The City of Benares was pummeled by “high winds and enormous waves” (70) as the storm worsened. The passengers had been instructed to wait out the storm below deck, but most were too seasick to move anyway. By sundown, the storm had abated some, and when the passengers came out for dinner, the mood was festive. Since the Royal Navy escort had left, they felt that the risk of attack must have passed. The children stuffed themselves with food, inadvertently improving their chances of survival in the cold Atlantic water. After dinner, the chaperones settled the children in their rooms, allowing them to wear their pajamas for the first time instead of their normal clothes because they believed the danger of a nighttime evacuation was past.

Mary Cornish settled her girls in their rooms and then returned to the dining room for her own dinner. After a cup of coffee, she strolled on the deck with some of the other chaperones, dressed lightly, but enjoying the cool night air. Meanwhile, U-boat 48 was readying its attack. Just before 10 pm, Ajax ordered the first torpedoes fired. They missed the convoy. At 10:01, as Mary Cornish began heading back to her room, Ajax fired again. The torpedo struck the City of Benares at 10:03. As Mary felt the impact and heard the alarm bells begin, she knew she had to help the children.

The torpedo struck the part of the ship where the CORB children were lodged, killing some of them instantly. Others were woken by the impact, by falling furniture, or by water flowing into their rooms. Children like Jack Keeley immediately worried about their siblings housed on the other side of the ship, but they proceeded to their muster station as best they could, trusting that their siblings would do the same. Fred Steels woke when the upper bunk bed collapsed on top of him. He and one of his roommates struggled to unjam the door while their other roommate searched for his glasses. They urged the other boy to come with them, but when he refused to move, they were forced to leave without him.

Back on U-boat 48, the crew celebrated their victory. They didn’t know that they had torpedoed a ship full of children, and they cheered when they saw that the City of Benares was sinking. They fired another torpedo at the Marina, another ship in the convoy. The Marina quickly evacuated, and one of its two lifeboats stayed close to the sinking Benares. They meant to help, but the extra lifeboat would lead to confusion that would cause one of the Benares lifeboats to remain unaccounted for.

The CORB children’s portion of the ship was quickly filling with water, and the children were hurrying to escape. Bobby Baker and his little brother Johnny hurried to their muster station, with Bobby making sure to keep good track of his little brother. Father Rory O’Sullivan was still sick and sleeping deeply after taking some pills. The impact threw him from his bed, but once he realized what was happening, he did his best to help the boys still in the hall make their way out. Bess Walder helped the younger girls in her cabin get dressed in the dark and hurry out. On her way, she grabbed her favorite green bathrobe. Before leaving London, Bess’s mother had bought her a beautiful new robe, but Bess had insisted on taking her “beloved ratty” one instead. As the girls were leaving, one of Bess’s roommates fell and began bleeding badly. Bess tried to help her out, but the wardrobe was blocking the door. She screamed for help, but worried no one would hear her. Luckily, crew members were below deck looking for stranded children. They broke through Bess’s door with a hatchet and carried her bleeding roommate out of the room. Beth Cummings was in Bess’s hallway, and her roommate was also injured. Bess helped Beth drag her roommate toward the deck, but the Benares was “disintegrating” around them, creating holes where there had once been hallways and staircases.

On the deck, Captain Nicoll and Admiral MacKinnon were overseeing the evacuation. They had sent an SOS message asking for help “with utmost dispatch” (87), but they didn’t know when that help would arrive. They needed to get all the passengers into lifeboats as quickly as possible. The Royal Navy was sending a nearby destroyer called the HMS Hurricane, but Captain Lieutenant Commander Hugh Crofton Simms could only sail so fast through the storm that was worsening once again.

Mary Cornish was frantic to reach her children. She found the path to the CORB children’s quarters blocked by debris that she rushed to clear with her bare hands, and she was relieved to find another chaperone with a number of girls on the other side, including the Grimmond sisters. They freed a number of other girls from their cabins and helped them get to the deck. All of the girls were dressed only in their pajamas, with no time to go back for coats or shoes. The children were frightened, but they stayed calm, and Mary reassured them that it was “only a torpedo” (92). Soon, however, the children would face the added danger of the storm that was raging once again, battering the sinking skip with freezing rain, gale-force winds, and towering waves.

