He didn’t want to. It was obvious his overwhelming desire was to escape this situation. He doubtless much preferred to murder the von Kresses in their sleep, or in the basement of some Berlin police station. But he was, like all of them in the Schutzstaffel, a man driven overwhelmingly by his notion of duty, and she was offering him an opportunity for duty.
“I should be delighted, Gnädiges Fraulein,” he said stiffly. There was a touch of servility in his tone, deference born of what? Himmler recruited these boys from every proletarian quarter, proclaiming them nobility solely because of their hair color and physique.
She smiled as seductively as she could manage.
“Well, then,” she said. “Let us go on deck.”
Dagne chattered away about Berlin and the latest social doings, receiving in return only nods and grunts as they made their way to the passageway and the doors that led out to the promenade deck. His Spartan existence doubtless did not involve him much with salons and cabarets, or even politics.
She took his arm once they were outside, leading him along the rail toward the stern and the partition that separated them from second class. There was no one about, not even crewmen. They all seemed to have some concern inside.
In a shadowy place between deck lights, she went to the railing and leaned against it, looking at the misty sea. He came beside her, staring at her now. Dagne suspected she had little time.
“Reichsführer Himmler is a little piece of shit,” she said softly.
“Was sagen sie?” the young man said.
“I said Himmler is a piece of shit, of chicken shit. He is a fool, a dull-witted bourgeois faggot.”
She sensed his anger. She could almost feel its heat.
“I don’t understand what you are saying, Gnädiges Fraulein.”
“He is a clod who thinks he is a great man because someone allowed him to wear the uniform of a German soldier. We should not soil the sacred German uniform with such shit. He ignobles the Führer. The Führer should have him shot.”
She turned quickly to look the man full in the face. There was all the proof she needed. He was utterly betrayed, convicted beyond hope of appeal, by his contorted expression.
Before he could move, she leapt back, pulling forth her Mauser pistol from the folds of her gown. His back was to the railing, hers to the bulkhead. No one else was about. There was no use in further words, in delay. She pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was muffled somewhat by the moist air. His outcry was not. He doubled over from the impact and agony of the enormous wound in his belly, but he did not die. He still stood, half supported by the railing. Dagne fired again.
The caliber of the pistol was small but the bullets were heavy load and soft-nosed. This one cleared through what remained of his intestines and smashed against his spine. Its force drove his bent body between the railings, his posterior extending out beyond them, his now-paralyzed legs as akimbo as a marionette’s, his feet splayed sideways on the deck, his upper torso and head hanging down.
Yet still he lived. He made horrible groaning, bubbling sounds. The stag Dagne had killed with a knife had made such noises.
She went up to him, pointed the pistol at the top of his head, and fired. This was a mistake. The gore splattered on her costume.
But at last he was dead. After sliding the pistol back into its hiding place, she took hold of one of his arms and pulled. He was heavy, but if she could hang the corpse over the rail and lift his legs, he would go overboard. That would be that.
But he would not budge. Bent in two, he was stuck. The bullet’s impact had wedged his huge body firmly between the railings. His thighs and lower back were gripped as if by a vise. How could this have happened? Why had God abandoned her?
She pulled hard again. She tried the other arm. And then both. She leaned over the rail and tried yanking on the cloth of his pants.
Bells began ringing throughout the ship. She heard shouting, and people running about. Were they running after her?
Desperate, sweating profusely despite the cold and damp, she pulled now on the man’s leg, slipping and falling backward painfully on her own bottom. Swearing, she rose and tried once more. The corpse mocked her.
She would have to rid her costume of this filth. She would have to get Martin; there was no other way. And she would have to find him quickly. She could only hope the Jewess Mountbatten had not already taken him to her bed.
Lifting her skirts, she ran along the slippery deck. Before she could reach the door, it swung open violently as a small, dark Oriental crewman rushed out, colliding with her.
