by Jana Petken
Patrick sat at a long table in the mess hall, eating breakfast with members of the medical corps. Looking at the familiar faces of the nurses and doctors with him, he smiled with the contentment of a healthy man. He had missed their easy-going banter, the endless seafaring stories, and shipmate camaraderie on this voyage, for he had only managed to eat a handful of meals since leaving England. He had recovered, so much so that he had already devoured a plateful of scrambled eggs and strips of bacon, and he was now wondering if he should do an Oliver Twist and ask for more. The world was a wonderful place when the body was fit, he thought, whilst listening with one ear to yet another one of Whitelock’s stories.
“Tell me, Petty Officer, have you ever been to Ireland?” Patrick eventually asked.
“No, sir, I’ve not had that pleasure.”
“Strange, I thought you might have stolen your tales from a leprechaun. Only they could get away with such twaddle.”
There were chuckles at the table.
Whitelock, looking insulted, answered, “I swear to you on my mother’s life that it was a bleedin’ mermaid I spotted …”
An almighty explosion shook the ship. Instantly the deafening noise of the horn reverberated around the room. The reaction in the mess hall was immediate. Doctors and nurses left for their posts without wasting time asking questions. Patrick hurried in the direction of the main staircase, which was situated close to the dining room. His destination was the bridge. One of his duties was that of liaison officer, between the officers in the medical army corps and the naval bridge officers.
When he got topside, he made his way towards the bridge, passing lifeboat stations already being manned by sailors and medical corps. The entire deck was filling up with men and women running to each section of deck, where lifeboats were situated. At their posts, officers were shouting through voice horns for people to keep calm and to put on life jackets. Patrick grabbed one and tried unsuccessfully to put it on whilst bumping into people.
With adrenaline rushing in his veins, questions sped through his brain. Was it a torpedo or mine? And why would the Germans hit a hospital ship? The red crosses and green stripes could be spotted a mile off! And were the vital medical supplies in the hold already underwater? Was the ship built to withstand anything? Was it unsinkable, as her builders had stated?
He continuously bumped into people running in the opposite direction. The deck was becoming congested, and panic was ensuing even amongst seasoned sailors. In front of him, a nurse tripped and fell. He stopped to pick her up, losing his own footing in the process. When they both managed to stand up, he told her to wait by the nearest lifeboat station.
“Stay there and get on a boat when they tell you,” he reiterated when he saw the panic in her eyes.
“What if I don’t get on one? What if there aren’t enough of them and I’m left behind, like those poor souls on the Titanic?”
He had no time for this, he thought, and then he changed his mind when he saw her ashen face full of fear.
“Nurse, listen to me. There are forty-eight lifeboats aboard. Each one can carry up to eighty people. The ship carries a crew of six hundred and seventy-five sailors, three hundred and fifteen Royal Army Medical Corps personnel, and seventy-seven nurses. There are plenty of lifeboats for everyone.”
Eventually, he reached the bridge, just as Captain Bartlett ordered the watertight doors closed. A distress signal was then sent, and shortly afterwards the command was given to prepare the lifeboats. Listening but not interrupting, he ascertained that whatever device had hit the ship, it had gone through the starboard side, between holds two and three. The force of the blast had damaged the watertight bulkhead between hold one and the forepeak, and the first four watertight compartments were filling with water.
His heart was thumping hard against the wall of his chest. His breathing was uneven, making him feel light-headed. His mind seemed to be functioning as it would in a dream, with nonsensical images overpowering his common sense. One minute he was listening to the bridge officers, and then he saw himself in a lifeboat, and the next moment he was spiralling downwards in darkness towards the sea’s black floor. The pictures flashed in and out of his mind’s eye until he thought his heart was going to explode with terror.
