Thirty-Four Men and I

by ELIZABETH FOWLER

1

WE REMAINED with the convoy for a few days after leaving Freetown in Sierra Leone. Then one evening the Commodore of the convoy broke out flags addressed to our ship. We were to proceed “independently routed” for our home port in the United States. We were to be on our own.

“Safe voyage. Godspeed.” The signal from the Commodore was repeated by all the ships of the convoy. A stirring send-off, but I felt my heart torn as I watched the convoy vanish on its way to England and all she meant to me: my home for over twenty years,

I wandered into my cabin, which was so stuffy that I went back on deck. As I passed the hatch, I heard the men talking among themselves. I had my knitting, so I kept on at it in the darkness. I felt something of an intruder. The general attitude was that women traveling in wartime were a damned nuisance. Although this was my fourth Atlantic crossing in wartime, there were many ships which would not carry women, and I counted myself lucky to be there.

How enveloping the darkness was! Though it was cool, a heaviness in the air weighed down like a shroud. There was no sound but the rhythmic thud of the engines and the flight of unseen waters as we plowed through them into space. My eyes were resting softly on the impenetrable black when a blinding flash revealed everything with startling clarity. The report of the explosion roared in my ears as I sprawled on the deck. It seemed to boom on into eternity.

The Captain’s summing-up cut my dazed thoughts like a razor. “Jesus Christ! This is IT.”

This is it. This is it. This is it. The words hypnotized me as I picked myself up. I clutched my knitting.

In that split second, the Captain must have sprung like a jack-in-the-box to the bridge. His voice could be heard above shouting orders. Then, “Abandon ship!”

My feet were winged. Abandon ship! I could hear the squeak of my palms as I slid down the rail. When it stopped, I knew I had reached the deck below.

Ah! the home stretch. My cabin was warm and intimate as I groped my way in. All the lights had gone. The scent of my powder lingered on the air, and in that same instant I was aware of a more pungent smell: the dry, acrid tang of gunpowder.

That did stir me. I reached for my life belt where it hung at attention on the doorknob. Easy. I put my hand down for my bag, filled with carefully prepared necessities: a change of clothes (in case I had been caught in bed); toothbrush, paste; drinking glass; bandages, quinine, aspirin; cold cream, flashlight; cigarettes; sweater; passport, money, jewelry.

There it was, bulging but not too heavy, my Burberry folded neatly alongside. Everything went like clockwork. I saw what I must do with beautiful clarity. Almost too easy. Out the door, turn left. Over the coaming, around the hatch, face right. Ten paces past the hatch. Our hatch — our special one. The hatch where, so often, we had drunk our coffee when we’d quit t he stifling fumes of the dining saloon. The hatch where we had lounged in the hot sun. The hatch I had used as a table on which to balance my machine while I practiced typing.

Yes, that was where the hatch had been. Now it was like some giant Christmas pudding, boiling over, bursting its bonds. The blackness was lightened by gray fumes pouring over everything. Dimly I could see that the deck was littered with ropes and tackle. I stepped into a maze of wire. No SOS could leave our ship that night.

2

PALE wraiths which were men swept over to the port side. I sidestepped them in their rush, confident that I had only to proceed to my station.

Fourteen steps up the ladder to the boat deck, where surely Number One lifeboat would be looming, a big and friendly shadow. But there was no boat. Only a great, yawning gap of emptiness. I could feel that, all right. The boat wasn’t there, and I didn’t know my way around any more.

The grayness was creeping up to where I stood. Dark shapes loomed out of the steam and acrid smell from the torpedo’s fumes. Then the friendly voices of the boys from next door hailed me.

“Yes, I’m fine, but what about the boat?”

“Has anyone got a light?” someone yelled.

“Yes!” I yelled back, strangely pleased with myself. I scrambled feverishly in my bag, spilling my carefully prepared necessities on the deck to reach my flash.

“Good girl,” someone said as it was grabbed away from me and flashed on. There was a yawning gap all right. Nothing in the dark below — just a pulp of wood and water.

“Come on,” they yelled.

I found myself whirled completely round by the rush. Our boats to starboard had gone. Those to port were lucky, and we were just “out.” We pressed across to the port side. The two remaining boats, Number Two and Number Four, had gone! Peering over the rail, we could see one boat far below. Oh, how far below! We were looking into a vast canyon where there was a tiny boat and it was already crammed full with upturned faces.

“Down you go!” The order was bellowed in my ear.

The ropes over the side were wet and slippery. Flashlights from below dazzled us.

“Why don’t they put out those lights?” I implored of no one in particular. “What a target we make!”

My half-empty bag was snatched from me and flung over the side.

“You can’t take that down the rope,” said a reproving voice.

I’m just a landlubber, I thought meekly, but why couldn’t I have carried it? Now everything will be gone.

“Down you go.” The order came again.

I’ve got to go down that rope. I urged myself over the side. Heck! My shoe has gone. Now I do feel insecure. One shoe off and one shoe on. I thought with a pang of my Burberry left behind.

“Go on!” The voice was savage in its intensity.

“But there’s no place to put my foot.” I was stalling. “Wait, my other shoe is gone!”

I groped my way down the debarkation net. It was like feeling into a bottomless pit, to find the next rung.

