Lifeboat 12
Page 10
at our officers,
and back at the ship.
A sob escapes my throat.
Billy and Fred whimper
and reach for Mary,
who crushes them to her.
Paul just stares as
Father O’Sullivan collapses.
What is happening?
NO!
The Ship Has Turned
Our dreams of being saved,
our happy endings,
are scuttled
as the ship turns again
away from us
and pushes north.
It grows smaller
and smaller
and dipping down below the horizon,
is gone.
Too many questions
rush into my head,
swamping my thoughts—
dead weights
pushing me under.
I can’t breathe.
Night is falling and
a mass of black clouds gathers
in the ship’s wake.
We are in for another storm.
For the first time,
I can’t see my way home.
My friends and I
break down,
all but Paul,
who is so weak
he has no tears left to cry.
Forsaken
Father O’Sullivan
is bowed and shaken.
He clasps his hands together.
“Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done. . . .”
No Sulking, See!
After a time,
gruff old Gunner Peard
picks his way up to the bow.
“What’s the matter now?”
he demands to know.
“Down-’earted ’cos she didn’t pick us up?
That’s nothing to worry about.”
I stare up at him
through my tears.
Is he mad?
“We’ll see plenty more ships tomorrow
now we’ve reached the sea lanes,” he says.
“Sea lanes?”
“It’s where all the ships pass through,
he says. “There’ll be another soon enough.”
I have to believe him.
“That’s right,” I tell my friends.
“If Peard says so.
It must be true.”
It has to be.
The Tempest
That night,
chilling clouds
collide
and split,
spilling rain,
spitting hail,
slashing sideways.
I open my mouth
to sweet cold rain,
but a wave
force-feeds me
a mouthful
of salt instead.
Spitting and gagging,
I wipe my mouth
and just try to hold on.
Bitter winds
whip the waves into
twenty-foot towers.
Our boat surfs up each crest,
flies off the top—
then slams twenty feet down,
stinging spray,
soaking us through.
Lightning bolts
fire jagged daggers.
Fear
like none I’ve felt before
flashes through me,
fed by the crash
of thunder.
I grip the rails,
white knuckled,
wondering,
will we survive this night?
Billy and Paul look at me
wild-eyed with panic.
“Hold on, hold on,” I shout.
“You’ve got to hold on!”
MONDAY, 23 SEPTEMBER
3 DAYS OF WATER LEFT
We Are Alive
In the light,
bodies are still,
alive,
but nearly paralyzed
with exhaustion.
We are bruised and beaten
and cannot eat.
My throat is raw with sores,
my tongue and mouth
sucked dry to the bone.
My friends are whimpering.
Enough.
ENOUGH!
We want to go home.
Suck Your Buttons
That’s what Gunner Peard says,
“If you’re thirsty,
suck yer buttons
to get yer saliva goin’.”
Derek has a Lamb of God charm
that Father O’Sullivan gave him.
He wears it round his neck,
so he sucks on that.
With a sad smile, he jokes,
“Look at me!
I’m the only
bloke on the boat
having leg of lamb.”
An Idea
Father O’Sullivan
pulls out a safety pin
and a bit of string from his pocket.
He bends the safety pin into a hook
and ties it to the string.
“What are you making, Father?”
I ask.
“I’m sick of sardines,
so with luck,
I’m going to catch us
something different for dinner,” he says,
nodding to the seagulls
landing on the water nearby.
“Blimey! NO, man!” cries Peard.
“Harming a seabird
is bad luck, is what it is.
Don’t you know?
They carry the souls
of dead sailors.
Kill one and
it’ll be an albatross
around all our necks!”
“We have plenty of sardines,”
says Purvis. “No use
risking bad luck.”
I look out at the seagulls
that swim for a bit,
then just flap their wings
to soar over our heads
and fly away home.
If only a wizard
would turn me into a gull
the way Merlyn turned Wart into an owl. . . .
I would fly away home.
Magic or no magic,
luck or no luck,
seagulls are a sign
that land
may be near.
Look!
Cooper shouts and points.
The sailors who are able
rouse themselves
and turn to look in that direction.
