Castle Macnab, page 2
John Palliser-Yeates was of an altogether more practical disposition. His rounded shoulders and occasionally bullish stance were reminders that he had in his youth set crowds cheering his energetic deeds on the rugby field. Once he had the ball in his hands, it was a brave man who stood in the way of his head-down charge for the touch line. Now, he presided over a major banking institution which had done much to steer the country’s economy through the ravages of war. Yet, though his was the most sober of professions, his thatch of fair hair and ruddy cheeks lent him a boyish appearance that was only belied by the good-humoured wrinkles around his eyes.
The third member of the company was Sir Edward Leithen, lawyer and MP and lately Solicitor General to His Majesty’s Government. He had neither Lamancha’s rangy build nor his other friend’s huskiness, and yet there was about him an impression of great strength, as much inner as outer. He was paler than the others, partly because his occupation kept him indoors, but also as a result of a chlorine gas attack in the war that had left a faint yellow tinge to his complexion. His eyes, however, were bright, and testified to a deep power of thought that seemed to energise his sinews as much as his intellect. He was much admired by his colleagues and peers for that philosophical resilience of spirit that lent him the ability to turn mental insight into quick and decisive action.
Having dined well on freshly caught trout from the nearby river, the three friends were content to pursue their own individual forms of relaxation. Lamancha leafed through the latest edition of The Field while Leithen absorbed himself in a well-thumbed volume from the collected works of Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman: Tales of the Crusaders.
Palliser-Yeates was deftly constructing fishing flies from an assortment of materials laid out neatly in a sorting box on his knees. Pausing to stretch his neck, he took note of the title of Leithen’s book and rolled his eyes. ‘The Talisman again? Surely you’ve read that three or four times before.’
Leithen waved his friend’s remark aside. ‘When something is good, it deserves to be revisited. And I must say,’ he added, tapping a finger on the page, ‘Saladin’s boldness in entering the Christian camp in disguise quite puts John Macnab’s exploits in the shade.’
Lamancha set his empty glass aside and regarded his companions as he had once surveyed the ranks of his Australian cavalry brigade before launching them across the plains of Palestine. ‘Do you suppose,’ he suggested with an arched eyebrow, ‘that we could do it all again?’
Palliser-Yeates came close to choking on his cigar. ‘Hardly,’ he scoffed. ‘We were deucedly lucky to pull it off last time.’
‘And to keep our anonymity,’ added Leithen. ‘We can be glad that only a few people know the true identities of the men concealed under the name of John Macnab.’
Only a year ago these three had set themselves a challenge: to overcome the stifling malaise that threatened to undo all the solid achievements of their distinguished lives. They defined their malady as a sort of disenchantment with the worldly success which seemed now to come to them too easily. It was Leithen who had characterised it as a sense that there was nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.
The cure had been suggested unwittingly by their young friend Sir Archibald Roylance, who told them the tale of the near-legendary hunter Jim Tarras. Whenever he felt himself in a funk, Tarras would issue a challenge to local landowners, giving the exact date when he intended to bag a stag on their land, which he would then deliver up to them, for he was no thief. The aim was to create a contest of wits and daring between himself and the gamekeepers.
Lamancha had pounced on this as though a gauntlet had been flung at his feet, and had interrogated Archie about the estates surrounding Roylance’s own lodge of Crask. Sweeping aside the cautious objections of Leithen and Palliser-Yeates, he insisted this was the tonic the three of them so desperately needed. By sheer force of his romantic vision he dragged his more sensible friends into his scheme of rejuvenation. Written challenges were mailed out to three landowners, each signed with the nom de guerre of John Macnab.
In the course of the adventure, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by accident, several other individuals were recruited to the cause of John Macnab, even as the fictional hero’s exploits were blazed across the pages of the national press, displacing the latest strike and the tedious visit of an obscure foreign dignitary.
