Of course he wouldn’t endanger anyone’s life, but once they were safely on their way back he could just quickly take off his life-jacket and step over the side. In a high sea, that would be that.
And if, as usual, he was rejected, he’d walk out along the arm of steep rocks that sheltered the harbour and step off into the waves which would be boiling below.
He hadn’t a moment to waste. Leaping into action, he jumped up and without even pausing to grab a jacket, hurried out.
‘Good gracious, Luke, you’re soaked to the skin!’ Ashley Randall, stepping out of her car and shrugging herself into a hooded waterproof jacket, stared in astonishment as Luke Smith came past her in his shirt sleeves, without even a jersey.
He looked down as if surprised to find the thin fabric saturated and clinging to his skin. ‘Oh,’ he said vaguely, ‘I was in a hurry. I forgot to pick up a coat.’
‘You’d better run, then,’ she urged him and, as he broke obediently into a trot, jogged along beside him. Just then, the loud bang of a maroon went off and she frowned. ‘That’s very late, surely? Willie must have forgotten – he’s meant to send them up immediately the call comes through. The Hon Sec won’t be pleased!’
She enjoyed mentioning his name impersonally like this, enjoyed the exercise of deception while she hugged her secret. Might she miss that, she wondered, once it all came out?
The second maroon soared into the sky above the harbour just as she reached the shed. All the lights were on, inside and out, and a team was already rolling back the doors in preparation for the launch. She could see the chief mechanic collecting up the maroon cases; he must have realised Willie had slipped up. Through the open door of the crew room she could see Rob Anderson was already kitted up, and she hurried across, looking about for Willie as she did so. He would usually be in the boat by now but he wasn’t there.
A dozen people were milling around in the centre of the shed and it took her a moment to spot the cox. He was holding a coastguard printout and he was still, strangely enough, wearing his ordinary clothes.
Puzzled, Ashley hesitated. Had there been some further message she didn’t know about, that one of the offshore lifeboats had got to the area more quickly than expected, perhaps? And of course, she remembered belatedly, she wasn’t supposed to know anything about it at all.
‘Willie?’ She came up behind him. ‘Are we going for a launch?’
He turned slowly. ‘Aye, that’s right,’ he said. ‘A launch. Spanish – Spanish boat in trouble. Have to get there before they hit rocks.’ His bloodshot eyes had a glassy stare, the pupils pinpoints.
Ashley gazed at him in horror. She could smell the sickly-sweet smell of cannabis on his clothes. ‘For God’s sake! Willie, you’re stoned!’
He shook his head, again slowly. ‘Nothing the matter with me. That’s just daft.’ He giggled foolishly.
The man hadn’t just had a few puffs. He’d smoked enough to reach the lethargic stage and it would be hours – if not days – before he was clean. ‘Rob!’ Ashley called sharply. ‘Rob, get over here!’
Rob, uneasy already at the cox’s strange lack of urgency, crossed the floor at a run, taking off the helmet he had been fastening.
‘He’s completely out of it. Totally unfit to cox,’ she told him.
‘You’re joking?’ It wasn’t a question, though; he looked with disgust at the other man who was now blinking at them in mild enquiry. ‘What the hell do we do about this?’
‘You take over, Rob, I suppose.’ Ashley tried to sound positive. They were a team, after all, and for a team to be effective you had to have complete faith in one another. But her eyes went involuntarily to the open doors beyond which, theatrically illuminated, she could see the choppiness of the sea even here in the harbour and the spray being flung up into the air beyond the harbour wall.
He followed her eyes. ‘Can you trust me, out in that?’ She saw him swallow hard. ‘I haven’t Willie’s experience – and we’ll need to take Luke. There’s no reason not to.’ He glanced back towards the young man, standing uncertainly in the crew room doorway, still in his wet clothes. Somehow his appearance didn’t inspire confidence.
Her voice was harsh. ‘Then let’s get on with it.’
‘Unless, as acting cox, I refuse to launch.’
She didn’t lack courage. ‘Of course you can’t!’ she said fiercely. ‘We’d never live it down.’
