Enveloped in a huge RAF overcoat and a hat that bent her ears double, she had been spirited away from the police station, shoved into Giles’s Bentley, and raced through Kinmory to the Rowan Tree pub a mile outside of town—avoiding the Claymore pub, it being PC Hardy’s local. Poor Nigel Pendlebury was left behind for PC Hardy as a consolation prize. Before entering the pub, they divested themselves of their disguises, Caitrin gleefully ripping off their handlebar mustaches, only to find Giles’s splendid foliage had taken years to cultivate and was firmly anchored to his face. Profuse apologies from her, tears of pain from him. Dafydd removed his eye patch and Father Christmas belly pillow. While Giles ordered drinks, Dafydd hurried away to clean off his makeup. They were sitting around a table waiting as he returned and dropped into a chair next to Caitrin. “Aye, looks like rain, right enough,” he said in his Yorkshire accent. He picked up a pint, sipped, and added, “Tastes like bloody rain too.”
They all groaned.
“Drinks are on you the rest of the night for that antediluvian chestnut,” Giles said.
“Gladly. Caitrin, let me introduce these reprobates who are my dear friends. Giles Hyde-Harrington and William Watkins.”
“Pleased to meet you. Whose idea was the Gilbert and Sullivan wardrobe?” Caitrin asked.
“Guilty as charged, m’lady.” William raised his hand.
“Well done, William Watkins.”
“Why do you use my full name?”
“Because I like the double-U wubble-U sound. William Watkins.”
“Fair enough. We dressed up because we couldn’t have PC Hardy recognizing us and thus ending our illustrious RAF careers.”
“The big belly was my idea,” Dafydd said.
“His eye patch and the tan were my brilliant contribution,” Giles said. “Dafydd always looks so coal-miner pale.”
“And what about those atrocious accents?”
“The Yorkshire one was all mine,” Dafydd said. “But Nigel doing his Cockney accent came as a complete surprise.”
“What about poor Nigel? What will happen to him?” she asked.
Giles waved an aristocratic hand. “We will bail him out later. I must say, though, he is rather good at acting dense.”
“Acting?” William said.
“I want to thank you all for getting me out,” Caitrin said, paused, and added, “and for not asking why I was in there.”
William looked serious. “I assumed it was hush-hush.”
“Mum’s the word,” Giles said.
He just said Mum, Caitrin thought, but it didn’t really count. “I need to ask one more favor.”
“Caitrin has to get to Barra first thing in the morning,” Dafydd said for her.
“That’s easy,” William chimp-grinned. “She can join us and be a scarecrow.”
* * *
Dafydd and Giles opened the throttles of their aeroplanes at the same time, the Tiger Moths rocked as they accelerated, tails lifted, and they were airborne. Caitrin pulled her coat tighter as they crossed the coast and headed west. The Minch, the channel between the mainland and the Outer Hebrides, was a dappled blue across which fishing boats nudged white-laced Vs, a Royal Navy submarine—low, gray, and sinister—pushed north past the Isle of Skye, and Caitrin could see the arc of the Hebridean Islands ahead.
As William had suggested, she was temporarily a scarecrow. Britain had a shortage of aircraft, and Tiger Moths were being operated in pairs over shore waters, under the control of Coastal Command. They were called scarecrow patrols, and the theory, although it had yet to be put into practice, was for one Moth to circle a surfaced U-boat, forcing it to dive, while the other one raced off in search of a Royal Navy vessel that could come and give it a good walloping for trespassing. The Moths were unarmed, save for a Verey flare pistol, and had no radio. Dafydd considered it a monumental foolishness, while Giles thought it reckless enthusiasm triumphing over sanity. William asked what happened if the U-boat didn’t dive but instead fired its deck gun at them. A Tiger Moth flying low and turning lazy circles at fifty miles an hour was a bright yellow target for any Nazi with a marble and a catapult, let alone a gun. And what was the flare gun supposed to do—set their beards alight or dazzle them so they would sail into something solid, like a convenient island? And what if . . . ?
The whole idea surely belonged to some alcoholic boffin who had never been nearer the ocean than the Buckingham Palace fountain. Fortunately for the scarecrows, so far U-boat commanders appeared to show no interest in surfacing anywhere near the Hebrides.
Dafydd tapped her shoulder, pointed ahead, and shouted, “There’s Barra.”
Caitrin could make out the island of Barra but, try as she might, saw no airfield, only a white shell beach. The Tiger Moths throttled back, bucking on the ocean air current as they descended, and Caitrin was sure they were going to crash into the water. She braced for impact, the waves were so close, and then behind her, and the aeroplane was glowing from sunlight reflected up by the broad white beach. The Moths landed together, taxied away from the water’s edge, and stopped. The silence was immense as the engines cut, until a light wind filtered in, bringing the calls of gulls and the complaint of a distant sheep.
They climbed out of the aircraft, grunting and stretching, slapping their arms for warmth.
“I know coming in low over the water must have been a bit of a fright, but how do you like the airfield?” Dafydd asked.
“Trying to scare your big sister?” Caitrin said, pushing the toe of her shoe into the white shells.
Dafydd made a who-me? face. “It’s called Traigh Mhòr, Big Beach.”
“Didn’t work, not scared,” she said and poked him in the belly. “Never did, never will. It’s a lovely beach.”
While they secured their aircraft, Caitrin took off her flying helmet and goggles, walked a little distance away and up a short rise to the road. She turned in a circle and in all directions saw nothing but water. There was the island, of course, but it was flanked by water. They had landed on the outer edge of the country, where the world was reduced to its elements: land, sea, and sky, which were not separate but each a continuation of the other. It was the strangest experience. Everything was preternaturally clear, and Caitrin, for the first time in her life, sensed herself standing on the Earth. She was aware of her own presence. Of her own being and mortality.
Dafydd appeared next to her. “Magical, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“There is something wonderful about this island. It makes you see things differently. Or perhaps see them as they are for the first time.” He pointed to the horizon. “Out there, nothing but Atlantic Ocean between Barra and Newfoundland. Full of U-boats.”
She gazed out at the ocean for long moments. “This is such a stupid, pointless war.”
“Aren’t they all?” He slipped his arm through hers. “Cat, why don’t you wait and call in the cavalry?”
