The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel

by Hazel Gaynor

  ‘They were for some fancy woman’s afternoon tea,’ he’d explained, clearly delighted with himself. ‘They were sent back to the galley because the lady isn’t partial to these particular types of cakes.’ His exaggerated, upper class accent had sent the girls into a fit of the giggles as they scoffed them all in a hurry and then felt sick.

  And yet for all the day’s amusement, and the plans for dancing and singing that evening, Katie wished that her family was there to celebrate with her. She thought of her family back in Ireland, her Mam and Da and her brother William and wondered how it must have felt to watch them all leave a few mornings ago – such a sight they must have been clattering out of Ballysheen. She thought of her sister Catherine, waiting for her in New York and wondered how she would look after all these years of city living. She had heard that it can turn your face pale, what with sitting indoors a lot of the time and the fumes from the motor cars making you cough.

  If she knew her sister at all, she imagined that she would be happily occupying herself getting ready for her arrival. She would have the house spotless from top to bottom and would no doubt have taken to getting extra pillows and bedding for her comfort after this strenuous journey stuck on board a stuffy ship with barely a board to sleep on. How she’ll laugh, Katie thought to herself, when I tell her of the luxury we have known, of the knives with the flags emblazoned on them, the electric lighting and fresh running water in our cabins and the hand towels with the hand stitched words ‘White Star Line.’ Katie’s stomach flipped slightly at the thought of seeing her sister in just a matter of days.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Peggy who was fussing at her to hurry up and eat her dinner.

  ‘For the love of God Katie Kenny, would you ever stop daydreamin’ and eat that bloody corned beef and cabbage. We’ve a party to be havin’ and we can’t start it until you’re there, what with it being for your birthday an’ all.’

  Katie laughed. She was so fond of her friends Peggy and Maggie and was so glad of their company. It had made the journey so much easier travelling all together. ‘Right so, I’m hurryin’. Oh, and will we be expectin’ the pleasure of young Lucky Harry for the hoolie tonight?’ she asked, winking at Peggy, fully aware of the affections she had formed for the steward.

  ‘Might be,’ Peggy replied coquettishly, ‘Might not. I might have other men asking me out tonight for all you know. I saw that rich millionaire one lookin’ at me upstairs!’

  The girls laughed then as they finished their meals and rushed off to wash before starting their evening’s merriment.

  ‘D’y know what girls,’ Katie added as they neared their cabin. ‘I think this is my favourite birthday ever. I’ll never forget this day as long as I live.’

  CHAPTER 20 - Private journal of Maggie Murphy

  April 14th, 1912,

  Day 4 at sea

  2.30pm

  Katie is having a fine birthday altogether what with Peggy singing endless rounds of ‘Happy Birthday’ and Harry bringing posh cakes and showing us the First Class decks and now we’re just back from another huge lunch. Lord my stomach aches - I think Mr Durcan was right about the forty tonne of spuds being on board – I feel as if I’ve ate half of those for lunch alone.

  It’s a clear, bright day so we’ve all come up on deck to walk off some of the food and get some wind in our cheeks. I’m sitting on a chair looking at nothing but endless ocean as far as my eyes can see. The seagulls are screeching above my head. Peggy and Katie are leaning over the white, iron railings around the side of the ship. They like to look over the edge and try to catch the spray on their faces. I daren’t at all, it makes me feel dizzy being so high up and it’s such a long way down and with the waves crashing and booming against the ship it’s enough to scare the life out of you just looking. I don’t even want to think how far down that ocean goes, it sends a shiver down my spine.

  Katie was fretting for a while earlier when she thought she’d lost the piece of string which she’d used to take the measurement for little Nora O’Donoghue’s finger. She’s promised to send a ring back from America to Nora and was careful to measure her finger with a piece of string before we left home, so she could be sure of the correct size. The string turned up under her mattress of all places. Peggy had her on that a rat must’ve taken it and was intending to use it to make its nest in her bed. Peggy is so wicked sometimes.