Then I dropped from my hold as the lifeboat rose to meet me. In the boat the atmosphere was grim, intense. Each second beat itself out, awful in that dreadful rumbling and clanking which swelled to a symphony of horror as it was joined by a venomous hissing of steam.

The boat clung to the freighter’s side like a pup nuzzling up to its mother. The men sat with their eyes straining against the hulk of the ship as if the concerted effort could shift us.

“ Push her off. Push her off,” they entreated of each other. No one had a knife, and the boat could not get clear. All was uproar. No one had as yet assumed command. Two men were still coming down the net. One of them was the second mate, who had been on watch. He was fully equipped, and he cut the lines adrift. There was difficulty in getting the oars out from under the men, wedged as they were in such cramped quarters. The oars were slimy, covered with palm oil from the cargo which had splashed over everything in the explosion.

We were off at last! Slowly the boat headed into the choppy sea. The men at the oars were gaining confidence under the voice of command.

“There’s a man up there,” someone cried.

Sure enough, there was. A light on the after well deck of the torpedoed freighter showed a man perched on the rail.

“It’s the Captain,” someone yelled.

The Captain gave a long, last look at the decks he had so often trod, then jumped overboard.

We heard no splash, but we saw a tiny red light bobbing in the water. (This was the light which we all had pinned to our life belts: when immersed in water, it automatically ignited.)

Suddenly he was there beside me, wet and glistening, dapper as a seal — for all the world as though he had stepped out of his cabin after a shower, fresh as the morning.

“Never thought I’d make it,” he gasped as I pushed harder against my neighbor to make room for him.

The mate continued in command. His voice was monotone, its very deliberateness encouraging.

“Where were you, sir? ” one of his men addressed the Captain.

“Up forrard, cutting the rafts adrift,” he said.

So he had kept up the tradition of the sea. The last to leave his ship! My admiration for the little man grew as I thought of the risk he had taken, remaining on his sinking ship, doing all he could for those who had had to jump for it. He was over fifty.

Then it came. The second torpedo. That one finished the job. “There go the last of the cockroaches,” shouted a wiseacre. The ship cracked amidships. She split up. Her stern and prow stood on end, equally matched. They posed there for a second like partners in an intricate dance, then together they sank. As they slid from sight, the waters frothed and swirled. Fire broke out on the oil over the surface. She was ugly, dirty, cockroachridden; but it was anguish to see her go.

3

WHERE to go. . . . We gazed around at ourselves in dismay. In the stern, the Captain held muster. We called out our names in turn while the officers counted.

Thirty-five! Thirty-five human beings crammed in a twenty-six-foot boat. It hadn’t been so bad to leave the ship like that, a mass of people as tightly packed as if we had been wedged in the shuttle from Times Square to Grand Central. But to spend the night that way, until we were picked up in the morning, was unthinkable. Yet that was all there was to it. We should just have to hang on until morning. Until we were picked up.

From out of the night an empty raft bore down on us, threatening to crash headlong into the boat with the next wave that broke against her. The oarsmen fended it off. We were in too frail a condition to withstand such an impact, and we were so deep in the water that the sea lapped over the gunwales.

The boys started wisecracking. It was good to hear them. Suddenly the surface of the sea broke. There she was, the epitome of all fear. The U-boat rose with grave grandeur, shedding a wall of smooth glass off her decks. She headed straight for us. We must have been lying directly in her path.

There were hoarse cries of terror. “ She’s going to ram us!”

It was a breathless moment. For all her gigantic size, the submarine was maneuvered with the ease of a London taxi, and softly she came to rest a few yards off, a thing of terrible silvery-green beauty. Her Diesel engines turned over smoothly and gently like the hum of a sewing machine. We could hear her guns clicking into position on the deck. They were pointing in grim reality.

Her searchlights dipped and played on the water. They raked around until they found us, then held us in a vise of light. We shrank into ourselves under that unwinking stare. An artificial voice, straight from the movies, bellowed through a megaphone in carefully enunciated English, perfect and precise, “What iss the name of your ship? What iss the name of your ship? What iss — ”

Back came the Captain’s voice, reluctant, grudging, yet articulate enough. He said it. Then he spelled it with a curse after each letter.

The questions rang out, clipped and clear.

“ Iss your commanding officer on board? Iss your com —”

The little man stood up. “I am the Captain!”

“Bring your boat alongside. Bring your boat alongside.”

We drew alongside. The Captain shook hands with Mr. Brown, the second mate. He lifted us out of our grim foreboding with his parting shot: “I’ll be hoeing potatoes in Hamburg.”

Our prayers were with him as he scrambled through the chain rail. There was a neatness and precision about all his movements that gave him great dignity even in the act of surrender.

“They’ll never let him go,” my thoughts churned on. Then I had visions of the Captain (partly in pity for me, partly because a lone woman is an embarrassment to a boatload of men, a very symbol of bad and leery luck to sailors) asking them to take me. Concentration camp!

Now we were called alongside a second time.

The seas were too heavy for us to be made fast to the submarine. We should have been dashed to pieces against her. This time it was Sparks who was summoned for questioning.

At last the miracle happened. We drew alongside for the third time while our Captain and Sparks were handed back with a cordial good night as though a passing car had stopped for directions.

One of the boys leaned over and patted my hand. “She’s gone. It’s O.K.”

