Atlantic Fury

CHAPTER TWO

(October 20)

I woke from a deep sleep with the ceiling lights blazing in my eyes and the duty driver standing over me, shaking me by the shoulder. There’s a cuppa’ tea for you, sir Captain Flint said to tell you he’s leaving at four-ten.’

‘What’s the time now?’

‘Quarter to, I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes. Okay? You are awake, aren’t you, sir?’

‘Yes, I’m awake, thanks.’ I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Even with the thermostat turned right down the room was suffocatingly hot. I felt sweaty and drugged with sleep, the tea was black and thick and sweet. I got up, washed and shaved, and then dressed in my heaviest clothes, two sweaters and an anorak over the top. I packed my shoes and wore my gum boots; it was the easiest way to carry them. Outside, it was cold and windy; no sign of dawn yet, but the sky had cleared and there were stars. A half moon hung low over the camp, giving a frozen look to the unlighted huts. A long wheel-base Land-Rover stood parked outside the Mess, torches glimmered and the muffled shapes of men stood dark in the eerie light. ‘That you, Ross?’ The Movements Officer took my bag and tossed it into the back of the vehicle. ‘Sorry there’s no coffee laid on. No time for it anyway. Is that the lot, driver?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘McGregor’s replacement?’

‘ A voice from the back of the Land-Rover said, ‘Here, sir. Patridge.’

‘Okay. Let’s get cracking then.’

We climbed in. A big, heavy-jowled man in a beret and a sheepskin jacket squeezed in beside me. Flint introduced him as Major McDermott. ‘You’ll be brothers in misery for the next twelve hours — that is, if Stratton decides to go. But it’s by no means certain yet. Things are in such a flipping mess this morning, nothing’s certain.’ He sounded tired and irritable.

We drove out by the main gate and headed towards the hangar with the moon hanging over it. The helicopter was standing on the tarmac apron. The Land-Rover drew up beside it. Adams was there waiting for us, dancing up and down on the balls of his feet to keep himself warm. The wind sifted sand in a light film across the surface of the apron. I hadn’t expected to be travelling by helicopter. It seemed an odd way to be joining ship, but as we settled into our seats I realised that there was no other means of getting to the landing craft. The South Ford I knew from the map was the shallow channel between Benbecula and South Uist; it was more than thirty miles away to the south with no road link because of the Sound of Harris.

The door shut and the rotors turned, gathering speed until the whole fuselage shook. And then the ground was falling away and we were slipping sideways across the hangar like a gull blown by the wind. ‘Did you know we’ve got an LCT grounded in Shelter Bay?’ Flint shouted in my ear. And when I nodded, he said, ‘Stratton’s standing by just in case. If the ship gets off all right, then Stratton will slip round into Carnan and land you at the quay there. If she doesn’t then he’ll probably have a bash at it. Even then you may land up back at Leverburgh.’ He leaned across me, peering out through the window. ‘Thank God I won’t be with you if you do sail. My stomach doesn’t like the sea.’

We were over the Sound now, the waves breaking white in the moonlight a thousand feet below us. And beyond the Sound we flew over a drowned land, all lakes, with the sea lochs reaching long, wet fingers into it. There was more water there than land. It looked wicked country in that ghostly light, and it went on and on with only a single sugarloaf hill to relieve the flat pan of its deadly monotony. At four-thirty we crossed the North Ford with the first pale glimmer of daylight showing the Isle of Skye in jagged relief on the eastern horizon. We were over Benbecula then and ten minutes later we saw the ship grounded in the South Ford with the tide creeping in over the sands; she wasn’t quite afloat yet.

The helicopter dropped like a lift, turned head-to-wind and hovered just clear of her stern whilst the crew lowered the boat. Flint got up and pulled the door open. A gale of cold wind blew into the fuselage. We moved ahead then, settling gently on to the water about two hundred yards up-wind of the landing craft. As the rotors slowed and stopped a new sound invaded the cabin — the slap of waves against the floats. The buzz of an outboard motor came steadily nearer and then the dory was alongside and we were piling into it. Small waves tossed spray over the gunnel, wetting feet and baggage. A young man in a white polo-necked sweater, his fair hair blowing in the wind, jumped out on to the float. ‘Flinty. You want to come aboard?’

‘Not on your life. I’m going straight back to bed. Just came to see you boys were all right. What’s the news?’

‘Nothing yet. They’re still grounded. But Captain Kelvedon was on the air about ten minutes ago to say he’d be starting to winch off any moment now.’

‘Hope he makes it.’

‘By God, so do I. It’s going to be a dirty trip if we have to go out there in this. We’re recording twenty-five knots, and we’re under the lee here.’

‘Stratton’s made up his mind to go, has he?’

Ill

• ‘If Four-four-Double-o doesn’t get off, yes. We’ve got to.’

‘Well, good luck, sonny.’

‘Thanks, we’ll need it.’ He jumped off the float into the dory, balancing himself neatly. ‘Wouldn’t like a trip round the island, would you, Finty?’

‘No bloody …’ The sound of the outboard motor drowned his voice. The dory swung away, running downwind with the steep little breaking waves. As the grey steel hull of the landing craft loomed over us I saw the helicopter lift its dripping floats from the water and go whirling away northwards in the pale light.

There was coffee waiting for us in the wardroom. It was hot in there after the raw cold outside. ‘The Skipper will be along in a minute,’ the fair-haired youngster told us. ‘He’s in the radio shack now, waiting to see what the form is. My name’s Geoff Wentworth; I’m the Number One. If there’s anything you want, just press the tit.’ He indicated the bell-push.

I thought I had everything I wanted; hot coffee and the feel of a ship under me again — the soft, continuous hum of dynamos, the smell that is always the same, a compound of salt dampness, hot oil and stale food, the slight suggestion of movement to give life to the hard steel of deck and bulkheads. ‘We’re afloat, aren’t we?’

‘Just about,’ he said, and then he left us. McDermott had removed his sheepskin jacket and I saw the insignia of the Army Medical Corps, the serpent of Aesculapius, on his battledress. He was a surgeon, he told me, and he’d left Edinburgh shortly after eleven, flown to Stornoway and then been driven right across Lewis and Harris to Northton. ‘I’ll be honest — I hope we don’t have to go. I’m a damned bad sailor and from what I hear this boy’s in a mess.’ He was puffing nervously at a cigarette.

Half an hour passed. Then a door slammed, a voice gave an order, somebody shouted and rubbered feet i

pounded aft. The dynamos changed their note as the lights dimmed momentarily. Another piece of machinery had come into action. The door opened and Captain Stratton came in, small and dark with premature streaks of grey in his black hair and a quiet air of command. Snatched hours of sleep had left his eyes red-rimmed. ‘Sorry I wasn’t here to greet you. As you’ve probably gathered by the sounds of activity, we’re getting under way.’

‘I take it,’ McDermott said, ‘this means the LCT is still stuck out there?’

‘Yes. Kelvedon’s made one attempt to winch himself off. Over-eager, by the sound of it. Anyway, she didn’t budge. And now he’s going to wait for the top of the tide before he tries again.’ And then he went on to explain his own plans. ‘As we’re afloat now, I thought I’d get started. We’ll be bucking a head-wind up to the Sound of Harris; may take us three hours. If he gets off all right, then we’ll put into Leverburgh. If he doesn’t we’ll be that much nearer Laerg.’ He turned to me. ‘I hear you have a lot of sea time. Master’s ticket?’ And when I nodded, he said, ‘I hope you’re a good sailor then.’

‘I’m not sea-sick, if that’s what you mean.’

He smiled. ‘You may regret that statement. Have you ever been in a landing craft before?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll find the movement a little different.’ And he added, ‘If you want to visit the bridge any time….’ It was an invitation that accepted me as belonging to the brotherhood of the sea. He went out and a moment later the deck came alive under my feet as the main engines began to turn.

I watched our departure from the open door on the starboard side of the bridge housing. Dawn was breaking and the bulk of Mount Hecla sliding past was purple-brown against the fading stars. A seal raised its head snake-like from a rock, and then with a jerking movement reached ‘ the weed growth at the edge and glissaded without a splash into the water. A heron lifted itself from a grass-grown islet, ungainly in flight as it retracted its head and trailed its feet, grey wings flapping in the wild morning air. Five cormorants stood on a ledge and watched us go, curious and undisturbed. These were the only signs of life, and though the door was on the leeward side and I was sheltered from the wind, I could see it whipping at the surface of the water.

