The foothills were part of a forbidden zone, heavily patrolled by guards looking for fugitives. We went quietly in the darkness, single file on the track. Archie walked with purpose, dogged and assured. I realized that this was a journey he had done before, many times perhaps. Was Archie the embassy contact bringing funds over from Madrid that Caskie had once alluded to?
I knew so little about this Archie.
We passed through moonlit vineyards, dark meadows in the deep shadow of a pine forest, unseen cows munching cud, then took a steeply rising path through a forest of slender birch trunks, each pale column rising straight from the sharp gradient of the hillside.
Archie stopped, hand up. In the distance, the sound of dogs barking, two of them, high-pitched and intent.
‘Alsatians?’ I whispered. Archie didn’t reply, still listening. The sounds faded, moving away.
‘We’ll need to keep up the pace,’ he said.
On the other side of the wood, the path opened out in rough upland moor. I came alongside Archie. Walking together in the dark.
‘Like old times,’ he said. ‘Nights returning from escapades at college, d’you remember, drinking in various dives when we’d fail to make it back to hall before the gates were locked?’
‘Scaling drainpipes to get in through a friend’s windows.’
I heard that old chuckle.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I am glad you told me about Chrissie. Grateful that you watched out for her.’
Silence came back to me, the scrape of a boot on stone.
‘I hear she’s doing well. They both are. Of course, she doesn’t know it was me who helped her out from time to time. I sent money for her through a general fund that helps St Kildans. A piano, the girl’s musical, a scholarship for her if she wants to go to university one day. I got sent back snippets of information about them from the vicar who administers the trust.’
The slope was punishingly steep here. He paused to catch his breath, holding on to a trunk.
‘No friendship ever meant more to me than yours, Fred. I threw that away, I know.’
He gripped my arm. I felt the heat and damp through the wool of my jacket. We walked on side by side for a while. ‘Almost there now,’ he said.
The shepherd’s hut was set into a bowl in the hillside, a small, square building, a rough board door with a window each side, tightly shuttered. Here we were to wait for our mountain guide.
We found the party we were to join inside, two downed airmen and a young Jewish couple. The woman had been sleeping on a rough wooden bunk, and rose with dishevelled hair. She wore a summer dress and jacket, shoes with heels. She looked at us with suspicion and shook hands reluctantly.
‘Have you heard from the guide, when he’s going to get here?’ the man asked.
‘Anytime now, I should think,’ said Archie.
It was cold in there. They hadn’t dared light a fire lest the smoke give them away. We waited in the half dark, the shutters barred, too anxious to make conversation. An hour went by. Still no sign of our guide. Archie passed round his hip flask. I took a sip and closed my eyes. Felt the tiredness kick in, pulling me to lean back against the wall. How long before we’d get another chance to catch some sleep?
Archie stood up abruptly, startling me awake again, and announced he was going to go back down the path to see if something had happened to the guide.
‘You think something has gone wrong?’ the woman asked.
‘A delay. All sorted soon, I’m sure.’
‘But you have made this crossing before?’ she pressed him.
‘Once or twice,’ Archie said evasively.
This was not in the plan. My heart sinking, I watched the door close behind him, a tired thumping of blood in my chest, my treacherous thoughts following their own path. If Archie were to betray us, then surely it would be now, corralled in this shed, himself absent.
The minutes dragged by.
The sound of an Alsatian barking. The door crashed open. A guard with a rifle pointed towards us. The dog still barking hysterically outside the door.
The guard shouted for us to raise our hands.
And where was Archie? Had Archie done this?
A sudden screech from the dog, and in the same moment a shot exploded. The woman screamed as we watched the guard tip forward.
Behind him, Archie stood in the doorway, a pistol in his hand.
‘There’ll be more coming soon,’ Archie said. ‘We leave now.’
Outside, we found a man in a dark suit and beret, wiping a knife. The Andorran guide. On the grass, the inert shapes of the Alsatian and a second guard.
