CHAPTER VII

I Hear of the Wild Birds

I saw an old green felt hat, and below it lean tweed-clad shoulders.

Then I saw a knapsack with a stick slung through it, as the owner

wriggled his way on to a shelf. Presently he turned his face upward to

judge the remaining distance. It was the face of a young man, a face

sallow and angular, but now a little flushed with the day’s sun and the

work of climbing. It was a face that I had first seen at Fosse Manor.

I felt suddenly sick and heartsore. I don’t know why, but I had never

really associated the intellectuals of Biggleswick with a business like

this. None of them but Ivery, and he was different. They had been silly

and priggish, but no more—I would have taken my oath on it. Yet here

was one of them engaged in black treason against his native land.

Something began to beat in my temples when I remembered that Mary and

this man had been friends, that he had held her hand, and called her by

her Christian name. My first impulse was to wait till he got up and

then pitch him down among the boulders and let his German accomplices

puzzle over his broken neck.

With difficulty I kept down that tide of fury. I had my duty to do, and

to keep on terms with this man was part of it. I had to convince him

that I was an accomplice, and that might not be easy. I leaned over the

edge, and, as he got to his feet on the ledge above the boiler-plates,

I whistled so that he turned his face to me.

“Hullo, Wake,” I said.

He started, stared for a second, and recognised me. He did not seem

over-pleased to see me.

“Brand!” he cried. “How did you get here?”

He swung himself up beside me, straightened his back and unbuckled his

knapsack. “I thought this was my own private sanctuary, and that nobody

knew it but me. Have you spotted the cave? It’s the best bedroom in

Skye.” His tone was, as usual, rather acid.

That little hammer was beating in my head. I longed to get my hands on

his throat and choke the smug treason in him. But I kept my mind fixed

on one purpose—to persuade him that I shared his secret and was on his

side. His off-hand self-possession seemed only the clever screen of the

surprised conspirator who was hunting for a plan.

We entered the cave, and he flung his pack into a corner. “Last time I

was here,” he said, “I covered the floor with heather. We must get some

more if we would sleep soft.” In the twilight he was a dim figure, but

he seemed a new man from the one I had last seen in the Moot Hall at

Biggleswick. There was a wiry vigour in his body and a purpose in his

face. What a fool I had been to set him down as no more than a

conceited _flâneur!_

He went out to the shelf again and sniffed the fresh evening. There was

a wonderful red sky in the west, but in the crevice the shades had

fallen, and only the bright patches at either end told of the sunset.

“Wake,” I said, “you and I have to understand each other. I’m a friend

of Ivery and I know the meaning of this place. I discovered it by

accident, but I want you to know that I’m heart and soul with you. You

may trust me in tonight’s job as if I were Ivery himself.”

He swung round and looked at me sharply. His eyes were hot again, as I

remembered them at our first meeting.

“What do you mean? How much do you know?”

The hammer was going hard in my forehead, and I had to pull myself

together to answer.

“I know that at the end of this crack a message was left last night,

and that someone came out of the sea and picked it up. That someone is

coming again when darkness falls, and there will be another message.”

He had turned his head away. “You are talking nonsense. No submarine

could land on this coast.”

I could see that he was trying me.

“This morning,” I said, “I swam in the deep-water inlet below us. It is

the most perfect submarine shelter in Britain.”

He still kept his face from me, looking the way he had come. For a

moment he was silent, and then he spoke in the bitter, drawling voice

which had annoyed me at Fosse Manor.

“How do you reconcile this business with your principles, Mr Brand? You

were always a patriot, I remember, though you didn’t see eye to eye

with the Government.”

It was not quite what I expected and I was unready. I stammered in my

reply. “It’s because I am a patriot that I want peace. I think that....

I mean....”

“Therefore you are willing to help the enemy to win?”

“They have already won. I want that recognised and the end hurried on.”

I was getting my mind clearer and continued fluently.

“The longer the war lasts, the worse this country is ruined. We must

make the people realise the truth, and—”

But he swung round suddenly, his eyes blazing.

“You blackguard!” he cried, “you damnable blackguard!” And he flung

himself on me like a wild-cat.

I had got my answer. He did not believe me, he knew me for a spy, and

he was determined to do me in. We were beyond finesse now, and back at

the old barbaric game. It was his life or mine. The hammer beat

furiously in my head as we closed, and a fierce satisfaction rose in my

heart.

