The Screaming Gull

by Angus MacVicar

  “Mr. Williamson,” said Lawson slowly, “if there were more of your kind in the world there would be no need of a Secret Service.”

  The old man chuckled.

  “Hang on, gentlemen!” he warned us. “Jimmy’s a duvvil at the turnin’!”

  The young steersman, thus criticized, grinned widely and leaned over on the little brass wheel, and its spokes twinkled as they whirled into action.

  Slowly I saw the dim bow swing to starboard, and it was then that I realized the value of the skipper’s warning. A huge wave caught the Noblesse on the port counter and she reeled drunkenly to starboard under the impact of the blow. How Williamson and Jimmy kept their feet was a miracle. I peered through the windows of the wheelhouse to my right and saw vaguely the white-flecked, heaving sea sweep up to meet us. I strained backwards until I thought my calf-muscles would snap, and when at last the sea seemed to sink down, away from us, a great thankfulness overcame me.

  Again the Noblesse swung round, but this time Jimmy, at the wheel, was able to avoid an oncoming roller. But a new danger threatened us on this occasion. The little vessel had turned, it seemed to me, when balanced precariously on the very crest of a wave, and in a moment we were slithering down, in a hideous sideways tumble, into the deep trough to the left. Again I saw the dark angry sea leering up at the window, and I thought for a wild moment that we were going to turn turtle. The wind whistled and roared around the wheelhouse, and I had the sensation of being dropped down an immense well.

  Chapter 14

  We seemed to reach the bottom of the trough with a jarring thud, and the following wave struck the gallant Noblesse amidships. A great cloud of spray crashed on the decks and a mighty weight of water lashed against the glass of our shelter.

  “Steady, Jimmy!” commanded the skipper conversationally. “Keep her there!”

  Forward now we plunged, and, guided by that mysterious agency which cares for a vessel on a straight course, the Noblesse again settled down to a steady rolling and pitching. I sighed and thanked Providence inwardly that those few wild moments of turning had passed.

  “Good lord!” I said. “That was a great bit of seamanship!”

  “Och, that!” returned the skipper. “Ye should see Jimmy at it when there’s a rale jabble o’ sea on!”

  But both he and Jimmy were pleased, I think, at the compliment.

  The weather had cleared to a certain extent by seven o’clock, and the moon shone out fitfully through the scudding clouds. On Lawson’s request Williamson doused his mast-head light and switched off the gleaming bulb in the wheelhouse. Not much suspicion would attach to a fishing boat were it glimpsed from the island; but Lawson thought it better to be on the safe side.

  In the moonlight we could see the dim outlines of Ringan and Oa looming close. We were approaching them from the north side, and our view, therefore, was different from that which had been granted us from Dunaverty on the previous day. In their present perspective the islands showed not the slightest resemblance to a Cow and Calf. It must, I thought, have been a native of Blaan who had originally lit upon their descriptive names. Both now seemed broad and foreshortened, instead of long and narrow as they had appeared on our first glimpse of them.

  Ringan looked bleak and deserted. Not a twinkle of light showed anywhere along its forbidding front; but I was aware, from the bartender’s information, that the home of the Blind One was situated on the west side of the island, which at the moment was hidden from us.

  “Where dae ye want tae be putt ashore?” asked the skipper.

  “Neither of us have been on the island,” Lawson explained. “Could you find a suitable spot away from the usual landing place?”

  “It’ll be an ill job on a nicht like this,” mused the Hoodie. “Oh, weel, maybe no’ — noo that I come tae think o’t… Jimmy! What aboot the Smuggler’s Cove?”

  “Fine,” replied the youngster. “It’s gey near as sheltered as the slip itsel’.”

  “We could slide up agin the Slate Rock,” suggested the skipper.

  “Ay,” said Jimmy, a man of deeds, not of words. “Easy!”

  “Where’s the Smuggler’s Cove?” I asked.

  Williamson pointed through the moonlight.

  “Aboot half a mile sooth o’ the harbour,” he said.

