Atlantic Fury

CHAPTER ONE

(October 12 — I3)

The decision to withdraw the Unit from Laerg was taken early in October. That it was a fatal decision is now obvious. It was taken too late in the year, and in the initial phases the operation was carried out with too little sense of urgency. Whether the disastrous consequences of that decision would have been avoided if the personalities involved had been different I cannot say. Certainly personality played a part in what happened. It always does. A decision that calls for action involves men, and men cannot escape their own natures; their upbringing, their training, their basic characters. Moreover, in this particular case, a series of mishaps, unimportant in isolation, but cumulatively dangerous in combination with the colossal forces unleashed against us, led inevitably to disaster…

This was the opening paragraph of a statement I found among my brother’s papers. It was written in his own hand, when his mind was still lucid. Intended as a refutation of the charges brought against him, the statement was never completed. Together with his notes and all his other papers, it lies before me now in the lamplight as I embark on the task of writing this account of the disaster. And the fact that I am writing of it in the solitariness of my winter isolation here on Laerg, with the same violent winds battering at the door, the same damp, salt-laden atmosphere blackening the night outside and Sgeir Mhor standing like a battlement against the Atlantic, will I hope give it a clarity not otherwise possible; that, and the fact that I was involved in it, too.

Not directly, as my brother was; and not with his burden of responsibility. Laerg was a military establishment at the time, and I am an artist, not a soldier. But for both of us it held a fatal fascination. It was in our blood, and looking back on it, our paths crossing after so many years and in such circumstances, there seems to have been something inevitable about it, as though Laerg itself were an integral part of the pattern of our lives.

There is, of course, no mention in my brother’s notes of his personal reasons for wanting the Army out of Laerg, no hint of the fearful thing that drew him back to the island. And the fact that he had been so many years in the Army inhibited him in his writing. For instance, he gives no account of his interviews with Standing. He merely states the facts and leaves it at that, so that there is no indication of his relations with his Commanding Officer. Fortunately I have my own notes from which to work. These last few months I have interviewed most of the men involved in the disaster. As a result I have been able to add considerably to my personal knowledge of what happened. I have also had access to the depositions taken at the Board of Inquiry and also to the transcripts covering the first two days of the abortive Court Martial. There are still gaps, of course. So many men were killed. If I could have talked with Colonel Standing, for instance …

However, the picture in my mind is as complete as it can ever be. And that picture is dominated, of course, by Laerg. Laerg — forbidding and mysterious, rising out of the Atlantic like the last peaks of a submerged land, its shaggy heights lost in cloud, its massive cliffs resounding to the snowflake swirl of millions of seabirds. Laerg dwarfs the men, the ships; it dominates the whole story.

Until that October I had never even seen Laerg. This may seem strange, considering my father was born there and that I’d been half in love with it since I was a kid. But Laerg isn’t the sort of place you can visit at will. It lies more than eighty miles west of the Outer Hebrides, a small island group composed of Laerg itself, which with Eileann nan Shoay and Sgeir Mhor constitutes the main island; the bare rock islet of Vallay; and Fladday with its attendant stacs of Hoe and Rudha. Eighty sea miles is no great distance, but this is the North Atlantic and the seven islands of the Laerg group are a lonely cluster standing on the march of the great depressions that sweep up towards Iceland and the Barents Sea. Not only are sea conditions bad throughout the greater part of the year, but the islands, rising sheer out of the waves to a height of almost 1,400 feet, breed their own peculiar brand of weather.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t my father who’d made me long to go to Laerg. He seldom talked of the island. He’d gone to sea as a young man and then married a Glasgow girl and settled as a crofter on Ardnamurchan after losing his nerve in a typhoon. It was Grandfather Ross who filled our heads with talk of our island ancestors.

This gnarled old man with a craggy face and huge hands had been a powerful influence in both our lives. He’d come to live with us following the evacuation of the islanders in 1930. He’d been the only man to vote against it when the Island Parliament made its decision, and to the day he died in 1936 he’d resented living on the mainland. It wasn’t only that he talked endlessly of Laerg; in those six years he taught my brother Iain, and myself, everything he knew about the way to live in a world of rock and towering heights where sheep and birds were the raw materials of existence.

