Every Man for Himself

by Beryl Bainbridge

  ‘I believe you’re right, sir,’ I said. ‘I’ve just been down on G deck and seen a man carried out with heat stroke.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, and wrote something in his notebook.

  He was good to chat with and learn from, just as long as one kept to the subject of the ship, or rather its design – bring up anything of a more personal nature and he immediately shied off. Stupidly mentioning who I’d dined with that evening I repeated Ismay’s remark that heads would roll if we didn’t reach full speed.

  ‘Ten o’clock sharp,’ he said, cutting me short. ‘I suggest we meet outside the gymnasium,’ and with that he gathered up his pencil and notebook and made for the door. He walked like a boxer, slightly bow-legged yet light on his feet.

  Crushed, I was about to follow at a respectful distance when a tremendous outburst of coughing and spluttering arose from one of the wing armchairs turned to the wall. It was old Seefax, who, thumping the skirting board with his stick, demanded to be turned to the fire. When I’d manhandled his chair into place and prodded the coals into flame, he asked me to ring for a night-cap.

  ‘It’s late,’ I told him. ‘The bar steward has gone off duty.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he wheezed. ‘Go and find him,’ at which, shouting out to an imaginary attendant, I fetched Andrews’ half-filled glass.

  ‘Told you so,’ he said. ‘They never go off duty, not in a properly run hotel.’ Spilling more than he sipped, he asked, ‘What have you been up to? Chasing girls I shouldn’t wonder.’ I told him I’d been down to the cargo decks and seen a stoker with a crucifix tattooed upon his back.

  ‘Used to be quite common in the past,’ he said. ‘They did it hoping to avoid the lash. Same as when they come aboard . . . you’ll see some of the old hands saluting the quarterdeck . . . the cross used to hang there.’

  He then fell into a reverie, eyes fixed on the leaping flames, one parchment claw twisting the black cord from which his spectacles dangled. I waited with him; the ship was as steady as a rock but he was a frail and ancient man and I feared he might fall if left to get to his room on his own.

  After some minutes, he said, ‘Women are extraordinary creatures. You can never guess what they’re capable of.’

  I nodded, thinking of Wallis.

  ‘She went out through that window like a chipmunk up a tree. When she clambered back in one could have mistaken her for a nigger woman.’

  ‘Could one,’ I said, humouring him.

  ‘It was the smoke from the engine, you see . . . it was just going through a tunnel.’ Then, kicking his feet in delight he cried out, ‘That’s where I met Scurra.’

  His thoughts were dreadfully tangled. The woman had been called Madame Humbert, or perhaps Hubert, and she’d climbed out of a moving train and crawled along its side to reach the next compartment where a wealthy man was having a heart attack–

  ‘Surely not Scurra?’ I said.

  ‘No, no, no. That was Crawley . . . Crawford . . . Cranley . . . Having saved his life he left her a fortune. In ’97 she spent two thousand dollars on flowers for a party she gave in her house on the Avenue de la Grande Armée.’

  ‘And that’s where you met Scurra?’

  ‘I never said that,’ he snapped. ‘It was in Madrid . . . later . . . when they arrested her. You’d know about that sort of thing . . . noises in the night . . . police . . . the dock. Always thought her account of the train was fishy . . . damned if she could have heard him above the noise of the track.’

  I got nothing more out of him on the subject because he was now mumbling about some book on the shelves to do with the battle of Chickamauga in which the Confederates had routed the Union Army. According to him the author had got his facts wrong. ‘He should have consulted me,’ he muttered, ‘I was an eye witness,’ though only last Christmas he’d bored Hopper and me rigid with the story of how he’d spent the entire war in Europe, running the blockade single-handed and scuttling cruisers off Cherbourg.

  Escorting him from the library I was fortunate enough to find a steward in the foyer who took him off my hands. As I descended the stairs who should I see stepping into the elevator one floor below but Wallis? She was with Ginsberg and I swear he had his hand on her waist.

  THREE

  Friday, 12th April

  Too early the next morning I woke with the fragment of a dream still in my head. It wasn’t the one that had disturbed my childhood nights and brought Sissy running. I reckon I’d slept with my arm covering my face because my mouth felt swollen.

