Tuesday, September 17, 1940, 10:03 PM
Wham!
The explosion threw Ken out of his bunk, out of his dreams, into the dark, and onto the floor. He heard the sound of water rushing and was immediately wet. He stumbled up, feeling his way around the room. The alarm whistle was piercing his brain. A dim blue light was coming from where the door had been. There was now a gaping hole in the wall.
He knew the drill. He grabbed his kapok vest and life jacket and put them on over his pyjamas, shouting to Terry. “Let’s go, Ter!” He tried to sound as cheery and as calm as possible, as though it was just like any other drill. He knew that this time it was not a drill.
“Aye, aye!” said Terry, as he grabbed his life jacket.
They waded into the corridor, cold water gushing over their feet. Soft blue emergency lights gave everything an unreal glow. There was a sound of hissing steam. In the distance Ken could hear children calling out, some crying.
“It’s the real thing, Ken!” Howard caught up to him as they headed toward their muster station in the playroom.
Suddenly Ken realized he’d forgotten his father’s overcoat. It’ll be cold out there, he thought. We may have to sit in the lifeboat for a while. And his stepmother had told him to take care of the coat. She’d be mad if he left it behind.
“Terry and Howard, you go on ahead to the playroom,” he said, “I’ve got to go back.”
“Wait,” cried Terry, “I’ll come too!”
“No,” insisted Ken. “You go on ahead. I’ll catch you up in a minute.”
As Ken turned the corner toward his cabin, he heard an officer behind him shout to Terry and Howard, “Forget the muster station, boys. Go straight to your lifeboat on the embarkation deck.”
Ken pushed through a stream of children going in the opposite direction. He made his way to his cabin and felt in the dark for his overcoat. He could hear water running everywhere. His hands fumbled with the straps as he took off his life jacket and his kapok vest. He put on his overcoat, then strapped on his kapok vest and his life jacket again. His heart was pounding. He wasn’t afraid. He was excited! They’d been torpedoed!
He left his cabin and worked his way to the stairs, grateful for the warmth of the coat. There were lights flashing erratically. He heard odd zapping noises. He stretched to look over the line of children, to see what was ahead. As he turned a corner, he saw a huge gaping hole, the size of a football field. There were wires hanging out in every direction, and electric sparks flashing around the edges of the hole.
Ken was transfixed, and terrified. He turned his head away and let the slow moving queue of people push him through the dining room, toward the deck.
10:03 PM
“HELP! HELP! WE'RE TRAPPED!”
The heavy dresser had fallen, blocking the door of Bess’s cabin. She put her glasses on, but could see no way out of the room. She tugged on her large green dressing gown and struggled to put her vest and life jacket over it. She and Patricia banged their fists against the wall. The dresser had made a jagged hole beside the door when it fell but the hole was small and high up. There was no way they could get through it.
“Help!” she screamed.
Suddenly, a large man’s arm pushed through the hole. He smashed and punched at the wall, breaking away the plaster to make a bigger hole.
“Where are ya?” he called out.
“Here! We’re beside the wall!”
The arm stretched and flailed through the hole. Bess grabbed it and it reached around her. The hand dug into her ribs, pulling her up and over the dresser and out into the corridor. The sailor set her down.
“There’s another girl in there!”
He reached into the hole again. Bess could hear Patricia shrieking. “Over here! Over here!” The sailor grunted and strained and pulled Patricia out through the hole.
“You two, go. Get up the stairs. Forget your muster station. Get straight out on deck! Go!”
Bess and Patricia headed toward the stairway, just like in all of the drills. Except this time it was cold and dark and wet. There was water everywhere.
“Bess!” Bess wheeled around to see Beth, holding up her cabin mate Joan. Joan’s legs were streaming with blood.
“Bess!” Joyce ran down the corridor from the other direction, crying and clutching her bear Winchell. She grabbed Bess.
“It’s all right, Joyce,” Bess worked to make her voice calm. “It’s just like in the drills.” She knelt down. “Patricia is going to take you to Auntie Mary. She’ll be looking for you. I’m going to help Beth and Joan. We’ll all meet up on deck.” She passed Joyce’s little hand over to Patricia.
“I’ll let Miss Hillman know about Joan,” said Patricia, calmly heading down the corridor.
