The Athenia! Not an armed merchant cruiser as he thought! Not a troopship! He had torpedoed a passenger liner. Quite suddenly all the bounce and elation left Oberleutnant Lemp.His voice heavy with emotion, he turned to his gunnery officer Hinsch; “What a mess!” he stammered. “But why, why, was she blacked out?” Mess or no mess, there was little he could do now except get away.
Barbara Bailey moved slowly and uncertainly through the throng towards her lifeboat station aboard the torpedoed Athenia.
Surrounded by disaster, her thoughts were still on other things – on her personal anxieties and frustrations.
She had been in love: now that was all over. Her broken romance and bitter words with her father were still in her mind.
Aimlessly she wandered over to the rail and gazed down at the sea, fascinated by the idea of dropping into its cold depths. She saw a dead woman floating by.
When she reached her boat she found it already crowded.
By the time her turn came, there were only two places left. A woman stepped in and she was about to follow. But behind her she suddenly heard a woman break into a sob. She stopped, turned around and then stepped back.
“You go ahead.” Barbara repeated, adding: Nobody loves me.”
The woman hesitated for a fraction. But then she stepped forward. As she was about to get into the boat, she turned and said: – “It’s not true that nobody loves you. Jesus loves you.”

CALM FAREWELLS AS BOATS LEAVE
In the main, people moved into the lifeboats in a calm and orderly manner. (Some thought the boats were being launched purely as a precautionary measure.)
Men would put their wives and children into a boat and quietly promised to follow in the next. That was all. Here and there perhaps, someone shed a few tears.
But there were some who left the Athenia in anything but an orderly way.
As a lifeboat swung down past her deck, Mrs. Hugh McDonald threw her three year-old son Ronald in. Then she mounted the rail and waited for the boat to swing in towards her again before jumping. She landed safely but a woman who had climbed on to the rail beside her did not have the same luck.
She hesitated just for a fraction too long before jumping. In that instant the boat had swung away again and she missed and fell into the sea. Mrs. McDonald never saw what happened to her.

THE WOMAN HELPED A MAN
Barbara Bailey was still wandering about the decks watching the boats getting away, indifferent to her own fate, but anxious to help where she could. (To be continued- (In the next Sunday edition of the Guyana Chronicle)