“P-parents,” she answered shortly, wrapping her arms around her waist to try and protect her organs. As long as her chest remained warm enough to keep her heart pumping, she knew she had a chance of making it through this.
He frowned at her, no doubt wondering just what she meant, but he said nothing more. His eyes were kind, faintly framed with what Penelope’s grandmother had called joy lines.
He wore an officer’s coat, but she didn’t know enough to be able to tell what his position was. She almost turned to ask Ruby, until she remembered that Ruby wasn’t there… She was safe in one of the lifeboats, and Penelope was thankful for that. She wouldn’t want Ruby to experience any of this.
As she sat on the upturned body of the lifeboat, watching as a few more men approached and were helped up beside her and the others, all Penelope could focus on was the pain.
Her entire body ached in a way she had never known possible. Her bones seemed to be made out of ice, and every time she moved—even to shuffle a little—it was as if she was breaking them. She couldn’t feel her feet, or her hands, or even her face. The only thing she was acutely aware of was her heartbeat.
That was the one thing she focused on, over the screams and the cries for help, the pleas for the lifeboats to come back.
Every thud meant she was still alive.
And at that moment, that was all that mattered.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Penelope had never been good at keeping track of time.
Often, five minutes could seem like five hours, and a whole night could pass in the blink of an eye. But she knew that it didn’t take long for the screams to dwindle.
One by one, they turned into shouts, into moans, into silence. Until Penelope was almost certain that the quiet was even worse.
She knew that the cries would always stay with her.
She would forever close her eyes, should she survive, and she would hear them.
She knew, from talking to one of the men who had helped load the other lifeboats, that they weren’t all filled to capacity. Nearly all of the twenty lifeboats floating out there would each have been able to bring a good forty or so people aboard—he even said that one had left with only twelve people aboard when it could have held forty.
Now, with the silence, and still trapped on the upturned lifeboat with around fifty other people, Penelope knew that no one had thought to return and save the lives of those who hadn’t been lucky enough to enter a lifeboat.
Every person who had entered the water, who had started that haunting crescendo, was now dead. Floating in the water. And their loved ones sat close enough to help but were unwilling to do anything about it.
She thought of Ruby. Had she tried to convince people to come and search for Penelope and her family? Or had she resigned herself to the idea that no one would have survived the sinking?
She couldn’t make her gaze move away from her knees. She had brought them up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them not long after being brought aboard the lifeboat and realised she wouldn’t be moving any time soon.
She didn’t want to see the faces of dead strangers drifting nearby—of husbands and fathers who would never make it back to their families. She didn’t want to see the faces of those she knew—to see Mother and Father, Frank and Mr. Cole.
She didn’t want to see that kind gentleman in the smoking room who had helped her find her parents. Or Mr. Ismay, who had told her to get to a boat because her parents wouldn’t want her to die. She didn’t want to see Isidor and his wife. Or even the eccentric Duke who would never see his many animals again.
So she kept her gaze locked on her knees and concentrated on the thudding of her heart.
Those on the boat around her remained quiet.
She had no idea how long she sat there in utter silence, lost in her thoughts, memories cropping up just when she didn’t want them to. She remembered the look on Ruby’s face as she’d realised Penelope wasn’t getting into the boat.
She remembered her parents’ surprise at her still being aboard and promising them that she would live.
She remembered the days before, when her greatest worry had been sneaking into First Class and not getting caught.
It seemed so small. So utterly insignificant now.
It was even more ridiculous that she had thought that was fear.
The girl she had been before knew nothing of cold, knew nothing of fear.
“What was that?” someone asked, causing Penelope to blink herself back into the present.
The man in front, the one who had brought her aboard, said, “The lifeboat’s losing air underneath.” A beat passed before he added, “It’s sinking.”
Penelope cringed at that word, feeling utterly helpless as she finally raised her head to look at him. Her eyes automatically darted out to the sea, wincing as she saw the bodies lifelessly bobbing alongside them.
Panic gripped her throat as she realised that, should the lifeboat also sink, there’d be no way for them to survive. She’d end up dead, just like all those bodies out there. And she refused to let that happen.
“Is there…” It was so difficult to make her mouth work. She had screamed and then been quiet for so long. “…anything we can do, sir?”
A small, gentle smile appeared on his lips, highlighting the joy lines that surrounded his kind eyes. “Second Officer Charles Lightoller, at your service, miss.”
“Penelope Fletcher.” It was so strange to be making such formal introductions. She shook her head. “You…didn’t answer my question.”
“The ocean will get up soon.” He paused for a moment, swallowing with difficulty. “The tide will cause the air underneath to be lost.”
“So what do we do?” another man questioned.
“We need to…keep her even,” Lightoller announced as the lifeboat moved a little in the swell that was starting to build around them. “She’s losing air… If we keep her steady…” His sentences were incomplete, but Penelope was just glad that an actual sailor was with them, helping them through this.
