Lifeboat!

by Margaret Dickinson

  It had been a strict up-bringing for the boy, yet a happy one. It was not until years later that he realised just how hard his grandmother had had to work as a housekeeper in a smarter part of the town to give him the security he had then taken for granted. Her pride would not let her accept charity and that same stiff-necked pride had kept the young Iain in ignorance of the long hours she must have worked, for her own home had been spotless and her own person always neat.

  The sea had called to Iain Macready from an early age. It was in his blood. His grandfather Macready—the descendant of an Irish emigrant in the potato famine of the eighteen-forties—had been drowned serving in the Navy in the Great War. It was in the air young Iain breathed, the ships coming and going an ingrained part of his boyhood. There was no other life for him but the sea.

  At sixteen, he had signed on as cabin-boy and sailed away from the very docks he had haunted almost from the time he could walk. His grandmother had watched him go, her face giving no sign of her inner feelings. She was a woman who never outwardly showed emotion. If she had ever shed tears, it had been done in private.

  Throughout the early months of the Second World War, the time which afterwards became known as the ‘phoney war’—commercial shipping companies attempted to carry on their trading as normally as possible. Young Macready, mostly at sea, scarcely realised his country was supposed to be at war.

  On Monday, the eighth of April, 1940, the ship in which Macready had signed on as cabin-boy out of Leith a few days earlier docked in a small port on the western coast of Denmark and began to offload its cargo. Captain Sinclair spent much of that first day ashore making arrangements to take on a cargo the following day. That evening, when he returned to his ship, everything seemed as usual, as it always had been whenever they had been moored in this harbour …

  At dawn on the following morning, the Germans launched an offensive against neutral Denmark and Norway. By the afternoon, the whole of Denmark had been overrun and the Danish Government had capitulated to the Germans. The British sailors, caught unawares by the suddenness of the attack, watched helplessly as, at gunpoint, the German soldiers confiscated all the navigational instruments from their ship and threatened the seamen with internment for the duration of the war.

  Captain Telfer Sinclair, a dour Scot with a thick Glaswegian accent, cursed and stormed and kept his men on board the ship marooned in the harbour, virtual prisoners of the Germans. Nightly the Scottish sailors hung over their ship’s rail, ridiculing the Nazi soldiers who strutted up and down the harbour wall on duty. Goaded by the tone of their voices more than by actually being able to understand the words, the sentries would level their guns towards the boat, the sailors would duck down and a volley of gunshot would fly warningly over their heads. As the echoes died away into the night air the Scots would sing out, ‘ Missed again, Fritzie!’

  The Captain would watch his crew’s antics from his bridge, making no effort to curb this nightly horseplay, half wishing he could join in.

  Macready, only half aware of the seriousness of their position, joined in with youthful enthusiasm. Only when one shot narrowly missed his head and ricochetted off the ship’s superstructure behind him, did he realise that this was no game.

  With thoughtful eyes, Captain Sinclair watched one of the harbour’s tugs chugging up and down. This particular tug was operated by an old friend of his. Once they had both been captains of ships and their paths had crossed again and again during their life at sea. Then Captain Niels Andersen had been injured in a bad storm which had sunk his ship and taken the lives of three of his crew. He had retired from a life on the open sea but had since been employed on the tugs in his home port.

  In a dark, sheltered corner of the harbour Captain Sinclair waited for his old friend. He watched the tug ease itself into place to nestle beside the harbour wall. A few minutes later he saw Andersen leave the vessel, hunch his shoulders against the driving rain lashing along the quay and begin to walk away.

  Captain Sinclair whistled softly and Andersen hesitated, turned and peered into the shadows.

  ‘Niels, my old friend,’ Captain Sinclair called softly. ‘ Can ye spare a moment?’

  Andersen walked slowly towards the voice, still hesitant, still uncertain who had called his name. He drew closer and then relief was in his tone as he said, ‘Ah, it is you, Telfer Sinclair. But I am so sorry to see you still here.’

