Murdo's War Read Online Free PDF Page A

Hector would certainly have held on to at least one bottle to share with friends. He felt in the pocket beneath the dashboard and at once his fingers lighted on the smooth, cold glass of a lemonade bottle: the distillers used whatever bottles came to hand. He drew it out and pressed back the spring clip with his thumbs. Carefully he sniffed and grimaced. Then throwing caution to the winds he took a good swig. The whisky tasted even worse than before and the boy shuddered to his very toes. A chill flush passed across his face. On the instant he knew it had been a mistake and wished he had left the spirit alone.
    Hector could hardly fail to notice that the neck of the bottle was a couple of inches down. Spitting and guilty, Murdo hurried to the tap at the corner of the inn yard. It was frozen solid; an icicle reached halfway to the ground. Quietly he let himself into the inn and topped up the bottle at the wash basin in the toilet. Drops clung to the glass and smeared as he rubbed it against the sleeve of his jacket. He looked for a towel or cloth, but there was none. At length he wiped it dry on the tail of his shirt, and returned the bottle to the car.
    As Murdo pushed open the door of the bar-room the light and warmth and beery smell washed over him. Though it was nearly an hour after official closing time a dozen men were still present, for no-one bothered very much in that remote part of the country.
    Murdo closed the door behind him and crossed to Hector at the bar. A few of the men smiled and nodded abstractedly, but their minds were elsewhere. From the crackling and fading bar radio the gravelly voice of Winston Churchill rolled out, a recording of his broadcast earlier in the evening. Again, it seemed, as well as hardships to be endured, he could tell of some success – Montgomery in Tunisia, the Russian resistance at Stalingrad. But still, perhaps more than ever, there was need for resolution and courage, the greatest danger might yet be to come. The might of the German army in Europe was moving west; already there was news of a considerable build-up near the Channel ports of France. The con- clusion was not to be avoided that Herr Hitler was planning a bold and desperate strike against Britain itself, the very heart of the powers that rose against him. As the Nazi lion’s teeth were drawn it grew more savage. In the bar-room the men were still, no-one spoke.
    Murdo listened with them. A man he had not seen before came through the door that led to the guests’ accommodation. He leaned easily on the end of the bar and jingled the coins in his pocket. The landlord motioned him to be patient and listened on.
    To Murdo it all meant very little. The war, in this January of 1943, was vague and remote. They had explained it all at school, of course, and he heard the daily news. But though he knew the names of the various battles and theatres of war – El Alamein, Leningrad, Guadalcanal, the Battle of Britain – he was not very sure where they were or what had happened; and the Allied generals and politicians, he knew their names but not exactly who they were or what they did. Hitler was the main enemy, of course, with Mussolini, and Goering, Goebbles and Himmler, like the rude soldiers’ rhyme that one of his pals had brought back from the army camp.
    Whoever they were, however, or whatever they had done, none of their actions really concerned him. In the wild and remote Highlands it was hard for a boy like Murdo to understand. He had seen the occasional gangs of prisoners working on the farms and roads of Caithness. But his life was affected more by a northerly wind that kept him from the lobster creels than it was by the fall of Paris, or the capture of Tobruk and Singapore. Sometimes he stood on the headland with Hector’s binoculars and watched the British fleet moving along the horizon, cruisers and destroyers, frigates and little corvettes, a magic lantern show. The noise of their gunfire on manoeuvres off Cape