Page 33 of Summer in Greece

She nodded. The excitement of the last couple of hours still buzzed through her. She wanted to voice her experience, share the thrill, tell of the turtle, yet she knew the importance of discretion.

A ferry rounded the lighthouse. She watched it reverse skilfully up to the quayside by the harbour wall, the tailgate down long before it reached land. The minute the mooring lines were hefted over the stanchions, passengers and vehicles poured onto the island. Cars raced up from nowhere, parking randomly, dragging boxes from the ferry and cramming them into their cars and pick-ups. People kissed, hugged, hurried, and everyone shouted. Cafés filled, and suddenly Kea had come to life.

CHAPTER 14

GERTIE

Greece, 1916.

OUR LIFEBOAT ROCKED VIOLENTLY. The desperate call to Mother had hardly reached utterance when a deafening noise tore through the air. I slammed my hands over my ears. The propellers ground to a halt. Rebounding waves sent our rocking lifeboat scudding violently against the side of the long ship – away from that bloody finale.

Gasping and sobbing with disbelief, everyone stared at the bronze fins looming over us only yards ahead. Although they receded, I half expected them to resume turning with their murderous intent.

Delirious with relief, I started to laugh, and laugh, before tears raged down my face. How fine is the line between life and death? At any second, everything could change. Who held our fate in their hands? Our Captain, God, Satan, throwing dice on who would get our souls? We had to get away from there immediately.

‘She’s alive!’ someone at the front yelled, breaking my erratic train of thought. Several men heaved a woman in nurse’s uniform out of the water. Oh God, it was Josephine, my cabinmate, Josephine, alive! The boy scout slid down the rope and swam on his back, away from the ship, legs frogging it, arms like windmills, the adult’s lifesaver keeping him buoyant. Far above us, we could see other lifeboats being lowered. Our boat drifted away from the propellers, towards the front of the vessel. Then I realised the current of water pouring into the front portholes, the ones I had opened, was pulling us along.

Someone shouted, ‘The ship’s gonna roll, pull hard, lads!’

Our skipper ordered, ‘Take us clear of the funnels or we’re damned for sure!’

I stood, placed my palms against the metal hull and pressed for all I was worth. The skipper pushed his oar against the ship’s side too. Suddenly, the lifeboat seemed to break the suction. We lurched away with such abruptness I lost my balance. In an instant, I tumbled over the side, hit the water, and was going down. The cork lifesaver was no match for the weight of my long uniform.

Through my blurred, underwater vision, I could see the clinkered bottom of the white lifeboat, the red-brown antifoul below the Britannic, sunlight reflecting through flotsam and dismembered bodies on the surface. Father’s voice resonated in my head: Promise you’ll never give up, Gertie!

The tapes of my lifesaver floated before my face and I realised I hadn’t tied them properly. I grasped for them, feeling a sharp stab of pain in my wrist, then a wisp of blood before my eyes. I looked towards the seabed. In a shaft of refracted sunlight Sissy’s watch glinted and flashed, beckoning me to follow as it spiralled down, out of reach. Down, into the unknown.

Dragged under by my blue serge dress, long apron, and petticoat, I struck out in an effort to swim to the surface. Up, up, up towards air, a breath, a chance, but despite kicking hard, the skirt hindered my legs and the weight of my uniform was too much for my feeble arms to battle against. I won’t give up, Papa! The lifesaver was under my chin. I struggled to pull it down, but it seemed determined to leave me. I remembered my father’s hand over my face pushing me under the water and I kicked with all my might for he who had tried to teach me this lesson.

*

I believe I was still plunging downward, my eyes fixed on the blurred, glinting shape of Sissy’s watch as it danced a zig-zag path into the depths. I recall thinking I must keep trying, or I would go past the point of no return. At that moment, I glimpsed a slick grey torpedo shape loom out of the darkness and race towards me. Now I was done for.

My thoughts went to my dead siblings, sure I was about to join them. The lifesaver passed over my face and headed for the surface. Hit hard in the belly, then pushed helplessly through the water at inescapable speed, I saw air bubbles, lifeboat wreckage and body parts fly by. Everything was so confused, I didn’t know which direction I was going, up or down? How could I be travelling at this terrifying speed?

Shock hit me when I broke the water’s surface in an explosion of foam, my arms and legs flailing and my scream finding voice in a most unladylike way. Shocked, I realised whatever thrust me through the sea with such alarming urgency was a living thing. How was that possible? The strength and speed by which I’d been forced upward, racing towards a life-saving breath, was impossible to comprehend; and by an animal . . . a creature that I sensed had exceptional power and intelligence.

They hauled me back into the lifeboat. Hands tugged at my clothes, people groaning under the weight of me, my ungainly clumsiness as nurses and crew manhandled me back to my seat.

I shook violently, teeth chattering, another scream trapped in my chest while I tried to grasp what had happened. The priest yanked his jacket off, having had the forethought to put it on over his lifesaver. He kindly wrapped it around my shoulders.

‘You’re safe! Praise be to God! That was a glorious thing, to be sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ He crossed himself and raised his voice. ‘We prayed for a miracle, dear brethren, and Our Lord delivered. Trust in Him and thou shall be saved!’ he cried over the boat, taking full credit for my rescue.

Sobbing and coughing up seawater, I curved myself into the strong, safe arms of the baker. ‘What happened?’ I gasped when I could finally speak. ‘At first, I thought it was a torpedo. It hit me so hard in the belly and lifted me. I was drowning . . . going down . . . down.’

‘A dolphin,’ the priest cried over the racket now coming from the ship. ‘Brought you clean out of the water. I never would have believed such a thing if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.’ He struggled to his feet and raised his hands. ‘Glory be to God!’ Then he wobbled a little and plopped back onto his bottom.

For a moment, everyone stared at the spot where the creature had disappeared. Somebody started clapping, then everyone joined in, whooping and hollering in a manic kind of joy. Yes, miracles do happen, and everyone on that lifeboat understood they had witnessed one.

Silence fell just as suddenly, faces turned away from the propeller. Someone wept. Everyone closed their eyes, or turned them towards the centre of our boat. Nobody wanted to look upon the carnage that floated around us. Most were shivering in spite of the bright sun. The groaning and complaining that resonated from the ship in its battle to stay afloat also changed its tune. A great whoosh came from the open portholes, as if the Britannic expelled her final breath. The gale-like draught was so strong it pushed us away from the vessel. Anything small enough to fly out through the eighteen-inch portholes did so, scattering gauze, bandages, paper dishes, gloves, caps, and cotton wool over the water like confetti.

‘What’s happening, another explosion?’ I asked.

The priest shook his head. ‘The air’s being forced out as the ship fills with water – that air would have kept her afloat if only it had been trapped inside. Now she’s doomed for sure.’

‘You mean if the portholes weren’t open, she would have stayed afloat?’

‘Exactly. Didn’t you notice that all the doors opened inward. Those heavy, watertight doors are built to keep not only the water from coming up through the ship but for keeping the air inside too. The air keeps her afloat.’ He shook his head forlornly. ‘Now, some fool has opened some of the portholes and all is lost. Countless lives wasted because the ship that was destined to save them, is sinking.’ He crossed himself. ‘God have mercy on our poor boys. Most will die, not because of our enemy, Kaiser Bill, but because of some incompetent on board who can’t obey orders.’ He peered at the water. ‘If only HMHS Britannic could have stayed afloat long enough to reach land. She could have been repaired and returned to duty.’ He shook his head forlornly.