Читать книгу The Scarlet Stripe--being the adventures of a naval surgeon - Henry Taprell Dorling - Страница 7

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MY impressions of what happened during the evening are very blurred and indistinct, for events followed each other so rapidly and I had so much to think about that I lost all sense of time and sequence. Moreover, my wrist-watch stopped when I subsequently found myself swimming about in the water.

It must have been at about seven o’clock, however, when the steward had reported our evening meal ready and I was in my cabin washing my hands, that I heard men shouting and running about on deck. I whipped on my coat and cap and made for the door; but before I got there I was flung backwards by the ship giving a sudden heavy lurch.

It is rather difficult to describe it. It felt as if a giant had taken a running kick at her with an iron-shod boot, or had belted her with a huge hammer. She shook and shuddered and quivered, and simultaneously with the shock there came the muffled, tearing thud of a heavy explosion. The sound was in no sense sharp or ear-shattering like the report of a gun; but it didn’t need that to tell me we had been torpedoed. The detonation of about 400 lb. of high explosive alongside a small ship like the Parham is felt far more than in a big vessel like a liner or a battleship.

I felt half-dazed, very confused, and unhappy, rather as if I had suddenly woken up in a bed ashore to find the house tumbling down over my head. I remember picking myself up from the floor, cramming a few oddments into my pockets, and then making my way on deck. It is peculiar how one behaves on the spur of the moment in an emergency when one isn’t really thinking. Among the useless things I afterwards found in my pockets were a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a tin of talcum powder!

On reaching the deck I noticed the ship was heeling over to starboard and very much down by the bows. She had, indeed, been torpedoed forward. There was a crowd of men on the fore well-deck and more were coming aft from the forecastle. One or two were being carried, and realising I might be of some use I went down the ladder towards them. I seem to remember that at this time one of our boats, all of which were amidships abaft the bridge, was being lowered with men in her, though of this I can’t really be certain. Also, I recollect looking hurriedly out to starboard without seeing any signs of a submarine or her periscope.

Climbing down the slippery iron ladder I went forward towards the group of men. Some of them were laughing at one fellow who was dyed bright vermilion almost from head to foot. I thought at first it was blood until I noticed that the colour was all wrong and heard the chap’s blasphemy as he tried to scrape the stuff out of his eyes and mouth. It appeared that he had been mixing a drum of liquid red-lead when the explosion took place almost beneath and sprayed the beastly stuff all over him.

It was about the only thing we found to laugh at, however, for another poor fellow had a broken leg and two more were badly smashed up. Realising that the ship might sink and that it was useless to take them below, I told the bearers to put them down on the deck and sent some one off for a first-aid bag, splints, and dressings.

I don’t know how long I took doing what I could for those three injured. It may have been five minutes, ten, or even twenty. But I was just shoving a morphia tablet into the mouth of one of them and was telling him to keep it under his tongue and not to swallow it, when there came another thundering, deafening crash which seemed to compress the air. The ship appeared to lift bodily and shake herself.

I was on my knees at the time and looked aft over my shoulder to see a huge column of whitish-grey water, mingled with black smoke or coal-dust, go shooting up into the air from our starboard side abreast of the engine-room. I watched it, fascinated, as it mounted up for fully a hundred feet. Then it curled over, hung for a moment, and seemed to quiver before crashing down with the noise of a mighty waterfall. We were all fairly drenched.

I remember hearing the men’s startled ejaculations, and thinking to myself that this was the end of us. Some one from the bridge shouted, ‘Abandon ship!’ I got hold of some fellows to carry the injured to the boats.

But there was no time to do anything. The ship, still shuddering, seemed to fling herself over on her side until the starboard edge of her deck was under water. The sort of zareba-like erection on that side of the well-deck, our dummy deck cargo of timber, had been flung all over the place by the first torpedo, some of it on deck, some into the sea. I managed to clutch one of the injured men with the idea of trying to help him to safety, but the very next moment the ship tilted still further over and slid us both down the iron deck into the sea. I could not be certain, for I had no time to look; but I think that by this time the Parham’s bows were practically under water, if not wholly submerged.

I caught my knee a frightful crack as I went overboard with the man in my arms. I went right under the water for an instant and let go of my man so that I could swim. There was plenty of timber in the sea, and bobbing up alongside a short baulk I managed to get it under my arms. The fellow I had tried to save broke surface near me. He was gasping and spluttering and I managed to grab him by the collar. The bit of wood gave ample flotation for us both.

The poor chap was dazed, but finding his breath he kept on asking me: “Will we be all right, sir?”

I said: “Of course we will! Kick out if you can. Let’s get away from the ship. We’ll find a boat presently.”

I was thinking of what I had always heard of the suction created by a sinking ship. I didn’t dare look round for fear of what I might see, and had an awful vision of the ship rolling over on top of us, and dragging us to the bottom entangled in the rigging. That, or the suction, or wreckage shooting up from below when she sank, seemed the immediate dangers, so I kicked out with my feet and persuaded my companion to do the same. He wasn’t much use, poor chap.

