With a growl of impatience Cowley opened his second bottle of malt: that old Laphroig, gift from MacLaren, which he hadn't wanted to share with Bodie, saving it for future celebrations, or for future disasters, or just for colder nights. What remained in the first bottle after two weeks of very moderate consumption, he had drunk too fast while he played and replayed the film of the late events in his haunted mind.
At first, everything had gone well. Angus had dressed Bodie's head wound with the first-aid kit he had brought from the farm. The young man had been quiet and silent, just sporadically uttering the same obssessive words "Where am I? What am I doing here? Who're you?" and getting the same appeasing and meaningless answer every time: "Don't worry, all's well, you'll be all-right" which he didn't seem to hear.
Cowley took a large swig of scotch, spread his legs in front of the fire-place and sighed heavily, warmed and lulled by the blaze. Through half-closed eyelids, in the haze of exhaustion and alcohol, it was as he glimpsed the shimmering wavelets of the loch under the declining sun. He could not help but relive those fleeting moments when the situation had overturned.
"I don't know about you," Angus said, "but I could do with a beer and a sandwich."
"A bit early, isn't it? For you at least. A beer and a sandwich is all I got while you were having lunch at the farm and I am not complaining. Can't you wait till you get back? It's getting late."
"I don't see any reason to hurry now and we've got plenty of good food I don't want to waste."
That was true: Angus had retrieved Bodie's supplies and had crammed them in his own back-pack. And there were four remaining cans of beer in the boat. As much as Cowley wanted to hasten his return, he couldn't find any sound objection to a pause for a short snack; Bodie needed the rest and, to be honest, he himself was positively starving. So they sat down, uncomfortably, on the narrow band of rough sand and shared the bread, cheese, ham, hard-boiled eggs and cold baked beans that had been intended for the fishing party, a thousand years ago it seemed. Bodie ate what he was offered, slowly and silently, though at some point he reached out for the can of beer that Angus was opening.
"Tut-tut, laddie; no alcohol for you. It would do you no good. I more than suspect a concussion."
Cowley protested: "Come on, Angus! I didn't hit him that hard."
"Hard enough to make him lose what was left of his memory."
"He seems to remember the distant past quite well ."
"That remains to be verified. Anyway I will not take the responsibility of letting him drink beer."
Bodie wordlessly accepted the canteen of tepid water handed out by the old man and fell back into his apathy, nibbling his sandwich with a painfully slowness. The "short snack" was dragging on and Cowley was losing patience.
"Wake up, man! I don't want to spend the night at this place."
"And I don't want you to upset my patient." Angus said sternly.
" Ah bah, don't make such a fuss; a loss of memory isn't life-threatening. As you had noticed yourself, he fairly well overcame it the first time."
"You shouldn't joke about this, George. The lad has got a concussion and you were holding the gun."
"As if I had any choice!" Cowley hated the petulant tone he heard in his own voice. There was something about Angus, in his (affected) avuncular attitude, that brought him back to his chidhood, when the older man was for him some kind of an authority figure, whom he used to consider with awe. He had to recall that he had, until recently, exercised far more important functions than his cousin ever had and successfully confronted politicians and other men of power and influence.
Whatever, he couldn't allow himself to feel guilt or worse, remorse: disturbing, unhealthy, dangerous.
Bodie has showed no attention to the exchange, or any interest in it. But suddenly he raised his head and blinked in the declining sun. He stared at a point somewhere up in the shrubbery. Following his gaze, Cowley caught sight of a reddish-tawny spot, which zoomed out at lightning speed to materialize as a big canine furball, landing in a last leap straight in Bodie's lap: Rover!
"Ah, that dog now; we really needed him! Thought you had forgotten him."
"Rover, come here! Leave Bodie alone! Stupid animal. No, I hadn't forgotten him. I left him at the farm on purpose; I didn't want him on the boat.
Bodie was stroking the dog absentmindedly while Rover, extatic, licked his face and hand. Angus pulled a face.
