Titanic

by Diane Hoh

  Although Max didn’t hear whether or not Mattie agreed, his heart went out to the two women. We won’t be back on board for breakfast or any other meal, he argued mentally. Still he clung to one tiny shred of hope. The ship was going down, no doubt about that. But another could still arrive in time to get the remaining passengers off, just as he had told Elizabeth.

  Elizabeth…was she all right out there on the water? She’d been dressed warmly. But the cold was so harsh, so bitter. He was glad her boat hadn’t returned. There probably was a danger of being swamped if…when…the Titanic went down.

  He felt, suddenly, very angry. Angry at the White Star Line, angry at the ship’s captain, angry at the iceberg that had struck them, and especially angry at the great ship, Titanic, for not being unsinkable as everyone had said it was. He knew even as he felt the fury within him that he was being unreasonable, even childish, that the anger he felt was simply a way of disguising his very real terror at the thought of the endless dark depths of the ocean awaiting him.

  He wanted very much to live.

  The thought made his chest feel as if someone were squeezing it with cruel fingers.

  On the aft well deck, Brian, his face red with cold, came up behind Katie as she was tying a little girl’s bonnet strings. “You’ll be needin’ to go now, Katie. The ship is listin’ intolerably to the bow. Find Paddy and take him with you.”

  She stood up. “And you? You’ll be comin’, too?”

  He looked away. “Not just yet. Soon, though. There’s still some things to be done down here.”

  “Brian, any of the women who haven’t left yet aren’t goin’ to. They will not leave their husbands, and nothin’ you say will be changin’ their minds. Come with Paddy and me. Father Byles is here, he’ll give comfort to the ones remainin’.”

  Brian shook his head. “In a bit, I’ll be up top. You go along now and find Paddy. But you’ll be givin’ me a hug first, won’t you?”

  Katie swallowed hard. Tears stung her eyelids. She didn’t believe Brian. He wasn’t going to come along soon. He was going to stay with the families who’d refused to leave. “Has Marta gone up top, then?” she asked, realizing she hadn’t seen the girl in some time.

  “She has. Didn’t want to, but her friends persuaded her. Go now, Katie, and tell Paddy I said he’s to offer his services as a crewman in one of the boats. That way, he’ll be sure and get a place.”

  Nodding, Katie said quietly, “Aye, I’ll do that.” Then she threw herself at Brian for the second time that night, and held on for dear life for several moments. What a cruel, bitter night this was! Not trusting herself to utter the word “Good-bye,” she said nothing as she pulled away, turned, and rushed off to find Paddy.

  He was standing in a corner trying to convince an old woman that she needed to go up to the boat deck. She seemed completely uncomprehending, and Katie realized she didn’t speak the language.

  “Is she traveling alone?” Katie asked Paddy as she arrived at his side.

  ‘That she is. Give it a try, will you?”

  Without saying a word, Katie reached out and took the gnarled old hand in her own. “We’re leaving now,” she told Paddy, “and we’ll just take her with us. Brian says to get up on deck. You’re to offer your services as a crewman. He says that way you’ll be sure to get a place in the boats.”

  Paddy planted his feet firmly on the decking. “And where is he, might I ask? You can’t think I’m goin’ without me brother.”

  “That surely is what I think,” Katie replied hotly. “Brian’s the older of you two, and he’s given the order. You’re to do what he says, and you’re to do it now! Unless,” she added in desperation, “you want to go over there and make him feel guilty for not comin’. You could always do that, I suppose, if it’d make you feel better. It’ll make him feel worse, of course, but maybe you don’t care. Anyways, you’re not goin’ to change his mind. I tried. He’s stayin’.”

  When Paddy still didn’t move, she took his hand and pulled him along, tugging hard until he finally relented and came willingly. A few other women and children joined them as they left the aft well deck.

  But when they reached the gate leading to second class, the crewman told them Paddy couldn’t come through.

