The Sailor

"If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home."

- The Soldier, a poem by Rupert Brooke 1915.

-0-

Thunder rumbled in the distance as a chill wind blew across the deck of the Resilient. It cut through Brackenreid’s watch coat like a hot knife through butter. Breathing into his cupped hands and rubbing them vigorously together, he wished for a hot knife, or at least a cup of tea. At that time of night any warmth at all would be a godsend. But he knew it would be at least an hour until the tea was poured for him.

Shocking no one, especially not a young man who had grown up in the Battery of St. John’s harbour, the North Sea was bitterly cold. Arctic winds howled south, carrying occasional flurries of snow with them and breaking great icebergs off from whatever frozen Hell those ship killers came from. Brackenreid knew the families of several men lost that way, sometimes it seemed as though the elements took more ships than did the Germans.

He shuddered, straining his eyes against the dark. The merchant navy wasn’t a perfect job, but he supposed it helped ease his mother’s mind somewhat. Much as the army needed men in France and in Flanders, the ships needed men to carry the cargo over there. Not everyone could be part of pushing the Germans back behind their own borders.

Although, enough of his friends had enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment that he felt a coward for not going with them. He knew that many had already died, torn apart by enemy machine guns, still, he felt a coward for not going, for not dying beside them. Taking up arms to defend the Empire was every subject’s duty. The old lion needed help and he was just the right sort of man to provide it.

But, there was his dear mother to think of. As the only son, it was up to him to look after her since his father had died in the mines up in Labrador. That meant he couldn’t risk his neck on the front, but there were other ways he could help the war effort. By crossing the Atlantic with holds packed to bursting with food and weapons for the army, he was doing his part.

He had to be. If not, then what was the point of it all?

Vaguely, still scanning the blackness for anything dangerous, he tried to count just how many times he had made that crossing since the war began. Just how many times he had ploughed through the churning sea to bring his cargo back to the old country.

Too many times, was probably about as close to the truth as he could get. The war would never end, or so it seemed. He was barely in port long enough to load the next cargo of rifles, machine guns, shells, bandages, and food, before ploughing back to England. Hardly even time to kiss his mother's cheek and laugh at how tall the girls had gotten while he was away. Even the explosion in Halifax had barely put a delay on shipping.

Wood from the British Columbia, grain from the Prairies, finished goods from Ontario and Quebec, fish and coal from the Maritimes, the war machine needed every scrap of it. Not to mention the men. Hundreds of thousands, shipped over and few enough being shipped back.

Maybe it was better that he was where he was. Safe as… well, safe as could be.

The newspapers had talked about how the Royal Navy had bottled up the Kreigsmarine after the Battle of Jutland. But that hadn’t stopped the Hun from causing havoc in the Atlantic. Enormous convoys of ships, protected by newly christened submarine hunters plied their slow way to England while wolves circled beneath the waves.

Bastards. Word around the docks claimed that close to half of the British Merchant Navy was on the ocean floor now thanks to them. And now the Resilient had to wait on the slowest convoy members to avoid outrunning Royal Canadian Navy protection. It all stuck in his teeth.

Light split the darkness, blinding Brackenreid for a moment. And in that moment, the world ended. Heat lanced across the deck, searing his skin an instant before two explosions nearly deafened him. Beneath his feet, the deck lurched, sending him crashing into the guard rail.

Shaking his head, he cleared the last of the spots from his eyes and threw a terrified look over his shoulder. With a scream the bones of the ship strained to breaking. As though from far away, he heard the abandon ship siren. Everywhere, sailors were pouring out onto the deck and thundering towards the lifeboats.

He tried to follow, but the ship was rocked by second torpedo. Out in the darkness, explosions lit the surface of the churning ocean as depth charges from the escort ships detonated, trying to flush the wolfpack out from hiding. He did not know how effective they were, no one knew just how many U-boats prowled the shipping corridors.

Not even civilian ships were safe, everyone knew that after the Lusitania went down. Rumour had it that even the Americans were rediscovering their balls after that attack claimed some of their own citizens.

Brackenreid didn’t care about that, didn’t care about the Germans, the Navy, the war, or even the King. He fought back to his feet and struggled along the deck towards the nearest lifeboat.

Mother, little Kitty and Sarah. They were the only things in his mind as he helped his shipmates heave the boom over the side and started loading sailors in before lowering it. This was their only chance, no one could out swim the pull of a sinking ship. Lifting his leg, he was about to climb into another life boat, manic prayers twirling through his head. He needed to survive, he needed to –

Below deck, fires from the torpedoes found the artillery shells bound for Flanders. Licking them with greedy tongues, they ate through the wooden crates and feasted on the straw packing. First one, then all of the shells exploded at once, cracking the ship apart.

The world shifted, another roar permanently deafening young Brackenreid as gravity changed directions and dragged him down, down, down. Sliding along the deck, desperately trying to grab hold of something, anything, he forced himself not to look down. Not to see the oily black water.

Death crept closer. Every passing second seemed to last a century as he srabbled, tearing the skin and nails off his fingers. He would not die. He would not go down. He just needed to grab onto something sturdy and get his balance back. The water did not exist, he forced himself not to think about the crushing, all consuming black.

Grabbing at a cleat, hope rose in his chest. He was going to make it, he could survive. Now he had a chance, all he needed to do was not lose his grip and he could re-orient and find a lifeboat. All they would have to do is throw him a rope and he could make it back to Newfoundland. Why was the world so quiet?

Water, Germany, and the King all be damned, he was going to make it home. Back to his mother and sisters. Maybe they could explain where the sound had gone. He hauled on the cleat, trying to lift himself just a little higher, just a few more precious inches away from a watery grave.

On a scream he could not hear, the cleat broke free of the weakened deck. His grip had not failed. He fell, too stunned to do more than stare at the hunk of frozen, useless metal in his hand. Wind rushed past him, tousling his hair as his mother had done when he was a boy. His mother...

The ocean was cold as his boots crashed into it.

So very cold.