Murdo's War

by Alan Temperley

  Suddenly a rock shifted beneath Murdo’s foot. He tried to hold it in with the pressure of his instep, but could not, and it rattled away with a little avalanche of pebbles almost to where Sigurd was standing.

  The man shaded his eyes from the brightness of the moon and tried to make out the black shapes above him.

  ‘Carl,’ he called. ‘Gunner.’

  ‘He is up there?’

  ‘I think – just a minute. I – yes, there he is!’ Sigurd pointed upwards and they all craned forward to see.

  For a moment Murdo panicked. His legs trembled on the rocks and he pressed his face close, waiting helplessly for the smashing bullet. But it did not come, and he ventured to look down again. None of the men had produced the rifle or a revolver. What would they do?

  Sigurd looked at Henry Smith. ‘Mine, I think,’ he said, with a smile. He was a mountaineer, the youngest of those who in the years before the war had performed such dazzling feats in the Alps and Himalayas for the glory of the Fatherland.

  With an answering smile, almost as if he was sanctioning a theatrical performance, Henry Smith nodded.

  Sigurd bent and tightened the laces of his boots, then stepped forward out of the moonlight. A moment later Murdo heard the clatter of stones below as the German started after him in pursuit. Swiftly he looked up, but the rocks were indistinguishable in the darkness. However they lay, there was no time to waste, and now heedless of noise he set off again, as fast as hand and foot could find grips, praying that the sharp stones he sent down might hinder the man behind him.

  But so great was his haste that he took a wrong lead, and before he knew it he was climbing out of the fissure towards the face of the crag itself. He cast about with his hand, but there was no way back except the way he had come. He glanced below – Sigurd was gaining, he had to go on. Soon he was out of the shadow, climbing across the moonlit rock face. Far below, amid the acres of dark rock mirrored with a hundred silver pools, the little white faces of the men peered up at the chase, the sea creaming at their heels. Murdo looked up, fighting back the giddy sickness, and felt steadily for handholds, for the shadows and moonlight were very deceptive. The ledges and crannies were covered with snow and he had to dust them bare with aching and almost numb fingers or with his stockinged feet, the snow spilling down the rock face and sifting into space. Once he came to a long run of ice and had to inch several yards across the sloping bulges of a thick-frozen ledge, holding fast to flutes of ice, like organ pipes glued to the cliff wall. Soon he was very high, nearing the crest, but as the rocks became more difficult Sigurd was gaining, gaining all the time. Glancing down again, Murdo saw him peering up as he reached for holds, so close that he could see the glint of moonlight on his teeth.

  From below they looked no larger than two spiders, crawling infinitely slowly across the top of the sea-crag.

  Murdo climbed on. He was nearly there. Just two feet above his outstretched hand the snowy grass commenced, sloping away to the top. Then, on the very verge of safety – there was no hold! Desperately he cast about, his belly crushed against the hard granite. But the searching fingers encountered no grip, his stockinged toes could find no knot of rock, no pebble to support him. He looked round. Sigurd was only a few feet behind him and coming up steadily. With a supreme effort Murdo flung his hand far out to the right, and with the very tips of his fingers encountered a tiny wart of rock. ‘It will have to do,’ he whispered in terror, and praying that his right toe-hold would support him, slid across, balancing against the rock, until he was able to grip the wart with the freezing tips of his fingers. His toes, having no other support, trembled with the strain, his leg began to shake. Then suddenly, as he reached up with his left hand, there was a good hold. He dusted the snow away and knotted his fingers in it, jammed his left toes against a tiny crack, and swung his other leg far out to the right where there was a solid sloping ledge. For a moment he hung there, spread eagled against the very top cornice of the rock face. With a tremendous effort he pushed, praying that the sock would not slip on his foot. It held firm, and slowly he slid up towards the steep grassy slope. For a moment he hung in the balance, chin, arms, chest, knee, all pressed desperately against the snowy tussocks for support. Then he was up, and grabbing hold of the grass, dragged himself over the corner of the precipice.

