Dylan's Yuletide Journey Read online

  Chapter 4: George gets involved

  In which George gets his bearings and Dylan gets a mouthful

  Prince Engineer George strolled into Io’s bar in the lower courtyard at Castle Marsh. He joined a group of green-jacketed soldiers sitting around a table, playing cards. He watched for a bit until someone shouted “Rummy” and laid his cards face up on the table. The others all exclaimed in various degrees of dishonesty that he had cheated, he could not have done or that he had stolen their card. The winner grinned sheepishly and gathered the winnings onto his pile of beans. He seemed to have a lot more than the others.

  “Another round, then? And what can I get you, George?” asked the winner.

  “Oh, a celery spritzer please, Haggis,” said George with a bashful smile. He sat waiting while Haggis went over to the bar and ordered four more Vexes and a celery spritzer. The barkeeper, Io, nodded and said she would bring them over.

  “What’s up then?” asked Haggis, retaking his seat.

  “Oh, well, er, nothing, but I got a strange message last night and I wondered whether you might shed some light on it.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Ever heard of a place called Haunn?”

  “Haunn? Where might that be?”

  “I hoped you might tell me that. It’s not on Fred’s map of the north, and we think it’s in the far north, on an island. The message got onto the vacuum system at Kerrera, and went to Buckmore first.”

  “Kerrera? That’s way out west. You want to look at them western isles up north.”

  “I don’t suppose you could find Kerrera on a map, could you?”

  “Oh, happen I could. I tell you what, though, let’s check with Frankie.” He called over to a big chap sitting near the fire. A moment’s discussion and they stood up. “Take us to that map, then.”

  Io stood behind them with a tray of drinks. “I suppose you don’t want these after all?”

  “We’ll be back,” said Haggis. “Just don’t let the others have mine.”

