The Prisoner's Dilemma

by Sean Stuart O'Connor

  She gently lay Sophie on the floor as close to the warmth as she dared and tore off her soaked dress. Carefully she rubbed her with a towel. At some point Annie remembered that she’d heard that drowning people should be on their side and as she moved Sophie a great shake went through the girl and she began to cough and choke. Then she was still though, and lay exhausted on the floor, panting whilst the housekeeper put dry clothes on her.

  As her strength returned Sophie pushed herself up onto an elbow. She looked at Annie’s smiling face but seemed to be so shocked and bewildered that she stared uncomprehendingly at the kindly old woman. Nothing made sense to her and she broke down in tears, utterly distressed and beaten, crying out in hysterical and sob-ridden bursts of German. Annie hugged and gently rocked her, urging her to be calm.

  The door opened and Dunbeath came in. He glanced down at the two women and walked casually past them to where a barrel of whisky stood. He drew off a glass.

  ‘What’s she saying, Master? I cannae understand the poor wee thing.’

  ‘She’s crying for her mother,’ he said flatly.

  Without another word he turned and strode back towards the Grey Tower.

  Chapter 7

  As the first pink rays of dawn spread over the ancient castle the storm began to blow itself out. Just as the violence of the previous day had seemed to rise from nothing so the wind now dropped again to the merest breeze and thin winter sunshine broke through the heavy cloud and washed gently over Dunbeaton Bay. The sea had calmed and its surface now sparkled in the brightness. Even the castle’s grim granite seemed to come alive as the soft light bounced off the tiny specks of quartz on the face of the stone, and the horrors of the previous night, just a few short hours before, now seemed impossible.

  In the kitchen Annie sat at her table, smiling yet again as she watched Sophie asleep in front of the fire. The old housekeeper had woken often during the night, panicked that her exquisite flotsam was suffering and she had frequently jumped up to adjust a blanket or build up the flames in the grate.

  Sophie’s eyes flickered and then opened. She lay still for a moment, gazing at the red embers in the fire before she jerked feverishly upright, blinking wildly as she looked about her.

  Annie came quickly over.

  ‘Oh, hush, hush, my heart. Lie down. You’re safe here.’

  Sophie blinked again, and then replied in heavily accented English.

  ‘Who are you? Where is this?’

  ‘Why, you’re in the Castle of Beath, my lovely one. In Scotland. Do you not remember?’

  ‘Scotland?’ Sophie turned away and then lapsed into German. ‘So that was where the lunatic was taking us.’

  ‘Let me make you some porridge. You will need to eat to get your strength back.’

  As Annie began to prepare the oats Dunbeath strode into the room, an open letter in his hand. He glanced down at Sophie but then turned away to speak to Annie.

  ‘Your cousin, McKay, returned from Edinburgh this morning. I saw him as he was walking to the castle. We shall be having company soon. I wrote to a friend of mine, Mr David Hume, inviting him to visit and he’s written back to say that he will be with us in a month’s time. He has commitments, he says, and could not come any earlier. Give him the Blue Room when he arrives. You will have to make it ready.’

  ‘Company you say? A friend? Well, I am very glad for you, my lord. Aye, I shall make his room most welcome. But will you no say something to this poor child? I found her in the water last night, more dead than alive.’

  Dunbeath looked coolly down at the girl.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Königsberg. It is in Prussia. Do you speak our language?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Dunbeath replied in German. ‘I am a man of science. The literature is often in your tongue.’

  ‘I speak English,’ she replied, also in German. ‘My grandfather was from Scotland. How strange I should find myself here. My father taught us English and we spoke it at home. We have a Scottish name but my father changed the spelling.’

  Dunbeath had already wearied of this trivial exchange and had turned to leave. Sophie quickly continued.

  ‘Can you tell me how I came to be here, sir? There was a terrible storm. We were on the rocks. I remember I was thrown into the sea.’

  ‘Annie McKay here found you. She says you had nearly drowned. You owe her your life.’

