Lifeboat!

by Margaret Dickinson

  ‘Come on, man, come on,’ Fred Douglas called encouragingly. ‘All we need now is for him to panic and not be able to move,’ he added in a low voice.

  ‘Shut up, Fred,’ Chas muttered through his teeth, his eyes still on the figure swinging over the water. But his words were spoken without malice and even in the seriousness of the moment, Fred grinned at being chided by his colleague for his fleeting pessimism.

  Droysen was moving again, slithering down the last few feet of the rope, ignoring the burns on his hands in his desperate effort to reach the safety of the rescue boat. The instant his feet touched the deck, Chas raised the axe and cut the rope and Macready pushed the controls to full ahead and the lifeboat’s propellers churned the loose sand and thrust the boat forward away from the sandbank.

  As the Mary Martha Clamp drew away, Droysen stood at the stem of the lifeboat taking a last look at the stranded Hroswitha.

  Pete Donaldson was speaking into his radio/ telephone. During the actual rescue there had been radio silence, but now he had to report to headquarters. ‘Breymouth coastguard, this is Saltershaven lifeboat. Do you read me? Over.’

  ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Breymouth coastguard. Go ahead. Over.’

  ‘Breymouth coastguard, this is Saltershaven lifeboat. Service completed. The coaster Hroswitha is now aground on Middle Bank. We have all survivors aboard the lifeboat. One is in urgent need of hospital treatment. Two others are injured and a member of the lifeboat crew has a leg injury sustained during the rescue. Request helicopter assistance, immediate, if now available. Over.’

  ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Breymouth coastguard. Message received and understood. Rescue helicopter still not available. Suggest you beach at Saltershaven. Will arrange for local coastguard and ambulance to meet you there. Please report ETA. Over.’

  ‘… Roger, Breymouth. ETA—eighteen forty-five. Out.’

  A few seconds later. Jack Hansard’s voice came over the radio link. ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Saltershaven coastguard. Message copied. Out.’

  Then there was silence. A silence Macready did not want.

  He was almost willing Jack Hansard to send a message that Julie and Howard had been found safely. But as the coxswain headed the lifeboat towards Saltershaven, the radio/telephone remained ominously silent.

  The depression moved on northeastwards across the North Sea, and with a cruel irony the gale-force winds were decreasing and the twenty-five-foot waves lessening as the lifeboat sped homewards.

  Now they were approaching the area where the sailing-dinghy might be. Without a word being spoken, without even command or request from Macready, the lifeboatmen took up their look-out stations once more—all except the injured Tony Douglas and Alan Gilbert busy administering first aid to the survivors.

  But Macready could not slow down to search now. He must beach at Saltershaven as soon as possible for the sake of the German Captain, who was now, Alan Gilbert had reported, in grave pain and slipping into unconsciousness every so often.

  No—Macready could not stop to look for his daughter and the dilemma tore at his heart. He knew his duty and he would do it, but the decision crucified him.

  The R/T crackled into life.

  ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Breymouth coastguard. Do you read? Over.’

  Pete replied at once, ‘… Loud and clear. Over.’

  ‘… What is your position, please? Over.’

  ‘… We are approaching Saltershaven Middle. Ten minutes to beaching. Over.’

  ‘Saltershaven lifeboat, this is Breymouth coastguard. Confirm ambulance is now awaiting your arrival at Saltershaven beach. Over.’

  ‘Breymouth coastguard, this is Saltershaven lifeboat. Roger and out.’

  Then Jack Hansard’s steady voice was heard. ‘ Saltershaven lifeboat, this Saltershaven coastguard. Message copied. Further message follows. Reference the sailing-dinghy reported missing probably off the Haven area: the inshore boat has attempted a launch. Conditions too severe. Will coxswain be able to undertake search as soon as survivors from coaster have been landed? Over.’

  Pete turned worried eyes towards his coxswain. ‘Did you hear that, Mac? Is it—Julie?’

  Macready, his hands as steady as ever, his concentration never faltering from the task of weaving the lifeboat through the shoals, nodded. All he said was, ‘Reply affirmative.’ Then he asked, ‘Ask Jack to warn Jeff Caldicott—’ Macready referred to one of the launchers who was also a reserve member of the crew—‘to be ready to take Tony’s place on the next service.’

