Against the Wind (26 page)

I had lost track of what day it was. Wilson and John had just completed another swim, now reduced to a single lap around Number 7. They climbed back aboard, but no one spoke of being reenergized or ready to set a new rowing record.

The short rations and the small amount of water we were allowed were beginning to tell on all of us. My tongue felt glued to the roof of my mouth. When I spoke, my Teutonic accent was thicker than ever before.

The first indication there was anything wrong with one of the lascar crewmen was when he began talking loudly to himself. It was midmorning, a few hours before our next meal and water. Lifting his chin to the cloudless sky, the sailor raved, shook his fist, pointed at Officer Browne, then stood up and screamed at the children in an angry tone.

“What’s he saying, Sanjay?” I said to one of the lascars.

“Off his head, miss,” Sanjay returned. “Mahmood says the white people are getting more water than the brown-skinned.”

“But he must see the same measure is used for each of us?”

“As I say, miss,” Sanjay repeated, tapping his forehead with his index finger. Sanjay addressed Mahmood in their common language, then translated for me. “I told him to sit down and be quiet. He is scaring the children.”

He’s scaring me too,
I thought.

Mahmood sat, but he was not quiet. He called out again and waved his arms.

“He says Mister Brown lied to him…lied to all of us,” was the translation. Sanjay shrugged. “I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

Mahmood bounced upright again, this time balancing one foot on the gunnels and rocking the boat.

“Sit down,” Harold Browne ordered. “Immediately. Sanjay, tell that man to sit down.”

Mahmood bared his teeth like an animal and howled something.

“He’s been sneaking seawater,” Sanjay reported. “It has addled his brain.”

Then Mahmood leapt overboard and began swimming away from the boat.

“Out oars,” Browne commanded. “After him.”

The movement to lower the sail and ready the oars was very slow. Mahmood laughed to himself, a foolish giggle both shocking and unsettling.

“I’ll fetch him, sir,” Wilson offered and jumped back into the sea. With his powerful stroke he soon overtook the other man.

“Row, can’t you?” Browne said. “You don’t expect Wilson to tow him, do you?”

By this time Wilson had caught up with Mahmood. The two struggled in the water. Wilson pushed the lascar’s head under and held it there. When he allowed Mahmood to surface again, the crewman was no longer struggling. Wilson held Mahmood firmly around the neck, keeping the man floating on his back, while the Cockney was treading water.

Number 7 pulled alongside. “Well done, Wilson,” Browne praised.

“Good show, that,” Barrett agreed.

“Should have let him go,” Podlaski suggested, sounding as much like a vulture as he already looked with his stooped shoulders and bulging eyes.

Browne, Barrett, and John combined their strength to drag Mahmood back aboard. He lay in the bottom of the boat, looking dazed.

Leaving him there, Barrett and John turned their attention to assisting Wilson.

That’s when Mahmood bounded upright and pushed both playwright and chorister over the edge, on top of Wilson, then plunged into the ocean again.

When the trio of men got untangled in the water, all three of them started out in pursuit of the lascar.

Connor was first to spot the fin. “Shark!” he cried. “Shark!”

A steel-gray blade sliced through the water. No more than twenty yards away, it looked as if it would pass between Mahmood and his pursuers.

Suddenly everyone was screaming at once. “Shark! Come back!”

James called out in fear to his brother. “John! John!”

“Row!” Browne shouted. “Pull hard!”

A tail shaped like a scythe slashed the surface well back from the fin.

It was a big shark.

The three Englishmen turned back toward the boat, while Mahmood continued swimming away.

“Big shark! Big, big shark,” Mariah cried. “Lord, help them!”

Fin and tail disappeared. Where had he gone? Which way had he turned? Had all the yelling and the noise of the oars scared the animal off?

Mahmood jetted upright as if launched from beneath. As he fell over sideways, I screamed…because the lower half of his body was gripped in the jaws of the beast.

Blood spurted into the sea.

“Don’t stop rowing!” Browne urged. “Get them in. Quickly, now. Hurry!”

Barrett was lifted into the boat first, followed by Wilson and then John.

Mahmood was nowhere to be seen, but a pool of crimson rose and fell on the swell.

Angelique fell into Raquel’s arms. The girl was sobbing. “Tell him, no more swimming,” she said. “No more!”

Fear and stunned disbelief were not the only emotions on Number 7.

One of Mahmood’s friends said openly, “He should not have died. Fresh water would have saved him.”

“Why should children get as much as we who must row?” another lascar griped.

“Belay that!” Wilson croaked. “He drank seawater, went crazy, and there’s an end of it, got it?”

The hostile muttering was squelched…but not silenced.

²¹
“There’ll Always Be an England,” English patriotic song

21

LIFEBOAT NUMBER 7
NORTH ATLANTIC
AUTUMN 1940

W
e had given up keeping a lookout. After so many days at sea we no longer expected to be rescued. I prayed God would help us reach Ireland.

Ireland captured our imagination in the way I had sometimes thought about heaven before being on the
Newcastle.
Ireland came to represent peace and safety, with plenty to eat and drink. There would be no one trying to kill us there. A roof overhead. No more wind and cold. A warm fire to sit beside. A cup of tea.

A hot bath.

How I dreamt about a tub full of warm water. Once in such bliss I would not emerge for a whole day. Warm, fresh water was what I craved instead of cold, salty fluid that pickled my skin and turned my hands to sandpaper-coated claws. Even my teeth felt gritty with salt. My hair was plastered with salt into phantasmagorical shapes that no amount of patting and pushing could smooth.

Two of the lascars were in terrible shape. I don’t know if they had also sampled the seawater like Mahmood, but they were barely alive. Their companions had to spoon their liquid ration into their mouths. They could not eat.

