Titanic: The Long Night (22 page)

“Keep your eyes peeled for Eileen,” she told the children. Bridey complained that she had to go to the bathroom, and Kevin had begun a childish chant, “We’re goin’ ta sink, we’re goin’ ta sink, to the bottom of the deep blue sea,” sing-songing it over and over again until a shivering Katie thought she would lose her mind. What did he know, the wee thing, about drowning? How the black, icy water would close over your head and freeze your limbs so that even if you knew how to swim it would do you no good at all, how the frigid, salty water would fill your lungs until your chest exploded? He was only six. He knew nothing of such horrors.

And she didn’t want him to. He didn’t have to. He was wearing a life vest and there were lifeboats. She would see to it that he got into one, and Bridey, too. They’d be saved.

A crewman approached, a life vest in hand. He thrust it at Katie. “Here,” he said, “take this!”

She took it. Noticing that he wasn’t wearing one, she asked, “Is it yours, then, that you’re givin’ me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, and disappeared into the crowd.

She put it on with trembling hands.

When she finally spotted Eileen, it was purely accidental. She was looking not for Eileen at that moment, but for the girl who had worn the blue dress, the one who was being forced to leave her love and her father at the same time. Such a sad, tragic thing.

But when her gaze moved to the group waiting for lifeboat number three as it was being lowered to deck level, she spotted a froth of blond curls, a red-and-white coverlet wrapped around thin shoulders, and realized what she was looking at. Eileen, preparing to abandon the ship without a thought for her two young charges!

Before Katie could shout, Eileen, with the help of an officer, stretched her legs to step across and into the boat. It was flush with the boat deck, but hanging several feet away from the side of the ship. From where she stood, Katie could see the gap and wondered in dread how, even if Brian and Paddy suddenly appeared so they could all leave the ship together, she would ever have the courage to bridge that gap. Her legs were much shorter than Eileen’s. “It would be impossible for me to leap across, she told herself with sickening certainty. What if I fell? Even if I knew how to swim, I would certainly bash me brains out when I hit the water, fallin’ from such a great distance.

Never mind, she wasn’t ready to leave the ship yet, anyway. There were other boats. She and Paddy and Brian would leave later. Perhaps there’d be no gap then.

Eileen could not be allowed to desert the two wee ones.

Grabbing each child by the hand, Katie shouted, “Come, now, we’ve found her! There’s Eileen, in one of them boats. You run with me and well put you in with her.”

“No!” Bridey screamed, pulling back. “I gotta go to the bathroom. And I don’t like Eileen! She’s mean.”

Tightening her lips, Katie reached down and lifted the child. Bridey was heavy, and the distance across the deck to the lifeboat seemed interminable. When she got there, she hoped the pretty girl would be getting into the boat, too. Then if Eileen would have nothing to do with the children, perhaps the girl would see to them. She had a kind face, and she hadn’t wanted to be in third class that morning poking fun at them. She had to be a good-hearted person.

When Katie pushed her way through the line standing at the rail, Elizabeth recognized her as the girl who had boarded on the tender in Queenstown. But she hadn’t had any young children with her when she arrived. Elizabeth’s own terrors were momentarily put aside as she watched to see what the red-haired girl, who looked out of place in her simple, dark wool clothing in the midst of so many first-class passengers, was about to do.

“Eileen!” Katie shouted angrily, holding Bridey up in her arms. “Are you leavin’ without the children, then? And what kind of fine person does that make you? Are you ashamed of yourself, as you should be?”

Startled, Eileen slunk down in her seat.

Elizabeth thought “Eileen” looked too young to be the mother of the boy, who could be as old as five or six.

But then, a woman in the boat turned to Eileen to ask, “Are you the mother of those children?”

“No!” Eileen shouted, clutching the coverlet around her more tightly. “I’m nobody’s mother! And I never promised to care for them wee ones on a sinkin’ ship! I’ve got meself to think about.”

The words “a sinkin’ ship” shouted aloud brought shocked gasps from the crowd surrounding Elizabeth. She realized that although everyone on deck had to know by now what was happening, many had stubbornly clung to some small shred of denial. No more. The young Irish woman in the lifeboat had slapped each and every one of them in the face with the harsh, bitter truth. Some women burst into terrified tears, while others whispered softly, as if they were praying, and still others, their mouths set determinedly, began to push forward in line.

