landing craft anchored off in the bay.
In the morning, back alongside, they set out once more to scour the Atlantic island.
By lunchtime the situation was judged to be critical, and two Army helicopters were dispatched from Benbecula. They combed the area for two hours, searching above the walking troops, clattering along the shoreline, gazing at the cliffs through binoculars, using infrared sensors. By dark, which fell at 1640, there was not a sign of the missing men, or their Land Rover, and the two choppers had to return to base for more fuel.
Back in the huts the search party had sleeping bags, food, and supplies. Plus a new Land Rover that had been brought over in a second landing craft. The Army also replaced the fuel cans borrowed by Commander Adnam. But, with a heavy heart, Captain Wimble accepted that Chris Larkman and Corporal Lawson were dead, although he had no idea what had become of them. But he knew Chris, and he knew that something terrible must have happened. The ex — Rugby player from Hampshire was a very solid citizen in Wimble’s view, and Lawson was a cool, experienced, cockney soldier. It was, to Captain Wimble, inconceivable that either of them could have done anything ridiculous. He just could not imagine what had happened. Neither could anyone else.
Monday morning, March 6, found Ben Adnam still ensconced in the Rosslea Hall Hotel, still resting, but shaved and comfortable, operating under the name of Ben Arnold. His plan was to lie low for a month. He needed to find a quiet place, miles from anywhere, where he could rest, think, and walk, regaining his composure and fitness. Because just then, with his mind in a turmoil, he judged himself to be “no good to anyone.” He could not even go home. He
Five months in a submarine had played havoc with his sense of well-being. He was anxious to get into shape and bought himself a new pair of training shoes, a track suit, sweatpants, and a guidebook to the Highlands. What he really needed was a guidebook to the universe, because the boundaries of this earth were extremely confining to an ex — Navy officer with Ben Adnam’s track record.
He studied the guidebook all through his dinner in the hotel. And by 2200 he had drawn up a short list. Ben retired to his room at 2245, poured himself a glass of whiskey, and sat down to make a decision. Half an hour later, he made it. He would rent a car for cash from a local garage. And he would drive up to a little village named Strachur, on the Cowal Peninsula. And there he would check into Creggans Inn, right on the eastern shore of Loch Fyne. It was a place he had been to, long ago, and he remembered it well, with its awesome views across the lonely water. They had dined there on the night he had passed his Submarine Commanding Officers Course. So far as he could recall it was possibly the happiest night of his entire life.
He was not experienced in matters of the heart, and every instinct he had told him there was no point ever going back. Nothing was ever the same, or could ever be the same. There were so many things he had never said, wished he had said, and would never say. And returning to the place where once they had been so content would make matters, probably, appreciably worse.
She was gone. And she had been gone for several years — five at least since they had spoken. He knew she had married a wealthy Scottish landowner. They had seen each other twice since then. But surely a return to Creggans could do nothing except enhance his sadness and highlight the fact that life held little promise for him. The longer he was alone, the worse the depression became. Few people had ever compiled such a personal record as he had…rejected and betrayed by the only three employers he had ever had, all of whom had tried to assassinate him. He had no home, no future, no love, no relatives nor friends. And a past that would surely devour him in the end.
Nonetheless, he picked up the telephone and booked himself into Creggans Inn for a month. He informed the receptionist that he was a South African, mainly because he always carried a South African passport, along with those of Iran and Turkey. For this journey he also had a four-year-old British passport, but had not, thus far, used it.
He checked out of the Rosslea Hall Hotel when the garage brought his car, for which he gave them ?300 in cash, the other ?300 due when he returned it in a month. It was a six-year-old metallic blue Audi A8, with 70,000 miles on the odometer, but it ran well, and the garage mechanic had not even bothered to check his British license, which had been carefully forged for him in Egypt a few years previously, under the name Benjamin Arnold, like his Helensburgh bank account and two of his passports.
It was a little over 30 miles around the lochs to Strachur, and Ben drove it slowly, especially the first part, running north up the east bank of the Gareloch, the dark familiar waters in which he had so often driven submarines. He ran through the Argyll Forest Park along the A83 much quicker, before slowing down again, dawdling along the bank of Loch Fyne, looking for the big white house on the far bank, where once, and once only, he had been a guest. That, too, he remembered as if it had been yesterday.
He checked into the renowned warm and comfortable inn and sat by the fire in the bar. He had chicken sandwiches for lunch and sipped orange juice, while he read
The first was on the front page, from which the unsmiling faces of two soldiers stared out. On the left was Lieutenant Christopher Larkman, and on the right was Corporal Tommy Lawson. The headline read:
OFFICER AND CORPORAL MISSING IN ST. KILDA MYSTERY
The story went on to detail the Army search that had been going on throughout the island all weekend. It quoted the officer in charge, Captain Peter Wimble, confessing that everyone was completely baffled by the disappearance of the two men with their Land Rover. “They did not have a boat,” he said. “Anyway, it’s more or less impossible to land on St. Kilda at this time of the year without a military landing craft. Which means they must be either on the island or in the ocean. And we now know they are not on the island. Which, I am afraid, leaves only the ocean. Though how, or why, or where, we cannot say.”
The story concluded with the statement that the Army did not believe either of the two men could still be alive, but that the search would continue along the shore, beneath the cliffs, weather permitting.
The second item, inside on page three, concerned a missing fishing boat, the
The situation was regarded as sufficiently serious for a seaand-air search to be initiated, and the newspaper revealed, “the Royal Air Force were expected to send out two Nimrods at first light on Monday morning.”
It was, however, the latter part of the story that interested Ben Adnam. According to the Harbormaster, the Zodiac tender from the
Now, Ewan MacInnes was not, apparently, the world’s most reliable source. A cheerful, bearded man of fifty- five, he had a reputation as a hard drinker and a bit of a romancer. But the coast guard had grilled him, the police had grilled him, and the local newspaper reporter had grilled him. And, despite the assertion of a local landlady, that “Ewan had spent half the day in here drinking, before he sailed,” the lobsterman was adamant. No, the Zodiac had not been on his mooring when he left, “for the plain and obvious bloody reason that it was on the bloody stern of Gregor’s boat, where it always bloody well is.”
Yes, said MacInnes, I saw it leave. And yes, the foreigner was standing next to it. And, “What’s more, I can tell you what he was wearing, a dark blue jacket, looked military, with a fur hat…”
