Against the Wind (25 page)

I wondered if he used part of the money he was paid to marry me? I felt emotion tug at my throat. I had not forgotten our one and only kiss.

He slipped the band on my finger. “Just wanted to let you know. I was thinking about you. About us. Hoping you’re okay.”

Leah came to the door and Murphy left quickly, saying there were enormous political events he must witness and write about.

Leah says he looked back at me with longing as he left. I wonder if he remembers our parting kiss as I do.

I wonder if we will ever meet again. Leah and I made plans to leave for Kitzbühel. If Austria falls to the Reich, we will escape to Switzerland from there.

20

LIFEBOAT NUMBER 7
NORTH ATLANTIC
AUTUMN 1940

O
ur days aboard Number 7 quickly fell into a routine. When we awoke from our unsatisfying rest, there was much contorting of limbs to restore circulation, and many groans.

Officer Browne led us in The Lord’s Prayer:

“Our Father, which art in heaven.
Hallowed be Thy Name.”

When we came to the petition about “Give us this day, our daily bread,” John’s stomach growled.

No one laughed.

Everyone made conversation about the weather, the wind, and about how much we had progressed toward the end of our journey.

John: “Breeze is more from the west now. Good for us.”

James: “But it’s died away since the sun rose. Bad for us.”

Angelique addressed her question to John: “How far have we come?”

I saw conflicting emotions cross John’s face. He wanted to sound encouraging, to give Angelique hope. At the same time he could not lie to her. Someone would certainly correct him if he gave a wildly wrong answer, and then the beautiful gypsy girl might no longer trust him.

John hedged. “It’s hard to say, exactly.”

James had no such hesitation. “Even when we had the breeze we can’t have been averaging more than three knots.” He paused to straighten his spectacles. “Probably less. I bet we haven’t made—”

His brother interrupted. “Seventy-five miles. That’s great progress. A third of the distance to Ireland.”

“If we’re even going the right direction,” the Polish diplomat asserted. “How do we even know?”

“There’s the sun, Mister Podlaski,” Browne said. “We’re sailing toward it, aren’t we?”

Podlaski harrumphed.

“We couldn’t miss something as big as Ireland, could we, Aunt Elisa?” Robert inquired, stretching one arm toward my nose and the other toward Mariah’s.

“As big and green as ever it is?” Mariah offered. “Not a’tall, a’tall. Soon enough we’ll be sailin’ into Galway Bay to a hero’s welcome. And what do you think we’ll have to eat then, eh?”

This was also part of the routine. Contrary to what I first thought, taking turns describing a desirable meal was not depressing. Instead it seemed to raise the children’s spirits.

“Sausages!” Connor piped cheerfully.

“Scads of roast beef and potatoes,” James suggested.

“As much soft bread and nice jam as I want,” was Robert’s choice.

“Sure, and won’t it be Irish stew?” Mariah laughed. “And sausage and roast beef and bread with…with what sort of jam, Robin Hood?”

“Strawberry!” the green-clad miniature archer declared. “Unless…” He paused thoughtfully.

“Yes?” Mariah encouraged.

“Do they have rolls with butter and honey in Ireland?”

“For you, my dear, yes. Even if we was to have to import it!”

The time between waking and the first of our two daily meals passed very slowly. Food and water were distributed around noon and then again six hours later.

I soon learned the longer I stayed asleep the better.

It was on day four that we made a terrible discovery.

As the evening distribution of rations commenced, Matt Wilson passed out the first round of the hard tack, each topped with a small chunk of canned salmon. There was a longer than usual pause as Wilson broke into the second case of ship’s biscuits.

He swore bitterly, bringing a stinging reprimand from Browne.

“Sorry, sir. It’s because this second case is spoiled.”

“What!”

“See for yourself, sir.”

Browne bent down toward the locker built into the stern. “Rusted through the bottom!” he said. “Whole crate sucked up seawater from the bilges like a sponge.”

“And that ain’t all, sir,” Wilson added, dropping his voice to a whispered level.

All conversation stopped as we awaited the news.

Wilson raised a cupped hand from below my vision toward Browne’s face. The officer dipped his fingers, touched them to his mouth, and then spat over the side. He bit his chapped lip and frowned, then straightened his shoulders and raised his chin. “Ladies and gentlemen, besides losing one crate of biscuits, I must also report that the second water tank has split a seam. Instead of being full of drinkable liquid, it is full of brine. We must, therefore, go on half water rations immediately.”

I felt as if I had been stolen from.

Others on board said as much. Podlaski immediately protested, “Four ounces twice a day? You’ve got to be joking! We can’t live on that!”

“Would you rather run out before reaching Ireland and be without water altogether?” Browne said.

Once more there was murmuring from the lascar sailors. “Not even two swallows?”

“How can we manage on less than we are already?”

“How can this be?”

Podlaski echoed the accusing tone. “Mismanagement, that’s what it is. We should never have sailed off into the unknown. We should have stayed near the sinking, where we could be found. Now we’re lost and about to run out of water.”

“Calm down, Mister Podlaski,” Browne demanded. “We’re going on short rations precisely because we don’t want to run out. And we aren’t lost.”

“So you say,” Podlaski retorted with a sneer. “Have we seen any sign of a ship or a plane or Ireland? We may be sailing toward Norway for all we know.”

It was as if Podlaski poisoned the air with his doubts. I saw a cloud of resentment fall over the brown faces of the lascars. In the way they stared at us I recognized a common thought:
Women and children contribute nothing to rowing the lifeboat, yet they consume precious rations.
The crewmen would have a better chance of surviving this ordeal if they did not have us on board.

