Carpathia (3 page)

  By the time the captain reached the bridge, his first officer had already gotten the
Carpathia
moving in the right direction. "Report, Mr Brooks," Captain Rostron said.

  "We're underway and already up to fourteen knots, sir."

  Rostron frowned. "And how far out from the
Titanic
are we?"

  "Less than sixty miles, sir."

  Rostron did the math in his head. "We need more speed. At that rate, we won't reach them for five hours."

  "Can't
Titanic
hold on for that long, sir?" Brooks said. "She's supposed to be unsinkable."

  "I'm afraid the only things unsinkable around here are the icebergs, Mr Brooks. If
Titanic
is as wounded as her radioman claims, they won't last five hours for sure. Tell the engine room to cut the steam to everything but the engines."

  "Including the heat in the rooms, sir? Won't the passengers complain?"

  "They'll still be warmer than any of the blessed souls who wind up out there in the drink tonight. Tell the chief engineer: divert all available power to the engines. Squeeze every damn bit of speed out that our fine lady here can spare."

  "Aye, captain." Brooks ran off to execute Rostron's orders.

  "Mr Crooker and Mr Blum," Rostron said to his second and third officers. "We're about to take on more visitors than our ship should rightly hold. We need to make the best use of the next few hours to get
Carpathia
in shape to greet them."

  "Aye, captain," the two men said in unison.

  "Mr Crooker: get our own lifeboats out on their davits, ready to put to sea. There's no telling how many people we might have to fish out of the water, and it'll give us more room on our decks at the very least. While you're at it, open all the gangway doors so we can take in our guests no matter from which angle they arrive.

  "Ready the rope ladders for each of those doors. Get some cargo netting secured too. Some of the older passengers might not be able to make the climb on their own."

  "What about any children, sir?" Crooker said. "They'd slip right through the ropes."

  "Good point. Gather some empty mail sacks for them. Dump out the mail if you have to. We can secure them with ropes and bring the little ones up that way if need be."

  He turned to Blum. "Gather the pursers and stewards and fill them in on our situation. Have them get every room on the ship ready. We may have to double or triple up to fit everyone in."

  Blum's eyes widened as he absorbed the enormity of what they were facing. "Can we get beds ready in the middle of the night for several thousand people in just five hours, sir?"

  "I certainly hope so, Mr Blum. If our engineer does his job, we might be there in less than four. I also want blankets and hot soup and drinks ready, so alert the kitchens. Get Doctor Griffiths to set up a sickbay in the first class dining room."

  "He should know if we have any other physicians on board, I'd think," Blum said. "If so, maybe they can help."

  "Excellent point. If that's the case, set them up in the second and third class dining rooms as well. Also, be sure to have the stewards get the names of our guests as they assign them to rooms. We should keep them apart from our current passengers as much as we can. We don't want to lose anyone we bring on board, and having to shuffle through everyone to make sure they're taken care of will only slow things down."

  "Yes, sir." Blum swallowed hard at the list of monumental tasks the captain had entrusted him with.

  "Don't look so shocked. Grab anyone else you can to lend a hand. Wake everyone up. We need all hands for this. Now get to it!"

  "Aye, captain." Blum sprinted off toward the head steward's cabin to set to work.

  Rostron glanced over at his third officer, who had the wheel. "Steady as she goes, Mr Shubert," he said.

  "Aye, sir." The bearded man had a look of grim determination in his eyes, as if he could make the ship go faster by concentrating on it as hard as he could.

  "Mr McPherson?"

  The fourth officer, a tall Canadian with a gentle accent, stepped forward. "Aye, sir."

  "Gather as many binoculars as you can find – ask the men to haul out their own if they have them – and set watches all around the ship. Turn on every damn light you can find too. We want to see those people out there, and we want them to see us coming too.

  "Tell the men to keep an eye out for bergs and to not be shy about reporting them in right away. The ice has already taken down one great ship tonight, and in a few moments we'll be moving faster than this ship was ever designed to go. Let's not be so foolhardy as to believe it might not be able to mortally wound us as well."

