I was standing almost exactly amidships when the explosion occurred. I remember I had just looked up. A chink of light from the door to the bridge accommodation shone out on the vague bulk of the funnel beside me. I had looked up to see a trailer of sparks float aft in a billow of smoke. Then I looked for’ard again, watching for the two figures I had seen emerge. I saw the bows dip and the water cream across them as she wallowed into the next wave. I saw them lift and the surf begin to cascade over the side.
Then it happened.
Shock, sound, sight—all seemed to come on the instant. The shock threw the ship sideways and I was flung against the rail. The sound was heavy and muffled—like the sound of a depth charge, and yet less solid, as though the explosion had been at no great depth. As I hit the rail the top of a wave that was boiling white and seemed almost level with the deck close under the bridge, blossomed like a great white mushroom and then flung itself in a roaring curtain of water at the clouds. At the instant my body hit the rail and I grasped the cold wet iron in my fingers, the white blur of upflung water hovered motionless over the ship. Then it came down. It hit the deck with a crash. The weight of the water was crushing. I fought upwards through it as though I were being smothered. Then suddenly it was over. Save for the sluicing of the water in the scuppers it was as though nothing had happened. The pulsing of the engines continued. The wind howled through the superstructure. The waves went hissing past us in the night.
For a whole minute it seemed the ship held its breath in stunned surprise. There was a sort of shocked normality.
Then somebody shouted. The engine-room telegraph rang twice, the bell sharp and urgent in the gale-ridden night. It rang again. The sound of the engines died. And from below decks a murmur of voices rose louder and louder—shouts, queries, the rush of feet, orders. As though the engine-room telegraph had rung the curtain up the Trikkala shook off her instant’s stupefaction and came to life.
I found myself still gripping the rail as the crew tumbled on to the deck, vague shadows that ran and collided with each other and swore and asked the world what the hell had happened. I found my rifle which I had dropped. Halsey’s voice thundered out from the bridge. He used a megaphone, but even so I remember thinking what a terrific compass his voice had. “Boat stations!” he shouted. “Get to your boat stations and then stand by.”
The deck lights were suddenly switched on. Men stopped in their rush towards the boats, blinking sleepily. Some were only half dressed. Others had forgotten their life jackets. I saw one man limping along a boot on his left foot, the other in his hand dangling by its laces. A man called out to him, “Where did it hit us, George?” And he replied, “Number One hold. You can hear the water pouring in amongst that iron-ore cargo.”
“Lucky it ain’t rice, like we was carrying last time,” somebody said.
“Threw me right a’t o’ me hammick, it did.”
“Torpedo, that’s wot it was.”
“Get away wi” ye. How would a U-boat be after torpedoing us on a night like this? It’s a mine, I tell ye.”
Scraps of excited talk were flung in my ears by the wind. And the ship looked strangely normal in the bright glare of her deck lights. There was no sign of damage to her superstructure. She had no list. But with her engines stopped she was swinging broadside to the wind and rolling drunkenly. Hendrik appeared out of the bridge accommodation. With him was the little Welshman, Evans. Halsey’s voice boomed out again through his megaphone. Quiet!” he shouted. “There’s no need to panic. Go quickly to your boat stations. Mr. Cousins! Get Number Two boat swung out and then stand by. Chief! Get Number One swung out. Mr. Hendrik! Go below and ascertain the damage. Take Evans with you. He’s right beside you.”
The normal appearance of the ship had calmed the men. They went quietly to their stations. Some dived back down below for clothes or forgotten life jackets. They clawed their way along the decks as the ship rolled drunkenly. The engines began pulsing again and below the sound of the wind and the seas breaking aboard I heard the roar of the pumps working.
I clawed my way back to our quarters, clutching the rail. Each time the ship rolled into a trough, the next wave broke inboard. At times I was up to my waist in water. As I reached our quarters, the door was slid back and Bert and Sills pitched out against the rail. Their faces looked very white. “Wot’s up, guvner?” Bert gasped as he got his breath.
“Hit a mine for’ard,” I said. “Get your life jackets on.” I dived into our quarters and struggled into mine. I helped the other two on with theirs. When I went out on deck again the starboard boat had been swung out. Some of the men were getting into them. “That’s our boat—Number Two on the port side,” I said.
Bert grabbed my arm. “That’s the one wot’s got those loose planks, ain’t it? Sills told me.” His voice sounded scared. I’d forgotten all about it until he mentioned it. I felt a sudden surge of panic grip me by the guts. I made no comment. “Get to your boat stations,” I said.
As we started off along the deck I fancied she was already getting heavy in the bows. Hendrik suddenly materialised almost at my elbow. Evans was with him. They both hurried for’ard. Somebody called out to the Welshman, “Hey, Evans—didn’t you go down with Mr. Hendrik?”
