It felt like an order. I did not reply but watched him vault the iron gate which divided the first and second class areas of the liner. He was making for the stern. I was tempted to follow him, but his orders had been specific.
As I descended to Deck A I took a slight detour and ran to port. I peered through the glass enclosing the whole of this deck but all I could see was blackness. As I made my way back to the stateroom, I passed several gentlemen, one talking to one of the ship’s officers. They were too busy to notice a lad like me, but I couldn’t help eavesdropping on their conversation.
“The water-tight doors have been secured?”
“Yes, sir, but we are shipping water in five of her compartments.”
I didn’t hear anymore but I did get a glimpse at the gentleman’s face. He looked grave. As I made my way back to my own deck, the man’s haunting look remained with me. I blinked and remembered the same expression on my father’s face, the morning he told me my youngest brother George had died. My throat dried, I sensed danger and hurried back to the safety of my stateroom.
No sooner was I inside when Papa entered. He was still wearing evening dress. “Awaken the boys and get dressed in your warmest clothes.”
“Yes sir,” I said afraid he would question the clothes I was already wearing. He didn’t.
“The steward will be along presently to help you into your life-preservers.”
“Life...” I gasped, “What’s happening? Is the ship sinking?”
“The unsinkable Titanic. Of course not, but it would be most unwise to spread rumours especially amongst the ladies and your brothers.”
I looked into his eyes and saw the face of the man I had never seen before. Yet he was my father, but something had happened to change his attitude towards me. I felt he was addressing me not as boy, but as a man.
“I understand sir. Do you wish us to remain here when we are ready?”
“Yes, I shall bring your mother in a few minutes.”
As the door closed behind him, I shook the two peas attempting to get them out of their pod. “Jack! Wake up. Joe! Get out of bed. Papa has ordered us to dress.” Jack stirred, he screwed up his face and tried to brush me away. “Get up now!”
They didn’t respond and I felt like bashing their heads together. Fortunately, Miss Bracini, my mother’s maid, came in and offered to help the twins to dress. I grabbed my chance to go outside again, curiosity overcoming any fear I might have had. “I’ll wait outside,” I said. I could tell from her expression that she was annoyed with me, probably expecting me to help one of my brothers. But I left before she had time to scold me.
People hurried along the corridor. Heads poked out of doors. Everyone asked for news. My fellow passengers looked anxious. I saw worry etched on several passers-by. “Why have the engines stopped?”I heard a man ask.
“Just a minor hiccup,” a steward said before he disappeared into a stateroom.
Further along the corridor the cap of an officer bobbed above the people standing around. He doffed it to a lady as he stopped to talk to her. I moved nearer to him, hoping to speak to him, but I don’t think he noticed me.
“Has there been an accident? Is there any danger?” she asked him.
“None, as far as I know, madam,” he said. He replaced his cap, walked passed me and knocked on the door of a cabin further along. A gentleman in evening dress answered and invited the officer inside. Without another thought, I leapt after them and pressed my ear against the gentleman’s door. I knew it was wrong, but I felt the officer had only been trying to reassure the lady for her own good. I wanted to know the truth.
I could barely hear the officer, just the sound of his muffled voice. But I heard the gentleman say, “The water-tight doors will only keep the ship afloat for a while. It is a certainty Titanic will founder. God help us.”
I jumped back from the door as if a red hot coal had burnt my ear. The ship was sinking. The best ship in the world, the only unsinkable vessel was going down! My heart thumped, my ears burnt. I took several deep breaths. I had to think quickly, for the first time in my life I was facing real danger. Then I recalled the expression on the other gentleman’s face that I had seen earlier on my way back from the Boat Deck. My father had a similar look on his face, distant and gaunt, as if he had glimpsed imminent doom.
I heard my father call me and hurried back to our stateroom. Mama fussed over the twins, tied their scarves tighter, pulled their caps down, told them to stay together and to obey their father. “You must be brave,” she said to me and looked anxiously at Papa.
“Put on your life-preservers,” he said. The boys struggled, the white cork-filled canvas life-preservers were too big for them.
“Pretend we are knights of the round table,” I said. “You are Sir Jack de Ville and you Sir Joseph de Champagne. I shall be King Arthur.” They took to the idea and quickly tied on their white tabards.
Papa looked at me and said, “You too!” I obeyed and joined the rest of my family ready to go up to the Boat Deck.
The corridor was crowded, people pushed their way along. Papa tried to keep us together, but we became separated on the stairs. I heard Mama’s voice calling back to us, a shrill sound that sent a shiver down my spine.
Several of the boats had gone when we stepped out into the cold night air. I looked up, the din of steam had ceased. The deck was filled with people, some standing together, others dashing from one place to the next. Several ladies were crying and in the background I could hear the ship’s band playing a jolly ragtime tune.
A loud roar and I looked skywards. A rocket had been fired from the bridge. It burst in the air high above the ship into a cascade of white light illuminating everything below it.
“Fireworks! Look at the fireworks!” Jack cried.
I glanced at father. “They’re signals, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “There must be other ships in the vicinity, these are busy shipping lanes.”
