Dance on a Sinking Ship

by Kilian, Michael;

  The Parker boy was whimpering. Channon looked utterly terrified, but he eventually managed to get a glib smile on his face.

  “You little bastard!” Edwina shouted at the crewman in the lowered bow. “I don’t want to die because you don’t how to launch a fucking lifeboat!”

  “I touch nothing, lady. Nothing.”

  Spencer pulled Nora up and close to him on their seat. She moved numbly, without speaking, without looking at him. Instead she put her head against his shoulder as he drew her sweater more closely around her. Remembering, he placed the perfume in her hands. She took it but paid no attention to what it was.

  “I love you, Jimmy,” he heard her say. “Save me, Jimmy.” Her voice was faint and wispy, a vague prayer, missent to him instead of God.

  All he could do was hold her more tightly. He sensed the dark water beneath them; it made him aware of how precariously they were suspended above it, how close they were to being plunged into its depths. The motorboat was banging against the davits with the pitch and roll of the now-drifting ship.

  Death had visited him so many times. Each he had presumed to be the final call. For a long time, for endless, sleepless nights at miserable, muddy aerodromes all over eastern France, he was certain he’d die in a long, final plunge, a leap from a burning aircraft. Having survived all the menace of that war, and so much else, he wondered if God was toying with him. His wish was that his demise could come in the uneventful, stoic manner of the old man seated cross-legged at the edge of that road in China, resting awhile in the peaceful circumstances of surroundings as familiar as one’s own fingers, observing the occasional passing farmers and oxen, certain, at last, of the inconsequence of man in a universe in which individual stars were insignificant among their infinite billions of fellows. Then he’d fall over, life turned almost imperceptibly to death. The most minor possible incident in the history of time.

  He reminded himself of the warmth and beauty and affection of this celebrated woman beside him, of the bonhommie of their glamorous company, but it would make no difference. She and they would all vanish the moment his drowning body gave up its breath.

  “Should we get back aboard the ship?” Chips was saying.

  “Are you mad?” Duff said. “That funnel’s a tower of flame. It must be roaring out of the belly of the ship.”

  “Christ, this wool itches,” said Edwina.

  “It’s Icelandic,” said Diana. “The warmest but coarsest kind.”

  “Should we order them to lower the boat then?” Channon said. He was wearing one of the sweaters over his Indian costume.

  “No!” said Emerald.

  But the seaman on deck fiddling with the gravity davit control caused the motorboat to drop another foot or more, steepening the angle of the lowered bow.

  “Damn and blast!” said the prince.

  “Perhaps we really should get back on the ship,” Duff said.

  “Be patient,” Count von Kresse said sternly. “God is not through with us yet. He teases us. You see, little by little.”

  His sister the countess was laughing hysterically.

  “They’re here!” said Chips.

  Kees Witte appeared at the railing, a wild-eyed, dark-haired woman beside him. Nancy Cunard, looking drunk, stepped next to her. Then came Henry Crowder.

  “No!” shrieked Emerald.

  “Emerald, darling,” said Diana. “Do shut up.”

  “I won’t have him!” Emerald said. “No! I said Nancy! Just Nancy!”

  “We’ve been hanging here, young man,” Channon said, with a pointed look at the dark-haired woman, “while you’ve been recruiting refugees from steerage.”

  Kees ignored them. He helped Nancy aboard, and then the other woman. Then he turned to Crowder.

  “No!” screamed Emerald.

  There was a sudden thwack as Nancy hit her mother full in the face. Everyone ceased to move. It was as if they’d been instantly petrified.

  “There is room for all,” said Kees, his voice stern and serious and making him sound much older than his years. “We will take these people with us and lower the boat.” He turned to the seamen at the davit controls. “Do not use the gravity device. Lower the boat with the electric motor. When I say so.”

  He climbed over the railing and slid down into the motorboat. Ignoring his passengers, he pushed his way past them to the small wheelhouse in the stern that enclosed the helm.

  “All right!” he commanded the seaman. “Now!”