4

THEN the Captain made a speech in his curt New England twang. He told us that he had discussed the situation with his officers and had come to the conclusion that the wisest thing to do was to heave to in that spot for the night — and wait.

This we did, rocking about like a walnut shell.

Thirty-two out of thirty-five of us were seasick. I battled long and hard against the sickness. At last I had to give in and went on being sick all night. When I stopped the first time, I started to ask for water. As I started to speak, it dawned on me that water was now something priceless, to be guarded drop by drop.

The horror of the past few hours was ebbing, and cold was seeping in to take its place. The boat swung giddily at the sea anchor and leaped forward at intervals like a frenzied watchdog at the end of its chain. The muscles of my thighs ached as though they had been pounded with mailed fists from the strain of using them to get a grip on the narrow ledge on which we perched.

Somewhere I had read that the devil himself had schemed the proportions of a lifeboat. That night I found out how true it was. The seats were too high to do anything but dangle our toes from them. The boat was just wide enough to prevent our obtaining any leverage with our feet in that direction, even had there been room enough to do so. I writhed on the razor-edged slats and thought ruefully of my berth in the freighter — which I had disdained simply because of its nightly invasion of cockroaches.

I withdrew into myself, trying to escape the soggy embrace of my clothes as we climbed out of the trough of a wave. There was a sickening swell. The last of my evening meal had gone long before, and it was growing more and more distressing to be sick without any water. A vision of my Burberry, abandoned on the deck, continued to torment me.

When the first gray began to filter through the darkness, it revealed how filthy we were. The whites of the men’s eyes were startling in their whiteness. How haggard they looked! During those first few hours of light, it seemed almost indecent to look at one another. We sat there — waiting. The little boat tugged impatiently at the sea anchor. The men beefed among themselves, “What the hell are we waiting for?”

We were all painfully stiff. Even a slight turn from one side to the other required an elaborate marshaling of the senses and muscles. In vain we scanned the horizon for signs of the other lifeboat and the rafts. No boat. No rafts.

As the sun appeared over the horizon, the Captain and the officers took turns squinting over the compass with a thin piece of wood which they held over the box in the direction of the sun.

I began to feel a mounting impatience. I wanted to grouse with the men, “What the hell are we waiting for?” But still our little boat tugged at the anchor and we waited. It was too cold for conversation, hut it felt odd to be so closely aware of my neighbors of the night before, with whom I had talked so animatedly, and to feel strange among them.

I began to take stock of myself. I was covered with palm oil from the cargo, as were all the others. Its yellowy-greenish color was sickly, like its smell. I had on a dark-blue linen dress. What had once been a crisp white piqué collar was now a limp gray rag. I couldn’t even bother to take it off, although it felt damp and greasy round my neck. I was barefooted. A short scarlet jacket which I had just finished knitting was my only protection against the weather; it was already soaked and had been made more as a colorful accent to my clothes than with any purpose of warmth. Again I thought longingly of my Burberry as I tried to stretch the short sleeves down over my elbows.

It was then that one of the men aft called to me as he held up a familiar-looking garment, navy and white checked gingham.

“Hey, Mrs. Fowler, can we use this?”

It was one of my dresses. I was puzzled as to how it had got there; then I remembered — it had been packed in my emergency bag. By some miracle it had landed in the boat when the bag was thrown overboard, and it must have lain in the bilge all night.

“Sure,” I called back, wondering what they could possibly want with it. It turned out that Vincent, the Negro cook, had been taking a shower at the time of the explosion. He hadn’t wasted any time worrying about clothes.

A ripple of weak laughter went up when he succeeded in getting into my dress. He was immensely tall and powerfully built; with his huge arms bulging out of the tiny short sleeves and his great pillar of a neck thrusting out of the low-cut collar, he looked grotesque.

I stared around on the vacant ocean, which looked so entirely different from anything I had imagined when enjoying the comfortable altitude of the freighter’s deck. We were so low in the water that each succeeding swell cut off our view of the skyline. Some small realization of the forces against us began to seep in as we surveyed the endless miles of water around us. When the Captain gave orders for the sail to be hoisted, I could hardly contain my joy. The sail filled out and the boat leaped forward, our hearts and hopes with her.

5

THE sun began to shine more strongly and we lifted our faces gratefully to it. There was activity in the stern sheets. We were to have our first rations! Interest quickened. Those who had managed to doze shook themselves and yawned amicably. Here, at last, was something for all to do.

We were to feed twice a day, at 10.00 A.M. and at 5.00 P.M. We were all given a tiny cube of chocolate, about three quarters of an inch square, a couple of hard biscuits, and, most precious of all, our water ration, consisting of two ounces from a measuring cup.

Eager as I was for my portion, I found it hard to reconcile myself to drinking out of that dingy enameled mug, chipped and stained as it was, with its clanking metal chain attached to it. I watched it raised eagerly to a dozen mouths. Then it was my turn. Somehow I had imagined it would be cool and fresh. The stale, tepid water was a disappointment. I tried to ignore the black hairs and bits of dark fluff floating in it. But even as I handed back the mug, I began to realize how great my thirst had become, and how little those few drops had done to quench it.

The full force of the midday sun beat down on us.

Nature did have one consolation for us — one physical function practically ceased. Word got about that a mouthful of salt water would act as a purge. Some of the more fearful tried it with the desired result, but most were content to wait, and we even learned to submit to the distressing cramps that racked our bodies.

