by Susan Hood
Two more explosions
flash in the night,
the light
exposing a horror show—
people clinging to
overturned lifeboats,
swimming to
overloaded rafts,
grabbing at
floating deck chairs
with flailing arms
beseeching hands.
Voices snatched by the wind—
“Help me please!”
“Grab my hand!”
“Bachao!”
“I’ve got you!”
“Dear God, have mercy!”
“Allah!”
“I can’t swim!”
“There’s a raft. Grab on!”
“Lord, help us!”
“Let go! You’re pulling me under!”
“Madat kar!”
“There’s no more room! You’ll drown us all!”
“It’s cold, so cold.”
“Mummy! I want my mum!”
Billy throws up over the side.
“What can we do?” I shout.
“We’ve got to help them.”
But there are so many people in the water,
in the dark,
in distress—
SOS! SOS!
Twenty-foot waves
cresting,
crashing,
smashing.
Rain turning to sleet.
It hurts to look.
People are swimming and sinking,
slamming into boats, rafts,
jetsam and flotsam,
slipping and surfacing,
sliding and
OH!
sucked under. . . .
Up from the Sea
I see something rise in the water,
something ahead.
It’s the fine red rocking horse
from the children’s playroom.
It rears up from the sea,
the red horse of war,
its mouth open,
silently screaming
at all it sees,
rocking up and down
in the waves
past the bodies of those
I now know
are already
dead.
Heroes
Our lifeboat is nearly full,
but our captain Cooper steers
through the wild waves,
through the hail,
through the gale,
to the rafts and pulls people aboard.
One’s Cadet Critchley.
There’s Signalman Mayhew
and six Indian Lascars
I haven’t met.
“Peard, over here!”
yells Cooper.
But Peard
refuses a hand up.
Splashing, thrashing
through the water,
we see him
rescue a boy,
pull him to a raft,
hand him up,
then swim off
to rescue another.
He’s a hero, he is,
saving all those children.
I want to be just like him.
But then
watching him struggle
through the waves,
I think,
heroes can’t die.
Can they?
Get Away!
The Benares shudders and groans,
slipping farther down
into the water.
“She’s going down!” shouts Cooper.
“Man the Fleming gear!
Get us away
or she’ll suck us down with ’er!”
“I can help!” I say. “I know how.”
“That’s the stuff, young man,” says Cooper.
I crawl over people
to sit with the sailors
working the Fleming gear.
Push! Pull!
Push! Pull!
We work the levers
that move the bar,
that turn the gears,
that propel our boat
away
away
away from the sinking ship.
Blues on the Run
We row and row and row.
Far off we hear sounds high on the wind—
voices from another lifeboat.
They’re singing!
“Rule Britannia! rule the waves;
Britons never will be slaves. . . .”
I sing too as I row . . .
“Roll out the barrel. . . .”
Then loudly, defiantly, everyone joins in.
“We’ve got the blues on the run. . . .”
Blankets
A safe distance from the ship
we stop rowing.
Steward Purvis
pulls out blankets
from lockers under the floorboards.
“How many are there?” asks Cooper.
“Fifteen,” says Purvis.
I look around the boat.
There are nearly fifty of us,
wet and shivering.
Not enough. Not enough.
Most go to the crewmen in cotton tunics
who have no coats,
and we boys will share two.
Fireworks
Suddenly
all the Benares’ lights
blaze on,
dazzling in the night.
Some electrical fault
has tripped the switch.
“She looks just like a Christmas tree!”
says Fred.
Reflections,
quicksilver twinkles
dot the water
as hissing red flares
dash upward
to the clearing skies
and the gaping moon.
One ghostly torch moves
round the top deck and bridge
of the ship.
“Look!” says Fred.
“I’ll bet that’s Captain Nicoll
making one last round.”
A huge searchlight
on the horizon
sweeps the seas.
Is it the U-boat
looking to finish us?
I quickly crouch down
and work faster—
pushpullpushpull
getawaygetawaygetaway—
as the moon ducks
behind a cloud.
