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27. THE INACCESSABLE PINNACLE.
They climbed up out of the valley depths onto the open ridge above. A stronger wind met them there in the face, as they broke the skyline at the bealach : colder air gusting between Sgurr Dearg and Sgurr na Banachdich. The sudden spectacle of the jagged rocks seized them with its breathtaking boldness and austerity... causing the heart to thrill, to race... dizzy drops, slipping away on either side. And they'd arrived now, daring to live on the edge : to live for the moment in the fleeting, flowing present. They shared a sense of the mountain's grandeur, its lofty apartness from the world below, as they made out the spur that was rearing above them, leading towards the pinnacle itself... while all around them, a more fitful light : now glaring, now being overwhelmed - in conflict almost...
'Stay close together' Gordon commanded.
They followed upwards along the edge, Andrew supervising at awkward, exposed corners; his strong arm ready to pull them on; Wiggy, silent and vigilant, close behind. He kept near to the children and watched their steps. Harry was grim and determined, alert and excited. He took on the slanting rock-slabs with the dog : pushing it up ahead of him over difficult boulders; elsewhere, finding the wee dog's eager face, waiting and looking down before he arrived.
'Come on, Rover' shouted the boy. 'Help me up. Give me your paw.'
Gordon, at the back, was feeling his way forward, guided by Murdo. 'What's the weather doing, do you think?' he asked.
'It's on the turn alright' the sailor nodded, as light and cloud did battle overhead.
They continued to ascend the splintered ridge, quietly, in balance. Occasional loose rocks clattered underfoot but, as they progressed, each of them found a release of joy, afforded to those who live along the edge. The joy of life which should never be measured in terms of comfort and security : this, the reward of those who accept precipitous consequences, in order to confront the physical present, and feel its sharp immediate adventure. Then suddenly, it was there, in sight : the pinnacle rising mysteriously above them; mythic, almost too real, and looming in silence. Murdo pushed back his hat and shook his head. 'But ah never thought ah'd see yon sight agin...'
His spirit seemed to quicken at this glad return to the fractured edge; and he found his eyes pricking somehow; found himself rejoicing as he'd done in his lost and distant youth. They stared at its apartness, at its otherness. It had an austere beauty and a grandeur - like the beauty of holiness, an unreasonable savagery it almost seemed - jutting skyward above their heads, its teetering angle holding their attention. And below them, the sheer precipice falling away...
The children huddled close and shared their feelings with one another. Even Roberta seemed taken aback at first. 'I didn't realise it would be quite as steep as this.'
Harry just laughed in wild surprise. 'It's amazing' he gasped. 'It's incredible. Hey, Al! Just look at the drop over there.'
Alasdair didn't want to look. He confided his anxiety quietly to his sister : 'I'm not sure I can do it, Roberta' he murmured.
She answered kindly, 'Of course you can. But only if you want to.' He was strengthened by the closeness of her presence, and by her human kindness and concern. It felt safe and reassuring. The sense of place and hereness was acute : their dreams and action brought to a point.
'Lunch' panted Gordon, and they gathered round together on the crest, ungarlanding the slings and climbing ropes; piling them in readiness upon a mound of stones. Andrew Douglas then unstrapped the plane, and lowered it onto the top of the kit.
Sitting quietly, they talked together.
'Woof once for marmite. Twice for strawberry jam.'
Harry was sharing his sandwiches with the dog. 'We're mad' he laughed. 'Loony. Insane.'
'Do you think so?' Wiggy asked.
'No' he replied, oblivious to logic.
They looked out across the severe cliffs of Coire Lagan, and the shattered rocks, the strewn boulders, far below : at the wild shambles and chaos left behind by some preceding ice-age, recently gone by... and their presence felt almost a projection upon the scene - so brief, so fleeting. Alasdair moved across to be with Gordon, who was sitting apart.
'Are you fed up about your glasses?' he asked.
'Not exactly thrilled...' the teacher answered. He looked different without them on.
There was a silence, as the others talked on, in separate conversation. 'I want you to know' began Alasdair, his voice piping.
He cleared his throat and started again. 'I want you to know our friendship really matters. Whatever happens I'll always be glad that you've been my friend.' He looked, blue-eyed, at the teacher... in admiration.
Gordon stared back warmly with kind eyes. 'That's how I feel, Alasdair.'
They shared some food together.
'I think' said the boy 'that we're alike. We've got a lot in common.'
'How do you mean?' the teacher asked.
'I don't know. Well, we're both soft-hearted in a way.' His voice was trembling.
'In a way' said Gordon, looking west.
Wiggy, too, gazed over the waters, with Harry sitting by his side. He could glimpse the far-off Outer Isles, lurking beneath a mantle of murky cloud; islands peeping in scattered isolation, where shafts of light descended on the waves, turning the grey to silver for a time.
Somewhere across those seas was Corodale, the hidden glen where Charlie had lain safe for three weeks on his flight. There for a while he'd drunk, relaxed, and rested well with loyal friends. He'd seemed alive and joyful then. And further north lay Berneray, where Wiggy remembered younger, happier days... he turned and looked the other way toward the mainland.
'Somewhere over there' he said, pointing, as he walked across to Gordon 'maybe the treasure is hidden, and still lies waiting to be found...'
'Or maybe not...' said Gordon.
Wiggy took a bite of bread and then looked south, searching the far horizon. 'Can you see Iona from here?'
'Well I certainly cannot' grinned Gordon. Then added, with apostrophe, 'Iona : the burial place of kings...'
