The Man who Missed the War (20 page)

Only one thing gave Philip a rather grim satisfaction. Rafts Number Two, Three and Four were still attached to Number One, and that, he felt, went a long way to prove his contention that, provided the load of each raft were equal in weight and distribution to the others the stress of tide and winds should be exactly the same on them all. As four rafts had remained connected through such a tempest, he had little doubt that the other six were not far distant, and that most, if not all, of the cables connecting them had also held; so that, had they and many more been in the care of a trawler carrying two launches to act as mother-ship, as he had originally planned, she would soon have rounded them all up.

It was nice to think that there would at least still be part of his convoy to show when the destroyer, which he had no doubt would be sent out for them, arrived on the scene to pick them up; but all the same it was damnable luck that the good weather had not lasted for another forty-eight hours so that the launch and her whole string might have been towed in triumph to a safe anchorage in Southampton Water.

He heard a movement behind him and turned to see Gloria emerging from the hole. Her hair was matted, and there were dark rings under her eyes. As he took her hand to help her, he recalled how she had refrained from making a single complaint during their night and day of ordeal in the launch, and the courage she had displayed during the perilous business of transferring to the raft. He began to say what a good show he thought she had put up, but she cut him short.

‘Oh, there’s nix to it, Boy. I was so mighty scared that it just
stopped me being sick until we were safe on the raft here. But where will the storm have taken us? Have you any idea at all?’

Philip shook his head. ‘Until the sun comes out I can’t even get an observation that will give us a fix; but I’m afraid we’ve been swept a long way south. We’re probably somewhere in the Bay of Biscay.’

‘Where would that be?’ she startled him somewhat by asking.

‘It lies between the western coast of France and the northern coast of Spain.’

‘And how far are they from Portsmouth?’

‘Anything from two to seven hundred miles.’

‘Holy Saints! An’ I thought Europe was a small place! Will your friends in the Navy ever be able to find us now?’

‘Oh, I think so,’ he spoke more confidently than he felt. ‘I’m sure they’ll send an aircraft out spotting for us, and once we’ve been located they’ll probably arrange for something to come out from the French coast to pick us up.’

‘Then I’d be able to go straight to Paris, wouldn’t I? That would be fine!’

‘Yes, provided you can satisfy the French Immigration officials.’

For a moment they stood in silence, then he added: ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m jolly hungry. Shall we see what we can find to eat?’

She sighed. ‘What wouldn’t I give for hot coffee an’ hamburgers, right now. Still, there’s half a cold tongue—the salt water won’t have harmed that—an’, if the sea hasn’t gotten into the tins, there’s plenty of biscuits to be eating with it.’

They began to rummage among the bundles and packages that they had salvaged from the launch. Everything was still damp and unpleasantly sticky from briny sea water, but the lump of tongue, when extracted from the table napkin in which it had been wrapped, proved perfectly edible, and enough biscuits for their immediate requirements had escaped a wetting.

Gloria had no watch, and Philip’s had stopped, so they had no idea what time it was and could only guess that when they had finished their meal it was about three o’clock in the afternoon. It was now the first week in October, and the darkness of the sky threatened an early nightfall, so they felt that they would
not have any too much time to make themselves more comfortable while daylight lasted, and set about it right away.

Of the four cargo containers, each occupying a quarter of the raft’s area, one had been devoted exclusively to oil, for refuelling the launch while the convoy was at sea, and was still well over half-full. The other three contained the selection of mixed goods that Philip had purchased in New York with a view to testing how the various items would stand up to a two months’ voyage and probably a much rougher passage than they would have had in the hold of a ship.

Before leaving the cabin, Gloria had had the sense to pack up his instruments and the books that he used for his nautical calculations, but she had not thought to bring the papers that he kept in the drawer of the table; in consequence, the manifest giving details of the cargo on the raft, and the contents of each numbered case, was lost. All they could do was to open a package at random here and there.

