The captain had the wrench in his hands, and was struggling to get the bomb off its clamp on the wall. ‘Get out!’ he shouted at the men who, three strong, were carrying the penultimate bomb from the magazine. ‘Get the hose! Flood the compartment! Flood it now!’ He had removed his mask to be better heard, and his voice was hoarse as he tried to speak and breathe.
‘Captain!’ yelled Green, though his mask. ‘Got to get out now.’
‘She’s not going up. Got to be safe.’
‘You can’t get them all off, sir. You don’t have time. We can flood it now.’
Afterwards, Green thought Highfield might not have heard him. He did not want to leave his skipper there, but he knew there was only so much a man could do before the need to keep the other men safe overrode his concern.
‘Start the flooding,’ Highfield was shouting. ‘Just go.’
He turned, and as he did so, he heard something fall. He threw his smoke helmet blindly towards the captain, hoping it would reach him, that somehow he would see it through the smoke. His heart heavy with foreboding, he was out, pushing his men before him.
Frances broke through the surface, her mouth a great O, her hair plastered over her face. She could hear voices, feel hands pulling at her, trying to heave her out of water so cold it had knocked the breath hard from her chest. At first the sea had not wanted to relinquish her: she felt its icy grasp on her clothes. And then she was flopping, gasping, on the floor of the little boat like a landed fish, retching as voices tried to reassure her, and a blanket swiftly wrapped round her shoulders.
Avice, she mouthed. And then as the salt sting in her eyes eased, she saw her being hauled like a catch over the other end of the cutter, her beauty-pageant dress slick with oil, her eyes closed tight against her future.
Is she all right? she wanted to ask. But an arm slid round her, pulled her in tightly. It did not release her, as she expected, but held on, so that she felt the closeness of this solid body, the intensity of its protection, and suddenly she had no words. Frances, a voice said, close by her ear, and it was dark with relief.
Captain Highfield was laid out on the flight deck by the two stokers who had carried him there. The men stood around him, hands thrust in pockets, some wiping sweat or soot from their faces, spitting noisily behind them. In the distance, under the dark skies, there were shouts of confirmation as different parts of the ship were deemed to have stopped burning.
It’s out, Captain, they told him. It’s under control. We did it. They half whispered these words as if unsure whether he could still hear them. There would be other conversations later, about how ill-judged it was for a man of his standing, of his age, to throw himself into the firefighting efforts in such a reckless manner. There would be nodded observations of how bad he was at delegating, how another captain might have stood back and seen the bigger picture. But many of his men would approve. They would think of Hart, and their lost mates, and wonder whether they wouldn’t have done the same.
But this was hours, days ahead. For now, Highfield lay there, oblivious to their words and reassurances. There was silence for a whole minute, as the men watched his slumped figure, still in his good dress uniform, wet and smoke-stained, eyes still fixed on some distant drama.
The men looked at him, and then, surreptitiously at each other. One wondered whether to summon the ship’s doctor, who was organising a sing-song among the occupants of the lifeboats below. Then Highfield raised himself on his elbow, his eyes bloodshot. He coughed once, twice more, and there was black phlegm on the deck. He moved his neck as if in pain. ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ he asked, voice gravelly, eyes full of fury. ‘Check every last bloody compartment. Then get the bloody women out of the bloody boats and back on bloody board.’
It took two hours to make the ship safe. The Spanish fishing vessels that passed by shortly before dawn, checking that those still waiting on the water did not need rescuing, would speak for years after of the lifeboats, full of women in brightly coloured evening dresses, their limbs arranged chaotically, singing ‘The Wild Rover No More’. They were linked, like some giant cobweb, by taut brown stockings, knotted together in lengths.
There were two marines to each lifeboat. The water slopped against the side of the cutters, buoying the discarded or torn hosiery, which floated like brown seaweed on the surface of the water. The women’s voices were low with relief and exhaustion as word spread that they would not have to spend much longer in the little vessels. That they, and their belongings, were safe.
He stared at her, and now, as Avice’s sleeping body rested limply against her own, still wrapped in the blanket, she stared back, past the stooped bodies of the other women, silent and unblinking, as if their eyes were connected by an invisible thread.
The captain was alive. The fires were out.
They were to re-embark.
22
Remember, the army will not send you to a destination unless it has been verified that ‘that man’ is there waiting. In short, consider yourself parcel-post delivery.
Advice contained in a booklet given to war brides
travelling aboard the Argentina, Imperial War Museum
Twenty-four hours to Plymouth
It was several hours before the temperature had cooled enough to check it, but it was pretty clear once the working party got down there that the centre engine room was beyond repair; the heat had melted pipework and welded rivets to the floor. The walls and hatches had buckled, and above it half of the seamen’s messes were gone, the decks above them warping so far with the heat that several gantries had toppled over. Other ratings had donated blankets and pillows so that those who had lost bunks and belongings could sleep in relative comfort in the forward hangar space. Nobody complained. Those who had lost treasured photographs and letters comforted themselves with the thought that within twenty-four hours they were likely to see in person the subjects of those precious keepsakes. Those who remembered Indomitable were simply relieved that no lives had been lost. If the war had taught them nothing else, it had taught them that.
‘Think you can limp into harbour?’