“Are there anymore ladies?” a voice cried from the front of the crowd.
Papa replied loudly. “Let these ladies and children through!”
The sea of people, mainly men parted and father pushed my mother, Miss Bracini and the twins forward.
“We can’t go in that small boat,” Mama said, “it’s not safe.”
Papa turned towards her and put his arms around her. “Alice, you and the boys are going, do you understand? I will brook no argument.” She nodded but I could see she didn’t want to leave.
The officer in charge of the lifeboat called again. “Step inside the boat.” He took Miss Bracini’s arm, she had the twins with her. “Please hurry along, you children too.” Mama was waiting beside Papa when I stepped forward. “No, women and children only,” the officer said as he barred my way.
Mother turned on him swiftly, “Why can’t he go? He’s only fourteen.”
“We have crew aboard his age. He’ll have to take his chance with the rest of the men,” the officer replied.
“Richard, do something!” Mama shouted.
Papa’s face was grim. The crowd behind us were pushing to get to the lifeboat. “Get in the boat Alice and take care of the twins. We’ll get another boat with the rest of the men.”
I thought for one moment Mama would refuse to go. She stared at him, seemingly oblivious of anyone else around her. “God bless you,” she said, touching his arm and then my face.
I, too, stared at my father. My nerves tensed and my jaw clenched. If I’d wanted to speak I don’t think my mouth would have moved to form the words.
“I have always loved you,” Papa said to my mother, “we men will look to ourselves.”
“Please madam,” the officer said taking mother’s arm and helping her into the boat. “Lower away.”
I stood alongside my father and watched the rest of my family depart in the lifeboat. I thought it would be a long way down to the water, but when I looked over the side the sea was rising and the ship began listing. I watched until t
heir boat had reached the water and pulled away from the sinking vessel. I looked towards Titanic’s bow, the sea would soon be washing over the Well Deck. “What do we do now?”
Papa hesitated before he said, “Look to ourselves and pray.”
I heard screams as people began jumping into the water. “Those people in the water are trying to reach the lifeboats. Should we try for it?”
Papa shook his head. “The sea is freezing. A man wouldn’t last five minutes in there.”
“But we must do something. People are moving to the stern, should we follow them?”
“And simply delay the inevitable.”
A loud shot rang out, the hum of the crowd around the few remaining lifeboats fell silent for a few seconds. “Panic has broken out, look!” I pointed to the two remaining starboard side lifeboats. “They’ve nearly collided. What’s happening Papa? How can life on board the world’s greatest liner breakdown in less than an hour?”
“I hoped you’d go with the children, I didn’t think they would treat you as a man. But it seems you have grown up without me or your mother noticing.”
“But what about the remaining lifeboats? We must at least try for one.”
“Don’t you understand? I don’t think there’s enough lifeboats for everyone left on board. And the women and children must go first.”
“So we are doomed?”
“I don’t think it’s as bad as that. Titanic’s got the Marconi Service. The whole of the North Atlantic will know of our fate by now. I’m sure they’ll be a rescue ship here soon.”
I looked towards the bow. “The forward Well Deck is awash, she’s listing badly and can you see any lights on the horizon?”
“I’m sorry son, truly I am, that we have to end this way.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I cried, “there’s two collapsibles still to launch on the roof of the officer’s quarters. The portside ones have gone, but there’s two left on the starboard side.”
“They’re for women and children.”
“And what am I, father?”
My spark of enthusiasm seemed to bring him out of his melancholy. “Let’s go and see if we can help.”
Together we struggled towards the crowded Boat Deck where one of the smaller lifeboats was being filled. People had gathered around, shoving and fighting each other to get to the front. Only women and young children were being allowed through. I saw the arm of an officer raised above his head, a pistol in his hand. He fired into the air. The crowd fell back, turned and ran towards the ship’s stern.
“There’s another boat left, look father!” I spied two officers trying to disentangle the ropes securing it. The boat was upside down on the deck and proving too heavy for them to move. But the water was dangerously close. The ship’s forecastle head was now underwater. Hundreds of people were still on board, streaming towards the ship’s stern as the tilt of her decks grew steeper. The music stopped. I had hardly heard it, until the sound was no more. Then a solo violinist began to play a hymn tune, the melody drifting solemnly over the rising water. A loud grinding noise above my head forced me to look skywards as the ship’s forward funnel broke off at its base and collapsed into the sea. We hurried to the upturned boat and attempted to help the officers and men right it.
I didn’t see it coming, otherwise I would have warned Papa, but the ice cold flow of a giant wave carried the boat off the deck and me with it. I gulped filling my lungs with as much precious air as I could. The cold felt like hundreds of needles stinging my skin, I lost my cap but in the chaos I found I had hold of a rowlock. I held on to it. The next I knew I was under the boat. I pushed my head above the water and took another huge gulp of air. In the darkness I felt another man near to me. “Papa? Is that you?”
“No lad,” he spluttered, “Harold Bride, Marconiman. Follow me, we have to get to the right side of this vessel.”
Two men pulled me and Harold out of the sea. I lay across the keel of the boat, exhausted by my icy cold plunge into the water and prayed I hadn’t swallowed too much of the Atlantic Ocean. But where was Papa?
