Flight of the Grey Goose Page 16

Once the darkness came, the cave became a very eerie place. The sloshing and slapping of the water filled it with weird echoes and sounds and he could see nothing at all.

  He lay down on the uncomfortable ledge and shut his eyes and set himself to wait. But the trouble was that he had no idea of how much time was passing. Smiler didn’t like the situation at all. It was like being buried alive and he could understand how it would be very easy to let himself go and get panicky. Being a sensible sort, he decided that he must do something about it, so he started to think of all the things that had happened to him since he had run away from approved school … all the nice things and the bad things and all the nice people and the bad people – like the Skipper. With his eyes shut he went through the whole history and, to his surprise, he found that it helped him a lot. He thought about Laura and the Laird and then his father and the Kentucky Master – the first of October wasn’t far off now – and then of Laggy. Where was Laggy now, he wondered. And then it struck him that out of something bad, like the Skipper firing at the greylag, something good had come. That was a real tickler, good coming out of bad …

  So Smiler passed the time until he thought it was sufficiently late for him to make his foray. Stiff from lying on the ledge, he got up and stripped off all his clothes except his underpants. He had decided that once he was outside the cave he would swim westwards along the cliff. It was not so far that way before he could get ashore. To try and swim eastwards up the loch, along the line of cliffs and round the bay was much farther. Moreover, it would take him against the loch current.

  Feeling his way cautiously, Smiler dropped over the ledge into the shallow water and then launched himself gently outwards. He swam by guesswork until his hands felt the wet rock above the cave entrance. Backing a little, he took a deep breath and dived down, hands and arms outstretched to find the side of the cliff opening. To his surprise as he went deep he saw the opening at once as a grey wavering outline lit by the faint light of the night outside. He swam through and surfaced without trouble. He trod water for a few moments. After the darkness of the cave, he was able to see quite easily the line of cliffs and the white crests of the breaking waves. But when he started to swim westwards he realized that it could not be done. Something had happened to the set of the loch current. Instead of running east to west along the cliffs, it was now setting strongly from the west to east. Smiler turned and went with it on the longer, but now easier haul up and round into the bay. As he swam he worked out that the bad weather from the west and the driving wind must have altered the loch current.

  Once outside the cave and being taken easily along the cliffs, although the water was rough, Smiler felt much happier. He was a strong swimmer and the long rollers did not worrry him, and it was nice to be doing something instead of stuck in that cave getting a sore bottom on the rocks.

  Ten minutes later Smiler reached the steps of the jetty. He lay half in and half out of the water, looking at the two moored boats and then up to the dim silhouette of the castle against the dark, clouded night sky. The wind was still very strong, but for the time being there was no rain.

  Smiler went up the steps and examined the boats. He saw at once the padlock and chain and made a face to himself. The Skipper was no fooL From the top of the jetty Smiler went away to the right, keeping just along the fringe of the beach, and then circled away to the flight of steps that led up on to the battlements at the righthand side of the castle where the flag-hoist was. The flag was always kept there, attached to the halyard and rolled-up ready to be broken free by its retaining lanyard. If the Skipper knew about the flag signals and had taken the flag away – then he was sunk.

  But the flag was there. Smiler freed the halyard from its cleat and hauled the flag up the long face of the corner tower and then on to the tall flagpole that rose from the tower roof. Looking up it was difficult to see how far the rolled flag had gone. When he thought it was about far enough he broke it with a tug on the other halyard haul and at once he saw the whiteness of the Saint Andrew’s cross stream pale and ghostly into the wind. The flag was too far up the pole so he lowered it to half-mast, fastened the halyards round the cleat, and slipped away down the battlement steps.

