‘These are Italian prisoners,’ Con had said to Michael, ‘not German soldiers.’
‘They’re all Fascists.’ His eyes had been wild. ‘Just listen to the news reports.’
We’d gone home and Con had twisted the aerial on the radio so that the news reports blurred into a static hum.
‘No need to terrify ourselves,’ she’d said. ‘And over rumours and stories.’
I’d nodded, thinking about the older men on the island who’d fought in the trenches in France: the way Mr Mackenzie’s hands trembled; the way Mr Greenwood wept if he heard a car engine backfire. He didn’t seem to notice the tears, but sat staring, wet-cheeked and frozen, until his daughter took him by the hand and led him home. I thought of our own father, who’d woken us all at night, screaming in his sleep.
We’d seen what war could do.
And now, the ship is here: huge and grey, like an approaching wall.
I stand on the clifftop and watch silently as the prisoners are led off it and up towards the huts. So many men, an army of strangers, soldiers. Unarmed, but still – do they carry violence beneath their skin? Have they killed men? Watched them die? Do they support Mussolini and Hitler?
Sometimes, when Con is sleeping, I twist the aerial until it picks up the news reports, then wish I hadn’t.
Capture. Bombardment. Slaughter.
‘It’s not too late to go back to Kirkwall,’ I murmur.
I don’t need to look at Con to know she is shaking her head.
Half of Orkney has come out to see the men arrive. Some of the people are far-off specks on the hills on the mainland; others have taken to their boats and watch the huge battleship weigh anchor. They are watching us too, the Selkie Holm islanders. We see them, bobbing on the water, staring, as if waiting for a performance to begin.
Sometimes, at night, I think of the curse on this island. The talk of madness. The story about the girl who had lived here long ago and, driven to the point of insanity by the curse, and fearing that her husband meant her harm, had stabbed him in his sleep. To live here is to risk killing a lover.
But Con doesn’t have a lover and neither do I. And we don’t believe the old tales.
Hundreds of men begin marching down the gangplank onto our island. Identical, at this distance.
Swarm, I think. Shoal. Flock.
Our father’s old gun is back in the bothy. Just in case.
‘They’re handsome,’ I say, ‘and they look . . .’ I nearly say ordinary, but it’s not quite true. ‘Well, they don’t look frightening.’
‘Best to be wary, even if they’re not murderers,’ Con says.
Even a dangerous man may look like an angel. Our mother had told us that long ago and, of course, she’d been right. But by the time Con discovered what Angus MacLeod was really like, our mother was gone.
A thin, pale sunlight breaks the clouds; some of the prisoners stop and gaze out at where the water is a shifting mirror. One smiles and points at a fulmar wheeling overhead. The bird swoops, dives, smashes into its watery reflection, then emerges with a fish flapping in its beak.
The two prisoners cheer, then grin at each other. They don’t look like foreign soldiers, for a moment. They could be dark-haired young men from anywhere.
They’re just like us. The thought is sudden and surprising.
The guards shout, stepping forward with their batons.
The men flinch, then move on, heads down. The gangplank is crowded now, the guards chivvying the men to move faster. They bump into each other and stumble.
There is a sudden cry from the ship. As I look up, I see that one of the prisoners who had cheered is teetering on the edge of the overcrowded gangplank, his arms flailing, clutching at the hands of his comrades, who reach for him.
Too late.
He plummets into the water and disappears.
There is a gasp and the Italians stop walking and stare at the spot of water where the man fell. The sea is green-grey, moodily shifting, but there is no sign of the man.
‘Oh, God,’ I whisper.
In their boats, some of the islanders are crossing themselves. I can imagine the stories: the prisoner who disappeared, the sacrifice taken by the sea before she would allow foreigners safe passage to the island. The superstitions about Selkie Holm will grow.
Death. Murder. Sacrifice.
On shore, the guards shout to each other and pace up and down, watching the water.
‘We have to do something.’ The words emerge before I’m aware of thinking them. How can I let the man drown? I remember the men from the ship sinking, their fading cries. I remember the stillness of the man’s body as we lifted Con’s coat from his bloodied face.
‘We have to do something,’ I say again.
‘Don’t even think of it,’ Con replies. ‘It’s not like before. The water’s rough. You’d never find him.’ Her face is tense, her jaw clenched. Con has barely slept since the sinking of the boat and the death of the poor sailor. She refuses to wear her coat – I found it stuffed under the bed, a black bloodstain on the blue wool.
She shivers.
I remember the feeling of the man’s face under my fingers. The way his body had fought for air, even when he’d decided he wanted to die.
We wait. Nothing. A body can survive for three minutes without air.
The guards pace, watching, waiting. Not one will jump in to save him. Again, that heat rises in me – the nauseating panic and dread.
He is gone.
He is drowning.
He is under those waters, fighting for breath, his lungs burning.
‘Lay salt upon his chest.’ Con murmurs the beginnings of the old funeral rite.
‘He’s not dead yet,’ I snap.
Ten paces in front of me is the cliff face.
I let go of Con’s hand and run.
Whistling wind, then the smack and cold shock of