One of the crew appeared at my side hooded in his duffel coat. ‘Battening down now, sir.’ He pulled the steel door to and fixed the clamps. ‘In a few minutes we’ll be rounding Wiay Island. We’ll begin to feel it then.’

The visitors’ quarters were immediately aft of the wardroom pantry, a clutter of two-tier bunks with clothing scattered around and a desk littered with papers. McDermott had already turned in fully clothed. ‘Seems steady enough,’ he murmured.

‘We’re still under the lee.’

My bag had been dumped on the bunk immediately aft of his. I stripped to my vest and pants and got into it, pulling the blankets up over my head to shut out the grey light from the portholes. The time was ten to six. I must have slept, but it wasn’t a deep sleep, for I was conscious all the time of the movement of the ship, the sounds, the pulsing of the engines. I knew when we turned the bottom of Wiay Island for the bunk began to heave and every now and then there was a crash as though the bows had hit a concrete wall; at each blow the vessel staggered and a shiver ran through her. Vaguely I heard McDermott stumble out to the heads. Later he was sick in his bunk.

The steward woke me shortly after eight, a teenage youngster in a khaki pullover balancing a cup of tea. ‘I don’t know whether you’d care for some breakfast, sir. The Skipper said to ask you.’

I told him I would, though the battering was much worse now that I was awake. ‘Where are we?’

‘Off Lochmaddy, sir. Half an hour and we’ll be in the Sound. It’ll be quieter then.’

The cabin reeked of vomit, sickly sweet and mixed with the smell of human sweat. I dressed quickly and breakfasted in solitary state, burnt sausage and fried bread with the fiddles on the table, the blue settee cushions on the floor and the framed photograph of L8610 banging at the wall. I smoked a cigarette, thinking about Laerg and the ship stuck in Shelter Bay. Lucky for them the wind was in the north. If it had come in southerly during the night … I got up and went along the alleyway for’ard. A curtain was drawn across the open door to the Captain’s cabin. There was the sound of gentle snoring, and behind the closed door opposite I heard the buzz of the radio operator’s key. I slid back the door to the wheelhouse and went in.

The deck was almost steady now. A big, heavily-built man stood at the wheel, dressed like the officers in a white polo-necked sweater. There was nobody else there, but the door to the port side wing bridge stood open and almost immediately the Number One appeared framed in the gap. ‘Port ten.’

‘Port ten of wheel on, sir,’ the helmsman repeated.

‘Steady now.’

‘Steady. Steering three-o-four, sir.’

Wentworth went to the chart table, checked with his parallel rule against the compass rose. ‘Steer three-one-o.’

‘Three-one-o, sir.’

He straightened from the chart table and looked across at me. ‘Skipper’s got his head down. Did you manage to get some sleep?’

‘A certain amount.’ And I asked him if there was any news.

‘He didn’t get off.’ And he added, ‘The wind apparently — or so he says. It was round into the north-east and a gust caught him. Personally I think he dragged his kedge anchor when he tried that first time. Anyway, he’s right up against the beach now, almost broadside-on to it.’

‘You’re going to Laerg then?’

He nodded. ‘Going to have a shot at it, anyway. They’ve despatched a Navy tug. But the Clyde’s over two hundred miles away and she’ll be butting straight into it. We’re the only vessel that can reach Laerg by next high water.’ He glanced through the for’ard porthole and then went out on to the open wing bridge again. ‘Starboard five.’

The needle of the indicator half right of the helmsman swung to five as he spun the wheel. I crossed to the port side where the chart table stood, a mahogany bank of drawers. Spread out on the top of it was Chart No. 2642; it showed the Sound littered with rocks and islands, the buoyed channel very narrow. ‘That’s Pabbay straight ahead,’ Wentworth said, leaning his elbows on the table. ‘Steer two-nine-six.’

‘Steer two-nine-six.’

Through the porthole I looked the length of the ship. The tank hold was an empty shell with vertical walls and a flat bottom that ended abruptly at a steel half gate. Beyond the gate was the black hole of the beaching exit with the raised ramp acting as a bulkhead immediately behind the curved steel bow doors. Water sloshed in the open hold and sprung securing hooks banged in their racks. The vertical walls were topped by steel decking that ran like twin alleyways the length of the ship to finish at a small winch platform. This platform was swinging now against a backcloth of sea and islands; it steadied as the helmsman reported. ‘Steering two-nine-six.’ Pabbay was on the starboard bow then, a smooth hump of an island, emerald-green in a drab grey world; whilst I had slept a thin film of cloud had covered the sky.

Wentworth swung himself up the ladder to the open bridge immediately above the wheelhouse. He was back in a moment with three compass bearings which he ruled in on the chart to produce a fix. Watching him, intent, alert, entirely concentrated, I thought how young he was; a soldier in charge of a ship. That was something new to me. Later I learned that he came from a sea-faring family. Not his father, who kept a pub at Burnham Overy, but further back when every staithe along the North Norfolk coast was packed with sailing ships. He was very proud of the fact that one of his ancestors had sailed with Nelson who’d been born at the neighbouring village of Burnham Thorpe. The sea was in his blood and the fact that he was driving a ship at her maximum speed of around ten knots through a tortuous channel in a rock-infested Sound he accepted as no more than part of the day’s work; accepted, too, the fact that beyond the Sound the North Atlantic waited. He ordered a slight adjustment of course and then turned to me. ‘Another half hour and we’ll be out of the lee of Harris. If you’d like to know what we’re running into …’ He reached across the chart table and removed a clipped sheaf of message forms from its hook. The synopsis makes nice reading.’ His grin was friendly, unconcerned.

The top message, scribbled in pencil, read: Weather forecast 0645. Gale warning: Warning of N gales in operation sea areas Rockall, Bailey, Faroes, South-East Iceland: NW gales areas Cromarty, Forties, Viking. Synopsis for 0600 GMT: a complete depression moving ENE towards Norway will affect all northern sea areas of the British Isles. This depression is likely to intensify over the next 24 hours. Another depression five hundred miles W of Ireland is almost stationary and there is a belt of high pressure over Greenland. Forecast sea area Hebrides: Winds NW or N force 7, reaching gale force 8 later. Visibility moderate to good with some rain or sleet. ‘Sounds like a pleasant trip,’ I said. ‘What’s the barometer say?’

He pushed the chart aside and pointed to the log book. ‘Nine-eight-two. Falling.’ In fact, the log showed that it had dropped 2 points in the last hour, 5 since we’d sailed. Wind strength was recorded as northerly 32 knots, which is almost gale force 8 on the Beaufort scale. My eyes went involuntarily to the porthole, to the vulnerable length of that open tank deck. It wasn’t difficult to imagine what it would be like with big seas breaking over the flat side of the ship, flooding the hold with water. As though he guessed what was in my mind, he said, ‘We’ve very powerful pumps. Last summer we were hove-to for nearly six hours in force ten with a destroyer standing by. It wasn’t very comfortable, but we managed.’ The Army had apparently acquired the Navy’s knack of embellishment by understatement.

The full force of the wind struck us as we cleared the islands of Killegray and Ensay. There was a big swell coming in from the direction of Toe Head, now only a few miles away, and on top of the swell were steep, breaking waves. We were steaming north then, heading straight into it, and the movement was at times quite violent — a crash for’ard as we butted a wave, a shudder and then a lift and a twist as the comber went seething beneath us. Spray was whipped aft as far as the bridge. With Pabbay abeam, we altered course to almost due west, heading direct for Laerg. The motion was different then. We were no longer butting straight into it but steaming across the seas, rolling heavily with the wave crests breaking against the starboard bow. I could see the peak of Chaipaval clear of cloud and standing green against the darker Harris hills; even the camp was visible across a white waste of tumbled water.

It was whilst we were steaming out of the Sound of Harris that Colonel Standing was faced with the difficult choice of yielding to the views of his second-in-command or adhering to the Plan of Operations. Major Braddock saw him in his office shortly after nine and what he advised was the immediate withdrawal of all personnel from Laerg. He based his argument on the weather and he had Major Rafferty with him to support his case. That he had a personal motive for wishing to hasten completion of the evacuation was not, of course, apparent to either Rafferty or Standing.