At the successful conclusion of the exploit, the three had agreed to reunite on the anniversary of John Macnab’s triumph, though it had been decided to hold their celebration at an alternative venue to avoid the risk of their reappearance’s being connected with those notorious events. Lamancha had arranged the lease of Rushforth Lodge, a neglected property in Denroy, some distance to the north of Machray.
The central feature of Denroy was Glen Shean, a serpentine cleft running east–west through a game-rich wilderness of forest, crag and moorland. The river Shean alternately rambled and rushed along the valley floor, fed at its upper end by small waterfalls cascading from the high ground amid outcrops of stone. To the north, the land grew ever more rough and challenging, seamed with burns and dotted with lochans. Mountain peaks loomed blue against the northerly horizon. So here they were, some way north of the original field of battle, at a neglected lodge on the southern edge of Denroy.
Lamancha refilled his glass. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve both settled back into your old routine without any sense of restlessness,’ said Lamancha, refilling his glass. His easy smile took some of the sting from his scornful tone. ‘Shouldn’t we at least try to match the daring of the noble Saladin? Perhaps we should nip over to Balmoral and make off with the king’s royal car, see how long it takes them to catch up with us.’
Leithen shook his head indulgently. ‘Really, Charles, when you’re in this sort of mood I’m half afraid you’re going to turn into Dick Turpin.’
‘We’re certainly not going to bestir ourselves just for a piece of high jinks,’ said Palliser-Yeates. ‘We’d need to have some real purpose.’
‘As the Crusaders in that book of yours looked to Jerusalem,’ said Lamancha with a nod towards Leithen.
‘But the Lionheart didn’t pull it off, did he?’ said Palliser-Yeates.
‘No, he never did reach Jerusalem,’ Leithen agreed, turning to Lamancha. ‘You’re one up on him there, Charles.’
They all knew that Lamancha had marched into Jerusalem with Allenby’s army in 1917, capping a great victory over the Ottomans.
‘That’s true, though I can’t say there’s much peace to be found there even now,’ said Lamancha ruefully.
‘I don’t imagine anyone will find their peace in the actual city,’ said Leithen, ‘but I think the vision that draws men on is that other place, the jewelled City of God.’
‘The heavenly Jerusalem, eh?’ said Palliser-Yeates gruffly. ‘Well, I hope we can get a square meal there and a good claret.’
Noticing the glasses were empty, Lamancha refilled them all. ‘A toast then,’ he said, ‘to whatever lies beyond the next hill.’
As they clinked glasses together, Leithen added, ‘And to each man his own Jerusalem.’
They had barely taken a sip when they were interrupted by an urgent rapping at the front door. With Lamancha in the lead, the three men leapt from their seats and hurried down the hall. Charles flung open the door, revealing two figures on the doorstep.
The taller and stouter of the two was Lamancha’s man Stokes. ‘Sorry for the disturbance, Captain,’ he rumbled. Having served under Lamancha in Palestine, he persisted in addressing him as an officer. ‘I was setting out some snares when I found this chap here stumbling about in the shrubbery.’
Leaning on his arm was a wildly dishevelled stranger, soaking wet and covered in mud, his head hanging low from utter exhaustion.
‘He mentioned Sir Edward by name,’ Stokes continued. ‘Said he’d come looking for him and it was desperately urgent.’
‘Looking for me?’ said Leithen in astonishment. ‘What on earth can he want?’
‘Bring him inside,’ ordered Lamancha, ‘and we’ll hear what he has to say for himself.’
At the sound of his voice, the stranger shook himself loose and staggered forward. With his next step he wavered and collapsed face down on the rug.
The three Macnabs gathered around the fallen man. His sodden clothing was shredded in many places, revealing an array of cuts and bruises beneath. Palliser-Yeates whistled softly through his teeth. ‘Whoever this poor chap is, he’s taken a real mauling.’
‘Let’s get him onto the sofa,’ said Lamancha. ‘Stokes, please fetch some water and towels.’
