‘We must divide our forcesl’ snapped the Admiral, bursting with initiative. ‘Inspector, I leave it to you to post men on those two roads to intercept the thieves. I shall proceed to Lochnabee, as planned. Certainly I shall need additional men. Sergeant, you will see to it.’ That took care of that, apparently. ‘If communication is necessary we shall send messengers here, to the hotel, which is our base . . . with Mrs Gordon’s permission, of course,’ he added with a placatory smirk to Aunt Alison, who was ushering in two maids bearing loaded trays.
‘How exciting,’ she said. ‘Are we being commandeered?’
Good heavens, no, cried the Admiral, simply a matter of convenience, central point, lines of communication. ‘And I’m sure, gentlemen,’ he added impressively, ‘that I speak for us all when I say how grateful we are to Mrs Gordon for . . . ah, for so kindly allowing us to use her premises, and so graciously – ’
‘Och, stop behaving like Rommel, Jacky,’ said my aunt. ‘I didn’t allow anything. You just breenged in as usual. Tea or coffee, Inspector? Or a little of the creature? And don’t tell me you’re on duty . . . I won’t have that.’ She patted his arm conspiratorially. ‘Help yourselves, gentlemen. There are the sausage rolls, Rory . . . Janet, a glass for the Admiral, and those sandwiches . . .’
‘I say, this is awfully kind of you, Alison,’ protested the Admiral, ‘but I’m afraid we really don’t have time – ’
‘You wouldn’t send men out on the hill at night without something in them?’ Aunt Alison reproved him. ‘Not from this house! No water for the Admiral, Janet . . . Those are smoked salmon, Jacky – your favourite. Now, are our friends from Glasgow being attended to? That’s a grouse pâté – you won’t get that in Craigs or the Ca’doro. Sit you down, constable, and put your feet under the table . . . Rory, is that the single malt? Good lad, don’t let the sausage rolls defeat you. . .’
She moved about the room, recommending and directing, seeing that plates and glasses were refilled, and even the Admiral had to admit it was a sound basis for the labours ahead. The police and gadgers obviously agreed, from the way they were engulfing the delicacies; I noticed that Janet removed an empty Glenlivet bottle when she went out for a fresh tray of sandwiches, and the Admiral allowed my aunt to prevail on him to try the pate, and then really, Alison, we must be moving . . . well, just a spot of the ten-year-old, then . . . capital . . . not too much . . .
‘It’s a lot better for you than gin,’ smiled Aunt Alison, pouring. ‘There, we’ll make a Highlandman of you yet. Not that we haven’t tried . . . how many years has it been?’
‘Lord, I hate to think! Let’s see . . . I bought Achnafroich in ’32 . . . or was it ’31 . . . yes, March, ’31, but I’d been coming up for years before that, you remember . . .’ He sipped and reminisced, with my aunt smiling encouragement, and when he looked at his watch she remarked that he seemed to be in a most ungallant hurry to be off, which kept him protesting through another glass of the ten-year-old.
All told I’d say that collation occupied half an hour, by which time the troops were pink and contented. Finally the Admiral called a halt, thanked Aunt Alison on behalf of them all, and dispatched them to the vehicles. As they trooped out he turned to her, looking contrite.
‘I say, Alison, I do apologise again. We’ve put you to enormous trouble – shocking imposition, I mean, intruding on you like this . . . but I’m sure you understand that I . . . well, I mean . . .’
‘You wanted to give me a chance to line up with the landed gentry, didn’t you?’ she teased him. ‘Well, it was nice of you, and I’m touched. Now, off you go, and I hope you kill a lot of Germans.’
‘Oh, really, Alison! I do wish you’d be serious! It’s no laughing matter – and I’m sorry, but I must ask again . . . we’re going to be short-handed, so will you please allow me to take your people along? We need every —’
‘I’ve told you, you’re at liberty to approach any employee of mine, and if he wants to go, well and good.’ She sat down and picked up her knitting. ‘But it’s up to them; I can’t order them.’
‘My dear, if you’ll forgive me, that’s nonsense. One word from you -’
‘Well, I won’t say it, and that’s flat.’ She gave him her gentlest blue-eyed smile, like the Rock of Gibraltar, and he let out a whoof of despair and impatience, said he did wish she’d be reasonable for once, it would make things so much easier, and stumped reproachfully out, returning immediately to thank her again for the drinks and canapes, and finally departing. Even with the door closed we could hear him trumpeting orders in the hall.
