The Hill of the Red Fox

by Allan Campbell McLean

  The train was winding round the bend at Corpach when I first noticed the strange behaviour of the man in the corridor. He was standing with his back to my compartment, his hands behind him gripping the bar that crossed the window. At first I glanced at him idly, then turned to look out of the window again. I don’t know what made me look round a second time, but when I did, I noticed his hands. They were clenched so tightly on the window bar that the knuckles were white. There was a scar on the man’s left hand; a long red weal stretching in a jagged, diagonal line, from the knuckle joint of his little finger to his wrist. I watched the man’s hands for a long time. They were straining at the window bar as if trying to snap it in two, relaxing for an instant only to grip it again in a desperate clasp. I never took my eyes off those hands. They were gripping the window bar in the way that a drowning man would seize a life-line. But this man was not drowning. He was standing in the corridor of the Glasgow to Mallaig train with people within call on either side of him.

  I could not see his face, or even the back of his head, only his shoulders and his clenching hands, but I knew there was something wrong. I knew that even before he turned round and slid the door open, and I saw his face.

  Chapter 4

  I looked at the man framed in the doorway, and he stood stock-still looking back at me. He was a young man, dressed in a shabby fawn raincoat and a soft hat. His face was damp with sweat, and he passed the back of his hand across his forehead, and glanced quickly down the corridor before closing the door. He crossed the carriage in two quick strides and stood towering over me.

  I followed his gaze and discovered that he was looking at my suitcase. There was a leather-bound label hanging from the handle of the case, bearing my name and address in Skye in large capital letters. Aunt Evelyn always insisted on attaching labels to our suitcases if we were going anywhere. The stranger glanced at the label for a moment, then tucked it under the case so that it was hidden from view, and sat down beside me.

  For one wild moment I thought of running out of the compartment but he could have caught me easily before I reached the corridor, and even if I managed to call the guard, or another man, what could I say? That his hands had clutched the window bar in a desperate grasp? That he was sweating, although a cold wind, sweeping down from Ben Nevis, was blowing through the open window and chilling the air? That he had pushed the address label on my suitcase out of sight? There was nothing wrong in what he had done, however sinister it might seem. I would be laughed at, and told I had been imagining things. They would ask me how old I was, and tell me I should stay at home with my mother.

  It is easy to scoff at one’s own fears, but it is not so easy to dispel them. I could reason with myself, say to myself I was behaving like an idiot, but I could not stop the quick fluttering of my heart. My senses were suddenly magnified. I could hear the rapid beating of my heart. It was loud in my ears, and I thought that the man next to me must hear it too.

  I was looking out of the window at the wild, wet landscape, and all the time I knew that the stranger’s eyes were fixed on me. I wanted to get up and run, but my legs felt paralysed. I could not even turn my head to look at the man by my side.

  I sat quite still in a silent agony of apprehension, made worse by the growing certainty that at any moment I would be seized by those clutching hands in the same desperate grasp that had almost wrenched the window bar from its sockets.

  The sound of the door sliding open jerked me round like a puppet on a string. A man stepped into the compartment, closed the door, and sat down in the opposite corner by the door. The newcomer was wearing a brown tweed suit and a tweed cap pulled well down over his eyes. His face was lean and weatherbeaten, not like the faces one sees every day in London. It was the face of a man who has spent most of his life out of doors in places where there are no city streets to block the driving wind and rain or break the fierce rays of the hot summer sun. But it was his eyes that I noticed most. They were a brilliant, light blue, and they never wavered from the face of the man sitting beside me.

  Presently he took out a nail file and started to file his nails. I watched him carefully but his eyes never once looked down at his hands. They were fixed unblinkingly on the man in the raincoat. I was reminded of a snake I had watched one Saturday afternoon at the zoo in Regent’s Park. It had the same sort of eyes. The same coldness and the same unwavering stare.

