The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel (25 page)

The emergency rockets being fired into the sky sent a bright red light across the ship which was now audibly creaking and groaning under the strain of the water flooding the lower compartments.

Maura Brennan stared wildly around at the unfamiliar faces emerging from the ladder behind them. ‘Maggie, where are the others? They were right behind us.’

‘
They got pushed back. I don’t know. I don’t know where they are.’ Maggie’s fear developed into gasping tears then, the enormity of what was happening suddenly hitting her. ‘I don’t know where they are, and I don’t know where Aunt Kathleen is either.’

Grabbing her arm, Harry pulled Maggie and the others he had managed to bring up the ladder towards a lifeboat. ‘It’s women and children first,’ he told them. ‘The men will follow.’

Maura Brennan grasped Harry’s arm. ‘What in God’s name d’ye mean? Can we not all go together?’

‘
Officer’s orders Miss. Women and children first.’

A terrible silence fell over the group then. Maggie looked at all their faces.

An Officer, manning the boat started shouting at them urgently. ‘Everyone in, Miss, come on, everyone in. There’s room for a few more.’

Seeing that Maura was pregnant he ushered her towards the boat, pushing Eileen and Maggie with her. A surge of passengers behind them caused them all them to be pushed forward, their legs crushed momentarily against the hard edge of the lifeboat. Some men tried to clamber aboard. A gunshot rang out. Maggie turned to see the Officer waving his gun in the air.

‘
Get back men. Get back and wait your turn.’

Amid all the confusion, Maura Brennan stood perfectly still, a determined composure and certainty about her. ‘I’ll not go.’ Maggie stared at Maura who stood at the edge of the boat. ‘I’ll not go without Jack. I will never go without Jack.’

Standing next to her, Eileen started to sob desperate tears. ‘I’ll not go either, Jack. I’ll not leave my brother standing here. I’ll not leave you to drown.’

As the women hesitated, their seats were gladly taken by others.

The Officer pushed Maggie forward. ‘Miss, one seat left, I would take it now if I were you before it’s too late.’

Maggie hesitated, looking wildly from one face to the other, at young Michael Kelly’s face streaked with tears. ‘Let the boy in,’ she said to the Officer, pushing the Kelly boy forward. ‘Let him go in this boat. He has a Mammy at home.’

‘
Women and children first Miss. He can go in the next boat.’

‘
But, I can’t go alone,’ she cried, clutching at Maura’s thin coat. ‘I can’t leave you all here. And what about the baby?’ she added, suddenly very conscious of the life growing within Maura’s belly.

‘
We’ll take the next boat Maggie. When all the women and children are on, they’ll let the men go and we will all go together. Peggy and Katie and the others will have made their way up by then and we’ll all come together. If I know your aunt Kathleen, she’ll have been helping others get onto the boats and will be on one herself by now, probably rowing the blessed thing herself if I know her at all.’

Harry moved forward. ‘Maggie, you
have
to get in. They’re starting to lower the boat.’ He stared earnestly into her tear-filled eyes. ‘Remember who’s waiting for you back home?’ he added, reminded of the message she’d been so keen to send.

Maggie relented then, unable to fight anymore; no energy left in her body to protest. She allowed Harry to lift her gently into the boat.

‘
You - Steward 23.’ Harry turned to the Officer who was addressing him. ‘Man this lifeboat and when you get on the water row away from the ship as quickly as you can. Do you understand?’

‘
Yes Sir, I understand. You’ll bring the others in the next boat, will you?’

Harry looked into the Officer’s eyes where he saw fear the like of which he had never seen before and hoped he would never see again for as long as he lived.

‘
This is the last boat,’ the Officer replied, lowering his voice. ‘There are no more.’

Climbing into the boat Harry heard the orders for the lifeboat to be lowered over the side and closed his eyes to the tragedy unfolding on the decks above them.