  I had been walking down a cobbled alleyway between a row of little houses, making for the last one on the left pinned to the arch of a railway bridge. As is the way of dreams I was both in the road and walking up the path – there was a stunted tree, leaves black with soot, standing in a patch of earth near the broken gate. I saw a man on hands and knees, scrabbling at the soil, a piece of newspaper flapping on the sole of his boot. I was carrying a child whose cold, cold cheek was pressed to my own. At that instant a train rattled across the bridge and a belch of black smoke rolled down the street. The man leapt to his feet and with a terrible bellow of rage ran towards me; one moment he was visible, the next the smoke swallowed him up. The scrap of newspaper whirled through the air and masked the child’s face. The child turned into myself.

  The damnedest thing was, going into the bathroom to shave I noticed my nails were rimmed with dirt. It gave me quite a turn until I remembered that following my trip into the hold I had fallen into bed without washing.

  When the steward came in with the coffee pot he remarked I wasn’t the only early bird he’d visited that morning. But then, it was fairly usual, he maintained, for passengers to sleep poorly the second night on board. It was a question of getting accustomed to being on water, that and the appearance of the stoker coming up out of the funnel – quite a few people had been upset by that. The two elderly ladies in Stateroom 19 had complained of bad dreams and the middle-aged couple in the Jacobean suite had twice rung for the night steward.

  ‘I slept like a top,’ I told him. ‘I never dream.’ ‘Ah, well, sir,’ he said, ‘That’s thanks to youth and an easy conscience.’

  It was not yet seven o’clock when I went below to call out the plumbers; I didn’t want to run the risk of being late for my appointment with Thomas Andrews. Luckily I was proved right in thinking the fault with the bath taps was nothing more serious than ill-fitting washers, and having selected new ones from the stores and insisted they be put in place right away I was able to go up for my breakfast.

  Scurra was seated in the main restaurant with Rosenfelder, the latter in a fever of optimism. Apparently ‘Mrs Duff’ had told him that Mr Harris, the theatrical producer, was on board. He had only to say the word and she would perform an introduction.

  ‘He’s hungry for the limelight,’ said Scurra, winking at me.

  ‘There’s money in designing dresses for the stage,’ Rosenfelder protested. ‘Mrs Duff thinks my skills lie in the direction of the flamboyant. There is about me an element of showmanship.’

  ‘You must tell young Morgan what role you have in mind for Adele,’ prompted Scurra.

  This Rosenfelder did, at some length. It spoilt my breakfast rather, for I had to keep nodding and smiling. If I glanced down to cut my bacon or spread butter on my bread he tapped my knuckles with his teaspoon to ensure attention. He was going to get Adele to sing in the Palm Court that evening; the ship’s orchestra would accompany her. This had been Scurra’s idea. She would wear the window dress intended for Macy’s. That idea had come from Mrs Duff.

  ‘I will then ask Mr Harris to the concert—’

  ‘His very own idea,’ interrupted Scurra.

  ‘And in the ticking of a clock myself and the abandoned Adele will make ourselves famous,’ concluded Rosenfelder.

  I agreed it was a splendid idea and one not likely to fail. Unless, of course, the Fenwicks song-bird didn’t choose to sing.

  ‘Pff,’ cried Rosenfelder. ‘Si
nce when did a woman with two pounds in her purse and no buttons to her coat know such a thing as choice?’

  Andrews and his team were at least half an hour late assembling outside the gymnasium. By the time they arrived, Captain Smith, in full dress uniform, medals pinned to his pouting white tunic, the chief engineer, purser, surgeon and chief steward strutting gosling-fashion in his wake, had already begun his daily inspection. It was quite comical the way our two groups kept passing each other, often merging as we went down through the ship examining hand rails and companionways, checking portholes and connecting doors, making notes on the durability of floor coverings, measuring distances between service hatches and tables.