  Nobody spoke, but I felt sure that it was not the first time these two had met. There was a tension in the air that did not spring from my own imagination; a feeling of two wills pitted one against the other in deadly combat. Although neither of them moved, they were like two boxers poised in the centre of the ring, each one watching warily for the other to strike the first blow.

  The man with the light blue eyes went on filing his nails. He did it with quick, dexterous strokes of the file, never once looking down at his hands. He had broad, square hands and powerful fingers, but he handled the nail file as delicately as a woman. I had never before seen a man using a nail file in public, but there was nothing effeminate about him. Those brown strong hands, I reflected, could have held a horse’s bridle or the wheel of a car, or a gun, just as capably as they were holding the tiny metal file.

  The man beside me never moved, but I could feel the tension in his body. I thought again of moving out into the corridor into the company of people who chatted and laughed and read magazines and fell asleep and did all the normal things people always do on train journeys. But I was rooted to my seat by the silence as much as anything. There was something sinister about it. I felt that if I moved I would break it, and something would happen. So I sat quite still in my corner, listening to the scrape of the nail file and the quick breathing of the man by my side.

  The train was rushing westwards to the isles, by land-loch and sea-loch, through the land of Morar. This was Prince Charlie’s country. It was into Loch-nan-Uamh that his ship came sailing, and the Prince landed, without an army, and attempted to win a crown. And it was in Morar, a year later, that the Prince fled through the heather, a fugitive with a price on his head.

  I wondered if the man with the scar could be a fugitive; was it possible that he, too, was being pursued through this land of the heather and the mist? But all my wild thoughts vanished as the train slowed down and drew into Glenfinnan Station.

  Far below, at the head of Loch Shiel, I could see Prince Charlie’s Monument with the stone figure of the Prince gazing out over the loch. The rain dripped down unceasingly, grey hills loomed up all around out of the grey mist, and the sound of running water was everywhere. It must have been a day like this, I thought, when his ship sailed out of Loch-nan-Uamh, and he left behind a lost cause and the broken spirits of his clansmen. I looked for a long time at the stone figure on the monument, and thought of the day the Prince had raised his standard here with his clansmen rallying to his call. And all that was left now was the monument, alone in the mist and the rain at the head of the loch. The small figure of the station-master, in his shabby uniform, went past the window, and I looked at him sorrowfully for he had no place in my dreams of Glenfinnan.

  The train started with a jerk, shattering my reverie and bringing me back from dreams of the past to the hidden menace of the present. The same ominous silence prevailed in the compartment, but I felt a movement at my side. I looked round. The man with the scar had taken a small black diary from his pocket and was writing something in it. A few moments later he put the diary away, and sat hunched forward, his hands thrust deep into his raincoat pockets. The other man never moved. He continued filing his nails, but his brilliant blue eyes were watchful and intent.

  They were sitting like that when the train entered the tunnel.

  The compartment was plunged in darkness and almost at once a man’s strong fingers fastened around my wrist. For some reason or other, probably because I was too frightened, I did not cry out or struggle. The pressure on my wrist compelled me to bend my arm, and I felt a ball of paper being thru
st into my palm, then my fingers were forced down over it and my hand thrust into my raincoat pocket with my fist still doubled round the tiny ball of paper. Streaks of light filtered through the darkness, and the train passed out of the tunnel before I realized that the pressure on my wrist had relaxed and I was free.

  The man with the scar was still sitting hunched forward, his hands deep in the pockets of his raincoat, and the man with the nail file was watching him as intently as ever. Everything remained the same as it had been before we entered the tunnel, except for the piece of paper I could feel in my clenched fist and the wild racing of my heart.

  The man with the scar got up swiftly and stepped into the corridor. He was no sooner through the door when the other man rose to his feet and followed him. I moved to the other side of the compartment where I could look down the length of the corridor. The man with the scar was standing by the outer door of the train some way down the corridor, but the man in the tweed suit had stopped just outside the compartment. He had his back to me, but I knew that his brilliant blue eyes would be fixed on the face of his quarry.

