The Lonely Sea (12 page)

And now came perhaps the worst experience of all—fire. Not fire aboard the
Lancastria—
that would have been easy to escape—but fire on the surface of the sea, and for all too many there could be no escape from that. Nor was the fire any accident, but a piece of calculated and cold-blooded
callousness for which there can be no forgiveness. In addition to machine-gunning and killing unknown numbers of people in the water—the twenty occupants of one raft, for instance, were completely wiped out by a sustained burst of machine-gun fire—the Luftwaffe pilots began to drop incendiary bombs on the oil-covered sea, and set it on fire.

Oil on fire is the most horrible, the cruellest death known to men. It is death by slow, agonizing torture, by drowning to escape that torture, by incineration of those parts of the body above water in a lung-gasping asphyxiation—for the flames feed on all the life-giving oxygen on the surface of the sea, and a man suffocates in the superheated and lifeless air. But drowning is quiet and simple and almost without pain, and where no hope of escape is left, only a madman would stretch himself out on the shrieking rack of agony a moment longer than was necessary when the means of kindly deliverance lies so close to hand.

The official history of the war at sea professes itself unable to understand why so many people—2,823—lost their lives when the
Lancastria
went down, even though the disaster happened in broad daylight in a road crowded with many ships, especially small, manoeuvrable ships which were quickly on the scene—the anti-submarine trawler
Cambridgeshire
alone rescued almost a thousand survivors.

It is difficult to understand this puzzlement: it is remarkable indeed that so many people, about two and a half thousand, were in fact rescued. Most of the ships in the roads were too busy looking after themselves, fighting off the attacks by the Gelrman bombers, and those which did eventually steam to the oil-covered and wreckage-strewn scene of the sinking liner found comparatively few survivors there after the
Cambridgeshire
had gone. Hundreds had died in the initial explosion, as many again were trapped and taken to the bottom locked inside the shattered hull of the
Lancastria.
Hundreds more, still clinging to the hull, were drowned as the liner plunged to the bottom, and of those then in the water alongside, many were either killed by the flame-covered sea or had swam so far and so frantically in search of safety, that they had put themselves outside the radius of search of the immediate rescue operations.

Such were Corporal Broadbent, Sergeant Young and the Tillyer family.

Broadbent, almost unconscious in the water, was rescued by a small craft and then transferred to the
John Holt,
still completely naked—when a newspaperman's camera clicked. He arrived in Plymouth three days later, still without a stitch of clothes on and bemoaning only the fact that he hadn't a pocket to carry the cigarettes he had been given, to find himself famous, and with his
picture, the symbol of the disaster of the
Lancastria,
published in newspapers all over the world.

Sergeant Young had found himself clinging to an orange box, one of ten who depended on the same flimsy support. When he was rescued by a French trawler four hours later, only three were left—the other seven had slipped off one by one as their strength failed. He was landed at a convent hospital, nursed by Mrs Joan Rodes—later famous as ‘The Angel of St Nazaire'—given a French sailor's uniform, transferred to a military hospital and there told by a German officer that he was a prisoner of war and would be shot if he tried to run away. Sergeant Young didn't quite run away—along with some others he commandeered a Red Cross van, made his way to the coast and was picked up by the destroyer
Punjabi.

The Tillyers probably spent even longer than Young in the water—their memories are understandably vague on this point. All that Mrs Tillyer can clearly remember is that a soldier gave up his own piece of wood to which he was clinging to give young Jacqueline every chance possible, and that she kept calling ‘Baby here', ‘Baby here' so often, and so insistently, that, she says Jacqueline took up the cry as though it were a game. ‘“Baby here”, she kept crying after me, until she grew too weak to say it any more.'

But the cries were heard and rescue came—a lifeboat from the destroyer
Highlander.
Neither Mr Tillyer, now a departmental manager with Fairey Aviation in London, nor his wife were, eventually, any the worse for their shocking appearance.

Neither apparently was baby Jacqueline, for the tiny two-year-old who cried ‘Baby here, ‘Baby here', in the oil-covered waters of Quiberon Bay eighteen long years ago was married on the 5th of July of this year.

The wind was blowing offshore from the native quarter, so that breathing, up-town, was only a matter of tolerable difficulty. Night, if not peace, had fallen over the city. The hour was late and all honest citizens were at home, asleep. The streets of Alexandria were thronged.