“Yes, I did,” he called back.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad as it could be, man,” he called back. “It caught that weak plate we had strengthened at Murmansk. There’s a hole about a mile wide in Number One and the water’s pouring through like Niagara Falls.” His excitable high-pitched voice carried round the deck.
Hendrik ran up the bridge ladder. Everyone was watching as he reported to the Captain. Then Halsey turned with the megaphone to his lips. “Mr Cousins! Get the men embarked in the boats. Call a roll. Report when each boat’s complement is complete. The ship’s settling by the head. We’ve got about ten minutes before she goes down.”
A shocked murmur ran through the crew. “Cor lumme!” Bert said in my ear. “Bang goes ’alf a million quid’s worf o’ the old bright an’ shinin’.”
We were just under the bridge now, by our boat station. I heard Captain Halsey call to Hendrik to see that all hands were out of the engine-room. “Mr. Cousins!” he shouted, cupping his hands and leaning over the side of the bridge, “get Number Two boat swung out. Look sharp there!”
“Are the bulkheads holding, sir?” Cousins asked.
“Number Two bulkhead’s gone,” the Captain shouted down at him. “Mr. Hendrik expects Number Three to go any minute. Come on, jump to it.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cousins answered.
A sailor standing near me said, “That’s funny. Number Two were still ’olding when I come up.”
“Ain’t yer goin’ ter do nuffink, Corp?” Bert asked me. “I mean, them poor devils oughter be told ab’t that boat.”
“What’s the use, Bert?” I answered. “It’s the boat or nothing for them now.”
“Wot aba’t them rafts,?” he asked.
“There are only two,” I pointed out. “They’d hold about four men apiece.”
“They could ’ang on to ’em.”
“And die in an hour from the cold,” I said. “This is the Arctic, you know. Those planks may hold.”
“You three soldiers,” Cousins called out to us,” come and help swing this boat out.”
We stumbled forward to where several of the crew were trying to force the boat out on its davits. The Trikkala rolled and we were flung in amongst them. Rankin was there. So was my friend the cook. I remember he had the tortoise-shell cat in his arms. The ship rolled, the davits creaked and the boat swung out. A broken wave top thundered against the ship’s side, blinding us with spray. For an instant we seemed almost submerged in water. Then the side of the ship shook clear of the wave. The sea spouted outboard, dragging at our feet, as she rolled away to starboard. And in all this din of wind and roaring water, I heard Halsey’s voice; “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cater acts and hurricanoes, spout till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!” He laughed wildly in the teeth of the gale and then shouted down at us, “Come on—man that boat. Mr. Rankin! You and your men in Number Two boat.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Rankin.
“All clear below, Mr. Hendrik?”
“All clear, sir,” Hendrik replied.
“Put Miss Sorrel in Number Two, Mr. Hendrik.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Rankin gripped me by the arm. “In you get, Corporal. Sills, Cook—up you go.”
I hesitated. The crew were piling into the boat. Oars were being unshipped. It looked crowded and frail. I thought of the planks that had shifted under the pressure of my fingers. I looked aft to where the two rafts still hung in their fixtures above the after-deckhousing. “I’ll take a chance on one of the rafts,” I told Rankin.
“You’ll do as you’re told, Corporal,” he replied sharply. Give him his due, he didn’t seem scared.
And almost I obeyed. The habit of obedience was not easily shaken off. But the sound of the sea was all about me. And suddenly my mind was made up. “Remember what I told you about the state of that boat?” I said. “I’m taking one of the rafts. I advise you to do the same.”
“I’m wiv yer, Corp,” Bert said. “I ain’t hembarking in a ruddy sieve.”
Rankin hesitated. But at that moment Halsey’s voice shouted down at us, “Mr. Rankin—get yourself and your men into that boat.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Rankin’s Naval training reasserted itself. “Now in you get, both of you,” he said. “That’s an order. Sills?”
Sills moved towards the boat. “Now you, Cook,” Rankin ordered.
“I’m going wiv the Corp,” Bert said, and there was an obstinate expression in his face.
“Coom on, lad,” Sills said to him. “You’ll only get yourself in trouble for nothing. Maybe the planks ain’t as bad as they seemed.”
“Corporal!” Rankin ordered.
“I’m taking a raft,” I reiterated.
Rankin’s hand gripped my arm. His voice was excited. “Corporal Vardv—I’ll give you one last chance. Get into that boat?”
I shook him off. “I’m taking a raft,” I shouted at him. “Why the hell didn’t you pass on my report to the Captain?”
Captain Halsey’s voice sounded from just above us. I looked up. He was leaning over the bridge. His beard glistened with salt spray. His eyes were excited and wild looking. “Mr. Rankin?” he roared. ‘I’m ordering you to get yourself and those two men into that boat. What’s the trouble?”
“They refuse to embark, sir” Rankin replied.
