The Burning Shore (34 page)

Lifejacket! She groped under the bed and pulled the clumsy apparatus over her head and began to crawl towards the door. Suddenly the lights went on again and she dragged herself to her feet and leaned against the bulkhead and massaged the lump on the back of her head.

Her senses cleared and immediately she thought of Centaine.

My baby! She- started towards the door and the ship lurched under her. She was thrown back against the dressing-table and at the same moment Centaine’s jewelbox slid across the table-top and would have fallen, but instinctively Anna caught it and held it to her chest.

Abandon ship! a voice shrieked outside the cabin. The ship is sinking! Abandon ship! Anna had learned enough English to understand. Her practical phlegmatic sense reasserted itself.

The jewelbox contained all their money and documents. She opened the locker over her head and pulled out the carpet bag and dropped the box into it. Then she looked around her swiftly. She swept the silver frame with the photographs of Centaine, her mother and Michael’s squadron into the bag, then she jerked open the drawer and stuffed warm clothing for Centaine and herself on top of the jewelbox and the picture frame. She fastened the bag as she glanced quickly about the cabin.

That was all of value that they possessed, and she heaved open the door and stepped into the passageway beyond.

Immediately she was picked up in the relentless stream of men, most of them still struggling with their lifejackets. She tried to turn back -’I must find Centaine, I must find my baby!’, but she was borne out on to the dark deck and hustled towards one of the lifeboats.

Two seamen grabbed her. Come on then, Itiv. Ups-adaisy! and though she aimed a blow at the head of one of them with the carpet bag, they boosted her over the side of the lifeboat and she landed in a tangle of skirts and limbs between the thwarts. She dragged herself up, still clutching the carpet bag, and tried to climb out of the boat again.

Catch hold of that silly bitch, somebody! a seaman shouted with exasperation, and rough hands seized her and pulled her down.

In minutes the lifeboat was so crowded that Anna was packed helplessly between bodies and could only rave and implore in Flemish and French and broken English.

You must let me out. I have to find my little girl-Nobody took any notice of her, and her voice was drowned out by the shouting and scurrying, by the moaning of the wind and the Crash of waves against the steel hull, and by the ship’s own groans and squeals and dying roars.

We can’t take any more! a commanding voice shouted. Swing her out and let go! There was a gut-swooping drop down through the darkness and the lifeboat struck the surface with such force that water was sprayed over them and Anna was once more thrown to the half-flooded deck with a huddle of bodies on top of her. She dragged herself up again, with the lifeboat tossing and leaping and thudding against the ship’s side.

Get those oars out! The voice again, harsh with authority. Fend her off there, you men. That’s right! All right, give way starboard. Pull, damn you, pull! They dragged themselves away from the ship’s side and got their bows into the seas before they were swamped.

Anna crouched in the bottom of the boat, clutching her bag to her chest, and looked up at the tall hull that rose above them like a cliff.

At that instant a great white shaft of light sprang out of the darkness behind them and struck the ship. It played slowly across the glistening white hull, like the spotlight of a theatre, picking out brief tragic vignettes before passing on, groups of men trapped at the rail, a twisting figure in an unattended stretcher sliding across the deck, a seaman caught in the tackle of a lifeboat and swinging go like a figure on the gallows tree, and finally the beam rested for a few moments on the huge red crosses painted on the white hull.

Yes, take a good look, you bloody swine! one of the men near Anna in the lifeboat yelled, and immediately the cry was taken up.

You murdering Hun- You filthy butchers- All around Anna they were howling their anger and outrage.

Implacably the beam of searchlight travelled on, swinging down to the waterline of the hull. The surface of the sea was dotted with the heads of hundreds of swimmers.

There were clusters of them, and individuals whose pale faces shone like mirrors in the intense white light, and still others were dropping and splashing into the water amongst them, while the sea surged and sucked them back and forth and threw them against the steel cliff of the hull.

The searchlight lifted up to the high decks again, and they were canted at an improbable angle while the ship’s bows were already thrusting below the surface and the stern was rising swiftly against the star-riddled sky.