Bess turned to Beth. She got on Joan’s right side. “Can we make a throne? Cross your wrists and clasp my hands. That’s right. Now Joan, sit on our arms and grab our shoulders.”
They lifted Joan and tried to walk forward, as other children pushed past them. It seemed to take forever to work their way down the hall. By the time they got to the stairwell, they were alone.
“Joan, you are going to have to crawl up. I don’t think there is any way we can carry you,” said Bess. Her heart was thumping.
Ccrraaackkk. There was a terrible wrenching noise. The stairs swayed back and forth.
“Look out!” screamed Beth, jumping backward. Bess yanked Joan out of the way just as the whole staircase collapsed. The three of them stared into the empty space above them.
“This can’t be happening!” said Bess.
“Over here!” Cadet Haffner shouted to them from further up the corridor.
“We can’t!” called Bess. “Joan’s hurt!”
Cadet Haffner sprinted down the hall and heaved Joan over his shoulders. “Come this way,” he grunted, leading them up the corridor to another set of stairs. Three flights up, and he opened the door to the embarkation deck.
The force of the storm hit Bess and Beth the minute they got on deck. The icy cold, the sleeting rain, and the deafening sound of wind. A couple of small girls were wandering around, looking bewildered. Where is everyone? thought Bess.
“Should we go back to the playroom?” she asked Cadet Haffner.
“No, everyone is to go straight to their boats. Which boat are you girls?” he said.
“Boat 5. Starboard side,” Bess responded.
“Right. I’ll get her over there. Then I’ve got to go back and check for others,” he said, charging across the deck with Joan.
Bess and Beth followed Cadet Haffner to their lifeboat. The lascars had already removed the guardrail and lowered the lifeboat to the embarkation deck. They were standing there patiently, drenched to the skin in their thin cotton uniforms. The cadet set Joan down on the centre thwart and immediately headed back toward the stairs.
Patricia was there waiting for the order to board.
“Joyce is safe with Miss Cornish’s group. She wanted to come with us, but I told her she had to go with her own group and that we’d see her on the rescue boat,” Patricia said confidently. “We’ll be picked up soon. You’ll see. It’ll be just like before, when the Volendam was hit. Fancy it happening again.”
“Not to worry, girls,” said Miss Hillman, as she arrived at the boat. “There are extra blankets on board. Once we’re on, we’ll wrap you up and have you warm in a jiffy.”
Suddenly Bess went cold with fear. Louis! Where was Louis?! Her mother had told her to look after him and now she didn’t know where he was. How could she not know? There was chaos and cold and dark rain everywhere. She could hear waves crashing all around them. Where was her brother? Had he gotten to his boat safely?
As if reading her mind, Beth reached out and grasped Bess’s hand. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said softly. “He’ll be with Michael. Michael can look after him.”
They held hands, steadying themselves as the ship shuddered and rolled. “All right, in you go, girls,” said one of the officers. Bess took a last look around the deck, hoping to see Louis. Behind the noise of the wind she could hear screams, cries for help, but she could see little in the dark sleet. Beth gently pulled her down beside her on the crowded side bench.
“Turns for lowering,” the officer shouted.
Bess watched as the lascars began to unwind the heavy ropes, the falls as she remembered they were called, from the reel.
“Lower away!” shouted the officer.
The lascars began to play out the falls, inching the boat slowly down toward the churning water below. Suddenly, something caught. The front end plunged down and everyone in the boat jerked over. To Bess’s horror, several lascar crewmen at the front end were hurled overboard into the sea.
“Noooooo!” Bess screamed. She dug her nails into the gunwales. Then the back end of the boat fell and the boat hit the water with a smack. The lascars who had released the boat slid down on ropes from the deck and landed into the middle of the lifeboat.
“Knock open the slips,” the officer called. Bess saw him release the boat rope and watched as the lifeboat worked itself free of the ship.
“Man the gears!” He yelled to the lascars to start working the Fleming gears and leapt over to join them, pushing and pulling with all his might.
“The Benares is going down! If we’re too close we’ll get sucked down with her. Move us away!” he yelled. Bess wasn’t sure how much the lascars understood what he was saying, but she could see that they understood what he meant. They were pushing and pulling at the gears with all their might. She looked wildly around at the water, expecting to find the lascars who’d fallen out of the lifeboat. Surely they had to find them, rescue them. But they were nowhere to be seen amid the churning and swirling black water.