“Can’t we at least have our full ration this once more?” Mariah asked. “We…it’s very late for makin’ this change, and we’ve been waitin’ since noon already, so we have. Can’t we start the new amount tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, miss, but I’m afraid the answer’s no. That extra half-day’s ration might make the difference between…well, you understand.”

When half a ship’s biscuit and a glob of salmon reached Robert, he nibbled the salmon and licked up the juice. Then, holding the square of hard tack, he waited for the rest of the food to be distributed and the water to be passed out.

A half measure of water—four ounces—looks like almost nothing. Robert took a sip, then tried to gnaw a corner of the rockhard biscuit. After three tries he handed me the hard tack. “Please keep this for me, Auntie,” he said. “I’m not really that hungry now.” Then he swallowed the water in one gulp and leaned back against me. Connor likewise handed me his bread ration “for safekeeping.”

That night, for the first time since we had been adrift, there was no call for singing before bedtime.

Just as we had resigned ourselves to a miserable night in despairing silence, Matt Wilson picked his way forward. Stepping carefully between sailors, he came and stood in our midst but addressed himself to the boys. “Buck up, lads,” he said. “What’s a shipwreck, anyway? Bit of adventure to tell your mates about when you get back to school, that’s what. And what’s half rations? Just a way to make the story that much better! Besides, don’t you know the whole bloomin’ navy’s out lookin’ for us? Why, they’re bound to get here tomorrow. So cheer up. You tell your chums you was on half rations and see how that sounds. ’Course you needn’t tell ’em it was just for one day, eh? Now I’m not one to lecture, but men, it’s our duty to keep up the ladies’ spirits, in’it? Now, where’s our song, then?”

Obligingly, James roused up and began:

“I give you a toast, ladies and gentlemen

I give you a toast, ladies and gentlemen.

May this fair dear land we love so well

In dignity and freedom dwell.

Though worlds may change and go awry

While is still one voice to cry.”

And then James croaked to a hoarse stop. He put his hand to his throat and rasped, “I’m sorry. I can’t…”

At that moment Raquel’s voice, always husky anyway, drifted out of the canvas shelter.

“There’ll always be an England
While there’s a country lane,
Wherever there’s a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.”

And so it went, adults and children, each offering what their voices could bear, with Connor tooting the penny whistle.

When we came to the final chorus, Wilson himself produced a rich baritone.

“There’ll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me.”
²¹

The last notes hung on the nighttime air, which was already closing in damp and chilly around us. Wilson said with satisfaction evident in his voice, “There you are then. Well done, men. Well done.”

We lapsed into silence as the waves lapped the hull of our fragile craft. I made my heart focus on hope. Gazing into the starry night I imagined sailing a stormy sea with Jesus asleep in the bow.

What use is there in the suffering of these little ones?
I silently asked Him.
And what about the broken hearts of their parents? So You sail with us, Lord?

In the stirring of the breeze I thought I heard a whisper:
“Fear not. I am with you.”

We awoke already thirsty. It was still hours until the next offering of water. The lift given to our morale by Wilson’s pep talk the evening before had long since evaporated. A morose stillness reigned.

Relinquishing his place at the tiller to Officer Browne, Wilson came forward again. “Got a trick to teach you,” he said. With a jerk of his calloused fingers he grasped one of his shirt buttons and wrenched it free. It lay on his broad palm like a bit of gray shell when he extended it toward Connor.

“Go on, take it,” he said.

“What for?” Connor returned.

“Put it in your mouth. Suck on it. It helps the moisture come. Your mouth won’t be so dry that way, eh? Try it! It works.”

Buttons popped off coats and shirts and into mouths.

“Careful not to swallow ’em,” Wilson warned.

On my lap Robert fingered the fastenings of his cloak. “Mama wouldn’t like for me to tear off a button,” he said sadly.

Before I could debate it with him he brightened. Reaching inside his collar to pluck at a silver chain, Robert produced a small, round medallion depicting St. George slaying the dragon. “Do you think this would work?” he asked Wilson.

“The very thing,” the sailor agreed. “Pop it right in there. Old Saint George would’ve done the same, was he wearin’ a Saint Robert medal.”

Officer Browne spoke from the stern. His words were also raspy and deeper than usual. “Wilson’s gimmick is a good thing to know. Here’s something else: you must not, under any circumstances, drink seawater. No matter how thirsty you get or how inviting it seems, don’t do it! It will kill you.”

The sail flapped listlessly against the mast. Browne ordered rowing to begin again, but Wilson asked for a five-minute reprieve. “Want my mornin’ swim, Cap’n.” Stripping to his shorts, he added, “Who’ll join me today?”

John stood, removed a button from his mouth, and handed it to his brother. “I will,” he said.

“Right-o! Good show. Three laps?”

“Three laps it is.”

It was not a race, but there were comments made that young John showed better form than Wilson.

Angelique openly admired her champion, saying to Raquel, “See how strong he is.” When the other girls teased her, the gypsy’s eyes flashed, but she did not stop watching John’s muscled back and strong shoulders.

When the men returned to Number 7, Wilson clasped John’s hand. “That’s the way.” Then he addressed himself to Browne. “Now we’re warmed up, Cap’n. How about if me and John here pull an oar apiece? Might make twenty miles before breakfast.”

After that challenge all the men set about rowing with renewed vigor. The boat leapt forward like a horse out of the starting gate.

The hearty pace was maintained for about half an hour. Then the rowing returned to a more sedate rhythm. “Ho for Ireland,” Wilson called. “Think I can almost see it from here.”