Murdo's War (21 page)

For the moment there was nothing to do but drive on. With his mouth dry, Murdo nursed the car up the rough snowy track, a twisting ribbon between the fringing clumps of moorland grass and heather. On his left the endless hills rose gently, rolling into the shadowy gloom of the night; on his right the land fell away to the frozen river in the bottom of the broad glen.

He had never travelled all the way up the strath before, only as far as Hector’s peat banks, and the lodge and cottage at Bowside, three miles from the village. But the road wound on past these to the new forestry plantations, and beyond that again to the lonely shepherds’ bothy at Loch Strathy. His eyes flickered down to the petrol gauge – at least the tank was full. For a moment he half smiled, remembering the deal Hector had made with some RAF
boys, trading whisky and venison for a drum of the pink high- octane aeroplane fuel. Then the smile faded and he wondered what had become of his old friend down there on the beach.

Behind him the Germans had stopped weaving, stopped looking for a place where they could nose past with their more powerful car. Quietly they came on about ten yards behind. Murdo shifted the driving mirror so that the headlights did not dazzle him.

In a few minutes they were at the Bowside turning. Looking across, Murdo could see that there was no-one at home. The houses were dark, hunched against the snowy hills. Nevertheless he jammed his hand on the horn and blew a long, harsh blast. The shocking sound reverberated over the silent moors. Down towards the river a herd of red deer rose to their feet, shifting nervously before they took to flight, springing in beautiful bounds almost parallel with the rocking cars. But no light or movement showed from the lonely buildings.

Mile followed mile. The bare hillsides suddenly became thick with trees as the cars lurched over a cattle grid between deer fences and entered the forestry area. Briefly Murdo thought of running for it, leaving the car and racing for shelter among the dense thickets of young spruce; but he had no chance of succeeding, not with the German car so close behind.

And then they were out of the forest again, pushing through the long, slanting snow-wreaths on the open moor. The moon was full in his face, white plains and slopes gleamed in the distance beyond the reach of the headlights. A range of hills ten miles away was clearly etched against the pale sky. Even as he strove to keep ahead of his pursuers, Murdo was dimly aware that the night was exceptionally beautiful. Life seemed very precious. He glanced back at the car behind. Inexorably it came on.

A blackcock clattered up with a harsh cry, almost it seemed from under his wheels, and circled away to the left. The hen bird followed at its tail and there was a sickening thud as it struck the wing of the car. Two or three feathers shone momentarily in the headlights. Murdo grimaced and drove on.

He tried to estimate how far they had come. Ten – twelve miles? It must be something like that, he decided. The end of the road could not be very far away. What would happen when they reached it? Would he be able to make a run for it, or would they simply capture him and take him back to the cave? It depended who was in the car. He would at least be safe, he thought, if Bjorn Larvik was there. But if he was not... !

He swung tightly round a banked corner and suddenly the road dropped steeply away. There, forty feet below him, was a wide ford, shrunk in the frosty weather to a narrow channel of black water between the banks of ice. He braked hard, but the descent was too steep. The old car bucked and skidded crazily as the patched ice shot up to meet it. Bang! The front wheels snapped up into the body like an explosion. Murdo crashed forward into the windscreen, the steering wheel thudded against his ribs. For a moment the car tottered on two wheels, then fell back, spun, and shot viciously at the far bank, slewing and snaking in the mud and ice. Crack! It hit the road again. The lights pierced the sky. The car fell heavily, rattling like a trailer-load of scrap iron, and fled towards the broad ditch. But miraculously the wheels held. It bounced off the verge, careered into a boulder, and skidded on up the treacherous road.

Murdo clung to the steering wheel and blinked dazedly and fiercely up the brilliant track ahead. His teeth were set, he sniffed back a trickle of blood from one nostril.

Slowly he became aware that something was different. The lights were no longer on his tail. Instead, the whole summit of a nearby knoll was illuminated. He slowed and looked more closely, swinging the driving mirror, then slowing still further, opened the car door and glanced back. Dark and indistinct, the great car lay helplessly on its side, lights blazing across the hillside and into the air. He stopped and waited to see what would happen. Slowly a door opened and a dim figure started to climb out. The lights went off, and he could see the car more clearly against the moonlit snow. Another figure emerged. From what Murdo could estimate it was hopeless, they would never get the car back on the road.

