Cold April (22 page)

“
Orders,” he mumbled. “Something about immigration rules, they told me. There’s really six or seven ways up and stewards were s’posed to tell steerage folks how to do it, but no one sent any orders down. Forgot it.”

“
Are you the only one who can lead them up?”

“
We’ve only got so many able to do it. Rest are up top helping with the lifeboats.”

“
One person for all those people?”

“
No, I got a bit o’ help. Two others right behind me, I ’spect. We’ll get ’em out. Never fear.”

Beth said no more, saved her breath for the circuitous route they traveled, and made sure Kathleen stayed at her side. Once at the Grand Staircase, the third-class passengers whooped and hollered before rushing up the steps. Beth stopped to let all of them go up ahead of her.

After a moment of quiet, she heard another noisy group come through the dining saloon and stood off to one side, out of the way of the steerage passengers arriving. A familiar face stared at her. She didn’t see a steward this time, but Harry Palmer.

“
Harry,” she called when he came near.

He led his charges to the stairs, reminded them how to go to the boat deck from there and stepped back to where Beth and Kathleen waited.

“
Miss Shallcross, I believe.” He made a low bow. Obviously not even an emergency could dampen his sense of humor.

“
What are you doing here? You’re not a steward.”

“
I’m not even a third-class passenger,” he said. “Paid for second class, and don’t I wish now I hadn’t bothered?” He laughed.

“
But you’re leading third-class passengers to the boat deck.”

“
Well, I know the way, don’t I?” He looked down at Kathleen. “I’ll wager you can find your way about, too, can’t you, my little luv?”

Kathleen put her hand in his and smiled up at him.

“
Is this the only way up?” Beth asked.

“
There’s Scotland Road.”

“
Scotland Road? What’s that?”

“
A wide corridor on E Deck running all the way through the ship and ending at a narrow ladder used by the crew.”

At the mention of E Deck, Beth remembered the gate. “Then why aren’t the third-class passengers using it?”

“
Some have, but I can’t send others there, not with all the luggage they insist on taking, bags and boxes, even trunks.” He moved away, as if anxious to get back and find more passengers to bring up. “’Sides, most of E Deck is flooded now.”

Flooded? Already?

“
Must go back and get another bunch. Not easy.” He frowned and ran a hand through his hair. “These are working-class folks, used to taking orders, not acting on their own. Someone’s got to tell them what to do and how to do it.”

“
You mean finding their way through this maze?”

“
Yes, and getting them to follow me. So many don’t speak English. They’re Irish, Scotch, German, Norwegian. They don’t believe they need to get into lifeboats. The women can’t leave their husbands, and the husbands don’t want to leave all their belongings. They guard their stuff, ’cause otherwise they’ll have nothing when they get to America. Everything they own is on this ship.”

“
But the ship isn’t going down, is it?”

He lowered his voice and put his mouth close to Beth’s ear. “Afraid so, luv.” He next spoke in a normal tone. “But she’s good for eight or ten hours maybe, and by then other ships will surround her and take the passengers off.”

Beth also whispered to Harry. “But you said E Deck is flooded, and I saw water seeping into the cabins below. A young couple told me an hour ago that engine room number five was full of water.”

“
Don’t you worry your pretty head.” He turned to Kathleen with a smile that looked forced. “Take care of your Miss Beth for me, will you? Put her in a lifeboat. She’s promised to come see me perform on the New York stage.” He laughed.

As he started toward the dining saloon, about to return below decks and lead more passengers to safety, Beth grabbed his arm. “You must get to the boat deck yourself.” Her tone became stronger, almost harsh. “Promise me you’ll do that.”

“
I promise.” He blew a kiss at her.

After another moment, Beth again took Kathleen’s hand and led her up the staircase. She knew it led to upper decks, C, B and A, as well as the boat deck above that. As they climbed, she thought of what Harry had said about the third-class passengers. Of course they were working-class people, just like her own father and his father before him. They accepted their station in life and had little desire to advance, even had it been possible for them to do so. For years, probably hundreds of years, they had simply followed orders, did what they were told to do, and accepted meager wages for doing it. The rotten class system she hated and was determined to escape from.

These passengers, too, could escape from it. Once they got to America, they’d no longer be required to behave in traditional old-world ways. They’d find jobs that let them advance if they excelled, or start their own businesses. Her three years in New York had already introduced her to small-scale entrepreneurs: hot dog and pretzel vendors on street corners, musicians who played well enough to perform on a stage, seamstresses who became dressmakers and opened their own shops.

She remembered something she’d read about Lady Duff Gordon, who’d been divorced and had to make dresses in her home in order to support herself and her daughter. Then, when the clothes she designed became popular with wealthy women, she had opened several salons.

And, even though extremely popular, Vernon and Irene Castle had come from humble roots. Beth had heard that, if they were snubbed by titled patrons and treated like servants, they simply charged higher fees.

Kathleen’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Mama, I’m scared.”

The child stood at the entrance to the boat deck, and Beth saw at once why she’d made the remark. A huge mob of people filled every inch of space. Not steerage, but first-class passengers. All in life vests, many carrying belongings, including pets, in their arms, they surged toward the lifeboats. Loud voices merged into a meaningless babble, with an occasional shout or scream. Then, suddenly, a gunshot rent the air.

Chapter 23

Richard left Beth and Kathleen near the loading area of the boat deck and made his way through the ever-increasing crush of passengers to the port side of the vessel. Much the same situation greeted him there as he’d seen on the starboard side. People surged toward the lifeboats, but then they—especially the women—refused to get into them. The decided tilt of the deck should have made them more anxious to leave the ship, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Many still believed all the fuss was just precautionary, that they were safer on the “largest ship ever built” than in that “little boat.”