Briefly his argument was this: The weather had broken and there was a landing craft in difficulties. Even presuming that L4400 was hauled off the beach undamaged, the Squadron Commander at Portsmouth would almost certainly insist on the withdrawal of both ships from Scottish waters. The Army would then have to fall back on the RASC trawler. This vessel was anchored in the Clyde and no longer in commission. It might be a month before it was on station. The alternative would be to charter. Either way it would be expensive, and meantime the detachment on Laerg would have to be supplied by air drop.

Rafferty confirmed that the run-down of supplies on the island had reached the point where the detachment had food and fuel for less than a fortnight at full strength. He also made the point that all but one of the vital radar installations had already been shipped out. There were still four huts standing and a fair amount of equipment, clothing and stores, but the only other items of real value were the bulldozer, two towing vehicles, about a dozen trailers loaded with gear and a Land-Rover. All these could be driven straight on to the beached landing craft in a very short time.

Braddock had been up to the Met. Office that morning and he had with him a weather map drawn for him by Cliff Morgan. It was Cliffs forecast of what the situation would be at midnight. It showed the ‘complex depression’ as an intense Low centred over Norway. It showed too, ‘ the belt of high pressure over Greenland as having established itself, a massive High now extending from just west of Iceland to the Labrador coast with pressures of 1040 millibars or more at the centre. And between the High and the Low the isobars narrowed until, just east of Iceland, they were almost touching. Inked arrows indicated a strong northerly air stream.

‘With northerly winds,’ Braddock said, ‘both landing craft could beach in safety. It may be our last chance.’ And Rafferty had agreed.

If Rafferty had put the case Standing might have accepted it. At least he might have teleprinted Command for authority to act on it. Rafferty had an Irishman’s gift for winning people over to his point of view. But faced with Braddock’s virtual demand for immediate evacuation, Standing reacted strongly.

‘I have my orders, and so have you, Major Braddock,’ he said. ‘Our job is to complete evacuation according to plan.’

‘But the weather.… You can’t just ignore the weather.’ Braddock’s voice was impatient, almost angry.

‘All right. But there’s no immediate hurry. We’ve got till this evening. We’ll decide the matter then.’

It is always easier to postpone decisions and let events dictate the course of action. But in fairness it must be said that Cliff Morgan, alone of the men immediately concerned at Northton, had the weather constantly under review. It was being drummed into him all the time by the teleprinters — sheet after sheet of pressure figures. By eleven o’clock the picture had clarified to the extent that he was convinced beyond any doubt that his hunch had been right — the Hebrides lay full in the path of a polar air stream of considerable force. The magnitude and intensity of that low pressure area, combined with the Greenland High, would be drawing great masses of air south from the frozen wastes of the polar seas. This cold, dry air would be sliding in under the warmer, more humid air of the low pressure area, cooling and condensing it. Snow at first in the far north, up in the Barents Sea; sleet and rain further south, and in the Hebrides clear skies, or perhaps a film of cloud.

That would be the natural pattern. But before coming on duty that morning Cliff Morgan had re-established contact with Arctic Ranger and Laird of Brora. Both trawlers had reported a big swell still running from the north, but the wind backing westerly and the barometric pressure 2 to 3 millibars lower than the weather map indicated in that area. And now the Faeroes were reporting low cloud and rain squalls. What worried him was the original nature of that Low; the result of two depressions merging, it had the inherent weakness of all complex systems. He thought trough lines might be developing, perhaps even some more serious weakness.

Shortly after eleven o’clock he phoned the camp. Colonel Standing was not in his office. It was Mike Ferguson who took the call. He listened to what Cliff had to say and agreed to get Colonel Standing to ring him back. Meantime he passed the information to Major Braddock and it was Braddock who raised it with the Colonel immediately on his return. It is more than likely that he used Cliff Morgan’s vague fears — and they were nothing more at that time — to reinforce his own argument. Almost certainly Standing rejected them. As an Air Ministry man, Cliff had no connection with the Army. Standing was under no obligation to accept the local Met. Office’s advice or even to consult him. He may well have considered that Braddock was exaggerating. At any rate, he didn’t phone Cliff Morgan, deciding instead to wait for the shipping forecast which was by then due in less than two hours.

Quite a number of officers were gathered round the Mess radio at one-forty. The synopsis was much the same as before — gale warnings and the complex low pressure area ‘ intensifying to give a northerly air stream for much of the British Isles. The forecast for the Hebrides was no worse than it had been at six forty-five — winds northerly, gale force 8 increasing to 9 later; visibility good but chance of rain squalls.

As a result, Colonel Standing took no action. There was not, in fact, much he could have done at that stage, but another commander might have thought it worth walking across to the Met. Office for a local weather briefing. There may have been something personal in the fact that Standing didn’t do this; he was a man of narrow moral outlook and knowing Cliffs record he probably disliked him.

I missed the one-forty shipping forecast for I was lying in my bunk at the time. I wasn’t asleep. I was just lying there because it was easier to lie down than to stand up, and even flat on my back I had to hang on. The ship was lurching very violently and every now and then there was an explosion like gunfire and the whole cabin shivered. McDermott was groaning in the bunk ahead of me. The poor devil had long since brought up everything but his guts; twice he’d been thrown on to the floor.

About four in the afternoon I got up, paid a visit to the heads and had a wash. The heads were on the starboard side and from the porthole, I had a windward view; it was an ugly-looking sea, made more ugly by the fact that we were passing through a squall. Daylight was obscured by the murk so that it was almost dark. Visibility was poor, the seas very big with a rolling thrust to their broken tops and the spindrift whipped in long streamers by the wind.

I went down the alleyway to the wheelhouse. Stratton had taken over. He stood braced against the chart table staring out of the for’ard porthole. He was unshaven and the stubble of his beard looked almost black in that strange half light. A sudden lurch flung me across the wheelhouse.

I

He turned as I fetched up beside him. ‘Glad to see you haven’t succumbed.’ He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, and his face was beginning to show the strain. ‘My DR puts us about there.’ He pencilled a small circle on the chart. Measuring the distance from Laerg by eye against minutes of latitude shown on the side of the chart it looked as though we still had about eighteen miles to go. But I knew his dead reckoning couldn’t be exact in these conditions.

‘Will you make it before dark?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘We’re down to six knots. Glass falling, wind backing and increasing. It came up like a line squall. Some sort of trough, I imagine.’ He passed me the log. Barometric pressure was down to 976, wind speed 40–45 knots — force 9. ‘Looks as though the weather boys have slipped up.’ He gave me the one-forty shipping forecast. ‘If the wind increases any more before we get under the lee in Shelter Bay, we’re going to have to turn and run before it.’ He glanced at the radar. It was set to maximum range — 30 miles; but the sweep lights showed only a speckle of dots all round the screen. The probing eye was obscured by the squall, confused by the breaking seas. ‘We’ll pick up Laerg soon.’ It was less of a statement than an endeavour to convince himself and I had a feeling he was glad of my company. ‘Ever sailed in these waters?’ He switched the Decca to 15-mile range.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But the Pacific can be quite as bad as the North Atlantic and the Indian Ocean isn’t all that pleasant during the monsoon.’

‘I’ve never commanded a proper ship,’ he said. ‘Always landing craft.’ And after a moment he added, ‘Considering what they’re designed for, they’re amazingly seaworthy. But they still have their limitations. They’ll only take so much.’ As though to underline his point a towering wall of water rose above the starboard bow, toppled and hit with a crash that staggered the ship. Water poured green ‘ over the sides, cascading like a waterfall into the well of the tank deck. I watched the pumps sucking it out through the gratings and wondered how long they would be able to cope with that sort of intake. The steward appeared with two mugs of tea. A cut on his forehead was oozing blood and there was blood on the mugs as he thrust them into our hands, balancing precariously to the surge and swoop as we plunged over that big sea.

‘Everything all right below decks, Perkins?’

‘Pretty fair, sir — considering.’ I saw his eyes dart to the porthole and away again as though he were scared by what he saw out there. ‘Will we be in Shelter Bay soon, sir?’

