Atlantic Fury

CHAPTER ONE

(October 24-February 28)

Press reaction to the news of the disaster was immediate. The first scattered fragments had begun coming through within hours of our landing craft being wrecked. Radio and TV put it out in their newscasts as it filtered through and during the day the story moved from the Stop Press of the evening papers to the front page. The main body of the Press, however, had almost twelve hours in which to build the story up; and because it involved the out-islands, ships, the sea, the weather, they knew the impact it would have on the public. All that day telephones rang continuously in the press offices of the three Services and in the Meteorological Office in Kingsway. The Admiralty and the Air Ministry were helpful; the Army less so for they were inhibited by the knowledge that a commanding officer had ordered the arrest of his second-in-command. In an attempt to avoid this becoming known to the Press, they clamped down on all comment, closed the military line to Northton to all but official calls and confined their press releases to the facts of the situation. The effect was to make the Press suspicious.

An enterprising reporter on the local Stornoway paper got hold of Fellowes. His story of the flight to Laerg and Mike Ferguson’s death was scooped by a popular daily. A Reuter’s man, who had flown north from Glasgow that morning, reached Northton in time to get the news of Standing’s death and watch the tug leave from Leverburgh quay. His despatches went out on the Reuter teleprint service to all newspaper offices.

By that night the full extent of the disaster was known, the presses of the national dailies were rolling out the story and reporters and photographers were hurrying north. So many took the night train to Glasgow that BEA, who had cancelled the morning’s flight to Stornoway, had second thoughts. The newspaper men had a rough flight, but by midday they were piling into Northton and Leverburgh. Others, mainly photographers with specially chartered planes, stood by at Stornoway from dawn onwards to take pictures of Laerg. Fellowes found his plane in great demand.

The fact that there were survivors gave a dramatic quality to the news and most of Britain had the story on their breakfast tables, front-paged under flaring headlines — a story of storm and disaster, of a colonel and his adjutant killed in the attempts to rescue men trapped on a gale-torn rock in the North Atlantic. And to add to the drama was the suggestion that the Army had something to hide. Editors’ instructions were to get at the truth.

Two reporters in search of a drink landed up at the hotel at Rodil. They got hold of Marjorie. She was in a highly emotional state and prepared to talk. If Standing had been alive, she might have blamed him on account of Mike Ferguson’s death. But Standing was dead, and because she was frightened for her father, she put the blame for everything on Major Braddock, and in attacking him. she revealed that he had been placed under arrest for ordering the LCT in to the beach. For those two reporters she was worth her weight in gold.

Other reporters, casing the Northton HQ and getting no change out of the Army personnel who had all been instructed to have no contact with the Press, transferred their attention to the Met. Office. They, too, struck gold.

Cliff was a story in himself and nothing would have stopped that little Welshman from talking. He gave it to them, blow by blow, as seen from the weather man’s point of view. One correspondent, reporting him from a tape-recorded interview, gave his words verbatim: ‘I tell you, the man must have been off his bloody nut, ordering a landing craft into the beach on a night like that. Oh yes, the wind was north then and they were under the lee of the island in Shelter Bay. But aground like that, she was at the mercy of the elements, you see, and when the wind swung into the south … ‘

There was more in the same vein and it all went south by wire and phone to the waiting presses in London. And by the following morning the public was convinced that the man responsible for this appalling loss of life was Major Braddock. They weren’t told that in so many words, but it was implied, and this before he had had a chance to defend himself, when he was, in fact, still on Laerg organising the rescue operations.

Once the survivors had been reported safe, the excitement of the story dwindled and news-hungry reporters, looking for a fresh angle, began delving into the relations between Braddock and his Commanding Officer. What had happened at that interview in Standing’s office in the early hours of the morning of October 22? Why had he placed Braddock under arrest? Cliff was interviewed on TV and radio. So was Marjorie. Laura Standing, too, and Fellowes. The evidence piled up and all this canned material was being rushed down to London whilst the tug was still battling its way through the aftermath of the gale.

We steamed into Leverburgh just after four-thirty in the afternoon. We had been hove-to twice for the M.O. to carry out minor operations. The rest of the time we had managed little more than seven knots. The tug’s internal accommodation was sufficient only for the serious casualties. The rest — men suffering from exposure and extreme exhaustion — had to be left out on the open deck. Anything over seven knots and the tug would have been shipping water in the heavy seas. As a result the voyage took almost fourteen hours and during all that time the men were exposed to wind and spray. One man died during the night and there were several showing symptoms of pneumonia by the time we docked.

The quay was packed as we came alongside, packed solid with men whose dress proclaimed them foreigners to the Hebrides. Army personnel in charge of the vehicles to take the survivors to Northton tried to hold them back, but as the tug’s side touched the quay they swarmed on board. They were all after one man. ‘Where’s Braddock? Which is Major Braddock? Where is he — in the Captain’s cabin?’

In fact, Iain had been sleeping in the scuppers on the port side. ‘I don’t think he’ll see anybody. He’s very tired.’

‘I can’t help that. He’s news.’ He told me the paper he represented and thrust a note into my hand. ‘Here’s a fiver. Just point him out to me, that’s all.’ And when I told him to go to hell, he tried to make it a tenner.

They found him in the end, of course. They brought him to bay like a pack of hounds in a corner under the bridge housing and he stood there, facing them, his battered face grey with fatigue, his voice hoarse with shouting above the wind. They were all round him, their notebooks out, firing questions. And all he said was, ‘No comment.’

He didn’t realise that this was his one opportunity to defend himself — that he’d never get another. He stuck to the letter of QRs and refused to make a statement, relying on his superiors to back him up. Relying, too, on the fact that without his efforts the survivors would never have been got off Sgeir Mhor alive. He didn’t know then that his superiors were going to throw him to the wolves, that he was to be the scapegoat. How could he? For the last thirty-six hours he’d been involved in physical action, body and mind devoted to one thing alone — getting those men off. He didn’t understand that these reporters couldn’t visualise the circumstances. He was dead tired and his own mind was incapable at that moment of making the leap from individual effort to the broader aspects of the affair. No comment! A statement will be issued in due course. His Army training overlaid whatever personal inclination he had. He behaved, in fact, with perfect correctness and in doing so he damned himself before that most violent and blind of all judges — the public.

