Seven Days in May

by Kim Izzo

Then with a mighty swipe of his arm Commander Hope cleared the desk, sending the piles of paper flying to the floor. “Useless!” he shouted.

  “Did they say if all the passengers got into lifeboats?” Henry asked nervously.

  Captain Hall shook his head. “God bless their souls.”

  Sydney

  I don’t want to drown. Please, do not let me drown. Any death, any manner of dying would be preferable to this. Sydney continued her silent prayer over and over as a sort of talisman against fate. But it was of little comfort and, she felt sure, of no use. Death surrounded her. It floated by piece by piece atop the same anthracite water that chilled her to the marrow, threatening to swallow her whole. As much as she fought to stay conscious, to not slip beneath the surface, she knew death was coming as it had for the others, whose faces, frozen in terror and pain, taunted her to join them in the unforgiving sea.

  Twilight came. Soon she wouldn’t see the bodies. But she would still hear the low moans of the dying. A seagull flew overhead. She wondered if it was the same gull she had seen so often in the past few days. It looked so peaceful. Flying high above the carnage.

  It was time to change hands. Sydney pleaded with the limb that was submerged to come out and let its mate take a turn. She’d quickly learned that if she kept one arm in the water it was enough to balance the flimsy yet buoyant piece of wood she lay precariously across. But her arm was uncooperative. She couldn’t feel it, not even how cold it was. With her left hand Sydney grabbed her right arm and pulled it from the water as though it belonged to someone else. The wood began to teeter, left and right, back and forth. Sydney held her position as long as possible. Both arms cradling her for warmth. But what choice did she have? Please, do not let me drown.

  It was time. She plunged her left arm up to its elbow into the water thick as pudding. The slat righted itself. Sydney closed her eyes. Relief was fleeting. Something struck the wood near her feet and lurched it forward for an instant before dragging a corner down. Farther into darkness. She gasped and turned to see an object caught on a piece of wood that jutted up from the edge of the makeshift raft. Heavy with drenched weight, it would sink the raft if she didn’t act. She tried to kick it free with her foot but to no avail. It was snagged as securely as though it were bolted tight. She had no choice but to somehow manoeuvre around so that she could pry it off with her fingers.

  Sydney summoned the memory of performing “around the world” on her pony when she was a child. She had mastered the balancing trick of swinging her right leg over her pony’s neck so she sat sidesaddle, then her left leg over his hindquarters, leaving her facing backward. Then left leg sideways, then again until she was sitting in the saddle properly once more before repeating it in the reverse. The key to not falling off was concentration and careful, slow, gliding motions so that the pony didn’t bolt or buck and she didn’t lose balance and tumble to the ground. Was this slight piece of wood that much different? Yes, very, she admitted.

  She dared not sit up like on a saddle, instead the scissor-like swing of her legs would be performed on her stomach. For this, both hands had to be free. Taking a deep breath she pulled her arm out of the water and with slight, nearly imperceptible movements she swivelled halfway “around the world,” which was all she needed.

  A sooty mist had joined her on the water and dulled the twilight. The object seemed made of fabric. Sydney reached out and touched it. Yes, it was wool. It was a coat, its collar caught on the wood. Sydney fumbled with her frozen fingers to loosen the collar. It was so heavy. She tried to lift the jacket out of the water to free it that way. But she wasn’t strong enough.

  It was then that a final puff of fading sun pushed through the mist and cast a circle of light onto the problem. The weight of the coat was the weight of a child’s corpse. A little boy about two. Sydney gasped. The boy’s head, its ginger hair matted, brushed her hand in the rhythm of the swaying sea as she gripped the collar. She lay there unable to move, the two of them trapped together as though she had chastised the child for stealing sweets and been cursed by a witch and frozen for eternity. She felt the warmth of tears stream down her cheeks and into her open mouth. They reminded her that she was still alive.

  He is already dead. Let him go to his grave. If you don’t, you will go with him. Devoured by darkness. Please, do not let me drown.