Her own mouth set with purpose, Katie turned to a crewman preparing to enter the boat. “Hand these children over to her,” she commanded. “They are in her care, and she’s the only one who knows where they belong when they get to America. ’Tis her they must be goin’ with.”

But the boat, though only half full, had already begun lowering again. The gap between the lifeboat and the
Titanic
was now not only wide, but deep.

“You
must
get these wee ones in that boat!” Katie shouted, leaning forward as far as she dared with Bridey still in her arms.

Suddenly, the tall, handsome young man who had kissed the pretty girl good-bye and was still standing with her at the rail reached out for Bridey. “Here, give her to me. I’ll put her in.”

And he did. As Elizabeth watched in horror, Max swung his longlegs over the rail so that he was hanging on the outside of the ship, clinging to the rail with his left arm only. With his right hand, he reached out for the child.

A crewman standing by warned, “Hey, you oughtn’t to be doin’ that, mister. That ain’t safe.”

Max ignored him. When his free right arm was around the child’s waist, he bent down as far as possible in an effort to deposit the little girl, now shrieking wildly, into the lifeboat.

Elizabeth pleaded, “Max, be careful!” The drop from ship to sea was a long one, and he was only holding on with one arm. The tips of his feet had found a precarious support on the edge of the deck. Not enough, Elizabeth thought, to keep him from falling if he lost his one-armed grip.

Katie understood the fear in the girl’s voice.

The woman who had asked Eileen if she was a mother jumped to her feet in the lifeboat and, standing unsteadily, reached up and out with both arms to take the child. She caught her, and Bridey’s weight sent them both slamming back down onto the wooden seat.

But the child was now safe in the lifeboat, no thanks to Eileen. Katie glared at her, but Eileen refused to meet her eyes.

Elizabeth heaved a sigh of relief and called to Max to climb back over the rail.

But Katie was unrelenting. “Now the boy!” she begged, pushing Kevin forward. He was too heavy for her. She was terrified that if she couldn’t lift him, the young man called Max wouldn’t be able to, either.

“I can do it meself!” Kevin shouted, and tried to hoist himself up on the rail, prepared to jump.

But there was that gap.

Katie gasped.

“No!” Max shouted, and reached out to grasp the boy’s hand. “I’ll swing you down. Hold on!”

Elizabeth, watching from the rail, held her breath. She was terrified for Max as he used his free arm to swing the boy out and down, until Kevin’s feet were only inches from the seats in the boat. Then he dropped him.

But he had misjudged the boy’s weight and the tremendous pull it would create. His arm began to slip from the rail. He realized instantly what was happening, and Elizabeth, watching, saw his eyes fill with dread.

Katie saw it, too, and gasped, her hands flying to her mouth.

Elizabeth reached out to grab for Max’s coat, crying out, “No, Max, no—”

And then her father was at her side, and a crewman on the other side, and all three were reaching, reaching, trying to grasp a collar, a sleeve, anything that would keep Maxwell Whittaker from falling to his death.

There was then one small, dark moment, the blackest of Elizabeth’s life, when her own hands, reaching, clutching, grasping, touched nothing but air and in her mind’s eye, she saw Max falling…falling into that deep, dark sea below.

So terrified was she that it took her another moment to realize that what she had missed, her father and the crewman had not. There were strong, determined hands gripping first Max’s coat collar, then his shoulders, holding on tightly as they pulled him backwards up, up, and over the rail.

He landed on the deck on his back.

People cheered and clapped.

Elizabeth fell to her knees beside him, unmindful of the coldness of the deck. “You’re all right?” she gasped. “You’re not hurt?”

Although his face was as gray as her coat, he managed a weak grin. “Why would I be hurt? It’s not like I fell off a stationary bicycle, like some people I could mention.”

Beginning to shake, Elizabeth sank back on her heels, while Katie sagged against the rail, her hands folded in thankful prayer. She would never have forgiven herself if the young man had fallen to his death. She leaned forward to call out to Max, “’Tis grateful to you I am, mister. And the wee ones, too. Saved them, you did. We’re all grateful.”

Nodding, he climbed shakily to his feet, helped Elizabeth to hers, and they hugged. Her parents, standing nearby, made no objection. Not that it would have mattered to Elizabeth.