Wiggy smiled, and looked at the ravishing coastline of the Celts. 'Somehow, one wouldn't mind it being buried out there, buried out there on the lonely edge. Maybe Columba was exiled to the margins - but, what beauty!'
Gordon peered. 'Yes : it's a good place to return and die' he said. 'Death should be cherished as something linked to beauty, after all. These days we tend to sanitise death, and distance ourselves from all that it means. Almost pretend it doesn't exist at all. But in the cycle of earlier peoples, death belonged to beauty as much as living. They should not be kept apart.'
'Beauty is a great solace' Wiggy remarked, looking again at the flowing sea. 'Give me the civilisation that produced the Book of the Kells any day, sooner than Pilgrim's Progress or a thousand sermons. Somehow, from beauty, we can start to derive hope of new life, resurrection...'
'Or renewal for the people...' Gordon ventured.
'But is it too late?' Wiggy continued. 'Has the glory departed? When I look at it... all Britain wanting leadership, wanting hope, and such a loss of vision, loss of meaning. Just expediency. We need a spiritual source of renewal and new life. But where's the Grail?' Gordon raised his eyebrows. 'It feels to me like Britain after Rome collapsed' Wiggy reflected dolefully 'all waiting for Arthur to return as the English overwhelmed them... but instead, what record do we have? Just moralism and the beleaguered warnings of Gildas... then nothing... written history disappearing...'
'Except along these western fringes,' Gordon reminded him, 'where feeling and beauty were never consumed.' The sun cast shafts of light all down the coast, and silver gleams on water betraying movement, flow.
Douglas had heaved himself up, and wandered over.
'Ah well' he intoned. 'Wonderful things do happen. And they sometimes start from the margins.' A gull swung and rocked on a current of air, close over their heads.
'What's he doing up here?' Alasdair laughed, and threw him some bread.
Their attention was eventually drawn by intrusion. A man was calling just below, on the shoulder of the mountain that rose toward their eyrie from Glen Brittle. Suddenly Roberta let out a squeal : wild, savage, joyous and broken.
'Daddy!' she cried. 'Oh Daddy!' and started running down the slope to meet him.
Fraser quickened his pace. When he saw the little group together, all thought of admonition fled away and - arms outstretched - his heart opened and feelings swept free, as the girl ran into his open embrace.
'Oh Daddy, Daddy...' she whispered, gripping his back. He cradled her softly. Tears surged, unseen in silence, down the young girl's cheeks. 'Daddy' she cried again.
He felt the touch of her hand... and felt her, tremulous, clinging in his powerful arms; felt her long dark hair and stroked it fondly; felt her crying on the back of his hand. And though he was hurt and bruised himself, he felt in touch at last, in his deep being.
'I thought I might have lost you' he murmured breathlessly. 'I thought I might have lost you, precious.' They searched each other's eyes.
Wiggy looked on, and saw Alasdair following down, more tentatively. Harry was leaning back against his legs, and biting a nail. Douglas looked out over the gleaming ocean. Alasdair went up uncertainly to his father, and the man surveyed his two tanned children, both of them looking healthy and fit. 'It's good to see you, son' he said. He didn't maul the boy this time : just took his hand and pressed it gently. 'You look as if you've walked for weeks.' Alasdair sniffed, and wiped his sleeve.
'How's mum?' he asked, doe-eyed, and sad.
Both of them looked aside across the depths of Coire Lagan.
'It's alright, dad' the boy said, nearly crying. 'I love you, you know. Nothing can alter that.' He held his father's hands in his and Fraser felt them, personal and soft.
As they scrambled up to re-join the group, the man seemed less compulsive, more surrendered... seemed quieter and relaxed... somehow more open - though the release of feeling felt exposed and raw out there upon the ridge.
Approaching the others, Fraser frowned and seemed to check and falter in his steps.
A man was sitting not six feet away.
'Then, you... then you... are...'
'Wiggy!' they all chorused.
The kindly man held out his hand.
'And I thought...' Fraser stammered... but then he hesitated...
'Yes?' Roberta teased. 'You thought?'
'I thought you were a poacher...'
Wiggy beamed.
'And this is Rover' added Harry proudly. 'You're a good boy, aren't you? You're a lovely chap!' Fraser reached down to pet the dog, happy to back away for a moment. Rover barked excitedly.
'Anyway you're just in time,' said Wiggy. 'We're about to climb the pinnacle.'
Harry looked up. 'Are you going to do it with us, Mr Maclean?'
'Yes, go on dad!' Roberta said, and to her friend : 'Dad's really strong.'
A residual masculine pride welled up in Fraser. 'I'll give it a damn good try' he answered, glancing in private apprehension at the looming rock.
'Well now!' wheezed Murdo. 'We've got enough tae dance an eightsome on the top...'
'Though perhaps you'd be a little short on space' said Gordon wryly.
'The kids look fit' the father told the teacher. It was enough to proffer peace and signal mild acceptance.
Murdo passed Fraser the last of some whisky.
'It's a'right' he smiled. 'I'll nae gae wi'oot. I've saved anither dram fae when we've climbed it.'
A few minutes later, as Andrew shared his lunch with the ravenous man, Fraser admitted aside that he'd never done any climbing before. 'In fact, I'm bloody scared of heights.' He glanced at his worn and dusty shoes.
'That's no big deal' the American calmly returned. 'It's only a physical symptom, after all, like people born left-handed. I once knew a baseball player - top of the league - but he was physically sick if you drove up the top of a hill.'
'Is that right?' Andrew nodded.
'The thing to remember,' Douglas reassured him, 'is that on a top-rope, frankly, you're going nowhere. You're safer than on a flight of stairs.'