Concentrating on reality, he listened intently to the discussion going on. He felt like an eavesdropper. He shouldn’t even be on the bridge anymore, he kept thinking. The hospital would have been evacuated by now. There was no longer any need for him to be there. Christ! he thought. He wasn’t ready for all the pushing and shoving to try to get on a boat. The situation reminded him of Dublin on the night his father was killed. He hadn’t the courage to run from that porch after his dad had been shot, and now he didn’t have the will to leave the captain’s side. The way he saw it, if the officers on the bridge were still trying to find a solution, perhaps there was still a way to save the ship. Why get into a small boat being lowered from a great height when he might not have to? Jesus, he was a coward – a bloody coward – and he was a rotten swimmer too!
“Along with the damaged watertight door of the firemen’s tunnel, the watertight door between boiler rooms six and five has failed to close properly. We don’t know why,” Patrick heard one of the senior officers say.
“Water is flowing further aft into boiler room five. We’ve reached our flooding limit,” another officer told the captain.
“We can stay afloat with our first six watertight compartments flooded. There are five watertight bulkheads rising all the way up to B-deck,” Captain Bartlett added.
Patrick, standing in a corner, grateful to be ignored by everyone present, grew hopeful. Everyone knew that this ship had been built with the Titanic’s shortcomings in mind. She had perished, but the Britannic would survive because of hard lessons learned.
Another officer who had just arrived on the bridge informed the captain, “We might have stood a chance, sir, but there were portholes open along the lower decks. That entire area tilted underwater minutes after we were hit.”
“Why were they open?” the captain asked, without losing his composure.
Still in a dazed panic, Patrick, said, “The nurses open most of those portholes every day to ventilate the wards, sir.”
“Thank you, Sub Lieutenant Carmody. Stand ready at a lifeboat station and wait for my orders before allowing anyone to board the boats,” Captain Bartlett ordered. “That will be all.”
After being dismissed, Patrick reached the boat deck, stopping at the first station. Things were getting out of hand. It appeared that military discipline was sinking along with the ship. Overcome by panic, some sailors and stewards were physically rushing to get aboard a lifeboat whilst ignoring an officer’s orders to wait for the captain’s command. More men surged forwards, knocking over the young sub lieutenant who was still shouting through his voice horn for them to wait.
Patrick helped the officer back onto his feet and then glared at the sailors sitting on the boat. “Get off that boat at once!” he shouted angrily.
“Up yours!” a sailor shouted back.
The sub lieutenant started to lower the boat. Patrick couldn’t understand why.
“Get those cowards out of the boats and tell them to stand by their positions near the boat stations!” he shouted.
“No!” the officer shouted back. “They can stay on the lifeboat. They started the bloody panic, and I don’t want them hampering the evacuation.” Stopping the davit turning when the boat was within six feet of the water, he yelled down to the sailors on the boat, “You don’t move another inch until I get orders from the bridge!”
“Get us in the water!” shouted one of the men in the boat.
“C’mon, sir, give us a bleedin’ chance!” another man, craning his neck, screamed angrily.
The ship tilted downwards towards the bow. Patrick’s feet slipped on the wet deck, and his stomach lurched in fright. He tried to put his life jacket on for a second time. Thank God he’d finally calmed dow
n, he thought. His fingers had steadied enough to pull it over his head and tie the laces. Five minutes earlier, he was still shaking like a quivering idiot.
He looked for the familiar faces of the Royal Army Medical Corps. To his relief, he spotted a sea of green uniforms organising boats farther along the deck, towards the aft section. Feeling as though he were climbing a hill, he manoeuvred his way towards the aft davits of the starboard boat deck. At the next boat station along, he heard an order from the captain being relayed to the officer in charge. No lifeboats were to be launched. The captain was hoping to beach the ship on a nearby island.
Arriving at the army corps position, he found that there were no more than around thirty personnel left. Whitelock was shouting over the side of the ship. Patrick looked down and saw two lifeboats just as they hit the water violently.
“Those men were told not to launch them. They were bleedin’ told!” Whitelock, shouted, appearing deeply upset.
