‘We’re not going in there, are we?’ asked one of the women. ‘I have to find Mrs Grant,’ Celeste repeated to no one in particular before turning back
again. ‘She might not have heard the instructions.’ An officer barred her path. ‘You’re going nowhere, miss.’ ‘But she’s old and extremely deaf!’
‘The stewards will see to her. You stay exactly where you are now!’ What could she do but comply? She stood huddled with the other women not half as well
covered as she was, some with small children wrapped in blankets to keep off the chill. ‘Lower the boats!’ cried a host of voices.
‘Women and children first!’ shouted one of the officers, looking grave. ‘Only women and children!’
Celeste watched husbands and fathers stepping back instinctively, making no protest, pushing their families towards the lifeboats. Some of the wives clung to their men, refusing to move any closer to the dangling boats.
‘You go on, dearest . . . I’ll follow in the men’s boat later . . . Please, think of the chil-dren,’ said one man, lifting a sleeping child into the arms of a seaman in the boat, knowing his wife would have no option but to follow.
Celeste felt herself drawn back with the men. She was not going to be the first to get into the fragile wooden vessels, not when the old lady was nowhere to be seen yet. Then a young man, seeing the empty spaces, pushed forward from the back, ready to leap on board. The officers instantly hauled him back. ‘Not now, son! Ladies and children first.’
Two lifeboats were lowered down out of sight. Celeste was appalled to see one was al-most empty. Still she couldn’t move, her eyes constantly searching through the crowds for Mrs Grant.
When the third boat was half full, a sailor caught her arm. ‘Time to go, lady,’ he ordered. Celeste froze on the spot. ‘I can’t!’
‘You can and you will,’ he said, and wrapping both arms round her waist he dragged her forward and almost threw her into the lifeboat. She landed with a crunch but quickly gathered herself and took a seat. Looking up, she saw some of her fellow passengers stand-ing back with their husbands, shaking their heads as she was being lowered down, past the other decks. There were people hanging out of portholes desperately waving for help but the descending boat didn’t stop to take them on board.
She daren’t look at the drop. The boat swung violently and children cried out in fear. They landed on the sea with a great slap and she saw the icebergs looming like blue moun-tains, one with a twin peak, beautiful but sinister, and felt their chill on the frozen water. Only as they rowed away did she see the unnatural angle of the great ship, its electric lights glowing from every deck and porthole. Only then did she hear the ragtime music played by Mr Hartley’s band shift into more sombre tunes coming floating over the air. Only then did she realize she was saved, while all those remaining were doomed. And only then, when she felt the stinging of her ankle and the last bars of the haunting music, did she finally realize that this was no dream but a nightmare about to begin.
Clutching Ellen to his chest, Joe pushed May back in the direction from which they’d come and they gradually made their way through the maze of corridors, through an unlocked door and up onto the deck above. There were people standing around in queues and May could hear music somewhere above them. There were no lifeboats on this deck.
A man in uniform opened another gate into First Class and ordered the women to make for the grand stairs to the upper deck, but the men forced their way through, not wanting to be separated from their terrified families.
They were walking through a terrible fairyland. Chandeliers swayed, beautiful carpets ran as far as the eye could see and there was hardly a soul about. Stewards rushed to and fro, pointing them ever upwards. Joe’s eyes were out on stalks. This was another world. There were men in evening dress, smoking, ignoring the stampede, the frantic cries for directions; some were playing cards as if there were all the time in the world to finish their game as the large gilded clock on the mantelpiece struck two o’clock.
May could feel the ship lurch at an alarming angle. Precious glassware was smashing around them, table lights were knocked over, chairs were sliding away. Through the golden lounge and the Palm Court they continued. Up above she could hear ragtime music playing. Where was everyone?
‘I don’t like this, Joe.’
‘Just keep moving, love. I’ve got Ellen safe. Better to do what they say. I’m sure it’s all organized up top.’
Suddenly they felt a rush of cold air as they found themselves up on the boat deck among a crowd of people clinging to each other, crying.
‘Where are the lifeboats?’ said Joe, staring up at the empty davits. ‘You may well ask, laddie,’ replied a gruff Scottish voice. ‘They’ve all gone . . . not
enough for the likes of us.’