We dragged the bodies into the undergrowth nearby. The first hints of pre-dawn red in the eastern sky, black before us. We set off at a quick pace along the path, Archie last out of the hut, taking the rear. I turned to let him catch up. Heard the sound of running, a glint of metal.
A guard stood below me, a rifle pointed square at my chest.
A shot exploded, a second shot, echoing against the mountain. I waited for the pain. But none came.
Archie crumpled to his knees. He had fallen directly between me and the body of the guard. His hands went to his chest as a dark hole bloomed in a stain across his coat fabric.
And then I understood. Archie had thrown himself between the guard and me, taken the shot. And in the same moment he’d fired at the guard who now lay motionless on the grass.
Archie had taken my shot. He’d stepped into the line of fire and taken the bullet meant for me.
He gave a small laugh. ‘Well, that’s rum,’ he said. He craned his head to see his coat, the dark stain still spreading. ‘That’s made a bit of a mess.’ He was shivering. ‘Bloody cold,’ he murmured.
Angus had run back down the slope. Together we picked Archie up, carefully carried him back inside and laid him on the wooden bench. I put my fingers on his neck, his pulse faint and erratic, the dark stain bleeding unstoppably across the shirt fabric. Beneath it, his heart slowing. The woman came forward. She was a nurse and tried to do what she could for Archie, but shook her head, her eyes telling me more than I wanted to know. Archie wasn’t going to make it.
‘Someone should go and get help,’ I said, searching the faces around me. ‘We need to get him to a doctor, a hospital.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Archie, strangely serene, his teeth chattering in little bursts. ‘I rather think this is it, Fred.’
‘Don’t talk like that, Archie. You’re going to make it.’
‘Happens to all of us sooner or later. You don’t mind if I beat you to it?’
‘Come on, Archie,’ I cried. ‘Stay with us.’
‘Might have a little sleep.’ He flickered his eyes open again. ‘But you’re still here. You should be gone, you know.’
‘I’m not leaving you.’
He gripped my hand, tried to rise up on his elbow. ‘You have to get back to her, Fred. This is all a waste if you don’t. You’re not to wait about here.’ He hung on to my shoulder now, his voice rasping, sweat on his forehead. ‘Promise me, you’ll get back. You’ll stay alive.’
He became so agitated, I feared for him. ‘I promise.’
He sank back.
‘We can’t wait,’ said the Andorran.
‘Go on. You should all get going. I’ll follow later, try and catch up with you.’
Angus let his backpack slide from his shoulders. ‘I’ll wait with you.’
The Andorran shrugged. ‘You have a map? A compass?’
Angus took out the small square of silk with a map of the Pyrenees printed on it. A gift from Archie through his contacts in Madrid, one of the maps made by the secret service in London in the hope that they might help men get back home. He’d given several to Caskie to hand on. Angus showed the map to the Andorran who traced the route with his finger. ‘Go straight up, heading south. We will be here in the refuge within twenty-four hours. We will sleep a while, and hope you catch up.’
He took out his knif
e and made a little nick at the site of the refuge. Handed it back to Angus.
‘Farewell, my friend,’ the Andorran said to Archie, as he grasped his hand. To me, he said, ‘Your friend is very courageous.’ Then he took me aside near the door. ‘After, we will come to take him down the mountain. And don’t wait too long.’
Angus took Archie’s pistol, sat watching the door. A deep quiet fell in the hut. I raised Archie on my lap, my coat around him to try and keep him warm. From time to time, he opened his eyes, gave a rueful smile.
‘Always wanted to go back to the island again. Remember, Fred, one of those evenings when you sit out on the bench with a smoke in your hand, looking out over the bay. The Atlantic all gold and bronze, the horizon that faint purple. And the hills over on Boreray that shade of blue. What d’you call that blue, Fred?’
‘I’m not sure.’
