by Iain Colvin
The three zipped up their jackets against the cold wind. As they started walking Craig soon understood what Brian meant. The ground was damp and springy, like walking on a wet, grassy sponge, which made progress slow. The scruffy moorland stretched in front of them as far as they could see. They came to a rise and beyond it Craig could see a small, round loch, not much bigger than a cricket field. A lonely boat house sat at the water’s edge, looking as abandoned as the croft had.
‘When I was here last I veered right at this point, to keep to the flatter ground,’ said Brian. ‘But I want to take you this way, so you can bet a better view.’ He pointed straight ahead, up a small bracken-covered hill. Craig and Fiona followed Brian as he made the climb. After twenty minutes of slow but steady progress they reached the top and stopped to catch their breath. On the other side of the hill about a quarter of a mile to their left Craig could see a small but fast flowing river. It was swollen by the Spring rainfall coming off the Scarabens, rising immediately beyond. Up close, the hills looked much taller than they seemed from the road. The last of the winter snow still clung to the top of the three peaks, and as Craig looked to the west along the course of the river, the ridge of small mountains reminded him of a defensive wall, like something from Tolkien.
Brian pointed to the river. ‘That’s Berriedale Water down there. It winds its way down to the North Sea behind us. And if you look on this side of the river, that hill yonder is where we’re going.’ He pointed to a high point not too far from where they stood. ‘That’s Eagle’s Rock. It’s the last significant piece of high ground between here and Thurso. Come on, it’s only about a mile as the crow flies, but we have to go down this hill, and walk round the side.’
They pressed on down the hill and across the moor. They were getting tired now, not least because they kept having to backtrack and change course when they came across small burns that were too wide to jump across.
‘Who was it that said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?’ asked Fiona.
‘Whoever it was never went hillwalking in the Scottish Highlands,’ said Craig. By now his shoes were sodden, as were his jeans below the knee.
They began climbing again and Craig stopped looking around him, he just wanted this to be over. He kept his gaze fixed five yards ahead of his feet, looking for the best ground to step on. He almost bumped into Brian, who had stopped. They were nearly at the top of the hill and Brian was pointing at a stone cross that had come into view a hundred yards ahead.
Craig looked around to get his bearings. They’d been walking for nearly two hours and the landscape all around was rugged and barren and inhospitable. He turned a full 360 degrees. There was no sign that any human had ever been there before. He could see no roads, no signposts, no houses, no fences, no electricity pylons. But there in front of them, incongruously, stood a Celtic cross. As they got closer, Craig saw that the cross stood on top of a square plinth. The plinth bore an inscription which read:
IN MEMORY OF
AIR CDRE H.R.H. THE DUKE OF KENT
K.G., K.T., G.C.M.C., G.C.V.O.
AND HIS COMPANIONS
WHO LOST THEIR LIVES ON ACTIVE SERVICE
DURING A FLIGHT TO ICELAND ON A SPECIAL
MISSION
THE 25TH OF AUGUST 1942
“MAY THEY REST IN PEACE”
It took Craig and Fiona a minute or so to catch their breath after the climb.
‘The names of the Duke’s companions are inscribed on either side, see?’ Brian gestured to the sides of the plinth.
Brian sat down and leant against the plinth while the other two walked round it, reading the list of names. ‘Okay, you have our attention,’ said Craig. ‘What’s this twist in the tale you have to tell me about?’
Brian reached into his jacket and pulled out one of his notebooks. He opened it at a page marked with a piece of paper, folded small enough to fit inside.
‘I stumbled on a couple of things by accident while I was researching old newspapers,’ began Brian. ‘On one of my visits to the Mitchell Library I asked the assistant if there was an easier way to find relevant newspaper articles. You know, rather than having to plough through paper after paper. He told me they had index fiche, sorted by year, so that sped up my search quite a bit.’
Fiona wished she’d thought of that when she’d been in the library. Meanwhile Craig hoped that this revelation of Brian’s was going to get a bit more riveting.