  “Fat chance,” said one of his card-playing companions. He reached over and lifted all the bottles of Vex off the tray, and set George’s celery spritzer beside them. “We’ll save this one for you, though,” he added, winking at George.

  ~~~

  The light on the bubbling, hissing and dripping apparatus had finally gone out. Dylan had slept on and off and the slight gleam of daylight had reached into the cave and departed again. He could hear the wind and rain outside and he was glad he was sheltered.

  His captors had tied him tight, but his feet were remarkably slim for such a large framed person. With some persistent wriggling, he had finally squeezed them out of the loops. After that, it didn’t take too much contortion to get his feet up to his hands, scratch a loop off them, and then get his hands up to his mouth. His captors had cunningly tied knots round both wrists before binding him. He had to undo the knot or bite through the rope to get both free. With a gag on, biting was difficult. After a few hours, trying for a while, resting for a while, he managed to slip the gag off his top teeth. From then on, he had enough purchase to gnaw through the rope even with the cotton covering his bottom teeth. It just meant he gnawed a hole in the gag as well, by the time he got through the rope. At last, the rope parted. He took the gag off and the rest of the rope from his feet, and rubbed his sore joints.

  He was tired, hungry and thirsty, but his excellent eyesight had adapted to the dark of the cave and he could explore at leisure. The apparatus was a still, used to refine some liquid into alcohol. He had never tried alcohol, so it was quite a shock when the first thing he tasted took the roof of his mouth off and scorched the back of his throat. He coughed and retched and looked at what he’d tried. It smelt like strawberry juice with something funny in it. It did not taste like strawberry juice, that was for sure. He felt his way around the rest of the bottles. They all seemed like strawberry juice bottles. Most had corks in, and a few others had regular caps. The ones with corks smelt like the contents of the still. He tried opening one with a regular cap. Success! It was strawberry juice! He went to drink it down, then stopped and sipped it. He had to make it last. He needed to think.

  Why was Uncle Heath hidden away up here on the hillside in the wee small hours making alcohol from strawberry juice? Strawberry juice was so valuable. Could he not use raspberry juice or something else? What did he do with it? What had they said when he was listening to them? “Might as well finish up for a while,” he thought. Did that mean they had made all they needed? Would they be coming back to clear this stock out? Dylan felt there were far too many questions going round in his head and no answers coming back at all.

  He lay back and slept for a bit.

  There were noises on the hillside. Dylan came to with a start, remembering Uncle Heath’s final words. If he was not going to be seeing in the new year, did that mean someone was going to make sure of that? Had they just left him to die or were people coming back to finish him off?

  He slipped out of the entrance to the cave, moulding himself to the shadows, such as they were at dawn on an overcast day. An eagle was approaching from the west. That was no eagle, it was far too big. Not even a sea eagle had a double layer of wings. In the weak light, he could see a long thin tarn further along on the moorland. The noises that had disturbed him were two people moving up to it, as the flying thing came closer and lower. It reached the edge of the water, raised its nose slightly and landed on the water with a line of spray just like a goose, but without the honking of arrival. The flying machine crept to the edge of the tarn and met the people. Someone got out of the machine and all three headed towards Dylan’s hiding place, if you could call a cleft between two rocks a hiding place.

  Any sensible person would have taken to their heels, run back down the other side of the hill, and taken the coast route home. Dylan was far too interested in other people’s business. He needed to know what was going on and why. He decided to watch and wait.

  Chapter 5: Round the Rugged Rocks

  In which a mysterious stranger takes Dylan for a ride

  The three people went into the cave without noticing Dylan outside, but they soon noticed he was not inside. Uncle Heath wasn’t one of them. The two he’d seen the day before, Scarface and the other, had met the newcomer who had got out of the flying machine. He was a fashionable brindled colour with long wispy hair around his face. He looked rather exotic, thought Dylan. Now he could hear them arguing.

  “If he got away, he’ll be dangerous, he’ll blow our operation wide open.”

  “Heath will spot him and catch him before he does that.”

  “You can’t bank on that.”

  “I trust Heath even if you don’t.”

  “Who’s saying I don’t?”

  “You’ve never trusted him!”

  “Gentlemen, pleeeze,” said the newcomer. “Eet eez simple. We load ze goods on ze machine, and I leeeve you. You make no trace of ze operashun.”

  “What about the still, though?”

  “I leeve zat for you to feex. Eet eez your beesiness, no?”

  “Come on; let’s get this stuff stowed and away.”

  “And the kid?”

  “He’ll be long gone. If we’re quick they’ll never catch us.”

  Dylan shrank back again as they emerged carrying crates of bottles with corks in. He watched them carry the crates down to the side of the tarn then start back up again. What should he do? Should he stop them? Why were they loading the crates? Did Uncle Heath know they were taking them away? Surely he did. That was why he had just left Dylan to starve.