  Katie was prepared for that. “Ah, but he’s a seaman,” she said confidently. “I heard there was need of good crewmen for the boats. Best to let him through.”

  The man, too disheartened to argue, nodded and let Paddy pass.

  When they were out of earshot, he bent his head to Katie’s and said, “A seaman? Are you not stretchin’ the truth just a bit? I tried me hand at fishin’, is all it was. And I wasn’t good at it.”

  “Never mind.” Katie helped the old woman up a step. “You’re strong, healthy, and smart. You’ll be a big help, I know you will.”

  They arrived on the promenade deck to find a group of women and children gathered at a window, and a boat hanging just beyond the sill. The window was open, and crew members were pulling the boat closer to erase any danger of a gap as people began to board through the window.

  Katie was surprised to hear someone say it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. She’d been too busy to pay attention to time passing, but it seemed to her only moments ago when Brian had found her looking down upon the aft well deck. More than an hour had passed since then.

  It seemed strange to be boarding a boat through a window. But Katie heard one woman tell another that there were almost no boats left, and if they didn’t board this one, they might not get off the ship at all.

  The thought of going down with the ship took Katie’s breath away. Down, down, into that bottomless black pit? No, she couldn’t! She couldn’t die that way. No way of dyin’ was good, but drownin’ had to be one of the worst.

  She was so terrified, she had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting up her dinner.

  And she was not at all prepared when one of the officers helping the women board pushed Paddy back, saying, “Sorry, women and children only.”

  Katie gasped in horror. But she recovered quickly out of desperation. “He’s got sea experience,” she said hastily. “He can help with the boat.”

  But Paddy was shaking his head at her. “I can’t do this,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m not takin’ a seat that rightfully belongs to a woman or her child. I’m no seaman, and I’m no coward, neither.” He pushed her forward. “You go on, though.”

  Shocked to the core, Katie begged and pleaded, fighting tears. When she had first learned they might have to leave the ship, she had never for a moment expected to leave it without Brian and Paddy at her side. Then, though she hadn’t wanted to, she’d had to accept that Brian wasn’t willing to leave. But now Paddy, too, had to stay behind? How could she bear to go without him? No, no, she couldn’t. Never!

  But she couldn’t change his mind, and he wouldn’t hear of her staying with him. “If you don’t step into that boat right now, I’ll throw you in, I promise you that.”

  She didn’t even have any privacy in which to tell him a proper good-bye.

  They managed only a hasty embrace and a quick, unsatisfactory kiss before Katie, trembling so violently with fright that she stumbled twice and nearly fell, was directed through the window and into the boat. Her legs like water, she sank down onto a seat beside the old woman who spoke no English. She looked as fear-stricken as Katie felt, and Katie had no choice but to rouse herself enough to reach out and hold the woman’s wrinkled hand in her own. Both hands shook.

  Her tears spilled over as lifeboat number four began to lower in a series of unsteady, bone-jarring jerks. Katie was shocked to see the C-deck portholes disappearing beneath the surface. Some of the portholes were open, water gushing through them as if from a giant faucet and into the ship. It saddened her to picture the beautiful furnishings inside lost to a torrent of salt water and seaweed, but more than that, the sight of the rushing water swallowing up the great Titanic like a hungry giant made her heart trembl
e with fear for Brian and Paddy.

  When the boat landed, one of the crew shouted up to Second Officer Lightoller on deck that there were not enough seamen to man the boat properly.

  “I’m sending Quartermaster Perkis,” Lightoller called down, and moments later, the seaman scrambled down the falls. The ship had sunk so low, there was not that great a distance from the promenade to the lifeboat. A moment later, three more men dropped into the boat to help man it.

  One of those men was Paddy Kelleher. He landed on his back only afoot from where Katie sat, crying quietly.

  When she saw him, she shrieked with joy and scrambled over to throw her arms around his neck. “They told me to come,” he mumbled, though he hugged her back before sitting up. “Didn’t even ask if I had sea experience, just told me to jump down here and help. So I did.”

