The Last Lifeboat, page 25
Brian is pulling her arm, urging her to sit up, to look at the sky. She is light-headed, dazzled by the sun as she tips her neck back and shields her eyes with her hands. She sees a black dot, high above them. She hears a faint distant hum.
‘It’s just a bird, Brian. Or a cloud.’
The lifeboat falls back into silence. Another false alarm.
Another minute passes, maybe two. Billy coughs and wheezes. Alice reaches out a hand to point at stars that don’t exist.
Then another cry. Robert this time.
‘There! It is a plane! It really is! Look!’
Now, people begin to stir.
Alice sits up again. Jimmy is standing in the middle of the lifeboat, waving his arms in circles and shouting out. Owen is beside him, circling his sweater above his head. And there’s Thomas Prendergast, whooping and banging two tins together. And now Alice hears the unmistakable distant drone. Not bees, but an engine. A plane. When she looks up, the black dot is much bigger, and flying towards them.
She pulls herself up; stands, unsteadily, as the low guttural drone draws closer and closer until it becomes a dramatic heart-stopping roar and a great rush of air that billows out her skirt as it flies past. A small figure is clearly visible through the cockpit window. He raises a thumb to signal that they’ve been seen.
‘It’s the RAF!’ Arthur cries out. ‘A British Sunderland flying boat!’
The atmosphere in the lifeboat is frenzied. Handkerchiefs, hats, jackets and blankets windmill in the air. Cries of ‘Over here!’ and gasps of exhausted disbelief fill Alice’s ears as the plane banks to the right, and begins its approach toward them again.
It is impossible, incredible, and yet, there it is.
There it is.
Alice looks around the lifeboat. Several people are crying. Others are laughing. The children’s faces are alight with joy, a sense of immeasurable relief so vividly expressed in their wide smiles.
She watches it all as if she is in a dream. In her hand, she clutches a white feather, and in her heart, she holds on to her last tattered fragment of hope as she sinks to her knees and weeps.
PART THREE – RESCUE
38
Mid-Atlantic. 24 September 1940
Day One
They had been officially dead for just over a week and it takes a single moment, a simple thumbs up, to bring them gasping back to life. With one more pass overhead, the pilot of the RAF Sunderland signals that help is on the way, and goes to alert the closest vessel.
Jimmy calls everyone together to say a prayer of thanks.
‘Hold hands, children,’ Alice says. ‘Let us pray.’
Alice looks around the lifeboat as they repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Bobby and Jimmy grip each other’s arms. Mr Sherwood and Mr Harlow hold hands and weep, finally allowing themselves to acknowledge their fear and fragility. Owen – Richard – sings loudly beside Alice. She wonders what fate awaits him now; wonders what awaits them all.
Despite their severe physical distress, and the overwhelming emotion of being rescued, Alice notices an almost instant improvement in everyone. Shoulders that were once hunched are now pulled back. Heads that had hung in a state of melancholy now look up. Limbs that were contorted in agony stretch and ease. Passive becomes active. Past becomes present. Hope becomes reality.
Once the solemn moment of prayer and thanks has passed, the children sing ‘My Old Man’, ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’, and a rousing rendition of the hokey-cokey. Their joy is infectious, their relief irrepressible.
‘Are we really going home, Auntie?’ Arthur asks. ‘Will I see my mother?’
Alice pulls the boy into a tight embrace. ‘Yes, Arthur! We are really going home and you will see your mother.’ She thinks about Lily Nicholls and wonders what on earth she will do when the remarkable news reaches her.
Within the hour, the Sunderland returns and drops a parachute bag filled with emergency supplies: food, cigarettes, a flare to attract attention from the ship that is steaming to their aid, and, most thrilling of all, water. Alice tends to Billy first, lifting his head to help him drink small, vital sips. He is so pale and limp in her arms. She prays for one more miracle and wills him to hang on. ‘They came to take us home, Billy, dear. We’re going home, love. You’re going home to your mother.’
