One Common Enemy

by Jim McLoughlin

  ‘What is she?’

  ‘A liner. A Cunard White Star ship.’

  When the ship got to within three or four miles of our boat, we started waving our hands and bits of clothing, anything to attract attention. We stuffed a lifejacket into the ladies’ toilet bucket and set fire to it using a petrol cigarette lighter that, by some miracle, still worked. Thick black smoke billowed into the air, but it was useless. The liner didn’t alter course or slow and soon we were looking at her stern in despair. Eventually she vanished over the horizon. It was heart wrenching.

  ‘She didn’t bloody well stop.’

  ‘She didn’t see us,’ I remarked flatly. ‘We’re a tiny boat, low down in the water. It would’ve been a miracle if she’d seen us.’

  8 – Ruthless measures

  Deep inside I was raging as Britannic disappeared. The Germans had a strategy of keeping U-boats near where they’d sunk a ship, hoping to torpedo any rescue vessels. If by some slim chance Britannic had seen us and stopped, she would have been a sitting duck. It was dreadful seeing possible rescue slip away from us like that. An overwhelming sense of desolation engulfed us and I think this had a profound effect on some of those who were barely hanging on. No one spoke for the rest of the day.

  Perhaps a day or two after we saw that ship, Mary the Scotswoman faded away from us. She was such a lovely person, a kind and very gracious lady of about 40. She lay slumped across the lap of Doris, who cradled her head like a child’s, gently stroking her hair. My God, that was sad. She’d been an uncomplaining stalwart, sitting amidships quietly day after day with Doris. They never left each other’s side, drawing strength from one another in their terribly difficult situation as the only women on board. Mary always spoke with the utmost courtesy to everyone around her. But she had clearly given up and was wordlessly slipping away. Then, the next morning, Doris couldn’t wake her and announced that she was dead. Doctor Purslow conducted a little service for her. He led us in prayer and we tried to sing a hymn, but our voices just petered out with sadness and exhaustion. After that, she was lowered into the Atlantic.

  Dreadfully alone without Mary, Doris moved to the bow of the boat where I was ensconced with a couple of other navy blokes and a young chap from the RAF. She became a mother figure to us in the bow, watching over us, I suppose because she was a nurse and had a natural instinct for caring for others. I started to call her Freckles because the relentless sun had brought her round face out in a wild rash of browny-red freckles. I guess I was a bit impertinent to do that, but she didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. She always called me McLoughlin, never James or Jim or Mac.

  Doris confided in me that she was terribly worried about Geoffrey Purslow. He was an extraordinary man. I can only guess how old he was, but I’d say about 30. Older than me, of course, but quite a bit younger than many of the others. A slight man with very pale skin, he had the quiet, confident air of the medical professional about him. As Laconia’s surgeon he would have had a big responsibility for such a relatively young man. That pressure must have been greater in the lifeboat, because he had nothing with which to help us, except his own humanity and compassion. He was the only one who constantly moved about the boat, going from person to person, encouraging us. He used his tiny pen knife to burst blisters, lance ulcers and release the painful pressure in septic toes and fingers. Some of those sores were quite disgusting, oozing vile puss and infected blood.

  In the days following the death of Mary, Purslow slipped into rapid decline. Like all of us, he had lost a great deal of weight on our voyage, and his veins looked like thick, angry cords beneath his skin. There were also sinister red streaks running up his arms and legs, and his face was grotesquely swollen. Freckles was concerned that he was suffering from severe blood poisoning. His own blood was killing him. No doubt he knew this himself, for he stood unsteadily in the boat one day, and looked at us with great gentleness and compassion.

  ‘I’m going to have to leave you,’ he quietly announced.

  We looked at him, wondering what he could possibly mean. Our minds had slowed to the point where it took a while for things to register.

  ‘I’m afraid that I simply cannot remain in the boat with you,’ he continued. ‘I’m a danger to you. I think it very likely that I will poison you all.’

  Then he sat on the gunwale with his back to the Atlantic swell, and looked at each of us in turn with a serene smile.

