Iceline Read online

Iceline

  Martyn Taylor

  Copyright 2012 Martyn Taylor

  For those who quietly spoke words of encouragement

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  ref_Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  About the Author

  Connect with Martyn Taylor

  Other Books by Martyn Taylor

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  Iceline

  Chapter One

  He slumped against the wire binding and the metal chaffed his skin drawing blood. He shivered as the draught skittered under the door of the barn and prowled around his feet, gagged on his own stench and vomited a thin dribble of bile. The spasms stopped and he heard the scuffling footsteps in the yard outside and the heavy grating of the barn door as it dragged across the stone. Thick fingers grabbed his hair and wrenched his head back and a voice whispered with the crispness of dead leaves. "Still with us?"

  The pain flared as a thick leather glove wrapped with barbed wire punched him in the face. The agony dulled and he went limp, his mind on the edge and his breath ghostly and shallow. A grimy thumb peeled back an eyelid and showed the whites before he passed out and pissed himself.

  "Cut him loose."

  Pliers cut the wire and limp as a rag doll he fell to the floor where they dressed him in old jeans and tee shirt and dragged him outside. His nostrils twitched at the stink of cigarette, stale body odour and old after shave. He hung loosely as they hauled him across the yard, through a gate and dumped him on the grass; he curled into a foetal ball and heard an engine and rotors. Loose stones and vegetation were whipped and hurled around by the downdraught as he was hauled into the cabin and the helicopter clawed its way off the ground and moved off, skulking across the landscape. He was manhandled again and pushed out; tumbling through the darkness and the scream rising in his throat was smashed from his body as he hit the ground and then nothing. Darkness inside his head was like the night that lay across the mountains. A moonless sky and a thin dusting of cloud veiled the pale light of the stars. He rolled into a shallow ditch where a trickle of water lapped against his face. Hours later cold grey daylight unrolled across the landscape with a faint overcast and mist lingered in the hollows soaking his clothes. Exposed to the elements he lay in the ditch while his tongue sought out the water and lapped it up. The sun burned as it climbed over the hills and he shivered through the night to a second morning

  Jock Bruce was out with his best brace of dogs checking the flock on the high ground when they ran across him. Sandy saw it first; and ran out in a wide arc then stopped, puzzled. Jock followed on his quad-bike and rode as close as he could. Seeing the old jeans, thin tee shirt and bare feet, he muttered how some people just asked for trouble as he climbed down into the ditch and checked the pulse. The poor bastard was alive and the farm over an hour away by quad. One of the dogs would get there faster and he needed help. Jock scribbled a note on a page torn from his notebook and wrapped it in the sandwich bag from his lunch and taped it to Sandy’s collar.

  He slapped the dog on the rump. “Find Sally, give her the note.”

  Jed, Jock’s second dog settled to watch the flock. Head up, eyes bright, the wind stirred at his long black hair and the white ruff around his neck. Jock rolled the man over and checked his wounds. His face wasn't too bad; no chance in a beauty contest but the flies had already got to his chest. He watched the writhing Gentles on the broken tissue and then scrambled back to the quad for a cloth to sponge the wounds. Using a trek-towel and the mug from his flask, Jock dribbled the trickling water into the cup until it was half full and then began working and thanked whoever was looking over this lad that he had passed out again.

  Sandy set off at a trot, picking up the pace and knowing his top speed would exhaust him long before the farm came into view. Sheep scrambled when the dog went through a cluster and ignored him if he went by to one side. Some lifted a grazing head, jaws working rhythmically and watched him go by. Sandy paused on the brow of the mountain and looked down into the valley to catch his breath. The farm lay a mile away below him and half a mile short of the road. He dropped down the slope in a flurry of legs and feathers, tongue lolling and breath rasping, sure-footed he ran on gliding over the ground until he finally came to a halt outside the farmhouse door and began to bark.

  Sally Bruce came out and yelled at the dog to quieten his noise and Sandy sat down. She saw the package taped to his collar and pulled it off, tearing at the plastic. She absent-mindedly patted the dog on the head and took the note inside; reading as she went to the telephone in the front parlour and rang the doctor with the mountain rescue team, an old family friend. Alistair Macleod answered on the fifth ring

  “Alistair, Sally here, Jock’s on the mountains south of Glencoe, he’s found someone in a bad way and wants help. He’s sent the dog back with a note, so it looks like the casualty might be badly injured. I’m sure he needs help to get them down.”