They couldn’t entirely be blamed. Stewards spoke in calm, quiet tones, not wanting to frighten people into panicking, bright lights blazed all over the ship, and the band played upbeat Ragtime music. Only the officers knew the Marconi telegraphers were sending out constant distress calls.

He looked about for someone who might know if all the activity was necessary. Besides the stewards and other crew members, two gentlemen, who looked more like wealthy travelers, scurried about, telling the passengers to hurry. He recognized one of them, Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer. A young stewardess had come up from A Deck with her life vest in her hand.

Andrews stopped her. “Put your life belt on.”

“
But I thought it rather mean to wear it, as if ...”

“
Put it on,” he said, louder than before. “The ship is badly damaged. I don’t give her much more than an hour.” The man dashed away, giving instructions to stewards as he went.

Richard felt his gut tighten. An hour. By habit, he pulled his watch out and looked at it. It was 12:45. An hour.

Suddenly a rocket went off. A loud hiss, a bright flash and then a thousand white stars exploded in the sky over the ship. The mood on the boat deck changed almost immediately. In the brief, uncommon silence that followed the rocket blast, a steward called out, “Women and children first, please.”

As husbands, fathers and other men urged women into the lifeboats, Richard heard a steward speak to a crewman. “The bow is filling rapidly; get these people in the boats while there’s still time.”

Then snatches of other conversations …

“
Be brave. I will see you later,” one man said to his wife.

Seconds later, a woman being pushed toward lifeboat number four could be heard. “You must come with me.”

“
No,” her husband answered, “I must be a gentleman.”

Another said, “You go and I’ll stay a while.”

Another, “We’re going in the next boat.”

A father, standing by boat fourteen, said, “Don’t be foolish, Sara. I’ll look out for myself.”

Nevertheless, the passengers remained polite and courteous, their manners as formal as if they were attending a fancy tea party. Dozens of men stood at the railing, most still dressed in elegant evening clothes. Stiff with British stoicism, they smiled down at the loved ones they might never see again. Richard couldn’t bear to watch the farewells and had to look away.

The slant of the deck increased, as water continued to rush into the bow. An officer shouted for more people to move to the starboard side to help equalize the weight. Only a short time later, it seemed, another rocket went up. Still, Richard stood motionless, the reality impossible to comprehend. Despite the cold, his face became hot with dread. Kathleen. Beth. He had to get them into a lifeboat right away.

He pushed through the crowd again, this time in the opposite direction, back to the starboard side of the ship, back to where he’d left Beth and Kathleen. As he struggled past the entrance to the Grand Staircase, a flood of people—their clothing marking them as third-class passengers—surged up onto the boat deck.

Once past them, he rushed to where he’d left Beth and Kathleen. They weren’t there. He looked all around, shouted their names. No answer, but perhaps they were already in a lifeboat. He rushed toward the rail but couldn’t get close because of the swarms of passengers trying to board.

The steward shouted, “Women and children first,” but his words went unheeded and several men jumped into a boat being lowered over the side.

For a moment Richard thought they’d overfilled the small craft, but when he finally peered over the bowed heads of some of the others, he saw the lifeboat barely half full. How could that be? He knew, as perhaps many did not, that sixteen lifeboats, even if full, could not provide places for the more than two thousand people on board. He felt sick.

But he needed to keep his wits about him, think of Beth and Kathleen. Where were they? The ocean was no longer sixty-five feet below the deck, but less than half that distance, and, once more, he stared down into the boat being lowered. They weren’t in it. A few yards farther away, an oarsman steered another partly-filled lifeboat away from the black hull. No Beth and Kathleen in that one either, and there were no other boats in the water.

He glanced up at the remaining boats being prepared for launch on the starboard side. Six still remained in their positions, crewmen swarming over them, pulling off their covers, dropping in blankets and water bottles, tins of biscuits.

The steward, a very young man who looked as if he’d never been to sea before, seemed overwhelmed by the responsibility of making sure only women and children got into the boats. Richard grabbed his jacket lapels with both hands.

“
A woman with a child ... Did they get into a boat?” He asked the question even though he felt certain they hadn’t done so. “Have you seen them?”

The young man didn’t answer, looked up at the next lifeboat swinging out toward him, his job requiring him to help passengers get into it.

A young woman shoved Richard aside to speak to the steward. “I’ve come back,” she told him. “You said I could get in the next boat.”

He spoke without looking at her. “So you shall.”

Richard spoke in a louder voice, hoping to catch the man’s attention. “A blonde woman with a three-year-old girl.”

The young woman next to him answered instead. “They went below.”

Richard could hardly believe his ears. “Went below? They wouldn’t do that. They promised to wait here.”

“
Little girl crying her eyes out? Wanted to go back for her doll Toby?”

Richard thought he would collapse. His voice rose, quavering, to a high pitch. “Yes. Yes. Where are they?”

“
Went below to get the doll.” She held up a small framed photograph. “I went back to my cabin, too, to fetch this picture of my brother. I thought if they had time to go back, then so did I.”

The lifeboat struck the deck with a thud and the steward, along with two crewmen, shoved it over the side of the railing into its boarding position. Dozens of people sprang forward to get in.

“
Women and children only,” the steward shouted. The woman who’d spoken to Richard leapt into action and secured a place in the boat.

Another rocket went up. Both men and women surged around Richard, as if he were a stout post in their way. He didn’t feel or hear them. Beth and Kathleen had gone below. He must find them. He turned and fought the crowd impeding his progress.