Lynne Barrett-Lee - Able Seacat Simon

Worse still, at least twelve of the crew were apparently dead also. Some had died instantly, some had been shot down in the water, one had died of his injuries on the way to the field hospital with Captain Skinner; others were still there now, badly wounded and shaken – some of them still at risk of dying too.

It was all such shocking news that I had not fully taken it in. Indeed, during the period when I was drifting in and out of consciousness in the cabin, I had hoped that the pictures that kept coming back to torture me were just the product of a fevered imagination. But they were not. They had happened.

I had managed to piece together some more of what had happened to the Amethyst simply by watching and listening. But it wasn’t enough, and I felt useless and desperate for information, so much so that the previous night, in the eerily silent small hours, the Amethyst still motionless, I had finally dared test the limits of my strength and resolve again, and tried to leave the cabin to find out more.

I had made it further that time, but still not very far. In fact, dragging my stiffened limbs proved to be a little beyond that limit. By the time I had managed to make it out of Griffiths’ cabin and into the passageway, such plans as I’d had, which were admittedly unformed to start with, became buried under fresh waves of pain.

Another thought had hit me then. I’d heard nothing of Petty Officer Griffiths since the previous day. Where might he be sleeping? Was he even sleeping? Was he safe? Something jerked inside me then – some primeval tug I had no control over. And I realised that whatever I had expected to achieve it was all cast aside. Instinct took over. A sudden, powerful, overwhelming instinct, as well: to hide away somewhere where nothing and no one could get to me, to find a place where I could retreat – where I could hide away, and curl up and retreat into myself; somewhere I could go and lick my wounds.

The ship had remained still. Still in the water, clearly anchored. I knew that she must have been still for some time, as well. It had been more than a day, in fact, since I’d last heard the throb of the engines, and, from the spot I’d found – behind a tangle of ropes in the corner of one of the forward gun decks – all I could hear above the whirr of bats and flying insects was the sound of the river lapping gently against the hull.

Here, gasping but finally on my side again, I was at least cooled a little by the corticene beneath me. Being able to see something other than a blank cabin wall was at least a distraction from the pain.

And what a distraction it turned out to be. Because the state of the Amethyst stunned me.

There was evidence of the shelling and machine-gunning everywhere – even the ensign flying at the stern hadn’t escaped it. It flew limply, forlornly, stirred by only the smallest of breezes, half torn off and riddled with bullet holes.

But it was the Amethyst ’s hull which horrified me the most. Always ghostly in the moonlight, she was now all sooty smudges – smudges that resolved themselves into evidence of major damage: scores of ragged scrapes and rents and gaping holes. One – the biggest I could see from my vantage point – gaped high above me, just below the bridge, like a monstrous jaw. A blackened fissure, deep and shocking in the middle of the pristine whiteness, it was half-stuffed with what looked like piles of hammocks. It took a few moments for the realisation to sink. I realised with a gulp that I was looking at the captain’s cabin.

I stayed laid up for the rest of that night and all the next morning, even when, at some time when the moon was high in the sky, wreathed in a yellowy mist, I felt the engines come to life again and the ship begin to move upriver. It wasn’t for long, however, as very soon we were the target of yet more firing from the north bank – though as I lay there, it was without the least inclination to try to move, but simply to await whatever fate was now to befall me. I was done in. And now I was out here, there was nowhere to run to, even if I could. I’d stay put, I decided, and take my chances.

The gunshots, which had been sporadic, soon stopped altogether. I must have dozed then, despite everything (perhaps the vibration of the engines soothed me) and then slept more deeply, because when I woke up it was to a gradually lightening sky, and the boat was once again soundless and still.

The next thing I became aware of – again, some hours later – was the sound of an aircraft approaching. I had no idea at that point if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but I quickly had my answer. No sooner had it flown past us than I could hear firing from the shore again, and, after another burst of orders, shouts and clattering urgent footfalls, it was gone almost as quickly as it had arrived.

Fully awake again, I tried to take stock of things more clearly. To try to tease out the facts from the clues. We were motionless, but not docked, so we were obviously just anchored, presumably at some point further up the river. Though there was activity – hostile activity – from the north shore of the river, I could see or hear no other ships or sampans, so we seemed to be alone. And as it seemed that no other boat (or aircraft) was able to get close to us, I could only assume it was either because the Amethyst was physically unable to slip her mooring, or was being prevented from doing so in some other way.

I didn’t have to think much to reach a single, obvious question. Were we stuck here because we were prisoners?

The day grew warm by increments, and very soon it was too hot to stay where I was. With the sun rising high in the sky, albeit partly masked by clouds, I knew the heat would shortly become intolerable. But I had another, much greater motivation to try to move. With so much going on that I was unable to see or hear properly, it was curiosity, as well as anxiety, which eventually dragged me from behind the rope coils – not least concerning the identity of a new arrival on the Amethyst an hour or so later. I’d heard a craft come alongside (probably a landing craft, I decided, due to the soft, purring engine) and, as I couldn’t see it, I was anxious to know who or what it contained.

I made my way haltingly around the snakes of rope – stiff again from the long period of immobility – and tried to forget about my missing whiskers. But all my small trek achieved was to place me a little further along the gun deck, where I flopped down close to the guard rail, my back legs unable to carry me further, where I could at least pick up a little of what was happening.

It seemed as though an officer was coming aboard – I couldn’t see him, but could tell from the tone of his voice, and the tone of voice of the man who was receiving him – another that I couldn’t quite place. And as they headed inside – perhaps to the wireless room or the wardroom? – all I could pick up was that there was some sort of dispute going on. I heard the name Weston, and a while later, heard Lieutenant Weston himself, sounding strange and as if he was struggling to get his words out. ‘We’ve destroyed everything,’ he kept saying, over and over. ‘All the papers and the charts…’ ‘I know, man. Calm yourself,’ the stranger reassured him. ‘I am calm,’ Weston kept saying. He was anything but.

Whoever had arrived hadn’t been inside long, for in no time there were men back on the deck below me, their hushed exchanges floating up to me only in part. But then they moved, and I heard someone say very clearly, ‘There’s no choice, man. If you don’t get that shrapnel removed, you’ll die!’

I lay back again then, trying to makes sense of it. Was that the ‘doc’ I had heard talking? Hard to say, but it was another voice I couldn’t seem to place, and soon after, it was joined by the throb of the landing craft engine, which was presumably leaving us again. It was only when it had travelled some distance that I was able to catch sight of it. Though I couldn’t be sure, I had enough of a glimpse to think it true – the landing craft was taking away Lieutenant Weston.