  Katie was weak with relief and joy. If only Brian could have come with Paddy…

  Perkis told the crewmen to row toward the Titanic’s stern, toward an open gangway. The water their oars dipped into was littered with deck chairs being tossed overboard. Katie wondered if the chairs were meant to be used as floats, or if someone inside hoped to lighten the weight of the great ship. She thought sadly that deck chairs would not do the job.

  From inside, they could hear cracking sounds. “ ’Tis the water sending the furniture smashing about,” a woman announced grimly. “That lovely walnut table in our stateroom, with the mother-of-pearl engravings… ruined. Such a shame!” Another woman mourned the loss of a grand piano, while still another mentioned being quite taken with the china pattern in the à la carte restaurant and regretted the smashing of it.

  And while Katie found it distressing that they were mourning the loss of objects rather than people, she understood that they were in shock. She also understood that their remarks meant they had accepted, as well, the loss of the Titanic. They no longer expected it to right itself and be saved. They couldn’t bear to think about the people still on board, so they distracted themselves by thinking of objects instead. She didn’t blame them.

  She thought again, her heart breaking so sharply it seemed she could hear the sound it made, Brian.

  When they were directly below the stern boat deck, a group of firemen waiting on board either worked their way down the falls and dropped into the lifeboat, or fell into the water. Those who landed in the sea were quickly hauled aboard by the women. The rescued men were shaking violently from exposure to the icy water. Katie thought they looked half dead lying there gray in color and motionless.

  As they gave up on the gangway they couldn’t locate and pulled away from the tilting, brilliantly lit Titanic, Katie said a quiet prayer of thanks that Paddy was safely beside her, then another of mourning for his brother.

  Chapter 28

  Monday, April 15, 1912

  There had been, after all, no steamer approaching the Titanic to pick up survivors. This heartbreaking news spread slowly throughout lifeboat number six, stunning all of them. The lights seen from the ship’s deck had been nothing more than the glow of the northern lights, the aurora borealis. The realization was a serious blow. They had clung desperately to the belief that help was on the way.

  No rescue ship? What would happen to them now, adrift on a blank, black canvas of salt water?

  The boat’s passengers fell into a depressed silence. There was some subdued weeping, but most were too frozen and too shocked to protest loudly.

  Elizabeth felt she couldn’t bear the penetrating cold another second. Her feet in the bottom of the boat were already wet in spite of her boots, her toes aching with cold. The fingers on her left hand were too numb to bend. Yet to complain about such things when people were still on board the Titanic seemed childish and petulant. Surely she was not so pampered and spoiled that she couldn’t deal with this hardship.

  She must think of Max. He would want her to be brave, as he had been when he had risked his own life to save those two children. She mustn’t disappoint him.

  But in her heart, Elizabeth didn’t really think she could deal with the pain and horror of what was happening. She felt as if, at any moment, her heart would shatter into a thousand pieces, terror at the darkness and the icy cold and the sense of isolation would render her completely helpless, and the sight of what was happening to the ship would numb her mind so that she could no longer think or feel.

  Of what use to her mother would she be then?

  The Titanic’s lights were still shining brightly. Elizabeth strained her eyes for some sign of Max standing at the rail, but could make out nothing more than shapes.

  “If it were really sinking,” a woman sitting near the stern declared, “its lights wouldn’t still be on, would they? I think we came out here for nothing, and now we’re frozen. We’ll probably all die of pneumonia.”

  “That’s better than drowning,” another woman said caustically.

  One of the newlyweds, a young woman with pale blonde hair, cried out, “I want to go back! Please, I don’t want to be out here! Let me go back to my husband!”

  No one answered her, and after a few moments, she fell to silent, heartbroken weeping.

  They could still hear music floating faintly out from the Titanic. When, in an effort to elicit a response from her silent mother, Elizabeth asked Nola to identify a waltz, she received in return nothing but silence. Remembering her promise to her father, Elizabeth wondered if he might have been right, after all. Was this terrible night going to shatter her mother forever?