“Refuse to embark!” he screamed. “Report to me on the bridge.” He disappeared from view and from the other end of the bridge I heard him ordering Number One boat away. There was a confused medley of orders. Then the boat disappeared from view. In a lull in the wind I heard the falls whistle as they slid through the blocks. At that moment Jennifer Sorrel was escorted on to the deck. She looked white and almost fragile in her khaki greatcoat and the cumbersome bulk of her cork lifejacket. Hendrik was with her. He handed her over to Cousins. The second officer had got all the men embarked. Sills was up there too. His thin, damp face looked white in the lights. He was scared. The cook was hugging his cat, which was struggling and clawing at him in a frenzy.
I suddenly found Jennifer Sorrel standing beside me. Cousins was about to help her into the boat. The Trikkala rolled heavily. Once again the port rail disappeared in a welter of swirling water. Then we were clear. The girl was right beside me at the rail. “Miss Sorrel,” I said, “Don’t go in that boat. I’m convinced it’s not safe.”
“How do you mean?” she said.
“The planks are loose in her,” I said.
Cousins overheard me. “Stop that nonsense, soldier,” he said, angrily. “Hurry, please, Miss Sorrel. We ought to be clear by now.”
Suddenly I felt at all costs I must stop her going on that boat. “Please,” I said. “Take one of the rafts. It’ll be cold. But it’ll float.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cousins’ hand gripped my shoulder and spun me round. “The boat’s all right. I went over it only a week ago myself.” His right fist was clenched.
“Yes, but you didn’t inspect it last night,” I told him, watching for his fist. “I did. Miss Sorrel,” I said pleadingly over my shoulder, “please believe me—you’d be safer on the raft.”
“Listen, you,” Cousins shouted. “If you’re scared to get into a boat in a rough sea, I’ll have to make you.” There was an ugly glint in his eye and his youthful face was set hard.
Bert suddenly stepped forward and gripped the wrist of his clenched hand. “The Corp’s right, mister,” he said. “I felt them planks meself. They’re loose. An’ don’t you start nuffink, see.” Then he turned to the girl. “You take my tip, Miss, an’ do as the Corp says. You’ll be safer wiv us.”
The men were murmuring at the delay. The Trikkala was beginning to feel sluggish at the bows and though it was impossible to be sure in that turmoil, she seemed to have a definite slant for’ard. Halsey’s voice suddenly shouted above our heads. “Mr. Cousins! Clear that boat, will you.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Cousins answered. He threw Bert off. “Come on, Miss Sorrel, please. We’ve got to get clear.” I saw her hesitate. Her eyes searched mine. Suddenly she turned to Cousins and said, “I’ll take a chance on one of the rafts.”
“My instructions are to take you in this boat,” was Cousins’ reply. “Come on now. I’ve no more time to waste.” And he made as though to pick her up.
“Leave go of me,” she cried and wriggled away from him.
“Clear that boat, will you, Mr. Cousins,” Halsey screamed. He sounded beside himself with rage.
“For the last time, Miss, are you coming?” Cousins asked.
“No, I’ll take a raft,” was her reply.
At that he shrugged his shoulders and climbed into the boat. He gave an order as the Trikkala rolled to port. They let go the falls when the wave top was almost touching her keel. As she hit the water something jumped out of the boat and an instant later I saw the cook’s tortoise-shell cat clinging to the trailing falls. The water swirled away from us and the boat slid, out of sight into the inky trough. I went to the rail. The Trikkala reached the height of her roll and then I felt myself swinging down into the sea again. Cousins’ boat came up to meet me. The oars were out and they were fending off for dear life. She looked dry enough. “Mr. Cousins?” I yelled as the boat came almost level with the rail to which I clung. “I’m cutting the port raft into the water. Have your boat stand by it till you know whether it’s seaworthy or not.” He gave no sign of acknowledgment. I don’t know whether he heard me. But it was all I could do. “Bert,” I called. “Give me a hand with that raft. We’ll use the starboard one.”
We scrambled aft as fast as we could. And as I slithered along the deck, the tortoise-shell cat shot ahead of me and disappeared down the after-companion way towards the galley. I was to see that cat again—but in very different circumstances. I reached the raft and began hacking at the lower ropes with my clasp knife. Bert swarmed up on to the deckhousing and begun slashing at the upper ties.
Suddenly Halsey’s voice cut through the almost deserted ship. “Mr. Hendrik! Mr. Rankin?” he roared through his megaphone. “Stop those men cutting that raft clear.”
I heard them coming at us along the deck as I cut the last of the lower ropes. They were shouting to us. I stood back. The mate was leading. He had picked up an iron bar and his eyes gleamed viciously. The scar on his cheek showed white in the swinging lights. The ship rolled. I saw Jennifer Sorrel clutch a rail by the bridge. Halsey was hurrying down the bridge ladder. The tall shaft of the funnel, the mast, the rusty bulk of the bridge—all swung in a dizzy arc. Hendrik clutched at a storm rope. Then as the ship rolled back he came on again. There was murder in his eyes. I slipped my rifle from my shoulder. Why didn’t they want the raft cut clear? The question flashed through my brain to justify my action. “Stand back!” I ordered, and gripped my rifle in both hands. The mate still came on. I thumbed forward the safety catch and worked the bolt. “Halt—or I fire!” I ordered.
