At Sea

At Sea is by Richard Wiseman, born July 1935, who had this as the first chapter of his memoirs, which were distributed to the family in 2015. This chapter was published online just before and in commemoration of VE day 2025, at www.jdawiseman.com/papers/richard_a_wiseman/1940_At_Sea.html (so on the website of his eldest son). Richard Wiseman died in November 2024, aged 89 (obituary).

At Sea

We had been at sea many days. The afternoon was darkening towards twilight. I was on deck with Alan, my older brother.

The ship was pitching and tossing, rolling from side to side in the deep Atlantic swell. Every time the bow hit the waves there was a loud slap and a jolt through the decks. Then the sharp rolling again.

We were used to the motion and also to the pungent smell of brine and diesel oil. The Duchess of Atholl was steaming west on the wine-dark foam-flecked sea, out of Liverpool and away from the only home, the only country, I had known. The ship was packed with passengers, nearly all women and children.

The Duchess of Atholl, built 1928,
tonnage 20,119, owned by Canadian Pacific.

I looked around. Everything was grey — the sky, the sea, the waves, the ship. The whole convoy was painted grey: camouflage, I had been told. The rhythmic slapping of the waves and the drumming of the engines had become a steady background.

Life and time are closely linked, or so we think when we are young.

As we grow older it is a phenomenon often noted, although rarely remarked upon, that life and time move at different paces. When we are young they appear in step but later we realise it is an illusion, they march to different drumbeats: sometimes life appears to stop and time creeps forward; on other occasions, life inches along but time seems to stop.

This was my life, my time. But the different tempos of life and time became clear in the next few moments on board the Duchess of Atholl.

With no warning the air was pierced by a loud klaxon. It was insistent: heart-stopping, electrifying, deafening. This was the moment when I felt life had ceased. I was held rigid by the sound. I couldn’t breathe.

At some point the noise of the klaxon ended. Time moved on.

The tannoy blared in its place: “MUSTER STATIONS! MUSTER STATIONS!”

The tannoy broke the spell: life, snail-like, crept forward.

I took a deep breath.

In that terrifying moment Alan and I stood still, looking at each other, not knowing what was happening except it was very frightening. Alan’s face, below the mop of black hair, was drained of colour.

Some passengers were pointing at a black speck in the sky. Others were screaming. Everyone appeared terrified. Ship’s officers, normally calm, rushed across the decks. Some seamen were coiling ropes, others uncoiling them.

“We must get down to the cabin,” Alan shouted.

Hardly audible above the tannoy, from over his shoulder he yelled some words about safety vests. He rushed down the stairwell.

I followed.

There was noise everywhere, the klaxon blaring again, people shouting and pushing, stampeding footsteps. Life had re-started with a dash.

My mother was already in the cabin, calmly collecting cardigans and overcoats.

Alan said, “We must get socks. Socks.”

He dived to the bottom drawer of the steel wardrobe, and grabbed two pairs. I followed him, stuffing them into my pocket. My mother handed us the clothes and the safety vests to put on. She checked the straps, then firmly, without rushing, serenely but with an infinitely sad face led the way out of the cabin and onto the upper deck.

The black speck in the sky was bigger.

“What is it? What is it?” passengers were clamouring.

“It’s an aeroplane,” from a crew member.

The passengers crowded the rail, pointing and shouting.

“It’s German,” a voice announced. My mother’s face was impassive.

“Oh my God,” a woman cried.

Someone was screaming. The klaxon stopped.

A deathly hush fell over the ship.

In the silence, only the slap of the waves on the bow could be heard.

Time stopped for another moment. Then the tannoy came to life:

“The aeroplane is one of ours. There is no danger.”

A palpable wave of relief went through the ship. Life moved faster.

“Thank god for that!”

“Oh how marvellous!”

“Hurrah!”

The aeroplane passed overhead with a little dip of its wings in salute.

We were leaving England, about to be occupied by a foreign power — or so many thought — for the safety of Canada^†1.

We were in convoy. There were nearly one hundred other ships and the Duchess of Atholl was one of the slowest. A ship even slower, far behind us in the convoy, was later sunk.

Afterwards we learned that many ships in following convoys were also sunk^†2†3.

It was 1940.

We were caught up in the demonic swirl of history.

On this Homeric odyssey it was our destiny to survive.

It is my first clear memory.

I was almost five years old.

†1. At the outbreak of war, the Duchess of Atholl, launched in 1928, had completed 109 round trips to Canada as well as three trips to Bermuda and forty-four cruises. There was accommodation for 580 cabin, 480 tourist and 510 third-class passengers. On the first of six North Atlantic voyages she carried 800 children evacuees from Britain to Canada.

†2. In June 1940, the Arandora Star a requisitioned cruise liner, sailed from Liverpool twenty-four hours after we did and was torpedoed by a German U-boat, taking 805 passengers to their deaths. They too had been en route to Canada.

†3. In September 1940, the SS City of Benares carrying 400 passengers including 90 children from Britain to Canada, was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of 258 lives. Of 90 children aboard, only 13 survived.