He never had a chance, for though he was in good trim and had the

light, wiry figure of the mountaineer, he hadn’t a quarter of my

muscular strength. Besides, he was wrongly placed, for he had the

outside station. Had he been on the inside he might have toppled me

over the edge by his sudden assault. As it was, I grappled him and

forced him to the ground, squeezing the breath out of his body in the

process. I must have hurt him considerably, but he never gave a cry.

With a good deal of trouble I lashed his hands behind his back with the

belt of my waterproof, carried him inside the cave and laid him in the

dark end of it. Then I tied his feet with the strap of his own

knapsack. I would have to gag him, but that could wait.

I had still to contrive a plan of action for the night, for I did not

know what part he had been meant to play in it. He might be the

messenger instead of the Portuguese Jew, in which case he would have

papers about his person. If he knew of the cave, others might have the

same knowledge, and I had better shift him before they came. I looked

at my wrist-watch, and the luminous dial showed that the hour was half

past nine.

Then I noticed that the bundle in the corner was sobbing. It was a

horrid sound and it worried me. I had a little pocket electric torch

and I flashed it on Wake’s face. If he was crying, it was with dry

eyes.

“What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

“That depends,” I said grimly.

“Well, I’m ready. I may be a poor creature, but I’m damned if I’m

afraid of you, or anything like you.” That was a brave thing to say,

for it was a lie; his teeth were chattering.

“I’m ready for a deal,” I said.

“You won’t get it,” was his answer. “Cut my throat if you mean to, but

for God’s sake don’t insult me.... I choke when I think about you. You

come to us and we welcome you, and receive you in our houses, and tell

you our inmost thoughts, and all the time you’re a bloody traitor. You

want to sell us to Germany. You may win now, but by God! your time will

come! That is my last word to you ... you swine!”

The hammer stopped beating in my head. I saw myself suddenly as a

blind, preposterous fool. I strode over to Wake, and he shut his eyes

as if he expected a blow. Instead I unbuckled the straps which held his

legs and arms.

“Wake, old fellow,” I said, “I’m the worst kind of idiot. I’ll eat all

the dirt you want. I’ll give you leave to knock me black and blue, and

I won’t lift a hand. But not now. Now we’ve another job on hand. Man,

we’re on the same side and I never knew it. It’s too bad a case for

apologies, but if it’s any consolation to you I feel the lowest dog in

Europe at this moment.”

He was sitting up rubbing his bruised shoulders. “What do you mean?” he

asked hoarsely.

“I mean that you and I are allies. My name’s not Brand. I’m a soldier—a

general, if you want to know. I went to Biggleswick under orders, and I

came chasing up here on the same job. Ivery’s the biggest German agent

in Britain and I’m after him. I’ve struck his communication lines, and

this very night, please God, we’ll get the last clue to the riddle. Do

you hear? We’re in this business together, and you’ve got to lend a

hand.”

I told him briefly the story of Gresson, and how I had tracked his man

here. As I talked we ate our supper, and I wish I could have watched

Wake’s face. He asked questions, for he wasn’t convinced in a hurry. I

think it was my mention of Mary Lamington that did the trick. I don’t

know why, but that seemed to satisfy him. But he wasn’t going to give

himself away.

“You may count on me,” he said, “for this is black, blackguardly

treason. But you know my politics, and I don’t change them for this.

I’m more against your accursed war than ever, now that I know what war

involves.”

“Right-o,” I said, “I’m a pacifist myself. You won’t get any heroics

about war from me. I’m all for peace, but we’ve got to down those

devils first.”

It wasn’t safe for either of us to stick in that cave, so we cleared

away the marks of our occupation, and hid our packs in a deep crevice

on the rock. Wake announced his intention of climbing the tower, while

there was still a faint afterglow of light. “It’s broad on the top, and

I can keep a watch out to sea if any light shows. I’ve been up it

before. I found the way two years ago. No, I won’t fall asleep and

tumble off. I slept most of the afternoon on the top of Sgurr

Vhiconnich, and I’m as wakeful as a bat now.”

I watched him shin up the face of the tower, and admired greatly the

speed and neatness with which he climbed. Then I followed the crevice

southward to the hollow just below the platform where I had found the

footmarks. There was a big boulder there, which partly shut off the

view of it from the direction of our cave. The place was perfect for my

purpose, for between the boulder and the wall of the tower was a narrow

gap, through which I could hear all that passed on the platform. I

found a stance where I could rest in comfort and keep an eye through

the crack on what happened beyond.