Fraser laughed. 'This could end up by being my stairway to heaven...' Then turning with magnanimity to the man, he added 'I'm glad you managed to track them down.'
'You've got wonderful children' Andrew replied warmly.
'Another?' he said, offering a sandwich.
'Thanks' Fraser answered, appetite and hunger overtaking him. Then he sat there and ate in silence, dishevelled and unpretentious; listening to snatches of the children's tales; the tops to the west beclouded now, more mist rolling over the Cioch face.
As they gathered the kit, Wiggy went up to Fraser again and praised the way his boy had coped. 'He's a marvellous walker you know. He never gave up. In fact, at times he kept the rest of us going.'
Fraser grinned with paternal pride. 'Did he really?' he asked, looking out at his son with shining eyes and unalloyed delight. 'You reckon he's a good lad, eh?'
Douglas was checking the safety procedures, speaking to the children at the foot of the rock; his strong hands adjusting the harness round Harry's waist; with Murdo standing by and giving advice. Wiggy wandered off to speak to Gordon.
'Don't worry, Philip. They'll be alright.'
'I've every confidence in you all...' he blinked as the sun came out again. He had maintained an inconspicuous vigilance throughout the week : but now he had to cede control and simply trust his friends.
'I'm sorry if I...' Wiggy faltered. 'I mean I led you into this. I promised the girl...'
'Oh don't apologise. It's all been worth it. Besides, I think we led you on...' They exchanged glances of mutual respect.
'Philip, I...' Wiggy edging closer 'I want to thank you for your friendship, for your understanding...'
'And I for yours. It's been - an interesting experience.'
'It's been profoundly moving, Philip. I feel as if I've found myself again. And then the children...'
'Ah, the children...' Gordon sighed.
'Don't you reckon that they've gained from this adventure?'
'We will see' he answered enigmatically. 'A teacher learns his proper place. Their real life carries on when they get home.'
'Come on Wiggy!' they were calling.
The two men clasped each other's hands.
'Good luck!' said Gordon whimsically, but his eyes crossed Wiggy's in a clash of fond shyness and awkward independence.
Andrew Douglas had already started to climb. As they watched in hushed silence, they could hear each scrape of the boot, and the loosened stone ricocheting down the gully wall below them. Murdo fed out the line - felt the rope slipping between his fingers once again - while Douglas discussed the route on his way up, in easygoing tones of calm content.
'Wiggy, I'll leave a runner here. When you bring up the second rope, it will give you some protection if you come off near the top.'
'If I come off! You mean when. Strawberry jam, old fellow. Strawberry jam.'
'Nonsense' Andrew called down with a laugh. 'It's a fine climb! No problems really!'
He was picking his way deliberately... across and up... life on the edge. And then he was there, eighty feet above his friends, three thousand feet above the glen : the cliffs dropping away in all directions. He fixed the belay.
Murdo was tying Harry on.
'No going back!' the young boy laughed, rubbing his hands in nervous excitement.
'Go for it, Harry' Alasdair shouted.
'You'll make it' Roberta calmly called.
The boy shinned fearlessly up the face, in a flow of movement and trust and joy. When he reached the top, he screamed to the sky, and his voice reached out across the yawning depths, into the echoing silence of the corries.
'I did it, Wiggy!' he shouted down, and his face was shining with wild beauty. There was a crack as Douglas, behind him, split open champagne. Harry, released from tension at the top, was describing how it felt, his voice in spate.
'Rover's turn next!' he rasped. 'You want some champagne, don't you boy...'
'Roberta?' the deep voice of Douglas called down. 'Do you want to follow up?'
'No, I want to go with Wiggy.'
'Alasdair, then.'
The boy looked at his sister fondly.
'Well, here goes' he whispered and looked to heaven.
He started up, reaching unsurely for elusive holds, and helped on by Andrew's quiet words and the taut rope held by Harry somewhere above. Yet he had to fight to ward off fear and felt his nerve being stretched toward the limit.
'Go on, Alasdair! You can do it!' his dad called out. The boy, emboldened by his father's faith in him, gave himself over to the moment - gave himself over to trust and glad abandon - and just let courage take control.
He clambered boldly out onto the face and scrambled up. Before he knew it, the mountain was spread below about his feet. Fraser was shouting.
'Well done, Alasdair! Well done!'
Alasdair, brimming with joy, flashed a smile to his proud father; and saw all round, the land of Charlie's people - its sorrow and its passion all caught up between the sunlit corries and the cloud : caught up with his on the mighty mountain peaks.
Harry grinned beside him, and said, 'We did it!'
He felt Douglas's hands tying him firmly to the belay with a sling and karabiner. 'Great climb, son! Great climb!' The voice still echoed. He felt he knew himself.
While Wiggy and Roberta attached themselves to the second rope, Andrew hauled up the precious plane, wrapped in the saltire of St. Andrew. Murdo cast a quick glance at the sky. Spatters of rain were landing here and there across the rock; dark clouds leering closer in the West.
Wiggy had climbed before, but he was more circumspect than Douglas. As he followed up a crack, feeling with his hands, he was drawn again into physical awareness : climbing, he now recalled, was inescapably tactile - you couldn't climb just with your mind - you had to give yourself over to feeling and touch. The wind was growing blustery at times, occasional drops of rain breaking across his face. Below the runner, he found his boots beginning to scrabble, his legs beginning to shake as they grew tired, fingers exploring the rock overhead for a hold... yet there was nowhere else that he wanted to be : their lives on the brink, but alive! alive! Beyond the karabiner he was safe, secure in the trust that had grown between him and the girl, as she held his life on the other end of the rope. He felt exuberant now, and let himself go : enjoying the rock, and the space, and the wild exposure - savouring the moment like the taste of a rare whisky. As he breasted the shelf at the top, he heard his friends cheer and released a great grin - carried away himself in an outbreak of joy.