  Sophie looked quickly towards the housekeeper.

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’

  She paused and then turned back to Dunbeath.

  ‘And the ship? Did it sink?’

  ‘Sink? Yes, of course. It blew up. Exploded.’

  ‘Exploded? Why would it explode?’

  Dunbeath looked down at her, his indifference now replaced by a sardonic gaze.

  ‘You don’t know? How strange. You sailed in her but you weren’t aware of the cargo.’ His head tilted slightly and he sniffed. ‘I presume it went up because it was full of gunpowder. Now, why would that be?’

  Sophie answered quietly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ She looked away, silent in thought. Then her gaze moved back to Dunbeath.

  ‘Do you know what became of the crew, sir? Was anyone killed?’

  Dunbeath started as if hesitant to break the news. Then his studied disdain for the human race returned.

  ‘Yes. They all were.’

  ‘All? All?’

  Sophie sat up straight, suddenly completely revitalised by this news. She threw back the blanket and jumped to her feet. Annie had been unable to follow their German conversation and she now looked up in amazement at the sight of Sophie so apparently recovered. Not half a minute ago she had seemed closer to death than to life but now the girl held her arms in the air and began to dance around the room, waving wildly. As she did so she laughed and sang, repeating the same phrase again and again.

  ‘Alle gestorben! Alle gestorben! Zweig ist tot! Zweig ist tot!’

  Dunbeath stood as if contemplating her performance for a moment before he glanced blankly at Annie and walked briskly out of the room for his observatory. As he left the room Sophie came to a sudden stop and her smile faded. She stared into space.

  ‘But, poor Schnapps. Poor Schnapps.’

  * * *

  Although it wasn’t yet noon the people of Dunbeaton and the surrounding villages had been at their work since the wind had dropped in the early hours. Taking advantage of the change in the storm’s ferocity they had launched their boats and had been scouring the surface of the water for anything to be found of salvage value. Occasionally they’d come across a half submerged body amongst the wreckage and would put a rope around it and drag the poor dead thing to the shore. A line of burnt and mutilated sailors now lay on the beach, their pockets carefully emptied.

  In Dunbeaton itself Mona continued to watch over Zweig’s unconscious figure. His breathing continued to be dangerously shallow and yet he would half rise every so often and mutter orders as if he was still fighting for his ship. Then he would fall back with Mona’s hand behind his damaged head and escape again into a deep black sleep.

  Outside the cottage a pile of recovered items grew by the hour as Andrew McLeish brought in blocks and shackles, cordage and even lengths of ragged sailcloth from the bay. After a particularly fruitful journey he left his work and came into the cottage to sit watching Mona as she bathed Zweig’s head.

  ‘How does he do?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘I have sat with him all night and I fear for …’ Mona stopped her reply and looked up in alarm. From outside the cottage there had come a sudden clatter of horses’ hooves and then loud voices and shouted orders, given out in angry, arrogant tones. And unmistakably English accents.

  ‘Oh God, no! Redcoats! Quick Andrew, help me drag the poor man over there.’

  They both jumped to their feet and with little thought for Zweig’s comfort they pulled him quickly to the darkness of a corner.

  Mona threw nets and bedding over hi
m and then glared up at her husband with a face of fierce defiance.

  ‘Why are the soldiers here?’ she whispered urgently.

  ‘They’ll have heard about the explosion. They probably think we had something to do with the ship coming here. What shall I tell them?’

  ‘Just tell them that they all died,’ Mona hissed with a show of savage maternal spirit. She looked down at Zweig’s livid red pallor as she covered his head and vehemently whispered at him.

  ‘They won’t have you. You hear me? Nor will you die. I’ll not have another death!’ She looked up again at her husband. ‘Don’t tell them about him. Don’t tell anyone. Nobody, you hear! Nobody.’