10:03 PM
In her cabin at the bow, Sonia was lying awake with a tummy ache. Too many cherries, she thought grumpily. Barbara had just turned off her reading light when Sonia felt the ship shudder. A distant alarm sounded.
“Oh,” she said. She turned her light on, got out of bed, and began to put on her clothes, exactly as they had practiced it.
“Barbara. Barbara, wake up.”
Barbara groaned. “Probably another drill …”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Sonia nastily, “you’ve still got to get up and get dressed.” Sonia already had on her skirt and stockings. She was struggling to put her vest on over her camel-hair coat, when her mother poked her head into the cabin.
“Oh, good, you’re up. Right. Carry on.” Sonia could see her brother Derek in his school uniform and cap, wearing his kapok vest and life jacket. Her mother was wearing her pearls, and carrying her handbag and jewellery box.
The four of them worked their way through the corridor to their muster station in the lounge. Sonia noticed a slight haze and an acrid smell in the air. The ship was quieter than usual. The usual thump-thump of the engines was silent. Funny how you notice a sound when it stops, she thought.
A couple of the other passengers looked up from their bridge game when Sonia’s family walked in. She saw that the adults were still drinking cocktails. She checked her watch. It was ten fifteen. They probably hadn’t been to bed yet.
“Anyone know what’s going on?” her mother asked.
A man looked up from the couch where he was reading. “I think we might have hit some ship in the convoy. I heard one of the sailors talking earlier today and he said that was a danger—zigzagging in the dark.”
Just then Colin came in, carrying his comic book collection. He was wearing his pyjamas, dressing gown, and slippers. He’d also put on some string gloves and a balaclava helmet. And of course he had on his own bright red kapok vest.
“Hail, Will Scarlet!” said Mr. Nagorski, laughing good-heartedly.
Colin leaned over to Sonia. “There was smoke in my corridor. It smells just like it did during the air raids,” he said. “I think this is the real thing. I think we’ve been hit.”
The bartender began mixing another round of cocktails. Colin looked at Sonia and quietly left the lounge.
Sonia sat down on the plush red sofa waiting patiently. She wondered if Colin was right. Had they really been hit? If they had been hit, shouldn’t they go to their lifeboats?
Suddenly the lounge door flew open, bringing with it a gust of cold air. Officer Hetherington stared at all of them, sitting drinking, reading, and playing cards. “Oh, my God, you’re all still here! Get to your boats! The ship is going down!”
10:20 PM
Ken was crossing the deck to his lifeboat, when a sailor stopped him. “All of those boats are gone now, son. You’ll have to go over here.” He pushed Ken into the queue to get onto lifeboat 12.
Ken was furious with himself. He’d missed his boat because of going back to get his coat. Exactly what the drills taught him not to do. Reverend King would be angry. He’d disobeyed orders.
He found himself a place to sit on the wooden side bench at the stern end of lifeboat 12. Well, at least it was his lifeboat, his lookout boat. Maybe it was meant to be, he thought to himself. He saw Howard and Derek beside him. Father O’Sullivan was here too, with a couple of little boys from his group. But most of the boat seemed to be filled with lascars. Ken recognized Ramjam Buxoo among them.
Cadet Haffner came running up with a boy over one shoulder. “The other boats are gone,” he puffed, as he threw the boy into the boat on top of Father O’ Sullivan. It was Fred. Ken and Derek pushed over to make room and they huddled in the stern.
The lifeboat swayed precariously. The wind and rain was picking up. The ocean seemed to be moving away from them. Ken realized the Benares was starting to roll. They were getting hoisted up in the air, further away from the sea.
A man with a shiny black hat and stylish coat was shouting to the officer over the roar of the storm. “I’m concerned that not all of the children have made it up to the deck, Officer Cooper. We can’t leave yet.”
“The ship is listing badly, Mr. Nagorski” said Officer Cooper. “We’ve searched everywhere.”
“But there are more boys who are supposed to be in this lifeboat with us,” said Father O’Sullivan weakly. “I’m sure they must be on their way.”
“We’ve checked below deck for missing children,” said Officer Cooper. “There’s no one. We’ve very little time left.”