‘Two or three hours.’ Stratton’s voice was calm, matter-of-fact. ‘Bring coffee and sandwiches as soon as we get in. I’ll be getting hungry by then.’

‘Very good, sir.’ And the boy fled, comforted, but glad to leave the bridge with its view of the wildness of the elements.

The squall turned to sleet and then to hail, but the hail sounded no louder than the spray which spattered the walls of the wheelhouse with a noise like bullets. And then suddenly the squall was gone and it was lighter. The radar screen was no longer fuzzed. It still had a speckled look caused by the break of the waves, but right at the top a solid splodge of light came and went as the sweep light recorded the first emerging outline of Laerg.

It was about half an hour later that the helmsman relayed a report from the lookout on the open bridge immediately over the wheelhouse. ‘Land fine on the starb’d bow, sir.’

‘Tell him to give the bearing.’

The helmsman repeated the order into the voice pipe close above his head. ‘Bearing Green o-five or it may be o-ten. He says there’s too much movement for him to get it more accurate than that.’

Stratton glanced at the radar screen, then reached for his duffel coat and went out by the port door, leaving it open to fill the wheelhouse with violent blasts of cold air and a whirling haze of spray. He was back within the minute. ‘Laerg all right — bearing o-three as far as I can tell. There’s a lot of movement up there and it’s blowing like hell.’

But at least visual contact had been established. I leaned against the chart table, watching as he entered it in the log, hoping to God that Shelter Bay would give us the protection we needed. It was now only two hours’ steaming away. But even as my nerves were relaxing to the sense of imminent relief from this constant battering, the helmsman announced, ‘Lookout reports something about weather coming through on the radio.’

Stratton glanced up quickly, but I didn’t need the surprise on his face to tell me that there was something very odd about this. I had had a talk with one of the radio operators before I’d turned in and had discovered something of the set-up. There were two radio operators on board working round the clock in 12-hour watches. Their main contact was the Coastal Command net — either Rosyth or Londonderry. When not working the CCN, they kept their set tuned to 2182 kcs., which is the International Distress frequency, and any calls on this frequency were relayed through a repeater loudspeaker to the upper bridge. ‘Something about trawlers,’ the helmsman reported. I think Stratton and I both had the same thought, that we were picking up a deep-sea trawler. Trawlers and some other small ships use 2182 kcs. on Voice. ‘Lookout says he couldn’t get all of it. There’s too much noise up there.’

‘Ask him whether it’s a Mayday call.’

‘No, sir. Definitely not Mayday. And he was calling us.’

Stratton knew better than to disturb his radio operator in the middle of receiving a message. We waited whilst the ship pounded and lurched and the outline of Laerg took clearer and more definite shape on the radar screen.

At last the operator came in. ‘Special weather report for you.’ He steadied himself and then placed a pencilled message on the chart table. It was from Cliff Morgan. The message read: GM3CMX to L8610. Advise weather conditions may deteriorate during night. Trawlers SE of Iceland report wind easterly now, force 9. At 0530 it was westerly their area. Suspect local disturbance. If interpretation correct could reach your area early hours tomorrow morning. This communication is unofficial. Good luck, Morgan. And God help you he might have added. A local disturbance on top of this lot…. Stratton was staring down at the message, cracking the knuckles of his right hand. ‘How the hell can he have contacted trawlers southeast of Iceland?’

‘Morgan’s a “ham” operator,’ Sparks said.

‘Oh yes, of course. You’ve mentioned him before.’ He straightened up. ‘Get on to Coastal Command. Check it with them.’ He had to shout to make himself heard above the thunder of a breaking sea. The ship lurched, sprawling us against the chart table. There was a noise like a load of bricks coming aboard and then the roar of a cataract as water poured into the tank deck. ‘A local disturbance. What the hell does he think this is?’ Stratton glanced at his watch and then at the radar. The nearest point of Laerg was just touching the 10-mile circle. ‘Two hours to go.’ And after that he didn’t say anything.

Cliff Morgan’s latest contact with the trawlers had been made at 15.37 hours. He took the information straight to Colonel Standing with the suggestion that L8610 be ordered to return to the shelter of the Hebrides until the weather pattern became clearer. This Standing refused to do. He had a landing craft in difficulties and an injured man to consider. Two factors were uppermost in his mind. The Navy tug, now in The Minch and headed for the Sound of Harris, had been forced to reduce speed. A message on his desk stated that it would be another twenty-four hours at least before she reached Laerg. The other factor was the position of our own ship L8610. We were in H/ F radio contact with the Movements Office at Base at two-hourly intervals and the 3 o’clock report had given our position as just over 20 miles from Laerg.

Cliff says he tried to get Standing to pass on the information. ‘I warned the bloody man,’ was the way he put it later. ‘I warned him that if he didn’t pass it on he’d be responsible if anything happened.’ But Standing was undoubtedly feeling the weight of his responsibility for what had already happened. His attitude, rightly or wrongly, was that unofficial contacts such as this would only confuse Stratton. In fact, he was probably quite determined to do nothing to discourage L8610 from reaching Laerg. ‘I told him,’ Cliff said. ‘You are taking a terrible responsibility upon yourself. You are concealing vital information from a man who has every right to it.’ The fact is that Cliff lost his temper. He walked out of Standing’s office and went straight to Major Braddock. My brother took the same line as Standing, though his reasons for doing so were entirely different. He wanted L8610 available in Shelter Bay to evacuate personnel. At least, that is my interpretation based on his subsequent actions. He was determined to get the Army out of the island before the whole operation ground to a halt for lack of ships.

Having failed with both Standing and Braddock, Cliff decided to send the message himself. His broadcasting installation had an output of 200 watts, giving him a range of VH/F Voice of anything up to 1,000 miles according to conditions. As a result his message was picked up by another trawler, the Viking Fisher, then about 60 miles due south of Iceland. Her first contact with him, reporting a drop of 2 millibars in the barometric pressure in that locality, was made at 17.16.

Meantime, the Meteorological Office had begun to appreciate that the pattern developing in northern waters of the British Isles was becoming complicated by local troughs. The shipping forecast at 17.58 hours, however, did not reflect this. The gale warnings were all for northerly winds and the phrase ‘polar air stream’ was used for the first time.

‘So much for Morgan’s forecast,’ Stratton said, returning the clip of forecasts to their hook above the chart table. ‘Maybe there’ll be something about it on the midnight forecast. But a polar air stream …’ He shook his head. ‘If I’d known that at one-forty, I’d have turned back. Still, that means northerlies — we’ll be all right when we reach Learg.’ And he leaned his elbows on the chart table, his eyes fixed on the radar screen as though willing the blur of light that represented Laerg to hasten its slow, reluctant progress to the central dot.

As daylight began to fade a rim of orange colour appeared low down along the western horizon, a lurid glow that emphasised the grey darkness of the clouds scurrying low overhead. I thought I caught a glimpse of Learg then, a fleeting impression of black piles of rock thrust up out of the sea; then it was gone, the orange light that had momentarily revealed its silhouette snuffed out like a candle flame. Dusk descended on us, a creeping gloom that gradually hid the violence of that cold, tempestuous sea. And after that we had only the radar to guide us.

At 18.57 we passed close south of Fladday, the isolated island to the east of Laerg. The two stacs of Hoe and Rudha showed up clear on the radar screen. Ahead and slightly to starboard was the whole mass of Laerg itself. For the next quarter of an hour the sea was very bad, the waves broken and confused, the crests topping on to our starboard bow and the tank deck swilling water. The dim light from our masthead showed it cascading over the sides, torrents of water that continued to pour in almost without a break. The whole for’ard part of the ship seemed half submerged. And then, as we came under the lee of Malesgair, the eastern headland of Laerg, it became quieter, the wave crests smaller — still white beyond the steel sides, but not breaking inboard any more. The pumps sucked the tank deck dry and suddenly one could stand without clinging on to the chart table.

We had arrived. We were coming into Shelter Bay, and ahead of us were lights — the camp, the floodlights on the landing beach, and Four-four-Double-o lying there like a stranded whale. Low cloud hung like a blanket over Tarsaval and all the island heights, but below the cloud the bulk of Laerg showed dimly as a darker, more solid mass.