  I’ve been thinking on Séamus while I’m sitting here. I just remembered a day when we sat on the shore of the lake and threw stones together. He got one to bounce twelve times, the most he’d ever managed he said. I wonder what he’s doing now as I sit here. I wonder if he’ll remember me this time next week, next month, next year? Our lives are going to be so different now, but I hope I don’t get too interested in fancy skirts and hats while I’m in America as all the girls seem to do. I don’t think Séamus has much of a care for girls who fuss about skirts and hats and the like. I’d not like to go home and be all prissy and snobby about a life working in the fields. Travelling can do that to people, make them all talk of new and foreign things and makes them forget where they come from in the first place. I hope I never forget Ballysheen.

  I’m going back inside now. It’s really getting cold and my fingers can barely hold the pen.

  11.00pm

  Well, we are just back to the cabin from the best night of dancing and singing for Katie’s birthday. Lord, it was mighty craic altogether. I almost thought my sides were going to burst with the laughing. Some of them are still there, still singing and making music.

  Katie was in fine voice, singing her favourite songs, getting half the steerage passengers up on their feet and stomping out the beat. Even Ellen Joyce stopped talking about her wedding for a few hours and joined in with the singing and Maura Brennan surprised us all by standing on a table and giving us a rendition of ‘Moonlight in Mayo’ - and her being with a baby and all! I thought aunt Kathleen was almost going to die with the shame of us all.

  I walked out onto the deck for a few minutes to cool down from the heat and sweat of so many bodies dancing. It’s such a cold night tonight so I didn’t stay out for long. It’s a night to make your eyes stream with the chill but there isn’t a hint of a breeze. You’d almost be fooled into thinking the boat has stopped the air is so still. The sea is so calm it almost looks like we’re afloat on a piece of blackened glass. Other than for the millions of lights from the boat which light up the sea for a mile around, you’d hardly know we were here at all. She must be quite a sight to see from a distance.

  I sat and watched the stars for a while, they seem to be out in their thousands tonight. It reminded me of the night of Maura and Jack Brennan’s wedding – the night Séamus first asked me to dance. It was exactly the same moonless sky I gazed at that night. I felt for the letters in my pocket as I thought about him and in the other pocket I found blossom petals of all things! I’d forgotten that I’d picked them up on the morning we left Ballysheen. They’re withered and brown at the edges now and sorry looking - I almost wish I hadn’t put my hand in my pocket, hadn’t remembered them.

  We passed Harry as we returned to our cabins. He was retiring for the night himself, having already set the tables out ready for breakfast tomorrow morning. Lord I cannot even think about food my belly is still so full from all I’ve eaten today.

  Of course Pat had to stop and check the ship’s log outside the dining room one last time. He told us it said ‘Calm sea, 22 knots. Icebergs ahead.’ ‘Pretty much the same as for the last three days then,’ Peggy said and we all fell about the place laughing!

  I hope Katie has enjoyed her birthday - she must be sad to not be celebrating with her ma and da and brothers and sisters as usual. They’ll be thinking of her and missing her especially today no doubt - and her sister Catherine who is waiting for her to arrive in New York. Lord how excited she must be to see her sister she hasn’t set eyes on in three years! What with so many waiting to catch the first glimpse of their loved ones, there’l
l be quite a party planned for our arrival at the docks in New York I should think.

  The other three are already fast asleep. I should probably turn out the light soon and get some slee.……

  The sudden jolt and the continuous shudder that followed rocked Maggie’s bed. She sat bolt upright wondering what on earth it was. The strange noise, as if a piece of calico was being torn, was followed by a sound which she could only liken to that of one of the steam trains they had travelled on from Castlebar. She looked around the cabin. Her aunt Kathleen was sound asleep in the bed below her and Peggy and Katie were also both fast asleep – the shaking and noises not having woken them.

  After a few minutes, the shaking stopped and so did the noise. All the noise. Maggie sat in complete silence, her light flickering off for a few seconds before coming back on again. She realised that the familiar background drone of the engines had stopped.