  Sigurd, with a longer reach, was only inches away. Skidding and sliding, Murdo hitched himself higher, clutching wildly at whatever met his hand, terrified of slipping backwards over the brink. But the German was too close. Suddenly Murdo felt his left ankle grabbed, and held in a grip of steel. He screamed. The hand pulled and he felt himself skidding back. One foot went over the edge. He looked down and saw Sigurd laughing through gritted teeth; his eyes glittered, thick snow powdered his curly hair and shoulders. Frantically Murdo kicked out. His left hand encountered a loose piece of rock, wedge-shaped and heavy, beneath the snow. He pulled it out and flung it down blindly with all his strength.

  There was a sickening crack; his ankle was free; a loud, falling cry filled the air. Then there was a dull thud and the cry was cut off. A few stones and pebbles rattled away down the rocks. Trembling and sobbing, Murdo scrabbled and clawed his way up the snowy slope to safety. From below there came the sound of confused shouting, fading away in the direction of the cave.

  For a full minute, Murdo was unable to move, panting and distressed, staring at the tracks he had made in the snow and the terrible drop beyond. Then, hardly knowing what he was doing, heedless of the aching cold in his feet, he ran back along the top of the cliffs until he reached the gates of the wintry and deserted graveyard.

  The cars were parked as Hector and Henry Smith had left them three days earlier, one on either side of the track, facing down into the dunes. The bonnets and roofs were piled high with snow and it had drifted against the doors. Quickly Murdo brushed the snow from the windscreen of Hector’s old Ford, and scarred his finger- nails across the hard granular ice. He could never clear it that way. He thought for a moment then hurried round the boot to see whether there was any petrol or paraffin there. It had frozen shut, but with a great wrench he managed to tear it open. Half a dozen bottles of whisky remained in a crate. He grabbed a couple and running back to the windscreen poured a whole bottle down the glass and over the headlights. The ice vanished as if by magic. He kicked the drift from the running-board, pulled open the driver’s door and jumped in, flinging his tackety boots off the seat.

  As always, the key was under the mat. He switched on and pulled the starter. The engine whirred. Again – the engine whirred discouragingly.

  ‘Give it some choke, you fool,’ he said to himself, and pulled the knob full out.

  Still no success.

  ‘Come on! Come on!’

  Again and again he pulled at the starter, his snowy stocking hovering above the accelerator, ready to catch it when the engine fired.

  Nothing!

  Reaching over to the back seat he grabbed the starting handle and dodged out to the front of the car.

  ‘Come on! Where are you?’ His numb fingers could not find the slot. ‘Ah!’ He spread his legs and jerked the handle. Once – twice. The engine flopped over, completely dead. Again – his fingers slipped and gashed against the bumper, but this time the engine choked. A fourth time – and suddenly the engine roared into life.

  Snatching the handle clear and shaking his fingers with pain, he raced around the side of the car. But suddenly, through the graveyard gates, the Germans were upon him. With all his strength Murdo flung the iron handle at their heads and leaped into the car, slamming and locking the door against them. Swiftly he leaned across and snapped the locking button on the passenger door also.

  They were at the window, hammering on the glass. Big hands seized the handles. He trod hard on the accelerator, making the engine roar, and flicked on the headlights. Dazzling bodies dashed across in front of the bonnet. Unshaven faces peered through the windows, twisted with shouting. Heavy fists pounded on the r
oof. The car lurched violently. Murdo flung it into gear, lifted his foot from the clutch and shot forward down the track. He had a brief vision of men leaping clear all round – then they were behind him. He braked, banged the gears into reverse, and spinning wildly, shot backwards. There was a heavy bump as the boot struck someone. The car swung violently and careered half way up the grassy bank, then came to rest and slid slowly forward. The Germans were in front of him again, dazzled by the headlights. Almost ignoring the clutch, Murdo crashed through the gears into first, trod down hard on the accelerator, and roared at full throttle straight into them. For a split second they wavered, then broke, and scattered from his path. Henry Smith, Carl Voss, Bjorn – he saw them all. They were there, they were gone – and the car fled on up the snow- covered road. Behind him there was the unmistakable crack of a rifle: instantaneously a bullet tore through the roof. Then he was round the bend and out of sight.

