Just now, though, he had to scrounge up some diving gear.
CHAPTER
17
CAMERON
It seemed that for all the searching she had done, through Scotland and through folklore, for bits and pieces of the past . . . Thomas the Rhymer . . . Bonnie Prince Charlie . . . that now the past had reached up out of the peat bogs and seized her. For that is what the two numbers were: designations of the past, the years 1348 and 1665. Was she lucky that I had paid attention in history class, or did she simply assume that I would know, since it is my country we are speaking of? Or perhaps I understood because I know her, and those dates would be in her repertoire of folklore. The nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Roses" came out of 1665; it's the sort of thing she would remember. And being logical and scientifically trained, I put the pieces together: 1348, the first year of the great epidemic of the Black Death, and 1665, the last terrible outbreak of plague in Britain. Taken together, those numbers could mean only one thing: plague. It is like her to gamble on a warning that might be misunderstood, when a simpler one would have brought certain help, but risk to the rescuer. Myself. There was more love in that message than I had thought.
Plague, she says. Be careful.
But she knows I will come for her, and because she sent the message, I know that she is at least alive.
I read the letter from my mother, my lips moving over the words, and I was unable to say what it contained when I finished it. The newspaper provided little more distraction, except for one brief article that I feel must be connected to what I will find on Banrigh.
The island sparkles in the sunshine, its green meadows just visible across the blue of the sea. I will go in on the cliff side this time. I do not have an hour to waste clambering over the mountain path, and the sea is calm. I can anchor the launch out beyond the rocks if need be. I have come prepared for that.
I have made myself ready to go ashore now, and as I look down at myself, I think that she has found her legend after all, for surely I look like a seal-man: shiny black skin covers me from head to foot, and flippers have become my appendages. I put the breathing apparatus in my mouth, adjust the air tank, and throw myself into the sea. My Celtic woman is waiting.
She must have been watching the sea from the rocks near the hut, for as I look up while I swim, I see her hurrying down the cliffs to meet me. She is wearing her tapestry skirt and the blue wool shawl from Princes Street. Surely this is not her everyday attire for the island. No, perhaps that is the point. It is the only thing she has not worn, which means that it is clean—the closest she has to safe.
The seal is no longer on the rocks. She has frightened him away now, this will change his daily pattern, and also in a small way the results of my study. I fight the current a bit to keep myself clear of the rocks and find myself in water shallow enough to stand in. She is on the beach now, but she does not come toward me, and I keep the mouthpiece in place. I am on the beach, but I am breathing air from the tank on my back. I cannot speak to her.
"Don't come any closer!" she calls out to me. "I'm not sick yet, but I may carry the infection." She half smiles, pleased with her own cleverness. "I see you understood my message."
I nod once and raise both hands to make a question, whatever question she wishes.
She sits down on the rock against the cliff, with fifteen feet of pebble-strewn beach between us. She has to speak much more loudly than usual, and it makes her American Southern accent much more noticeable. Or perhaps she reverts to mat speech when she is distracted and afraid.
"Owen is dead, Cameron. Callum rowed over to the little island on Monday and found him. Callum died this morning. Marchand is very sick, and we are trapped here because Tom Leath took the rowboat. But he was sick, too. Did you pass him when you were coming here?"
I shake my head no.
"Denny is coughing badly, but he seems less affected than the others, and I still have the cold I had Saturday, but the deadly part seems to be the cough, and I don't have that. We found some cold capsules and made everyone take them, but it hasn't seemed to help."
I made the questioning gesture again.
"What is it? I don't know. It isn't typhoid or cholera. Callum had been immunized against those. And it isn't really bubonic plague, because I know the symptoms of that . . . ring around the roses ... No one has pustules or swollen lymph glands. I used the plague years because it was the only way I could think of to warn you about disease. My Morse code is limited to numbers, and I only learned those by osmosis when Bill was in Scouts."
I applaud her silently and nod for her to go on.
"I thought that we were being poisoned, but I couldn't think of any way to poison everyone. We've been eating tinned food for the last two days as a precaution, and it hasn't helped." She twists a strand of hair and looks pleased with herself again. "That's when I thought that maybe we were infected with something here on the island, but no one did any digging except me."
I shake my head and kneel down to pick up a handful of coarse sand.
"You're right,'' she says, watching the sand trickle through my gloved fingers. "Alasdair did soil sampling. I remembered mat this morning, and I tried to find all the places he'd taken samples." She paused for effect. "On one of them, in one of the meadows near the village, I found quicklime!"
How to show her that I understand? I make the sign of the cross and bow my head.
"Yes, Cameron. A layer of quicklime under topsoil means a mass grave, either human or animal, but always from a contagious disease. The quicklime is to prevent the germs, or whatever, from getting into the soil and infecting crops or livestock. Archaeologists are told that if they come across quicklime in an exploratory trench, they must cover it up,
and tell everyone on the site where the place is, so that it can be avoided."
I am a biologist. She has put me on familiar ground. Now I know more than she. I mime the opening of a small bottle, swallowing a pill.
She frowns. "I told you, the cold capsules didn't work."
I shake my head a vigorous no and point to her bandaged finger. Again, I mime the pill-taking.
"My finger is fine. That's not important. Yes, I'm taking the pills for it, so that I can die of plague instead of tetanus.''
I pull the oxygen mask out of my mouth. "You're not going to die at all, dear," I tell her, flapping awkwardly across the rocky beach with my arms outstretched. "You have prevented yourself from getting the disease."
We are back in the boat now. Together we hauled it into shore and got Marchand and Denny aboard. Denny is a bit shaky on his feet, but he'll be fine. Marchand may pull through with luck. I have given them all double doses of Denny's antibiotic, which is a form of penicillin that can both cure and prevent. . . anthrax. I took the same dose myself.
I decided that it would be best to leave the bodies of Callum and Owen where they are. The medical authorities will have to come to this island anyway to make their investigation and to see that the plague pit is sealed and marked. I can only hope that they will find Leath in his open boat before it is too late. We haven't time to look for him; Marchand and Denny must go to the hospital at once. I shall make Elizabeth go as well, just as a precaution.
Denny and Marchand are sleeping in the cabin, and Elizabeth is sitting on the deck with me, watching for land to appear on the horizon so that we will be safe.
"How did you know it was anthrax?" she asks suspiciously.
"That's what plague pits are in these islands. Bubonic plague didn't get here. I know a lot about anthrax, actually. Have you ever heard of Gruinard?"