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it? and had scrawled the words: LOST AND GONE FOREVER and framed them with the names—Winokapau—Tishinakamau—Attikonak.
    As the train started again I picked up the last log book, the one my mother had tried to hide from me. He could have had little sleep that night, for the first entry was for 0800 hours. Ledder failed to make contact . And an hour later— No contact . After that there were entries for every hour, but nothing against them. And by midday he was picking up odd scraps of news commentaries and transmissions from other stations. The word GREENWOOD occurred once. This appeared to be some sort of code word, like MAYDAY, for immediately afterwards there was a note: Air search ordered . There was a reference to bad weather and then, two days later: Nova Scotia Air Rescue base .
    But this book, like the last, was a mass of doodles, on the front of the cover, inside and all over that first page, an indication of the long hours he had spent alone, huddled over the receiver. If I hadn’t been so familiar with his writing I don’t think I should ever have been able to decipher it.
    I re-checked the entries against the notes I had made, and as I turned the pages the men involved in the disaster were revealed. There was Briffe, the leader of the party, and a man called Baird, and then a third man, the pilot. Ledder keeps calling Laroche . This was on the second page, and two days later he had written the name LAROCHE again in capitals, and underneath: No, it can’t be. I must be mad . Nowhere could I find the names of the three men who had gone up to Area C2 on the first flight, though I did find a further reference to them amongst the jottings from news broadcasts— Advance party evacuated from C2, all three safe .
    There were two other entries I thought might have some bearing on the disaster, one of which I could only partly decipher. On September 23 he had written 1705—Made contact VO6AZ—Query geologists . And then two pages farther on: 1719—VO6AZ. SO THEY HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN ABOUT … The rest was completely obliterated, though I could read my father’s initials, J.F.F., written for some unknown reason into the middle of the sentence.
    Excerpts from news broadcasts referring to the search continued until September 26. But on that date, against the time 1300 hours, he had written the one word: Finis . And then later the same day: 1714—Made contact Ledder. Briffe and Baird both dead. L. safe . And he had added: L-L-L-L-L—IMPOSSIBLE .
    Reading all this through as the train ran into Bristol, it was clear that my father had not only followed the story of the whole expedition with great interest, but he had even made direct contact with VO6AZ to clarify certain points. And bearing in mind that he was only making very brief notes for his own personal use and not transcribing messages in detail, it seemed to me there was nothing to indicate that there was anything wrong with his mental state. Some of the comments I didn’t understand and, of course, these, if looked at amongst the jottings and drawings of the muddled pages in which they appeared, would give a different impression. If, however, the so-called experts had bothered to isolate the references to the expedition, as I had done, they would have seen how clear he was about it all.
    All the way out to the airport I was thinking about this and how my mother had seen him standing on his two feet and reaching out to the map of Labrador. There must be something in that message. Whether the men were dead or not, I was convinced my father hadn’t imagined it. He’d known it was important. And now all his effort was wasted because I hadn’t had the sense to isolate the relevant passages for the police as I had done on the train.
    It was after six when I reached the airport—too late to report to the Company office. I felt sad and depressed, and instead of going to my digs, I turned in at the