I saw the faces of the reporters harden. Frustration developed into anger. One man, snapping his notebook shut, seemed to speak for the rest: ‘Okay, Major, have it your own way. But don’t blame us if the public forms its own opinion of your evacuation order.’

Other notebooks snapped. The circle broke up and Iain stood there, tight-lipped and with a baffled look on his face, as they suddenly abandoned him to move amongst the survivors in search of personal, human interest stories. There was no shortage of these. The struggle to get the landing craft off the beach, the fight to get her out of Shelter Bay and clear of the rocks of Sgeir Mhor in the teeth of the hurricane, the failure of the engines, the scene of utter confusion as she struck with the bridge deck concertinaed against the fortress mass of Sgeir Mhor; how for a short while the up-lifted stern section had acted as a sort of ramp, enabling those that were still alive to scramble ashore, the desperate hours of waiting through that ghastly night and the rising seas and the new storm breaking over them.

There was so much of human interest. In particular, there was Field. They got the story of his climb from Sergeant Wetherby and a bunch of them crowded round him. ‘Tell me, Mr Field — how did you feel? Were you scared?’ He tried to tell them about Braddock’s crossing of the gut between the Butt of Keava and Sgeir Mhor, but they weren’t interested in that now. Reporters in London, working on the background of the officers involved, had interviewed Field’s wife. As a result they knew who he was. ‘Could you give us your reactions please? … How did it feel climbing that sheer cliff face? … Was it as stiff as the climbs you faced in the Himalayas?’ Cameras clicked, the TV men closed in.

And all the time Captain Flint with a squad of men was trying to get the injured off the ship and into the waiting vehicles. ‘Get the hell out of it, you bloody bloodsucking bastards.’ His Cockney humour had deserted him. The essential warmth of his nature was revolted by this spectacle of news-hungry men milling around amongst injured and exhausted survivors, fighting to get to grips with their stories. I saw him take a camera out of one photographer’s hand and throw it over the side. The man had been trying to get a close-up of some poor devil with his face smashed in. ‘The next one of you ghouls that tries that I’ll ‘eave the beggar over the side, camera an’ all.’

I found Marjorie struggling to get near her father — shut out by the ring of men surrounding him. ‘Oh, thank God!’ she said when she saw me. ‘What happened? Why are they all crowding round him?’ The bloom was gone from her face, all the vitality knocked out of her. ‘I can’t get near him.’ The pupils of those strangely blue eyes were dilated and the words came in a panic rush, almost a sob.

Briefly I told her what her father had done, and all the time she had hold of my hand, clinging to it as though I were the one stable thing left to her. But as I talked I saw a change come over her. She seemed gradually to come alive. ‘Then perhaps it’s all right,’ she breathed. ‘Perhaps this is the end of it then.’ It was extraordinary — the recuperative power of youth. Her eyes were suddenly shining, bright with hope, and then she kissed me full on the mouth for no apparent reason that I could see except that she needed to express her joy, her sense of relief that her father was safe and she didn’t have to worry about him any longer. ‘And what about you? All those hours alone on Laerg. You must be exhausted.’ And she suggested that I come up to the croft with her father. ‘It’ll be better than going to the camp.’ And with an understanding that surprised me because I’d never had anybody who’d cared a damn how I felt, she said, ‘You’ll need to unwind — slowly.’

I knew she was right. I was still extraordinarily keyed up. And yet at the same time I was utterly exhausted — a state of complete nervous fatigue. I did need to unwind, and I was grateful to her.

‘If you’ll just try and extricate my father….’

And so I left with them in the little estate car and I didn’t see my brother again for a long time.

The next day’s papers were full of the story of the disaster, pages of it — eye-witness accounts and personal stories, timetables of the events leading up to the rescue and Field’s climb. Charles Field was suddenly a hero again. There were pictures of him. Pictures of the survivors. But reading the papers with the whole story written up like a thrilling serial, the blow-by-blow account of a great storm with human courage surmounting disaster, I detected an ominous note. There were leaders implying that men had died unnecessarily. There were feature articles that showed the whole course of that intense local depression — some gave the wind speed as high as 150 knots, though they had no means of knowing since there were no anemometers to record it — and here the implication was that if the officer in charge (meaning my brother) had taken the advice of the local Met. Officer, no lives need have been lost. They completely ignored the fact that Cliffs warning had come too late, almost three hours after the order to evacuate had been given.

Throughout every paper there was the same searching, angry note of inquiry. Somebody was responsible, and with Standing dead that man could only be Braddock. The order to evacuate, taken on his own responsibility, and his subsequent arrest, damned him utterly. There were questions asked about it in the House. The Secretary of State for War promised a full-scale inquiry.

It was a witch-hunt, nothing less, and my brother was the man they were all gunning for. The people responsible for his appointment to the Hebrides did nothing to demonstrate their confidence in him. The reverse, in fact. They relieved him of his temporary command and sent him on indefinite leave pending the results of the Inquiry. No doubt this action was intended to relieve him of the pressure of phone calls, but its effect, inevitably, was to confirm the Press in their condemnation of his conduct.

I only heard that he’d been ordered away on leave two days later when I felt sufficiently recovered to visit Northton. Marjorie drove me to the camp. With her father and myself to look after, the croft to run and reporters to keep at bay, she was out of touch with camp affairs. I went straight to the Admin, block. There was a new adjutant, a Captain Davidson, short and dapper with a little moustache. ‘Major Braddock? I’m sorry, he’s away on leave. Colonel Webb’s in command here now.’ And he added, ‘I’m afraid I can’t give you Braddock’s address. I don’t think we’ve been notified where he’s staying.’

And that was that. I saw Rafferty and Flint. Nobody had Iain’s address. The slate had been wiped clean, my brother expunged as though he’d never existed. Whether they acted under orders, I don’t know. The effect, at any rate, was the same. He was gone and nobody would, or could, tell me where. I returned to Marjorie waiting in the car and all the way back to Rodil I was thinking of Iain, somewhere in the British Isles, a man condemned without a hearing. They hadn’t even been able to tell me when the Inquiry would be held. ‘You’ll be notified in due course, Mr Ross,’ the dapper little adjutant had said.

‘At least, I imagine you will, since I gather you’re a vital witness.’