The ship lurched deeper again. May clung to Joe, trying not to panic. ‘What do we do now?’ She couldn’t bear to think of what lay ahead. The thought of swim-
ming in the dark water was terrifying, but to stay and drown . . . ‘There’s boats on the port side,’ yelled a passenger. ‘Come on, follow me!’ It was hard
straining against the slope, trying to stay together. When they reached the other side, they found no lifeboats but some men were trying to release some collapsible boats without suc-cess.
‘Go back to starboard. There’s collapsibles there,’ ordered a seaman, pointing at May and the baby in surprise. ‘Women and kiddies should’ve gone ages ago!’
Joe tugged May back from the crowd but she remained rigid. ‘This is no good . . . there’s nowt left for us, is there?’ she cried as panic rose in her throat. How long before the vessel would tip into the sea, throwing them all into the freezing water?
‘There’s got to be boats. They wouldn’t leave us in danger . . . not with little kiddies!’ Joe cried grim-faced, clasping Ellen closer. Struggling to stand upright as the ship pitched once more, he yelled, ‘We’re going to jump, May. Ellen’s safe with me. I’ve tied her into my coat. We must go now while there’re lifeboats close enough to pull us in!’
‘I’m not going anywhere without you!’ she screamed, her eyes wide in terror at the sight of the sea edging ever closer towards them.
Celeste watched the drama unfolding, her eyes locked onto the stricken ship as it slid further and further towards its final descent. She didn’t even feel the chill in the air as her heart pounded at the sight of men leaping into the water and trying to swim.
‘We’ve got to get away before it sucks us all in,’ screamed a woman clutching her Pekin-ese dog to her chest. ‘We don’t want them scrabbling into the boat and capsizing us.’
‘But we must rescue people! This boat’s not full,’ Celeste insisted. ‘There’s plenty of space. We can’t just row away and leave them.’
‘I’m not having steerage passengers sitting next to me,’ the woman continued. ‘You never know what you might catch.’
Celeste couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This very woman had sat in the same row as her that morning, sharing her hymn sheet. They had sung ‘Eternal Father, strong to save’.
‘Don’t listen to her nonsense,’ Celeste yelled. ‘We have to help these poor souls.’ But the men rowed faster away from the ship with determined looks on their faces. The noise of the doomed passengers, the screams, the roar of spluttering engines grew
ever louder. Floating debris bobbed around them, the wreckage of deck chairs, baggage, planks of wood torn from the decks, terrible reminders of what had once been this ship, clog-ging up the path to safety for those still thrashing towards them in the water.
‘Oh, stop! Please, in the name of all that’s merciful, stop. We have to wait for them. What if it was your wife or child or husband? Would you leave them to die?’ Celeste yelled, hop-ing to shame the sailors into turning round.
One by one the men slowly lifted their oars and the lifeboat began to drift towards the sinking ship. Celeste bowed her head in relief. Perhaps now there was a chan
ce of saving more lives.
May froze with panic at the choices before them. The sea was slowly creeping up, deck after deck submerged, and her ears were filled with the screams of the frantic passengers scram-bling for safety. Others were kneeling, praying, holding hands, waiting to be saved by a mir-acle that would never come.
‘We’re going to have to make a jump for it, love.’ Joe grabbed her hand. ‘I can’t!’ She was shaking with terror but Joe was adamant. ‘Jump! For Ellen’s sake. She deserves a chance. Hold my hand and we’ll jump together.
Only God can save us now,’ he coaxed. The surface of the water lapped ever closer. ‘But I can’t swim.’
‘Yes, you can. I taught you. The jacket’ll hold you up. You must try.’ ‘I can’t.’
‘We can together. We didn’t come all this way to die like rats.’ His words were stirring up fury in her. Die? Who said anything about dying? This was not
how they were going to end their lives, thrown into the vast ocean. She could see what had happened to those who had jumped first. The water was full of floating life jackets with no life left in them. But Joe was right: they had to jump. They were going into the sea one way or another.
‘Hold my hand and good luck, but if luck’s not on our side, I’ll see you in paradise. No one will separate us there.’