“Go get your life jacket, missy,” he said frantically. “Get your life jacket and go to your lifeboat station. The alarm bells are sounding!”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“Hurry, missy. The ship is on fire. Very bad! Very bad!”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“What the hell are those bells?” Duff asked, still clinging to Mrs. Parker as they danced up to Chips Channon’s table.
The bells’ message was not clear. A few people were leaving the ballroom, but most of the passengers remained. The band continued to play as if these chimes were some sort of planned accompaniment. Only three couples remained on the floor, including the prince and Mrs. Simpson. Mrs. Parker’s husband was standing drunkenly on the edge of the dancing area, watching like a small boy waiting for his turn at a game.
“I think it must be another lifeboat drill,” said Lady Emerald.
“Damned lot of cheek scheduling a lifeboat drill in the middle of a ball,” Chips said.
“Your typically Dutch sense of fun,” Emerald said.
“It’s not a drill,” said Spencer, his arm around a still-blissful Nora. Her mind was elsewhere, rejoicing in another girlhood fantasy about to be fulfilled, and she wasn’t attending to their words.
“I daresay you’re quite right,” said Mountbatten, rising. “They’ve got this ship into a spot of trouble again. I’m going up to the bridge.”
“Wait,” said Duff. “Here comes the head Dutchman.”
Van Hoorn, looking severe and shaken, his dinner jacket unbuttoned and shirtfront smudged, went to the microphone at the bandstand. The orchestra stopped in midnote.
“Het is dringend,” he began. “Er is een ongeluk gebeurd.”
As he proceeded with his brief, unhappy speech, more couples began to hurry from the room. One large Dutch woman, costumed as a milkmaid, shrieked at something van Hoorn said and began running.
“Why in blazes can’t that fool speak in English?” Duff said.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” van Hoorn said, as if in obedience. “This is important. There has been an accident. There is a small fire in the electrical system. We do not believe it is serious, but as a precaution we would like you now to get your lifejackets and report to your lifeboat stations. Please, go at once.”
He turned to leave, quickly. The evening’s celebrants crowded around him, asking questions he answered only with shakes of the head. The band resumed playing, virtually where it had left off. The band on the Titantic had played until the end, when the deck was sloping at so steep an angle the musicians could no longer stand.
Nora’s bliss had gone to fear, and her wide eyes were fixed on Spencer. He held her tightly around the waist. “It’s all right,” he said. “These things happen all the time. It’s all part of the adventure.” He kissed her forehead, but she seemed little comforted.
“Now, now, everyone,” said the prince, joining them with a most unhappy Mrs. Simpson in tow. “Let us maintain our imperturbability. We are, after all, British. Now let’s be on to the lifeboat. I shall lead the way.”
“My jewels!”
“Wallis, don’t worry yourself over your jewels. Runcie shall get them when he fetches our life jackets. I’m sure there’s plenty of time. Now follow me.”
And so they moved off, a gypsy carnival of a procession led by a half-naked Roman centurian and his overdressed lady, a pack of lunatics
heading with great seriousness to some appointment in their asylum. Nora was trembling, but the most agitated person in their group was Lady Cunard, whose acerbic, worldly façade had cracked and who had begun clenching and flailing her hands about like someone performing an odd and primitive ritual.
Mountbatten strode proudly along just behind his royal cousin, his outlandish turban as good as a ship captain’s cap. Duff had abandoned Mrs. Parker for his own wife, who held to Chips Channon’s arm, as well. Chasey Parker pulled her terrified husband along. Edwina was in another part of the ballroom, helping Count von Kresse, whose limp increased with their haste. His sister the countess was not to be seen.
As they passed in ragged file into the passageway behind a crowd of other passengers, Fruity Metcalfe came up to them, joined a moment later by Lord Brownlow. Both looked like men returning to headquarters from a tour of beleaguered front lines.
“Well, Fruity,” said Prince Edward. “An ocean voyage, you said. I never realized it would be such fun.”
“You idiot!” said Mrs. Simpson, presumably to Metcalfe, but it was hard to be certain.