Adrift in the ship’s wake, the boats floated backwards into the still-turning propellers, which were beginning to rise out of the water due to flooding into the front of the ship. Those on deck shouted a warning to the boats’ occupants. Then the shouts became ear-piercing screams of dismay. Everyone gasped in horror, forgetting all else in that moment. Open-mouthed, Patrick watched dumbstruck as the boats drifted closer and closer to the turning blades. Lifting his hands to his head, he willed the occupants of the boats to jump off and swim for their lives, but seconds later he saw the sickening sight of both boats hitting the blades and being tossed in the air, shredded as they rose.
“Jesus Christ, they’ve been cut to pieces!” he heard a hysterical voice behind him shout.
The order to abandon ship came almost immediately after that awful sight. The engines were stopped. Hope was lost.
Patrick, still stunned by the tragic death of the men and women on the two boats, was shocked further when the starboard side listed heavily. He held onto the railings. There were no more boats at this station, and for a brief second, he thought that he should jump into the sea. Seconds were like minutes – minutes like long hours. Pulling himself together, he turned around at the sound of more shouting behind him. Men were jumping over the side, whilst others were still trying to launch a boat farther along the deck. There were not many people left on board, he was sure of that, yet he was still hesitant – his brain fighting his body just as it had in Dublin.
A sailor appeared, pleading for help. Another lifeboat on the port side with seventy-five men on board was being launched, and it was in danger of capsizing. Patrick and the twenty or so men still with him left the starboard station and went to assist.
After staggering on uneven ground through the plush reception hall, Patrick passed the main staircase to the decks below. Glancing down, he saw gushing water rising with great speed, looking like an indoor swimming pool. It won’t be long now! his mind screamed. Reaching the breakfast room, beyond the reception area, he was almost knocked down by sliding tables and chairs toppling over, throwing cutlery, glasses, and crockery to the floor. A few men lost their footing and screamed with terror as they too followed the furniture.
The first thing he noticed when he reached the port deck was how high off the surface that side had risen. The front part of the lifeboat in question was filled to capacity. It hung precariously over the edge, but there was a steep upward incline, stopping three quarters of its hull from launching over the side.
Patrick and the others took positions along the length of the lifeboat, lifting it like pall-bearers carrying a coffin. Grunting with exertion, their task was made even more difficult because of the weight of the men and women aboard. After a supreme effort, it launched safely into the water.
Captain Bartlett sounded one last blast on the whistle and was immediately washed overboard with a tide of water entering the bridge.
Unaware of much of anything except his own urgency, Patrick lifted one leg after the other onto the railings and then climbed over them to the outer side. Looking down, he was convinced he was going to break his neck in the fall. “Oh, God, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” he kept repeating through his chattering teeth. And then he thought in that brief second that cowards must die many times, for all he ever seemed to see was his own death reflected in the face of danger.
A sharp pain to his back was so forceful that he released his grip on the railings. Screaming, he sprang off the side towards the water, and when he hit it, it felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. He sank, his body spiralling, just like in his vision. He couldn’t tell which way was up or down – until he saw a glimmer of light. Reaching the surface, he tried to catch his breath and expel water from his mouth and nose. A lifeboat was not too far away. He swam towards it with the inadequate prowess of a small child, feebly shouting out to it as he went. Those on board spotted him and threw a line into the water. He managed to grab on to the rope, but to complicate matters, the boat was rowing away from the Britannic in an attempt to stay out of its pull when she eventually went down. Patrick, being dragged behind the boat, was exhausted. The salty Mediterranean water slid down his throat and up his nostrils, and he couldn’t breathe because he was coughing so hard. He raised an arm and then felt it being gripped by hands, so tightly that he was sure his wrist was going to snap. Finally, he was pulled aboard.