Then Roberta followed, and he felt the tug on the rope, the swinging movement, as the girl came up. She was deft and accomplished, seizing audacious hand-holds with daring elan. 'Hooo!' she shouted, half-way up... this was living, this was life... she felt its almost sensual physicality, and thrilled for sheer delight... an unselfconscious joy released - so that she hummed as she moved up... knowing, as she ascended, the exhilarating mastery of rock, the conquest of fear.
'Aaah!' she laughed as she arrived. 'These people got here before me! Hi! Look, dad, look!'
'You brilliant lass!'
Then, turning to Wiggy, her eyes all bright, she expressed her girl's sweet gratitude. 'We did it, Wiggy! We did it, didn't we? Yeeee!' she shouted, wild and free.
As he helped secure her on one of the summit ledges, and she found her breath, she added 'You see, it wasn't inaccessible after all!'
'We made it, Roberta!'
'I knew we would. I mean, I knew you'd get me here. You see, there are things that seem beyond our reach, but they're not. I believe they're not... like this. We did it because we felt for it enough. Thank you' she murmured. 'Oh thank you. Yeeee!'
'Another time I'll be more careful what I promise' he joked.
'Oh, but Wiggy! Couldn't we go to St. Kilda next?' she pleaded, almost seriously.
'Some people don't know when they're pushing their luck' Wiggy growled with amiable affection.
'You always have to push your luck...' she answered... 'give it a little shove' and she did, and Wiggy teetered backwards in the air.
Then quietly, like sunlight stealing in, she opened her heart to feelings that broke through : flickers of love and shafts of joy, the shine of beauty irradiating from somewhere deep within, beyond... in this world, in her other... there was no in between. She knew his face, his presence with her there : Glenaladale, her champion. She twisted the friendship bracelet on her wrist and felt upheld... she'd given him her pledge and kept her word, and he would know, would recognise her faithfulness. Faithfulness, trust - it had no bounds; could break down all the centuries of horror, and overcome deep unseen wrongs. It was a constant attribute of beauty. And in the world, so tense and hurt, to which she must return : a deep enduring faithfulness lingered and shuddered, beyond the fall of shielings, after the separations, across the waste of sorrowful years; a loyalty and trust were irrevocable, the last honours and dignity when everything else seemed stolen, spoilt or lost. Around her, they stood with freedom on the brink, just space between their feet and the distant stillness of the glens. The relaxation of tension at the top was so complete, it seemed to release a lambent beauty in them : each one of them exposed, with crazy drops to death on every side, yet somehow all kept safe by the sane, good reason of their friendship and a gentle human kindness. They laughed together and raised up Murdo's saltire on its pole above the final summit block. In the rising wind the flag unfurled, rain coming on in the sombre clouds, between brief bursts of golden light that shimmered down through fissures and was lost.
The flag flapped briskly in the breeze, and rode the growing conflict all around, soon streaming in the wind.
'Ach! There's a bonnie sight...' old Murdo gleamed... 'for Scotland at this turning time.' He leant towards the teacher by his side. 'Like a banner flying fae freedom an' calling the clans... yet ye should see it in mid-winter storm...'
'Up here?' smiled Gordon. 'Then we'd really have a battle on our hands to keep it flying.'
'Aye... aye' Murdo reflected and stared, recalling the sullen beauty of the highlands in dark winter.
Mist was crossing the ridge around them, then clearing again : the rain accosting the rock more often and the day growing dark and overcast. Fraser wiped his sweating palms and stepped up to begin the climb : above, his son was taking in the rope, fixed to a belay at the top. As the man moved out onto the open face, he became aware of his exposure, and the depths that disappeared below his feet. Gaining height slowly, he felt the shadows of fear stalking up behind him, and found himself shaking against his own volition. The wind was growing more blustery, and the murk in the West more threatening. Some dust flew into his face and stung his eye : he paused and with one hand slowly pulled out a handkerchief from his pocket, almost dislodging a camera in the process.
'What's keeping him?' asked Harry up above.
'It must be his shoes. They've got no grips' Roberta answered reasonably.
Then Fraser fought off dread and edged on forward, under an overhanging block. To his dismay, he realised that the rope had snagged and was hanging limp around him.
'Flip it over, Alasdair' Roberta urged.
'I'm trying to.'
Their father was tightly wedged beneath the leaning rock, from which he had to traverse right in a bold if simple motion. But he could not move.
Instead of leaning out and gaining balance between himself and the mountainside, he tried to retain control and assert himself, by pushing his body close into the rock. His cheek was pressed against the face and below him he could see an awful chasm, dropping away through space from the tilting crag.
'The rope is slack' he muttered. 'Why is the rope slack?'
A gust of wind shoved him with sudden force, and the camera slipped from his pocket, dashing against the rocks as it hurtled downwards, echoing for ages, out of sight. 'Hail Mary, full of grace, have mercy upon me...' he breathlessly entreated. 'Hail Mary, full of grace...' Alasdair had flipped the rope across and was taking it in.
'I've got you, dad!'
Fraser was not listening.
'It's alright, dad. You can climb again.'
'I've got to keep control' he thought. 'I mustn't leave it to them.'
He fended off his fear, and was reaching up, but his handholds were too small : he felt his feet slipping away beneath him.
