And the Land Lay Still

by James Robertson

  Not quite from nowhere, he said, savouring the absence of ‘sir’ at the end of his sentences: after what they’d done to him, fucked if he was going to call Canterbury anything that hinted at respect.

  The SNP didn’t put up a candidate in Hamilton at the General Election last year. Or the one before that. That’s nowhere, isn’t it?

  There have been signs of growth, Peter said. He made a real effort and carried on. They’ve been building quite an impressive network of branches over the last few years. Fund-raising like mad. They poured their people into Hamilton because they sensed the voters might be ready for a change. The Labour man wasn’t going to give them that. Mrs Ewing, on the other hand, was a very good candidate. Young, articulate, sparky, female. It was Hamilton but it might have happened anywhere.

  Wonderful candidate, Canterbury said drily. Good luck to her. But what next? Is this an isolated incident, or can we expect to see seats starting to fall like ninepins?

  STOP THE WORLD, SCOTLAND WANTS TO GET ON, Croick intoned, repeating Ewing’s campaign slogan. He spoke English like a learned foreigner, faultlessly and without passion. There was a strong accent hidden away in the recesses. Peter tried to pinpoint it: Aberdeen, Buchan, somewhere up there perhaps? He thought, have I met this guy before?

  It could be seen as a warning shot, Peter said. Start paying us attention.

  How much bloody attention? Canterbury snapped. You’ve been given a steelworks, car plants, a bridge across the Forth, hydro schemes, new universities, motorways, better housing. It’s not as if things haven’t got better. What more do you want from us?

  Not us, Croick said gently. This isn’t a you-and-us situation.

  Of course not. I meant, what more does Scotland want? The Scots. He threw an angry glance at Peter.

  If it were, Croick said, you’d be alone and outnumbered. Eh, Peter?

  Peter grinned, warmed by the slight menace in Croick’s voice.

  From what Peter’s been saying, Croick went on, and from a wider political analysis, we can assess that Hamilton is not, necessarily, an isolated incident. The important question is, how do we make it one? How do we ensure it doesn’t happen again?

  There was a suitable pause while they all considered that, or it seemed to Peter that that was what they were doing. He said:

  That’s not really our job, is it?

  Canterbury said, What isn’t?

  Fixing elections.

  Croick shook his head sadly, implying that of course we wouldn’t stoop so low.

  Canterbury said, Why not? but not as if he was disputing the issue, more like a teacher coaching a promising pupil, or a quizmaster on TV: Come on, ten points if you get this right.

  Well, it’s democracy, isn’t it? The SNP is a legitimate political party. You can’t stop people voting for that, not in this country.

  No, Croick said, in a careful, perhaps regretful tone. But you could say that about the CP too. That doesn’t mean we don’t watch what they’re up to.

  What if people don’t really know what they’re voting for? Canterbury said. They think they’re voting for a fairer, more equal society, or they’re asserting a bit of local pride, but then one morning they wake up and find they’re living in Albania only with worse weather. Surely we shouldn’t allow that to happen?

  Do they get good weather in Albania? Croick said.

  Are we talking about Communists or Nationalists now? Peter said.

  What’s the difference? Canterbury said. They’d both change the country irrevocably if they could. There’s a balance to be struck between people’s aspirations and what, realistically, is in their best interests. You know that as well as I do, Bond. We don’t interfere in the political process, but we monitor it.

  When necessary, we manage it, Croick said. Peter’s right. It goes without saying that we have to respect the democratic will. We do respect it. You’re both right. But people should be aware of the dangers, the unintended consequences, of indulging their emotions. They need to be made aware of them. We can help there.

  Yes, we can, Canterbury said.

  That’s why we have men like you on the ground, Croick said to Peter. This isn’t just about Scotland, this is about the whole country. There are groups and individuals all over this island who, well intentioned or otherwise, want to undermine its stability, overthrow its institutions, and impose their own views on everybody else. We guard against that. We secure the premises. That’s what we do.

  Any state has to protect itself, Canterbury said. If somebody sets out to destroy the state, we take steps to prevent them. It’s a legitimate response.