  “Slow down a bit lass, give me a moment, I’ll get a pen,” Sally listened as he scrabbled on the desk for pen and paper, “right, go on.”

  “There’s just a note, he’s on the south of the Glen a mile up the hanging valley; he sent the dog back with it.”

  “Will he need a ground team?”

  "I don’t know, a helicopter might be best, if it was easy he would have said?” Sally asked.

  Alistair Macleod drew in his breath. "Right, give me the details," he said and began scribbling as she spoke.

  She closed with. "I'm sorry Alistair, but that's all there is."

  "OK lass, I'll get things started at this end." Macleod said. When she had hung up he read his notes, dialled the numbers and set the ball rolling.

  Jock Bruce stripped his jacket and laid it over the thin clothes. The man slid in and out of consciousness and when he dribbled fresh water out of the bottle from his pannier he took it greedily. Time dragged, the time it had taken the dog to reach the farm was just the beginning; and then the race to save him start in earnest. Macleod's call kicked an Air sea Rescue crew off their backsides at HMS Gannet, the naval station on the edge of Prestwick Airport, and feet pounded across tarmac. Engines started and rotors turned, sluggishly at first and then faster, dissolving into a blurred disc. The blades stiffened with the centrifugal force and sunlight flickered on the blur as the pilot twisted the collective pitch, the angle of the blades shifted and bit into the air. The Sea King balanced on the downdraught before the landing gear came unstuck and the machine lifted, curving away from the pad. It rumbled low past Glasgow and across the waters of Loch Lomond, sparkling in the sunlight. The pilot flew his machine north at two hundred feet up the middle of the loch and the pleasure craft plying the waters below passed him without a backward glance as the owners took another pull at their Gins and Tinnies.

  The loch slipped behind and the mountains reared up alongside, towering above the aircraft as the pilot followed the roads to Glencoe then down the Glen and into the hanging valley high on the valley wall. The machine skimmed low over the grass and heather. The co-pilot spotted the shepherd standing on the seat of his quad bik
e waving the trek-towel above his head and the Sea King touched one wheel on the slope and the winch-man and paramedic dropped out of the door with a stretcher and a first aid kit. Working quickly, they cracked opened the kit, unrolled a foil blanket and wrapped up the casualty. The paramedic checked him over and gave the OK to lift him on to the stretcher. While Jock and the medic strapped him in the winch-man went back up the hillside and boarded the Sea King. The pilot eased his machine up and drifted across the slope. Jock and the paramedic crouched over the casualty, shielding him from the downdraught as the winch-cable snaked down and the hook was snapped on to the stretcher-harness, the medic hitched himself on. The winch took up the slack and the Sea King lifted the stretcher off the ground before the winch wound in its payload and the casualty was swung into the cabin. The Sea King’s tail rotor spun the aircraft around and it flew away down the valley. Jock watched, replying to a wave from the winch-man as he closed the cabin door and waited until the sound of the engine had faded into silence before he turned back to the flock; the sheep grazed on with indifference. The wiry Scot swung his leg over the seat of the quad and kicked in the ignition, twisted the clutch and dropped the bike into gear and the vehicle bounced up the hillside. Jed sprang to his feet and leapt for the quad as it went past, landing easily on the back.

  The Sea King flew to Oban where an ambulance waited on the airstrip at Tralee Bay. The paramedics made the transfer to the West Highland hospital and he was triaged with the minimum of fuss. The surgical team handled him delicately, gently cleaning wounds and flushing the damaged tissue before they teased the battered flesh into place and needlework, the equal of any seamstress, closed the tears in his chest and face. Cleaned and stitched up the patient was transferred to the wards and handed over to Jill Darling and her team. Once he was settled she sat down to read the notes. Anger she understood, but this had been done with deliberation. She filled a cup from the water cooler and went to his bedside. Drained it in one swallow and toyed with the empty container. Chewing the rim, until it cracked and she tossed it aside with a sniff of annoyance. It landed in a nearby waste-bin. "And we don't even know your name, but no matter. We'll put you together again." She murmured and checked the monitors.

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  Chapter Two