  There was no danger, I knew, of the noise of the engines reaching the ears of the people on the island; for the high wind which was howling in the Sound and the roar of the waves would effectively muffle it.

  Closer we drew to Ringan, and the usual harbour and slip, nestling in a fold of the land, was pointed out to us by old Williamson as we passed. At ten minutes past seven — according to my wristwatch — we slid out of the running sea into the shelter of a little bay, two sides of which were enclosed by high basalt cliffs. A third side seemed to be composed of a steep, shelving bank of heather-bound turf.

  Inside the natural harbour the skipper shut off his engines, for fear of the echo reaching anyone on shore and for fear of startling the sleeping sea-birds. Jimmy, even in the gloom, was confident of his direction and swung the Noblesse round in a gentle curve until she possessed scarcely a vestige of leeway. Just as I imagined we were about to drift ashore, the bows bumped gently against a flat, smooth rock which jutted out from the least precipitous side of the bay.

  “Slate Rock,” said Williamson. “Canny, Jimmy!”

  He called softly to three of his crew, who had appeared on deck at the stoppage of the engines. Each holding a rope, the men leapt from the boat on to the rock, and, once ashore, snubbed the vessel against protruding pieces of the natural pier. Quietly the Noblesse rubbed her starboard side, protected by fenders made of worn motor-tyres, against the black, barnacle-covered stone.

  “Wad ye like us tae wait?” asked Williamson casually.

  “I don’t want to keep you off your work,” returned Lawson. “We’re much obliged to you for what you’ve done as it is.”

  “Och, work’s naethin’ tae us!” grinned the old man, stroking his neat grey beard and smiling all over his chubby face. “Sure it’s no’, Jimmy? The boys are needin’ a wee bit spell o’ fun — specially Jimmy. He’s a duvvil for a ploy! Maybe if — maybe if there’s any danger ye wad be pleased for us tae wait here till ye cam’ back?”

  “Very well,” agreed Lawson, and once more I realized his genius as a diplomat. “I’d consider it very sporting of you, Mr. Williamson, if you waited here for a few hours — in readiness to start at any moment. Bill and I may have to leave Ringan rather hurriedly. If we don’t return before dawn you’ll know that we’ve left the island by some other means.”

  “Richt ye are, sir!” said old Williamson. “Herrin’ wad only be aboot five shullin’s a basket onywey. Jimmy an’ me an’ the rest o’ the boys wull hae a gran’ time imaginin’ we’re pirates.”

  Lawson and I stepped on to the Slate Rock.

  *

  If I take a considerable time to describe the events of the succeeding twelve hours it is because, from the point of view of importance and excitement, they are more worthy of note than any which previously occurred in the strange adventure of ‘The Screaming Gull’. They gave me a new idea of courage and helped to stiffen my manhood; while at the same time they gave me an insight into the queer hallucinations which sometimes take possession of the human mind.

  In Lady O’Brian — the Blind One — I found a character which I could not before have believed to exist, except perhaps in books with a modern psychological tendency. That anyone living in the twentieth century could imagine, without a scrap of evidence to support her contention, that she was directly descended from a long line of kings and that she had inherited the Divine Right of the Stuarts, seemed to me the rankest nonsense. And yet this was the notion which had possessed Lady O’Brian for a decade.

  It was later discovered by the police that the Blind One in her youth had actually been a streetwalker in Paris and that by some means she had persuaded an Irish baronet, by name O’Brian, to
marry her. Perhaps rather fortunately for himself, this gentleman had died two years after the wedding. Lady O’Brian had re-joined her old associates, but had, at the same time, retained her late husband’s name; and, probably on account of her title, coupled with a natural ability for leadership, she had become a person of importance in the underworlds of four different countries.

  Scotland Yard and the Paris Sûreté had a fair knowledge of her record. Though not once had they been able to arrest her on a specific charge, the police suspected that many deeds of violence, brought home to lesser criminals, had been conceived in her brain. But none of her underlings had ever betrayed her secret.

