I was conscious then of a depressing sense of isolation, the elements pressing in on every hand — the sea, the wind, the heights above, grass and rock all streaming water. A lonely, remote island cut off from the outside world. And living conditions were bad. Already more than half the huts had been dismantled. Two more had been evacuated and officers and men were crowded together in the remaining three with the cookhouse filled with stores and equipment that would deteriorate in the open. They were living little better than the original islanders and working much harder. Everywhere men in glistening oilskins toiled in the mud and the wet and the cold, grumbling and cursing, but still cheerful, still cracking the occasional joke as they manhandled hut sections down to the loading beach or loaded trailers with stores.
Pinney took us to his office, which was no more than a typewriter and a table beside his bed in the partitioned end of a hut that was crammed with other beds. The beds were mostly unmade, with clothing and odds and ends of personal effects scattered about; the whole place told a story of men too tired to care. Pinney’s bed was no tidier than the rest, a heap of blankets thrown aside as he’d tumbled out of sleep to work. The two other officers’ beds were the same and they shared the end of the hut with the radio operator and his equipment. ‘Cigarette?’ Pinney produced a sodden packet and McDermott took one. His hands were trembling as he lit it. ‘If you’d like to get cleaned up….’ Pinney nodded vaguely to the wash basin. ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer a few minutes’ rest….’
McDermott shook his head. ‘Later perhaps — if I have to operate.’ His face looked shrunken, the bones staring, the skin grey and sweating. He seemed a much older man that when he’d come aboard. ‘I’ll have a wor-rd with Captain Fairweather now and then I’d like to have a look at the laddie.’
‘There’s not much of him left to look at, and what’s there is barely alive.’ Pinney glanced at me. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’ They went out and I got my wet things off, towelled myself down and put on some dry underclothes. The only sound in the hut was the faint hum from the radio, the occasional scrape of the operator’s chair as he shifted in his seat. He had the earphones clamped to his head, his body slouched as he read a paperback. He alone in that camp was able to pierce the storm and leap the gap that separated Laerg from the outside world.
The sound of the work parties came to me faintly through the background noise of the generator and the rattle of a loose window frame. I lit a cigarette. The hut had a musty smell, redolent of damp and stale sweat. Despite the convector heating, everything I touched was damp; a pair of shoes under Pinney’s bed was furred with mould, the paper peeling from his books. A draught blew cold on my neck from a broken pane stuffed with newspaper.
I was sitting on the bed then, thinking that this was a strange homecoming to the island of my ancestors, and all I’d seen of it so far was the camp litter of the Army in retreat. They were getting out and I thought perhaps old Grandfather Ross was laughing in his grave, or was his disembodied spirit roaming the heights above, scaling the crags as he’d done in life, waiting for the island to be returned to him? Those eyes sometimes blue and sometimes sea-grey, and the beard blowing in the wind — I could see him as clearly as if I was seated again at his feet by the peat fire. Only Iain was missing; somehow I couldn’t get Iain back into that picture. Every time I thought of him it was Braddock I saw, with that twitch at the corner of his mouth and the dark eyes turned inwards.
Learg and Alasdair Ross — they went together; they fitted this dark, wet, blustery night. But not Braddock. Braddock was afraid of Laerg and I found myself thinking of death and what Iain had once said. I got up from the bed then, not liking the way my thoughts were running, and went over to the radio operator. He was a sapper, a sharp-faced youth with rabbity teeth. ‘Are you in touch with Base all the time?’ I asked him.
He looked up from his paperback, pushed one of the earphones up. ‘Aye.’ He nodded. ‘I just sit on my backside and wait for them to call me.’
‘And if you want to call them?’
‘Och weel, I just flick that switch to “Send” and bawl into the mike.’
As simple as that. The radio was an old Army set, the dials tuned to the net frequency. Contact with Base was through the Movements Office. There a Signals operator sat by another set of the same pattern. The only difference was that it was linked to the camp switchboard. ‘You mean you can talk direct to anybody in Northton?’
‘Och, ye can do more than that, sir. Ye can talk to anybody in Scotland — or in England. Ye can get the bluidy Prime Minister if you want.’ They were linked through the Military Line to the G.P.O. and could even ring up their families. ‘A’ve heer-rd me wife speaking to me fra a call-box in Glasgie an’ her voice as clear as a bell. It’s no’ as gude as tha’ every time. A wee bit o’ static sometimes, but it’s no’ verra often we canna get through at all.’
A small metal box full of valves and coils and condensers, and like an Aladdin’s lamp you could conjure the whole world out of the ether, summoning voices to speak to you out of the black, howling night. It was extraordinary how we took wireless for granted, how we accepted it now as part of our lives. Yet fifty, sixty years ago… I was thinking of the islanders, how absolutely cut off they had been in my grandfather’s time. There had been the Laerg Post, and that was all, the only means of getting a message through to the mainland; a sheep’s inflated stomach to act as a float, two pieces of wood nailed together to contain the message, and the Gulf Stream and the wind the only way by which it could reach its destination. It had worked three or four times out of ten. At least, that’s what my grandfather had said. And now this raw little Glaswegian had only to flip a switch.
The door at the end of the hut banged and Pinney came in. ‘Clouds lifting. But it’s still blowing like hell. Lucky for Stratton he’s tucked into Shelter Bay.’ He reached into his locker and passed me a plate and the necessary implements. ‘Grub’s up. We’re calling it a day.’ And as we sloshed our way through the mud to join the queue at the cookhouse, he said, ‘Pity you’re seeing it like this. Laerg can be very beautiful. On a still day with the sun shining and the air clean and crisp and full of birds…. The best posting I ever had.’
The men had mess tins; it was like being back on active service. A cook ladled stew and peas and potatoes on to my plate. Another handed me a hunk of bread and a mug of tea. We hurried back to the hut, trying to get inside before the wind had cooled our food. Another officer had joined us, Lieutenant McBride. We ate quickly and in silence. A sergeant came in, a small, tough-looking Irishman. ‘Is it true you’re wanting the generator run all through the night again, sor?’
‘Not me,’ Pinney answered. ‘Captain Fairweather.’
‘It means re-fuelling.’
‘Then you’ll have to re-fuel, that’s all. They’re going to operate.’
The sergeant sucked in his breath. ‘What again? The poor devil.’
‘Better see to it yourself, O’Hare. Make bloody sure no rainwater gets into the tank.’
‘Very good, sor.’
He went out and Pinney, lying flat on his bed, his eyes closed, smoking a cigarette, said, ‘McDermott’s as white as a ghost and trembling like a leaf. He was ill coming across, I suppose.’
‘Very ill,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I thought so. He wouldn’t have any food. Bob gave him a couple of slugs out of the medicine chest. Damned if I could operate on an empty stomach, but still I…’ His eyes flicked open, staring up at the ceiling, and he drew in a lung-full of smoke. ‘What the hell am I going to say to his mother? The police will locate her sooner or later and then I’ll have her on the R/T and she’ll be thinking it’s my fault when it was his own bloody carelessness. But you can’t tell her that.’ He closed his.: eyes again and relapsed into silence, and on the instant i he was asleep. I took the burning cigarette from between his fingers and pulled a blanket over him.