As Stokes departed, the Macnabs, who were accustomed to dealing with wounded men on the battlefield, gently lifted the stranger and laid him on his back on the sofa. When his face caught the light all three gaped in astonishment.
‘Good God!’ gasped Palliser-Yeates. ‘It’s Dick Hannay!’
When the water arrived Leithen arrived to wipe the grime from the stricken man’s face. As he did so, Hannay’s eyes flickered open. He seized Leithen’s arm and stared at each of the three men in turn
‘Ned, thank God I made it – and that you’re all here!’ he gasped. ‘I need your help in what may be the most desperate endeavour of our lives’.
2
A MONARCH IN THE WILD
________
Richard Hannay’s Narrative
I had not been back to Scotland since the affair of the Three Hostages. In the aftermath of those events I had needed time to recover from the injuries I had received at the hands of Dominick Medina, but also from the realisation that such individuals could exist – even thrive – in the very heart of our civilisation. The passage of time and the precious company of my wife Mary and Peter John, our five-year-old son, had done much to restore my spirits but a certain restlessness still tugged at me.
Much as I loved Fosse Manor, Mary’s ancestral home in the Cotswolds, I had always felt drawn back to Scotland, the land of my birth. Those pristine forests and wild mountains were like a sanctuary where I could experience a sense of renewal. When a widowed cousin invited Mary and Peter John to join her and her own boy for a holiday in Bath, I might have gone with them, but I found myself craving activities more challenging than taking the waters and playing bridge of an evening in the hotel salon. After seeing off my wife and son on their travels, I embarked on a pilgrimage of my own.
I packed my gear and boarded a train for the north with the intention of heading up to Ullapool for some climbing at Assynt. After an overnight stay in Glasgow, I made an early start up the West Highland Railway line. I realised I was nearing Denroy, a region almost unrivalled for its rugged scenery and hunting prospects.
I recalled that my old friend Edward Leithen had told me he was meeting some friends here for a spot of hiking and fishing. Rushforth Lodge was the rendezvous point and he had given me a pretty good idea of its location. It suddenly struck me that this was exactly the sort of company I needed: men who, like me, were veterans of the war and relished the challenge of some physical activity.
It had always been my habit to value my instinct, and now it prompted me to follow this impulse. I left the train at a tiny rural stop where the portly station master gave me detailed instructions on how to reach Rushforth Lodge. Thanking him, I shouldered my pack and set out.
The path was well marked at the outset, a ribbon of hard-trodden ground descending in its early stages through swaths of bracken. Upland moor gave way presently to pitched stands of birch and hazel that fell away in terraced ranks towards the base of the glen. Eventually the path petered out, but by then I was within sight of the forestry road I had been told to look out for.
The angle of descent was steep, the intervening slope pocked with outcrops of boulders and thready watercourses, but by dint of careful going I arrived at the roadside and paused to reconnoitre. The road itself was an unpaved track riddled with potholes. On this side of the glen the ground was seamed with deep gouges, as if some primordial Titan had taken a blunt axe to wood and stone. With sharp bends to both east and west, it was impossible to see very far, but confident in my sense of direction I squared my shoulders and set off westward.
I could not help but reflect that the last time I was in this country, I was being hunted by the brilliant Dominick Medina, and my left hand still bore a scar where his bullet had struck me. Enemy that he was, I could yet admire his genius, his energy, his singleness of purpose. If those gifts had been turned to good instead of twisted to brutish and avaricious ends, what monuments might that man have raised up?
As rogue beasts such men were dangerous enough, but what made them truly terrible was that they found the means to form, out of local gangs, national and international networks of intrigue and violence. Incapable as they were of anything as decent as friendship or fellow feeling, what bound them together was a shared contempt for the ordinary man, who was simply there to be manipulated and enslaved. Medina and his crew had no qualms about making hostages of innocent children to clear the path for their schemes, such were the devilish depths to which they sank.