  Deciding to make a wide half circle around the north side of the island to reach the westerly end of the cliffs, Smiler started across the meadow. He had only gone about fifty yards when a large shape loomed up through the darkness and Mrs Brown gave a low call. She moved up to Smiler and lowering her head, sniffed at his bare knees. It was then that Smiler realized that she had not been milked that day. For a moment he was tempted to leave the cow. But then he thought that she might not get milked for a couple of days more if chances went against him. Knowing this would distress the animal he decided to milk her. He went down on his knees and began to strip Mrs Brown. The cow stood placidly in the gloom chewing the cud. The smell of the warm milk going to waste on the grass made Smiler’s mouth water, so – as he milked – he twisted first one teat and then another sideways and squirted the milk towards his mouth. But for as much as he managed to catch in his mouth, four times more just squirted against his face and ran down over his naked shoulders and chest. The thought of how funny he must look made Smiler giggle with the result that he swallowed milk the wrong way and had a choking fit which he had to stifle in case anyone should hear.

  Half an hour after Smiler had finished milking Mrs Brown he was back in his underwater cave. Somehow now the total darkness did not see so unfriendly or frightening, nor did the cave feel so cold. He put on his damp clothes, made a pillow of the rucksack and lay down to sleep.

  Five minutes later he sat up suddenly, the skin at the back of his head creeping with fright. A wet hand had passed across his face!

  Frozen into immobility by fright Smiler sat bolt upright. To his left the water of the cave splashed and gurgled. Then distinctly near his feet he heard something move, first a scraping scratching sound and then a quick flip, flap. The next minute something cold and wet slid along his bare leg.

  Smiler let out a yelp and reached down with his hand to push it away. His fingers came into contact with wet fur and there was a little snuffle of pleasure as a whiskery nose was pushed into the palm of his hand.

  Smiler almost collapsed with relief. It was Dobby. The animal must have scented him on the island and, unseen, had followed him into the water on his swim back to the cave.

  Smiler lay back on his pillow, his heart still bumping from the shock. A little way away he could hear Dobby moving around. Then there was a steady crunching sound which told him that the otter had caught a finnoch or trout and was eating it.

  When Smiler woke the next morning, Dobby was gone. Daylight was angling through the roof crack and the cave water itself was shot with swirling gleams of light from outside. By Smite’s side were the bones and scales of the finnoch which Dobby had eaten. Alongside of it was another finnoch, quite a big one, from which a bite had been taken in one flank. Cheered by the light in the cave, Smiler looked at the finnoch and thought, Well, Samuel M., if it comes to it and you can’t get any other food then you’ll have to try raw fish. Then, standing up, he dived into the green cave pool and had his morning bath.

  10. The Empty Boat

  The reason that there was more light in Smiler’s cave was because the sun was shining from a cloudless sky. But it was no friendly, warm sky. All around the sun was a pale halo of greyish-green light, and the westerly wind had moved a few points to the south and was blowing even harder than the day before. It was the kind of weather which at one glance would have made any fisherman decided that it was time to do a little net mending and stay in harbour.

  The wind was blowing full gale force now and great waves were breaking over the westerly point of the island, thundering against the rocks and sending spouting cascades of water halfway up the cliffs. Driven in from the sea and circling over the eastern end of the loch were clouds of gulls, terns and other seabirds, wheeling and dipping in the wind. The cairns and roc
ky ledges of the Hen and Chickens were covered with the roosting birds, all squared round with their heads pointing down wind.

  Billy Morgan and the Chief Mate were astir at first light. The Chief Mate made breakfast for them both and, because he was a somewhat more considerate man than his boss, he made up plates of scrap for Bacon and Midas.

  After breakfast Billy Morgan and the Chief Mate made a thorough search of the island, beating through all the bushes and likely hiding places, and even examining the swaying, wind-tossed tops of the pines and ashes. They took Bacon with them on the lead, but Bacon showed no interest in their search until they reached the cliff top again. Then Bacon began to whine and bark and Billy Morgan let him off the lead. Bacon immediately ran to the point on the cliff from which Smiler had jumped into the water.

  Watching him Billy Morgan said, ‘Either that tike is a damned fool or he knows something we don’t know. There’s nothing for it, Chiefy, but to give them there cliffs one more good going over.’

  ‘Goin’ over,’ said the Chief Mate gloomily, ‘is just what will happen if you gets too near in this wind. I reckon we leaves it for a few hours. Maybe the wind’ll drop as the sun gets higher.’