We carried three largish lifeboats, so far as I can remember, barely sufficient to accommodate all our officers and men, and then only with a tight squeeze. One boat was already in the water, for I could see her about forty yards away with some men in her. They were pulling others out of the sea. I tried to attract their attention, but they were far too busy to worry about us. There seemed to be dozens of men swimming about, and I could see no signs of other boats.

While I swam, I remember wondering what would become of us, myself in particular. The last time I had looked at the chart, soon after tea, we were well over a hundred miles from the nearest land. It seemed unlikely in the extreme that I should ever reach terra firma on a baulk of wood.

Should we be picked up?

This depended upon what other ships were in our vicinity, and whether our people had managed to get off a wireless signal asking for help. That I had no means of knowing.

I realised that our prospects were anything but rosy. Some submarines had a habit of coming to the surface and machine-gunning survivors in the water. I hoped fervently that our submarine commander was one of the more humane kind. Even so, we might be left floating on the wreckage until we dropped off one by one from exhaustion to perish by drowning. What did it feel like to drown?

What a bloody, wasteful business war was. I wouldn’t have minded being cleanly and decently killed in action; but where was the sense or justice in drowning us by slow degrees? I felt rather exasperated. I wasn’t conscious of having done harm to any one.

The ship must have sunk without so much as a gurgle, for when I looked round perhaps five or ten minutes later there were no signs of her at all. There was a bit of a swell from the south-west, which made it difficult to see much with my head only just above the surface; but when I was lifted for a moment I could see the water covered with wreckage and the heads of swimmers. The boat was still busy picking up people.

Fifty yards away from me, in the place where the ship had sunk, another boat floated bottom up. A boat, even a capsized one, offered more security than a piece of timber, and, encouraging my companion to fresh efforts, I turned round and started to paddle towards it. As we slowly approached, I saw some other men swimming in the same direction. That was all to the good. With any luck, we might be able to right her and bale her out.

All the same, we stood a pretty poor chance. We were over a hundred miles from the land. What about water and food; compass, masts, and sail; oars and rudder, and all the necessary things to sustain life and to propel ourselves in case we were not rescued?

The sea, thank heaven, was not unduly cold, though it was hardly the temperature for voluntary bathing. My clothes, for I still had everything on, made swimming rather difficult, though I think they helped to keep me warm.

I didn’t much like the look of the weather, however. Sunset would not come for an hour or more; but there were heavy, leaden-looking clouds banked up on the western horizon. They seemed to presage wind, and plenty of it. An Atlantic gale was the last thing we wanted, though I rather prayed for wind from the right direction—a breeze from the west or south-west that would blow us towards the land, instead of away from it.

After what seemed an eternity, eight or nine of us, of whom I was the only officer, were hanging on to that overturned boat and holding a sort of mothers’ meeting as to how to get her right side up. Some were for doing one thing and some another, while at least three were past caring.

Old Bingo, the dog, was there too, still looking very sick and sorry for himself after his unholy forenoon meal of condensed milk and pickles. Some one had hoisted him on to the more or less flat bottom of the boat for safety, where, hanging on with his claws, with his tongue hanging out, a wild look in his eye, and his sandy-coloured hair all plastered to his peculiar-shaped body, he looked less like a dog than ever.

God only knows who Bingo’s father and mother were, poor old hound! We had wanted a dog to give ourselves an air of verisimilitude as a tramp steamer, and Bingo fitted the rôle to a nicety. One of our men had picked him up in a pub. in Devonport for half-a-crown and a pint of beer, and one can’t expect a pedigree for that. All the same, he was a likeable beast, and dogs always appeal to me. The more pathetic they look the better.

We were still arguing as to how the boat should be righted when we saw the submarine’s conning-tower break surface about 600 yards away. We stopped doing anything to watch what she would do, and at that moment we must all have been thinking the same thing.

The game was in her hands. She had won. Would she do the dirty on us, or would she not?

We watched her anxiously as the conning-tower rose higher and higher out of the water and the long hull broke surface in a swirl of white water. Then the lid opened, and I saw men clambering out, one after the other. Some of them went forward to the gun on her fore-deck, and several seemed to have rifles.

Our other boat had drifted some distance away from us, and the U-boat moved towards her on the surface. Then she stopped, and our boat was called alongside. There was some confabulation; but no shooting. I saw two figures leave the boat and go on board the submarine, and knew what that meant. As there was no room in submarines for an unlimited number of prisoners, they generally contented themselves by taking as specimens the captain and the chief engineer of any ship sunk. They had evidently done so in this case.

What would they do to the rest of us?