The home of my forebears, and to see it first at night, in a gale, coming in from the sea after a bad crossing…. I thought that this was how it should be, and I stood there, gazing out of the porthole, fixing it in my mind, a picture that somehow I must get on to canvas — a grim, frightening, beautiful picture. In that howling night, with the wind coming down off Tarsaval and flattening the sea in sizzling, spray-torn patches, I felt strangely at peace. All my life, it seemed, had been leading up to this moment.

And then suddenly my seaman’s instinct came alive and I was conscious that Stratton didn’t intend to anchor. He had reduced speed, but the ship was going in, headed straight for the other landing craft. Wentworth was in the wheelhouse now. The Cox’n, too. And men were running out along the side decks, heading for the fo’c’stle platform. I caught the tail-end of Stratton’s orders: ‘… heaving the lead and give the soundings in flashes on your torch. At two fathoms I’ll go astern. Get the line across her then. Okay, Number One? Cox’n, you’ll let go the kedge anchor when I give the word. And pay out on the hawser fast. I don’t want to drag. Understand? We’re almost at the top of the tide. We haven’t much time.’

They left and Stratton swung himself up the ladder to con the ship from the square, boxed-in platform of the upper bridge. I followed him. ‘Slow ahead both engines,’ he ordered down the voice pipe. Their beat slowed and the ship glided, moving steadily and irrevocably nearer the beach. The stranded LCT was growing larger all the time. A spotlight had been switched on and I could see the number of her bows — L4400 painted black on grey. Wentworth and his men on the fo’c’stle were picked out in the beam’s glare.

Stratton lifted a phone from its hook. ‘All ready aft?’ He stood, staring ahead, his eyes narrowed as he watched the approach of the shore. ‘Let her go.’ He replaced the phone on its hook and the ship went on with no check to show that the kedge anchor had been dropped astern. A torch stabbed five flashes from the fo’c’stle. ‘Stop both engines.’ The deck died under my feet. Four flashes. I could see the man heaving the lead, bracing himself against the fo’c’stle rail for the next throw. ‘Slow astern together.’

Three flashes. Then two. ‘Full astern both…. Stop both.’ The ship hung motionless, heaving to the swell, staggering like a drunkard in the down-draughts. The howl of the wind came and went, a thousand demons yelling murder. The sound of the rocket was thin and insubstantial, but I saw the line curve out and fall across the stern of the other LCT. Men ran to grab it and a moment later a hawser was being paid out over our bows.

Just two minutes, and as the hawser was made fast, Stratton was on the phone again giving the order to winch in. For a moment nothing seemed to be happening. Up for’ard the lead was dropped again, the torch flashed twice. Then I felt the tug astern as the anchor bit to the power of the winch hauling in. Our bows were swinging towards the shore. From the compass platform I watched the sagging line of the hawser come dripping out of the sea, rise until suddenly it was bar-taut and shivering, all the water shaken off it. Our bows stopped swinging then. A ragged cheer came to us on the wind. Men in oilskins lined the beach, standing watching just clear of the surf. It was they who had cheered.

The bows swung back towards the other craft’s stern. The hawser slackened momentarily; then tightened again and I sensed that the ship was straightened out now, a direct link between stern and bow hawsers. Stratton sensed it, too. ‘Slow astern both engines.’ And as the screws bit, he ordered full astern. And after that we waited, tense for what would happen.

‘Either she comes off now … ‘ The phone buzzed and Stratton picked it up.’… Well, let it labour…. All right, Cox’n. But don’t let the fuses blow. Just hold her, that’s all. Leave the rest to the main engines.’ He put the phone down. ‘The stern winch — bloody useless when you’re in a jam.’ his teeth were clenched tight, his face taut. ‘Something’s going to give soon. Breaking strain on that kedge hawser is only about forty-five tons. Not much when you’re trying to hold a thousand ton vessel. And right now the Cox’n’s got to control both ships, and on top of that, there’s the added weight of all that sand piled up round Kelvedon’s bottom.’

Time seemed to stand still with the whole ship trembling and vibrating with the effort. I left the compass platform and went aft to the port rail of the flag deck. It was dark on that side. No glimmer of light and the screws streaming a froth of water for’ard along the port side, toppling the waves so that all the surface of the water was ghostly white. I felt a sudden tremor. I thought for a moment one of the hawsers had parted, but up for’ard that single slender thread linking us to L4400 remained taut as before. A faint ‘cheer sounded and then I saw the stern of the other ship was altering its position, swinging slowly out towards us.

Stratton joined me. ‘She’s coming. She’s coming. Ross — do you see?’ His voice was pitched high, exhilaration overlaying nervous tension. The stern swung out, the ship’s profile thinning till she lay like a box end-on to us, and there she hung for a moment, still held by her bows, until suddenly we plucked her off and Stratton ordered the engine stopped for fear of over-running the stern hawser.

Ten minutes later both ships were out in the bay with their bow anchors down, manoeuvring under power to let go a second anchor. Ashore, men waded waist-deep in the surf to launch a dory. It lifted to the break of a wave and the oars flashed glistening in the floodlights. Clear of the surf, it came bobbing towards us, driven by the wind. We were at rest with both anchors down and the engines stopped by the time it came alongside. An oilskin-clad figure swung himself up the rope ladder and came dripping into the wheelhouse, a shapeless mountain of a man with tired brown eyes and a stubble growth that was almost a beard. ‘Nice work,’ he said. ‘I was beginning to think we might be stuck here for the winter with a load of scrap iron on the beach.’ He glanced round the wheelhouse. ‘Where’s Major McDermott? He’s needed ashore.’

‘I’ll get him for you.’ Stratton went out and the big man stood there dripping a pool of water from his oilskins, his face lifeless, dead with weariness.

‘Bad trip, eh?’ His voice was hoarse and very deep. The words seemed wrung out of him as though conversation were an effort.

‘Pretty rough,’ I said.

He nodded, briefly and without interest, his mind on something else. ‘The poor bastard’s been screaming for hours.’ And with that he relapsed into silence until McDermott appeared, his face paper-white and walking delicately as though not sure of his legs.

‘Captain Pinney? I’m ready when you are.’ He looked in no shape to save a man’s life.

‘Can you take Mr Ross ashore this trip?’ Stratton asked.

‘May as well, if he’s ready.’ The tired eyes regarded me without enthusiasm. ‘I’ve received instructions from Major Braddock about your visit. It’s all right so long as you don’t stray beyond the camp area.’

It took me only a moment to get my things. McDermott was being helped down the rope ladder as I said goodbye to Stratton. I dropped my bag to the men in the dory and climbed down the steel side of the landing craft. Hands clutched me as the boat rose to the slope of a wave and then they shoved off and we were down in a trough with the sea all round us, a wet world of broken water. The oars swung and clear of the shelter of the ship the wind hit us, driving spray in our faces.

It wasn’t more than half a mile to the shore, but it took us a long time even with the outboard motor. The wind coming down off the invisible heights above was so violent that it drove the breath back into one’s throat. It came in gusts, flattening the surface of the sea, flinging it in our faces. And then we reached the surf line. A wave broke, lifting the stern, flooding the dory with water. We drove in to the beach in a seething mass of foam, were caught momentarily in the backwash, and then we touched and were out of the boat, knee-deep in water, dragging it up on to the concrete slope of the loading ramp.

That was how I came to Laerg that first time, in darkness, wet to the skin, with floodlights glistening on rain-soaked rock and nothing else visible — the roar of the surf in my ears and the wind screaming. It was a night I was to remember all my life; that and the following day.

We groped our way up to the road, staggering to the buffets of the wind. A Bailey bridge, rusted and gleaming ‘with beads of water, spanned a burn, and then we were in the remains of the hutted camp. Everywhere the debris of evacuation, dismantled hut sections and piled-up heaps of stores and the mud shining slippery in the glimmer of the lights. The putter of a generator sounded in the brief intervals between the gusts and out in the darkness of the bay the landing craft were twin islands of light.

I was conscious then of a depressing sense of isolation, the elements pressing in on every hand — the sea, the wind, the heights above, grass and rock all streaming water. A lonely, remote island cut off from the outside world. And living conditions were bad. Already more than half the huts had been dismantled. Two more had been evacuated and officers and men were crowded together in the remaining three with the cookhouse filled with stores and equipment that would deteriorate in the open. They were living little better than the original islanders and working much harder. Everywhere men in glistening oilskins toiled in the mud and the wet and the cold, grumbling and cursing, but still cheerful, still cracking the occasional joke as they manhandled hut sections down to the loading beach or loaded trailers with stores.

