Page 119 of The Ship of Brides
‘I can’t,’ said Avice.
‘It’s not that far. Look – I’ll hold on to you.’
‘I can’t swim.’
Frances heard the crack of something giving outside, the hint of an inferno she did not want to face. She grabbed Avice and they struggled, Frances trying desperately to drag her towards the edge.
‘Get off me!’ Avice screamed. ‘Don’t touch me!’ She was wild, scratching and pounding at Frances’s arms, her shoulders. Smoke was seeping under the hatch. From somewhere far below, Frances could hear women’s voices calling up to them. She smelt something acrid and her heart was filled with fear. She grabbed a handful of Avice’s silk dress and dragged her on to the gun turret. Her foot slipped, the rubber sole of her shoe sliding off metal, and she thought suddenly: What if no one rescues me? Then she heard a scream and, entangled, they were falling, arms and legs flailing, towards the inky black below.
The captain had the wrench in his hands, and was struggling to get the bomb off its clamp on the wall. ‘Get out!’ he shouted at the men who, three strong, were carrying the penultimate bomb from the magazine. ‘Get the hose! Flood the compartment! Flood it now!’ He had removed his mask to be better heard, and his voice was hoarse as he tried to speak and breathe.
‘Captain!’ yelled Green, through his mask. ‘Got to get out now.’
‘She’s not going up. Got to be safe.’
‘You can’t get them all off, sir. You don’t have time. We can flood it now.’
Afterwards, Green thought Highfield might not have heard him. He did not want to leave his skipper there, but he knew there was only so much a man could do before the need to keep the other men safe overrode his concern.
‘Start the flooding,’ Highfield was shouting. ‘Just go.’
He turned, and as he did so, he heard something fall. He threw his smoke helmet blindly towards the captain, hoping it would reach him, that somehow he would see it through the smoke. His heart heavy with foreboding, he was out, pushing his men before him.
Frances broke through the surface, her mouth a great O, her hair plastered over her face. She could hear voices, feel hands pulling at her, trying to heave her out of water so cold it had knocked the breath hard from her chest. At first the sea had not wanted to relinquish her: she felt its icy grasp on her clothes. And then she was flopping, gasping, on the floor of the little boat like a landed fish, retching as voices tried to reassure her, and a blanket swiftly wrapped round her shoulders.
Avice, she mouthed. And then as the salt sting in her eyes eased, she saw her being hauled like a catch over the other end of the cutter, her beauty-pageant dress slick with oil, her eyes closed tight against her future.
Is she all right? she wanted to ask. But an arm slid round her, pulled her in tightly. It did not release her, as she expected, but held on, so that she felt the closeness of this solid body, the intensity of its protection, and suddenly she had no words.Frances, a voice said, close by her ear, and it was dark with relief.
Captain Highfield was laid out on the flight deck by the two stokers who had carried him there. The men stood around him, hands thrust in pockets, some wiping sweat or soot from their faces, spitting noisily behind them. In the distance, under the dark skies, there were shouts of confirmation as different parts of the ship were deemed to have stopped burning.
It’s out, Captain, they told him. It’s under control. We did it. They half whispered these words as if unsure whether he could still hear them. There would be other conversations later, about how ill-judged it was for a man of his standing, of his age, to throw himself into the firefighting efforts in such a reckless manner. There would be nodded observations of how bad he was at delegating, how another captain might have stood back and seen the bigger picture. But many of his men would approve. They would think of Hart, and their lost mates, and wonder whether they wouldn’t have done the same.
But this was hours, days ahead. For now, Highfield lay there, oblivious to their words and reassurances. There was silence for a whole minute, as the men watched his slumped figure, still in his good dress uniform, wet and smoke-stained, eyes still fixed on some distant drama.
The men looked at him, and then, surreptitiously at each other. One wondered whether to summon the ship’s doctor, who was organising a sing-song among the occupants of the lifeboats below. Then Highfield raised himself on his elbow, his eyes bloodshot. He coughed once, twice more, and there was black phlegm on the deck. He moved his neck as if in pain. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he asked, voice gravelly, eyes full of fury. ‘Check every last bloody compartment. Then get the bloody women out of the bloody boats and back on bloody board.’
It took two hours to make the ship safe. The Spanish fishing vessels that passed by shortly before dawn, checking that those still waiting on the water did not need rescuing, would speak for years after of the lifeboats, full of women in brightly coloured evening dresses, their limbs arranged chaotically, singing ‘The Wild Rover No More’. They were linked, like some giant cobweb, by taut brown stockings, knotted together in lengths.
There were two marines to each lifeboat. The water slopped against the side of the cutters, buoying the discarded or torn hosiery, which floated like brown seaweed on the surface of the water. The women’s voices were low with relief and exhaustion as word spread that they would not have to spend much longer in the little vessels. That they, and their belongings, were safe.
He stared at her, and now, as Avice’s sleeping body rested limply against her own, still wrapped in the blanket, she stared back, past the stooped bodies of the other women, silent and unblinking, as if their eyes were connected by an invisible thread.
The captain was alive. The fires were out.
They were to re-embark.
22
Remember, the army will not send you to a destination unless it has been verified that ‘that man’ is there waiting. In short, consider yourself parcel-post delivery.
Advice contained in a booklet given to war brides
travelling aboard theArgentina, Imperial War Museum
Twenty-four hours to Plymouth
It was several hours before the temperature had cooled enough to check it, but it was pretty clear once the working party got down there that the centre engine room was beyond repair; the heat had melted pipework and welded rivets to the floor. The walls and hatches had buckled, and above it half of the seamen’s messes were gone, the decks above them warping so far with the heat that several gantries had toppled over. Other ratings had donated blankets and pillows so that those who had lost bunks and belongings could sleep in relative comfort in the forward hangar space. Nobody complained. Those who had lost treasured photographs and letters comforted themselves with the thought that within twenty-four hours they were likely to see in person the subjects of those precious keepsakes. Those who rememberedIndomitablewere simply relieved that no lives had been lost. If the war had taught them nothing else, it had taught them that.
