Black Cross (31 page)

“I don’t have five pounds,” Stern grumbled, settling into an uncomfortable perch on his end of the crossarm.

McShane waved his hand. “You can stand me a pint in Fort William. Beats money anytime.”

Stern nodded, still trying to catch his breath.

“There’s Ben Nevis,” McShane said. “See it? I call her the crouching lion. Tallest mountain in Scotland.”

Stern raised his eyes and looked out over the glen. Far to the south he saw the wooded hump of the mountain shrouded in mist. Loch Lochy shimmered like polished slate in the pale sun.

“I think you’ve about got the knack of it,” McShane said above the rising wind. “’Course it’d take you another month to get up to my level.”

Stern nodded with resignation. “You’re damned good,” he admitted. “But why in God’s name do you work so hard at it? You’re not the one who’s going into—”

Stern stared hard into the Highlander’s blue eyes.

McShane winked. “Finally figured it out, have you? Christ, it only took you a week.”

“You close-mouthed bastard. You’re going in to hang the cylinders!”

McShane made an indignant face. “
Goin’
, you say? I’m leading the bloody mission!”

“Who else is going with you?”

McShane looked around cautiously, which appeared ridiculous sixty feet off the ground. “Three other instructors,” he said. “We get a little tired of wet-nursing pups like you. This is probably going to be the last real commando raid of the war, you know. In the classic sense, I mean. Hit and run. Shoot ’n scoot, as we used to say.”

“It’s all a game to you, isn’t it?” Stern said in an accusatory tone. “The war, I mean.”

McShane’s lips maintained their smile, but his eyes narrowed. “It’s one way of looking at it. That way, no matter how bad things get, you keep some perspective. But I’ll tell you this, man. When the Luftwaffe was pounding London into dust and the RAF lads were dying like flies over the Channel, it wasna any game. Churchill sent us across just to show Britain wasna lyin’ down for Hitler. We got chewed into little pieces. I lost many a mate those first two years. I dinna mind tellin’ you, the day of reckoning is at hand.”

McShane reached out with his boot and rocked a third gas cylinder, which hung from the wire beneath him. “I reckon most are content to wait for the invasion. But we Highlanders are a vindictive lot. To our own detriment sometimes. Smith offered me a chance to hit the bastards where it hurts, so I took it.”

Stern had never thought he would feel empathy for a British soldier, but in that moment he did. “How much do you know about the mission, Sergeant?”

McShane gazed past him to the gray hills. “I know all I need to know. Same as you. Dinna look to know more.” He glanced down to check his spikes for the descent. “You ought to be glad it’s me going. You need all the help ye can get.”

“What do you mean? I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?” McShane chuckled softly. “I hope you can hide yourself better than you hid that bicycle. I found the bloody thing four days ago.”

Stern’s mouth fell open.

“Dinna be worryin’ about that. The colonel doesn’t know. I slipped it back to that crofter’s hut for you.” The Highlander reached down and took hold of the cotter pin holding the third cylinder in place. “You’ll do fine,” he said. “Smith knew what he was doing. You’re the perfect man for your job.”

He yanked the pin from the roller wheel. “And I’m the perfect man for mine. If anyone can hang those cylinders, stow your gear and get out without the Hun any the wiser, it’s the boys from Achnacarry.”

Stern watched the cylinder glide smoothly down the wire. He
was
glad to know McShane would be preparing the way for him. He didn’t like any of the other instructors much, but after five days of training under them, he had to admit that he’d never met better or tougher soldiers in his life.

The rolling cylinder jumped the crossarm on the second pylon, then settled into a steady run down toward the loch.

“When are you jumping off?” Stern asked. “By my count, it’s time to go.”

“The cylinders from Porton Down are scheduled to arrive in one hour,” McShane said calmly. “My lot shoves off then.”

Stern felt a rush of excitement. “Tonight?”

McShane unclipped his safety belt, slid off the crossarm and dug his spikes into the thick pole beneath it. He looked over at Stern and grinned. “I just wish I was going to be there to see those cylinders land in that camp. It’ll be some show, that. One night only, and no one leaves alive.”

“No one but me and McConnell,” said Stern.

“Right,” McShane added quickly. “That’s what I meant.”