A wave rose from nowhere, washing over them, throwing them clear of the ship. The frozen water pierced May with icy darts, taking her breath clean away as she spluttered for the surface, her eyes searching in the dark for Joe.
She tried to scream, thrashing in her clumsy effort to stay afloat. The jacket miraculously held her up. The roar of the rising water in her eardrums drowned out all coherent sound. Her arms were like useless propellers and the weight of her clothes impeded her limbs as she thrashed away from the ship. She had to keep sight of them but it was so dark, and she was so very cold.
In slow motion she thought she saw an outline, a head, but there were so many people in the water, some face down, floating like flotsam. Then her limbs tried to swim, suddenly freed in a frenzy of panic, but they were like lead weights, her strokes powerless to propel her forward as the icy water held her in its iron vice. She gasped for breath and bobbed on the water, desperately searching for Joe. He was drifting further and further from her grasp. She paddled on like an automaton, using every last ounce of her body’s strength. She caught another glimpse of Joe’s head bobbing and little Ellen floating away like a bundle of rags on the surface. May tried desperately to catch up with them. Ellen was slipping out of reach and Joe’s head had suddenly disappeared. She must reach her baby. ‘I’m coming!’ she tried to yell but her mouth was filling with salt water, muffling her cries, choking her.
She was starting to feel drowsy and limp, her hope ebbing, her efforts weakening. There was only darkness and death, empty faces with eyes staring up at the cruel stars.
The water was awash with barrels, bottles, trunks, coal scuttles, plant pots, deck chairs. She couldn’t push past them, she couldn’t find Joe.
‘Take me now, pull me under, Lord,’ she prayed. What was the point of living if they’d gone ahead without her? ‘I’m coming! I’m coming.’ Her voice was getting weaker but the life jacket held her firm in its grip as she floated further and further from the spot where she last saw her family. Her fingers were numb, too cold to grasp the surrounding debris; lifebelts drifted by, useless, as the chill began to squeeze the life out of her. The light faded from her eyes and her voice was reduced to a whisper as she gave herself up to the sea.
The lifeboat edged further into the wreckage and a torch was shone through the gloom to search for any survivors.
‘There’s one here! Her lips are moving. She’s just a slip of a thing.’ The sailor hooked the floating body closer to the side and another member of the crew helped pull her into the boat.
Celeste forgot her own chill as she stepped across to help rub life into the girl. Her eyes opened briefly and she tried to shake her head, muttering words of protest.
‘No, no . . . baby’s in the water . . . Go and find them! Joe . . . Let me go!’ Celeste hurriedly covered her with a spare blanket. ‘No,’ the girl whispered. ‘Go back . my baby . Let me go . Joe, we’re coming.’ She tried to sit up, her hand rigid, her clenched fingers unable to point.
‘Put her down in the bottom with the dead one. Look at the state of her. She’s not going to last long.’
‘No, I’ll look after her,’ Celeste insisted. ‘She’s got a baby in the water. For God’s sake, stop and find it.’
‘Shut that bloody woman up, will you!’ said a voice from under a shawl. ‘We’ll never get away if we keep picking up waifs and strays! They’ll capsize us all!’ the
woman with the dog ranted once again.
‘You shut up, you selfish bitch! Call yourself a Christian? Don’t be so cruel,’ Celeste barked back with such confidence and vehemence she surprised herself. ‘This poor soul’s lost everything and you just sit there with your pet dog on your lap. We must go back and find more of them.’
‘I’m sorry ma’am, this is as far as we can go. The ship’s going down now and we don’t want to be sucked down with it,’ the crewman was shouting. ‘We’ve found some. How this one managed to survive so long beats me, but enough’s enough. I can’t risk the rest of us. Row on!’
The girl was shivering, crying as Celeste wrapped another blanket around her. ‘Sit tight, now . Be British, be brave, you’re safe here.’ The warmth of human touch in the darkness was all she could offer. ‘We must all stay calm.’
It was while she was nursing the girl that there came another commotion from the water and an arm stretched out, dumping a sodden blanket into the lap of a shaking boy. ‘Take the child!’ a gruff voice shouted. Celeste thought she caught sight of a white beard in the lantern light.
