‘No, no, I think they’re saying they’re Italians.’
‘Germans, Italians, what’s the bleedin’ difference? Unless they’ve got some rum, tell the buggers to piss off,’ an irritated, half-asleep sailor said from the stern of the lifeboat.
‘Italiano? Italiano?’
‘I reckon they’re asking about Italian survivors.’
‘No, no Italians here,’ we yelled back at them.
That reply seemed to satisfy them and the officers disappeared into the conning tower. The submarine rumbled off and vanished into the night.
7 – Drifting into madness
I don’t know how long that little incident took to play itself out, but it seemed one minute we were alone, the next there was an Italian submarine beside us, and then it was gone. It was so utterly surreal and incomprehensible that no one in our boat said anything after the Italians had gone. The rowers started rowing again, while the others retreated into their drowsiness. We had been through so much that the Italians’ blatant disregard didn’t sink into our numb minds. There was just a silent acceptance that they were looking for their fellow countrymen, not us. After that, Hartenstein’s courage and compassion was all the more impressive in my mind.
The next day we rowed some more, but it became utterly exhausting. Every part of my body was jumping and twitching with pain. I had huge, red raw circular sores on my buttocks from chaffing on the wet timber thwart as I rowed. My hands were blistered and had started oozing a pappy, fleshy muck. Salt-water boils were breaking out all over me, and my tongue was lodged in my throat like a dead lizard. My lips were split and bleeding and I was so sunburnt that every bit of exposed flesh was drawn as tight as a drum. The pores of my skin were covered in a thin veil of salt. I had no urge to urinate and, although it was terribly hot, I wasn’t sweating. Everyone else was suffering in similar ways. Only a few days had passed and we were already rapidly deteriorating. The moaning in the boat increased and the dreadful sound of people suffering began eating away at my resolve. It was agonising to hear people dying slowly of thirst, exhaustion and despair.
One by one our small group of rowers grew weaker, with each of us spending shorter and shorter spells at the oars. The heat and lack of water was sapping our strength and, seeing this, the bosun worked out a way to make us a small sail. I’m filled with admiration for the way he did it, like a magician creating something out of nothing. He took one of the oars and, using the oddments of rope we had, secured it in an upright position even though there wasn’t a fitting for it in the bottom of the boat. Then he rigged the yellow triangle of canvas to it. We watched anxiously and were delighted to see this pitifully small makeshift sail catch the slight breeze and begin to swell. A moment or two later we felt the boat moving of its own accord.
‘Thank Christ for that,’ croaked one of the rowers.
‘Hear, hear,’ another agreed.
In the stern, the chief petty officer worked away at the tiller to keep the sail at its best angle to the breeze as he held his course. It was wonderful to hear the bow moving through the water without rowing. For a few more days we occasionally took to the oars if there wasn’t enough wind to keep us moving, but soon we were too weak to do even that. We gave up rowing completely and no one seemed to care that we’d stopped.
Instead, we directed our scant remaining energy to creating some desperately needed pockets of shade. We secured the oars across the boat, from gunwale to gunwale, and spread the two blankets and odd bits of spare clothing over them. We’d take turns to crawl beneath this ramshackle shelter to find some small measure of relief from the worst of the tropical sun. Then, when night came, we’d have to reclaim our ragged clothing and wrap it around us to ward off the cold. We were never completely dry, even in the blast-furnace heat of the day. There was always water splashing about in the bottom of the boat, so when night fell, the chill invaded us quickly. On other occasions, two or three men held the blankets in a circle around Doris and Mary, so those two gentle, modest women could relieve themselves in private using the bucket. For the men who could still urinate, it was so much easier. They just did it over the side. As the days drifted by, no one took any notice or cared.