Beyond the Arkaig River where it bent north of the castle, McConnell wearily stuffed his chemistry and German books into a leather bag and started back toward the commando camp. He’d had enough studying, and his stomach was audibly begging for nourishment. To shorten his trip, he turned into a section of forest known as the
Mile Dorcha
, or Dark Mile. The origin of the name was plain enough. What had once been a forest lane was now a tunnel of overarching trees, with the road itself sunk between high banks covered with deep moss and lichens. It was the kind of place where one half-expected to hear the thunder of hoofbeats as a headless horseman galloped out of the trees.

But it was no horseman that stepped out of the forest to McConnell’s right, causing his heart to momentarily stop. It was a tall man of about sixty, wearing a beautiful kilt, a green beret and scuffed brogues. The gray-eyed stranger stood motionless beside the lane. When McConnell drew near, he lifted his walking staff and raised two fingers in greeting.

“Hello,” said McConnell.

“Fine day for a walk,” the man replied, then fell in beside him.

“Yes, it is,” Mark agreed.

The stranger said nothing else. Strangely, McConnell felt no urge or obligation to speak. The kilted walker seemed in absolute harmony with his surroundings, as if he were as much a part of the landscape as the moss and the crooked trees. In the easy silence, McConnell found himself reflecting on the past week. His time at Achnacarry had been a revelation. The emergency surgery on the riverbank had left him exhilarated, reminding him of what he had given up to work in the labs at Oxford. It had also marked the genesis of a careful friendship between himself and Stern. The taciturn Jew still refused to reveal what kind of training he was doing alone, but whenever McConnell heard the
ka-whoom
of explosions echoing through the hills, he pictured Stern with his hand on the detonator.

Twice more since the episode at the river, he had managed to surprise Stern. Yesterday, Sergeants McShane and Lewis had trotted up to them carrying a massive ten-foot log on their shoulders. Lewis’s knee was heavily taped, but he was making a great point of showing everyone that Stern had not crippled him. When the two sergeants pretended to pass the log to McConnell, Mark stunned everyone by taking it on his shoulder and marching off across the hill with little apparent strain. He didn’t tell them that during high school he had worked summers at a creosote plant, where with twelve tireless Negroes he had hauled sizzling black poles nine hours a day under the Georgia sun.

And last night, when he and Stern stumbled upon a sergeant giving an outdoor lecture on survival cooking, McConnell had entered Achnacarry folklore. The cook had challenged his audience to guess which animal’s flesh they were eating from his fire. When the stumped French commandos — and Jonas Stern — heard that the roasted delicacy in their mouths was Achnacarry Rat, there was a race to the river to vomit. Only McConnell finished his full portion, explaining that during the Depression he had eaten alligator, possum, nutria, snake, and raccoon. He earned the cook’s eternal friendship by pronouncing Achnacarry Rat superior to nutria, which was a large water rodent of the American Southeast.

Such moments had been rare, though. The uncertainty of their impending mission, and their impatience to get on with it, set them apart from the soldiers at the castle, who knew that their own battles with the Germans would not begin until spring arrived.

“You’re the American, aren’t you?”

McConnell jumped at the sound of the voice. So smooth and silent were the movements of the kilted man beside him that he had almost forgotten his presence.

“The pacifist I’ve been hearing about?”

McConnell glanced over at the weathered face of the stranger in the beret, then looked ahead. At the end of the tunnel of trees, an arch of light glimmered like a great cathedral window. “Yes,” he said. “But I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

“Sorry. I thought you’d know me by the tartan. I’m Donald Cameron.”

McConnell tried to recover gracefully from the hitch in his stride. “
Sir
Donald Cameron? Laird of Achnacarry Castle?”

The Highlander smiled. “Aye. A mouthful, isn’t it?” He gazed high into the shadowy treetops as they moved toward the forest’s edge. “Beautiful in the gloaming, eh?”

“Yes, sir. The hills here remind me of some mountains back in my home state.”

“Where would that be?”

“Georgia. Your hills have the same mist, the same wooded slopes as the Appalachian Mountains.”

“I’ve heard of these mountains. A great many Americans come over here, you know. Searching for roots, they say. Quite a few Camerons were pushed off the land during the Clearances, and many went to America. Some to those very mountains of yours.”

The arch of light had grown closer, but it seemed to dim as they approached. “Is that right?” said McConnell. “When I first heard your name, it was a bit of a surprise.”