He stopped then. So did Rankin. There was a frightened look on his white face. Surely he had reported the condition of that boat to the Captain? “Go on, Bert,” I called, “Cut her away.”
“Okay,” Corp,” he answered. “I’m on the last rope. Here she comes.”
There was a grating sound over my head. I looked up. The raft had begun to move. And then, with a roar, it was away. A heavy burst of spray told us that it was in the sea. As the Trikkala dipped to port I saw it floating like a dark platform in the boiling crest of a wave. Then it vanished. There was no sign of the boat.
Halsey was level with his mate now. He stopped. “Corporal—you realise this ship is sinking,” he said. “You’re endangering the lives——”
“Clearing that raft wasn’t endangering lives, Captain Halsey,” I said. “Number Two boat was unseaworthy. Surely Rankin told you that?”
“The boat was all right,” Halsey said. “Mr. Hendrik went over all the boats whilst we were in Murmansk.”
“There were five planks loose,” I said.
“That’s a lie,” Hendrik shouted. But his eyes were shifty and his face was as white in the deck lights as the scar that ran from his ear to his chin.
Evans had come up and was standing beside Hendrik. Jukes I could see over by the starboard rail. Suddenly it was clear to me, the whole monstrous plot. I was staggered by the horror of it.
“Come on, put your gun up,” Halsey said. “You have committed an act of mutiny, Corporal. Try to understand what that means.”
“And what have you done?” I answered. I don’t think until that moment that I had quite appreciated the significance of my action. But now I didn’t care. I saw poor little Sills’ frightened face and the cook with his cat clawing desperately free of him. The cat had known. “Those men in the boats,” I cried. My voice was hoarse, I hardly recognised it. “You meant those planks to be loose. That’s what Hendrik was doing to them in Murmansk.”
The mate started to come at me then, the iron bar swinging in his hand. I raised my rifle. I would have shot him dead. He knew that and he stopped. He was scared.
“You must be mad, Corporal,” Halsey said.
“Mad!” I cried. “Who was working on the boats in Murmansk—Hendrik and Jukes. Both men who served with you on the Penang.” I saw Halsey start. “Who’s left on the ship now? Just the four of you—just the four who ran the Penang in the China Sea. What’s your game, Halsey?” I asked. “Why have you murdered the crew of the Trikkala? Is this another act of piracy?”
Halsey gave a little quick nod of the head. And at the same moment Bert shouted, “Look a’t.”
I swung round. Jukes was close behind me. As I turned he had his fist drawn back. I saw his thick, powerful body lean towards me. The face, with its broken nose and small eyes, was set and hard. Then he hit me.
The next thing I knew was a dizzy sensation of rising and falling in infinite darkness and the sound of water all about me. Very faint I heard Bert’s voice say, “’E’s cornin’ ra’nd, miss.” Then, nearer, “You orl right, Corp?”
I felt sick and my head hurt. I lay still, my eyes closed, and all the time I had that horrible, dizzy feeling of being lifted up high as a church steeple and then shot down again as though in an express lift. I struggled with a dark nausea. I was soaked to the skin and shivering. The sound of water persisted, the angry hiss and roar of waves breaking. I struggled to sit upright. Somebody supported my back. “What happened?” I mumbled. My jaw was almost too painful to open. “Something hit me.”
“I’ll say it did,” Bert’s voice answered. “That fellow Jukes, it was. Crep’ up behind yer an’ then, when the Capting nodded ’e ’auled off an socked yer. ’Ow yer feeling?”
“Bit dizzy, that’s all,” I said. I opened my eyes. I could see nothing. All was inky darkness. For a moment I panicked at the thought that I had been blinded. Then as we shot skyward I saw a blur of white all round us—the white of breaking waves. Then we plummeted down again.
Somebody’s hand was stroking my head gently. “Who’s that?” I asked. “I can’t see a thing.”
“It’s me,” replied a girl’s voice, and I realised with a shock that they had put Jennifer Sorrel on to the raft after all. “Oh, God?” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“You ain’t got nuffink to be sorry aba’t, Corp,” Bert said. “She’s safer ’ere than wot she would be in that boat.”
I sat up and looked about me. There were just the three of us on the raft, vague shadows only visible against the boiling white of a wave crest. “Where’s Rankin?” I asked.
“He stayed be’ind. Capting’s orders. ’Alsey was most apologetic to Miss Sorrel, but said ’e couldn’t risk ’er stayin’ on board the Trikkala till ’e left in ’is boat. Promised to pick ’er up in the mornin’ when it was light.”
On the top of a wave I saw a line of lights. “Is that the Trikkala?” I asked.
