Cold April (24 page)

Captain Smith came into view and went into the radio shack. Richard heard him tell Phillips and Bride to leave. “It’s every man for himself now,” he said before disappearing into the crowd.

Richard entered the shack just as Phillips made his way toward the stern. Bride was trying, one last time, to send a wireless message for help. He looked up.

“
I heard the captain,” Richard said. “Are you still sending distress calls?”

“
Using the new letters, S.O.S., ’cause it’s easier. Prob’ly the first time it’s been used in a real emergency.”

Richard had a sudden desire to make light of the whole incredible situation. “Under the circumstances, we won’t be returning your jigsaw puzzle. Sorry.”

Bride grinned. “Under the circumstances, I understand.” He became sober-faced again. “The Carpathia is on her way to rescue us. Any lifeboats left?”

“
Only the last collapsible. You must come.”

“
I imagine Phillips is trying for that.”

Richard pulled Bride from the shack. “I saw him heading for the stern, where there’s still some deck. The bow is almost completely under, and the stern is rising. It’s become a steep uphill climb.”

Bride’s eyes widened. “Good God, man, you’re a passenger. Why aren’t you in a boat?”

“
Why aren’t you? You must go, too.”

They joined the men still wrestling with Collapsible B. Water sloshed around their feet and they swore and shouted at one another.

“
Turn her over!”

“
Can’t. She’s too heavy. We need four more men if we’re to do it.”

Bride and Richard each grabbed onto the sides of the boat and tried to lift it.

Suddenly, with a jolt, the bow dipped farther and a wave of water rushed at them, drenching their legs. The boat slipped out of their hands as if it had a mind of its own and slid into the water, still upside down.

Chapter 25

Beth counted the rows of porthole lights again. Only five. She tried to quell her rising panic. After all, it had been an hour since she’d boarded the lifeboat, at which point all six decks had showed above the water line. The rescue ship would arrive in time. Except, the lights in the distance never became any brighter. If they belonged to a ship, it didn’t appear to be moving in their direction.

Kathleen slept, her head on Beth’s lap, never relaxing her grip on the beloved doll.

Beth wished she could sleep. She slumped on the bench, exhausted, no energy left, the muscles in her arms and legs unwilling to attempt so minor a thing as changing position. Yet, her mind refused to shut down. Over and over, one message cycled endlessly through her head: the Titanic was sinking. The ship that the newspapers had hailed as “unsinkable” had met her match—an iceberg—and now the massive wound in her side could not stop the relentless sea water from claiming her.

The oarsmen, having rowed a considerable distance from the ship so as not to be pulled under when she sank, stopped rowing and—like everyone else—simply gaped at the stricken vessel. All around Beth the many women, plus a few men, spoke in hushed tones, as if in church. Although their voices didn’t rouse Kathleen, words carried through to Beth. A few of the passengers obviously knew more about the ship, or had listened to more knowledgeable people explain its construction.

“
They said the ship had six water-tight compartments,” a woman said.

“
The water-tight compartments didn’t hold,” an elderly man said quietly, “because the partitions didn’t go all the way up.”

“
You mean,” another asked, “the water could splash over the top?”

“
Yes. As the compartments filled, one by one, the water rose over the partition, flooding the next compartment, and so forth.”

After a long pause, someone said, “Whoever could have guessed that scraping along an iceberg could do so much damage to a hull made of steel?”

There were now four rows of porthole lights. The ship was sinking faster. Her heart began to pound. The rescue ship would not get there in time!

She and Kathleen were safe, at least for the time being, but what about Richard? Had he managed to get into a lifeboat? Did he, even now, sit in one of the others that rested on the eerily flat ocean surface? Her stomach felt tied in knots, and a terrible dread choked her, making her gasp for air. Cold, freezing air. She closed her mouth and lowered her head, tears burning her eyes and coursing down her cheeks.

“
Look,” someone shouted. “The funnel!”

Eyes snapping open, she saw the first funnel sway precariously. With a terrible roar, it toppled down, crashing onto the deck. It would have crushed any passenger unlucky enough to be in its path. Then it tumbled, as if made of cardboard, into the sea.

Cries of sympathy—and terror—went up from the others in the lifeboat. Some stood up for a better view. They were too far away to know if anyone had been killed outright by the massive funnel, but the sound of its falling carried across the water. Beth assumed many of the women had been praying silently, but now they prayed in audible tones. Others wept openly. Some had seen their husbands standing at the railings, simply awaiting their fate, and they sat mute, dazed and paralyzed.

Three rows of porthole lights were shining in the stern, only one in the bow. The stern began to rise in the air, revealing giant propellers. With another ear-blasting shriek, the bow separated between the third and fourth funnels and slowly sank below the water.

People screamed, then became silent again. The stern, released from its burden of hanging onto the bow, settled back into an almost level position. Finally all the lights on the ship disappeared, leaving the black hulk of half a ship. Then that, too, dipped beneath the waves. In the silence that followed someone said, “It’s two twenty.”

1* * *

Amidst the debris that had surfaced from the sunken ship—furniture, doors, barrels, anything that would float—Beth saw another lifeboat angle its way next to them, and soon others arrived. The men lashed them together, like a covey of quail. Surrounded by other lifeboats, Beth searched frantically for Richard. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she yelled with all her strength, “Richard!” No answer.

Numb with cold and the horror of what she’d witnessed, Beth could barely understand the oarsman’s words.

“
We’ve got to rescue as many as he can,” he was saying.

“
What do you mean?” a woman asked.

“
Our boat is not totally filled. If we take some more passengers aboard, the oarsmen can use an empty boat to go back and rescue people in the water.”