I looked forward to the mornings. When the sun first came up and before the heat began in earnest, a fine rain would occasionally engulf the boat. It was what sailors call a sea fret. It would usually only last a few minutes, but what bliss it was. We would lie back with our mouths open as wide as our painfully cracked lips would allow, just to catch a few precious drops of water. The sea fret had a slightly salty taste, but it was nectar to us. Anything that supplemented our scant store of water gave us hope that we might just make it all the way to Africa.
But while some mornings brought this precious gift of water, the dawn light also revealed people lying dead in the bottom of our boat. Doctor Purslow, himself growing visibly weaker, would struggle over to them and, with sorrow and great compassion, hold their hands and feel their wrists in search of a pulse, then sadly shake his head.
‘Looks like he’s gone,’ he’d say, his voice breaking with emotion. The poor man was in torment because he was a doctor and there was nothing at all he could do.
At other times Doris would check on the motionless bundles. If she wasn’t sure they were dead, she would rub their faces and hands in the hope that she could stimulate their blood flow. Occasionally one of the lifeless forms would stir at her touch and slowly rally to endure another day. But if she declared it pointless, the poor wretches were lifted over the side and lowered reverently into the water. At first someone would recall a few meaningful words from the Bible, or something else that seemed appropriate. Eventually, though, we ran out of things to say and just watched them float away or sink as we retreated into our own misery. Their legacy was more room to stretch out or lie down, more clothes to stretch over the oars to create more shade, and more water for those of us remaining.
Water became an obsession. When our rations were passed around each night, as the sun was setting, we found ways of making our precious tablespoon of water last as long as possible. But all too soon it was swallowed and the thirst seemed worse than before. When we managed to talk, we fantasised about sipping glasses of ice-cold water and spoke with deep regret about all the water we’d taken for granted and wasted over the years.
‘I’ll never waste another drop,’ someone would vow. ‘Never, ever.’
‘How could I have left the tap running every time I brushed my teeth? Oh for just one handful of that water now.’
‘Just think,’ Doris said. ‘People in England are mopping floors with buckets of water while we’re bobbing about out here.’
One day we noticed the two Polish officer cadets leaning over the side. They each scooped up a handful of sea water and drank it.
‘You’re stark raving bloody mad. Don’t drink the sea water, it’ll kill you!’ we challenged them.
‘Is all right,’ one of the brothers said. ‘For us is all right. We can do this.’
‘Bollocks! Everyone knows you can’t drink sea water.’
‘Is all right for us,’ the Poles insisted. ‘But not you, no. Will kill you, not us.’
This set off a heated discussion about the pros and cons of drinking sea water. It was very, very tempting, because in the daytime the sea looked so clear, cool and refreshing. Then the Poles managed in their halting English to explain what they meant.
‘Once, we work in Russia. In salt mine. All the drinking water very salty. We get used to it. Little by little, used to it. Is okay if we drink a little sea water, but not you. It kills you.’
As extraordinary as this explanation seemed, we took them at their word and waited in mounting desperation for our nightly water ration. At first the rations were scrupulously issued by the senior officers, but these older men were among the first to grow weak and soon there were none left. Authority died with them, and another small group got together in the stern, taking control of what little we had. I wo
n’t say what service those men were from, but from that time our numbers fell quite quickly. We were going through a sort of natural culling. It’s a dreadful way of putting it, I know, but that’s just how it was. The weak were dying, the strong were hanging on. But, if I was any indication, only just.
However, a secretive corner of my brain whispered that things weren’t right and that, even though we were in dire straits, people were dying far too quickly. I was still hearing what I believed to be muted struggles and muffled cries in the aching chill of night. A deep and dark sense of foreboding invaded me. It mingled incessantly with my thirst, hunger and exhaustion, and I looked furtively at my fellow survivors. Many were fraying at the edges. Then I became preoccupied with how I was looking. I felt like death and wondered if I looked like it. I didn’t want to look like death. I wanted to look strong and worthy of the water that the group in the stern was dishing out. Hope was dwindling in proportion to the amount of water left.
