‘Look! Out there!’ The skipper’s panicked but excited voice sounded out into the blustery night as he spun the trawler’s steering wheel quickly to the left and powered the vessel forward.
Their boat was the first to make it to the wrecked SS Tunisia after responding to a Mayday call which had come across the airways: A British steamship had just been bombed out of the water by a German FW200 aircraft. The cargo vessel had been transporting manganese ore, desperately needed for iron and steel production, but 350 miles off the west coast of Ireland it had been spotted by the Luftwaffe. Within minutes the immense weight of its cargo had made the ship sink like a lead balloon into the depths of the Atlantic.
The ship had been made up almost entirely of Merchant Navy sailors – although there had been a few passengers who, like its cargo, were being transported back to British shores.
‘Quick! Get the light on him!’ the skipper shouted to the young lad whose hands were clamped on either side of a large, round light from which a strong beam was laying a yellow path across the turbulent waters.
Behind him a burly-looking older man stood stock-still, staring intently as the moving path of light caught a snatch of life being dragged under the waters.
‘I’m going in!’ the broad-shouldered, bearded fisherman yelled, as he swiped off his cap, tore off his waxed cotton gaberdine, and pulled his thick polo neck jumper over his head, before freeing himself of his rubber boots. Before anyone had time to object he had tossed his long thick woollen socks aside and had climbed barefoot, wearing just his vest and trousers, on to the side of the boat.
‘Jim!’ the skipper shouted out, but it was too late. His mate had dived, torpedo-like into the moving grey sea and disappeared.
The old skipper and the young lad stood transfixed, holding their breath and staring intently into the choppy waters. It seemed like an age, but must have only been a few long-drawn-out seconds before Jim reappeared, gasping for air. He swam towards the end of the beam of light and upended himself back beneath the water. The light caught his white, bony feet as they disappeared where his head had been just moments before.
‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ the skipper said aloud. ‘Jim, yer a bloody eejit yer are!’ He mumbled as he gripped the boat’s large wooden steering wheel, keeping the trawler on track and chugging slowly to where he had seen his lifelong friend disappear. The silence felt deafening as the old man and the young boy stared, their eyes glued to the spot where the brave fisherman had dived beneath the surface.
There was a joint intake of breath as their mate reappeared; one of his arms was wrapped around a man’s chest, while his other arm floundered behind him as he fought the water, swimming on his back, towing the man’s lifeless body in his wake. Waves kept submerging them both, but the fisherman and his human cargo kept bobbing back up to the surface.
This was one battle Mother Nature was not going to win.
‘Bejesus!’ the skipper shouted out jubilantly. ‘Let’s get the great big lummox back on board,’ he shouted to the young lad, as he powered off and swiftly wrapped a length of rope around the steering wheel to keep the rudder steady.
By now Jim had grabbed a piece of timber bobbing about on the water’s surface and was using it like a float, his feet kicking out furiously to keep himself and the lifeless man buoyant. As the boat neared its human catch, the young lad dangled the top part of his skinny body down the side of the hull, desperately trying to grab the shirt that the lifeless man was still wearing.
‘Got him!’ the youngster shouted out, as he took a firm hold of the shirt before reaching out and grasping Jack’s thick leather belt. Summoning all his wiry strength, the boy hoisted Jack up, over and into the boat, landing him on deck like a monster-sized catch. But unlike the fish the men were used to hauling on board, all thrashing around and gulping for air, there wasn’t a flicker of movement from the man.
The skipper dropped the ladder across the side of the boat and threw a thickset arm down to grab his mate’s outstretched hand. Clutching the skipper’s hand, Jim managed to pull himself out of the water, clamber up the ladder and over the vessel’s railings, before collapsing on to the deck next to Jack. Water trickled from his grey-speckled black beard as he heaved to fill his lungs, his chest rising and falling as he sucked in the night’s air.
Now the skipper dropped to his knees and started pushing with all his might down on Jack’s chest.
‘Come on, man!’ he shouted. Taking Jack’s lolling head in his hands, the skipper cleared his airway before blowing into Jack’s mouth and giving him the kiss of life. But there was no sign of life.
‘Come on, yer bastard! We’ve not done this fer bugger all!’ The man’s voice was frantic as he took another gasp of air and blew once more into his lifeless catch.
The young lad was standing nearby, hands on his knees, retching with adrenaline. Jim was laid out on his back, too exhausted to even sit up. The strength was draining from the skipper’s arms, and in a fit of desperation he turned his head upwards and muttered a quiet prayer to the starless skies above. The old man hoped someone up there was listening.
Suddenly Jack’s body convulsed, and as it did so, a huge spray of salty seawater erupted from his mouth.