  The two men shook hands warmly and withdrew once more into the black, concealing shadows.

  ‘Niels—will you help us to get away?’

  ‘Ah, my old friend,’ the Dane said dazedly. ‘I still cannot understand what has happened—or how. We have been hearing such dreadful tales. I would help you—you know that—but I have a wife and family and …’

  ‘I know, I know. I wouldna ask you to be involved. We would arrange it at a time when you are on leave, say, or …’

  ‘Then what is it you want of me?’

  ‘I want to borrow your tug.’

  Andersen laughed softly in the darkness. ‘ She is yours, my friend. Tomorrow I begin three days’ leave. No one will touch her whilst I am away. There is no need now. Scarcely any ships coming or going, eh?’ He shrugged hopelessly and then, even amidst all the trouble, he managed to raise a chuckle as he added, ‘Except yours, my brave Captain.’

  ‘Will the soldiers suspect anything?’

  Andersen raised his shoulders. ‘They have not interfered with me since they came. We will hope not.’

  They shook hands once more. ‘Good luck, my friend, good luck,’ Andersen murmured and moved away through the rain.

  That was the last time Captain Sinclair ever saw his Danish friend.

  Captain Sinclair watched and waited his chance. Close to the harbour was a tavern frequented by sailors and now by the Nazi soldiers too. The British sailors, frustrated by the confines of their ship when such pleasures lay only yards away, embarked upon a campaign to visit the establishment. Their Captain actively encouraged the scheme and told them of his own plan.

  They chose a dark, wet night when no moonlight penetrated the thick cloud, when the sea was a black, concealing, moving being and the dockside was a cold, rain-drenched inhospitable place. The Nazi sentry was huddled in a doorway when the sailors crept down the gangway in ones and twos and slipped through the shadows towards the fuzzy lights of the tavern. Once inside they mingled freely with the off-duty enemy soldiers, pretending to drink vast quantities of alcohol and giving oscar-winning performances of aimiability towards their captors.

  ‘Ach, you’re a grand laddie, Frishzie, to tek all we’ve been giving ye these last days.’

  The Germans smiled and raised their mugs and nodded expansively toward their captives for the war was going well for Germany. They were sure of victory and could afford to be generous to the vanquished, to these poor Britishers who in a few days would be transported to camps in Germany. If they ever returned to their Britain, it would be to a very different place, Fritzie believed, under the rule of the Third Reich. The Germans watched their British prisoners enjoying their last moments of comparative freedom and apparently growing steadily drunker by the hour.

  Eventually the sailors bade an excessively fond farewell to the German soldiers with much back-slapping and camaraderie. They staggered from the tavern and lurched along the dockside shouting and singing raucously, ‘… On the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Loch Lo-o-omond.’ They gathered in an unsteady semi-circle around the lone sentry in his sheltered doorway.

  From behind them came the soft ‘phut-phut-phut’ of the tug chugging up and down the harbour. Only the British sailors knew that instead of Captain Niels Andersen, their own First Mate was operating the tug.

  On board their ship, Captain Sinclair strained to see through the rain and the darkness and then whispered to young Macready at his side, ‘Right, laddie, away now.’

  The boy, who had stayed on board with his Captain, slipped down the gangway, obscured from the German sentry by his roll
icking shipmates. He ran, soft-footed, towards the forward mooring-post and unhooked the two hawsers. Lying flat on his stomach at the edge of the quay and feeling his arms almost pulled from their sockets by the heavy ropes, he hung over the black water. Waiting his moment until the roistering sailors’ voices rose higher and higher he let slip the hawsers into the water. Then he scrambled up and, half-crouching, scurried to do the same with the aft mooring ropes, then back to the gangway and up it on to the deck where he crouched down, panting heavily.

  ‘Well done, laddie, well done!’ were his Captain’s whispered words of praise.

