Rum Affair (14 page)

“You’d be surprised,” said Johnson. That was all.

What Rupert and he did, in the end, was to enter the water, one on each side of the inlet, and attempt to trap the mine as it rolled in towards the end of the cave in the folds of Rupert’s oiled nylon anorak.

It was a crazy scheme. In the first place Johnson, treading water on the far side of the inlet, had no foothold or handhold at all, except his left-handed grasp of the anorak. And Rupert, in the water below me, standing on some submerged counter with sea up to his waist, and a right-handed grip on the anorak, and in his left hand an improvised rope made of torn shirting and scarves, which stretched up over the stone walks at the water’s edge, to the iron stanchions by the path, where it was lashed. As Rupert gripped his end of the wretched rope and took up his stance, a wave began its slow lift inwards towards them – and on the back of the wave, came the mine.

It took its time, this moving green plateau of water, which washed Michael’s arm at my side and slid neck high to Rupert where he waited in the water. With one hand, Rupert held fast to his improvised rope, and between his body and Johnson’s, brilliant green in the water, stretched the thin German stuff of the anorak. The mine swam slowly, steadily towards them.

The wave engulfed Rupert. I saw him take a deep breath, his hand whitening on the rope just before the swell arrived, lipping his chin, mouth and nose. Then it passed him, dragging him backwards, and, passing silently with it, the mine nosed its way into the fabric between the two men.

For a moment, it breasted the wave and might have brimmed over the anorak had not Johnson moved inwards, stretching it high. It bobbed, rolling, dragged by the current round Rupert’s body. He moved too, gently, to hold it fast in the trap. Then, with a roar, the wave broke without harm on the black beach behind, while there, between Johnson and Rupert, the mine remained in the water, caught fast in its shawl. This time, we were safe.

They had hoped, I suppose, to lift the mine in its anorak out of the water and lay it somewhere on the basalt, where at least it wouldn’t be buffeted. In that they were unlucky. When, between that wave and the next, moving with infinite care, they enveloped the mine and tried gently to raise it, the nylon began to tear and give way. They had reckoned without the mine’s sheer, unhandy weight; and the push of the water, and the lack of any adequate handhold or leverage. Before they were prepared for it, the next wave was upon them, and the next. I could see Rupert, the anchor man, muscles rigid, easing back with the roll of the mine. And Johnson, unanchored save by the anorak sleeve, was resisting each wave to avoid falling back on its surf, unshelling the mine like a pea from its pod to rush on to the beach and explode.

Three waves went by. I don’t know what made me look at the rope, Rupert’s lifeline tied above me to the fence by the path. But as I glanced at it, under my eyes the improvised thing started to vibrate. It stretched, elongating suddenly like wool, and one by one, under my eyes, the knots began to dissolve.

There is an instinct of the scullery, of the domestic crises of innumerable aunties over the years, that can serve me crudely yet. As the free end flew past me, I caught it, and hung on.

I hung on, sideways, my fingers scraping a handhold among the stony pillars and discs, and held Rupert half-drowned on his perch until with a shattering roar the wave broke at the cave end, and the jeering chatter, louder, louder and louder, described its dying withdrawal.

Then I looked. Rupert, glistening, saluted me with a wave of the rope end. Johnson was treading water again in much the same place, spouting sea water like a small table fountain, but safe. And between them in its yellow calyx the mine rocked, also unharmed and secure.

Beside me on the rocks, Michael Twiss snorted suddenly and groaned. I gave him a smack on the face, and then, as he sat queasily up, I dispatched him up the rocks to hang on to the rail. Now, if I held his hand and Rupert held mine, we could make a chain long enough to let Johnson in turn touch the opposite wall of the cave. He would not have much of a grip, but enough perhaps to save us all until help came.

The next wave arrived, and it worked. It was an interesting achievement and I had forgotten all about my diamonds, perhaps because Michael was so frightened. With a score or an agent he was a man of acid and iron, but physically, I knew so well, he acted as do the underfed and unloved in the backstreets where he was born.

After that, each wave was a fresh calculation: how big this time, how far the mine would travel, how much play to allow it. Deluged every few moments anew, clinging to slippery handhold or water-soaked rocks, the men in the water couldn’t hold on for ever. I remembered as they probably did, that Lenny was not at the jetty but holding Cecil Ogden’s hand in his impossible boat. The steamer passengers by now would be safely embarked, other yachtsmen warned off. Who was going to risk returning for us?

