Titanic: April 1912 (8 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Both Gavin and Wallace had been standing near the rail when Second Officer Lightoller had unholstered his gun. Crewmen had linked arms in case the crowd surged forward, trying to board the Engelhardt boat. The collapsible canvas vessel had been hooked up to the same set of davits that had launched wooden lifeboat number two. Gavin was still scanning the crowd for Karolina's aunt, but he had nearly lost hope of seeing a red rose tucked into a hatband.

“Women, come forward!” Lightoller shouted.

Gavin saw an elderly lady and a young girl work their way out of the crowd. They were well dressed. He thought about the women he had seen in third class, dragging their trunks up the stairs. Where were they? Most of this crowd was from second and first class, he was sure.

The lifeboat was lowered slowly, and Gavin watched it ease toward the water. It was more than half full—but there were empty seats on the benches. He could hear a woman's voice talking loudly, insistently, but he couldn't make out her words.

As the boat was lowered past A-deck, Gavin heard a man's shout, then saw him leaping out to land headfirst in the collapsible. A second later another man leaped for safety, but he was less lucky and almost fell into the ocean, hanging on with one hand. The first man scrambled to his feet in time to pull his companion aboard. All around Gavin, ­people were fighting the slope of the deck. The crowd was scattering. He searched one last time for Harry, then lowered his eyes to the water again.

The canvas boat touched the sea, and the officer in charge was screaming for everyone to fix oars and row away. At that instant, there was an awful groaning sound, as if a giant voice deep within the ship was crying out for help. The pitch of the deck was now so steep that Gavin could only battle his way aft a few inches at a time, dragging himself upward, away from the rising water.

“Gavin!'' Wallace screamed.

Gavin turned to look at him. Wallace clutched the bag tightly in one hand and was barely managing to hang on with the other. “Let go of it, you fool!” Gavin shouted.

Wallace seemed not to hear him. He slipped, falling, then skidded toward the bow, tumbling over and over, scrabbling at the deck with his free hand as he slid downward. Gavin saw the bag open as Wallace rolled over once more, his arms spread wide. Silver dishes, trays, and spoons scattered across the slanting deck as Wallace screamed, falling the last fifteen feet into the water. Without a life belt, he sank almost instantly, the silver splashing into the sea after him.

Gavin wrenched around to face the stern. It was rising higher and higher, like a monster out of the sea. His breath was coming in ragged gasps as he tried to claw his way upward, away from the swirling black water.

The stern of the ship was outlined against the starry sky, and Gavin stared into the glittering night for a second, hearing the anguished screams all around him. There was a crashing roar from inside the ship, and he knew that in seconds it would sink.

He managed to drag himself forward. He grabbed the metal stanchion that held the arcing gooseneck of one lifeboat davit, then crawled, stretching to reach the next one.

Using the stanchions, Gavin worked his way upward, glancing back over his shoulder to see the dark water below him. A deck chair struck his shoulder on its way past, and he cried out, flinching, a white-hot pain in his shoulder.

Above him, the cries of terrified people mixed with the crashing sounds from inside the ship and the shrieking of stressed steel. Gavin's eyes stung from salt spray, and his hands were so cold that he could barely hold on, but still he struggled upward, ignoring the ache in his shoulder.

Gavin did not want to die. He could hear his heart hammering in rhythm with his frantic thoughts. When the ship went down, it would carry everyone still on it down with it, of that much he was sure. Somehow, he had to free himself from the
Titanic
's enormous grasp.

Summoning all of his courage and all his remaining strength, Gavin braced his feet, then let go of the davit stanchion and sprang outward, flinging himself into a clumsy dive. For an instant, he could see a green flare going up from one of the lifeboats. It was too far away. They were probably all too far away.

The shock of the freezing water forced the breath from his body, and he fought to swim, praying that he was swimming in the right direction. Beneath the surface of the black water, there was no way to tell right from left, or even up from down. A roiling current swept over him and dragged him along with it.

He fought the rushing water, the cold seeping through every inch of his skin. He was being pulled by the downward plunge of the
Titanic
, he was almost sure. Unable to see, breathe, even to think, he kept struggling, kept swimming.