  The train drew into Lochailort Station, and the man with the scar stepped back from the door to allow an old woman to get off the train. He slammed the door shut himself and, as the train moved forward again, took out a cigarette and lit it. I saw the taut back of the man in the tweed suit relax, and the train gathered speed out of the station.

  What happened next was so unexpected that I found myself standing in the corridor without realizing how I had got there.

  The man with the scar spat out his newly lighted cigarette, threw the door open, and leapt off the train. The man in the tweed suit swung round and faced me, and I was conscious of those brilliant blue eyes taking in every detail of my face and figure. It was as if he were photographing me in his mind. Then he raced down the corridor to where the open door was swinging crazily backwards and forwards and for one dreadful moment I thought he was about to throw himself off the train. But he had hesitated too long, and with every passing second the train had gathered speed. Suddenly he threw up his arm and pulled the communication cord. I heard the shriek of protesting metal as the emergency brakes were applied, but before the train had stopped he had jumped out of the open door.

  I saw him rolling down the embankment, head over heels, but he scrambled to his feet and made off in the direction of Lochailort. I caught a glimpse of him running hard with his head down before a clump of trees hid him from view.

  The corridor was filling with people, all chattering excitedly, and I heard a woman’s high-pitched voice say, “It was a man in a brown suit. I saw him jump off the train.”

  The guard appeared on the scene with a notebook in his hand. I heard the woman’s voice again, and the guard moistened his pencil on his tongue and started writing. There was no mention of the man with the scar, and I slowly realized that I must have been the only witness to have seen him jump off the train.

  The guard passed on down the corridor and when he drew level with me, I said, “I saw him jump off, the man with the scar.”

  He was an old man, and his jacket was too big for him, giving him a slightly comical appearance, but there was nothing amusing about his face when he turned to me. It was red and angry.

  “Look here, young fellow-me-lad,” he barked, prodding me in the chest with a squat forefinger, “there’s no need for you to add any fancy trimmings of your own. It’s wonderful what folk will remember when they think it might get themselves a wee line in the newspapers. There’s a woman back yonder even got the colour of his eyes. Wonderful bright blue eyes she says.” He snorted. “We’re thirty-five minutes late, an’ a passenger wanting off at Beasdale, so no more of it, d’you hear. No more of it.”

  And he stamped off down the corridor, leaving me standing there helplessly, not knowing what to do. I went back into the compartment and sat down, and the train had started again before I realized that I was still clutching the ball of paper in my clenched fist. I smoothed it out carefully. It was a single sheet of thin paper torn from a pocket diary. Printed across it, in pencilled block letters, were the words: HUNT AT THE HILL OF THE RED FOX MI5.

  I read the single sentence again and again, and the more I read it the more puzzled I became. This was the message furtively thrust into my hand in the darkness of the tunnel by the man with the scar, before he had risked his life in leaping from the moving train. Surely there must be some meaning in it. But a hunt could only mean a fox-hunt, and there were no fox-hunts in the Highlands, as far as I knew. The words spun round and round in my brain, and it was a long time before I thought I saw the obvious answer. To hunt could mean to search. Well, then, suppose I was intended to search for something at the Hill of the Red Fox? But how could the sender of the message know that I would be able to find the Hill of the Red Fox? And what on earth had MI5 got to do with it? Submarines, I knew, were often referred to by a single letter and two numerals, but what connection could there be between a submarine and a hill?

  I felt my heartbeats quicken as the thought flashed through my mind: perhaps there is treasure hidden at the Hill of the Red Fox. Perhaps the man with the scar had been travelling north to recover his hidden treasure, and his pursuer was a member of a rival gang. I thought of all the stories I had heard of ships being wrecked off the Hebrides during the war. Perhaps one of them had been carrying gold and her looted cargo had been hidden in the hills. But it still did not make sense. There was no point in giving me a message when I did not know where the treasure was hidden. Anyway, that sort of thing only happened in books.