  Sydney swallowed and with the final gasps of sunlight as her guide she pulled the boy closer to her, fighting the tide, until she could pluck the coat from the broken wood. It took three attempts; each time she lost her grip she felt the raft jerk and bob and the water soak her dress, her boots, her hair. Not that she could get any wetter, any colder. But on the third try—luck. She shook the coat hard enough that the wood itself broke off and the little boy drifted out, his tiny body floating on its back. Sydney watched him be carried away by the waves. He looked like a doll, staring up at the sky. She would never forget his face as long as she lived. But how long would that be?

  Alone once more she prayed. And then, somewhere out on the ocean, a voice. It was a woman. What name was she was calling out? If a name at all. Sydney tried to respond, to be heard. But her throat was unable to utter anything more than a pathetic cry. She closed her eyes. It must be her sister, come to fetch her . . .

  “Miss Sinclair!” a voice called out to her through the murk. “Miss Sinclair!” It was a male voice. Sydney lifted her head, squinting through eyelids swollen and heavy with impending death. She thought the man looked familiar. Was he from Cora Stratton’s New Year’s dance?

  “Help me pull her in.” The man gave the order as Sydney felt herself being lifted away from the wooden raft.

  “She’s almost dead,” came another male voice. “Leave her and let’s go find people we can save.”

  “Not bloody likely! She stays with us,” the first man snapped. “She’ll be all right once she’s warmed up.”

  Sydney was cradled in the man’s arms and someone threw a coat over her. She blinked a few times, willing her eyes to focus.

  “Who—?” she murmured, her voice raspy.

  “It’s Bestic, Miss Sinclair,” he said calmly. “Remember me?”

  She tried to remember. This man Bestic was rubbing her hands. She felt the blood warming her fingertips.

  “Where am I?” she asked him.

  “We’re in a collapsible boat, Miss,” he explained. “The Lusitania’s gone.”

  Then she knew. Hearing the ship’s name was like being slapped. She knew exactly where she was and what had happened.

  “Bestic,” she said. “It’s all so awful.”

  “It’s tragic,” he said.

  She looked out across the sea. The water had returned to the placid stillness of the morning, and worse, it was silent. The hundreds of souls who had been fighting for their lives had lost the battle and the hush that had descended over the scene was anything but tranquil; it was eerie, haunted.

  “I need to find my sister,” she said weakly. “And Edward.” The feeling was returning to her limbs but all she wanted to do was sleep.

  “We’ll find them,” Bestic reassured her. He picked up the oars and signalled to a few of the other men in the boat to continue their search for survivors. “And in God’s name, shovel that water overboard.” He smiled at her. “This collapsible is taking on water. The plug is missing. I stuffed the hole with whatever flotsam I could grab from the water but it’s not good enough. We must keep emptying the water from the bottom.”

  Sydney watched some use their hands while one man had found a hat and was using it as a bucket.

  Rowing through the water was slow going. The debris field was thick with items from the ship—china and pieces of furniture, and bodies. The cold had taken many. Sydney wondered if she had hypothermia. She asked Bestic and he told her the symptoms: the cold making your body shiver to keep it warm but as time passes it fails and your temperature falls further until you can’t think straight and you’re disoriented. Once the core body temperature r
eaches a certain point—below thirty degrees—death is near. She saw the evidence of it on every dead and nearly dead body the little boat passed but she had a chance at life.

  Bestic and the others continued to pull survivors into the collapsible one by one. At least one woman they had rescued died in the collapsible and they dumped her back in the sea to make room for the living. Time passed slowly and few words were spoken.

  “Why haven’t we seen a navy ship?” a woman asked. “What happened to our escort?”

  “There was never going to be an escort,” said a man who was busy scooping water from the bottom of the collapsible with his hands.

  Sydney managed to keep awake and watched the others, unable to do her part; she was simply too weak. But her eyes continued to roam the water for signs of her sister or Edward. When her boat drew near one of the other lifeboats she begged Bestic to ask after them. But none of the men and women had seen them. She refused to think either of them had perished. If she had survived the plunge into the sea surely Brooke had as well. And Edward must have stayed with Alfred. The two men would have stuck together when the ship went down and climbed onto another of the lifeboats or a piece of wreckage.

