Maiden Voyage

by Sarah Jane

“Let me through! I have a child!”

  Abby froze. Phillip Miles was directly behind her, trying to board a lifeboat with her brother! She would recognize his horrible voice anywhere. In her panic and the chaos on the crowded boat deck she’d gone right past them. She turned quickly, colliding with a pair of people clinging to each other beside the boat rail.

  “I’m sorry!” she mumbled as she skirted around them.

  The woman was hysterical. “I won’t go without you,” she wailed.

  And I won’t go without my brother, Abby thought.

  She thrust herself forward and spotted Miles’s unmistakable moustache.

  “I must go with my son. I am the only family he has,” Miles insisted, trying to push past the crewman blocking him.

  If she hadn’t been so petrified, Abby might have laughed at the absurdity of his words. Phillip Miles had Felix in his arms and her brother was hitting and kicking him in a blind fury. Miles was holding him tight and flinching as Felix pummeled his face, screaming, “You are not my father. You are not!”

  “Women and children only!” the crewman insisted. “I can only take the boy!” He reached his arms out for Felix, but Miles jerked Felix backward to keep him out of the crewman’s reach.

  “Felix!” Abby shouted into the din. Miraculously her brother heard her voice. They locked eyes as Miles was forced back by the coursing crowd.

  “Load the boy!” someone shouted. “This may be his last chance!”

  The rest of the boats on the second-class promenade had already been lowered. People were shouting that there were no more boats left on the starboard side.

  Several people began to grab for Felix. Miles stumbled, fell, and sprawled on the deck. The moment Miles loosened his grip, Felix scrambled away and was instantly swooped up by another man. Abby felt a wave of panic as she raised her head to look at the tall man standing before her.

  “Mr. Greer!” The man looked as surprised to see Abby as she was to see him.

  “Felix!” Abby cried.

  “This is your brother?” Mr. Greer asked. He thrust Felix into Abby’s arms before she could answer. “Get on a boat, both of you,” he said. “Quickly.”

  “Stop them!” Phillip Miles struggled to his feet, shouting.

  “Don’t worry about him,” Mr. Greer said. “That sorry excuse for a man has traded one terrible fate for another. Now go.”

  “Stop them!” Phillip Miles shouted again. Abby couldn’t speak, but nodded her thanks to Mr. Greer and fled, not waiting to see if anyone else was paying attention to her master’s demands. She certainly wasn’t. And she never would again.

  Leading Felix by the hand, she hurried up the inclined deck toward the stern of the ship. She looked back once to see if anyone was following. Most people paid them no attention. But Miles, alone, was clambering maniacally up the deck after them.

  The boat deck was in utter chaos. The lights of the Titanic blazed brightly, almost mocking the desperate scene. The ship was doomed, and yet with her brother’s hand clasped safely in hers, Abby was determined to survive.

  “There you are!” Abby cried at the sight of Jasper and Isabella making their way across the crowded boat deck. She was so overcome with relief her knees felt weak. Or was that the listing of the ship?

  “There are boats back here.” Jasper turned in the direction Abby had come.

  “No. This way.” She didn’t have time to explain that Miles was coming and the last boat behind them was about to be lowered. She prayed there was room in the boats at the stern.

  Jasper did not question. He leaned forward and tried to propel them up the deck.

  “Young women and children here,” he called as he cut a limping path through the crowd. On the first-class promenade there was still one boat being loaded. Jasper steered them to the front of the line and let go of Abby’s shoulder.

  “There. Take them and board,” Jasper said softly. Isabella took Felix’s hand and stepped forward to be helped onto the boat. Abby did not move. She couldn’t. They’d made it, but she only now realized that Jasper did not intend to board with them.

  “Now,” Jasper said gently. “You must go now.”

  “You have to come with us!” Abby pleaded.

  Jasper leaned in and quickly brushed his lips against hers. They were warm in the freezing night and the little breath Abby had was gone in an instant. “They don’t need more crew on this boat, but I’ll be on the next one,” Jasper whispered.