I’d tried to get there once a long time ago, hiding away on a trawler anchored in the bay below our croft. But that trip they hadn’t gone within a hundred miles of Laerg, and then the war came and I joined Iain, working in a Glasgow factory making shell cases. A year in the Navy and ten years at sea, tramping, mainly in old Liberty ships, and then I had embarked on the thing I had always wanted to do — I began to study as a painter. It was during a winter spent in the Aegean Isles that I suddenly realised Laerg was the subject that most attracted me. It had never been painted, not the way my grandfather had described it. I’d packed up at once and returned to England, but by then Laerg had become a tracking station for the new rocket range on Harris. It was a closed island, forbidden to unauthorised civilians, and neither the Army nor Nature Conservancy, who leased it from the National Trust for Scotland, would give me permission to visit it.

That was the position until October of the following year when a man called Lane came to my studio and I was caught up in my brother’s strange story and the events that led to the disaster. But first I must give the background to the Army’s decision to evacuate Laerg, for without that decision the disaster would never have happened.

The future of the tracking station was discussed at a Conference held in the Permanent Under-Secretary’s room at the War Office and the decision to close it was confirmed by the Director Royal Artillery at a meeting in his office four days later. In my reconstruction of the Conference I am indebted to the frankness with which the DRA described it to me. For the details of the subsequent meeting I have also had the benefit of talks with his Brigadier General Staff and with Brigadier Matthieson, the Brigadier Royal Artillery, Scottish Command. The latter, in addition, was able to recall for me in considerable detail his conversation with Braddock on the night train going north. These two senior officers both gave evidence at the Court Martial and my talks with them were supplementary to that evidence.

First then, the Conference. This was held on October 7 and in addition to the Permanent Under-Secretary for War, there were present the Director of Finance, the Director Royal Artillery, and, during the vital discussion on the fate of Laerg, a member of the staff of the Ordnance Board. The object of the conference was to review Royal Artillery expenditure for the current financial year. This was one of a series of War Office conferences necessitated by the Prime Minister’s refusal to face the House with supplementaries to the original Estimates.

There were eleven items on the agenda for that afternoon, all affecting the Royal Artillery. Laerg was sixth on the list. It came up for discussion about half past three and I understand the Director of Finance had all the costings ready to hand, reading them out in a flat monotone that was barely audible above the roar of Whitehall traffic. It was a long list and when he’d finished he put it back in his brief-case and faced the DRA. ‘I think you’ll agree,’ he said, ‘that the cost of maintaining the detachment on Laerg is quite disproportionate to the contribution it makes to our guided weapons tests.’ He then went on, I gather, to emphasise the point he wanted to make. ‘Your firing season finishes when?’

‘Some time in August,’ the DRA replied.

‘And it starts in May.’

‘In May — yes. But we begin the build-up in April.’

‘In other words, the station is dormant for at least seven months of the year. And during those seven months it requires a Detachment Commander, usually a Captain, a Medical Officer and two orderlies, cooks, drivers, a REME outfit, even seamen military, a total of anything from thirty to forty men. There are two LCT’s Mark VIII involved in ferrying supplies and …’

‘The tank landing craft don’t function in the winter.’

‘Quite so. But they are nevertheless committed to this operation and are merely withdrawn to Squadron Headquarters at Portsmouth for re-fit. They are replaced by an RASC trawler. Not so costly perhaps, but still pretty expensive. In addition, a helicopter is periodically required to deliver mail.’

Throughout this interchange the DRA explained to me that he was very much on the defensive. He knew the operation could not be justified on grounds of cost alone. ‘It’s the men,’ he said. ‘They feel cut off if they don’t get regular mail. In any case, we’ve already decided to dispense with the trawler this winter and rely on Army helicopters for mail and relief of personnel. An experiment recommended by Colonel Standing, the Range Commandant. We’ve yet to find out how it will work. Conditions for helicopter flying are not all that good, particularly after the end of October.’

