“Please, Faye. I know you’re sad about Rudy, but what good will it do to wait for him?” I asked. “The ship is sinking fast. You need to get to a lifeboat while they’re still here.”
“Not without him.”
“What about your mother?” I persisted. “With your father gone, you’re all she has left.”
Faye gazed down at her feet and nodded reluctantly. She still looked dejected, as she had this evening, when it became clear she wouldn’t see Rudy.
“I still have the notebook,” she said.
“Good. Hold onto it until you see Rudy again,” I replied, although that might never happen. “Now let’s get going.”
I led Celia, Sadie, and the LaRoes up the staircase to the port side of the Boat Deck, where a group of first class passengers was clustered around a lifeboat. Captain Smith was standing before it, bellowing into a megaphone as he herded women aboard.
“Any more ladies?” Captain Smith asked. There were twenty aboard, at the most.
“Right here,” I called out, then said to all four of them, “Ladies, are you ready?”
Faye nodded bravely. She took Captain Smith’s hand and stepped over the gap between the deck and the boat, being careful not to rock it. Then Mrs. LaRoe and Celia climbed in.
I was left holding Sadie.
“Are you ready to get into the boat?” I asked her. “Celia will take care of you.”
“I want to stay here with you,” she said.
“I have to get into a different boat later,” I told her again. “But for now, you have to go with Celia. Be a big girl and don’t cry.”
Sadie nodded quietly.
“This way, Miss Conkling,” Captain Smith said with a forced smile. He lifted Sadie over the gap and dropped her into the boat.
“That’s all, then?” Smith asked as he scanned the crowd of men remaining on the deck. “Lower this boat.”
I could barely stand to watch it drop away. “Goodbye, Johnny,” Sadie called up to me over the loud groan of the davits, her tiny face bewildered. At least she didn’t cry.
“Goodbye, Sadie,” I said. “See you tomorrow!”
As the boat descended past A-Deck, I spotted the top of a familiar head, standing alone on the promenade.
“There he is!” I cried to myself, as I raced down the stairs to confront him.
Charles was smoking a cigarette and watching the boats launch, looking totally calm.
“Where’s Mother?” I demanded.
“I haven’t seen her all night,” Charles said with a smirk. “But I do think she went up to the Boat Deck to hide from me. I think you know that as well as I do.”
“I’m tired of playing your little games,” I shot back. “Do you feel that slant under your feet? We’re sinking. The lifeboats are for women and children only. Neither one of us is leaving this ship, so you might as well tell me where she is.”
Charles ignored me. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes.
“Care for a smoke, John?” he asked. At that moment a low, loud groan emanated from the lower decks. “The evening’s last, it would seem.”
I could almost feel the tilt of the ship growing steeper by the moment. Although I never smoked, I reached for the cigarette.
Charles pulled out his pistol and aimed it at my stomach.
“Where’s the necklace?” he demanded.
“I don’t have it,” I replied honestly, staring at the barrel of the gun.
“I know you took it from Anton’s stateroom,” he said. “I already searched your cabin while you were down below again, cavorting with that Irish tart. What did you do with it?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have entrusted it to a man who funnels money to anarchists.”
Charles thrust his hands into my pockets, pressing the gun into me. He grew enraged as he came up empty-handed.
“Where is it?!”
Just then a crewman rounded the corner.
“What’s going on here?” he barked. “This is no time for fighting. Now go up to the Boat Deck before I throw you both overboard!” A group of crewmen followed behind him, picking up deck chairs and hurling them overboard.
I shuddered at the prospect of using them to float.
Charles stuffed his pistol back inside his jacket. “Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter where the necklace is now, does it?” he said. “As you might have guessed, I have a backup plan.”
Charles took one last puff of his cigarette and pitched it into the sea.
“But I doubt you have a plan,” he said. “You should go up top and see if you can still pass for a boy, rather than a man.”
“I would never take a seat from a woman.”
Charles laughed scornfully. “Enjoy the bottom of the ocean, John.”
And with that, he disappeared up the stairs to the Boat Deck.
Eight
The crowd of first class men around me was calm, but serious, even as the band tried to keep our spirits up with a cheerful ragtime tune.
Captain Smith was still calling out orders with his megaphone, convincing women to leave their husbands and get into the next lifeboat. This one was slightly fuller than Sadie’s boat—thirty women aboard, plus a few sailors to man the oars.
“Are there any more women?” Captain Smith called, his voice growing more and more anxious. “You, ma’am. Step this way.”
I looked over my shoulder. He was talking to the Straus couple, the elderly owners of Macy’s.
Mrs. Straus shook her head and stepped back, clasping Mr. Straus’s hand. There was a tone of finality in the old woman’s voice. “We have been living together for many years,” she said to him, “and where you go, I go.”
He gazed into her eyes for a long moment, as if he was debating whether to argue with her. Finally, he nodded, and they walked away from the boat, hand-in-hand.
At least people are starting to accept that we’re sinking, I thought grimly.
“These boats are all two-thirds empty,” a crewman said to Captain Smith. “What gives?”
The captain lifted his megaphone and turned outward to the sea.
“Boat six,” he bellowed. “Row back to the ship!”