It was not easy work as the bales and cases were stacked close together to prevent their shifting, and the only light they had was that which percolated in through the open door of the manhole; moreover, they both soon began to suffer from a most painful crick in the neck, owing to lack of headroom. Gloria had managed to save all the cooking utensils from the launch, and Philip knew that, if only he could locate them, there were cases which contained both oil-heating stoves and primuses among the cargo, either of which would have served for cooking. There was also a great quantity and variety of food. But, during the afternoon and evening, all they succeeded in gaining access to were potatoes, sugar, garden implements, raw cotton, molasses, ball-bearings and rubber sponges.

The bale of raw cotton opened up and spread out proved a most welcome substitute for their damp bedding, and with more of the biscuits off which they had made their evening meal they ate some spoonfuls of sugar, knowing that it would help to keep up their strength.

Next morning they found that the sea was calmer and that the sun had come out, so they carried up all their damp bedding and belongings and spread them out to dry on the deck made by the flat roofs of the containers. For breakfast they had the rest of the
tongue, but they now found themselves exceedingly thirsty, and, having nothing at all to drink, set to on a determined and more systematic examination of their cargo.

Philip succeeded in removing the main hatch in the top of one of the containers, and this gave them much easier access to a good part of its contents. Moreover, while they worked in it the head of one or other of them was always partly in the open above the hatch level, so it was easy to keep a lookout for the aircraft which they felt sure must be seeking them.

Many of the things they could reach most readily were of little use to them, as it was in this container that all the extra sails for the rafts had been stored, together with the great lengths of rope and twine, spare cables and beacons, etc.; but Philip felt certain that the case containing the oil-stoves was also there somewhere. During the course of the morning they came across carpets, a case of ladies’ shoes, a crate containing six bicycles, a quantity of fireproof asbestos sheeting, twelve electric fires and several bundles of cheap curtains and tablecloths. Philip had bought all these things and innumerable others through a wholesale trading company in New York, with the idea that when they had served their turn as test cargo he would, by having brought them freight-free from the U.S.A. to the United Kingdom, be able to re-sell them at quite a decent profit; but none of them seemed of much value to him now.

A little before midday they saw a British aircraft to the west of them, which appeared to be cruising quite slowly. Both of them sprang out of the hatch and began to wave lengths of the blown-out tattered sails from the stunted masts of the raft. But the crew of the aircraft did not see them, and it flew serenely on.

Philip took an observation of the sun and worked it out that their latitude was now 46° 42″ North, so his surmise that they were about on a level with the centre of the Bay of Biscay proved correct, although he found that they were well outside it in the Atlantic, approximately on the Tenth Meridian West. However, he knew that these calculations were subject to a very wide degree of error now that he could only guess at the time by the height of the sun in the heavens, and was not even quite certain what day it was.

Not having discovered any further food supplies, they had to
make an unappetising lunch off some more sodden biscuits, and their thirst was now really beginning to worry them seriously; but early in the afternoon Gloria found a crate of grapefruit juice, and afterwards they came upon several sacks of coffee beans, a case of corned beef and another of tinned corn; so, although they could not yet make coffee, their evening meal had more substance and variety.

Just as dusk was falling they saw another aeroplane, this time flying in towards the French coast, but it gave no sign that they had been seen, and they turned in, hoping for better luck next day.

It came to them in one form at least, for one of the first things that Philip found when they resumed their examination of the cargo after breakfasting off sweet corn and grapefruit juice was the crate containing the oil-stoves. They proved to be of two patterns. There were a dozen of the simple round variety used for heating, and six double stoves measuring about two foot six by one foot six and standing about three feet high, designed for the use as cookers in holiday camps. Their joy was almost as great as if a rescue party had suddenly appeared alongside, since, having plenty of oil, there was now nothing to prevent, their boiling kettles of sea water to get supplies of fresh water, so that they could make coffee, as well as heat up some of the bully beef and sweet corn for a hot meal.