"Seems the matter is settled now." He stated reluctantly. "We can't leave him wander in the bushes all night. There are sheep and cattle in the vicinity."
Cowley frowned. "I don't like this. The boat is not made for three men and a large dog." He snorted: "A rambunctious large dog."
"Don't fret. I'm able to control him."
"If you say so."
"He likes Bodie. I'll make him lie at his feet, and he'll behave".
"Let's hope." Cowley wasn't convinced but didn't insist. There was no alternative really.
Anyway when the trouble occurred, it wasn't the dog's fault: it was his master's. Or rather, it was his, his own fault, for having overlooked what he should never have.
To Cowley's mute surprise and Angus' vocal satisfaction the boarding was eventless. The dog behaved and the boat wasn't over-loaded for they had left most of their packs on the shore, with the intent of coming back to retrieve them later. So they started the engine and headed for the other side, a short crossing in still waters, on a sunny late afternoon.
Bodie remained withdrawn, as if absent from his surroundings, and deaf to any prompt to speak. Was it why Angus felt free to discuss his clinical case in front of him? Cowley wondered what he actually did hear or understand of their verbal exchanges.
"I must say, I'm beginning to feel a little worried about his condition, George. Have you ever seen him in that state before?"
"Yes, more or less, after the first injection, in the car. But he was not completely shut-in then; it was still possible to communicate, he'd had got a double dose for just one this time."
"But he hadn't been hit on his head then."
"As a matter of fact, yes, he had; I did a karate chop on him before delivering the stun-serum." Cowley mused: "though maybe not as hard as with the gun. It was less of an emergency: he was handcuffed already."
"Hmm. So, two blows on the head within a fortnight..."
"Sixteen days, exactly. Whatever, do you still think he's got a concussion?"
"Don't know, really. So far, I noticed no clear sign of it; all his basic reflexes seem to be normal." He paused. "Of course only more thorough, in-depth medical examinations could give us the answer."
"In hospital? I hope it won't be necessary."
"Oh, there's no hurry. We can see to it later tomorrow, after we've all had a rest."
"Things are not that simple, Angus. First I must talk to Willis; we have an agreement but I need to have it firmly confirmed before taking the lad to Glasgow to see a neurologist. And I foresee a lot of complications. The legal situation is dubious at best: a patient without an identity brought by a man with no family ties with him and no kind of authority whatsoever; that will be hard to pull off."
"I see your point, cousin. However there is a place where you'll be asked no questions."
"I know what you mean. I'd rather not."
"Why not? They have the best specialists, with a prior knowledge of the case."
"Precisely."
"Oh, everything will be different now MI6 is not in charge any longer. Personally I completely trust the regular staff at Repton."
"Angus! Shut up!"
A feeling of impending doom had grabbed him suddenly. He stood up as Bodie rose from the bench, but not as swiftly. Rover was faster. Anticipating his master's order, the dog pounced on the young man's chest, preventing him from jumping overboard. Unbalanced, Bodie slipped and, as he fell, knocked down Angus who was steering. Of the struggle that ensued, Cowley didn't see much, as he was rushing to take hold of the helm. The boat had swivelled and was rocking dangerously. When he had regained control of it, he set about going to Angus' rescue but froze at the sight that met his eyes: the fight was over and the young man's body was lying on the deck, inanimate. Squatting beside him, Angus was checking his condition.
"Good Lord! What did you do to him?"
Angus was still out of breath, disheveled and having lost his urbane manners. "What do you think? That I flattened your superman with my bare hands? I used your stun-gadget, of course."
It was at this point that Cowley remembered he hadn't retrieved the device from Angus' hands.
"And it came in really handy. Just glad I managed to pull it out of my pocket while wrestling with that madman."
"What were you thinking of, mentioning Repton in front of Bodie that way, for God's sake?"
"I may have underestimated his vigilance." Angus admitted, somewhat sheepishly.
"And his comprehension as well! Didn't you realise what Repton would mean to him?"
