by John Harris
Her siren shrieking a pointless warning, the Stavanger struck the side of the bigger vessel like a gigantic steel wedge. There was no shock to send everybody reeling, none of the scream of tortured metal Woodyatt expected. The collision produced nothing more than a slight jar as the collier’s bows bit into the side of the Coniston and a fireworks display of sparks as steel ground against steel.
As the pointless screeching of the sirens stopped, Woodyatt heard a command from above him. ‘Warn all hands. Get the boats ready.’ Then – to the Stavanger – ‘Keep going ahead on your engines! For God’s sake, keep her bows in the hole!’
Instinct warned Woodyatt they were now in real danger and he looked round to see Dominique standing quietly alongside him, waiting to be told what to do. Even Montrouge seemed to be aware that for once his magnificent calm wasn’t going to help. The steel stem of the Norwegian ship had sliced into the Coniston’s side like a hatchet. Despite the apparent slightness of the collision, the huge bows had cut a gap that had opened the liner from deck to double bottom, a hole like the mark of an axe had appeared in her hull – a horrific wound over twenty feet deep and fifteen feet wide.
Despite the attempt to remain in place with her engine full ahead, the Stavanger had drifted off in the current and the Coniston, the hole unplugged, was filling with water at an alarming rate. It was as if she had been torpedoed. Despite all the safety precautions that had gone into her building there was nothing that could withstand that terrible wound, and she was already beginning to list. Like all passenger vessels, her side was lined with portholes and most of them were filled with faces. The lowest were not far above the waterline and because of the heat, most were open and many of them had scoops out to produce a little breeze.
At first, chiefly through lack of nautical know-how among the passengers, there was no alarm but, as the ship lurched once more, the air became filled with the screams of women and the shouts of men. It was still early in the morning and many of the passengers had not yet left their cabins. Some of those in the lower berths on the starboard side where the Stavanger had struck could have had no knowledge of what was happening before the incoming water had swept over them.
As men and women began to claw their way through the listing passageways, the boat deck began to fill with those who were panic-stricken. Woodyatt wrenched open a chest of life jackets and grabbed an armful. Immediately they were snatched from him by frantic hands and he had to dive into it again. He got one on Dominique even as she was securing the one they had forced on Montrouge. They were old-fashioned and cumbersome with square blocks of cork that made movement difficult.
The boat deck was swarming now as passengers formed into groups that got in the way of the crew struggling against the increasing list of the ship to swing out boats. Because of the confusion in the river mouth after the bombing, no other ship seemed to have noticed what had happened to the Coniston but, as she lurched again, Woodyatt saw the destroyer’s bow swing in their direction.
Montrouge gave Woodyatt a thin smile. ‘This is a situation you hadn’t bargained for, young man, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘But what a splendid opportunity for nobility. Women and children first, of course. The British have a rare taste for martyrdom.’
Struggling through the crowding masses, Woodyatt forced his way to a boat. He pushed Montrouge ahead of him, feeling that if he were saved, someone would deal with the problem of who he was. He still had his suitcase with him.
Moving was difficult and the list had increased the gap between the boat and the side of the ship, so that the boat’s crew were having difficulty holding it in place.
‘For Christ’s sake, get him in!’ someone yelled.
They managed to scramble the old man aboard.
‘Now you!’ Woodyatt pushed Dominique forward.
‘I’ll stay with you.’
‘Get in! Don’t argue!’
She was still begging to be allowed to stay when someone dragged her into the boat and it disappeared in jerks down the side of the ship. Her face was agonised as she stared up at Woodyatt. Standing by the rail, he watched the boat cast off the falls that held it to the ship like umbilical cords. The men manning the oars were a scratch lot of saloon crew and passengers and they were having difficulties. Oars clashed and strokes were missed but the boat slowly drew away. As it left, there was another swirl of people to the rail from the port side where the list was making it impossible to launch the boats. They were shouting and trying to find places and, for a moment, Woodyatt thought he saw Daphne Darby among them again. Then one of the two-ton steel boats on the portside which, due to the angle of the ship, had been dangling inboard over the heads of the men struggling to launch it, broke free and thundered across the deck. It swept away crew and screaming passengers and crashed into the rails on the lower side of the ship, taking them and the people huddled against them into the sea.