It was Sadie’s boat. If they heard Captain Smith at all, they were ignoring his orders. Now that they were safely off the ship, what sense did it make to risk being swamped by terror-stricken swimmers?
“Boat six,” Captain Smith ordered again, “Return to the ship to take on more passengers!”
But the crewmen kept on rowing until they faded into the darkness, visible only by a single lantern.
* * *
I wondered how far the sea had risen since we’d hit the iceberg. Surely the third class men’s cabins were underwater by now, their few possessions swept into the ocean. The crew had probably pushed them back into the stern with the women.
It was time to go back to Bridget, as I’d promised.
I hurried toward the stern of the ship, past the crowds of second class passengers that were now gathering around the lifeboats.
“Swing these boats out!” one crewman called to another, as the passengers looked on anxiously.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, “where would the stewards take the third class passengers?”
“They’ll board the boats from the gangway doors,” he said.
I peered over the railing at the nearly seventy-foot drop to the water. “The gangway doors are shut,” I said.
The crewman waved me away. “I don’t have time for this,” he said, irritated. “I’ve been ordered to prepare these boats for launch, that’s all I know.”
I wondered if Bridget and the other steerage passengers were still waiting behind the locked gates. The lifeboats at the front end of the ship were mostly gone, half-filled with first class passengers; I could see their lanterns scattered around in the distance. The boats at the stern were already surrounded by second class passengers waiting to board.
If the ga
tes were still locked, the steerage passengers didn’t stand a chance.
With the lifts closed down, I would have to take the staircase to E-Deck. I went against the flow of passengers, running down flights of steps as everyone else swarmed the Boat Deck. I ignored a steward who commanded me to turn around. There were, at most, eight lifeboats left. I was determined to get Bridget to one of them.
Just like the first night I’d been down here, I could hear the steerage passengers before I could see them. But this time, it wasn’t the sound of merriment—it was fear. I immediately recognized Jim’s voice.
“Good God, man, would you open up the gate and let the girls through!” he was shouting. “You can’t keep them and their babes down here!”
Standing in front of the cast-iron gate was a man in a White Star Line uniform. On the other side was a crowd of Irish immigrants waiting on the stairs.
“You can’t go up these stairs. It’s the law,” the crewman insisted. “Now, go back to the gangway door like I told you!”
“The gangway doors are shut,” I said to him.
“Who are you and what are you doing down here?” he snarled. “Get up to the Boat Deck! It’s captain’s orders!”
“The boats are going fast,” I replied. “At least open the gate and let the women and children have a chance.”
“You don’t understand,” he replied. “If I let them through, the men will storm the boats. Look at how out-of-control they are already. I can’t be responsible for a fiasco like that.”
Bridget appeared at the top of the stairs beside Jim, her face white.
“John!” she cried. “We have to get out of here. When the boys went back to their cabins, the water was up to their shins.” She glowered at the crewman.
“Unlock the gate,” I told him again. “There are women and children down there.”
He looked at me, then back at the crowd of frantic steerage passengers.
“Fine,” he said. “But women and children only!” With one hand, he produced his keys—with the other, a pistol.
“Let John take you to a boat,” Jim said to Bridget. He shot me a look, letting me know he was entrusting his sister to me. “Oh, and take this, Conkling.”
Through the gate, he passed me the envelope with the letter.
“Thanks,” I said, and wadded it up in my pocket. What difference did it make now, anyway? Jim and I both knew we weren’t stepping foot in a lifeboat tonight.
The crewman inched the gate open just wide enough for Jim to push Bridget to the other side, before she had a chance to argue about leaving him.
“Bridget!” Mary called, pushing her way to the top of the stairs. “I’m going with you!”
The crewman grabbed Mary’s arm and pulled her through. A rush of women followed. Men passed frightened children up the stairs until they could be shoved through, along with their mothers. A young man, about Jim’s age, tried to shoulder his way out.
“I said no men!” the crewman shouted, thrusting his pistol into their faces. “Get back! Get back, I said!”
He slammed the gate shut on a gaggle of wild-eyed passengers. He frantically turned the key in the lock as they pushed forward, threatening to break it down.
We ran. The screams of the men faded into the background as we fled for the second class stairs. These decks looked like ghost towns that had been suddenly abandoned. Stateroom doors stood half-open, and forgotten luggage was strewn around the hallways.
“What’s going to happen to the boys?” Bridget asked me. “They can’t just leave them down there.”
“I don’t know,” I replied, choosing to be honest with her. “The sailors loading the lifeboats are giving priority to the women and children.”
“No way am I gettin’ in one of those boats!” Mary said. “I’m from County Roscommon, for God’s sake. I’ve never been in an open boat in my life.”
“I’m from County Galway and I’m still not getting in,” Bridget retorted.
“Well, we have some time,” Mary said. “Everyone says we can’t sink.”
The deck was humming with activity. I could barely see the lifeboats through the crowd of passengers. As the Titanic’s bow dipped lower into the ocean, people were migrating here, toward the stern.
I guided Bridget and Mary toward the boats, bumping into other passengers as the crowd tried to move about in the awkward lifebelts. I was thankful not to be wearing one.
