Hammond Innes: Atlantic Fury

He was staring down at his glass then, memories of a long-dead war merging with the future. ‘Anyway, I’m getting out. In a few months’ time I’ll be running a stud farm near Melbourne. Australia, you know. Once I get out there they can push all the ruddy little buttons they like.’ It was the drink in him talking, and because he was aware of that he said, ‘Well, I’m off to bed now.’

It was then that Braddock surprised him by asking a series of questions that seemed to have very little bearing on the operation. First, he’d wanted to know whether the men on Laerg were free to roam around the island or whether their duties kept them confined to the area of Shelter Bay. When told that off-duty they could go where they liked and that many of them became enthusiastic birdwatchers, Braddock asked if they’d reported any interesting finds? ‘I mean traces of… well, old dwellings, caves, things like that with traces of human habitation?’

Matthieson wondered what he was getting at. ‘Are you a student of primitive men or are you thinking of the link between the Hebrides and Greenland? There was a link, I believe. The Vikings put the sheep on Eileann nan Shoay — Shoay or Soay is the old word for sheep, you know. They may well have been on their way west to the Greenland settlement.’

‘Yes, I’ve read about that, but … Well, I just thought something fresh might have been reported.’ And Braddock had stared at him with disconcerting directness, waiting for an answer.

‘No, of course not,’ the Brigadier replied. ‘The boys are just amateurs.’

‘What about civilians — naturalists and so on? Are they allowed on the island?’

Matthieson admitted he was disturbed by the other’s persistence. But all he said was, ‘Yes. There’s usually a party of bird-watchers, a few naturalists. Students, some of them. They come in summer under the aegis of Nature Conservancy. A nuisance, but quite harmless.’

‘And they’ve reported nothing — nothing of exceptional interest?’

‘If they have, we haven’t been told about it.’ And he’d added, ‘Anyway, you won’t have time to indulge your interest. Your job is to get our boys off, and it’ll be a full-time job, believe you me. You’ll understand when you’ve had time to study that Operation Plan.’ And he’d wished Braddock goodnight, wondering as the train rushed on into the night what Standing would make of his new second-in-command.

Two coaches back Braddock started going through the Operations Plan, sitting propped up in bed, the pages dancing to the sway and rattle of the train. And almost a thousand miles away another man in another sleeper was checking through the notes he’d made of his first interview with a non-Canadian survivor of the Duart Castle. Ed Lane was on the train to Paris, bound for London with a list of five possible names.

The night train to Glasgow got in at six-thirty in the morning. A staff car was waiting for Brigadier Matthieson at Central Station and whilst driving Braddock out to Renfrew Airport he discussed with him the details of the Operations Plan. In his evidence he made it clear that he’d allowed Major Braddock the widest possible interpretation of the evacuation orders. What, in fact, happened was that Braddock not only had a list of queries, but seemed prepared to argue that the whole conception of the Plan was at fault. It was the timing, of course, that chiefly worried him. ‘I agree it doesn’t give you much room for manoeuvre,’ Matthieson had said. ‘But that’s not my fault. It’s the Government that’s pushing the operation.’ And he’d added, ‘I’m a great believer in sound planning and the chaps who handled this are very good at it. If they say it can be done, then you can take it from me that it can.’

But Braddock wasn’t to be put off so easily. ‘LCT so-and-so to sail on such-and-such a date, arrive Laerg about twelve hours later, loading time six hours, leave at dusk, return to base at dawn. All very nice and neat if you’re sitting on your backside in an office. But there’s no allowance for weather or any of the hundred-and-one things that can go wrong on an amphibious operation. It’s an open beach. The equipment is pretty valuable, I gather — some of it secret. What happens if a gale blows up? Do I risk a landing craft and the equipment simply to keep a schedule I don’t believe in?’

‘Damn it, man. Use your initiative. That’s why you’re being posted there.’ And Matthieson had added, quoting, as no doubt he’d often done before, from the wartime leader he’d served under, ‘I never interfere in the detailed running of things. That’s my speciality. I leave it to the experts. In this case, Braddock, you’re the expert. Understood?’

By that time they had arrived at Renfrew. Matthieson left him then and after a leisurely breakfast Braddock caught the ten o’clock plane. At Stornoway there was an Army helicopter waiting for him. He landed at Northton on the west coast of Harris shortly after one. There he was met by the adjutant, Captain Ferguson, who informed him that Colonel Standing was waiting for him in his office. There is no record of what happened between the two men at that first meeting. But it lasted little more than ten minutes and when they came into the Mess for lunch the atmosphere between them was already strained.

The clearest impression of Braddock’s impact on the operation is contained in the deposition made by Lieutenant Field, the Education Officer. This deposition, made at the Board of Inquiry, could have had considerable influence on the subsequent Court Martial. Not only was Field much older than the other officers, but his background and experience gave weight to his judgment. The first two paragraphs are the vital ones and I give them in full:-

Major Braddock arrived at Joint Services Guided Weapons Establishment, Northton, on October 13. I think it is right to say that his appointment came as a shock to most of the officers, not least to Colonel Standing who had only been informed of it on the phone that morning. I say ‘shock’ because that is how it seemed to officers accustomed to something in the nature of a winter hibernation in the Hebrides. Major Braddock was a driver. He had a very forceful personality. He was also a man of great nervous energy, great vitality. Whatever your findings, I would like to make it clear that I regard him as exactly the sort of man the operation needed at that time.

I have some knowledge of the leadership necessary in an operation that is at the mercy of the elements, and from my own observations, and from what I heard from Captain Ferguson, who was a friend of my daughter’s and often visited our croft of an evening, I may say that I already had certain very definite misgivings. Not until Major Braddock’s arrival was there that thrust and pressuring of officers and men, that sense of being engaged with an enemy, that is the essential prelude to exceptional human endeavour. He made them feel they were involved in a battle. Most of the youngsters got a kick out of it; the older ones, particularly some of the officers, resented it. Later, of course, they did all that any men could do in circumstances that became virtually impossible.

Before he left for London, Matthieson had had the foresight to arrange with RASC (Water Transport) for both LCTs to re-fuel, cancel all leave and stand by to sail at short notice. As a result, the position on Braddock’s arrival was not unsatisfactory. One landing craft had completed its first trip and was on its way back to Laerg again; the other was just entering Leverburgh, a bare two hours behind schedule. And the weather was fine, cold and clear with a light northerly wind.

But as Field pointed out, the fine weather could not be expected to last indefinitely, nor could the men. The strains were already beginning to show; at Leverburgh where the quay was inadequate, on Laerg where the bolts securing huts and equipment were rusted solid and the men, after only two days, were tiring, moving in a sleepless daze from dismantling to loading and back to dismantling again. And whilst Braddock threw himself into the work of ensuring a faster rate of turn-round for the landing craft, Ed Lane flew into London and began checking for relatives of Albert George Piper, one-time Master-at-Arms on the Duart Castle. Piper’s name was the first on his list. The second was my brother’s.