Death & the Captain

Handsome Captain Roy Alexander Farran had often been close to death. The son of an Irishman who had served in India. he went to Sandhurst and became one of the heroes of World War II. He fought with Wavell in the desert, went along on the ill-fated British expedition in Greece, saw his comrades blown to bits, was wounded and captured by the Germans. Clad in a pair of blue pajamas, boots and a white panama he had stolen from a Greek plumber, Farran escaped, drifted on a caique for nine days until a British destroyer picked him up. He got back to the Western desert in time for El Alamein. One day he drove a brigadier in a staff car when the car suddenly skidded and turned over. The brigadier was killed. Said Farran, who was unscathed: "I contemplated suicide."

"Revenge." But Farran did not kill himself. He lived through almost every dangerous battle from North Africa to Normandy. He joined the parachute Commandos, later carefully recorded their song:

We're the boys who ride the slipstream, we're the heroes of the sky;

But we all know deep inside tis it's an awful way to die.

Roy Farran did not die. He fought with the maquis in France and with a group of girl partisans in Italy. Later, he described his adventures with almost boyish enthusiasm ("One girl in particular will always remain in my memory . . . She was a tall, raven-haired girl with Irish blue eyes . . . as brave and dangerous as a tigress and was completely devoted to the British company . . ."). He felt lost when peace came. "I always expected to be killed in battle," he said. "Now I was left stranded, spared by some odd trick of fate."

But it was the kind of peace that left a lot to do for men like Roy Farran. Last year he was sent to Palestine to organize a group of ex-Commandos to counteract Jewish terror. Farran disliked the soft attitude of Britain's Palestine police ("Mild reproofs and a lot of tearful kissing"). Disguised as Jews, Farran and his men patrolled Palestine, rounding up suspects. He liked his work. "It was," he said, "as though we had drunk deeply of some invigorating fire . . ."

When a 16-year-old Jewish boy named Alexander Rubovitz disappeared, someone remembered seeing him on the Jerusalem-Jericho road, being pursued by a man and forced into a cab. The man's cap was found; it contained the initials R.A.F. On that evidence, Roy Farran was accused of Rubovitz' murder. He escaped to Syria, then returned to face a British court-martial, and was acquitted. When Farran left for England in October, terrorists plastered Tel Aviv walls with leaflets: "Farran's time will come. We will go after him until the end of the world."

In England, Farran received the Distinguished Service Order from the hand of George VI for his war record, wrote about his adventures in a book called Winged Dagger, and went to live quietly at suburban Codsall, near Wolverhampton, with his parents and his three admiring brothers, Keith, Ray and Rex (also known as "Pud"). Twice Roy got letters containing a single sheet with the single Hebrew word: "Nekama!" (Revenge).

"No Revenge." One morning last week, while Roy was off visiting friends in Scotland, the Farran family began its placid daily routine. Keith and Rex, who had refused to get up for breakfast, stayed in the house, while the others walked down the lane, amid spring blossoms and green shrubs, on their way to work. They met the postwoman, who said: "Nothing much for you this morning. Just a parcel." Said Mrs. Farran: "One of the boys will take it."

Rex took the parcel and carried it into the living room. It was addressed to Roy, but he opened it. It contained a volume of Shakespeare. Rex probably never saw it, for it exploded as he undid it, tearing open his stomach and maiming his hands. As Rex lay dying in the hospital later, he asked: "Am I dying like a Farran?" His last words were: "No revenge."

Roy Farran, once more missed by death, flew down from Scotland for the funeral.

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