by V M Knox
The plane rose above him, its sinister shadow passing over him as the sound of its engines roared then diminished. Several seconds passed while he waited. The rustle of the leaves above his head from the wind in the branches was all he could hear.
Then he heard the screams coming from the direction of the kirk. Seconds later came the sound of other engines in the skies. He prayed it was Two-One-Three Squadron. Rolling sideways out from under the hedge, he stared up. Three Hurricanes criss-crossed above him, the Nazi plane banking east, heading for the open sea, the Hurricanes in pursuit. Within seconds they all were nothing more than specks in the sky. He clambered out of the hedge and stood up.
Dust and smoke had engulfed the kirk. Through the haze he could see the shattered stones and bricks. People stumbled over the rubble as the dust cloud spread out. From where Clement stood, he could see that most of the nave appeared unharmed but several of the windows had blown out with the blast. The bell tower, however, had taken the brunt of the attack. Through the dust cloud he could see smoke rising. Low flames were beginning to take hold in what was left of the tower.
Within seconds, people started stumbling through the rubble, dazed with confusion. From where Clement stood, he recognised Kathleen Wallace standing on the road. Beside her, Stewart McCrea’s red hair gleamed in the intermittent sunshine. He appeared to be unhurt. The lad was holding the child, Mary, in his arms. Clement dropped into the long grass at the side of the road and propped himself on his elbows. Reaching for his telescope, he steadied the instrument, focusing it on the child. Blood was flowing down Mary’s leg, but she was alive. Clement focused the instrument on the mother, the fragile Kathleen Wallace. She was crying, her face contorted with fear. Then she appeared to be screaming. Suddenly, she rushed forward, stumbling over the rubble and tossing stones in every direction. Clement scanned the scene again, realizing she must be looking for her husband or young Billy, but he could see neither. Clement prayed they would be found alive.
Lifting the telescope, he scanned the wider scene. He recognised Morag McCrea, a woman he had met only briefly on his first day in Canisbay. She appeared to be completely still, stuck in a moment of horror, unable to move. Not far away from her, Clement recognised the elderly farmer from Sean’s bus who had fallen asleep on the trip north from Wick. The old man was sitting on a headstone, holding a handkerchief to his blood-stained forehead.
Clement continued to watch the devastation, hoping that Aidan would walk out of the debris. But there was no long white robe covered in dust or stained with blood. From inside the nave, a woman emerged and picked her way through the carnage. She headed straight into the graveyard, walking away from the devastation. Joyce McAllister. She appeared unhurt and was hurrying towards Huna, Clement hoped to telephone the ambulance in Thurso. Training the telescope again on the growing group of people who staggered from the wreckage, he searched again for their minister, but as the minutes passed the smoke increased and flames devoured the kirk. Clement felt his heart sinking, but his anguish would have to wait. The attack was not only a signal, it was a distraction. Putting his telescope to his eye again, he started to scan the locality, looking for a lone man walking away from the destruction. On the road from Canisbay to the kirk he saw three men running. One was Danny O’Reilly, but Sean’s friend and the two others were running towards the devastation.
Slowly Clement guided the telescope over the fields looking for anyone walking west. The manse came into view, but he knew Aidan would have been in his vestry and it, along with the bell tower, had taken a direct hit.
Lifting the instrument, Clement scanned the home of the Frew sisters. Nothing had changed there and no one was in the yard. Away to the left he could see Joyce McAllister hurrying along the road. She had almost reached Huna, but Clement knew now she was not his enemy’s accomplice. Shifting the telescope further to the south, the village of Canisbay came into view. The two storied Bell Inn loomed over the intersection. A figure he knew stood in the window of Room Ten.
Jean Buchanan was holding some binoculars. Keeping his telescope trained on her, Clement saw her turn away. Within a few minutes, Jean was running along the road towards the kirk, a bag with a large red cross on it in her hand. Moving the telescope further to the south and west, he studied the road, lingering on the hedges he had used to disguise his presence. No one walked or ran anywhere other than towards the devastated kirk.