One night, the makeshift sail was flapping pathetically in the slightest of breezes and the Atlantic was making its ceaseless slap, slap, slap against the hull. The boat was its usual nightmare of vague shapes, moans and half-mad mutterings. Everyone looked like a ghost. I was in the bow as usual. It was my spot and I rarely moved from it. The chief petty officer was resting. The Fleet Air Arm chap had taken his place at the tiller and was keeping us on course until, for no apparent reason, he stood bolt upright and began singing.
‘Show me the way to go home!’ he bellowed.
‘Shut up!’
‘Show me the way to go home, I’m tired and I want to go to bed,’ the officer sang on. ‘I had a little drink about an hour ago, and it’s gone right to my head.’
Mad bastard.
Of course, that’s exactly what he was, mad. This poor young officer’s mind had completely broken and he just kept singing in a rowdy, demented fashion. Then, without any warning whatsoever, he jumped overboard and drifted into the night, still singing loudly.
‘Show me the way to go home, show me the way to go home.’
There was a mad scramble at the stern.
‘Quick, get hold of the tiller,’ a shaken voice yelled.
‘I’ve got it!’ the chief cried out, then added almost as an afterthought: ‘Well, that’s another one gone.’
It didn’t really make a lot of difference, hurrying to get hold of the tiller. It wasn’t as if we were in a speeding motor launch.
Knowing that one of us had actually gone mad scared the hell out of me. It really shook me. My mind began racing.
How long before we’re all driven crazy? Will the end be quiet and peaceful, or will it come in a ranting torrent of madness?
The chief quickly realised that the compass wasn’t working. The Fleet Air Arm officer had broken it to get at the vital alcohol it contained. He had, indeed, had a little drink about an hour ago. From then on we had to navigate by the sun during the day and the stars at night. This was a shocking blow that spread a further pall of fear and uncertainty through the boat. I could hear people sobbing.
After that terrifying episode I loathed the darkness. I associated it with going mad. It was never totally dark, though. I don’t recall there being any moonlight, but the eerie phosphorescence of the sea gave the boat and its occupants an unreal, spirit-like appearance that I found terribly disturbing. Everything took on a nightmarish quality, my imagination started running wild and I became filled with dread. In some ways total blackness would have been preferable.
The breeze would sometimes get up a bit at night, triggering unidentifiable scrapes, sudden thuds and relentless tapping noises that drove me to the point of screaming. I sat there in the bow, lonely and alert as restless shapes stirred and moaned, wondering who would go mad next, who would be dead in the morning.
Over the next few nights, several people stood up quietly, climbed over the side without a fuss, let go of the gunwale and disappeared. No one tried to stop them. We just watched them without a word. We certainly didn’t blame them because each of us, in our own way, understood that we couldn’t withstand much more of this.
The nights also brought a new and alarming worry crowding in on me. I had visions of my family receiving the worst possible news from the Admiralty, that my ship had been sunk, and I was feared lost at sea. I could see the anguish on their faces, the tears in their eyes. This tormented me, knowing that I was the cause of such a terrible shock to them. Maybe they don’t know anything about Laconia yet, and are going about their lives thinking I’m all right when in fact I’m stuck in this damn boat. Maybe they don’t know anything. They might not know for years. I wanted to apologise to them. Then the daylight would come, perhaps with another sea fret depositing moisture on our faces, and our situation seemed a little less desperate.
I was having trouble distinguishing one day from another. I had counted the first three days, but after that everything became wildly scattered in my mind. How long has it been now? Let me think … a week already? No, no, it must be at least two weeks, surely. The comfort of time had vanished.
With each day, and each death, the boat grew quieter. There was very little conversation as we all retreated into our own private, tormented worlds. I spent a great deal of time leaning on the gunwales just watching the empty sea. One day I saw an albatross soaring effortlessly from wave to wave on its magnificent wings and it made me understand the anguish in those words Coleridge wrote in The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner:
‘Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.’
