Then-success struck. The Americans launched two men,
Davis and Acton to the moon. Using a land-based Air Force
Sirius rocket staged from a space-station orbiting round the earth, these astronauts reached the moon but failed to return, and were cremated in a shallow orbit round the earth.
The great American success-a skyport was established on the moon itself by Davis and Acton-killed the new AngloAmerican project. Against the wishes of the President, an economy-minded Congress scrapped it. What point had it, they argued, now that there had been a successful landing on the moon?
Peace-and to a lesser extent MKG-had been publicly outspoken against the dropping of the project and Peace's forthright views had made him the storm centre of the controversy in the United States.
I had thought Peace to be in England when his cable arrived. Glad to go and 'eager to see my old friend, I had been shocked at his tenseness when he met me at Mauritius as the South Africa-Australia jet landed. He had hurried me aboard his luxury yacht Bellatrix-another surprise for me-and persuaded me that the place for the discussion with unspecified persons over the NACCAM installation was the Seychelles. We had sailed from Mauritius within a few hours on the fourday trip. Apart from his tenseness, the first indication I had of the impending shadow over Peace was a diversion to a remote island group 250 miles north-north-east of Mauritius known as St Brandon, or Cargados Carajos. St Brandon is nothing more than a hellish group of islets and coral rocks 10 with one tiny port on Raphael Island. Peace's excuse was that his ancestor, Sir John Peace, had used St Brandon in the reign of Charles II as a base for piratical forays against shipping in the Indian Ocean. Peace made much of the fact that Sir John had been the first Englishman to chart the group. To my astonishment, he had insisted on spending days in an island boat charting the risky seaward passages of St Brandon's great 25-mile coral barrier reef. When I protested, and pointed out that I had joined him to discuss a big business proposition, he became withdrawn and angry. I got no more out of him until we reached the Seychelles, where, instead of going ashore at Port Victoria to discuss what I had irritably ceased to regard as a deal, he decided to go spear-fishing. When Peace announced that he intended to take Bellatrix to a cluster of islets centering on Frigate Island, 25 miles east of Mahe, I exploded. If he wanted me, I told him angrily, he would find me ashore at the hotel-if I hadn't left on the next plane for South Africa. MacFadden, the tough Scots engineer who had been with us on the Skeleton Coast of South-West Africa in earlier years, had gone on a bender ashore immediately we arrived. I sympathized with him. I had no wish to go wandering aimlessly about the islands under the pretext of a business deal in the offing.
My irritation with the whole affair increased when I found that I would have to stage back to, Johannesburg via East
Africa, and that the aircraft was an old flying-boat which only made the leisurely trip once a week. That meant a further delay of three days in the Seychelles. I cursed the soft languor of Limuria.
Peace. had seemed animated, less tense, when I announced my intention of going ashore. He didn't try to stop me. For a moment I thought he was about to say something, but then he shrugged as if he had, changed his mind.
As I sat at dinner at the hotel that evening, a naval officer came to my table and saluted.
Mr. John Garland?'
I nodded, wondering if my anger had provoked somebody to do something about discussing the deal.
He handed me a note, which I took more in irritation than anticipation. It said: ' I have to inform you that the body of Commander Geoffrey Peace was taken from the water at Noddy Rock, half a mile northward of Frigate Island; at approx. 1330 hours today by a boat's crew from H.M.S. Loth Vennachar, operating in that area. Artificial respiration was applied without success. Commander Peace was taken aboard Loch Vennachar, where he was pronounced dead by 11 the Senior Naval Surgeon. The body will, at the direction of the Commander-in-Chief, Limuria Command, be held aboard Loch Vennachar until suitable arrangements have been made..
I hadn't seen the room after that. All I saw was an indelible vignette from the past; Peace at the periscope of a submarine, Peace going in for the kill…
The sub-lieutenant was dutifully sympathetic. ' You were his friend, sir, weren't you? They say he was the greatest skipper that ever took a submarine to sea..
I had my own memories of that. I cut him short. The manner of our parting ate into me like acid, now. ` Can I see him?'
Afraid not, sir.'
I got up. I had to see Geoffrey Peace-only once again. Not the way we had parted, with a flare of anger and a shrug. `
By whose orders?' I demanded.
' Commander-in-Chief's, sir. No one allowed to see the body. As a serving officer..
I must have raised my voice, for several of the diners turned. ` Take me to Loch Vennachar.'
The sub-lieutenant had obviously been chosen for the job. `
Sorry, sir, no civilians allowed aboard missile cruisers. Security and all that.'
` Civilian!' I exploded. I'm no bloody civilian, man-. I' m a reserve captain in the Royal Navy! Ask! Ask!'
He was cool and sure of himself. ' Ask-who, sir? Perhaps we could discuss this… ah… away from…' he gestured at the staring diners. He led the way outside. I demanded again to see Peace's body, the C-in-C, the Senior Naval Officer ashore. The most I could wring out of the young sublieutenant-whom I heartily detested by now-was that he would try and establish my bona fides.
I walked down to the pierhead. I do not know how long I stood and stared at the lights of the fleet. He could not end like this, I told myself over and over-not Geoffrey Peace. I had to talk to someone. I spent the next few hours looking for MacFadden among the pubs and joints. There was no sign of him. I tried to telephone the SNO, but the naval exchange was adamant. For the next two days I fretted and fumed. Then the sub-lieutenant came to the hotel and reported that Bellatrix was back in port. I could go aboard, I was informed politely, but must not leave harbour. I tried again to find MacFadden, but he must have holed up somewhere. 12
If, however; the body of Peace was being concealed, the news of his death was not. The morning after his death, the BBC gave it a high place in its early bulletins. The evening newscast contained a tribute from the Prime Minister to
Peace's part in the development of the SNAP motor and his mission to the United States.
Other bulletins stated that Peace would be buried at sea with full naval honours by the Limuria squadron and the u.s. Seventh Fleet. This seemed to me a belated attempt at recognition of what, on the face of it, might, have been a highly successful joint space effort between the two nations. The British Defence Minister would fly to Mahe to attend, as well as senior naval officers from Allied countries, it was stated. I took it, was because of Peace's famous wartime exploits. I was interviewed by long-distance telephone from London about Peace. A television news crew arrived and the hotel foyer looked like a studio. Through all this I was denied access to the C-in-C.
I went aboard Bellatrix-still no MacFadden. Then came the awful moment when the naval party arrived with the body and my realization that the face below the glass was indeed dead. There was also a message to say that the Cin-C would be pleased to discuss the funeral arrangements with me at my convenience. The funeral was to be delayed, I was informed, pending the arrival by plane of more VIPS. The big jet came round once again, flaps hard down for the landing. Perhaps this was a plane-load of them. If I could have had my way, it would have been a quiet committal to the sea from the deck of Bellatrix… Had the soft thump on the hull come a few minutes earlier, it would have been lost in the roar of the jet. Its very gentleness made it sinister. A boat makes its own particular noise against the hull of a bigger vessel. This was the thump of-a body.