For an instant the searchlight settled on a tiny group of figures pinned against the ship’s rail and Anna shrieked, Centaine! The girl was in the middle of the group, her face turned towards the sea, looking down at the dark drop beneath her, the wild bush of her dark hair whipping in the wind.

Centaine! Anna screamed again, and with a lithe movement the girl had leaped to the top of the brass rail. She had lifted the heavy woollen skirts to her waist and for an instant she balanced like an acrobat. Her bare legs were pale and slim and shapely, but she looked frail as a bird as she leaped away from the rail and with her skirts ballooning wildly about her, fell out of the beam of light into the blackness beneath.

Cantaine! Anna screamed one last time with despair in her voice and ice in her heart. She tried to rise, the better to watch the fall of that small body but somebody pulled her down again, and then the searchlight beam was extinguished and Anna crouched in the lifeboat and listened to the cries of the drowning men.

Pull, you men! We must get clear, or she will suck us down with her when she goes. They had oars out on both sides of the lifeboat and were striking out raggedly, inching away from the stricken liner.

There she goes! somebody yelled. Oh God, will you look at that! The steRN of the huge ship swung up, higher and still higher into the night sky, and the rowers rested on their oars and stared up at her.

When she reached the vertical she hung for long seconds. They could see the silhouette of her propeller against the stars, and her lights were still burning in the rows of portholes.

Slowly she began to slide downwards, bows first, her lights still shining beneath the water like drowning moons. Faster and still faster she slid downwards and her plates began to buckle and crackle with pressure, air burst out of her in a seething frothy turmoil, and then she was gone. Vast spoutings and eruptions of air and white foam still fountained up out of the black waters, but slowly these subsided and once again they could hear the lonely cries of the swimmers. Pull back! We must pick up as many as we can! All the rest of that night they worked under the direction of the ship’s first officer who stood at the tiller in the stERN of the lifeboat. They dragged the sodden shivering wretches from the sea, packing them in until the lifeboat wallowed dangerously and took water over her gunwales at every swell, and they had to hate continuously.

No more! the officer shouted. You men will have to tie yourselves on to the LIFelines. The swimmers clustered around the overloaded vessel like drowning rats, and Anna was close enough to the stern to hear the first officer murmur, The poor devils won’t last until morning, the cold will get them, even if the sharks don’t. They could hear other lifeboats around them in the night, the splash of oars and voices on the wind.

The current is running up into the north-northeast at four knots, Anna overheard the first officer again, we will be scattered to the horizon by dawn. We must try to keep together. He rose in the stern and hailed, Ahoy there! This is lifeboat sixteen.”Lifeboat five, a faint voice hailed back. We will come to you! They rowed through the darkness, guided by cries from the other boat, and when they found each other they lashed the two hulls together. During the night they called two other lifeboats to them.

in the watery grey dawn they found another lifeboat half a mile away; the sea between them was strewn with wreckage and dotted with the heads of swimmers, but all of them were insignificant specks in the immense reaches of ocean and sky.

In the boats they huddled together like cattle in the abattoir truck, already slumping into bovine lethargy and indifference, while those in the water bobbed and nodded as they hung in their lifejackets, a macabre dance of death, for already the icy green water that tumbled over their heads had sucked the body warmth from many of them and they lolled pale and lifeless.

Sit down, woman! Anna’s neighbours roused themselves as she tried to stand on the thwart.

You’ll have us all in the water, for God’s sake! But Anna ignored their protests.

Centainel she called. Is Centaine anywhere? And when they stared at her uncomprehendingly, she searched for the nickname and remembered it at last.

Sunshine! she cried. Het remand Sunshine gesien?

Has anybody seen Sunshine? and there was a stir of interest and concern.

Sunshine? Is she with you,” The query was passed swiftly about the cluster of tossing lifeboats.