  On one occasion in Paris, however, a Spanish blackmailer, by name Fernandez, had broken down under ten lashes of the ‘cat’, and had shrieked out imprecations on her head. He had cursed her luring beauty; he had cursed her soft white arms and the golden hair of her; he had cursed her mocking eyes and the cold cruelty which underlay her warm, sweet smile. He had told of her growing power, of her cunning manipulation of men. But then, when his French captors requested him to reveal her headquarters and to specify even one crime which might have been proved against her, Fernandez had suddenly grown silent. His face had become ashen.

  “I will tell nothing!” he had cried. “Too much have I said already! She will hear of my curses… God!”

  Fernandez had been released from gaol three weeks later, and on the first evening of his freedom his bullet-riddled body had been picked out of the Seine. The murder mystery had never been solved.

  From various other sources the British and Continental police had learned the common view of Lady O’Brian’s character held by her associates. She ruled not by love, but by fear. Her trusted retainers gave her dog-like devotion; for she was lavish with her favours when she pleased. But none of them knew the moment when, like the master of a dog, she would cease her kind caresses and kick out with savage cruelty.

  When her sight and her dazzling beauty began to fail, as a result of the life she had led in girlhood, she had become even more imperious and capricious. But her lust for power and her skill as a criminal had actually grown more evident. Shortly after the Great War her attention had been directed by accident to the struggling society known as ‘The Screaming Gull’, which claimed to have its origins in the Jacobite cause; and it was at this period, apparently, that the amazing idea of her kingly descent began to enter her otherwise keen brain.

  The fact that her maiden name was Delroi may have had something to do with her strange notion, and a contributory cause may have been that she remembered her father, a native of Avignon, where Prince Charlie is said to have passed a portion of his exile, having shouted in his cups that his great-grandfather had been an exiled Scottish prince.

  She became a fanatic in the cause of ‘The Screaming Gull’, ultimately becoming its leader. Year by year she had gained more influence, and, what was more important, she had been able to arouse the interest of a group of financiers in her mad scheme of setting up Scotland as a separate state, with herself as ruler. And the woman’s immense energy, imagination and power can receive no finer tribute than the plain fact that she almost proved successful in her wild and terrible plans. All over Scotland — in nearly every town and village — groups of her followers were waiting her final orders, and had they been issued from Ringan nothing could have prevented the greatest tragedy of modern history.

  It was not until long after that memorable night on Ringan, of course, that I became aware of the strange old woman’s past history. All I knew at the time was that Lawson and I had before us a task which made me quail in terror, and that Maureen, if all had gone well, must already be within the gates of Lady O’Brian’s house.

  We whispered a goodbye to ‘the Hoodie’ and his crew and tackled the stiff climb to the tableland, which, from the Blaan shore, gave the island the appearance of having raised shoulders like a resting cow. The slope was soft and had been rendered slippery by the recent rains. Several times I slipped on a rickle of loose stones half-embedded in the mud, and it was more by good fortune than by any climbing merit which I possessed that I was able to prevent myself from slithering back down on to the Slate Rock. Lawson panted beside me, muttering a queer mixture of prayers and curses.

  Unlike the previous night, when the whole sky had seemed to have been covered by a huge black veil, there were many rifts in the shifting clouds, and the stars and the moon, shining intermittently, provided us with sufficient light for our purpose. There was a nip of frost in the air, however, which stung our faces and chilled our hands. But the steady exercise of the climb helped to keep our bodies warm and comfortable.

  After what I imagined to have been an eternity of exertion we gained at last the level of the plateau, and I was rather startled when I rose to my feet to hear a swift patter near at hand. It was as if we had aroused a group of sleeping children who had immediately taken flight. I could hear little feet swish through the damp heather and thud on the patches of bare grass.

  I peered anxiously into the darkness, for I had not expected to find any sign of life on this side of the island. And then suddenly I laughed.

  “Sheep,” Lawson had explained shortly. “Old ewes. They sensed us a hundred yards away.”

  “My nerves,” I said, “must be getting jumpy.”