  What would save Nola, Elizabeth knew, was the rescue of Martin Farr. She looked again for some sign of a rescue ship, but saw only an empty horizon.

  The list of the Titanic was becoming more dramatic by the moment.

  Elizabeth, heartsick, groaned softly under her breath. How much time did they have left, those people still on board? Her father, and Max, and hundreds of others?

  She couldn’t bear this. How could she? How could anyone?

  “We should go back,” she said for a second time. “Closer to the ship. If it really is going down, we should be there to help pick up survivors.”

  And although Molly Brown and Margaret Martin nodded in agreement, Quartermaster Hichens launched once again into his tirade on the dangers of being swamped. After his first half-dozen words, Elizabeth stopped listening.

  On board the Titanic, Max, along with Martin Farr, left the lounge and went to the warmer gymnasium. There was a sharp tilt to the deck now, and the atmosphere had changed. There was no longer anyone sitting on the mechanical animals. Instead, as the two men entered, a swarm of people moved toward them, heading for the doors. Those who had until now seemed to be patiently waiting for rescue had apparently decided that rescue might not be forthcoming, and now they pushed toward the open deck talking loudly among themselves.

  Max watched them go, wondering how they would react when they realized every last lifeboat had gone.

  Fighting against his own very real fear of what was coming, Max turned and followed the crowd out onto the deck. He went to join those gathered at the rail. Some men were shouting at the lifeboats to return to the ship, others were demanding to speak to the captain, sounding as if they believed he could solve their problem.

  Max could no longer make out Elizabeth in any of the lifeboats and wasn’t sure which one was hers. Turning away from the rail, he strode across the deck. As he passed the entrance to the first-class staircase, a small group of well-dressed men and women emerged. An attractive woman wearing a silver evening gown and a fur stole said nervously as she passed him, “The water is rising quickly inside the ship. We saw it on our way up the stairs. So hard to believe…”

  There was panic in her voice, and Max suspected that she was one of the passengers who had remained in blissful denial for far too long. Now that she saw with her own eyes the water rising within the ship itself, the truth had sunk in, and she was terrified.

  That feeling would worsen when she arrived on deck and discovered that all of the boats
but for two collapsibles had already left the ship.

  She had realized the truth too late.

  Max went down the stairs to A deck, to see the climbing water for himself. And there it was, lapping at the stairs below him. Not very far below him, either. Staring down at the churning whirlpool, Max swallowed hard. It was coming after him, and he had no place to go to escape it.

  Swallowing his own panic, he spent a few moments studying the large map where the ship’s run had been posted each day. Martin Farr had remarked the day before that they were making excellent time, setting records for the journey.

  And what good did that do us? Max thought bitterly as he turned to go back up the stairs, painfully conscious all the while of the sound of water below him.

  On the boat deck, he went straight to the starboard rail again. Some, but not all, of the lifeboats had lights. What must the ship, sinking hard at the bow, look like from out there on the water? Did they believe it now, those people in the boats who had protested leaving the ship? Did they finally understand that the great Titanic, the unsinkable ship, was actually going under? Or were they still telling themselves that it would somehow be saved?

  You’re still hoping, a voice inside him said. You can’t imagine yourself dying before your twentieth birthday, and you haven’t accepted the truth, even with the deck like a slantboard beneath your feet and icy black water slurping its way up the stairwell like a thirsty dragon.

  The sight of the flat, black water below him, staring up at him as if to say, I’m waiting patiently, filled Max with terror as icy as he knew the ocean itself had to be. Because no one else on deck was panicking visibly, he fought to control it.

  It’s just, he told himself silently, calmly, that I would have liked to see my parents once more. He pulled his coat collar up against the cold. We parted on less than pleasant terms. I would have liked the chance to make things right between us. And I wanted to see Elizabeth again.