‘Mr Ross! Mr Ross, sir — you’re talking to yourself.’
I opened my eyes, conscious of a hand shaking my shoulder. The fellow with the broken arm was standing there, staring at me with a worried frown. He no longer looked frightened. He even had a certain stature standing there proffering me a steaming mug. ‘It’s only Bovril,’ he said. ‘But I fort some’ing ‘ot after our bathe….’ He was Cockney. False teeth smiled at me out of a funny little screwed-up face. ‘When you drunk it, you better change them clothes. Catch yer deaf if yer don’t. Borrow off of Captain Pinney; ‘e won’t mind.’ This little runt of a man trying to mother me and his broken arm still hanging limp. My heart warmed to him. The lights were on and a new sound — the hum of the generator audible between the gusts.
‘You’ve got the lights going.’
He nodded. ”Ad ter — all electric ‘ere, yer see. Wiv’at the generator yer can’t cook. I got some bangers on and there’s bacon and eggs and fried bread. That do yer?’ I asked him his name then and he said, ‘Alf Cooper. Come from Lunnon.’ He grinned. ‘Flippin’ long way from Bow Bells, ain’t I? Fort I’ card ‘em once or twice when we was in the flaming water, an’ they weren’t playin’ ‘ymn toons neither.’
As soon as we’d had our meal I set his arm as best I could, and after that I showed him how to work the radio. I felt stronger now and perhaps because of that the wind seemed less appalling as I tried again to get a closer look at Sgeir Mhor. This time I was able to cross the bridge, but in the flat grassland below the old lazy beds the wind caught me and pinned me down. A bird went screaming close over my head. I crawled to the shelter of a cleit and with my back to the ruins of its dry-stone wall, I focused the glasses on Sgeir Mhor.
Visibility was better now. I could see the rocks falling sheer to the turbulence of the sea, the cracks and gullies, and a figure moving like a seal high up on a bare ledge. There were others crouched there, sheltering from the swell that still beat against the farther side, covering the whole mass with spray. I counted five men lying tucked into crevices, the way sheep huddle for protection against the elements.
Five men. Perhaps there were more. I couldn’t see. Just five inert bodies and only one of them showing any signs of life, and now he lay still. I started back then, keeping to the edge of the beach which rose steeply and gave me a little shelter. The burn forced me up on to the bridge and as I entered the camp a blast hit me, flung me down, and a piece of corrugated iron went scything through the air just above my head to hit the sea and go skimming across its flattened surface.
Back in the hut I called Base and was immediately put through to Colonel Standing.
CHAPTER FOUR
(October 22–24)
Long before my first contact with Base, before even our Mayday call had gone out, all Services had been alerted and the first moves made to deal with the emergency. Coastal Command at Ballykelly had flown off a Shackleton to search for the Viking Fisher, the Navy had dispatched a destroyer from the Gareloch. Weather ship India had left her station headed for Laerg, a fishery protection vessel north-west of the Orkneys had been ordered to make for the Hebrides at full speed and a fast mine-layer was getting steam up ready to sail if required. By nine o’clock the emergency operation was being concentrated on L4400, then a battered wreck running before the storm somewhere to the west of Laerg. The destroyer was ordered to close her with all possible speed and either stand by her to take off survivors or to escort her to Leverburgh or back to the Clyde if she could make it. A second Shackleton had taken off from the Coastal Command base in Northern Ireland with orders to locate her and circle her until the destroyer arrived or until relieved by another aircraft.
That was the situation when I contacted Base with definite news of survivors from the wreck of L8610. Neither the Shackletons nor the destroyer could be of any help to the men on Sgeir Mhor. Both the fishery protection vessel and the mine-layers were too far away to be effective and conditions made the use of Northern Air Sea Rescue’s helicopters out of the question. The task was allocated to the Naval tug. Not only was she a more suitable vessel than a destroyer for working close inshore among rocks, she also happened to be much nearer. She sailed from Lochmaddy at 09.17 hours.
In these conditions and in these northern waters the Army was largely dependent on the other Services, and their resources were limited. Standing had to make use of what was available and in the circumstances improvisation was probably justified. When I spoke to him I think his mind was already made up. It’s easy to be wise after the event and say that it was a panic decision, but considered from his point of view, he hadn’t all that much choice. The tug couldn’t possibly reach Laerg before nightfall. In those seas, even allowing for the fact that such a violent storm was bound to die down quickly, it would be good going if she were in Shelter Bay by dawn, and the forecast for dawn next day was not good. The depression, which had been stationary to the west of Ireland, was on the move again and expected to reach the Hebrides within twenty-four hours, instead of a polar air stream there would then be southerly winds force 6, veering later south-west and increasing to force 7, possibly gale force 8. He had checked with Ferguson and with Field, both officers who knew Laerg well and who had climbed over Sgeir Mhor. They confirmed what I had told him, that the rocks were sheer on the side facing Shelter Bay and that the only possible landing place was on the seaward side. And since that was the side exposed to winds between south and west it was obvious that the forecast not only made it extremely unlikely that any landing could be attempted the following day, but also that there was a grave danger of the survivors being overwhelmed by the force of the waves. That there were any survivors at all was obviously due to the change of wind direction that had occurred almost immediately after the ship had struck, and by dawn they might all be dead of exposure.
Time was, therefore, the vital factor. Moreover, both Ferguson and Field agreed that the only practical way of getting them off was to fire a line to them from the Butt of Keava and bring them over the gut by breeches buoy. That meant a rocket life-saving apparatus. The only equipment of this sort possessed by Guided Weapons had been allocated to the Learg detachment and nobody was certain whether it had been shipped out or not. Rafferty thought not, but the Movements Officer disagreed and a squad was dispatched to search the stores heaped behind the quay at Leverburgh. Meantime, Adams had been called in. The wind at Northton was around 35 knots, gusting 40 plus. He refused point blank to fly his helicopter anywhere near Laerg. He had come to Standing’s office direct from the Met. Office. He was well aware of the urgency of the situation. He also knew that the turbulence of the air around Laerg made it quite impossible for him to make a landing there.
Time was wasted contacting the two main lifeboat stations. They were standing by, but though they had breeches buoy equipment available, they were even less well placed than the tug for getting it there. There was only one answer, then, to parachute the life-saving gear in. But no Shackleton would dare fly low over the island and a high-level drop would almost certainly result in the parachutes being blown out to sea.
It was Adams who suggested a possible solution. A small aircraft owned by one of the charter companies was waiting at Stornoway for weather clearance back to the mainland. He thought the pilot, a Canadian named Rocky Fellowes who’d done a lot of bush flying in the North West Territories, might have a shot at it. And at Stornoway there was the life-saving gear they needed.