‘That’s merely a matter of detail,’ the Director of Finance said. ‘I have been into all this very carefully. Correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it the only maintenance required on the really vital equipment, the radar, is that it should be run once a day, mainly to warm it up. One man’s work for a few hours each day. To keep him there you apparently require over thirty men…’

‘I’ve reported on this to the Secretary for War more than once,’ the DRA cut in. ‘The tracking station cost a lot to establish. It isn’t only the radar that has to be maintained. There’s the camp, the vehicles, the boats; to abandon Laerg for seven months in the year would result in rapid deterioration through gales and the salt in the atmosphere. Moreover, trawlermen use Shelter Bay in the winter — Norwegians, Belgians, French, Spanish, as well as Scots. There wouldn’t be much left of our installations if there were nobody there to guard them.’

At this point the Permanent Under-Secretary intervened. ‘I don’t think we need query the number of men involved or the necessity for maintaining the station throughout the year in present circumstances. Presumably this was all gone into at the time and agreed as unavoidable. What we have to decide now is whether or not Laerg has become redundant in view of this new equipment we’ve been offered. You’ve had a report on it, I believe. The results of the trials were very impressive, I thought.’

The DRA didn’t say anything. He was staring out of the window at the cloudless blue of the sky. From where he sat he looked across the pale stone outline of the Horseguards to the trees in St James’s Park. They were still in summer leaf. It had been a mild autumn and so fine were the yellow brush strokes of the early frosts that only a painter’s eye would have discerned the warning breath of winter in that green canvas. The DRA was not a painter. His hobby, he explained to me, was bird-watching and he was wishing he had been able to find time to visit Laerg during the nesting season. The room was hot and airless, full of smoke, and the sun slanted golden bars of light across the table.

‘Before we finally make up our minds, perhaps we should hear what Ordnance Board have to say about it.’ The Permanent Under-Secretary reached for the phone and asked for the Colonel who had conducted the trials to be sent in. The discussion that followed was technical, and as the equipment concerned was secret the DRA did not discuss it with me. He did, however, say that it was American equipment and that he had pointed out that it would be costly to install. To this the Permanent Undersecretary had replied, ‘But as they are using the range themselves they are offering it to us on a long-term credit basis.’ That, the DRA told me, was the decisive factor.

The matter was settled and what happened later stemmed from that moment, for the Permanent Under-Secretary was under considerable pressure. ‘I’d like to be able to report to the PM,’ he said, ‘that you’ll have your men and equipment off the island and the station closed down, say by the end of the month. Would that be possible?’

‘I suppose so. It depends on the weather.’

‘Naturally. But we’re in for a fine spell now. I heard the forecast this morning.’

‘Laerg is over six hundred miles north of here and it’s getting late in the season.’

‘All the more reason to hurry it.’

The DRA was not disposed to argue. He had held his appointment for less than six months, and anyway he was wondering how to handle the next item on the agenda, which was of far more importance to the Artillery than Laerg. ‘I’ve no doubt we’ll manage,’ he said and made a note on his pad to instruct his Brigadier General Staff.

The BGS, questioned by the President of the Court Martial about the DRA’s acceptance of that time limit, made the point that some such limit was essential in an operation of this kind. If the evacuation were not completed before the winter gales set in, there would be little likelihood of getting the men and equipment off that winter. Even a partial failure to complete it would necessitate the maintenance of the station probably until the spring, with all the attendant problems of supply aggravated by the fact that essential stores would be lacking. ‘Without a time limit,’ he said, ‘the operation would have lacked the necessary atmosphere of urgency.’

Unfortunately, all the items on the agenda could not be dealt with that afternoon and the conference was resumed again at ten the following morning. As a result, the Brigadier General Staff received his instructions about Laerg in the form of a hurriedly dictated memo that listed some half-dozen other items for his immediate attention.

The BGS was a keen yachtsman, and though he had never Billed in the Hebrides, he was able to appreciate better than most people in the War Office the difficulties that could arise in an evacuation involving landing craft operating across an open beach. With the weekend imminent he decided to shelve the matter until Monday when Brigadier Matthieson was due in London. He marked it in his diary for the morning of October 11, the final decision to be taken after discussion with the DRA. Meantime, he teleprinted Matthieson at Scottish Command ordering him to have a plan of operations prepared for the immediate withdrawal of all stores, equipment and personnel.

