Invasion

It was 9 in the evening, but in these northern latitudes the sun was still above the horizon. The sea thundered against the great cliffs of Mainland, the largest of the Shetland Islands; in lonely Footabrough inlet brilliant red and purple sea urchins bobbed in the swell along the shore. Out beyond the three-mile limit rode the Ukraina and two other trawlers of a Soviet fishing fleet.

On this sunlit night last week, Crofter Willie Fraser and his son were hoeing turnips in the garden of their low stone cottage near the inlet. They looked up to see a man come racing over the headland. He stumbled once or twice, then reached them, gasping out words in Russian and German, pointing in terror behind him, repeatedly making the gesture of slitting his throat. Recognizing a fugitive, Fraser did the human thing: he hid the man, one Erich Teayn, 32, in his cottage.

Moments later, some 30 Russian seamen scrambled up from the beach. Fanning out over the moor, calling Teayn's name, they beat their way through the furze and heather. While they continued their man hunt up to and past Fraser's house, the crofter coolly phoned the police, set a warm meal before the exhausted man. The Russians did not abandon their search until 2 in the morning, and as they pushed off from shore emptyhanded, the blue, green and white curtain of the aurora borealis shimmered above them.

At the police station in the Shetland Islands capital of Lerwick, Teayn identified himself as an Estonian, begged political asylum because "they'll kill me if you send me back." In Parliament M.P.s stormed at this first invasion of the Shetland Islands since the days of the Spanish Armada, when the survivors of a far-ranging Spanish galleon are reputed to have taught the natives the patterns that are still used today in Fair Isle sweaters. Home Secretary Richard A. ("Rab") Butler told the House of Commons that three Soviet captains had landed at Lerwick and demanded that Teayn be handed over. "This was refused," Butler added, to the accompaniment of cheers--and laughter.

At week's end, the British Foreign Office fired off a "strong protest" to Moscow, insisted that the Soviet government issue forthwith instructions "to ensure that there is no recurrence of any incident of this kind." But the indignation was more official than real. Erich Teayn will undoubtedly get political asylum. And no one thought the Shetland Islands were in any danger so long as there were canny crofters like Willie Fraser.

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