The story mainly follows two young women, Alice King and Lily Nicholls, as they navigate England during WWII and make decisions that will affect themselves and their families for many years to come. Alice is a school teacher/librarian living in the small village of Kent who finds herself adrift in a boring life. Her younger sister, Kitty, is experiencing a vibrant and exciting life in London, while her brother, Walter, is working on the family farm and is a conscientious objector, which is a very unpopular stance. Kitty works for CORB (Children's Overseas Reception Board), a division of the government heading up Operation Pied Piper to send British children overseas to stay with families in New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and Australia until the war is over and the communities are safe from the constant bombings. Alice thinks signing up to be an escort for the "seavacuees" traveling to Canada on the SS Carlisle might be just the thing she needs to give her life more meaning, and she'll be working with children, along with doing her part for the war effort.
Lily Nicholls is a young widow with two young children, Arthur and Georgie. She struggles to keep her family together after her husband's death the previous year, by working as a maid for a snobbish woman named Mrs. Carr. The last thing she wants to do is to send her beloved children off to Canada, but with the nightly bombings and having to spend hours each evening in the cramped neighborhood bomb shelter, perhaps it's the best thing. Alice meets Lily when she comes to collect Arthur and Georgie from the house on the day of their voyage and she can tell the young mother's heart is breaking by letting the children go. Alice determines to look after the pair on this long journey, but fate has other plans.
Things start off great on the boat and the 90 some-odd children who are in the custody of the escorts, dubbed "Auntie" and "Uncle," look at the trip as a grand adventure. There is delicious food on board, the ship is large and exciting, and they are meeting other children in the same boat, umm, situation. Things take a turn around 10pm when a German U-boat blasts the ship with a torpedo and all hell breaks loose. Alice manages to get into the last life boat, but barely, because she ran back to rescue the 10 little girls under her care, but was unable to get to them due to collapsing wreckage. The waters are terribly rough and a deadly storm is brewing, causing many of the other 11 life boats to capsize, but Alice is fortunate to find herself with 35 other lucky souls, including young Arthur Nicholls and his new pal, Billy Fortune. Additionally, among those in the life boat are several of the ship's crew, plus several regular passengers including a few elderly people, but only a handful of the seavacuees, compared to the 90 that boarded the ship.
The chapters either focus on Lily Nicholls at home as she awaits for word of her children after hearing about the tragedy, or on Alice King and those in her company, as they struggle to stay afloat while rationing food and water, and dealing with illness and injury. Despite the 18 total boats that were in their convoy, supposedly to escort them all the way to Canada, help does not arrive quickly and the life boat's occupants find their hope dwindling along with their patience, sanity and supplies, as the days pass.
Additionally, at the end of each chapter is a Mass-Observation entry which gives a bit of insight into what the average person was experiencing at that time. Apparently, the Mass-Observation project collected thousands of diary entries from anonymous people in England who journaled what they felt on any given day. They were snapshots in time and, not only do they give the reader a peek into what a generic person living in England might be feeling about the events rocking their nation, such as the sinking of the childrens' boat, but they also tie into the story quite nicely in other ways.
The Last Life Boat is a story of struggle and hope, of interpersonal relationships in the worst of circumstances, and most of all, it is a story of love. A mother's love for her children and her never-ending hope for their survival, and the love that develops between a woman and a handful of children whom she decides to protect when tragedy strikes, come what may. Gaynor spins a beautiful tale, one that invested me so thoroughly in the characters that I was looking them up after I finished reading the book. It was only then that I realized that the actual ship was called City of Benares and these characters were fictional, but some were based on actual surviving passengers. Hazel Gaynor is a gifted writer who has the ability to completely immerse you in the time period about which she writes. This book is a fantastic story of courage and survival in the worst of circumstances. If you have any interest in events taking place in and around WWII, you will appreciate this book. Highly recommended. Hazel Gaynor has a new fan in me.