A witness! I hadn’t thought of that. A witness against my own brother. And Iain wandering lost and alone with nobody to turn to. If he hadn’t been separated from his wife, if he’d been able to draw on the strength of his family…. But life had kicked even that support from under him.

‘He’s alone,’ I said, not realising I was speaking aloud. ‘Absolutely alone.’

Marjorie braked, glancing at me quickly. ‘Who? Major Braddock?’ And then, in a quiet voice, she said, ‘Donald, I’ve been wondering — we’ve both been wondering…. What is your connection with Major Braddock?’ She was staring straight ahead of her then, her eyes fixed on the road. ‘There is a connection, isn’t there?’

So they’d noticed. I didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it…. But I thought perhaps it might help.’

I had to think about this, about whether it was fair to Iain. But I, too, was alone. And they’d been kind to me. Friendship, understanding … I suppose even then I was aware of the attraction of this girl, a growing closeness between us that wasn’t only physical. And to share my fears….

But remembering the haunted look on his face, I shook my head. ‘Not now,’ I said. ‘Later perhaps….’

She touched my hand, a gesture of sympathy. ‘If I’d known …’ But then she shook her head. ‘No, I’d still have felt the same. He did give the order, you know.’ And she added, ‘Why? Why was he so determined to get them away on that last LCT?’

Why indeed? With a woman’s intuition she had hit on the real point, the basic fact that made my brother guilty. But I couldn’t see it then. I was thinking only of the disaster, not of what might have gone before when he cloaked himself in another man’s identity, and I said, ‘It was because he knew if he didn’t get them off then, they’d have been stuck there for the winter with insufficient supplies.’ I was quoting Field, who’d had it from Rafferty, and all the time the thing was there, staring me in the face.

But Lane, his mind concentrated on his own monetary affairs, unclouded by all the details of the disaster, had seen it. I had a phone call from him within an hour of my return to London. ‘That you, Ross? Glad to know you’re back at last. Where’s your brother?’ I tried to deny that he was my brother, but he ignored that. ‘I want a word with that guy. Now you just tell me where he is or I’m going to pass this whole story over to the Press. After what’s happened, they’ll just lap it up.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘And why not?’

‘In this country the law of libel is still very … “

‘Libel!’ His soft voice was suddenly tough. ‘You talk about libel when the man may prove to be a murderer. Yeah, a murderer.’ I thought he was referring to the men who’d been drowned. But it wasn’t that. His one-track mind was making a much more specific charge. ‘Have you considered, Mr Ross, what happened to the original Braddock — the young George Braddock, aged twenty and just commissioned, afloat on that life-raft with this monster of a brother of yours? Have you considered that?’

It came as a shock. And yet it had been at the back of my mind ever since I’d seen Iain standing with his finned feet in the surf, staring up at the hidden heights of Laerg; ever since that moment when I’d come ashore to find him waiting up in the camp, desperate to be left alone there. ‘I think,’ I said, trying to keep control of my voice, ‘you’d better not repeat that. Major Braddock may be facing an Inquiry, but that doesn’t mean you can make wild accusations …’

‘Major Braddock!’ There was anger and contempt in his voice. ‘His name’s Iain Ross. It’s Iain Ross we’re talking about, and you know it. Why else did you go north to the Hebrides? How else could you have managed to get on that landing craft and finish up in Laerg? Both of you, there on your own island together. Now you just tell me where I’ll find the son-of-a-bitch. That’s all I want from you — for the moment.’ And when I told him I didn’t know, he said, ‘All right, Ross. You stick by him. Very admirable of you — very fraternal. But you won’t fob me off as easily as that. I’ll just stay on here in England. I can wait. They’ll produce him when the Board of Inquiry sits. And then I’ll get him. I’ll get the truth out of him then, so help me God, and if it’s what I think it is, I’ll brand him for the Goddamned murdering bastard he is. Goo’bye.’ And he slammed the phone down.

I didn’t see my brother again until the Board of Inquiry, which was held at Scottish Command on November 2. He had, however, been in touch with me once, very briefly, during the intervening ten days. It was a phone call late at night, about eleven-fifteen. I recognised his voice at once for he made no pretence of concealing his natural accent. ‘Donald? Is that you, Donald?’

‘Where are you?’ I said. ‘In London?’

‘Aye, in some bluidy nightclub — I forget the name. I must ha’ a wee talk wi’ you, Donald. Can you come down here? Right away. I must ha’ a talk wi ye.’

‘Of course.’ And I added, ‘Are you all right, Iain?’ His voice sounded thick and slurred. I thought he’d been drinking.

‘Yes, I’m all right, laddie. It’s just that I’ve made up my mind. I must talk to somebody. I’m all alone, you see. An’ I thought maybe if you’d nothing better to do»

‘Whereabouts are you?’ I said. I didn’t want to lose him. ‘I’ll come right down. Just tell me where to meet you.’

‘Aye, weel — I’m somewhere doon Curzon Street way.’ The accent was very broad and getting more slurred. ‘What aboot Cook’s now, meet me outside Cook’s in Berkeley Street.’

‘Okay, I’ll be there at midnight,’ I said.

‘Fine, fine, that’ll do fine. We’ll ha’ a wee drink together, eh? Like old times. Only hurry. I canna stand my own company much longer.’ And he’d hung up.

I’d just gone to bed, so that I had to dress, and then there was the problem of transport. Fortunately I had enough money in the studio for a taxi and I found one on the rank outside Aldgate East Station. I was at Cook’s by five to twelve. But he wasn’t there, and though I hung around until 2 a.m., he never showed up.

He didn’t ring me again and that was my only contact with him until I saw him in Service dress walking out of the Conference Room where the Board of Inquiry was being held. I was shocked at the change in him. The twitch at the corner of his mouth had become much more marked, the lines of his face deeper. There were bags under his eyes, and above them the eyes themselves stared weary and lack-lustre out of darkened sockets. He’d obviously been drinking heavily. His hands were trembling. He passed me without a flicker of recognition.

Shortly afterwards I was called to give evidence. The Inquiry was being conducted by a colonel. He sat at a mahogany table with a major on one side and a captain on the other. None of these officers was connected with Northton. They were taking depositions and by the way they questioned me I was certain it was merely the prelude to a court martial.

