Atlantic Fury (25 page)

They saw nothing that first run, but when he came in again, slower this time on a course of 020° headed straight into the wind, Field could see men standing amongst the rocks, waving to them. Through his glasses he counted eleven, and when they came in again, slightly lower this time, skimming the tops of the rocks, he made it fourteen. They stood off then, circling the open sea beyond the two arms of the bay whilst Fellowes reported to Base by radio.

Fourteen men still alive. Standing had no choice then. Nor had Ferguson. Nor had Fellowes. He yelled for the men back in the fuselage to get ready and headed back into Shelter Bay. The fuselage door was held open against the slipstream, the two packages poised in the cold blast of the opening. Fellowes raised his hand. ‘Let go.' They were flung out. The fuselage door slammed shut. The aircraft banked.

I had left the radio then and was standing in the lee of the hut. I saw the two packages fall – two black dots like bombs dropping from the side of the plane. Twin white canopies blossoming and the plane blown like a leaf towards Sgeir Mhor, losing height, its wings dipping like a bird in flight. It cleared the rocks and vanished into rain. The parachutes moved across the sky above my head, growing larger, but drifting very fast. And then first one and then the other were caught by down-draughts, the nylon canopies half-collapsed. They came down with a rush and then, just before they hit the beach, they each filled with a snap I could almost hear, were whirled upward and then landed gently, almost gracefully, halfway up the slopes of Keava.

I saw what happened to them, but Fellowes didn't. He was too busy fighting his plane clear of Sgeir Mhor. And Field had his eyes on the rocks, not on the parachutes. All they saw when they came out of the rain squall and circled the bay were two parachutes lying side-by-side like two white mushrooms close under the first scree slope on Keava. They didn't realise it was luck not judgment that had put them there. Field signalled back to Mike Ferguson, both thumbs up, and Fellowes took the plane in again. The drill was the same. The two men held the fuselage door open. The sergeant acted as dispatcher. But this time he was dispatching a man, not two inanimate packages. Again Fellowes judged his moment, raised his hand and shouted, ‘Jump!'

Whether Fellowes misjudged or whether Mike Ferguson hesitated as the sergeant said he did, nobody will ever know. Field's impression was that he jumped immediately. But in moments like this fractions of a second count and a pilot, tensed and in control of his machine, possesses a sensitivity and a speed of reaction that is much faster than that of the ordinary man. Fellowes thought it was a long time before the sergeant called out that Ferguson was away. In view of his parachute course record it seems more likely that Ferguson did, in fact, hesitate. If he did, it was a fatal hesitation. He may have felt in those last few moments of the run-in that he was jumping to his death. The sergeant reported that his face was very white, his lips trembling as he moved to the door. But then again, in view of his previous experience, some nervous reaction was inevitable.

In a tragedy of this sort it is pointless to try and apportion the blame. Each man is doing his best according to his lights and in any case it was the wind that was the vital factor. My back was against the hut and at the moment the plane banked and that tiny bundle of human flesh launched itself from the fuselage I felt the whole structure trembling under the onslaught of the wind. It wasn't just a gust. It came in a steady roar and it kept on blowing. I saw the parachute open, his fall suddenly checked. He was then at about 500 feet and right over my head; the plane, still banking, was being flung sideways across Sgeir Mhor.

If the wind had been a down-draught it might have collapsed his parachute momentarily. That was what had happened to the two previous parachutes. He might have landed heavily and been injured, but he would still have been alive. But it was a steady wind. It kept his parachute full. I saw him fighting the nylon cords to partially collapse it, but it was like a balloon, full to bursting and driving towards Keava at a great rate, trailing him behind it. For a moment it looked as though he would be all right. The sloped rock spine of Keava was a good 70 feet high at the point he was headed for, but as he neared it the steep slope facing Shelter Bay produced an up-draught. The parachute lifted, soaring towards the clouds. He cleared the top by several hundred feet. For a moment he was lost to sight, swallowed by the overcast. Then I saw him again, the parachute half-collapsed and falling rapidly. It was a glimpse, no more, for in the instant he was lost behind Keava.