‘I know you are here.’ Clement could almost smell his adversary.
The clanging made him lower the telescope. Two ambulances from further west, Castletown or Thurso maybe, were rushing towards the kirk, their sirens piercing the morning. They had arrived more quickly than Clement had expected, but perhaps the pilots of Two-One-Three Squadron had radioed back to base.
Lifting the telescope again, he once more scanned the scene. Everything within Clement wanted to be with those people. It seemed so wrong to be just watching the events unfolding. But it was not his role. He lowered the telescope. Even though he couldn’t see his enemy now, Clement knew where the man would be at four o’clock this afternoon.
Rolling over, Clement replaced the telescope in his webbing and stood by the beech hedge. His eye searched the land off to his left. Avoiding the road, and keeping to the hedges for cover, he crossed the fields heading west. He wanted to keep the road on his right within sight.
On the rise above Gills Bay, Clement turned and stared back at the kirk, a scene of tragic activity. People were helping one another while others carried stretchers. A figure stood beside one of the ambulances. Clement reached again for his telescope and trained it on the man. Inspector Stratton stood beside the open rear doors of one of the ambulances, a clip board in his hand. Clement was relieved that Stratton was there. The Inspector would bring order to the chaos. Jean Buchanan was sifting through the debris, not a pleasant job, but Clement believed that of all the women in the district, Jean, along with Joyce McAllister, was probably the most capable in a crisis. Returning his telescope to its pouch, Clement turned away and started to run, his mind now on Dwarwick Pier.
Chapter 24
Clement watched the ground as he ran. His determination to catch his adversary was now obsessional. What would induce a man to commit treason? Yet it was only treason if his enemy was British. He pondered Robert Wallace. He visualised the man’s wife’s frantic searching. Perhaps it had been for her son, not her husband? Perhaps Wallace didn’t attend kirk. It fitted with what Clement had learned about the man from Nora Ballantyne. The vicar in him wanted to tell Wallace that ignoring God’s forgiveness for sin only prolonged the torment, something he felt sure Kathleen Wallace would be pleased to see resolved. People and their secret motives. Clement repeated the well-known saying about the devil being in the detail. He knew so little about Wallace, but as he had often said before, how well does anyone know their neighbour’s inner-most thoughts? He did know that his enemy was no hired assassin. The man was ruthless to the point of inhuman cruelty. What had Clement missed that would identify the man beyond any doubt? There had to be something. So small a piece of information that he had either dismissed it or hadn’t questioned it. And, more significantly, his enemy had either overlooked it or wasn’t concerned about it.
On the easterly wind, the sound of an approaching vehicle broke into Clement’s thoughts. It was still some way behind him. He hurried on, crossing the fields, moving closer to the main road. Looking back over his shoulder, he could see one of the ambulances driving west, but the siren was not blaring. A bad sign. One that usually meant the occupants were deceased. He wondered if he should stop the ambulance and request a lift to Dunnet, but he knew he wouldn’t reach the road in time before it passed him. He lifted his arms and began to wave in the hope that they would see him. The vehicle slowed and stopped by a copse of sycamore trees on either side of an elaborate iron gateway. It had been where he had sat with Reg in the bus earlier that morning. He started to run, but as he did, he saw someone get out. They wa
lked to the back of the ambulance and opened the rear doors.
Clement paused and waited beside a low tree. A moment later, a second person alighted from the ambulance and joined the other at the rear of the vehicle. With both back doors wide open, Clement couldn’t see what was happening. Minutes later the doors closed. Both people returned to the vehicle and it drove away. Clement frowned. Their actions made little sense.
Running over the fields, he reached the roadway adjacent to the gate. Before him was a low stone wall that formed the front perimeter fence of Mey Castle. Crossing the road, he stood at the large ironwork gate and peered down the long driveway. The gate was closed and no one was at work in the fields. Sitting on the perimeter stone wall, he looked across the surrounding meadows wondering why the ambulance had stopped there.