Pinney took us to his office, which was no more than a typewriter and a table beside his bed in the partitioned end of a hut that was crammed with other beds. The beds were mostly unmade, with clothing and odds and ends of personal effects scattered about; the whole place told a story of men too tired to care. Pinney’s bed was no tidier than the rest, a heap of blankets thrown aside as he’d tumbled out of sleep to work. The two other officers’ beds were the same and they shared the end of the hut with the radio operator and his equipment. ‘Cigarette?’ Pinney produced a sodden packet and McDermott took one. His hands were trembling as he lit it. ‘If you’d like to get cleaned up….’ Pinney nodded vaguely to the wash basin. ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer a few minutes’ rest….’

McDermott shook his head. ‘Later perhaps — if I have to operate.’ His face looked shrunken, the bones staring, the skin grey and sweating. He seemed a much older man that when he’d come aboard. ‘I’ll have a wor-rd with Captain Fairweather now and then I’d like to have a look at the laddie.’

‘There’s not much of him left to look at, and what’s there is barely alive.’ Pinney glanced at me. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’ They went out and I got my wet things off, towelled myself down and put on some dry underclothes. The only sound in the hut was the faint hum from the radio, the occasional scrape of the operator’s chair as he shifted in his seat. He had the earphones clamped to his head, his body slouched as he read a paperback. He alone in that camp was able to pierce the storm and leap the gap that separated Laerg from the outside world.

The sound of the work parties came to me faintly through the background noise of the generator and the rattle of a loose window frame. I lit a cigarette. The hut had a musty smell, redolent of damp and stale sweat. Despite the convector heating, everything I touched was damp; a pair of shoes under Pinney’s bed was furred with mould, the paper peeling from his books. A draught blew cold on my neck from a broken pane stuffed with newspaper.

I was sitting on the bed then, thinking that this was a strange homecoming to the island of my ancestors, and all I’d seen of it so far was the camp litter of the Army in retreat. They were getting out and I thought perhaps old Grandfather Ross was laughing in his grave, or was his disembodied spirit roaming the heights above, scaling the crags as he’d done in life, waiting for the island to be returned to him? Those eyes sometimes blue and sometimes sea-grey, and the beard blowing in the wind — I could see him as clearly as if I was seated again at his feet by the peat fire. Only Iain was missing; somehow I couldn’t get Iain back into that picture. Every time I thought of him it was Braddock I saw, with that twitch at the corner of his mouth and the dark eyes turned inwards.

Learg and Alasdair Ross — they went together; they fitted this dark, wet, blustery night. But not Braddock. Braddock was afraid of Laerg and I found myself thinking of death and what Iain had once said. I got up from the bed then, not liking the way my thoughts were running, and went over to the radio operator. He was a sapper, a sharp-faced youth with rabbity teeth. ‘Are you in touch with Base all the time?’ I asked him.

He looked up from his paperback, pushed one of the earphones up. ‘Aye.’ He nodded. ‘I just sit on my backside and wait for them to call me.’

‘And if you want to call them?’

‘Och weel, I just flick that switch to “Send” and bawl into the mike.’

As simple as that. The radio was an old Army set, the dials tuned to the net frequency. Contact with Base was through the Movements Office. There a Signals operator sat by another set of the same pattern. The only difference was that it was linked to the camp switchboard. ‘You mean you can talk direct to anybody in Northton?’

‘Och, ye can do more than that, sir. Ye can talk to anybody in Scotland — or in England. Ye can get the bluidy Prime Minister if you want.’ They were linked through the Military Line to the G.P.O. and could even ring up their families. ‘A’ve heer-rd me wife speaking to me fra a call-box in Glasgie an’ her voice as clear as a bell. It’s no’ as gude as tha’ every time. A wee bit o’ static sometimes, but it’s no’ verra often we canna get through at all.’

A small metal box full of valves and coils and condensers, and like an Aladdin’s lamp you could conjure the whole world out of the ether, summoning voices to speak to you out of the black, howling night. It was extraordinary how we took wireless for granted, how we accepted it now as part of our lives. Yet fifty, sixty years ago… I was thinking of the islanders, how absolutely cut off they had been in my grandfather’s time. There had been the Laerg Post, and that was all, the only means of getting a message through to the mainland; a sheep’s inflated stomach to act as a float, two pieces of wood nailed together to contain the message, and the Gulf Stream and the wind the only way by which it could reach its destination. It had worked three or four times out of ten. At least, that’s what my grandfather had said. And now this raw little Glaswegian had only to flip a switch.

The door at the end of the hut banged and Pinney came in. ‘Clouds lifting. But it’s still blowing like hell. Lucky for Stratton he’s tucked into Shelter Bay.’ He reached into his locker and passed me a plate and the necessary implements. ‘Grub’s up. We’re calling it a day.’ And as we sloshed our way through the mud to join the queue at the cookhouse, he said, ‘Pity you’re seeing it like this. Laerg can be very beautiful. On a still day with the sun shining and the air clean and crisp and full of birds…. The best posting I ever had.’

The men had mess tins; it was like being back on active service. A cook ladled stew and peas and potatoes on to my plate. Another handed me a hunk of bread and a mug of tea. We hurried back to the hut, trying to get inside before the wind had cooled our food. Another officer had joined us, Lieutenant McBride. We ate quickly and in silence. A sergeant came in, a small, tough-looking Irishman. ‘Is it true you’re wanting the generator run all through the night again, sor?’

‘Not me,’ Pinney answered. ‘Captain Fairweather.’

‘It means re-fuelling.’

‘Then you’ll have to re-fuel, that’s all. They’re going to operate.’

The sergeant sucked in his breath. ‘What again? The poor devil.’

‘Better see to it yourself, O’Hare. Make bloody sure no rainwater gets into the tank.’

‘Very good, sor.’

He went out and Pinney, lying flat on his bed, his eyes closed, smoking a cigarette, said, ‘McDermott’s as white as a ghost and trembling like a leaf. He was ill coming across, I suppose.’

‘Very ill,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘I thought so. He wouldn’t have any food. Bob gave him a couple of slugs out of the medicine chest. Damned if I could operate on an empty stomach, but still I…’ His eyes flicked open, staring up at the ceiling, and he drew in a lung-full of smoke. ‘What the hell am I going to say to his mother? The police will locate her sooner or later and then I’ll have her on the R/T and she’ll be thinking it’s my fault when it was his own bloody carelessness. But you can’t tell her that.’ He closed his.: eyes again and relapsed into silence, and on the instant i he was asleep. I took the burning cigarette from between his fingers and pulled a blanket over him.

McBride was already in bed, stripped to his vest and pants. ‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ he said with a sleepy, boyish grin. ‘Not very sociable, but I don’t seem able to remember when we had more than four hours at a stretch. We just sleep when we can.’ And he pulled the blanket up over his head. A moment later he was snoring with a whistling intake of the breath and a gurgling quiver of the nostrils. ‘Och, he’s awa’.’ The operator showed his long front teeth in a smile. ‘I mind the time when a’ couldna hear a wor’rd they were saying at Base for Mr McBride lying there snoring.’

From beyond the partition the murmur of men’s voices continued for perhaps five minutes, gradually dying away to silence. And after that there wasn’t a sound except for the generator and the wind blasting the four corners of the hut and McBride snoring. But not everybody was asleep.

Through the uncurtained window I could see a glow of light from the next hut. The shadow of a man’s figure came and went against the drawn blinds, distorted and grotesque, and I knew it was McDermott… McDermott, who’d retched his guts out all the way across and was now trying to put together the broken pieces of another man’s body.

I must have dozed off, but it could only have been for a moment. I jerked awake in my chair to see the operator shaking Pinney by the shoulder. ‘Captain Pinney, sir. Captain Pinney.’ There was a movement. His head came up and his eyes ungummed themselves.

‘What is it, Boyd? Somebody want me?’

‘Major Braddock, sir.’

‘Then it’s not …’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Oh well….’ He kicked the blanket aside and swung his legs off the bed. He was obviously relieved it wasn’t the call he’d been expecting. ‘What’s Major Braddock want?’ he asked, rubbing at his eyes.