The scene was typically Eastern. Uncounted thousands were strenuously engaged in their legitimate pursuits of boot-blacking, pocket-picking and the retailing of every conceivable article rigorously proscribed by Egyptian law. But, for the most part, the bulk of the crowds wandered aimlessly, purposelessly around. Some went one way, some another; but whichever way they went, they went only because they happened to be going that way.

But one there was who, although among them, was clearly not of them—one who hastened briskly along, whose every step betrayed the man of action, whose face held that calm set born of
fixed determination, whose eye held the bright gleam born of high resolve and, possibly, too much gin. McCrimmon, Able Seaman, torpedoman aboard His Majesty's Ship
Ilara,
proud possessor of two badges, a distinguished name and a remarkable set of moral principles, had an urgent appointment which would brook no delay.

HMS
Ilara
had arrived back in Alexandria, from the Aegean, only that morning, with a large section of her after-funnel missing—the souvenir of a slight estrangement which had arisen between her and the 9.5 German batteries on Milos. McCrimmon, ruthlessly sacrificing his normal afternoon sleep, had hied him ashore immediately after dinner and sought out a certain Mr McCrimmon, a third, or it may have been fourth cousin of his. Mr McCrimmon was a dockyard worker, or, more precisely, one who was paid for being present in the dockyard at certain stated times. He was not due to go home for almost two years yet. He had newly come, it appeared, into the possession of certain valuable information, and, blood—however diluted—being thicker than water, he had, after due deliberation and several brandies, parted with this to his cousin. The latter had maintained throughout an attitude of detached boredom which had deceived no one.

The information, in brief, was this. He, Mr McCrimmon, had learned, through a devious
but reliable channel, of a certain native ashore who had rather a fine set of semi-precious stones. That they were not family heirlooms or otherwise legally come by, Mr McCrimmon was quite sure; but that was irrelevant. What was relevant was the fact that their current owner was prepared to sell them at a fantastically low price. They would fetch several times that amount in the inflated home market. Would his cousin, whom he trusted above all men and who was due to go home shortly, carry out this transaction for him and forward fifty per cent of the proceeds?

His cousin would, and ‘tis thus we find him striding through the crowded streets, looking neither to the left nor to the right, automatically cuffing all such boot-blacks as came within range and pausing only occasionally, with a muttered curse, to study proffered works of art, by old masters and others, then hastening along again.

His appointment, as mentioned, would brook no delay. He had already delayed long enough in a saloon down by the Bourse, slaking his thirst and playing poker with three Armenians and a Cypriot. McCrimmon had done very well out of the game, and might have been there yet, had not some inquisitive bystander seen fit to comment, in terms of loud admiration, upon the exquisite delicacy of the workmanship whereby the backs of the cards were painted in fifty-two different
patterns. When an impromptu court of enquiry was set up to investigate the ownership of the cards, McCrimmon had left. He had not even stayed to collect his winnings, a recollection which caused him to grind his teeth from time to time as his feet spurned the dust of the Saad Zaghoul.

Arriving at the further end of this, the main street of the city, he turned left and disappeared into one of the several ornate restaurant cum dance-hall establishments clustered around Ramleh Station. Briskly saluting the commissionaire, whom he took for a rear-admiral, McCrimmon passed within the portals, tightened his grip on hat and coat as he went by the hat-check counter and looked around the vestibule. It was empty. The jewel merchant had not yet arrived.

Leaving a few words of instruction and a still fewer number of piastres with the receptionist, McCrimmon vanished within the restaurant. He chose a table where he could observe the cabaret without undue strain to the eyes and seated himself. Removing the ‘Reserved' card on the table, he handed it, with a grandiloquent gesture, to a passing waiter, along with his order for refreshments. The waiter, convinced that he was dealing with yet another exiled king in disguise, bowed low and moved off.

McCrimmon bent a supercilious eye around the restaurant. It was in no way different from a score
of others he knew—the same plush settees, curtained alcoves, brass rails, minute dancing-floor, tired palms and even more tired string orchestra.

He lackadaisically watched the efforts of a couple of professional dancers, demonstrating an old-time waltz. The lurid handbill on his table referred to them as ‘a pair of talented and finished artists'. McCrimmon questioned the ‘talented' but agreed with the ‘finished', privately estimating the date at twenty years previously. His boredom mounted apace.