‘Now you ken how the French Revolution started,’ said Aunt Alison. ‘Confound those McLarens!’ She threw down her knitting and said something ugly in Gaelic. ‘And confound Jacky for a meddling wee ass! Could he not let the Dipper alone?’ She lit a cigarette and got up, tapping her foot. ‘That boy Macrae of yours. Where did you say he was from?’
‘Macrae?’ I was startled. ‘Aberfeldy. He used to be ghillie thereabouts.’
‘Macrae! God save us.’ She gave her sharp laugh. ‘There’s a name for a Highland midnight. And you’re sure he’s not about?’
‘Not since this afternoon. Auntie dear,’ I said, ‘what’s happening? ’
‘That remains to be seen,’ she said. ‘Dand, I want you to go to Lochnabee with Jacky.’
‘What? I can’t get mixed up in that sort of thing! I’m a soldier! Besides, I’m shot if I’ll help nab the Dipper ―’
‘I’m not asking you to. Just do as you’re told.’ Immediately I was six years old again. ‘Stay with Jacky and see what happens. Off you go, double quick. Now.’
When Aunt Alison says ‘now’ in that quiet way, she means yesterday. I went, and found the Admiral marshalling his squadrons in line ahead on the gravel. The police car and farm lorries were roaring off in pursuit of poachers, leaving the Admiral’s limousine, the gadgers’ car, and an antediluvian shooting-brake packed with the Admiral’s shock-troops, three or four ghillies from his own estate. He hailed me with enthusiasm. ‘Ha! In for the kill, eh? Good show! Off we go, Cameroon !′ We sped into the night, the Sergeant breathing heavily beside me in the back seat, the car redolent of the hotel’s malt, and all the way to Lochnabee the Admiral, up front, told me what a wonderful woman Aunt Alison was, but headstrong, did I know what he meant? Pity, because she had such brains and character, and could have been such a helpful influence on the restless Jacquerie if only she would take her responsibilities more seriously . . . charming, though. Pity she hadn’t been out in Wei-hai-wei when he was a young lieutenant . . . yes, wonderful . . . I looked at the back of his reddened neck, the ageing pocket Dreadnought suffused with gin, and thought of my late uncle, tall, dark, handsome Alastair of the lazy smile . . . it would have made you weep, it really would.
Lochnabee is a hill loch on the high tops, cold and black as a witch’s breath, and lonely, with not a tree or a bush for miles. The last place you would choose for making funny whisky unless you were a crazy old brock like the Dipper. It was a bare two hundred yards wide, and the only road was a rough track up which we bumped and rattled in the dark – if the Dipper didn’t know we were coming he must be stone deaf. We stopped a half-mile from the loch in surroundings straight from Macbeth, Act One, and the stalker scouted ahead and presently came back with the word: there was a boat on the loch.
‘That’s him!’ cried the Admiral. ‘Right! Pay attention! Right! Sergeant, Dand, stay with me! Cameron, keep the engine running! The rest of you know your positions! Move quietly′ – this with his car back-firing like a Bofors – ’spread out, and wait until I bring up the car! Then I shall give the signal, and on with the lights! Got that? Remember, our man will make for the shore, so be on the look-out! He may put up a fight! Right . . . !’
It was a farce from start to finish. We waited by the car, the Admiral stumping up and down muttering ‘Right!’ and striking matches to look at his watch; when he shouted ‘Right!’ for the last time we drove
the final half-mile at top speed on side-lights which is no joke halfway up a Scottish mountain, and came to a shuddering halt with the loch glinting palely in front of our bonnet. The Admiral leaped out, blowing a whistle, the headlights were switched on full, and the powerful torches of the gadgers blinked on from the other shore. Sure enough, there was a boat in the middle of the loch, with three men in it, and one of them was shouting:
‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing, scaring the fush? Get away, you with your pluidy motor car, and put out those pluidy lights!’
‘He’s bluffing!’ roared the Admiral. ‘Sergeant, do your duty!’
The Sergeant lumbered forward and fell in the loch. The Admiral swore on a high note, the sounds of altercation between the boat and the watchers on the far shore floated across to us, and the Sergeant emerged like some great seabeast and shouted: ‘In the King’s name!’ It may have been an oath or an announcement of majesty, but it got a great horselaugh from the boat, and at that moment the car’s headlights went out.
