” And yet a third time, “No.” I blinked back the hot tears that flooded to my eyes. “He can’t be. He” — and my voice broke — “he just can’t be.”

Hector MacLeod drew a long breath. “Aye, Duncan Mòr is gone,” he said solemnly, “and death comes to us all through time, but as long as any o’ the one of us is left, then the big fellow will live, too. Do you think I can ever be looking across to Mealt without seeing him there? Do you think I will ever make a ceilidh again without hearing that great roar o’ a laugh of his? No, no, Alasdair Beag, it is the ones who have nothing to leave but their money-bags who are dead and gone. Death can never finish the likes o’ Duncan Mòr, not in these parts.”

“But if only he had waited,” I said miserably. “If only he had waited. Surely he must have known that you would all follow him to the Lodge?”

“Duncan Mòr arranged it himself,” said Roderick MacPherson. “We were to wait by the main road while he went on alone. If he was not back in ten minutes we were to storm the Lodge.”

I sat quite still in my chair, not seeing any of the faces around me, only the Major’s study and the gun pointing at my heart. Duncan
Mòr’s voice came back to me.
What if twenty odd men came bursting into the lodge?
I saw the tightening of the Major’s lips and heard again his icy reply.
If any attempt is made to take me the boy goes first.

Somebody was speaking, and I jerked my head round. It was Iain Ban.

“You may be sure Duncan Mòr knew what he was doing,” he said simply, “and I am thinking he is well pleased with his work.”

“Aye,” assented Lachlan MacLeod, that man of few words. “The big fellow was never the man to leave a job unfinished.”

Hector MacLeod rose to his feet. “The funeral is the day after tomorrow,” he said. “We will need to get the word round.”

Little did I know, at that moment, what “the word” would bring.

I don’t know how I would have got through the rest of that day had it not been for the constant coming and going of people. Mairi and the
cailleach
and I were never alone in the cottage for more than five minutes, and I had no time to think.

Willie The Post came in to say that they had had a telegram at the post office to say that my mother would be arriving that night. When she came he was going to take the
cailleach
back home with him, for his mother was her first cousin, and he thought she would be happier staying with them.

When I asked about Mairi, all he would say was, “Ach, your mother will be wanting to look after the lassie,” and I suspected there was more in the telegram than he had revealed.

That afternoon the police came to see me. There was an
inspector
with a lot of silver braid on his cap, and a sergeant. The sergeant took notes while the inspector questioned me. It went on for a long time, dealing with everything that had happened from the day I arrived in Skye.

When they had finished questioning me, the inspector cleared his throat importantly, and said, “Sir Reginald Gower, the Head of Military Intelligence, is coming to Portree tonight. He has expressed a wish to see you, so I shall send a car for you at ten tomorrow morning.” He
fingered
his collar, and added, “I don’t want you to discuss this with any of
your crofter friends. Sir Reginald’s visit is to be kept strictly private. The instructions from London are that there is to be no publicity.”

After that he seemed to thaw a little, and become less like a policeman. He shook hands with me and wished me luck, and
smiling
broadly told me not to forget the Police Force when I was old enough to leave school and be thinking of a career.

It was a little after seven o’clock when my mother arrived with Willie The Post carrying her luggage. Willie only stayed for a few minutes, then he left with the
cailleach
, leaving my mother, Mairi and I, together in the kitchen.

“How on earth did you get here so quickly?” I asked.

“Well, you seem to have become awfully important since you came to Skye,” answered my mother, smiling at me. “I had a visit from Sir Reginald Gower, and he told me everything that had happened. I flew to Inverness with him and came on from there by car. Sir Reginald told me that he was looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. I’m … I’m awfully proud of you, Alasdair.”

I had expected my mother to be worried and anxious, and I had been preparing myself to answer her flood of questions, but none came. She turned to Mairi and before long the two of them were chatting together as if they had known one another always. It all seemed so topsy-turvy, my mother behaving as if a sudden flight to Inverness and a dash by car to Skye were an everyday occurrence, but then everything had been topsy-turvy during the past few days.

When I went to bed that night Mairi and my mother were still talking together. It had been arranged that Mairi would stay with us in London, and we were to leave immediately after Duncan Mòr’s funeral.

The police inspector was true to his word. Punctually at ten o’clock the next morning a police car arrived for me. I felt a little frightened as I sat alone in the back and was driven into Portree. The car stopped outside a hotel overlooking the bay, and the
constable
who was driving went in and spoke to the manager.

The manager escorted me upstairs and knocked softly on a door at the end of a long corridor. When a voice called “Come in,” he stood aside to let me enter.

As I stepped forward, I heard the door click quietly shut behind me, and I walked slowly across the room. A man was sitting in a deep armchair with his back to me. There was a coffee table in front of the chair and he pushed it aside and sprang to his feet. In two quick strides he had reached me and shaken me warmly by the hand. The first thing that occurred to me was that he looked more like a crofter than a peer of the realm. Perhaps it was his open, sun-tanned face, or it may have been due to the fact that most of the crofters I knew had the natural, easy dignity that one somehow associates with titles. At any rate, I liked him on sight.