  ‘Goodbye.’

  Before we had a chance to thank him for what he’d done for us, or say our own farewells, he allowed himself to topple backwards into the sea, the way scuba divers do. He disappeared.

  We were utterly stunned by what that wonderful man had done. The enormity of his self-sacrifice was breathtaking, the nature of his goodness overwhelming. Freckles was the only one with the presence of mind to say exactly what needed to be said: ‘Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friends.’

  There were so many dreadful moments in that boat, lots of them a blur even then, but the passing of Doctor Geoffrey Purslow was the worst. And his speech is stamped in my memory. Even today, more than 60 years later, I still weep for that brave and loving soul.

  After the death of Purslow I thought I was done for. Up until then, despite the nightmare of our situation, I had clung to the hope that we’d be rescued. After all, we’d already seen one ship. Perhaps there would be others. But I slipped into despondency, my thoughts turning more and more to my family. If I die and get lowered over the side, my body will never be found. How will they come to terms with the fact that I simply vanished? They would have had no news of me since my time in Port Said. Those thoughts tore away at me and I suppose I was sinking into a deep depression. I would have given up completely had it not been for Freckles. She was a jolly, optimistic person and she pulled me out of my despair by talking about all kinds of everyday things. We’d have silly little conversations about food. It gave us something pleasant to think about.

  ‘Jelly and custard. Now that would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not half as nice as a slice of roast beef.’

  ‘With gravy.’

  ‘That’s right, lots and lots of gravy.’

  Probably because we were English, the subject of drinking tea always seemed to come up, too.

  ‘I fancy a nice cup of tea,’ Freckles would say.

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Yes thanks.’

  ‘Lovely.’

  ‘I’d like a glass of cold water first, though.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Sometimes I’d tell her about the places I’d seen while serving on Valiant, about Bermuda and Halifax, Narvik and Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria. I’d tell her about my time doing sentry duty on the quay at Port Said, the trip down the east coast of Africa escorting the Italian prisoners to Durban, and the peaceful days in the transit camp at Pietermaritzburg.

  ‘We had the most beautiful milk in that camp,’ I told her.

  ‘Ah, wouldn’t a glass of milk be just lovely?’

  ‘Gallons and gallons of it, we had. It was the best milk in the world, that was. The farmers used to leave it outside our tents, and it was cold and creamy.’

  I’m convinced those conversations kept me sane, although they weren’t always cheerful. Freckles told me she happened to be aboard Laconia because a British couple in Africa had entrusted her to take their small infant back to Britain, where anxious relatives would be waiting.

  ‘I lost my grip on the dear little soul as I was going over the side,’ she said. She didn’t elaborate, but her grief was palpable. ‘I have to survive this, McLoughlin. If I don’t, those poor people will never know how their beautiful child was lost.’

  Her quiet determination to survive was clear to me. I thought if she could cope with all this tragedy, then so could I.

  When I wasn’t talking to Freckles I would wander into my own vague little world and drift from one surreal hallucination to
another. In one of those tormenting episodes I saw myself die and move on to a weird afterlife in which small boats full of ghost-like people drifted about aimlessly in a bizarre, watery netherworld. In another one I travelled effortlessly back and forth through time and then, when my mind returned to the present I couldn’t work out whether our lifeboat was something from the past or whether it belonged to the future.

  The nearest I came to complete comprehension was late one afternoon, when I heard someone ask a question.

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘It’s October the second,’ someone answered.

  I vaguely recognised the date. October the second. I struggled with it for a little while and then connected it to the year. October the second, 1942.

  ‘It’s my birthday,’ I announced. ‘My twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘Well, that calls for a celebration,’ Freckles decided.

  With that, the water ration was organised and when the familiar oblong tin was passed to me, there was more than my usual one tablespoon in the corner when I tilted it. It was a double ration for my birthday. A beautiful, sparkling, generous gift from a handful of people who needed it as much as I did, perhaps even more. That’s how my 21st birthday was marked. It set me thinking. I forced myself to do the arithmetic. Laconia had been sunk on 12 September.