Alasdair was pulled by the sudden jerk as Fraser fell. Next moment, the man was hanging there, suspended over the gaping void... only his child holding him from falling crazily down and down... Andrew Douglas was taking over the rope.
'Those shoes!' he said, pulling it taut and helping the man regain his holds. 'No-one could climb with those on their feet! But see! The rope is holding him.'
Alasdair, leaning forwards, started to coax his father, directing him up the final holds. 'That hand there... a little higher, dad...' The gentle voice reached out toward the man and touched him unashamedly. He suddenly realised the loyalty and love the boy possessed. It helped him to regain his lost composure.
Alasdair saw him pulling on the rocks, pulling in muscular fitness, with the trace of a grin breaking grimly across his face : as the man discovered for himself that balance and rhythm of movement on these rocks were more effective than strength. And as the father came over the top the boy caught hold of his hand, straining at the belay : child holding father in the cycle of generation... Fraser was breathing heavily, but he felt the thrill of fear he'd overcome... and deeper still, a new trust he'd discovered.
'Well done, son' he panted. 'Well done.'
But Alasdair's reaction to this approval was to burst into sorrowful tears.
'Don't cry, son' Fraser said softly. 'Don't cry, my boy.'
'I don't care. This is me, you see. This is how I am, how I feel... I was frightened I was going to lose you.'
Fraser looked openly at the boy, disguising nothing, and letting his feelings tremble along the surface.
'It's alright, my precious lad. You'll never lose me...' he felt the ripple of emotions, and the sense of sacred friendship with his son. Friendship made sacred by trust and loyalty. And that feeling of respect was one they all shared on the open mountain peak.
As they relaxed, Fraser looked out at the highland wilds.
'What a view you get from here!'
'Take a picture of us, dad,' said Alasdair, 'so we can all remember this!'
'I can't' his father answered with a laugh. 'I dropped my flipping camera down the cliff...'
'I think' said Wiggy 'it's time to launch the plane... though whether we ever get it back...'
'That's alright' Douglas declared. 'What counts is the living moment. Let her go, and let this be the true expression of all her flight. We'll never get a better chance!'
Harry launched it, and it seemed to be held over the plunging depths, sustained in height and space upon the air. They watched it soar and wheel around, detached - like them - from the earth below : and recognised its freedom and release. Dipping aside towards Coir' Uisg it met the warm air rising up, then whirled back over Gordon's head, flying in and out through parcels of mist.
Wiggy had leapt on the summit block, in joyous abdication, free... as the plane continued to wheel and dive, swerving and turning and rushing on gusts.
Harry, leaning close by him, cried out 'Woah! Yes! Make it do that again!'
Fraser said, 'Look, it's heading back to Coire Lagan...'
The children all pointing and squealing with delight - a savage beauty... in them all - traced its wild and ceaseless turning. Overhead blue skies had re-emerged beyond dark clouds : the sudden glaring sunlight flashing down. Around them, the whole world rushing, turning as they watched the plane, in flight, in motion; and beyond, the rest and stillness of their vast and silent wilderness. Harry was looking fondly at Wiggy, as the kind man tried to control the plane; the other two children with their father, close; Douglas standing firmly beside, gazing out across the rugged domain.
Wiggy could feel their closeness and their trust. As the plane continued to circle the summit - around and around - it felt as if they stood together at the heart and centre of all things, because they had opened themselves to beauty and love. As if the whole world was turning round their lives, in the sweeping flight and motion of the craft; and they were standing in a stillness, in a quiet calm.
'Craa craa' a raven called across the corrie... what was it Archie had said to the girl... remember the fithich dubh... that brooding talisman of bloodshed, terror...
He glanced down the shoulder that fell towards Glen Brittle.
Limping up the final slopes below them, the old man Hilliard had nearly arrived, breathing heavily, spitting genial bravado.
Cloudbanks around him were fast approaching, the light glinting and doing battle : and dreary rain threatening to resume.
'Magnificent!' he whooped in praise. 'You made it then' he said to Gordon.
'Have you got the nippers?' he shouted up.
'See for yourself,' Fraser called down. 'Where's the other chap?'
'He's run out of puff...'
'Hoo! Hoo!' the children heard on the wind, as the plane cut down above his head.
Murdo was getting ready to climb. He turned to Hilliard. 'Could ye keep an eye on the wee dog, pal?'
'Ha!' roared Hilliard. 'This must be Rover!'
Gordon gazed in wonderment. 'Is he yours?' the younger teacher asked.
'No, he's yours!' the older teacher spluttered.
Murdo rubbed his grizzled chin, and contemplated the rock above. Then he pulled out a bottle from his pack. It had been many years of separation. Now that the time had come to climb again, he felt a strange anxiety and excitement. Raising the bottle at an angle, he let the golden stream surge in his mouth and spill across his lips, drinking in fiery gulps until he felt its glowing lustre gladden him within. Then laughing, freely, he replaced the whisky in his pack and shouldered it. Gordon offered to tie him on.
'Ach! I dinnae need a rope. Let's climb the bugger' the old man gleamed.
'God of battles!' Hilliard thundered.
A gust of wind knocked them sideways in its passing.
Murdo reached up and pulled himself across, at once in rhythm; his technique, left unused for forty years, instinctively recalled as he swung up : a natural balance, like harmony with nature. While the failing light assailed the summit rocks, he felt the strength returning in his arms, the youthful vigour. Scaling with pleasure up the open face, he looked across at Scotland, brave and wild, and knew that he was back in his domain.
The children greeted him fondly at the top. 'Here's Murdo!'
'How did he get here?'