“That’s ’er, mate,” Bert answered. “Capting told us to shove orf. ’E was afraid we wouldn’t be clear when she went da’n. The wind’s carried us well clear of ’er.”
Jennifer Sorrel suddenly spoke. We were in the trough of a wave and it was strangely silent. “Funny!” she said. “Our whole world has dwindled to a dark, cold, seething mass of water. And yet over there, there are cabins and hot water and food and lights.”
“That’s right, miss,” Bert put in. “An ’alf a million quid’s worf of silver—all ba’nd for the ruddy bottom.”
We rose, the raft slanting crazily. Then the water boiled all about us, the wind cut through our wet clothes and out there in the darkness were the lights of the Trikkala. The raft tilted. We raced down the back of the wave. All was quiet for a moment. There was no wind. Then suddenly we seemed lifted skyward by unseen hands and we were on top again of a raging torrent of water. The lights of the Trikkala showed for an instant and then were suddenly gone, leaving just a blank, empty darkness. For a moment I thought we had dropped to a trough again. But the water still boiled all round us and then the raft tilted and raced down the back of the wave. When we rose again, there was no flicker of light.
“Listen!” I said, “I thought I heard the sound of her engines.”
“Just a trick of the wind, mate,” Bert said. “She’s gone.”
And I was convinced he was right. The Trikkala had gone to the bottom. We were alone on a raft in the Barents Sea.
“The Captain said he’d pick us up in the morning,” Jennifer Sorrel said.
I lay back and closed my eyes, trying to think. All those accusations I had made. I had been so sure of them in the heat of the moment. But what reason could they possibly have had for tampering with the boats? They couldn’t have known they would hit a mine. And if it was the silver they were after, they wouldn’t get much of it away in an open boat. I felt I’d made a fool of myself and yet …
There followed hours of terrible darkness. On the wave crests the wind cut through our soaked clothing like a knife. The water surged around the raft. Sometimes it broke right over us. The rolled canvas-covered bulwarks became coated with ice. We hung on to the ropes with frozen fingers. In the troughs it was comparatively warm. It was a dizzy nightmare of violent movement. I was shivering violently. I felt ill and dazed. We huddled close against each other for warmth. As though by common consent we didn’t talk of what had happened. Bert began to sing. And for what seemed hours we sang old Army favourites, going over and over again our limited repertoire. And when we could think of nothing more, Jennifer suddenly began to sing arias from operas—Boheme, Rigoletto, Tosca, the Barber and others that I did not know. She had a clear, sweet voice. The gayer songs sounded strange in that wretched welter of foam and wind and dizzy movement.
So we passed the time, waiting for dawn. We dared not sleep though we were all half dead with tiredness and cold. We were none of us sick. The movement was too violent. It numbed our frozen guts. The time went slowly by in a leaden daze.
And when at last a faint light crept into the sky it made the wretchedness of our state more apparent. It is difficult to imagine what it is like on a raft in a gale in those northern waters—the awful sense of loneliness, the deadly fear that you are simply waiting for the end in a living death. In twenty-four hours we should be dead from the cold. We could not possibly survive another night. We were soaked and shivering and frozen. And all around us was that grey, mercilessly wind-torn sea. Not a sign of the Trikkala. No boats—nothing but storm-tossed water, surging restlessly, and the sky leaden with the promise of snow. Bert voiced my thoughts. “Gawd!” he said. “Fair beast of a mornin’, ain’t it? Yer know, Corp, I was ’appier in the dark. Couldn’t see them waves then. Fair vicious they look. This one, for instance. You can’t hardly believe we’ll make the top of it, can yer?” We were in a trough at the moment and high above us towered a green mountain of a wave, its crest curling wickedly in a surge of wind-whipped spray. It looked as though it were tumbling down on top of us, bent on crushing our frail craft. It didn’t seem possible that we could survive. Yet the raft tilted quickly and was born aloft in an instant to be almost submerged in that foaming surf. And so it went on until we took it for granted that we should make it each time.
I tried standing up for the instant that we were poised on the crest, Bert gripping my legs at the knees. But I could see nothing—no sign of the Trikkala’s boats, nothing. Visibility was barely a mile. A cold haze hung over that desolate sea.
Jennifer was shivering. Her face was dead white with strain and there were dark rings under her eyes. I thought of all she must have been through. And now this. And only a few hours ago she had been talking rapturously of England! She no longer sang. She just sat there, patient, exhausted—resigned to the inevitable. The spirit which showed in the strong formation of her face was crushed out of her with this final blow.
Once, when I stood up, I caught sight of something dark in the sea near us. The wind drove us quite close to it. A wave crest hit it so that it turned over and swooped down into a trough with us. It was a wooden seat. For a moment the word TRIKKALA stared at us from the water. Then it was gone, swept away in the break of another wave. It was one of the seats that had been fixed below the Trikkala’s bridge.