  I take it we’re all agreed on that, Croick said.

  Peter nodded. He was having a relapse. He was also having difficulty remembering that he wasn’t inside any more. The way they were talking, the three of them, it was as if he’d been granted special privileges, an old boy who could still remember the school rules. But he hadn’t been to that kind of school. He wanted to get out his handkerchief and wipe from his face the clamminess that was threatening to turn into a full-on sweat, but he didn’t do it. He thought, there’s a double act going on here and I’m not one half of it.

  This 1320 Club, Croick said.

  Why 1320 again? Canterbury asked. Probably he already knew, but maybe not.

  Declaration of Arbroath, Peter said. A letter sent to the Pope by the barons of Scotland six years after Bannockburn, asserting Scotland’s independence.

  For so long as one hundred of us remain alive, we will never give in to the English, or words to that effect, Croick said helpfully. Anyway, this club. Sounds like it’s all over the place ideologically, and half-in, half-out as far as membership of the SNP is concerned. We like that.

  The party leadership don’t like it, Peter said. It makes them nervous. Anything involving Hugh MacDiarmid makes them nervous.

  You said we could ignore him, Canterbury said.

  We can, Peter said.

  We want you as close as you can get to this club, Croick said. Join if they’ll let you. And tell us what they’re up to.

  I already know what they’re up to, Peter said. They’re not very discreet. They think they’re a think tank. They’re busy setting up committees of themselves to develop policies for an independent Scotland – foreign affairs, defence, natural resources. They think independence is coming soon but England won’t allow it to happen so there’ll need to be a violent struggle. A provisional army directed by a provisional government. Some of them think about this kind of thing so much they’re convinced it’s going to happen. They are the provisional government-in-waiting.

  Comic-book stuff, Croick said, and winked at Peter. Have you come across a man called Derek Boothby?

  Indirectly, yes, Peter said. In person, no. He produces a monthly paper called Sgian Dubh. I’m a subscriber. That’s nothing to do with the 1320 Club, but he’s also the club’s Organiser. That’s what he calls himself.

  By all accounts he couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery, Croick said. (Years later, Peter remembers that one. By all accounts?) We think he’s someone to watch, possibly someone to cultivate. Army background, good connections, very self-assured.

  Peter nodded. Things slid inside his head like unsecured cargo on a listing ship. He pictured the densely packed, marginless foolscap sheets of Sgian Dubh, saw in the uneven print the passion with which Boothby bashed out prejudices and proposals on his typewriter.

  He drops a lot of hints about military training and units scattered about the country, he said. Ninety per cent of it’s what you said, comic-book stuff. Maybe all of it.

  Nevertheless, he could be useful, Croick said. Get him on his own. Groom him. Take your time.

  They talked it through. Frederick or Derek Boothby was in his late fifties, the son of a naval officer and a daughter of the Earl of Limerick. He’d gone to an English public school, done some ranching in South America and then joined the army. In the war he’d served in a tank regiment in North Africa. H
e still called himself Major, even though he’d been out of the army for fifteen years on a disability pension. Since then he’d flitted from job to job – estate manager, labourer, caravan salesman – in different parts of England. A top-heavy butterfly, Croick said. He’d disappeared for a while, then re-emerged in Edinburgh, a convert to nationalism and working for the SNP. He and the party didn’t see eye to eye though and he’d moved on, into wilder political terrain. He was currently living with his third wife in a cottage in Lanarkshire, from which every month he sent out duplicated copies of Sgian Dubh to subscribers. Boothby’s politics, when you scratched the surface, were about as far to the right as MacDiarmid’s were to the left, and yet the two men seemed to get on pretty well. They lived about twelve miles apart.

  Croick said, If you go round the back of the moon there’s a good chance you’ll meet another lunatic coming the other way.