  The windscreen was freezing on the inside. Murdo pressed his hand against it, but it froze over at once. Reaching across to the passenger seat he pulled the second bottle of whisky on to his lap and felt under the dashboard for a rag. Drawing the cork with his teeth, he slopped some whisky on to it and cleared the ice away. The road ahead was brilliant in the main beam of the headlights. The old car rattled and skidded through the dunes, leaping and spinning half out of control on the icy corners, wreaths of snow swirling from the bonnet and roof. In a few minutes, Murdo thought, he would be in Strathy. It couldn’t be more than nine or ten o’clock. On a Friday night there would be at least half a dozen men at the inn; the landlord had several shotguns and a rifle. He had seen them in a glass-fronted cupboard.

  Then suddenly his iced rear window was blinded out by the powerful lights of a car coming up from behind. As he swung round a tight corner he could see across his shoulder the blazing headlamps eating up the road at a tremendous rate. They could not be more than two or three hundred yards behind. He pressed his foot still further down on the throttle, the car would hardly hold the road. Still they came on. A sharp crest sprang up ahead, the car leaped, then he was slithering and snaking down the steep snowy brae that led to the narrow crossroads where he had to turn right for the village. Too late he tried to brake, jamming the pedal to the floor, but he was going too fast, the wheels had no grip. The car slewed wildly from side to side, the main road rushed towards him. For an instant he hesitated, then he was upon it, and over, leaping and bucking on the glen road beyond. He fought to keep the wheels out of the ditch. His speed fell. With numb horror he realised what he had done. There was no time to reverse. Already the German car was swishing down to the crossroads behind him. Bitterly he cursed his stupidity. Ahead – the road led miles and miles into the moors and the empty hills, to a deserted bothy, to nowhere. And behind, the German car crept up to his heels.

  For the moment there was nothing to do but drive on. With his mouth dry, Murdo nursed the car up the rough snowy track, a twisting ribbon between the fringing clumps of moorland grass and heather. On his left the endless hills rose gently, rolling into the shadowy gloom of the night; on his right the land fell away to the frozen river in the bottom of the broad glen.

  He had never travelled all the way up the strath before, only as far as Hector’s peat banks, and the lodge and cottage at Bowside, three miles from the village. But the road wound on past these to the new forestry plantations, and beyond that again to the lonely shepherds’ bothy at Loch Strathy. His eyes flickered down to the petrol gauge – at least the tank was full. For a moment he half smiled, remembering the deal Hector had made with some RAF boys, trading whisky and venison for a drum of the pink high- octane aeroplane fuel. Then the smile faded and he wondered what had become of his old friend down there on the beach.

  Behind him the Germans had stopped weaving, stopped looking for a place where they could nose past with their more powerful car. Quietly they came on about ten yards behind. Murdo shifted the driving mirror so that the headlights did not dazzle him.

  In a few minutes they were at the Bowside turning. Looking across, Murdo could see that there was no-one at home. The houses were dark, hunched against the snowy hills. Nevertheless he jammed his hand on the horn and blew a long, harsh blast. The shocking sound reverberated over the silent moors. Down towards the river a herd of red deer rose to their feet, shifting nervously before they took to flight, springing in beautiful bounds almost parallel with the rocking cars. But no light or movement showed from the lonely buildings.

  Mile followed mile. The bare hillsides suddenly became thick with trees as the cars lurched over a cattle grid between deer fences and entered the forestry area. Briefly Murdo thought of running for it, leaving the car and racing for shelter among the dense thickets of young spruce; but he had no chance of succeeding, not with the German car so close behind.

  And then they were out of the forest again, pushing through the long, slanting snow-wreaths on the open moor. The moon was full in his face, white plains and slopes gleamed in the distance beyond the reach of the headlights. A range of hills ten miles away was clearly etched against the pale sky. Even as he strove to keep ahead of his pursuers, Murdo was dimly aware that the night was exceptionally beautiful. Life seemed very precious. He glanced back at the car behind. Inexorably it came on.

