Farewell to a National Hero

Midst mourning for Mountbatten, fear of renewed terrorism

They that go down to the sea in ships .. . these men see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep . .. and so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

--Psalm 107

Prince Charles, in a clear, composed voice, read the lesson, as Britain last week paid final homage to Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Admiral of the Fleet and the beloved "Uncle Dickie" to the royal family. It was a splendorous funeral that rivaled in pomp and pageantry the state funerals of Sir Winston Churchill in 1965 and the Duke of Wellington in 1852. With his flair for spectacle, Lord Mountbatten had begun to plan the ceremonies in 1976, well aware that as Queen Victoria's last living great grandson, he was a unique link to the glorious days of empire. In a BBC interview, recorded last year for broadcast when he was no longer alive, Mountbatten had hoped for "a reasonably peaceful and satisfying sort of death." No Briton took satisfaction in knowing that Mountbatten, at 79, had been assassinated two weeks ago when a bomb, planted by the Irish Republican Army, blew up his fishing boat.

Led by a sorrowing Queen Elizabeth in mourning black, six kings, three queens, ten princes and princesses joined commoners and old comrades from World War II in bidding farewell to the sailor-statesman. A dazzling September sun glinted off swords and breastplates and sharpened the bold colors of the regimental standards dipped in salute. To muffled drums and the somber measures of a Beethoven funeral dirge, the cortege began its slow march through the streets of London. Hundreds of thousands of Britons lined the funeral route; many had slept on the pavement all night to be sure of a view of the procession, which stretched for nearly a mile.

Behind the flag-draped coffin, bearing the cocked hat of an Admiral of the Fleet, marched 2,500 servicemen and women from the British armed forces and those of other nations that had special meaning to the World War II hero. There were Sikhs in white turbans from his beloved India, Gurkhas in exotic black pillbox hats and a contingent of veterans from the U.S. and France. Prince Charles and the Duke of Edinburgh, Mountbatten's great-nephew and nephew, walked behind the casket, their faces taut with grief. So did a group of comrades who survived the 1941 sinking off Crete of the H.M.S. Kelly, captained by Mountbatten. His aging black charger Dolly, riderless with its master's burnished boots reversed in the stirrups, was also in the procession.

The hour-long ecumenical service in Westminster Abbey was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Donald Coggan. He eulogized Lord Mountbatten for his "high enthusiasm and liberality of spirit, his integrity and flair for leadership, his dedication to the cause of freedom and justice ... He was so rare a person." After the buglers had sounded the last post and reveille, the coffin was taken to Waterloo Station for the final journey to Romsey, 87 miles southwest of London. There, in accordance with his wishes, Mountbatten was buried on the grounds of a 12th century abbey, his body facing the sea.

In the village of Mullaghmore in Ireland, where I.R.A. terrorists blew up Mountbatten's fishing boat, a local lad, Adrian McCarthy, 19, played the last post, and the bells of the convent tolled in farewell.

In Ulster, factory whistles signaled two minutes of silence in tribute to Mountbatten as his cortege made its way through the streets of London 325 miles away. At the cenotaph at Belfast's city hall, hundreds gathered to remember the statesman, as well as the nearly 2,000 other victims of violence killed in the past decade in the troubled province. But there was fear that the sectarian slaughter of the early 1970s might be returning. Since Mountbatten's murder and the truck-bombing that took the lives of 18 British soldiers the same day, three Catholic men have been killed in separate incidents in Belfast. On the morning of the funeral, another Catholic survived three shots from a masked gunman on a bus. The Ulster Freedom Fighters, a Protestant paramilitary organization, warned that it would avenge the bombings; journalists were shown a list of almost 100 I.R.A. members targeted for killing.

Conscious of the new threat, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Ireland's Prime Minister Jack Lynch met for five hours following the funeral. Both agreed on the need for improved cooperative security measures, but Lynch made it clear that his government would never approve of "hot pursuit" by British forces or Ulster police across the border. Specific suggestions, which both sides refused to reveal, will be studied and pursued at a ministerial level meeting in three weeks. Both capitals fervently want to end terrorism, but even in the grief and sadness of Mountbatten's senseless murder, there was no fundamental political agreement on how to do it.

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