being as mad as that - they immobilised your engine. Salt-water impregnated sacks, I shouldn't wonder, so that any chance caller would think it was due to neglect and disuse, not sabotage.'
'Aye, they did that.' He stared sightlessly into the fire, his voice the sunken whisper of a man who is just thinking aloud and hardly aware that he is speaking. 'They took her away and they ruined my boat. And I had my life saving in the back room there and they took that too. I wish I'd had a million pounds to give them. If only they had left my Main. She's five years older than myself.' He had no defences left.
'What in the name of God have you been living on?'
'Every other week they bring me tinned food, not much, and condensed milk. Tea I have, and I catch a fish now and then off the rocks.' He gazed into the fire, his forehead wrinkling as if he were suddenly realising that I brought a new dimension into his life. 'Who are you, sir? Who are you? You're not one of them. And you're not a policeman, I know you're not a policeman. I've seen them. I've seen policemen. But you are a very different kettle of fish.' There were the stirrings of life in him now, life in his face and in his eyes. He stared at me for a full minute, and I was beginning to feel uncomfortable under the gaze of those faded eyes, when he said: 'I know who you are. I know who you must be. You are a Government man. You are an agent of the British Secret Service.'
Well, by God, I took off my hat to the old boy. There I was, looking nondescript as anything and buttoned to the chin in a scuba suit, and he had me nailed right away. So much for the inscrutable faces of the guardians of our country's secrets. I thought of what Uncle Arthur would have said to him, the automatic threats of dismissal .and imprisonment if the old man breathed a word. But Donald MacEachern didn't have any job to be dismissed from and after a lifetime in Eilean Oran even a maximum security prison would have looked like a hostelry to which Egon Ronay would have lashed out six stars without a second thought, so as there didn't seem to be much point in threatening him I said instead, for the first time in my life: 'I am an agent of the Secret Service, Mr. MacEachern. I am going to bring your wife back to you.'
He nodded very slowly, then said: 'You will be a very brave man, Mr. Calvert, but you do not know the terrible men who will wait for you.'
'If I ever earn a medal, Mr. MacEachern, it- will be a case of mistaken identification, but, for the rest, I know very well what I am up against. Just try to believe me, Mr. MacEachern. It will be all right. You were in the war, Mr. MacEachern.'
'You know. You were told?'
I shook my head. 'Nobody had to tell me.'
'Thank you, sir,' The back was suddenly very straight. 'I was a soldier for twenty-two years. I was a sergeant in-the 51st Highland Division.'
'You were a sergeant in the 51st Highland Division,' I repeated. 'There are many people, Mr. MacEachern, and not all of them Scots, who maintain that there was no better in the world.'
'And it is not Donald MacEachern who would be disagreeing with you, sir.' For the first time the shadow of a smile touched the faded eyes. 'There were maybe one or two worse. You make your point, Mr. Calvert. We were not namely for running away, for losing hope, for giving up too easily.' He rose abruptly to his feet 'In the name of God, what am I talking about? I am coming with you, Mr. Calvert.'
I rose to my feet and touched my hands to his shoulders. 'Thank you, Mr. MacEachern, but no. You've done enough. Your fighting days are over. Leave this to me.'
He looked at me in silence, then nodded. Again the suggestion of a smile. 'Aye, maybe you're right. I would be getting in the way of a man like yourself. I can see that.' He sat down wearily in his chair.
I moved to the door. 'Good night, Mr, MacEachern. She will soon be safe.'
'She will soon be safe,' he repeated. He looked up at me, his eyes moist, and when he spoke his voice held the same faint surprise as his face, 'You know, I believe she will.'
'She will. I'm going to bring her back here personally and that will give me more pleasure than anything I've ever done in my life. Friday morning, Mr. MacEachern.'
'Friday morning? So soon? So soon?' He was looking at a spot about a billion light years away and seemed unaware that I was standing by the open door. He smiled, a genuine smile of delight, and the old eyes shone. 'I'll not sleep a wink to-night, Mr. Calvert. Nor a wink to-morrow night either.'
'You'll sleep on Friday,' I promised. He couldn't see me any longer, the tears were running down his grey unshaven cheeks, so I closed the door with a quiet hand and left him alone with his dreams.
EIGHT
I had exchanged Eilean Oran for the island of Craigmore and I still wasn't smiling. I wasn't smiling for all sorts of reasons. I wasn't smiling because Uncle Arthur and Charlotte Skouras together made a nautical combination that terrified the life out of me, because the northern tip of Craigmore was much more exposed and reef-haunted than the south shore of Eilean Oran had been, because the fog was thickening, because I was breathless and bruised from big combers hurling me on to unseen reefs on my swim ashore, because I was wondering whether I had any chance in the world of carrying out my rash promise to Donald MacEachern. If I thought a bit more I'd no doubt I could come up with all sorts of other and equally valid reasons why I wasn't smiling, but I hadn't the time to think any more about it, the night was wearing on and I'd much to do before the dawn.
The nearest of the two fishing boats in the little natural harbour was rolling quite heavily in the waves that curled round the reef forming the natural breakwater to the west so I didn't have to worry too much about any splashing sound I might make as I hauled myself up on deck. What I did have to worry about was that damned bright light in its sealed inverted glass by the flensing shed, it was powerful enough to enable me to be seen from the other houses on shore. . . . But my worry about it was a little thing compared to my gratitude for its existence. Out in the wild blue yonder Uncle Arthur could do with every beacon of hope he could find.
It was a typical M.F.V., about forty-five feet long and with 'the general look of a boat that could laugh at a hurricane. I went through it in two minutes. All in immaculate condition, not a thing aboard that shouldn't have been there. Just a genuine fishing boat. My hopes began to rise. There was no other direction they could go.
The second M.F.V. was the mirror image of the first, down to the last innocuous inch. It wouldn't be true to say thatmy hopes were now soaring, but at least they were getting up off the ground where they'd been for a long time.
I swam ashore, parked my scuba equipment above the high-water mark and made my way to the flensing shed, keeping its bulk between the light and myself as I went. The shed contained winches, steel tubs and barrels, a variety of ferocious weapons doubtless used for flensing, rolling cranes, some unidentifiable but obviously harmless
