The Last Lifeboat, page 26
‘Molly is resting but she’s feeling much better. Billy still isn’t very well,’ Arthur explains. ‘He has to stay in the sickbay.’
‘Can I see him?’ she asks, turning to the crewman.
‘I’ll take you down when you’re ready,’ he says. ‘Your clothes have been washed and dried in the laundry room. They’re hanging in the wardrobe there. Come along, children. Leave Miss King to dress now. You can see her again at lunch.’
Alice washes her hair, combs out the remaining tangles and knots, dresses slowly. Everything is so clean. She feels a little more like herself as she sits on the bed and waits to be taken to the sickbay. The gentle rocking motion of the ship reminds her of the lifeboat. The thought of it, abandoned and alone in the ocean, makes her cry.
A little while later, there’s a knock on the cabin door. ‘Hello? Miss? Are you ready?’
She wipes the tears from her cheeks and blows her nose. ‘Yes. I’m ready.’
The crewman leads her down long narrow corridors and stairwells. She tries not to think about the Carlisle, but the layout is similar, and awful memories of shattered wood and buckled steel crash around her mind.
‘Here we are. I’ll leave you with the doctor. And, miss …’
‘Yes?’
‘I should warn you. The boy isn’t doing so well. But he’s comfortable.’
The sterile smell of bleach hits Alice as she steps into the sickbay. Several beds are occupied by men who are suffering from extreme dehydration and other problems brought on by their ordeal. Mr Sherwood lifts a hand in a gentle wave. Like many of them in the lifeboat, he had masked his true suffering with quiet resilience.
Alice’s eyes settle on the bed at the end of the room.
The doctor introduces himself and calmly sets out Billy’s condition. Alice struggles to concentrate and only catches odd phrases: ‘Keeping him comfortable.’ ‘Pneumonia.’ ‘Secondary bacterial infection.’ ‘Fluid on the lungs.’ ‘Underlying condition.’ He explains that Billy’s skin is a strange bluish colour because of low levels of oxygen.
Alice sits by Billy’s bed and takes his hand, rubbing his skin in circles just as she did in the lifeboat. He looks so small and vulnerable. ‘Come on now, Billy. Your mother will be looking forward to seeing you. You rest now and get yourself all better. We’re on our way home.’
His eyelids flutter, but they don’t open fully.
‘I promised I’d get you all safely home,’ she says, to herself as much as to him. ‘You have to get better now, so I can get you home to your mother.’
This brave little boy has left such a huge imprint on her heart. She can’t bear to see him like this after he’s been so brave. His precious marble sits on top of an upturned teacup on the locker beside his bed. A clear glass orb, a swirl of aquamarine running through the centre. It reminds her of the ocean.
‘How’s Billy the Kid doing?’
Alice turns to the voice that has been a constant since her very first hours in the lifeboat. His face is so familiar, and yet different. He is clean-shaven now, neatly dressed in borrowed clothes. His hair is slicked to one side. His real name will also take a while to get used to. Richard Heath is not the impenetrable boulder she’d first met, not the brittle American she knew as Owen Shaw. Beneath the façade was a good man, a friend she is pleased to see. She glances at Billy and shakes her head.
‘He’s not so good,’ she whispers. ‘He’ll be transferred to the hospital as soon as we arrive.’
Owen stands beside Billy’s bed. ‘Poor little bugger. I’m sure they’ll patch him up.’
Alice hopes he is right. ‘You look much better,’ she says. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘Not much. You?’
‘A little. I sway every time I close my eyes.’
He smiles. ‘Me too. I slept on the floor. Kept thinking I was going to fall out of bed.’
‘How are the others doing?’ she asks. ‘Jimmy, Bobby, the rest?’
‘Much the same. Relieved. Bewildered. Afraid of what’s next. Mr Harlow has found a piano on board, so he’s happy.’
‘What will you do?’ she asks. ‘When we get home?’
‘Go back I suppose. Try to talk myself out of trouble.’
‘Back to the air force?’
He nods. ‘I thought I was afraid, thought I couldn’t stick it anymore, but I’m not afraid of anything now. I’m going back up there to make those Nazi monsters pay for what they’ve done.’
