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The Shores of Loch Ewe
Siobhan sat on the canvas floor of her tent which was dimly illuminated by the light from lanterns placed outside in front of the circle of tents. She held the radio’s handset. Rory’s voice had cut off mid-sentence, then static hissed. Now the handset was as silent as death.
“Rory?”
No response.
“Rory!” Siobhan turned the shortwave radio dial through the Hertz to try to pick up Rory on another wavelength.
Nothing.
Xian was on the radio outside, set up on the camp table with the computer. The others crowded around him. He hadn’t spoken for a few moments either. She dropped the handset on the tent floor and ran across the grass campsite to them.
“The radio’s gone dead,” Xian said as she reached him.
“They’re probably out of range by now,” Geoff explained. “Or they’ve submerged already.”
No one spoke. The only sound was the lapping of the waters by the loch’s shore.
“That’s it then?” Kendra’s voice was entirely question. “They’ve got the dinghy, right? They can jump out once they’ve got the sub diving, yeah?”
Xian shook his head. “The nuke was dodgy, made in Pakistan. The timer may not work. They had to be there to ensure it did.” Then he added under his breath. “And you can’t jump out of a submerging sub.”
Siobhan’s knees lost their power to hold up her body, despite her understanding fully the mechanics of a diving submarine. She sat hard on the ground by the loch. Behind her, Kendra, the strong warrior woman, wept uncontrollably, and Xian spoke softly to her as he walked her to the tents, their voices receding in the night. A silent Callum walked with them, leaving Siobhan alone.
Callum. Rory’s twin. How would he take this?
The loch’s water continued its lapping against the shore. The cold from the ground underneath her thighs seeped into her skin. Night birds called in the starlit sky. She looked at the celestial display above her. Rory had helped her appreciate the night sky—truly appreciate it for the first time.
Angus and Rory would set the timer for eight hours. When they were in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, far away from Scotland’s outer isles, Iceland and Greenland. And the smaller islands—what were they again? The Faro Islands.
Through her numbness she noted her thoughts were too clinical.
Rory would still be alive for another eight hours, possibly.
The wind blew her hair around her face. It had been loose since he took it out of her French roll and run his fingers through it. She could still smell him on her and feel his tight body pressed against hers. Warm and taut muscle the whole length of him. His scent, the aroma of the Highlands—horse and heather—was in her blouse and on her face.
On her lips.
Life was not fair. In fact, it truly stank.
She’d found him, the man of her dreams—literally. And she didn’t care how juvenile or pathetic it sounded, like something out of a soppy romance novel. People in the Bunker often mocked those novels. Why had they kept them in the archives if they weren’t for reading? There was nothing wrong with love and romance. She now realised that before Rory, she thought she’d had both, but in actuality, she’d experienced neither.
When he’d gone, in eight hours, what would she do? A thick lump came to her throat. She took calming breaths.
Then a burning anger appeared, scorching her chest, threatening to sear her soul.
Bloody Antony!
If all that rubbish hadn’t happened with him, then Sanjay and Sundeep would be alive and they would’ve done it. They were both dead. They would have died anyway. Wouldn’t they?
She put her face in her hands.
What was she thinking?
Poor Sanjay and Sundeep. What was she going to tell their mother, Rajnandini, back in the Bunker? A brilliant biochemist from the original Brains Trust and a dignified matriarch—a generous-hearted woman whom she could call Aunty.
Siobhan’s heavy breathing continued for a time. Her jaw clenched, joining the tension in her curling fists. She would go and hit Antony on the head. They’d tied him up. He couldn’t stop her!
It wouldn’t make any difference to Rory not being here, or anything that had happened in the lead up to him going. Her tiredness helped calm her.
Then the realisation struck her, as hard as a thump to the back of her neck.
It would have come to this, anyway. Rory, being Rory, would have made sure he was the one to go. She hadn’t known him for long, but this one thing was certain. For that man to be true to himself, he had to get into that sub.
Damn him!
“Damn you, Rory Campbell!” She yelled at the top of her lungs as she threw a rock at the sea loch. Its heavy plop into the water echoed in the night. A startled night bird flew off, calling its warning to others. Midges swarmed above her head.
That was it.
She let her tears pour down her face as she laid on the grass; it was exhausting being angry and the effort of sitting was too hard.
***
SIOBHAN’S FACE WAS as cold as her back and legs. She looked at the sky. The stars had turned on the North Celestial pole, their night’s journey forwarded while she had slept by the shore.
Her hearing caught the chug of a motorboat across the loch. Siobhan sat up. Lights were at the pier which sat outside the old fisherman’s house, on the Isle of Ewe in the middle of the loch. It was quiet for a time, then the motor started again.
The sound of the motor moved across the water as the boat made its way to the makeshift pier to her right. Then, the sound of footsteps as someone landed on the pier; somebody tied a rope to the pole; more footsteps headed in her direction.
“Ms Kensington-Wallace?” It was the old fisherman, Murdo MacDonald.
What on earth did he want?
“Yes?” She stood and made a hesitant way toward him.
“Could ye please fetch yoor wee first aid kit? I have someone with a head injury who requires yoor attention.”
She didn’t reply, quite reluctant to go with this man who was practically a stranger.
A strange stranger.
“Ye’ll want tae come and tend his wounds, believe me, lass.”