Having established that there was a delay of four vital days between the DRA’s original agreement to the principle of evacuation and the final decision to go ahead, I should perhaps add that only exceptional circumstances would have produced speedier action, and in this case the exceptional circumstances had not arisen. The pressure at this stage was from the Permanent Under-Secretary, not from the weather; a full two weeks was to elapse before that freak meteorological brew began to ferment in the sea areas Bailey, Hebrides and Faeroes. There was, in any case, a good deal of preliminary work to be done. In particular, the agreement of the RASC to the use of the landing craft had to be obtained and the plan itself worked out. This last the DRA, Scottish Command, brought with him to London so that once it was agreed it only needed an executive order to start the thing moving.

After reading the plan and discussing it with Matthieson, the BGS took him in to see the General. It was then just after midday and again the weather was fine in London, the sun shining out of a clear sky. In describing this meeting to me, Matthieson made it clear that though the DRA was under considerable pressure at the time and obviously determined to proceed with the evacuation, he had, nevertheless, been at some pains to allay any fears his subordinates might have. ‘I suppose you’re worrying about the weather,’ was his opening remark. ‘Naturally, I raised the point myself. The Permanent Under-Secretary was not impressed. The sun was shining and it was damnably hot in his room.’ He glanced towards the windows. ‘The sun is still shining. Did you listen to the shipping forecast this morning?’ This to the BGS. And when he admitted he hadn’t, the General said, ‘Well, I did. Made a special point of it. I know you sailing types. There’s a high pressure system covering the British Isles and the nearest depression is down in the German Bight. As to the alternative we’ve been offered, the responsibility rests with Ordnance Board. I made that perfectly plain. If it doesn’t work …’

‘Oh, I expect it’ll work, sir,’ the BGS said.

‘Well, what’s worrying you then?’

‘Apart from the weather — Simon Standing.’

‘Standing? He’s one of our best instructors.’

‘That’s just the trouble. He’s a wizard at ballistics, but this is his first independent command and if anything went wrong…’

‘Have you any reason to suppose that anything is going to go wrong?’

‘Of course not. All I’m saying is that this operation doesn’t call for the qualities that make a brilliant Instructor-in-Gunnery. It calls for a man of action.’

‘Fine. It will give him some practical experience. Isn’t that why you recommended him for the job? Practical experience is essential if he is to go on getting promotion at his present rate. How old is he?’

‘Thirty-seven, thirty-eight.’

‘That makes him just about the youngest I.G. with the rank of full Colonel. And he’s ambitious. He’ll make out all right. I seem to remember he’s got Hartley as his second-in-command. Met him at Larkhill. Excellent at administration and a sound tactician. Just the man Simon needs.’

‘Unfortunately he’s in hospital — jaundice.’

‘I see. Well, there’s an adjutant presumably.’

‘Young fellow by the name of Ferguson. He’s not very experienced.’

‘And you’re not happy about him?’

‘I can’t say that. I don’t know anything about him. He’s only twenty-six, just promoted Captain and filling in a vacancy.’

‘What’s wrong with him then?’

‘Well …’ I don’t think BGS wanted to go into this, but it was essential to the point he was making. ‘His record shows that he volunteered for paratrooping and didn’t complete the course.’

‘Funked his jumps?’

‘Something like that. He was posted to BAOR.’

‘All right then. Get on to AG6. Have them post somebody up there temporarily just to hold Simon’s hand — an older man with practical experience, the AGG ought to be able to rake up somebody to fill in for a few weeks. Anything else on your mind?’

‘Only the timing. The operation had been planned on the basis of completing by the end of the month, but nobody can possibly guarantee that. Fortunately we’d agreed to Standing’s idea of cutting the size of the wintering unit and maintaining contact by helicopter. As a result one of the huts has already been dismantled. Nevertheless, I must emphasise that the maintenance of a planning schedule as tight as this depends entirely on the continuance of the present fine weather.’

‘Of course. That’s understood. Service Corps have already made it clear that they’re not taking any chances with their landing craft. And rightly.’ He turned to Matthieson. That satisfy you?’

Matthieson hesitated. He was well aware of the dangers.

‘He told me he had tried to visit Laerg twice and each time had been turned back by bad weather. He had held his present post for almost two years and he knew the difficulties that must arise if conditions deteriorated and the operation became a protracted one. But this was only the second interview he had had with the DRA since the General’s appointment. Doubtless he felt it wasn’t the moment to voice his misgivings. My impression is that he decided to play his luck. At any rate, all he apparently said was, ‘Captain Pinney, the present Detachment Commander, is pretty experienced; so is the skipper of one of the landing craft — the other was a replacement halfway through the season. Still, I think the whole thing should go off quite smoothly.’ However, to cover himself, he added, ‘But Laerg can be the devil if it blows up and we’re getting on towards winter in the north.’