  A blackcock clattered up with a harsh cry, almost it seemed from under his wheels, and circled away to the left. The hen bird followed at its tail and there was a sickening thud as it struck the wing of the car. Two or three feathers shone momentarily in the headlights. Murdo grimaced and drove on.

  He tried to estimate how far they had come. Ten – twelve miles? It must be something like that, he decided. The end of the road could not be very far away. What would happen when they reached it? Would he be able to make a run for it, or would they simply capture him and take him back to the cave? It depended who was in the car. He would at least be safe, he thought, if Bjorn Larvik was there. But if he was not... !

  He swung tightly round a banked corner and suddenly the road dropped steeply away. There, forty feet below him, was a wide ford, shrunk in the frosty weather to a narrow channel of black water between the banks of ice. He braked hard, but the descent was too steep. The old car bucked and skidded crazily as the patched ice shot up to meet it. Bang! The front wheels snapped up into the body like an explosion. Murdo crashed forward into the windscreen, the steering wheel thudded against his ribs. For a moment the car tottered on two wheels, then fell back, spun, and shot viciously at the far bank, slewing and snaking in the mud and ice. Crack! It hit the road again. The lights pierced the sky. The car fell heavily, rattling like a trailer-load of scrap iron, and fled towards the broad ditch. But miraculously the wheels held. It bounced off the verge, careered into a boulder, and skidded on up the treacherous road.

  Murdo clung to the steering wheel and blinked dazedly and fiercely up the brilliant track ahead. His teeth were set, he sniffed back a trickle of blood from one nostril.

  Slowly he became aware that something was different. The lights were no longer on his tail. Instead, the whole summit of a nearby knoll was illuminated. He slowed and looked more closely, swinging the driving mirror, then slowing still further, opened the car door and glanced back. Dark and indistinct, the great car lay helplessly on its side, lights blazing across the hillside and into the air. He stopped and waited to see what would happen. Slowly a door opened and a dim figure started to climb out. The lights went off, and he could see the car more clearly against the moonlit snow. Another figure emerged. From what Murdo could estimate it was hopeless, they would never get the car back on the road.

  With unspeakable relief he pulled the door shut, slipped Hector’s car into gear and rattled on up the road. The suspension had gone and every boulder jerked the body with a heavy ‘clunk’.

  But his relief was short-lived. Only a mile further on, the track ran out into a snowy space beside a small deserted cottage, and ceased. It was the Loch Strathy bothy.

  Murdo switche
d off the lights and looked back. A frighteningly short distance away the inside light of the German car twinkled warmly amid the white wilderness. He could not distinguish the figures, but the light flickered time and again as if people were passing in front of it.

  Swiftly he rummaged on the floor for his tackety boots. The Germans would not be long in following, that was certain. They must see the cottage, and Henry Smith would have binoculars and maps. Hastily he crammed his feet into his boots and dragged the laces together. What else? He pulled out the car key and pocketed it. The car itself contained nothing that he wanted except an old black and white toorie. He pulled it on the back of his head and patted the pockets of his trousers and khaki battledress jacket. His fingers touched his father’s clasp knife and a screwed-up handkerchief – there seemed to be nothing else.

  With a sudden clang something smacked into the car with enormous power, and the crack of a rifle echoed across the moors. There was not a second to lose. Murdo reached to the floor for the fallen bottle of whisky, slammed the car door and locked it. Then, crouching as he ran across the clearing, he put the old bothy between himself and the shooting.

  Clearly it was no use hiding, they would be sure to find him. He must take to the moors. He looked from the neighbouring hills to Loch Strathy, a mile distant and covered with ice and drifted snow, trying to decide which way he should go. There was only one answer – upwards. Drawing a deep, determined breath he shoved the bottle of whisky down the front of his battle-dress, leaned momentarily against the gable wall of the cottage, then pushed himself off towards the foot of the rough slope.

  After the comfort of the car the night seemed bitterly cold, but at least he had warmed through after that day on the seashore, and a few minutes’ exercise brought the heat coursing through his body. At first his leg ached and burned like fire, but it no longer seemed to be bleeding, and when he felt it gingerly with his fingers the cold stickiness had gone, leaving a hard patch on the side of his trousers.