  There was a snap and then a whirring sound. The boat began to ease rapidly and smoothly down to the water, but with the bow still pitched forward. It went splashing underwater when it struck the sea, rising suddenly as the stern crashed down, sending cold seawater rolling over their feet and legs.

  Kees had the engine started. “We have a pump. It will get rid of this in a few minutes. Hold to your seats.”

  He revved the engine. They had only one other crewman aboard.

  “Release the cables forward!” he shouted to the man. “I’ll get these aft.”

  It took several minutes of hard and frequently unsuccessful effort to get all four of them free, with Kees calling the man vile names in Dutch and Javanese and finally coming forward himself.

  The pump did little to empty the water, and in a moment it stopped. So did the engine. When they were at last clear of the cables, Kees hurried back and restarted it—with some difficulty.

  There were many lifeboats in the water behind them, though they seemed to contain few people. Holding down their speed in the rising swells, Kees steered the motorboat in a circle to starboard, then headed along the side of the ship through the milling, white-sided rescue craft.

  “Get us away from the ship, damn it!” Mountbatten shouted. “She could explode!”

  “I want to make sure there’s no one in the water,” Kees said. “This lifeboat procedure did not go well.”

  “Damn it, man! We’ve the Prince of Wales aboard!”

  “Shut up, Dickie!” said Edward. “Carry on, Third Officer. We’ve certainly room for more aboard.”

  Kees nodded. There was a small searchlight mounted atop his tiny wheelhouse. Leaning out with his hand on the steering wheel, he played the light on the waters ahead.

  Nothing was to be seen but the flick or smear of foam. Rising and falling with the swells, they rumbled and rattled on, the people aboard the other lifeboats staring at them warily, or stupidly, as if wondering what they were about—curious at their showing so much purpose while the other boats merely drifted about.

  As they passed the section of the ship by the aft funnel, the flames appeared mountainous. They could feel the heat a hundred feet below. Reaching the stern, Kees steered to pass beneath it, as if for a look at the other side of the ship.

  Spencer found himself gazing up at a tall, thin figure standing at the railing of the after promenade, a man in a raincoat, seemingly unconcerned about the danger and despair all around him. The bright deck lights had gone out but the fire made everything visible. The man was staring down at them, as if idly curious as to who they might be. Spencer knew the face. It was the same haunting person who had appeared on the deck that first misty dawn at sea. It was Charles Lindbergh.

  Van der Heyden moved randomly about the bridge, restless with his pain, frustrated by his inability to touch and hold things. He could gingerly lift his cup of gin using both hands and sipping carefully but little else. He had to have Ladewijk hold the intercom phone for him when van Groot finally reported from below.

  “The fire in the No. 5 boiler room is out,” Van Groot said. “I’m calling from the forward engine room. We flooded No. 5 boiler room as you ordered. And the oil tanks above. As a consequence, we’ve also put much of this room underwater. A lot of other places.”

  “Close the watertight doors that separate you from the after engine room.”

  “I did, Captain. Of course.”

  “Good. Secure things there and get up topside. The ventilator shaft fire’
s penetrated some bulkheads and is into the second-class cabins. Also, the galley of the first-class dining saloon. The galley’s full of combustibles. I have men fighting it but I can’t be there.

  “How are your hands, sir?”

  “Bandaged. Useless. Get up there. If you think it might be too bad for us to remain aboard, I want to hear from you, quickly. Vlug!”

  “Ja, Oktober aan zee.”

  One of the junior officers took a just-delivered weather bulletin to the chart table.

  “Captain,” he said. “We’re going to have a brush with that hurricane.”

  Van der Heyden hurried over, studying the intersecting lines the young man was drawing across the wide expanse of paper.

  “Ja,” said the captain. “That storm must be five hundred miles across.”

  “It’s shifting course from north northeast to east by northeast. Sir. We’d have trouble outrunning it if we headed back for Le Havre at full speed.”

  “It’s still at some distance. It may change course again.” Van der Heyden spoke with his arms held behind his back.

  Ladewijk was holding the intercom. “Sir, it’s the doctor. Chief Engineer Brinker is dead.”

