a bit higher, and as a result transmissions were maintained continuously and were picked up in Ceylon..
Our lifeboat station was No1 forehead on the starboard side and we steadily made our way to it and stood in a quiet orderly group to await instructions. There were 8 boats in all, 4 on each side of the vessel each designed to carry 62 persons . In fact we had about 20 less and even then it was really overcrowded. Ours was the last to finally swing down from the davits to the promenade deck where we were standing, as we had Captain Stratford who wanted to be last to leave the ship. We all stood quietly waiting as the davits slid, and the boat was lowered level with our deck. Capt. Stratford had held us back in an orderly fashion and then he shouted briskly:
“ Come on now get into the lifeboats, women and children first”
We climbed in without fuss and then he shouted: “Lower away “ and the boat descended in a copy book manner into the fortunately calm sea. But even then he waited till the very end before finally clambering down a Jacob’s ladder and joining our boat sitting in the water, which then with long oars out we pulled away steadily from the listing ship. Suddenly we spotted the ships purser Mr Elsy in the water and rowed towards him, quickly picking him up, and then all oars were in a steady rhythm as we rowed away. There is nothing that one can really say or even put into words to honestly fully convey all ones surge of feelings when abandoning ship in the middle of a huge ocean in wartime. Until now I had no real sense of fear or panic whilst all the action had been taking place, but now alone in the water seeing our ship listing in the ever increasing distance and getting smaller by the minute, gave me a feeling of the most intense fear and foreboding as though my stomach was a complete void. I felt completely all alone, empty, vulnerable and ominous of our likely fate and just what the future held as I sat next to Mother in the bows of the boat. Then quick sudden calculations whirled and flashed chaotically through my head. I thought wildly to myself:
“ How far to the nearest land, 1500 miles or so? Then there was the condition of the boats, which had been built in 1910 and were described by one crew member as only being held together by the woodworm linking arms! How many of us , and who would die of starvation, dehydration and sunstroke before we were rescued? I am only a child, would I survive better or being frail be among the first to die in the blistering heat of the day and the cold of the night?” I had heard so many horrific stories of lifeboat ordeals in the war already, so much so in fact, that the fear of the unknown gripped my whole body in a desperate convulsion. It is when you quietly realise that you are faced with a negligible chance of survival and a slow lingering death from dehydration and starvation that the shock really hits you squarely. There was no conversation as we rowed away, no normal sailors banter, everyone had similar thoughts and it was no time or place for jokes. Then suddenly for the first time we saw laying off about a couple of miles or so away as we rose on the crest of the deep swell, a small merchant ship lying low with her decks crowded with crew lit up brightly in the strong afternoon sunshine. No sooner had we seen it , there was a loud roar and the seaplane swooped low over our heads, and everyone ducked in case it opened fire, but it landed in a distant splash close to the ship and was immediately hoisted by a derrick onto the foredeck. The sea was calm, and deep blue, but with a heavy ocean swell and the sun blazed bright and brilliant during that action packed afternoon as we viewed on the one hand the raider low in the water and on the other side our ship listing to port. All around were the other lifeboats a few hundred yards. apart and I wondered how long we would keep together But then suddenly there was a fast picket boat with three or four crew on

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