Every Man for Himself (18 page)

‘I’ve forgotten it,’ she answered graciously. ‘As must you. By the way, your dressing-gown is being laundered. You shall have it tomorrow.’

The soup was being served when Rosenfelder’s moment came. Several times I’d glimpsed his tubby countenance at the glass, anxiously peering to see if the dining room was full. He’d obviously squared it with the orchestra and arranged some kind of signal, for suddenly the waltz song from
The Merry Widow
petered out and the pianist thumped a cadenza. Conversation straggled to a halt. Lady Duff Gordon rose to her feet and pointed with her fan towards the doors, at which the violinist raised his bow and the haunting opening notes of ‘One Fine Day’ stole through the hushed saloon. Adele entered on the arm of Rosenfelder.

It doesn’t matter that I’m not qualified to judge what she wore or that I couldn’t even describe it adequately – none of us men could, beyond it was shaped like an hour-glass and made of some kind of silk that picked up points of dancing light – for Adele and the dress were one, and as she advanced, the splendid column of her neck circled with borrowed diamonds, those pearl-pale eyes with their strange expression of exaltation fixed straight ahead, we held our breath in the presence of a goddess. For a fleeting instant I saw her as Joan of Arc prepared for battle, the bodice of her generous bosom sheathed in silver. A little flood of material swished behind her as she marched; flipping it expertly to one side she rounded the Duff Gordons’ table and stood waiting to be seated. It was Mr Harris, not Rosenfelder, who pulled out her chair.

I was pleased for the tailor; he was not just a flash in the pan. Nor was Adele. The two would rise together. There were some, Hopper for one, who thought the whole caboodle smacked of vulgarity. Nor could he think what we saw in Adele. She was pretty enough, but far too tall for a woman. And where the devil did she go to after her spectacular appearances?

‘No, she wouldn’t do for you,’ drawled Wallis. ‘But then, you’re on the small side, aren’t you?’

The dinner dragged on. If anything, not drinking was having an hallucinatory effect on me. I had the curious impression I was part of a group seen from without. I had to go on eating because if I looked up I might see faces pressed to the window, hands clawing the glass. The noise too was outside, a dull intermingle of shrieking voices and clattering china. And there was another sound, a high-pitched whistle such as the sand at Singing Beach gave off when stepped upon. I turned, opened my mouth to tell Molly Dodge I thought of the North Shore near her home, but she wasn’t there. Ginsberg was slicing a peach in two, preparing to gouge out the stone with his knife. He glanced up and the reflection of the candles leapt in his eyes. The table tilted. The next thing I remember I was in the outer room, crouched on a wicker chair, Hopper pushing my head down between my knees, a lump of ice melting on the back of my neck.

Ida said it was the heat. All the windows were tightly closed because of the intense cold outside. She tugged my head up and prised out the stud of my collar. I jerked like a rabbit in a trap as the sliver of ice slid further down my spine. Hopper was worried about the clout he’d dealt me with his racquet. In Melchett’s opinion it was a delayed reaction to my excessive drinking of the night before; judging by the disdainful glance bestowed on me by Mrs Carter, just then leaving the restaurant with Mrs Brown, it could be reckoned I was in the middle of a repeat performance. That good old sport Mrs Brown winked as she passed by.

I recovered quickly enough, physically, that is, feeling no longer sick and being quite steady on my feet. Mentally, something was wrong. As I walked to the smoke-room, Hopper and Melchett at either elbow and Ida faffing along behind in case I took another turn, I distinctly heard voices uttering sentences that didn’t finish.
An hour and a half. Possibly . . . Hadn’t we better cancel that . . . As we have lived, so will we . . . If you’ll get the hell out of the
 . . . I shook my head to get rid of them and they trailed off like mist pushed by the wind. Once in the smoke-room, Hopper urged me to down a small measure of medicinal brandy, which made me shudder. As soon as I could I got away from him, insisting I needed to go out on deck, alone. I promised I’d be back in a jiff, and if I wasn’t he should come in search of me.

