Lynne Barrett-Lee - Able Seacat Simon

There was no hesitation. No judicious use of the word ‘try’. We are going to escape. So the men had been wrong in their mutterings and chunterings. Captain Kerans had pulled the wool right over their eyes.

Having already told Williams, the chief engineer, earlier in the day, so he would have time to raise steam in the boilers, Captain Kerans gave Frank a list of names. He was to inform everyone on the list – all the chief petty officers and petty officers – to assemble in his cabin, plus a number of the senior ratings, all of them maintaining utmost security at all times.

It was early evening when they arrived, the sky outside turning a darkening peachy pink, and the temperature still as warm as it had been all day. So with some seventeen men crammed into the tiny airless space, it was something of a hot, uncomfortable squeeze. I didn’t mind, though. I was too excited about everything to want to be anywhere else, so I settled again, just by the voice pipe to the wheelhouse, keen to listen in on his briefing.

‘I have decided to make a break for it tonight,’ he told everyone. ‘Now, I know it’s not going to be easy without a pilot to guide us, but the darkness is going to help us – the moon sets just after 23:00. And it won’t be as good for another month after tonight. The river’s high because of the typhoon, too, which should give us some advantage, and we need to slip at 22:00.’ He paused to let this sink in. ‘That’s crucial if we’re going to pass the big guns at Woosung before dawn. I don’t doubt that if they are on to us, that’s where we’re going to get it. So speed,’ he glanced over at Williams, ‘is going to be of the very essence.’

There was silence for a moment as the officers took this in, then the mood changed and they all began bombarding him with questions – every one of which he seemed to have an answer for. He really had been thinking about this for a long time, I realised. No wonder he’d seemed so preoccupied.

They soon dispersed – because now time was very much of the essence – and everyone had a precise role to play to make Captain Kerans’ dream of escape a reality. There was no room for doubt. This was our only chance of making a run for it, and there wasn’t a man there, I think, who didn’t want to take it.

Frank grinned at me, then, having saluted the captain, as if on an impulse, scooped me up and tucked me under his arm. I wondered if – perhaps given what had happened the last time – he intended to take me down to the wheelhouse to bring him luck.

‘You hear that?’ he said. ‘Finally, it’s happening! You know what we’re going to do, Blackie boy? No? Well, I’ll tell you. We’re going to give that ruddy Kang a right smack in the eye!’

After so long being trapped, I felt the same excitement everyone else did. I just hoped Kang wouldn’t slap us right back.

Yangtse River, 22:09 hours, 30 July 1949

Despite knowing what was happening, and by now having every faith in Captain Kerans’ ability to make it happen, in that hour or so remaining before we were going to make the dash for it, I started feeling frightened again. I couldn’t seem to help it. It just crept up on me, like the mosquitoes would creep up on the sleeping sailors. It wasn’t too bad at first; just a feeling that I couldn’t quite articulate, nothing more tangible than a vague sense of unease. But when I walked across the deck, close to the X guns, and caught the distinctive whiff of their recent oiling on the damp evening air, that’s when it properly hit me.

A memory pounced on me then – a memory that wasn’t even quite a memory. I remembered so little of the actual attack. Remembered almost nothing of those minutes in any detail – but the sound and smell of the guns had never quite left me, any more than had the sight of all the bodies. Though I’d become long used to seeing all the shell holes and twisted metal around the ship – and that emblematic battered ensign – the thought of the guns being manned and fired again tonight was more than enough to have the sensations flooding back. All at once, I felt ambushed by a powerful, mortal fear, and it was an act of will to force it out of my mind.

I knew many of the crew must feel the same. Over the months of our captivity, no matter how much they tried to push the memories down, many of them had relived the events of that day constantly; had kept seeing again the things they wished they hadn’t had to see in the first place. And I wasn’t surprised, because so many of them were still young and inexperienced. Like gentle George, who’d found me, so few of them had seen the brutal reality of war before this – even fewer, I suspected, had ever seen death. So I understood how frightened they must now be feeling again. And they knew I would always keep their confidences, too; keep those memories of the private tears some had shed to myself.

‘There is no courage without fear.’ I remembered Captain Skinner saying that to me. And he was right. You didn’t need to be brave if you weren’t afraid. A part of me felt a welcome kernel of excitement growing inside me at the sheer courage – the audacity – of what we were about to try to do. As I took up my position close to Captain Kerans (which thankfully nobody seemed to object to, even if Peggy, Queen of Incessant Barking, had been shut up down in the sick berth, just to be on the safe side) I realised I felt ready for anything, despite the constant undercurrent of fear.

The final couple of hours had not been without incident. The captain had gone up to the bridge before eight, keen to get his eyes used to the dark well before the time came to raise the anchor. Despite the advantages of the high tide and flooding, the Yangtse was still a dangerous river, and as we were without either a pilot or any charts now, being able to see with the naked eye was crucial.

And what he’d seen had been a sampan in the distance, that was heading our way.

Having been unable to get to us for over a week, due to Gloria, the traders who sold us produce (by now at ridiculously inflated prices) had, tonight of all nights, decided to make the crossing. With everyone now ready to go, and the evidence clear all over the Amethyst , there was a moment of panic about what should be done.

The captain thought on his feet. ‘On no account let them board,’ he told Lieutenant Hett. ‘And have some camp beds set up on the quarterdeck. Have some men get in them, as if they’re turning in. We must make it look as if everything is normal. Get some goods. Check the invoice. Act completely normally.’

And everyone did. But there couldn’t have been a crew member on board who wasn’t holding his breath. If news got passed on to Kang of even the tiniest oddity, our imminent deaths were now staring us in the face.

‘Lord, it’s dark,’ the captain observed, peering out into the inky night through his binoculars, the traders having thankfully left again. Despite his eyes having ‘adjusted’, that was the thing with humans; they really couldn’t see much after nightfall, which I supposed was why they tended to go to sleep. But not tonight, and the captain’s determination to free us only increased my respect for him further. It was a truly courageous decision to do the thing he was about to do, and I knew I must take my lead from him.

I also couldn’t help but remember what Colonel Kang had told him every single time they’d spoken: that ‘if you move your ship, every attempt will be made to destroy it. If you do not, all will be well.’

All would be well. We were going anyway, despite him and his threats, and all would still be well. We were going to slip and turn the Amethyst as soon as the moon nudged behind a convenient cloud, so I wrapped my tail around my paws and peered downriver alongside the captain and Lieutenant Hett, wishing I could reassure them on that point. For, much as I believed it, that wasn’t the case, at least not as yet.