  ‘We must be stopped,’ she said aloud to herself. She wasn’t sure why they would have stopped though and concluded that they must do this every night, shipping rules or something. As she was usually asleep by that time, she wouldn’t have noticed it before.

  To reassure herself she got out of the bed and tiptoed silently across the floor, not wanting to wake the others. Opening the cabin door slightly, she peered out into the corridor. Nobody was about, nothing seemed amiss. Reassured, she crept back into her bed, placed her journal into her small, black case and turned out her light. She shivered for a while in her thin nightdress, wishing they had been able to get those extra blankets after all.

  CHAPTER 21

  Harry Walsh was a man of his word. He’d told Maggie he would deliver her note up to Philips and Bride in the Marconi room, and that’s what he’d intended to do until he’d become distracted by an incident in the dining room at lunchtime when one of the passengers started to choke on a piece of bacon. There had been all manner of fuss and panic then until Harry performed the Heimlich manoeuvre which he remembered from his safety training and managed to dislodge the offending item from the man’s throat. He’d been asked to write up an incident report for the Officers and when that was complete he’d called in on the man himself to check on his health.

  ‘I had a lucky escape young lad, thanks to you,’ he chuckled, when Harry asked how he was feeling. ‘It wouldn’t have been very pleasant for the other passengers if I’d died right in the middle of lunch now would it? Imagine the headlines the papers would have had in the morning – ‘Man chokes to death on Titanic. Safety inspection underway’ – now that would have taken the shine off the ship’s triumphant arrival in New York, wouldn’t it!?’

  Harry had laughed at the man’s sarcasm. ‘Yes sir, I suppose it would! Not quite the headlines Captain Smith and Mr Ismay are after! Well, I’m glad to see that you’re fully recovered. Enjoy the rest of the trip.’

  As a result of this strange interlude to normal proceedings, all thoughts about delivering Maggie’s note were totally forgotten until he was just about to make his way to bed that night.

  Having laid out the tables for the following morning’s breakfast, the final task before saloon stewards were permitted to retire for the evening, he felt in his pocket for the keys to his dormitory. Feeling a piece of paper among his keys, he emptied his pocket. ‘Oh, bugger it,’ he said aloud, stopping in his tracks.

  ‘What’s up Harry,’ one of the other stewards asked, who was also just finishing up having laid the starboard side of the room while Harry had attended to the port. ‘Have you just realised you’ve put a spoon facing the wrong way or something?’ The other third class saloon stewards liked to tease Harry about his particular ways and his insistence that everything was perfect before he would leave things for the night.

  ‘No, no, not a spoon.’ Harry was distracted, wondering what to do.

  ‘What’s that? A love letter from that Irish lass? You want to be aiming a bit higher mate,’ the steward continued, pointing towards the ceiling. ‘That’s where the lasses are who you want to be flirting with, not these nit-riddled steerage types.’

  ‘Aw, bugger off will ya. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’

  The other steward laughed and carried on ahead to the crew quarters. Harry turned and walked back down the corridor in the opposite direction towards the elevator. In his pocket he’d found Maggie’s message to home. He’d completely forgotten about it and had promised her he would get it sent out that day. Being a man of his word, he decided that that was exactly what he was going to do.

  The elevator carried him up to the portside boat deck where he ran along the corridor past the Officer’s quarters to the Marconi radio room.

  ‘Bride, Bride,’ he hissed, barely stepping foot into the room.

  Harold Bride, one of the two radio operators, turned in his seat and took the headset from his ears, his dark hair ruffled as if he had been running his hands through it, his cheeks flushed with concentration, his eyes looking tired.

  ‘Bloody hell Harry, what are you doing creeping around up here at this time of night?’

  Harry handed him the small piece of paper. ‘Send us this would you? Favour for a steerage girl with no cash.’