And the wind cast cloud across the sun, the saltire blowing free above their heads in glad defiance : hoisted like a banner over the land...
The sailor reached inside his pack and said to Wiggy : 'Now my friend, here's a special dram fer auld time's sake!' - his eyes twinkling as he tried to catch his breath.
The two men pulled back heavily in glad gasps and Wiggy - legs astraddle the summit block - looked at the label and stared with special pleasure.
'The Royal Ancient?'
'Itself!' the sailor gleamed.
'Wiggy! Look out!' young Harry called, and grabbed the abandoned controls of the stricken aircraft.
Douglas turned to Fraser and passed him what remained of the fine champagne.
The plane continued to wing around the ridge.
'And did you find the treasure?' Hilliard was asking Philip Gordon.
'Not exactly' Gordon answered...
'But now it's led you to the peak!' spat Hilliard.
'Yes, well - led them not me. I broke my glasses on the way.'
The old man salivated as he listened, spitting with gusto and exuberance.
'Ah! Quid non mortalia pectora cogis,' he expectorated, 'Auri sacra fames!' Then he winked and spluttered... Gordon appreciated such kindly deprecation.
'Anyway, I didn't come to climb the pinnacle myself. I came to help the children reach the top...'
They ducked, as the plane passed low above their heads, buzzing them in its unexpected fly-past.
'A bally spitfire' Hilliard wheezed. 'It's alright! It's one of ours!'
Then they turned, and saw Franky and his quivering aerial, approaching balefully up the hill.
'Ah-ho! Here comes the brigadier! I'd better go and give him the news.'
'Then they've managed to track us down?' asked Gordon.
'Tracked down the children, and found them safe. Hoorah!' roared Hilliard, rising to his feet. 'The human spirit will always triumph,' he frothed, 'and conquer dark adversity...'
Gordon, who dared to doubt, glanced up.
'I don't believe that' he murmured awkwardly.
But the old man was oblivious. 'Come on, Rover...' he was shouting, and had started to limp away, seething excitement with all the benign certainty of a simpler and more jubilant age.
Gordon felt a chill cut through the air, and a veil of mist swept across the face, separating his friends from him. It struck him, their passing presence was so transitory, that they might soon be as remote as the Romans, the Celts...
He heard his companions again on the teetering summit, laughing, in flushes of windswept light pursued by swiftly-driven cloud : their friendship daring, precarious... the mist now sweeping eastwards, gusting through the bealach below him; clouds and mist eclipsing the sun, daylight embattled, with the onset of rain.
Wiggy and Murdo were drinking gaily : 'This my friend,' said the man at ease, 'is the finest whisky I've tasted in twenty years!' The sailor returned a contorted grin.
In the happy abandon of the moment, Harry was flying the plane... below, the sgreel and destruction unloosed by the glacial cycles over thousands of years.
It swooped towards Franky. 'Bi-loody Hell!' he swore, and ducked. From behind a boulder he fumbled with the handset. 'Come in Martin! Come in Martin!' he shouted. 'Mayday, a-mayday! Am coming under sustained aerial attack! Repeat, sustained arterial attack! Pweee...'
The enemy craft was wheeling to commence another foray.
His beleaguered friend had been out of contact for hours, but now his broadcast resumed - yet he sounded different... in shock, it almost seemed... the lurking underside of his reason emerging from the valley far below, and fracturing across the open ridge in strains of jarred emotion... 'Oi! Psjinck... Are you still there? Well th-uurp watchman, what of the night? Watchman blurzoophop of the night?'
'Look, Wiggy, see how it swoops and dives!'
'I see jurrr writing on the wall, Franky. I see pweee zhurh quuur on the wall... Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin...'
'Woah, I lost if for a minute there in the mist.'
'Now listen, Mart... iggwuuur...'
'Christ zooo whaargh kin' listen! The time has come shwee phurr for a new kingdom, I shlurr ou, waaa for a fairer race, phurraabba British Israel... Tszeeee... Nations cnnge in uproar, kingdoms fall...'
The dog was barking as the old man hobbled up.
'But listen, Martin, this is serious...'
'Hahaha blurghweechoom bwaaa... You listen conjurrr knots in May crooo... Rise! Schoowee the world you fly, like a tea pleiii in the sky...'
There were sounds of explosions off, or distant thunder, at Martin's end.
'I can't seem to bring her round, Al!'
'I'll help you' the other boy said kindly.
'Hoo-hoo! They made it!' Hilliard shouted, limping towards the secret agent. 'And look! I said they had a dog. His name is Rover, too. I told you so!'
Franky stared in blank astonishment.
'It must be war, minister. It must be waarre... pleeooo... but Arthur still sleeps... xxzzzz...'
'Do you reckon you could see Ben Nevis from here?' Douglas was asking.
'Maybe' said Wiggy ebulliently 'if the mist wasn't billowing over us most of the time...'
'Crooo charr... then rouse the people... give them warning cnnge boll arttum... urgent warning... ssneeelia... by the Kebar R... eeebaa... I saw visions of God... kaaa shlurra Give them warning swippooool from meeeeeee...'
'Come in, Martin. Are you recei...' The plane came diving round again. ''Kin Hell!' he swore. 'He's going to pieces. He suffers from cloistraphobia, see... and they've farkin' locked him in a hut. I ask you!' Then turning towards the pinnacle, 'And what are we going to do about them?' He pointed ruefully at the peak.
'Hoo! Hoo!' the old blusterer bellowed across to the summit. 'I say! Are you alright up there?' The children waved.
Wiggy called back : 'Never been better...' and the mist enclosed them all again. The set continued to crackle and buzz...
