Lifeboat 12
Page 9
so as not to waste
a precious drop.
There are six days of water left.
Drink! Drink!
It’s all we can think. . . .
Trench Foot
Meanwhile the salt water
eats away at my feet.
We boys are all barefoot now
because our shoes are too tight.
As time goes by,
my feet shrink,
then swell,
stink,
turn into blisters
and open sores.
My stomach turns
looking at them.
Paul’s feet are the worst.
The skin is turning black.
Will mine too?
Rot and decay
washes over us with each wave
and starts to seep inside. . . .
Suffering
Most of the crewmen from India
are barefoot too.
They only have thin
cotton clothing.
They must be frozen to death.
“Why don’t they have
warmer clothes, Father?” I ask.
“They came from India,
stopped in Liverpool,
and were expecting
a return trip home,” he says.
“They weren’t expecting
to come out toward the Atlantic.”
“They’re used to a hot country
and the cold North Atlantic
isn’t anybody’s fun,” says Fred.
Here on the lifeboat,
they may be suffering the most.
They were so kind to me
on the ship.
I recognize many of them
from the dining room
and realize
they aren’t seamen,
but stewards,
as unprepared
as I am to face
this heartless sea.
Wrapped in blankets,
they are restless,
shivering,
teeth chattering.
They talk ceaselessly
in a language
I can’t understand.
Sure, the stewards
know English words for food,
but talk of food isn’t much use here.
I watch the man with the little mustache,
the one who smiled at me.
He can’t avoid
the water that pools
in the center of the boat.
His feet are as swollen as Paul’s.
His smile is a grimace now.
Losing Hope
My friend prays to Allah,
and like many of his fellow crewmen,
bows to the east five times a day.
“What are they doing?” I ask Father.
“Bowing to Mecca,” he says,
“the holy city of Islam.
It’s where Muhammad the Prophet was born.”
I notice other crewmen
crossing themselves as Father does.
“Some of the men
are from Goa,” explains Father.
“They’re Catholic, like me.”
Despite the different prayers,
I see many of the crewmen
are starting to give up hope.
“Don’t do it!” I want to tell them.
“We’ll be all right.”
I sit up and shake down
a rising panic.
“We’ll be all right!” I shout.
A few of the men look over,
startled at my outburst,
but most slump and stare,
growing listless.
And later, some collapse,
slipping into comas.
Pack Up Your Troubles
How can I be so wet
when my throat is so dry?
How can I be sunburned
and frostbitten?
How can I be so exhausted
and unable to sleep?
That song we sang
about packing up your troubles
runs through my head.
I’d like to pack up my troubles
and throw them overboard.
I look at the younger boys whimpering,
and I know what we need.
“Auntie Mary,” I say.
“Tell us more about Bulldog.”
“Good idea,” says Mary.
“Let’s see, Ken had taken
the pilot’s pouch to Mary and
she called Bulldog. . . .
Captain Hugh Drummond, alias Bulldog Drummond, knocked on Mary’s door. He was six feet tall and no doubt his face had earned him the nickname Bulldog. He was cheerfully ugly, supremely self-confident in an expertly tailored suit. He got right to business. “A courier’s pouch, you say?” he asked. “Right, let’s have a look.” And in one trick move, he snapped the lock and pulled out some papers. “They’re in code. That pilot should be in hospital by now. I’ll take the pouch and pay him a visit.”
He stood to leave, but stopped at the newspaper on Mary’s table. “Great Scott,” he said. “I wonder, could this pouch have something to do with those missing pilots?”
Mary and Ken hurried over to read the headline.
ACE PILOTS MISSING!
BRITAIN’S FINEST KIDNAPPED?
THESE THREE MEN WERE ON LEAVE AND DID NOT RETURN,” SAID THEIR SQUADRON LEADER JAMES BIGGLESWORTH. “BUT THEY’RE NOT THE TYPE TO DESERT THEIR POSTS. I SUSPECT FOUL PLAY.
Bulldog turned to Ken. “Well, young man, you and your friends saved one life today. And who knows, if these things are connected, we may save a few more.”
At the hospital, Drummond found the injured pilot delirious, babbling nonsense about estates and elm trees. A nurse was taking notes on her chart. She stared at the pouch in Bulldog’s hands and hurried away without a word.
Bulldog followed. He wasn’t surprised when she dropped her nurse’s hat and coat into a rubbish bin outside. “You’re no Florence Nightingale, are you, old girl?” he muttered.
The woman hurried down the street, stopping every once in a while at a store window while glancing behind her. Satisfied that Bulldog was indeed following her, she ducked into a restaurant.