“I am betting my bottom dollar,” said Rupert at this moment, emerging, rather green in the face, from the last hideous comber, “on Victoria.” He paused. “All my other dollars, I need hardly say, Madame Rossi, are on you.”

He was a likeable boy. No one could leave him to drown.

He was right, too. Behind the rolling emerald of the next wave I could see a swaying of something at the cave mouth. There was a shrill hail, and a shout, and there was Victoria in a boat of magnificent scarlet, together with half the crew of the
King George V,
hell-bent for death, glory and danger beside her.

They rode up the long waterway towards us like the Valkyrie, laden with canvas and netting; and working in teams of two or three at a time, trapped and cushioned the mine where it floated.

I watched them, with Victoria, from the cave entrance where Johnson had sent us. Michael had already disappeared, walking quickly. I saw Johnson finally haul himself out of the water and begin, dripping, to hunt for his jacket, which lay on the causeway beside me. On the premise that if he was bothering about jackets, the mine must be safe, I climbed down and took it to him. I also took to him the revolver which had fallen out of its pocket.

He thanked me profusely. “Used to lose rubbers out of my schoolbag as well.”

“Do you usually carry a gun?” I enquired.

“Every portrait painter should have one. But it’s my clasp knife I’m after. In this pocket. Here we are.” He bent over the mine, did something, and straightened.

“Yes. Well, if all the good helpers and those who have provided the tea and buns will kindly get the hell out of it, I think I can remove the sting from this gentleman.”

“That’s a job for experts,” I said. “Don’t be an ass. Now it’s lashed, it can’t joggle.”

“Doesn’t matter if it joggles or not,” said Johnson. “And if I hadn’t been having an osmosis like a bloody buttercup every two minutes I’d have spotted it earlier. It isn’t a trembler mechanism at all: it’s the kind you set off by radio signals. So unless you know anyone with a transmitter and evil intentions, we are all perfectly safe.”

Which, in its way, was the insufferable, ultimate irony of Fingal’s horrible cave.

Rupert, I remember, talked all the way back to the jetty and was annoyed when I didn’t reply. I was busy, thinking. About, for example, Johnson’s revolver.

We set off much later from Iona, under sail. I remember, through a haze of champagne, discussing the whole business with Johnson.

He was pleased with himself; no doubt because he had employed the old Navy touch without blowing his head off. I found there were advantages, as well, in being a popular heroine. Today, the six hundred passengers of the
King George V.
Tomorrow, the world. There was, I remembered, an airstrip on Barra. Reporters could come by the planeload. Or a television team, at the least. I should give my first interviews there.

Without Michael. Of that I was sure. He had said nothing more about Kenneth or the cancelled South American tour, and Michael didn’t as a rule lie down to defeat. But if he was still on board, it was for a reason. And it wasn’t to bolster my ego with journalists, I was sure.

But instead, I had a new standing with others. Victoria had kissed and apologised: “We did think, all of us, that you weren’t mad about poor Johnson and us and our junketings . . . But you were super. I’ll never speak to anyone again who says you weren’t
super.
And the drip-dry non-seat chic bit just wasn’t Madame Rossi at all.”

I related then, I remember, an abbreviated version of my childhood, with grateful results, and was sorry when she returned to Ogden and
Seawolf,
which awaited off Staffa, duly mended by Lenny. The race forced itself unfortunately on the attention every time one looked at Rupert, who wore the expression of a man now worrying about five thousand pounds. On sailing time, only Hennessy and
Seawolf
had beaten us. On handicapped time, our likeliest rivals were Hennessy still,
Seawolf
from her recent fast reach, and the Buchanans on
Binkie.

With the surface of my mind, through a meal of Chinese water chestnuts and snow peas, I made all the appropriate noises. But I was both glad and relieved when at midnight, Johnson leaned below from the cockpit and asked if I should like to come and see Ardnamurchan light from the deck. With my little gold alpaca coat pulled round my shoulders, I followed him up and kneeling, looked out to sea.