'There is a cover-up going on and rhurh jsonng sleep. Britons awake. England arise. Cuuurr vrooosh hmmm whirr... but what about Arthur! What about him? He's eating apples wi... buurrr pherds of Arcadia... weee phurr ssshhhwalls of Troy purrr Dago shhis successors forever... ruurhhrrth his head! Off with his head! Off with his head! Off with his head! Off with...'
Franky's hands were shaking. 'What should we do?' he asked the old school-teacher.
'Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem!' the old boy spluttered.
'Listen Martin' the young man stammered. 'Stop larking about. It's only a game, Martin. Do you hear? It's only a game.' He turned to the teacher. 'It's only a game, isn't it?'
Hilliard nodded across the corrie.
As Franky turned around, he saw - then heard - four helicopters rising, looming above the mists of Sron na Ciche... the approaching whirr, the bitter drone of machinery grimly advancing... their arrival threatening to blow the lid off his covert operation.
'Yeee!' the children were squealing on the pinnacle, carefree and innocent.
Through rifts in the mist, the 'copters approached, spectral as they passed thin fissures of light, and fracturing the quiet rest of the high and lonely places. Their presence : menacing and discordant; seeming to portend darkness, boding ill... part of a remorseless future perhaps, but what were they doing intruding in the present?
'Wheeb... Times, I say... zooop... times and a half. The times have come huurhh removal of foreigners whurr fozszs trike while the axe is in your kraaaaa...'
Harry threw a glance at Wiggy, and winced. 'Redcoats' he said... Wiggy tossed back his head and laughed.
'Redcoats!' he repeated, amused by the child.
The lad gazed up and returned a grin, like some lost boy, some lovely waif : his fair hair tangled in disarray. He mumbled sadly 'They're coming, Wiggy!'
Murdo stared irascibly. 'My wife - the witch - she's betrayed us all...' he knew at once... 'She's sold us tae the de'il...' The sailor frowned.
Dark banks of mist were rolling across the shoulder, the day grown dismal.
'Schwee' the radio screamed 'Schooweee if anyone has insight, let him... waaannk... ulate the number of the beast, for it is man's num... baaaa ssshhhhoo... weeeep...'
Wiggy knocked back more whisky. It smacked his lips, and shimmied down his throat, into his stomach. Looking across to Coire Uisge, he felt again its rippling peace, which the whisky met with its glow of warm well-being.
He passed the bottle back to Murdo.
'What are they bastards doing?' he muttered, shaking his head in bleak disdain : the flagrant shrill commotion all around began to invade and jar his consciousness. The sailor shook his head again.
'Cnnnge phwaar one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls bluurr see... the great prostitute cooo chee kaaa with her the kings of the earth committed waaah and cnnnge phwee wine of her adulteries...'
'Here comes the RAF! Ha! Tally-Ho!' cried Hilliard, pointing through distant banks of cloud at two Tornados carving along the coastline.
Limping across with Rover and the lad, he re-joined Gordon.
'What's the bally problem?' Hilliard shouted, trying to raise his voice above the din.
The teacher gave them a rueful look. 'I don't like the feel of this at all,' Gordon replied. 'Why can't they just leave us alone?'
'You should have thought of that before' sneered Franky.
Although he'd lost his glasses, Gordon could sense the dismal glowering presence drawing close; could hear the churning engines, violating the gentle peace with their dissonant unrest. 'Damn!' he shouted. 'Damn!'
What would become of the children now? Overshadowed by the joyless lour of ugliness, the boys were laughing, and yelling 'Arseholes.' He could hardly hear them in the clamour, their high-pitched voices indistinct as the huge metallic choppers circled round.
Andrew Douglas was checking the belays.
Wiggy had got the controls again, and was standing aloft on the very tip of the pinnacle, beside the rampant banner. The plane kept wheeling through the shifting mist; the helicopters in their uproar circling too. Looking around from the summit, turning, reeling, suddenly it came to him : perhaps they were no longer at the centre... perhaps, they were the outsiders now like Charlie's folk, beyond the pale. In an instant, he realised, as he swung round...
Rain was sweeping across the ridge, in dank swathes of weary grey : threatening to wreck their summer spell, to engulf the light... the weather breaking about them, drear and bleak.
'Bluurp... woe, woe, in one hour cnnnge phwar... destruction and havoc... reeee... terror on every side... cxcxcxgh... they came from eyelobb Sky eeeschlurr...'
'Come in Martin, come in Martin...'
Roberta grabbed the kind man's arm. 'Look Wiggy! There is a rainbow over there.' Sunlight still seeped through rifts in the cloud.
'It's pretty' he said, in simple child-like joy...
'The sign to Noah that God would keep his promise.'
'He crossed the water too' the man smiled back.
'Oh Wiggy...' she murmured sadly, her eyes sparkling...
And yet on her face was quiet and calm, like the reflection of beauty on silent waters, and she gazed out at the stillness of the mountains which seemed detached, apart from so much turmoil. The craft were descending now; the children deafened by the screaming tension of the motors, and buffeted in the turbulence below.
They heard explosions somewhere to their right. Then two of the machines began to eject impersonal commands through booming speakers : 'Stay exactly where you are... Give up your weapons...' 'Surrender quietly - resistance is useless' the second craft was whirling round.
'-ay exactly where you are...' '-stance is useless... Surrender quietly.'
'What are they playing at?' Fraser yelled. 'They'll blow us off the ridge! They're crazy...'
He shook his fist, and Alasdair joined in too. Andrew Douglas pulled up close. 'It's just the Establishment asserting itself,' he drawled.
