The attack triggered the emergency sirens, shattering the serenity of the early morning. The Italian prisoners poured out of their tiny cabins and stuffed themselves into the narrow passageways in the belly of the ship. The ship was so overloaded with passengers, there was no room for them to move. Soon the men mobilized, and in a reasonable fashion, one by one, they took their turns climbing the stairs to the third deck. Those who had spent the night on the deck instinctively reached for the life jackets on the wall and began to hand them out to the bewildered men who joined them from below.
Above them, on the second tier, comfortably above the waterline, some of the Nazi prisoners reacted quickly and broke through the hatches to climb up to the top tier, the bridge, where the decks were not encased in barbed wire. They loaded into the lifeboats quickly and efficiently. The Nazis who were trapped on the second tier stomped on the fingers of the Italians who attempted to climb up to the second tier to board the boats. On the top tier, the Nazis made fast work of dropping lifeboats to the surface. They paddled off with the lifeboats half empty.
McVicars climbed down the emergency ladders all the way to the hull to coordinate the lifeboats for the Italians. The prisoners had gathered on the deck, with more men trapped in the companionway and the passageway below. Some were fully dressed; others were in their undershirts and shorts. Most were barefoot. McVicars directed them to the lifeboats. The sentries arrived and began to hand out life jackets. McVicars scanned the deck for his friends, but there was no sign of them.
Through the barbed wire mesh, the Italians could see the Nazi prisoners launching lifeboats off the side of the upper tier. The lifeboats lowered past them to the surface of the water, guided by the German puppeteers overhead. Whoever controlled those ropes determined who would be saved. The Italians began to grab at the lifeboats as they went past, as though their rubber handles were brass rings that could change their luck. They cut themselves as they reached through the barbed wire thorns, lacerating their hands, arms, and faces as they fought to escape. Others took the stairs and followed the Germans to the top tier.
“Son of a bitch,” Savattini muttered as he slipped a life jacket over his dress shirt and pants and pulled the waist cord tightly. Mattiuzzi and Piccolo pulled on their life jackets. The sentries funneled the Italians through the holes they had hacked in the barbed wire to clear the way for prisoners to jump and save themselves, but clearly there was no guarantee of that. The irony that the soldiers ordered to transport the prisoners to their Canadian prison camp were now authorized to set them free was not lost on Savattini.
“Where’s Antica?” Mattiuzzi shouted over the mayhem.
“He wasn’t below,” Piccolo hollered.
“I’ll look for him.”
Piccolo turned around and grabbed the chest straps of his father’s life jacket. “You can’t, Papa. You can’t go back! You can only move up.”
“I will find him,” Savattini shouted. “Secure a lifeboat!”
The ship shook as the boiler and furnace imploded, knocking the men on the decks over. The storage hull caught fire. Smoke from the burning carcasses of beef stored in the refrigerated vaults made it nearly impossible to breathe. Mattiuzzi looked back as the smoke billowed up the stairs of the companionway and engulfed the lower deck. Filaments of orange, burning embers from the fire below, sizzled in the thick air. If Antica was below, he would not survive the fire.
Savattini hurled himself into the smoke and called for Antica. He circled around the deck, grabbing the barbed wire because he could not see. He pierced his hands and cursed. The sentry shouted, directing the men to go up the stairs. Savattini made the sign of the cross for his friend and looked for a way to save himself. He climbed the stairs to the second deck.
“Move!” the sentries shouted as they pushed the Italians wearing life jackets through the wire. The recitation of the rosary could be heard as the Italians jumped. They remembered the miracle at Fatima and called on the Blessed Mother to save them. When no miracle was revealed, the men called to their own mothers as they jumped. Many would break their necks and backs as they hit the water before sinking into their cold tombs.
The fire in the boiler raged and was soon followed by the flood. Black oil leached from the boiler, feeding the flames, which set the remaining ballast tanks loose. Fire ignited on the surface of the seawater that surged in the passageways. The smoke blew off the decks and out over the ocean in charcoal clouds so thick they blocked the sun.
In the darkness that blanketed the Arandora, the prisoners and crew who remained on the ship froze in terror. The rumble of explosions deep in the hull were followed by the crash of steel beams ripping apart. As the smoke lifted on the outer decks, prisoners ran to the edge of the ship as the Arandora lumbered onto its side. For any man who hadn’t made it to the lifeboats or escaped into the sea, the glug of seawater as the Arandora slowly capsized was the sound of time running out.