  Dylan suddenly realised, really realised, that his uncle had left him to die. What would happen once he got back to Haunn and had to face him? His uncle would catch him and... what? Make sure he never told anyone what he had seen? Dylan felt very cold. And very alone.

  The people came out carrying more crates. Dylan tri
ed to remember how many there were. He thought they would have to make another trip. He waited until they were half way to the tarn and squeezed backwards from his hiding place, making to go back over the hill.

  “Ah, zis iz where you are hiding, zen?” said the stranger, who popped up from the other side of a rock. “I guessed you had not gone far. No tracks.”

  Dylan stared at the metal object in his hands. He had not seen one before, but he had seen a picture in a book. It looked like a gun.

  “Now, boy, move over zere, into ze cave,” The stranger waggled the gun at him and Dylan started to move in that direction. He climbed down a rock and briefly went out of sight of the stranger. He turned and ran down the hill as fast as he could.

  The stranger yelled at the others, and he heard them call back.

  “Head him off!”

  “Corner him at that rock!”

  Dylan saw the rock, and saw the three bearing down on him from different directions. They certainly ran fast, but surely he was faster. He was the fastest messenger Haunn had ever had! He ran, bounding over tussocks and boulders. A noise cracked behind him and something sang as it whizzed past his ear. No time to lose, run, run!

  The people from the tarn were getting close, almost close enough to lunge at him. Dylan realised the ground ahead was bog, and he concentrated all his might into spotting the way through. Dylan was the champion bog-trotter; he knew he could find the firm ground in it if only he allowed himself to sense it. He concentrated, calmed his fears of his pursuers and leapt for a tussock. Then he bounded sideways to another, then onwards dodging both quagmire and bullets, which sang over his shoulder.

  There was yelling behind him. One of the people had followed him into the bog and got stuck. He smiled with grim satisfaction. A last shot and then all was quiet, except for the low sounds of them rescuing the one who was stuck.

  Dylan reached the edge of the bog, gained firm ground, and trotted on up the tussocky turf between two narrow cliff walls. As he climbed out at the top, he collided with some sort of netting thrown over him. He struggled against it but it squeezed him tight as it was drawn closed.

  “Now, my lad,” said Uncle Heath, as a rain squall soaked them. “It’s time you were permanently removed from this situation.”

  He dragged Dylan along the rough ground and called to the others to help him. They pulled him up to the tarn. The flying machine was tied up at the edge, bobbing on the ripply waves whipped up by the wind.

  “We’ll have the money now, if you don’t mind,” said Heath.

  The stranger drew out a large wad of paper from the bag that had been slung about his shoulders the entire time. “Zeeze are credits from Castle Palatine,” he said. “I look to do more beeziness wiz you next year, yes?”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Heath, taking the paper and counting it. He kept half and gave half of the remainder to each of his companions. “Load that scamp into your machine and drop him off somewhere he won’t be able to swim home, ok?”

  “Conseeder eet done.”

  Heath nodded, and nodded to his companions, who stood up. They hauled Dylan, still in his netting, into a front compartment in the nose of the machine. The flying person got them to move some of the crates so he could shut Dylan in. Dylan heard the others leave. He was alone with the stranger.

  “Well, leetle one. You are going on your first flight wiz me, eh?” There was a noise and a jolt and vibration of the front of the machine, then some noises like the stranger was climbing up above him, then the machine started to move.

  Dylan tried to find some way of shifting the netting from his body. His legs and arms were tightly tied. He really could not move. He gave up and closed his eyes tight as the machine started to go faster and he was pressed backwards against some crates. “I wonder what Dougall would do?” he thought as he was lifted into the air, and felt the little machine bounce on the wind as it turned across it, heading away from the land he knew.

  Chapter 6: A Strange Coincidence

  In which George gets a navigator

  Dougall slipped down to the Solstice party as soon as he finished, but stopped at the doorway. Lady Carolyn was lamenting the loss of her silver necklace very loudly. It wasn’t long before Eiris and Mhairi told of their lost anklets. Other trinkets appeared to have disappeared too. Dougall returned to the power plant room. He felt safer getting back to work on his experiment. Maybe he’d better return the items that weren’t of any use before he got found out. In a tiny workroom next to the power plant room, he had two trays of raspberry juice. Each had four trinkets made of different metals in them. Each trinket was wired to two light-bulbs in a rack above the trays, and Dougall was trying to work out which combination of trinkets produced any energy, and which produced enough to light up the bulb. He had a little pile of objects that he’d tried on one side, and a couple he hadn’t on the other. It was a slow job working through all the combinations, but he was sure he would get there. He picked out two items that were no use with any of the others and slipped them back to their owner’s rooms before they woke up. He didn’t think uncles Heath and Hamish had noticed they were missing, which was a relief.

  He hoped Dylan would be back soon. He missed him.