She makes sure the other children drink next. ‘Small steady sips, children. Too much too quickly will make you nauseous.’ Like the ferns her father used to keep, they require a gradual gentle watering, not a deluge. When they have all taken a good amount of water, Alice allows herself to drink. She savours the cool liquid as it sluices down her throat, flooding her body with life. She feels suspended in time, caught in some imperceptible place between lost and found as sip after sip, moment after moment, gently brings the nightmare to an end.
Finally, the warship sent to their aid comes into view. The children’s faces are full of wonder as the enormous vessel draws closer. This time, there is no sudden turning around. This ship anchors steadily alongside them, the crew hollering and waving as they drop cargo nets, ladders and slings down the side of the ship for the survivors to make their way aboard.
Having been in the lifeboat for so long, they find the process of leaving it isn’t quick or straightforward. Anxious not to tip the boat, and careful to ensure that no one should fall overboard at this last precarious moment, Jimmy takes charge again, prioritizing those with the most pressing needs as the lifeboat slowly gives up its precious cargo. First, Billy is taken up in a sling, followed by Molly, and then the most physically sick among the adults. Many are too weak to haul themselves up and have to be lifted in a human chain, or slung over the crew’s shoulders like sacks of coal. The sense of action and motion is overwhelming.
Alice waits her turn, insisting that the children go first. She tells them what’s happening, reassures them and makes sure they know what to do as they leave the lifeboat. ‘Arms up, Hamish, that’s it.’ ‘Hold on, Brian.’ ‘Don’t look down, Arthur.’ She breathes a sigh of relief when Robert, the last of them, turns and gives a thumbs up from the ship’s deck.
After so many dark and desperate hours, so many false alarms and so much lost, Alice can hardly believe it when she places one bare foot, then the other, on the solid, sturdy deck of HMS Aurora. She turns to look back at the lifeboat – their lifeboat. She thought she would be so relieved to be out of it, is relieved to be out of it, but she also feels a pang of guilt – of grief, almost – to leave it behind. That little boat was their home. It had kept them safe for so long.
‘What will happen to it?’ she asks, barely able to speak, her words a muddle.
‘What’s that you say, love?’
She points to the lifeboat.
‘Don’t you worry about that, miss. You’ve been through quite an ordeal. We can’t believe there’s so many of you alive.’
Safe in the hands of the crew, Alice follows their instructions and direction. The kind souls in Royal Navy uniforms reassure her, sit her down on a deck chair, give her a hot drink and blankets, tell her where she is and what day it is.
‘What’s your name, love?’ someone asks. He has kind eyes. Blue-grey, like a washed pebble. Like Owen’s eyes.
‘Alice King.’
He doesn’t understand her. ‘Sorry, love. Can you say that again? Nancy, was it?’
She leans forward until her cheek rests against his, and her mouth is beside his ear. ‘Al … ice,’ she says, as slowly and precisely as she can. ‘Kin … g.’
He writes it down and shows it to her. ‘Alice King?’
She nods, holds the lapel of his jacket and says thank you, although it doesn’t sound as she intended. She wants to ask about news from home, about other survivors, but she can’t form the words; doesn’t have the energy. Her hands and knees tremble.
He takes her hands in his. ‘You’re safe now, Alice. You’re going home, love. You’re safe.’
His gentle kindness is devastating. She is too exhausted even to cry.
She places her hand on his arm and tries to speak as clearly as she can. ‘The children? Billy? The little one?’
‘Being well looked after in the medical bay. You don’t need to worry about the children anymore, Miss King. You’ve done your job. We’ll take care of them now.’
She has done her job.
She nods, relieved to be absolved of her responsibility, and yet somewhere in the fog of pain and relief, she realizes that being rescued means that she will lose these people she’s come to care for so deeply.
‘Come on. Let’s get you a nice cup of tea.’
As she stands up, the relief and shock of being rescued hits her. She sways and stumbles. Her legs buckle beneath her as the bright afternoon fades to grey, and dazzling stars shimmer and float in front of her eyes as she sinks to her knees, secure in the knowledge that she is safe now, that someone will catch her if she falls.
39
Glasgow. September 1940
Lily wants to stay longer in Scotland. She can’t bear to leave without both her children, but Georgie is desperate to go home. The trauma of what she’s been through is only just beginning to hit her. The doctors warn Lily of nightmares and aftershocks. They say it is best for Georgie to be in familiar surroundings.
