大象传媒

The story continues....

The people from the other boat had had rather different adventures from us. They had lost sight of all the other boats the first night and next day had set a course directly for the coast. As they were by themselves, not towing a raft as was the boat with us, they had greater speed and reached the coast by the evening of the second day.. As they approached the shore, hoards of natives came out towards them, and as evening was approaching, by common consent, the survivors decided they would rather spend another night in their boat ! They drifted further along the coast, and the next day reached a settlement called Grand Bassa, where they landed and were given a royal welcome by the four white inhabitants and the natives. In the afternoon they were given rolls of material to choose from and the natives made shorts and shirts for the men and frocks of bright cotton prints for the women and two little girls. The next day a corvette appeared off the coast and they were taken out to it in an American landing craft. , and so to Freetown.
No.1 lifeboat had been heard of too, they had been picked up the first day after being torpedoed , but their rescuers had been cruising round looking for the rest of us, and so had not yet arrived. They reached Freetown on the Monday, thus most of the passengers and crew of the 鈥淏odegraven鈥� were accounted for, Nine were found to be missing, The Fourth Engineer and two men were known to have been trapped in the engine-room, one old lady had been trapped in her cabin and there was not time to rescue her, and the remaining five, including Olive and Sybil had been last seen standing together on the boat deck hesitating over the fact that they had to jump over the side. Sadly they were never heard of again.
The civilian transit camp we were taken to consisted of long, cool huts, each containing 14 camp-beds complete with mosquito netting and frames, and one main building containing a common room and opening onto a long verandah and a dining hall.. The lady and gentleman in charge were very pleasant and made us as comfortable as possible. We were taken to a hut set apart from the others where cases of second-hand women鈥檚 clothes were kept in case of emergency, and we spent an amusing afternoon trying on cotton frocks, trying to find something that fitted each of us. We were allowed three or four frocks each, any underwear that fitted us. The men were more lucky, they were all treated as 鈥淒istressed British Seamen鈥� and issued with new suits, underwear and mackintoshes by the Merchant Navy Club.

There were very few white women in Sierra Leone, and lots of army, navy and air force camps. Very soon word spread round Freetown that we were there, and invitations began to come in, asking us to a dance at an R.A.F. Officers鈥� mess, a dance a R.A.F.Sergeants鈥� Mess, a concert at the Naval Base, dinners at various places, rides into the surrounding country in army trucks, and a trip to Lumley, a beach 7 miles away. The eight days we spent there were certainly very hectic and we were never at a loss for something to do. If we needed money, we were given small grants, but I had ten pounds in my bag and David had the same amount in his money-belt. So were able to collect a few toilet necessities for the remainder of our journey home. At no time were we allowed to send any kind of communication home as telegrams and any kind of radio communication was not allowed for security purposes.

Each day we would scan the Bay, wondering on which of the many anchored ships we would continue our journey. Eventually we were told to pack our few newly acquired belongings and were taken by launch out to a passenger liner , the 鈥淗ighland Monarch鈥� . We reached the ship鈥檚 side and looked up to the decks above to see hundreds of grinning, suntanned faces - the R.A.F. were there before us, and this was a troopship! We were given very comfortable cabins for six, all of the women were in cabins along the same passage, but the O.C.Troops was taking no chances, and stationed a guard, day and night at the end of the passage. We each signed a paper when we came on board to the effect that as we were on a military ship we agreed to obey any instructions and commands given by the O.C.

We were in a large convoy, the journey was uneventful and never-ending, as we zigzagged about in the Atlantic, then turned eastwards and spent 10 days in Gibraltar harbour waiting for another convoy.

We eventually arrived in Liverpool , and David and I sent a telegram to my mother from the Station, as we knew how worried she must be as she had not heard any news of us for two months, but we arrived home before the telegram, two waifs each with our worldly possessions in a carrier bag, and received a very relieved welcome.

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