Shortly afterwards an oar drifted alongside. Bert leaned out and made a grab for it. He missed and only the united efforts of Jennifer and myself saved him from going in. Next instant the oar was thrown right against the raft and we took it on board. There was nothing to tell us definitely that it was an oar from one of the Trikkala’s boats. But Bert and I exchanged a glance and he said, “Poor devils!”
Strangely enough my watch, though soaked with water, still continued to function. At nine-forty, standing up for a quick look round as the raft steadied itself on a wave top, I saw the dim shadow of what looked like a ship on the edge of visibility. I tried again on the top of the next wave, but I could see nothing. I kept on trying—though fearing that my eyes had deceived me—and the fourth time I really saw it, a corvette, rolling drunkenly on the top of a wave and half-hidden in spray. I reckoned she’d pass within about half a mile of us.
I told the others and when we hit the next wave top we could all see it quite plainly, half drowned in water which streamed off her as she rose from the trough.
“We must wave something,” Bert said, “on this oar. Got anyfink coloured, Corp? Khaki ain’t no good.”
I shook my head. Then Jennifer said, “I’ve got a red jumper on. If you two boys will just turn the other way.”
“No,” I said. “You’ll get cold.”
She suddenly smiled. It was the first time I’d seen her smile that morning. It lit her whole face—it was like a ray of sunlight. “I can’t be colder,” she said. “Anyway, I don’t mind if it means a hot drink and bed afterwards.”
Bert said, “Go on, miss—’urry up. If that ship don’t see us we’ve ’ad it. She’s ’eadin’ up into the wind, back towards the convoy.”
A moment later a red jumper swung from the top of the upraised oar. It hung limp for a moment in the trough and then bellied out as the wind tore through it so that it looked like the trunk of some strange scarlet spectre, its arms outstretched in mute appeal. Each time we hit a wave top we swung the oar back and forth, our eyes watching the sleek, half-smothered outline of the warship. She was abreast of us now. There was no doubt about it, she was headed back to the convoy. The water creamed from her dripping bows as she made what speed she could in the teeth of the wind.
Our hearts sank. A squall of sleet came down and for a time she was blotted out. When we saw her again she was passed us. We could begin to see her stern. We looked at each other as we lay for a second in a trough. Bert’s lined, monkey-like face was set in desperation. Jennifer’s was blank, hopeless. The next wave top showed the corvette farther off. It was the end. Soon she would vanish into the curtain of the mist.
And yet when we rose again, she still seemed just as near. She presented no more of her stern. It was as though time had stood still. Up again and there she was still, but broadside on to us. And when we rose again, it dawned on us. We cheered wildly—a thin ragged sound in that waste of water. She was turning in a wide circle towards us.
A few moments later and her small, knife-sharp bows were pointed straight at us. She looked like a toy, the slim hull of her pitching violently, her mast and funnel like matchsticks waving in the wind.
Within half an hour Bert and I lay in bunks in borrowed pyjamas in the corvette’s little sick-bay, each of us with two hot-water bottles pressed against us and a tot of rum in hot cocoa inside us. I never slept so solidly in all my life.
Next morning the skipper came to see us. He was a lieutenant, a youngster of about twenty-three. His voice had the fatherly tone of a man who had been brought up to treat all men as his children. It was from him I learned that we were the only survivors of the Trikkala. The Trikkala’s wireless operator had contacted the escort ships of the convoy and the corvette Bravado had been ordered to stand by till dawn to pick up survivors. She had seen a good deal of wreckage which had been identified as belonging to the Trikkala. But there was no sign of the boats. I was staggered. All the wild thoughts I had had about the Trikkala and her skipper crumbled away. The accusations I had hurled at him seemed like the ravings of a delirium. The third boat—Halsey’s boat—had gone down with the rest.
A medical orderly treated my jaw, which was swollen and painful. My temperature was normal. I felt tired and stiff, otherwise all right. But Bert was running a bit of a fever and starting to cough. His face was unnaturally flushed and his eyes bright. The orderly told him he’d have to stay in bed. I could get up when I liked. I asked him how Miss Sorrel was. He told me she was fine.
Shortly after eleven there was a cry of “Up spirits.” The orderly brought us each our tot of rum. He was a pleasant, long faced, rather serious boy with carroty hair and ears that flaired out from either side of his head. “Looks as though ’e’s goin’ ter take off any minute,” Bert said in an effort at cheeriness.
I lay in bed all morning. Bert’s breathing became heavy and the cough more noticeable. I didn’t like the sound of it. I tried to read. But it wasn’t easy. The cabin swayed and tossed. The sea thundered against the closed ports, the noise of it drowning the rhythmic roar of the engines which vibrated through the whole ship. We were making good speed in a heavy sea and it sounded like it.
After lunch I got up, dressed and went on deck. When I say I went on deck, all I mean is that I slipped up a wet companionway and took a quick look round. It was a grey, dingy sight. The sea was just as it had been the previous morning. The corvette was awash from stem to stern. The mast, with a torn white ensign flying, swayed alarmingly. The ship was flinging herself through the waves.