The DRA nodded. ‘Well that settles it then. We pray for fine weather and get on with the job, eh? Signal them to go ahead with the operation right away.’

And so the decision was finally agreed. Matthieson sent off the necessary signal and the BGS phoned about the temporary attachment of an officer to assist Standing.

He was immediately offered a Major George Braddock.

The reason given by the AGG for recommending this particular officer was that he wanted to be posted to the Hebrides. Not only had Braddock written twice from Cyprus, where he commanded a battery, but a few days before he had sought a personal interview with the AGG to press the matter. He had then just arrived in London on leave.

To the BGS it seemed the perfect answer to the problem. Braddock was about forty, his rank was right, and so was his record. He had an MC and two Mentions in Despatches, awarded during the last war, as well as an excellent record during the Malayan trouble. Moreover, he was in England and immediately available. Locating him took a little time.

His wife, who with her two children lived at Hertford, had apparently been separated from him for a number of years and did not know where he was. All she could say was that he liked fishing and usually went to Wales for his leave. He was eventually traced to a Country Club near Brecon. By then it was late at night and Braddock didn’t reach London until the following afternoon.

That was Tuesday and as far as I can gather that was the day Ed Lane arrived in Lyons. I suppose almost every disaster requires something to trigger it off — a catalyst, as it were. A decision that calls for action involves men, and men cannot escape their own natures … their basic characters. In writing that I believe my brother was thinking of this Canadian businessman from Vancouver. Lane wasn’t, of course, involved in the operation. He was probing Braddock’s background and to that extent he exerted a pressure on events and was, in a sense, the catalyst. He had seen Braddock in Cyprus a fortnight before and had then gone on to the Middle East on business for his firm. Now that business was finished and he was free to concentrate on his private affairs. Whilst Braddock was travelling up to the War Office, Lane was interviewing one of the few people who could help him in his inquiries.

The BGS saw Braddock just after four. In his evidence, the Brigadier simply said that the interview strengthened the favourable impression already created by his record. He was satisfied that Major Braddock was the right man for the job. He was not asked for any details, only for confirmation that he had warned Braddock about weather conditions. As a result, the Court was not aware that the Brigadier was puzzled, even a little disturbed, by the answers Braddock gave to certain rather searching questions.

In the talk I had with him later the Brigadier admitted that he had been curious to know why Braddock had applied for a posting to the Guided Weapons Establishment, particularly as his record showed that he had been one of the few survivors of the Duart Castle, sunk in those waters during the war. ‘I should have thought your memories of that area …’

‘That’s got nothing to do with it, sir. It’s just that — well, I guess it’s because I spent part of my boyhood in Canada. I like cold climates. The farther north the better. And I like something to get my teeth into. Malaya was all right for a bit. But Cyprus…’

And then with an intensity that the Brigadier found disconcerting: ‘Is there any particular reason why I’m being posted to the Hebrides now — other than to deal with the problem of this evacuation of Laerg?’

‘No, of course not. Why should there be?’

Braddock had seemed to relax then. ‘I just wondered. I mean, when you apply for a posting and then suddenly get it …’

The lined, leathery-hard face had cracked in a charming smile. ‘Well, it makes you wonder what’s behind it.’

‘Nothing’s behind it,’ the Brigadier told him. ‘I was simply referring to what happened to you up there in 1944.’ He told me he was wishing then that he knew the man better, feeling instinctively that there was more to it than he’d admitted. ‘How many of you were on that raft at the outset?’ He watched the tough, poker face, saw the nerve quiver at the corner of the mouth and the eyes fixed wide in a flat, blank stare. ‘No, I thought not. It’s something you’d rather forget. Have you ever visited the Hebrides since?’

‘No.’

‘Then why do you want to be posted there now?’

But Braddock either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer that. ‘It’s just that … well, as I said — it sort of calls to me. I can’t explain exactly.’ And he’d smiled that engaging smile. ‘It’s a bit like Canada, I suppose.’