An hour passed. McCrimmon had just lowered his fifth John Collins, and was waxing impatient, when a waiter signalled him. The orchestra was playing ‘Carmelita' and, as McCrimmon walked out, the music harmonized very well with the not unmelodious tinkling given off by the chromium ashtray and monogrammed forks and spoons in his coat pocket.

Pressing a cylindrical disc of some base metal into the gratified waiter's hand, McCrimmon emerged into the vestibule. Again there was no one there, but as the waiter had informed him that someone awaited him, he pressed through the only other door, other than the exit, leading off the vestibule.

Again he drew a blank—in one sense. For, though the washplace, for such it was, was empty, McCrimmon's professional attention was drawn to the row of gleaming chromium taps. He bethought
himself of his uncle, proprietor of a flourishing plumber and gasfitter's firm in the Broomielaw, Glasgow. Muttering some proverb about time lost never being regained, McCrimmon drew forth a ten-inch Stilson wrench, expertly calculated with his eye the gauge of the gland nut on the taps and was adjusting the spanner when a low, sibilant voice behind him said ‘Meester!'

McCrimmon started, performed some masterly sleight of hand with the Stilson, then turned unconcernedly round. If innocence of expression were any criterion, any unbiased judge, could he have seen him in company with an average archangel, would have branded the latter as a habitual criminal.

Before him stood, or crouched, a diminutive, dark-skinned individual, clad in a scarlet fez and an off-white nightgown. His feet were bare. To the casual eye, he seemed to be shaking hands indus-triously with himself; McCrimmon correctly interpreted this as a gesture of propitiation. Again the apparition spoke.

‘Meester Creemon?' he enquired.

McCrimmon, deeming it useless to point out the correct pronunciation of a legendary Highland name to the unlettered heathen, merely nodded assent. The native, equally a man of few words, said no more. Beckoning, he turned, slipped out of the doorway, through the vestibule and into the street. McCrimmon, suitably impressed by his
conspiratorial air, cast a last regretful glance at the chromium taps, made a mental note to bring a haversack next time and lurked after him.

Satisfied that he was not alone, the native shuffled noiselessly across the square. McCrimmon followed, keeping, as became an upholder of the dignity of Western civilization, several ostentatious paces to the rear. The guide led the way up the rue Safia Zaghoul, over the hill, down the other side and into the native quarter immediately east of the docks.

As the streets grew meaner and darker and the smell more villainous, so did McCrimmon's grip on his wrench tighten. But he did not hesitate. Was he not a McCrimmon? Had not his ancestors done their part nobly and well at Bannockburn and Flodden? Had not, in more recent times, his grandfather run more bootleg hooch throughout the Western Isles than any other man in contemporary history? Had he not seen, with his own eyes, his father, with that cheerful contempt of death so characteristic of the McCrimmons, cheer the Glasgow Rangers to victory whilst imbedded in a solid phalanx of Celtic supporters? There was no lack of glorious precepts. Besides, he had lifted his elbow many times that evening. His courage was as the courage of ten. McCrimmon pressed on.

His guide suddenly stopped before a dilapidated café; outwardly, at least, it was unprepossessing in the extreme. McCrimmon, following the guide
through the hanging reeds screening the doorway, found that the outward façade belied the interior, which was considerably worse. It consisted of a bar running the length of the room, half a dozen tables with wicker chairs and a few stools. In one corner, a scruffy individual was toasting a flat loaf over an open brazier. Hard by him two aged gentlemen were squatting on the floor, manfully sucking at a bubbling hookah. McCrimmon could not discern what, if anything, was happening at the other end of the room. Visibility did not exceed four feet.

The guide evidently felt completely at home here. Leading McCrimmon over to a rickety table by the brazier, he sat down and, in a burst of confidence, disclosed himself as one Mohammed Ali. Parenthetically, it may here be remarked that fifty per cent of the male population of Egypt are called Mohammed Ali; the remaining fifty per cent, unambitious souls, are content with calling themselves Mohammed or Ali.

Introductions thus tardily effected, McCrimmon, whom the refinements and social trappings of big business left completely cold, called for drinks and brusquely demanded that they come to business. Mohammed Ali slid a hand into a fold of his robe and drew out a small, wash-leather bag. Weighing this speculatively in his hand, he said nothing, but his enquiring, meaningful glance more than compensated for any lack of words.

