by Alma Katsu
She could feel the ocean’s cold reaching up through the ship, rising like morning mist over a battlefield, creeping slowly upward deck by deck. Then would come the icy-cold black water. Hungry, greedy water wanting its due. One by one, the water would take them, swallowing them whole. They would die with startled looks on their faces, sentenced to an eternity of surprise: none of them thought they’d die this way.
She observed them in a detached way as they fought to get by her. The old man hobbling with canes up the alleyway, aged daughter a step behind, smothering her own panic to remain at his side. The poor woman with a tattered shawl wrapped around her infant, afraid she will be turned away at the lifeboats because she has a steerage ticket. The asthmatic woman collapsed on a deck chair, fighting for each breath. Their struggling, their sacrifice, their fear—Annie saw them now as if they were all just drifting phantoms from another life. Caught frozen in time.
But when the moment thawed, they’d see that they were all, already, long since gone.
Chapter Forty-Two
The night was dark and frigid, but torches and electric lights blazed across all the decks, and the hubbub of passengers almost made it feel like broad daylight. Only instead of the optimistic bustle of travelers boarding the ship for the first time, there was only chaos, disordered panic, and a series of contradictions. Here, a steward helping an elderly lady. There, a child lost and crying. Here, a musician opening his case. There, a man lighting a cigar as if on a leisurely after-dinner stroll. Some passengers had clearly decided to mock the situation, insisting an emergency was just a good excuse for a story to later write home about—or a bad excuse to be awake so late. Others were openly weeping, praying, acting as if their lives were over, as if their gods had abandoned them.
Caroline stood in a loose crowd of people, clutching Ondine to her chest. She’d found Miss Flatley at the usual spot she liked to take the baby, a sheltered area under an awning, and the nanny handed the baby over almost with relief. Caroline couldn’t blame her under the circumstances.
Mark was nowhere to be seen. An officer had come around looking for volunteers to help ready lifeboats and Mark—after getting assurances from Caroline that she was fine—had gone to help. She promised to stay right where she was until he returned.
She looked down at the baby in her arms. Her sweet face, cheeks reddening from the ocean wind. Ondine wailed and Caroline shifted her, patted her back, but as the wailing increased, so did Caroline’s terror. Of the writhing crowds. And beyond them, the sea, black and icy and roiling.
A reckoning was going to take place. She felt it in her bones.
“Lillian,” she whispered, feeling tears streak her skin, turning to ice.
But there was no undoing the past. Caroline knew that.
“I loved you,” she whispered. Was she trying to appease the spirit, the wild, reckless spirit that was undoubtedly here, with her?
She had tried to take care of her friend. Lillian had been so stubborn. It had been hard to convince her to see Caroline’s physician. “What right do I have to complain about a little ache or pain—at least I’m alive, not like the women I worked with in the factory,” Lillian had said whenever Caroline brought it up. But the pangs persisted, sometimes shaking Lillian’s entire body, and Caroline grew worried for her friend. Eventually, Lillian relented.
Caroline had waited in the doctor’s office while Lillian dressed afterward, old Dr. Braithwaite returning from the examination room with a smile. “I can see why you’d be concerned for your friend. It can be a great shock to the body, narrowly surviving a tragedy like that. The young lady is lucky to have such a devoted friend.” He was wiping his hands on the linen towel with his back to Caroline, prattling on about the nervous disorders women were prone to. “You can rest assured that your friend is in perfect health.”
Caroline had let out a tight breath.
“Cramping is perfectly normal in pregnancy,” the doctor added.
And that had been how Caroline had found out.
Henry, Caroline’s first husband, had never truly understood how badly Caroline wanted a child. How could she have expressed it to him? She’d spent her life craving love—every expression of it. But once she had married, she’d felt it: the inevitable disappointment, hidden there between the sweetness, lurking in the quiet moments. With a child, though, she’d been sure: she’d finally feel it. She was meant to be a mother, knew it as sure as she knew anything.