When some of my strength returned I scanned the water around me. People, mostly men, clad in their canvas life-preservers thrashed at the cruel sea. Two seamen, or I took them for crew stood astride the keel, one poking an oar at anyone else who tried to board our ‘ship’. Until a commanding voice shouted to him, “Get a hold of yourself, no one will survive if you don’t trim this boat and behave like seamen.”
“Get off,” the man snarled.
“Listen to what the officer says,” another man cried.
I was still laying across the keel with the Marconiman next to me. “Hold on lad,” he said, “that’s the Second Officer.”
I felt able to sit up when the officer asked me and squatted on the keel, keeping my feet out of the water as best I could.
“We’ll be alright,” Harold said, “just hold on.”
“Is that you Bride?” the officer called.
“Yes sir.”
“How long until a rescue ship gets here?”
“Carpathia’s on her way, said she’d be with us about 4.00 am.”
By the time we sighted Carpathia we had been rescued from our upturned lifeboat by one of the other boats. They took us into the spare places they had. I couldn’t understand why there were so few people aboard. Had they died from the cold and been thrown overboard? I shuddered and thought of my mother and brothers.
Our lifeboat was the last to be picked up by Carpathia and we were taken to a large saloon where hot drinks and sandwiches were given out. A kindly lady wrapped a large steamer rug around me and a steward asked my name, but I wasn’t interested in what he had to say, I scanned the room for my family, especially my father. I sank onto a bench in the corner of the room and found myself next to the gentleman I’d met on the Boat Deck when the ship first struck.
“Excuse me sir,” I said, “I’m looking for my mother and brothers, have you seen them?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “I’ve only just come aboard myself, but weren’t you the lad I spoke to just after we struck the iceberg?”
I nodded but didn’t have time to reply. Two young screams echoed across the saloon and I stood up and opened my arms to Jack and Joe. I hugged them so tightly, as if I didn’t want to let them go ever again. Mama walked towards me, her face a mixture of joy and incredulity. She threw her arms around me and sobbed.
We hoped Papa had been saved, but when the news came that all Titanic’s boats had been recovered, we knew there was little left to do but mourn.
I felt no joy in my heart as we passed the Statue of Liberty three days later. Titanic’s lifeboats were unloaded at the White Star pier where the mother ship should have berthed. Less than a third of her passengers and crew arrived safely in New York on that Thursday evening. We were among them, reunited but in mourning for my dear father.
His body was recovered from the sea. He rests with a couple of hundred others in a cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
RIP Papa.
Lover Boy
Inside a Second Class Stateroom Sunday April 14th 1912
“Are you sure no one will recognise us?”
Norman shook his head and smiled admiringly at Clara. “No my dear, we have taken the most careful precautions. Should anyone from home know me, then I am travelling to New York on behalf of the brewery accompanied by my nephew, who is soon to be apprenticed.”
“Oh, Norm, you are so very clever, you think of everything. You have made me the happiest woman in the world.”
Norman’s heart skipped, she made him feel so good, especially when she ran her fingers around the back of his neck. Her touch alone could arouse him in seconds, as if he was nineteen again. Nineteen, he thought, how gauche he had been at that tender age between youth and manhood, but those days seemed far behind him now. “And long may I continue to make you happy, my dearest, my beautiful, my own Clara.”
“I wish I felt beautiful,” Cla
ra sighed, “but dressed like a boy, I feel like a fish out of water. And Norm, I do miss my long golden curls. I cried all night when I had them cut off.”
“Hush, my love, this boy’s apparel is only until we are safely landed in New York. Then I shall take up my new post and introduce you as my wife.”
“But...won’t people know we’re not married? I mean I wouldn’t want to lie about it.”
Norman drew her close to his chest, until he could feel the gentle rise and fall of her bosom. How he wanted to tear off the deep stiff collar she wore, pull the hideous tweed jacket off her shoulders and slip his hands up the voluminous shirt until he found the small peaks of her breast that excited him so much.
Clara stepped back. “Just look at my hair! Short back and sides.” Her hand ran along the nape of her neck, fingering her bristle like haircut. “How you men go around for life like this. Why my ears are frozen.”
Norman reached for her again, caressing one ear, then the next, dropping sweet kisses on her delicate earlobes. “My darling Clara, you have the most divine ears known to man.”
“And you say the sweetest things Norm, and if you weren’t so sweet to me I don’t know how I would have endured this voyage. You can’t imagine how awkward I feel, dressed up in boy’s clothing when underneath I’m feeling all passionate and can’t wait until we are alone together.”
“Yes, but you must be careful about inviting the steward into our cabin.”
“But why, Norm, dearest? I’m sure he’s only trying to please us so you’ll give him a generous tip when we land in New York.”
“Just don’t let him know too much, understand? If we are to get away without May’s solicitor pursuing us, we mustn’t leave a trail. No one knows us on board. I am convinced of it, certainly not in Second Class. I’ve been through the passenger list with a fine-tooth comb.”
Titanic Twelve Tales - A Short Story Anthology RMS Titanic Page 3