McCrimmon demanded to see the stones: Mohammed Ali declined. Surely the English Meester would at least demonstrate his good faith by showing his money. McCrimmon, writhing under the double insult of the opprobious epithet ‘English' and the disrepute into which the word of a McCrimmon had clearly fallen among the savage tribes of the East, groped for the handle of his Stilson.

Mohammed Ali, to whom the higher forms of etiquette were obviously a closed book, chose this moment to begin manicuring his hands after his own unostentatious fashion. His nail-file took the form of a 9-inch, double-edged throwing knife; McCrimmon, reflecting that, after all, the rude and untutored upbringing of these unfortunates entitled them to pity rather than censure, magnanimously changed his mind about the Stilson and thrust his hand into his left coat-pocket, where he kept his wallet. It remained there for a few seconds, then emerged slowly. His hand was empty. His face wore a most peculiar expression. Not to put too fine a point on it, his wallet was gone.

What ensued would have thrown any aspiring etymologist into transports of rapture. With every second word unprintable, McCrimmon anathematized the world in general and Alexandria in particular for five full minutes without repeating himself once. He held his audience spellbound.
Finally, he calmed down, soothed by Mohammed Ali's consoling words and several glasses of nativebrewed arrack.

After much further argument and bandying of words, it was agreed that they should meet again on the following night, at a café at the hither end of the Sherif Pasha—a rendezvous insisted on by McCrimmon. The advantages were two-fold—it was in the white quarter, and McCrimmon was not unknown there; had they been there that evening, wallet or no wallet, the necessity for a further assignation would not have arisen…

McCrimmon sat on for some time, drinking moodily and deciding to leave only when Mohammed Ali showed no signs of supplying any further arrack. Clutching at the wavering bar in an effort to steady it, he rose to go; he wore the weary air of a man whom fate could harm no more. It was, after all, a pardonable assumption.

Launching forth in the general direction of the door, he found it blocked by a quartette who showed no signs of complying with his imperative calls for gangway. Focusing his eyes with considerable difficulty, McCrimmon peered at the nearest of the four; his mind, harking back several leagues, ultimately identified him as the Cypriot to whom he had been demonstrating the finer points of poker earlier on in the evening. Intuition told him who the remaining three gentlemen were.

Shocked into comparative sobriety and hoarsely uttering the war cry of his clan, McCrimmon leapt back. A high-speed camera would have recorded but a blur as his hand streaked for his Stilson wrench. Wild Bill Hickok, at his best, would have stood in silent wonder. Alas for McCrimmon, the miraculous speed of his draw was grievously hampered by the plethora of assorted cutlery in his pocket. True, it caused but a second's delay: but it is a scientifically established fact that a heavy stool, impelled by the arms of an enraged Armenian, can cover a distance of four feet in less than half that time.

A naval patrol happened to be passing by as McCrimmon emerged, in slightly unorthodox fashion, through the closed lattice window of the café. It was an unusual method of exit, but not sufficiently so to warrant investigation by any average hardened naval patrol. Pausing only to separate him from the splintered woodwork festooned around his neck, the patrol picked him up and escorted his tottering form to the sanctuary of the docks.

Dragging himself away from the mirror wherein he had been gazing with rapturous admiration for the past ten minutes, McCrimmon adjusted his hat to the correct angle befitting an Active Service A/B, donned his raincoat, checked up on his armoury and prepared to leave the mess-deck.

It was nightfall on the following day, Sunday. During the morning McCrimmon had held a council of war with his cousin, who was that day accumulating an impressive amount of overtime in ‘A' Turret. Annoyed as he initially was by McCrimmon's intrusion—for even the most phlegmatic amongst us resents any interruption of a deep and healthful slumber—his cousin was soon cursing luridly and gnashing his teeth in perfect sympathetic unison with McCrimmon as the latter unfolded his sorry tale. But there were no hard feelings—amongst the McCrimmons, recriminations are quite unknown. Another wallet of notes would be forthcoming by evening. The loss, McCrimmon assured his grateful cousin, could be made good by another two or three overtime weekends, even though he was not the man he was, as he had latterly begun to be troubled by insomnia.