“How?” one of the men asked.
“We need…stand…two lines…keep her stable.”
Penelope nodded and shuffled as Lightoller started to organise the men with short, curt orders, showing them where and when to stand.
As the men around her started to rise, however, she realised that he wasn’t addressing her. He was actively choosing to ignore her. “Lightoller,” she called out, her voice soft due to the pain in her lungs. He didn’t hear, so she drew a deep breath in and tried again, this time with a sharp, “Charles!”
He stopped and turned to Penelope.
“Where…want me?”
He shook his head. His own legs trembled, Penelope could see that much from where she sat, but from the way he held himself, no one would have been able to tell. “Young woman, such as yourself…” He shook his head again and started to return to give further orders to the other men, but Penelope gritted her teeth.
Slowly, surely, she pushed herself to her feet, thankful that her frozen limbs didn’t lock up and send her over the edge into the water. She pushed her shoulders back as far as they would go and fixed her stare on Charles Lightoller again. “Where. D’you. Want me?”
Lightoller sighed and pointed to a spot to the right. Penelope hesitantly stepped over to it and turned back to him, watching as he demonstrated how to bend their knees and shift their weight, following the waves so that they remained stable.
She gritted her teeth, determined to concentrate and copy his movements perfectly.
She had made it this far. She wasn’t going to stop fighting now.
Chapter Thirty
The tears had long since frozen on Penelope’s face.
Even if she had seen someone she knew among the lifeless bodies surrounding them, she couldn’t have summoned t
he energy to cry for them.
The lifebelts on the dead ensured that they remained afloat. Those without had drifted to the bottom of the ocean, but it was still a sea of corpses as far as the eye could see. The only thing that was more overbearing than the dead bodies was the debris—so much broken and splintered wood floated alongside them, along with deckchairs and personal belongings that hadn’t yet sunk.
It was utter carnage.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the strength of the men with her on the lifeboat had started to dwindle.
For some, the effort of being upright and having to focus on their movements proved too much. Their hearts gave out, and without warning, they would just collapse into the water.
That would rock the boat, sometimes sending others back into the sea. There was nothing they could do. The shock of a second plunge was just too much for their bodies to handle.
She hated that voice in her head that told her that fewer bodies meant there was less weight pushing on the boat, which meant that it now had a greater chance of remaining afloat. She tried to banish the thought, but every time one of them fell into the water and never made it back out, it would creep back in.
Still, the boat slowly sank. Like Charles Lightoller had said it would.
First, the water brushed over their feet.
Though Penelope didn’t really feel that. She couldn’t feel her feet at all. If she hadn’t still been standing, she’d be concerned her legs were no longer attached to them. And she dreaded to think of the damage she’d have to deal with if—when—they were rescued.
“Do you think…they’ll come back?” someone asked, and he didn’t need to clarify who he meant. The lifeboats. Penelope had initially believed that they would—how could they not? So many of them had loved ones who were in the water; surely they would want to come and help as soon as possible?
But now that the screams had stopped and the only thing most people would need were coffins, she couldn’t stop herself from scoffing. “No,” she hissed out, uncaring if she had killed everyone’s hopes.
She felt their gazes land on her for a second, but before she could snap at them, another man piped up. He had worked in the Marconi telegraph room, sending messages right up until Captain Smith had allowed him to abandon his station, and even after that. He rattled off a long list of the ships that had heard Titanic’s distress call and had agreed to come to help. He was adamant that it wouldn’t be long before they were rescued, even if their own lifeboats refused to come to their aid.
“Just keep an eye on that horizon, Penelope,” he said. He was a young man, no older than herself. He had introduced himself simply as Jack. His eyes were steady, sure, even as his lip trembled.
Penelope clung to that hope, even as the boat sunk farther and the water reached the top of her boots and started to fill them. The ice-cold water brought back a hint of sensation in her toes, which made her smile for just a second before it disappeared.
As the boat continued to sink farther, it meant that there was less surface for them to stand on. Every time they had to shuffle upwards, another man would lose his footing and go tumbling into the water.
And every time Penelope whispered a prayer and remained focused on the roll of the boat beneath her feet, desperate not to follow him.
“Tell me their names again, Jack,” Penelope whispered into the cold air, just in an attempt to stay awake—stay alive.
His voice was a little weak as he replied, “Carpathia. Frankfurt. Olympic. Cali—” A particularly strong wave came, cutting Jack off as he started to give the name of the fourth ship that he had been able to contact before the ship had gone down.
Penelope braced herself, loosening her knees so she could follow the rise and fall of the boat and stop herself from falling into the water.
“Jack!” another voice called, and Penelope turned as Jack started to lose his balance. His arms flailed about, trying to keep him upright. He knocked the shoulder of the man to his left, and Penelope watched in horror as they both slid from the lifeboat.
“Brace!” Lightoller snapped, reminding them to keep steady or they’d risk losing more people. Penelope’s breath was lodged in her throat as she stared at the darkness, wishing that the two would rise from the water.