Through several distressing conversations with Kitty, Mr Quinn, and representatives from CORB and the Admiralty, it has become painfully clear to Lily that there is little else she can do. The second search attempt, conducted over the previous day, had drawn a blank. Lifeboat twelve, and whoever might have been in it, had simply disappeared.
‘Go home, Lily,’ Kitty said when they eventually returned to the guest house, exhausted, after the last of the reception events. ‘You should take Georgie home.’
Lily knows Kitty is right, she should take Georgie home, but the thought of returning to London without Arthur is excruciating.
She packs her suitcase in a weary daze, folding her fading hope for her son among the items of clothing she places inside. She doesn’t pack his toy rabbit. That, she will keep in her hands.
As she shuts the latches on the case, there’s a loud and extended knock at the bedroom door.
‘Can you get that, Georgie, love. It’ll be Kitty, come to say goodbye.’
She doesn’t have the energy for farewells and sympathy. She just wants to go home, so she can grieve properly for her boy.
But it isn’t Kitty at the door.
Anthony Quinn bursts into the small bedroom, cheeks flushed as he rushes to Lily and grabs her hands.
‘They’ve found a lifeboat, Mrs Nicholls! They’ve found other survivors. You were right!’
His words fill the room like fireworks, crackling and fizzing, ricocheting off the walls and windows until they find their way back to Lily.
‘Arthur? They’ve found Arthur?’
‘Yes! Arthur is listed among the survivors! He’s alive, Mrs Nicholls. Your son is alive!’
Lily gasps, or does she cry out? She isn’t sure. She raises her hands to her lips, feels the bedroom contract and expand as it makes room for the magnitude of what Mr Quinn is saying. All the fear and grief and the gnawing ache of despair she has carried with her these past unimaginable days lifts from her, leaving her unbalanced by the sudden sense of lightness.
She sinks down onto the edge of the bed, her body as limp as the half-folded cardigan still in her hands. ‘Are you sure? It’s definitely Arthur? My Arthur?’
‘Yes! I’m sure! Arthur Nicholls! An RAF Sunderland on a training exercise came across a lifeboat, some three hundred miles from the site of the incident. Arthur is one of six children on board. Thirty-five souls in total, one of our escorts among them.’ Mr Quinn leans against the back of a chair, as if winded by what he’s saying. ‘It’s a miracle, Mrs Nicholls! An absolute miracle!’
Another knock at the door is quickly followed by a whirlwind of colour and noise as Kitty rushes toward Lily.
‘They found them, Lily! They found Arthur, and Alice.’
‘They found Alice, too?’
Kitty can hardly speak. ‘Yes! She’s alive!’
Lily holds Kitty in a tight embrace, each of them clinging to the other, buoying each other up with joy and relief after being so deeply submersed in grief.
Memories race through Lily’s mind: Peter’s face as he turned at the garden gate, a parcel of personal effects, a blackbird singing in the graveyard, Arthur and Georgie walking away with Alice King, the suffocating terror of the bomb shelter, the impossible news that the Carlisle had been hit by a torpedo. A year of agonizing losses distilled down to this single miraculous moment.
Lily has a thousand questions, but as she enfolds Georgie in her arms, all she can say is, ‘He’s alive, Georgie. He’s alive. Arthur is alive!’ And with those few incredible words, she feels herself coming back to life, too; breath by breath, piece by piece, as all the shattered, fragmented parts of her become whole again.
40
HMS Aurora. Atlantic Ocean. September 1940
Alice comes around in a chair in the chief engineer’s cabin.
‘There she is now. Back with us.’
She stares at the young crewman looking after her. He has a lovely face. Cheerful, and hopeful.
‘You came over a little faint,’ he says. ‘Not surprising, really.’
She takes a sniff of the smelling salts he wafts under her nose. She wants to tell him she’s never fainted before, not even when she’d seen her father laid out in his coffin, but she doesn’t have the energy. This isn’t how she’d imagined it would be when they were rescued. She’d presumed she would feel instantly better, ravenously hungry, able to sleep, but she feels upset and confused, nauseous and restless. She holds her hands against her thighs to stop her legs shaking.