But the doctors had said it was impossible.
And so, in that moment, Caroline had done what she always did. She opened the doors, and took Lillian into her home, into her life, and into her heart. She had not known then that she would fall in love with Mark, too. She hadn’t met him yet. She’d only known him through Lillian’s words. How could she have known how it would all go?
The cold biting wind reminded her where she was: standing on the deck of a sinking ship. She’d always believed you could rise above your troubles in life, but now she wondered if she’d been fooling herself. If everything she had ever done—horseback competitions and singing lessons, holding Henry’s hand as he passed into the sweet hereafter—was just a prelude to this moment.
Looking down at Ondine, all she had left of her friend Lillian, Caroline saw how sick the baby was. Gray and listless and barely breathing, it seemed. Horror spiked through her: she had been so preoccupied with Annie Hebbley, her anger with Mark, her fascination with Guggenheim, she had neglected Ondine. What kind of mother was she?
Just then, a steward was in her face, his eyes wide, his hair in disarray. “What are you doing, just standing there!?” he was shouting. “Where are your life vests?”
She looked around. It was true: everyone milling around her was wearing one, clunky canvas and cork vests thrown over their clothing. Why didn’t she know this?
“Never mind, take this one,” he barked, forcing a clunky life vest at her with a not-so-gentle shove. “Onto a lifeboat with you, now.”
She balked even as his hand pressed hard into her back. “I can’t go yet. I’m waiting for my husband—I—”
The steward only shook his head, frowning firmly at her. “Only women and children, didncha hear? You and the baby—into a boat! Now!”
Chapter Forty-Three
Lucy Duff-Gordon didn’t feel any fear, only annoyance. Perhaps she ought to be grateful to her upbringing for that—not much could unsettle her. She knew, without knowing how she knew, that she’d come out on top. Surviving, fighting, clawing, studiously planning, strategizing—doing that all your life made you incapable of failure. There was no falling, only climbing. No sinking, only swimming. You kept yourself just a little bit separate from the masses. You just kept going. Empires fell. Enormous ships sank. But people like Lucy soldiered on.
“You must put yourself first, Lucy,” her mother had once told her. “You can’t assume someone else will take care of you, even your husband. Especially your husband. As a woman, you must fight for yourself, if you expect to survive in this world.”
She had left her first husband—a drinker, and not a nice one, after that. She’d taken her mother’s advice to heart and learned to respect herself, to wear an invisible shield—her greatest fashion design and one no one would ever see. To let expectations slip off her like silk and fall to the floor.
And now: she would be damned if she had come all this way in her life to die in the middle of the ocean.
They stood near the lifeboats, watching as one was being loaded. That stodgy officer, Lieutenant Lightoller, was supervising. He personally helped each woman over the side into the waiting boat. The going was slow but more orderly than she would’ve thought possible.
Cosmo was an important part of her life. A woman without a husband was a suspect character in some circles, and vulnerable to legal chicanery by those who might fancy her an easy target.
She turned to him. “Cosmo,
get in the boat with me.”
He gave her a weary look. “You know me, Lucy: I’m not a hero. I’d just as soon save my neck than freeze to death in those waters. But you heard the officers. It’s women and children first. Lightoller won’t let me aboard.”
“You’ll get on the lifeboat with me if we have to put you in a dress and feather boa,” she said through gritted teeth.
Passengers had still been skeptical when they’d begun loading the first two lifeboats, but word of water belowdecks had traveled through the ship. Women who had vowed not to leave husbands behind were beginning to rethink their position. A few men were starting to argue that they should be allowed on the lifeboats as well, and in at least one instance a pistol had been drawn. There were rumors of violence below and of women and children in third class locked in their compartments to keep them from claiming space in the lifeboats. Things could spin out of control very quickly, Lady Duff-Gordon sensed. It took so little to turn a crowd ugly.
