The Last Lifeboat, page 16
Her father once told her all the world’s oceans are connected, that a Pacific wave is made of the same water she splashed in at Whitstable Beach. Water has a memory, Alice; a soul. The concept is as magical to her now as it was to her curious young mind.
‘Is it really the same?’ Arthur dips his fingers into the cold liquid in Alice’s hands. ‘The same water I swallowed on Chalkwell Beach?’
Alice smiles. ‘The very same. And it knows the way home. It remembers.’
As others wake to the calm sunlit morning, a round of applause rises up from the lifeboat. Robert sings ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’, accompanied by Owen on his harmonica. Mr Harlow plays the notes on an imaginary piano. Hamish emerges from beneath the tarpaulin and joins in. Even Brian sings along, quietly at first, and then louder. Molly is still asleep. She’s been unusually quiet over the last twenty-four hours. Alice observes the scene, conscious of the need to pay attention so that she can tell the parents about these extraordinary days in their children’s lives. Buoyed by the bright morning, she gathers up the tattered fragments of hope the storm had torn from her in the night, and stitches them together into a patchwork of determination and belief; a blanket of courage big enough to cover them all.
The mood in the lifeboat shifts that morning, everyone revived by the improvement in the weather. Robert and Hamish are interested in sailing and ask Jimmy the proper names for each part of the lifeboat: thwarts, footings, gunwale, rowlocks, stanchion, prow, stern and keel. Socks and other smaller garments are wrung out and hung over the thwarts to dry. Bobby finds a comb in his pocket and passes it around for everyone to pull the knots and tangles from their hair. Torn garments become makeshift socks and shoes for those who don’t have any. Buttons are ripped from clothes, and sucked to stimulate saliva in desert-dry mouths. Thomas Prendergast’s moustache wax is rubbed onto cracked lips and the tips of painful, swollen ears. They are resourceful and organized, the lifeboat infused with a collective urge to endure, despite their many physical and emotional struggles.
But there is one person in the lifeboat who doesn’t relish routine and instruction. For all that Owen Shaw does to keep the children entertained, Alice still doesn’t quite trust him. She watches him carefully, wondering what unpredictable or disruptive thing he’ll do next.
She doesn’t have to wait long.
After the midday rations have made their way around the lifeboat – with an extra tin of Carnation milk each for the children in celebration of the good weather – Owen stands up, strips down to his underpants, raises a hand to his forehead in salute, and swan-dives elegantly over the side of the lifeboat.
For a moment, everyone is too shocked to say, or do, anything.
Alice is the first to raise the alarm. ‘Man overboard!’ she cries. ‘Man overboard!’
Bobby is about to jump in when Owen resurfaces, laughing as he treads water.
‘It’s glorious! Couldn’t stand it any longer, being tied up in knots. Had to stretch my legs.’
Bobby leans forward and reaches out an arm. ‘For God’s sake, man. Get back in.’
‘Get out!’ Alice shouts. ‘Get back in the boat!’
‘Get out! Get in! What’s this, the hokey-cokey?’ Owen tips his head back and floats, arms and legs splayed like a starfish.
‘You’re being ridiculous!’ Alice is furious, and frightened. She can’t believe he’s jumped into the ocean; can’t believe he’d even contemplate such a thing. The lifeboat is the only thing keeping them safe. The thought of being outside it is terrifying. ‘You’ll give the children ideas.’
‘Good. Much better for them in the water than sitting in that bloody boat all day, folded up like an ironing board.’ Owen dives beneath the lifeboat and surfaces on the other side, much to the children’s delight. He tumbles and turns for them like a performing seal. ‘Can any of you kids swim?’
They all raise their hands, except Billy who says he’s never tried.
Thomas Prendergast leans over the side of the lifeboat and holds out a hand. ‘I think that’s enough fun for one day, old chap. Best get back in the lifeboat now.’
Jimmy isn’t so polite. ‘Get back in the damn boat, Shaw. You’re frightening people.’ His wind-reddened face is further flushed with anger.
Owen ignores him. ‘If you all want to rot away in there, crammed together like gone-off fish, go ahead. I’d rather have a bit of exercise when the weather allows. It’s good for the soul.’