The ship’s engines had thudded to a halt as the steam failed, and more gear crashed across the deck as the list increased. Then, as the ship lurched again, Woodyatt saw the great black and green funnels swinging over in a vast arc. He grabbed for a handhold as he saw people sliding across the deck. One of the heavy deck chairs struck him in the side, throwing him down and knocking all the breath out of him. As he rose, the ship lurched once more and he was flung against the cleat of a davit.
The thump of his body against the iron stanchion sent a shock of pain through him. He tried to grab for another handhold but his arm suddenly wouldn’t work. A swinging block hit him on the head and he felt himself falling. As he hit the river, it seemed solid and sent a shock of pain through his injured arm and side. He swallowed a lot of water but then his head emerged and he gasped for air. Despite the warm weather the river was icy enough to take his breath away.
He was in a patch of oil and tried to swim clear but a shaft of pain ran through his arm and he found he couldn’t move it. He tried to lift it to look at it but it was impossible and the pain made him gasp. An oar floated past and he managed to get his good arm across it. He had come to the surface in the middle of a yelling mass of people who had been flung into the sea like himself and who were all now thrashing about in the water. From them came a terrible cry and, looking up, he saw the ship’s funnels slap against the surface of the river, sending a surge of water rolling away.
He had heard that a sinking ship could carry swimmers down with it, so he kicked his way to a clear stretch of water. Black with fuel oil but supporting his injured arm with the aid of the floating oar, he managed to fight his way from the terrified survivors reaching out to grab at him.
The dying ship had left hundreds of people struggling for their lives. All round Woodyatt there was the moaning sound that came from the drowning passengers. Then he saw a boat just ahead of him and began to fight his way towards it. The oarsman were disorganised, those on one side pulling in short bursts, those on the other resting on their sweeps so that the boat was going round in circles. Looking back, he saw the ship lying on her side, the deck like a huge man-made cliff, with the water roaring down her funnels.
For a while she hung motionless, lying lower and lower in the water with every minute, almost as if she were a sandcastle on the beach facing an incoming tide. He could see a man walking down her hull, and people struggling in the water to free themselves from the aerials and rigging trailing over her rails. Then she gave another lurch and in seconds there was nothing but a whirlpool in which the bodies of both living and dead were swirled around with numerous spars and pieces of timber and an upturned boat. As she disappeared there was a moan of despair from hundreds of throats. The survivors standing on the ship’s side had been swept away by her final plunge and the vast wave that roared along her frame.
Still struggling towards the nearby boat through red waves of pain, Woodyatt became aware of a voice he knew calling his name and realised it was Dominique’s. As the boat’s side loomed above him, he let go of the oar and lifted his good arm. A hand came down and gr
asped his wrist and he was heaved upward and over the side of the boat with a swift roughness that made him shout with agony. As he was dragged aboard, half-fainting, he realised that the hand that had saved him had been Montrouge’s and he noticed through the pain that it was surprisingly firm and strong. As he flopped into the bottom of the boat, exhausted, he was conscious of Dominique holding his head in her lap, and found himself looking up at Montrouge.
‘Not quite as you expected,’ the old man said cheerfully. ‘The wrong man’s doing the rescuing. But it seemed to be an emergency. I tried to be aware of the dignity of a British officer.’
The oarsmen were still disorganised so that the boat moved in haphazard zigzags. Then Montrouge barked a few orders and they began to make headway. The destroyer came tearing up and stopped almost dead as she reversed engines and went astern. Her sailors dived into the sea and started swimming to drowning people. Then the Stavanger loomed up alongside and they were dragged aboard, cold and exhausted. For some the shock had been too great and several of those lifted to the collier’s decks were already dead. The crew, a starveling lot, gave what they had to help, offering clothes, blankets and food. The captain produced a bottle of whisky and began to dose the wretched survivors.