Beyond the ridge was sheer cliff, and beyond the cliff nothing but the Atlantic and the gale-torn waves. It was all so remote that it seemed scarcely real; only imagination could associate that brief glimpse of white nylon disappearing with a man dead, drowned in a wet, suffocating world of tumbling water.

The plane stood off, circling by the entrance to the bay. It didn't come in again and nobody else jumped. I went slowly back into the hut and picked up Standing's voice on the radio. It was so shaken that I barely recognised it. He was ordering the pilot to return to Stornoway.

I was glad of that – glad that nobody else was going to be ordered to jump, glad that I didn't have to stand again outside the hut and watch another parachute blown out into the Atlantic. I found I was trembling, still with that picture in my mind of a man dangling and the white envelope coming out of the clouds, half-collapsed, and the poor fellow falling to a cold death in the Atlantic. I had liked Mike Ferguson. He'd a lot of guts to face that jump. And then I was thinking of Marjorie Field and of that interview she'd had with Colonel Standing when I had been an involuntary eavesdropper. Somebody would have to tell her and I was glad I wasn't her father. The dead have their moment of struggle, that brief moment of shock which is worse than birth because the ties with this world are stronger. But for the living, the pain does not cease with death. It remains till memory is dulled and the face that cased the loved one's personality has faded.

I was still thinking of Marjorie when Standing called me, demanding estimates of wind speed, force of down-draughts, height of ceiling. I went to the door of the hut. The wind's roar had momentarily died away. Nothing stronger now than 40 knots, I thought. My eyes went involuntarily to the sloping back of Keava. If only Mike had waited. He would have had a chance now, but it was done. He'd jumped and he was gone. The sky to the south, by the bay entrance, was empty, the plane gone.

I went back and reported to Standing. He asked particularly about down-draughts and I told him they were intermittent, that at the moment they had lost much of their force. There was a long pause and then he said they'd try and make a helicopter landing. I didn't attempt to discourage him. Those men were still on Sgeir Mhor and I was tired. Anyway, it was quieter now. How long it would last I didn't know. I just wished to God they'd flown the helicopter instead of trying to parachute men in. I wondered whether it was really Adams who had refused to fly or whether Standing's cold mathematical mind had been influenced by the high cost of these machines. That was a thought that made me angry. When you consider how the Services waste the taxpayers' money, millions stupidly spent, and here perhaps a decent man had been sent to his death for fear of risking a few thousands. ‘About bloody time,' I said angrily. ‘If you'd used the helicopter in the first place …'

I let it go at that. The poor bastard! It wasn't his fault. Decisions have to be made by the men in command and sometimes, inevitably, they're the wrong decisions. It was something that he'd tried to get help to the survivors before nightfall. I wondered what my brother would have done. With all his faults, Iain was a man of action. His behaviour in an emergency was instinctive. ‘A pity you didn't leave it to Major Braddock.' I'd said it before I could stop myself. I heard his quick intake of breath. And then, in a stiff, cold voice, he said, ‘
We'll be with you under the hour
.'

We! I remember thinking about that, sitting there, dazed with fatigue. Was Standing coming himself? But it didn't seem to matter – not then. The life-saving gear was up there on the slopes of Keava and all we needed were the men to collect it and set it up. Men who were fresh and full of energy. I was tired. Too tired to move, my aching body barely reacting to the orders of my brain. Nerves, muscles, every part of my anatomy cried out for rest.

I woke Cooper, told him to keep radio watch and wake me in forty minutes' time. Then I fell on to Pinney's bed, not bothering to undress, and was instantly asleep.

‘Mr Ross. Wake up.' The voice went on and on, a hand shaking my shoulder. I blinked my eyes and sat up. ‘Gawd Almighty! Yer didn't 'alf give me a turn. Thought you'd croaked. Honest I did.' Cooper bending over me, staring at me anxiously. ‘You orl right, sir?' And then he said, ‘They're on the air now. Want ter know what conditions are like. I told 'em: still blowing like 'ell, but it's clearer – only the top of Tarsaval's got cla'd on it now.'