‘What was interesting was that when I looked up the index for “aircraft crashes”, there was more than one entry. There was Hess’s, clearly, but there were others. I checked each of them, mainly out of curiosity.’
Craig couldn’t hide his disappointment. ‘It was wartime, Brian, planes crashed all the time. Probably.’
‘Not as many in Scotland as you’d think. But one caught my eye. This one.’ He pointed a thumb at the memorial behind his back. ‘The story goes that the king’s younger brother, Prince George, the Duke of Kent, was on active service during the war. He was on his way to Iceland to boost the morale of the British servicemen stationed there as well as to meet local Icelandic dignitaries.’
‘And his plane crashed, and he and the crew died,’ said Craig. He’d gleaned that much from the inscription on the plinth.
‘Yes. But call it my naturally suspicious nature, I decided to look into it in more detail, mainly because we’re talking about the mysterious death of the king’s brother here. There’s plenty of conjecture around what happened, which I naturally ignored. But there are some interesting facts surrounding the flight that point to something more than a routine flight to Iceland.’
‘Like what?’ asked Fiona.
‘First of all, the plane that crashed was a Sunderland flying boat, based at Oban. It flew to Invergordon on the Cromarty Firth, where the Duke of Kent met it with his staff. The plane took off just after one o’clock in the afternoon of the 25th August 1942 and an hour later it crashed here, on Eagle’s Rock.’
‘What’s so strange about that?’ asked Craig.
‘Well, as I said, those flights to Iceland were pretty much routine at the time. Iceland was strategically important in the U-Boat war and flights back and forth were made regularly. It’s worth noting that all previous flights had been made by Liberators flying out of Prestwick. It surely would have made more sense for the Duke to go to Prestwick than for a flying boat to meet him 130 miles from Oban, in the completely wrong direction for a flight to Iceland.’
‘That may be so, but who’s to say there wasn’t a good reason to go by flying boat on this occasion?’ asked Craig.
‘Perhaps. But there’s more. The official investigation into the crash said that it was caused by pilot error. The aircraft was on the wrong path and at too low an altitude, it said. For some reason it had deviated from its planned course and hit the rising ground in foggy conditions. But the crew were handpicked. It included the most experienced Sunderland pilot there was, and in total there were four pilots and four navigators on board. It was due to follow the coast up to John O’Groats then turn left towards Iceland. But only sixty miles after taking off from Invergordon, it crashed here.’
‘Mechanical failure?’
‘The crash investigation said not. And that’s another thing. You know how difficult it is to get up here.’
Craig had only just recovered his breath. ‘Yes.’
‘The RAF removed every last trace of wreckage a matter of days after the crash.’
‘Wasn’t that routine?’
‘Not by a long stretch. Particularly not in as remote an area as this.’
‘Why did they do it then?’ asked Fiona.
‘That’s a good question, and it’s open to conjecture. Maybe because of the fact that the king’s brother was on board, or maybe for other reasons.’
‘You don’t like conjecture.’
‘No I don’t. So I’ll stick to the facts. The crash enquiry noted that the engine throttles were all open when the plane
crashed,’ said Brian.
‘Meaning what?’ asked Craig.
‘Meaning that the plane was trying to climb when it ploughed into this hill.’
Craig mulled this over in his head as he stared out over the moorlands below him and the pine forests stretching north.
‘What do you think the plane was doing?’ he asked.
Brian looked at him. ‘I think it was taking off.’
‘Taking off?’
‘Yes. It makes no sense to say that the pilots and navigators on board all made such a catastrophic error of judgement. I think the plane flew here deliberately. The throttles were wide open. It was taking off. And then you have to consider the timing.’
‘The timing?’ said Fiona.
‘The Sunderland took off at ten past one in the afternoon. Eyewitness reports – or more accurately, earwitness reports – put the crash at approximately two-thirty. A number of locals heard the plane come down. That’s eighty minutes in the air. But it should have taken no more than twenty minutes for the plane to reach this spot from Invergordon.’