They took my evidence under oath. To some extent it was a cross-examination, with the Maajor making notes of my replies. They went over the whole sequence of events and my part in them. And when I had told them all I knew, the Major laboriously wrote out a summarised version in longhand. Then he read it through to me and when I had agreed that it was a fair statement of what I’d told them, I was asked to sign it.

I thought that was the end of it and was just getting up to leave, when the Colonel said, ‘One moment, Mr Ross.’ He searched through the folder in front of him and produced a letter. ‘D’you know anything about a Mr Edward William Lane of Vancouver, a Canadian businessman?’ I’d been expecting this and I was prepared for it. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He visited me in London on October 15. My brother Iain was among those missing when the Duart Castle was torpedoed in 1944. Lane had a theory that he was still alive.’

‘In fact, he thought Major Braddock might be your brother. Correct?’

I nodded.

‘The next day you left London for the Outer Hebrides. You landed at Rodil in the Island of Harris on October 18 and I understand you saw Major Braddock the following day.’

‘Yes.’

‘Had you ever visited the Outer Hebrides before?’ And when I admitted I hadn’t, he said, ‘I take it then that you went up there for the express purpose of checking on Major Braddock’s identity? In other words, you thought there was a possibility that he might be your missing brother?’

‘It was partly that,’ I agreed. ‘Lane had convinced me that my brother could have been with Braddock on that life-raft and I thought he might be able to tell me what had happened. Also,’ I added, ‘there seemed a possibility that I might be able to get out to Laerg.’ I started to explain to him then about my connection with the island and my desire to paint the scenes that my grandfather had described, but he cut me short.

‘We are only concerned here with your visit as it affected Major Braddock. Now then, is there any truth in Lane’s suggestion?’

I didn’t give him a direct answer. Instead, I said, ‘I understand that you’ve already taken evidence from the Senior Meteorological Officer at Northton. My first meeting with Major Braddock took place in the Met. Office. I imagine you have already asked Cliff Morgan whether Braddock and I recognised each other.’

He nodded.

‘What did he say?’ I asked.

‘That as far as he can remember there was no indication that you had ever met each other before.’

It was a great weight off my mind to know that. ‘Then that surely is your answer, sir,’ I said. ‘If Braddock had, in fact, been my brother, then I would hardly be a reliable witness. At the same time, it would have shown in our reaction to each other at.that first meeting. You can have my word for it, if you like, but I think you will agree that the best evidence you have that there is no connection between us is Morgan’s.’ And I added, ‘Perhaps you haven’t appreciated this point. I don’t know whether Lane explains it in that letter, but he’s now over here in an attempt to prove that Major Braddock is not entitled to a fortune of some quarter of a million dollars left him by his aunt. From what Lane told me, I got the impression that he was prepared to go to almost any lengths to upset the Will and get the money for his wife’s family.’

‘I see. No, he doesn’t mention that here.’ The Colonel hesitated. Finally he said, ‘It puts rather a different complexion on the whole business.’

For Iain’s sake I’d been prepared to lie, but after that it wasn’t necessary. The Colonel was faced with an unpleasant enough task as it was. He’d no wish to become involved with something that had happened more than twenty years ago. ‘Very well, I agree. That settles it. And I’m glad, for if there’d been any truth in it, then it would have raised the question of what had happened to the real George Braddock.’ He gave a little sigh and pushed the letter back into the folder. ‘Extraordinary what people will do for money. I’m sorry I’ve had to raise the matter … most unpleasant for you.’ And he smiled his relief and said, ‘That’s all, Mr Ross. Thank you for coming to give evidence. I am also asked by my superiors to thank you for all you did on Laerg to assist in the rescue of the survivors.’

‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. ‘Braddock’s the man to whom the survivors owe their lives. Field would never have made that climb if it hadn’t been for Braddock. He organised the whole thing.’

The Colonel’s sharp little eyes stared at me hard and I wondered for a moment if I’d said too much. But it was true and I was damned if I was going to leave the Inquiry without making the point. If they were going to blame him for what had happened, at least they ought to realise that without the driving force of his personality nobody would have been saved and the loss of life would have been that much greater.

Probably they knew that already. But it made no difference.

After hearing over a dozen witnesses they passed the depositions to the Director of Army Legal Services and in due course the next step towards Court Martial proceedings was taken. This was a Summary of Evidence and again I was called. Iain was present throughout the examination of witnesses, and this, more than anything else, seemed to exmphasise the seriousness of his situation.

I understand he had the right to question witnesses. Whether he availed himself of this right I do not know; in my case he certainly did not, sitting tense and very still, his eyes never raised to my face. I was in the room almost two hours and all the time I was conscious of the nervous tension in him, could literally feel it. And he looked desperately ill.

I thought perhaps he would contact me afterwards, but he didn’t, and though I stayed the night in Edinburgh just in case, I had no word from him. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise. In any case there was nothing I could have done — only given him moral support. Back in London I wrote him a carefully worded letter beginning Dear Major Braddock and inquiring whether there was anything I could do to help. I received no reply.

The waiting I knew would be hard on him, a nervous strain. The loneliness, too. This worried me as much as anything else, and in desperation I went and saw his wife.

I’d kept a newspaper cutting that gave her address and I found her living in one of the back streets of Hertford, a small woman with doe-like eyes and a will that was hard as iron. I went in the evening with the story that I was a welfare worker for SAAFA, but nothing I could say would induce her to visit her husband. She got the Army allowance, and that was all she wanted of him. And the only clues she gave us to why they had parted was when she said, ‘I had five years of it.’ And added, ‘Nerves are one thing, but nerves and drink…. No, I don’t want to see him again.’

Yet she still had his photograph in a silver frame standing on a table beside the TV set — aged about thirty, I thought, and much as I remembered him in the Glasgow days, the lines of his face barely showing, but still that scar above the bridge of the nose. ‘If it’s any comfort to him in his present circumstances,’ she said as she showed me to the door, ‘you can tell him both the girls are well and pray for him nightly.’ And she added, her lips tight and no tenderness in her eyes, ‘I told them he’d been killed — and then this business with reporters coming here and the news of it on the telly, you can imagine the shock it was — how I felt.’