The Brigadier hesitated. But it was nothing to do with him and he’d let it go at that, staring down again at Braddock’s record. The Normandy landings — anti-tank role — the M.C. for gallantry at Caen after holding a bridge with a single gun against repeated attacks by tanks — command of a troop two months later — promoted captain just before the dash for the Rhine — temporary rank of major at the end of the war… ‘Now about this operation. Do you sail at all?’

‘I’ve done a little.’

‘Good. Then you’ll have some idea what the weather means to the LCT’s, particularly in view of your previous experience…’

He had got up from his desk and turned towards the window. ‘However, that isn’t why I wanted to see you personally.’ The sky was blue and the sun beat down on the stone ledge of the tight-shut window. ‘Ever met Simon Standing?’ He turned as Braddock shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t think your paths would have crossed. Can’t imagine two people more entirely different — which may be a good thing, or again it may not. Colonel Standing is Commandant and Range Controller. He’s a few years younger than you and it’s his first independent command. Now this is what I want to make clear to you, and it’s strictly between ourselves. Standing’s up there primarily because he’s an expert on ballistics and all that sort of thing. In fact he’s one of the best brains we’ve got in the field of guided weapons. But for a job like this …’

He had hesitated then. ‘Well, his world is figures. He’s not strictly an action man, if you see what I mean.’ And he went on quickly, ‘Officially, of course, it’s his show and you come under him as acting second-in-command. Unofficially, I want you to run the operation.’ Faced with the blank stare of those black eyes he probably felt it was all damnably awkward, for he admitted to me later that he thought Braddock should have been a half-colonel at least. He had the experience and he had that indefinable something, that air of confidence denoting a born leader. He may even have wondered what had gone wrong, but at the time all he said was, ‘Just keep Simon Standing in the picture and get on with the job. If you bear in mind that he’s quite brilliant in his own field and … well, use a little tact.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘I hope you do.’ The Brigadier had hesitated then, feeling instinctively that a clash of temperament was inevitable. Ever since Braddock had come into his office he had been conscious of the strength of the man’s personality, and something else — a tension, almost a sense of urgency. But there was nothing he could do about that now. Time was too short. ‘There’s a sleeper reserved for you on the night train. You’ll be travelling up with the BRA, Scottish Command. He’ll give you all the details.’ And with a murmured ‘Good luck’ he had dismissed him.

He admitted later that Braddock should have been given the opportunity to discuss the operation. But throughout the interview he’d felt uncomfortable. The large hands, the dark moustache, the lined, leathery face with the heavy brows craggy above the black stare of the eyes — somehow, he said, the man seemed to fill the office, too big for it almost. So strong was this feeling that he’d been glad when the door had shut behind him.

The train left Huston at nine thirty-five and ten minutes after it pulled out Braddock visited Brigadier Matthieson in his sleeper. I suspect that Matthieson was one of those officers who joined the Royal Artillery for the riding, back in the days when the guns were horse-drawn. I don’t think he had much of a brain, but he was certainly no fool and he was as good with men as he was with horses. He never forgot a face. ‘Met you somewhere before, haven’t I?’ he said and was surprised to find this overture rejected almost fiercely. ‘A long time ago, I think. Now where was it?’

‘I think you’ve made a mistake, sir.’

But Matthieson was quite sure he hadn’t. ‘During the war.’ He saw Braddock’s face tauten, and then he had it — a tall, hard-bitten youngster in a blood-stained battledress coming back with a single gun buckled by a direct hit. ‘Normandy. Autumn of forty-four. You’d been holding a bridge.’ The craggy face towering above him relaxed, broke into the same charming, rather tired-looking smile. ‘I remember now, sir. You were the major bivouacked in that wood. You gave us food — the few of us that were left. A tent, too. We were just about all in.’

They’d talked about the war then, sitting on Matthieson’s berth, finishing the bottle of Scotch he’d brought south with him. It was almost midnight and the bottle empty by the time they got round to discussing Laerg. Matthieson pulled out his brief-case and handed Braddock the Plan of Operations. ‘The schedule’s a bit tight, but that’s not my fault. About ten LCT loads should do the trick. Read it through tonight. Any points we can discuss in the morning. I’ve a car meeting me and I’ll drive you out to Renfrew Airport.’