"I assumed he'd lost all memories of recent events and only retrieved the ones of what happened before his admission in Repton."
"You assumed wrongly."
"OK, I admit it wasn't very wise of me; I was incautious somehow; is that you want me to say?"
"At the very least. Have you forgotten what I told you? He wasn't amnesic before all the drugging and electric shocks he got from the MI6 shrinks."
"You hadn't specified at which stage it occurred. Anyway, don't you find we've more urgent things to do than bickering about my shortcomings?"
That was indisputable. Cowley bit his lip and swallowed his anger, perfectly aware he mostly was angry at himself: How could he have so imprudently let his cousin keep the damned thing with him?
"How is he?"
"Unconscious."
"That I can see, Angus! Seriously, how bad is his present condition?"
"Not worse than before, as far as I can tell. Just deeply asleep. For a few hours; how many I don't know, but there must be some additional effect from the intake of two doses within a short span of time."
"Great. And now, do you feel up to carrying him on your back to the lodge, up the slope?"
Angus made a face. "That's a problem indeed. I'll call Bart. He must be able to make a stretcher. He used to work in the infirmary for some time during the war."
And so did he while Cowley called the pilot to tell him he was not needed any longer, without giving any more precision. He would talk to Willis later. There was no hurry. He didn't trust the man a bit but did trust his sense of self interest: he wouldn't break their agreement as long as he thought that Cowley was able and willing to help him hide his failure from his superiors.
When Bart arrived, over an hour later, he was flanked by Martha. And her assistance surely wasn't a luxury given the bulk of the gear they carried.
"My Goodness, Bart! Did you actually dismember a bed?"
"Not exactly, sir. I used the old camp-bed. It's not damaged. I just strengthened it with wood slats from a broken bed-base I found in the attic."
"I can smell it. Why did you bother? The way the cot is hinged, it could be adapted just with straps.
"Not strong enough for this purpose. It's a big lad we've got here."
"Just tell me you didn't want to spoil your military equipment. I don't like your contraption very much: it looks awkward and heavy."
"Martha is here to help."
"Bart, you should be ashamed of yourself for dragging a lady in this predicament."
"I am no lady," Martha asserted firmly.
And she had the last word.
Cowley rose from his chair uneasily, made two wobbling steps forward and had to lean on the table's edge. Straightening himself, he got closer to the bunk by the fireplace, where Bodie was lying, still deep asleep though shivering and, at times, moaning feebly. He sat down cautiously on the cot placed alongside, which was nothing else than the tinkered camp-bed they'd used to carry the young man up to the lodge, now stripped of its appendages and props to be returned to its primary use. Blurred visions from the previous hours filtered through a screen of alcohol and pain.
In spite of a much better stretcher this time, let alone the not insignificant help of Martha, climbing up the steep path through the woods had been excruciating for Cowley, whose bad leg had started to protest again, more and more loudly. Angus' pills seemed to have lost their power eventually and, just past the doorway, he had collapsed on the first available seat.
Angus looked almost as drained. He had mumbled something inaudible about romps that were no longer for his age. And Angus mentioning his age was well worth noticing. Bart was no better. The only two members of the rescue squad in comparatively good shape were Rover and Martha. The big dog stood guard at the bedside, seriously hampering his master in his attempted task, to perform a thorough check-up of the patient, while Martha was busy making sandwiches with what she had found in the fridge.
They had a quick snack together; Cowley got a new knee dressing from Angus, who unfairly exploited his weakness to make him take the cursed potion for the last time ("Look, George, it's just what you need, to recover your nerves after that exertion"). He was too numb to mind.
After that, they didn't linger. Angus wanted to clarify the situation though.
"What's your stand with Willis, exactly?"
"We have a truce. For about 36 hours from now, more or less. Within that span of time, I have a free hand, until the fugitive is caught. Then things will be negotiable."
"Till we have to tell him he's caught, you mean. That gives us some time. Do you trust him to keep his word?"