Christmas came and went, the New Year. Marjorie wrote from Rodil that Iain was in hospital. ‘My father says they think Major Braddock is suffering from some sort of nervous breakdown. It’s not serious apparently, but I thought you’d like to know. It’s the waiting, of course. And now I can’t help feeling sorry for him.’

There was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t very well write to him again, and if I tried to visit him the authorities would wonder at my interest. I was working all the time and so January slipped into February with news from Marjorie that he was out of hospital. The rest of her letter was about the fishing and how the solan geese were starting to come back. ‘Soon there’ll be all manner of birds and it’ll be warmer with clear skies. Come back then and paint. It’s so beautiful in the spring….’

And then at last the official letter notifying me that Major Braddock’s Court Martial would be held in Edinburgh on February 24, starting at 10 a.m.: — You are pursuant to Section 103 of the Army Act, 1955, and Rule 91 of the Rules of Procedure (Army), 1956, made thereunder, hereby summoned and required to attend at the sitting of the said court… and so to attend from day to day until you shall be duly discharged; whereof you shall fail at your peril. Four days later I got an airmail letter from Lane in Vancouver. Obviously he was paying somebody to keep him posted. ‘Tell your brother that I’m flying over immediately and will be in Edinburgh on the 24th. Tell him also that I have some fresh evidence. My agents have located one of the Military Policemen acting as his escort on the Duart Castle. This man survived on one of the boats that reached Ireland and he is prepared to swear that Sergeant Iain Alasdair Ross was on that life-raft. He also saw Second-Lieutenant George Braddock clinging to it. Furthermore, he says he would recognise your brother …’

The Court Martial was held at Dreghorn Camp just outside Edinburgh. It opened prompt at ten o’clock with the swearing in of the Court. For this ceremony the witnesses were present, all of us standing at the back of the court. It was a bare, rather bleak room, but the arrangement of the desks and tables and the grouping of the officers transformed it, and the colour of the uniforms made it impressive so that I was conscious of the atmosphere, the sense of being caught up in the Military legal machine. Instead of a judge with his wig and scarlet robes, five officers sat in judgment. And in the body of the court — the accused, the officer defending him, the Prosecuting Officer, all the various officials, even to the NCOs on duty, in full dress. The effect was overpowering and I wondered how my brother felt as the doors closed and quiet descended. The Judge Advocate, seated on the President’s right hand, read the convening order.

From where I stood I could see only the back of Iain’s head, hunched down into his shoulders, which sagged slightly as he sat slumped in his seat, staring down at the table in front of him. He seemed quite passive, almost dazed, and when he was asked if he objected to being tried by the President or any of the other members of the Court his reply was inaudible. And then the Judge Advocate’s voice, clear and crisp: ‘Everybody will stand uncovered whilst the Court is sworn.’ A shuffle of chairs and the court-room rose to its feet as he faced the President. ‘Please repeat after me-’ The Brigadier spoke the words he knew by heart in a clipped, very clear voice: ‘I swear by Almighty God that I will well and truly try the Accused before the Court according to the evidence and that I will duly administer justice according to the Army Act, 1955, without partiality, favour or affection …’

The four other officers who constituted the Court were sworn and then the President swore in the Judge Advocate himself. After that the witnesses were ushered out into an adjoining room. There were altogether twenty-seven witnesses. Most of them were from Northton — Field, Rafferty, Flint, the M.O., Phipps, Sergeant Wetherby and several other ranks I’d never seen before, including the Signals NCO who’d been on duty when the fatal order was given. Cliff was there and another civilian who turned out to be Fellowes, the pilot who had flown the plane from which Mike Ferguson had jumped to his death. Wentworth, too, and a young Captain whom Field told me was the Commander of L4400. Both Brigadier Matthieson and the BGS from the War Office had also been called, but their rank enabled them to avoid the tedium of waiting in the confines of that small room.

There was a Military Policeman on the door to see that we didn’t discuss the case, nothing to do but sit and smoke, and I had ample opportunity to consider what my brother must be going through in the next room. Occasionally we could hear the murmur of voices, the stamp of boots as some NCO moved, the scrape of chairs, the sound of coughing.

The preliminaries took just over an hour — the reading of the charges and the Prosecuting Officer’s speech in which he put his case. We could just hear the murmur of his voice. The first witness was called shortly after eleven-thirty. This was the Signals NCO. He was followed by the duty driver, then Flint, then Wentworth. Wentworth was still giving evidence when the Court adjourned for lunch. The order in which the witnesses had been called was our only indication of the course the case was taking. Clearly the Prosecuting Officer was establishing the fact of the order to evacuate having been given.

Field was called during the afternoon and when the Court finally rose, he was waiting for me outside. ‘Marjorie asked me to give you her love.’ He smiled. He was looking younger, more buoyant, and his eyes had lost that nervous blink.

‘How was Braddock?’ I asked.

He hesitated then shook his head. ‘Not good, I’m afraid. Very nervy-looking; at times I wondered whether he understood what was going on. He’s still a sick man, I’m afraid.’

, I asked him about the nervous breakdown, but he didn’t know the details. ‘The strain of waiting, I imagine. Three months almost. It’s a long time. Too long. But once it’s over, probably he’ll be all right then.’

‘What are the chances?’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘Hard to say. He’s got a good man defending him, good enough at any rate to handle the two brigadiers. But even if he gets them to say they had every confidence in the accused, it won’t outweigh the fact that Standing had him arrested. If Standing were here to be cross-examined …’ Again that little shrug. ‘But he isn’t, you see, and dying like that he’s something of a hero. That counts for a lot in a case like this. And there’s all the publicity. The Judge Advocate may tell them what the law is, but the Court is human; they can’t help being influenced by it. And the size of the disaster. Fifty-three men dead. Who’s to be blamed if Braddock is acquitted? The Press will say the Army is covering up and there’ll be more questions in the House.’

‘So you don’t think he’s got a chance?’

He hesitated. And then he said, ‘No. Frankly, I don’t.’

I was called the following afternoon, immediately after Cliff Morgan had given evidence. When I took my place at the witness table I was shocked to see how ill Iain looked, his eyes wandering vacantly, his big, powerful hands never still — plucking at the buttons of his uniform, toying with his pencil, sometimes brushing over his face and up through his hair with a quick, nervous gesture. I don’t think he once looked directly at me all the time I was being questioned. As Field had said, he still seemed a sick man — all his intense nervous energy beaten down, as though something had destroyed his will to fight back. I had that feeling very strongly, that his strength was being sapped from within, and I wondered to what extent he had been affected by the fact that Lane was in Edinburgh. I had seen Lane that morning, just a glimpse of him as I was entering the main gate of the camp. He was sitting there in a car with another man.

