Whether Mrs Davis was the victim of brutal burglars or shadowy government agents bent on deterring her from making further inquiries has never been resolved. But there was an interesting postscript: soon after her story was aired, a priest at a seaman’s mission in Barrow-on-Humber, Humberside, revealed that three sailors from HMS Resolution had died of cancer within months of each other.
Fr Michael Cooke said the ashes of the three men, the oldest of whom was just 45, were consigned to the sea in separate ceremonies by a seaman’s mission chaplain. Fr Cooke said he had received the information from ‘an anonymous and private’ source. He said he was not prepared to name the individuals involved because their families had expressly forbidden it. “My hands are tied,” he said. “I cannot break a confidence, but the whole thing has left me extremely uncomfortable. There is no doubt in my mind that there should be an investigation.”
The Navy once again refused to hold an inquiry. A spokesman would only say: “We need more details about the men and their families before we can mount an investigation.”
Of course no investigations were ever carried out and further revelations were submerged as deeply as HMS Resolution◦— which was sent on Arctic patrol hundreds of feet beneath the polar icecap, conveniently incommunicado for the next six months.
In the midst of all this, McGinley and his wife were facing their own problems: the collapse of their business. The slide began the week after McGinley’s meeting with the mysterious ‘Bill.’
One of the B&B’s oldest residents, a senior submariner, suddenly decided that Pitcairlie House, the name of McGinley’s hotel, had lost its charms. He gave only a vague explanation for his decision; something to do with wanting a change
McGinley, mindful of everything that had happened, was suspicious. This soon turned to certainty when over the next nonth or so, one by one the rest of his residents all drifted away. None gave an explanation that made any sense at all and McGinley was now convinced it was all tied up with the events surrounding the radioactive leak aboard the US sub. With winter sweeping in fast, the McGinley’s faced financial ruin.
KEN AND ALICE
Ken McGinley stamped on the accelerator and the car leapt forward like a greyhound out of the trap. The heavy lorry ahead of him hogging the lane loomed larger and larger and he pressed the pedal harder. His windscreen wipers struggled against the driving rain and the steering wheel felt loose in his hands.
Why not? He asked himself. Let’s end it now. There’s no point in going on… His front bumper was almost touching the rear of the lorry and his windscreen was filled with water and the blackness of the load. Time was suspended and his foot hovered perilously over the accelerator pedaclass="underline" one touch… one final touch and… with a jerk of his head he realised what he was doing and just in time pulled sharply over to the side of the road.
The harsh blare of the horn in the car following filled his head as he came to a halt. Sweat poured in rivers down his neck and paroxysms shook his body…
There had been health problems since returning from Christmas Island, the worst of which was coughing up copious amounts of blood as he lay in his bunk. His joints ached, there were muscle spasms; the blisters on his face and neck which he thought had healed, kept coming back.
His problems were not all physicaclass="underline" he was beset by nightmares and irrational fears. Not that the army medic who examined him in his barracks cared; he showed little interest in McGinley and shoved a couple of aspirins in his hand before roughly dismissing him.
Two days later McGinley collapsed and was rushed to a military hospital. He was eventually diagnosed with a serious duodenal ulcer. That put paid to his Army days; he was discharged on medical grounds and given a ticket for home.
His sweetheart Alice was waiting for him as he got off the train at Glasgow central. At first she didn’t recognise the pale, gaunt figure that stumbled shakily on to the platform.
She recalled: “My God, what have they done to him? It was the first thing that passed through my mind. He looked so different from the man who waved goodbye to me almost a year ago. Kenny had lost an awful lot of weight and his once glossy black hair was lank and lifeless. The man I knew always walked with a swagger, bouncing about on his heels, full of life. Now he looked as though he was at death’s door. I knew he had been ill, but it seemed to have aged him. And when I got up close I noticed he had marks on his face like blisters that hadn’t been there before.
“I looked at him tentatively, not sure what to say. I had had my hair done specially and I wore a new coat I’d bought that day. He looked me up and down and then broke out into a huge smile. It was the Ken I remembered. “You look more beautiful than ever,” he said, and took me in his arms.
“I met Ken McGinley in a cafe in Johnstone. He was a good looking guy with an Elvis quiff. There were loads of girls interested in him. I was only 15 and he was four years older, but we just seemed to hit it off. I was still at school of course and Kenny used to wait for me outside the school gates. He’d walk me home, holding my hand; we were both just a couple of kids.
“On a sudden whim Kenny joined the army and seemed to grow up overnight. He was sent away on training and when he came back he was a man. It wasn’t long before he was posted abroad to Germany; we wrote to each other a lot. When things started to get serious he called down to see my mum and dad.
“They wanted to see what sort of guy he was. He was a strong catholic. I was a protestant. But neither family seemed to mind. We started going out steady, and sort of knew that we would probably get married one day, but we weren’t rushing things.
“Kenny was very good company, always polite, but cheeky with it. He took me out whenever he was on leave; we’d go to the pictures or have a coffee in town. It was a nice, quiet little romance that suited us both; all we wanted to do was to settle down and have a little family just like any ordinary couple.
“But out of the blue he got a calclass="underline" he was being sent overseas to a place called Christmas Island. I’d never heard of it, and neither had Kenny. We didn’t know what to think. We looked it up in the library and there was just this tiny place in the middle of the ocean.
“Kenny was very excited; he was looking forward to all the sunshine. I just worried about the hula girls, and he laughed. ‘Marry me,’ he said suddenly. I looked at him uncertainly. ‘Marry me, when I get back. I love you Alice; you are the only girl I have ever loved.’
“It was a bitter-sweet Christmas, full of joy because we loved each other, and so, so sad that we knew he’d be leaving as soon as the festivities were over. I saw him off at the railway station and ran alongside the train as it pulled out from the station. Then he was gone, and to be honest, I wondered if I would ever see him again.
“The months passed. I received regular letters from Kenny and I could feel the tension rising with each one. The build-up to the bombs was taking place and Kenny told me how everyone was beginning to get worried, but he was trying to put a brave face on things.
“All that changed after the first test at the end of April. He wrote to tell me how all the men had got down on their knees to pray; it was the most frightening experience of his life. He wrote over and over of how much he loved me. Kenny wrote that all the men were getting knock-backs from their girlfriends and he begged me not to do the same.