He was right about the cold; the air stung my lungs. I was about to dodge back inside when I saw Riley sauntering towards the companionway up to the officers’ house. I called out his name, clapping my hands together to keep them warm. When he’d come close enough, I said, ‘Look here, I want to explain myself.’

‘Is that so?’ he replied. ‘And why would that be?’ He stood there, his face sinister in the lantern light, breath steaming.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, and I wasn’t. ‘Something bothers me. Can’t we talk?’

He said, ‘That we can’t, sir. Piss off,’ and with that he turned his back on me, cool as you please. I was astounded at his insolence.

Melchett, Hopper and I played bridge later on, Ginsberg making up a fourth. We were mostly abstemious because Astor was sitting at the next table with Archie Butt, military aide to President Taft. I sat very straight in my chair; beyond a glass of hot lemonade I drank nothing and hoped it was noted. Butt was trying to find out from Colonel Astor, who had apparently recently been skiing in St Moritz, what the ‘Cresta’ had been like this year. He was having a hard time of it getting Astor to respond, he being his usual gloomy self and looking as though he’d just come from a funeral. Eventually Astor said he hadn’t the faintest idea, his bride having persuaded him from the run for fear he broke a leg. He wasn’t such a stuffed shirt as I make him out. He’d invented a brake for bicycles and even written a book. Sissy had actually read it; it had something to do with melting the Arctic to put the world on an even keel. He became more animated when the name Kitty was mentioned. I pricked up my ears, as they say, but the Kitty in question turned out to have four legs; she was an Airedale belonging to Astor, off her food and tied up aft of F deck.

Butt and he left at half-past eleven. I know that because Butt took out his watch and expressed surprise at the lateness of the hour. I guess he was desperate to get to his bed. They had been gone no more than ten minutes – Ginsberg had ordered a whisky and Charlie and I had just won three tricks in succession – when suddenly the room juddered; the lights flickered and Ginsberg’s cigarette case, which sat at his elbow, jolted to the floor. It was the sound accompanying the juddering that startled us, a long drawn-out tearing, like a vast length of calico slowly ripping apart. Melchett said, ‘We’re in collision with another ship,’ and with that we threw down our cards, ran to the doors, sprinted through the Palm Court and out on to the deck. A voice called, ‘We’ve bumped an iceberg – there it goes,’ but though I peered into the darkness I could see nothing. From somewhere forward we heard laughter, voices excitedly shouting. Coming to the starboard rail I looked down on to the well of the third class recreation area; there were chunks of ice spilling and sliding in every direction, all shapes and sizes, glittering under the light of the foremast. Steerage passengers, most in their ragged night-clothes, were chucking it at each other as though playing snowballs. Hopper raced off to go down there and join in the fun. Charlie and I found it too cold to linger and hurried back indoors. A dozen or so men had poured out of the smoke-room and were milling about the foyer, pestering the stewards for information. Astor was there, still dressed but without his tie, leaning down to shout into the ear of Seefax who had been woken from sleep in the library and now sat on the staircase with his stick raised like a weapon. Everyone had a different explanation for whatever it was that had jarred the ship; Ginsberg swore we had lost a propeller, but what did he know?

We couldn’t resume our game until Hopper returned, which he did quite soon, triumphantly carrying a lump of ice in his handkerchief. He thrust it under my nose and it smelt rank, a bit like a sliver of rotten mackerel. He dropped it into Ginsberg’s whisky when the poor devil wasn’t looking.

We must have played for another ten minutes, by which time Hopper said he’d had enough. Remembering Andrews’ injunction that I should read while others slept, I decided to spend an hour in the library. I was crossing the foyer when the man himself swept past on his way to the stairs. I didn’t think he’d seen me but he said quite distinctly, ‘Follow me. You may be needed.’