‘Will the witness please answer the question.’ The President’s voice, kindly but firm, brought me back to the stillness of the court-room and the rather bland-looking major who was defending Iain standing facing me, waiting patiently for my answer.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Perhaps you would repeat the question.’

‘I asked you, Mr Ross, whether you could recall the time at which Major Braddock gave the order to evacuate the island?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Or rather, I can remember when the landing craft came into the beach. She grounded at nine forty-eight.’

‘And Major Braddock’s order?’

‘About ten minutes earlier. The landing craft was coming into the beach as we left the hut. Say, nine-thirty.’

‘Now I want the Court to understand the circumstances in which that order was given. What was the direction of the wind at that time?’

‘Northerly. It had been northerly all day.’

‘And no indication of a change?’

‘No.’

‘After the landing craft beached you went on board?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where were you then?’

‘I was helping on the tank deck until nearly midnight. After that I went to the wardroom.’

‘Where you found Lieutenant Wentworth talking to Captain Stratton?’

‘Yes.’

‘What were they discussing?’

‘A radio message they had received from the Met. Officer at Northton.’

‘Do you know when that message was received?’

‘It had just come in so it would have been shortly after midnight.’

‘Two and a half hours after Major Braddock had given the order.’

‘Yes/

‘And the wind at Laerg was still northerly then?’

‘Yes.’ I saw the point he was trying to establish and I added, ‘It remained northerly for another four and a half hours.’

The Major reached for his glasses and glanced at his notes. ‘Mr Morgan in his evidence said that he was in contact with the Viking Fisher at twenty-three forty-seven. That’s the trawler that was finally lost with all hands. Thirteen minutes to midnight. In your opinion was there any way in which Major Braddock could have foreseen how circumstances were going to change?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Definitely not.’ I glanced at Iain as his Defending Officer said, ‘Thank you, Mr Ross,’ in a satisfied tone. I was surprised to see him running his pencil back and forth across the table in front of him, apparently taking no interest in the proceedings.

The Defending Officer turned to the President of the Court. ‘That is the point I wish to establish.’ And then to me: ‘You have some experience of the sea, I believe. A year in the Navy and ten in the Merchant Service as a deck officer. Correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were on the bridge with Captain Stratton part of the time during the crossing to Laerg and throughout the events that led up to the loss of the ship. Would you say he was a capable seaman?’

‘Very capable.’

‘So that in coming in to the beach you would say, would you not, that it was the action of a capable seaman?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m certain Captain Stratton would never have brought his landing craft in to the beach if he had thought there was any danger.’

‘And he was in a much better position than Major Braddock to assess the local weather situation?’

‘I think you have made your point, Major Selkirk,’ the President said.

The Major gave a nod and a quick smile. ‘I just wanted to make it quite clear, sir.’ He glanced down at the papers on his desk. ‘Lieutenant Wentworth in his evidence has said that after the ship was unloaded Captain Pinney refused to take his men ashore. Can you confirm that?’

‘Yes. I was in the wheelhouse at the time.’

‘When was this?’

‘Between two-thirty and three, I should say.’

‘Can you recall the conversation?’

‘It was hardly a conversation,’ I said.

‘A row?’

‘No, not a row.’ Briefly I told them what Pinney’s attitude had been.

‘So even then, somewhere between two-thirty and three, there was doubt about the wind shifting from the north?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not only in Pinney’s mind, but in Stratton’s as well?’

I nodded.

‘Thank you.’ He shifted his stance, glanced at my brother who was still fiddling around with that damned pencil, and then his gaze came back to me. ‘You remember that Captain Stratton asked his radio operator to contact Colonel Standing. About what time would that have been?’

‘Around twelve-thirty. We were in the wardroom then. He wanted to talk to Colonel Standing personally and he told the operator that the Colonel was to be got out of bed if necessary.’ And I added, ‘He said something about it being time the men who gave the orders lost a little sleep on our account.* Quick as a flash he said, ‘Are you implying that he knew Colonel Standing had gone up to his house, which was a mile from the camp — that he had, in fact, retired to»

But the President interrupted him. ‘Major Selkirk. I must remind you again that Colonel Standing is dead. References to him should be confined to facts. You must not include vague statements about him or expressions of opinion or the comments of other officers.’

‘I quite understand, sir.’ The Defending Officer’s face was wooden and he rustled the papers in his hand as he faced the Court. ‘I will endeavour to follow your ruling, but I must point out that the officer I am defending faces very serious charges and my case rests to some extent on the clash of personalities that, I submit, was the direct and inevitable result of this somewhat, shall I say, unusual appointment. You have heard the evidence this morning of two brigadiers, both of whom briefed the accused following his appointment. Both have admitted that their instructions could be interpreted as making Major Braddock directly responsible for the success of the operation. However, if Colonel Standing’s behaviour is not to be referred to….’ He flung his papers on to the desk. ‘Mr Ross, you will now tell the Court what Captain Stratton said after he’d spoken to Colonel Standing.’

I hesitated, for I didn’t see how this could help Iain. But the Court was waiting and I said, ‘He didn’t say very much — just that Colonel Standing hadn’t known about the order and was angry.’

‘Angry? Because he’d been got out of bed in the middle of the night?’ I saw the President lean forward, but Selkirk was too quick for him. ‘Or was it because he didn’t know, at that time, that there was a landing craft grounded on the beach in Shelter Bay?’

‘I think it was because he didn’t know about the evacuation.’

‘Did he know there was a landing craft on the beach or not?’

‘He couldn’t have done.’

‘Did he know about the Met. Officer’s latest forecast?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘In other words, he was completely out of touch with the situation and it was Major Braddock …’

The Prosecuting Officer was on his feet, but the President forestalled him: ‘I must insist that you confine yourself to questions of fact and refrain from putting opinions of your own into the witness’s mouth.’

