Book I
THE FLOODED VILLAGE
1
“Isn’t it ever going to stop?” René said.
The rain was teeming down out of low, dark clouds. It hissed as it fell; it smacked against the earth and splashed upwards, still hissing. It was running down the path which led to the cottage, hissing and gurgling all the time, and it splashed up against the wall. There was no wind. The torrent just fell, out of that leaden sky; and it seemed to fill their minds, their vision, their lives.
“It’s bound to,” said Charles.
They stood together at the window, Charles and René Hardy since this time yesterday. His arm was round her waist, holding her tightly against him. Unknowingly, she was playing with the new wedding ring, so unfamiliar and so full of hope, excitement and promise. Through the rain, they could see the rocks and the loch, strangely calm except that it was whipped by the rain as if by hail. Waves came sluggishly on to the stony beach, and against the rock which sheltered it. The darkness stretched as far as the eye could see; everywhere.
Yesterday, it had been a glorious day.
This morning, there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky. The weather forecast had been as good as one could ever be in the Western Highlands, and this should have been the fourth day of an early autumn anti-cyclone. They had bathed, lazed, had lunch, and started to get ready for an afternoon bathe when the rain had started, an hour ago. At first, it had been just a heavy drizzle, out of a misty kind of cloud; now it was a steady storm, and they could hear it on the roof as well as outside; see it bouncing off the rocks, and pocking the face of the sea.
“You just can’t be sure of the weather up here,” Charles said, but there was a smiling gleam in his eyes. “Still it serves a purpose – it keeps second-day brides and grooms indoors! Could you guess how we could while away the time?”
René didn’t retort in kind.
“Charles,” she said, “I’m scared.”
“Oh, come, sweetheart—”
“I’ve never seen rain like it,” René said. She stared at it, as if it fascinated her. “It can’t be normal, and — hark at it.” She glanced upwards. Charles tightened his grip at her waist, and they listened. It was a constant surge of sound, from the slate roof and from all about them. The path had become a small river, carrying stones and sticks down past the old stone cottage towards the beach and the loch.
“Darling, you needn’t be frightened, you know,” Charles said. “It’s unusual, but I’ve seen rain like it in the tropics. It falls in torrents, but it always stops at last.”
René turned her head to look at him. She was small and quite pretty, in the middle-twenties; her figure had first caught his attention, a pair of grey eyes had held it. She had nice arms and legs, too, a pleasant speaking voice, and light brown wavy hair. She had worked in a London office since leaving school, and meeting a man who had spent ten years in Africa had been an adventure in itself. Their courtship had run more smoothly than most. Charles had no family; René’s mother and father took to him at first sight. There was nothing outstanding about either of them, and they would easily get lost in any crowd, but they suited each other perfectly.
Looking at her now, Charles realised how little he really knew about her.
She was in absolute earnest.
“Charles,” she said, in a quiet voice, “I know you’ll think I’m crazy, but I’d like to get away from here. We could stay in the village for the night. I know I suggested coming up to the Highlands, but. . . honestly, I’m scared.”
He could tell that she was.
He’d had little experience of women, but an inbred understanding warned him that it would be futile and foolish to scoff at her fears. And he was very much in love. He didn’t answer at once, but suddenly gave her a squeeze, then kissed her heartily, and then said: “Come on, then! If we don’t hurry, we won’t get up that path.”
Almost under her breath, René said: “That’s what I’m afraid of,” but his ready acquiescence brightened her eyes, and she hurried ahead of him into the next room. In here a window overlooked the tiny back garden of the cottage, and the face of the rocks. The loch was small, high in the rugged land, and on three sides the rocks rose steep, big craggy cliffs dropping sheer into the still water. On dark days, the loch could look frightening; in sunshine, there was no lovelier spot anywhere.
Water was pouring over the cliff, rather like melting icicles, and the path which ran from the top to the bottom was inches under water.
“What I’m really afraid of,” said René, “is the cliff being undermined, or something, and falling on us.”
“When we’re old and grey, dear, that might happen one day, dear, but it won’t just yet, never fear.” Charles was laughing at her, but she didn’t mind; she was so eager to get away. “How would you like to buy the place?”
“What?” She was so startled that she stopped getting clothes out of a drawer.
“Just an idea. It belongs to an old crofter in the village who’s getting past the letting stage, and we could pick it up for two or three hundred pounds. Perfect for holidays, and it’s not everyone who could have a honeymoon venue every year.”
“I don’t know,” René said, doubtfully, “it sounds very cheap, but—”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Charles said.