“Now, Wallis,” Edward said. “Fruity’s forte is horses, not ships.”
“I don’t believe the situation is all that serious—yet,” Metcalfe said. “The important thing is to get to the lifeboat. We’re assigned to one of the steel accident motorboats, remember. They’re the best rescue craft aboard.”
The fearful passengers ahead of them were packed tightly together in the narrow corridor, moving along steadily but with frustrating slowness. A scream or shout or other precipitate of panic would have caused a violent trampling.
“This is 1935, after all,” said Edward. “The wireless can bring help wizard quick. I’ll wager there are probably a dozen ships within an easy sail of us.”
“My jewels,” Wallis repeated, her voice now more quavering than shrill.
“Yes,” said Edward. “Where’s Inspector Runcie?”
“He was at the ballroom door,” Metcalfe said. “But he’s disappeared.”
“It’s my fault,” said Lord Brownlow. “I sent him to the bridge to find out what’s gone wrong.”
There was now an acrid smell of burning oil and paint in the air, but it was impossible to tell if it was rising to reach them. The crowd pushed on at a more rapid trudge. An elderly woman stumbled and went down. Her husband turned and shoved his way back, kneeling to protect her.
“My jewels,” said Wallis. “You said you’d send Runcie for my jewels.”
“Wallis,” Metcalfe said. “Let’s get to the lifeboat first. Then worry about jewels.”
“You don’t understand,” she said with unrestrained anger. “My charm bracelet is in my bedroom. I’m not leaving this ship without my charm bracelet!” It was an imperial decree. The world would stop in the meantime.
It had been a gift to her from the prince the year before, his very first. The premiere ornament commemorated their initial meeting. He’d added another since. It was a totem of their relationship, the two extant charms trophies of her success, the many remaining empty spaces signifying promise. She would not abandon it, not for anything, certainly not for any hazard to Runcie’s wretched little life.
Wallis was utterly furious that this could be happening. She was certain it was due to her failure to perform the ritual of attending the ship’s first lifeboat drill. She would kill the crude attacker who had locked her in her closet.
“Well, Fruity,” Edward was saying. “Since Runcie’s not available, and you’re all off to your cabins, I’d be deuced glad if you could run up to our suite and fetch the jewels and our lifejackets. The jewels really are most important to Wallis.”
Metcalfe patiently controlled his temper. “As soon as I can,” he said. “Until we get clear of this passageway, I’ve no choice but to struggle along with this lot like the rest of you.”
After three slow turns of stair, they squeezed through a narrow doorway and burst in twos and threes out onto the deck. The air was cool and heavy with moisture, but the odor of oil and smoke was even stronger. Spencer could see no flame, at least not in that part of the superstructure looming over them, but there did seem to be a great many sparks dancing out of the aftmost of the three funnels.
A voice over the twelve exterior Loudaphone speakers of the public address system, six to each side of the boat deck, was urging calm and the quickest possible movement to lifeboat stations. As the prince’s party hurried along forward, clusters of others—second- and third-class passengers who had made their way through unfamiliar passages from below—bundled along in the opposite direction, their faces pale and ghastly in the gloomy light.
As with the earlier drill, many of the lifeboats they passed had crewmen standing by them but no passengers to attend to. Here and, there they came upon another anomaly: busboys and stewards, waiting for instructions but for the moment without anything to do, leaning against the bulkheads or sitting on deck chairs, smoking and chattering like street idlers.
Other stewards and crewmen, with sternly ordered tasks to perform, dodged, shoved, and jostled their way through the passengers. A cabin boy who bumped into Spencer and Nora, little more than a child, was crying. Two seamen who parted to let Spencer and Nora pass were laughing. They might just as well have been strolling some street in Batavia.
Someone, somewhere in the command system of the troubled vessel, threw a switch and instantly the decks were bathed in bright light. The white superstructure sparkled in it, but the glare made the sky and surrounding sea darker still.