He led me up to the navigating bridge. Captain Smith was evidently expecting him because as we approached the wheelhouse the quartermaster flung open the door. I would have followed on Andrews’ heels but he shouted over his shoulder that I was to wait outside. Through the glass panels I could see Smith and his first and second officers clustering about him. Ismay was there too, dressed in a fur coat and wearing carpet slippers. He seemed to be excluded, roaming up and down, hands in pockets.

I was glad I wasn’t outdoors, for even in the comparative warmth of the bridge house I found myself shivering. The silence wrapped me like a cloak and it was only then that I realised the ship no longer moved. When I pressed my face to the window to look down at the sea there was nothing but darkness; when I tilted my head the blackness was fiery with stars.

Soon, the group inside, all but the quartermaster, came out and walked straight past me. I followed at a distance, unsure of my position, and then Andrews doubled back and told me to put on warm clothes and return to the bridge as soon as possible.

There were even more people in the foyer when I made my way down. It was an incongruous sight; the mixture of clothing, the dressing-gowns and bathing-robes worn with gloves and scarves and fur tippets, the women with their hair loose, the men with their naked throats and ankles the colour of lard. I didn’t recognise Lady Duff Gordon until I heard her voice. She had creamed her face for sleep and her eyebrows had disappeared. No one seemed particularly disturbed by what had happened. The laughter bubbled beneath the drifting cigar smoke.

I put my tweed jacket on over my evening clothes and then my Newmarket coat. I thought of wearing my cap – it matched the tweed – but when I tried it on in the mirror it made me look too young. I hadn’t the faintest notion what Andrews expected of me. As a precaution I stuffed an exercise book into my pocket along with several pencils, in case I was asked to patrol the decks and jot down details of steamer chairs snapped by the shower of ice. McKinlay met me in the passageway. He’d been off duty but now everyone was on call. Not that there was anything to worry about. We’d start engines any moment. I went back to the bridge and waited.

I couldn’t tell anything from their expressions when they returned. Ismay wasn’t with them. This time as they passed through the door Andrews indicated I should follow. I stood respectfully at a distance beside a notice board on which ice warnings were pinned like butterflies.

The talk was fairly technical. The water had risen approximately fourteen feet about the keel, forward. The watertight bulkhead between boiler rooms 6 and 5 extended only as high as E deck. The first five compartments were filling and the weight of the water had already begun to pull her down at the bow. When it sank lower the water from Number 6 boiler room would swamp Number 5 boiler room. This would drag the bow even lower and water would flood Number 4, Number 3, Number 2, and so on.

‘How long have we?’ asked Captain Smith.

Andrews snapped his fingers at me and I dug out my pencil and exercise book. I was dreadfully afraid it was I who would have to make the calculations, but it was just paper he wanted. Once only he glanced up at the clock above the door. It was two minutes to midnight.

‘An hour and a half,’ he said, at last. ‘Possibly two. Not much longer.’

SIX

 

Monday, 15th April

There is no way of knowing how one will react to danger until faced with it. Nor can we know what capacity we have for nobility and self-sacrifice unless something happens to rouse such conceits into activity. In the nature of things, simply because I had survived without lasting hurt, I remembered little of those other occasions on which I’d been in considerable peril, once half-way up Mount Solaro when I’d been foolish enough to climb on to a wall and lost my footing, the other when tumbling from the side of a boat negotiating the Suez canal. Besides, I had been a boy then and it had been my own lack of sense that had landed me in trouble. As I trailed Thomas Andrews to his suite I confess I fairly glowed with exhilaration and can only suppose I’d failed to grasp the full import of that exchange in the wheelhouse. Andrews hadn’t uttered a word to me since leaving the bridge; now, coming within a few paces of his door, he turned and said, ‘They’ll be lowering the life-boats shortly and will need extra hands. Take nothing with you save what can be put in your pockets. Avoid alarming people. Tell the truth only to those among your friends who can be relied upon to keep a cool head. Have you a pocket knife?’