If Necessary Alone

by V M Knox

  ‘Is that the door to the vestry?’

  Sarah nodded. ‘I’ve never been in it, and Reverend Heath almost never uses it. If anyone wants to see Aidan they go to the manse. It’s warmer there.’

  Clement nodded. He saw that the vestry door was closed. He looked around the nave, making sure they were alone. ‘Is the wireless here?’

  ‘No. It’s in our barn. We passed it on our way here.’

  ‘When do you make contact?’

  ‘Every day between eleven o’clock and noon.’

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Yes. We may seem remote to you but there are thousands of military personnel stationed around here. What with the Air Force Base in Castletown and a Y-station on Dunnet Head, not to mention the air fields around Wick and the Royal Navy in Scapa Flow; it is a very busy place. The planes flying overhead are not always ours.’

  The latch on the door clicked open. He looked up. A pale-faced woman walked in holding a mop and broom.

  Sarah stood, her hands thrust deep into her pockets.

  An uneasy silence ensued.

  ‘Morag McCrea, Reverend Wisdom,’ Sarah said before the woman could speak.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs McCrea.’ Clement nodded to the diminutive woman. Sarah was already heading for the door. ‘If you will excuse me? Till Sunday, then?’ He said, nodding to the woman. Replacing his hat, he followed Sarah outside.

  Sarah was standing off to one side by the head stones but Clement could see her expression. Gossip of any kind was long-lived.

  ‘Do you mind if we walk, Mrs Crawford? I’m still getting used to the cold.’

  She didn’t answer but started to walk east, between the graves and towards the end of the walled graveyard.

  ‘Will you be back in time to attend to the schedule today?’

  ‘I usually do it after the deliveries, but because you are here, Donald will do it today.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Sarah looked down, her boot nudging the gravel under her feet. ‘He was not supposed to know about my work. When I did my training at Whaddon Hall in Buckinghamshire, I told everyone here, including my husband, that I was in Edinburgh looking after my sick mother.’ She paused. ‘Donald didn’t believe me. Huna is a small place, Reverend Wisdom, and what with other rumours about me, I had to tell my husband. I haven’t told London that Donald knows about my work and I am hoping you will not inform them.’

  He felt his eyes widen. Breaching the Official Secrets Act was a serious matter and one that could get her into substantial trouble. He wondered if she was relying on his priestly status for confidentiality. ‘I cannot give you an absolute guarantee. However, they will not learn it from me unless your actions endanger others. But you should inform them. And soon. Tell me about the people here. Who was that woman who came into the church?’

  ‘Morag. Morag McCrea. She cleans the kirk. She thinks it will earn her a better seat in heaven. She has two sons, Malcolm and Stewart. Her husband, Duncan, is unwell. Fought in the last war. They have a farm at Huna Crofts and some land over towards Mey.’

  ‘Are they the only farmers hereabouts?’

  ‘Of course not! This is a farming community. The two biggest farms in this area belong to the McCrea’s and the Wallace’s. That was Mrs Wallace in the shop just now; the family have the farm by the cliffs.’ Sarah pointed towards a group of low buildings about midway between the kirk and Huna.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Farmers, you mean?’

  He nodded. ‘And others?’

  ‘The Grants and the Hendersons have big farms but they mostly go to Dunnet or Castletown for their needs. And, of course, there are tenant farmers on the Mey Estates. As for the others, well, there aren’t too many left. Our little school closed when the teacher volunteered. Even the unmarried women have left to join up. A lot of them are working in Castletown. And it isn’t the time of year for itinerant farm workers. Not that you can find many of those anymore.’ Sarah paused. ‘You met Joyce McAllister in the shop earlier. She and her husband Ian have the garage next door to us. Ian delivers coal and peat around the district twice a week, so he wasn’t called up. He isn’t a bad man, but he and my husband don’t get on.’

  ‘What sort of distances does he cover?’

  ‘John O’Groats to Castletown.’

  ‘And the reason for the animosity between your husband and Mr McAllister?’