Someone knocks on the cabin door and enters with a tray that they place on the locker beside her. ‘Sweet tea, toast, a scrape of marmalade, and water. Just what the doctor ordered.’
Her stomach heaves at the thought.
She takes a few sips of water, then tries the tea, but it is too hot and scalds her tender lips and throat. The toast is like sandpaper.
‘Leave the tea to cool a bit,’ the crewman says. ‘I’ll be just outside if you need anything.’
His eyes are gentle and kind. He reminds Alice of Walter, and thinking of Walter makes her desperately homesick.
‘Who’s Howard, by the way?’ he asks. ‘You kept saying his name.’
Alice tumbles memories through her mind, remembered snippets of conversations. ‘A friend,’ she says. A friend who’d brought her out of her shell, encouraged her to be curious, to keep going forward, not back. A friend she’d found and then lost in a few short days.
The man nods. ‘There’s a bar of soap on the sink. And a toothbrush and paste. Some clean pyjamas on the bed. Best we could do, I’m afraid. We don’t often see women on board. Never, in fact! Try to get some rest now. I’ll check in on you again in a while.’
Rest, food, tea, comfort. It is all she’s wanted for the last eight days, and now she doesn’t want any of it. Her head spins when she lies down. Her body shakes too much for her to sleep. The cabin is too quiet without the constant sound of wind and rain, the slap of waves on wood, eager little cries of ‘Auntie!’ The smothering silence presses in on her, amplifying her concerns about Billy. It is strange not to have the children at her feet. She has a horrible feeling she’s left something behind in the lifeboat; forgotten something, or someone.
Eventually, the tea cools enough for Alice to sip it and to nibble half a piece of toast. She tries to undress but her clothes are heavy and stiff with dried saltwater. The smell of damp and decay makes her gag. She manages to take off her blouse but can’t work the zip on her skirt, so she lies down with it still on, pulls the covers around her and wills herself to stop shaking, to be still, to be calm. Her mind races, despite her exhaustion. Memories of her days in the lifeboat rush through her mind like a movie sped up: a particular cloud she’d watched cross the sky one morning, the smell of pineapple juice, the icy metal of the Fleming gear, the eye of a whale. It is all so upsetting to remember, to relive again.
The cabin spins. Tears spill down her cheeks. Why is she crying? She should be happy.
She sits up, tries again to remove her clothes. Slowly, she manages. She washes at the basin, salt and dirt lifting from her as she gently rubs a flannel over her tender skin, rinses it, rubs again. The woman in the mirror is unrecognizable, a wild woman with thickly matted hair, cuts and bruises on her wind-reddened face, a thin crust of salt on her lips and eyelashes, her teeth thick with it. Her eyes are swollen and bloodshot, the skin on her hands pale and spongy. She retches into the sink, but nothing comes up. She splashes her face again, brushes her teeth, takes a hairbrush from a small chest of drawers and drags it through her hair. Her arms are too weak to brush for long.
At last, she gets the zip to move, takes off her skirt and underwear, pulls on the clean cotton pyjamas, climbs back into bed, props herself up against the pillows and leans back. It is better this way. The room doesn’t spin as much. She closes her eyes, exhausted by her efforts. Slowly, her convulsions and tears stop, and her battered body and broken mind allow her, finally, to sleep.
She wakes to daylight. She feels a little better but is still weak and nauseous.
A different crew member knocks and peers around the door. He tells her she’s slept for eleven hours. ‘You look much brighter this morning, miss. There are a few visitors here who’d like to say hello, if you’re up to it?’
‘The children?’
He nods and opens the door fully. Four children rush into the cabin and scramble up onto the narrow bed. Brian, Hamish, Robert, and Arthur. They talk non-stop, telling her about all the food they’ve eaten, and the enormous ship, and the captain letting them go up to the bridge.
Alice listens patiently. It is lovely to see them looking so well, but their exuberance is overwhelming and she feels constantly tearful. ‘Where are Molly and Billy?’ she asks.