None of us had much appetite. The hard tack was like eating a brick. The canned fruits were too sticky sweet; the canned meats too salty. There was never enough water to wash it down properly.

But I knew I must eat, so I forced myself to swallow a morsel. My throat was so sore and constricted that it might be five minutes before I could attempt another bite.

Third Officer Browne’s cheeks were blotchy with sores. His lips were swollen and crusted.

Raquel and Mariah, who had been dividing their rations with the children, were shrunken. Mariah looked especially gaunt, with her eyes sunken in her head.

The children were listless but remained healthier than the adults. Only one of us seemed as hale as ever: Matt Wilson. Though he no longer attempted his daily swim, he still engaged the children in games.

“What’s good about being out here on this lifeboat? C’mon, think. Must be some good things, eh?”

Connor lifted his head wearily. “It’s an…adventure.”

“There you go! Right as ever, Connor, my lad. What else?”

“No schoolwork,” John contributed.

“No piano lessons,” Tomas said.

“No sirens,” Simcha offered. “No bombs.”

“That’s it, in’it?” Wilson agreed. “Had our dose of war, but now seems like we’re through with it. Rock along here, being floated to Ireland.”

Podlaski shook his head, too exhausted and spent to produce a negative thought.

“Just you remember,” Wilson added. “We might see Ireland today or tomorrow, but soon anyways. Soon. Don’t forget that.”

“What does Ireland look like?” Yael asked.

Raquel petted the girl’s hair. “You already know the answer to that, darling. Auntie Mariah told us. Ireland is wet and green and smells of peat smoke and baking soda bread.”

“Oh,” the child responded. “Then that can’t be Ireland, can it?”

No one moved for a time. I worried Yael might be delusional. I knew there was nothing to be seen on the whole expanse of ocean except more and more water.

Cedric Barrett raised bloodshot eyes. “There is something…there. I think. Coming out of that fog bank.”

Wilson swept Yael up in his arms and stood towering in the boat like a slightly misplaced figurehead. “Starboard bow, Cap’n,” he said to Browne. “Give us 30 degrees to starboard.”

It was a ship, and from its shape it was heading directly for us.

From almost complete lethargy Number 7 changed in an instant to a hive of activity. “Wilson,” Browne ordered, “get the flare pistol and ready a smoke canister. The rest of you: get ready to signal with whatever you can.”

“Couldn’t be a German again, could it?” Tomas worried.

“Never you mind that,” Wilson corrected. “We’re too close in to the Western Approaches now. Airplanes’d spot ’em and plaster ’em good. No, this can’t be no Heinie this time.”

The shape of our deliverer grew larger and noticeably nearer as it emerged from the wall of mist. “I think they’ve seen us,” Barrett said with excitement. “I’m sure of it.”

“Are we rescued, Aunt Elisa?” Robert said.

“What are you waiting for, Browne?” Podlaski demanded. “Shoot the flare! Shoot it now!”

The oncoming ship began a slow turn to its left, presenting its flank to us.

“Slowing to rig out boats to come for us,” John said to Angelique. “It won’t be long now.”

The freighter rolled there on the swell, regarding us from a distance. Then there was an eruption of white water at its stern as the propellers revolved forcefully. The stack belched gray smoke, the ship lunged into motion…and turned away from us.

“No!” James shouted. “Come back! Don’t leave!”

“Don’t worry,” Wilson comforted. “Just their normal zig-zag course, like. You’ll see. That’s the zig. Next time, when they zag, they’ll be headed right for us.”

But he was wrong.

When the ship made its next maneuver, it turned still farther away and began to diminish in size.

“Don’t wait, man,” Podlaski scolded. “Fire the flare!”

There was a loud pop that made Yael and Simcha cover their ears, and a rocket streaked upward. It burst high overhead and hung there, a bright orange ball of fire drifting slowly back downward.

“Pop the smoke too,” Browne ordered Wilson.

Wilson pulled the ring and tossed the device overboard. The canister floated on the gentle swell, puffing out a cloud of vapor that drifted away from us toward the departing ship. “They can see it. They must be able to see it,” I said.

Then the freighter was gone, and they weren’t returning.

“It’s your fault,” Podlaski said, accusing Browne. “You waited too long.” He buried his face in his hands.

There was the low hum of angry muttering among the lascars.

“What do you say, Wilson?” Browne asked. “I think they saw us. I think they deliberately turned away. But why?”

“It’s like this, see, sir. Me brother’s in the merchant marine. He says them Nazis, well, sometimes they put out a lifeboat as a decoy. Then the U-boat hangs around, waitin’ to pounce on whoever motors up all unsuspecting.”

Browne scrubbed the stubble of his beard with ragged fingernails. “That must be it. What else could it mean?”

“But that’s still all right, in’it?” Wilson consoled. “They’ll still call in this position, so’s somebody will check us out. An airplane, most like. Why, we could have a plane here quick as bob’s your uncle, eh?”

Then the breeze shifted, bringing the fog bank over us, swallowing us up as thoroughly as if we were buried alive. We never did hear a plane pass by overhead, but it would not have mattered. They could never have seen us anyway.

That night Matt Wilson came forward again, picking his way over grousing sailors and groaning boys. He arrived just as Robert sobbed with hunger and aches in his legs.

“What’s this?” Wilson demanded. “Sniffling? Don’t you know real heroes never snivel?” Then gathering all the children with his words, he elaborated. “Don’t you know you’re all the heroes of a real-life adventure? So what if that ship turned away today? Don’t you realize what it means? We’re in the shipping lanes now. Tomorrow we’ll be found or we’ll run across another ship or we’ll reach Ireland and save ourselves. But turn it any way you like, there’s no cause for sniveling, is there? Buck up, mates. We’re writing a grand tale here. Don’t muck it up here at the end.”