Realizing he isn’t going to talk Owen out of it, Jimmy throws his hands in the air and leaves him to it. ‘Drown then, you bloody idiot. See if I care.’
Arthur shouts out, ‘Mustard! We forgot mustard for yellow!’
Nothing makes sense anymore.
Alice watches Owen carefully, partly in anger, partly out of caution, but mostly in silent envy. He swims around the boat for fifteen minutes, slow steady laps, before hauling himself out. He looks so alert. The children are even more in awe of this loud American who does mad impulsive things.
Robert asks Alice if he can have a turn. ‘I’m a strong swimmer. I swim in the public baths back home. Just once around the boat? Please, Auntie?’
‘Absolutely not. The Atlantic Ocean isn’t the public baths, Robert. And you need to save your energy.’ She glowers at Owen. ‘See? Now they all want a go.’
Owen rubs his skin dry with his polo shirt. ‘So? Let them. You should try it. Live a little. If not now, when?’
‘Just stop it.’ Alice can’t keep the anger from her voice. ‘None of us wanted this to happen and you’re just making it worse.’
‘Swimming a few laps around the boat is making this worse?’ He shakes his head. ‘You need to let go, Alice. Stop being so prissy and perfect. Take a few risks.’ He takes his seat on the thwarts behind her. He smells of the ocean; fresh and alive.
‘I did take a risk,’ she snaps. ‘And look where that got me.’
Infuriatingly, Owen doesn’t say anything in reply.
Certain that the better weather will bring the help they so desperately need, they spend the rest of the afternoon taking turns on watch for signs of an approaching ship. Fleeting moments of hope come and go as someone cries ‘Over there!’ when they think they’ve spotted a column of smoke, only to discover they’re looking at a cloud.
Alice joins Jimmy at the mast, glad to stand up and stretch her legs while the weather is calm. ‘Do you think we might be the only survivors?’ she asks. ‘It doesn’t make sense, but I don’t understand why we haven’t seen any other lifeboats.’
‘The swell that night was the biggest I’ve ever seen,’ he says. ‘It’s entirely possible the other lifeboats went down in the storm.’ His hair is matted, his eyes bloodshot and tired. Alice wonders if she looks as bad. ‘We were the last lifeboat to leave the Carlisle,’ he continues. ‘We had a relatively clean entry into the water having the shortest distance to lower. Maybe we were the only lifeboat left seaworthy. Maybe we were the only ones capable of rowing away when the ship sank and tried to pull us down with it.’
It is unbearable to think that out of the hundreds of passengers and crew, they might be the only ones to have made it through that first dreadful night.
‘They’d have sent an SOS though, wouldn’t they? Before everyone abandoned ship.’
Jimmy nods. ‘Whether anyone responded in time to help those in the water is another matter.’
Alice can’t shake the image of the poor panicked souls, thrashing in the water like fish struggling in a net. Perhaps they were people she knew, people she was responsible for, people she cared for.
‘We will survive this, Alice. At times we’ll doubt it, but we’ve enough supplies to see us to Ireland if we’re careful, and if the wind and the ocean are on our side.’
Alice appreciates the words of encouragement, but when she looks at the endless expanse of water over Jimmy’s shoulder, and as another afternoon passes without any sign of help, she is increasingly certain the wind and the ocean are not on their side at all. And still the question torments her: why does nobody come to help them? The only answer she can find is that Jimmy has made a mistake in his calculations. By being organized and taking regular turns at the Fleming gear, they have purposefully rowed away from the site where the Carlisle went down. But what if that is precisely where the rescue ships have been directed? What if their efforts have taken them away from help, rather than toward it?
Alice returns to her space beside the children and reads another imaginary chapter of Moby Dick. Her dry mouth and swollen tongue make her sound as if she has cotton wool stuffed in her cheeks. The children sit at her feet, transfixed. They don’t notice her muddles or hesitation, or if they do, they don’t care.