Tablecloths and curtains were found to cover half-naked men and women. Dozens of people crowded into the engine and boiler rooms to find warmth, and women, shaking with cold, tried to dry their nightdresses, in many cases their only garment.
Soon afterwards the destroyer came alongside and, as soon as the survivors were transferred, she swung to face north and lifted her bows to full speed. A naval surgeon and sick-berth attendants came round, dosing people and putting broken limbs in splints. A lot of the survivors were covered in oil and the destroyer’s deck was as slippery as a skating rink. Below, it reeked of blood, chloroform and fuel oil. Going round the coughing, groaning masses, the doctor stopped at Woodyatt. He was huddled on the deck, twisted with pain. Dominique was holding him, crouched over him, her cheeks wet with tears.
‘Good God,’ the doctor said cheerfully. ‘You’re in a mess, old fruit.’
It appeared that in addition to a broken forearm, the crash against the projections on the Coniston’s davits had left Woodyatt with a broken shoulder blade, two broken ribs and a cut head. The doctor got one of the sick-berth tiffies to organise splints and gave the patient a shot of morphine. As he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, Woodyatt looked at Dominique. Though she had not been in the water, contact with survivors had left her wet through, bedraggled and daubed with oil. She seemed the only sane person in a world gone mad.
‘Montrouge,’ he said. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He’s aboard. I saw him. He even still has his case.’
‘Make sure,’ he said as he slipped into oblivion. ‘Otherwise we’ve just wasted our time.’
Eight
When Woodyatt came round he seemed to be almost entirely covered in plaster. Those parts of his body which weren’t covered in plaster were swathed in bandages. He could remember nothing of the journey home except Dominique’s arms round him and her tears falling on his face, and, as the ship had come alongside a jetty, somebody saying, ‘Make way. This man’s injured.’
His first thought was for the job he’d been doing and he looked round for Dominique. There was no indication that she had ever been there and the nurse who appeared had no knowledge of her.
‘Where am I?’ he asked.
‘In hospital,’ the nurse said. ‘You’ve been here for two days.’
‘Where in hospital?’
‘Falmouth. We’re the nearest point to where you left France. Everybody was brought here.’
‘My home town’s Truro.’
‘My aren’t you lucky!’
‘Do you think you could get in touch with someone for me? My mother and my chief in London.’
He was just drowsily trying to organise his thoughts when his mother turned up. She was trying to put on a brave face in front of her battered son.
‘Thank God,’ she said, tears filling her eyes. ‘We’re all together again. I was worried sick with both my boys in France. But Tom’s regiment got away and he’s safe. And guess who else has turned up.’
‘Who?’
‘You remember Nicole? Nicole Maury.’
‘Of course. I saw her. In Metz.’
‘She’s here, too. In London. She wrote to me. She escaped and she wondered if you had. Poor child, her husband was killed. That was what decided her. I wrote back to say she must stay with us and to come at once. She’s a very pretty girl and very intelligent. There was a time when you were very fond of her and I rather hoped, in fact–’
Woodyatt interrupted the excited chatter. ‘Where’s Dominique?’ he asked.
‘Who, dear?’
‘The girl who was with me.’
‘I didn’t know there was a girl with you.’
Woodyatt got her to ring the bell behind the bed and when the nurse came he repeated the question.
‘Everybody from the Coniston was taken to a centre in the town,’ she told him. ‘Apart from such as you. The worst injured were brought here. The slightly hurt went to the outpatients’ department or the Cottage Hospital. The rest were sent to the Mount Pleasant Hotel to be identified, listed and given clothes.’
‘And then what?’
‘I think they were allowed to go home.’
