“I did my duty.” He waved his gun toward the wheel. “Start the boat.”
“I can’t.”
The gun swung her way. “You will.”
“No. I can’t. The motor won’t start. It must have been damaged in the explosion.”
Kraus cursed and dashed to the wheel, and then cursed the cold. “Search for blankets. We need to warm up.”
“Yes, Herr Hauptmann.” Pain slowed her movements, and grief dragged her heart low. He’d shot them—murdered them. But hadn’t she killed many more? And for what? Now she was in as bad a state as before.
In the cabin, she found two blankets, one in the Mackenzie tartan.
With a wracking sob, Cilla ripped off her waterlogged overcoat and wrapped herself in the plaid, held it to her nose as if she could inhale Lachlan’s strength.
Kraus stood in the door to the cabin. “I can’t start the boat either.”
Without a reply, Cilla handed him a blanket.
“Come. I have a plan.” Kraus beckoned her up to the deck and pointed northward. “The engine sounds—it isn’t a squadron of destroyers. It’s a single, smaller vessel.”
A dark shape approached in the moonlight.
The ring of Kraus’s hair stuck up in spikes, and his eyesshone wild. “This is our story. We are civilians cruising on our boat, father and daughter. They’ll believe me. I speak excellent English. I’ll say a U-boat exploded nearby and damaged us. We jumped in the water to rescue the survivors, but there were none.”
Cilla gaped at him. He might speak English well, but he had a German accent. And his story had more holes thanMar na Creag.
“They’ll rescue us.” Kraus parted his blanket, and he patted the pistol tucked into his waistband. “After they take us on board, I’ll kill the crew. If we have enough petrol, we’ll sail to the North Sea and find a German vessel. If not, we’ll go ashore and find one of our agents.”
Hunkered in the tartan blanket, Cilla squeezed her eyes shut. His plan wouldn’t work, nor did she want it to.
“Ach, a good fast boat.” Satisfaction smoothed Kraus’s voice.
Cilla pried her eyes open. The silhouette of the vessel reminded her of the motorboat Lachlan took across Pentland Firth each weekend.
Was it Lachlan?
Hope billowed inside, a sail full of wind and speed and the future.
Then holes ripped through the sail. Over and over, until it fell limp and tattered.
Kraus had a gun and a plan and no conscience.
Cilla clutched the tartan blanket tight.Go away, Lachlan. Go away.
****
Ahead of Lachlan,Mar na Creagfloated at a slight tilt, with her bow pointing to him. Wreckage littered the water. Bodies.
His stomach lurched. He pulled as close as he dared, cut the engine, tossed the life ring, and searched his brain for the weebit of German he knew. “Is anyone alive?Kommen Sie hier. Ich helfe.”
“Please help us,” a man called in a German accent—fromMar na Creag. “Our boat is broken. We were sailing, and this U-boat exploded. No one—no one survived. Please help us to your boat.”
Two figures wrapped in blankets stood on the bow. A man—a German man who had certainly not been sailing the Mackenzie family boat.
And a woman? “Cilla? Is that you? You’re alive!”
“Go away.” Her voice—her bonny voice—broken by sobs. “I don’t want you here. Go away.”