  "Very wise, captain," McPherson said. With that, he trotted out of the room, leaving Rostron alone with Shubert at the wheel.

  Rostron strode toward the front of the bridge and held onto the rail that ran under the windows as he stared out into the inky darkness beyond the nimbus of light that surrounded the ship. No moon sailed across the cloudless sky tonight, just a sparkling scattering of stars that provided too little illumination.

  Rostron had gone to sea at the age of sixteen, and at the age of forty-two, he'd spent more time on the ocean than he cared to think about. But he'd spent precious little time
in
it. He thought about being caught out there in the dark, floating in the icy black ocean with nothing more than a lifejacket to keep himself afloat, waiting for help to arrive while the freezing waters leeched every bit of warmth out of him with each passing second.

  "Hold on out there, young lady," he whispered to the
Titanic
. "Just hold on as long as you can."

 
 

 
 
 

"I'm not going," Lucy said. "Not without the two of you." She stuck out her chin in a way that Quin knew meant she'd made up her mind and wasn't about to let anyone or anything change it.

  The band, which had set up in the reopened First Class Lounge, played a lively ragtime tune as people milled about in the chilly air on Deck A, some of them ducking in and out of the lounge to keep warm while they waited for news of the
Titanic
's fate and what part they might play in it. Many of them hadn't taken the time to dress properly and wore little more than a coat tossed on over their nightclothes. Others, like Lucy and the boys, were still in their dinner clothes, never having resigned themselves to preparing for a solid night's sleep. Nobody seemed particularly concerned by events. It was more like a pleasant diversion had been arranged, an added event to the evening's programme.

  While the ship had been moving, there had always been some kind of breeze on the promenade, but with the ship stalled in the freezing waters, Quin realized that the air wasn't moving at all. If it had, he was sure it would have bit into him like a polar bear, raw, fast, and savage. Instead, it seemed to nibble at him like an illness, eating away at the warmth he'd brought out into the world with him. He had no doubt which side would eventually win that battle. Without respite, the chill would consume them all.

  "Lucy, dear," Abe said. "When the captain says, 'Women and children first,' I'm afraid he's serious. Despite what you might think of us in your darker moments, Quin and I don't qualify."

  "No one else is leaving the ship." Lucy gestured to a lifeboat being rowed away from the
Titanic
on the glassy water, the few people on board pulling at three sets of oars in unison to a beat a sailor in the prow called out. It looked so tiny compared to the great ship, but it had to be large enough to hold dozens of desperate souls. "Only a bunch of worried old ladies and women with babies still on their hips." She put her hands on her hips for emphasis and squared off against her friends. "I'm certain you're not implying I'm such a person who cannot fend for herself."

  "You wouldn't go on the first lifeboat," Quin said. "You said you'd wait for the next one." He gestured to Lifeboat 6 as it hung alongside the railing from its davit on the ship's port side. "That's the third one there, and there's plenty of room on it. What's keeping you?"

  Lucy threw up her hands and let out an exasperated sigh. The fog of her breath hung around her like a halo, glowing in the lights. "I'd rather not freeze my boots off out there while we wait for the captain to give the all-clear signal and send us back to our cabins. This is a useless exercise, and I don't want to take any part in it."

  "Come now," Abe said. "Just think of the story you'll have when we reach New York. You'll be the toast of Manhattan society, the woman who braved the icy waters of the Atlantic while the rest of us cowards huddled here on the ship's deck, too fearful to join you in your grand adventure."

  Lucy squinted an eye at Abe. "Abraham Holmwood, don't you think I don't know exactly what you're trying to do here. I'm insulted that you'd think I'd fall for such a transparent appeal to my independent spirit."

  Strains of "In the Shadows" streamed out from the nearby lounge as a group of women emerged from the bustle of activity and strode toward the lifeboat. Quin recognized the person in the lead, a lady with whom Lucy had chatted during dinner the night before.

  "Mrs Brown," Quin said to the vibrant, middle-aged woman as she strode forward, bundled in her massive furs against the cold, "could you do me a singular favor?"