While Philip was taking his midday observation, they again saw the British aircraft of the day before, or one exactly like it, but once more it failed to see them, and, as Gloria pointed out, they had no proof that it was actually looking, since it might quite well be employed on any of a dozen forms of war activity.

Philip’s reckoning showed that, although the storm had now entirely abated, they were still drifting south, and this increased the anxiety that he had been feeling for the past twenty-four hours as to where they would now fetch up. The Gulf Stream, having warmed the shores of Northern Europe and dissipated its force against them, merges with other currents, the principal one of which flows south along the coast of Portugal towards North-West Africa. The storm having prevented the Gulf Stream from depositing Philip and Gloria on some part of the Channel coast, it now looked as if, caught up in this other current, they were
liable, unless they were rescued fairly soon, to be carried down to the Tropics. On the other hand, since the winds in these parts were extremely variable it was quite useless to set fresh sails and unless they got into the North-East Trades, they might drift about for weeks.

Since the going down of the storm they had sighted quite a number of ships, mostly in the distance; but two that had been coming towards them appeared almost deliberately to have turned out of their course. A third did the same on the day following the discovery of the oil-stove, and a reason for this strange behaviour was given to them in a most unpleasant manner. The cargo ship concerned, after approaching to within a mile of them, suddenly veered sharply away and two minutes later brought a gun into action against them.

‘Holy St. Bridget, is it mad they are!’ exclaimed Gloria, as a shell whistled overhead and burst behind them, sending up a great spout of white foam.

‘No,’ replied Philip, pulling her down into the dubious safety of the cargo container. ‘This raft is so low in the water that it can’t be seen properly from that distance, and those jittery fools have taken it for a U-Boat.’

Only two more shells were fired at them, both of which landed several hundred yards away: no doubt the gunners at that stage of the war were still somewhat amateurish; but Philip knew now that only a warship would risk approaching them, and if one did there was a most perturbing chance that they would be shelled much more accurately long before the ship’s crew realised that their target was only a raft.

On the fifth night after the sinking of the storm they saw a distant light emitting regular flashes which swept like arcs across the darkened sky, and Philip identified it from his manual as the Lighthouse of Cape Finisterre on the north-west corner of Spain. When morning came they could see the Spanish coast as a vague bluish blur on the horizon. For an hour or so their hopes ran high that the raft would be washed up there, but the coastline gradually receded until, by early afternoon, they had lost sight of it altogether.

Some days later their hopes were again raised when a large British seaplane, after flying right over them, turned round and
flew back to have another look before resuming her original course. Philip said it was a Short Sunderland on the Lisbon-Southampton run and would definitely report the rafts on its arrival at base, so their rescue within a few days was now certain. They would most probably be picked up by a lifeboat or tug which the British authorities would arrange to have sent out from Lisbon. But the days passed, and no rescue craft appeared.

It was possible that the aircraft had been shot down before getting back to its base in England, or that its crew had seen the raft but not the people on it. If the latter were the case, the fact that no launch was reported as in company with the rafts would lead to the assumption that it had been sunk and Philip drowned in the storm that had come up so quickly after the receipt of his message by the Admiralty. The British Navy had more important things to do during a major war than send valuable personnel to inspect a derelict string of rafts, and Philip, realising this, now began to feel despondent of their chances. If he were believed dead, all further search for him would cease, and he had to accept the possibility that by this time his family had been told that the launch was missing, presumed lost, and that there was therefore small hope of his own survival.

The thing which infuriated him much more than being a castaway was the loss to Britain of his idea just as it had been proved practical. If only the authorities could have seen the excellent shape in which the Raft Convoy had arrived off Land’s End, he felt sure they would have taken it up; but now that it had failed to complete its voyage and been scattered on the first autumn gale, it was highly probable that the whole scheme would be pigeon-holed and forgotten. He was fretting badly too about both his inability to get home and join up and the fact that he no longer even had any idea how the war was going. As part of his cargo he had shipped three of a new make of American radio, but so far he had failed to find the cases in which they were packed, so, since abandoning the launch, they had had no news of the outer world at all.