After steadying his breathing, Patrick sat up straight, just in time to see the Britannic roll over onto her starboard side. The four funnels collapsed. The eerie silence in the lifeboat was broken with piercing gasps and shouts of men still in denial as the colossal ship dipped her head a little, then a little lower, and still lower. Machinery slid off the decks and fell into the water like children’s toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air, until, with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths.
Patrick covered his ears. The noise of her going down resounded through the water with an undreamt of force, as if the whole world were crashing around him.
After the lifeboat had rocked in the ship’s last turbulent breath, Patrick stared at the giant whirlpool left behind and voiced his thoughts. “It took fifty-five minutes. Only fifty-five minutes to lose the biggest ship in the navy, and she was unsinkable.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Danny lit the coal fire using twisted and knotted rolls of old newspapers as kindling. After he’d lit it, he fanned the infant flames until they ignited completely, and then he closed his eyes, wallowing for a brief moment as warmth spread to his frozen hands and face. He hated the dreary walk from the depot and arriving home night after night to chores, orders, and monotonous routines. It seemed to him that he had walked away from his ambitions and dreams without a fight or even a harsh word being spoken. His mam and granny had played their game of emotional blackmail so well that he hadn’t even seen this sorry state of affairs coming, and he almost hated them for it.
He glanced behind himself at the two women. Bristling with resentment, he thought, Look at them, sitting there like a couple of ladies of leisure, reading with their cups of tea at their sides. Granny holding her newspaper up at her nose, clicking her tongue and mumbling the odd “oh my” and “‘bloody hell” at the latest war news. And Mam, a more posh figure in a smart day gown, reading a classic novel she’d borrowed from the library, still under the illusion that she had wealth and servants. Neither woman lit the fire nowadays. Knowing that he was always home just before dark, they waited for him to come into an unwelcoming cold house just so that he could heat it up for them. He was fed up. His life was a pile of garbage, just like his ambitions.
“I was freezing on that walk home from work, but isn’t this just grand, now that I’m home to light the fire,” he said sarcastically to the women.
His mum said, “I didn’t think I would ever say this, but I actually feel quite at home, especially with Jenny being back upstairs.”
Danny’s heart softened. “I’ll go up and see her in a minute. How is she today?�
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“Minnie’s voice boomed from behind the newspaper, “It’s hard to tell. She doesn’t seem to want to talk to us.”
“She’s brooding, but she’s going to have to buck up. She can’t drown in self-pity forever,” Susan added, a touch harshly for Danny’s liking.
Danny had spoken to Jenny the previous evening. Contrary to what Mam and Minnie thought, she did want to talk, just not about her appearance or her feelings towards John. “Mam, give her a chance to settle in. Don’t forget, when you visited her in the hospital, you were only there for half an hour, and part of that time was taken up with you speaking to the doctor. You can’t expect her to have long conversations. This is all new to her.”
Minnie grumbled, “How can this be new? It’s her home, and I agree with your mother. It’s been two months since John abandoned her, yet she won’t say a word about what he actually said that day.”
“I think we can all imagine what he said, Minnie. He left her because he couldn’t bear to look at her,” Danny said.
Susan’s face reddened. “We know that!” she said gratingly, “but your granny and I are trying to convince her that he ran away because he wanted to get back to his rebel pals and couldn’t take her with him. We can’t have her thinking she’s ugly, can we?”
It was a bad idea to lie to Jenny about John’s betrayal, Danny thought, picking up the poker to stoke the fire. The more they tried to convince her of John’s motives for abandoning her, the more she would clam up just to spite them. Jenny wasn’t daft. She could smell a conspiracy a mile off, and if there was one thing she hated, it was being lied to. What Jenny really thought about John wasn’t clear. He, Danny, hadn’t been able to see much of her when she was in the hospital. A week after the air raid, he’d been offered her job by the manager of the depot where she’d worked. The man had been kind enough to go to the hospital to see how Jenny was and had obviously felt sorry for the family.