Highfield sat in the bridge, watching the grey skies clear to reveal patches of pure blue, as if in apology for the evening before. ‘We’re less than a day away. We’ve got one working engine. I don’t see why not.’
‘Sounds like the old girl suffered a bit.’ McManus’s voice was low. ‘And a little bird tells me you were a little too stuck in for comfort.’
Highfield dismissed thoughts of armament clamps and his raw throat. He took another swig of the honey and lemon that his steward had prepared for him. ‘Fine, sir. Nothing to worry about. The men . . . looked after me.’
‘Good man. I’ll take a look at your report. Glad you were able to bring it all under control – without frightening the ladies too much, I mean.’ His laugh echoed tinnily down the wire.
Highfield stepped out of the bridge, and stood on the flight deck. At the aft end, a row of men were making their way slowly along it, scrubbing off traces of the smoke that had filtered upwards, their buckets of grey, foaming water slopping as they went. They worked around the areas that had buckled, which were not safe to walk on. Several marines had been busy constructing barriers around them. The damage was visible, but it was all orderly. When they sailed into Plymouth, Highfield’s ship would be under control.
He had not lost a single one.
No one was close enough to hear the shaking breath that Highfield slowly let out as he turned to go back into the bridge. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
At least a hundred women had queued patiently by the main hatch since breakfast, waiting to be allowed back to their cabins. There had been hushed conversations about the state of their belongings, fears for cherished and carefully chosen arrival outfits now perhaps wrecked by water and smoke. Although there was no obvious damage on this deck, a brush against a wall or bunk left one with a shadow that revealed everything was veiled with a fine layer of soot. As they stood and talked, quieting for every piped instruction in case it heralded their being allowed in, more women drifted towards the queue.
Margaret, heavily pregnant and cumbersome as she was, tore through the hatch the minute it was opened, and was already in her cabin by the time the other brides had made it to the bottom of the stairwell. ‘Maudie! Maudie!’
The door had been open. She knelt down and peered under the two bottom bunks. ‘Maudie!’ she cried.
‘Have you tried the canteen? There’s a lot of them still up there.’ A WSO had stuck her head briefly round the door. Margaret turned and stared at her perplexed, until she realised the woman thought she was looking for another bride.
‘Maudie!’ She checked under every blanket, lifting bedrolls and tearing the sheets from the bunks in her desperation. Nothing. She was not in the beds, in any of the bags. She was not even in Margaret’s hat, traditionally her place of comfort.
Margaret was hit with the scale of the search ahead at the exact moment she heard the scream. She stood very still for a minute, and then, as someone else cried, ‘What on earth is it?’ she threw herself out of the door and lumbered down the passageway to the bathrooms.
Afterwards she thought she had probably known even before she got there. It was the only other place Maudie knew on the ship, the only other place she must have thought she might find Margaret. She stood in the doorway, staring at the girls gathered by the sinks. She followed their eyes to the little dog lying pressed against the back of the door, several dark streaks on the tiled wall where she must have tried to scrabble her way out.
Margaret stepped forward and fell to her knees on the damp floor. A great sob escaped her. The dog’s limbs were stiff, the body cold. ‘Oh, no. Oh, no.’
Margaret’s face crumpled like a child’s. She gathered the little dog’s body into her arms. ‘Oh, Maudie, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
She stayed there for some minutes, kissing the wet hair, trying to will the body into life, knowing that it was hopeless.
She did not actually cry, those watching reported, just sat, holding the dog, as if absorbing some great pain.
Eventually, at the point where the anxious glances around her became whispers, she peeled off her cardigan and folded the dog into it. Then, with a grunt, one hand on the smudged wall, she got to her feet. She held the bundle close to her, as one would hold a baby.
‘Would you . . . would you like me to fetch someone?’ A woman laid a hand on her arm.
She didn’t seem to hear.
Crying bitterly, Margaret walked back along the passageway, clasping her swaddled burden. Those who were not preoccupied with their own smoked belongings peered into it, curious about this baby’s identity.
An uneasy hush had descended on the ship. Those women returning to their cabins did not chatter with relief, even though the worst damage to anyone’s belongings had been a coating of soot. The night had shown them the precariousness of their position, and it had shaken them. The voyage was no longer an adventure. There was not one who wasn’t suddenly overwhelmed by an ache to be home. Whatever that turned out to be.
The WSO placed a hand under her arm as Frances lifted herself on to the bed, surprised by how tired that small act made her feel. The woman pulled a blanket over her, then made to adjust the other round her shoulders. The marine removed his own supporting arm, and let go of her hand with a hint of reluctance. She caught his eye and her exhaustion briefly disappeared.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, to the WSO. ‘Thank you, but really I am. I’d be just as good in my own bunk.’
‘Dr Duxbury says anyone who’s been in the water needs to spend a few hours under observation. You might have hypothermia.’
‘I can assure you I haven’t.’
‘Orders are orders. You’ll probably be out by teatime.’ The WSO moved to Avice’s bed, tucking in her blankets in a brisk, maternal gesture that reminded Frances suddenly of the hospital at Morotai. But they were in a side room off the infirmary, some kind of detergent store, Frances guessed, from the boxes around them and the pervasive smell of bleach. There were charts on the walls, with lists of supplies, and locked cabinets containing items that might be flammable. Frances shivered.