Then she saw her chance. Lieutenant Lightoller seemed to be called away, leaving another office in charge, a Lieutenant Moody, the sixth officer. The junior-most officer.
How frightened he looked. He seemed to realize that he was going to die soon and didn’t embrace the prospect of dying a hero, like Lightoller. He watched, his eyes glazed, as the sailors helped the assembled women over the side of the boat, others steadied the largely empty vessel.
“Take off your hat and cover your head with this,” she said to her husband as she handed him her shawl. It was huge and diaphanous. She pulled the edge up to his nose, covering his mustache. “Don’t speak to anyone. Just follow me.”
She went up to Moody and showed him the ring on her right hand, the huge opal-and-diamond ring that she’d thought she’d lost earlier. The ring given to her by her first and only true love. That ring meant more to her than any of the rest of her jewels, and now it was going to save Cosmo’s life. “Might I have a word, Officer Moody?” she asked.
He seemed to break off his reverie and remember where he was and what they faced. “As you see, I am very busy, madam, and have no time to—”
Be straightforward. Pull no punches. Show him that he can trust you. “Look, Officer Moody, it’s very likely that you’re going to die tonight. And what will your family get? A nice letter from the directors of the White Star Line and a few extra pounds in your last paycheck? Do you see this?” She shoved the ring under his nose, so close he could’ve licked it. “This ring is worth a fortune. If you get me and my husband”—she nodded in Cosmo’s direction, the shawl cascading over his shoulders disguising his gender somewhat—“on that lifeboat and safely off this ship, I’ll make sure that your family gets it. You can make sure they’ll be provided for.”
His eyes brightened for the first time. But there was hesitation, too. The circumstances didn’t lend themselves to trust.
“I wouldn’t cheat a dead man, Officer Moody. You have my word on it.”
He helped Cosmo over the side as though he was an infirm old lady, giving a convincing performance. Lady Duff-Gordon hustled her husband to the furthermost seats, by the bow, and sat to his outside so that he was segregated from the others.
“Lucy, I don’t know if I can do this,” Cosmo whispered to her. But just then, there was a huge roar to their right. One of the davits supporting the lifeboat just beside theirs began to crumple, the metal failing. The vessel began to plunge toward the sea, only to be jerked short by rigging to the davit on the other side. The mishap had a strange effect on the passengers waiting on the deck: they swarmed the boat, afraid of being left behind. Several were pushed from behind over the deck and plunged into the ocean, screaming as they fell. People on the lifeboat were screaming, too, as they dangled at a precarious angle from the rope lines. A few threw themselves at the rigging, trying to slide into the lifeboat, but most were too weak and were shaken off as the boat swung. All was pandemonium in a matter of seconds. Cosmo watched agape and several of the women turned their heads or wept or began to pray, but not Lady Duff-Gordon. She clambered over the empty benches until she was at the side of the boat.
She shouted up to Officer Moody. “Remember our deal. If you want your family to receive this ring, you will lower this boat into the water immediately.”
“But half the seats are empty—”
“And we need a couple of your men to row.” She wanted to tell him to save his breath; she knew what was needed and would make sure that it got done. Nothing mattered except that she survived. Honor didn’t matter, nor chivalry. The story would be written by the survivors, in any case.
Stories always were.
Moody hesitated again.
“Do you want the ring or not?” she demanded.
Moody put four crewmen in the boat and ordered the lifeboat lowered into the water. There was grumbling among the women: Why hadn’t they filled all the seats? Surely, they could fit more. And why had they given seats to sailors—shouldn’t male passengers have been given the option of rowing, if they wanted to save their lives? Lady Duff-Gordon wouldn’t let the crewmen listen to the crying, hysterical women. Let them glare. She was in charge now.
She grabbed an oar and thrust it into the nearest one’s hands. “Row,” she said.
Chapter Forty-Four
Les had been in plenty of scrapes in his lifetime—it took a lot to scare him.