In the end, their actions had not even the dignity of logic. When his organisation was dismantled, Medina had the option of continuing to live as a prominent and wealthy figure. Instead he chose to hunt me through these very hills. His aim was not to remove an obstacle from his path but only to inflict bloody vengeance upon one who had already been instrumental in his downfall. This spiteful course led him to his own death, even though at the end I did my best to save him.
Shaking off these sombre thoughts, I returned my attention to the refreshing beauty of my surroundings. Off to my right, a full-born river raced downward over shelves of rock. On the opposite bank lay a lush green sward studded with wild flowers against a backdrop of boulders and willow trees. At a turn in the road I paused to take a sip from my water bottle. When I lowered my head I glimpsed something that made my heart leap with pleasure.
No more than thirty yards from me stood a lordly stag, the most magnificent I had ever beheld. Head erect, ears alert, he was surveying his realm with the imperious air of a true monarch. He was perhaps in his fifth year, sleek and well muscled, with a fine head of ten points.
Until you have stumbled upon them in the wild, you cannot imagine how such a large animal can be rendered invisible by its dun-coloured hide. It is almost an exact match for the muted and mottled shades of its surroundings. My unsuspecting eye had passed carelessly over him, and only a slight movement of his magnificent antlers had put me on alert.
I smiled across at him and raised my hand in salute. He seemed to lift his head in a dignified acknowledgement. All at once I found myself laughing. At some spiritual level this encounter had thoroughly dispelled my recent grim reflections.
Here was a reminder that, in the face of the wanton caprices of man, Nature herself is not chaotic. If anything, she is more orderly than even the highest civilisation, with the round of the seasons, the migrations of birds and fish, the regularity of the harvest. The honest rhythms of Nature are the opposite of chaos and will always triumph over it, and so will men if they hold fast to the image that is stamped upon their souls.
All at once something seemed to startle the stag. He tossed his head, sniffed the air and bolted off in a flurry of pounding hooves. I glanced around and saw a man emerge out of a fold in the ground some distance behind and below me working his way towards me up the glen.
Seen from a distance, the stranger appeared to be in his sixties, hale and fit for his age. He was not a local man, for there was something continental in the cut of his brown woollen walking suit and the style of his hunting cap. He had on stout leather boots and carried an alpenstock, gripping it firmly in his right hand while keeping his left in his coat pocket.
Something flickered at the back of my mind but I could not put my finger on what was familiar about the stranger. Meanwhile he continued to approach. He was clearly in a state of suppressed agitation for he kept darting glances about him, as if he were on the lookout for someone.
When he spotted me he stopped short, squinting curiously. I walked towards him and called, ‘Hello! Can I be of any assistance?’
Do you know these parts well?’ he asked. His tone conveyed a mixture of anxiety and hope.
‘I’m just visiting,’ I told him. ‘I’m on my way to join some friends.’
‘I, also, am with friends,’ said the stranger, ‘but we seem to have lost one another. I have been looking for them without success.’
‘Perhaps I can help you find them, Mr . . . ?’
He gave a hesitant smile. ‘Hesselmann, Konrad Hesselmann. I am a banker here on holiday from Geneva. And you?’
‘Hannay,’ I replied, ‘Richard Hannay. I’m also on holiday. When did you last see your friends?’
‘Last night before we all retired to bed.’
‘Did they mention any plans to be off early?’
He shook his head. ‘When my aide and I woke this morning they had simply disappeared.’
‘They didn’t leave a note or anything.’
‘Again, no. I am concerned on their behalf. To be honest, I am unsure if I can find my own way back’
‘Perhaps I can guide you and help you search?’ I offered.
‘That is a very kind offer, Mr Hannay. Perhaps we should head back towards the cottage where we were staying?’ He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘I do not think they would have strayed any further than this.’
As we set off I made a closer assessment of my new acquaintance. His craggy face was dominated by pale, somewhat haggard eyes. His high-bridged nose and full white beard gave him an air of distinction and the way he carried himself suggested a retired military man.
