Try ordering a hoagie in New York sometime. But there are cultural differences that you don't learn, because you don't know they're there."
Denny looked puzzled. "Like what?"
"I don't know." Elizabeth sighed. "I told you: I don't know they're there. I just feel it."
The mood for the remainder of the day was subdued. When Callum returned, they told him about the accident in brief, understated terms, and he nodded and said that it was unfortunate. Derek Marchand, leaning on the surveying staff and looking a bit like Moses, made a little speech to the effect that while their thoughts were with Alasdair, they ought to continue with the work at hand, that Alasdair would want it that way, and so on. Everyone listened politely; no one had anything to add, and work went on as usual, despite a sharp wind from the darkening sky.
"I should have been an Egyptologist,'' Tom Leath thought for the hundredth time.
"Is Owen settled in on the island all right?" Elizabeth asked Callum.
"He has everything he needs,'' Callum said. I let him take my one-man tent. A few cold meals won't hurt him."
"Can we see him from the cliffs?"
"No. His camp is on the other side, where the shore is open for landing. He didn't want to carry his things too far from that."
''Good,'' said Denny, who had stopped to listen. ''If we're lucky, the hills will muffle the sound of his piping."
Callum smiled and began to adjust the lens on his camera.
"Do you think we ought to tell him about Alasdair?" Elizabeth asked.
Denny gave her a sour smile. "Let's save it for a surprise when he comes back."
The rain came by late evening, so that it was impossible to tell when the day's dark clouds turned into an overcast night. Elizabeth lay huddled in her sleeping bag, the cold making her feel even more alone, and listened to the soft thud of rain on the tin cylinder. She was thinking about Cameron, in a sort of backward rehearsal of all the things she could have said, but she kept thinking about old war movies from the Forties, the ones where the handsome American pilot falls in love with an English girl. They always had chestnut brown hair, these English girls (even in black and white you could tell), and sweet soprano voices, and they always wore head scarfs. Sensible. Ordinary. Wholesome. Perfect noses. Elizabeth knew for a fact that she looked like a pumpkin in a head scarf. She didn't think she was reassuringly ordinary, either, not that she was to blame for that. Southerners are not known for being wholesome or ordinary. Too much imagination, she thought. I could be a quiet, sensible girl who'd be perfectly happy staying home and baking bread and weeding the garden. If I had a lobotomy, she thought grimly. She wondered just who it was that Cameron actually wanted, and if she had a chance of being that person.
For a moment, as she closed her eyes, she thought she heard the wail of Owen's bagpipes, but it might have been the wind.
CHAPTER
13
Sunday was cloudy and dark, but the rain held off until early evening, so that they were able to get much work done at the site. Elizabeth thought that it went more smoothly with fewer people jostling each other about. She was becoming much more experienced at surveying now, and since it seemed certain that there would be no work in her own specialty to keep her busy, she had to make herself useful in other ways. She missed Cameron very much. His brief visit the day before, attended by so much chaos, was worse than no visit at all. Even communication by radio had been denied her because the weather Sunday night was not good, and, in her opinion, Tom Leath was too lazy to make the effort to try to raise the other island in difficult broadcasting conditions. Even her protests of concern for Alasdair (more useful than true) had been met with a shrug and Leath's opinion that it was too soon to learn much anyhow. He'd try Monday nigh he said, even if the weather had not let up, and Elizabeth had to be content with that.
On Monday it had rained off and on most of the day, but they had worked anyway. Marchand was anxious to get the major portion of the measuring finished in case a real storm appeared. Elizabeth listened off and on during the day for the sound of bagpipes from the smaller island, half expecting to hear taps sounded in screeching desperation. Surely Owen must be chilled and tired of cold food by now, she thought. He had been working alone there for two days and a half. She decided that he had more endurance than she had given him credit for, but she doubted that he was taking it in cheerful pioneer spirit. She had not heard his bagpipes since his first night over there. Either he was playing quietly, or—as she suspected—he was sulking in his tent with his murder books.
On her trips from the Nissen hut to the stone circle, she had once or twice seen the seal, but she had not caught a glimpse of Owen at work on the menhir on the smaller island. If, as she suspected, he was refusing to work during drizzle, he might be there a long time completing his work. She suspected that the prospect of more days in an unheated tent, with canned food, would persuade him to brave the elements.
When about five o'clock Monday evening the drizzle turned into a downpour, she even began to feel sorry for Owen. "Aren't you going to go and get him, Callum?"
He squinted at her through wet eyelashes. "What? In this muck? By tomorrow it may clear off."
"Aye, but he hasn't signaled for us to come and get him.''
"We haven't heard him," Denny said. "You know fine we spend most of our time out here at the circle, Callum. I doubt we'd hear him here."
"Go and get him, Callum," Elizabeth said. "He needs a hot meal at least. If he isn't finished, you can always send him back."
"All right!" said Callum. "And you're wanting me to go before supper, too, I suppose."
Elizabeth nodded. "If you wouldn't mind," she said politely, because she was sure that the matter was settled.
They trooped back to camp across the soggy peat fields, with the wind blowing a steady stream of water in their faces. "What you need is a nice cup of tea!'' Denny shouted, nudging her arm.
"Right! I'm going to pour it over my head!" Elizabeth shouted back, pulling her rain hood tighter about her face. It was no use. She was soaked to the cervical vertebrae, she thought.
"Well, this is a nasty evening!" Derek Marchand announced when they were inside the Nissen hut. "I'm thinking we all ought to bunk in here for the night, or be drowned in our beds."
"It'll be a bit crowded," Tom Leath said, "but I'll take crowded over wet any day."
"Do you think you can raise anyone on the radio in this storm?" Marchand asked.
Leath shrugged. "I'll have a go at it after dinner."
"Good idea. Poor Callum, having to put out to sea in this, but I suppose we couldn't leave the American boy over there Elizabeth, who was brewing tea, smiled to herself. If it hadn't been for me, you would have, she thought. She began to take packets of dried-noodle dinners out of the supply box, calculating how many she would need to feed six people, and how much water that would require. A sudden sound carried on the wind made her look up from her task. "That's odd," she said. "Hasn't Callum left already?"
"Three quarters of an hour ago, at least," Denny said. "Why?"
"Just now ... I thought I heard Owen^ bagpipes playing taps."
Denny shook his head. "He's left it a bit late, hasn't he?"
Callum Farthing had not enjoyed the rain-sodden, heaving journey from Banrigh to the smaller island, and he hoped that he would not have to prolong the visit any further by having to track down Owen Gilchrist. He had hauled the boat up out of the water no farther onto the stony beach than necessary not to risk its going adrift again. Through the sheets of rain he could see the orange of Owen's tent farther inland among the rocks. Oh, Christ, I'll have to help him take it down, he thought.
Cupping his hands against his cheeks, he shouted Owen's name against the wind. No one answered.