I sit up and peer
off in the distance,
squinting hard.
My head hurts
and I start to shiver uncontrollably.
Auntie Mary wraps an arm
around me
and feels my forehead.
I pull away
because suddenly
I see what Cooper sees.
A charcoal mass
floats on the horizon.
What is THAT?
I stare
as it teases and taunts.
Could it be?
Could it be?
Dear God, could it be . . .
LAND?
Light the Way
“Steer that way!” orders Cooper.
Mayhew trims the sail
and we steer toward the strange shape
so far away.
We sail all day,
as I drift in and out of sleep.
I wake as the sun sets.
Mary looks at me
with concern in her eyes,
says something I cannot hear.
Night drops down,
clouds shrouding the stars.
The stars!
I remember we have no compass.
How will we stay on course
if we can’t see the stars?
I’m cold, bitter cold,
but my head feels hot,
blasted hot
like the last handheld flare
/>
our captain ties to the top
of the mast.
If it IS land, maybe
someone will see us.
The flare casts an eerie red glow
on the bodies below,
its flash reflected
by the tiny fish—
phosphorescence—
in the water.
Hope flames
in my head tonight.
Delirious
Hope!
HELP!
No, don't . . .
I want . . .
I can't . . .
Help them!
I can't get to them!
Terry!
Dad!
Margaret!
Mum!
I can’t get there!
hope
HELP!
TUESDAY, 24 SEPTEMBER
2 DAYS OF WATER LEFT
Smoke and Mirrors
I wake from a fitful sleep,
weary, confused.
I dreamed I was falling,
falling off the ship!
“Are you all right, now, Ken?”
asks Mary, eyes poring into me
as she rubs my sore, stiff legs.
Now I remember!
“We saw land, Mary! LAND!
Remember?”
I swivel my head in all directions.
She doesn’t answer.
“Mary!” I say. “Tell me!”
“There is no land, Ken,”
says Mary softly.
“It was the clouds,
a mirage.”
And just like that—
poof!—
the promise of land
disappears into thin air.
The clouds and sea
are smoke and mirrors,
evil magicians
hypnotizing us,
conjuring land,
hope,
home
with hocus-pocus.
Cruel con artists.
There is no land.
Hope is a hoax.
And now the waves,
glittering like knives,
take aim at us,
our backs
against the wall.
We grit our teeth,
face each roller as it hits
and slice through,
bracing ourselves
till the next wave hits.
There are two days of water left.
No More!
After a time,
the waves subside,
slowing their cruel ride.
The wind whistles,
indifferent to what it’s done.
I try to sit up
and unstick my tongue
from the roof
of my dry-as-dust mouth.
My eyes sting
from the salt water
that washed over us.
I notice Ramjam Buxoo
checking the breathing
of a few of his crewmen,
including the young mustached man
who had smiled at me.
Is he all right?
Is he alive?
Suddenly,
a crewman stands,
the one I saw
swallowing the seawater.
I don’t know his name.
I don’t understand
what he’s shouting.
The other crewmen
look startled or annoyed.
He strips,
and arms up,
shouts to the sky.
Then, to my astonishment,
he springs over the side.
He bobs up,
torture on his face.
“He can’t swim,” I yell. “He’s sinking!”
“Help him!” Mary screams.
We boys and his fellow crewmen
jump up, rocking the boat.
Buxoo, Cooper, and Critchley
reach for him,
but the waves whisk him away.
He surfaces again,
coughing and calling,
but he’s too far gone.
He swings his arms,
bobbing and weaving,
fighting the waves.
But with a one-two punch
from the sea,
he goes down,
for the last time.
I slump down, stunned.
I’ve never seen a man drown before.
Wailing floods the boat.
Paul ducks under the canvas cover
as Father starts to pray.
“He went mad, boys,”
whispers Auntie Mary,
staring straight ahead.
“He lost his mind.”
The man is no more.
First Aid
I see the crew
is unmoored.
I see the sores
on their feet
and the suffering
on their faces.
I watch Buxoo move
from man to man
in his crew,
whispering,
reassuring them.
I ask Father O’Sullivan,
“What can I do?”
