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.