I went below again. The orderly was in the sick bay. I asked him whether it would be all right for me to see Miss Sorrel. He took me for’ard along a narrow steel passageway that swayed and dipped wildly. He indicated the door of a cabin and left me. I knocked. I found myself strangely nervous as she called, “Come in!”
I found her propped up in a bunk wearing a man’s white sweater with the colours of some team knitted into it. Her face still looked tired, but it lit up with a smile when she saw who it was.
I sat with her for quite a while. I don’t know what we talked about. I only know that I enjoyed talking with her. She was natural, friendly—easy to talk to. We had the love of the sea in common.
Shortly after midday the corvette rejoined the convoy. The gale had blown itself out and the sea was falling. When I went on deck after lunch a watery gleam of sunshine picked out the white flecks of the wind-broken sea. We were passing along the southern fringe of the convoy. The merchant ships wallowed slowly in the remnants of the gale like a flotilla of ungainly ducks. Ahead of us the slim grey lines of the destroyer Scorpion patrolled in a smother of spray. I returned to the sickbay. Shortly afterwards came the faint sound of the loud-hailer. The skipper of the Bravado was reporting to the Commander of the Scorpion. I wondered how he felt, poor devil, losing the one ship in the convoy that carried a valuable cargo for the British Treasury.
Bert got steadily worse during the day. He didn’t cough much, but fever burned in his eyes and by the evening his temperature was up to 104. He still tried to crack an occasional joke, but his voice was weak and he lay in a semi-coma. The medical orderly suspected pneumonia.
I had tried to comfort him with the thought that in about thirty-six hours we would be in Leith and a doctor would come on board. But when I went up on deck the next morning for a blow before breakfast, there was no sign of the convoy and the corvette was hurrying north. I asked one of the crew why this was—were we making for Scapa? He said, “No, Iceland. The Old Man’s had orders to pick up a couple of Yankee freighters at Reykjavik and escort them down to meet a westbound Atlantic convoy.”
Back in the sick-bay Bert’s fever-bright eyes looked up at me over the bedclothes. “Are we nearly there, Corp?” he whispered.
“No, Bert,” I replied. “We’ve left the convoy. We’re bound for Iceland.”
He gave a little grunt and closed his eyes. I thought he had gone off to sleep again. But in a moment he said, “Just the job, Iceland—get me silly temperature da’n.” And his face cracked into a tired grin.
Jennifer came to visit him in the afternoon. Her red jumper, freshly washed, was a gay splash of colour in the little sick-bay. Her face looked bright and cheerful. The dark rings under her eyes had gone and her skin had more colour in it. There was even a gleam of laughter in her grey eyes. It wasn’t until she had been in the room several minutes that it dawned on me why she looked so gay. “You’ve got hold of some lipstick,” I said. “Wherever did you find that on a warship?”
She laughed. “The skipper. He’s a dear. When he lent me that sweater of his he rather shyly produced some powder and lipstick. Last port he was in was Calais and he’d bought cosmetics for his girl friends and his sister. He said he was sure his sister wouldn’t mind.”
For some reason I felt sullen and angry. When the medical orderly came in, she took him on one side and questioned him. It seems she knew all about pneumonia. I suppose there was plenty of it in the concentration camps. Anyway, she was constantly in and out of the sick-bay after that in the capacity of self-appointed nurse. She confirmed that Bert had pneumonia, but she said he’d be all right. He hadn’t got it badly. The next night he was over the worst. By the time we reached Reykjavik he was sitting up in bed, cracking jokes and demanding his arrears of rum ration. “Pity the Army don’t cotton on ter this ’ere rum ’abit, ain’t it, mate?” was his comment.
Altogether we were nearly three weeks on board the Bravado. I’ll always remember that as one of the happiest times I spent in the Army. The weather turned fine. We were given very little to do. And as nobody fell sick, the skipper left us quartered in the sick-bay, which was a good deal more comfortable than the after-deck. And every day I saw Jennifer. Mostly we talked of sailing. I’d done a month’s sailing among some of the islands off the west coast of Scotland. I knew Oban and Mull and the Kyle of Lochalsh. She told me the story of the Lady’s Rock and about the race that runs between the rock and the lighthouse on Eilean Musdile, of the seals on the islands off Lismore, of lobster breeding, of the story of Duart Castle. She told me of the trips she had done with her brother on her 25-ton ketch, the Eilean Mor, and I in my turn told her of voyages made from my home town of Falmouth. I was with a firm of architects and the junior partner, a fairly wealthy young man, had owned a gaff-rigged cutter. With another fellow and myself as crew we’d done trips to France and even Spain. We’d taken her into most of the ports of Britain’s west coast at one time or another.
