The Midnight Watch (32 page)

‘Leave the luggage,’ she calls, pulling the satchels from her brothers.

But her father doesn’t want to leave his suitcase. It has in it family letters and photographs and the papers relating to the Jacksonville farm. Stella takes it gently from him and places it against the wall. ‘We’ll come back for it,’ she says. ‘Later.’

Mr Hart leads them up the stairs, but when they reach the top Mr Kieran puts out his arm to stop her father.

‘No men,’ Mr Kieran says.

‘But we are nine children,’ Stella says. ‘Of course our father must come with us.’

Mr Kieran insists: women and children only. His two assistants step forward, arms crossed on their chests. ‘The men stay,’ Mr Kieran says, turning to Stella’s father, ‘or you all do.’

Stella sees her mother slip her hand into her father’s. It’s her way of saying she will not go without him. But he kisses her and tells her she must, for the sake of the children.

‘Not them either,’ says Mr Kieran, pulling George, Doug, Fred and Will from the line by their shoulders. ‘The baby may go, but not the others.’

‘I am not a baby!’ shouts Tom. ‘I’m four!’

Mr Hart is becoming agitated. If they delay further he will go without them; he has the other women in the group to think of. Stella pushes Will forward. ‘This one must come with us,’ she says, stepping closer to Mr Kieran as if daring him to say otherwise. ‘He’s only eleven.’

‘He seems older,’ Mr Kieran says.

‘Well, he’s not,’ says Stella. ‘Look at him!’

Will’s face is translucent; he is angelic. Mr Kieran hesitates, then nods him through.

Stella’s mother embraces her husband and sons, and Stella follows, hugging them hard one by one. ‘I will put Mother and the little ones in a boat,’ she says, ‘then I’ll come back for you.’

Her father kneels to Tom, who still clutches his blue blanket with its yellow giraffe, and tells him he’s a brave boy. ‘It’s cold now, but think how warm it will be when we get to Jacksonville. Remember what I told you? About the oranges? And the giraffes? But for now, make sure you take good care of your mother and sisters.’

Mr Hart is leading the group outside onto the open welldeck. Stella pauses to watch her father and brothers walk back down the stairwell. When George slips his arm tenderly around his father’s shoulders, she has to stop herself running after them. She whispers her promise to herself: she will come back for them. Then she turns and follows Mr Hart and the others across the deck.

There is no wind and she can hear voices and ragtime music drifting down from the forward decks. The moon isn’t up but the stars blaze as brightly as she’s ever seen them. For a moment she holds the rail and looks out into the dark. She can’t see the horizon, but as her eyes slowly adjust she makes out, in the blackness, a light. It’s faint and dim, but she can see white with a tinge of red. A ship! But in this strange, depthless darkness, she cannot tell how far away it is.

And then: an angry hissing sound. It’s the sound she’s heard before, a sound like escaping steam, but here on the open deck it’s much louder. She looks forward and sees the rocket rushing skyward. It explodes with a loud echoing clap, and for a moment its stars light the whole ship. The crowds on the deck crane their necks to look up. She notices that the little wooden boats hanging from ropes down the side of the ship are filled with people – she can make out the bobbing feathers of extravagant hats.

Stella Sage doesn’t know much about ships, but she does know that rich women would not get into such flimsy boats unless something was terribly wrong.

*   *   *

When he sees the third silent white rocket above the steamer, Stone grips his binoculars tight. He’d promised himself he would call the captain if he saw another one, but still he wavers. He wonders where the apprentice has got to.

‘What did you think they meant?’

In the Scottish Drill Hall Mr Butler Aspinall, KC asks him the question yet again. The room has become very quiet. Newspaper reporters have stopped writing and ladies are holding their fans still in their laps. The great musty curtains that have been hung to improve the acoustics seem at last to be working: people imagine they can hear the witness breathing. The audience watch him move from side to side like an animal in a zoo. They feel sorry for him. They can tell he is a good man, kind and gentle, who is doing his best. But they want to shake him by the neck, too. The sharp-faced Commissioner offers him water and reminds him to speak up.

‘I thought…’ There’s a catch in Stone’s voice and it seems possible he might cry. He casts his eyes about the hall, as if looking for help, then drifts into incoherent mumbling.