  Captain Sinclair stood up and gave a shrill whistle. At once the drunken sailors closed in upon the German. A knife flashed and was sunk into the enemy’s ribs and he fell back against the door, slithering to the ground. The sailors backed away still shouting, still calling ‘goodnight’ to the now dead sentry and gave every appearance of returning reluctantly to their ship under the stern eye of their Captain who waited at the top of the gangway.

  As the last man stepped on to the deck, the gangway was hauled aboard. Then the little tug moved forward and gently nosed the big ship away from the quay side. A cable was thrown down and slowly the British ship was towed towards the harbour entrance. Far below, the engineer waited for the signal to start the ship’s own engines.

  They were almost out into the open sea when the alarm was given and the dockside became alive with scurrying figures. At once Captain Sinclair gave orders for the engines to be started. The tug disconnected and drew alongside. The First Mate scrambled up the rope ladder back on to his own ship leaving the tug drifting in the harbour waters.

  As the ship’s own engines took over, Captain Sinclair heard the gunshot from the quay but they were just out of range, the bullets plopping harmlessly into the escaping ship’s wake.

  ‘Be God, we’ve done it!’ the Captain muttered as they forged ahead into the open sea. ‘We’ve got awa’ frae the bastards!’

  He allowed his men a few moments of madness, drunk now, not from liquor but with heady success. But then the serious business of getting themselves home began. They had set out with neither charts, nor compass nor any such navigational aid, without even binoculars or a telescope. As best he could. Captain Sinclair steered their course north-westwards by the stars, partially obscured though they were by scudding clouds.

  At last they sighted land, not knowing if they approached friend or enemy. They anchored offshore and hoisted a distress signal and watched as a small boat put to sea from the flat shoreline and headed towards them.

  Macready’s sharp young eyes identified the orange and blue and white craft first. ‘It’s the lifeboat!’ We’re hame.’

  Indeed they were home—but not to Scotland. They were much further south than their home port. They had anchored off the flat Lincolnshire coastline near the town of Saltershaven. All but the Captain, who would not leave his ship, were taken ashore and made welcome by the people of the coastal town.

  Young Macready found himself at the home of the lifeboat coxswain, fussed over and cosseted by the coxswain’s wife and shy daughter, Mary, who was a few years younger than Iain.

  The next day the crew returned to their ship which was then guided into Grimsby dock where it awaited refitting of the instruments confiscated by the Germans. The sailors travelled home to Scotland to find other ships or to enlist now that they had realised just what this war was going to mean. The ‘phoney war’ for these men was over—they had seen for themselves the need to defend their homeland.

  Iain Macready humped his knapsack towards the terrace house he called home to tell his grandmother that he had already enlisted in the Royal Navy. She took his news and listened to the tale he had to tell with interest but without showing any emotion. Only as the tall young man whom she had raised, his slight frame already filling out, his shoulders broadening, his long easy stride showing his growing self-confidence—only as he walked away from her with a cheery wave did Grandmother Macready allow her old eyes to fill with tears.

  It was the last time he was to see the woman who had been everything in his life for on his first leave from the Navy he returned to Clydeslde to find the streets around the dock flattened, the houses a smouldering pile of rubble.

  In March 1941, Hitler’s bombs, aiming for the docks, had wiped away Macready’s home and his only close relative in one night. Iain Macready slung his knapsack over his shoulder and turned his back on his boyhood.

  The sea was now his home.

  But on one lonely leave, Macready, now a strong rugged twenty-year-old, went back to Saltershaven to visit the people who had shown him such kindness. Hearing of his orphaned state, the coxswain and his wife would hear of nothing else but that he should spend all his leaves with them. Iain Macready became involved with the lifeboat, becoming a willing crew member when Coxswain Randall found himself short of a hand. After the war, because there was no reason to return to Scotland, Saltershaven became his home. He married Mary Randall and when her father retired from active service on the lifeboat, Macready left the Royal Navy, but not the sea for he became the Saltershaven lifeboat’s first full-time Coxswain/ mechanic.

  Mary had been an ideal wife for a seaman. She was shy and reserved but bred to the ways of the sea and possessed a quiet courage. Their life together had been a good one and Macready still missed her acutely for she had died of cancer after twenty-five years of marriage.