  On F deck, forward, something of a kerfuffle ensued when Captain Smith, about to enter the Turkish baths, was confronted by a harridan of a woman stewardess who flew through the doors and barred his way. Apparently he had forgotten that the baths were open to ladies between the hours of ten and twelve each morning.

  ‘You shall not force yourself inside,’ she shouted imperiously, taking no heed of the braid on his uniform.

  ‘Madam,’ he thundered, ‘I have no intention of forcing myself anywhere.’

  Discomforted, he turned and blundered into those hard on his heels. Confined in that narrow passage it took time to sort ourselves out and at least two of the design team fell in behind the purser and marched mistakenly off, not to join us again until we reached the Marconi telegraph room. Here I was present, albeit squeezed out into the corridor, when one of the wireless operators read out a message received from the French vessel La Touraine, bound from New York to Le Havre, congratulating the Titanic on her maiden voyage, wishing her God Speed and warning of ice ahead.

  I was half afraid I would encounter Adele during our inspection of the steerage decks. How should I greet her? If I ignored her it was surely on the cards, seeing she roamed over the ship as she pleased, that it would be reported to Scurra, who would then think less of me. In the event, though the public rooms swarmed with men, women and children, mostly emigrants babbling in a mixture of tongues, Adele was not among them.

  When we came at last to the engine and boiler rooms, only Smith, Andrews and the chief engineer were allowed access. The rest of us went off to examine the refrigeration area and the cargo holds, through which we tramped to the pinging of that ghostly violin.

  Twenty minutes later the engine room detail emerged into the corridor, Andrews mopping his brow, droplets of perspiration sparkling in the Captain’s beard. Their glowing faces gave nothing away and neither a reference to fire nor any expression of doubt as to the stability of bulkheads was made in my hearing.

  Midday, we rose to the upper levels and gave our attention to the enclosed promenades. Andrews was concerned that a number of steamer chairs had gone from the port side. He instructed me to make a note of it. I hadn’t a pencil and turned my back on him, pretending to scribble. Fortunately the missing items were spotted moments later piled behind the door of the Café Parisien. Starboard side, the small grandson of Mrs Brown of Denver was caught finger-drawing on the windows. Told to desist, he put out his tongue. His nurse rubbed the glass clean with her handkerchief and shooed him below.

  Once on the boat deck there was a wearisome trudge of its length and an even longer scrutiny of its cranes, winches and ventilators. All were judged to be in good working order. As we passed the base of the forward mast the look-out men of the crow’s nest were changing shifts. The two men coming off duty were arguing about a pair of missing night-glasses, one claiming he’d seen them when the ship left Cherbourg, the other adamant he’d not set eyes on them from the day he’d signed on. I heard their exchange quite clearly because our procession had come to a temporary halt while Thomas Andrews greeted Mr and Mrs Carter who were taking a stroll before lunch.

  We were further delayed when it came to an inspection of the life-boats, of which there were twenty, including four Englehardt collapsibles, Captain Smith wishing to know if they were sufficiently stocked with emergency blankets. Smiling, the chief steward submitted that they were and had been double checked. All the same, Smith insisted Number 7 boat be lowered immediately so that he could see for himself. Bored with this procedure Andrews strode off before it was completed and led us towards the bows.

  I had been waiting impatiently for the moment when we would go up on to the bridge and view the marvels of modern technology within the wheelhouse, and actually had, at last, one foot on the companionway when Andrews, spying a female figure squatting beside a bench midway beneath the first and second funnels, suggested that someone should go to her assistance. As I had turned to hear what he said and it chanced he was looking straight at me, I was in no position to dodge the request.

  The woman was middle-aged and wrapped in furs against the wind. Eccentrically balanced on her haunches, she peered intently at the deck. Upon my enquiring if she had lost anything she pointed at what I took to be a button stuck to the side of the bench bolt. As I bent to pick it up I caught a glint of sliver slime and realised it was a species of mollusc.

  ‘Please don’t pull it,’ cried the woman. ‘It must be detached with the utmost gentleness.’

  My efforts weren’t altogether successful; there was an audible plop as I prised the thing free.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, thinking she must be some sort of authority on crustacea.