  “There’s an axiom of the Service,” he replied, “to the effect that when a man’s nerve begins to go he should apply for a job as a bus driver in one of the big cities. That cures him of all daydreams.”

  “You and your axioms!” I growled. “There are no big cities and no buses on Ringan!”

  “From the lay of the land, Bill,” continued Lawson, unperturbed, “and from the bartender’s description, where do you think the Blind One’s house lies?”

  I pointed to a kind of depression, like a shallow glen, which appeared to divide the dim plateau where its dark outline met the indigo sky.

  “Probably at the shore level, sheltered in the mouth of that hollow.”

  “Let’s get there. It can’t be much more than a mile away.”

  The heather clumps on the summit of the island were deep and carried a great deal of moisture. Before we had ploughed our way through them for a hundred yards my feet were sopping wet and my trouser-legs were flapping heavily against my ankles. Aunt Jane, had she observed my plight, would have immediately screamed, “Pneumonia!” and collapsed on the spot. Poor Aunt Jane! Tomorrow she and my sister Annie would see an end to their anxiety. But what form that end would take I could not tell.

  High above the sea-level as we were, the wind roared constantly in our ears, buffeting us as we staggered westwards against it. The further we proceeded the more it seemed to gain in strength, for actually at the summit of the slope above the Slate Rock we had been comparatively sheltered by a still higher eminence to our right. It cracked and volleyed in our ears and forced the breath back through our nostrils as we breathed. When we opened our mouths to speak it was as if elastic fingers plucked at our lips. I had often wondered, when I had seen the picture of an airman unprotected by a cowl and actually in flight, why his mouth should have been so strangely contorted. Now I understood.

  We reached the opening of the hollow, at the foot of which we hoped to discover the home of the Blind One, and found our way impeded by a miniature forest of bramble-bushes. They seemed to fill the glen. Skirting the first depression, therefore, we circled slowly in order to reach the other side of the hollow, but before we had made a complete detour we were surprised to come upon a hard surfaced track, apparently leading from the landing-slip to Lady O’Brian’s house. We followed this road, not by walking along it, but by climbing a fence on its farther side and gripping the wires in the darkness.

  The track, after twisting and turning among a series of scarps and boulders on the plateau, suddenly began a rapid descent. It did not, of course, plunge straight down, but curled back and forth like a scenic railway. Lawson struck his shin against a loose rock among th
e heather and swore with some vigour.

  “Secret Service!” he muttered. “It’s a ploughman one would need to be on this job! Or a cat!”

  Then we came in sight of the house.

  *

  From two windows in the side lacing us blazed bright lights. As far as we could judge in the darkness the building was situated, as we had suspected, on a great square of turf by the shore. The place resembled a steamer at anchor, riding in the estuary of a black river, which ran down from the glen.

  It was a queer house to have been erected on this lonely island, where the difficulty of procuring suitable building materials must have been very great. There seemed to be over a score of rooms in the place, besides outbuildings of every description. The main structure was almost square in shape, having two distinct wings on either side of immense stone buttresses.

  Sometime afterwards I learned from Professor Campbell, Merriman’s host in Blaan, that the house had been built by the last of the Macdonells of Antrim about the middle of the nineteenth century. Æneas Macdonell, who could trace his descent from Colkitto of Islay, had been an eccentric old bachelor. He had formed the singular notion that the Clan Campbell, hereditary enemies of his people, were still plotting to capture his person and to confiscate the little money which he had made as a lawyer. Gathering an army of workmen together, therefore, he had brought them to Ringan, at that time one of his family possessions, and work on the house had begun under his direct supervision. The high, glass-topped surrounding wall, behind which he hoped to be safe from his imagined enemies, had been his special pride. Stone, lime, and other necessary materials had actually been shipped from Antrim in fishing-smacks, ceaselessly plying back and forth across the North Channel.

  It had been from the executors of this latterly impoverished gentleman that Lady O’Brian had purchased the island, along with its little dependency of Oa and the remarkable house; but immediately she had come into possession the building had been completely modernized, electric light and a telephone, for example, having been installed.