“Why’s that, lad? Camerons have owned this land for seven hundred years.”

McConnell heard the sound of rushing water. “That’s what I mean. You see, my middle name is Cameron.”

The laird didn’t stop walking, but he turned to face McConnell. “Is that a fact, now? And your last name?”

“McConnell.”

“Hm. Mostly Irish, that.”

“My grandmother was a Cameron.”

“Well, there’s two sets of Camerons hereabouts. The Camerons of Lochiel, and the Camerons of Erracht.” Sir Donald winked at McConnell. “Let’s hope she was a Lochiel, eh?”

The two men emerged from the Dark Mile into lambent winter light. The cool spray of falling water misted the air. The laird led McConnell onto an arched stone footbridge and gestured up toward two waterfalls that cascaded into a peaty brown pool below the bridge. He took a deep, satisfied breath.

“I suppose the men have been giving you a lot of trouble about this pacifist business?”

McConnell hesitated. “A bit.”

“Don’t think you’re cut out for battle, eh?”

“I just think there must be a better way to solve problems.”

The laird smiled wistfully. “Aye, you’d think so, after all this time. Men are bloody-minded creatures though.”

The light was changing fast on the falls, the frothing white turning silver in the twilight.

“When Bonnie Prince Charlie started to raise the rebellion,” Cameron said, “my ancestor — the Gentle Lochiel, they called him — rode straight on to talk the prince out of it. An ill-timed enterprise, he called it.”

“Did he succeed?”

“Oh, no. The rebellion was born, and Lochiel fought like the rest. But he knew it was doomed from the start, ye see. Ended in blood and death at Culloden.” Sir Donald nodded slowly at McConnell. “My point, lad, is that a man isn’t measured by how regularly he struts around beating his chest. A wise man loves peace better than war.” He raised his forefinger. “And a wise man picks his battles. When he can, leastways.”

McConnell was surprised to hear such a philosophy from a Highland Chief, a warrior breed if ever there was one.

“It’s a strange world,” the laird mused. “In 1746 the redcoats burned our old castle. Now Charlie Vaughan and his English commandos have occupied the new one. I don’t like it, but it’s in a good cause. Hitler, I mean. I’ve no use for the man. No use for a German at all, to be honest. Going to Germany yourself, are ye?”

McConnell felt a shock of disbelief. Brigadier Smith had certainly not confided the target of the mission to a civilian, even if he was the landlord.

“Don’t look so surprised, lad. Not much gets by me. Why else would you be paired with that German Jew? And dinna be worryin’. I’m no’ a talker.”

“It’s true,” McConnell said, feeling an almost confessional relief.

“Must be important, then.” The laird’s blue eyes bore into McConnell’s. “Going into the enemy camp means bloodshed. I guess you know that.”

“I’m figuring it out.”

“Well . . . if they picked you for this job, you must be the right man.”

Mark set his elbows on the stone rail of the bridge. “I didn’t think so at first. But now I have a queer feeling. Almost like . . . well, destiny or something. Take the name Cameron. Right now I may be standing on land my ancestors walked, and only because of this mission.”

Sir Donald nodded. “You listen, lad. When the time comes — when you get to the sharp end of things — you’ll know what to do. I heard how you saved that Frog down by the river.”

“That was my medical training. I’m not trained for this.”

Cameron’s bright eyes flashed. “Bugger all that! If you’ve got Cameron blood in your veins, ye’ve got the fight in ye. You’ll bear up when the time comes.”

He leaned his staff against the bridge rail and pulled a deer-skinning knife from the stocking of his right leg, then looked McConnell in the eye. “I wish I were going with you, that’s God’s truth. But I’m too old now. My son is about your age. He’s with the Lovat Scouts. In any case, you’re a Cameron by one branch or the other, and you’re entitled to wear the tartan.”

McConnell watched in amazement as the laird sliced off a six-inch swatch of his heavy woolen kilt.

“You take this, Doctor,” he said. “Might bring ye luck in the hard places.” He slipped the knife back into his stocking. “There’s not a Hun in the world could stand before a Cameron with his blood up. Mark my words.”

McConnell stood straight and carefully folded the green, red, and yellow cloth into the pocket of his army denims. “Thank you, sir,” he said. “I’ll keep it close by.”