Lord Mersey, high on his central dais, is growing impatient. ‘Come on, man, come on!’

‘I thought, perhaps, the ship was in communication with some other ship. Or possibly she was signalling to tell us she had big icebergs around her.’

Aspinall is not looking at the witness. His thumbs are hooked into his waistcoat, his head is craned backwards and his eyes are closed, as if he is trying to visualise for himself this strange scene on the North Atlantic. How could rockets bursting in the sky convey such a message? ‘Possibly,’ he says slowly. ‘What else?’

Stone – furtive, fidgeting, fussing – develops another idea. ‘Perhaps,’ he says, ‘she was communicating with some other steamer at a greater distance than ourselves.’ He looks pleased with himself.

But now the Commissioner huffs and puffs, leans forward and takes off his glasses. ‘What,’ he asks, ‘was she communicating?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Is that the way in which steamers communicate with each other?’

‘No,’ Herbert Stone has to admit.

‘Then you cannot have thought that.’

A gentle twitter of laughter rises in the Drill Hall and quickly subsides. The audience sits perfectly still, perplexed by a shared knowledge: everybody knows what rockets at sea mean.

The fourth rocket

Little Tom is having trouble keeping up as Mr Hart leads the group along a wide alleyway of ivory-white panelling. When he tries to run he trips on the front panels of his lifejacket and Connie lets go of his hand. He’s almost in tears. Stella wishes George or her father were here to carry him.

‘You take his hand,’ says her mother, ‘and I’ll look after the girls.’

This arrangement works better. Stella holds onto Tom, lifting him whenever he trips, and Dolly, Ada and Connie form a chain behind their mother, like ducklings. Stella keeps a close eye on young Will, who trots along by himself and runs ahead from time to time. The children are frightened, but Stella reassures them by singing songs and talking of Florida sunshine.

They climb another staircase and come upon the foyer of a little restaurant. There’s a knot of first-class passengers ahead; Mr Hart says they’ll have to wait a moment. The restaurant door is open and Stella sees beautiful wall panels of walnut inlaid with gold, and a ceiling of moulded flowers and garlands. The tables have been set for the next day with glittering silverware and lamps with pink silk shades.

The children wander in and stare in wonder: never have they seen such a place. Tom kneels to sink his hands in the soft carpet. Connie traces with her finger the roses in the tapestry upholstery of the chairs. Will stands silently before the coloured patterns of the stained-glass windows. But what enthrals them most are the crystal bowls of fresh fruit laid out on the carved buffet tables. They step nearer and gaze at the green grapes and red apples and the plump, glossy oranges. ‘Just like Daddy’s farm in Jacksonville!’ Tom says.

As Ada extends a hand towards one of the bowls, Stella, watching from the door, calls out to her, ‘No. They’re not ours to take.’

‘Just one?’ Ada asks.

‘To show Daddy?’ adds little Tom.

‘No. Not even one.’

‘Oh
please
?’ insists Ada. She’s a stubborn girl, and seems on the verge of a tantrum, but Stella sweeps in and takes both her and Tom by the hand. ‘Come along,’ she says, cutting off any further complaints. ‘It’s time to go.’

‘Don’t worry, young lady,’ Mr Hart says to Ada as they pass into the alleyway. ‘There’ll be more oranges up ahead – you’ll see.’ Ada seems unconvinced; Stella hears her mutter something about not liking oranges anyway.

Mr Hart hurries them along another corridor that eventually opens out into a vast atrium filled with light: the Grand Staircase, he says. Stella has heard of it but never seen it. She moves further in to look: the staircase seems to run from the very bottom of the ship to the top, and is crowned by a great dome of iron and frosted glass lit from behind. The steps sweep up in graceful symmetrical curves to foyers at each deck; the balustrades are inlaid with delicate swirls of iron and little bronze flowers. Mr Hart leads them up – B deck, A deck, and then, at the very top, standing just beneath the enormous glass dome, he weaves his way through a cluster of first-class passengers and opens a door to the boat deck. They follow him through into the freezing night air.