‘Why is there a discrepancy in the timings?’ asked Craig.
‘I don’t think there was a discrepancy.’ Brian took out his map. It was already folded so that it showed the Scarabens, and to the north, Loch More. ‘I think that the reason they were in a Sunderland from Invergordon is because the plan was for them to land at Loch More, turn round and take off again. That would account for the time delay. And because those planes were slow and sluggish, as it took off it struggled to gain enough height to clear the high ground. I think that also explains why the wreckage was removed.’
‘But why did they go to so much effort?’ asked Fiona.
‘To avoid questions about why the plane was facing the wrong way when it crashed,’ said Brian. ‘You saw how flat the land is to the north of here, well apparently it was not unheard of for pilots flying up the coast to turn inland just past the Scarabens, to cut the corner, so to speak. It saved them from having to fly as far as John O’Groats before making the turn. The official report suggests that the crew misread their instruments, miscalculated their turn and crashed in poor visibility. If that was true, then the plane would surely have been flying west or northwest at the time of impact.’ Brian made a gesture with his arm to indicate a line from the sea running parallel with the Scarabens. ‘But from the pictures of the wreckage, it’s clear that it was on a northeasterly course when it crashed.’ Brian made a quarter turn and drew an imaginary line in that direction. I think the pilot intended to veer left and follow the path of Berriedale Water to the sea, and tragically, Eagle’s Rock was in the way. They turned to port and tried to climb clear, but didn’t make it.’
‘But if the land is so flat to the north of Loch More, why didn’t they take off in that direction, clear of any obstacles?’ asked Fiona.
‘A very good question. I wrestled with that one, and then the answer came to me when I did some research into that type of aircraft. The Sunderland flying boat needed a lot of water to take off, sometimes up to two miles or more. Loch More is roughly two miles long. They would have needed every yard of water for the take off. And of course, they would have to take off into the wind.’
‘So, if the wind was from the south, they’d have to take off facing south, and either climb over the Scarabens or make a turn before they reached them.’ said Craig.
‘Exactly,’ said Brian. He put the map back in his pocket.
The rain eased slightly. Craig ran his hand over his face in a vain attempt to dry it.
‘This is all very interesting, and under different circumstances I’m sure it would be fascinating to explore that particular mystery but I don’t see what it’s got to do with our problem right now.’
Brian’s eyes pierced his with a stare that stopped Craig in his tracks.
‘Oh but it has everything to do with it. It has everything to do with why some people want to shut us up permanently.’
‘What do you mean?’
Brian stood up and pointed to the inscription on the stone.
‘This cross wasn’t erected by the council or the government or even by the Royal family itself. It’s not an official memorial in any way. It was put here by the Duke’s bereaved widow. Look around. There are no signs to it, no path, almost as if no one is supposed to know it’s here. ‘On a special mission’ it says on that inscription. I’m convinced that the Sunderland was on a special mission to pick up a passenger and take him to safety.’
‘Who?’
‘Rudolf Hess.’
Chapter 39
‘What?’
Brian looked into the distance. ‘The plane landed on Loch More because Rudolf Hess was being kept here in secret. In a lodge nearby.’
Craig shook his head. ‘That doesn’t make sense. You’re saying that Churchill was prepared to release Hess and let him fly out of the country secretly? But something went wrong and the plane crashed without Hess on it?’
‘No Craig, what I’m saying is that Hess was on the plane when it crashed.’
Craig looked at Brian in disbelief. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. He’d decided to trust this man, this respected university lecturer. He’d hoped that he would somehow help to extricate them from the nightmare of the last few weeks. Instead of that, he could only surmise that Doctor Irving had finally cracked under the strain. Craig suddenly felt as alone as he’d ever felt in his entire life. Fiona could see it in his eyes and she reached for his hand and squeezed it in hers.