There was still a faint light on the platform, but soon that

disappeared and black darkness settled down on the hills. It was the

dark of the moon, and, as had happened the night before, a thin wrack

blew over the sky, hiding the stars. The place was very still, though

now and then would come the cry of a bird from the crags that beetled

above me, and from the shore the pipe of a tern or oyster-catcher. An

owl hooted from somewhere up on the tower. That I reckoned was Wake, so

I hooted back and was answered. I unbuckled my wrist-watch and pocketed

it, lest its luminous dial should betray me; and I noticed that the

hour was close on eleven. I had already removed my shoes, and my jacket

was buttoned at the collar so as to show no shirt. I did not think that

the coming visitor would trouble to explore the crevice beyond the

platform, but I wanted to be prepared for emergencies.

Then followed an hour of waiting. I felt wonderfully cheered and

exhilarated, for Wake had restored my confidence in human nature. In

that eerie place we were wrapped round with mystery like a fog. Some

unknown figure was coming out of the sea, the emissary of that Power we

had been at grips with for three years. It was as if the war had just

made contact with our own shores, and never, not even when I was alone

in the South German forest, had I felt so much the sport of a whimsical

fate. I only wished Peter could have been with me. And so my thoughts

fled to Peter in his prison camp, and I longed for another sight of my

old friend as a girl longs for her lover.

Then I heard the hoot of an owl, and presently the sound of careful

steps fell on my ear. I could see nothing, but I guessed it was the

Portuguese Jew, for I could hear the grinding of heavily nailed boots

on the gritty rock.

The figure was very quiet. It appeared to be sitting down, and then it

rose and fumbled with the wall of the tower just beyond the boulder

behind which I sheltered. It seemed to move a stone and to replace it.

After that came silence, and then once more the hoot of an owl. There

were steps on the rock staircase, the steps of a man who did not know

the road well and stumbled a little. Also they were the steps of one

without nails in his boots.

They reached the platform and someone spoke. It was the Portuguese Jew

and he spoke in good German.

“_Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde,_” he said.

The answer came from a clear, authoritative voice.

“_Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch._”

Clearly some kind of password, for sane men don’t talk about little

birds in that kind of situation. It sounded to me like indifferent

poetry.

Then followed a conversation in low tones, of which I only caught odd

phrases. I heard two names—_Chelius_ and what sounded like a Dutch

word, _Bommaerts_. Then to my joy I caught _Elfenbein_, and when

uttered it seemed to be followed by a laugh. I heard too a phrase

several times repeated, which seemed to me to be pure gibberish—_Die

Stubenvögel verstehn_. It was spoken by the man from the sea. And then

the word _Wildvögel_. The pair seemed demented about birds.

For a second an electric torch was flashed in the shelter of the rock,

and I could see a tanned, bearded face looking at some papers. The

light disappeared, and again the Portuguese Jew was fumbling with the

stones at the base of the tower. To my joy he was close to my crack,

and I could hear every word. “You cannot come here very often,” he

said, “and it may be hard to arrange a meeting. See, therefore, the

place I have made to put the _Vögelfutter_. When I get a chance I will

come here, and you will come also when you are able. Often there will

be nothing, but sometimes there will be much.”

My luck was clearly in, and my exultation made me careless. A stone, on

which a foot rested, slipped and though I checked myself at once, the

confounded thing rolled down into the hollow, making a great clatter. I

plastered myself in the embrasure of the rock and waited with a beating

heart. The place was pitch dark, but they had an electric torch, and if

they once flashed it on me I was gone. I heard them leave the platform

and climb down into the hollow. There they stood listening, while I

held my breath. Then I heard “_Nix, mein freund,_” and the two went

back, the naval officer’s boots slipping on the gravel.

They did not leave the platform together. The man from the sea bade a

short farewell to the Portuguese Jew, listening, I thought, impatiently

to his final message as if eager to be gone. It was a good half-hour

before the latter took himself off, and I heard the sound of his nailed

boots die away as he reached the heather of the moor.

I waited a little longer, and then crawled back to the cave. The owl

hooted, and presently Wake descended lightly beside me; he must have

known every foothold and handhold by heart to do the job in that inky

blackness. I remember that he asked no question of me, but he used

language rare on the lips of conscientious objectors about the men who

had lately been in the crevice. We, who four hours earlier had been at

death grips, now curled up on the hard floor like two tired dogs, and

fell sound asleep.

