Free Murdo's War by Alan Temperley Page B

with dogs, bringing in stragglers to join their flocks in the fields, where they could be watched and fed when the snow came. The sheep huddled for warmth in the lee of stone dykes and under peat banks. Men and women came indoors gladly, rubbing their hands and shivering, to the fires.
    But the sea held its legacy of fine weather, and on Monday night Hector, Murdo and Henry Smith were able to make the two trips. The sea was beginning to rise, however, and the boat sheered and fell in the troughs of the waves as she chugged across the miles of open water between Strathy Point and the island.
    It was on the last run home that the snow began to fall, blind flakes that struck softly on their faces like a hundred tiny paws, pattering over cheeks and lips and eyes, icy and tickling. The shore disappeared. Hector made his way to the for’ard locker and produced the lantern. When it was lit he set it in a bracket by the compass, adjusted a rough shade, and took the tiller from Murdo. Murdo, in Hector’s place on the side bench, shook his arm and the settling snow fell in a flurry to the bottom boards. It was not lying there yet because of the dried salt spray. But by and by the salt was washed clear and the snow began to settle and gather in corners and crevices. On top of the boxes it lay from the start, and soon a half inch layer covered the tarpaulin.
    By the time Hector swung to starboard around Strathy Point, the whole boat, with its occupants, was mantled in white.
    Knut had set a guiding lantern on the beach, hidden from the village by a wall of damp sand. As the boat ran in they saw the spark of light in the swirling darkness. It was dead ahead.
    It was a relief when the last case was carried up the beach and stacked away on the shelf. Leaving Henry Smith and Knut talking in the cave, beneath what now was an impressive pile of crates, Murdo and Hector trudged wearily up the dunes and home.
    Murdo was too tired to wait for tea and took a rough jam sandwich up to bed with him. But within ten minutes of entering the house he was sound asleep, the bread half-eaten on the chair beside his bed.
    Twenty minutes later, on his own way to bed, Hector knocked softly and pushed open the door. Murdo had fallen asleep with the candle still burning. He was dead to the world and looked very young. With troubled eyes Hector regarded him and thought of the strange life the boy was presently leading. An arm lay outside the bedclothes, the blankets had fallen from his shoulder. Hector hesitated, then left him as he lay and blew out the candle.
    While Murdo slept the snow swept on, settling, always settling over the wild landscape. For a while before dawn, the wind rose fiercely, a precursor of what was to come, rushing under eaves, singing its wild arctic tune in the wires and fences. A pale gloom displaced the darkness of night. Straggling herds of deer made their way down from the hills. Daylight came, struggling through the clouds and thick air, revealing dykes plastered on one face and capped with six inches of snow. Roads were white plains between flawless embankments, blocked on the exposed heights and at field gates by slanting snow wreaths. Black lochs appeared bottomless, rivers wound their inky paths from somewhere beyond. In the glens and along the coast the jumbled fields resolved into simple patterns, outlined in the contours of walls and black splinters of fence posts.
    By eleven o’clock the snow had stopped and the skies cleared, but the sun brought no warmth. The landscape glittered and the snow did not melt. The hills cast blue shadows in the low winter sunlight, and beneath the pale sky the sea was a dark misty blue.
    When Hector woke at midday the first thing he noticed was the unaccustomed brightness of his room. A strip of diffused light spread across the ceiling. He grunted, remembering the snow, peered at his ancient watch on a nail at the head of his bed, and turned to the window. Like Murdo, he rarely closed the