Going Down
There’s an awful noise
of twisting metal.
“Look! There she goes!” I shout.
“Ohhh!” gasps Miss Cornish,
covering her mouth.
We sit helplessly
about three hundred feet away
watching as the Benares—
our getaway ship,
our adventure,
our “floating palace”
with its playroom of toys
and its shops of jewels
and its feasts of chicken and lobster and chocolate
and peaches and melon and pineapple and . . .
oh! . . . ice cream,
and its Captain Nicoll
up,
up,
and upends
and slick with oil
slides down the waves
with a bang and a groan.
Gone.
Shock
I stare
at the place
where the waves close over the ship.
“We should record the time,” says Cooper.
“Who else has a watch?”
“Here,” says Father O’Sullivan. “I have 10:34.”
“Half an hour,” says Cooper, grimacing.
“That’s all it took.”
It’s like the Benares went to its own grave.
It’s hard to believe that
our big beautiful ship
and our glorious life aboard
ever really existed. . . .
Yo!
A cry from the water
&
nbsp; brings me back to life.
Cooper spots one last man,
the one who refused a hand up.
He’s finally spent.
Cooper calls out,
“Gunner Peard! Harry!
Here! Over here!
Take my hand!”
He pulls him aboard.
“Thanks, mate,” says Peard.
“Did your lifeboat swamp?” asks Cooper.
“Dunno. Never made it to ’er,” says Peard.
“Was at my gunner station
when the torpedo hit
and I went straight inter the drink
on impact.
Been swimmin’
for half an hour now!”
And yet Peard straightens up
and yells, “Chins up!”
From that moment on,
Peard is on the move,
forging his way through the crowd,
foul-mouthed and loud
bossy, unbowed.
Strong and tough,
short and gruff,
he’s a salty sea dog
straight from my storybooks.
I gaze up at Cooper
and think about the quiet bravery,
the kindness,
that saved Peard—
the roughneck
who rescued all those children.
One man reserved,
one raucous.
Neither much taller than me.
Heroes both.
Questions
Where are the eighteen ships
in our convoy?
Where is our destroyer?
Our corvettes?
When are they coming to fetch us?
What if they’re not?
I Can’t Move
So many arms and so many legs jammed crammed together no leaning no slouching no room to stretch or twist or turn or lay back except for
Father O’Sullivan, weak with flu, sprawling in the bottom of the boat.
Squashed side by side,
elbow to elbow,
knee to knee,
packed together
like our lifeboat rations
of sardines in a can,
we try to sleep.
A Light in the Night
A torch, then two! Here they are—
At last!
Our rescue.
Ahoy!
It’s not a ship,
it’s another lifeboat.
They call to us.
The waves have calmed,
so the boat can pull up alongside.
“The name’s Paine,”
says their lifeboat captain.
“We’re from the Marina,
part of the convoy.”
“Where is the convoy?”
asks Father O’Sullivan.
“When are they coming
for us?”
Paine glances at Cooper.
Cooper clears his throat.
“Might as well know the truth, Father,”
he says. “No one expected
we would be attacked this far out.
Our destroyer left last night
to help escort another ship.”
“But where are all the other ships?”
Paine sighs.
“After a U-boat attack,
naval rules require
all convoy ships
to scatter to avoid further casualties.
The Germans sank the Marina, too.
But don’t worry.
I’m sure Captain Nicoll
radioed an SOS to high command
and a rescue ship is on its way.
Seen any other lifeboats?
We had two
for our crew.”
We have only found each other.
Cooper and Paine agree to stick together
till dawn.
Keep Calm and Carry On
I try to go to sleep.
We’ll be picked up tomorrow
or the day after that.
The Royal Navy will save us
and we’ll go home heroes. Right?
A wave hits me in the face.
ADRIFT
WEDNESDAY, 18 SEPTEMBER
Awakening
Winds rising
white caps
cold spray
storm gray.
Morning’s light
reveals
a shocking scene—
it’s just us
and the Marina’s sixteen men
for as far as the eye can see.
Stone cold seas
stretch out north, south, east, and west,
with nothing between us
and the ends of the earth.