I got up and went to the radio. The time was twelve minutes to four. Adams' voice came faint and crackling. He wanted an estimate of the wind speed, its direction, the strength of the down-draughts. I went to the door of the hut. It was certainly much clearer now; quite bright, in fact. The overcast was breaking up, torn rags of clouds hurrying across a cold blue sky and the broken water seaward shining white in patches of slanting sunlight. Keava and Malesgair, the two arms that enclosed Shelter Bay, were clear of cloud. So was Creag Dubh. For the first time I could see the Lookout where the tracking station radar had been housed. Only the summit of Tarsaval was still obscured, a giant wearing a cloth cap made shapeless by the wind. It was blowing harder, I thought, and the down-draughts were irregular. Sometimes there was a long interval in which the wind just blew. Then suddenly it would wham down off the heights, two or three gusts in quick succession.

I went back to the radio and reported to Adams. He said he could see Laerg quite plainly and estimated that he had about seven miles to go. ‘
I'll come in from the south at about four hundred
,' he said. ‘
You know where the landing ground is – down by the Factor's House. I'll watch for you there. I'm relying on you to signal me in. I'll need about sixty seconds clear of down-draughts. Okay
?' I don't think he heard my protest. At any rate, he didn't answer, and I went out, cursing him for trying to put the onus on me. Did he think I could control the down-draughts? There was no pattern about them. They came and went; one minute I was walking quite easily, the next I was knocked flat and all the breath pushed back into my throat. Damn the man! If I signalled him in it would be my responsibility if anything went wrong.

But there wasn't time to consider that. I'd barely reached the beach when I saw the helicopter, a speck low down over the water beyond the entrance to the bay. It came in fast and by the time I'd reached the Factor's House I could hear its engine, a buzz-saw drone above the suck and seethe of the surf. A down-draught hit, beating the grasses flat and whistling out over the bay, the surface boiling as though a million small fry were skittering there. It was gone almost as soon as it had come. Another and another hit the ground, flattening the long brown wisps of grass, whirling the dried seaweed into the air. They came like sand devils, spiralling down. The helicopter, caught in one, slammed down almost to sea level and then rocketed up. It was very close now and growing bigger every minute, the sound of its engine filling the air. In the sudden stillness that followed that last gust I thought I could hear the swish of its rotor blades.

No point in waiting, for every second he hovered there he was in mortal danger. I waved him in, praying to God that he'd plonk himself down in one quick rush before the next blast struck. But he didn't. He was a cautious man, which is a fine thing in a pilot; except that this was no moment for caution. He came in slowly, feeling his way, and the next gust caught him when he was still a hundred feet up. It came slam like the punch of a fist. The helicopter, flung sideways and downwards, hit the beach; the floats crumpled and at the same instant, with the rotor blades still turning, the whole machine was heaved up and flung seaward. It touched the water, tipped, foam flying from the dripping blades, and then it sank till it lay on its side, half-submerged, a broken float support sticking stiffly into the air like the leg of some bloated carcase.

Stillness then, the wind gone and everything momentarily quiet. A head bobbed up beside the floating wreck. Another and another. Three men swimming awkwardly, and then the tin carcase rolled its other splintered leg into the air and sank. Air came out of it, a single belch that lifted the surface of the water, and after that nothing; just the flat sea rippled by the wind and three dark heads floundering in to the beach.

Fortunately there was little surf. One by one they found their feet and waded ashore, drowned men gasping for air, flinging themselves down on the wet stones, suddenly exhausted as fear gripped them. I ran down to them, looking at each face. But they were men I didn't know. They were alive because they'd been in the fuselage within reach of the door. Standing had been sitting with Adams up by the controls. They'd both been trapped.

It was only minutes before, a few short minutes, that I'd been talking to Adams. It didn't seem possible. One moment the helicopter had been there, so close above my head that I'd ducked involuntarily – and now it was gone. I stood there with those three men moaning at my feet staring unbelievingly at the waters of the bay. Nothing. Nothing but the steel-bright surface exploding into spray and beneath it Standing and Adams still strapped into their seats, eyes already sightless … Was it my fault? I felt sick right through to my guts, utterly drained.

‘Christ, man. What are you staring at?'