I Sank The Bismarck Read Online Free PDF Page A

it
was snowing quite heavily, it was very cold and it would not
be long before it got dark. The depot manager asked one of
the bus drivers, a chap in his fifties called Turnbull, and me if
we would set out along the route to see if we could discover
what had happened. Turnbull was a wonderful chap the way
he prepared us; he must have known what to expect. He
secured boots for both of us, an extra pair of breeches, jerseys,
greatcoats and piles of rugs. We loaded them into a small bus,
along with torches, ropes and shovels, and we set off, driving
as quickly as we dared into the teeth of a blizzard along
the Kelso to Jedburgh road. It was by now eight o'clock in the
evening and pitch dark. Eventually we could go no further;
the snow was piling up in the road and we decided that we
would press ahead on foot. We covered our heads with the
rugs, leaving small gaps in the folds so that we could see
ahead. The gale-force wind was whipping the snow almost
horizontal, creating a complete white-out. Great snowdrifts
were building up. Our torches barely penetrated the darkness
more than a few feet, but we set off. Turnbull and I were
roped together, and he led, trying to make a path in the middle
of the road where the snow was mostly waist deep. We knew
that if we wandered off the road we might stumble into a
ditch or fall into a field and be over our heads in a huge snowdrift.
Our situation was getting dangerous, and we moved
forward slowly and cautiously. I remember thinking how
isolated we were and how very careful we must be. Strangely,
neither of us considered abandoning our search, although it
would have made much more sense to head back to our own
vehicle and return to safety in Kelso. There is a strange conflict
in people, and very often a sense of duty or responsibility
will provide as powerful an impetus as a sense of self-preservation.
Accompanying this is an equally strong
motivation not to give up or admit defeat. Whatever was
going on in our heads, we never discussed the possibility of
turning back.
    We couldn't hear ourselves against the wind and had to put
our heads close together to speak to each other, fighting down
the noise of the gale. My companion, who had driven that
road many times, used the telephone wires as a guide; it was
a blessing that they had not been brought down by the heavy
snow. Without them we might easily have wandered off the
road and headed into the surrounding countryside, not to be
found for days. We struggled on, and as we neared the summit
of a steep hill we noticed that the snow suddenly felt different
underfoot. We had been walking through very dense snow,
when suddenly old Mr Turnbull realized that we were walking
on a firm surface that seemed to be higher than the
surrounding verge.
    We paced out the length of this mound – and then it hit us
that we had found the bus. We dug down with our hands to
where we thought the door would be. It took some time, but
we eventually broke through the snow and banged on the
window. Inside there were about six passengers, the driver
and the conductor. They were not in very good shape. The bus
had skidded to the side of the road and after coming to a
halt had quickly been covered by a snowdrift. They were
badly shaken and of course extremely cold. Nobody on the
bus had warm enough clothes to venture out into the blizzard
to seek help. They had kept the engine going for warmth, but
that had run out of petrol and they had started to cut open the
seats and used the stuffing to build little fires on the bus floor.
It was surprising that they had not succumbed to the smoke
and fumes.
    It took a lot of coaxing to persuade them to come out into
the blizzard, but they could not stay there over night. They
were so cold that I doubt they would have survived for
another twelve hours. Eventually we persuaded them that
they would be safer coming with us, and they clambered out
to be roped together and led back down the hill that we had
made in the snow to our waiting