THE DAWN PATROL

CHAPTER 6 Conclusion

It was two minutes before we made it topside. The torpedo hit us amidships, and the way up was blocked by both twisted metal and desperate sailors trying to get out. Someone found a way underneath, and those of us willing to risk it made our way through the rising water before it was too late; the others turned back looking for an easier way out. They never found it.

Three bodies splayed out on deck sloshed from side to side as one after another massive wave crashed over the ship, eventually washing the bodies overboard. I looked out at the churning mountains of water and for a moment even thought there was someone underneath turning the ship over. I saw Cole, his body was hooked and skewered in a twist of rail and somehow caught up. His red hair was glowing in the green light of the flares around us, the light throwing our shadows around us like the twisted caricatures of our movies. Steam billowed from the gash in the hull with every wave as the ship was taking on too much water; it was still listing over to the port side. More flares lit up the night sky.

Ray grabbed me by the life vest and shook me to my senses, pulling me in front of him, and then pushing me ahead. I could see lifeboats falling into the dark void that was the North Atlantic. The boats were hitting the side of the ship’s hull because we were rolling, spilling men into the water.

“We’ve got to get to the other side!” Ray screamed.

“But it’s going over that way!” I said.

“So, it’ll make it easier getting into the boats, won’t it?”

I had to laugh at the simplicity of it, the laugh dying when I saw the open maw of water waiting for us.

“Wave!”

A voice called out and we grabbed hold of whatever we could. The wave rose up above us before lashing across the deck with the fury of a cracked whip. It’s what they mean when they say the fury of the North Atlantic; it’s the Whiteness of the Whale. You’re instantly, bone-numbingly wet, and you’re instantly aware that you are either going to freeze to death, or that you’ll drown on a sinking ship. The only way out is forward; it always is.

A dozen sailors, Merchant Marines — who knows what they are — were fighting with a lifeboat, the right davit jammed so that one end of the lifeboat was hanging at an angle. It was still covered with a canvas tarp, and the water slid off it like rain into the barrel of the ocean. We pulled our way up the deck, holding on to whatever we could. We passed a fire station with an axe and a hose, and I smiled at the irony of it.

“Is this the mustering station?” Ray yelled across the deck.

“The what?” a sailor called back.

“They told us to report to the mustering station, but on this side! We thought they were crazy, but here we are.”

“We can’t get it!” a sailor screamed at the first one in frustration.

“Why not just grab another one?” I screamed out, looking at other lifeboats.

“The rope’s jammed because of the list; the others won’t have any more of a clear shot than this one — not by the time we get to them. This was our best chance.”

“I saw an axe!” I said, and fought my way back to get it before anyone could say not to bother.

When I made my way back, Ray was looking at the problem as if it was his specialty. He held his hand out for the axe and I gave it to him without even thinking about it. The water was coming up too fast for any of us to think things through.

“We don’t have a lot of time Ray!” I said.

“Just grab the rope in front and tie it to something so we don’t lose it if it swings free.”

“What’re ya gonna do?” one of the sailors asked.

He looked at the man. “It’s called an executive decision, Sailor. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and any other worthless cliché you can think of. Stand back.” He swung the axe and it dug into the rope where it was jammed in the davit. He swung again. A spark jumped out as the axe skipped off the davit.

“Wave!” someone yelled, and we all looked up at the same time as a massive surge crashed down on the deck. I reached out and grabbed Ray by the vest, straining to hold on to him, and trying not let go of the handhold I had. I spat out seawater, looked at Ray and grinned.

“You never know when you’re going to need a friend,” I said.

Ray set about chopping at the rope again. In six more swings, the rope broke free and the lifeboat slid out in front of us.

“Don’t let go of that rope!” someone screamed.

“Grab that grappling hook!” someone else shouted.

“Wave!” And another surge hit us, this time knocking us all down so that we were scrambling to grab at each other as we slipped along the deck.

“Grab the boat! Grab the boat!” and four men reached out with grappling hooks, pulling it back in. The water was climbing over the rail. It was thigh-deep and cold; my hands were hurting from the cold. I looked up where the shadow of the funnel loomed overhead, spitting out sparks like a forge in Hell. The ship was going over, slipping soft and silent into the sea.

“What about oars?” Ray asked, and one of the sailors laughed.

“Do you think you’re going to be able to row-row-row your boat, in this? Buddy, all we gotta do is hold on and hope they get us before we freeze to death.”

“What about flares then?” I asked.

“All we got is what we got,” he said, holding a flare gun up, and then pushed Ray and me toward the boat. “We can take sixteen men without it swamping, and that’s what we’re gonna do. You two get out there and take that tarp off while I get some more hands.”

“Why us?” I asked.

The man smiled at me. “I figure you wanna live, you’ll do whatever it takes.”

“I say fuck that and leave the tarp on so we don’t get swamped. We can crawl under it and pray — to keep ourselves warm,” Ray said with a laugh.

