Remember Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the merchant navy were heroes to the last man, including Mr Gillespie who’d survived being sunk by a German U-boat. But in all my reading about the war and all the movies I’d watched, there was nothing more threatening, more deadly, more fearsome or more calculated to send a shiver up my spine than tales about German submarines. And Mack had been picked up by one.
    Holy cow.
    ‘What happened?’ I said.
    Mack was miles away, lost in thought, with the expression on his face people get when they’re recalling unhappy or bitter memories. He gave no indication he’d heard me. He wasn’t even drinking his beer. I sat as still as a shag drying its wings.
    ‘Bloody motor conked out,’ he said eventually. ‘Some bastard had siphoned the diesel out of my tank. Reckon I know who it was, too. Didn’t find out till I was on the six-mile reef ready to come home. Jesus Christ, what a mess.’
    Bloody? Bastard? Jesus Christ? Mack never swore or blasphemed, certainly not in front of me, but there was no way I was going to cover my ears.
    ‘It was probably about eleven at night, a westerly was blowing, not hard but enough to cause a bit of a chop. There was no moon and the night was as black as the lining of a mullet’s gut. I’d got onto a school of good snapper, all the perfect size, between three and four pounds.’ Mack took a massive swallow from his glass and retreated back into his thoughts. I kept up my shag impression while I waited for him to continue.
    ‘Couldn’t believe it when the motor conked out. Last bloody thing I expected. Nothing ever went wrong with it. Never thought for a second I was out of diesel. I’d upanchored and only gone about a hundred yards when she died. My torch battery was on its last legs and my running lights were no help. I wasn’t allowed to use them anyway. The last thing I checked was the dipstick in the tank, and I only did that because I’d checked everything else. By then the westerly had pushed me out another couple of miles and it was too deep to anchor. I threw out my sea anchor to slow the rate of drift and tried to figure out what to do. I hadn’t told anyone where I was going because it was a spot I’d found and didn’t want to share. Even with the sea anchor out, I figured I’d be twenty to thirty miles out to sea by morning. I was in a right pickle, let me tell you.
    ‘I suppose I drifted for a couple of hours. The submarine was on the surface but I never saw it coming.
    The first I knew was the sound of its diesels and, because the wind was offshore, I never heard them until the sub was less than fifty yards astern. I shone my torch towards the sound. I didn’t give much thought as to what kind of boat it was. I just wanted to make sure it saw me and picked me up. Next thing I know I’m pinned in this searchlight. Strewth! Talk about going from the sublime to the bloody ridiculous. One second I can’t see my bloody hand in front of my face, next I’m staring into the sun. Just as quickly it’s dark again. I thought the boat was one of ours, some kind of naval craft or a small coaster. I called out and someone called back. Suddenly there’s this dark shape moving up alongside me, and people running around with torches and shouting at me in some foreign lingo. I hadn’t a clue what was going on but I threw them a line anyway. What else was I supposed to do?
    ‘The boat had eased up between my boat and the shore. Next thing I know, a rope ladder drops down into the bow. Before I get a chance to climb up it, this bloke climbs down. I can see by the light of the torches he’s holding a rifle and, do you know what, it still doesn’t dawn on me what’s happening. “Am I glad to see you,” I say. Instead of shaking my hand he points his bloody rifle at me and starts yelling at me in Kraut. Bloody hell! I didn’t know what to do. I thought he was going to shoot me. I looked up to where the blokes with the torches were, hoping someone would sort things out,