Lest We Forget - Volume 17 www.legionnl.ca 125 continued .... A Shattered Soul – War takes its toll In no time the bow was towering above me standing vertical in the sea. It slowly slipped beneath the waves, taking many trapped sailors, to a perishing destiny. The masts that were stored on the upper deck came shooting from the smoke-filled air. They crashed down into the water spreading fuel and flames and awful screams of despair. The faces of corpses, I remember, and their scattered, mangled body parts. This atrocious sight, has always haunted, my crumbled mind and my grieving heart. I heaved and rolled and flopped and slopped in an oily fiery hell. While hanging on, so shell shocked, to a piece of burned metal. I screamed and yelled and cried and wailed just like my comrades near. The rest, was left in my hypothermic, lifeless body; fears, scars and tears. “Eternal father, strong to save, whose arm hath bound the restless wave, who bids the mighty ocean deep; its own appointed limits keep. Oh, hear us when we cry to thee, for those in peril on the sea!”(5) Two American tank landing ships were despatched to rescue who survived. I knew then as I know now, that part of me had died. I was drifting in and drifting out, giving in to my watery grave. I couldn’t feel my body, and I started slipping beneath the waves. It was long after before I realized I had been pulled out of the frigid remains. They grabbed the lifebelt on my naked body; a blue trembling soul that was half insane. “We got you mate, you’re safe mate, you’re safe, you’ve been floatin’ for two days, mate, now you’re safe. Here’s three tots of rum, and some blankets, to keep you warm and calm. We’ll be on land soon, when we’re finished, with our recovery mission.” “They collected the wounded, the crippled, the maimed, and took us to a safe shelter in harbour, The armless, the legless, the blind and the insane, all broken beaten heroes in trauma.”(6)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0NTk1OA==