The orchestra, standing near the first-class entrance, began playing “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

As if he saw that as a cue, one of the crewmen shouted, “All right, everybody, let’s get on with it, then! Lower away!”

Boat number three began creaking down the falls.

Elizabeth continued to hold onto Max as if she would never let him go. He was alive. Had he fallen, had he missed the lifeboat because of that wide gap and gone straight down to the sea, the black water would have closed over his head and she would never have seen him again.

Her relief was short-lived. Max had been saved this time. But she still had to leave him soon.

And when she did, he would be standing on the deck of a ship that was sinking into the sea.

Monday, April 15, 1912

Katie waited only long enough to make sure the young man who had saved Bridey and Kevin was safe and sound. Then she located a stewardess standing on deck with a pile of blankets in her arms and asked her, “How is it that I can get to the aft well deck? Tell me, quickly!”

“Oh, miss,” the stewardess answered, “you don’t be wantin’ to go all the way aft. The lifeboats is up here, both port and starboard.” She lowered her voice, adding, “I hear we’re sinkin’ fast. They haven’t told no one ’cause they’re feared of a panic. But it’s true. You’d best be gettin’ in a boat, not runnin’ around the ship. I’m to be puttin’ these blankets in the lifeboats but,” her voice dropping almost to a whisper, “these here blankets won’t help much out there on the sea, and that’s the truth of it.”

Although the horror of what the woman had said chilled Katie to the core, she argued, “I can’t go yet. There’s somethin’ I must do first. I canna leave without my friends.”

The girl shrugged. “Suit yourself. Just go down to A deck by the stairs over there.” She pointed. “Then go aft until you find a door that’ll take you outside so’s you can look down upon the well deck. But”—she shook her head as she turned to leave—“it’s foolish you’re bein’. If I wasn’t a stewardess, I’d be in one of them boats this very minute.”

Katie was startled. “What’s that you’re sayin’? Stewardesses don’t get to go in a lifeboat? But I saw one, in a uniform, in one of the boats already on the sea. Number five, the officer said it was.”

The girl shrugged. “’Twasn’t me, that’s all I know. Passengers get first crack at the boats, especially first- and second-class passengers. That’s the way of it. But it don’t matter. There’s a coupla ships comin’ to get us. Won’t be as grand as the
Titanic
, of course, but beggars can’t be choosers. Good luck finding your friends.”

Katie nodded and hurried away. The ship really was sinking. Still, the stewardess had said there were rescue ships on the way. And at least she knew the wee ones were already safe in a boat. If Eileen didn’t take care of them, one of the other women would.

The tilt as Katie made her way aft was more noticeable, except that now it was uphill. Like when she was walking to church in Ballyford on a Sunday morning. A strong ache of homesickness seized her. The stewardess had to be right about the rescue ships comin’ along quickly, because she couldn’t bear thinking of the pain her family would suffer if she drowned in the Atlantic Ocean.

In spite of the now obvious tilt to the ship, Katie passed people in the corridors who showed not a trace of alarm. A pair of young men who had clearly had too much to drink and were leaning on each other for support called out as she passed, “Hello, there, pretty thing, what’s your hurry?” A handsomely dressed couple holding hands passed by, glancing in disdain at the young men’s drunken behavior. But the couple, too, gave no sign of alarm, and seemed in no hurry. An elderly man in a tuxedo ambled along the hallway with the help of a cane. He smiled at Katie as if they were both simply out for a leisurely stroll.

They’re only like that, Katie thought as she hurried along looking for an exit, ’cause they don’t know yet. When they do, they’ll be as afeared as everyone else.

The first two doors she found provided no view of the well deck, so she kept going. When she finally found an open door that was far enough aft, she was once again repelled by sudden, icy cold as she stepped outside. Inside the ship, where it was warm, she’d forgotten how low the temperature outside had dropped.

Clutching her coat around her, Katie stepped to the rail with a sense of urgency and looked down. People were milling about below her, their belongings piled at their feet. Some sat on their baggage, as if to protect it, while others stood in small clusters, conversing anxiously. While most of the younger children were playing, shouting and laughing as if they were in a park on a warm summer’s day, there was a perceptible air of bewilderment about the adults. If they knew what was happening, it seemed clear to Katie that they didn’t know what to do about it. And she saw no sign of anyone in authority telling them what course of action to take.