Braddock, leafing quickly through the Plan, immediately expressed concern about the schedule. ‘I have some experience of the weather up there…’

‘On an open raft. So the BGS told me. But you’re not dealing with a raft this time. These LCTs can stand quite a lot.’

‘It’s an open beach. If the wind’s south-easterly …’

‘You know the place, do you?’

He saw Braddock’s face tighten. ‘I looked it up on a map,’ he said quickly, and Matthieson wondered how he’d got hold of a map with the shops closed. ‘If the weather goes against us …’

‘It’s the weather you’re being posted up there to deal with. The weather and that fellow Standing.’ He was well aware that the schedule was too tight and he wanted to get Braddock off the subject. ‘Ever met Simon Standing? Do you know anything about him?’ And when the other shook his head, he went on, ‘Give you a word of advice.then. Don’t fall out with him. War Office thinks he’s wonderful. But I can tell you he’s a queer fish and he’s got no sense of humour.’ He was very frank about the words he’d used. ‘Bloody little prig, if you ask me.’ I imagine he smiled then, a flash of teeth that were too white and even to be his own. ‘Shouldn’t be talking like this about your commanding officer, should I? But we’ve seen a war together. These adding machine types haven’t. Probably puke if they did. A real war, I mean — blood and the stink of rotting guts, the roar of a thousand guns blazing hell out of a dawn sky. They’re push-button warriors; nothing but bloody electricians.’

He was staring down at his glass then, memories of a long-dead war merging with the future. ‘Anyway, I’m getting out. In a few months’ time I’ll be running a stud farm near Melbourne. Australia, you know. Once I get out there they can push all the ruddy little buttons they like.’ It was the drink in him talking, and because he was aware of that he said, ‘Well, I’m off to bed now.’

It was then that Braddock surprised him by asking a series of questions that seemed to have very little bearing on the operation. First, he’d wanted to know whether the men on Laerg were free to roam around the island or whether their duties kept them confined to the area of Shelter Bay. When told that off-duty they could go where they liked and that many of them became enthusiastic birdwatchers, Braddock asked if they’d reported any interesting finds? ‘I mean traces of… well, old dwellings, caves, things like that with traces of human habitation?’

Matthieson wondered what he was getting at. ‘Are you a student of primitive men or are you thinking of the link between the Hebrides and Greenland? There was a link, I believe. The Vikings put the sheep on Eileann nan Shoay — Shoay or Soay is the old word for sheep, you know. They may well have been on their way west to the Greenland settlement.’

‘Yes, I’ve read about that, but … Well, I just thought something fresh might have been reported.’ And Braddock had stared at him with disconcerting directness, waiting for an answer.

‘No, of course not,’ the Brigadier replied. ‘The boys are just amateurs.’

‘What about civilians — naturalists and so on? Are they allowed on the island?’

Matthieson admitted he was disturbed by the other’s persistence. But all he said was, ‘Yes. There’s usually a party of bird-watchers, a few naturalists. Students, some of them. They come in summer under the aegis of Nature Conservancy. A nuisance, but quite harmless.’

‘And they’ve reported nothing — nothing of exceptional interest?’

‘If they have, we haven’t been told about it.’ And he’d added, ‘Anyway, you won’t have time to indulge your interest. Your job is to get our boys off, and it’ll be a full-time job, believe you me. You’ll understand when you’ve had time to study that Operation Plan.’ And he’d wished Braddock goodnight, wondering as the train rushed on into the night what Standing would make of his new second-in-command.

Two coaches back Braddock started going through the Operations Plan, sitting propped up in bed, the pages dancing to the sway and rattle of the train. And almost a thousand miles away another man in another sleeper was checking through the notes he’d made of his first interview with a non-Canadian survivor of the Duart Castle. Ed Lane was on the train to Paris, bound for London with a list of five possible names.