  ‘Blow harder more likely,’ said Billy Morgan. But since he no more relished being blown off the cliff top than the Chief Mate did, he agreed to wait for a few hours. They both went back to the castle, leaving Bacon racing up and down the cliff top in his own search for Smiler.

  Two things so far neither of the men had noticed. One was the big white stain in the meadow grass where Mrs Brown had been milked. And the other was the flag of Saint Andrew which streamed in the wind at half-mast.

  During the morning Smiler finished the last of his biscuits and was down to drinking the loch water. From the fierce whistling of the wind across the cliff crack and the increased agitation of the water inside the cave he knew that the weather outside must be blowing very hard, harder in fact than the day before because the wind-note from the slit above him was much higher and fiercer. The waves on the loch outside would be far too big to risk a rowing boat, he knew. Even if, Samuel M., he told himself, there was a boat to be got. It would need a stout hacksaw to cut through the chain that secured the boats.

  That day passed slowly for Smiler and for the two men. The wind blew fiercely all day and was far too strong for the two men to risk a close examination of the cliffs. Just after midday Bacon gave up his search and came back to the castle. But in the evening, a couple of hours before darkness, there was a sudden lull in the weather. The wind dropped completely and the flag of distress flopped limply against its pole so that there was even less chance of its being seen by the two men or anyone from the loch shore.

  From the castle terrace Billy Morgan cast art eye at the sky and the racing waves of the loch outside the bay and said to the Chief Mate, ‘ I ain’t spent more years than I like to remember at sea to be fooled by this. I seen the weather play this kind of trick before. This ’ere lull might last an hour, might last six hours. But it’ll blow again and next time harder than ever. Come on – we’ll ’ ave another look at them cliffs.’

  ‘What if we don’t ’ave no luck, Billy?’

  Billy Morgan pursed up his fat face and scratched the little wings of hair alongside his bald head. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘ Then we must give the lad best and up sticks. We can’t risk another day out here. It’ll grieve me jam-tart for the rest of me life – but there it is. All that lovely silver and tom-foolery what could ’ave put us on easy street for the rest of our natural – whipped from under our noses. You go and get that dog. If there’s any scent up there maybe he’ll get it now the wind’s gone. That lad’s up there in some cave or cranny or my name ain’t Billy Morgan.’

  So Bacon was fetched on the lead and in the windless lull the two men went to the cliff top and freed him. And Bacon found Smiler. With no strong wind to dissipate Smiler’s body odour as it came out of the cliff crack when Bacon came to the two over-lapping rocks he picked it up at once. He barked loudly and began to scrape at the rocks and at the loose soil around them. Billy Morgan climbed down to the rocks and leaned out over the top one and saw the long narrow line of the open slit.

  Tugging Bacon back to the cliff top he stood in front of the Chief Mate and gave him a big wink.

  ‘We got him,’ he said. ‘Dogs always knows. Come on. We got things to get. His scent’s comin’out of a crack between two boulders. Could be a cave down there – not that he could ’ave got through the crack. Aye, that’s it – must be some underwater entrance. He jumped over and dived in. ‘Andy little blighter, ain’t he? Yes … it’s got to be like that or my name ain’t Billy Morgan.’

  ‘You think so, Billy? Sounds a bit –’

  ‘Course I thinks so – because this ’ere like tells me so.’

  Sitting inside the cave Smiler was well aware that the wind had dropped. The water still rolled and splashed beneath the ledge, but there was no longer any whistling wind noise from the thin crack high above him. All his clothes had more or less dried out now and he was fully dressed.

  The going of the wind gave Smiler hope. If the bad weather was going to pass then the heavy seas on the loch would drop within a few hours. Or, at least, drop enough to make it safe for a rowing boat.

  ‘But how, Samuel M.,’ he asked himself, ‘do you get the rowing boat?’