"Not in the least, unless it's in his own interest."
"Which is the case now?"
"I hope so. I banked on it."
"I see. Methinks we ought to ensure his non-intervention for as long as it's possible."
"I'll call him tomorrow morning, to keep him quiet; I can hardly delay it more. But God knows what I am going to say." Cowley's senses had started to reel. He was hardly able to think and happy for once that Angus had taken charge.
Angus didn't disappoint him. "Don't. I'll do. He might trust me a bit more than you. I'll tell him we have just located the man and are attempting to get him into a talk."
"While using their own RT?"
"By using my frequencies. With luck, he won't bother to scan our communications. At least not before the agreed time."
With luck, yes. Unless he bothered. Cowley wondered if, on the contrary, Angus' plan wasn't the best way of attracting the bastard's attention but he was in no condition to argue. And he knew his cousin's diplomatic talent. So he wished his cousin good luck and good night, and the trio departed, leaving Rover as bodyguard, against Cowley's better judgment.
The dog was decidedly a little too affectionate towards his new human friend and kept on licking whatever spot of bare skin he could reach, whimpering relentless and chewing the fringed rim of the thin blanket covering the sleeper, pulling on it till it slid down to the floor. Rover was nothing if not stubborn, and assuredly not a model of obedience when his master wasn't present. To get rid of him and his clumsy solicitude Cowley had to catch him by the collar and drag him out to the woodshed, with all the amount of remaining strength and balance he could muster. Which was not much.
Just enough to go back to the room and slump on a chair by the table to grab the bottle. Feeling a sudden chill creeping along his spine, he poured himself half a tumbler of whisky and swigged it whole in a few hasty gulps. The chill persisted. With a sigh and a mumbled curse he got up to feed the fire a few logs, then picked up the blanket and set himself to mend the mess of the bedding with a warmer plaid and a cushion. Bending over the body lying on the low bunk was straining his back and his leg at the same time. Fortunately his liquid pain-killer was more effective than Angus' potions. He used it liberally.
It wasn't easy to rest on that hard and rickety cot. He changed for a chair but remained close to the bunk. He wondered why he felt obliged to keep watch; Angus had reassessed the young man's condition, dismissing the concussion eventually, and stated it was fine. More or less. At least not worrying. But do you need solid reasons to worry? Besides, Bodie didn't look fine: ash-pale and drawn, his breathing short and raspy, he reminded Cowley of the poor wretch of a man he had rescued from Repton two weeks ago.
So, that was it? Back to the point they started from? With the added bonus of Bodie's recovered memory, which was by no means a true blessing in his current predicament. Sure, it might spare him a second stay at Repton (where Angus had his entries and Cowley could manage to keep some control over Harrington) but Willis would never let him go free if he had the least hope of getting some valuable intelligence from him.
Well, wasn't it what he himself had pursued since the beginning? Information against freedom: such was the deal he had offered the man, with Angus as witness. He remembered his own words: "Those were the conditions for your release, and for my protection". And, even more keenly, he could hear Bodie's bitter retort: "And who's going to protect me from you?" He tried not to recall his fateful promise, which sounded so much as an oath: "I give you my word: be faithful to me and I won't let you down, whatever happens."
Words of promise. How light and easy they fly from the mouth, how deep and heavy they burden the memory, how sharp and fierce they sear the heart of the trespasser. "The human heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked". His father's favourite quotation. Where did he take it from? Jeremiah? The Ecclesiastes?
Whatever. Had he had the strength and willpower to get up from his seat and walk to the bedroom, to retrieve the old Bible that should still be on the highest shelf of the cupboard, he wasn't in the proper disposition to seek any solace from the lessons of the Holy Scriptures; those were not circumstances in which a stern Presbyterian upbringing could be of any help to soothe a sore moral conscience, if there ever were such in his life.
The Islay beverage was a more appropriate medication. He didn't spare it until the bottle was emptied. Then he collapsed on the cot.
End of Chapter 13