It was becoming too familiar a feeling—watching someone descend into the water, praying that they would resurface and feeling the heart-wrenching grief when they didn’t.
A sob broke free from her lips. She scrubbed both of her hands into her eyes, relishing the pain that it brought. It was another reminder she was alive.
She remained that way, refusing to look up at anyone else, lest they befall a similar fate. Every time she got close to someone on this damned ship, she was doomed to watch them leave. The lifeboat had started with fifty, a number that had dwindled down to just over thirty. And just as the fifteen or so men who had fallen in had proven, if they entered the water, they weren’t coming back out.
On more than one occasion, she even considered jumping in, just to end it on her terms.
“Is there anyone out there?” someone shouted.
Penelope looked up, and her breath left her in a ragged gasp as everyone turned to see who was calling out to them. The movement caused the boat to shuffle.
“Stay still! For the love of God!” Lightoller snapped as he fished about his person. He drew a whistle from his pocket and, after taking a deep, shaky breath, he blew into it, filling the night with a screech.
A torch beam flew their way, and Lightoller raised his hands above his head, waving his arms to gather their attention.
“It’s a lifeboat.” There was nothing but disbelief in the man’s voice.
It seemed ironic that, just as Penelope had dashed everyone’s hopes of a lifeboat ever coming for them, one showed up.
The boat had a sail, which confused Penelope to no end. She had no idea that the lifeboats were even capable of such a thing.
But regardless, she was thankful for the man who had made use of it. It pulled up aside their capsized boat in no time at all, thanks to its oars and the small breeze that was filling the early morning air.
“Is that you, Charles?” The torch cast him in an eerie light, but Penelope could see he had a long face, very thin lips and, much like Charles, he, too, wore an officer’s overcoat. His tone fluctuated in the manner distinctive to a Welshman.
Lightoller laughed. “Thank God for you, Harold.” He then turned back to the crowd, shooting them all a glare as the men started to shuffle forwards, eager to get into the new lifeboat. “Ladies first.”
He held out his hand to Penelope who, after only a split second of disbelief that this was actually happening, placed her own in his. Her legs wobbled and threatened to collapse, and she could barely feel her hand as it was passed from Charles to the man he had called Harold.
“You’re safe now, miss,” Harold whispered as he placed an arm around her waist and lifted her into the lifeboat. His features seemed almost stern, yet his eyes sparkled, and his lips spoke of kindness.
She wanted to weep at those words, but she found that nothing would come. She allowed Harold to guide her into a seat beside some other men. She had no idea whether they had chosen to come to help retrieve survivors or if they had been in the water themselves.
All she was aware of was a blanket being draped over her shoulders before she felt her energy start to ebb.
“Check her pulse!” was the last thing she heard before she closed her eyes.
Chapter Thirty-One
Penelope was acutely aware of a hand on her wrist, fingers pushing against the underside with a steady pressure.
She blinked and raised her head from where it was slumped against her chest.
“You gave us a fright, miss,” Charles Lightoller’s voice seeped into her mind.
As she fully opened her eyes and took in h
er surroundings, she found herself still aboard the new lifeboat. Several men were rowing, pushing them gently through the field of corpses and away from the wreck site.
Which meant she couldn’t have been out for long.
“Sorry.” She pinched at the bridge of her nose as she straightened herself. “I…have no idea…”
“Probably just shock.”
Penelope offered him a smile, knowing that he probably spoke the truth.
She was just glad that she was awake. And that she was in a lifeboat that wasn’t sinking, with two officers who knew what they were doing.
After that, it turned into a waiting game.
When someone finally pointed out the lights on the horizon, Penelope felt as though her heart was going to burst with relief, even though it seemed to take the ship forever before it got anywhere close enough to them.
The rising of the sun brought a new and unwelcome clarity to the scene.
The sight of the bodies in the water at night had been bad, but it was nothing compared to the full view in daylight. Amongst them floated huge blocks of ice, and it amazed Penelope that anyone had survived the night partially submerged in such cold water. And littered across the surface was wreckage from Titanic herself, large chunks of wood making up most of the carnage.
Their lifeboats bobbed through all of this as the ship steered closer. Lightoller called up to the sailors on board, informing them that his passengers were in no state to climb up and would need aid.
Her name was Carpathia, if Penelope was able to make out her nameplate correctly. Her colouring was similar to Titanic’s—a black body, a red waterline, the same faint trim of white around the deck area. She only had one small funnel that was red and black, but four large masts spaced in a similar fashion to Titanic’s masts.
Penelope wanted to take in everything she could about the ship, because it was her survival. If it weren’t for the ship before her, she’d be dead, regardless of the fact that she was now in an upright lifeboat. If Carpathia hadn’t shown up when she did, the cold would have stopped Penelope’s heart before much longer.
The Breath Between Waves Page 20