Carefully, heeding the orders from the men, passengers rose and changed places in order to empty a boat or two.

“
No sense having some boats only half-filled when we can empty one and save more lives.”

About thirty passengers climbed gingerly into Beth’s lifeboat, and they all made room for the newcomers. When the lifeboat lashed next to them was empty, the men untied it and pushed off, heading back toward where the Titanic had last been seen, an area dotted with few boats but hundreds of passengers in life vests.

“
They won’t drown,” someone said. “They’re wearing life preservers.”

“
No.” The voice of the officer on board was like a growl. “They’ll freeze to death. The water is only twenty-eight degrees.”

Another woman gasped.

Still another said, “But there are so many. What if they all try to get into the lifeboat at once and swamp it?”

A soft voice said, “Then they will die.” A pause. “As we shall all do one day.”

* * *

Beth slept after all. The silence, the lack of sleep since Saturday night, the numbness, the total unreality of what had happened, was too much to bear. When she awoke, passengers in the lifeboat were talking, and the sky was getting lighter. Morning was coming and, with it, a large ship.

“
It’s the Carpathia,” the officer said. “She’ll take us on board now. Sit still and wait until they give us orders.”

Kathleen was awake and standing. Beth stood, too. She saw a string of lights on the top of the huge ship, open gangways on the side, and ropes and ladders for them to climb aboard.

Once more surrounded by other lifeboats, Beth searched again for Richard. She called his name, but her voice was drowned out by the noise of the Carpathia’s engines and the shouts of passengers and crew. Perhaps he was calling her, too, only she couldn’t hear him.

A new wave of sorrow engulfed her. She realized that the people in the water, with their white life vests and blue faces, were dead.

She stifled the scream that rose in her throat and grabbed Kathleen’s hand. Then she hugged the child’s little body tightly to her chest. She couldn’t let her see the dead bodies. The image would haunt her the rest of her life.

When they were closer to the ship, she released Kathleen from her grip and tried to smile. “We’re safe now, darling. When they call us, we’re going to get into the big ship and it will take us to New York. Isn’t that lovely?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. “How is Toby this morning? Did she sleep well, too?”

Kathleen squeezed the doll close to her chest and laid her head in Beth’s lap. “I’m still scared.”

Beth smoothed Kathleen’s hair and murmured soft words of reassurance, glad the child showed little interest in their surroundings. “I know, dear, but it’s all over now. Soon we’ll be in a big house again and you’ll have all your toys to play with.” She stopped, reflecting that, other than Toby, Kathleen’s toys and other belongings would soon lay on the bottom of the ocean.

“
I’m hungry.”

“
So am I, dear, but we shall have breakfast just as soon as we’re on the big ship.” She drew Kathleen again into her arms to prevent her from looking anywhere but at the ship at their side.

Finally, it was their turn. The officer looped a rope around each of the passengers before they climbed the ladders. Crewmen from the Carpathia lowered a sling for some of the women to use instead of the ladders. The oarsman helped Beth into a sling, but Kathleen screamed not to be left behind, so Beth pulled her onto her lap.

“
She’s very light. Can you take us up together?”

“
Righto.” He hoisted them up to the deck, where other crew members helped them remove their life vests. Surrounded by other survivors, Beth watched as the stewards of the Carpathia handed out blankets and found places for them to sit. Others passed around trays containing fruit, bread and butter, scones and sandwiches.

With more Titanic passengers coming aboard, it was necessary for the steward to keep repeating the message that there was hot tea, coffee and soup in the dining saloon.

Beth seated Kathleen in one of the few unoccupied deck chairs, gave her a sandwich and some milk and took a scone for herself. She stooped in front of the child. “I’m going to look for your father while you eat. You must wait here until I return. Will you do that for me?” She hated to leave but decided the child’s hunger, as well as the trauma she had endured, would keep her there for the short time Beth expected to be gone.

“
Yes, Mama.” Kathleen took a sip from the cup of milk and then a bite of the sandwich. “I will wait.”

Beth prowled the deck, searching for Richard’s face among the crowds of Titanic passengers. She didn’t find him. She did witness several reunions: passengers who’d thought their loved ones perished and found they’d managed to get into a different lifeboat after all. She watched them hug and kiss each other. The sight made her cry again, but they were tears of hope.

As she worked her way through all the survivors crowding the deck, she noticed that almost all were passengers, not crew. One or two stewards or other crew members had gone into each lifeboat to man the oars, but most had stayed behind, helping passengers or otherwise fulfilling their duties. They, if no one else, knew there were not enough lifeboats for everyone. What a sacrifice they had made! Tears clouded her vision again. That class system— which she had railed against, calling it old-fashioned—was responsible. Passengers—people like her—had been saved at the expense of workers who knew their place in society was to serve and obey without question. Would such honor, devotion to duty and selflessness continue in a world where everyone was equal? She could only hope so.

She wiped her tears on her sleeve and stopped a passing steward. “Are there any other survivors elsewhere on the ship?”

“
No, ma’am. We’ve been told to keep everyone here and in the dining saloon for the time being. They will make arrangements for all of you very soon.”

She walked unsteadily toward the railing. In the morning light, she saw they were surrounded by sheets of ice, along with many icebergs, some as high as a tall building.

She also watched the crew raise the empty lifeboats to store them somewhere on the ship. Although other ships had arrived by then and began to pick up the dead bodies, she averted her eyes. She couldn’t bear the thought of seeing Richard’s face among them, blue with cold with death. She wanted to remember him as he’d been in life, handsome, with thick dark hair and intense blue eyes. Perhaps, if Kathleen’s hair turned dark some day, she would resemble her father.

Kathleen. Richard’s child would be her only connection to him now.