Maggie’s heart felt as if it had truly broken in two as she stared up at the faces of Maura, Jack, Eileen and Michael as they stood, calmly watching her, all four of them holding hands as they stood against the railings, Maura clutching her rosary. There was simply nothing anyone could say. She watched them, isolated among the chaos and despair, before their faces finally disappeared from view.

As the lifeboat jerked and jolted as it was lowered roughly down into the black ocean, something came over her. Something strong stirred within her; an incredible will to survive, to live a long and happy life.

‘
I will not die here,’ she whispered to herself, her teeth chattering with the cold which had penetrated every inch of her body. ‘Not here. Not now. I’m coming home Séamus,’ she repeated over and over again. ‘I’m coming home.’

Searching the desperate, panic-stricken faces on the decks they passed, and among the boats which were already lowered, Maggie prayed that she would see her friends or her aunt. She saw nobody she recognised.

‘
Séamus,’ she sobbed into her hands. ‘Séamus, Séamus, Séamus – I should never have left you.’

It was an old lady who placed her arm around Maggie’s shoulders, assuming that, like all the other women in the boat, she was sobbing for a man she had left behind on Titanic. ‘You have to be strong now my love. You have to believe you will see him again. If not in this life, then the next.’

Maggie stared up at the unfamiliar, wrinkled face, barely able to see through her tears. ‘But, I love him,’ she cried, clutching the woman’s frozen hands and gasping though her sobs. ‘I love him and I want to go home.’

CHAPTER
27 – County Mayo, Ireland, Monday, 15
^th
April 1912

‘
Maggie! Maggie! It’s alright. I’m coming.’

Séamus woke in a cold sweat, unsure as to whether it was his own voice he’d heard calling Maggie’s name or someone else’s. She was drowning, calling out desperately for him to help her as she slid under the water. ‘
I can’t swim
,’ she kept shouting. ‘
I can’t swim
.’

He sat up in the bed, grabbing for his pocket watch to check on the time. Lighting the lamp by his bed, he looked at the glass face. It was the early hours of the morning, just past two a.m. if his eyes weren’t deceiving him. The dream had shaken him and he got up to fetch a glass of water, looking in on his father as he passed his room. He’d taken a turn for the worse in the last few days and the doctor had told Séamus to be prepared for the worst.

He stood for a moment in the doorway, watching the frail old man’s outline until he caught the definite signs of the blanket moving slowly up and down with each laboured breath. He made his way then into the small kitchen.

‘
I can’t swim. I can’t swim
.’

The words kept replaying in his mind. He knew it was something which had troubled Maggie about the Atlantic crossing; knew that she didn’t care for the water at the best of times. His heart racing, he tried to settle back into bed, but the image of Maggie, calling for help, refused to leave him. He could see her face as clearly as if she were standing in front of him now; her small, heart-shaped face, her lustrous curls falling naturally around her face, her soft, chestnut eyes and small mouth which formed into a perfect cupid’s bow on her top lip.

Trying to put the images of the dream out of his mind, he turned to wondering whether she’d read his letters. He’d been unsure what to say when he’d first sat with the blank sheet of paper in front of him, but when his aunt Bridget had suggested that he write about what he remembered most from each month of his relationship with Maggie, the words had flowed freely, openly. There was so much he wanted to remember about his time with Maggie that he hadn’t struggled to fill the pages. But as he’d reached the final letter, the month they were in now, it had become harder to express his feelings about her going away. He knew she desperately wanted him to go with them, but it was impossible with his father sick. So he’d pondered for many nights what to say to her in that final letter, until it suddenly became very clear. How would she feel, he wondered, if she’d read those final words? Would she be pleased, or angry maybe that he’d made it impossibly difficult for her? Would she write back to him from America with an answer? Would she write back to him at all?

Lying back down on his bed, he closed his eyes and tried to push the disturbing dream from his mind. He just wanted to be with her, wanted to protect her.