We were fished out of the water an hour later by an American destroyer. It didn’t look like they were sweeping the perimeter for survivors, laying depth charges that sent up huge geysers of water, followed by a deep rumble that shook the lifeboat.

“Grab that flare gun!” one of the sailors called out.

It took another hour before we were able to secure the lifeboat safely in the rough seas and scramble aboard. The last man out of the lifeboat cut it free, and I stood in the early dawn watching the waves pitch and toss the craft until it vanished from sight. We stood on deck in the driving rain – some of us barefooted, most of us only partially dressed – while they gave us steaming hot coffee and food — lots of food — wrapping us in blankets and getting us inside to find dry clothes for us to wear.

Later the Captain came down to join us for dinner.

“How many survivors, Sir?” one of the sailors asked.

“How many lifeboats did you see?” the Captain replied.

“How many lifeboats were there?” I interrupted.

“Twelve,” he said, looking at me.

“Just ours,” the sailor said. “We took a torpedo port side and started taking on water right away. Too fast for my liking. She was listing about ten degrees — could’ve only been minutes — when the order went out to abandon ship. The boats on the  Starboard side were fucked, pardon my French Sir, because of the angle — but the dumb bastards still kept trying. We were at the port station assigned to us. Near the stern. The water was coming up fast and we were hoping it would make for easier launching — ”

“Easier launching?” I laughed.

“Fly boys, Captain. Canucks,” one of the American sailors said.

“Canadian? Where you boys from?” the Captain asked, looking at both of us. I looked around the room and didn’t recognize anybody. It was the first time I’d realized that Ray and I had been the only ones that made it into the life boat.

“Niagara,” Ray said.

“And you, son?” the Captain asked.

“Vancouver,” I managed to say.

“Vancouver? I was there once, before the war. Great harbour. One of the best. Quaint little place. Lots of lonely squaws, if you know what I mean.”

“I wouldn’t know that, Sir,” I smiled. “I don’t really live in Vancouver. it’s just that’s the closest place to where I live, that other people might know. Canucks, I mean, fellow Canadians. No offence, Sir. We wouldn’t expect you Yanks to know nothing about what happens above the 49th anyway.”

“And why would we, son?” the Captain laughed. “Do you really expect me, a sailor, to know anything about Canada? Except for maybe Montreal, Halifax, or Vancouver? No. And why would I? Anything in between, well, that’s just unexplored territory as far as I’m concerned, son. I’m a sailor! In the US Navy. I don’t do land, son,” he laughed louder, clapping me on the back.

Liverpool didn’t so much rise up out of the water as much as it crept. It appeared like a ruin under a cloud of fog we soon discovered was smoke. While we were sinking in the North Atlantic, the harbour and city were being bombed. We could see spot fires flaring up in the outer regions of both the city and the harbour. As we approached, we could hear the wail of sirens sounding in the distance. We all stood on the deck watching with a sense of abject horror. When the wind shifted, the smoke filtered out to sea, bringing with it the sweet scent of something sinister.

“What’s that smell?” one of our sailors asked. “I’ve smelled that before.”

“I pray you haven’t, son,” the Chief Petty Officer said with a low voice.

“I don’t know, Chief,” he said, taking a deep intake of breath.

“That’s the smell of burning bodies,” the Chief said plainly.

“Yes,” the sailor said. “It is.”

“It’s what?” someone else asked.

“Flesh,” one of the American sailors said in passing, laughing a giggling laugh that sent shivers up my spine.

“That’s enough, Marston!” the Chief bellowed.

“Sorry Chief!” Marston called back. “Can’t help myself, Chief.”

“It’s not a smell you’re soon to forget,” the Chief said in his low voice, watching Marston slip out of view. “Once you taste that in the air,” he said, and then stopped himself, as if he’d suddenly blurted out a secret we weren’t supposed to know.

I knew exactly what he meant, having tasted it in the air myself.

As we approached the harbour, we could see fireboats attacking the docks, sending up huge plumes of water and dousing the flames of the smaller fires burning stubbornly under the pier.

“That’s the tar they used when they built this place fifty years ago; it’s a bitch because it’s burning underneath. I guess that’s what they don’t use it for building anymore,” the Chief said. “Now they use creosote, which burns just as bad. Still, they used it at Pearl, didn’t they? The tar, I mean.”

Pilot boats came to the outer harbour where the convoy was hove to. What would’ve normally taken days to off-load, would now take weeks. The twisted wreckage of cranes and derricks littered the piers. Giant spidery legs of contorted metal that collapsed in on themselves because of the great heat, lay stretched out across the piers, resting halfway in the water. Yet even with the catastrophic damage, we could see the workers with their cutting torches picking away at the metal, slicing, and portioning off pieces and segments like worker ants dancing a Pyrrhic victory over a carcass.

We watched; we waited, and soon a small launch approached to take us ashore. The sinking of our ship was a great loss they told us. Of the fifty-eight fliers, we were the only survivors — fourteen of us spread out on three different lifeboats — which meant that some of the men we were meant to replace, wouldn’t be going home.

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