With unspeakable relief he pulled the door shut, slipped Hector’s car into gear and rattled on up the road. The suspension had gone and every boulder jerked the body with a heavy ‘clunk’.

But his relief was short-lived. Only a mile further on, the track ran out into a snowy space beside a small deserted cottage, and ceased. It was the Loch Strathy bothy.

Murdo switched off the lights and looked back. A frighteningly short distance away the inside light of the German car twinkled warmly amid the white wilderness. He could not distinguish the figures, but the light flickered time and again as if people were passing in front of it.

Swiftly he rummaged on the floor for his tackety boots. The Germans would not be long in following, that was certain. They must see the cottage, and Henry Smith would have binoculars and maps. Hastily he crammed his feet into his boots and dragged the laces together. What else? He pulled out the car key and pocketed it. The car itself contained nothing that he wanted except an old black and white toorie. He pulled it on the back of his head and patted the pockets of his trousers and khaki battledress jacket. His fingers touched his father’s clasp knife and a screwed-up handkerchief – there seemed to be nothing else.

With a sudden clang something smacked into the car with enormous power, and the crack of a rifle echoed across the moors. There was not a second to lose. Murdo reached to the floor for the fallen bottle of whisky, slammed the car door and locked it. Then, crouching as he ran across the clearing, he put the old bothy between himself and the shooting.

Clearly it was no use hiding, they would be sure to find him. He must take to the moors. He looked from the neighbouring hills to Loch Strathy, a mile distant and covered with ice and drifted snow, trying to decide which way he should go. There was only one answer – upwards. Drawing a deep, determined breath he shoved the bottle of whisky down the front of his battle-dress, leaned momentarily against the gable wall of the cottage, then pushed himself off towards the foot of the rough slope.

After the comfort of the car the night seemed bitterly cold, but at least he had warmed through after that day on the seashore, and a few minutes’ exercise brought the heat coursing through his body. At first his leg ached and burned like fire, but it no longer seemed to be bleeding, and when he felt it gingerly with his fingers the cold stickiness had gone, leaving a hard patch on the side of his trousers.

There was quite a lot of snow, but for the moment it did not seriously impede his progress and he made good speed. A few rifle shots rang out from below, whip cracks in the silence. They were shooting blind, he realised, but the thought gave him little confidence.

Murdo climbed with the accustomed stride of one well used to shepherding, and soon found himself high on the steep ridge that rose from the house to the rolling summits of the moor. Pausing for a moment to regain his breath, he looked back down his tracks, so clearly visible in the bright moonlight. A light was on in Hector’s car, and as he listened intently, faint voices drifted up on the wind. Tiny figures, impossible to distinguish, moved in the circle of light. He turned again and pressed on up the slope.

Minutes later the roar of an engine caused him to halt a second time. They had managed to start Hector’s car, and as he watched the lights went on, stabbing their golden-white beams through the dusky shadows. A door slammed. Slowly the car drew away in a circle, then gathering speed, headed off down the track towards the ford.

Briefly he watched its progress, angry with himself for not removing the distributor cap, then turned his gaze back to Loch Strathy cottage, scanning the slopes. He blinked and screwed up his eyes to see more clearly, for the icy wind was making them water. Two dark specks stood out on the near side of the bothy, moving slowly up the hillside after him. He imagined Carl Voss with the powerful rifle tucked beneath his arm, scouring the snowfields ahead for a sign of himself. He bit his lip, suppressing a shiver of fear, and looked around at the moors. Ten, twenty miles, they spread away on every side, to the very rim of the glittering sky. They were very empty, very big. Out there, you could die. But surrender was unthinkable: among those rolling hills lay Murdo’s only hope of safety. He shrugged the jacket easy on his shoulders and headed out into the wilderness.