‘Very well, sir. But I would ask the Court’s indulgence. It is a little difficult to know who exactly was in command.’ Again he adjusted his glasses, leaning down to check his notes. ‘Now, about radio contact. In your deposition which I have here, you say you spoke to Mr Morgan yourself on R/T. What was the reception like?’

‘Very poor,’ I told him. ‘And Stratton said it was bad when he was talking to Colonel Standing.’

‘Was that the reason, do you think, that Captain Pinney wasn’t given a direct order by his superiors to get his men off the ship?’ And before I could reply, he went on, ‘Or would you say, from your own experience, that in a situation like this Major Braddock would be fully justified in leaving any decision like that to the men on the spot?’

‘I think by then,’ I said, ‘the situation was beyond the control of anybody at Base.’

He nodded, and after that he stood for a moment reading through his notes. I saw my brother’s attention wander to the door at the back of the court. He had done that several times. Major Selkirk had stepped back from his desk, head thrown up and his eyes fixed on me again. ‘Now we come to the loss of L8610 … the cause, or rather the twin causes, for there were two, weren’t there?’ And when I nodded, he went on, ‘These were covered very fully by Lieutenant Wentworth in his evidence, but I would like. to confirm one point with you — the failure of the steering. Do you remember Lieutenant Wentworth making a comment about the tiller flat? He says he told Captain Stratton that it was being flooded. Do you recall him making that report?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did he give a reason?’

I told them then how the stretcher party had taken McGregor’s body to the tiller flat and had failed to secure the hatch on leaving. ‘That was what caused the flooding.’

‘And it was the failure of the steering, was it not, that threw the ship on her beam ends and made it impossible to deal with the sea water in the ready-use tank?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that again was something that Captain Stratton couldn’t have foreseen?’

‘Nobody could have foreseen it,’ I said.

‘And certainly not Major Braddock, back at Base?’

‘No.’

And on that he sat down. There was a moment of shuffling relaxation in the court-room, and then the Prosecuting Officer rose to cross-examine me. He was a large, quiet man with a soft voice and a manner that was easy, almost friendly. ‘One or two small points, Mr Ross. We know that Captain Pinney virtually refused to take his men off the ship. But later, just before you got off the beach, I think I’m right in saying that Colonel Standing spoke to him on the R/T. Am I also right in saying that the result of that talk was a direct order from his Colonel to get his men disembarked?’

‘I believe so, but by then it was quite impossible.’ I knew what he was after. He wanted to show that Standing had not only countermanded the order, but had come very near to saving the situation. He was going to try and show Standing as a decisive man whose subordinate had let him down and who was making a last-minute effort to rectify the damage that had been done. I glanced at my brother, but his head was again turned towards the door, which was half open. A sergeant had come in and was just closing it. I turned to the President, determined not to have this point twisted to the advantage of the Prosecution. ‘The first contact Colonel Standing had with the ship was when he spoke to Captain Stratton. My impression is that he had already taken personal command; yet he gave no order for the disembarkation of the Laerg detachment. I agree he did eventually give the order to Pinney, but by then it was at least two hours too late.’

The President nodded. ‘And in your view the accused officer was not responsible at that time?’

‘That’s my impression — that Colonel Standing was in control.’

The Prosecuting Officer continued: ‘You mentioned that radio conditions were bad.…’ he was shifting his ground, but at that moment the sergeant came down the room, his footsteps loud on the bare boards. He handed the President a note. When he had read it, the President glanced quickly at me, and from me to Iain. He didn’t say anything, but after consultation with the Judge Advocate he cleared the Court.

Nobody has ever told me what was in that note. But I can guess, for Lane made a statement to the Court and this was supported by the man he had brought with him. After we had been kept waiting about half an hour, it was announced that the Court was adjourned until the following day.

Knowing what Lane would have told the Court, I was expecting every moment to be called to an interview. But nothing happened. Instead a rumour circulated that Major Braddock had collapsed and had been rushed unconscious to the Medical Reception. This proved correct. A statement was issued to the Press that night and the following morning my newspaper carried the story under the headline:

ACCUSED MAJOR BREAKS DOWN — LAERG COURT MARTIAL POSTPONED.

I read it over my breakfast and I was still drinking my coffee and wondering about it when the hotel receptionist came in to tell me that there was an Army officer waiting to see me. He was a young second-lieutenant and he had orders to take me to the hospital. It is not clear to me even now whether the Army had accepted the fact that Major Braddock and I were brothers. I think probably they had — privately. But the Army, like any other large organisation, is a community in itself with its own code of behaviour. As such it closes its ranks and throws a protective cloak over its members when they are attacked by the outside world. I suspect that Lane’s accusation was not accepted by the Court — officially, at any rate. In any case it was quite outside the scope of their proceedings.

To Lane it must have seemed nothing less than a conspiracy of silence. First the Army, and then the Press. I know he approached several newspapers, for they dug up the Duart Castle story, and in addition they wrote up Lane himself — not very kindly. But none of them referred to his accusations, other than obliquely. The law of libel made that too hot a story. There was another factor, too. Braddock’s collapse had to some extent swung public feeling. The disaster was now past history. It had happened more than three months ago and here was this man being hounded into a nervous breakdown.

A RAMC Colonel and a psychiatrist were waiting for me at the M.R. Station. Possibly they thought my presence might jerk Braddock’s mind back into an awareness of the world around him. In fact, he stared at me without a flicker of recognition or even interest, face and eyes quite blank. He had a room to himself and was lying in bed, propped up on pillows. The lines of his face seemed smoothed out so that he looked much younger, almost like the youth I had known. He could talk quite lucidly, but only about the things going on around him. He appeared to remember nothing of the Court Martial or of the events on Laerg. At least he didn’t refer to them. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked me innocently. ‘We’ve met before, I suppose, but I’m afraid I don’t remember. They say I’ve lost my memory, you see.’

‘Talk to him about Laerg,’ the psychiatrist whispered to me.

But Laerg meant nothing to him. ‘You were there,’ I said. ‘You saved the lives of twenty-three men.’

He frowned as though making an effort to remember. And then he smiled and shook his head. There was a vacant quality about that smile. ‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember a damn’ thing.’