Father is too weak to stand,
but my question rouses him.
He nods at me
and says, “We’ve got to do something.”
He whispers to
Mr. Nagorski,
who pulls out
a small
bottle of medicine
from the first aid kit.
Mr. Nagorski
anoints the feet
of the crewmen
whose sores are open wounds.
Buxoo explains
that the medicine
will ease their pain
and leads them in prayer.
There is no remedy
for what has happened,
only small relief.
Nagorski moves to each one in turn,
and I see how
one small kindness between strangers
offers distraction
from Death,
who now occupies
that empty seat on our boat.
Fading Fast
Sunburned,
windburned,
I am scorched
and now
the fire is dying.
I look around and see
the gleam in our eyes,
the spark inside us all
is flickering,
fading
to
cold
gray
ash.
I Have One Question
“What is Bulldog doing?
Please, Auntie Mary,” I beg.
“Please.”
“Yes, darling.”
And struggling to speak,
she begins again.
Bulldog, Continued
“Bulldog is at home,
sitting in my . . . ah, his
big red easy chair,”
whispers Mary.
“He’s wearing his slippers,
sipping a hot drink,
in front of a crackling fire.”
She shivers as she leans back
and closes her eyes.
“But wha’ aboot th’ man he rescued
from Peterson’s thumbscrews , Mary?”
Billy asks.
“What happened?” says Howard.
“Where are the missing pilots?
Did Bulldog crack the codes?”
“Cracked the codes,” says Mary.
“All is well.”
“But HOW?” asks Derek.
“What did the codes say?
Mary, please tell us!”
Mary sits up and opens her eyes.
She looks at me,
and then the younger boys
one by one,
seeing we are all starved,
starved for our story.
She coughs and whispers . . .
The man
Bulldog rescued decoded the pilot’s papers. Um, there was something about a spy, yes, a spy for the Germans. His name was, ah, Cage, John Cage. He owned a pub—the Ship’s Pub.
“Scotland Yard suspected
he was up to no good, right, Mary?”
I say trying to help her.
“He was hiding something. . . .”
“That’s right,” she says.
“He had the keys.”
“The keys?” asks Paul.
“The keys to what?”
“The keys to everything. . . . ,”
says Mary, drifting off to sleep.
Madness
Tonight,
screaming scares me awake.
I rub my eyes, confused.
“Drink . . .
give me a drink . . .
I am going mad!”
It’s Paul.
His feet have swelled even more.
They’re double in size.
“Help me!” screams Paul.
“His feet,”
whispers Father O’Sullivan
to Auntie Mary. “They’re much worse.”
Paul screams when Mary touches them.
“It’s okay, Paul,” I say,
patting his arm.
He turns, looks me in the eye,
and howls,
“I am MAD!
Water!”
The officers exchange
grim glances.
We all want water.
We all need water.
Craving and fear
rock the boat,
but Paul’s screams
may sink us all.
Father O’Sullivan
whispers in French
with Mr. Nagorski.
I hear “il va mourir. . . .”
It is decided.
Critchley stands
and quietly
delivers a dipper of water.
Mutinous eyes follow him
from stern to bow.
Envy rises in me,
but I tell myself Paul needs the water more.
Paul is given enough
to moisten his lips,
but then he wants more!
MORE!
In the darkness,
I feel tense rustling and rumblings
coursing the length of the boat.
No one could sleep
through the screams.
Is Paul really going mad?
I look at the other boys,
eyes wide in the shadows.
Everyone needs the screaming to stop.
Screams Interrupted
“What NOW?”
demands a loud voice in the dark.
It’s Harry Peard, making his way
up to the bow.
“Water? Is that all?
Of course you want water.
We all do.
You’ll get yer water in the mornin’!
Now you forget about it.
Is that all that’s wrong with you?”
“My . . . my feet are cold,” whimpers Paul.
“Critchley, give me your overcoat,”
says Peard.
He takes it and rewraps Paul’s feet,
muttering all the while.
“Are yer feet warm now?” demands Peard.
“Y-y-yes. . . . ,” says Paul.
Peard curses his way back to the stern
and Paul sleeps.