The doctor returns and makes notes on a chart at the end of Billy’s bed.
‘He will pull through, won’t he?’ Owen asks.
The doctor looks at them both. ‘You should get some rest before we arrive in Scotland. We’re due at eleven hundred hours. The boy will be transferred straight to the hospital by ambulance.’
Alice glances at Owen. She sees the look of profound sorrow etched on his face.
‘You’ll both be asked to speak to reporters for the newspapers,’ the doctor continues. ‘I expect they’ll be especially interested in you, Miss King, being the only woman in the lifeboat. Did you know they’re calling you the Nightingale of the Sea, and the Angel of the Atlantic?’
Alice shakes her head. She doesn’t care what they’re calling her.
‘Get some rest now, Billy,’ she says. ‘Your mother will want to hear all about those whales when you get home. Imagine the stories you’ll have to tell her.’
Owen walks out with her. ‘I’m so sorry, Alice. I know the boy is special to you.’
Alice has no words. She stares at the floor. ‘How long? Until we arrive?’
‘A few hours.’ He lets out a long exhale. ‘Time for a cup of tea? Not sure I’m up to that bottle of whisky you promised me.’
She nods. ‘Tea would be lovely. Thank you.’
41
Glasgow. September 1940
Lily stands in rigid silence as HMS Aurora, the ship carrying her son, emerges through the sea mist. It is a ship of ghosts, a ship of lost souls coming back to life.
‘Is that it, Mummy? Is that Arthur’s ship?’
Lily grips Georgie’s hand. ‘It is, love.’
It is.
Her relief now is as visceral as her grief had been just over a week ago when she’d learned the terrible news that Arthur was not listed among the survivors of the Carlisle tragedy. Now, as then, she can’t stop shaking.
Kitty stands beside Lily, equally overcome by the news that Alice is among the survivors in the last lifeboat to be recovered. She reaches for Lily’s hand. ‘How are you feeling?’
Lily offers a tentative smile. ‘I feel like my heart is going to burst. You?’
Kitty fidgets and fusses with her gloves, restless and anxious to see her sister. ‘I don’t think I’ll believe it until I see her.’
The ship draws ever closer. Lily’s heart beats ever faster.
News of the Carlisle’s miracle lifeboat has spread quickly around the small harbour town, drawing a large crowd to see for themselves these astonishing people who have come back from the dead. There is a sense of celebration in the air, a noticeable change from the respectful caution displayed when HMS Imperial had returned with the first few survivors two days earlier. This remarkable turn of events has almost doubled the number of surviving evacuee children, and has significantly bolstered the number of surviving adults. There is much to be grateful for in that.
Lily scans the faces in the gathered crowd. There is one, in particular, she is looking for. ‘Mr Quinn did send the telegram, didn’t he?’
Kitty nods. ‘I sent it myself, with instructions to collect her ticket at the station.’
Lily nods. She was astonished to see Billy Fortune’s name on the list of children discovered in the lifeboat, and hopes Ada will arrive in time to welcome her son home. He was well named after all.
A hush of anticipation descends over the gathered crowd as the great warship manoeuvres with exceptional grace into its position alongside the wharf. The crew flank the railings and wave to the crowd as they circle their caps above their heads. Lily looks up, searching and searching for a familiar face as figures begin to appear.
Georgie stands up on her tiptoes, craning her neck. ‘Where is he, Mummy? I can’t see him.’
Lily shushes her and squeezes her hand. She needs to concentrate, needs to see Arthur for herself, to make sure there hasn’t been a terrible mix-up with some other boy.
A murmur spreads through the crowd as a group of children emerge through a door, all of them dressed in matching Royal Navy sweaters and caps, and arranged in order of size: tallest at the front, smallest at the back. A little troupe of Russian nesting dolls. A man and a woman lead them toward the railings and encourage them to wave.
‘Look, Mummy! There he is! There’s Arthur!’ Georgie jumps up and down beside Lily, so excited to see her brother. ‘There he is!’
Lily has already seen him through her tears.
