Oddly, I felt no elation at the prospect; only a sense of awe. In my mind’s eye I saw the cliffs rising sheer — black and dripping moisture. But because of my surroundings, the weather instruments and the two men working at the desk, I had also a picture of that other world comprising the moving masses of the Earth’s outer skin. It was no more than the vague impression that a shipping forecast handed to the officer of the watch conjures in his mind, but it produced the same feeling of being at one with the elements, so that I found myself recapturing that sense of responsibility, of being a protagonist. The phone ringing cut across my thoughts. Sykes answered it. ‘Yes, he’s here.’ He glanced at me. ‘Okay, I’ll tell him.’ He put the phone down. ‘Major Braddock. He’ll drive you down to Rodil to pick up your things.’
‘Now?’
‘He’ll be waiting for you outside the Admin, block.’
I had known this moment would come, but I’d have been glad to postpone it. What did you say to a man who’d spent twenty years masquerading as somebody else, and that man your brother? ‘All right,’ I said, and went out into the wind, wishing at that moment I’d never come north to the Hebrides. Even Laerg couldn’t compensate for this.
He was sitting at the wheel of a Land-Rover, waiting for me. ‘Jump in.’ He didn’t say anything more and we drove out through the main gate and down the sand-blown road to Northton. Neither of us spoke and yet oddly enough there was nothing awkward about the silence. It helped to bridge the years, both of us accepting the situation and adjusting ourselves to it. Side-face his true identity was more obvious — a question chiefly of the shape of the head and the way it sat on the shoulders. The profile, too; he couldn’t change that. And the hair and the short, straight forehead, the shape of his hands gripping the wheel. ‘Why didn’t you contact me?’ I said.
‘You were away at sea.’ He hunched his shoulders, an old, remembered gesture. ‘Anyway, what was the point? When you take another man’s identity — well, you’d better damn well stick to it.’
‘Did you have to do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Take Braddock’s name?’
‘I didn’t have to, no. But I did.’ A muscle was moving at the corner of his mouth and his voice was taut as he added, ‘What would you have done? Given yourself up, I suppose. Well, I wasn’t going to stand trial for busting the jaw of a man who hadn’t the guts to lead his own men.’
‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘What exactly happened out there in North Africa?’
‘You really want to know?’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘Well … It was after we’d landed. The French had us pinned down. They’d got a machine-gun nest in one of those walled villas. We were all right. We were in a dried-up wadi. But it was murder for the lads on our right. They were caught in the open, a whole company of them lying out there on the bare rocks, and we had the shelter of that gully.right up to the villa’s walls. Instead of attacking, Moore ordered the platoon to stay put and keep their heads down. He was frightened to death. In the end I knocked him out and took command myself. It was the only way. But by then the French had got a gun in position to cover the wadi and they opened up on us when we were halfway up it. That’s when I got this.’ He pointed to the scar on his forehead. ‘I lost eighteen men, but we took the villa. And when it was all over, I was under arrest. If I hadn’t hit the little sod I’d have been all right, but that fixed me, so I got the hell out of it and back to the beach. Wasn’t difficult; everything a bit chaotic. The fact that I was wounded made it dead easy. I was taken off, to a troopship that was just leaving. She’d been damaged and when we were clear of the Straits she was ordered to proceed to Montreal for repairs. That was how I landed up in Canada.’ He glanced at me. ‘They didn’t tell you that?’
‘Some of it — not all.’
‘I had just over a year in Canada before they picked me up. It was conscription that fixed me. I hadn’t any papers, you see. And then, when the Duart Castle went down.’ He gave a quick shrug. ‘Well, I took a chance and it worked out.’
But looking at the deep-etched lines of his face, I wondered. He looked as though he’d been living on his nerves for a long time. There were lines running underneath the cheek-bones and down from the sides of the mouth, others puckering the scar on the forehead, radiating from the corners of the eyes; some of them so deep they might have been scored by a knife. Those lines and the harsh, almost leathery skin could simply be the marks of a hard life, but I had an uneasy feeling they were something more than that.
Through Northton he began to talk — about the Army and the life he’d led and where he’d been. It seemed to help, for he began to relax then and become more at ease;
in no time at all the years had fallen away and we were on our old, easy footing, with him talking and myself listening. It had always been like that. And then suddenly he said, ‘You married Mavis, did you?’
‘For my sins,’ I said. ‘It didn’t work out.’
‘And the child?’
‘It died.’
I thought he didn’t care, for he made no comment, driving in silence again. But as we came down the hill into Leverburgh, he said, ‘What was it — a boy?’
‘Yes.’ And I added, ‘I had him christened Alasdair.’
He nodded as though he’d expected that. We were passing ugly blocks of Swedish pre-fabs and as we turned right past the loch, he murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’ But whether he was sorry for what he’d done to us or because the child had died I couldn’t be sure. We were on a track now that led out to the quay. ‘I just want to check that they’re moving the stuff fast enough,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll drive you on to Rodil to collect your gear.’
The quay looked a mess, the whole length of it littered with material brought from Learg — piled-up sections of wooden huts, double-ended dories, trailers still loaded with stoves, radios, refrigerators, a deep-freeze, clothing, and crates full of foodstuffs, sacks of potatoes, fruit, coal; all the paraphernalia of an isolated unit being withdrawn in a hurry, and all of it soaked by the rain. One Scammell was trying to inch a trailer through the debris. Two three-ton trucks were being loaded, the men moving slowly, lethargically as though they had been doing this a long time. A single mobile crane swung its gantry lazily against the leaden dullness of the sky, and beyond the quay skerries barred the way into the Sound of Harris with here and there a light mounted on iron legs to mark the channel through the rocks.
It was a depressing sight. I wandered along the concrete edge of the quay whilst Braddock spoke to the officer in.charge. ‘A fine mess you’d be in,’ I heard him say, ‘if Four-four-Double-o had come in on schedule instead of being sent back to Laerg fully loaded.’ His voice, harsh now, had a whip-lash quality.
‘We’re shifting it as fast as we can,’ the youngster answered. ‘But the men are tired. They’ve been at it since early this morning, and we’re short of vehicles.’
‘They’re tired, are they? Then just think how Captain Pinney’s men must be, working round the clock, crammed into only two huts, soaked to the skin. Now get moving, boy, and have this quay cleared to receive Kelvedon’s ship when it comes in.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Dawn I should think, or a little after.’ I saw him grip the young man’s shoulder. ‘Between now and the end of the operation this may be our one chance to catch up. See the men understand that. If Stratton’s crew hadn’t been dead beat you’d have had Eight-six-one-o here by now. Make the most of this opportunity, Phipps.’
‘I’ll do the best I can, sir.’
‘Better than the best; I want miracles.’ The hard face cracked in a smile. ‘Okay?’ He patted the lieutenant’s shoulder, instilling into him some of his own urgent drive. Then he turned. ‘Sergeant!’ He had a word with the sergeant and then came back to the Land-Rover. ‘Peacetime soldiering,’ he muttered as he climbed into the driving seat. ‘They don’t know what it is to be beaten to their knees and still fight back. They haven’t known a war. I was in Burma.’ He started the engine and yanked the wheel round. ‘That was after the Normandy landings. Half these guys would get shot to bits before they’d dug a slit trench. Just because they’re technicians a lot of them, they think the Army’s a branch of industry — a cosy factory with set hours and plenty of recreation.’