  “Look! It’s a ship!” one of the passengers shouted. “Two of them.” The others began to wave and yell for help. Elsewhere on the water the cries of other survivors carried up into the sky becoming increasingly more frantic as the two steamers sailed away over the horizon and out of view.

  “They mustn’t know,” a woman offered. “They couldn’t know.”

  “Don’t bloody count on it,” the man who had spotted them said. “They’re probably afraid the submarine will do to them what it did to the Lusitania.”

  “We need to head for Queenstown,” Bestic said brusquely. “It’s the nearest port.”

  “You’re an Irishman, I take it?” the man asked.

  “He is Irish,” Sydney sputtered. “Be glad of it. You’re in charge, Bestic.” The man shot Sydney a look of contempt but otherwise was silent. She smiled weakly at Bestic, who nodded to her.

  Hours later several fishing trawlers appeared and began to pick up survivors. The Bluebell came to the aid of the little collapsible and Sydney was once more picked up by Bestic and lifted into the arms of a sturdy fisherman who immediately wrapped her up in a warm blanket and gave her tea. There was much commotion on board the Bluebell and all around it as vessels arrived to begin the rescue operation. Of the many boats and trawlers that came to the aid of the survivors only one, the Stormcock, belonged to the British government. Sydney sipped her tea and repeatedly asked if anyone had seen Brooke and Edward. No one had.

  She watched the fishermen pull a man from the water. He fell onto the deck, still alive. It wasn’t until he sat up and coughed violently, gasping for breath, that she saw it was her friend.

  “Walter,” Sydney said softly. She was too weak to walk but managed to crawl over to him. Walter didn’t seem to recognize her. He was delirious. “Walter. It’s Sydney.”

  “He’ll be fine. Make sure he takes the tea. Drinks what he can,” the fisherman explained. “There’s hundreds more like him.”

  Sydney held the cup of tea to Walter’s mouth as the fisherman stood by. Walter shoved the cup away and used all his strength to speak. “The boy?” he managed to get out. The fisherman looked at him, waiting for him to finish. Sydney’s eyes welled up. It was such an effort for Walter to talk, but he forced the words out. “There was a boy. I was holding on to him.”

  The fisherman shook his head. “There was no boy with ya when we found ya,” he said, and looked at Walter with pity.

  Sydney wanted to comfort Walter but she had no words. Then a rescued seaman from the Lusitania pointed into the water.

  “Look! It’s an officer’s gold braid!” he yelled. “It’s a ship’s officer and he’s alive!”

  There was a scramble on board as the able-bodied men rushed to rescue the man. Sydney was astounded when the familiar stern face of Captain Turner, whose body was weakened from his hours in the water, tumbled onto the deck. The trademark gold braid on his coat had made him easy to spot. He sat still as blankets were brought to him but he shoved them away. He didn’t look relieved to be rescued. He must have wanted to perish with the Lusitania. Sydney was sorry for him. But she was one of the few.

  “My child’s death is on you and you alone,” scolded a woman Sydney didn’t recognize. She was pumping her fist in the captain’s face as she spoke. “He died because of your lack of organization and discipline amongst your sailors.”

  Captain Turner stood silent and motionless as the lady was quietly escorted away by the Bluebell’s own captain, telling him how she was ordered to place her son in one of the lifeboats but that it had capsized and her boy had drowned. Sydney understood the anger. She would be angry as well if she weren’t so exhausted. Besides she still had hope that Brooke and Edward were alive as she was, sitting on a deck somewhere on another trawler.

  An hour later, as the Bluebell made its way toward Queenstown, Sydney and Walter were seated in the mess, trying to eat a simple meal of bread and soup. Captain Turner sat alone in a corner.

  “Should we speak to him?” she asked Walter. He turned around and shook his head.

  They watched as Bestic entered the mess. The third officer made his way over to the captain. “I’m very glad to see you alive, sir.”

  “Why should you be?” Turner asked. “You’re not that fond of me.”

  “Fondness doesn’t enter into it, sir. I’m glad to see you alive because I respect you as my captain and I admire you as a seaman.”