Even with this problem disposed of, the function of urinating still remained. The first time the bucket appeared, I gritted my teeth and told myself not to be a fool. But the sound of that bucket being used by thirty-four men in turn was almost more than I could bear. It brought home to me my sex.

I felt desperately alone and different.

All the time I was trying to smother what I knew could not be escaped. “I shall have to use that bucket myself.” Impossible. It just can’t be done.

I dismissed both the thought and the urge. Hours passed.

At the next turn of the bucket, in spite of myself, my resolve deepened never to use it. Then I set to and tried to break that resolve. I reasoned and coaxed. I assumed an indifference I could not maintain. I tried to frighten myself. I bullied and nagged. But it was useless to rail against the Victorian doctrines that had changed a simple function of nature into something associated with shame.

More hours passed, and so it went on until the urge became so great that nothing mattered. When the ordeal was over, I told myself that it had not been so bad. I comforted myself with the thought that, once the first was over, it should prove purely a matter of routine. But each time the struggle repeated itself, and I died a hundred deaths of shame and misery, despising myself for being unable to adapt myself to what, in theory, seemed so simple.

6

WE HAD been about four days out. A growing discontent pervaded the boat. The men were contradicting each other over trifles. As if by magic the quarreling stopped when a plane came in sight. She was smaller than any mosquito, but there she was. Unbelievable but true.

“Break out the Coston gun,” snapped the Captain’s voice, harsh with suppressed excitement.

Willing hands passed it quickly to Mr. Carter, the third mate. He unpacked the necessary flares and rockets. The Captain ordered the signal flag to be triced up to the masthead. It was a large bunting flag, about eight feet by five, of the bright yellow which has been found to be more visible on the water than any other color. Willing hands bent to carry out his command; but the flag was rotten. A few tattered shreds waved feebly in the breeze, but for the rest, it drooped uselessly.

The disappointed eyes doubled back on the activity in the stern. Mr. Carter fired the rockets from the Coston pistol, and they showered in the sky. Then our tiny parachute flare opened high in the heavens, a brave little symbol of all our hopes. The flare burned brightly as it slowly descended.

By then the plane was the size of a wasp. She droned steadily on. As it roared slowly across the sky, there was no wavering in the plane’s purpose. Reluctantly Mr. Carter put back the third flare he was about to release. The men stared after her with unseeing eyes, still expecting the hideous mistake to be rectified. Surely that could not fail to happen before she disappeared! Soon it was difficult to tell which speck was the plane.

The clouds gathered quickly above us. It seemed a fitting finale to our crushed spirits that a squall should break. The rain lashed down on our unheeding faces, and no one thought of his thirst.

“Don’t look now, but your slip is showing.” The voice seemed to come from another world.

I found that my slip had dropped so that its hem was around my ankles. Wet though it was, my legs were so numb I had not even felt it. I could feel myself blush, however, a thing I hadn’t done over more distressing incidents. That slip, covered with oil, grimy from the fumes of the explosion, was enough to make any woman blush. I dragged it off as best I could.

There was trouble in the bow. Quarrels were beginning to break out like ugly boils. Our aching limbs and cramped positions, with enforced proximity, left no room for tempers to blow over; and our position in the boat placed us too far from the seat of authority in the stern for much, if any, discipline.

At first I had been incredulous, but I was beginning to realize that a note of jealousy over me had crept in. It was ridiculous, preposterous. There I was — oil-covered, disheveled, my hair hanging like dank seaweed over my eyes.

Reaching up, I felt my hair. It was stiff with oil and sea water, and I tried to forget that someone had been sick over it that first night out.

I held my hands out in front of me. I shuddered at the thick coating of black oil under and around my nails, and took stock of my feet instead. They were about as bad, although slightly cleaner, through being awash in the bilge most of the time. They were fairly swollen by then.

But the night before, one of them had kissed me. The very thought of it infuriated me. I had felt more astonishment than anger at the time, but by now I was impotent with rage. There was nothing I could do or say. I was too fearful of starting fresh quarrels.

7

NEVER had I guessed that night itself could be so dense in its blackness. Even on the darkest night in the blackout aboard ship, the deck was always there. The solidity and flatness of it beneath my feet penetrated my brain and printed its reality there. But in that frail craft where our feet swung in space white we clung precariously to the narrow bench, we seemed to be hurled out into nothingness.

Even now, with a comfortable interval between us and the night when the submarine had surfaced so startlingly in our path, I found myself still cringing inwardly at the fear of running into something in that blackness. My eyes ached from staring into it, and the muscles of my neck were taut from the dread of preparing for some impact.

“Is that woman there?” It was Mac’s voice I could hear above the noise of the gale.

“Tell him I’m all right,” I begged.

Mac started in again, “Gol darn it! I’ve been a seaman for twenty years. I’ve no use for women, but I’ll not stand for one sitting out there in this weather.”

“I’m O.K., really I am,” I protested.

But it was useless. Mac went on: “I’ve no use for women” — he wanted everyone to be quite clear about that— “but she can’t spend the night out there.”

Like a bale of hay, I was handed and dragged from man to man. The tiny splash canvas over the bow already had six men crowded under its waterlogged roof. I was shoved in among them like a last pair of shoes jammed into an already overflowing suitcase. I could not protest. They were doing their best for me.