  ‘The barn. Ian thinks he should have the use of it for the coal. But it forms part of the lease for the postal service. Which we have.’

  ‘Who owns this barn?’

  ‘Eileen and Elaine Frew.’

  ‘Reverend Heath’s neighbours? How old are these ladies?’

  ‘Over eighty.’

  ‘And the bus driver, Sean?’

  ‘Sean Mead? What about him?’

  Clement saw her look down.

  ‘Whatever you can tell me about him.’

  ‘He spends a lot of his spare time at The Bell. Other than that, you will have to ask him. Anything else you want to know about us?’

  ‘Possibly. But for now, tell me about the irregular radio transmissions?’

  ‘The signal is strong. Not more than ten miles, but I don’t know where. I have a transmitter, not a direction finder. And it’s always enciphered and transmitted in Morse Code. No spoken words,’ Sarah told him, her voice matter-of-fact. Clement believed she had not liked his questions about her and her neighbours and he was left in little doubt that he would never call her Sally.

  The sound of a truck approaching from the east halted their conversation. Clement looked up but he could not see the vehicle for the high graveyard wall. The noise of the shifting gears lessened. The truck had not stopped.

  ‘That will be Ian McAllister now, doing his coal deliveries.’

  ‘Which days?’

  ‘Wednesdays and Saturdays.’

  Clement stored the information away. ‘Don’t you need an antenna to be attached to the wireless when you are transmitting?’

  ‘Yes, but look around you. No trees. No mountains of any size. In fact, nothing to interfere with the signal. So the rafters of a barn on a cliff by the edge of the sea would do. I only transmit to the Y-Station, not further away, so I don’t really need anything bigger.’

  ‘Do you believe, from what you’ve overheard, that the signals are intended to be picked up locally or more distant?’

  ‘Germany, you mean?’

  He nodded.

  ‘It would be more reliable if he had a fixed aerial.’

  ‘And the signals themselves?’

  ‘As I said, in Morse, enciphered and random in length and time. But always in groups of five letters.’

  ‘Can you decipher anything of them?’

  ‘No. I have neither the skill nor the time for such things. I send the messages on to the Y-station. What they do with them is up to them.’

  ‘Do you send in cipher?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘But you can’t decipher his?’

  She stared at him. ‘To encipher a message you have to know three things. The algorithm, that is the method used to encipher the original message. The key, which can be a word or number, and the period of time the key is valid. That could change every day, week or month. Regardless of whenever it changes, the sender and the receiver have to know all those things to encipher and decipher the message. Without them, even a simple cipher could take months to break. I’m sure that somewhere people are sitting at desks all day going mad over such things. But not me. I have work to do.’

  Clement didn’t respond, but his eyes scanned the scattered dwellings dotted among the undulating meadows and treeless pastures.

  ‘All I know is that there is someone transmitting in this area. How or who, I don’t know. But it just seems too coincidental to me.’

  ‘What do you mean, coincidental?’ Clement asked.

  Sarah stopped walking and
turned to face him. ‘I thought you would know about it. The lighthouse on Stroma.’ She pointed out across Pentland Firth to the nearby island. ‘It was attacked last Saturday.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A German fighter strafed the lighthouse. No one was injured and it caused almost no damage. Why on earth should they do that?’

  Chapter 6

  ‘Do you have any suspicions, Mrs Crawford as to who could be sending these messages?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that. The McCrea boys are both enlisting age but neither has signed up. Of course, farming is a reserved occupation, but you’d think at least one of them would go.’

  ‘Any other reason to suspect the McCrea’s?’

  ‘One of the sons, Malcolm, likes his whisky. He told Jean Buchanan, the publican at The Bell, that he thinks there are too many foreigners in Scotland and by that I don’t mean Continentals. Malcolm believes this war to be an English war, so why should we Scots support it? I’m not saying he is a traitor and he is probably only voicing what others are thinking, but he is vocal about his views. And he doesn’t like Reverend Heath.’

  ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘Petty jealousy. Nothing more.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Malcolm used to like helping Tom, one of our local fishermen, with the catch. Malcolm is strong and good with a knife, but Tom prefers to take Reverend Heath, if he is available. Apparently he knows his way around a boat better than Malcolm.’

  Clement stared out across the firth to Stroma Island. ‘McCrea’s dislike of Reverend Heath aside, why would Malcolm McCrea collaborate with the enemy?’

  ‘As I said, Duncan McCrea, Malcolm and Stewart’s father, was in the last war. He was gassed. Malcolm has always hated the English for taking his father away and feeding his dad and thousands like him to the trenches. Duncan says that the English can’t be trusted.’

  ‘And you think that would be reason enough for Malcolm to collaborate with the Germans?’

  ‘You don’t understand much about entrenched hatreds, do you?’

  He stared at Sarah, a frown creasing his brow. What she’d implied sounded extreme to him.

  ‘We are a long way from London, Reverend Wisdom. And people have long memories.’

  Clement didn’t respond. He knew very little Scottish history, but he had heard that between some clans, a feud could last generations. As he hadn’t yet met the McCrea brothers, he wasn’t in a position to judge.

  They had wandered some way among the headstones, towards the stone wall that separated the graveyard from the road and the land adjacent to the cliffs. Clement stared at the stony ground, the frown still on his forehead. The attack on the lighthouse worried him. Johnny had not mentioned it, but then again it had only taken place on the same day he had seen Johnny in London.

  Sarah interrupted his thoughts. ‘Why would the Germans attack the lighthouse and cause so little damage? Surely if their intention was to cause havoc with our shipping, they would have destroyed it!’

  ‘I can’t answer that. What is on Stroma Island?’

  ‘Nothing much. Only the lighthouse and a few crofters.’ Sarah checked her wrist watch. ‘I need to get back to my deliveries. There is one other thing. Tom Harris, the local fisherman I mentioned, came into the shop late yesterday with his catch. He has been away for about two weeks. He told me that he has seen the same boat on several occasions in the North Sea.’

  ‘Did anyone else hear this?’

  ‘I think Joyce was in the shop for some of the time.’

  ‘Does Tom or Joyce McAllister know about your Special Duties activities?’

  ‘No one knows. Except Donald.’

  ‘Imprudent chatter is not only a breach of national security, Mrs Crawford, it is also unwise. Mr Harris should know this. Did he say anything else about this boat?’

  ‘Yes. He told me that on both occasions he saw it, it was alone. It’s just a trawler. Like his. But unlike his, it has some guns mounted on the bow.’

  ‘Did he note anything else about it?’

  She nodded. ‘He saw its number. NN04. Given what Tom saw, plus the attack on Stroma, I think something is about to happen. Here or perhaps around Orkney. I cannot be sure. It’s just…’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Even though I don’t know what the transmissions are about, I recognise the person’s touch. They call it a signature touch. I know when it’s him, I know by the way he presses the keys.’

  ‘How can you be sure it is a man?’

  ‘It’s in the touch. If it’s a woman, then she is very good at disguising it.’

  ‘If the transmissions are random, wouldn’t this person have to live in close proximity to his wireless?’

  ‘It’s a fair assumption.’ Sarah checked her watch again. ‘I must go or I will be late with the deliveries and Donald will be angry.’

  ‘If you can recognise this person by their touch, couldn’t this person know you by yours?’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘If he is a good wireless operator.’

  ‘Would he be able to differentiate between you and your husband?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  Clement stared at an old tomb stone so weathered the name had long vanished. ‘I could walk from here and take the milk and supplies for the manse for you, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you. That would be helpful.’

  ‘Have you sent on the information about the fisherman’s sightings?’

  ‘Donald will have done it this morning. How long are you staying?’

  Clement looked up at a winged angel headstone off to his right. ‘About a week. I told Reverend Heath that I would like to stay for church on Sunday. It buys me a few extra days to locate the source.’ He turned his gaze westward, towards Gills Bay. Off the coast the shaft of sunlight lit up the waters, transforming the dark grey-green to the most intense sapphire. ‘It really is beautiful.’