I woke to find Wake in a thundering bad temper. The thing he remembered

most about the night before was our scrap and the gross way I had

insulted him. I didn’t blame him, for if any man had taken me for a

German spy I would have been out for his blood, and it was no good

explaining that he had given me grounds for suspicion. He was as touchy

about his blessed principles as an old maid about her age. I was

feeling rather extra buckish myself and that didn’t improve matters.

His face was like a gargoyle as we went down to the beach to bathe, so

I held my tongue. He was chewing the cud of his wounded pride.

But the salt water cleared out the dregs of his distemper. You couldn’t

be peevish swimming in that jolly, shining sea. We raced each other

away beyond the inlet to the outer water, which a brisk morning breeze

was curling. Then back to a promontory of heather, where the first

beams of the sun coming over the Coolin dried our skins. He sat hunched

up staring at the mountains while I prospected the rocks at the edge.

Out in the Minch two destroyers were hurrying southward, and I wondered

where in that waste of blue was the craft which had come here in the

night watches.

I found the spoor of the man from the sea quite fresh on a patch of

gravel above the tide-mark.

“There’s our friend of the night,” I said.

“I believe the whole thing was a whimsy,” said Wake, his eyes on the

chimneys of Sgurr Dearg. “They were only two natives—poachers, perhaps,

or tinkers.”

“They don’t speak German in these parts.”

“It was Gaelic probably.”

“What do you make of this, then?” and I quoted the stuff about birds

with which they had greeted each other.

Wake looked interested. “That’s _Uber allen Gipfeln_. Have you ever

read Goethe?”

“Never a word. And what do you make of that?” I pointed to a flat rock

below tide-mark covered with a tangle of seaweed. It was of a softer

stone than the hard stuff in the hills and somebody had scraped off

half the seaweed and a slice of the side. “That wasn’t done yesterday

morning, for I had my bath here.”

Wake got up and examined the place. He nosed about in the crannies of

the rocks lining the inlet, and got into the water again to explore

better. When he joined me he was smiling. “I apologise for my

scepticism,” he said. “There’s been some petrol-driven craft here in

the night. I can smell it, for I’ve a nose like a retriever. I daresay

you’re on the right track. Anyhow, though you seem to know a bit about

German, you could scarcely invent immortal poetry.”

We took our belongings to a green crook of the burn, and made a very

good breakfast. Wake had nothing in his pack but plasmon biscuits and

raisins, for that, he said, was his mountaineering provender, but he

was not averse to sampling my tinned stuff. He was a different-sized

fellow out in the hills from the anaemic intellectual of Biggleswick.

He had forgotten his beastly self-consciousness, and spoke of his hobby

with a serious passion. It seemed he had scrambled about everywhere in

Europe, from the Caucasus to the Pyrenees. I could see he must be good

at the job, for he didn’t brag of his exploits. It was the mountains

that he loved, not wriggling his body up hard places. The Coolin, he

said, were his favourites, for on some of them you could get two

thousand feet of good rock. We got our glasses on the face of Sgurr

Alasdair, and he sketched out for me various ways of getting to its

grim summit. The Coolin and the Dolomites for him, for he had grown

tired of the Chamonix _aiguilles_. I remember he described with

tremendous gusto the joys of early dawn in Tyrol, when you ascended

through acres of flowery meadows to a tooth of clean white limestone

against a clean blue sky. He spoke, too, of the little wild hills in

the Bavarian Wettersteingebirge, and of a guide he had picked up there

and trained to the job.

“They called him Sebastian Buchwieser. He was the jolliest boy you ever

saw, and as clever on crags as a chamois. He is probably dead by now,

dead in a filthy jaeger battalion. That’s you and your accursed war.”

“Well, we’ve got to get busy and end it in the right way,” I said. “And

you’ve got to help, my lad.”

He was a good draughtsman, and with his assistance I drew a rough map

of the crevice where we had roosted for the night, giving its bearings

carefully in relation to the burn and the sea. Then I wrote down all

the details about Gresson and the Portuguese Jew, and described the

latter in minute detail. I described, too, most precisely the cache

where it had been arranged that the messages should be placed. That

finished my stock of paper, and I left the record of the oddments

overheard of the conversation for a later time. I put the thing in an

old leather cigarette-case I possessed, and handed it to Wake.

