Every Man for Himself
Page 18
Gradually I grew accustomed to the darkness and made out a boat some distance away. Summoning up all my strength I swam closer; it was a collapsible, wrong side up and sagging in the sea. I tried to climb on to the gunwale but the occupants gazed through me and offered no assistance; they might have been dead men for all the life in their eyes. Swimming round to the far side, I commandeered a bobbing barrel, and, mounting it like a horse, hand-paddled to the stern and flung myself aboard.
We slushed there, twenty or more of us, lying like sponges in the icy pond within that canvas bag, looking up at the stars, students of the universe, each man lost in separate thoughts and dreams. I saw the library and that figure now clinging to the tilted mantelpiece, and old man Seefax, arms raised in terror as his chair skidded the room and the water leapt to douse the coals. Then I was in London again standing outside the Café Royal, the wet pavement shining in the lamp-light, a bunch of violets in my hand. And as I waited the revolving doors began to spin and out they came – Hopper, smiling, asking where the devil I’d been; Ginsberg, slapping me on the back in greeting; Charlie, cheeks pink with pleasure at the sight of me; Ben Guggenheim with his top hat jaunty on his head; Riley, hands in pockets, jingling coins; lastly, Scurra, staying within the doors, now facing me, now showing me his back, then facing me again, eyes sadly fixed on mine. Each time he passed he made an upward gesture with his hand and I stepped to join him, but the doors spun round and round and when they slowed he’d gone. Then Charlie pointed to the sky and we all looked up to watch a shooting star.
Now it was very cold in the boat and we were sinking deeper as we floated. I sat up and rubbed my frozen limbs, shouting at the others to stir themselves unless they wished to die. Some grumbled and resisted but most saw the sense in it and we worked together, baling out as much water as we could, though we still sat in that icy pool and sloped alarmingly. Fearing we might be swamped I organised them to stand up, not all at once, but in twos and separated by the length of an arm to maintain a balance. When this was accomplished and we all faced the horizon someone declared there was a ship out there and that she was moving. We stared as hard as we could, but there was such a display of shooting stars that night it was difficult to distinguish one light from another. An hour crept by, and to our delight we heard voices. Pretty soon, by means of shouting back and forth, two life-boats loomed. There was space in one of them for three of us, but we daren’t disturb our balance and they rowed off.
It must have been thirty minutes or so later when that second lot of shooting stars went arching to the sea. We gazed in disbelief because they burst asunder before they fell. A solitary cheer came from somewhere to our right and a woman’s voice shouted, ‘It’s the Carpathia for sure.’ For one instant I wanted to cheer too, the next that momentary leap of relief was replaced by unease which deepened into guilt, for in that moment I had already begun to forget the dead. Now that I knew I was going to live there was something dishonourable in survival.
Dawn came and as far as the eye could see the ocean was dotted with islands and fields of ice. Some floated with tapering mast-heads, some sailed with monstrous bows rising sheer to the pink-flushed sky, some glided the water in the shapes of ancient vessels. Between this pale fleet the little life-boats rocked. There were other things caught upon the water – chairs and tables, crates, an empty gin bottle, a set of bagpipes, a cup without a handle, a creased square of canvas with a girl’s face painted on it; and two bodies, she in a gown of ice with a mermaid’s tail, he in shirt sleeves, the curls stiff as wood shavings on his head, his two hands frozen to the curve of a metal rail. Beyond, where the sun was beginning to show its burning rim, smoke blew from a funnel.