  It bothered Peter that they seemed to want him to go chasing after clumsy butterflies. It wasn’t as if Boothby was unique, with his dreams of being hunted across the moors by helicopters and tracker dogs. There were plenty of oddballs like him knocking about on the SNP sidelines: Gaelic revivalists with cut-glass accents; former Chindits who stood at the foot of the Mound in Edinburgh on Sunday afternoons berating London rule; men who’d been Desert Rats, or liaison officers with the Yugoslavian partisans, who reckoned it was time for a bit of guerrilla action in the Highlands. The SNP squeamishly tried to keep them all at a distance, but how could it? Its cause was their cause: they thought of themselves as the soul and conscience of the party, even if they’d left it or been thrown out.

  Boothby was just another of these, surely? Or was he? Croick didn’t seem to think so. He seemed to take Boothby seriously. With Croick, there was another dimension.

  Can I ask you a question? Peter said, when they’d finished and he was about to leave.

  Go ahead.

  Where are you from? I can’t place your accent.

  Good, Croick said, with a brief grey smile.

  EDGAR: What do you mean when you say there was another dimension with Croick?

  BOND (swilling the whisky in his glass): Another agenda. Couldn’t work out what it was but it was there. Like he was an independent operator.

  EDGAR: Perhaps he was.

  BOND: Then what was he doing there with Canterbury?

  EDGAR: Briefing you, by the sound of things. Look, it’s in the nature of a state Security Service to have its rogue elements. If you’re in the business of defending the realm you’re already thinking the unthinkable. Sometimes the unthinkable may actually have to be done. What’s the golden rule in that eventuality?

  BOND: Don’t get caught.

  EDGAR: Precisely. Rogues are useful. They can do things the Service can’t, not directly. They’re prepared to get their hands dirty, allowing the Service to keep its own clean. So far so good. But the trouble with rogues is that often they don’t know when to stop. They forget where their loyalties ought to lie. Then they have to be dealt with. Damage has to be limited, bad apples disposed of.

  BOND: Why are you telling me this?

  EDGAR: I thought you were telling me. But you appear (casting an eye round the debris) to be having a little difficulty sorting it out on your own. Perhaps I can help.

  December 1967: the 1320 Club held a press conference in Edinburgh to launch their new magazine, Catalyst for the Scottish Viewpoint. Peter attended. If anybody asked he was a freelance reporter. Nobody asked. The event was at Lucky MacLeuchar’s, a pub in Newington. MacDiarmid, Boothby and company were behind a row of tables along one wall, the journalists lined up opposite and fired questions. The atmosphere was pipe smoke, kilts and beards. Peter kept well back.

  When the meeting ended, he followed Boothby outside and caught up with him striding down the street, taking enormous, noisy breaths of the cold, fresh air. Could he spare a minute or two? He was an admirer, just starting out in journalism, and intended to write a piece about Catalyst and its aims. Now that it was up and running, did Boothby mean to keep producing Sgian Dubh? Peter sincerely hoped so. He was a subscriber, by the way.

  Boothby stopped his steam-engine impressions and gave him an assessing look.

  Your name?

  Peter Bond.

  Ah yes. And what it is you like about Sgian Dubh?

  He was a big man, the Major, a solid presence in his kilt and black jacket, with bristling knees and eyebrows and a pugnacious jut to his chin. He had large, gnarled hands, a grey beard clipped like a hedge and a great bald expanse of forehead. A genial face but the eyes were intimidating. Peter started to talk. Sgian Dubh was practical, hard-hitting, realistic. It not only accepted the likelihood of violence but also planned for it. He liked the frank discussion of military strategy, the appeals for equipment and uniforms, the advice given on guerrilla tactics. He liked the statements printed on behalf of the Scottish Liberation Army. This was courageous, honest stuff. It showed that there were Nationalists who, unlike the pathetically supine, shilly-shallying SNP, meant business. He only hoped that by being so forthright the editor wasn’t handing valuable information to the enemy.

  Boothby inclined his head. Meaning?

  The British state, Peter said.

  That imperious stare again. Young man, for whom did you say you work?

  I didn’t. I work in a bookshop, but I’m also a journalist. Freelance.

  And where has your work been published?

  Well, I’m just starting out.

  Boothby frowned. Peter hung his head, a nice touch.

  Nowhere, as yet.

  Boothby looked disdainful.

  That’s why I wanted to speak to you, Peter said. I want to be useful.

