by Fiona Shaw
So I’m going to wear only my pyjamas in bed tonight. Phew, because it was getting rather hot with everything else on top.
In 8 days’ time we’ll be there. Then this letter can start its journey back to you. It’s the longest one I’ve ever written and by the time you get it, I’ll have been a married woman for at least a month. I can’t imagine it.
She put the letter and pencil down beside the bunk, tucked her covers close around her and closed her eyes. The cabin was warm and a little airless and Meg felt secure. Although she hadn’t felt sleepy, she was asleep in minutes.
She was dreaming, watching Errol Flynn kiss Olivia de Havilland, with George beside her upstairs in the Embassy. He had a bag of penny toffees and his hand was on her knee. The kiss went on and on until a ‘boom’ noise made the two lovers stop; then they got on to a motor bus, but couldn’t find the fare and the conductor asked them to get off. But the strangest part of the dream, the part Meg never mentioned later, was that while George sat on one side of her, Jim sat on the other. She watched the two lovers kiss and Jim leaned towards her and whispered: ‘Come with me,’ and she turned, but it wasn’t Jim any more. It was Will. Will smiling into the sun that shone from somewhere and beckoning to her.
Meg woke. Something had happened. She listened. Perhaps it was in her dream and she began to drift to sleep again. But then she heard it. Not a noise, but the absence of one. The ship’s bass note – the deep ‘dub, dub’ throb – was gone. The engine had stopped. She opened her eyes. A flickering blue light came under the door and set the room in shadows and the air was acrid with a smell she didn’t recognise. Somewhere close a bell was ringing, a shrill, insistent ‘thrang’ noise that went on and on.
In a single movement she was out of the bunk, wholly alert, clear-eyed. Something had happened, but she didn’t know what or when. She needed to dress quickly and get out of there. She tried the lights but they weren’t working. Moving round the shadows in the dark, she stumbled because the floor had tilted. Fumbling with the dresser drawers, she found a blouse and cardigan and pulled them on over her pyjamas, then her coat and finally the life jacket. The acrid smell grew stronger by the minute and she was sure the floor had tilted further. Reaching under her pillow she felt for the snapshot of her mother. Then she opened the cabin door.
The corridor was empty and Meg would have run except that the air was so smoky, she could barely see an arm’s length ahead. She needed to find other people and for once she would have been happy to see even Mr Richardson. More by touch than by sight, she reached the stairs and climbed. Her mind was clear. She would not be left behind this time; she would not be left. At the top of the stairs the air was clearer. A sailor stood there and pointed her on towards the lounge.
‘We’ll be all set in a jiffy,’ he said.
‘But we’ve been hit?’ Meg said, confused by his tone.
He nodded.
‘Torpedoed. Number three hold, back in the stern. It’s a big gash.’
‘We’re sinking?’ Meg said.
‘Captain’s given the order to abandon ship. We’re readying the lifeboats. Best if you joined the others,’ the sailor said, pointing again.
As she crossed the lobby she thought of Jim Cooper and she kissed the air for him before putting her hand to the lounge door.
Meg stopped amazed in the open doorway. It was packed and she guessed she was the last to arrive, again. Candles stood slanted on every table, wax guttering down towards the sea; and the emergency lights sent out their blue glow, bathing the floor. People sat with bags and cases beside them and most wore their life jackets. But nobody seemed to be panicking. In fact the room had an air of last-chance hilarity, as if people were determined to carry on whatever. Someone even played the piano and a woman even sang:
And you think you’re in the swim,
But the lights go dim,
And you’re out on the tiles,
But it’s raining in the aisles.
Oh my Honey Bee,
Oh my Fish in the Sea,
Hold tight and soon you’ll be through…
At one table people were playing blackjack, reaching around their life jackets to fish out their stakes. There was a group drinking at the bar and Mr Richardson was playing the barman, pouring out measures of gin and whisky, handing out the change. She saw him check his watch, and check it again thirty seconds later, as though the ship were sinking to a timetable.