Seas breaking over the top of the canvas collected there, and the weight of the water became so heavy that our heads were forced between our knees. My cheekbones felt bruised with the pressure of my knees. The weight of water bowed our shoulders.

The man on lookout stood on the tarpaulin above me, his heel pressing into my spine. I cried out a protest when his foot reached my neck, but it couldn’t be heard above the din of the storm and the shouts of the men as they argued in executing orders.

For what seemed hours, I endured my position under the canvas. The stench from the bilge below was unbearable. A crazy fear seized me, the nearest to claustrophobia I have ever felt. The boat would capsize, trapping us like rats under the canvas where we were jammed.

“God Almighty, let me out of here!” I yelled.

No one heeded me. I began to feel faint.

I could stand it no longer and, pummeling the knee of the man next me, I insisted, “I have got to get out of here!”

He ignored me.

Dizzily I felt myself pitching forward and fought the faintness that swept me. When the lookout man changed watch, I seized my opportunity. MacQueen slipped in beside me.

“Mac, I know I’m a nuisance, but I’ve got to get out of here.”

“Aw, fer crying out loud,” he fumed.

But somehow the urgency in my voice must have convinced him that I would stand anything rather than be confined like that. Grudgingly he made room for me to edge past him.

“Oh, this is wonderful,” I gasped, taking great lungfuls of fresh, untainted air.

In spite of the biting wind, I felt better. The rain came down more heavily than before, but I was no longer conscious of being wet, I no longer felt any pain. I could just feel with my deadened fingers that my skin was shrunken and shriveled.

A fresh burst of sea struck us with the boom of cannon fire. We reeled under its impact. One man started from sleep, though how he had slept through that gale only God knew. “We’ve been hit. We’ve been hit,” he muttered frantically. It was all his neighbors could do to restrain him as he scrabbled for the side. I tried to laugh with the others, but my face was stiff with cold as though my jaw had been injected with novocain.

The rain never lot up all that night. Nor did the men’s cursing. We had reached a new low in our powers of endurance. So they cursed. They cursed the Navy, the Navy officers. They cursed the submarine, its commander, the Nazis. They cursed the steamship company, the rain, the war; and women — women in general and women as passengers who didn’t have the sense to stay home.

8

THE interminable days wore on. At times we were almost comatose with apathy and thirst, rousing ourselves at intervals to watch the incidents of life in the boat or to accept our rations. The knowledge that it was only a fantasy, that more and more passengers seemed to be crowding on, and that the boat was growing smaller and smaller, did nothing to mitigate our discomfort.

Mac and Kearney continued to stand at night with the patient endurance of cart horses. They would sway to and fro on the ropes, cursing and swearing, wisecracking and kidding each other with a cheerfulness at which I never ceased to marvel.

Kearney was a haggard Scot. He was a tough old salt, the oldest man in the boat, but he had more guts than most of them. In spite of his love for his native land, Kearney loathed and despised the British. He was an American citizen. For all our motley origins, all of us were, except three Canadians.

Early one evening we watched with indifference a pale finger of light sweep across the horizon and dip out of sight with a regularity which we did not comprehend.

Yet we couldn’t take our eyes off it. No one dared mention the significance of that unvarying rise and fall. It was easier to smother our speculations than run the awful risk of letting them rush headlong into the treacherous realm of hope.

We continued to be unconcerned, although hope was already beginning to penetrate our shell again. We were still in the boat. We still had a little water. Sometimes we even slept. What if it was an island — who cared?

As the night darkened, the pale finger waxed into a hard bar of gold that cut ruthlessly into our complacent apathy. Aw, the hell with it. Yeah, we see it, but we’re O.K. Leave us alone. We’re getting on swell. We can take it. What if it is a lighthouse? We believe it. So what?

Next morning all doubts were banished by a line, pencil-thick, that lay along the horizon. It was land, all right. But our water ration at ten o’clock still loomed larger than any far-off portent, however definite. We drank reverently. No perfidious thought of unlimited water to come detracted from the value of what we had now.

The day dragged tediously as the line thickened. Seeing was believing. I had no time for silly rumors, and I brushed aside Mac’s information that the Captain’s orders were a full mug apiece. When the mug finally came to rest in my hands, I asked no questions, but sluiced it down faster than my constricted throat could deal with it. The effect on us was almost instantaneous. It went to our heads like wine.

I looked at the land with a beginning of interest. Cottages, stone walls, and trees were plainly visible. A patchwork quilt of what we judged to be sugar fields spread itself across the hills. We could see surf pounding on the beaches and in the coves. But not a sign of life. Empty roads bordered the fields, and nothing moved on the deserted island.

I harassed Mac with questions about the topography of Barbados and Martinique. It was reassuring to hear him explain that Barbados was the most likely landfall consistent with the prevailing wind and currents. But I pestered him at intervals for fresh confirmation.

9

A SQUALL burst on us as the last of the daylight went. We huddled down to endure it, forgetting the promise of land. Tomorrow might bring that delirious dream, but now we knew only that our throats ached, and that we were cold and wet. A few protracted rays of the sinking sun were caught in a window of one of the cottages. It stared back at us unwinking, incommunicable, the last thing to gleam and die.

Blind rollers betrayed the proximity of reefs, uncharted and menacing. The knowledge of what lay below the surface — or rather, the lack of knowledge — turned the night into one fraught with danger. The boundless space of the open sea now seemed a haven.