  Bride glanced at the folded piece of paper. ‘Dunno mate. We’re working Cape Race, there’s messages coming in thick and fast from the first class passengers. I need to get them sent out before we lose the frequency. I’m making a bloody fortune!’ He smiled and turned back in his seat. Harry could hear the distinct crackle of messages coming in over Bride’s headset. ‘And,’ he continued, ‘there’s bloody ice warnings coming in from all over the place. Here’s another one.’

  Harry waited patiently while he watched Bride note down the message coming in from another ship. He read the words over Bride’s shoulder.

  ‘From Mesaba to Titanic. In latitude 42 N, to 41*25* W, to longitude 52*30* W, saw much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs, also field ice, weather good, clear.'

  ‘It’s an MSG - for the Captain,’ he said, folding it carefully, placing it into an envelope and writing Captain Smith on the front. ‘I have to deliver it in person.’

  ‘Oh go on, just send this one first,’ Harry cajoled. ‘Just this once. I swear there won’t be any more. I think it’s to her fella back home and I promised her.’

  Bride sighed and unfolded the paper. ‘Alright then, just this one though. Now sod off will you and let me get on with my work.’

  He put his headset back on, pushing the envelope with the ice warning for Captain Smith to one side of the desk, where it would remain, forgotten.

  ‘Thanks mate,’ Harry whispered, backing out of the room. ‘I owe you one.’

  Bride ignored him, busily concentrating on his work.

  Relieved to have Maggie’s message on its way, Harry made his way back down the corridor, a couple of Second Mate Officers strolling casually towards him nodded as they passed. He admired their dark blue Officers uniforms and decided at that moment that the next time he sailed on this ship, or any as magnificent, he would be wearing that uniform. His steward’s uniform looked well on him, and seemed to attract the attention of giggly, Irish girls, but an Officers uniform would look very well on him indeed. His mother had always told him dark blue brought out the colour in his eyes.

  A short while after Harry left the radio room, Bride finished the last of his Cape Race passenger messages and unfolded the piece of paper Harry Walsh had given him. Exhausted from the night’s work, he started to tap out the words. From Maggie Murphy, Titanic to Séamus Doyle, Ballysheen, Co. Mayo, Ireland. Dearest Séamus, all is well. Titanic is a fine ship. I hope your Da is well. Don’t wait for me, ………..

  The sudden jolt caused his finger to slip, transmitting the incomplete message. The interference in his ears startled him. His partner, Philips, emerged from the sleeping quarters at the back, rubbing his eyes against the sudden glare of the lights.

  ‘What the bloody hell was that?’

  ‘Dunno mate. It felt like an earthq
uake – can you get them in the Atlantic?’

  ‘Don’t be such an idiot. That wasn’t an earthquake. It feels like the engines have stopped to me. Go up to the bridge and see what you can find out will you. I’m knackered, I’m going back to bed.’

  Bride left the room to make his way to the bridge.

  The judder was barely noticeable, but it sent a dull vibration through Harry’s shoes all the way up to the cap on the top of head. He was returning to his cabin, having gone for a walk on deck to get some fresh air before turning in for the night. Standing at one end of the long ‘Scotland Road’ crew passageway he grabbed onto the iron grille of the elevator door to steady himself.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ he said, aloud, although there was nobody else there.

  He stood for a moment, the vibrations continuing all the way through the metal, up his hands and arms into his shoulders. It made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. Then it stopped and he heard a different sound, one he was familiar with. The engines had been put into reverse and that could only mean that they were stopping the ship.

  He considered going down to the boiler rooms to ask the stokers what was going on, but thought he might get more sense out of Bride. The stokers could be curt at the best of times and if they were busy putting the dampers down they’d be less than pleased to see him.

  He started to make his way back up the stairwells to the boat deck where he had been just a short while ago. As he turned to walk back down the Officers corridor towards the radio room, he heard banging on doors and shouts of, ‘All hands on deck.’

  Leaning his head around the wall, he caught a glimpse of the two officers he’d walked past earlier. They were stood outside another officer’s cabin, talking earnestly, their expressions serious. Straining to hear over the pounding of feet overhead and the shouts from the other officers, he caught snippets of their conversation’