‘I haven’t gone crazy,’ said Brian. He smiled. ‘Although there have been moments, I can assure you.’
Craig shook his head. ‘How am I supposed to respond when you come out with something like that, Brian? Hess is in Spandau Prison. He has been there since the end of the war. We’ve wasted nearly a whole day on a wild goose chase.’
Brian smiled. ‘Oh believe me, it gets better.’
He reached into his notebook again, took out the piece of paper that kept the place and unfolded it. ‘This is a Photostat copy of one of the newspaper articles I found. It’s from March 1940. I found it quite by accident when I was researching Hess’s background.’
He handed it to Craig. The article stretched over two newspaper columns, and was topped with a picture of Rudolf Hess. The headline read ‘Pub killer found guilty.’
Craig re-read the headline then looked at Brian.
‘Read on,’ said Brian.
Craig read the article.
The man accused of murdering dockyard worker Reginald Corbett was found guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday. Frank Mills, 39, killed Mr Corbett in the Duke of Cumberland pub, Shoreditch, on 12th December last year after the two got into an argument. Mills’ defence counsel, Mr Foulkes-Bennett, asked the jury to take into account the fact that Mr Corbett had attacked Mills due to the accused’s close resemblance to the Nazi deputy leader Rudolf Hess and that his client was defending himself when the fatal blow was struck. The jury however took only ninety minutes to find Mills guilty of murder. He was taken to Pentonville prison where he will remain until sentencing by Lord Justice Brooks next week.
Craig took in the information but he struggled to make sense of what was there in black and white. He walked a few yards towards the summit of the hill and stopped to stare at the defensive wall of the Scarabens. His mind raced through everything he’d learned about Hess. All the facts, all the dates, all the events.
He turned back to face Brian and Fiona.
‘Wait a minute. Hess was kept in a high security camp from the end of May 1941. Mytchett Place in Aldershot. When he was there he complained constantly. He was convinced he was being poisoned and drugged. Then in 1942 he was moved to a new location in Wales. Almost overnight he stopped complaining. He enjoyed walks in the grounds and he even went for drives with his chauffeur. He didn’t complain about being poisoned ever again. It’s almost as if…’
‘As if what?’ asked Fiona.
‘As if he was a differen
t person,’ answered Brian.
‘No, no, it’s ridiculous,’ said Craig.
‘Is it though?’ asked Brian. ‘You just said it. His character completely changed overnight. Look at the picture again. That’s Frank Mills. He was only a few years younger than Hess. At Nuremberg people commented that Hess looked different, frailer, more gaunt. But because no photographs were taken of him while he was a prisoner in Britain, nobody could know if that change was gradual or sudden.’
‘This is crazy,’ said Craig. ‘I need to think. I’m going back to the car.’
He set off down the side of the hill, retracing his steps across the dense moorland until he could follow Berriedale Water again. He rounded the little loch with the boat house and finally reached their starting point. It was only when he got to the parked Allegro that he remembered that it was locked, so he took shelter from the wind behind the wall of the croft while he waited for the other two to arrive. It was at times like these that he wished he’d taken up smoking, he thought. The shadow of a large rain cloud swept across the hills and as it moved towards Craig he got the feeling that the Scarabens were closing ranks and hunching up against the cold. He imagined how difficult it would be to fly a lumbering Short Sunderland over those mountains from a standing start only a few miles away.
Brian and Fiona appeared. They were deep in conversation but stopped when they reached the car.
‘Hiya,’ said Fiona, giving Craig a peck on the lips. ‘Are you out of your mood yet?’
‘I’m not in a mood,’ retorted Craig, a bit more petulantly than he intended.
‘Of course you are, but there’s no need to be. Brian and I have been swapping ideas. Will we get into the car before the rain starts again?’
Craig knew that this was Fiona’s way of saying ‘I need you to be in a moving car you can’t jump out of because I’m going to make you listen to me’. He held up his hands in mock surrender.