  ‘Possibly a snail?’ she questioned, looking at me for affirmation.

  We both stood there, gazing down at the object cupped in my hand. I wanted very much to get away and join the others on the bridge. I made as if to tip it into her own hand but she drew back, clutching her furs about her throat.

  ‘Young man,’ she said, ‘I’m late for luncheon. Be so good as to take the creature indoors and place it in the earth of one of the potted palms.’

  I stood at the rail and watched her go, and when the doors swung to behind her tossed the snail overboard. The day was dull, a long smudge of pale light dividing the grey sea from the grey sky. On the horizon a toy boat sat beneath a scribble of smoke. Sprinting back along the deck I was in time to see the design team descending the companionway and moments later our patrol was dismissed.

  I went immediately to the smoke-room, found Scurra alone reading a book, and ordered a drink. He observed I looked put out. I told him I’d been all over the ship and having come within yards of the one place that interested me, namely the bridge, had been sent off to deal with a crazy old woman mooning over a snail.

  ‘She ordered me to take it to the lounge,’ I said. ‘To feed off the palms.’

  ‘But of course you did no such thing. You threw it overboard.’

  I was startled, suspecting he’d actually seen the incident.

  ‘And that’s not all, is it?’ he added. ‘Come now, be straight with me. Conversation is useless, don’t you think, unless one addresses the truth.’

  Though hesitant, at first, scarcely having known until then that the truth was at issue, or indeed in what way I’d been evasive, I soon got the hang of it and poured out more than I intended. This was partly due to his skill in drawing me out and partly because of the heady satisfaction to be gained from talking about oneself. I told him of the fire in the stokehold, my dream of the night before, my involvement with Tuohy in Belfast, my glimpse of Ginsberg with his hand on Wallis’s waist. I left out, in connection with the fire, Tuohy’s belief that it was legitimate to use sabotage in the struggle for Irish Home Rule, along with his conviction that the ends always justify the means.

  Scurra interrupted from time to time, seeking clarity on this or that statement, demanding further details, correcting assumptions. For instance, when I said the Socialist meetings I had attended had shaken my soul and convinced me of the truth of Marx’s theory that the real value of commodities lay in the labour embodied in them, he brought me up sharp, insisting that the value of any given product was in direct proportion to demand, and though the theory of surplus value was generally expounded with spec
ial reference to capitalistic production, in reality it was independent of the system.

  ‘One must distinguish,’ he said, ‘between use-value and exchange-value. The air we breathe seldom has exchange-value, but always high use-value, being necessary to life. Philosophically speaking, life may be said to have use-value, but only for the individual. Its exchange is death, which has no value whatsoever unless one is in severe torment.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘one should substitute worth for value, the latter word leaning too strongly towards the notion of goodness.’

  ‘A point well made,’ he said.

  At which I glowed with pleasure, though not for long, for he proceeded to tear my new-found beliefs to shreds, not by demolishing the ideas themselves but rather by questioning my own capacity for sound judgement, the young, he asserted, being prey to delusions, awash with misplaced guilt and only too prone, by virtue of unexplained chemical changes and immortal longings, to be struck by the lightning bolt of giddy ideals. He wasn’t unkind or dismissive; he eyed me with affection while he laid me bare.

  ‘But I must believe in something,’ I heard myself plead, ‘some purpose . . . some cause . . .’

  ‘Of course you must,’ he soothed. ‘It’s essential at your age. You’ll grow out of it as the years pass.’

  ‘But I don’t want to grow out of it. There has to be a new way of living . . . a different way of . . .’

  ‘Of what, exactly?’

  ‘Of men being equal—’

  ‘But they’re not equal,’ he said. ‘Nor is it desirable that they should be. What would be the value of St Peter’s in Rome if every other church in the world was of the same shape and dimensions? What price the flowers in the garden if each were of the same height and colour?’

  ‘I’m talking about people,’ I retorted. ‘Not flowers.’

  ‘It’s entirely to be expected,’ he said, ‘that a young man such as yourself, rich, pompous, ignorant of the lives of the general mass of humanity, should find himself so persuaded.’