by Hazel Gaynor
I’ve been thinking on Séamus while I’m sitting here. I just remembered a day when we sat by 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. Traveling can do that to people, make them all talk of new and foreign things and make 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.
11:30 P.M.
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 favorite 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 an’ all! I thought Aunt Kathleen was almost going to die with the shame of us.
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 the Brennans’ 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 cherry 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. 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 before going to his cabin. He told us it said, “Calm sea, twenty-two 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 not to be celebrating with her ma and da and brothers as usual. They’ll be thinking of her and missing her, especially today no doubt—and her sister, Frances, who is waiting for her to arrive in New York. How excited she must be to see the 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’ll 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 she could liken only to that of one of the steam trains they had traveled 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 realized that the familiar background drone of the engines had ceased.
“We must be stopped,” she said aloud to herself. She couldn’t think why this should be, though, and came to the conclusion 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 in 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 to Phillips and Bride in the Marconi room, and that’s what he’d intended to do until he became 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 until Harry had given the man a hefty thump between the shoulder blades, at which point the offending piece of bacon had propelled itself across the dining room. Harry had 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,” the man had said with a chuckle 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, would it? Imagine the headlines the papers would have had in the morning—‘Man chokes to death on Titanic. Safety inspection under way’—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 unexpected interlude in Harry’s normal routine, all thoughts about Maggie’s note were 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—Harry felt in his pocket for the keys to his dormitory. That was when he discovered the piece of paper with Maggie’s note on it.
“Oh, bugger it,” he said aloud, stopping in his tracks.
“What’s up, Harry?” asked one of the other stewards, who was also just finishing up, having laid the starboard side of the room while Harry had attended to the port. “Have you just realized you’ve put a spoon facing the wrong way or something?”
The other third-class saloon stewards liked to tease Harry about his insistence that everything be perfect before he would leave 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 toward 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 went on ahead to the crew quarters.
Harry turned and walked back down the corridor toward the elevator. He’d promised Maggie he would get her message sent out
that day, and being a man of his word, he was going to do exactly that.
The elevator carried him up to the portside boat deck, where he ran along the corridor past the officers’ quarters to the wireless radio room.
“Phillips! Phillips!” he hissed, barely setting foot inside the room.
Jack Phillips, 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? Favor for a steerage girl with no cash.”
Phillips glanced at the folded piece of paper. “Dunno, mate. I’m working Cape Race. We’re backed up with messages from yesterday when the bloody wireless went down. 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 crackle and whine of messages in Phillips’s headset. “And,” he continued, “there’s ice warnings coming in from all over the place. Here’s one that came in earlier. Haven’t even had chance to take it up to the bridge yet.”
Harry read the message over Phillips’s shoulder.
He waited patiently while Phillips finished sending another message.
“Jesus Christ!” Phillips suddenly threw his headset down onto the desk. “Bleedin’ idiot!”
“What?” Harry asked. “What is it?”
“It’s the bloody Californian. Nearly sent me deaf.” Phillips rubbed his ears.
“What did they say?” Harry asked.
“That they’re stopped and surrounded by ice.” Phillips replaced his headset and tapped out a reply.
“What did you say?”
“I told him to shut up—that I’m busy working Cape Race.”
Waiting a moment for Phillips to calm down, Harry broached the subject of Maggie’s message again. “Oh, go on, mate, just send us this one will you?” Harry cajoled, passing the piece of paper to Phillips. “Just this one. I swear there won’t be any more. I think it’s to her fella back home, and I promised her.”
Phillips sighed and unfolded the paper. “All right 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 ice warning for Captain Smith to one side of the desk.
“Thanks, mate,” Harry whispered, backing out of the room. “I owe you one.”
Phillips ignored him, concentrating on his work.
Relieved to have Maggie’s message on its way, Harry headed back down the corridor. A couple of second mate officers, strolling casually toward him, nodded as they passed. He admired their dark blue 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 officer’s uniform would look very well indeed. His mother had always told him dark blue brought out the color in his eyes.
A short while after Harry left the radio room, Phillips unfolded the piece of paper Harry Walsh had given him. Exhausted from the night’s work, he started to tap out the words.
A sudden jolt caused his finger to slip.
Phillips waited for a moment, sensing an unfamiliar vibration beneath his feet. He didn’t like the feel of it. Not one bit.
The junior wireless officer, Harold Bride, emerged from the sleeping quarters at the back of the room, rubbing his eyes against the glare of the lights. “What the bloody hell was that?” he asked.
