Christopher Priest - The Separation

Darkness followed, then a violent struggle. Arms and legs flailing in the water. Somehow I was in the inflatable, on the yielding, water-logged rubber floor of the dinghy, trying to twist myself so that I was face up, my fur-lined flying jacket weighed down by the water it had soaked up, the oxygen mask flapping uselessly against my neck.

‘Have you any idea where we are?’ I shouted, after what felt like half an hour of painful struggling. I was still staring across in the darkness to where I thought Sam must be lying. There was a long silence, so long that I thought he had passed out or died, or that he had somehow slipped into the sea.

‘Haven’t the faintest,’ he said in the end.

‘But you’re the navigator. Didn’t you get a fix?’

‘Shut up, JL.’

The night went on, apparently without end. But dawn came at last in the dinghy, the glint of the sun across a cold grey sea, waves punching up around us. The dinghy moved as if it was stuck to the sides of the waves, rising and falling with the swell, never threatening to tip over but constantly kicking us around. Sam and I sprawled on the slippery rubber floor, our wrists tangled up in the ratlines. We had nothing to say to each other - Sam seemed to be asleep much of the time, his hands and face white with the cold. We both had blood all over our clothes but it was gradually being leached away by the salt water that burst across us every few minutes. It was May, early summer. We were going to die of cold.

Then, after many hours, an Air-Sea Rescue launch found us.

That was all I had to go on, as I lay there in Warwickshire.

I was in a fog of amnesia. What I have described is a worked-out version of many fitful images. Moments only of it, glimpsed in flashes that drifted maddeningly out of reach like fragments of a dream.

I gradually emerged from the confusing half-memories, as what I saw around me started to make sense at last. I was hurting in many places: leg, chest, hand, neck, eyes. One day I was moved painfully from the bed and they sat me in a chair. Medical staff came and went. I knew my mother had been to visit me, I knew we had spoken, but I could remember nothing that either of us had said. When I looked back at the chair where she had been sitting she was gone again.

I worked backwards to memory, learning as I went.

It turned out that time had passed and now it was the end of May. They told me we had been shot down on the 10th. I lay still, recovering. A week later everyone said I was on the mend but they told me I should have to remain in hospital for a while longer. I wanted to see my parents again, but the staff explained how difficult it was for them to travel in wartime. They told me, though, that they were going to move me to a convalescent hospital, closer to home. That would make it easier for my parents.

Another gap of memory follows: perhaps I had a relapse of some kind.

I was inside a Red Cross ambulance, shocked into reality when the vehicle jolted over an uneven patch of road. I braced myself defensively against the knocks and bumps I was receiving, but my waist and legs were held gently in place with restraining straps. I was alone in the compartment with an orderly, a young Red Cross worker I knew was called Ken Wilson. It was difficult to talk in the noisy, unventilated compartment. Ken braced his arms against the overhead shelves as the vehicle swung about. He said we were well on our way in the journey, not to worry. But I was worried. Where were we going? I began to think about my parents. Had they been told I was moving from the old hospital? Would they find me wherever it was I was going to? This was suddenly the most important problem in the world.

Our destination was a large country house, with gardens, steep roofs, gables, tall windows, stone-flagged passageways. The large rooms in the wings at the back of the house had been converted into wards. My parents came to see me on the second day I was there, having managed to find me. I cried when I saw them, I was in so much pain.

During the long summer days we were moved out to a balcony shaded from the sun, where there were lounger seats with big cushions, tables made of wicker and a view of a garden in which cabbages, potatoes, spinach and beetroot were being cultivated in large, neat patches. When my parents came to visit, I would sit there with them, not saying much. I felt the events of the war had removed me from them, grown me up.

I discovered that the convalescent hospital was somewhere in the Vale of Evesham. More days had passed while I was ill and by this time it was the end of June 1941. The news on the BBC reported that the Germans had overrun most of the Ukraine and Byelorussia and were advancing on all fronts into the Soviet Union. The news shook me. War must have broken out between Germany and Russia! When did that happen?

The previous night the RAF had bombed Kiel, Düsseldorf and Bremen. Damage to all three towns was described as serious. Our attacks had been pressed home with great courage. Five RAF planes were lost, while two more were missing. I was familiar with that kind of news, but I sat quietly after the end of the broadcast, thinking for a long time about the crews they said were missing. I could imagine them in the sea, clinging to rafts and dinghies. Meanwhile Finland, Albania and Hungary had declared war on Russia. Had they invaded too? President Roosevelt was promising aid to the Soviet Union. Did it mean that the USA was also in the war? The BBC said that one of the Nazi leaders, Rudolf Hess, had flown to Scotland with a peace plan to halt the war between Britain and Germany. They explained who he was: Hitler’s deputy, one of the most powerful Nazis in Germany.

But for me the name rang a bell: I had met Rudolf Hess while I was in Berlin! Could it be the same man? I knew at the time he was a high-ranking Nazi, but the fact that he was Hitler’s deputy had been lost on me.

What had happened to Rudolf Hess’s peace plan?

Joe and I came second in our first heat, behind France but ahead of Finland and Greece. In the afternoon we took second place in our semi-final heat, which allowed us to scrape through to the main race. The final itself had us ranged against Argentina, Denmark, Holland, France and Germany.

We spent the morning of the big day in training, but at lunchtime Joe suddenly announced that he needed to return to the apartment in Goethestrasse, meaning that I would be alone, with at least two hours to kill. I was furious with him, because we were so close to the start of the most important race of our careers. We should keep working, stay out on the water for more and more practice. Joe shrugged it off, saying we could overtrain ourselves into last place. Then he was gone.

At this time of day, with no events in progress, most people, competitors and crowds, had drifted away to lunch. I stayed by the lake, calming down after my argument with Joe, resting on the grass, watching what was going on around me. I started thinking about Birgit. My last real conversation with her had taken place two days earlier, when I had worked up my courage and asked her if she would like to visit the Olympic regatta arena to watch us race. Like all the athletes, Joe and I had been issued with complimentary tickets for our family and friends. Birgit told me she would love to be present for our race but that it would not be safe for her to be there. Although I was disappointed I had not pressed the point. I wished now that I had. We would be leaving Berlin soon, with no telling when we would be able to return.

A little later I went to stretch my legs. Between the two main grandstands and slightly in front of them was a raised viewing podium, draped in Nazi flags and banners, reserved for dignitaries and officials. So far, whenever we had been competing or training, it had remained unoccupied and our efforts passed unobserved by the important and powerful. This time when I wandered past, though, two armed SS men in their distinctive black uniforms had taken up positions at the bottom of each of the flights of steps that led to the platform. I walked past, staring up at the swastika-draped railings.