Before the light fades fully, Jimmy prepares the second of the day’s rations. It is a complicated business for something so basic. People have to move to give him access to the emergency stores beneath the thwarts. Crates are opened, the correct number of tins chosen, the portions carefully divided. The dipper of water seems to shrink with each serving so that when Alice sips the precious liquid, she feels a sort of madness in her desire for more. With everything so bland and inedible, a rare sweet treat of a slice of pineapple brings a smile to jaded faces. Alice savours every sticky bite, holding the soft fruit between her teeth, letting the juice reach every corner of her mouth before swallowing it. Molly is still too seasick to eat anything. Alice encourages her to have some water, at least. She is increasingly concerned about the girl’s lethargy.
‘Will there be more pineapple tomorrow?’ Arthur sucks his fingers to make sure he’s got every last drop of juice. ‘It’s so delicious.’
‘I’ve never had a pine apple before,’ Billy adds. ‘They’re my favourite apples now.’
Molly turns to Billy, but whatever she is going to say dissolves on her tongue and she tells him they’re her favourite apples, too.
Hamish begs Alice to let him drink from the ocean. ‘Why can’t we drink the seawater, Auntie? There’s so much of it. Just a mouthful?’
‘It isn’t safe, Hamish,’ she says. ‘I know it seems cruel, but the salt in the water can damage your insides and make you terribly sick. Suck one of your buttons and try to think about something else.’
Hamish turns his back to her and folds his arms around his knees. ‘It isn’t fair. You’re mean.’
‘I’m sorry, Hamish, but if your mother were here, she would say the same thing.’
He mutters something over his shoulder.
Alice leans forward. ‘What did you say? I didn’t hear you.’
Arthur places his mouth to Alice’s ear and whispers. ‘He said his mother is dead.’
Without any wind, the sails hang limply at the mast and the lifeboat drifts, carried along on the whim of the ocean currents. Alice slips in and out of sleep. She dreams about the boats in Whitstable Harbour, the breeze singing through the rigging, the cry of the gulls. She dreams she’s in her father’s fishing boat, catching cod for supper. He knocks the floundering creatures on the head with a stick. The pope, he calls it. ‘One good whack and they don’t know anything about it.’ But when Alice looks into the bucket of fish, they are all gasping for breath. ‘They’re still alive!’ she shouts as she tips the day’s catch into the water. ‘They’re all still alive!’ But they float lifeless on the surface. Walter is there. He shakes Alice’s arm. ‘You can’t save them all, Alice. You can’t save them all.’
She wakes to Arthur shaking her arm.
‘Auntie! Auntie! Wake up.’
The children stare at her. Fish in a bucket, gasping for breath.
She doesn’t have the energy for more of Arthur’s questions. ‘Try to rest, Arthur. You need to rest to keep up your strength.’
‘But Molly is all twitchy. Look.’
Alice turns her head. Molly is slumped in the bottom of the lifeboat, her arms and legs jerking in spasms.
‘Molly?’ Alice crawls forward and lifts the child’s head. ‘Molly? It’s Auntie. Can you open your eyes?’
The child is delirious.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Arthur asks. ‘Is she dying?’
Alice’s mind races. ‘I don’t know, Arthur. She needs help.’ She looks up and calls out. ‘I need help! Can somebody help me?’
23
Mid-Atlantic. 20 September 1940
Day Three
Alice feels the first drops of rain on her face as Molly murmurs and moans in her arms. Jimmy stumbles and clambers his way toward them, stepping on sore toes and banging his knees against shins as people cry out in protest and pain. ‘Oi! Watch where you’re standing!’ ‘Look where you’re going!’
‘What is it?’ he says as he reaches Alice. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s Molly. She’s convulsing and keeps vomiting. I thought she was just lethargic from seasickness, but I think it might be something worse.’
Jimmy inspects the child. ‘Molly? I need you to sit up.’ She is like a ragdoll one minute and rigid the next. ‘Molly? Come on now. Try to open your eyes.’ He glances at Alice and lowers his voice, aware that the other children are listening. ‘Don’t like the look of her, to be honest.’
He shouts to Bobby to pass down a dipper of water for the child, but the request creates immediate dissent and disagreement. Everyone is desperately thirsty. The suggestion that even a drop of water might be taken out of turn isn’t well received.
‘Tell him to get lost,’ someone shouts back. ‘We’ll stick to the rations, and that’s that.’
Other voices mutter in agreement.