On the other side of the wall the ground dropped away to a grove of short, contorted trees and in the distance he could see a high red-brick wall. Beyond that, some distance away, was the castle. Clement lowered his gaze and stared into the copse. Below him, under the trees, were two hessian sacks. Something about them troubled him. Swinging his legs over the wall, he jumped down.
As he neared them, he knew what they were and his heart sunk. He reached for his knife and cut the bags at the top. The first was a face he knew, but the sight made him recoil. Robert Wallace’s visage was still ruddy from the manual labour the man had done in all weathers, but his clothes bore testimony to the manner of his death. Burns. Clement opened the sack further, his stomach retching at the sight of the charred flesh, the oozing fluid that escaped the skin and would never now form blisters. He looked at the massive hands, red and black, the fingers and palms stripped of flesh from trying to smother the flames.
He turned away, memories of his time as hospital chaplain at St Thomas’s in London following the Great War bursting from the past. He opened the second sack. The boy, Billy, gazed out, his wide-eyed stare fixed in death, but the lad appeared almost completely uninjured. Explosive forces could do that, Clement knew. He lowered his head and recited The Lord’s Prayer. Any death was tragic, but the death of a child was dreadful. He covered their faces again and climbing over the iron gate sat on the wall.
What the ambulance drivers had done appalled him. He gazed out at the fields. Why would transporting the injured to hospital not take precedence? He stared at the contorted trees around him, the rustling wind the only sound. Surely the removal of the bodies of Robert Wallace and his son could only be to make room for someone else, someone alive and who was already on the road heading west.
Clement’s head spun. The man’s escape had been well planned and it involved more than two people. Did that include the ambulance drivers? Or had these men been made to stop in the copse by someone hiding there? Clement looked along the road heading west towards Dunnet. Standing, he began to run, the ruthlessness of his enemy spurring him on. Despite what was unfolding around him, Clement again thanked God for Reg’s presence and the other blessing; the tide.
“Time and tide.” Clement recited Geoffrey Chaucer’s famous quotation. “They wait for no man.” But the reverse was equally true. As Clement broke into a steady pace, he felt the wind at his back, urging him on.
As The Dunnet Hotel came into view, Clement slowed. He checked his watch. Two o’clock. Two hours before the high tide. No cars were parked outside today and only one bicycle leant against the door post.
Hugging the wall, Clement crept around the building and peered into the rear yard. No one was there, but parked under a tree was Sean’s bus and beside it, the ambulance. He scanned the yard. The door into the kitchen was closed and all appeared quiet. He took his knife from its scabbard and ran towards the vehicles. The bus was empty. Glancing over his shoulder, Clement opened the rear door to the ambulance and climbed inside, pulling the door to. Except for two low benches that ran along both sides of the vehicle, the ambulance was empty. He stared at the benches, wondering if the vehicle was used solely for the transportation of corpses. It did explain Stratton’s early arrival, as Clement knew the mortuary in Thurso was attached to the police station. His mind returned to the ambulance drivers. It was possible they, too, were traitors. If that was the case, he faced a confrontation with more than one person.
Clement stared at the floor, his mind racing. There were only two possibilities when it came to the ambulance drivers, they were either dead themselves or involved. His gaze shifted to the kitchen door. Encountering them could mean his capture, and failure to apprehend his enemy. He checked his watch. Either way, there was no time. His speculation about the ambulance drivers would have to wait. Jumping from the rear of the vehicle, he left The Dunnet Hotel, his priority now to find Reg.