  They beached at twelve minutes to seven. The launching party were ready to receive the lifeboat but they all knew now that it was to go straight out again. Jack Hansard’s landrover bounced across the sands, splashed through the creek towards the lifeboat already being hauled up on to the hard sand. Swiftly he ferried the sick Captain, the injured engineer and the deckhand and Tony Douglas to the ambulance waiting at the end of Beach Road. On the final run he took the rest of the crew of the German coaster up the beach.

  Before he left the lifeboat Droysen shook Macready by the hand. There were tears in the young man’s eyes as he said, ‘Thank you. Thank you—for my life.’

  Macready nodded and patted the grateful man on the shoulder, but his mind was already on the next service. And yet now that the moment had come when at last he could re-launch and head at full throttle towards the area where it was anticipated the sailing-dinghy might be, Macready felt a strange reluctance borne of fear.

  He was desperately afraid of what he might find.

  Ever since the moment when Sandy had spoken to him on the beach, in his heart of hearts Macready had longed to go in search of his daughter. But duty had kept him bound to the service of the moment—the stricken coaster.

  But now? Now was a different matter entirely Macready knew that Julie—daughter of Saltershaven’s lifeboat coxswain—would have by this time let the coastguard know that she and her companion were safe—if she had been able to do so.

  Now, more than ever, he knew she was still somewhere out at sea.

  The Mary Martha Clamp was hauled up on to the carriage, the launchers panting hard as they rushed the skeats from stern to bows. The safety chains were fastened, the tractor recoupled and the carriage was turned right round so that the lifeboat once more faced out to sea. The crew, tired and windblown, climbed aboard again. Macready, standing on the deck near the top of the ladder spoke to Jeff Caldicott as he climbed up. ‘Put a life-jacket on as soon as you come aboard.’

  Macready fastened the chain across the opening and the tractor began to push the carriage into the water. The sea was still rough, but nothing like the conditions of three hours or so ago. The depression drifted on leaving destruction, and possibly even death, in its wake.

  Macready blew his whistle, the chains were released and the tractor driver operated the launching gear. With a mighty splash, the spray fanning into the air, the lifeboat entered the water once more.

  Macready headed out beyond Saltershaven Middle and then turned south-westwards to bring him back once more towards the shore, towards Dolan’s Point, as Pete once more called up the Breymouth Coastal Rescue Headquarters to report this second launch and the change in the crew list.

  Already the crew had taken up their look-out positions. Each and every one of them was grim-faced, their tired eyes scanning the rise and fall of the seas. Tim, standing in the bows next to Chas Blake, leaned forward, desperation in his young eyes. Macready, watching him, recognised the lad’s anguish—it was the same as his own.

  Chapter Nineteen

  They found him floating face downwards, his unresisting body tossed and buffeted by the choppy seas.

  It was the worst moment of Macready’s entire life as he fought to hold the lifeboat steady so that his crew could pluck Howard from the water.

  The previous tragedies in Macready’s life—the loss of his Scottish grandmother and consequently of his home too in the ravages of war, the death
of his wife; everything paled into insignificance beside the fear gnawing at his guts.

  Julie—Julie—Julie! The name hammered at his mind and for a moment his whole being seemed frozen, his own body lifeless, as if his life’s blood had drained away.

  Two members of the crew, Alan Gilbert and Chas Blake were working methodically yet speedily on the young man now lying under the tarpaulin covering the forward cockpit. Swiftly efficient, Alan wiped the mucus from Howard’s white and wrinkled face, cleared his throat clogged with thick vomit and expelled water from his lungs. Then he turned Howard over and gave mouth to mouth resuscitation and applied the Brook Airway.

  There was no response.

  There was no pulse, no heartbeat, no warmth in any part of the young man’s body.

  After thirty minutes of effort, Alan sadly closed Howard’s staring eyes and gagging mouth.

  Macready saw young Tim stumble from the bows towards him. ‘Cox’n—they …’ His voice was choked with tears, not if he were truthful for Howard, but for Julie. ‘They reckon—they can’t do anything.’ Tim’s eyes mirrored the torture in Macready’s own, but the lad’s words, instead of plunging Macready into deeper despair, seemed strangely to break the bonds of inertia, seemed to bring back to Macready in that moment the realisation of what he was and who he was.

  Years of experience and his ingrained sense of duty were his salvation. With a brisk, yet not unkindly, nod, he acknowledged Tim’s message and motioned to the lad that he should return to his look-out position. Activity and responsibility forced the agony to the back of his mind. It was there and whatever the outcome he knew he would relive these next few minutes, maybe hours, countless times in his nightmares, but for the present, he was coxswain of the lifeboat on a service—first and always.