“Get out of here, you coward!” I heard someone shout.
I pressed forward to see what was going on. It was Officer Lightoller, one of the senior officers on the Titanic, and the young Officer Lowe, tangling with a teenage boy who’d jumped into a lifeboat. Lowe grabbed the boy around the collar and dragged him to his feet.
“I give you ten seconds to get back on that ship before I blow your brains out!” Officer Lowe threatened, aiming his pistol at the boy’s head.
A little girl in the boat grabbed the sleeve of Lowe’s blue jacket. “Oh, Mr. Man,” she begged, “please don’t shoot him!” The women in the boat whimpered with fear.
Lowe and Lightoller both laughed a little.
“Come on,” Lowe said to the stowaway. “Be a man. We’ve got women and children to save here.”
The boy gave in and stepped onto the deck without a fight.
“Women and children, this way,” Lightoller commanded, by now picking up women indiscriminately and chucking them into the boat, ignoring their protests. “We’ve no time to waste.”
Mary turned to Bridget. “Should we get in?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Both of you.”
Bridget took a step backward. “Not me,” she said forcefully. “I told you three times, I’m not going.”
Mary was looking around the deck, taking in the chaos. She stared down at her feet for a few lingering seconds, noting the angle of the deck.
“Look at that slant,” she remarked soberly. “It wasn’t true what they said about the Titanic being unsinkable, was it?”
I didn’t respond. I felt a rush of guilt for assuring the girls we were safe just two hours ago.
“That’s all for this boat,” Officer Lightoller called over the commotion. “Lower away!”
“Wait!” Mary yelled out. She flailed her arms in the air to get the officers’ attention.
She turned around and gave Bridget a quick embrace. “I’m getting in,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Bridget.”
There was no time for words. Lightoller grabbed Mary and heaved her over the gap between the ship and the lifeboat. The Titanic was starting to list, leaning toward port.
“Mr. Lowe, man this boat,” Lightoller said, and the younger officer stepped in. The ropes began creaking away in the davits.
“Bridget,” Mary called up to us, “Tell Pat my lifeboat number!”
“I will, I promise!”
I didn’t know how or when we would see Mary’s brother again, but just in case, I remembered the number: fourteen.
There was a crowd of men standing around the davits, leering down at Mary’s descending boat. I could see in their faces that they were thinking about defying the officers and jumping in. If they did, they would rock the boat hard enough to throw all the women overboard. Lowe stood inside the boat, brandishing his gun at the passengers on the deck.
“Get away from the lines!” he demanded, glaring at the passengers as if they were a pack of rabid dogs waiting to pounce.
A young dark-haired man jumped. I heard the terrified screams of the women and children as the boat swung wildly.
“Get out of here!” Lowe shouted, ejecting him with all his might.
The screams were quickly followed by three loud cracks as Lowe fired his pistol into the air. A gang of men pulled the stowaway aboard and surrounded him, driving their fists into his face over and over again.
“The next man who jumps gets a bullet in him,” Lowe pronounced.
“Is anyone hurt?” a crewman called out. As far as I could see, no o
ne had been hit by Lowe’s bullets—but the shots had nevertheless sent terror rippling through the crowd.
“Everything’s turning to madness,” Bridget said. “Let’s get out of here.”
We rounded the stern of the ship, where another lifeboat was launching. I couldn’t see any more boats on deck, only their empty lines. I was running out of time to get Bridget off the ship…and to find Mother. I wondered if she’d been put into a boat already. Maybe she was rowing away from the foundering Titanic—and from Charles.
But I had a gut feeling she wasn’t safe.
“Are there any more boats left after this one?” I asked a sailor.
“Not here,” he replied, “but there are a few left all the way forward, in first class.”
The lifeboat in front of us was packed to capacity. As I watched it lower, I silently prayed that the wooden hull of the boat wouldn’t splinter. It was the only thing between these seventy women and children and the dark, freezing sea.
As the boat neared the water, screams rang out from below.
“Stop lowering number fifteen!” a crewman’s voice shouted, although nobody on deck was paying attention.
I leaned over the railing and saw that lifeboat fifteen was descending directly on top of another boat, so close the passengers could touch the bottom of it.
“The boats are about to collide!” I cried. At that moment, the first lifeboat broke away, pulling clear of number 15 just in time. One of the oarsmen had cut the ropes with a pocketknife.
“Let’s go forward,” I said to Bridget.
Before she could respond, there was more commotion on the deck.
“You’re not allowed up here!” a crewman barked. “Get back, before I shoot you all like dogs!”
A mob of men was storming the gate between the third class deck and the Boat Deck. The crewmen threatened, waved pistols in the air, and shoved; the steerage men shoved back. One tumbled down the stairs, and the others hoisted him up, helping him over the gate. There was no stopping them now. The only thing on their minds was survival.
“Conkling, give me a hand!”
I looked up to find Jim and his friends climbing up a crane from the steerage deck. I grabbed his arm, and he dropped several feet to the deck.
“Bridie, I thought you’d be long gone!” Jim said, regaining his balance. He glared at me.
“There are a few boats left in the bow,” I told him. “I can take her there.”