The night train to Glasgow got in at six-thirty in the morning. A staff car was waiting for Brigadier Matthieson at Central Station and whilst driving Braddock out to Renfrew Airport he discussed with him the details of the Operations Plan. In his evidence he made it clear that he’d allowed Major Braddock the widest possible interpretation of the evacuation orders. What, in fact, happened was that Braddock not only had a list of queries, but seemed prepared to argue that the whole conception of the Plan was at fault. It was the timing, of course, that chiefly worried him. ‘I agree it doesn’t give you much room for manoeuvre,’ Matthieson had said. ‘But that’s not my fault. It’s the Government that’s pushing the operation.’ And he’d added, ‘I’m a great believer in sound planning and the chaps who handled this are very good at it. If they say it can be done, then you can take it from me that it can.’

But Braddock wasn’t to be put off so easily. ‘LCT so-and-so to sail on such-and-such a date, arrive Laerg about twelve hours later, loading time six hours, leave at dusk, return to base at dawn. All very nice and neat if you’re sitting on your backside in an office. But there’s no allowance for weather or any of the hundred-and-one things that can go wrong on an amphibious operation. It’s an open beach. The equipment is pretty valuable, I gather — some of it secret. What happens if a gale blows up? Do I risk a landing craft and the equipment simply to keep a schedule I don’t believe in?’

‘Damn it, man. Use your initiative. That’s why you’re being posted there.’ And Matthieson had added, quoting, as no doubt he’d often done before, from the wartime leader he’d served under, ‘I never interfere in the detailed running of things. That’s my speciality. I leave it to the experts. In this case, Braddock, you’re the expert. Understood?’

By that time they had arrived at Renfrew. Matthieson left him then and after a leisurely breakfast Braddock caught the ten o’clock plane. At Stornoway there was an Army helicopter waiting for him. He landed at Northton on the west coast of Harris shortly after one. There he was met by the adjutant, Captain Ferguson, who informed him that Colonel Standing was waiting for him in his office. There is no record of what happened between the two men at that first meeting. But it lasted little more than ten minutes and when they came into the Mess for lunch the atmosphere between them was already strained.

The clearest impression of Braddock’s impact on the operation is contained in the deposition made by Lieutenant Field, the Education Officer. This deposition, made at the Board of Inquiry, could have had considerable influence on the subsequent Court Martial. Not only was Field much older than the other officers, but his background and experience gave weight to his judgment. The first two paragraphs are the vital ones and I give them in full:-

Major Braddock arrived at Joint Services Guided Weapons Establishment, Northton, on October 13. I think it is right to say that his appointment came as a shock to most of the officers, not least to Colonel Standing who had only been informed of it on the phone that morning. I say ‘shock’ because that is how it seemed to officers accustomed to something in the nature of a winter hibernation in the Hebrides. Major Braddock was a driver. He had a very forceful personality. He was also a man of great nervous energy, great vitality. Whatever your findings, I would like to make it clear that I regard him as exactly the sort of man the operation needed at that time.

I have some knowledge of the leadership necessary in an operation that is at the mercy of the elements, and from my own observations, and from what I heard from Captain Ferguson, who was a friend of my daughter’s and often visited our croft of an evening, I may say that I already had certain very definite misgivings. Not until Major Braddock’s arrival was there that thrust and pressuring of officers and men, that sense of being engaged with an enemy, that is the essential prelude to exceptional human endeavour. He made them feel they were involved in a battle. Most of the youngsters got a kick out of it; the older ones, particularly some of the officers, resented it. Later, of course, they did all that any men could do in circumstances that became virtually impossible.

Before he left for London, Matthieson had had the foresight to arrange with RASC (Water Transport) for both LCTs to re-fuel, cancel all leave and stand by to sail at short notice. As a result, the position on Braddock’s arrival was not unsatisfactory. One landing craft had completed its first trip and was on its way back to Laerg again; the other was just entering Leverburgh, a bare two hours behind schedule. And the weather was fine, cold and clear with a light northerly wind.

But as Field pointed out, the fine weather could not be expected to last indefinitely, nor could the men. The strains were already beginning to show; at Leverburgh where the quay was inadequate, on Laerg where the bolts securing huts and equipment were rusted solid and the men, after only two days, were tiring, moving in a sleepless daze from dismantling to loading and back to dismantling again. And whilst Braddock threw himself into the work of ensuring a faster rate of turn-round for the landing craft, Ed Lane flew into London and began checking for relatives of Albert George Piper, one-time Master-at-Arms on the Duart Castle. Piper’s name was the first on his list. The second was my brother’s.