The physical and structural scars are mended, but the soul of Lockerbie shall never be free. It shall always be associated with the horrendous fate of Pan Am flight 103, a 747. This is a quiet, peaceful town of about 15,000, straddling the roaring traffic of M74, a leg of the major artery from London to Glasgow, 33 miles north of Carlisle near the Scottish-English border. It was on Lockerbie and the neighboring countryside that hell rained down shortly after 7 p.m. on that night of physical and emotional devastation.

Police Sergeant Ian McDowall was off duty the fatal night in 1988. There were only 12 policemen on the force, but McDowall and others were soon there once the mental haze began to clear. "There is a nuclear power plant nearby and the first thought was it might have blown," he said. "There's an RAF base not far away and some thought two planes had collided. When people came out of their homes and found bodies lying about in their yard, they realized it had been a commercial flight. People were fainting in their yards."

He has been involved in the investigation from the start, "and it is ongoing," he said, "and will continue to be until the two terrorists are brought to justice."

At one time more than 75 law enforcement officers were swarming around the little police station in Lockerbie, some from Scotland Yard, others from Edinburgh and Glasgow. "Two FBI men came and stayed for more than two years," he said. Sergeant McDowall has been a police officer 21 years, the last 18 in Lockerbie. It was a day bathed in sunshine when I parked at the police headquarters, a low-lying building of sandstone brick near an intersection where a marker pointed toward "Garden of Remembrance." On a wall just inside the station was a marble plaque listing the names of all 270 victims, 259 aboard flight 103, 11 on the ground. Sergeant McDowall wore a tie-clasp in the shape of the map of Scotland and on it, the inscription "Lockerbie Dec. 21, 1988."

"That disaster put Lockerbie on the map for all the wrong reasons, " he said. The region is largely agricultural and Lockerbie was previously known for its annual sheep sale, dating back to 1680. It's a pleasant little town, like so many one finds in Scotland, dominated by a church steeple that rises above the modest homes and one-street store and business district. By no means will Lockerbie ever be allowed to wipe away the memory of its awful fate. There are enough memorials to see to that. Sergeant McDowall guided a tour of some of them, beginning at Tundergarth Parish Church on the road to Bankshill, about three and a half miles east of the town.

He pointed to a field across a stone fence and said, "That's where the nose of the plane came down. People came out of their houses with flashlights to see what the noise was all about and began finding bodies strewn about their yards. It was a weird sort of thing, dead bodies lying sprawled in open fields. They were found all around the countryside. Sixty fell on the golf course. The plane dissolved after the bomb went off and debris was found over an 80-mile area. The explosion happened at 32,000 feet, the plane was traveling over 500 miles an hour with a 115-mile tailwind, so you can see why passengers and parts were found over such a wide area."

Tundergarth Church is of sandstone from the area, and in its shadow is a stone hut called "Lockerbie Air Disaster Remembrance Room." Inside is a log of biographies of every passenger aboard, complete with seat numbers, a work of heart compiled by the grieving friend of a victim. The captain, James Bruce MacQuarrie, 55, from Kensington, N.H., is registered in his alphabetical order. The list of names in the visitors log is surprisingly long, especially considering the remoteness of Tundergarth.

Next, we stopped at Park Place, near where two engines had come to earth between two houses. Sergeant McDowall said, "This is where a young girl was found hanging from a rooftop, still strapped to her seat." There was another memorial there that read, "On Eagles' Wings. Shortest day of the year, darkest day of the year. Flight 103 entered air space over Scotland, then disappeared from air traffic controller' s screen."

Sherwood Crescent is returned to its sanctity. Where the main fuselage had come to rest in flames, and four houses were obliterated along with their occupants, there is now a lovely memorial garden with benches, shrubs and flowers in neat trim. A young man sat on one of the benches beside his bicycle, head bowed in a meditative mood. Other homes have been rebuilt, but not these four, where 11 residents were unaccounted for. Nothing remained of Mary Lancaster, age 82, but an artificial kneecap, which was identified by the doctor who had implanted it. A boy who had gone to play with a friend a few blocks away found himself an orphan. His home and entire family had been wiped out. In the Garden of Remembrance, across the four-lane M-74 via an overpass, the names of 17 victims never accounted for, including six passengers, are listed on one special stone plaque, the Somervilles and the Henrys from Sherwood Crescent among them.

Ages of the victims ranged from 2 months to Mary Lancaster's 82 years, and came from 21 nations. Thirty-six were students from Syracuse University returning from overseas study. The Garden of Remembrance is poignant in the various memorials dedicated and erected by those in grief. Fellow workers at Pan Am, now bankrupt and long since absorbed by Delta Air Lines, dedicated a plaque in memory of the crew of 103; one alone was addressed to Captain MacQuarrie. The worn path indicates that the number of visitors to that part of Lockerbie's town cemetery has been large. Several filed in and out that day of this visit.

"The people here haven't forgotten," Sergeant McDowall said. "They just don't talk about it and they don't make much of a public display about it. It's not something to be famous for. Lockerbie was just where it has always been, then all hell comes down on it. It' s not something you want to remember."

What has been done in memory of those who perished has been done in taste, in the moderate mood of a peaceful and undemonstrative people. There's a poem on a bronze plaque in the Garden of Remembrance that seems to spell out the anguish of it all. It's almost eerie in its premonition, for it was written by one of the Syracuse students who died, Karen Lee Hunt.

"Something has happened to keep us apart,

But always and forever you're in my heart,

Some day soon, from now till forever,

I'll meet you again and we'll be together,

I'm not sure how, and I'm not sure when,

Together, forever, somewhere my friend."

Karen Lee Hunt was 20.