‘No, we wouldn’t.’ Rob took a deep breath and squared his shoulders as if bracing himself to take a sudden heavy weight. ‘Right! Let’s move it!’
He assumed command with the ease of long training. As he contacted the coastguard, Ashley ran over to the changing room, sweeping Luke along with her as she went to kit up. It did cross her mind that he was less excited at being told his chance had come at last than she would have expected him to be, but she put it down to nervousness. Anyway, she had other things on her mind.
Ten minutes later, they were on their way. As they reached the harbour bar and the cross-sea smacked into the boat, Rob opened the throttle and headed out across the bay. As always, the powerful thrust of the two outboard motors thrilled Ashley; she could feel the surge of adrenaline as the spray hit her face.
It was still an evil night, with the wind driving the rain almost horizontally into their faces and a sullen, lumpy sea with only the tops of the waves foam-capped, but she turned to Luke as they sat clinging to the rail behind the helmsman’s seat and grinned. ‘This is what it’s all about!’ she said happily into the radio microphone in her helmet and heard Rob laugh. It came to her that it was in these moments of exhilaration edged with danger that she came closest to real joy.
Luke didn’t reply. She saw that he was staring into the waves – nervous about his first real operation, perhaps.
Five minutes later, Ritchie Elder’s Mitsubishi drew up on the pier. They had been looking out for him; Jason Channell, the chief mechanic, came out to meet him as he jumped down from the driver’s seat.
‘Have they gone yet?’ Elder shouted above the noise of the sea.
‘Aye, they’re away.’ The man came up to him. ‘But they’re away without Willie.’
‘What?’
As they stood bareheaded in the heavy rain Channell told him, with some trepidation, what had happened. He had expected the Honorary Secretary to be upset, angry, even. He hadn’t expected raw, naked fury. He cringed under the onslaught.
It was a full minute before Elder managed to get himself back under control. He stood, shaking, oblivious to the rain streaking his face like tears.
Then he said, so quietly that the other man had to strain to hear him, ‘Get Duncan out of there before I go in. If I see him at this moment, he’s a dead man.’
And somehow, that was more scary than the shouting. The mechanic hurried to do as he was told.
On the steep headland curving out to the south of Fuill’s Inlat, a green light was flashing in the darkness. On the other side of the narrow bay the ruin of a stone shed, built on a lower, flatter stretch of shoreline, had a red light fixed to one gable, shining steadily. Between the two, waves boiled over savagely pointed rocks, sending up intermittent fountains of spray in a beautiful, deadly display of power.
And in the stormy darkness a car was being driven back up the narrow road from the bay, keeping to an unobtrusively cautious speed.
6
It wasn’t, in the end, as tough as Rob Anderson had been afraid it would be. As forecast, the wind had eased and veered a little too so that the Spanish trawler, while still in serious difficulties, was in no immediate danger. They had been able to circle her, keeping a watching brief to reassure the crew until the Mary Eileen Millar, the Tyne Class offshore lifeboat from Portpatrick, arrived to relieve the Knockhaven crew of their responsibility.
‘OK,’ Rob radioed cheerfully to the coastguard. ‘Tell them we’ll be heading off to tuck the Maud’n’Milly up for the night.’
‘All right for some,’ came back a gloomy messa
ge from his opposite number. ‘The Mary Eileen’s no spring chicken and it’s past her bedtime but she’s in for a heavy session by the looks of things.’
Grinning, Rob swung the boat round and headed for home across Luce Bay. There was still a heavy sea and in the frequent rainstorms visibility was diabolical, but they were running with the wind more or less behind them now. The worst was over, he hadn’t screwed up, and when Ashley’s voice said in his ear, ‘Nice work, Rob,’ his confidence soared. He glanced at the weatherproof watch Katy had given him; with any luck, they’d be back before closing time, which would be a good thing. Katy always worried herself silly when he was out on a shout.
Behind him, Ashley sat quietly, automatically adjusting her body to the jarring of the boat as they smacked through the cresting waves. Her excitement was ebbing now and she wondered, elegiacally, if this might be her last ever trip as lifeboat crew. Was Ritchie worth what she was giving up? Was anyone worth it?