  Now at fifty-eight, Macready was within two years of his own retirement from the lifeboat service, but for the moment the sea and the lifeboat—and his daughter—were his life.

  The sea had always been Macready’s life. He loved it, respected it, was exhilarated by it but, strangely, he had rarely been afraid of it. His trust in it had never been tested.

  Macready could not believe that the sea that he loved so much could ever betray him.

  Chapter Four

  The Milner boys were enjoying their game of pretence. Backwards and forwards they had pushed the dinghy, jumping in and out of it, falling into the surf but laughing at the soaking, their tee-shirts soon wet and clinging.

  ‘Now, come on, our Martin, I’m coxswain.’ Nigel pursed his lips and tried to whistle like he had heard Macready at the launch.

  ‘Aw, Nigel, you’ve bin coxswain all the time. It’s my turn now.’

  ‘No, it ain’t. You’re head launcher—and crew,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘ ’Tain’t fair,’ Martin grumbled but knew if he wanted to continue playing he would have to give way as always to his elder brother.

  ‘We’ve got a long trip this time. There’s a fishin’-boat struck an iceberg.’ Nigel was at least imaginative if highly inaccurate, and Martin did as he was told.

  ‘Full ahead,’ Nigel shouted, facing out to sea, and made a guttural, engine-like noise in his throat.

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Martin asked.

  ‘You be the radio man. Call up—call up somebody and tell ’em.’

  ‘Tell ’em what?’

  ‘Where we’re goin’ ’n that. Then you come and tell me what they say an’ I say “Roger”.’

  ‘Right.’ Martin twiddled imaginary knobs and spoke into his invisible radio/mike. ‘Hello, hello, lifeboat calling beach. We’re going to rescue a fishing-boat that’s struck an iceberg. Yes—yes.’ He turned to Nigel. ‘ He says …’

  The engine noise stopped momentarily. ‘ You salute me and call me “ Coxswain” or “ sir”. Brrrm, brrrm.’ The engine noise began again.

  ‘Coxswain, he says it’s about five miles out to sea.’

  ‘Give me a direction.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘A direction, stupid! You know, say “north by northwest”, or something.’

  ‘Oh.’ Martin gaped around him as if expecting the sea to give him inspiration, a compass to appear out of the sky. He glanced to right and left and then behind him. Then slowly he turned right round and faced the beach—at least where the beach ought to be.


  ‘Nigel!’

  ‘Brrrm—Coxswain—brrrm, brrrm.’

  ‘Nigel—where’s t’beach? I can’t see the beach.’

  ‘Wha …?’ All noise, save the sound of the sea, stopped and Martin felt the dinghy rock as Nigel turned round, felt the older boy’s body close to him.

  They crouched, one behind the other, gaping towards the shore squinting through the swirling mist.

  Nigel’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widened. Panic surged up into his chest, gripping his throat. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move except to reach out towards Martin and grip the young boy’s arm and stare helplessly, at the mist all around them enclosing them in a circle of seawater.

  In the top flat, Joe Milner, step-father of the two boys, snorted in his sleep and then, as if the sound had disturbed him, he opened his eyes. He yawned noisily, stretched and glanced at his wife lying beside him. She was on her back, her open mouth without its false teeth shrunken and falling inwards, making her look older than her thirty-seven years. Her black hair, frizzed with frequent perming, was already liberally speckled with grey. Her face had become tanned this last week, whilst he, with fairer colouring, had burnt and blistered, a layer of skin peeling like tissue paper from his shoulders. Gingerly he touched his nose which was still sore. He heaved himself out of bed and hitched up his pyjama trousers. He wore no jacket, only a vest. He had reached the end of the bed on his way to the bathroom down the landing, when the dull thud in his head and a funny weakness in his legs reminded him of the gallon and a half of bitter he had drunk the previous night. He belched loudly and fell across the end of the bed landing heavily on his wife’s feet.