After what seemed like a black eternity, he felt himself emerge from the heaviness of the water into the knife-sharp cold of the night air. Gasping and choking, he cleared his eyes of stinging saltwater, trying to see the ship.

A streaming shower of sparks above his head startled and horrified him. The foremost funnel had fallen free and was crashing into the sea. It was so close that he felt the water lift him as the ring-shaped waves expanded around the place where the funnel had landed.

Just beyond the funnel, he saw the stern of the
Titanic
suddenly sliding downward. The rows of lights flickered as the sea covered them. The dark water swallowed everything—the shining leaded windows, the towering funnels, and the hopeless cries of the people still aboard. Gavin had time to stare at the suddenly empty ocean. Then the surging water pulled him under once more.

Gavin managed to drag in a breath before the icy water closed over his head. He didn't go straight down this time. Instead, he found himself spinning, caught in a fantastic, eddying current. He fought to free himself from the swirling tentacles of water, but this time his strength was waning. Finally, almost exhausted, he felt the ocean calming, releasing him.

He managed to break the surface at last, gasping for air again. He tipped his head to let the water drain from his ears, and raked his hair back out of his eyes, dragging in one jagged breath, then another.

Across the ink-dark ocean, Gavin heard a nightmarish screaming, the joined misery and fear of hundreds of voices. How many were in the icy water? How long would it take for the boats that had launched half full to go back for them? He spit out a mouthful of saltwater, straining to see in the darkness.

Without meaning to, he shouted, knowing that the lifeboats were too far away for anyone to hear him. Gavin fought to keep his head above the surface as he listened to the awful screaming. His legs and arms seemed heavy, clumsy. He was so cold.

“Let go before you swamp us, you idiot!”

The voice was so distinct, so clear, that Gavin jumped as though someone had touched him. He turned in the water. Which direction had the voice come from? He waited what seemed like hours before he heard more.

“Careful, Mr. Gracie, that's my foot.”

Gavin's heart swelled with hope at the argumentative tone in the voice. These men didn't sound like they were drowning; they didn't sound afraid. Gavin began to swim.

The water was littered with wreckage. Gavin passed other swimmers, some of them using deck chairs for floats. One man lay flat on a door, paddling with his hands. Gavin swam past them all, stubbornly following the direction the voice had come from.

When he first saw the boat looming out of the darkness, Gavin had to squint, then blink, trying to make sense out of what he was seeing. He was almost alongside before he realized that the boat, one of the collapsibles, was overturned. Sitting, standing, kneeling, men were clinging to it, struggling to stay afloat any way they could.

“Is there room for one more?” Gavin called out, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice.

There was a silence. Then a man yelled back, “Sure, boy. Come on up.”

Gavin swam close to the cork fender of the lifeboat, relieved when three or four men reached down to haul him up out of the water. He lay down, face-first, shaking and coughing for a long time.

Lying still, Gavin felt the boat tilt a little as a few more men were dragged onto the awkward, overturned canvas hull. Finally, he heard the men around him explaining to swimmers that there was no more room—that they could not come aboard. Shivering and weak, Gavin sat up. He heard someone giving orders. Using splintered boards and pieces of deck chairs, the men were trying to move the overturned boat out of the reach of the desperate swimmers.

“Hold on to what you have, old boy,” someone called out apologetically. “One more aboard will sink us all.”

Gavin heard the answer from the swimmer. “All right, boys. Good luck and God bless you.”

Gavin felt tears, unexpectedly hot, rising to fill his eyes. He could see a number of men in the water close to the boat, but the makeshift paddles were leaving them behind. Too exhausted to do more than cry, Gavin leaned to one side. The men around him had moved into the space where he had been lying down. He rested his arms on his knees and tried to weep quietly.

“This one is dead,” Gavin heard someone say softly from the other side of the lifeboat. “He was in the water too long.”

“Slide him off if you're sure,” a voice answered. There was a small splash, then silence.

Gavin closed his eyes and prayed.