For an hour he lay in the darkness, unable to shake his troubled thoughts, unable to sleep. Eventually, he got up, dressed and did what he always did when his mind was troubled, he went outside, to nature.

The pitch-black which fell across the landscape at night was always dramatic, but something which Séamus found exhilarating, the mass of Nephin Mor looming over everything as usual, its brooding silhouette just visible against the blackened sky. A light rain fell, bringing the distinctive smell of the wet, peaty earth from the ground around him. There wasn’t a sound as he walked, with a small lantern to light his way, down the narrow track which led from his father’s cottage to the Holy Well. He hadn’t intended to go there but felt somehow drawn to prayer. He knelt, crossed himself and prayed for Maggie’s good health, and for all those she was travelling with.

He sat then in silence, staring up at the stars, imagining those same stars illuminating the sky above the vast Atlantic Ocean where Maggie would be sleeping now. He closed his eyes and thought about her, willing her, wherever she was, to hear his voice. ‘I’m coming,’ he said out loud into the silent, night air. ‘I’m coming Maggie.’

As Séamus prayed alone in the all-consuming darkness, his father took a last, rasping breath and the covers on the bed were still.

New York, 15
^th
April, 1912

Catherine Kenny was glad of the spring sunshine as she made her way home from her day of work, the soft rays of light bringing some small degree of warmth against the distinct chill which still hovered above the New York skyscrapers.

As she walked down Fifth Avenue, passing elegant society ladies on their way to dinner appointments and dour domestics returning from cleaning the houses of the elegant society ladies so they could start work on their own, she caught snippets of conversation; well-dressed men in their suits and ties, discussing matters of industry and finance, the women fussing about the dreadful noise coming from the building sites nearby.

As she walked further away from the elegant avenue, she overheard the burly construction workers, shouting above the noise of their machinery, talking in a hundred different accents as they continued with the seemingly endless task of building more and more offices for the well-dressed men to occupy, going up higher and higher into the clouds above. The profound diversity and cruel contradictions of this city never ceased to both amaze and appal her.

She passed a few coins to a beggar sitting on the steps of a church, telling him strictly that he was not to buy ale. ‘Get yourself a cup of soup or some hot tea from the Army,’ she said, speaking to him quietly, yet firmly. ‘They will look after you.’

‘
God bless you Miss,’ he replied, his accent unmistakeably Irish.

It saddened her to think that his story had no doubt followed the same path as so many other Irish she had encountered since arriving on these shores herself; travelling here in search of a better life on American shores and yet life having worsened somehow by crossing the Atlantic Ocean. She sighed, and gathered her thoughts to the business in hand.

She mentally ticked things off the list in her head as she walked from the Walker-Brown home; things she needed to do in final preparation for Katie’s arrival the next day. Her anticipation at seeing her sister was heightened by the excitement there had been in the Walker-Brown household earlier, when a telegram message from Vivienne and Robert was delivered.

‘
Oh, look! It’s from the Marconi Company. It must be from Vivienne,’ Emily Walker-Brown had shrieked, bustling through the large entrance hall of their spacious apartment, the two small Pekinese dogs she kept, yapping at the hem of yet another new skirt.

Catherine was used to these showy displays from her employer and knew that she was required to continue with her dusting as if not hearing the conversation between Emily and her sister who had called in for tea, but that really much of what was said was purely for her benefit.

‘
Listen Bea,’ Emily entreated, settling herself on the edge of the chaise longue next to the large, ornate fireplace. ‘She says, ‘
Dearest Mother. Had the most wonderful dinner with Captain Smith this evening – quite the occasion altogether. Mr Astor dined with us along with his new young wife. Robert is well and Edmund is enjoying the sea air. We will arrive Tuesday! Fondest affections. Vivienne.
’ So they will arrive a day early,’ she continued, standing up and clapping her hands in glee. ‘They will arrive tomorrow! Goodness me, and there is still so much to do to prepare for their arrival.’