She looked around. In one corner Reverend Boondock was leading a prayer. Mrs Richardson must be here too, but she couldn’t see her and for a moment she panicked. Surely he couldn’t have left his wife in the cabin? But then she saw her, sitting at the end of a sofa at the far side with a pair of older ladies. Meg walked towards them. One of the ladies appeared to have put on all her jewellery, a thick string of pearls riding over the top of her life jacket and her arms jangling with gold. The other held her handbag in both hands, and Meg noticed that every so often she would stroke it, as if it were a pet in need of reassurance.
‘The smell,’ the pearl woman said. ‘I know the smell.’
‘They’ll have radioed it by now,’ the other said. ‘We should be picked up very quickly.’
They, at least, weren’t pretending.
Meg knelt down beside Mrs Richardson. She didn’t have her life jacket. Meg saw she was shaking, clutching and reclutching her hands in her lap. Meg touched her.
‘It’ll be all right,’ she said quietly. ‘But your life jacket?’
‘I’m a good swimmer,’ Mrs Richardson said.
‘Smells like the air raids,’ the pearl woman said. ‘Cordite. Sticks in your throat.’
‘They’ll rescue us,’ Meg said.
‘It’s horrible,’ the pearl woman said.
‘I need a drink.’ Mrs Richardson grabbed at Meg’s hand. ‘Get me a drink.’
Meg had to jostle a bit to get to the front of the bar. She’d never done this before; girls didn’t, and if George could have seen her he’d have been cross. But it was an emergency and she put her hands on the counter and leaned in.
‘Gin and tonic for your wife,’ she said loudly.
She waited for Mr Richardson to turn towards her, to meet her eye.
‘Damned thing, this,’ he said to his listeners with an expansive gesture. ‘Going to mess up my article deadlines.’
‘Excuse me,’ Meg said.
‘Though I’ve got a fairly watertight excuse,’ and he paused for a laugh at his joke. ‘Sorry it’s late. Got torpedoed.’
Sharp laughter bellied out around Meg.
‘Your wife needs a drink,’ she said, more loudly.
He acknowledged her then with a slight tip of the head and reached for the gin.
‘Ice and lemon?’
‘She’s very frightened,’ Meg said.
‘Actually we’re low on the ice.’
‘Despite what you told us last night, the ship is sinking, and your wife needs you,’ Meg said.
‘Tell her I’ll be over shortly.’
‘She needs you now, and she needs her life jacket.’ Meg turned away in such a fury that it took all her self-command not to hurl the drink in his face.
The ship had listed further in the last few minutes and now at last people had given up the performance of normality. They were picking up their bags; the blackjack game was abandoned and all at once even the bar was deserted.
Meg handed Mrs Richardson the glass.
‘He’ll be over in a moment,’ she said.
She drank it down like water.
‘Dutch courage,’ she said. But she’d taken Meg’s hand again and was gripping it even tighter.
Several of the ship’s officers had come in and one looked to be issuing orders.
‘Look,’ Meg said. ‘They’ll have us in the lifeboats any time now.’
As if he had heard her, the officer addressed the passengers then.
‘Please make your way to the deck, and go straight to your allocated lifeboat. We’ll be low
ering them immediately.’
Mr Richardson strode towards them and Meg prised her hand free.
‘I must go,’ she said. And as she turned away: ‘I’ll see you in Cape Town.’
Meg felt calm, stepping out onto the deck. She had on her life jacket and she was well drilled in what to do. Most importantly, she was on her own. And she knew how to be on her own. Nobody was holding her hand. In her pocket was her mother’s photo, and she could see her now, standing at the kitchen window. That was how Meg always thought of her: looking away, looking out of that window.
The ship was lit in black and white by the moon and though the engines had died, it was still moving forward. Up here the smoke was thicker, gusting across the deck so that one minute you could see around you and the next you were lost. Groans rose from the ship’s heart as if it were a great beast dreadfully wounded: echoing wrenching sounds. Sailors with torches moved around calmly, shouting instructions, and clumps of people waited patiently, their fear only visible in the way they gripped their bags, or drummed their fingers, or looked about, as if there might be some other place to go to, some way out of this.