But just now, as he banged fruitlessly on the locked door in his dank cell, the fear started to get to him, wrapping itself up around his neck like the massive pile of anchor chain that sat gleaming in the wet darkness of the room behind him. He was well and truly in the shite this time.
“What if they drop the anchor?” Les had asked the crewman who’d taken him down here earlier, his voice hoarse with apprehension, but the crewman had only laughed at him. “That’s not likely to happen until we reach New York, and we’re still a few days out at that.”
The crewman had given him a small lantern, but with the shuddering scream of the ship minutes ago—the great metallic shearing sound, followed by the panic and chaos of footsteps above—the light had splashed down onto the floor’s inch of icy seawater and snuffed out, leaving a faint whiff of smoke in the dark.
He tried to save himself. He pummeled the doors, kicked, and yelled till his throat gave out, but he knew there was no one around to hear him. Dai would be looking for him for all the good it would do: no one was going to give him the key and even that great sweet lummox would not be able to tear that metal door off its hinges.
He slumped against the door, letting the cold seawater seep into his bones, thinking to himself that this was it, that maybe he’d known it all along instinctively, ever since they’d stepped on board. There’d been something really wrong with this ship: a born troublemaker knows when there’s trouble. He’d known it just as he knew now that no one would worry about him; if there was a serious problem, he would be the last thing on the mind of those officers and crewmen. They wouldn’t remember him until the crow’s nest was sinking below the waves.
Was it his imagination, or were there now two inches of water sloshing around the floor?
He had just climbed to the top of the pile of chain when he heard a noise at the door. A rattle of the handle, a scraping of metal in the keyhole. Was he hallucinating? This couldn’t be. Miracles didn’t happen to men like him.
Nor should they, unless the angels had no idea what they were doing.
The door swung open to reveal Madeleine Astor, preposterous in her fur coat with a life belt strung over it, wearing a broad-brimmed hat with ostrich feathers. Fingers pinching at her skirts to keep the hem from getting wet. She turned her little girl’s face up to him. “Mr. Williams? Is that you, up there? I’ve come for you. Don’t dawdle.”
She didn’t need to ask twice; he scrambled down before she could come to her senses. He had no idea what had possessed her to come to his aid—Did she n
ot know why he’d been taken into custody? Had no one told her?—but he wouldn’t bother to set her straight. “Mrs. Astor! You, dear lady, are my savior, my guardian angel—” He landed in the water next to her, splashing noisily. “How did you get the key?”
“You’d be surprised what you can get for a hundred dollars,” she said, handing the key to him, as though he wanted to keep it as a souvenir. “You may not have heard, but there’s an emergency. The ship appears to be sinking—”
He looked down at the water at his feet, now above his ankles—and hers, too. He could see currents pull through the water: it was rising fast. “Then we should get above deck as soon as possible.”
She let him take her hand, touch his other hand lightly to the small of her back, escort her down the narrow alleyway, her skirt sloshing. The whole thing seemed surreal to him. Why had she saved him? Since when had a rich bloke cared a whit for the poor? What did Mrs. John Jacob Astor care what happened to him?
“I came for you for a reason,” she said over her shoulder, as he hurried her along.
“Yes? And why is that—no, don’t stop. Keep moving,” he said, trying not to show panic in his voice.
“Because you have a gift, Mr. Williams. A gift that I need. I really can’t do this with my back to you. Can’t we stop for a second—”
Another gentle push. “No, we can’t. I can hear you fine, Mrs. Astor. Please tell me—What can I do for you?”
Her voice turned thin and pleading. “I need to know what is going to happen to me, Mr. Williams. I can’t die here, tonight.” He saw her hand dart to her belly momentarily, as though she was comforting the child inside.
It was that gesture, her fine little girl’s hand going to her stomach that did it. Until then, he was thinking of asking for money—God help him, hadn’t the woman just set him free?—but she was giving out hundred-dollar bills. She’d said as much just now. And old habits die hard.