  I folded the paper in two and placed it in my wallet. Somehow or other, I had become involved in something beyond my understanding, and when I got to Skye I determined to seek Murdo Beaton’s help. But although I had put the paper away, I still puzzled over the meaning of the message.

  I never saw the golden sands of Arisaig, and I never realized that the train had stopped in Mallaig Station until a friendly porter tapped on the window and shouted that I had better hurry if I was bound for Skye. I snatched up my case and ran down the long platform, past the empty fish boxes, wrinkling my nose at the strong smell of fish.

  Outside the station, on the way to the jetty, I stopped for a moment in sheer wonderment. There before me, across the grey green waters of the Sound of Sleat, stood the hills of Skye. For the first time in my life I smelled the tangle of the isles.

  Chapter 5

  The Royal Mail Steamer, Lochnevis, chugged its way up the Sound of Sleat, past the rocky coastline of Knoydart and Loch Hourn. A friendly deckhand pointed out the white flag of the Royal Mail on her foremast, and on her mainmast, below the Red Ensign, the House Flag of David MacBrayne Ltd, a red and white cross on a blue ground. Her single funnel was painted a gleaming red, topped by a broad band of black.

  I stood on deck, watching the gulls wheel and circle round the ship, and a line from a poem I knew about the seabirds’ lonely cry flashed through my mind. Old sailors thought they were the spirits of dead mariners, and there was certainly something strange about the way in which they wheeled around the ship, as if they were anxiously watching over its course.

  A door opened on the foredeck, and I sniffed the savoury smell of soup, and realized for the first time how hungry I was. I went down below to the saloon, and sat at a table with a raised lip round the edges to prevent plates sliding off in rough weather, and ate a lunch of scotch broth and ham salad. At home I was always being chided for not eating enough, but the Highland air had given me such an appetite that I ate every scrap of the food set before me.

  After lunch I went back on deck. It was still raining and great masses of thick grey clouds cloaked the peaks of the surrounding hills. I leaned over the rail, heedless of the rain, my eyes fixed on the rocky coastline of Skye.

  The Lochnevis was steaming up the Kyle Narrows, and I saw the road winding down through lonely Glen Arroch to the little stone pier of Kylerhea. There was a house close to the pier, built on the wate
r’s edge, and a fishing boat lay at her moorings in front of the house. The road through Glen Arroch was the old drovers’ road. In the old days the shaggy Highland cattle of Skye passed along this road in their hundreds. I saw the ruins of a long white building above the pier, and wondered if it could be the inn where the drovers once stayed before embarking on the hazardous crossing to Glenelg. They rowed across the swift waters of the Narrows, and drove the cattle all the way to Falkirk where the great cattle sales were held.

  At Kyle of Lochalsh the hatch covers were lifted and we took aboard boxes and crates from the quayside. I marvelled at the way the deckhands piled box upon box into a loosely built pyramid, held together by a rope sling, which was attached to a hook at the end of the derrick cable. The whole swaying structure was lifted high into the air by the derrick, swung aboard, and poised over the gaping hole of the hatch. Then, at a word of command shouted in Gaelic, from the depths of the hold, the derrick man slowly let down his load.

  From Kyle we made our way round Scalpay to the Island of Raasay, where a family of four struggled ashore with several large trunks, fishing rods, guns and three red setter dogs. Half an hour later the Lochnevis rounded a rocky headland and came into Portree Bay.

  The curving crescent of the bay was ringed by houses and the hillside rose so steeply from the shore that I had the impression of houses perched one above the other, like men in the rigging of a ship. The Lochnevis drew in slowly to the pier, and I looked up to the bridge and saw the burly figure of the captain standing outside the wheelhouse. At that moment, he raised his hand to sound the ship’s horn, and, although I was expecting it, I jumped at the tremendous, deafening blast. I expected to see doors flung open, and people rush out to see the cause of the commotion, but everything went on as before. The people strolling down the pier road continued at the same easy pace, as if nothing had happened.