Several lifeboats were already lowered to deck level, and small crowds were clustered at the rail. But with the ship at an angle, the boats were swinging out over the sea and nobody could board them. Meg watched the sailors lean out over the black ocean with boat hooks, hooking them round the falls to try and pull the lifeboats in. Miss Lindsell was there, handbag on one arm. She waved to Meg, quite as though they had passed on the street. She had her arm around someone’s shoulder, and while Meg watched she clipped open her handbag and took out smelling salts.
Meg’s lifeboat station, Number Six, was further down the promenade deck towards the stern and she stumbled on in that direction, clinging to the stanchions and rails as best she could to stop herself running headlong with the slope. She pictured the lifeboat – its solid planking, the tin cans of food, the bandages and blankets. It was just ahead of her, ready and waiting. The steam grew denser and the noise was thick in her ears, pushing out her thoughts; her feet slipped on the slick deck and she reached out into the air for something to hold.
‘Watch out!’
As if from a long way off, the voice broke in. She grabbed at a length of flailing rope and froze. Invisible till now, with all the smoke and steam, just a few feet from her was a huge crater, a rupture reaching right across the deck. Thirty feet wide and as many down, it looked as if some savage giant had reached into the bowels and ripped the ship open. Metal was torn and crumpled like tissue paper, charred and broken. Electrical jags ran along the edges and somewhere deep down a fire was raging, sending up a pink glow and the smell that Meg recognised now as melting metal. She stared at the metal carnage and her stomach turned. This was in the soldiers’ quarters. She saw Jim bending towards her and taking her hands; she saw him in her cabin, his tunic tumbled, his eyes bright.
‘Please God,’ she murmured.
Her lifeboat, her safe journey, was blown apart, its solid white boards, its food and drink burnt up somewhere in that ghastly hole. She heard voices – screams and cries – from within the crater. They were distant and unearthly and she put her hands over her ears.
‘Miss!’ The sailor was shouting at her. ‘Miss!’
‘My lifeboat,’ she said.
‘Go back. Get in another one.’
‘There are soldiers down there.’
‘They’re getting everyone out. You must get in a lifeboat.’
And he took her by the shoulders and pushed her away. ‘Go!’
She looked out for Miss Lindsell, and for Mrs Richardson, but she didn’t see them. The lifeboats were nearly all full. Passengers sat looking just as if they were on a bus trip to the seaside, rather than a lifeboat in the middle of the Atlantic, while the sailors worked the falls, lowering the boats to the sea. It was precarious. The ship was sinking now at such a pitch that they struggled to keep the lifeboats on an even keel. Once the boats were in the water, the sailors shimmied down rope ladders and unclipped the falls. Then they moved slowly away from the ship, drifting into the darkness.
It was as if Meg forgot herself, watching. Her urgency left her and she felt detached and calm. She should go and claim her place, take her seat like the others and clasp her baggage, like ballast, on her lap. But she had no baggage; there was nothing to anchor her. She didn’t feel any despair; just the utter absence of any hope. And perhaps, if a sailor hadn’t noticed her, she might have stayed on the ship and journeyed down with all the young soldiers she’d heard crying out.
‘You hurt?’ The sailor was yelling to make himself heard.
She shook her head.
‘Number Three,’ he said. ‘Over there.’
So she took her seat in the bow and sat tight. There were soldiers on the deck, filling up the spare places. She could only see the faces nearest to her, but none of them was Jim. Just ahead Miss Lindsell was counseling courage to someone; it was reassuring to hear a voice she knew, and a female one. Meg watched a sailor lift her up and into the lifeboat, quite as if she were a child in the playground, and Miss Lindsell turn back to him and thank him gravely.
Several of the soldiers seemed to be injured and one sitting close to her smelled of engine oil. He was soaked to the skin and shaking. The boat was full. Sailors were busy with the falls, then Meg felt it move. It went down in short, jerky movements and with each one the wounded soldier made a quick groaning sound, as if somebody was squeezing the air from him. Meg gripped the seat. She didn’t want to watch, but when she closed her eyes it was like being in a dream where up and down, and inside and outside, were all confused. So she opened them again and stared at her lap.