Although, she thought suddenly, it needn’t be Glasgow she suggested to him as their new home. What if it was somewhere like Ayr, say? There was always a demand for doctors and experienced lifeboat crew; if she could persuade him to move there, she could have the best of both worlds. A delicious vision of her future brought a small, secret smile to her lips.
He’d be waiting at the shed, of course. There might even be a chance of a few private words then in the general confusion of getting the boat out of the water, and she’d have the excuse of needing to discuss the situation regarding Willie. She glanced about her, screwing up her eyes to try to get some idea of where they were. She could just see lights along the shore behind them; that would be Port William, she judged. Not far to go then, though another nasty squall had hit them and they’d have to stay close inshore to pick up the leading lights for the harbour.
Ashley became aware that Luke was shifting restlessly in his seat. He had barely said a word, making only monosyllabic replies to anything directly addressed to him; Ashley had put it down to seasickness, and having suffered from it herself once – though only once – knew that not throwing up took every atom of concentration.
She leaned across to him. ‘Won’t be long now. Hang in there!’
He didn’t turn his head, or even seem to notice that she had spoken to him, and Ashley eyed him warily. He would be smart enough to lean out over the side if the worst came to the worst, wouldn’t he?
Luke was fiddling with the fastening of his Crewsaver life-jacket with the integral harness that kept crew attached to the boat if they went overboard, for operational reasons or otherwise. It must be constricting his suffering stomach, Ashley surmised, but he couldn’t be allowed to release it. In a boat bucking like this one it was much too dangerous.
‘Luke!’ she said sharply. ‘Be sick if you have to be, but don’t—’
He snapped the release, shrugged off the jacket and stood up unsteadily.
Feeling the shift of movement, Rob turned his head in alarm. ‘You stupid bugger! Sit down!’ he yelled. ‘That’s an order – you’ll have us over!’
Ashley flung herself across, grabbing at Luke with both hands and dragging him back. Unbalanced, he fell back into the seat and she threw her weight across his knees, trying to pin him down.
Luke was crying now. ‘Just let me go,’ he begged. ‘I’m going over the side. Leave me – don’t come back looking.’
Rob swore. ‘Christ, he’s suicidal! Ashley, can you cope?’
‘Just,’ she managed, through gritted teeth. ‘How much further?’
‘I’m looking for the lights now.’ Rapidly over the radio he described the situation to the shore control room, peering towards the land through the fog of rain and flying spume.
Luke was struggling fiercely. Ashley was a fit young woman but he was taller and stronger; it was only by using her bodyweight across his legs and clinging, almost upside down, to one of the iron grab handles on the boat’s side that she was able to stop him standing up. She couldn’t do that for ever.
‘For God’s sake, Rob, are we nearly there?’ she screamed.
Like an answer to prayer, Rob saw a row of lights high above sea-level. They were well past Port William, and Knockhaven, with its villas up on the cliff-top, was the next coastal village. ‘Five minutes, max,’ he said, easing back the throttle; no point in being in such a hurry you missed the harbour.
And yes, there were the harbour lights now, just visible through the drifting veils of rain: the green one flashing on the higher rocks to the south which encircled the harbour protectively, the red fixed light to the north on the side of the lifeboat shed.
‘I’ve got a fix on the harbour lights now,’ he announced, ‘We’re heading in. Two minutes.’
He heard Ashley gasp, ‘Thank God!’ followed by a cry of heart-rending misery and despair from Luke. Poor lad, Rob thought as he opened the throttle again and swept round the curve of the rocks into the harbour.
But where were the familiar, welcoming lights of the village? Where—
The waves, boiling to and fro in the seething cauldron of Fuill’s Inlat, seized the Maud’n’Milly, lifting her into the air with contemptuous ease to smash her down on the teeth of the jagged rocks beneath. Ashley’s scream of terror, the sound of the ripping of the nylon tubes and the rush of escaping air were the last things Rob heard before the shock of the icy water hit him and he too was snatched up, only to be tossed aside like a toy flung down in a toddler’s tantrum.