The ship seemed so huge, a firmament of strong metal, the feel of deck and cold touch of painted steel rail hard and invulnerable. This vast and mighty thing could not possibly be harmed by any threat within it. There was no iceberg, no huge guns as at Scappa Flow, no silent, deadly mines. Only the free and easy sea and the hugeness of this floating city. Spencer hugged Nora as best he could with the two of them wrapped in Kapok. When they reached the steel motorboat designated as their salvation, she smiled weakly.
Their motorboat and the twenty-three other survival craft the Wilhelmina possessed were suspended from gravity davits to be lowered either manually or with electric winches. It was an elaborate and expensive system, and one much tested. A ship’s officer had told Spencer that a lifeboat had deliberately been dropped all eighty feet to the water line without a single sign of damage.
The regular lifeboats were thirty-six feet long, weighed nineteen tons fully loaded, and were each fitted with eighteen-horsepower diesel engines capable of producing six knots in calm seas. The two steel motorboats were slightly smaller but were driven by gasoline engines that could attain speeds equal to the ship’s.
Brakes limited the descent of any boat to no more than sixty feet a minute and a special release mechanism freed each craft from its lowering cables the instant any part of it struck the sea. Javanese Kapok buoyancy material superior to cork had been fitted within the boat’s sides and bottoms. Every imaginable safety feature had been thought of, improvements paid for at the price of knowledge gained from previous maritime disasters.
Yet the crews were having difficulty even lowering the boats to the level of the deck for boarding. The bow of the steel motorboat was at that moment a good two feet higher than its stern. While the officer in charge yelped at them, two crewman were working on the winch at the forward davit. A third was in the prow, holding uselessly to the cable and watching the others at their unproductive labors.
The officer, whom Spencer recognized from the dining salon, turned to greet the prince’s party. He smiled, in practiced, engaging fashion, but it was clear he was near panic himself.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” he said, wringing his hands. “You need not worry. Everything is under control.”
Captain van der Heyden clambered in haste down the steel staircase leading to the No. 5 boiler room, the site of the worst of the two fires. He still felt weak and wobbly, but his mind had cleared. Van Groot was lecturing him about oi
l fires, but the captain wasn’t listening. He was thinking hard. When he put his hand to the entrance door, it was warm to the touch.
Stepping into the chamber was the same as stepping into a furnace. Men were playing streams of water from the fire hoses onto the flames, but they kept spilling out of the junction of boiler and oil pipe. A curtain of fire was now dancing around the steel plating at the base of the boiler. The heat made the captain gasp. He clambered down more metal steps leading to a flooring slippery with water and oil. Slipping and sliding, his entourage followed after. Van der Heyden barely concealed his gratification when van Groot fell bottom first, sprawling.
Kees Witte helped the first officer up, then rejoined the captain.
“It’s bad now,” said Brinker, the chief engineer. “I think you should order abandon ship. At least for the passengers.”
He was no alarmist. It was his habit to describe all difficulties in the most objective and mechanical terms, leaving conclusions to his commander. His dark eyes showed no fear, but there was worry.
Van der Heyden looked from burning boiler to ceiling, picturing their location in a map of the ship. Immediately forward of them was the after-Turbo-generating room where the previous fire had occurred. Behind them stood the forward engine room that was Brinker’s headquarters. Above them were the port and starboard oil filling stations. Just behind those was the oil tank whose contents were feeding the flames.
“We’ve got to get to the main circulating discharge valves and turn them off,” the captain said. “Then we’ll have to drain that oil tank into the sea and refill it with water. I want this chamber flooded, as well.”
“But the fire has reached the circulating pumps, sir,” said van Groot, using the respectful “sir” for the first time that night. “We can’t get through to them.”
“Yes, we can,” said van der Heyden. “We have to.”
“I’ll go,” said Kees.
“No, you won’t,” van der Heyden said sharply. “I have a job for you, the most important one there is right now. I want you to take charge of the party at the starboard steel accident motorboat.”
Dance on a Sinking Ship Page 33