  Abby could not speak. They both knew that the next one was probably already gone. Jasper flashed his crooked smile. “I promise,” he said. “I still have to convince you to be my sweetheart, don’t I?”

  Jasper took Abby’s elbow and helped her to the edge of the boat. She felt numb.

  “Keep out of mischief,” he yelled down to Felix. “At least until I’m there to help you get out of it. Keep each other safe!” he shouted to Isabella.

  Abby drew a breath, her mouth opened slightly. There were so many things to say, but she couldn’t get a single word out. She stepped onto the boat and sat down beside her brother. The men began letting out the ropes hand over hand. The air was filled with plaintive cries. The boat lurched toward the dark water and her heart lurched with it. Abby looked up at the deck, searching for Jasper. She looked and looked, squinting and hoping to catch a glimpse of him, wishing she had said something … anything.

  But Jasper was already gone.

  Lucy sat frozen. Unable to move or think, and it had little to do with the temperature. She couldn’t take her eyes off the hulking ship rising out of the water as they rowed away. The massive propellers at the back of the ship were lifting out of the ocean and streaming water while the bow dove below the surface. The sinking Titanic was too big. Too impossible.

  “Don’t look,” her mother said. Elisabeth pulled her daughter’s head down to her shoulder as the crewmen on their lifeboat rowed farther from the ship. But Lucy could not see anything else … even with her eyes closed.

  Opening her eyes, she stared unblinking. The night was clear, the dark water almost glassy. And the Titanic, in spite of her alarming angle, was still aglow with electric light. Every lit portal was a stark contrast to the black water.

  The freezing temperature made shimmering waves in the air, but Lucy could make out shapes—people or perhaps furniture—sliding down the decks and into the water. She saw others jump and heard screams and moans. And also music. The band that had set up by the Grand Staircase to soothe the passengers was still playing.

  The stern continued to rise like a column until it was nearly perpendicular to the water. Lucy grasped her mother’s hand tightly.

  Please let Isabella and Abby and Felix be safely aboard another lifeboat. Please oh please oh please. She repeated the words over and over in her head while tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  With the groan of yielding metal, the enormous forward funnel collapsed and splashed down into the water, instantly sending many passengers who’d fled overboard to an icy, watery grave.

  Lucy stared at the horrifying image until it became unbearable, then buried her head in her mother’s lap and covered her ears. Elisabeth stroked her daughter’s hair and made soothing noises, but the horrific images still flickered behind Lucy’s closed eyes.

  The screams and cries for help could not be blocked out.

  Isabella shivered. Her skirts were wet and so was the bottom of the green coat, but it was the chilling image of the Titanic nearly standing on end that was causing her to quake like a leaf. She could scarcely breathe. The freezing air hurt her lungs and stung her eyes. The sound of everything in the ship being thrown against the walls, deck chairs and people being tossed into the freezing sea, was almost as horrifying as the scene before them. And the frantic cries for help coming from the people in the water were indescribably haunting.

  Beside her, Abby clung to her little brother. She tried to hide the boy’s eyes but he squirmed away to gape at the unbelievable sight. Isabella under
stood … it was impossible to look away.

  Isabella held her breath as the lights of the ship blinked once—and were extinguished forever. Then, with the groan of surrendering metal, the mighty Titanic split in two. The passengers on the lifeboats watched in horror as the aft of the ship crashed back into the water, sending out waves, while the bow, released, disappeared into the inky deep.

  “Oh!” Isabella cried out involuntarily, and covered her mouth with her hands. She could still see people clinging to the rails of the righted stern, which did not remain level for long. Taking on water through the sheered-off end, it quickly tilted upright once more and sliced into the depths.

  The noise of escaping air and yielding metal faded quickly, amplifying the moans and cries of the people in the water. Where once there had been a massive ship, now there was nothing but ice and debris and people struggling to cling to anything that remained afloat.

  Isabella swallowed the sob rising in her throat. The two men handling the oars on their lifeboat were still rowing away even though the danger of being pulled under with the ship had passed.