He sat on the edge of the bed, and watched her, simply because he enjoyed it. She moved very well, and she had an easy efficiency, even when packing just for the night. Once she was uncertain about what she wanted, and stood for a moment with a hand at her forehead, forefinger pressed hard and the top joint bending upwards a little. Charles grinned. She shot a quick, half-laughing, half-vexed glance at him.
“Fool!” She started towards the wash-stand in a corner, for their toothpaste and brushes. It was near the back window.
As she reached it, the unbelievable happened; the rain came down more fiercely, and for a moment the rocks themselves were cut off from sight.
Charles was with René in a stride.
“You are jumpy!”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “I just want to get away quickly.” She was shivering, uncontrollably. “I feel as if someone’s walking over my grave all the time.”
“Keep yourself going for a bit,” he begged, “I don’t want to have to carry you up!”
René didn’t speak.
Charles finished packing the case, while she sat down at the old-fashioned dressing-table, with its speckled mirror, and opened the top drawer. There was a kind of restrained panic about her movements which Charles didn’t understand. He was sorry they were going. René had come up here with a coach party, the previous year, and fallen in love with the place. A few weeks before their marriage, they’d come to look round on a glorious sunny day, and found the cottage with a To Let Furnished sign up. There and then René had said that they should take it for their honeymoon; three weeks, in September. She had been fascinated, he had been intrigued.
The cottage was nearer the loch than the top of the hundred foot cliff, an old place which hadn’t been lived in, except by holiday-makers, for many years. Built of local granite and with a slate roof, there was nothing much to look at; a long, very low, typically Scottish cottage, with a door through which Charles had to duck to get in or out. The windows were small and odd-shaped, the floors were of stone, the walls a foot thick and more. There was just the living-room, with its main window overlooking the loch, and the bedroom next to it, a kitchen and a scullery.
There were oil lamps, an oil stove, primitive sanitation and a portable radio to keep them in touch with the world. For an idyll, perfect.
René peered at the mirror.
“Never mind powdering your nose if you’re in such a hurry,” said Charles. “I’ll get your mac.” He went into the scullery, and as he did so, had to pass the window overlooking the loch.
He couldn’t even see the loch, the rain was so heavy.
For the first time, he himself felt a little uneasy, but he collected René’s plastic coat and hood, and his own gabardine raincoat from behind the kitchen door. By the time he got back, René was fastening the case and glancing out of the window.
“It’s fantastic,” she said, “we can’t even see the cliff.”
“It’s getting dark,” he told her.
“It’s hours until dark,” René said, almost tartly, “it’s just. . . not natural. I wish I’d never suggested coming.”
“We’ll soon be out,” Charles promised, and took the case. It was on the tip of his tongue to tease, and say that only yesterday he’d carried her over the threshold, but she looked so much on edge. “Mind you don’t get your feet wet!”
He opened the door.
The noise, bad enough until then, became much worse; and rain splashed in savagely. It was like looking at a waterfall, and water which was silvery and fresh, with a curious, almost iridescent light of its own, but– they couldn’t see the edge of the loch or the little dinghy drawn up at the top of the loch only fifty feet away from the front door.
There was a cobbled path to the foot of the cliff.
“Come on,” Charles said. He closed the door, locked it, then slid his arm round René’s waist again and started out. They lowered their heads and went blindly to a corner, then turned it as blindly. Water was rushing down the rocks and along the path; in two steps they were ankle deep. For a second time, Charles felt nervous; frightened, like René. But it was useless to speak, the rain would drown every word. It was a struggle to get farther along, difficult even to breathe.
Suddenly, a dark shape loomed out of the water.
Charles saw it coming, realised what it was, and thrust René to one side. It came, bounding; a huge boulder from the cliff, so close that he thought it would crush him.
It missed by inches, but caught the corner of the suitcase, wrenching it out of his hand. He tried to grab, but it was swept away before he had a chance.
He let go of René’s waist, and tried to pick the case up. His heart was thumping, now; that had nearly had him.
René stood there, bent forward against the rain, and he could feel her terror.
He forced his way towards her again, put his lips close to her ear, and said: “We – must – go – back.”
He didn’t know whether she heard or not, but another boulder came out of the rain, closer to her than to him. She huddled against him, despairingly. The boulder crashed against the wall of the cottage, making the first sound he had heard except for the rain.
“Must – go – back.”
He gripped her tightly, and somehow they turned round. Water splashed half-way to their knees, muddy now, and carrying small stones past the cottage and down to the invisible loch. Charles did not know how he managed it, but gasping and staggering, he got René back to the front door, unlocked and forced it open, and helped her in. It wasn’t so easy to close the door, he had to put his whole weight against it, because of the pressure of inches of water.
