The Lonely Sea: Collected Short Stories

The MEKNES

The English Channel, during the years 1939–1945, was the setting for countless extraordinary and sometimes, during the invasion summer of 1944, frankly incredible spectacles; but it can safely be said that at no time in the war did it present a sight more astonishing, incongruous and utterly improbable than that to be seen on a night in late July in the year 1940, some 60 miles off the Isle of Wight.

This sight was a ship, just an ordinary 6,000-ton cargo and passenger liner, but it was behaving in a most extraordinary fashion. One could have looked at it, then looked again, and still have been excused for flatly disbelieving the plain evidence before one's eyes. During the hours of darkness in the wartime Channel secrecy, stealth, and above all an absolutely enforced blackout, were the essentials without which there was no hope of survival. One careless chink of escaping light, one thoughtlessly struck match or cigarette end glowing in the darkness, and the chances were high that a U-boat's periscope or torpedo boat's bows lined up and locked on the betrayed bearing.

Yet there was light to be seen aboard this ship. NOT JUST ONE LIGHT, BUT HUNDREDS OF THEM. It was as if a section of the Blackpool illuminations had been transferred en bloc to the middle of the Channel. Every blackout scuttle had been removed, and the lights behind the portholes switched on. The lights on deck and on the superstructure blazed. The bridge was floodlit. Powerful projectors lit up the name and nationality marks painted on either side of the hull, while another illuminated the big flag painted on the deck. Finally, two powerful searchlights were trained on the tricolour flag that fluttered high above the stern.

The night was fairly calm, the sky clear, visibility good: the brilliantly illuminated vessel must have been clearly visible over at least 500 square miles of the Channel and over 10 times that area for any plane cruising overhead.

The ship was the MEKNES, owned by the COMPAGNE GENERALE TRANSATLANTIQUE, and she had excellent reason for this blatant self-advertisement. Or at least, tragically, so it was imagined at the time.

The MEKNES was en route from Southampton to Marseilles with 1,180 French naval officers and ratings, mostly reservists who had served aboard a French battlecruiser until the fall of their country, then transferred to Britain. They had since elected to return to their own country. Marseilles, at that time, was technically a neutral port, and these repatriates were non-combatants: the French Vichy Government, under the aged Marshal Petain, had just concluded a separate peace with Germany. The French repatriates, therefore, were entitled to be regarded as neutrals, and afforded the protection that international law demands for neutrals. Accordingly, the British Government had informed Vichy of the repatriation, with instructions that the Germans be advised and asked to provide a safe conduct. Precautions would be taken, the British added, to ensure that there would be no mistaking her identity.

And there most certainly was no mistaking her identity, when the MEKNES left Southampton at 4.30 p.m., cleared the Isle of Wight, and steamed down the Channel at fifteen knots.

All went well for the first few hours, and even the most apprehensive were beginning to relax, becoming increasingly confident that the guarantee of safe conduct was being scrupulously observed, when, at 10.30 p.m., the officer of the watch heard the sound of powerful motor engines closing rapidly. Blinded by the intensity of the MEKNES'S own lights, he was unable to make out even the silhouette of the approaching boat, but the phosphorescent gleam of the high creaming wake it left behind it and the familiar sound of the engines left him in no doubt at all — it was a German E-boat, out on the prowl. At once he picked up the phone to report to the MEKNES's commander, Captain Dulroc, but before he had even begun to speak, the E-boat opened up with its machine guns, raking the superstructure, deck and port side of the ship with heavy and concentrated fire.

Captain Dulroc, ignoring the fire, rushed to the bridge while all around him machine-gun bullets smashed with trip-hammer thuds against steel bulkheads, and whined off in evil ricochet into the darkness beyond. Dulroc still believed in his guarantee of safe passage. He was convinced this was an error in identification that could soon be rectified. He rang the engine room telegraphs to STOP, and gave two prolonged blasts on the ship's whistle to show that he was no longer under way. The machine-gun fire ceased almost at once, and Dulroc flashed out a 'Who are you?' signal.

The reply came immediately — an even heavier burst of fire directed against the bridge with such venom and accuracy that officers and men had to fling themselves flat on their faces to escape the murderous barrage.