I saw her on the deck, just before the ship went down. She had a lifeJacket. She isn’t here? No, she isn’t here. I saw her jump, but I lost her after that. She isn’t here, not in any of the boats. Anna sagged down again. Her baby was gone. She felt despair overwhelm and begin to suffocate her. She looked over the side of the lifeboat at the dead men hanging in their lifejackets, and imagined Centaine killed by the green waters, dead of the cold and the infant in her womb dead also, and she groaned aloud.

No, she whispered, God cannot be that cruel. I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it. The denial gave her strength and the will to endure. There were other lifeboats, Centaine is alive somewhere out there, she looked to the wind-smeared horizon, she’s alive, and I will find her. If it takes my whole life, I will find her again. The small incident of the search for the missing girl had broken the torpor of cold and shock that had gripped them all during the night, and now the leaders emerged to rally them, to adjust the loading and the trim of the lifeboats, to count and take charge of the fresh-water containers and the emergency rations, to see to the injured, to cut loose the dead men and let them float away and to allocate duties to the rowers, and finally to set a course for the mainland a hundred miles and more out there in the east.

With teams of rowers alternating at the long oars, they began to inch across the wild sea, nearly every small gain wasted by the following wave that dashed into their bows and drove them back.

That’s it, lads, the first officer exhorted from stern. Keep it up- any activity would stave off despondency, their ultimate enemy -let’s sing, shall we? Who’ll give us a tune? What about Tipperary? Come along, then.

“‘It’s a long way to Tipperary, It’s a long way to go-” But the wind and the sea grew stronger, and flung them about so that the oars would not bite, and one after the other the rowers gave up and slumped glumly, and the song died away and they sat and waited. After a while the sense of waiting for something to happen passed, and they merely sat. Long after midday, the sun broke through the low scudding cloud for a few minutes and they lifted their faces to it, but then the cloud obscured it again and their heads drooped like wild Namaqua daisies at sunset.

Then from the lifeboat alongside where Anna sat a voice spoke in a dull, almost disinterested tone. Look, isn’t that a ship? For a while there was silence, as though it took time to understand such an unlikely proposition, and then another voice, sharper and more alive. It is, it’s a ship! Where?

Where is it? A babble of excited voices now. There, just below that dark patch of cloud. Low down, just the top-’It’s a ship!

A ship! Men were trying to stand, some of them had stripped off their jackets and were waving frantically and shouting as though their lungs might burst.

Anna blinked her eyes and stared in the direction they were all pointing in. After a moment she saw a tiny triangular shape, darker grey against the dreary grey of the horizon.

The first officer was busy in the stern, and abruptly there was a fierce whooshing sound and a trail of smoke shot up into the sky and burst in a cluster of bright red stars as he fired one of the signal rockets from the steRN locker. She has seen us! Look! Look, she’s altering course! It’s a warship, three funnels. Look at the tripod director tower, she’s one of the “I class cruisers- By God, it’s the Inflexible! I saw her at Scopa Flow last year- God bless her, whoever she is. She’s seen us! Oh, thank God, she’s seen us! Anna found herself laughing and sobbing, and clutching the carpet bag that was her only link with Centaine.

It will be all right now, my baby, she promised. Anna will find you now. You don’t have to worry any more, Anna is coming to get you. And the deadly grey shape of the warship raced down upon them, shouldering and breaking the waters aside with her tall, axe-sharp bows.

Anna stood at the rail of HMS Inflexible in a group of the survivors from the lifeboats and watched that immense flat-topped mountain rise out of the southern ocean.

From this distance the proportions of the mountain were so perfect, the tableland at its summit so precisely cut and the steep slopes so artfully fashioned that it might have been sculptured by a divine Michelangelo. The men around her were excited and voluble, hanging on the rail and pointing out the familiar features of the land as their swift approach made each apparent. This was a homecoming of which most of them had many times despaired, and their relief and joy were pathetically childlike.

Anna shared none of it with them. The sight of land induced in her only a corrosive impatience that she knew she could not long abide. The drive of the great ship under her was too puny, too snail-like for her antici potion every minute spent out here upon the ocean was wasted, for it delayed the moment when she could set out on the quest which had in a few short days become the central driving force of her existence.