« After the euphoria of being, at last, in the relative safety of the life raft, a nameless panic seized us: the raft, still moored, was being dragged by a vessel sinking into the icy waters. Nobody had a knife on them. It was the end, even worse than the one we had anticipated. It was then that the Captain seized the rope in order to bite on it, furiously with his false teeth - to bite on it with hopeless desperate energy until, finally, the rope yielded.'