Again there came a brief lull in the firing, and Dulroc swiftly seized the opportunity to send out morse signals in the general direction of their still invisible assailant giving the name, nationality and destination of the MEKNES over and over again. But the E-boat captain seemed beyond either reason or appeal. He opened fire again, this time not only with machine guns but with heavier calibre weapons, probably something in the nature of two-pounders.

Within seconds every lifeboat but one on the port side was smashed and made useless. Captain Dulroc and his officers had no illusions left now. The earlier bursts of machine-gun fire might have been the results of misidentification or over-enthusiasm on the part of a trigger-happy young torpedo-boat captain. But the destruction of their port lifeboats had been no accident. They were clearly visible and sharply etched against the surrounding darkness by the numerous deck and floodlights that were still switched on. The E-boat had deliberately aimed at and destroyed them with its heavy gun, and the reason for this destruction was not far to seek.

IT HAD DESTROYED THEIR BOATS SO THAT THEY COULD NOT BE USED — AND THEIR ONLY USE, OF COURSE, COULD BE FOR THE SAVING OF SURVIVORS. THE MEKNES, DULROC KNEW, WAS GOING TO BE DESTROYED.

At 10:55 p.m. the now inevitable torpedo was fired from almost point-blank range. One of the survivors, M Mace, says that he was talking to some friends in his cabin, discussing the machine-gun attacks, when a terrific explosion burst in the cabin walls and threw the men, one on top of the other, in a confused heap in the middle of the cabin deck. Somebody cried out, rather unnecessarily as Mace drily observes, 'We have been torpedoed.' They rose dazedly to their feet and burst their way out through the broken splintered door on to the open deck, to find the ship already sinking beneath their feet, going down rapidly by the stern. But it was not that unnaturally canted angle of the ship that attracted Mace's attention at that moment. The torpedo struck opposite number three hold — and there were over 200 men confined in that one narrow space.

MACE STILL REMEMBERS, WITH WHAT HE DESCRIBES AS A HORRIFYING VIVIDNESS, THE SCREAMS, THE MOANS, AND THE PITIFUL WAILING OF THE TRAPPED, THE WOUNDED, THE DYING AND THE DROWNING IN THAT DEATHTRAP FAR BENEATH HIS FEET.

For the great majority of men down there death came swiftly. Many had died outright and most of those who survived were too badly hurt to make more than a token attempt to escape the all-engulfing flood of hundreds of tons of water that rushed in through the great hole in the ship's side. At the most, Mace says, a dozen men escaped from number three hold. The situation, he goes on, was almost as dreadful on the fo'c'sle of the ship. He could clearly see it from where he stood, even though the lights had died with the blowing up of the boilers. There had, of course, been no direct damage in the fore part of the ship — only one torpedo had struck the MEKNES. But there was another and almost equally terrifying and lethal agent at work there. The stern of the MEKNES was already sinking below the surface of the sea, bringing the bows of the ship high up into the air until the forefoot was almost clear of the water. As the angle increased, heavy rafts, several of them already partially released, broke free from their remaining lashings and slid down and aft along the decks, maiming, crushing and killing against bulkheads, rails and stanchions groups of men so tightly knotted that for most of them there could be no escape.

Here the first officer of the MEKNES, now Captain Philippe Gilbert, takes up the story. The master, he says, realized at once that there was no hope of saving the MEKNES. He ordered an SOS to be sent out — on the emergency radio, as all electricity supplies had been cut off — and for the boats to be lowered at once. Such lifeboats as were still fit to be launched, Gilbert says, were in the water with quite remarkable speed. Although he himself was in direct overall charge of the lowering, he claims no credit for this. THE LOSS OF LIFE, HE IS CERTAIN, WOULD HAVE BEEN FAR GREATER HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR THE HAPPY CHANCE THAT NEARLY ALL THE REPATRIATE PASSENGERS WERE THEMSELVES SAILORS, AND MOST OF THEM EXPERIENCED SAILORS AT THAT. They did not have to be told what to do. They just did it, and at once.

Never had speed and training served men better. The MEKNES'S end was as swift as it was spectacular: she broke completely beneath the surface of the Channel in less than eight minutes from the moment of impact of the torpedo, but in that time every serviceable lifeboat — and almost every available raft — was in the water.