I was there nearly an hour and all the time, at the back of my mind, was the question — was this a genuine brainstorm or was he pretending? There was that smoothed-out quite untroubled face, the vacant, puzzled look in his eyes. And in a case of this sort where is the borderline between genuine mental illness and the need to seek refuge from the strain of events? One leads to the other and by the time I left I was convinced that even if he had deliberately sought this refuge, there was now no doubt that he had willed himself into a state of mental blackout.

‘Kind of you to come and see me,’ he said as I was leaving. He spoke quite cheerfully, but his voice sounded tired as though talking to me had been a strain.

Outside, the psychiatrist said, ‘Afraid it didn’t work. Perhaps in a few weeks’ time when his mind’s rested, eh?’ No reference to the possibility that we might be related. But it was there all the same, implicit in his assumption that I’d be prepared to come all the way up from London at my own expense to visit him again.

This I did about two weeks later at their request. By then my brother had been moved to a civilian institution and he was up and dressed. On this occasion they left us alone together. But it made no difference. His mind was a blank, or it appeared to be — blank of everything he didn’t want to remember. And if he recognised me, he didn’t show it. ‘They’ve got microphones in the walls,’ he said. But whether they had, I don’t know. The psychiatrist said no. They’d been giving him treatment, electric shock treatment. ‘This place is like a brain-washing establishment. Refinements of mental cruelty. They think I’m somebody else. They keep trying to tell me I’m somebody else. If I’ll admit it, then I needn’t have shock treatment. And when I say I know who I am, they put the clamps on my head and turn up their rheostats full blast. Ever had shock treatment?’ And when I shook ray head, he grinned and said, ‘Lucky fellow! Take my advice. Don’t ever let them get their hands on you. Resist and you’re in a strait-jacket and down to the torture chamber.’

There was a lot more that I can’t remember and all of it with a thread of truth running through the fantasy. ‘They think they’ll break me.’ He said that several times, and then words tumbling out of his mouth again as though he were afraid I’d leave him if he didn’t go on talking — as though he were desperate for my company. ‘They want me to admit that I’m responsible for the death of a lot of men. Well, old man, I’ll tell you. They can flay me alive with their damned machines, but I’ll admit nothing. Nothing, you get me. I’ve even had a lawyer here. Wanted to give me some money — ten thousand dollars if I’d say I’m not George Braddock. But they won’t catch me that way.’ He had fixed me with his eyes and now he grabbed hold of my arm and drew me down. ‘You know they’ve got a Court sitting, waiting to try me.’

‘All right,’ I said. My face was so close to his nobody could possibly overhear. ‘Then why not tell them: Why not tell them what happened out there in the Atlantic? Get it over with.’ All the way up in the train I’d been thinking about it, certain that this was the root of the trouble.

But all he said was, ‘Somewhere in the basement I think it is. And if I admit anything …’

‘It’s a long time ago,’ I said. If you just tell them what happened.’

But it didn’t seem to get through to him.’… then they’re waiting for me, and I’ll be down there, facing a lot of filthy accusations. I tell you, there’s nothing they won’t do.’ And so it went on, the words pouring out to reveal a mental kaleidoscope, truth and fantasy inextricably mixed.

Mad? Or just clever simulation? I wondered, and so apparently did the psychiatrist. ‘What do you think?’ he asked me as I was leaving. It was the same man, thick tortoise-shell glasses and the earnest, humourless air of one who believes that the mystery of his profession elevates him to a sort of priesthood. ‘If we let him out, then he’s fit and the Court Martial will have to sit again. He’s not fit — or is he?’ He stared at me, searchingly. ‘No, of course — not your department. And you wouldn’t admit anything yourself, would you?’

Veiled allusions like that. And the devil of it was there was nothing I could do to help Iain. A week later they had another attempt at shock treatment — mental, not electrical this time. They brought Lane in to see him and before the wretched man had been in there five minutes, they had to rush in and rescue him. Iain had him by the throat and was choking the life out of him.

After that they left him alone.

Two days later the police came to my studio. It was just after lunch and I was working on a canvas that I was doing entirely for my own benefit — a portrait of Marjorie, painted from memory. I hadn’t even a photograph of her at that time. I heard their footsteps on the bare stairboards, and when I went to the door a sergeant and a constable were standing there. ‘Mr Ross?’ The sergeant came in, a big man with a flattened nose and small, inquisitive eyes. ‘I understand you’re acquainted with a certain Major Braddock who is undergoing treatment in the James Craig Institute, Edinburgh?’ And when I nodded he said, ‘Well now, would it surprise you, sir, to know that he’s escaped?’

‘Escaped — when?’ I asked.

‘Last night. He was discovered missing this morning. I’ve been instructed to check whether he’s been seen in this neighbourhood and in particular whether he’s visited you.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Why should he?’

‘I’m given to understand you’re related. They seemed to think he might try to contact you.’ He stood staring at me, waiting for me to answer. ‘Well, has he?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. He certainly hasn’t been here.’

I saw his eyes searching the studio as though he wasn’t prepared to take my word for it. Finally he said, ‘Very good, Mr Ross. I’ll tell them. And if he does contact you, telephone us immediately. I should warn you that he may be dangerous.’ He gave me the number of the police station and then with a jerk of his head at the constable, who had been quietly sniffing round the studio like a terrier after a bone, he left.

Their footsteps faded away down the stairs and I stood there without moving, thinking of Iain on the run with the police as well as the Army after him. Where would he go? But I knew where he’d go — knew in the same instant that I’d have to go there, too. Everything that had happened, his every action … all led inevitably back to Laerg.

I lit a cigarette, my hands trembling, all my fears brought suddenly to a head. Twenty-two days on a raft in the North Atlantic. Sooner or later they’d guess — guess that no man could have lasted that long, not in mid-winter; and Laerg on his direct route. They’d work it out, just as I had worked it out, and then … I turned to the window; drab vistas of grey slates, the mist hanging over the river, and my mind far away, wondering how to get there — how to reach Laerg on my own without anybody knowing? I hadn’t the money to buy a boat, and to charter meant involving other people. But I could afford a rubber dinghy, and given twenty-four hours calm weather… I thought Cliff Morgan could help me there. A radio to pick up his forecasts, a compass, an outboard motor — it ought to be possible.

I was up half the night working it out, making lists. And in the morning I drew all my cash out of the bank, booked a seat on the night train for Mallaig and began a hectic six hours, shopping for the equipment I needed.