A steward was directing Miss Cornish—Auntie Mary—into their lifeboat. She looked very upset.
“But my girls! I’ve sworn to look after them,” she said as Officer Cooper tried to persuade her into the boat.
“It’s all right, miss,” he said, “They’ve already gone ahead in other lifeboats. We need you to come in this one with us.”
“But Joyce will be frightened! She’s the littlest. She didn’t meet me in the muster station, and I haven’t been able to find her anywhere on deck.” Auntie Mary sounded frantic. “I need to check the muster station again!”
The steward turned to Officer Cooper. “All of the muster stations are clear, sir. There is no one else waiting.”
“Thank you, Mr. Purvis.” Officer Cooper turned to Miss Cornish. “Joyce is obviously with one of the other groups. I am sure she is safe. We must leave the ship. Now.” He turned to the lascars holding the handles. “Turns for lowering.”
Ken gripped the side of the boat as it swung wildly in the wind. Mr. Nagorski took Auntie Mary by the elbow and moved to guide her down into the boat. “Miss Cornish, it is time to save your life. And we’ll all need your help on this boat.”
She looked down at Ken and the other boys in the boat. She grasped Mr. Nagorski’s hand and stepped off the deck of the Benares and into the lifeboat. As Mr. Nagorski and Steward Purvis followed her into the boat, Officer Cooper shouted the orders: “Start the falls!”
The lifeboat began to drop away from the deck. There was a sudden lurch. The stern end dropped. Auntie Mary shrieked. Ken fell backward. He heard a scream and thought he saw a body falling through the air, from the end of their boat to the water below.
He held on with all his strength. The bow jerked down. Now the boat was level, although with the Benares at such an angle, and the water below rising and falling, Ken found it hard to make sense of anything.
The noise was deafening: the howling wind, the smashing of the waves, and through it all the sound of screaming.
They hit the water with a hard thwack and immediately rose on the crest of a wave. Then the boat slid down into a trough. Looking up, Ken saw four terrified lascars, yelling as they slid down the launching ropes toward the lifeboat. Officer Cooper held the painter, keeping the boat as close to the ship as he could. The lascars let go about ten feet above the lifeboat and dropped in, falling on top of the other crewmen.
“Knock free the falls,” Officer Cooper yelled above the howl of the wind. He and Steward Purvis simultaneously knocked open slips at either end of the boat and Ken felt the water pull the boat away from the ship. He saw Officer Cooper release the painter. They were free of the Benares.
“Purvis—get onto the Fleming gears. Buxoo, get your men working. We’ve got to pull away from the ship,” he shouted. The lascars and crew pulled and pushed together, moving the boat out into the sea.
10:20 PM
The fierce wind of the storm made Sonia want to turn back to the comfort of the lounge. But she went with her mother, sister, and brother to lifeboat 4, as she had done at every drill, every day.
But this time, in the dark, with a storm raging all around, it was terrifying. There were children everywhere. Sonia had no idea there were so many children on board. They were wandering around in pyjamas, clutching teddy bears and dolls, holding life jackets limply by their sides. She saw a girl about Barbara’s age, kneeling, her arms wrapped around four crying brothers and sisters. She saw a nurse holding a girl. They were both covered in blood. A small child held a large teddy bear. Fleeting images, as her mother’s iron grip pulled her quickly forward toward their lifeboat.
Then, Sonia’s heart skipped a beat. Their lifeboat wasn’t there. The lascars were turning the handles and reeling out the ropes and as she looked down over the edge, she could just make out their lifeboat dangling beside the ship, almost at the water.
“Wait! Stop!” her mother cried.
A sailor turned to them, his white face stricken. “I can’t! We can’t reel the boat back up—it’s too heavy.”
“But what do we do now? We’re supposed to be in that boat!” shrieked Sonia’s mother.
“Do you think you can you climb down on a rope?” the sailor asked. “This one, the painter, is connected directly to the front of the lifeboat”
Sonia was stunned. Her mother stared, open-mouthed. The lascars stood stiffly holding the handles that connected the ropes to the lifeboat far below.
“Yes,” said Barbara, suddenly. “Yes, I can. I did it at school, mother,” she said as her mother started to object. “I’ll go first, and you’ll see how easy it is.” She grabbed the painter as the sailor held it steady. She worked her way off of the open deck and began to inch down, hand over hand.