She can’t move, can’t speak; transfixed by the sight of the child she feared she might never see again. Her darling boy, a wide grin on his face, a borrowed sailor’s cap slipping over his eyes. Her wonderful effervescent bright-summer-breeze of a boy. He looks out at the crowd and says something to a woman beside him as he points and waves. Has he seen her?
Lily lifts her arm and waves and waves as she tries to call out to him, ‘I’m here, Arthur! Over here, love! Mummy’s here!’ but her words are choked by emotion. She clasps her hand to her mouth and pulls Georgie close to her side and says her son’s name, over and over, each repetition erasing the time they have lost and making room for all the wonderful things they will do with this miraculous second chance they have been given.
25 September 1940
Six children found alive in a lifeboat from the Carlisle! Nobody can believe it. Seems that miracles can happen, even in the middle of a war. Had a good cry when I heard, partly for those who were found, partly for those poor souls who will always be lost.
Mass-Observation, Diarist #6385
42
Glasgow. September 1940
On the deck of HMS Aurora, Alice encourages the children to smile and wave. She does the same, although her forced smile hides the fact that her hands shake and her head pounds and her heart is heavy with concern for Billy.
‘Where have all these people come from, Auntie?’
Alice pushes Arthur’s cap back from his face. ‘I’m not sure, Arthur. I think they’ve come to welcome you home.’
It is strange to see so many people gathered to welcome them; overwhelming, even. Alice had hoped to slip quietly away without any fuss, to make her way home and see Walter and Kitty, maybe cycle to the library and sit down with Maud and a pot of tea and try to process everything that has happened. She doesn’t want all these people to see her; to know her.
A feeling of nausea spreads from her stomach. She tells herself to calm down, to breathe. She can’t crumble now, not in front of the children, and yet every bone in her body feels like a sponge. She isn’t sure she’ll even make it down the gangway, or where she’ll go, or what she’ll do when she leaves this group of wonderful people who have become her world, who have, collectively and individually, saved her life.
She pushes her shoulders back and looks out at the dizzying blur of faces. Beside her, the children wave enthusiastically, thrilled by the scenes and the cheers. Arthur sees his mother and sister. ‘Mummy!’ he shouts. ‘There’s my mummy! And Georgie! Look, Auntie!’ but his exuberant cries fade into the background as Alice’s eyes settle on a familiar sight: red hair, crimson lips, a smile to outshine the sun, one hand clasped to her hat, the other at her chest.
‘Kitty! Kitty!’
Dear Kitty has come to take her home. Uncertainty lifts from Alice as she waves to her sister and swallows a knot of emotion. She knows she will be all right now. Kitty will take her home.
Everything happens at pace then. Alice follows instructions shouted from the wharf to ‘wave over here’, and ‘smile over there’. She arranges the children in descending order of height and tells them to wave their caps in the air. When the photographers have taken their pictures for tomorrow’s front pages, and the cameramen for the newsreels have filmed the happy scenes of their arrival, the captain tells them they can disembark.
‘There’ll be someone from CORB to meet you, and more press to talk to, no doubt, and then you can go back home to your families, where you belong.’
But Alice isn’t sure where she belongs anymore. Part of her belongs with the lifeboat, with the children, with the remarkable people she’d shared the lifeboat with. Even in these first bewildering moments of her safe return, Alice understands that putting the ordeal behind them won’t be as simple as going back home, where they belong. They are all different now, profoundly changed by their experience.
‘What about Billy?’ she asks.
‘He’s with the ship’s doctors. They’ll take him straight to the hospital.’
‘Can I go with him? I should go with him, until his mother arrives.’
‘You’ve done everything you can, Miss King. Best to leave him in the hands of the medical experts now.’
She knows the captain is right, but it feels wrong to see five children leave the ship, not six. ‘You will make sure he has his marble, won’t you? It’s on an upturned teacup, beside his bed. It’s the only one he has left.’
‘I’ll make sure he has it. Now off you go. I think there’s someone down there who’s rather pleased to see you.’