‘It’s urgent, sir. We’re evacuating.’

‘Evacuating? Nonsense.’ he stared at the operator in disbelief.

‘Aye, it’s true, sir. We’re leaving right away, to-night. I hear-rd him give the order to Captain Stratton. Eight-six-one-o is coming in to beach noo.’

It was the moment of the fatal decision, the moment when the order was given that was to cost so many lives.

Pinney shook his head, forcing himself back to full consciousness. Then he was over at the set and had the earphones on, speaking into the mouthpiece. ‘Pinney here.’ He sat down in the chair the operator had vacated. ‘Well, yes. The wind’s off the shore, northerly. There shouldn’t be any risk…. What’s that…. Yes, but what about the rest of the stores? According to the schedule the landing craft should be running six more trips…. Yes. Yes, I quite agree, but …’ He laughed. ‘No, we shan’t be sorry to go. Life isn’t exactly a bed of roses here. It’s just that my orders … Yes, I gathered it was a War Office appointment. But I should have thought Colonel Standing …’ There was a long pause, and then he said, ‘All right, sir. So long as it’s understood that I’m quite prepared to continue here until every piece of Army equipment has been shipped out. And so are my men…. Fine. We’ll get cracking then.’ He got up and handed the earphones back to the operator. ‘Remain on the set, Boyd, until you’re called for boarding.’ He stood there a moment looking round the room as though finding it difficult to adjust himself to the fact of leaving. Then he woke McBride and in an instant all was confusion, orders being shouted and men cursing and stumbling about as they sleep-walked into the clothes they’d only just taken off. Outside, the night was clearer, no stars, but the shadowed bulk of Tarsaval just visible. The wind was still very strong, coming in raging gusts that tore at the men’s clothing, bending them double against the weight of it as they stumbled towards the beach.

An engine revved and a big six-wheeled Scammell lumbered past me. Seaward the lights of the two landing craft showed intermittently through the rain. One of them had its steaming lights on and the red and green of its navigation lights stared straight at the beach, coming steadily nearer. Orders shouted above the gale were whipped away by the wind. Pinney passed me, big in the lights of a truck stuck in the mud with its wheels spinning. ‘Better get straight on board.’ His voice was almost lost in a down-blast.

I was standing on the beach when Stratton brought his landing craft in towards the loading ramp. There was almost no surf now, the sea knocked flat by the wind. Bows-on the landing craft was square like a box. He came in quite fast- two knots or more, and ground to a halt with an ugly sound of boulders grating on steel, the bows lifting slightly, towering over us. Lines were flung and grabbed, steel hawsers paid out and fastened to shore anchor points, and then the bow doors swung open and the ramp came down; a stranded monster opening its mouth to suck in anything it could devour.

The bulldozer came first, its caterpillar tracks churning sand and water. It found the edge of the ramp and lumbered, dripping, up the slope, clattering a hollow din against the double bottom as it manoeuvred to the far end of the tank hold. The Scammell followed, towing a loaded trailer, wallowing through the shallows and up the ramp where Wentworth and the Cox’n with half the crew waited to receive it. Men straggled in from the camp and they unhitched the trailer and man-handled it into position. The Scammell reversed out and by the time it was back with the next trailer, the first had been parked and bowsed down with the sprung steel securing shackles.

This went on for almost two hours; more than thirty oilskin-clad figures sweating and cursing in the loading lights and the tank deck gradually filling up. By eleven the tempo was slackening, though Pinney was still loading equipment from the camp, sending down all the small, portable, last-minute stuff.

I was working on the tank deck until about eleven-thirty. By then the Cox’n had more men than he needed. I went up to the bridge housing, took over my old bunk and cleaned myself up, and then went into the wardroom, lured by the smell of coffee. Stratton and Wentworth were there and I knew at once that something was wrong. They barely looked up as I entered, drinking their coffee in silence, their faces blank and preoccupied. ‘Help yourself,’ Wentworth said. Beside the coffee a plateful of bully-beef sandwiches lay untouched. ‘Afraid you didn’t get much of a run ashore.’

I poured myself some coffee and sat down. ‘Cigarette?’ I held the packet out to Stratton. He took one automatically and lit it without saying a word. Wentworth shook his head and I took one myself. A message form lay on the table close by Stratton’s hand. He glanced at his watch. It was an unconscious gesture and I had the impression he knew the time already. ‘Another half-hour yet before low water. If we off-load — sling all this heavy stuff ashore …’ He left the sentence unfinished, the question hanging in the air.

‘And suppose nothing happens — the wind remains in the north?’ Wentworth’s voice was hesitant.

‘Then we’ll look bloody silly. But I’d rather look a fool …’ He shook his head angrily. ‘If he’d come through just two hours earlier, before we took the ground.’ He pushed his hand up wearily over his eyes and took a gulp of coffee. ‘Thank God there’s only one of us on the beach anyway. If Kelvedon hadn’t buckled a plate …’ He lit his cigarette. ‘I’d give a lot to be anchored out there in the bay with Four-four-Double-o right now.’

‘It may not come to anything,’ Wentworth said. ‘The midnight forecast didn’t say anything about it. Troughs, that’s all. And the wind northerly….’

‘Of course it didn’t. This is local. Something very local.’ Stratton shook his head. ‘Nothing for it, I’m afraid. We’ll have to unload. Empty we’ll be off- what? An hour sooner?’

‘Three-quarters anyway.’

‘Okay. Find Pinney. Tell him what the position is. And get them started on off-loading right away.’

Wentworth gulped down the remainder of his coffee and hurried out. Stratton lay back against the cushions and closed his eyes with a sigh. The effort of reaching a decision seemed to have drained him of all energy. I was thinking of the wasted effort, all the trailers and vehicles to be got off with the men tired and exhausted. ‘You’ve met this fellow Morgan. How good is he?’ His eyes had opened again and he was staring at me. ‘I think very good,’ I said. And I told him something about Cliffs background and about the book he’d written.

‘Pity you didn’t tell me that before. I might have taken him more seriously.’ And then angrily: ‘But it’s all so damned unofficial. Coastal Command don’t know anything about it. All.they could give me was what we’ve got right now — wind northerly, force nine, maybe more. They’re checking with Bracknell. But I bet they don’t know anything about it. Read that.’ He reached out with his fingers and flipped the message form across to me. ‘A polar air depression. That’s Morgan’s interpretation. And all based on contact with a single trawler whose skipper may be blind drunk for all I know.’

The message was impersonal, almost coldly factual considering the desperate information it contained: GM3CMX to LCTs 8610 and 4400. Urgent. Suspect polar air depression Laerg area imminent. Advise you be prepared winds hurricane force within next few hours. Probable direction between south and west. Interpretation based on contact ‘Viking Fisher’ 23.47. Trawler about 60 miles S of Iceland reports wind speed 80 knots plus, south-westerly, mountainous seas, visibility virtually nil in heavy rain and sleet. Barometric pressure 963, still falling — a drop of 16 millibars in 1 hour. Endeavouring re-establish contact. Interpretation unofficial, repeat unofficial, but I believe it to be correct. C. Morgan, Met. Officer, Northton. I didn’t say anything for a moment. I had a mental picture of Cliff sitting in that room with his earphones glued to his head and his thumb resting on the key, and that big Icelandic trawler almost four hundred miles to the north of us being tossed about like a toy. I thought there wouldn’t be much chance of re-establishing contact until the storm centre had passed over, supposing there was anything left to contact by then. A polar air depression. I’d heard of such things, but never having sailed in these waters before, I’d no experience of it. But I knew the theory. The theory was very simple.

Here was a big mass of air being funnelled through the gap between the big Low over Norway and the High over Greenland, a great streaming weight of wind thrusting southwards. And then suddenly a little weakness develops, a slightly lower pressure. The winds are sucked into it, curve right round it, are suddenly a vortex, forcing the pressure down and down, increasing the speed and size of this whirligig until it’s like an enormous high speed drill, an aerial whirlpool of staggering intensity. And because it would be a part of the bigger pattern of the polar air stream itself, it was bound to come whirling its way south, and the speed of its advance would be fast, fast as the winds themselves.

‘Well?’ Stratton was staring at me.