‘Thanks be to God in the Highest Heaven!’ the skipper voiced his relief, before rolling the sodden weight of Jack’s semi-conscious body on to its side, allowing more of the sea’s deathly liquid to spew back out and on to the deck.
He looked across to his mate, who was still breathing heavily and still flat on his back. ‘You okay there, Jim?’
Jim looked at his old friend and smiled.
‘Aye, I am, Shamus,’ he coughed, spat out seawater, then forced himself to sit up. ‘But I think we’re getting too old for this game.’ Jim let out a loud bark of laughter as the young lad hurried round, stepping over crab pots and a heap of nets to help his dripping-wet workmate to his feet.
‘Best get some blankets wrapped around the both of them – and quick, laddie,’ Shamus commanded the young boy as he himself lurched unsteadily back into the confines of the small cabin, climbed behind the wheel and began steering the boat back to dry land. ‘The sea mightn’t have got ’em, but the cold might yet,’ he muttered to himself.
A quarter of an hour after the three fishermen had hauled Jack’s lifeless body out of the sea, the small trawler was joined on the water by a converted freighter bearing the red and white insignia of the Red Cross.
It was a great relief to the crew to hand over the unknown man to the Order of St John volunteers.
‘We think hypothermia’s set in … he’s barely conscious,’ Shamus told one of the medics tending Jack, who was now shaking violently from the freezing temperatures he’d been exposed to.
As Jack’s stretcher was winched from the trawler and swung on board the rescue ship, the medic shook the hands of the skipper, the fisherman, and the young lad in turn. ‘If he lives, it’ll be down to you three,’ he said solemnly.
‘Aye, well, she took an old friend early this year,’ Jim said, nodding over the side to the lapping ocean, now surprisingly calm. ‘She wasn’t gonna have anyone else – not on my watch anyway,’ he said with a clear determination in his voice.
‘We’ll be having a dram or two when we get back to shore,’ Shamus added, ruffling the messy mop of dirty amber-coloured hair on the young boy standing next to him. ‘Won’t we, lad?’
The pale, freckle-faced youngster smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
‘Let’s just hope this one gets to enjoy the burn of a good whisky again,’ the skipper nodded up to Jack as the stretcher he was strapped into disappeared from sight.
As the two fishermen and the boy watched the Red Cross ship power away from them they knew they would probably never find out what happened to the unknown man they had saved from certain death. They could only hope and pray that he survived – for his own sake, and for the family they presumed he had waiting for him at home.
As Jack’s eyes flickered open momentarily he saw a brass lantern dangling above him and felt the gentle sway beneath him and he knew instinctively he was in the bowels of a ship at sea.
The glow of the light bobbing above him seemed so bright. Too bright. He closed his eyes.
He was almost sure he was still alive. He had a sense that he had somehow escaped death – that he had beaten the odds and survived. He had a vague recollection of drowning, of being dragged down into a watery grave. But then he had felt the pull of something, or someone, above him and seconds later he was breathing in air – not water.
What had happened after that was sketchy. He remembered darkness and then seeing an old man’s face next to his. The man had had a distinctive Irish accent and he had shouted some kind of profanity at him. Then he remembered his body starting to shake – and shake. His whole body had felt like it was bouncing off the stretcher he’d been put on. The shaking had spread to his jaws and he had heard his teeth repeatedly clashing together.
There had been patches of black. Jack realised he had been swinging in and out of consciousness and that he had no idea how long he had been in the belly of this ship.
For a moment a part of his muddled mind wondered if he was, in fact, dead, that this was some kind of strange afterlife and he was being transported to ‘the other side’ – whatever or wherever that was; that was until he heard voices around him, voices that were very clearly human.
‘How many were on board?’ a voice to his right asked. Jack hadn’t realised he was not alone; he tried to turn his head to see the person who was speaking, but his head wouldn’t move. Jack felt like he was sinking slowly down into a dark pit and that there was nothing he could do to stop it.
‘I think I heard there were forty-three,’ another, deeper voice on his left replied with what sounded like a guttural north-west accent.
‘And how many survivors?’ the first voice asked.
‘Apart from this one – if he makes it,’ the lilting voice answered, ‘just four.’
The people on either side were now moving about around him, and Jack could feel the odd bump as the ship rode waves.
There was silence and Jack again tried to open his eyes a fraction. It was all he had the energy for. Even his eyelids felt heavy. He caught sight of two men, now with their backs to him, bent over another stretcher with a lifeless-looking body laid on it. It seemed so quiet now, and so dark – or was that his eyes closing?
He was now back in the darkness and he could feel his mind and his body welcoming the deep sleep that he sensed was just about to take him. It was a heavenly feeling and he couldn’t wait to embrace it. But just before he did – before the darkness came and he fell willingly into its embrace – he saw the cherub again.
The baby.
The child he somehow knew was his.
And then the darkness came and took him away.