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This is my dramatised version of an absolutely true story, attested to by my mother, grandmother and two aunts.

They were there. Obviously I was not on Cossack.

O, hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea……..

The whole family were in the garden, digging for victory as it was called, but in reality trying to grow enough vegetables and keep enough chickens to supplement the wartime shortages; all except the grandmother. She was attending to household tasks. Suddenly she ran screaming into the garden, her arms clutched tightly across her breast: 'Something has happened to John' she shouted, half-demented with grief, 'I heard him shout "Mother!" ' No matter what the family said, she would not be consoled. She insisted that he had cried out to her.

It was the 23rd of October 1941.

Some weeks later a black-bordered telegram from the Admiralty arrived:
'-regret to inform you that Ordinary Seaman John Pattinson is missing, presumed killed.'

* * *

On that same 23rd October, more than 1000 miles south, in the Atlantic by the Bay of Biscay, HMS Cossack, a Tribal Class destroyer was steaming northwards on escort duties. John Pattinson, his Asdic (later to be called Sonar) flash prominent upon his chest, crouched in a soundproofed room in the bows, his ears straining to hear the telltale 'peep' of an enemy contact. It was muscle-cramping, nerve-straining work, listening for hour after hour as the sound waves rippled outwards only to reflect from the friendly merchantmen that the Cossack was escorting.

Suddenly he heard a faint echo, different from the rest. Instantly he rose to a state of heightened awareness, his hands flying from tuner to tuner as he amplified it and diminished the 'clutter'. There. That was it. 'U-Boat!' he said urgently but calmly into the voice tube, giving the bearing and range. Instantly the ship began to swing about, trying to present her stern to the deadly enemy, in order to show the smallest possible target. Loose items slid wildly from tables as she swung and heeled. Then he heard them. 'Torpedoes!' he yelled, 'fan of three!' The echoes rang: peep -
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-----peep------peep, coming closer and closer together, peep -----peep---peep--peep-peepeepeepeeeeeeeeeeeeep as the torpedoes sped towards the desperately manoeuvring ship. Two fled past, hundreds of yards away but the third struck just forward of amidships, sending a great gout of orange flame hundreds of feet into the air, along with tons of flying metal. The bow disappeared, taking with it 149 sailors, including John and the captain. As he felt the torpedo hit and the world begin to disintegrate, John shouted, 'Motherrrrr!'

The picture has been hanging, draped with poppies, on my parents' living room wall for as long as I can remember. It is a photograph of a handsome, smiling young sailor, wearing his navy hat bearing only the legend HMS, the name of his ship omitted for security reasons. It was originally a black-and-white, but the blue of his collar has been cleverly coloured in, as was common in the days before colour film became cheap and plentiful.

That was my uncle John, my mother's brother.

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