It was pure wish-fulfilment, of course.

I am married to Mary and have been happily married to her for many years. I know we are having a difficult passage in our life at present, but it is unthinkable we could part, that there could ever be anyone else in my life. I am just not that sort of person.

Am I?

Harriet is engaged to her soldier and visibly pining for him, and therefore nothing could possibly happen between Harriet and me. Therefore it must have been a dream.

But if it wasn’t! What then?

I cannot sit still. Something has happened to me, but what? The windows are open and a soft breeze off the mountains is moving the curtains. It is still early. A golden sunrise is infusing the edges of the soaring cliffs and ridges around us and above us. Through my window come faint scents-of flowers I have never smelled before, of unknown spices. The noise of the village waking comes with them: cocks crowing, the bray of a donkey, the clatter of tin water containers, and occasionally a burst of Arabic.

I have journeyed this far, to this strange place. The man who started the journey months ago as a staid, respected scientist at the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence is not the same man now standing at a window looking out onto the wild mountains of the Yemen. How much farther will this journey go? Where will it end, and how will it end?

House of Commons

Monday 28th November

(Mr Speaker in the Chair)

Oral or Written Questions for Answer

Written Answers

Mr Charles Capet (Rutland South) (Con):

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will comment on a report in the Daily Telegraph concerning an explosion at a military installation in western Iran. Will he comment as to the possible involvement in this event of a team from 41 Commando (RM) to which I referred in a previous question laid before this House? Will he once again look into the whereabouts of Captain Robert Matthews, as I requested in a previous question to him? And will he comment as to what, if any, measures are being taken to ensure the safe return of Captain Matthews to his regiment?

The Secretary of State (Mr John Davidson) [holding answer]:

We have looked into the alleged explosion at an alleged military installation in western Iran. We are informed by the Iranian authorities that there was an industrial accident at a factory producing dental floss which unfortunately led to the deaths of 127 employees. We are informed that no third parties were involved in this incident and, given that the products of that factory are reported by the Iranian government to be solely concerned with dental hygiene (and not the reprocessing of nuclear waste, as reported in the Daily Telegraph), we believe the event is not a concern for this government. Accordingly, we have conveyed the deepest sympathies of HMG to the government of Iran and have no further official interest in the matter. With respect to the whereabouts of Captain Robert Matthews, I refer the honourable gentleman to my previous answer to the previous question he raised.

Mr Charles Capet:

To ask the Secretary of State if he is, indeed, the only man in the United Kingdom to believe the official Iranian explanation for the devastating explosion in western Iran? To ask if he continues to deny the involvement of British forces, which, it is widely believed, were involved in an operation in that area? To ask, once again, if he will not bring relief to the distressed friends and relations of Captain Robert Matthews by stating whether he believes Captain Matthews to be alive or dead, and if he is alive, to state his whereabouts?

The Secretary of State:

If the honourable gentleman will look at the website of the MoD on the page ‘Operation Telic 2’ tomorrow, he will find, regrettably, that Captain Matthews is now posted, or will be posted, as ‘Missing in Action’.

Letter

Captain Robert Matthews

c⁄o BFPO Basra Palace

Basra

Iraq

21 November

Darling Robert,

This is the last letter I will write to you, until you come home, when there will be no more need for letters. I shall not post it because there is no way I can post it from here that I know of and because of course you would never get it anyway. But I had to put these words on paper, to try and understand the feelings I have. First, I will tell you about what we are doing here. If I write about the everyday things, perhaps I will get my balance back.

I am writing this in a place called al-Shisr, in the mountains of Heraz, in the western highlands of the Yemen. It is a wilderness of mountains and fortified hill villages, connected by tracks that even you might hesitate to drive along (I have to keep my eyes closed most of the time). Although they have a satphone and computers down at the construction site in the Wadi Aleyn, up here in this mountain village there are no computers and no phones. My mobile long ago ceased to find a signal. This is the sheikh’s ancestral home and he likes to keep everything just as it was in the ninth century, when it was built. Of course we have air conditioning and running hot water and a fantastic chef in the kitchen, but everything else about this place could be from any century except the present one.

Down in the Wadi Aleyn, there is a huge amount of activity: masses of trucks and earth-moving equipment, hundreds of Indian construction workers, more stuff being driven in every day. It is fascinating to see the concrete basins taking shape. They are doing a terrific job. The basins will be filled with water when they are ready and then, after we have done a few tests, we will be ready to fly the salmon out from Fort William down to London, and from there to the Yemen.

Fred and I have walked nearly every yard of the Wadi Aleyn, and he and the project engineer have prepared a profile of the wadi bed, showing where we need some additional engineering to help the salmon get over natural obstacles. It will just be a question of putting in some concrete steps or slipways here and there, to help the fish get past what will be waterfalls when the wadi is flowing. We have spent a fair amount of time with the engineers working these extras into the construction plans.

Fred says that, for the first time, he really believes we might achieve something. The topography of the wadi pleases him. The quality of the water coming from the aquifer pleases him. Even the size of the gravel pleases him. He thinks his fish-our fish-will survive here, even if only for a while. But something will happen; something will be achieved. The sheikh has infected us all with his own sense of belief. In this Old Testament land it is difficult not to believe in myths and magic and miracles.

I have another week here before I can go back, but Fred is going to stay longer, to wait for the construction of the holding basins to be completed and for the engineers to sign off on the job, so that he can satisfy himself that the basin doesn’t leak, the oxygen bubblers work and the sluice gates open, and so on. Then he is flying back to start planning the last phase of the project, the transport of the salmon.

My job is nearly over now. I still have to manage the administration and accounting of the project but the hard part-the design and engineering, the feasibility studies, the planning and construction-is nearly over. Now all we have to do is finish this stage and wait for next summer’s rains, which will fill up the holding basins. When the rainy season is close, then we will start the crucial job of transporting live salmon from Scotland to the mountains of the Yemen. For Fred, that next stage is the vital moment, the culmination of all of our work. I expect he will be in and out of the Yemen over the next few months and I will see a lot less of him. Sorry, I seem to be going on about Fred a bit. He has become a good friend.