  The English cavalry had come down from the softness of the dunes onto the hard cobbles of the old hamlet and as they wheeled to a halt the stamp of the horses was mixed with the loud, grating orders that their officer was now bellowing out. Raised voices seemed to come naturally to these soldiers. Many of the most feared of English regiments had been rushed to Scotland when the Jacobite uprising had begun to take root but though Harrington’s 17th Dragoons had been stationed in Caithness for only five months they’d already established a particular reputation for intolerance and suppression. Nobody looking at them now could be in doubt about the meaning of their presumptuous manner. It was that of an occupying army.

  At the head of the troop was Major Enoch Sharrocks, a square, bullnecked man who pulled at his reins as he looked down at Dunbeaton’s huddle of cottages, a sneer of distaste on his face. His reputation for harshness was well earned and had gone before him to even such isolated villages as this one. It took only one glance at his mean and furious face to see the loathing a brutalised bully had for his victims. Since he’d arrived it had become plain to anyone that had tried to deal with him that there burned within him a deep suspicion of all Scots.

  Looking down now he saw a small boy trying to scuttle away.

  ‘Hey, you,’ he barked, ‘come here! Get me someone who saw the explosion last night.’

  ‘I’ll get my uncle,’ stammered the frightened boy as he backed away towards the McLeish’s cottage. The child turned and ran the short distance to their door. He thrust it open and blurted out the officer’s demand into the gloom. When she heard this, Mona looked up and nodded grimly at her husband to go out and face the redcoats.

  Andrew McLeish emerged blinking from the dark interior of the cottage. As he approached Sharrocks’s horse the major bawled down at him.

  ‘Did you see what happened last night?’

  ‘Aye. That I did.’

  ‘You saw the explosion?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What were you doing having that vessel come here?’

  ‘It was no coming here. Can you no see the rocks out there? They’re death to anyone that doesn’t know them as we do. And anyway we havena way to land a ship of that size. Coming here? Why they were fighting to get her out of the bay. We were just trying to save the poor boys’ lives, that’s all.’

  Sharrocks stared angrily down at him in silence. Then he looked out to sea again.

  ‘How many of them got ashore?’

  ‘None,’ said McLeish, ‘unless you count those there,’ and he waved an arm towards the long line of corpses on the sand. ‘Why don’t you take a look at what’s left of them. There’s hardly one that all of a piece. Blown apart they were. Come ashore? You cannae have a brain if you think that.’

  Sharrocks immediately brought his attention back to McLeish and in an instant fury his fingers closed tightly about his riding crop. He was about to lift it to deal with McLeish’s insolence when a dismounted trooper called over to him from the pile of salvage he’d been sorting through. He now held up a smashed section of wood from the stern of a rowing boat.

  ‘Sir. This could be the vessel’s name. Looks like that stupid German writing to me.’

  ‘Schwarzsturmvogel.’ Sharrocks slowly read the gothic script, his brow furrowed with the effort. ‘Bring that with you, man.’

  He shot an ominous last glance at Andrew McLeish and wheeled his horse’s head. The sergeant gave out a final shouted order and the troop rode back up towards the dunes.

  * * *

  Dunbeath had been in the observatory for some hours. Yet again he swung the great telescope as he measured a planetary distance. He made a detailed note of his finding.

  The door opened quietly and Sophie came hesitantly into the room. She gazed in fascination as she looked about herself and then walked lightly over to where a small table stood against a wall, buckling under the weight of a carelessly piled stack of books. Dunbeath seemed not to have noticed her. If he had, he made no comment. There was silence. Then Sophie picked up a book written in German that covered the size and nature of Saturn’s five moons. She turned the pages for a time, seemingly absorbed in what she was reading, and then looked towards where Dunbeath squinted through his eyepiece.

  ‘What are you doing, my lord?’ she asked shyly. ‘What is your work?’

  Without taking his eye from the telescope Dunbeath immediately replied in a low, commanding tone.

  ‘You are not to speak. Not now. Not ever.’