  How long is that? It’s the second of October now. Let me think … hell, it’s 20 days.

  ‘We’ve been out here for twenty days,’ I said to Freckles.

  ‘Yes. I think that’s right.’

  ‘How long can we keep going?’

  ‘A while yet,’ she said with her usual encouraging smile, even though she knew that there was only a skerrick of water left in the tank.

  With the realisation that we’d been drifting for three weeks, despair paid me another nasty visit. We were hopelessly lost, no one knew we were out here and there was no end in sight. I looked about me, at the deserted sea, at my deathly fellow survivors. There had been 68 of us in the beginning, and less than half of us were left. It was an unthinkable toll. And still people were dying every day.

  When there were only about 20 of us left in the boat, those in the bow noticed a menacing restlessness among the small group gathered in the stern. A bullying attitude is what I’d call it. They were muttering about having a test, pulling an oar to prove we had a bit of strength left.

  Will they throw me overboard if I don’t measure up? Would they do it in the presence of the only woman left in the boat?

  Huddled near this intimidating group was a sailor called Mickey. He was about the same age as me. One night there was a sudden commotion. Although it was dark, as usual I could still see ghostly outlines and vague shapes. There were agitated movements in the stern. Then I heard Mickey crying out.

  ‘No, no, I can pull an oar!’ There was panic in his voice.

  I don’t know why they picked on the poor chap. Perhaps it was simply because he happened to be near them, an easy target.

  ‘I can row! I’m strong enough to pull an oar, please,’ he pleaded. ‘I don’t want to go over!’

  I heard the sounds of a struggle and more pleading from Mickey. Then there was a splash and the commotion abruptly stopped. In its place came a chilling silence. I spent the rest of that night in a state of panic. What’s that noise? Is that person edging closer to me? What was that muffled conversation about? Have they decided I’m next, that someone else deserves my water ration more than me?

  Every little movement made me jump. I thought I was going mad. The night seemed to drag on forever. When the pale pink of dawn finally streaked the sky I looked around the boat carefully, half hoping that I had imagined the entire sordid episode. But Mickey wasn’t with us any­more. I often hear that poor young sailor’s desperate pleas when I can’t find refuge in sleep, and I live through that cruel night all over again. The sheer ruthlessness shocks me still.

  Only a day or two later we ran out of water and we all knew that we were finished, doomed to die of thirst in our horrible little boat, adrift God knows where in the vastness of the Atlantic.

  And then it rained. It wasn’t just the dampness of a drizzly sea fret, either. It was a roaring tropical downpour that lasted for several hours. Oddly, whenever I’ve recalled it, I’ve always seen it falling from a clear blue sky, but of course it couldn’t have done. Freckles and a few others had been praying. Perhaps that tremendous rainstorm was the answer to their prayers. Miracle or not, the unexpected abundance of water when we were at our most desperate lifted our spirits instantly.

  We ripped down our yellow canvas sail and, holding on to its three corners, used it to catch the cool, precious water. It quickly turned yellow, but that didn’t worry us in the least as we joyfully poured it from the canvas into the boat’s water tank. It was absolutely beautiful, that water. We collected it in bailing tins, our empty biscuit tins, anything that would store some of it to drink later. And while we were busy collecting it we were totally drenched, standing there with our heads thrown back, mouths open to the sky, savouring it on swollen tongues and peeling, burnt faces, shouting and laughing and slapping each other on the back. We scooped up the water in our salt-caked hands and drank endless mouthfuls. Our fingers turned white and wrinkled and the temperature plummeted. We began shivering, but it was utterly marvellous because we had water.

  When the rain finally stopped, we slid from sheer exhilaration to morbid sadness. With our searing thirst satisfied, and with water in the boat’s tank once again, we realised that the rain was both sweet salvation and bitter tragedy. People had died under cruel circumstances in the days before because there wasn’t enough water, and the remaining 16 of us were ankle deep in it.