  “We should go back,” Isabella implored the young man closest to her. “There are people alive in the water!” There was room in their boat—nearly twenty seats.

  “We’ll be swamped,” the crewman replied tersely. “We need to save ourselves.”

  “We can’t leave them to drown!” Abby argued.

  “Please!” Isabella stood up and grasped the sleeve of a crewman but he brushed her off brusquely. The lifeboat rocked wildly and nearly tossed her out.

  “Sit down before you kill us all!” someone else yelled.

  Abby grasped Isabella’s arm and pulled her down. Isabella sat, stunned. She knew Abby was as anxious to go back for survivors as she was—one in particular. She’d seen the kind steward steal a kiss as he helped Abby board. She prayed it was not a final kiss good-bye.

  Isabella found Abby’s hand in the darkness and held it tightly. She accepted a flask being passed around to warm them, but the burning liquid did little to ease the bitter cold.

  Isabella didn’t have any tears left to shed, but though her eyes remained dry, inside she wailed for herself, for the people in the water, for the people who had gone down with the ship.

  She tried not to notice as the screams and moans of the people in the water grew more faint. She tried not to notice when they stopped completely and the only noises left were the soft sounds of water lapping against the lifeboats and the whimpers of the people inside them.

  It was a welcome relief when another lifeboat approached—though the passengers huddled within it looked like Isabella felt: half-dead with shock and cold. Soon another boat joined, then another, and several brave members of the Titanic crew instructed everyone to move to spaces on other boats so they could go back with an empty boat to search for survivors.

  Survivors. Isabella shut her eyes briefly and prayed they would find people alive, though deep down she knew it was futile. The water was like ice … nobody could have survived in it for long.

  As the lifeboat passengers shifted, Isabella searched the haunted faces of the people who’d been evacuated on other boats. Disappointment bubbled up as she stared at each stranger—none of them Lucy or Elisabeth Miles. None of them Jasper. On the heels of disappointment came a wicked thought, for there was one member of the Miles family Isabella hoped never to lay eyes on again.

  She prayed that Phillip Miles was dead.

  Abby slumped over her sleeping brother. She was pleased he was asleep, though she could tell from his twitching body he was already having nightmares about this awful ordeal … and it was not yet over. Felix had nodded off soon after they’d spotted the flares—a signal sent from another boat to let them know they were coming to help—and he’d slept on as the stars faded and the ship, the Carpathia, came into view.

  Abby could not feel her hands or feet—they were numb with cold. Her heart, too, felt frozen. She tried not to look at the water in the brightening day. She tried not to see the hundreds of floating bodies amongst the ice and wreckage when they pulled alongside the Carpathia. She glanced at Isabella next to her, but the other girl sat silent and listless as they waited to be taken aboard.

  “You there. You’re next. Send up the boy.”

  Abby was jostled and pulled to her feet along with her brother. Felix stood up groggily and was helped toward a cargo net hanging down from the deck of the Carpathia.

  “Climb on up, boy,” the crewman said. Felix looked back.

  “Go on,” Abby encouraged her brother. She futilely tried to bring feeling back into her hands by pounding them on her thighs, but could feel nothing and couldn’t move her fingers at all. Still, as she watched Felix ascend to safety, her heart lifted a bit.

  Though the Carpathia was not nearly as large as the Titanic, it was a long way up to the deck. When it was Abby’s turn her hands still felt like lumps of ice. She set her feet in the ropes, but her fingers could not bend to grasp anything. Her strength had left her and she fell back into the lifeboat. She struggled to her feet, desperate to try again, and felt a hand on her arm.

  “Wait a moment,” Isabella said, pointing up. A deck chair, secured by ropes, was being lowered down to them. When it reached the lifeboat, Abby was strapped inside and was heaved upward, bumping roughly against the side of the boat.

  Felix was waiting when she was lifted over the rails of the Carpathia, and the chair was lowered back down to bring up more people. Someone she did not know wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, led her to a chair, and put a mug of something warm in her hands. It took several tries to hold the cup, but the man was patient with her. All she felt was cold. All she felt was numb.