  ‘The scenery maybe.’

  Clement watched Sarah Crawford’s lorry drive west towards Gills Bay until it disappeared from his view. With the kirk at his back, he set out towards the manse. As he walked he stared at the slush under his boots. Sarah Crawford. The woman was hard to read. At times she had been brusque, but since her confession about breaching the Official Secrets Act, he believed she was endeavouring to win his support, should she ever need it. Was it a simple confession or a very clever ruse? Could Sarah Crawford herself be the collaborator? In which case there was no need for another transmitter. He slowed his pace. What had he learned about the woman? She was forty-something, had lived in Huna managing a shop and post office for about ten years and was married to a difficult man with physical and psychological scars that only alcohol placated. Was Sarah as loyal to her husband as she appeared? What kept an intelligent woman with a surly husband doing clandestine work in a remote place? Not to mention the heavy banal work of running a business almost single-handedly? Clement scratched his head as he walked, his other arm clutching the milk and provisions.

  Despite knowing that women almost never leave their husbands, even the abusive ones, Sarah Crawford could have, if she had wanted to, left her husband after her training at Whaddon Hall. So why hadn’t she? Did that implicate her further? And what of Malcolm McCrea who apparently was politically antagonistic to the Allied cause? Then there was the fisherman Tom Harris. Clement wanted to speak with the man. He drew in a long breath realising just how much he didn’t know. Was Tom Harris really a simple fisherman? A fisherman who spent two weeks at a time away, and was close enough to other shipping to read their identifying numbers? Clement lifted his head and stopping, looked across the snow-covered fields and up towards the manse. Wisps of coal smoke were rising from the chimney. The warmth beckoned. But the fires at the home of the elderly Frew sisters were, evidently, not yet lit. ‘Tom Harris’, he said aloud, trying to concentrate. Was Tom Harris’s information concerning the trawler even accurate…?

  Johnny h
ad told Clement he was on his own. He felt it.

  He knocked at the front door to the manse.

  Aidan’s raised voice came to him through the closed door. ‘Come in, Clement. It’s not locked.’

  Clement opened the door and walked into the sitting room. Aidan was sitting by the fire, his slippers pushed to one side and a newspaper sprawled across the carpet in disarray. ‘Ah! Clement! You have our meagre weekly rations, I see. And the lassies have sent you a sponge cake.’

  ‘You went to visit them?’ He thought the old ladies’ house must have been freezing without a fire burning.

  Aidan’s feet reached for the slippers and putting them on, he stood up. ‘Paid the rent for another month. Frankly, I don’t know what they do with the money. Unless it is baking day, which yesterday was, the house is as cold inside as it is out. I’ll make some tea and we can have that cake. Can you bring those things into the kitchen?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Aidan placed one of his fishing magazines neatly onto a shelf and Clement followed him into the kitchen. Through the window Clement could see footprints in the snow.

  Aidan reached for the kettle placed it on the stove and lit the gas. ‘So you had a good look about? I saw you and Sarah chatting in the graveyard as I returned from the lassies. How do you like our kirk?’

  ‘It is most impressive. Mrs Crawford kindly offered me a lift to the intersection. And while there she showed me around. Despite the weather, there is something almost hypnotic about this place.’

  Aidan laughed. ‘It’s what got me. “Caithness Fever,” they call it. And once caught, it’s caught for life. Although, I don’t go too close to the cliffs. I know it sounds strange, but I really don’t like heights. I won’t even climb a ladder. Fortunately, Ian McAllister and Robert Wallace take it in turns to do any maintenance at the kirk. They also ring the bells. But I don’t suppose they’ll be doing that for a while.’

  Clement nodded. He didn’t think the end of the war would come any time soon either, but an invasion, the only other reason church bells were to be rung, appeared equally unlikely given what Aidan had said about the coastline and the abundance of military personnel in the area.