He realised then that the cottage was now an island, and that there would be no chance at all of contact with the village until the rain stopped.
“Better get— dry,” he gasped.
René stood in the doorway of the bedroom, shivering; and terror was in her eyes. It was almost as if she had some kind of second sight, and knew that utter disaster was going to overtake them.
“Mac off!” Charles shouted. “Hurry!”
She began to fumble with the press-fasteners, but couldn’t get the plastic thing off until he helped her. She kept shivering violently. He made her sit down with her back to the window, and took her shoes off, then began to unfasten the suspenders which held her stockings up. She was his wife, and this was their honeymoon, but he gave no thought to that, just rolled the flimsy nylon off, then went to the bed and took two blankets and wrapped them round her.
“Th-th-thank you,” she stammered.
“I’m going to make some tea,” he said, loudly. “Then we’ll light a fire.”
There was no fireplace in the bedroom. He went into the living-room, and glanced at the window. The cottage seemed to be buried under water. He lit a lamp, unsteadily, and the bright yellow glow cheered him up a little. He put a kettle on the oil stove, waited until the flame was burning blue, then went into the little scullery, where stacks of logs and kindling wood were stored.
He carried an armful into the living-room – and stopped abruptly.
Water was trickling from the fireplace towards the door, and more water was coming from beneath the door. It wouldn’t be long before the whole floor was covered. He could hear the rain falling down the chimney, and knew that there wasn’t a chance of lighting a fire; even if he managed to start one, the cottage would be filled with choking smoke. He must forget it. He wished he hadn’t suggested to René—
He returned to her.
She was sitting in exactly the same position, as if she hadn’t moved.
“René, get a grip on yourself!” Charles exploded, suddenly fierce, and almost angry. “It’s no use looking like that! We’re safe enough here.”
René moistened her lips, as if with an effort.
“I— I’m so scared, Charles,” she said.
“There’s no need to be scared! It’s no worse than a tropical storm—”
Charles broke off.
Something crashed against the wall of the cottage; of this room. It made the floor shake, and knocked a small picture down. The glass broke; tinkling. The shaking had hardly stopped before there was another crash.
René screamed: “The cliff’s falling on us!”
“It isn’t,” Charles shouted back, without realising that he had to screech so as to make himself heard. “It’s just a few rocks!”
“Charles!” she cried in desperate panic, “Charles, save me. Oh, please, save me.”
He went to her.
He was as scared as his wife, and she probably realised it. There was no peace from the hissing and the roaring rain; nothing but the rain. Boulders kept crashing against the wall, each sounding louder than the last. Water swirled about the floor, and there was no easing at the window, where the rain fell in heavy, hissing sheets.
They were standing up, with their arms about each other. René wasn’t trembling so much; instead, she was panting. They didn’t speak, or try any reassurance. Just as René had felt the hand of doom, so now did Charles. The remorseless weight of the water and of the rocks and boulders brought down, would be too much for the cottage; unless it stopped they wouldn’t have a chance.
It must stop.
It didn’t stop.
Charles Hardy felt his teeth chattering; felt his own body quivering, as hers had been. They were in a corner, the corner by the window, staring at the wall opposite; the wall which backed on to the cliff. Charles saw a trickle of water coming between the big granite blocks of the wall. He stared, fascinated; there ought to be a way of stopping it, but– water was everywhere now. Two inches covered the floor, moving about sluggishly. It came down the chimney. It came from underneath the doors. It came through the wall.
He said: “Must try to stop that hole.” He tried to free himself from René, but she wouldn’t let go, clutched him like a leech. “I must try!” he shouted. “ Stop that hole!”
He forced himself away from her – and as he did so, a roar louder than anything they had heard before made him stop, and made her scream – but he heard nothing but the roar. They saw the wall shake. In a moment, René was with him, her arms round him, her face buried against his shoulder – and he stared as the walls began to break up, water came through in a dozen places; in twenty; in a hundred. A granite block fell into the room, and water spurted through the hole. Almost before the block had fallen, another started, and the water gushed in.
They crouched together.
Charles’s hand was tight upon Rene’s head, he could feel the softness of her body against him.
He could see the swirling water and the crumbling walls, and the rain.
“René,” he shouted. “René, René, René!”
She didn’t answer; she didn’t hear. She was pressing tightly against him, her face still buried, as if to hide from death. Charles felt the water rising fast. He lowered his head and closed his eyes, terrified and yet helpless; despairing. There was nothing they could do to save themselves, there was no hope.
Then he heard another roaring, rumble of sound.
He screamed!