  Abby was surrounded by other blanket-wrapped passengers sitting in stunned silence. A few moved about, sobbing in relief or grief while the Carpathia crew pulled more survivors from the lifeboats.

  Many passengers wandered the decks, calling out the names of their loved ones. Some found one another and clung together, weeping. Abby had to turn away. She wanted to look for Jasper, Miss Lucy, and Mistress Elisabeth, but couldn’t. She was afraid she would not find them, and she could not face that. Not now. Not yet.

  “Abby! Felix!” A familiar voice startled Abby. She stared blinking, unbelieving, up at Constance. Her roommate looked paler than she’d ever seen her. She had dark circles beneath her eyes, but … “You’re alive!” Constance exclaimed, dropping to her knees in front of them.

  “We’re alive,” Abby said, almost as if she were trying to convince herself. She was alive. Felix was alive. Isabella was alive. Constance was alive. But so many were gone. What were the odds that …

  “Lucy! It’s Lucy!” Isabella stood up and moved unsteadily toward a pair of women wrapped in blankets and holding each other up. Beneath the dark wool, Abby saw a flash of blue—Lucy’s coat! Isabella embraced the pair and pulled them back to where Abby and Felix were huddled.

  Mistress Elisabeth held each of their faces and kissed both of their cheeks. “Children,” she sobbed. “Children.” She could not say more.

  Abby smiled through her tears. She was happy that Lucy and her mistress had survived, but had never felt less like a child in her life.

  Exhausted and overwrought, she staggered away from the reunion to stand next to Constance, who was shockingly silent, and gaze over the ship’s rail as people were pulled from the last two lifeboats. She could feel pain as the feeling in her frozen limbs returned—pain from the terrible night—proof she was alive. But still, none of it seemed real.

  She and her brother had survived. But from the look of it more than half of the passengers aboard the Titanic were gone … forever. Most of them men. What were the chances that—

  “Say, isn’t that your steward?” Constance asked.

  Abby blinked unbelievingly. Could it be possible? “Jasper!” she called, her voice a breathless rasp. She watched him being lifted over the ship rail and set down on deck and tried again, as lo
udly as she could. “Jasper!” The name came out louder, and she pushed her way toward him.

  Jasper looked up. He could barely stand on his own, but when he saw Abby his eyes brightened and one corner of his mouth rose … the beginning of a crooked smile.

  Lucy gazed over the railing at the lights of New York City as the Carpathia made its way into the harbor. The city lights looked like a mirage, but were nonetheless proof that the long week was over, that they had reached their destination. It had been a strange nine days. The 705 survivors, fewer than one-third of the people who had set out on the Titanic, filled the smaller rescue boat to bursting and forced everyone to share food and quarters.

  Isabella, Abby, Felix, Lucy, and her mother all shared one small room that had graciously been given up by the Carpathia’s crew. The crowded accommodations, though a stark contrast to the lavish Titanic, suited Lucy just fine. She did not want to be separated from her family, and though she’d only just met Isabella, and Abby was their maid, she felt as though they were all family now. Real family. They did not talk much in the close quarters, but their proximity, their presence, the fact of them, was an immeasurable comfort.

  Abby’s sweet crewman, Jasper, did not bunk with them, but was with them for all of their waking hours during the foggy, stormy passage.

  It was dark and nearly nine o’clock at night when they drew close to the city. Nevertheless the dock was crowded with people. It wasn’t surprising—the Carpathia had been hounded for the last several miles by smaller boats carrying newspaper reporters. Everyone was hungry for news of the disaster.

  Lucy had overheard that fifteen hundred people were presumed dead. Some of them had been rich and prominent. All of them had families or people somewhere who were anxious about their whereabouts and hoping that the telegraphed news from the Carpathia was not true.

  A great sense of mourning hung about Lucy like the oppressive fog that had followed them across the Atlantic. The only person she did not grieve for was her father.