  * * *

  By late that afternoon, Zweig was dying. He had appeared to rally for a short period earlier in the day but now, as the sparse sunshine faded at the single window and darkness fell in the tiny cottage, his breathing became more laboured and with each passing minute his fever rose. Mona had not left his side all day and as she gently wiped his face, slick with sweat, she constantly urged him not to slip away.

  The last of the daylight fell across Zweig’s fretting body as her husband opened the door of the cottage and looked across at the prostrate figure as he came into the room.

  ‘No better?’

  ‘Oh, Andrew. Worse,’ she whispered. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any fight left in him. It’s almost as if he’s willing himself to die.’ She bathed Zweig’s face again and looked down at his sick grey pallor.

  ‘You poor man. You’ve lost everything haven’t you? Your ship, your crew, your cargo. Everybody you knew is dead. Perhaps you’re right to let go.’

  ‘We have the sailors laid out on the beach,’ Andrew McLeish said after a pause. ‘What injuries they have, Mona! I’ve never seen anything like it. Thank God, they must have all died together in an instant. The minister is coming tomorrow from Lochanairlie and we shall bury them in the forenoon. But you say that everyone on board was killed – I’m not so sure that’s right, Mona. Annie McKay was down here earlier getting his lordship’s supper and she told me they had one of them alive up at the castle. A girl she found in the water. Not a scratch on her.’

  As he said this Zweig’s breathing came to a sudden stop. His neck seemed to stiffen and his head rose fractionally from the rushes.

  Then his eyes snapped open.

  * * *

  Seven miles to the south west of the Castle of Beath the exquisite baroque beauty of Craigleven sat on a slight rise in the landscape. The long straight drive to the great house began at the Lybster to Wick turnpike and passed between a pair of classical lodges before cutting through the treeless Caithness countryside and widening as it reached the mansion’s formal gardens.

  Built in the 1690s by Sir Donald Grant, a gentleman architect who had spent many years in Holland – and indeed had acted as a go-between at the time of the Restoration – the great house’s wide frontage showed how deeply he had understood the design vocabulary that was then in vogue on the Continent. With the passing of the years, its fame had grown and its delicate symmetry and modern comforts had now become the model for a new generation of Scottish dream houses that were the envy of the lairds that still occupied their ancient castles and towers.

  After Grant’s death Craigleven had descended through marriage to the Duncansby family. The present Viscount Duncansby was an ambitious man who spent his time in London looking for preferment and he had been only too willing to co-operate when approached with the request for a company
of Harrington’s regiment of horse to be garrisoned there.

  Now Major Sharrocks strode fiercely through its beautiful series of enfiladed staterooms. As he reached the last of these a redcoat soldier guarded the final door. Sharrocks stopped as he reached it and knocked hard on its polished walnut surface.

  A voice inside called out for him to enter and Sharrocks walked briskly across the high shine of the intricate woodblock floor and came to attention in front of a rococo desk where his commanding officer, Colonel the Honourable George Annesley L’Arquen, rifled listlessly through some papers, the very picture of elegance. Sharrocks stood silently at the desk as L’Arquen continued to flick idly over the pages of a closely written document with a look of utter boredom on his face, occasionally glancing across to check on the fall of his beautiful linen cuff as it extended from the perfectly pressed tailoring of his gorgeous frockcoat.

  Although he was his superior, L’Arquen was much younger than Sharrocks. He’d been bought a commission only fifteen years before by his father and since then much family pressure had led to a fast advancement within the regiment, in spite of his limited field experience. Compared to this exquisite figure, Sharrocks was one of the most battle-hardened professionals in the army, a veteran of Dettingen and a man that had literally and figuratively fought his way to promotion. He patiently waited for a minute and then cleared his throat.

  L’Arquen looked up as if he had forgotten the knock at the door.

  ‘Ah, Sharrocks. There you are, dusty as ever. Out and about I’ll be bound, up to your neck in action. How I envy you, you would not believe how tiresome these endless updates are. I have had to read over as many as twenty pages today already.’

  L’Arquen shook his head in exaggerated exhaustion as he looked down at the evidence of the cares of office and then continued in the same languid voice.