‘You make it sound very dramatic,’ I said.
‘Weather is dramatic, man; indeed it is, when you’ve got something like that building up.’ He was entirely engrossed in the picture he had drawn from memory. ‘It’s fluid, you see; always a shifting pattern, never still. It’s a battlefield of pressures and temperatures and humidity; Highs versus Lows, with the cold fronts and the warm fronts the points of engagement. A break-through at one point can spell disaster a thousand, two thousand miles away — a ship overwhelmed, breakwaters demolished, the flooding of lowlands, the destruction of houses, death to men and livestock.’
He was being carried away again on the tide of his imagination. But then he suddenly stopped. ‘It was a long time ago. But I can remember it — by God I can.’ He picked up the map he’d drawn, stared at it for a moment, then crumpled it up and threw it into the biscuit tin that acted as a wastepaper basket. ‘That’s just one of dozens of maps I could draw you — weather I’ve known. Some of it I covered in my book. And when this High disintegrates or that Low fills in it’s something different again.’ He turned with a quick movement of his head to stare at the map framed on the wall, the Chinagraph bright on the Perspex. ‘Those two Lows coming in. Look at them. I’m already getting figures that complicate the whole picture. They may behave normally. They may remain separate entities. But somehow, I don’t know why exactly, they worry me. That’s something you learn in this game, you see — it’s ninety per cent science, a matter of filling in figures, but there’s the other ten per cent… your instinct comes into it then, instinct based on experience.’ He gave a little laugh and shook his head. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he said, ‘whilst I catch up on my homework.’ He glanced at the clock. ‘Another fifteen minutes and then we’ll go over to the Mess for lunch. I expect you could do with a drink. 1 certainly could.’
I sat and watched him checking his instruments, going through the teleprinter sheets, flying a balloon to check ceiling height, marking up his meteorological forms, phoning his report through to Pitreavie, and all the time I was thinking of Iain, trying to remember him as I had last seen him, nineteen years old and wearing battledress, the sergeant’s stripes white-new on his arm. He’d been drunk that night and within the week he’d sailed with his unit out of the Clyde, bound for North Africa — Operation Torch’.
‘Can I have a piece of paper?’ I said, and when Morgan passed me a scribbling pad, I began pencilling a sketch from memory. The result was the same as when I had tried it in my studio with that bloody little Canadian businessman breathing down my neck. I wondered what Lane was doing now — would he come up here to bust Braddock’s identity wide open?
I didn’t like the thought of that. The wild streak in Iain had always bordered on violence. That poor devil of a lieutenant, his jaw smashed — and there had been other incidents, before that; big Neil McNeill knocked senseless with an oar after he’d shot a seal. My fault that time. I hadn’t wanted the seal killed and when it was done I’d flown at Big Neil, blubbering with anger, and got a kick in the groin that sprawled me screaming in the bottom of the boat. And in Glasgow, at that factory — they’d called him Black Iain — black because of his temper and his dark features and his arrogance. They’d picked him up drunk one night and he’d knocked out three policemen and got away. That was the night he joined the Army.
‘That’s Braddock.’ I looked up to find Morgan standing over me with a puzzled look. ‘Yes, Braddock,’ I said. I’d have to call him Braddock now. I’d have to think of him as Braddock. I tore the sheet from the pad, crumpled it, and tossed it into the biscuit tin.
‘You made him look much younger.’
‘I was just passing the time.’
He gave me a sharp, inquiring look, nodded and went back to the desk. It was a warning. I’d have to be careful. And if Lane came north.
Cliff Morgan was at the barograph now. He went back to his work at the desk and, watching him again, I was conscious of a tenseness. It showed in the way he paused every now and then to stare out of the window, the quick glances at the wind speed indicator. And then the phone rang. ‘All right, Mike — as soon as I’m relieved.’ He slammed the receiver down. ‘Can I give Colonel Standing a weather briefing? No interest in this office so long as the sun’s shining, but now it’s wet and blowing half a gale.’ He shrugged. ‘Have you met Colonel Standing?’ And when I told him No, he added, ‘I’ll introduce you then. Alec Robinson said something about your wanting to get to Laerg and for that you need Standing’s permission.’
Prompt at twelve Cliff Morgan’s junior came dripping in out of the rain, a quiet, reserved man who gave me a fleeting smile as we were introduced. His name was Ted Sykes. ‘I hear Ronnie took off. What’s his ETA?’
‘About twelve-thirty. Wind speed’s twenty-five knots — almost a dead-noser.’ Cliff Morgan pulled his jacket on and took a tie from the pocket.
‘Rather him than me,’ Sykes said, at the desk now, rifling through the teleprint sheets. ‘Braddock with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I hope it keeps fine for them.’ He said it sourly. It was obvious neither of them liked it. Cliff Morgan was standing at the desk, tying his tie, staring at the grey misery of the sky. Rain dribbled down the panes.
‘There’s a casualty to be lifted out.’
‘So I heard.’
‘Keep your fingers crossed then.’ He turned abruptly and got his raincoat, and then we were out in the wind and the rain, hurrying through pools of water to the camp. ‘Better not ask for a flight out to Laerg. It means a bloody chit, you see, and they don’t like it. Landing craft’s all right. I think Standing would agree to that.’ His voice came to me, staccato fragments blown on the wind. ‘Perhaps tomorrow. But it’ll be rough. You a good sailor?’ And when I told him I’d had almost eleven years at sea, he nodded. ‘That’s all right then. At least you’ll see Laerg as it really is. Funny thing. I’ve never been there. Wanted to ever since I came up here. No time, and now it’s being evacuated.’ We had reached the Admin, block. ‘You might offer to do some sketches of the evacuation. Standing, you see, is not a man who’s very easy with strangers, but he’s artistic. Paints a bit himself and I’m told he has some interesting pictures up at his house. Nudes mostly, but not sexy — the real thing.’
Standing was waiting for us in his office, tall and slightly stooped with a thin, serious face and glasses, a tight, unsmiling mouth. He looked a cold, moody man and his long-fingered hands were seldom still, nervously shifting the papers on his desk, toying with the slide-rule or gently tapping. Cliff Morgan introduced me as an artist who wanted to visit Laerg, but all I got was a nod and a cold stare. He had Ferguson with him and he was only interested in one thing, the weather. He listened to what Morgan had to say, his eyes on the window which was tight-shut against the wind. The view was depressing — the brown creosoted back of a hut, a grey waste of sky and the rain driving.
‘Can Adams get the man out? That’s all I want to know.’ Even then he didn’t look at Cliff Morgan, but sat staring at the window, drumming with his fingers.
‘Only Ronnie could tell you that,’ Cliff answered, and I sensed his antagonism.
‘Adams isn’t here. I’m asking you, Mr Morgan.’
‘I’m a meteorologist. I feed the pilot information. He makes his own decisions.’
‘I know that, I’m asking your opinion.’
Cliff shrugged. ‘It’s dicey — but then that’s to be expected when you’re flying to a place like Laerg.’ The native lilt was stronger now.
‘The decision was made in your office, I believe. Did Major Braddock order Adams to fly?’