  “Dead? He wasn’t that badly burned!” The captain went to the phone, which Ladewijk held for him. “What is this, Doctor? What happened to him?”

  “He went into shock. Bad heart, I suppose.”

  “Damn! Damn! It’s my fault. I made him stumble into the fire down there.”

  “The burns were not so serious. His ear, yes. But it should not have been fatal. Just shock. It happens. How are you?”

  “I have been tended to well, but I hurt like hell.”

  “You declined morphine.”

  “I have a fire at sea, mijnheer. Save your dope for the other casualties. I fear you will have many.”

  “Only seven others so far, Captain. None really serious. We are lucky.”

  “Ah, yes. What glorious luck we are having. Mevrouw Brinker will be so pleased to hear about it.” He had Lodewijk hang up. More red lights were twinkling on the fire alarm display board, a bright cluster of them showing behind the aft funnel.

  Company director van Hoorn appeared from behind the entrance curtain. For once van der Heyden was glad to see him.

  “The passengers are all evacuated,” the captain said. “The engine-room fires are out but one in the ventilator shaft has spread to some aft cabins.”

  “Should we be here, Captain? Shouldn’t we put to sea in the remaining boats?”

  “And abandon your beautiful new flagship?” van der Heyden shrugged, wincing. “I’ll know more when van Groot reports in. I sent him to deal with the new fires. If they can be put out, we should try. There is a bad storm approaching. I’d rather confront it in this than a lifeboat. No matter what the fire damage.”

  “A bad storm?”

  “A hurricane. The same one that drove Holland Amerika’s Rotterdam aground.”

  More fire alarm lights appeared, farther and farther aft.

  A seaman who had entered was speaking agitatedly to Ladewijk.

  “Brinker’s dead,” van der Heyden said. “He was with me down at the oil pump. The doctor says it may have been a heart attack from the shock. But I caused his burns. I made him stumble.”

  “Surely it was an accident.”

  “All of this,” said van der Heyden, gesturing with his bandaged hands, “has been an accident.” He turned to the steward who had just brought coffee. “Go to my chest and bring me a bottle of Bols gin.”

  “Gin?” said van Hoorn. “Now? Of all times?”

  The captain waved his hands about again. “Especially now! If you want me functioning.”

  Ladewijk came up. “This fellow is saying something crazy. He says there is this big blond man, a dead man, with his ass stuck in the railing on the boat deck.”

  “Dead? From a fire? Have we a fire on the boat deck?”

  “No, Captain. He says the man’s brains have been blown out. He’s been shot, sir.”

  “Shot? That’s crazy.”

  “This man’s not crazy, sir.”

  Indeed, the seaman did not look crazy—merely bewildered by all the madness about him. “Get back there,” van der Heyden said to Lodewijk. “Make sure there is such a man, and that he’s dead, and that he’s been shot. If so, get him off the boat deck and into one of the empty cabins.”

  “Shouldn’t I find out who he is, sir?”

  “If you can. But don’t take overlong. I need you up here. We can worry about dead men when we’re sure we’re all not going to be in such company.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He vanished behind the entrance curtain that shielded the night vision of those on the bridge from the bright lights of the corridor. Van der Heyden wondered why he had kept it up. They’d all lost their night vision in the glare of the flames.

  The curtain moved again. A tall, slender man stepped from behind it, but stood shyly, without moving further. He wore a rumpled raincoat and a suit with a tie much too short for his long body, but his was a commanding presence nevertheless.

  “Sir,” said van der Heyden, drawing himself up to parade-ground attention. “Why aren’t you in one of the lifeboats?”

  “Are you trying to save the ship?” the man asked. He pulled at a curl on his high forehead, keeping his eyes from van der Heyden’s. It seemed to pain him to speak.

  “Yes,” said the captain. “With not much success, but we’re trying.”

  “I’d like to help,” said the man, his clear blue eyes now meeting van der Heyden’s. “I know about electrical circuitry and fuel lines. I know about engineering.”

  “My God,” said van Hoorn. “Every alarm light on the sun deck is showing red from the aft funnel to the Verandah Grill!”