He sighed and went quiet for a while. ‘Did I tell you I was renovating the house across the loch in Dunvegan? Don’t always feel at home in the castle now my sister and her husband are installed. Turns out she’s a talent for being the lady of the place and doing all those tiresome things that drove me mad. Her boy will be the new laird one day so it makes sense. It’s not much to look at yet, the old dowager cottage, a ruin with some sheep in it. I’ve had some chaps busy fixing it up. They send me pictures. Meant to settle there one day.’
‘Sounds a wonderful place.’
‘It will be.’ He blew out a breath, a twinge of pain. I held his hand tight against my chest, as if my heartbeat could encourage his own.
‘Did you know the Macleods of Dunvegan are always buried in Kilmuir? Don’t suppose I’ll join them there now.’
‘Don’t talk like that. You’ll see it yourself one day, your house, the island,’ I lied.
‘But you’ll get back, Fred?’ he whispered one last time. I nodded. Then I held his hand as he slipped away. He didn’t speak again. Once or twice he gave a laboured breath, between a rattle and a snore, and then was quiet.
‘I think he’s gone,’ Angus said.
I listened with my head on his chest. No trace of a beat.
After a while, Angus cleared his throat. ‘Spanish guide said we should leave him here. He said he’d make sure he was taken to the priest’s house.’
Archie still felt warm, as if he might get up soon, refreshed and himself again after a good sleep. Reluctantly, I passed my hand down over Archie’s forehead to close his eyes, then covered him with his coat. One last moment with him, then we left the hut, closed the door and set out on the path, leaving Archie alone in the cold and the dark.
CHAPTER 43
Fred
PYRENEES, 1941
The pale rocks of the track ahead were clear enough to follow in the moonlight. We made good time as we climbed, moving quickly, the peaks in the distance a dark cut-out against the brilliance of the stars. I was glad to fasten my mind on my steps, keeping away the wash of grief welling up behind me, but always aware of the growing distance between our frantic movements as we climbed, and the stillness of the hut below.
A pale sky edged with gold. We walked on as the sun rose across slopes of brown grass, swathes of blue-green pines below. We went as fast as we could without twisting an ankle. The higher we walked, the more evidence of the snow’s recent retreat, acres of yellowed grass, flattened as if a roller had been dragged over it.
We’d be meeting the snow line soon.
The stony hillside resolved into blocks of granite tall as a man. Scrambling up, using our hands, we were certainly missing the army boots that we’d taken so much care to replace with civvies.
Around midday, eyes burning with lack of sleep, we reached the summit, a ridge a mile long of serrated outcrops like the edge of a stone knife. Our reward? A vista of the ridges and peaks to come, scoured by icy wind. Four more ridges to cross, the highest at seven thousand feet.
I pulled up the collar of my coat and held it together as the wind battered us, reminding us to get a move on. Still a chance the border guards might track us this far. But I could see no sign of a hut or our party down in the valley. Had we swung too wide in our path, missed them altogether?
Below us, steep rock escarpments. Hard to see a way down. We began to climb down a gulley, the stones frozen iron, my jersey over my hands, holed for my thumbs. Angus did likewise.
In the valley, winter sun dazzled over the ridge ahead. We walked along a lake, a glassy sheet of ice scattered over with great blocks of ice. They’d left long, elliptical score marks on the surface, as if pushed along by some unseen force
Our water flasks were empty. In spite of the cold, we were hot and thirsty, the distances much further than they had seemed from above. Angus kicked at the edge of the lake, trying to break the ice, but I knew well what shallow water at the edge of a loch could do to a stomach and we walked on, rewarded by the sound of running water. A stream was gurgling between gnarled edges of overhanging ice, humps of yellow grass inside. The water had been frozen into rivulets but the central section was still running clear. We filled our flasks and drank deeply, filled them again.
The second summit played games with us, showing further ridges each time we thought we’d reached the top, lack of sleep fizzing in our muscles and brains. I promised Angus we’d rest on the other side. Black hummocks of grass crouched across white slopes of snow, feet crunching down into holes, a staff essential. The topmost ridge was a landscape of muddy, frozen rags, bunched up and solid. Shoulders hunched into the wind, our city-soled shoes slipped on the icy rocks as we battled forward.