‘It’s the captain . . . Sir! Captain Smith. We can take you aboard,’ yelled a sailor, reaching out to the man in the water.
The arm hovered for a second and then withdrew. ‘Good luck, lads, do your duty.’ Silence followed.
‘Give the bairn to its ma,’ the sailor shouted, and suddenly the bundle was passed down the boat into the girl’s arms, swathed in dry blankets. The girl clung to the baby with relief, suddenly roused from her stupor, groping in the darkness for the baby’s face, fingering her frozen cheek, listening for every breath. She cried with relief on hearing the baby whimper. God in His mercy had reunited them! Celeste thought. What a wonderful thing to see amidst the horrors of the night. What if this had been Roddy? Thank goodness she had not brought him on her travels. For once Grover was right to withhold his consent. How could
she ever have lived with herself if he had been lost? Celeste strained to see in the darkness, leaning over the boat’s side, knowing so many
babies and their families were in the icy water. How many more would survive the night? One thing was sure, after this terrifying ordeal, after what she had just seen, life would nev-er be the same for her again.
May clutched her baby for dear life, barely able to believe, through her stupor, that such a miracle had happened. Now, relief jolted her back into life, the numbness replaced by a stinging pain. In the darkness she could feel the baby was warm, alive, her breathing soft as she slept. If only she could peel back the layers and kiss her downy cheek, but the chill off the Atlantic was too raw for her safely to disturb the blankets.
She smelled of the sea, oil, salt. She looked up to see stars shooting across the midnight-blue sky and thanked God her darling girl had been saved. There was mercy after all.
‘How can such a terrible thing be happening on such a beautiful night?’ whispered the girl by her side, her auburn hair trailing under her black hat. Together they watched the ship rising up in its death throes, silhouetted against the sky like a black finger accusing the heav-ens of a great treachery. Then came more terrible screams as passengers threw themselves off the vessel, swimming, thrashing, drowning, crying for their mothers, to
God, to the saints for mercy. May knew she’d be hearing those voices for as long as she lived.
‘Go back, please, go back!’ the women both cried. ‘My husband’s in the sea . . .’ May insisted.
‘So is half the ship,’ yelled one of their crew. ‘We’ve done our bit. It’s too dangerous. All hope is lost now.’
May turned her back. She couldn’t bear to watch any longer as she nuzzled the baby into her chest, trying to blot out the cries.
‘For God’s sake, help them!’ the woman next to her cried out. ‘Have you no hearts?’ ‘Shut up! You’ve got your bairn. We can’t take on any more, we’ll capsize.’ ‘Save your strength, lady, it’s going to be a long night,’ a hoarse voice ordered. The girl in black slumped forward, silently shivering as they watched two funnels of the
great leviathan collapse. The ship was snapping in two, one half slipping underwater, the other rearing up like a pointing finger before it slid smoothly into the deep as if it was the most natural thing in the world. May rocked her baby back and forth, grateful for the warmth and comfort of her.
If Ellen was safe there was hope for Joe too, May reasoned. Her heart lightened at this thought. Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil , she
prayed for those lost souls, trusting Joe must be on another lifeboat. She looked up again and strained to listen as the watery screams grew fainter. There followed an awesome si-lence.
‘They’re all gone,’ whispered the young woman next to her. ‘Their pain is over, but ours is only beginning, I fear. The crew didn’t mean to shout at you. Fear makes us do terrible things. Thank God your baby is safe. Come on, chaps, row us to the other boats. Someone out there must be looking for us.’
‘Aye aye, lady, they will that, and all the boats must stick together,’ shouted the sailor in charge of their lifeboat as the lantern swung slowly across the prow.
Soon they made a silent flotilla of bobbing boats strung together like toy ships on a great millpond. Slowly the dawn was breaking. May had never felt so cold. Somehow the baby slept on. Hours went by when there was nothing but ice and the lapping of the oars on the water. She felt the chill numbing all sensation in her limbs. It was hard not to drift into sleep. In her mind’s eye she could see Joe swimming, being lifted into a lifeboat, alive out there just as she was, searching, praying they would soon be united. She clung to this hope like a life raft.
Fleming, Leah - The Captain's Daughter Page 4