  The most useful thing you can do, Boothby said, is not waste my time. Do you think I don’t already know that every word I publish is read, pored over, by the authorities? I am deliberately taunting them, challenging them. Do you imagine that I don’t dupe them into drawing conclusions about my plans that are entirely misleading? I have years of experience, young man, which you clearly do not. So please do not suggest to me that I am unwittingly handing information to the enemy.

  Peter backed off. He didn’t wish to imply … He had no doubt Major Boothby knew exactly what he was doing. What he really wanted to say was … perhaps in the future, if he could think of a way to put him to work for the cause … he’d be more than willing. He only wanted to help. Grovellingly apologetic, he turned to walk away.

  The effect was immediate. Boothby came hurrying after him, put a big clutching hand on his arm. Wait. Don’t rush off like that. I can tell you’re passionate. We’ll think of something for you to do. The cause needs new blood, enthusiasm, keen young minds. But you must learn from older and wiser heads. You must learn from me.

  It sounded like a command, it was a command, but it was also a plea. Boothby wanted a disciple.

  Others from the meeting were catching up. Now wasn’t the time. Write to me, Boothby said. You have the address from Sgian Dubh? Excellent. And remind me, where are you yourself? In Glasgow? Good, very good. Glasgow is crucial. Now, I must be getting along. What was your name again?

  Bond, Peter said. Peter Bond.

  He said it just the way Connery did in the films. Boothby was oblivious.

  Peter had a lot to learn about Glasgow. There were codes and signs in that city more complex than anything the Service could devise. Sectarian undercurrents bubbling away in wee towns further east were as nothing compared with what he found in Glasgow. It was the friendliest place on earth but it could turn vicious in seconds if you misread those signs, broke those codes. He overheard two affable, middle-aged businessmen in a West End bar discussing how you could always spot the Fenians. You don’t have to know their names, said one. Tone of voice, turn of phrase, that’s enough. Ach, who needs to hear them speak? the other retorted. Skin type, colour of hair, curliness of hair. Nine times out of ten I can tell by looking. They were laughing, they didn’t really mean it, but a
ctually they did. The disturbing thing wasn’t the casual nature of their bigotry but the truth it contained: how the tics and signals became ingrained in people’s everyday behaviour, till they hardly noticed them themselves, yet reacted to them subconsciously. Force of habit. Peter stood on Argyle Street or in Central Station as the crowds flowed past, picking out Catholics, picking out Protestants. He knew he was getting it right. He understood that he would have been a master interpreter had he grown up in Glasgow. He did have, after all, the right kind of brain for spotting the enemy, whoever they were.

  Except, of course, that he didn’t. He sees that now. An innocent walking in the valley of the shadow of faith, that’s what he was.

  One Saturday, his first summer in Glasgow, he was on Union Street when a huge Orange march swaggered down towards the Clyde. Police and stewards brought the traffic to a halt and crowds of shoppers found themselves stranded at junctions while the parade went past, a train of bright blue-and-red uniforms, orange sashes, bowler hats, banners and flags, ranting flutes and battering drums, followed by a phalanx of white-gloved, high-heeled, steely-eyed women with jaws like flat irons. Behind the lines of waiting pedestrians, some of whom were clapping and cheering while others stood silent and disdainful, a constant stream of drunk, belligerent men kept pace with the procession. When a young woman made an attempt to cut across the street between two marching bands she was flung back furiously by a red-faced steward, and one of the drunks yelled and spat at her. The air was thick with loathing.

  All through June and July, whenever Peter heard the flutes and drums of another march, the idea of a Scotland united in rebellion against the British state dissolved into the atmosphere. There seemed to him an infinitely greater chance of folk tearing each other to pieces over religion.

  He went to a couple of Old Firm games, one at Ibrox and one at Parkhead, to check the hate levels. He stood with the home support on each occasion, and learned that it was impossible to be a neutral: he had to join in the abuse, the deep, blind passion of tribal belonging, in order to walk away safely at the end of the game. He put on a reasonable display, yet there was a wall between him and the men standing around him, a barrier he could not cross. He was not of their kind and he realised he never would be.