As an aside at this point, Captain Gilbert mentions one of the most remarkable things he has ever seen at sea. As the sinking vessel rolled over on its side, one of the men struggling nearby had an extraordinary experience — and escape. 'As one of the ship's funnels tipped over into the water,' Gilbert recalls, 'this man was sucked into it as by a huge vacuum cleaner.

Moments later a violent counter-pressure from the other end of the funnel blew him back into the sea. He was completely black from head to foot.'

The man who is now a pilot in Marseilles was one of the lucky ones. Many of those who escaped safely from the ship did so only to die during the night.

Some of the lifeboats had capsized, one or two to drift away, empty, into the darkness. Another was found to have its buoyancy tanks ripped open by machine guns and foundered soon after launching, throwing its occupants into the sea. For the majority, therefore, rafts and floating pieces of timber — of which there were providentially plenty — were the chief means and hope of salvation. In the two minutes before the foundering of the MEKNES, hundreds of men had leaped into the sea and swum towards the bobbing rafts, dragging themselves aboard as best they could. THE RAFTS, MACE SAYS, WERE SOON GROSSLY OVERLOADED. FURTHER, THE SEA WAS NOT NEARLY SO CALM AS IT HAD APPEARED FROM THE DECK OF THE MEKNES ONLY AN HOUR OR SO PREVIOUSLY; AND THE COMBINATION OF THE OVERLOADED RAFTS AND UNSETTLED SEA PROVED AN EVIL ONE.

The rafts sank under the surface of the sea, and soon most of the men found themselves chest deep in the water — and even in July the waters of the English Channel can be bitterly cold. Time and again a wave would sweep over a raft and carry a man away: the more fortunate made their way back again and scrambled aboard — if that word can be used to refer to regaining position on something two feet below the level of the sea. Again and again, Mace says, a false movement, an unconscious shifting of position and weight at the critical moment when the other side of the raft was tilting upwards under the thrust of a passing wave and the entire raft would capsize, throwing everybody into the sea. After this had happened repeatedly, only the strongest men succeeded in regaining the raft. Others sank, exhausted or choked, and were never seen again.

AND IF THE FIGHT FOR SHEER PHYSICAL SURVIVAL WERE NOT ENOUGH, THERE WAS A STILL FURTHER DANGER — THE ENEMY WHO HAD SO RECENTLY SUNK THEM. SURVIVORS CLAIMED THAT THEY HAD BEEN FIRED AT IN THE WATER WHEN SWIMMING TOWARDS THE RAFTS. Though this was probably true, it is unlikely that much loss of life was caused by it. A swimmer in a darkened sea makes a poor target, and it is significant that neither Mace nor Gilbert, two witnesses whose observations and accuracy of judgment were of the highest order, sought to dwell on this. It appears reasonably certain that once men had reached rafts or lifeboats, no further attacks were made on them, although one survivor, the purser of the MEKNES, claims that men on rafts WERE machine-gunned and killed. So brief and utterly confused was the entire course of events that the facts are difficult to arrive at.

All night long almost 1,000 men — and two women, officers' wives, and a five-year-old boy — waited for rescue, some in boats, but most of them just clinging to rafts and floating pieces of wood.

Soon after dawn a plane flew over the area, and within a very short time — for the coast of England was only two hours' steaming away — the Frenchmen in the water were overjoyed to see four British warships steaming down on them at high speed.

The rescue work was swift and efficient, and all the survivors — with the exception of some who were thought to have made for the French coast and another couple of lifeboats, with 100 sailors in them, that had to be searched for and located by a Blenheim bomber — were back in England in a few hours.

Newspaper reports of the time speak of the pathetic spectacle these survivors presented — most of them only in inadequate scraps of clothing, some in pyjamas, some in underclothes, and not a few with no clothes at all. They were dressed in whatever came to hand — some even in women's frocks — fed in naval barracks and sent to await the next attempt at repatriation in the chalets of a former holiday camp in the north-east. All, that is, except the 150 officers and men who had to be taken straight to hospital.