“You’ve got to go straight off to the Kyle and not waste any time on

the way. Nobody suspects you, so you can travel any road you please.

When you get there you ask for Mr Andrew Amos, who has some Government

job in the neighbourhood. Give him that paper from me. He’ll know what

to do with it all right. Tell him I’ll get somehow to the Kyle before

midday the day after tomorrow. I must cover my tracks a bit, so I can’t

come with you, and I want that thing in his hands just as fast as your

legs will take you. If anyone tries to steal it from you, for God’s

sake eat it. You can see for yourself that it’s devilish important.”

“I shall be back in England in three days,” he said. “Any message for

your other friends?”

“Forget all about me. You never saw me here. I’m still Brand, the

amiable colonial studying social movements. If you meet Ivery, say you

heard of me on the Clyde, deep in sedition. But if you see Miss

Lamington you can tell her I’m past the Hill Difficulty. I’m coming

back as soon as God will let me, and I’m going to drop right into the

Biggleswick push. Only this time I’ll be a little more advanced in my

views.... You needn’t get cross. I’m not saying anything against your

principles. The main point is that we both hate dirty treason.”

He put the case in his waistcoat pocket. “I’ll go round Garsbheinn,” he

said, “and over by Camasunary. I’ll be at the Kyle long before evening.

I meant anyhow to sleep at Broadford tonight.... Goodbye, Brand, for

I’ve forgotten your proper name. You’re not a bad fellow, but you’ve

landed me in melodrama for the first time in my sober existence. I have

a grudge against you for mixing up the Coolin with a shilling shocker.

You’ve spoiled their sanctity.”

“You’ve the wrong notion of romance,” I said. “Why, man, last night for

an hour you were in the front line—the place where the enemy forces

touch our own. You were over the top—you were in No-man’s-land.”

He laughed. “That is one way to look at it’; and then he stalked off

and I watched his lean figure till it was round the turn of the hill.

All that morning I smoked peacefully by the burn, and let my thoughts

wander over the whole business. I had got precisely what Blenkiron

wanted, a post office for the enemy. It would need careful handling,

but I could see the juiciest lies passing that way to the _Grosses

Hauptquartier_. Yet I had an ugly feeling at the back of my head that

it had been all too easy, and that Ivery was not the man to be duped in

this way for long. That set me thinking about the queer talk on the

crevice. The poetry stuff I dismissed as the ordinary password,

probably changed every time. But who were _Chelius_ and _Bommaerts_,

and what in the name of goodness were the Wild Birds and the Cage

Birds? Twice in the past three years I had had two such riddles to

solve—Scudder’s scribble in his pocket-book, and Harry Bullivant’s

three words. I remembered how it had only been by constant chewing at

them that I had got a sort of meaning, and I wondered if fate would

some day expound this puzzle also.

Meantime I had to get back to London as inconspicuously as I had come.

It might take some doing, for the police who had been active in Morvern

might be still on the track, and it was essential that I should keep

out of trouble and give no hint to Gresson and his friends that I had

been so far north. However, that was for Amos to advise me on, and

about noon I picked up my waterproof with its bursting pockets and set

off on a long detour up the coast. All that blessed day I scarcely met

a soul. I passed a distillery which seemed to have quit business, and

in the evening came to a little town on the sea where I had a bed and

supper in a superior kind of public-house.

Next day I struck southward along the coast, and had two experiences of

interest. I had a good look at Ranna, and observed that the _Tobermory_

was no longer there. Gresson had only waited to get his job finished;

he could probably twist the old captain any way he wanted. The second

was that at the door of a village smithy I saw the back of the

Portuguese Jew. He was talking Gaelic this time—good Gaelic it sounded,

and in that knot of idlers he would have passed for the ordinariest

kind of gillie.

He did not see me, and I had no desire to give him the chance, for I

had an odd feeling that the day might come when it would be good for us

to meet as strangers.

That night I put up boldly in the inn at Broadford, where they fed me

nobly on fresh sea-trout and I first tasted an excellent liqueur made

of honey and whisky. Next morning I was early afoot, and well before

midday was in sight of the narrows of the Kyle, and the two little

stone clachans which face each other across the strip of sea.

About two miles from the place at a turn of the road I came upon a

farmer’s gig, drawn up by the wayside, with the horse cropping the

moorland grass. A man sat on the bank smoking, with his left arm hooked

in the reins. He was an oldish man, with a short, square figure, and a

woollen comforter enveloped his throat.