Chapter Fourteen

After an eternity, the screaming stopped and the ocean was silent and empty. Karolina stared out into the moonless night, longing for the warm amber lights of the ship. The people around her had stopped praying. They had stopped talking. Almost everyone sat hunched against the incessant cold. Not even the intermittent flares from the other lifeboats made them look up anymore. Karolina's skirt had gotten wet somehow, and she could feel the cloth stiffening as it froze.

“What was that?”

Karolina didn't bother to open her eyes, but she listened for the answer.

“Maybe it was thunder.”

Karolina felt her heart shrink a little smaller. A storm was coming?

“Look at that! It's a light.” Then the voice quieted. “Maybe it's just a star.”

“No,” the woman who sat next to Karolina disagreed. “It is a light.”

Karolina sat up straight, following the woman's gesture. Another lifeboat? They had seen one or two with dim little lanterns. As she watched, a second light appeared, then a third. This one was smaller—it was
green.

The booming sound came again, and everyone in the boat stirred, trying to see. “That's a cannon,” one of the crewmen said in a prayerful voice. “It's a ship. We're saved.”

Karolina strained to see the lights. Within a few minutes, it was easy to see the lighted outline of the big steamer that came toward them—and the flaring rockets fired from its deck. It slowed as it got closer. Officer Boxhall sent up a green rocket, and the steamer came straight for them.

“Shut down your engines and take us aboard,” Officer Boxhall shouted out as it got close. “I have only one sailor.”

“All right,” came the response from the ship.

Karolina sat still, fighting the urge to laugh aloud, to burst into tears. Why hadn't they come sooner?

“The
Titanic
has gone down with everyone onboard,” a woman called out to the ship, and Officer Boxhall told her to be silent. Then they began the process of coming alongside.

It took a long time to maneuver close to the ship. Once their boat was in position, the crew above took over. They extended a rope ladder, then another long rope that was fashioned into a rough sling.

Karolina sat shivering as, one by one, they were brought up the ladder. The woman in front of her slipped and dangled for a moment over the icy water. Then the crew above hauled on the safety line and brought her aboard.

Karolina tried to climb the ladder when it was her turn, but her hands were so numb with cold that her fingers wouldn't open. A sailor helped her untie the rope harness.

“Welcome to the
Carpathia
, Miss,” he said politely. “There is hot soup and coffee in the dining room.” He pointed, and Karolina started away from him, the two words floating like dreams in her mind. Coffee. Soup. She heard a cry and glanced back, still walking in tiny, stiff-kneed steps. A woman had fallen onto the deck. Karolina saw two crewmen pick her up, heard a man giving orders. Then the lights of the dining room engulfed her, and she went inside.

Half an hour later, Karolina stood where she could see the ladder, her hands wrapped around a mug of broth. Trembling, she waited, staring eagerly at every pale survivor. When Aunt Rose was helped aboard, Karolina cried out and dropped the mug, running forward.

“You're all right,” Aunt Rose sobbed, reaching out to gather Karolina in her arms. “They told me to get on, that there would be room for everyone. And I believed them.” She held Karolina at arm's length, her eyes streaming with tears. “Then we saw how many were left on the deck. I thought you—”

“I'm fine,” Karolina assured her. “I was afraid for you.”

Aunt Rose was shuddering with cold as Karolina led her toward the dining room. Once her aunt had been settled in a warm chair and wrapped with blankets, Karolina went back up on deck.

The
Carpathia
was not small, but it seemed tiny compared to the
Titanic.
As survivors were brought aboard, the decks became crowded. Heading back toward the bow, Karolina saw Emily. Both her children were all right, but her own face was deathly pale. Karolina embraced Emily, then let the women surrounding her lead her off for soup and rest.

Grimly, Karolina pushed back through the crowd. It was beginning to get light now, and when she got to the rail and could see out across the water, she caught her breath. It was beautiful. The dark blue water was studded with icebergs as far as she could see. Some were very small. Others towered above the surface. The rising sun stained them muted blues and roses. She could see only two lifeboats still on the water.

• • •

Gavin tried to keep moving, tried to battle the creeping numbness in his feet and legs. They had lost two more men to the cold. Second Officer Lightoller had decided to keep these two bodies with them.