I felt horribly anxious as I saw our boat shove off clear and the submarine go ahead at full speed and steam in our direction. For a moment or two I thought she was about to ram our overturned boat to destroy it; but when within a couple of hundred yards she suddenly swerved, and shot past us at a distance of little more than fifty feet. Her deck and conning-tower were crowded with men who had come up for an airing. They saw us all right, for they gesticulated and shouted derisively. If I had known any German I should have asked for some food and water, though I doubt very much if it would have been any use. I suppose, really, we were lucky to get off without being fired upon in the water. I had heard of submarine commanders who had done that, or was it exaggeration?

Anyhow, this particular U-boat—I could see no number on her conning-tower—steered off to the southward. Within ten minutes, by which time we were again busy about our boat, she was out of sight. I didn’t quite know whether to be glad or sorry.

Some more men came swimming towards us and, after a hard tussle, we eventually managed to get the boat right side up. Then, after making certain the plug was in and well hammered home, we proceeded to bale her out. That took a long time, for there was no bucket or proper baler. We had to use our sea-boots and an empty fruit tin we found in one of the stern lockers.

All our boats were properly provisioned when on board the ship, but most of the contents of this one had been spilled out when she capsized. There was a single 6-lb. tin of corned beef in a locker, a large air-tight case of ships’ biscuit lashed under one of the thwarts, and a 2-gallon wicker-covered rum jar of fresh water. I took these under my charge at once.

There was no rudder or boat’s compass; but two oars and a boathook still remained lashed to the thwarts. We managed to find another oar floating about in the water, and picked up several short pieces of timber which might be useful.

It was dusk by the time we got the boat moderately free of water and everybody on board. Counting myself there were twenty-three all told; twenty-three men and Bingo, the dog.

The other boat, on board of which were three officers and eight men under the command of the first lieutenant, came pulling towards us. We held a consultation as to what had better be done, and arranged to stick together during the night. We also went into the matter of water and provisions, but she was no better off than we were for the number of men on board. However, we agreed to share and share alike if the worst came to the worst.

The captain and the second engineer had been made prisoners by the submarine, the first lieutenant told me, the poor old chief engineer having been killed or drowned with a good many men when the torpedo exploded in the engine-room. But one good bit of news he gave us was that a wireless signal had been got off after the first torpedo hit us. It had been answered by a destroyer, so provided we didn’t drift too far away from the spot in which the ship had sunk we had a fair chance of being saved next morning. The worst of it was we had no lanterns or fireworks to attract attention after dark.

The night came down as black as the inside of a cow. It had started to breeze up soon after sundown, and at what I should think was about ten o’clock, the swell began to break. We were wet through and chilled to the bone, and sat huddled together with our teeth chattering. It was the acme of misery.

I doled out a driblet of water to each man and a minute fragment of corned beef, together with half a ships’ biscuit. They wanted more water, poor chaps, and God knows, I did too. I had to talk to them like a Dutch uncle before they realised that we were properly up against it if help didn’t come in the morning.

I buoyed myself up with the hope that help would come. It must come.

The night passed slowly enough. Sometimes I found myself dozing off a little, only to wake up again with the uneasy jerky motion of the boat, or a whiff of spray splashing in my face. Old Bingo, who seemed to have taken a fancy to me, lay across my knees. I think we acted as each other’s hot-water bottles.

My clothes gradually dried on me; but I was stiff and sore and numb with cold when, at the first gleam of daylight low down on the eastern horizon, I staggered to my feet to look for the other boat. It was difficult to see at first, for it wasn’t properly light and the sea had risen, so that at one moment we were buried in a hollow, and the next were balanced on the top of a breaking sea.

The light grew and grew. The horizon became yellow, then pink, then vivid scarlet with the glow of the sunrise. Then the sun burst over that edge of the sea looking like a gigantic blood-orange, and every cloud in the sky became suffused and shot with rose colour and gold.

Magnificent though it was, however, I wasn’t noticing the sky. I was anxiously gazing round the whole three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon as the boat lifted on each successive breaking swell.

And at last, with a feeling almost of physical sickness, I realised the bitter truth. The other boat was nowhere to be seen. Somehow or other we had parted company during the night.

I searched the edge of the sea again for the hull or masts of a ship. The visibility was extreme but not a thing broke its monotony—not even the faintest pencil of smoke from some distant steamer.

We were alone in that horrible greeny-grey expanse flecked with white horses. We were over a hundred miles from the nearest shore—twenty-three of us, with something less than two gallons of water!

We had no mast and sail, and only three oars. We must improvise some sort of a sail if we wished to get anywhere.

Call it a hundred and twenty miles to the land to be on the safe side. Suppose, with what we could improvise in the way of a sail, we made good one knot in the right direction. That would mean one hundred and twenty hours—five days.

Two gallons of water, rather less in reality. But two gallons of water was eight quarts, or sixteen pints. Call it fifteen pints. That would mean three pints a day for the twenty-three of us. Was that sufficient to keep us alive? I doubted it.

I prayed for rain, but looking round the sky the light clouds, torn and fretted into streamers, seemed only to portend wind, and plenty of it.

Then it was that I felt utterly despondent.