The longest night

“Dear, wake up, did you hear that noise?” Said Hugo to Sussette trying to keep his composure. They could not see anything from their bunk window, the moonless night covered the ocean with its black veil as usual. From starboard, an almost infinite blackness meets the horizon. By this time of the year, cold wind from the North brings a mist so thick that you could almost cut it with a knife.

“Let me get out!… Something happened, wait for me here Sussette! Wake the kids, the ship is heeling.” As soon as he gets out, He finds a lot of commotion on the adjacent hall. People running towards the emergency exits in a non-so orderly manner.

"SUSSETTE, THE SHIP IS SINKING!” Hugo helps Sussette on bringing their offsprings out of their slumber, only to find out that one of them is missing.

“HUGO! Gabriel is not here!” the terrified Mother gets almost hysterical in utter despair.

“I’ll look for him in the dining room, he loves to stroll for a quick bite. I’ll be back! Get them ready Sussette.”

While moving down the corridor, he began to feel that the stern of the ship is raising up. He moves as quickly as he can, people runs in the opposite direction up the stairs. Suddenly he arrives near the dining hall floor, only to find out that is almost completely submerged. Without wasting any time, he runs back all the way up towards his family.

“The dining room is under water, C’mon Sussette, we need to get out!” Almost in shock, she starts to yell at Hugo in return. “How can I leave? My boy is out there alone, Hugo, you need to find him, please Hugo, find him.”

“Sussette, I can’t get back, we need to get on deck, our only hope is to get inside a life boat.” Looking straight into Sussete’s eyes he continues: “I need your help my dear, listen, we need to move fast... FOLLOW MY COMMAND!” With fire in his eyes he addresses the rest of the family.

“Anais, Emma, Madeline, on your Mother’s left! Alton, Oliver, Gaston on my right. Ignace I want you to be the last one, make sure that no one is left behind! We can make this!”

As Hugo puts his head out of the bunk, all he could see is a stampede of people rushing upwards using their fingers and nails as support against the heeling ship.

“LISTEN! Humans behave like feral animals when in danger, no matter how many safety protocols a crew can provide, in the end is always “Every man for himself.” Watch out, I don’t want any of you to get stomped over.” Hugo's plan is to use the saddle of every door as cover to prevent them to get hurt by the hysterical mob.

“FOLLOW ME!” Hugo with extreme drive manages to get out and reach the adjacent door. He turns around to make sure that every single one of them is still behind him.

“Alright, 4 more doors to go, stay close.”

Sussette follows without emitting a sound, everyone's afraid, there’s mayhem all around. The stern keeps on rising at a frightening speed, making it more difficult to get to the end of the hall. Screams is all they could hear. From the distance it seems like people run aimlessly, not many are following the exit signs, even though, on those dark and long corridors, the exit signs it’s the only light you could manage to see.

“The exit is there, C'mon! Stay close.”

As soon as they got on deck, the amount of people running around increased. Sailors moving like jackals after a wounded prey, doing their worst to get a space inside the lifeboats. Boats suspended with the only support of two cables, one on the stern and one in the bow of the aid device.

“Sussette, they will never let us through, let’s move on, there’s got to be another one, follow me!”

Moving swiftly, they manage to find another boat still hanging on the port side of the vessel. “The only way to get inside is by the crane, we need to climb our way in.” Not wasting any time, Hugo takes the lead again and climb with all his might up the crane, he turns around just to make sure that all of them are still following his orders. Once on top of the crane, he effortlessly goes down on one of the connecting cables and lands on the lifeboat.

“C’mon, faster! FASTER! People are coming!”

Sussette helps each one of her offspring's to go down the cable, Madeleine and Anais went first. Emma waited for her turn right beside her Mother. The boys went to the other crane, Gaston went down quickly and began to help his Dad to receive Anais who jumped right at his head and neck. Alton and Oliver did their best to jump just before the mob arrived.

“QUICK! Get under those rags, HIDE!” Said Hugo while covering himself under pack of rags trembling in terror. In no time, people began to jump on the lifeboat as fast as they could. Around 7 men began to fight on who will enter first, the others onboard, simply lowered the lifeboat.

Watching the commotion, some of them jumped from the rail towards the lifeboat. In utter terror the whole family got closer and closed their eyes waiting for the worst. “Stay quiet, this will end soon” whispered Hugo to Madeleine.

Hugo dared to take the rag from his face and saw the boat packet with sailors in their last attempt to save themselves. Without wasting any time, as soon as they touched water, they began to row and distance themselves from the sinking vessel. The sea was rough, in no time at all, the cold rain soaked each one of them, Hugo could feel the cold water running down his nose as he hopelessly watches the “Arabesque” dive bow first to its new resting place, right at the bottom of the Dover Strait.

“There’s no doubt about it, it was a sea mine.” Says one of the uniformed men on the bow of the lifeboat. They began to deliberate which way to row. Visibility was almost un-existent. The heavy swell pushed the little boat like a can at full mercy of the waves. Under the commotion, Hugo watch that a group of fingers, hands and forearms appeared at the guard rail.

“Noooo… LET GO! THERE'S NO MORE ROOM!” Cried one of the sailors as the boat began to tilt; water enters without constrain inside the lifeboat.

“Take them off the guard rail! QUICKLY!” Yell another one.

They began to fight with the people that desperately tried to get onboard the lifeboat. In the middle of the ordeal, a big wave rises right on the starboard side. Hugo feeling the boat speed its way up the wave shouts to his family:

“HOLD ON TIGHT!”