  The morning after our reprieve, however, it felt like nothing had changed. It was hotter than ever. Everything was dry again and our thirst returned with a vengeance. Although we had water, we knew there was little or no chance of rescue. This meant we had to preserve our new water supply just as carefully as we’d been doing all along. Our food rations were all but gone. A dreadful lethargy returned to the boat as we tried to keep cool beneath our makeshift shelter. The boat was silent, with just about everyone asleep. I felt light-headed and disorientated. The morning was eerily calm, the sea like a sheet of glinting glass. We had put the sail back up, but it was hanging limp. We were going nowhere. I started drifting in and out of sleep, unsure whether my dreams were reality or my reality a dream.

  My family suddenly appeared and I was right there with them. It was teatime at home in Liverpool. We were sitting together around the kitchen table and my mother was heaping her delicious Irish stew onto our plates. Our usual Sunday treat, jelly and custard, was there on the table too. I was just about to take my first mouthful of the Irish stew when I woke up. I was completely overwhelmed by self-pity. Why did I join the navy? I might have got married and had a family of my own and my wife would have made Irish stew and jelly and custard. I knew I couldn’t survive another day in that wretched boat. I hope I die before I go mad.

  In the depths of misery and hopelessness, I lay in the bow next to Freckles and the young RAF chap. They were both half asleep, stupefied by the heat. I couldn’t get comfortable, so I sat up and leant over the gunwale, chin on my hands, watching the water. One of our constant companions, a pilot fish, was swimming down there. I couldn’t see him as clearly as I usually could and I wondered if my eyes were failing. Every other part of me certainly was. But I looked at the water again. It was brown.

  I stared at the water a little longer, wondering what could have made it go from its usual clean green-blue to patches of cloudy brown. Then a dragonfly came into view, skimming across the surface of the water. Next I saw a butterfly. Then some fragments of vegetation drifted past, bits of twigs and leaves. I forced my head up and tried to focus on the horizon. All I could see were a couple of dots.

  Christ, I’m going blind.

  I watched the dots until more of them appeared. My heart began to thump. I quietly nu
dged the RAF chap awake and, without saying anything, pointed to the horizon. From the look on his face I knew I wasn’t going mad or blind. I shook Doris.

  ‘Freckles,’ I whispered. ‘Look, can you see what I can see? It’s a convoy of ships.’

  Drowsy and confused, my dear companion raised herself and looked over the gunwale.

  ‘Yes, I see it,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a convoy, I’m sure it is.’

  ‘Don’t say anything to the others just yet. Wait a bit. We must be sure before we tell them,’ Freckles said. Despite everything she had been through, she still had the presence of mind not to raise hope in the others. It would be too much for everyone to bear if it turned out to be a mirage.

  So the three of us waited and watched, perplexed. The dots didn’t seem to be moving. But they kept getting bigger until they appeared more like smudges. Then, ever so gradually, sticks appeared on top of them.

  ‘Those are ships’ masts, those are,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll wait a bit more, McLoughlin.’

  The tension was unbearable.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I said. ‘They’re not masts, they’re trees. It’s land!’ I looked at Freckles. There were tears in her eyes. ‘That’s why the water’s gone brown, we’re near land!’

  We shook the others awake.

  9 – The pain of survival

  My spirits soared from rock bottom to the greatest exaltation I’ve ever experienced. I’ll never forget that overwhelming relief. I hoped like hell it wasn’t just another lapse into my half-world of hallucination. We were 16 human wrecks who’d been resigned to die in our dreadful boat, gaping at the land we’d been faithfully steering toward for a month.

  ‘Dear Lord, we’re there.’

  ‘Where are we, do you think?’

  ‘Africa. It must be Africa.’

  ‘We’ll be all right now.’

  We were like children on a long-awaited outing, laughing, offering opinions. We allowed ourselves an extra ration of water to celebrate. Perhaps it was the knowledge that fresh water must certainly be near that made our extra ration taste so ghastly, even though it was welcome.