A mile out in the ocean, a small boat made slow progress in the choppy sea. Toliver had warned that unless the boat came today there would be no fuel for the generator and no meat, either.
And from here I could see many miles inland, to where the peninsula narrowed and dead heather gave place to rock, chewed unceasingly by the sharp white teeth of the breakers. It was a place where a natural fault of the Central Highlands had crumbled under the battering of the Atlantic Ocean, so that now a moat of rough water divided Blackstone from the mainland. There, two vast bodies of water raced headlong into collision, and turned the rock-lined gap into a pit of foam.
Neither did the far bank offer a welcoming prospect. From the water, the strata tilted up to where a copse of beeches bent almost double under the prevailing winds. The slope was scotched with the black courses of mountain streams, and a drystone wall had scattered its rubble entrails down the steep incline to the seashore, where a dead sheep, rusty tins and some bright plastic jetsam had been beached by the high tide.
For those indifferent: to a north wind that numbs the ears, and damp mists that roll in from the sea like a tidal wave, the Western Isles are a magic kingdom where anything is possible. After outdoor exercise and an evening beside the open fire — a glass of malt whisky in my hand — I was beginning to believe that even the curious fantasies of my fellow guests had a logic in proportion to their enthusiasm.
That night, sitting round the scrubbed refectory table, waiting While Toliver carved the boiled pork into paper-thin slices and arrayed them upon a serving platter, there was an extra guest. He was a tall, dour-faced man of about forty-five with close-cropped blond hair, going white. He wore steel-rimmed spectacles and had a harsh accent that completed the caricature of a German general, circa 1941. He offered only a few bits of phrase-book English. He'd been introduced over pre-dinner pink gins as Mr Erikson, but his home was farther east than that, if I was any judge. His suit was dark blue gaberdine, of a cut that tended to confirm my reasoning.
Erikson's presence was not explained, and the officer's mess atmosphere clearly forbade direct questioning, unless Toliver initiated it. There was only small-talk round the dinner table, and apart from thanking Toliver for the promise of some sea fishing the next day, the stranger was silent.
'Did you have a good walk?' said Wheeler.
'To the lower ledges.'
'You can see a long way from there,' said Toliver.
'When you're not blowing on your hands,' I said.
'We lose sheep up there sometimes,' said Wheeler, and gave me a nasty smile.
Erikson took the port decanter from Mason. He removed the stopper and sniffed at it. The men round the table watched him expectantly. Erikson pulled a disapproving face and instead of pouring a measure for himself he poured some for me. I nodded my thanks. I too sniffed at it before sipping some. But it wasn't the aroma of the port-wine that I smelled but the pervasive and entirely unique smell that some say comes from the nuclear reactor, and others say is that of the CO2 scrubber that cleans the air in an atomic submarine before recirculatinj; it. This is a smell that goes home with you, stays on your skin for days, and remains for ever in your clothes, triggering memories of those big floating gin palaces.
But this wasn't the suit I'd worn on any of my trips on the nuclear subs. I looked at Erikson. The small boat I'd seen from the crag had been coming from the west — the Atlantic Ocean — not from the Scottish mainland, and it had brought this taciturn East European, smelling of atomic submarine.
Toliver was telling a story about a TV producer friend doing a documentary on rural poverty. The ending came… '
'Ha, ha, ha,' Mason laughed louder than any of the others, and looked at me, as if trying to will me to join in.
Wheeler said, 'Just like my chaps saying they didn't like the jam-it tasted offish. I told you that story didn't I?'
'Yes, you did,' said Toliver.
'Caviare, of course,' said Wheeler determined at least to get the punch line in.
'Jolly good,' said Mason. 'Caviare! Jam that tasted of fish. That's a good one, Commander.'
'The meat came today, but no petrol,' said Toliver.
'Whose turn to get the new gas bottle?' said someone, and they all laughed. It was as if they were all working to a script that I didn't have.
I sipped at my port and took a long look at Mr Erikson. There was something unusual in his manner and at first I did not recognize what it was, for he smiled at the jokes, accepted a cigar with a polite bow of the head, and met the eyes of the other guests with the confident gaze of any man at a dinner table with friends. I reached for the matches and struck one to provide him with a light for his cigar. He murmured his thanks and, pretending to have difficulty getting his cigar going, he turned in his chair. I was sure that he'd chosen a seat next to me because he feared I would recognize his face across the table. Now I became quite certain that he'd been landed from a submarine, a Russian submarine.
'Until the fuel boat comes we'll have to ration the generator,' said Toliver. He got to his feet and fetched one of the paraffin lamps. 'Plenty of oil for the lamps, though.' He lit the lamp and adjusted the wick carefully.
'Cold-water shaving in the morning, chaps,' said Wheeler. 'Unless there's a volunteer to boil up a few kettles before reveille.'
'I'll be glad to do that, sir.' Of course it was Mason, apple-polishing himself into a state of nervous exhaustion. 'I'll set the alarm for five. That should do it, I think.'
'Good show, Mason,' said Commander Wheeler. 'That's damned sporting of you.'
They weren't satisfied just to create a self-congratulatory, and exclusively masculine, society, they were attempting to re-create one that existed only in their wishful thoughts. The I've-been-here-before feeling that all this was giving me had come undiluted from old British war films, especially those about Colditz.
'Good show, Mason,' I said, but they all glared at me. I suppose they didn't like the way I told them.
The quietness of the house, the mysterious way in which food and drink seemed to arrive without human agency, added to the mysteries of what these men called 'The Club'. In spite of the grandeur of the house itself, and of the quality of the badly worn Persian carpets and panelled doors, there was little evidence of its less spartan days. The leather sofas, the stair-carpet and the rugs had all been repaired with the same coarse grey sailcloth, and with the sort of stitches that sailors call 'dogs' teeth.' The flagstones, worn by the feet of countless ages into curious ring-like depressions, had here and there been carelessly filled with concrete. The bedrooms were cold and damp, in spite of the cheap electric fire that glowed bright only when the generator started. The blankets were thin and grey, the sheets were clean, but threadbare and rough-dried.
There was in the house no trace of femininity: no flowers, cushions, domestic animals, perfumed soaps, and virtually no pictures or ornaments.
I was not a prisoner in the house. That had been explained to me several times. I merely had to wait until the plane returned. I had the idea that any suggestion about taking the one and only bicycle or walking due east would be met with pleasant smiling affirmative-ridden explanations that meant no. So I didn't make any suggestions like that. I tried to act like a happy healthy well-adjusted human, who likes playing secret agents in an unheated Scottish castle, but who occasionally needs a nice long walk. They understood that all right: they were nice long walk sort of people.
Chapter Sixteen
The 'retreat before combat option' is only available to land forces with intact flanking units. The 'retreat before combat option' is available to all naval units at sea at all times.
I HAD BEEN given cramped rooms, almost circular in shape, at the top of the north tower. Above me, in the conical roof, there was the endless gurgling of the water tanks. Before it was properly light I heard Mason's peremptory rap upon the bathroom door. 'Hot water,' he called.