Gavin tried not to let his thoughts wander too far. Images of his mother kept drifting into his mind, and of his brothers and sisters. Conor would be devastated if Gavin died trying to come to America. It had been Conor's idea, after all. He kept thinking about Karolina, too. Was she as sick with cold and despair as he was? Had her boat made it away, or been caught in the ugly currents that had pulled him under? He hadn't even asked her if she could swim.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the ­little boat they had clung to started to sink. Officer Lightoller explained that the canvas was leaking after so long in the water. Gavin, who had begun to think that he would live, decided once more that he was probably going to die.

Lightoller snapped at them. “All right, boys, all together. Boat ahoy!” He paused, then counted to three. “Boat AHOY!” they all shouted. He counted once more, and they shouted out the words in unison, louder. “BOAT AHOY!”

There was no response. Later that endless night, a little swell rocked the boat. Some of the air trapped beneath it escaped, and it sank a little lower in the water.

“Stand up,” Lightoller instructed them. “And do exactly as I say, or we'll capsize.”

Gavin got unsteadily to his feet. Several of the men swayed, but managed to stay upright. “Form two lines,” Lightoller ordered them. For the next eternity, they leaned first one way, then the other, following Lightoller's instructions, barely managing to keep their upside-down craft afloat.

When the sky finally lightened, someone spotted four lifeboats lashed together, not too far off. Lightoller pulled a whistle from his pocket and managed to signal them.

Gavin ended up in lifeboat number twelve. It was packed, but he welcomed the warmth of the other bodies. Lightoller had taken over command of this boat, and Gavin wanted to tell everyone that he was a good leader, that they'd had a much better chance with him aboard than they'd had before. But somehow, he had no strength to talk.

“There's a ship!” Gavin heard someone whisper as the dawn lightened the sky. A few minutes later, they all knew it was true.

Gavin felt a foggy sleep tugging at his mind and he barely heard Lightoller ordering people to stand in the stern—in order to raise the bow. As the men made their way aft, Gavin looked over the side of the boat. There were so many aboard that the bow was just inches above the waterline.

They rowed slowly toward the ship. Twice, waves broke over their bow, and the boat nearly foundered. Gavin helped bail with his hands, his fingers stiff and painful. He prayed almost constantly. He wasn't sure he'd be able to swim at all if he were dumped into the ocean now.

The ship had rope ladders hanging over the side. Her name was painted in bold letters.
CARPATHIA
. Gavin stared at the word. The name meant nothing to him, but it was the most lovely and graceful ship he had ever seen. Its bulk protected their little boat from the rising waves, and they made fast alongside.

Gavin needed a hand climbing the ladder, but once he was aboard, he waved off the people who seemed so eager to help him. He blinked his aching eyes. The sun seemed too bright, painful.

“There's food and blankets down that way,” a man said, pointing. Gavin nodded gratefully and began to walk. His legs and feet were cramped, like unwieldy stilts made of wood.

“Gavin!”

At first he was afraid that he had imagined her voice. But when he turned, he saw Karolina's smiling face. Tears ran down her cheeks as she came toward him. She hugged him carefully, as though she knew just how unsteady he felt.

Karolina took his hand and gently led him along. “You need something warm to eat, and some sleep.” She smiled at him again. “Aunt Rose made it through. Emily is sick, but the doctor says she'll recover. Her children are fine.”

“Lionel?” Gavin managed to mumble. Even his voice seemed frozen and brittle.

Karolina shook her head, looking down. “I haven't seen him.”

Gavin almost stumbled, then he caught himself and managed to smile at her, his face aching with cold. Lionel had saved his life. He had probably saved a lot of people's lives. Had Harry made it? He clung to the hope that he would see at least one of his friends again.

“I still have your photograph,” Karolina said. “Now you can give it to Conor yourself.”

Gavin looked past her, out over the open water. For a second, he wasn't sure what was missing, but he knew that something was. Then he understood. The fear. He wasn't afraid of the water anymore. He knew more about how dangerous it could be than he wanted to know. But the blind terror was gone. In its place was a hollow ache. So many had died.

“We were lucky,” Karolina said quietly.

He could only nod.