Through the window, Bulldog saw her join a man who seemed familiar. In profile, he had a sharp nose, a short dark beard, a stern but strikingly elegant manner. He turned and Bulldog knew him in an instant. Peterson!
“Peterson?”
gasped Howard.
“That snake!” said Billy.
“Yes,” says Mary.
“It was Peterson,
Bulldog’s arch enemy.
What will Bulldog do, boys?
What do you think?
We’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Oh, Mary,” moans Fred.
Groans all around,
but we’ll dream of
Bulldog tonight. . . .
Saturday, 21 September
5 DAYS OF WATER LEFT
A Visitor
Father O’Sullivan spots it first.
“Look!” he calls, pointing to
a black shape rising in the water,
ten yards from our boat.
“A U-boat!” yells Fred,
panic in his voice.
WHAT?
God help us!
“No,” shouts Father,
pulling himself up on his feet
for the first time all week.
“It’s a WHALE!”
I pop up
and Derek and Billy
are on their knees beside me,
pointing and shouting
as the slick black whale
ribbons in and out of the waves.
“Crikey, look!” I say.
“There’s another! Whales!”
We kneel in awe,
watching the two
perform for us,
arching up, curling down,
twins in t
andem
who surface and dive,
surface and dive.
One swims right up,
as if to say,
what are you doing here
in my waters?
Then, as suddenly
as the whales appeared,
heave ho—
there they go.
Later that day, the colors
of the western sky collide,
mirrored in the east
as if we are watching
two sunsets at once.
Even the sailors had never
seen such a phenomenon.
We sit smiling at each other,
grateful for diversion,
even for just a little while
as we listen
to the priest’s prayer of thanks
for sunsets,
for whales,
for the marvels
of this world.
A Good Day
Whales and a tale—
that’s what good days
are made of.
I whisper to Mary,
“Please, may we have
more of the story now?”
“Yes, let’s see, where were we?”
she says.
We all know—
“At the restaurant with Peterson!”
Yes, it was Peterson, and as usual, he was up to no good. Bulldog nipped into the restaurant unnoticed, determined to find out what this ah . . . snake as you so rightly call him . . . had to do with the pilot and the coded papers.
“Yes, sir?” asked the waiter.
“A sarsaparilla, my good man,” said Bulldog.
“On duty, you know.”
“Jolly good, sir.”
Ten minutes later, Peterson and the woman left the restaurant through a back door. Bulldog tailed them into the alley.
But Peterson was waiting for him. “Ah, Captain Drummond, we meet again!” he said.
“Well, well, Peterson,” said Bulldog. “If I know you, and I do, I suspect you’re up to something. You and your . . . ah . . . nurse.”
Peterson just smiled as he stepped up to his cream-colored Rolls-Royce. “No time, old man. Just hand over that pouch and I’ll be off. Business meeting with a chap I’m going to convince to break this code for me. People pay millions for codes, don’t they?”
“Stop!” said Bulldog, but his vision blurred. He took a step and stumbled.
“Hope you enjoyed your sarsaparilla,”
said Peterson, snatching the pouch.
Drummond realized his drink had been drugged. He sank to his knees and fell onto the pavement.
Three boys on their bikes passed the alleyway in time to see Bulldog slump to the ground and hear Peterson direct his driver, “The Elms Estate and be quick about it!”
“Peterson got away?”
asks Fred.
“And Bulldog is dead,
isn’t he?” says Paul.
“Of course not,” I tell him.
“Heroes can’t die.
Then there’d be no story.”
And we can’t face that.
SUNDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER
4 DAYS OF WATER LEFT
Rain!
Not mist this time,
but real fat drops of
falling-down rain!
Like baby birds,
we open our mouths
and stretch our throats
upward to the skies.
“Quick! Let’s try to catch the rainwater!”
yells Cooper. “Spread the sail!”
The officers and crew
grab the ends of the sail
and stretch it out
to collect the drops.
My throat catches
at the thought of
extra water,
blessed water to drink!
The rain
pools and puddles
on the sail
and for a good ten minutes
we and the sailors channel it
into the empty milk cans
from our rations.
“Here, boys, share this one,”
says Purvis.
He passes the precious can
to Billy, who takes the first drink.
“Agh!” he says, choking.
“It’s salty.”
“Don’t swallow!” says Purvis.
“Spit it out,” says Cooper.
“The water must have
absorbed the salt
on the sail.
Don’t drink it! It can kill you!”