Beth and Bess reached the deck, where they could see just how bad their situation was. The ship was sinking fast, and its tilt combined with the fierce storm meant that the crew was struggling to launch the lifeboats. Some took on water as they were lowered down, some were “smashed to smithereens” (97), and some deposited their passengers right into the ocean. As Bess watched the horror unfold, her bleeding roommate died in the arms of the chaperone holding her. A crew member tossed Bess and Beth into a lifeboat. She worried about her little brother, but there was nothing to do but hold on as the boat was lowered into the tumultuous sea. She felt as if she were living in a nightmare.

Mary Cornish, meanwhile, worried that more children were trapped below deck. She felt “acute responsibility” for the CORB children in her care, but a crew member insisted there was no one left behind. It was time for her to get into a lifeboat. She couldn’t find her group of girls on the deck anymore; they had already gotten into a boat, so Mary boarded Lifeboat 12, where a number of boys were waiting with no chaperone. It was a move that “sealed her fate” (99).

After torpedoing the City of Benares and the Marina, U-48 left, abandoning the wartime custom of helping survivors. A year and a half later, the crew would learn how many children were on board the Benares. According to Rolf, Ajax “was never the same again” (101) after learning what he had done. Rolf insists that Ajax wouldn’t have attacked if he’d known, but without that knowledge, he ordered the U-boat away while the Benares’ “children were in serious trouble” (101). The children had suffered the torpedo attack, but now they had to face “the vicissitudes of fate, human error, accident, and bad luck” (102). However, there was also “good luck.”

Little Johnny Baker realized he had left his lifejacket behind and wanted to go back for it. His brother Bobby, however, refused, and Johnny was given another lifejacket. He didn’t know where it came from, but he would later assume that his brother had given him his own. Johnny got into a lifeboat, but couldn’t see his brother anymore. The boat launched poorly, dumping many people into the water, and Johnny never saw his older brother again.

The boat carrying Gussie Grimmond and her three sisters met a similarly tragic fate. It was struck by a wave while being lowered, dumping more than 30 passengers into the ocean. A few days later, the Grimmonds’ parents would receive the letters their children wrote them from Liverpool, along with the official notice that all five of their children aboard the City of Benares had perished.

Beth and Bess’s lifeboat wasn’t faring well either. During its launch, it took on so much water that some of the smaller children were almost completely submerged, and waves as “high as a house” (107) threatened to flood the small craft further. One wave swept Beth out of the boat, and Bess watched younger children drown in front of her eyes. Suddenly, a large wave flipped the boat right over.

The CORB children’s area of the ship sustained a direct hit from the torpedo, but it took passengers in other parts of the Benares a while to realize what was happening. Colin Ryder Richardson was still awake and heard “a very loud bang” (110). He immediately knew what had happened, calmly dressed, put on his mother’s lifejacket, and made his way toward the deck, carrying his robe and ship-issued lifebelt.

When Mrs. Bech heard the alarm bells ring, she quickly roused her children and helped them dress. Derek Bech had been terribly seasick and had eaten nothing the day before, but he obeyed his mother. Mrs. Bech also made sure to bring her special travel bag that held valuables and their travel documents. They made their way to their muster station in the lounge, which was still full of people enjoying their evening. They had no idea that the ship was sinking fast until a crew member shouted at them to hurry to their lifeboats.

Outside, Colin and the Bechs found that their lifeboat had already been launched. To enter it, they would need to climb down a rope and jump. Barbara was the only one brave enough to try. She landed safely, but the route was too dangerous for her mother and younger siblings. They would have to find another way off the sinking ship.

Laszlo Raskai, Colin’s chaperone, made sure his charge was settled safely in a lifeboat before hurrying to help other children. He became “one of the heroes that night” (120), repeatedly diving into the ocean to rescue children, but sadly did not survive himself. Colin’s boat filled with so much water that he worried he might float out. One of the ship’s nurses was sitting next to him and holding onto him tight. As the little craft tried to maneuver away from the sinking ship, Colin could hear cries from the water around him as passengers begged to be let into their boat.