The children walk in front of her, in pairs: Brian and Hamish, Robert and Molly. Alice holds Arthur’s hand herself. At the bottom of the gangway, the noise of the well-wishers swells. Alice smiles politely at the sea of faces as strangers reach out to touch her arm and welcome them home. Shouting instructions above the noise, CORB officials direct them to a roped-off area to one side. Alice guides the children along, her own feet propelled forward by instinct rather than intent as she tells herself she is fine, to breathe, one foot in front of the other as she looks up intermittently and searches for Kitty. And there she is, pushing through the crowd, and in a whirlwind of perfume and crimson kisses, Alice is wrapped in a tight embrace, and Kitty is crying against her shoulder and Alice can hardly believe that her darling sister – that any of this – is real.
They stay like this, quietly absorbing the physical sensation of each other, allowing the moment to solidify from hope to reality. As she holds Kitty tight, Alice sees similar scenes play out around them. A tall angular woman in a fur coat faints when she sees Molly. Robert runs to a young woman who looks so like him that Alice assumes she must be his sister. Hamish and Brian are engulfed by their weeping fathers. But there is one reunion that takes her breath away.
She feels Arthur pull his hand from hers, sees him running towards his mother and sister, tripping and stumbling in his excitement as Lily Nicholls sinks to her knees and enfolds her son in her outstretched arms, and the moment is so intimate, so powerful, that it feels wrong to watch any longer. Alice closes her eyes and rests her head on Kitty’s shoulder. She wishes she could stay there forever.
Kitty can’t stop crying. Alice comforts her as they eventually peel apart and look at each other, hardly able to believe they are there.
Alice brushes tears from Kitty’s cheeks and tucks a loose curl behind her ear. ‘You look lovelier than ever. How are you? I thought about you so much.’
Kitty takes Alice’s hand and places it against her stomach. ‘We are both doing well.’
‘You didn’t reschedule your appointment?’
Kitty shakes her head. ‘I decided to reschedule my life instead. And I’m terrified.’
Alice is terrified, too, for how Kitty will be treated, and how she’ll ever manage, but after so much loss, there is something profoundly hopeful in the miracle of a new life. Alice tells Kitty it will be all right. ‘I promise.’
A moment later, Arthur is back by Alice’s side. ‘Georgie is here, Auntie. Look!’
Alice bends down and hugs them both. ‘I’m so pleased to see you again, Georgie.’
Georgie tells her they were about to go home, but then Arthur was found and everyone cried and it is a real-life miracle.
Alice patiently listens and smiles and tells her how brave Arthur was. ‘You have all been so very brave.’
She stands up and turns to their mother. Lily Nicholls is smaller than Alice remembers, as if she has been eroded by the nightmare of believing her son was never coming home. For a moment, neither of them speaks, unable to find the right words, but everything is said in the look they exchange, in the silent understanding of the deep connection they have each felt with the other during the days since their brief meeting.
‘I don’t know what to say, Miss King.’ Lily reaches for Alice’s hands and holds them firmly. ‘Thank you feels so inadequate for something so enormous, for keeping Arthur safe, for bringing him back to me.’
‘There’s no need for thanks, Mrs Nicholls. I’m just so glad our prayers were answered. Arthur is a remarkably brave boy. You must be very proud of him. Of both your children.’ Alice takes a deep breath. Her words swirl around her. She feels dizzy and hot and grabs Kitty’s arm. ‘I think I need to sit down.’
Kitty holds Alice tight and steers her away from the crush of well-wishers and reporters. ‘Let’s get you somewhere quiet.’
Alice looks around for the others – Owen, Jimmy, Bobby, Mr Harlow, Mr Sherwood, Thomas Prendergast, the children. They have all melted away into the crowds. ‘What do we do now? Where did everybody go?’
‘You’re needed for photographs at the hotel, and there’s a civic reception tomorrow. It’s all a bit of a circus, I’m afraid. We’ll slip away as soon as the formalities are over.’
‘I need to see Billy. They took him to the hospital.’
Kitty says they will go to the hospital as soon as they can. ‘You need to take it easy, Alice. You need a bit of time to yourself first. I’ll make sure the driver goes the long way. Wait there. I’ll get the car to come to you.’