A mass of rock from the cliff fell upon the cottage, and demolished it, and buried the two bodies.
2
“What on earth’s happening over there?” said Bob Woburn, idly. “It looks like a cloudburst the wrong way up.”
“You get the oddest ideas,” said his sister. “Oh, my goodness, isn’t it hot?” She brushed her fair, fluffy hair back from her forehead, and blew at a few strands; her face was red and shiny. She wore a plastic apron over a gay cotton frock with short sleeves. The kitchen of this farmhouse was large, with a stone floor, and there was a long window, which stood wide open. The check curtains did not flutter. “Just let me pop these tarts in the oven,” she went on, “and I’ll see what nonsense you’re talking about.”
“Yes, sister,” Woburn said, with mock humility.
He stood by the window, looking across the surprisingly tidy farmyard, the duck pond, the two hayricks and the old plough with a wheel off, across moorland, two ploughed fields, and then the loch and, not far beyond, the great firth, with its countless islands and its beauty. The loch was visible only in places; the rocky sides guarded it at either end. It had the quietness that only the Western Highlands know and, on this autumn afternoon, the blue tranquillity of the Mediterranean.
As the crow flies, the Robertson farmhouse was about five miles from the nearest point of the loch – Wolf’s Head Rock. Beyond the rock was the village of Wolf, which stood two thousand feet above sea level, overlooking the loch and the distant firth and, beyond, the fair blue of the sea. Everywhere, above the Wolf’s Head Rock, and the bay, above the place where the village stood and above the stony farmland about it, the sky was a clear, friendly blue, the sun was hot but not hostile. The only living things in sight were sheep, two miles away, and the ‘cloudburst the wrong way up’.
Jenny Robertson closed the door of the big white Aga cooker with the stealth of a true cook, then straightened up, puffed the strands of hair away again, and crossed to her brother. Woburn was six feet tall, and broad; even standing still, he gave a rare impression of physical fitness and strength; that had something to do with the lift of his head and the sureness of his shoulders. He wore a pair of old flannels and a cellular shirt with short sleeves, his reddish, wiry hair glinted in a reflection of the sun from the window.
“Bob,” she said abruptly, “I wish you’d get married.”
“You were born into the wrong family,” he said lightly, “and you set my standards too high. None of the women I meet compare even slightly with you.”
“Don’t be sae daft. I’m just a simple farmer’s wife, and—”
“That’s it, I think,” said Woburn. “Simplicity. And honesty, too. Jenny, don’t blame me, you started this. I have a very high opinion of my only sister, even if she is nearly forty and will soon be an old hag.”
“Brute,” Jenny said, “you’re turned thirty, remember. If you don’t hurry, you’ll miss the boat.”
“I’m waiting for the age of discretion,” Woburn said. “Also, I’m puzzled about that over there. Look.”
They stood together, staring across the serene blue of the loch beyond Wolf’s Head and towards the ‘cloud’. It seemed to rise from the earth, a dark, stormy mass, thinning at the perimeter. The sky above it was clear, but spray – or what looked like spray – rose several hundred feet from the ground.
Jenny Robertson said: “It is funny, isn’t it? It looks... angry.”
“What odd ideas you get! Turbulent.”
Suddenly the stormy, angry cloud, with its black, turbulent centre, seemed to burst. It was as if a great sheet of water shot upwards and headed towards the loch, leapt over the Wolf’s Head, and went out of sight. For a few seconds the cloud seemed to boil and bubble; then it settled down again.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Woburn, “I’m going to have a look. Think Reg would mind if I borrowed his motor-bike?”
“No, he won’t mind, but be careful,” Jenny said that as firmly as she would to her nineteen-year-old son. “I’m terrified in case he has an accident one day. I—” she broke off, as her brother shot out a hand and grabbed a couple of small jam tarts and popped one into his mouth.
“Pig, I hope that jam’s hot enough to burn ye.”
“Just right,” declared Woburn. “Thanks.”
He went out, whistling. Jenny watched him cross the yard, and as he vanished round a corner, she shouted: “Bob!” A cock started crowing, and he didn’t hear. She ran out after him, and caught him up just round the comer, as he was straddling an old two-stroke motor-cycle.
“Bob, put on Reggie’s crash-helmet!”
Woburn grinned and got off the machine. The shiny white crash-helmet was hanging on a nail just inside an old stone-built stable which had been converted into a garage. He slipped it on and fastened it beneath his chin, straddled the machine again and a minute later turned the machine out of the farmyard gate on to a cart track which led towards the moors and then across country towards the Wolf’s Head and the loch. It was used by walkers as well as cyclists, even by the few motorists who came this way. The only other road to the village was nearly as bad, wide enough only for one car as it wound its way across the mountains.