‘Switch them on again, Cameron, godammit!′ cried the Admiral. ‘Sergeant! Where are you?’ Drowning, by the sound of it, for in that sudden blackness he had evidently taken the wrong direction, and was wallowing in the shallows. ‘Come out of that, you fool! Cameron, will you put on those blasted lights?’ I could hear the driver cursing as he scrabbled at the dashboard, and for no apparent reason the Admiral blew his whistle again. He was stumping about in the dark, and presently there was a sharp musical sound as of metal meeting bone. ‘God damn the thing! Sergeant, what the hell are you doing? Where are you, man?’
‘I’m here, sir, and I’m drookit!’ cried the Sergeant, but they’re made of fine stuff, these Perthshire policemen, for after a few hippo-like squelches in the gloom he bawled:
‘McLaren, do you hear me? The jig is up! You are surroonded on aall sides! Chust you bring in your boat this minute and surrender! We have a warrant! Do you hear me, McLaren?’
‘Away you, Rory, and polish your pluidy handcuffs!’ came the answer. ‘Have you nothing petter to do than spoil sport, you and that merchant skipper wi’ the pot belly?’
‘Damn him!’ cried the Admiral, enraged. ‘Damn his insolence! Give yourselves up, you scoundrels, or it will the worse for you!’
‘Ach, go and torpedo yourself!’ laughed the voice. ‘You should be in your bed, you silly sailor!’
‘Now, you listen to me, McLaren!’ shouted the Sergeant. ‘You chust give up this nonsense like a good laad, and maybe when it comes to the charges we’ll be going easy on you -’
‘We’ll do nothing of the dam’ sort!’ bellowed the Admiral. It struck me that perhaps he and the Sergeant had worked out the routine of Hard Man and Soft Man used by clever interrogators, but if they had it was wasted effort. The response from the boat was an indelicate noise, and in his fury the Admiral shouted, most unreasonably: ‘Sergeant! Arrest that man!’
Knowing Rory’s devotion to duty I half-expected him to strike out for the middle of the loch with his handcuffs in his teeth, but at that moment the headlights came on again, and in their glare the boating trio were seen to be on their feet, manhandling a large contraption which looked like an oil drum with metal curlicues and other interesting attachments. The Admiral let out a neighing scream.
‘It’s the stilll Don’t let them jettison it! Get a boat, Sergeant! It’s no use, you villains, we’ve seen it! Sergeant, you’re a witness! Oh, my God, it’s gone!’
There was an almighty splash, the boat rocked, and a small wave rippled across the face of the loch. The Admiral actually shook his fist, the Sergeant strode into the shallows and cried: ‘I arrest you, Aeneas McLaren, alias the Dipper, for illicit distillin’, you godless hound of hell, you!’ The headlights blinked, dimmed, and went out again, and I climbed into the back of the car for a quiet cigarette. These big co-ordinated police operations are too much for mere military nerves.
What they would have done if the Dipper and his companions had chosen to stay where they were, I can’t imagine. Stood around the loch until they grew moss, probably. But the Dipper was considerate; he and his friends rowed slowly in, singing some Gaelic boat song, and when Rory laid hands on him and said that anything you say will be taken doon and may be used in evidence against you, and haud your tongue, Dipper McLaren, and the Admiral announced triumphantly that he could expect a jail sentence without the option, the Dipper smiled on them tolerantly and asked: ‘And what for, skipper? Fushin’?’
‘You know damned well what forl’ cried the Admiral. ‘For illicit distilling! What was that you threw over the side, hey?’
‘Bait,’ said the Dipper, and laughed softly with the whole length of his lean body. The Admiral laughed, too, on an unpleasant note, and said he would sing a different tune when they’d dragged the loch, but I noticed the gadgers weren’t smiling as they surveyed that black surface, and Rory was oddly hesitant about clapping the darbies on the prisoners, as the Admiral demanded.
‘We know where to put our hands on them, sir, when required,’ he said, scowling on the Dipper, and although the Admiral got quite purple about it, he couldn’t get Rory to go beyond charging the trio, and finally letting them go – for, as the Sergeant fairly pointed out, we simply didn’t have room in the vehicles to carry them back. The Dipper listened with amiable attention, touched his hat to the Admiral, flung his old coat about his shoulders like a musketeer, and with his two friends simply wandered off into the darkness.