There was nothing more the Captain could do but endeavor to navigate the boat round the north point and get to the leeward side of the island, far enough out to clear the protruding reefs, yet maintain a position where the boat could be rowed ashore as the wind died out.

Meanwhile Sparks came forward with a flash in each hand and took up his position beside the man on lookout. He braced his back against the mast, and with one foot on the thwart and the other on the port gunwale, he set to work. The flashlights cut silver tunnels into the streaming rain as they blinked out their urgent appeal.

It was frustrating to witness all that effort being poured out with no response. At first we waited expectantly. We felt that it was only a question of persevering, that at any moment an answering light would wink out of the night. Sparks worked on, silently and doggedly, blinking out his distress signals. In the stern the officers sent up rockets at two-hour intervals, each one galvanizing us afresh to new hope. We sat bathed in the red glow from the flare, and the bloodstained sea turned to a nightmare of danger as despair crept back. Sparks worked away steadily until the Captain told him to abandon any further attempts.

“Helluva lousy reception,” commented Mac.

“Just like those goddamned Limeys,” growled Pat.

I blazed with indignation, but said nothing. I was in the throes of divided loyalty, the penalty of having dual nationality. I had had my British passport in my own right since I was sixteen, yet I had never forfeited my American citizenship. I have always felt allegiance to both countries. Whenever hostile remarks are made about the other country, I have found myself growing hot in defense of the disparaged one. Smoldering at the injustice of their comments, I snapped at them, “Damn it all, these are supposed to be United States-patrolled waters.”

It made no difference. They were going to grouse at the Limeys, and I could like it or not. I listened to the outburst, trying to find some justification for their grouses against the British. It was absorbing to notice the different note in their voices when they cursed the British and when they cursed the Nazis.

It was a sort of scornful, indulgent patronage they had for the British, but it was cold loathing for the Nazis and their kind. One was a family affair. That was it! They were fuming the way a man will over family troubles; but let an outsider say a word against his family, and beware of recriminations! I began to relax as I came to understand the difference.

All that night the squalls blew up in dreary succession. The Captain’s peremptory command that each man was to wear his life belt throughout the night did nothing to ease our fears. None of us mentioned it, but I think most of us felt that our chances of surviving the night were small. It was as though my thoughts had been read when someone addressed me: “How far can you swim?”

I tried to answer as casually as though he had asked how many cigarettes I smoked a day. The men were discussing the tide, the currents, and the best way of approaching the shore if we had to swim for it. No one spoke of the white lines cutting the water around us.

10

IT WAS light just before six o’clock. Still no sign of life on the island. The indigo humps of land rose out of the sea with peaceful indifference.

Far off there was a muffled roar. I wondered if it were another symptom of weakness. The roar grew deafening. From around the point a boat raced at us. I felt sick with excitement and closed my eyes. I had the illusion that I was tearing through a subway in some mighty express train. After ten night s of nothing but the sound of the wind and the waves and our flight through the water, the noise was overpowering. I trembled under the impact of sound.

When I opened my eyes there was only a deepthroated gurgle coming from a motor torpedo boat as she coasted swiftly alongside. Her machine guns were trained on us.

A pink-faced officer of the British Navy, dazzling in the whiteness of his uniform, hailed us. “How long have you been out?” The South Downs of Sussex flowed behind his voice.

The boat towered above us like a leviathan. A rope ladder was flung over the side. Some of the boys scrambled forward. They couldn’t get off fast enough. I sat where I was.

It had all happened so quickly. One minute we were alone with several hours between us and the deserted shore. The next thing that enormous craft from another world was towering over us, her crew directing their energies to getting us aboard. I couldn’t take it in. I shrank into myself, feeling something of the bewilderment of old age watching the increasing pace of the next generation.

Faster, faster.

Someone called out, “Let the woman off first.”

I wondered why they had stopped and why they were looking at me. Someone gave me a kindly nudge. “Go on. Off you go.”

I didn’t want to move. It was so much easier just to sit there. But they were waiting. Carefully, as though I were made of glass, I slid off the bench into the bilge, dragged myself up to the port gunwale, and stood. I felt exasperated with my knees. They no longer seemed to have any connection with my body. My ankles were like jelly. My feet didn’t belong to me. My eyes traveled up the length of the rope ladder. Six rungs. I stood there considering it.

“Go on,” someone urged impatiently in my ear.

I was feeling lightheaded. It would have been easier for a seal to have climbed that ladder. My feet were as much use as flippers. An arm reached for me from above. I had forgotten anything could feel so strong.

The deck, so flat and solid, spread out before me in a rhapsody of space. It made me dizzy to watch the crew hustling around. If only they wouldn’t move so fast.

“Perhaps you would prefer to go below?”

I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I tried to smile my thanks to the elegant young man with the pink face, but the struggle to make my unruly feet behave took all my attention.

We stood above the great well of the companionway. The black and white checked linoleum, with its brass binding, rose up with a rush and receded to a sickening depth.

“Can you manage?”

“Yes, I’m all right,” I answered as steadily as I could. I hadn’t realized how hoarse my throat had become. It came out like a croak against the velvet of his enunciation.

I looked sideways at my escort. He was not only immaculate: he was handsome as a Greek god. He didn’t seem to find anything wrong with the steps.