The great ‘cloud’ which seemed to rise out of the ground grew larger. For the first time, Woburn fancied that he could hear a sound, a kind of rumbling.
The sun, striking it at a different angle from any he’d seen before, caused a vivid rainbow; and then sunlight sparkled, as on a cascade of water. It looked beautiful, but didn’t make any sense.
He put on speed again, until he reached a spot where he would have to hoist the machine over, but that wouldn’t give serious trouble. He stopped the engine – and immediately knew that he had been right. A roaring sound was coming from the cloud, reminding him of water rushing over a great fall; like Niagara.
“Nonsense!” he said aloud.
He lifted the motor-cycle over, climbed the rocks himself, and started off. The sound was still in his ears, above the pop-pop-pop of the two-stroke engine. As he drew nearer the Wolf’s Head itself, most of the ‘cloud’ was hidden from his sight, but he could still see the top of it, silvery more than dark, and caught by the sun’s rays.
The track rose sharply up the hill which led to Wolf’s Head. He ought to walk it. Instead, he put the nose of the machine towards it, and travelled fast. It was years since he had driven a motor-cycle, but he was as sure of himself as he would have been at the wheel of his car. He throttled down as he neared the top, feeling a sense of disquiet, almost of alarm. It was a kind of water-spout, of course; they trailed in the path of cyclones in distant waters.
He reached the top – and for a moment, almost lost control of the machine. He braked too hard, and felt himself pitch forward. Water splashed. He let himself go. In that split second as he curved an arc over the handlebars, he was conscious of his own danger and of a sense of disbelief; for the cloud was over the village and the loch beyond; and the village was hidden from sight.
He crashed.
He felt a blow on the head, but it didn’t knock him out. He lay for a few seconds, and could see a pool of water at his feet; water soaked the ends of his trousers, too. He pulled himself together, slowly, staggering when he got to his feet, wishing there were something to hold on to. He could not understand why he should crash, but that was unimportant – the sight below thrust everything else out of his mind.
Water was spurting out of the ground to a height of fifty feet or more. As far as he could judge, it was the spot where the village had been; certainly there was no sign of buildings, of cottages, of the church with its slate spire. There was just that turbulent mass of water, sending spray hundreds of feet up, to catch the rays of the sun and sparkle; as if a million diamonds were being tossed into the air.
“Can’t – believe – it,” Woburn muttered.
He took a step forward, and something crunched under his foot; so sharply that he snatched his foot back hastily. A snail or a crab—
He didn’t see what he had trodden on, but a sheet of water spurted up at him, high above his head, drenching him completely. Some of it struck his knee with such startling, stinging force that he nearly lost his balance. The water splash died down, but where he had put his foot there was another large pool. He looked at this, stupidly. Two pools of water, on high land where there had been no rain for days. The heather and coarse grass on either side of the path was dusty brown from lack of water, and the path itself was dusty; but there were the pools.
He saw something crawl.
It was about the size of a tennis ball, with a shell rather like a crab, but it moved much more quickly than a crab. He stared at the muddy, grey shell, still half stupid. The roar of the water down in the valley was loud, and seemed to hold a note of menace. The sun shone on the two pools of water here; and on the crawling thing. It wasn’t a crab; in fact it looked more like a tiny tortoise, with that shell-like top, and tiny feet on which it moved with startling speed across the path.
Then, over the hill, came a sheep-dog – one belonging to the Robertsons.
It came trotting, tongue out as if it had been racing, and now and again it looked round, as if towards the cloud. Black and white, its long, shaggy coat looked groomed and glossy. It caught sight of Woburn, and stopped. Woburn was feeling better; not right, but not so helpless and dizzy as he had been. The noise didn’t stop for a minute.
The dog was standing and looking at him; suspiciously.
“Hallo, old chap,” Woburn said, “where are your sheep?”
Friendliness responded to friendliness, and the dog seemed really relieved. But not for long, for it caught sight of the scuttling thing on the ground. Its hackles rose, and it stood for a moment, then let out a yelp and leapt, as it might after a crab. It touched the thing with its teeth.
Woburn saw what followed.
The dog was flung back from the spot by a spurt of water which actually lifted it off its feet. It yelped and writhed in mid-air. Water poured from its mouth. It fell on its side, writhed for a few seconds, then jumped up, sprang past Woburn, and went racing across the wild moors.
Where it had bitten the crab-like thing, there was a rippling pool of water, already soaking into the dry earth.
Woburn did not speak or move; just looked about the grass, and saw that it was crawling with the creatures which spouted water.