Twenty minutes later Clement slowed as he approached the crest of a low hill. He knew the terrain and what lay ahead. Up to his right, the track rose steeply. Before him, over the crest of the hill, were the few cottages beneath the massive Dunnet Head. Approaching the crest, Clement dropped to the ground and began to crawl his way forward. On the brow of the hill, he lay in the grass by the side of the road, his telescope scanning the fields. A low-roofed cottage with several attached out-buildings was nestled into the landscape in front of him. The home was about a hundred yards distant and close to the intersection of the road he was on and the one that led up to Dunnet Head and down towards Dwarwick Pier. He trained his telescope on each of the cottage’s windows. All the curtains were drawn bar two - one in front and one on the western end of the cottage. Both had narrow gaps between the curtains. It was possible the curtains didn’t close properly, but Clement considered the gap was enough for an eye or a muzzle. He studied each window again. No cap was visible in any of the front windows. Nothing stirred. The cottage appeared vacant and no farm workers were in the adjacent fields.
Clement looked back over his shoulder and checked the view in all directions. Whilst this cottage had an expansive view south, back along the track he had just taken, it had no view of the pier and while he knew Reg would never have chosen the cottage for their purposes, Clement believed it to be the ideal cottage for his enemy. Time and tide. These his enemy already knew. No need for a view of the bay. The perfect cottage for Clement was to his left. He trained his telescope on the building. Reg’s cap sat on a window sill at the southern end of the cottage.
Chapter 25
Clement crawled the short distance to the rear wall of the cottage, reached up and knocked on the window. A minute later he heard it open. Standing, he glanced back over his shoulder but saw no one.
‘What’s been happening, Clement?’
‘Tell me about the other cottages?’ he said climbing in and closing the window behind him.
‘There’s only two this side of the road in from Dunnet; this one and the one at the intersection. A farm hand answered the door there. He said the farmer and his wife were in Castletown. Wasn’t too keen to talk, almost slammed the door in my face. But he did say he would stay indoors for the next few hours. There is one person here though, also not inclined to leave.’
‘Who?’
‘The owner, Mrs Ferguson.’
The door to the room opened and a stern-faced woman of late middle-age stood facing him.
Clement smiled at the woman. ‘I apologise for our presence in your home, madam.’
She nodded in Reg’s direction. ‘He said you’d be coming.’
Clement held the woman’s gaze. ‘I must insist you leave now, Mrs Ferguson, before it gets dark. I have reason to believe that a very dangerous man is in the area and I cannot guarantee your safety if you remain.’
The woman grunted, glancing at Reg. ‘As I told this one. My home, my rules.’
The woman’s square jaw closed. Clement could see there was little use in arguing. But while he didn’t want another senseless death, he also didn’t have the luxury of time for debate. His gaze shifted to Reg then back to the woman. ‘Very well. Is there anyone else in the house?’
‘No.�
��
Something about the woman’s quick reply troubled him. ‘Are you expecting someone to return today? And by that, I mean tonight as well?’
The woman’s lips pursed, as though she had been caught out. ‘My daughter will be home when she’s finished washing dishes.’
Clement knew whom she meant; the girl at The Dunnet Hotel. But there wasn’t enough time to warn her to stay away. And, he couldn’t spare Reg. He prayed for a full Mess.
‘A cup of tea would be appreciated, Mrs Ferguson, if you have any?’
‘I suppose I could spare some.’
The woman turned on her heel, Clement staring after her.
‘Don’t mind her, Clement. It’s nothing personal. Did you know there are about ten thousand military personnel in Caithness at present? The homes and lives of locals have been disrupted, that’s all. I know what it’s like to see strangers trample through your home. I took the bus to The Dunnet Hotel, by the way.’
‘I saw it. Were there any other vehicles there?’
‘No. I telephoned the base at Thurdistoft before leaving the hotel though, to warn them about a possible submarine sighting to coincide with the high tide this afternoon. That had them running. And something else, Clement. Wing Commander Atcherley, the Commanding Officer at the Base, was in the hotel for lunch. He was meeting with the local Home Guard. I gather you and he met?’
‘Yes, briefly.’
‘When I asked for the Stens, Atcherley ordered some of the Auxiliary Unit lads from the Home Guard to hand over two. You must have made quite an impression. I thought I’d have a real battle on my hands.’