I put my other foot down. It swung giddily through space. Again the miracle happened. A jar that shook my whole body told me I had found the next step. I took the next steps at a rush and teetered down the remaining three.

“Steady there!”

We’d made it.. It was a big moment. I looked back up to the top step and marveled at the height from which we had come. Yet from where I stood my eyes were level with the topmost step. I looked down at my feet. I couldn’t sort them out. after the battle with the stairs.

There was still another obstacle: the coaming leading into the cabin. It surged the way the steps had done, its brass gleaming wickedly at me.

How was I ever going to get my foot over that? I lifted one as high as it would go and stubbed my bare toes. I could feel that, all right! I tried the other foot with the same result, and finally stood up on the threshold and took it in two separate steps.

“How about some tea?” Apollo asked me. It was all a golden dream. I didn’t care if he was fooling. “And a cigarette? Just make yourself at home.” He was gone and I was alone.

Alone! The dark green curtain stared back impersonally. I sat down on the edge of the bunk, gripping the edges hard. I was alone. Alone. Alone. Alone. I kept saying it over. The curtains swayed with the motion of the boat. We were moving.

There was a basin in one corner. My eyes went incredulously over the faucets marked HOT and COLD. I was unable to take in the import of what they stood for. On a shelf over the basin stood a razor, a shaving brush, cream, a familiar yellow tube of tooth paste. I wanted to get up and finger all those things, to feel them again; to smooth my hand across the pillow, to feel the dryness of it. But I sat there congealed in dirt and clung to the edge of the bunk.

11

THE engines revved up with a deafening roar and throttled down. Time stood still. The silence trembled with an unearthly peace. I pulled myself up and looked in the mirror, the inevitable gesture of a woman on reaching her destination.

I put my hand up to my cheek. It was baked dry and leathery. I half expected to look like a prune. The mirror told me I was not far wrong. My eyes receded in their sockets, the whites stared back, the only clean thing about me. “It is land, it is land, it is land.” It didn’t matter that I was still braced for disappointment and didn’t really believe it.

A scuffling overhead told me the boys must be getting off. A sudden fear of being left behind made me grope my way after them like a sheep. I found the steps easier going up.

We shuffled off in silence. To the onlooker we must have been a miserable-looking crowd. No one could have guessed we were transfigured with glory.

We had learned a healthy respect for the sea, but with each new step we took on land we were shot through with awe and triumph at the wonder of our survival, conscious that we had passed through our tribulation, that it was over. Even I, who had played no part in that valiant conquest of the sea, felt drunk with power as we wove our way uncertainly across the swaying docks.

A throng of curious bystanders kept a tactful distance, but it was distressing to be so exposed, to be stared at so avidly. They were the usual crowd that gathers from nowhere to look at the accident case in the street. We made a straggling procession into the twilight of the custom shed. Inside, it seemed vast and enduring as a cathedral.

A woman in uniform hurried toward me. “I’m sorry, I had no idea —” she began. She led me to a luggage platform, where I sat. Leaving me there, she called back after her, “I’m bringing you something hot.”

I tried to think how something hot would taste, but I couldn’t remember. Instead, I clung to the edge of the platform, which was rocking furiously. When I found I could brace my feet against the floor it was better. I pushed down hard and could feel the blood coursing through them. I thought of nothing beyond the way they throbbed.

An Englishman was telling me something about a “cahh.” Some of the boys came up, and we tried to talk. So formal and polite were they, I scarcely knew them. Gone was the easy comradeship of the boat. We chatted like strangers. The waiting seemed endless. I was cold, and all my being and my future were centered on thoughts of a hot bath.

One of the girls in uniform came up. “We didn’t expect any women, but perhaps you’ll make use of my things.” She held out a box of face powder. I laughed, thinking of the mask its delicate tint would make against my skin.

She nodded sympathetically. “How about my comb? It’s a good strong one.” I dug its teeth into the matted tangle and pulled. It came away, leaving several teeth behind.

“That’s quite all right,” she assured me; then tried once more, “This might help.” It was a lipstick she offered me. I shook my head. My lips were cracked and swollen.

“You look all right,” she lied kindly.

The Englishman came back about the “cahh.” It was ready. I followed him, wishing my good Samaritan would come back and help me to walk again. The man opened the door of the car for me. I crawled in. The car chuffed through the narrow streets at a snail’s pace.

“Got to go easy on petrol, what with a war on.” I had not forgotten.

We went on through the crowded, narrow streets until we turned into a courtyard and came to a standstill. I undid my stiff limbs and stepped out onto a cobbled square, five centuries old. The white-washed walls enclosing it had narrow barred slits. H. M. PRISONS boldly proclaimed itself around an arch as with a blare of trumpets. The crests of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, were brightly caught in the sun.

A cordial good-morning greeted me from above and I looked up to see a pleasant-faced woman coming down a flight of steps leading from a bungalow smothered under bougainvillea.

“Please come this way,” she invited.

My heart sank as I looked to the top of the steps on which she stood. But they were comfortable steps, worn and hollowed by generations of bare feet. My toes pressed into the dry warmth of the whitewash. It was good to feel with them. I was bursting in ant icipation of the bath. They wouldn’t have been able to make it hot enough or deep enough for me, I decided.