All we can do is open
our mouths to catch
a spattering of luscious drops.
But then the rain slows
and stops.
Feeling Low
That was a blow
to think
that we might have extra water
for our salt-caked lips
and our tongues
hanging heavy
in our mouths
like dying fish flopping
on dry land.
A Treat
“Never mind,” says Georgy Porgy.
“Today we will have a treat.”
Along with our sardine,
and dipperful of water,
we will have dessert—
a peach!
Well, not a peach,
not half a peach,
but a slice of canned peach
for each boy.
Georgy Porgy passes them down.
And OH,
the joy of it!
A smooth, silky
slide of sweetness,
succulent
and tantalizing.
“It’s like candy, is what it is,” says Fred.
A brief mouthwatering moment,
and then it is gone.
But nothing has ever tasted that good.
Where’s Bulldog?
“Bulldog didn’t die,
did he?” asks Fred.
“No, the boys will save him,”
I say. “They call Mary.”
“Right,” says Derek.
“She gets him home,
gives him tea,
and soon he’s right as rain.”
“Tea.” Mary sighs. “Rain.
Oh, boys, what I wouldn’t give for . . .
oh, never mind, let’s get on with our story. . . .”
Mary tended to Bulldog’s bruises as they listened to the wireless for news of the missing pilots. There was news—the pilot in the hospital had disappeared! “And I have no idea where Peterson has gone,” said Bulldog.
“Does the Elms Estate mean anything to you? The boys overheard Peterson say that to his driver,” said Mary.
“Ah, good lads, I know the place,” said Bulldog. “I’ll go as soon as it’s dark.”
Black shadows had fallen when Bulldog sneaked onto the grounds. Only a single candle flickered in a window. “AGHH!” someone screamed. Bulldog ducked beneath the window and saw Peterson interrogating a prisoner. The man was bent over in pain, a torture device called a thumbscrew beside the coded papers on the table. “Give me the key to these codes or I’ll go to work on your other hand,” said Peterson.
Bulldog had to act. With one move, he crashed through the window and knocked over the candle. In the confusion, Bulldog landed a punch; Peterson went down. Bulldog slung the prisoner over his shoulder, grabbed the papers, and ran through the door into the night. The candle on the floor ignited the drapes and. . . .
Smoke!
I see it first.
“Look, SMOKE!” I cry,
leaning out over the gunwale
and pointing to the horizon.
“He’s right!” yells Critchley.
Far off, across the western horizon,
a dark spire
whorls in the wind.
It gets larger and larger
and soon a gray shape
appears beneath it,
breaki
ng the line of the horizon.
Is it land?
No.
It’s getting bigger.
Is it a ship?
I think it IS a ship!
Will it see us?
It’s coming closer!
My God, it is a ship!
The mast and funnels
are soon in view.
“It’s a merchant ship!” says Cooper.
“Shoot off the flares!”
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Flaming shots
rocket high
into the sky.
The sailors wave their arms
and shout.
“Boys, we must pray,”
says Father O’Sullivan.
“Come now, we must help the Lord
lead that ship this way.”
He kneels
and reluctantly we do too,
peeking at the horizon as we say
the Lord’s Prayer together.
“Thank you, God,” I whisper.
“Thank you for sending us a ship.
Please, please, please, let it see us.”
I glance up.
“LOOK!” I shout, interrupting the prayer.
The boys and I scramble to our feet.
“LOOK!
IT’S TURNING!
IT’S COMING THIS WAY!”
“You’re right, Ken!” says Cooper.
“Looks like she’s seen us!”
I turn to Mary
and hug her hard
as gleeful shouts
ring out!
“They’ve seen us!” “Allah!”
“They’re coming!”
“Hallelujah!”
“Thanks be to God!”
“We’re going home!”
The ship is about two miles away.
Then one.
Soon they are not more
than seven hundred yards away!
Great God, we are saved!
Amid hugging and cheering,
I think of what this means.
We’ll have water and food and warm clothes and a bed.
We’re going home.
Just wait till my friends
hear of our adventure,
of all we survived!
WE ARE SAVED!
Prepare for Rescue
Captain’s orders:
“Trim the sail.
Prepare for rescue.
Bring down the awning.
Throw those supports overboard—
they’re just in the way.”
The crew cheers,
rejoicing in rescue,
as we all get ready
to greet
the ship.
Here it comes,
closer and closer,
it’s almost here,
but
WAIT!
What is happening?
Cooper stands stock-still.
Mayhew waves frantically.
Critchley bends over
and grasps his knees,
breathing hard.
I look at the ship,