The lifeboat hung from the dying ship; above them, the sailors shouted into the wind: ‘Hold in aft! Hold it in!’
‘Easy, steady her off.’
The water was close – she could smell it. They’d be floating on the ocean in a minute.
‘Steady, damn you!’
The sailor’s voice was desperate and Meg looked up. His face, lit by the strange emergency blue, was a mask of terror. Then she screamed as the bow end of the lifeboat dropped down towards the sea. Flung forward, she smashed hard against the bench in front. She was stunned, the breath blown from her, and when she came to, she found her hand trapped painfully between the bench and her life jacket. She tried to shift, to ease the pressure, but the wounded soldier was thrown against her and she was pinioned. The smell of the oil turned her stomach, but she couldn’t move. She saw people in the sea and they were those same people who had sat so neatly on their benches moments before. No wounded soldier to pinion them, they’d been flipped from the boat like so many matches. She heard their cries, their shouts for help. One of the voices was Miss Lindsell’s.
The sailors pulled at the ropes and somehow the lifeboat was levelled off again and lowered finally to the water. The sailors dropped down the rope ladders, unhitched the falls and the lifeboat floated free. Meg felt the wounded soldier shift; then his weight was off her and he half-crouched, half-lay against the side of the boat. He was murmuring, but not to her and when she spoke to him, he didn’t hear her. Pulling herself up, she gripped the edge of the lifeboat and called out: ‘Miss Lindsell!’
The sea had looked so calm that evening. But the waves rose like small gullies now and the lifeboat crashed over and down, over and down. Some of the people in the water had managed to swim back and they were being hauled in: five, six, seven of them. But none was Miss Lindsell.
‘Miss Lindsell!’ Meg shouted again, but Miss Lindsell and her handbag and her courtesy had gone.
Somebody took charge.
‘Hands to the rowing gear,’ he shouted. ‘We need to get clear or she’ll take us all down with her.’
Soldiers scrambled to the pump handles and Meg sat down again. Slowly the boat moved away.
She doesn’t have her coat on but her ma doesn’t see. It’s dark outside except that the snow makes th
ings show up suddenly. Trees and walls and other things. Meg runs to catch up. She does it in little steps like Will has showed her because it’s slippy on the snow, but she falls down once and gets her hands wet.
‘Wait. I’m coming too.’
Left and right, left and right they look. They go up the lane and over the road towards the school. They go all the way to the bridge. They go up to the church gate and round the churchyard walls.
‘Dark as sin,’ her ma says.
‘Will!’ Meg calls. ‘Will!’ and the snow swallows up the sounds. Meg calls out ‘Pa!’ too. Her ma doesn’t call.
Nobody answers; there’s only an animal with yellow eyes that runs away in the ditch. Meg’s feet hurt in her boots and her toes are sticking together.
‘Can we go home?’ she says. ‘I’m cold,’ and she takes her ma’s hand. ‘See?’ But she can’t make her ma’s fingers bend around hers.
‘You’re not holding,’ she says and her ma looks down at her all of a sudden, and then they go back.
Meg looked at the ship and, as if on cue, it lit up like Christmas, every light on deck blazing down on the water. It had tipped so far now, it looked like a shining iceberg, throwing a pool of light across the sea. It was terrible and beautiful. And there were all the other lifeboats, each crammed with heads. Surely Jim is in one of them, she thought, and though she had no faith in the prayer, she prayed to God to keep him safe.
Only a single boat remained close to the ship. Meg could almost see the faces at the nearer end. There were people on the oars and yet it wasn’t moving. She saw one man push another off an oar and take over; she saw another stop and throw up his arms and cover his head. The ship would sink very soon now and if nothing happened, then all those people would be sucked down with it.
She watched the figures abandon the oars and several people jump over the side and begin swimming. Two figures started fighting. Then she heard a voice she knew, small inside the wind, but still she could hear that it was angry, and she saw that the Richardsons were in the middle of that boat.