'Stay exactly where you are...' A fifth chopper was approaching from Glen Brittle. More movement and machinery beyond.
'Cyuurk... all ruins... the loss of our pwee-jurk sovereignty... crnnnge... in 1066... kee-baaara waaa...'
'Give up your weapons...'
'...mong these ruins, where a crown was offered up... gwee baaarph...'
'Resistance is useless... Surrender quietly...'
'... dynasty that lasted - churr - a thousand years... reebupp... be offered up once more cnnnge blurrr...'
'exactly where you are... give up your weapons...'
'For it is written. The time has come...'
'Surrender quietly - resistance is useless' The craft were backing off.
The little plane still swooped and circled. 'Do you think it would do a loop-the-loop?' asked Harry.
'Maybe' Alasdair replied, but looked uncertain.
A gleaming shaft of sunlight opened out across the summit face : the moisture in the children's rain-swept hair, shining and sparkling.
'What was it Archie used to say?' Roberta asked.
'We are the people!' they shouted, the rays of the sun bathing the children in a golden pool of shimmering light. Wiggy looked down at them, precious and small.
'We are the people!' he shouted again. Then they all joined in, resolutely looking out, through the passing mist, at the vast and untamed Scottish wilderness.
Suddenly one of the choppers had opened fire. The little plane disintegrated, and scattered in fragments out of sight.
Harry winced and looked at Wiggy. 'Now that makes me angry' he shouted aloud. Then muttered 'I'm really sorry, Mr Douglas' and shook his head in sympathy with the owner.
Douglas gritted his teeth and steadied his eyes. 'Stay calm' he said. 'Here come some more.'
As mist continued to rush across the pass, and the wind bore banks of cloud toward the ridge, the helicopters hovered even lower than before; sirens sounding and screaming discordant music in maddening clamour. They watched as canisters dropped to the ground below them, smoke and mist swirling and sweeping away in the rising wind. Lines were being hurled down from above; armed men were descending.
Wiggy had clambered down among the others and turned to Andrew. 'For goodness sake, let's keep the children safe. Whatever happens, the children must come first.'
The spell had broken.
Clouds were bursting above them in sombre downpour... and lives at a turning... all life moving on...
Harry was standing close to Wiggy, clinging to the man he had come to trust, in the driving rain. Although the gloom encroached, a beauty had broken out between them both, that could not be defiled.
'They'll frighten my dog' he said with upturned eyes. Then seeing the approach of men above... 'They're closing in, Wiggy' he cried. The man looked down at the little boy, resilient, brave, and took his hand. They all pressed close - drawn near by trust and fondness - yet seemed besieged by some impersonal madness they could not understand.
Dark scowling clouds drew down upon the mountain, light overwhelmed except for distant glimmers to the East.
Franky could see the men approach, out of the overbearing gloom, and in the background of his departing reason he could still hear Martin, the muffled sound of explosions, and everything closing in around them...
'Waaaa - Hey no! Who are these people? Who are they? Bluurb... The ships's going up... we are stuffed, Franky... huurhh... we're stuffed... footfalls echo in the memory... cnnnge... the people clutching their gods... oooo Waaaa... Who are they, mummy? Who aarggh... cnngxxxx'
'Don't shoot! Don't shoot!' Franky threw the radio aside, and was waving wildly, running forward. 'I'm one of you! I'm not with them.'
The men were landing all around. 'Pax! Pax!' the old man laughed.
'I'm not the IRA' cried Franky. 'I've spent my whole life cleanin' fuckin' trains... I'm far too young to die...' He made the mistake of reaching in his jacket.
Before he knew what was happening, he was dropped by a violent blow to the jaw.
At the same moment, Gordon was grabbed from behind... the gentle teacher buckled at the knees...
'No!' screamed Alasdair from above. 'No! No!'
Then mist wiped out the teacher from their sight. 'Great Scott!' complained Hilliard. 'That wasn't cricket. Hold on my man...'
A masked assailant raised his automatic and directed it first at Harry's dog. The bewildered creature stared up at him.
'No, not the dog! Shoot me instead!'
Then mist enshrouded the rocks between, and shots rang out. When it had cleared, the little dog had disappeared.
'I can't believe this happening in England! Now listen to me...'
The old man was hurled forcibly off his feet and dashed his head against a boulder : these soldiers brutalized, themselves, in the interests of security; trained and controlled by the will of others they did not know and had never met.
Men were landing through the mist on the pinnacle now.
Harry looked up. 'You alright, Wigster?' Next moment the child was snatched from his belay, and hoisted, suspended, through the air : a look of bemusement pale across his face as he looked down - the return of mistrust and bewilderment. In an instant, madness and mist overtook the boy... and he had disappeared. The centre must hold. At all costs the centre had got to hold.
A gloved hand pulled the saltire down. Murdo, drunk and combative, fists flailing, swung with his empty bottle : enraged, anarchic.
'They're mad, dad!' Roberta cried. 'They're mad.'
'It's alright, my lass. Hold on.' Fraser fended a soldier off with his arm. Another bundled him to his knees.
Roberta, in a fury, screamed wildly. As one of them tried to grab her waist, she delivered a ferocious blow to his groin. Then a gloved hand reached round her shoulder and over her mouth, her eyes on fire with anger and surprise.
Two men were grappling with Douglas on the edge of the cliff.
The mist was engulfing them all.
In the motion of that passing moment, Alasdair swung around and looked up to Wiggy. And although the boy was frightened and dismayed, their eyes met in a twinkling and they seemed to flash, with laughing tears and awful joy...
* * *
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