Lifeboat! Read Online Free PDF

flashed and was sunk into the enemy’s ribs and he fell back against the door, slithering to the ground. The sailors backed away still shouting, still calling ‘goodnight’ to the now dead sentry and gave every appearance of returning reluctantly to their ship under the stern eye of their Captain who waited at the top of the gangway.
    As the last man stepped on to the deck, the gangway was hauled aboard. Then the little tug moved forward and gently nosed the big ship away from the quay side. A cable was thrown down and slowly the British ship was towed towards the harbour entrance. Far below, the engineer waited for the signal to start the ship’s own engines.
    They were almost out into the open sea when the alarm was given and the dockside became alive with scurrying figures. At once Captain Sinclair gave orders for the engines to be started. The tug disconnected and drew alongside. The First Mate scrambled up the rope ladder back on to his own ship leaving the tug drifting in the harbour waters.
    As the ship’s own engines took over, Captain Sinclair heard the gunshot from the quay but they were just out of range, the bullets plopping harmlessly into the escaping ship’s wake.
    â€˜Be God, we’ve done it!’ the Captain muttered as they forged ahead into the open sea. ‘We’ve got awa’ frae the bastards!’
    He allowed his men a few moments of madness, drunk now, not from liquor but with heady success. But then the serious business of getting themselves home began. They had set out with neither charts, nor compass nor any such navigational aid, without even binoculars or a telescope. As best he could. Captain Sinclair steered their course north-westwards by the stars, partially obscured though they were by scudding clouds.
    At last they sighted land, not knowing if they approached friend or enemy. They anchored off-shore and hoisted a distress signal and watched as a small boat put to sea from the flat shoreline and headed towards them.
    Macready’s sharp young eyes identified the orange and blue and white craft first. ‘It’s the lifeboat!’ We’re hame.’
    Indeed they were home—but not to Scotland. They were much further south than their home port. They had anchored off the flat Lincolnshire coastline near the town of Saltershaven. All but the Captain, who would not leave his ship, were taken ashore and made welcome by the people of the coastal town.
    Young Macready found himself at the home of the lifeboat coxswain, fussed over and cosseted by the coxswain’s wife and shy daughter, Mary, who was a few years younger than Iain.
    The next day the crew returned to their ship which was then guided into Grimsby dock where it awaited refitting of the instruments confiscated by the Germans. The sailors travelled home to Scotland to find other ships or to enlist now that they had realised just what this war was going to mean. The ‘phoney war’ for these men was over—they had seen for themselves the need to defend their homeland.
    Iain Macready humped his knapsack towards the terrace house he called home to tell his grandmother that he had already enlisted in the Royal Navy. She took his news and listened to the tale he had to tell with interest but without showing any emotion. Only as the tall young man whom she had raised, his slight frame already filling out, his shoulders broadening, his long easy stride showing his growing self-confidence—only as he walked away from her with a cheery wave did Grandmother Macready allow her old eyes to fill with tears.
    It was the last time he was to see the woman who had been everything in his life for on his first leave from the Navy he returned to Clydeslde to find the streets around the dock flattened, the houses a smouldering pile of rubble.
    In March 1941, Hitler’s bombs, aiming for the docks, had wiped away Macready’s home and his only close relative in one night. Iain Macready