So the time passed in a timeless haze of chatting, reading and lazing. We were a week at Reykjavik and left in glorious sunshine with two American Liberty boats. We tacked them on to their convoy some twelve hundred miles from New York and then turned homeward. The rumour got around the ship that we would dock at Falmouth. I stopped the skipper one day and asked him whether it was true. “You see, it’s my home town,” I said, “and it’s nearly a year now since I saw my family.”
He smiled and nodded. “Quite true,” he said. “We’ll dock at Falmouth on the 30th, all being well.”
At ten o’clock on the 30th we steamed past Zose Point and slid into the anchorage beyond the Ferry. A line of Naval patrol boats—ML’s and MTB’s—were moored close to the foreshore and there was a destroyer and two corvettes at anchor. All about me were old familiar things that I had not seen for a long time. The little pier where I’d fallen into the water as a kid was still there just as it had always been in my lifetime. It was as though I’d never been away. Bert and I stood against the rail looking out on to the town. I was so busy pointing out places to him that I didn’t hear Jenny come up—I’d been calling her that for several days now. “Well, Jim,” she said, “I’m afraid it’s goodbye now.”
She was wearing the khaki greatcoat and little black beret that I had seen her in that first time when she struggled up the gangway of the Trikkala. I hadn’t given this moment a thought and I felt a sudden emptiness.
“Are you going ashore now?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “They’re just lowering a boat for me.
I stared at her. She was going ashore. She was walking right out of my life when I’d come to take her presence almost for granted. I suddenly felt I was losing hold of something precious to me. “I’ll—I’ll see you ashore, won’t I?”
But she shook her head. “I’m leaving right away for Scotland,” she said. “I haven’t seen Daddy for over three years. I expect he thinks I’m dead—you see, we couldn’t write. I’m not going to ’phone him. I’m just going to walk right in on him and give him the surprise of his life.”
A rating came up. “Boat’s alongside, Miss Sorrel.”
“Goodbye then, Jim.”
She held out her hand. I took it. I thought her face looked sad. I hoped the parting meant as much to her as it did to me. Then she removed her hand and shook Bert’s. “Goodbye, Bert. Don’t do too much. You’ll feel a bit depressed if you do.”
“Goodbye, Miss Sorrel,” he said. “You must come for annuvver trip wiv us sometime. The Corp an’ I is thinking of startin’ a little company to run trips ter Davy Jones an’ back fer people like you wot ’asn’t ’ad enought hexcitement in their lives.”
She laughed. And then with a little wave she was gone. She never looked back. I leaned over the side watching the boat pull away for the shore. She sat staring straight in front of her. She never once turned her head. It was as though she had turned her back on all that section of her life. She was going home.
The coxswain touched me on the arm. “Captain’s orders, Corporal, and you an’ Cook is to report to the sick-bay and remain there until you’re sent for.”
That brought me back to earth with a jolt. The trip was over. Jenny had gone. We were back in the Army again.
We went below. For two hours we remained in that little sick-bay. Nobody came. Twice I got up with the intention of trying to see the skipper. It was infuriating to be sitting there with my home just across the anchorage, held up by some wretched little bit of red tape. But each time I sat down again. The skipper was bound to be busy. He’d been very decent to us. He knew my home was in Falmouth. He’d send us ashore as soon as he could.
We were called for food. And finally at two-thirty a rating poked his head round the door. “Wanted on deck, Corporal,” he said. “You an” yer mate.”
“Shall we bring our kit?” I asked.
He said we’d better. He stood in the doorway watching us curiously as we gathered our things together.
My eyes blinked in the sunlight as we came out on deck. A launch was lying alongside. And standing by the rail, close under the bridge, was a military police sergeant.
“’Ullo, ’ullo—wot’s this?” Bert said. “Beastly Red Cap—an’ a sergeant too. Looks like trouble, mate.”
“You Corporal Vardy?” the sergeant asked as we came up. He looked down at a piece of paper he had in his hand. “Corporal J. L. Vardy?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Gunner H. B. Cook?” he asked Bert.
“That’s me, Sarge.”
The sergeant folded the piece of paper up and put it in his pocket. “I have orders to place you both under close arrest,” he said.
For a moment I think I just gaped at him. I couldn’t believe I’d heard correctly. “Place us under arrest?” I said.
“Blimey!” muttered Bert. “Fine ’ome-coming this is.” Then he looked up belligerently. “’Ere, wot are we supposed to ’ave done?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “What’s the charge, Sergeant?”
“Mutiny,” he replied. “Come on now. Get into the boat and look sharp about it.”
I never saw my family. And Bert never got up to London to see his missis. We were driven straight from the docks at Falmouth to a military camp near Plymouth, occupied by Number 345 Holding Company. There we were locked in a small room, at the rear of the guard post, which we shared with a frightened little medical fellow waiting to go before a civilian court for assault. This room acted as a temporary cell, the permanent cells being all occupied, and here we spent wretched weeks of waiting.