To the west, dark grey clouds were rolling towards us, dense with their frozen burden, all the presages of a snow storm. We urgently needed to get down from the heights. In the distance, the first forks of lightning.
In the next valley, wraiths of cloud grey as smoke, rock ledges descending in tiers of white. I had no memory of how we scrambled down, praying not to fall. We came out onto calmer fields of snow shining with a crust of ice. Each step an arduous process of digging the staff into the snow, working our way down its shaft, trousers soaked to the knee. Then planting it below for the next step. The dusk crept up on us again. On the other side of the valley, the patches of snow were slung across the peaks like white birds in the gloom.
No feeling in my toes.
We’d been walking for almost thirty-six hours. Below the snow line, we found an overhanging rock, reasonably dry underneath, where we bedded down back to back for warmth, coats held tight. Woke with the wet soaking into our clothes and hardening to frost where it met the air. The side of my coat was stiff.
The only way to get warm was to keep walking. We shared what was left of the salami and the bread. Trudged on.
The views as we climbed higher in the dawn were breathtaking, gold on the slopes facing the new sun. Deadly if you slipped on the narrow goat track. Finally, the snow came in, thick and blinding.
There were times when I fell into a trance as we trudged on, no longer in the Pyrenees but far away on St Kilda again, following a yellow lamp between the bothies. Sometimes I walked beside you, Chrissie, the wind undoing your hair from its red scarf. And sometimes I walked alongside Archie.
I’d come to, surprised to find myself back in the dusk and the snow, Archie far away, sleeping in his own deep winter. I wanted so much to lie down and sleep in the cold too. But I knew how lethal that was and my legs kept moving forward, the pains in my toes gone to ice. Each breath a sharp stab in my side.
I looked back. Angus had stopped, slumped down in the snow, his body hunched into a curl.
‘I just need to sleep now, Fred,’ he said slowly. ‘I can’t go on any more.’ He held a photo of his girl Ellie in his hand, kept looking at it. Folded it against his chest and shut his eyes. The snow had eased up, but the dark had already begun to gather again, long blue shadows around the trees. And fatal for us to be out here when night fell.
I don’t know where I found the strength, but I hauled him up, slapped him to keep
awake as we went on together, half-dragging him over the top, then sliding down a dark slope. Below us in the valley was the distinct shape of a small hut. I wondered if I was conjuring something from hope. But it was indeed a small shepherd’s cabin. Never so glad to see a habitation, even if it was little more than a shed.
We hurried towards it, Angus hobbling on his own. The temperature falling fast as we pushed the door open. I took wood from the bundles piled up to one side and lit a small stove with one of my remaining matches. We were warming our frozen hands near the comfort of the stove’s flames, the cast-iron door left open, when the door of the hut opened. I was relieved to see it was just an old woman wrapped in a black cloak, her yellowed face wizened like wood. She produced beans and root vegetables from her cloak and began to make a soup, enough for three. She was mystified to hear us talking in Gaelic as she stirred the pan.
‘Inglés?’ she asked, chin towards us.
I took a stick from the woodpile and drew in the thick ash dust around the wood stove, a map of the UK. Pointed to the west coast of Scotland.
‘Escocés?’ I nodded.
This seemed to please her. She put her hands together on her breastbone.
‘Vasco.’ She pointed to herself and then to the ground. ‘Yo soy vasco.’ Then she began talking in a language I had never heard before. Basque.
She fussed around making sure we were near the stove, giving us second helpings of the bean soup. I offered the remains of the salami but she gestured for us to keep it.
We slept like the dead, woken at dawn by the pain returning to our frozen feet. I knew there would be damage from the reddened sections later, the ends of two toes already blackening.
The old lady was out early, sniffing the air and looking worried. She sprinkled her fingers, stamped her feet. I understood that she wanted us to get going before more snow came in. Wrapping herself in her cloak, her bag on her shoulders, she pointed up to the next and last ridge. Signalled for us to follow.
The Lost Lights of st Kilda Page 23