A telephone pealed. I had forgotten about them, too. She went off to answer and came into the room a minute later to inquire if I were Mrs. Batch, It seemed the doctor was ready to see Mrs. Kitch.

I hoped devoutly that he would go on looking for someone who would fit the name. I didn’t want to see a doctor. I wanted a bath. I did not coöperate.

She went away and came back. But the telephone was waiting. Was I the lady from the lifeboat?

Yes. I was from the boat. I might quibble about my description. Some lady. But it seemed I could no longer hide behind a name.

More waiting.

The doctor came. He was kind. He examined me deftly and asked only the most essential questions; for the rest he was mercifully silent. He seemed to know it was not easy to talk. He paid special attention to my feet. I was in pretty good shape, was his verdict. He gave me explicit instructions about starting to eat and drink, but I had no interest in either.

I harped on the bath, and he smiled reassuringly. “You’ll get it,” he promised.

12

I WENT back to the protesting chair. Closing my eyes, I abandoned myself to its violent motion. I could hear the doctor telephoning in the next room. It was something about a bath. If only I could keep my chair down on that heaving floor, I should know better what it was all about.

He came in, looking pleased. “We’ll soon have you fixed up. Mrs. Williams is coming for you.”

I flinched. I didn’t want any Mrs. Williams. What I wanted was a — I was getting difficult.

“Good,” I said despondently. I went on fighting the chair.

My hostess came in to tell me that Mrs. Williams had come for me. The doctor was waiting at the top of the stairs. We went down slowly and elaborately.

In the courtyard a few of the boys from the boat were standing in line. It made me mad.

“Don’t people know what it’s like? Why aren’t they in bed!” I fumed at the doctor.

“Well, there are a lot of you, you know, and we have to find accommodation for all of you in this small island,” he explained gently.

My sense of proportion began to clear. The world had not been standing still, waiting to receive us.

An impeccably dressed woman in cool gray linen came forward. I writhed. I hated having to be looked at again. She’d be some hoity-toity official’s wife who would talk down to me. She’d say, “My dear. It must have been frightful. You know what I mean, with all those men”

“ I’m sorry I lost you,” Mrs. Williams was saying, “but I had to go on duty in the casualty ward. Then I dashed home to change and get Mother’s car for you. Gives you room to stretch out.”

I looked at Mrs. Williams again. She was my good Samaritan.

The car glided smoothly through the traffic. I sat in a daze of contentment while she explained about the bath. We were on our way to her brother’s house. It seemed they had one.

“Then I’ll leave you at the Herberts’ — that’s my brother and his wife — while I see if I can’t find you a room somewhere.”

I swallowed hard at the prospect of “a room somewhere,” wishing I had time to collect myself, but the car was already turning in through an iron gateway.

One of the tallest men I have ever seen came down the steps to greet us. He waved his hands expressively, and the word “bath” hit me two or three times; but for the rest I couldn’t gather what it was all about.

His wife came down quietly behind him. She had a grave, sweet expression, but there was no gleam of recognition in her eye. We were strangers. She was not the good Samaritan I already knew. I wanted to cling to Mrs. Williams.

The bathroom was all that I dreamed of. The tub was green and square. The shining fixtures gleamed brightly with promise. The bathtub was full almost to the top, and the water overflowing through the waste pipe trickled with a sound of plenty and more to spare.

Mrs. Herbert supported me as I stepped into my heart’s desire. The water was stone-cold. My foot rebounded like a scalded cat.

She seemed to understand. “Too cold?”

She wrapped me in a towel and we stood considering the problem. It was some consolation that I didn’t have to protest about the cold water. She went off, and I rocked away on the edge of the tub, finally descending to the floor so that I could hang on better.

Sooner than I had dared hope, she returned with a kettle of water, followed by a smiling Barbadian maid who bore a steaming jug. Before I could stop them, they had emptied both into the engulfing tub of cold. I didn’t have to touch it to know how tepid it would feel.

Life in the boat was not so complicated as this, I thought helplessly, wondering if I could risk offending my hostess by not gett ing into it. My decision was made. I would stick out for the hot bath or hang on to my cloak of dirt.

The bath, when I did get into it, proved an anticlimax. It was shallow and only tepid, but by that time we were laughing over it, and I had thawed out sufficiently under the warming thoughtfulness of my new friends so that the bath had ceased to be the be-all and end-all of my existence.

To make up for it, I had three baths, all in succession. The second was almost as black as the first. I insisted, too, on washing my hair. During the first two tubs it would not lather, but after the third I began to feel somewhat cleaner and so exhausted that it was easy to lower my standards.

When, finally, I was ready to take my leave of the bathroom, Mrs. Herbert said gently, “After all those baths, you really ought to lie down for a bit, and, as you’re here, you might as well have breakfast.”

That was but the beginning of endless kindness. I felt giddy with delight as they led me along a corridor toward a darkened room at the end.

A crisply made bed yawned invitingly at me, and I crawled gratefully between the sheets. It was unbelievably soft, and I sank into the billowy depths, baffled and helpless in the unaccustomed comfort. I felt as though I were drowning in a vast marshmallow. I should have been more at home on the floor, but I felt a little more secure when I had sought and found the iron bar supporting the springs beneath the mattress; to this I clung while the downy billows surged around me, and I held fast to the firm, unyielding edge of the bed with the limpetlike qualities we had all developed in the past ten days.