  The search had been going on even whilst Alan and Chas worked on Howard. At last Macready saw the two crew members emerge from the canopied bows and Alan weaved his way along the tossing deck towards his coxswain. Mutely, he shook his head, words in the noise of the wind and the driving seas, unnecessary.

  Macready knew what he meant.

  They could not revive Howard Marshall-Smythe.

  The search continued, the lifeboat zigzagging backwards and forwards, all eyes scanning the seas as the searchlight swept back and forth across the surface of the water in the now fading daylight. She must be here somewhere. She would have her life-jacket on even if she had not be able to stay with the boat. The argument went on relentlessly inside Macready’s head. But how could a young girl survive in such seas as they had experienced these last few hours?

  Pete Donaldson was hunched over the radar screen. Suddenly he shouted, ‘There’s something in the water three degrees to port about half a mile away, Mac’

  Macready adjusted his course bearing and increased the speed and in minutes they were closing in on the object.

  ‘There. There!’ The wind, still gusting with intermittent strength, snatched the words from Tim’s mouth and tossed them disdainfully away, but Macready and the rest of the crew saw him pointing.

  They came alongside the capsized sailing-dinghy.

  Julie was spread-eagled across the upturned hull.

  Tim was over the side and down the scrambling net before anyone else had moved, leaning out to reach her. Chas went down after him and together they lifted her gently—so carefully—up into the lifeboat. Alan and Fred received her and carried her tenderly forward to the cockpit where the body of Howard Marshall-Smythe lay, now covered completely with a plastic sheet.

  From his station at the wheel, Macready could not see whether Julie was alive or not. For a few moments Macready leant against the wheel, allowing his lifeboat to drift with the swell of the ocean.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. Fred Douglas was at his elbow. ‘Let me tek over, Cox’n. You go for’ard to yon lass.’

  ‘Aye, aye.’ Macready relinquished the helm, easing his stiff fingers from the wheel, only now realising how tightly he had been gripping it.

  Fred turned the Mary Martha Clamp towards Saltershaven. As Macready eased his way towards the foredeck, ironically the seas grew calmer with every minute.

  He lifted the tarpaulin and squeezed himself beneath. He could see Julie lying on a stretcher already wrapped in blankets and a plastic sheet. Her head was cradled in Tim’s arms, the young man bending over her anxiously, his body so positioned as if to shield the shrouded figure of her sailing companion from her.

  Her face was wrinkled and swollen, her mouth cracked and bleeding, and she was so still.

  Macready squatted down beside her scarcely able to breathe for the fear in his chest like a crushing weight.

  Her swollen eyelids flickered and painfully she opened her eyes. Her sore lips moved and yet no sound came, then hoarsely she whispered, ‘I knew you’d come!’ She stretched out her fingers, blue with cold, towards her father.

  Macready took her hand and pressed his rough, weathered cheek against it, the thankfulness rushing through him like a spring tide at the flood.

  Tim turned to look into Macready’s face, not ashamed of the tears running down his face as he asked, ‘ She’ll be all right, won’t she, Mr Macready?’

  Macready’s strong hand gripped Tim’s shoulder. ‘Aye, son, she’ll be fine, she’ll be fine.’

  For years to come, Macready’s sleep would be broken by nightmares. He would be haunted by the face of Howard Marshall-Smythe—the life they had not been able to save—and he would wake with a start in the depth of night not knowing, in those first few seconds, whether he had reached Julie in time.

  Humbly Macready acknowledged the risk that duty had obliged him to take, the awful decision he had had to make.

  He had gambled the precious life of his daughter against the power of the ocean.

  The sea had not failed him. She had shown him her power over those who dared to treat her with disdain; she had taken the life of Howard Marshall-Smythe.

  But the sea that Macready had always loved had given him back his daughter.

  I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the three people who gave so generously of their time and expert knowledge in reading and correcting the technical errors in the typescript: Ken Holland, Coxswain/Mechanic, Skegness Lifeboat; William Hill, Instructor, Trent Valley Gliding Club Ltd, and Fraser Lane, Commodore, Skegness Sailing Club.

  My thanks also to my husband, Dennis, for his constant encouragement.

  Without their help this book could not have been written.

  M. D.

  Skegness, 1983

  Copyright

  First published in 1983 by Robert Hale

  This edition published 2014 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-9013-1 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-90111-7 HB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-9012-4 PB

  Copyright © Margaret Dickinson, 1983

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  author of this work has been asserted in accordance

  with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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