THREE HOURS LATER
the spread-eagled figure of Orion had swung far around the sky and the moon was at its zenith in the south, when Murdo stopped for the hundredth time and scanned the slopes behind him. For half an hour he had been climbing across the side of a mountain and its great flank stretched far down below. There was no sign of any movement upon the bright snow. Surely, he thought, he must be drawing clear, yet fear was so much stronger than hope that he could hardly believe it. He breathed deeply but easily as the wind blew cold on his damp forehead. He had plenty of strength left yet. He glanced up at the Plough and found the Pole Star, then set off again eastwards towards Strath Halladale. For more than an hour he had been heading in that direction. In the glen there were houses, and the little village of Kinbrace.

A snowy owl winging its way silently above hooted softly with surprise at the minute figure far below, toiling across the great slope like an ant on a sand dune. Far away, well beyond the foot of the mountain, the round wide-awake eyes spotted two more, even tinier figures, imperceptibly moving in the same direction. The white wings fluttered and it sailed back to the summit rocks to land without even a rustle, blinking in astonishment. The great head swivelled to look behind. Nothing moved, the shadowy moonlit hills rolled on until they vanished into the dimness of the horizon. The very mountain itself was lost in the landscape.

As Murdo climbed over the ridge the land fell away before him into a flat valley, the floor a gleaming level of frozen lochs, all pewter and silver, dappled with snow. Beyond, barring his path to the east, reared two imposing summits, even from that height outlined against the stars. It would take a while to climb through the steep pass between them. Still, that was the way he must go, and relieved that for the moment at least his path led downwards, he ploughed off, taking long, loose-kneed strides towards the valley bottom.

He thrust a hand deeply into the pocket of his blue serge trousers for warmth and encountered the comfortable haft of his father’s knife. The contact gave him strength, and as he proceeded he thought of his father – and Lachlan and Maggie, but most of all his father – and the times they had all had together. Repeatedly, however, his mind returned to Hector and that roaring ‘No!’ on the beach, followed by a brief scuffle and then a long silence before the first of the shots. He tried to picture what had happened, and a hundred times in his mind’s eye relived the nightmarish climb up the cliff.

As he descended, the hills rose ahead, and by the time he was skirting the first of the lochs, the nearer summit did indeed look formidable. It soon became apparent, however, that his track through the lochs would naturally take him between them, and that the slope to the pass was by no means as arduous as it had appeared earlier.

A few hundred yards brought him to a broad stream, half a mile in length, which linked two substantial lochs in the long valley chain. It must be crossed. Murdo looked at the ice, dusted and drifted with snow. It was impossible in the moonlight to judge how thick it was. Tentatively he slid one foot from the edge and leaned his weight upon it. The ice seemed firm enough. Then he thought of the black water swirling below. If he went through it might carry him beneath the surface – he would never get out. He withdrew and retraced his footsteps to the end of the loch. The water there would be stiller, the ice thicker. If he did break through, he should be able to clamber out again.

Cautiously he inched out from the shore. The ice was strong and apparently sound. Nevertheless he was careful, for there were sometimes springs in the bed of the loch that left weak patches, invisible beneath the snow. But he encountered none, and in a couple of minutes was on the further shore. The mountains lay ahead.

Murdo gazed up the slope he must travel, fingering the stiff patch on his trousers and testing the sharp, numb sensation of the wound beneath it. The pass was split by a deep rocky gully. On either side the ascent was rough, with steep slopes and tussocky grass. He decided to take the right hand rim, where there was more stone but less snow, and drawing a deep breath, trudged on.

Soon he had left the valley floor and was climbing. But in his choice of route he had made an error. As he went higher the gully deepened and pressed close into the side of the mountain, so that he was forced to watch how he went on the treacherous grass and strewn boulders. It was hard going and his legs began to tremble with the effort. Up and up he toiled, until at length he found himself on a steep slope beneath the summit crags. It was a landscape of snow and rock. A long run of scree swept from the foot of the cliffs into the stream below. The whole slope shifted beneath his feet as he started to cross, and little avalanches slid away into the shadows.