  On the steel motorboat, now two hundred yards or more from the burning, stricken Wilhelmina, Kees made a decision he hoped was right but sensed was probably wrong. He allowed the passengers to break out some of the liquor ration. There were two bottles of rum in the wheelhouse under lock and key, but the alcohol available beneath the seats consisted entirely of beer and wine, including several bottles of champagne.

  The company brochure contained the idiotic line “Even in our lifeboats, you travel first class.”

  “Well played, Third Officer,” the prince said, pouring himself a tot of red wine into a tin cup from a ration pack. “Your shipping line has redeemed itself.”

  There were also large containers of fresh water, condensed milk, bread, tinned fish, and tinned cheese beneath the seats. These Kees would not allow to be disturbed until morning. For the moment, he wanted his passengers amiable and, if possible, asleep. The wine would help.

  He had Olga sitting on a center seat by the entrance to the wheel-house. He reached and touched her shoulder. Despite her heavy clothing and the thickness of the blanket she’d been given, she recoiled as if he had stabbed her, her eyes filled with malice when she turned her head. Slowly her expression eased, but she did not smile.

  They all felt they were near death, he supposed. But not all. When Mrs. Simpson had gone back to their suite for her all-important charm bracelet, the prince had fetched his ukelele. He pulled it out of her canvas bag, strumming idly a moment, then sliding into a boisterous version of “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” Some of the others began singing along with him.

  Spencer held Nora with both arms, one hand inadvertently resting against her breast. She was fully cognizant of him, but was murmuring a prayer to herself. The Parker woman was looking intently at him.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  “I think it is better not to think,” he said. “That’s the virtue of prayer.”

  “You’re very cynical, Mr. Spencer.”

  “I’m very cold,” he said.

  Except for Mrs. Parker’s husband, who was drunkenly asleep on an empty seat up by the bow, all the couples aboard were hugging each other. Channon even held Lady Emerald, keeping her turned away from t
he sight of her daughter and Nancy’s companion.

  While the prince played his trivial instrument, however, Mrs. Simpson hugged only her bag of jewelry. She had put the charm bracelet onto her wrist. Everything else was now in the bag and she clutched it tightly, watching with vacant eyes and frozen countenance the dancing, distant light of their burning ship.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sometime after midnight, the burning Wilhelmina passed from view, lost to them even when the steel motorboat was at the height of the wavecrests. It was impossible to tell whether this was because of an intervening curtain of mist or because they had drifted too far distant. It was possible that the ship had burned or exploded and sank.

  They could not know. The small wireless set in the motorboat’s wheelhouse was not working. Kees had fired a flare from one of the Very pistols aboard. It had illuminated a large area of empty, heaving ocean, but there had been no response from the ship. All they could do was wait until morning. Everyone presumed they would be rescued by morning.

  They made do. From her canvas bag, Mrs. Simpson produced, of all things, a much-used Fanny Farmer cookbook, and had made of their tinned rations of tasty antipasto, which they consumed along with tin cups of cool white wine. They bailed out the boat, and so afterward were able to lie down between the seats and sleep in some comfort, though several, over Kees’s protests, removed their life jackets to attain this state.

  Nancy Cunard and Henry Crowder were at the bow, as far as they could get from her mother. Nancy was drinking wine almost continuously, her sips punctuating a profane jabber. The Parkers, life jackets removed, slept on the floorboards nearby. Except for Metcalfe, who had stationed himself back by the wheelhouse near Kees, the prince’s party lay in blanket-covered lumps about the center of the boat, some of them snoring loudly.

  Both the Prussians remained awake and huddled together, the count in worsening discomfort, the countess looking a little crazed.

  Spencer was unable to sleep, though Nora, clinging tightly to him, was blissfully unconscious. Needing to relieve himself, he gently disengaged himself from her arms and crept aft. There was a toilet under one of the two seats in the wheelhouse. The dark-haired woman Kees had brought aboard was sitting by its doorway, wide awake with a bellicose expression on her face, but Spencer paid her no mind. She looked as if she had heard the sound of men pissing before.