Alice doesn’t care about rations. ‘What is wrong with you all? The child is sick and needs water! Bobby, ignore them.’
As Bobby takes a container from beneath the thwarts, two men stand up and try to wrestle it from him.
Brian tugs on Alice’s arm, deflecting her attention from the quarrel.
‘Maybe the water made her sick, Auntie.’
‘It isn’t the water, Brian. The water is helping to keep us ali—’
‘Not that water.’
‘What do you mean?’ Alice turns to him. ‘Brian? What do you mean?’
His face crumples. ‘I promised not to tell.’
She grabs the boy’s hands. ‘You’re not in trouble, Brian. It’s very important that you say. Molly is very sick.’
He whispers, so that Alice can hardly hear him. ‘Molly drank the sea. I told her not to, but she kept drinking it.’
Alice is horrified. ‘Dear God. How much?’
Jimmy looks at Alice and shakes his head. ‘Bloody hell. Silly girl. Silly silly girl.’
Brian points to one of the empty tins of Carnation milk. ‘She kept filling it up when you weren’t looking. I told her not to. I told her she would get into trouble.’
‘How often?’ Jimmy asks. ‘How many days has she been doing it?’
‘I don’t know.’ Brian starts to cry. ‘I can’t remember. I shouldn’t have said. I promised not to tell.’
Molly vomits into the bottom of the lifeboat.
Arthur puts his arm around Brian’s shoulder and asks him if he wants to play a game of Who Am I?
‘What can we do?’ Alice stares at Jimmy. ‘How can we help her?’
Jimmy shakes his head. ‘Her sodium levels will be high. Looks like hypernatraemia has already set in.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Salt poisoning. If she’s drunk enough seawater, she could slip into a coma.’
‘And then?’
His silence gives Alice all the information she needs.
Up ahead, the three men continue to tussle with the water canister.
Alice has seen enough. She stands up unsteadily, clambers toward them and grabs the canister with Bobby. ‘For God’s sake. The child needs a drink!’ She and Bobby pull hard to try and wrench the canister from the two other men.
One of them lets go. ‘Take the bloody lot then. Who cares? We’re all going to die anyway.’
The sudden release of tension sends Alice stumbling backwards. As if in slow motion, she loses her balance, feels momentum take over as she windmills her arms, grasping helplessly at thin air as she falls, sideways, into the water.
The sound comes first, the heavy splash of her fall followed by a terrifying muffle as she goes under. The cold comes next, sending her body into shock. She kicks and resurfaces. Hears another splash. Goes under again. She tries to cry out but the cold water takes her breath away. She can’t breathe. She kicks again. Loses a shoe. Her arms and legs are so heavy as she thrashes wildly at the water, and then something pulls her up, and she is floating, and someone has their arms around her and then she is being told to reach up as Bobby and Jimmy grab an arm each and she is hauled back into the lifeboat and blankets are placed around her.
‘Where’s Shaw?’ Jimmy shouts. His voice sounds panicked and urgent. ‘Shaw? Owen?’
Alice sits up. She can’t stop shaking. ‘Where’s Owen?’
‘He went in after you,’ Bobby says. ‘Then he went for the water canister.’
Alice peers out into the water. Where is he? ‘Owen! Stop messing around. Owen!’
For what seems like an age, they watch the water, and then Owen’s arms reach up, and Jimmy and Bobby pull him back into the lifeboat.
‘It’s gone,’ he says. ‘I tried to grab it, but the swell took it. The water’s gone.’
It is a devastating blow. A third of a canister of water – a whole day’s rations – lost to the ocean. Without saying a word, Alice knows everyone is thinking the same thing, that perhaps their chance of survival has been lost with it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s my fault.’
Owen slumps onto the thwarts beside her. Ribbons of water drip from his hair. ‘It isn’t your fault. You were only trying to help the child. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s those selfish idiots’ up there.’ He glowers at the two men who’d fought over the water. They sit in sullen silence as Jimmy takes a dipper of water from the remaining canister and passes it down the boat for Molly.
Alice encourages Molly to drink as she cradles the child in her arms. She wants to say something to Owen, but doesn’t have the words or the emotional strength. Too shocked to fully process what has just happened, she shuts down her own emotions and focuses on the child instead.
