across dark Village Bay, out into the open North Atlantic, toward the main Western Isles, and, 100 miles beyond, the Scottish mainland fishing village of Mallaig.
9
Ben Adnam cleared the outer reaches of Village Bay just before 2100 on the night of Thursday, March 2. It was still calm, but there was an unmistakable Atlantic swell. However, the waves rolling in from his starboard hip were fortunately long, with smooth tops, and the Zodiac could quarter across them with ease.
The commander was more than happy with the conditions, even though they would take his full concentration for hour after hour. He was, after all, warm, dry, relatively comfortable, and so far as he knew, not immediately wanted by anyone. It was his former submarine they were after. Ben just had to keep heading east in the dark, keeping a sharp eye out for fishing boats, and restricting his speed to a relatively easy 15 knots. He was well practiced at keeping his speed down, and he wore a lean smile in the night as he steered along course zero-nine- seven, going for the Sound of Harris, 40-odd miles distant.
The Zodiac was a very good boat, and it zipped effortlessly through the mild hills of the Atlantic. It steered easily, and Ben could check the GPS without cutting his speed.
At 2300 he ate another sandwich, leaning back in his seat, staring into the dark and listening to the perfect running beat of the outboard engine, as the Zodiac climbed the retreating swells, flew along the tops, then raced downhill into the troughs.
Less than an hour away Ben would enter the central seaway through the islands that form the outer Hebrides. This is the Sound of Harris, which separates the Isle of Harris to the north from the sprawling archipelago of North Uist to the south.
The Sound of Harris is around 5 miles wide at its narrowest point, but it is scattered with small islands and hunks of rock too big to be ignored but too small to be named. Commander Adnam would have to be very careful in the sound, because though the tide would be quite full, the chart showed it was studded with dangerous obstructions, difficult to see, particularly those just beneath the surface.
The Zodiac drew only about a foot when it was running fast, on the “stump” of the engine’s wake, but he could not risk losing his propeller, and Ben hoped there would be some moonlight south of Harris, to light his way through the rocky seaway.
And in this he was lucky. The moon was high at midnight as the GPS link flicked to 57.48N, 07.15W. He knew that the tiny uninhabited island of Shillay, a 116-acre slab of granite that marks the southern entrance of the sound, lay somewhere to starboard. He elected to run southeast for a couple of miles in the hope of seeing it, and after eight minutes he picked it out on the freezing moonlit ocean, a half mile off his starboard beam, jet-black vertical cliffs rising out of the water.
He thanked Allah for the GPS, and slowed the Zodiac to a halt. The three hours running had used seven gallons, and he tipped the entire contents of one of the army cans into the tank, knowing he could run for another three hours before refueling again. Then he pressed forward once more, heading southeast, where the northern headland of the island of Berneray awaited him 6 miles farther on.
He passed the headland shortly after 0030, then braced himself for the really tricky part of the run through the sound — picking his way through the cluster of tiny islands southeast of Killegray that guard the eastern entrance. There is often a buildup of ocean swell right there, and the islands are low and hard to see in the dark. Ben elected to keep well southeast, and when he saw the island range in sight, they were a lot closer than he had expected. He crept past them carefully, and met with relief the wide expanse of the Hebrides Sea, which separates the Western Isles from Skye. Almost immediately the ocean seemed to flatten out.
He was not unfamiliar with these waters, because of his months in the Royal Navy, and he knew that the Hebrides are to Scotland very much what the Great Barrier Reef is to eastern Australia, sheltering the mainland from the winter rage of the open ocean. One way or another, he was glad to be in calm seas with a full gas tank, west of the historically romantic Isle of Skye, headquarters of the powerful MacLeod Clan. And as he turned more toward the south he found himself singing quietly, that most haunting of Scottish airs, an air he had once learned by heart from local people around the Royal Navy submarine base of Faslane, which had been his home long ago…
And, like Scotsman all over the world, he saw clearly in his mind the most famous image in the long and bloody history of that country, that of twenty-four-year-old Flora Macdonald and her men, rowing the Catholic Charles Stuart — Bonnie Prince Charlie — to safety, across these very waters, after the crushing defeat of the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden, on Drummossie Moor, in 1746.
From his position at 0100 it was 25 miles to the coast of Skye, and he considered that if Flora and her men could row it, his Zodiac ought to make it without much trouble. He pulled down his hood, tucked behind the Perspex windshield to kill the wind, and pressed forward on a course of one-six-five. Two hours later he was right off Neist Point at the top of Skye’s Moonen Bay, and thus far he had not seen a ship.
Ben eased his speed and tipped the contents of both remaining gasoline cans into his almost empty tank. That would give him 10 gallons for the final three hours it would take him to cover the 48 miles down to Mallaig, from where Lieutenant Commander Alaam had chartered the
He’d make it, of that he was sure, and once more he pushed open the throttle, settled the Zodiac into its cruising position, and began his run down the long dark coast of the sprawling 400,000-acre Isle of Skye.
It was 0500 when he crossed Soay Sound in the shadow of the towering Cuillin Hills, which rolled down to the sea on his port side. Ben could barely see them, but he could feel them somehow blocking out the horizon to the northeast. Twelve miles ahead he would see the lighthouse at the Point of Sleat, and from there it would be a straight 5-mile run across the Sound of Sleat to the port of Mallaig, which was, of course, one fishing boat light.
Ben knew there were clear identifying marks on the Zodiac that linked it to the
Right outside the harbor wall he cut his engine and rowed in with his paddle, staying right in the shadow of the moored boats. Then he made for a mooring at the far end with a small rowboat attached. He tied up the Zodiac and transferred his bags to the 10-foot wooden dinghy, jumped aboard, and rowed the 100 yards to the stone jetty, fastening off the painter with a bowline on a ringbolt.
Then he climbed the steps to the dock side, which was lit by one small streetlight. It was the first time he had stood on inhabited land since
Commander Adnam ducked in behind it, and with huge reluctance began to pull off the wonderful cold- weather Iranian Navy clothing that had protected him for four days. He doused himself liberally with deodorant talcum powder, which was all too plainly an essential part of his kit. In the other bag he had a dark grey, heavily wrinkled suit, clean shirt, tie, socks, and shoes. He had no coat, no scarf, and no hat, and the temperature was about 4 degrees above freezing, with a light wind. Nonetheless he could not wander around the West Highland town