In the summer night, the Inner Hebrides lay all about us, black on the indigo sea. Above us, the uninterrupted sky stretched, a light, dense ultramarine, its ghostly clouds and small, sharp white stars suspended over the bright winking lights, near and far, of a constellation of lighthouses, and the grey, dimly voyaging waves here below. To our right, a dark mass and the fitful beam of a lighthouse announced the furthest west land mass of Britain. Ahead, and much nearer now, were the islands – Muck, Eigg, Rum, Canna, already seen from off Mull.

Behind and around us on the pleasant seas and warm breeze were the dim sails of the cruising yachts, wake and canvas gilded, like ours, by the faint radiance of escaped cabin light. I drew the saloon door shut behind me, not to dazzle Johnson’s eyes, and went to lean where he was resting, his pipe between his teeth, his arm on the tiller, his bifocal lenses trained on the waves, the sails, the burgee, the other boats, but never on me. He said: “There’s Rum. If Rupert could be trusted not to have kittens, we could call on your friend there tomorrow.”

I forgot about the gun. Idiot that I was, I thought only that here was a man self-sufficient as I was myself, who had shown no scruples about walking out on a corpse, and no sentiment afterwards. Since Crinan, my mind had been changed for me, radically. I said: “Dr Holmes isn’t there. They’ve moved him to South Rona. I’m to meet him on Saturday in Portree.”

“How do you know? Oh, Tom McIver,” Johnson answered himself, centring me briefly in the short-focus lenses. “Lenny mentioned he came round at Crinan. Was the message from Holmes?”

I told him. “So Kenneth Holmes warned you off, and you replied that you weren’t having any, and made a new assignation,” said Johnson. “The bulldog breed. And now the mine. They
are
keen to keep you apart, aren’t they?”

“Then the mine wasn’t a coincidence?” I said.

The bifocals tipped upwards. “Coincidence, hell! That mine was so new it was a wonder anyone recognised it as such. I did, because it’s a hobby with me.”

“So did I.” There seemed no point now in failing to mention it. “Because I saw it last night. On an identification chart in Hennessy’s wheelhouse.”

There was a long silence. Then: “Did you, indeed?” said Johnson thoughtfully.

I knew what he was thinking. With the tide as it was, that mine was planted – if it had been planted – no more than a short time before
Dolly’s
party arrived. And Hennessy had been at the cave just before us. I said it aloud.

“Yes. Hennessy could have carried it,” said Johnson. “It wasn’t big. A small packing case or a reinforced kitbag would hold it. Also, from what you say, he had the radio equipment to trigger it off.”

I sat down and hugged myself in my alpaca coat, and the silver of my Mexican earrings pattered cold on my cheek. I said: “But it needn’t be Hennessy. There must have been other boats, too.”

“Not so many. I checked with MacBrayne and Iona,” said Johnson. “The puffer
Willa Mavis,
of course, but she had passed hours before we arrived on the scene. Duke Buzzy’s
Vallida
had long since gone, too, after chucking in the champagne. Lenny and Ogden brought
Seawolf
over, but that was after we were all in the cave, and if Ogden’s got a children’s telephone set, never mind a shortwave radio, I’m Alexander Graham Bell. The
King George
arrived afterwards, too. So did
Binkie,
while we were all in the cave, but the Buchanans didn’t go ashore, and I don’t suppose they’ve got an R.T. Apart from one or two fishing boats who passed through earlier and were miles away while we were there in the cave, that’s the whole list of suspects.” He glanced up at me.

“You realise that someone has been carrying that mine, from Crinan or Rhu, with just this sort of purpose in mind? Stick it near a boat and trigger it off, and there’s nothing to show afterwards why any yacht got blown out of the water.”

I don’t get excited either. Not easily. “Why didn’t this one get triggered off, then?” I asked. “And anyway, how could they be sure of doing it at the right time?”

“Binoculars,” said Johnson. “That’s why it had to be someone who was within reasonable range while we were inside the cave. And frankly, I don’t know why they didn’t explode it. The boat with the shortwave radio maybe couldn’t get within binocular range at the time. There may have been someone with us they wanted to spare. They may have meant simply to give us a fright.”

“What do you mean?” I said.
“Someone they wanted to spare?”

“Well,” said Johnson, his gaze fixed on the streaming burgee. “Someone might have an accomplice. Are you sure now, for example, that your Lochgair ducking was nothing but accident?”