  He sat there tackling the problem. The oars had for sure been taken away and hidden, but that didn’t worry him. Piled at the far end of the jetty were some lengths of timber and planking which had been delivered months before for the construction of new pen houses. With a short piece of planking for a paddle he knew that he would be able to manage the boat. He would go with the current up the loch and edge into the nearest shore. Once on the lochside he could take to the hills. If he had anything like a start, the two men would have no chance of catching him and taking the rucksack from him.

  But how did he free the boat? There was a hacksaw in the castle workshop, but the chain was a good stout one. It would take a very long time to cut through it – and a hacksaw at work made quite a lot of noise … too much. One of the men, especially if there were no wind to drown the sound, would be bound to hear. How, he asked himself, could he free the boat from the chain? He sat there puzzling about it and then remembered something his father used to say when faced with a tricky problem – ‘ There’s more ways than one, Samuel M., of cracking a nut when there’s no nut-crackers handy.’

  Well, thought Smiler, so there might be. You could take a hammer to it, and if you didn’t have a hammer –

  At this point he jerked upright and smacked himself on the forehead. ‘Of course! Of course, you fool, Samuel M.,’ he told himself out loud. He knew exactly how to do it and to do it fast and with the minimum of noise.

  Just then over the wave sounds in the cave he heard a dog bark. He jerked his head up towards the cliff crack. The bark came again and with it this time there was a scrabbling, scraping sound. A small trickle of earth and fine shale cascaded thinly down the inside of the cave on to the ledge. The dog barked again and Smiler knew that it was Bacon. Bacon was up there on the cliffs and had scented him through the crack. Alarmed, he stood up and moved away out of the line of the crack. Pressed against the far wall of the ledge, where he could not be seen by anyone looking through the crack, he waited.

  Bacon barked once more, and then the scrabbling sounds ceased. Smiler waited, and the minutes passed. No sounds came from the slit. Smiler waited on, but still nothing more was heard. Slowly Smiler relaxed. Maybe Bacon hadn’t scented him. Maybe he was just hunting along the cliff and had barked and scratched at the crack out of curiosity. His alarm passed from him and he went back along the ledge, elated by the bright idea he had had about the boat, and began to pack up the rucksack. As soon as it was dark enough he was going to leave.

  As time passed the inside of the cave grew darker. The sun dropping to the west threw the outside water into dark shadows and the lig
ht from the crack was so faint now that he could hardly see it. Then suddenly Smiler heard Bacon barking once more. Almost immediately there was a heavy clunk, clunk over his head and then the sharp ring of metal striking stone. A cascade of loose roof debris and earth from around the inside of the crack spilled down the steep cave wall to the ledge. Clearly from outside he heard the sound of men’s voices.

  Smiler was swamped with a feeling of gloom. They’d found him – and Bacon had been the cause of it all! Pressed against the cave wall out of the sight line from the crack, Smiler heard the thumping and metallic sounds begin again. More thin spills of rubble began to fan down the cave side. He knew exactly what was happening up there. The Skipper and the Chief Mate were attacking the rocks with crowbar and pickaxe. If he took to the water now they would see him and they would only have to get their boat and pick him up. But it was just a matter of time before they broke through the cave roof. How long? If it took them until dark then he might have a chance.

  The digging noises stopped. There was silence except for the splashing of the cave water. Suddenly very clear and setting up weird echoes in the cave, a voice came down through the crack.

  ‘All right’ me old cock sparrer – we knows you’re there. Just you stand well clear of this ’ere ’ole – otherwise you’re likely to get a rock on your noggin.’

  It was the Skipper’s voice. Smiler said nothing. They couldn’t be sure he was here and he wasn’t going to give them any hope.

  ‘Don’t feel like speaking, eh? Never mind – we knows you’re there. Your old tike told us so.’

  At this moment a thin torchlight beam suddenly angled down from the crack. It hit the dusty resting ledge six feet away from Smiler, who was pressed back against the cave wall in such a position that no light from the crack could reach him. The light above moved a little, but it had a limited range because of the narrowness of the crack. As it moved Smiler’s heart suddenly sank inside him. Shining brightly in the now steady beam was one of the beer cans resting on the ledge where he had been sitting!