  ~~~

  George circled his flying machine round the impressive Castle Palatine, poised on its rock on the bend of the river, and sank towards the flat broad stretch of water ahead of him. He’d been surprised to see another flying machine heading east towards the open sea as he arrived. As far as he could tell it had an F registration mark, but it wasn’t a machine he recognised.

  He pulled up at the landing stage at the foot of the cliff. It was for visiting boats, really, but it was good for his flying machine too. He threw a rope over a useful post, pulled himself to the side, and jumped out and secured it. Then he climbed back in to get a bottle of strawberry juice to fill up the fuel cell before the next leg of his journey. He knew he didn’t really need to, but he was so unsure of how far he had to go to find Haunn; he thought he’d better prepare for a very long flight.

  The bottle filled the cell with a little left over. George grabbed some lunch and sat on a convenient bundle of rags to eat it and drink the rest of the strawberry juice.

  “Ow, ow, ow!”

  The bundle of rags made a muffled, but obviously objecting noise and twisted violently.

  George put his lunch down and explored further. It was hair rather than rags, and it was tied up tight in some sort of netting. He found an eye and a mouth and freed them enough to speak to them.

  “Hallo, I’m George, do you need help?”

  “Yes, please. I’m Dylan and I’ve been kidnapped then left here.”

  “How did you get here?” asked George, untying the rope and finding the drawstring of the netting.

  “I got put in the front of this flying machine thing and when he stopped here he just pushed me out and left me.”

  “Who put you in there?”

  “My uncle and some others. He told the flying person to throw me in the sea.”

  “That would be difficult if he’s flying the machine. Just your luck I came along, really. Where are you from?”

  “Oh, nowhere important. Where am I now?”

  “Castle Palatine. It’s a very important place in the north.”

  “I come from the west. A place called Haunn.”

  George couldn’t believe his ears. “But that’s where I’m going! You can show me the way!”

  Dylan wasn’t sure that he could but he said yes anyway. He shared George’s lunch and then climbed into a little space behind the pilot’s area. He had to sit on some boxes and bags in there.

  “You’ll need to hunker well down,” George said, “or you’ll get very cold in the wind. I’m afraid I didn’t expect a passenger so I didn’t bring any blankets or anything.”

  Dylan did as he was told, but was so fascinated by the experience of flying th
at after they had taken off he kept poking his head up and looking over side at the ground beneath them. George headed northwest, on and on for a couple of hours before he saw a castle on the edge of the sea, with lots of islands in the distance.

  “I’m going to stop there and check where we are,” he called. George set the flying machine down in the harbour and pulled over to the side. Dylan staggered out of his place onto the quayside. He stretched and got his limbs moving again.

  “You must be frozen,” George said, looking at him. “Let’s get a hot drink while we work out where we are.”

  “This is Kerrera,” said Dylan. “This is where I send messages from.”

  George was astonished, but led the way into the harbour inn and got them some hot drinks anyway.

  “So, who sent the message to George Marsh of Buckmore?”

  “Well, I sent it, but it was from my brother Dougall.”

  “Well, I’m George Marsh, although I’m really Prince Engineer George of Marsh, and Buckmore sent the message on to me,” George explained. He got Dylan to explain more about the problems they’d had at Haunn while they sipped their drinks. Then he got Dylan to tell him an easy way to find Haunn, and they set off again on their journey.

  Chapter 7: Dougall Uncovered

  In which Dougall explains himself and Dylan says nothing for once

  They were chasing the setting sun through the broken cloud as they turned past Sandy Bay and rounded the headland towards Haunn. George set the flying machine down on the gentle waves of low tide and made the machine motor right into the rocky port. Dylan helped him make the flying machine secure. He then got the boat people to make sure it wouldn’t crash into the rocks and would float safely on the rising tide.

  Most of the inhabitants had come down from the castle to meet the new arrivals. What they really wanted was to look at the flying machine, the first ever seen at Haunn. Dylan introduced George to the Laird using his proper title, and to Uncle Hamish as well, since he was in charge of the power plant.

  “So, have ye brought a new one for us?” Hamish asked.