  Captain Turner had no response for Bestic. The third officer left the captain alone and departed the mess without further communication.

  “It’s tough to comfort a man when everyone will be asking why he survived when so many in his charge perished,” Walter said. “That woman up on deck is only the first to cast blame.”

  “But it was the Germans,” Sydney said. She couldn’t believe people would hold Captain Turner responsible. It didn’t make sense.

  “It was,” Walter agreed. “And I can’t wait to get to the front and take my revenge on the bastards.”

  Isabel

  It was after dark when someone, perhaps it was Curtis, suggested they needed a respite. More than half of the team had been working a twenty-four-hour shift with only short naps. And as they entered the Coach & Horses and settled into their usual section exhaustion seeped in. They sat drinking in silence, the shock still keenly felt. Rotter, Parish and Anstie chain-smoked. Henry ordered coffee. Norton shuffled a deck of cards. Violet stared at her pint of ale as Isabel nursed her whisky. Dorothy sat beside Denniston for comfort.

  The silence irked Isabel. No doubt they were all thinking the same thing. But it seemed she would be the one to say it. “How could the Admiralty turn back their cruiser and let people drown?” she asked.

  They had listened to the wireless traffic and read the telegrams, heard the phone calls between the Admiralty in London and Queenstown. When the Lusitania had sent out its SOS, Vice Admiral Coke had dispatched the Juno, a cruiser and the fastest ship available, only to recall it straightaway after receiving firm orders from London. Who exactly had made the decision couldn’t be known—Churchill was still in Paris—but what was a certainty was that First Sea Lord Fisher and Captain Hall were involved.

  “It’s because of what happened last autumn,” Denniston answered patiently. “Remember the Aboukir? The Cressy and the Hogue went to her aid and they were lost too, all their men gone to the bottom of the sea. The Admiralty has made it a rule since then that no cruiser shall attempt the rescue of a sinking ship.”

  “But that was different,” Isabel persisted. “Those men were all Royal Navy. They were fighting in the war. The Lusitania was carrying civilians.”

  “I’m a navy man and I understand that we can’t risk our battleships. We couldn’t know where that submarine was. She could still be out there lurking, waiting to fir
e at the rescue vessels,” Rotter said.

  “But Isabel has a point. The Juno would have arrived at the site in about an hour,” Parish said. “Those fishing trawlers and whatever else that went must have taken several. Hundreds of lives were lost because of the Admiralty’s decision.”

  “The Lusitania was carrying weapons and ammunition,” Norton said flatly. “Technically the Germans were in the right to have targeted her.” He shrank from the blanket of stares that descended on him.

  “It is a war,” Curtis agreed grimly. “Thousands will be dead before it’s over.”

  “Millions,” Anstie added.

  Isabel flinched. “I thought only soldiers would die.”

  “That’s not what happens. Civilian casualties are an assumed cost of winning,” Denniston said.

  “Do they know how many survived the sinking?” Violet asked.

  Denniston shook his head. “That will take several days. Some survivors may not last either. It’s a tragedy to be sure.” He raised his glass and the others followed. “To the Lusitania and her valiant crew and passengers. May God rest their souls.”

  “May God rest their souls,” every one repeated, and drank.

  “I think we should all go home,” Denniston suggested.

  “I second that,” Curtis agreed.

  It wasn’t really an order but it would be taken as such. Isabel downed her whisky and followed her colleagues out the door. It had started to rain and she pulled her coat over her head.

  “Good night, Isabel,” Dorothy said as she and Violet headed off.

  “Good night,” she answered, and disappeared into the darkness.

  MAY 8

  Sydney

  Sydney awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of weeping. She opened her eyes and found that she was in a large room lit by gas lamps. The space was vast but despite its size it was packed with people lying in stretchers and on cots; others were lying on blankets on the floor, as what appeared to be doctors and nurses and the like went from bed to bed. Sydney reckoned it was a makeshift hospital. She couldn’t recall how she got here. She remembered falling asleep on the Blueball but that was all. Someone must have carried her here.