“Dunno, mate. It felt like an earthquake. Can you get earthquakes in the Atlantic?”
“Don’t be such an idiot,” Bride said. “That wasn’t an earthquake. It feels like the engines have stopped.”
“Does, doesn’t it.” Phillips looked at Bride. Neither of them spoke for a moment. “Go on up to the bridge and see what you can find out, will you? I want to get the last of these messages sent before I go to bed.”
Bride left the room. Phillips continued with his work.
The shudder was barely noticeable, but it sent a dull vibration through Harry’s shoes all the way up to the cap on the top of his head. Standing at one end of the long Scotland Road passageway, he grabbed on to 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 vibration 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 Phillips. 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. As he turned to walk down the officers’ corridor toward 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 standing 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, Harry caught snippets of their conversation.
“ . . . hard-a-starboard . . . iceberg . . . reversed the engines . . . taking in water . . .”
Taking in water?
Hardly able to comprehend what he was hearing, Harry continued on along the corridor, unnoticed among the anxious faces, hushed conversations, and orders. He pushed open the Marconi room door. Phillips was huddled over the radio equipment.
“Oi! Phillips!” he whispered.
Phillips turned around. “For crying out loud, Walsh, what now?”
Harry could see from the look on Phillips’s face that something was happening.
“I felt the shudder. The engines have stopped. What’s happening?”
Just then Bride entered the room, ashen faced. “We hit an iceberg,” he said, his voice a low whisper. “There’s damage to the starboard side below the waterline. She’s taking in water. We’re to radio for help. Captain Smith’s orders.”
“Radio for help?” Phillips looked stunned. “It isn’t bad, is it? Surely they can close the watertight compartments?”
The three men stared at each other then, the crackle from the receivers the only sound in the small room. The look of fear on the radio operators’ faces told Harry everything he needed to know. He nodded and walked slowly from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Almost in a daze, he wandered out onto the deck. Already there was a crowd of passengers there, first class, Harry presumed, judging by their formal dinner wear. They were mostly gathered around the starboard side of the ship, some leaning over the railings, others staring at the gigantic mass of ice which towered a little way in the distance behind the ship. It was a truly terrifying thing to behold.
Harry had never seen a real iceberg before. He’d seen them in picture books and encyclopedias as a child, marveling at the gigantic blocks of ice that glistened like turquoise jewels against the brilliant blue seas of the Arctic and Antarctic. He remembered being fascinated by them as a child, wondering how ice could possibly turn blue and questioning his father endlessly about how cold they would feel to touch and how they were made and whether it was true that the iceberg you can see is only a part of the entire thing. He remembered his father laughing at his inquisitive nature. “There’s a saying, son: ‘the tip of the iceberg,’ that means you’re only just seeing the beginning of something. If you saw an iceberg that was a hundred feet tall, there w
ould be six or seven hundred feet more under the sea.” Harry had thought his father was joking.
Staring now at this ice giant—which bore no resemblance to those in his childhood picture books—Harry wondered what his father would say. Far from being a glittering jewel, this iceberg was a chilling sight, looming dark and ominous from the black sea below, the mass of the thing almost unfathomable.
Harry shivered and drew his thin jacket around his shoulders, wrapping his arms around himself to try to retain some warmth in his body.
He heard children laughing and turned. Just behind him, huge lumps of ice, which had been knocked off the berg, lay on the deck. A group of young boys pushed them back and forth, watching them slip and slither across the polished wooden planks, their breaths of laughter caught in a fine mist before dispersing into the freezing night air. It was a bizarre sight, a surreal moment that Harry seemed unable to tear his eyes away from.
“Must be a hundred feet tall, that.” His thoughts were disturbed by a gentleman in full formal dinner dress who had appeared at his side, gazing at the spectacle of the iceberg. “I hear the ship glanced off the side of it,” the man continued. “No significant damage, though. Just as well we are aboard the mighty Titanic, hey! That berg could have easily sunk a smaller ship.”
He laughed to himself then and pulled a white handkerchief from his breast pocket to wipe his spectacles, which had misted up in the cold.
“But I hear that she is taking on water, sir.” Harry was hesitant, not wishing to cause a panic but unable to leave this man without telling him the truth of the matter.
“Really? Ah well, a bit of water won’t bother a ship like this. They’ll pump it out, lad, and we’ll be on our way. Mark my words.” He coughed slightly against the cold. “Well, I don’t know about you, young man, but I think I’d rather finish my brandy than stand out here freezing to death. Good evening to you.” He tipped his hat then and went inside.