‘I’m looking for one who didn’t have a home in this country.’
The nurse didn’t turn a hair. ‘Foreign refugees would be claimed by representatives of their country.’
‘This one was French.’
‘Then the French Embassy, some Free French organisation, the Anglo-French Society – somebody like that. They’d have claimed him.’
‘It’s not a him. It’s a her.’
The nurse cocked an eyebrow and smiled.
‘Important, is she?’
‘Yes, she is.’ Woodyatt weakly beat the bedclothes with his fist. ‘For God’s sake,’ he said. ‘She shouldn’t have been sent away.’
‘Why dear?’ his mother asked. ‘Are you fond of her or something?’
‘That’s not the point. Find her, Mother. Find out what happened to her. Her name’s Sardier. Dominique Sardier.
She’d probably give an address in Dreuil, Picardy. I’ve got to find her.’
Faintly bemused, Woodyatt’s mother looked at the nurse, shrugged and set off for the town. She returned about two hours later, looking worried. She had been to the Mount Pleasant Hotel. ‘She was there,’ she said. ‘But she’s not there now. Though they said they thought they could trace her. They have her name. Is she all that important, dear?’
‘She knew everything I was doing in France.’
‘What were you doing in France? I thought you worked in London.’
‘I was sent on a job. A secret job. She worked with me. She has to be found.’
‘Well, I’ll do my best but I can’t imagine… Does she speak English?’
‘Not terribly well. We always spoke French.’
‘Well, I suppose that was the reason she disappeared. Apart from a few like us, nobody in this country ever understands a foreign language. I imagine the poor girl was trying to give her message and all they could think of was that she was asking for a change of underwear.’
With his mother gone, there wasn’t much to do except read the paper. The nurse fixed him up a stand and laboriously he managed to turn the pages on his own. She had taken a fancy to him and fussed around him, all hearty good cheer.
‘Feeling better?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Much worse.’
‘Don’t despair. There’s a lot of life in you still.’
The newspapers were full of what had happened. France had gone and so had Norway and Denmark, while Italy had come in on the Germans’ side. The whole of Europe from North Cape to the Mediterranean was against Britain now, because Franco in Spain was no friend, and men like the
ancient Pétain, and Quisling in Norway, whose names had become synonymous with treachery, were helping the Germans to make sure there would be no reverses. But, at least, the British now knew where they stood. With their backs to the bloody wall, Woodyatt thought wryly. It had finally dawned on the newspapers that cricket scores, theatre criticisms and the latest fashions weren’t really important any more. War, they had at last noticed, was different from peace and you couldn’t just go on behaving in the old way. The columns were suddenly full of exhortations to roll up sleeves, to work harder, not to despair, to look the enemy firmly in the eye. Having found a brand new set of slogans that sounded exciting, the politicians were giving it everything they’d got. Out of the lot of them, only Churchill seemed to make sense.
England was in trouble. Bad trouble. Germany was very much on top, with half Europe at her feet, and it was going to take a long time for the Allies to claw their way back even to equal terms. It was going to be a long war; and for the French it was going to be awful.
Later in the day the nurse woke him to say there was a man to see him. For a moment Woodyatt thought it might be Redmond, but immediately dismissed the idea as pure fantasy.
‘Colonel,’ she informed him. ‘Name of Pullinger.’
Woodyatt was looking forward to the fray. ‘Wheel him in,’ he said.
Pullinger looked pleased with himself and it was obvious why within seconds. ‘Hannah sends her regards,’ he said. ‘We’re going to get married. It’s the sort of thing you do in wartime.’ He didn’t show a lot of concern for Woodyatt’s condition. ‘What happened to you?’ he said.
‘I got knocked about a bit when the ship sank.’
‘Thought you’d be cleverer than that. I gather you got your man.’
‘I got him to the destroyer that brought us to England.’
Pullinger gestured irritably, his good temper vanishing. ‘Did you bring him home?’