When Hamish Raeburn reached the punchline of his story about the farmer and the agricultural adviser from the Ministry – ‘I don’t mind you taking away one of my sheep if you want, but that’s the collie you’ve got’ – Marjory Fleming laughed heartily, a little more heartily than the old joke warranted, perhaps, but it was the laughter of happiness.
They were sitting having kitchen supper with their closest neighbours, whose farm, like Mains of Craigie, was just a few miles from Kirkluce. Nothing elaborate: beef raised locally followed by Kirstie’s Aga meringues. Just an ordinary, pleasant evening, like so many they had spent in the past in this cosy room, with the huge pine dresser which had belonged to Hamish’s grandmother and now displayed the Wemyss ware Kirstie’s mother had collected over a lifetime of finely judged auction bids at the local roups. Bunches of the dried flowers Kirstie grew to sell to the smartest flower-shop in Kirkluce hung from a pulley overhead and a couple of dogs were snoring contentedly in a big basket next to the dark blue Aga.
Yes, just an unremarkable evening with old friends – except that this was the first invitation Marjory had received to another farm since last year’s foot-and-mouth epidemic, when she had so wretchedly found herself enforcing a government policy which was seen as pointless, insensitive and wantonly destructive of rural life.
It was only now, with wounds starting to heal a little, that Marjory was finding acceptance again. Most of the farmers’ wives would actually speak to her when they met her in the street or the local supermarket, but friendships had been bruised if not broken, so Marjory had been deeply grateful for Kirstie’s somewhat tentative invitation. She’d accepted it, though, as if this were no more than the casual reciprocal hospitality which had been the basis of their long connection.
She had come tonight resolved to steer clear of all controversial subjects, but somehow the warmth of the familiar room, where they had talked through so many problems over the years, seemed to thaw any cold feelings. She found herself pouring out the pent-up misery of the last year, and found, too, that Hamish and Kirstie were still – or perhaps, once more – the understanding friends they had been. It was balm to Marjory’s wounded soul, and it was good to see that Bill was listening to her with the sympathetic affection she would once have taken completely for granted. She had begun to wonder if she would ever see that look on his face again.
The men embarked on some discussion of National Farmers’ Union politics. Helping Kirstie to clear, Marjory seized the opportunity to air her worries about Cat; the Raeburns’
three girls were some years older, and Kirstie, with considerable experience of teenage problems, had always been a source of comfort and sound advice. She chuckled at the story of the black bedroom.
‘This I have to see! But honestly, Marjory, girls at that age—’
She was interrupted by the ringing of her guest’s work phone. For a second Marjory made no move to answer it, wanting to wail like a child, ‘No! It isn’t fair!’ She had given instructions that tonight, for once, she wasn’t on call except in the direst emergency.
And already the mood was broken; everyone had stopped talking and in the silence she could feel the distance between their life and hers open up again. She fished the phone out of her bag, looking at the inoffensive object with loathing, said, ‘Excuse me,’ and took it to the far end of the room.
‘This had better be good,’ she said tersely.
‘Depends what you mean by good.’ It was Tam MacNee’s voice. ‘The Knockhaven lifeboat’s been wrecked.’
‘Wrecked?’ she said blankly.
‘Went into Fuill’s Inlat instead of the harbour. They don’t know why.’
She knew Fuill’s Inlat, the wicked little cove near Knockhaven whose approach from the sea mimicked the contours of the port’s harbour. Surely every local sailor knew too?
‘But the cox—’
‘Acting cox, apparently. Willie Duncan was stoned out of his mind, but maybe they’d have been better with him even so.’
‘Any fatalities?’
‘Two, definite. One still alive so far, but they’re not hopeful.’
‘That’s awful. I’m on my way. No, I don’t need a car – it was my turn to drive anyway.’ She clicked off the phone and turned slowly, her mind already on the job ahead.
At the table they had politely pretended not to be listening, but now the three faces turned to her expectantly. ‘Problems?’ Bill asked.
The Darkness and the Deep Page 8
