Landfall Read Online Free PDF

the trawlers that came into harbour every night. Another said:
    “We ought to carry more life-saving equipment. I’d have got more of them if I’d had a couple of Carley floats.”
    “Couldn’t the boats have got them?”
    “There were only two proper seamen in the boat. They had all that they could do to keep her head to sea, of course. The ones in the water were just drifted away.” The speaker paused, and then said very quietly: “It was a stinking bloody mess. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “Much fuel oil about?”
    “God, yes. They were covered with it—the ones that were in the water. Just choked with the bloody stuff. I’d have picked up a few more of them if it hadn’t been for that.”
    “How many did you get in all?”
    “Thirteen in the boat and then we picked up seven from the water. We got three bodies, too.”
    “The women were all in the boat, weren’t they?”
    “No—of the seven we picked up, there were three women and four men. But two of the women died within ten minutes and one of the men. They’d been in the water over an hour.”
    Somebody said: “Christ. I suppose they were practically gone when you got them?”
    “Just floating in the life-jackets, you know. To all intents and purposes, they
were
dead.”
    “What about another?”
    “I don’t mind.”
    One of the Wavy Navy pushed his way towards the bar. Another said: “I don’t understand why they only got one boat away. They weren’t shelled, were they?”
    “Not that I know of. We’d have heard it, anyway. But she went down still steaming ahead at about six or seven knots, as far as I could make out from what they said. They never got her stopped to get the boats down.”
    “She just went on till she went under?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Christ!”
    Another said: “Who owned her?”
    “I’ve no idea.” And then another said: “Sanderson and Moore—Sunderland. They had the
Lochentie
, and the
Glen Tay
, and the
Glen Ormond.”
    Chambers turned to them. “I’m sorry—I heard what you said about the
Lochentie
. I’m Coastal Command, patrolling in your sector.”
    The other nodded. “In an Anson?”
    “That’s right. Tell me—was it a submarine?”
    “Must have been. Too deep for a mine—there’s thirty fathoms of water out there.”
    “Did you see anything of the submarine?”
    “Not a smell of it. Did a bit of listening, but she’d been gone an hour. Nothing to go by.”
    Another said: “She’d slip away ten miles and then lie quiet on the bottom till nightfall. She might be anywhere.”
    Chambers said: “Can’t you get her when she surfaces?”
    The trawlerman shrugged his shoulders. “Got a couple of drifters out there now on listening patrol. It’s just a chance if they contact her in the dark.”
    One of the others said: “What are you drinking?”
    Chambers said: “I don’t see why you should. Well, gin and Italian.”
    He turned back to the first speaker. “I was on the morning patrol,” he said, “but my zone was to the east of you. It was filthy visibility—we couldn’t see a thing. I’m afraid the chap who had that zone missed the ship altogether.”
    The other nodded slowly. “An aeroplane flew near us twice while we were picking up the boat. We heard it, but we couldn’t see it.”
    One of them said: “It’s a wonder you come out at all, this sort of weather. Bill Stammers picked one of your Ansons out of the sea on a day just like this about a month ago.”
    Chambers said: “I know. Chap called Grenfell was the pilot. Flew right in. He and the wireless operator ruined themselves. That’s the one you mean?”
    “That’s right. The other two were in a little rubber boat.”
    “Too bloody cold for that this weather.”
    “You’re right. Though for December it’s not as cold as it might be.”
    The pilot said: “We could do without all this blasted rain.”
    He stayed with them for a quarter of an hour and stood a round of drinks. Then he