It seemed a bit of an anti-climax, but although the Admiral was baulked of the satisfaction of bringing back his captives in chains behind his chariot, so to speak, he was grimly cheerful on the way home. They knew where the still was, and when it had been dredged up it would be a case of Barlinnie for three, and no nonsense. And if the Inspector had done his part with comparable efficiency, the Admiral added, that would be one gang of poachers less to trouble the countryside. Not a bad night’s work, young Dand; we’ve earned our nightcap, what?
Any thought of nightcaps vanished from my mind as we drove over the gravel to the hotel. For there, parked outside, was my 15-cwt truck, with the Inspector and a constable standing guard.
The Admiral was out of the car like a salmon going up the Falls of Falloch, demanding information, and the Inspector gave it with disgruntled satisfaction. No, they hadn’t found the deer; no, they hadn’t caught the poachers. Of course, had he been given aa-dequate perr-sonnel –
‘Then where the devil did you find the truck?’ blared the Admiral. ‘And how the devil did you get in that condition?’ For both officers were plastered with mud to the waist, as though they had strayed into a peat-cutting – which, it transpired, they had: obviously it wasn’t the Perthshire constabulary’s night for keeping dry. The Inspector explained with what dignity he could.
He had established road-blocks as instructed, and was driving back towards the hotel with the constable when they had spotted the truck coming towards them along the Tyndrum road ― the one we had taken en route to Lochnabee. ‘You hadnae seen it – no, you would be busy up at the loch, no doubt.’ The Inspector’s sniff was eloquent. The truck had pulled up sharply at sight of the police car, and four men had taken to the heather, but although the officers had pursued them vigorously they had escaped in the darkness.
‘Blast!’ exploded the Admiral. ‘But didn’t you get a look at them, dammit? Can you identify them, man? You must have – ’
‘I haff said it wass dark, and we wass undermanned!’ retorted the Inspector. ‘Mind you, wan o’ them sounded like a Glasgow man, for we heard him roaring in the night, and he had an accent.’ He glanced at me. ‘He micht have been wearing a sojer’s tunic.’
‘Half the demobilised men in the country wear soldiers’ tunics!’ snapped the Admiral. ‘What a shambles! The whole thing has been bungled to the hilt!’ He glared at the unfortunate Inspector. ‘Well, you haven’t covered yourself with glory, have you? I send you out, with precise instructions . . .’
I was no longer listening. I knew only one man in the neighbourhood who wore khaki and roared in a Glasgow accent when pursued – but it couldn’t be him, surely? McAuslan, stagpoacher? Impossible; he wouldn’t have known how, for one thing . . . and then I remembered Aunt Alison’s words: ‘Macrae! There’s a name for a Highland midnight . . .’ Macrae the stalker; he would know how. But that wasn’t credible, either . . . we’d only been in the district twenty-four hours; they couldn’t have taken to crime (and highly technical crime, too) in that time. Not McAuslan, anyway – and yet every instinct told me that, however bizarre the explanation, he was out there in the heather somewhere, doing his disorderly impression of Rob Roy, and unless immediate steps were taken he would undoubtedly blunder into the arms of the Law, and . . . It didn’t bear thinking about – McAuslan, court-martialled for killing the King’s deer (well, the Admiral’s, anyway). What could I do?
Fortunately the Admiral and Inspector were too busy upbraiding and making excuses to notice me, and when the Admiral finally made for the hotel, muttering savagely about incompetent bumpkins and the decay of discipline, I followed, a prey to nameless fears. He surged up the steps like an icebreaker, and was heading for my aunt’s office when Robin Elphinstone came out of the passage, started violently at the sight of us, and half-retreated into the passage again, looking furtive.
‘Elphinstone!’ cried the Admiral, scoring a bull for identification. ‘What the blazes are you doing here?’
The aggressive tone seemed to strike fire in Elphinstone. He was normally a bluff, confident character, but emerging from the passage he had reacted like Peter Lorre caught in the act, twitching and glancing sideways. Now he recovered, drew himself up, eyed the Admiral with loathing, and demanded:
‘Why shouldn’t I be here? This hotel isn’t your flagship, is it? Who the dickens d’you think you are – Captain Bligh?’ He snorted and shot his cuffs rather defensively, I thought. ‘If you must know, I’ve been having coffee with Mrs Gordon,’ he added, and the Admiral ground his teeth.