  The woman gave him a hesitant smile. "You know, Quin, there's nothing I wouldn't normally like to do for a handsome young fellow like yourself, but as you can see I have someplace I have to be at the moment, which doesn't give me much time."

  "Mrs Brown." Abe stepped between the woman and the boat. Over his shoulder, Quin could see Lucy screwing up her lips in either determination or dismay or some odd combination of both. She knew what they were up to already, but there was little she could do to stop it."

  "Maggie," the woman said, placing a hand on Abe's arm. "Told you kids last night, it's always Maggie to my friends."

  "Forgive me. Maggie," Quin began again, "we hoped that you might be able to talk some sense into our lovely Lucy here. She's decided to disobey the captain's own orders so she can stay here and go down with the rest of us."

  "No one's going to die here tonight." Mrs Brown blushed with embarrassment as she spoke. "And even if the ship does go down, does it hardly seem right for me to take advantage of the way men treat women in modern society when I've been railing against it for so long?"

  Quin turned to Maggie. "I don't know, Mrs… Maggie. You're a suffragette yourself, aren't you?"

  "Well, of course, I am!" Maggie gave Quin the kind of proud glare that dared him to call her a liar. "I even ran for the US Senate a few years back. I figure we ladies have to go out and grab our rights if no one's going to give them to us."

  Quin flashed her an agreeable smile. "That's one of the reasons our Lucy here holds you in such high regard. And yet, despite your dedication toward equality for women, you're heading for this lifeboat, aren't you?"

  Maggie's tongue caught in her mouth when she realized where Quin had led her. She closed her lips and narrowed her eyes at the young man. "There's a time and place for everything, my friend, and even the rats know you can't argue with the water on a sinking ship."

  Lucy stepped around Abe to take Maggie by the hands. "But if we're not willing to make a stand when it's important, why should anyone be willing to listen to us at any other time?"

  Maggie reached out and chuckled at Lucy as she patted her on the cheek. "You make an excellent point," she said. "I look forward to the day women are treated as equals to men as much as anyone, but I don't see the point in taking a fatal stand. Nobody listens to the voices that quit speaking, and I for one would like to survive long enough to take advantage of all our hard work as suffragettes."

  "Ladies!" One of the ship's officers called to Maggie and the women who'd accompanied her from the lounge. "You must board the lifeboat now! We have no time to waste."

  The other women behind Maggie moved around her, their husbands escorting them to the wooden boat beyond Abe. They ranged in age from a young woman saying goodbye to her fiancée to a gray-haired woman who could have been Quin's grandmother. A few of them, like Maggie, were alone. Others traveled with their maids. One and all, men and women, every one of them carried fear in their eyes, and in many cases this emotion had brimmed over into tears.

  "It's only for a little while, darling," one of the men said to the youngest woman. She clung to his coat as if she knew she would never see him again. He held her close and whispered soft nothings into her ear until the officer called out to them.

  "I'm lowering this lifeboat down now," he said. "If you want to be on it, you must board immediately."

  "That's our cue, honey," Maggie said to Lucy. She turned to gaze up at the great ship's four massive funnels stretching toward the sky. While the ship had come to a halt, its engines still thrummed. "Come with us, gal. You never know when you'll get another chance to ride on a tiny boat in the middle of the Atlantic. We'll be like Vikings."

  Lucy allowed herself a thin smile at that, but then she turned to Abe and Quin. "But what about you two?"

  Quin knew what she really meant by that: "What about Abe?" While she may have stolen both boys' hearts, she'd only shown any love for him, and that fact made his heart feel like it was sinking faster than the ship.

  Quin had long held out hope that Abe would tire of Lucy someday, the way he had done with all of the other girls he'd dated. Then Quin could step in and finally let her know how he felt about her. He'd already kicked himself a thousand times for not having ginned up the guts to do so before Abe began his pursuit of her, but once his best friend had gone after her, he hadn't seen a way to stand between them – at least not any way that jibed with his sensibilities as a gentleman.