Where are the other lifeboats?
How did we get separated?
Did they sink?
Is everyone dead?
I ask Father O’Sullivan.
“I don’t know, son,” he says.
“Maybe we just drifted faster
because our boat wasn’t full of water.”
All we know is this—
we and the Marina’s lifeboat
are alone
on a vast and empty sea.
A Decision
“We’ve decided to set sail
for Ireland,”
I hear Paine tell Cooper.
“We should make land
in a week.”
Would we go, too?
Officer Cooper
looks at us,
at our overloaded boat.
“No, safer to wait
where the Benares went down.
Then the rescue ship
can find us.”
“God be with you,” calls Father O’Sullivan.
“And with you,” shouts Paine.
I watch the other lifeboat go,
then turn to my friends.
We look each other in the eyes,
but no one speaks.
We look down,
all wondering the same thing.
Which captain
made the right choice?
Change Places
Captain’s orders:
All British men back to the stern.
All other crewmen amidships.
All passengers forward to the bow.
Ramjam Buxoo
translates the orders
for his men.
Officer Cooper nods
to him in gratitude.
Slow-
ly,
care-
fully,
one
by
one,
we re-
arrange
our-
selves
so as
not
to
tip,
or
flip,
or
flood
the boat.
Shelter
There is none.
“Hang on,” says Steward Purvis
pulling out a canvas tarp.
“We can use this.”
He and Signalman Mayhew
fasten it across the bow.
“Now two adults
or three of you boys
can fit underneath
and take turns napping
out of the wind.”
Derek pops inside
and sticks his head out.
The businessman
Mr. Nagorski starts to laugh.
“He looks like a duck,
coming out of its hole.”
From then on,
we call the tent Duck’s Hole,
our tiny hidey-hole,
away from the glaring sun
and the salty spray
that stings our cuts.
All Aboard
With nothing to do,
I count our crew:
6 boys
5 British sailors
32 Lascars
1 businessman
1 priest
and
1 lady in a lifeboat of men.
Forty-six souls in thirty feet of timber,
shorter than a London bus.
Supplies
Steward George Purvis
is busy digging under seats
and floorboards,
taking inventory
of the supplies
our lives
depend on.
I crane my neck to see what he finds:
1 sail, rudder, tiller
1 set of flares
2 axes
1 bucket
1 small first aid kit
1 oil lamp with oil
1 box waterproof matches
1 sea anchor
1 can of grease.
“The compass is damaged,”
Purvis reports.
Disastrous news.
How will we find land without a compass?
We’ll have to use
the rising and setting sun
to gauge east and west
and look to the stars
to find true north.
I think of my books
about adventure at sea
and only then do I realize what else we’re missing:
a radio
a sextant
charts
flags
fishing gear
No way to find our way.
No way to find more food.
Provisions
We’ll make do with what we’ve got.
Purvis digs down
into the metal lockers
and reports what he finds:
ship’s biscuits
tins of:
sardines
salmon
corned beef
pineapple
peaches
condensed milk
After our glorious nine courses
and extra ice cream
on the Benares,
we’re back to this.
Rations.
Water
“How much water?” asks Miss Cornish.
“There are two large canisters,” says Purvis,
“about sixteen gallons in all.
Enough if we portion it out.”
The sight of the water cans
reminds me
how thirsty
I am
already.
“Can we please have water?” I plead.
“Yes, water!” says Derek.
“Water!” the boys all shout.
“Soon,” says Purvis. “Very soon.”
Not soon enough.
Forbidden
My throat is scratchy
and my tongue shriveled.
The sounds of salt water
lapping,
swishing,
swirling,
teasing,
torture me.
I dip my hand
in the drink
ready to cup
some precious drops.
“STOP!”
orders the captain.
“DO NOT DRINK THE SEAWATER!”
He explains,
“It will make you thirstier.
It will make you mad.
It will kill you.”
I remember a line
from one of my books:
“Water, water, everywhere
Nor any drop to drink.”
I gaze out at the ocean,