It was one of the war's major sea disasters. Almost 300 Frenchmen, none of whom was at that time a combatant, lost their lives that July night. And when it comes to the prime or first cause of the tragedy it is as difficult to discover the precise truth as it is to apportion the blame. There is no question, of course, as to the immediate cause of the sinking. The Germans made rather ridiculous attempts to lay the loss at the door of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Mr A. V. Alexander, on the fantastic ground that he had ordered the sinking of the MEKNES as a propaganda movement to stir up anti-German feeling in France. In fact the responsibility for the sinking was obvious, as the Germans issued a statement on 25 July saying that one of their torpedo boats had sunk a ship south of Portland — precisely where the MEKNES, the only ship that had been sunk for some considerable time in that area, had been that night.

THE SHIP THEY HAD SUNK, THE GERMANS CLAIMED, WAS AN 18,000-TON ARMED MERCHANT CRUISER — AN OBVIOUS FABRICATION AND ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN AWAY THEIR EMBARRASSMENT AT SINKING AN UNARMED NEUTRAL WITH ALL LIGHTS ON. Later, the Germans changed their tactics. If the MEKNES had been sunk by them, they claimed, it was still the fault of Britain. A broadcast by the official German News Agency stated that Britain had not asked for a safe conduct for this vessel, and had not advised the German authorities of the ship's departure and route.

This, as first sight, was another bare-faced fabrication. Most of the British national newspapers, reporting the disaster, had attacked the perfidy of the Germans who had sunk a ship to which they had given an unconditional guarantee of safe passage. However, on the following day, to the accompaniment of no great beating of drums, there was an official British retraction of the statement that the Germans had given a safe passage guarantee. What had actually happened, it was carefully explained, was that the Vichy Government had been informed of the British intentions and it had been their duty to pass the news to the Germans.

IT APPEARED, IN FACT, THAT NOT ONLY HAD THE GERMANS NOT GIVEN A SAFE PASSAGE GUARANTEE — IT WASN'T EVEN CERTAIN THAT THEY KNEW ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT IT.

Here the Vichy Government stepped in. The French Admiralty stated unequivocally that the British Government had failed to inform them of the sailing of the MEKNES, its route, or even its destination. The effect of this statement in certain circles in this country can well be imagined.

Suggestions then appeared in the British Press — it is a fair indication of the extent to which wartime chauvinism (if not indeed something even more sinister) can affect the judgment of experienced journalists — that the Vichy Government had in fact received all the information, passed on to the Germans the news where a sitting, a defenceless target was to be found, and then officially denied that they had received any information at all from the British.

As a solution, this appears extraordinarily unlikely. Had that been the case, the Germans would not have reacted so clumsily to the accusation of the sinking, and would, indeed, have had their story cut and dried, and, the ship safely sunk, indignantly denied all knowledge of it; and it seems improbable in the extreme that any Frenchman would have willingly and however indirectly been the agent responsible for sending perhaps over 1,000 of his countrymen to their deaths.

THERE CAN BE LITTLE DOUBT THAT THE PRIME RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE TRAGIC LOSS OF THE MEKNES LIES SQUARELY AT THE DOOR OF THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT. The official German News Agency said at the time: 'It was the duty of the British Government to inform the French Government of their intention to repatriate French soldiers and to wait for a reply as to whether the dangerous transport through the war zone could be assured of safe convoy.'

Did the British Government in fact so inform the French? An 'authoritative' British source said: 'The French… were notified in general terms of our intention to repatriate,' a vague, obscure and weak-kneed attempt at excuse-making that could hardly be bettered.

THE FRENCH SAID FLATLY THAT THEY WERE NOT INFORMED OF THE SAILING OF THE MEKNES.

What is beyond all dispute — and this is the crux of the matter — no safe conduct or guarantee was given by the Germans. Yet the criminally negligent decision was made to permit the sailing of this unarmed and unescorted vessel into the E-boat and U-boat infested Channel without waiting for a reply from the Germans. It would be interesting indeed to know what British Service or Government department was responsible for this decision. But one can safely assume that the blanket of official anonymity which covers up such a multitude of sins will remain firmly where it is and that none of the parties concerned is going to lift even a tiny corner lest the answers be found to lie uncomfortably close to home.

BESIDES, IN THE PRESS OF EVENTS OF A GREAT WORLD WAR, THE DEATH OF 300 NON-COMBATANTS IS A SMALL THING, QUICKLY AND COMFORTABLY FORGOTTEN AS THE FIRST SHARP HORROR OF THE TRAGEDY FADES AND FINALLY PASSES AWAY.