Those in Peril

“Stand by.”

The bullet cracks through the air. Another follows quickly in its wake.

From the moment my boots land on his boat the stench of fish is overwhelming. I pick my way over the detritus of fish guts, hooks and scraps of net lining the deck of the boat until I reach him. War has made me no stranger to death. Of once bright eyes, now glassy and unseeing. Of final breaths taken alone and without witnesses. The man’s cheeks are flushed and ruddy from the cold but the colour is draining quickly. Blood seeps from the bullet wounds in his chest.

Beside him, having slipped from his hand when he fell is a fishing rod. His catch is still tethered to the hook. Eyes bulging, mouth wide, it slaps its body against the deck with full force as it gasps frantically for air. Careful not to step in the blood that has begun to pool around the body, I unhook the fish and hurl it as far as I can back into the water.

Williamson appears beside me. I see my own bewilderment mirrored in his pale features. The man wasn’t a jerry in disguise. Or an enemy on patrol. He was just a fisherman.

Wordlessly we get to work wrapping the man’s body in tarpaulin taken from his cabin. It’s easier once we can no longer see his face. Together Williamson, Jones and I heave his body up, our faces red with exertion, sweat pouring down our brows. On my count, we swing him into the sea below. The tarpaulin slips as he falls, revealing a sliver of his olive-green boots as he splashes into the water. For a moment he floats face down, before his weight takes hold, and he slowly sinks down to the depths below. As we stand there, watching him go, the words of a hymn come to me.

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

My father used to well up when we sang it in church. Even in the salty sea spray, if I close my eyes, I can smell the cloying incense wafting from the thurible. I can see father’s knuckles turning white as he clutches the hymn book. The light from the candles dancing in the reflection of his buffed silver buttons. I hear the words in his deep, melodic baritone. Words I hadn’t paid much mind to until now.

I used to clamber into the pew every Sunday, pushing my brothers aside in my bid to be the one to sit beside him in his pressed officer’s uniform. When I think of him now, I’m filled with a heavy sadness. Not because of his illness or because the war has kept me from him in his final days, but because for all those years he was wrong. There is no pride, no glory to be found out here. Only death. Only horror.