‘He had other contracts,’ I said. ‘Those two trawlers.

‘But nothing on the forecast. Nothing official.’ He was staring at me and I could read the strain in his eyes. No fear. That might come later. But the strain. He knew what the message meant — if Cliffs interpretation was correct; knew what it would be like if that thing caught us while we were still grounded. The wind might come from any direction then. The northerly air stream from which we were so nicely sheltered might be swung through 180°. And if that happened and the wind came in from the south … I felt my scalp move and an icy touch on my spine. My stomach was suddenly chill and there was sweat on my forehead as I said, ‘How long before you get off?’

He didn’t give me an answer straight off. He worked it out for me so that I could check the timing myself. They had beached at nine-forty-eight, two and three-quarter hours after high water. Next high water was at seven-twenty. Deduct two and three-quarter hours, less say half an hour to allow for the amount the ship had ridden up the beach…. It couldn’t be an exact calculation, but as far as he could estimate it we should be off shortly after five. I glanced at my watch. It was twenty minutes to one now. We still had nearly four and a half hours to wait. Four and a half solid bloody hours just sitting here, waiting for the wind to change — praying it wouldn’t before we got off, knowing the ship was a dead duck if it did. ‘No way of getting out earlier, I suppose?’

He shook his head.

It was a silly question really, but I didn’t know much about these craft. ‘There’s a double bottom, isn’t there? What’s in between — fuel?’

‘Water, too. And there are ballast tanks.’

‘How much difference would it make?’

‘We’ll see; I should think about eighteen inches up for’ard when we’ve pumped it out. Geoff’s checking with the ballasting and flooding board now. About cancel out the amount we ran up the beach; give us a few extra minutes, maybe.’

Sitting there in the warmth of that comfortable little wardroom with the ship quite still and solid as a rock, it was hard to imagine that in little more than four hours’ time so few minutes could possibly make the difference between getting off and being battered to pieces.

‘More coffee?’

I passed my cup and lit another cigarette. The radio operator came in and handed Stratton a message. ‘Coastal Command just came through with the supplementary forecast you asked for.’

Stratton read it aloud. ‘Winds northerly, force nine, decreasing to seven or eight. Possibly local troughs with rain squalls. Otherwise fair visibility.’ He slapped the message form down on top of the others. ‘Same as the midnight forecast. Nothing at all about a polar air depression; no reference to winds of hurricane force.’ He turned to the radio operator. ‘Anything new from Morgan?’

The operator shook his head. ‘I heard him calling Viking Fisher, but I couldn’t raise him myself.’

‘Did the trawler reply?’

‘No.’

‘Well, see if you can get Morgan. Keep on trying, will you. I’d like to talk to him myself.’ He reached for a message pad lying on the shelf below the porthole. ‘And there’s a message I want sent to Base. When’s the next contact? One o’clock, isn’t it?’

The operator nodded. ‘But I can get them any time. They’re standing by on our frequency.’

‘Good. Give them a buzz then. Say I want to speak to Colonel Standing. And don’t be fobbed off. Understand? If he’s in bed, they’re to get him out of it. I want to speak to him personally.’ As the operator left he tossed the message pad back on to the shelf. ‘Time these chaps who sit in their cosy offices issuing orders lost a little sleep on our account.’

I started in on the corned beef sandwiches then. I had a feeling this was going to be a long night. Stratton got up. ‘Think I’ll go and see what the wind’s doing. I’ll be in the wheelhouse.’ Later Perkins brought some more coffee. I had a cup and then took one through to Stratton. But he wasn’t there. The door was open on the port side and the wind came crowding through it in a gusty roar. The duty watch stood sheltering there, clad in sou’wester and oilskins. ‘Where’s Captain Stratton?’ I asked him.

‘On the R/T. Radio Operator just called him.’

‘And the wind’s still in the north, is it?’

‘Aye, just aboot. Varies a wee bit, depending which side of Tarsaval it strikes.’

I went over to the porthole and looked down on to the wet steel decks gleaming under the loading lights. They’d got about a third of the tank deck clear, but the men moved slowly now, all the life gone out of them. Stratton came in then. He didn’t say anything but got his duffel coat. I handed him his coffee and he gulped it down. ‘Don’t know what’s going on at Base. Colonel Standing says he’d no idea we were evacuating. Sounded damned angry — what little I could hear. There was a lot of static.’ He pulled his coat on. ‘I’d better have a word with Pinney.’ He turned to the duty man. ‘If anybody wants me I’ll be down on the loading beach.’

After he’d gone I went over to the chart table and had a look at the log. Barometer reading at midnight was given as 978, a fall of one millibar since the previous reading at eleven. I leaned over and peered at the glass itself -977. I tapped it and the needle flickered, and when I read it again it was 976.

Time was running out; for the ship, for the men labouring on the tank deck to undo what they had done — for me, too. I could feel it in my bones, in the dryness of my tongue — a lassitude creeping through me, a feeling of indecision, of waiting. And all because a needle in a glass instrument like a clock had moved so fractionally that the movement was barely discernible. Long years at sea, standing watch on the bridges of ships, had taught me the value of that instrument, what those small changes of barometric pressure could mean translated into physical terms of weather. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship the cook would be sweating in his galley producing food to replace the energy those men on the tank deck had consumed. Deeper still the engineers would be checking their oiled and shining diesels, preparing them for the battle to come. And out there beyond the lights, beyond the invisible peaks and sheer rock cliffs of Laerg, out across the sea’s tumbled chaos, the enemy was coming relentlessly nearer, ten thousand demon horsemen riding the air in a great circle, scouring the sea, flailing it into toppling ranges of water, spilling violence as they charged round that vortex pot of depressed air. Fantasy? But the mind is full of fantasy on such a night. Science is for the laboratory. Other men, who stand alone and face the elemental forces of nature, know that science as a shining, world-conquering hero, is a myth. Science lives in concrete structures full of bright factory toys, insulated from the earth’s great force. The priesthood of this new cult are seldom called upon to stand and face the onslaught.

The radio operator poked his head into the wheelhouse, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Seen the Skipper? I’ve got that chap Morgan on the air.’

‘He’s doon to the beach to see Captain Pinney,’ the duty man said.

Between the wheelhouse and the beach was the littered tank deck, and Cliff Morgan wouldn’t wait. ‘Can I have a word with him?’ I suggested.

The operator hesitated. ‘Okay, I don’t see why not — as one civilian to another.’ He gave me a tired smile.

I followed him into the box-like cubby-hole of the radio shack. He slipped his earphones on and reached for the mike. ‘L8610 calling GM3CMX. Calling CM3CMX. Do you hear me? Okay, GM3CMX. I have Mr Ross for you.’ He passed me the earphones. Faint and metallic I heard Cliff’s voice calling me. And when I answered him, he said, Wow listen, man. You’re on board Eight-six-one-o, are you?’ I told him I was.

‘And you’re beached — correct?” ‘Yes.’

‘Well, you’ve got to get off that beach just as soon as you can. This could be very bad.’

‘We’re unloading now,’ I said. ‘To lighten the ship.’

‘Tell the Captain he’s got to get off — fast. If this thing hits you before you’re off…’ I lost the rest in a crackle of static.

‘How long have we got?’ I asked. His voice came back, but too faint for me to hear. ‘How long have we got?’ I repeated.

‘… barometric pressure?’ And then his voice came in again loud and clear. ‘Repeat, what is your barometer pressure reading now?’

‘Nine-seven-six,’ I told him. ‘A drop of three millibars within the last hour.’

‘Then it’s not far away. You can expect an almost vertical all in pressure, right down to around nine-six-o. Watch the wind. When it goes round…’ His voice faded and I lost the rest. When I picked him up again he was saying something about seeking shelter.

‘Have you made contact with that trawler again?’ I asked.

Wo. But somebody was calling Mayday a while ago — very faint. Now listen. lam going to try and raise the Faeroes or weather ship “India.” It should be passing them, you see. And I’ll phone Pitreavie. Tell the operator ‘I’ll call him on this frequency one hour from now. Good luck and Out.’ I passed the message on to the operator and went back into the wheelhouse. Nothing had changed. The duty man was still sheltering in the doorway. The barometer still read 976. Another trailer had been unloaded, that was all. And the wind still northerly. It was ten past one. Four hours to go.