Sonia stared down into the dark and mist. She could barely see the lifeboat below. It was as though Barbara had launched herself into the vast unknown. But then she heard a thump and a cheer. Barbara had landed safely.
“Come on then, young lad, I’ll take you down meself,” said one of the other sailors. He grabbed the rope and placed Derek in front of him. “Hold on tight. That’s right. Just one hand at a time,” he said. “We’ll go together.”
Derek’s eyes were full of concentration as they headed down into the mist below. Suddenly the sailor holding the top of the rope swore.
“What?! What?!” screamed Sonia’s mother. Her voice sounded thin over the roar of the wind.
“The lifeboat is moving away,” he shouted. “A wave hit them and pulled them from the ship. It must have wrenched the painter loose. Your son is on his way back up.”
“But what about Barbara!” wailed Sonia’s mother.
“She’s in good hands. Officer Macrae is there, commanding the lifeboat. She’s safe with him.”
Derek’s eyes were wide with fear and excitement when he got back to the deck of the ship. “It was like flying. We were just hanging from the rope and the wind was blowing us all around.”
Sonia turned around to look at the embarkation deck. Everywhere there were people running and falling, screaming, and crying. The ship lurched and she lost her balance and fell. The ship’s bow started to rise into the air and she started to slide.
“Grab the rail!” her mother shouted. Sonia held on as the cold spray from a wave hit her.
“I need my hands free,” her mother shouted. “I’m not going to be able to carry my purse, but we can’t lose our money.” Sonia watched her mother frantically shove money and passports into her pockets.
“Sonia, put my jewellery in your pockets.” But as her mother opened her jewellery box there was a jolt, and rings, pearls, earrings, and necklaces scattered on the deck. Her mother screamed and dropped to her knees trying to gather up the gems.
Suddenly the ship lurched again, and all three of them fell sideways. Sonia landed flat on the icy deck. She pulled her sopping hair out of her eyes and looked around, trying to figure out what to do. She got on her knees and scanned the embarkation deck. The sailors were gone. The lascars were gone.
All of the lifeboats were gone.
Sonia felt nauseous as panic began to overtake her.
“Down here!” A strong voice reached them in the darkness. “To the stern! To the rafts!”
Sonia slid downhill with Derek and her mother to the stern end of the ship. Officer Hetherington and Mr. Davis, the man from the BBC, were untying flat wooden rafts and pushing them out into the water. The rafts looked like a bunch of rugged dining tables, bobbing on the waves.
Booooom! A huge explosion made Sonia’s heart jump.
“Probably the boiler,” yelled Mr. Davis above the roar.
Sonia looked back toward the bow of the ship. It was high in the air now. She saw her mother gripping Derek with one hand and clenching the deck rail with the other. Her eyes were fixed on the water that was inching ever closer.
“Here! Down here!” A voice called to them from the water. Sonia looked over the edge. A young sailor was swimming about ten feet below them, holding onto a raft.
“You’ve got to jump. Jump onto the raft. Hurry!”
Sonia turned to look into her mother’s eyes. “Go,” her mother said. “Go now. Show your brother how.”
Sonia squeezed through the railing and stood on the edge of the ship. Spray from the waves drenched and temporarily blinded her. She took a deep breath. Her heart pounded. She let go of the rail and jumped.
10:33 PM
The Benares was almost vertical now. The bow was sticking high up in the air.
The moon came out from behind a cloud and suddenly, briefly, Bess saw the water around them filled with bits and pieces from the ship. Deck chairs floated by. A suitcase bobbed along. A linen napkin from the dining room floated on top of the waves. And there were people. Swimming, thrashing, screaming. In the water. So many people in the water.
The lights on the ship shone intensely in the darkness. They seemed impossibly bright. Like a Christmas tree with all the lights on, thought Bess, as she clung to lifeboat 5.
All of that lovely food, thought Sonia, wet through, clinging to the raft. All of that ice cream.
It’s like a living thing, thought Ken in lifeboat 12. “It was our home,” he heard Howard say softly beside him.
As the ship slid down into the water, they all heard a sound like a huge groan.
With that, the Benares was gone.