The sea was a beautiful, greenish-blue colour, so fresh and cool-looking that it was tempting to jump in. In the beginning, some people had actually cooled off in that way from time to time. Doris believed that by keeping wet, our bodies might absorb desperately needed moisture, but there was no way I was going in there. I’d already been bitten once, so I was well-satisfied with simply staring into the water, daydreaming about fish and chips and cups of tea.
There were always plenty of pilot fish darting about, feeding off the weed and slime that invariably grows on the bottom of boats. There’d been a number of farcical attempts at catching them. One of the sailors, a bloke from Birmingham called Brom, saw himself as a bit of a fisherman. He was absolutely determined to catch a pilot fish. He pulled away a length of the wire that ran around the boat underneath the gunwhale and, using his knife, fashioned a hook from a piece of one of our flimsy biscuit tins. He lashed the hook to the end of the wire and stood up to lower his makeshift fishing line over the side with great ceremony.
‘I’ll catch us all something tasty,’ he declared solemnly.
‘Of course you will, Brom.’ We didn’t believe him for a minute.
‘I will, you see if I don’t.’
The next moment there was a tremendous upheaval of water beside the boat and a bloody great whale surfaced right next to us! It was the most magnificent creature, a blue whale, and it was absolutely massive. And there was Brom, standing with his fishing line poised and his eyes popping out of his head as he tried to keep his balance in the wildly rocking boat.
‘What did I tell you!’ he yelled. ‘I caught us the biggest bloody fish you ever saw.’ We all laughed.
The whale just lay there on the surface for a bit, eyeing us off. Maybe it thought our boat was another whale because it really did give us the once over.
‘How you going to get it on board, eh Brom?’
‘And when you get it on board, how are you going to carve it up evenly?’
The magnificent creature lay beside us in the water a little longer, calmly watching us. And then it dived. Goodness, that was something I’ll never forget, seeing it go under. As it headed for the deep, its tail flukes arched out of the water in the most majestic way and came down again with an almighty wack on the surface. The sea erupted, the boat rocked alarmingly and then the huge creature was gone. And there stood Brom with his makeshift fishing line still poised in the air.
‘Ah, you let it get away Bro
m!’ someone complained. ‘Call yourself a fisherman, do you?’
It soon dawned on us that we’d actually had a lucky escape. If the whale’s tail had come down on top of us, it would have smashed the boat to pieces. Or if it had gone underneath the boat it would have capsized us in an instant and we would have been done for, right there and then.
We never did catch any fish. We saw flying fish on most days, though, beautiful creatures that leapt out of the water for short, sparkling flights on elegant gossamer wings. When two of them surprised us by flying straight into the boat, they were immediately set upon, killed, and pulled apart by eager hands. A few people ate little pieces of them, but I was beyond being hungry and couldn’t face it. Someone managed to manhandle a squid into the bottom of the boat, but it was revoltingly jelly-like and oozed a disgusting black substance. No one wanted to touch it, let alone eat it. Even our pathetic rations were more inviting than this, so we threw it back over the side.
A day or two after our rendezvous with the blue whale, one of the sailors near me stirred.
‘I think I see a ship,’ he said.
I heard those words vaguely through a wall of heat and lethargy. I peered out from beneath the shelter of ragged clothing.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Over there, look.’
‘Jesus, it’s a ship all right,’ another sailor said, and I looked at where he was pointing.
‘Three funnels,’ I said.
‘Which way is it going?’
‘Can’t tell.’
Suspense rose in the boat as everyone stirred and focussed on this marvellous shape that was shimmering on the horizon like a mirage. We watched and waited in silence and the shape kept getting bigger until it was clear that she would cut across us at a bit of an angle.
‘They’ll see us.’
‘Bound to.’
‘That’s the Britannic,’ I said.
‘Do you think?’
‘Pretty sure. She was in Cape Town when Laconia called in there. I remember her shape.’
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