The boat goes up the curve of the wave and over it went, almost everybody felt out. As soon as the big wave passes, Hugo looks around and sees that all his family is still on the boat. On the port side a single man was still inside the lifeboat. The poor soul was handing on with all his might with both hands on the guard rail. Soon after, we hear screams coming from the water.

Two of them reached the boat. With little to no help the youngest of the two jumped onboard. Then, they both assist the one still on the water. As they pull, another wave strikes us from the opposite side. Using all their force, they pull the man onboard but as they do so, the boat is on the crest of a wave; the man finally gets on board but severely damaged his head with one of the thwarts. In no time, the water below us turns red.

The wounded sailor has a nasty cut that goes from his right eyebrow to the lobe of his right ear. He keeps his right hand on the wound to stanch the bleeding. He rests his head right besides us and sobs hopelessly. Another big wave came in washing all the blood from his eyes, making him gain composure until he saw something that made him quiver.

“RATS, WATCH OUT, RATS INSIDE THE BOAT!” Without even turning to see him, the two sailors focus their attention on what they thought to be a light near the horizon. “Shut up, look, there’s light ahead of us. That’s a harbor, it’s got to be a harbor." They desperately look around to realize that not even a single paddle remained onboard.

“The tide is pushing us away from shore; we need to reach that spot.” Said the sailor pointing out where he saw the lights. “I’m going, I’m not staying here, the shore is close, let’s go!” He jumps out of the boat and starts swimming fighting the waves that come in every direction. The sailor onboard watches as his fellow swims with great effort, in a matter of seconds he lost sight of the swimmer. Not being able to keep on watching him, he assumes the swimmer is on its way to safety. Enraptured, he turns around and faces the wounded sailor. “I need to go, shore is right there, I saw the lights too.” The frightened wounded sailor holds his arms in a plea for help and with soft voice, almost fainting replies. “Don’t leave me here, stay!”

“I can’t, I’ll send people to search for the lifeboat, just hold on, help is on the way.” In glorified euphoria, he jumps overboard and starts swimming on the dark waters of this moonless night.

“Sussette, did you hear that, help is on the way, we’re going to make it!”

Still under the rags, feeble by the constant movement of the lifeboat, Sussette thinks of their lost child Gabriel. She hopelessly watches at the infuriated sea, remembering the smile of her lost son. “I’m sure he is out there in a lifeboat just like us. He is clever; he must be safe dear.” Hugo holds her with tenderness knowing deep inside chances of survival in open sea under those conditions are minimal. His only hope is a lifeboat; without it, his son must be dead already.

As the morning breaks in, reporters, police men, villagers, everyone gather onshore to help with the marine salvage. More than 5 hours after the mayday, flotsam began to arrive onshore. Furniture, bags, and a long count of dead bodies are being washed onshore by the restless tide. Many of those bodies are severely wounded by the sharp edges of the rocks that rest all along the coast, long cuts along the torso and limbs are common. The horrendous sight mutes the gathering crowd, security and people alike are baffled at the dreadful sight.

“We’re live from the shore of Ostend. Right in front of the North Sea.” Continues the radio news reporter.

”Last night the whole coast of Ostend woke up to the dreadful news that the British Royal Navy vessel “Arabesque” carrying a crew of 477 crewmembers sank in minutes due to the explosion of a lost sea mine while sailing near the waters of Ostend, Belgium.” The reporter moves forward and gets side by side with a fire fighter that has been on site since the Coast Guard received the Mayday. “Please officer, identify yourself.” With big black bags under his eyes, an almost broken 44 years-old man gets closer to the microphone and starts talking.

“Mikael Simmons, firefighter from the Ostend Fire Brigade." After this short presentation he continues: "We received the call around 3.30am. As the hours passed by, dead bodies began to arrive on the South side of the beach.” He turns around and points with his right arm at a long sand covered portion of the shore like a quarter of a mile away from where he was standing.

“How many bodies have been found already?” asked the reporter without hesitation. “An hour ago, the count got to 135 dead bodies, We’re only taking into consideration the bodies that got to shore. There’s still a lot of bodies drifting away. We assume that there’s still people alive on the water and on life rafts.” The reporter move his pen swiftly across the notebook getting ready to ask once more.

"Any lifeboats have been found so far?” captiously asks the reporter knowing that a lifeboat have been found on this exact location maybe an hour ago, he is making questions to get interesting sound bites.

“Around 6.10am. I saw a life boat drifting by the rocks. I dragged the lifeboat towards the sand and searched inside for survivors. A single sailor was onboard, a heavy wound around his face, no vital signs.”

The reporter takes note and continues:

“No sign of other passengers?”

“No... But something happened when I was checking his pulse.”

“Tell us Mikael, what was it?”

Swallowing saliva the fire fighter gets closer to the microphone to add: “I positioned myself onboard the lifeboat to properly take the sailor out when a big rat jumped out of some soaked blankets and stood still by the gunwale. It acted in a very defiant way, showing its teeth while keeping eye contact with me…

Soon after, another big rat got out of the blanket, quickly followed by 7 little mice. As soon as the rat and the 7 mice jumped from the guard rail, they moved in the direction of the marsh. The rat that was keeping eye contact with me turned around and followed the other rodent survivors to safety. You got to believe me, the big rat was protecting the other rodents! That's the only explanation I can give you to what I saw.”

Not knowing what to say to this eloquent tale he just heard, the reporter simply thanked Mikael, turns the tape recorder off, and moves towards another fire guard to keep on with his inquiry.

"Looks like it's going to be a long day." Said the reporter to himself while walking towards a group of colleagues that stood near the rocks on the East side of the beach.