Vernon was in the water not far from the sinking Dorsetshire. He found a piece of timber an clung to it. His bum smarted but the salt water would cleanse it and he was more concerned about the noise of the Japanese planes . One came and machine gunned those in the water. Vernon couldn't see if anyone was hit but later learned it killed the doctor and the priest. The plane, or another, came back again but Vernon just clung to his driftwood. Some time later, someone in one of the lifeboats that had survived said, 'Look at Brilley's hand.' When Vernon looked there was a hole right through his left hand. They later found two bullets in his leg so he must have had a lucky escape.
There were bodies floating among the survivors but no sharks came. From time to time someone would ask about so-and-so. Sometimes someone had seen them, sometimes not.
One of the first to go was the chief killik of vernon's mess. Although firm friends, they had had a bad start. The killik had a bad habit of touching Vernon's plate as he ate. After a bad night looking through frost rimmed binoculars, the killik touched Vernon's plate and, before he had time to think, Vernon laid him out on the floor.
'What could I do?' Vernon asked me. 'It was a serious offence to hit a superior.'
Defaulter's parade.
The captain listened to the story, remembered the bitter cold watch and decided they should settle it on deck with boxing gloves.
'After a few knocks we apologised and became really good friends,' Vernon commented.
Day passed into cool night and now and then Vernon could hear people shout as he hung on to his bit of timber. In the morning things settled down and one or two adventurous spirits swam races between the boats. Vernon just hung on and by evening knew that, if they weren't rescued, he wouldn't see another dawn. Just as they grew desperate, HMS Enterprise appeared and they were hauled on board.
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