Field was back when he reached the Movements Office — Charles Field, looking old and grey and stooped, the lines of his face etched deeper than ever and an uneasy, shifting light in his steel-blue eyes. He said what he had to say, adding, ‘It was nobody’s fault. Nobody’s fault at all. I’ll write a full report, of course.’ He was edging towards the door. ‘Think I’ll go over to the Mess now.’
‘The Mess?’ Braddock stared at him, saw the lips twitching, the slight blink of the eyes, that shifting look. ‘For a drink?’
Field nodded unhappily. ‘I thought just one. Just a quick one, to steady me. A shock, you know. A most frightful shock.’ And he added, justifying himself. ‘I hope you realise, I don’t normally drink. But on this occasion. You understand….’
Braddock reached him in two quick strides, seized hold of him by the arm. ‘Sure. I understand. Just one, and that’ll lead to another. You’re the one man I want sober. So you stay here. Okay?’ And he pushed him into a chair. ‘You’re going back to Laerg — tonight.’
‘No.’ Field was up from the chair, his eyes overbright. ‘No. I absolutely refuse.’
‘Then I’ll place you under arrest and have you escorted on board.’ He patted his arm as though comforting a child. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be with you. We’re going out there together.’ And he sent Phipps for the long wheel-base Land-Rover and dictated a signal to Brigadier Matthieson: Weather forecast suggests quite impracticable attempt lift survivors out by helicopter. Am proceeding to Laerg by Naval tug. Will personally direct rescue operations on arrival dawn tomorrow. It was sent out signed: Braddock, Commanding Officer Guided Weapons, Northton. In taking Field with him my brother was instinctively seeking the support of the one man whose experience and background could help. He also took the M.O., Lt. Phipps, a Sergeant Wetherby and four men, all hand-picked for their toughness and their known ability in the water and on the Laerg crags. Flint went with them. It took almost half an hour to gather them and their kit and the necessary equipment — climbing ropes, inflatable dinghy, aqualung cylinders and frogmen’s suits, everything that might possibly be of use. Meantime, radio contact had been established with the tug and the skipper requested to stand by to sail immediately they arrived on board.
They left the Base at ten to six. Unfortunately, the clothes Field needed were at his croft. It was only a few minutes’ drive from Leverburgh, but Marjorie was there. For the past two hours she had been with Laura Standing. She knew what had happened. She was white-faced, on the verge of hysteria. ‘Why did you let him jump?’ she demanded of her father. ‘Why in God’s name did you let him?’ And he stood there, not saying a word, because there was nothing to say, whilst his own daughter accused him of being responsible for Mike’s death.
Braddock got out of the Land-Rover. ‘Hurry up, Field. We’ve no time to waste.’
Marjorie was still pouring out a flood of words, but she stopped then, staring at the Land-Rover, the significance of it standing there full of men slowly dawning on her. She doesn’t remember what she said or what she did, but Flint described it to me: ‘Moments like that, when you’re headed for trouble an’ you don’t know how bad it’s going to be, you don’t want a girl around then, particularly a girl who’s just lost somebody she cared about. One moment she was giving her father hell, saying it was all his fault, and then all of a sudden she switched her attention to Major B. That was when she realised he was taking her father out to Laerg. “You can’t do it,” she said. “He’s not a young man.He hasn’t climbed in years.” She knew what it was all about. She’d broken the news of Standing’s death to his wife. She knew what had happened. She knew the sort of man Braddock was — guessed he’d stop at nothing, risk anything to get those men off. She went for him like a bitch defending her last remaining puppy, screaming at him that it was all his fault, 1 that he’d killed Mike, killed Simon Standing; it was plain bloody murder, she said, and she wasn’t going to let him kill her father. Braddock tried soothing her with logic — her father was in the Army, there was a job to do and that was that. But reasoning with a girl who’s scared out of her wits, whose emotions are tearing her nerves to shreds, is like pouring water on a high voltage short — it just doesn’t make a damn bit of difference. In the end he slapped her. Not hard. Just twice across the face and told her to pull herself together and not disgrace her father. It shut her up, and after that she just stood there, white an’ trembling all over.’
It was just after six-fifteen when they boarded the tug. The warps were let go immediately and she steamed out into the Sound of Harris, heading west. We were then experiencing the lull Cliff had forecast. It was so still in the hut that I went out to see what was wrong. After hours of battering the sudden quiet seemed unnatural. Darkness was closing down on Laerg, the clouds low overhead and hanging motionless. I could see the outline of Sgeir Mhor, the sloping spine of Keava disappearing into the blanket of the overcast, but they were dim, blurred shapes. The air was heavy with humidity, and not a breath of wind.
I got a torch and signalled towards Sgeir Mhor. But there was no answering flash. It meant nothing for it was unlikely that any of the survivors had got ashore with a torch. I tried to contact Base, but there was other traffic — Rafferty talking to the destroyer, to the tug, finally to Coastal Command. And then the destroyer to me: ETA Laerg 01.25 hours. Would I please stand by the radio as from 01.00. Base came through immediately afterwards: The tug’s ETA would be about 04.30 dependent on conditions. I was requested to keep radio watch from four-thirty onwards. Roger. I had six hours in which to get some rest. I arranged with Cooper for a hot meal at one o’clock, set the alarm, undressed and tumbled into bed.
I must have recovered some of my energy, for it wasn’t the alarm that woke me. I reached out and switched on the light. A mouse was sitting up by the edge of my empty plate, sitting on its haunches on the bedside table cleaning its whiskers with its fore-paws. It was one of the breed peculiar to Laerg, a throw-back to pre-glacial life, to before the last Ice Age that covered the British Isles anything up to ten thousand years ago. It was larger than the ordinary British field-mouse, its ears were bigger, its hind-legs longer and the tail was as long as its body; the brown of its coat had a distinctly reddish tinge brightening to dull orange on the under-belly. It sat quite still, two shiny black pin-head eyes staring at me. It seemed possessed of curiosity rather than fear, and after a moment it resumed its toilet, cleaning its whiskers with little stroking movements of its paws. The time was eleven minutes past midnight. The wind was back, beating round the corners of the hut in a steady roar that drowned the sound of the generator. And behind the wind was another, more sinister sound — one that I hadn’t heard for some time; the crash and suck of waves breaking on the beach. I thought it was this sound rather than the mouse that had woken me.
There was something about that little morsel of animal life that was infinitely comforting; a sign perhaps of the indestructibility of life. The mouse in that moment meant a lot to me and! I lay there watching it until it had finished its toilet and quietly disappeared. Then I got up and dressed and went to the door of the hut. It was a black night, the two lights Cooper had left on in the camp shining in isolation. The wind was from the south, about force 7. The waves, coming straight into the bay, broke with an earth-shaking thud. The sound of the surf was louder than the wind, and as my eyes became accustomed to the darkness, I could see the ghostly glimmer of white water ringing the beach; just the glimmer of it, nothing else. It was a wild, ugly night, the air much warmer so that I thought I could smell rain again, the warm front moving in.