Stella, holding tight to Tom, is last to step out. She is astounded by what she sees. They are standing at the base of the ship’s second funnel, and from this close it’s impossibly tall. The electric floodlights at its base make it look like a giant tower of gold. The deck itself is hundreds of feet long; Stella would never have thought a ship could have so much open, uncluttered space. Electric lamps and ornate windows throw their light onto the deck, but beyond the ship’s rail Stella can see only blackness. It’s as if she were standing on a lit stage. At the forward and aft ends of the deck some lifeboats have been lowered to deck level. Others have already gone. In their place, ropes dangle loosely down the ship’s side.

The first-class passengers stand around in quiet groups. Stella almost laughs: she has never seen such beautiful clothes – silk, lace and feathers abound, as at a grand ball, and diamonds – but all this finery is crushed beneath bulky cork lifejackets. And here at last is the ship’s band, playing their instruments – three violins, two cellos and a double bass – just outside the entrance to the Grand Staircase. The six men wear white jackets with green facing and fancy piping, and sway to the music as they play.

Officers and sailors work at the lifeboats. They help wealthy ladies step across the gap into the boats, they ease ropes through bollards and pulleys, they call out orders and instructions. People are calm; they speak in soft tones. The proceedings have the air of a strange, secret ceremony. There is no rushing or pushing. Mr Hart looks up and down the deck, trying to find a lifeboat that might take his group. No one comes to help them.

A man wearing a ridiculously tall top hat and a long, thin waxed moustache of the pompous kind steps away from his group and appears before Stella. She instantly dislikes him.

‘Ladies,’ he says, with a flourish of his hand, ‘welcome to our little party on the promenade.’ When he turns back to his wife, Stella overhears her say with a sneer, ‘The whole ship must have been invited.’

Stella feels the insult and wants to say something, but two things happen in quick succession. The first: a shout from an officer at the very forward end of the boat deck, near the ship’s bridge. ‘Stand clear!’ he yells, pulling a lanyard attached to a tube secured to the rail. There’s a rush of sound and a great flash of light as a rocket soars up, leaving a faint white trail, and explodes into stars. Everyone looks up; there are gasps. ‘Another one!’ someone says. And the second thing: the frantic voice of her mother begging Mr Hart and anyone else to help. ‘Will is missing,’ she says, hunting about, calling his name. ‘Stella, Will is missing!’

The white stars of the rocket still light the children’s faces. But William Sage, eleven years old, is nowhere to be seen, and Stella knows her mother would not dream of getting into a lifeboat without him.

*   *   *

During his ordeal in the Scottish Drill Hall, Herbert Stone seems, in a moment of lucidity, to share the common knowledge of what rockets at sea mean. ‘Naturally,’ he says, as if it were the most ordinary thought in the world, ‘the first thing that crossed my mind was that the ship might be in trouble.’ But though the kindly London barristers had led him to a concession of trouble, not once could they take him as far as admitting distress.

‘You knew, did you not, that those rockets were signals of distress?’

‘No!’ says Stone, most emphatically.

Of course they could not have been: he has just watched three of them without doing anything. Distress, after all, means a ship sinking; trouble might be something less: a damaged propeller or rudder, a blown boiler, a man overboard, a fractured crankshaft. But even as Stone wonders what the trouble might be, another rocket climbs slowly skyward, bursting into stars that fill the lenses of his binoculars with their white light.

It is the fourth, and now his anxiety is almost unbearable. It can only be relieved in one way. He pulls the stopper from the speaking tube and prepares to blow down. The captain, he knows, is asleep in the chartroom below. But once more he pauses.

The ship to the south looks just as she always has: calm and still and perfectly all right. The rockets, for now, have stopped. Soon it will be time for his mid-watch coffee, and Gibson will bring up bread and butter from the galley.

‘Did you obtain a certificate from the Board of Trade as a mate?’ he is asked by Mr Thomas Scanlan, MP, representing the interests of the hundreds of sailors and firemen who died on the
Titanic
.

‘As a first mate in steamships, yes.’

‘Was that certificate given to you after examination?’

Stone knows where this is leading. ‘Yes,’ he says, looking very much like he wants to say no.

‘I suppose before you sat for that examination you read something about signals?’

‘I learned them.’

‘Now, do you mean to tell his lordship that you did not know that – ’ and here Scanlan reads from the printed regulation itself, which he clutches in his thick-fingered hands – ‘“rockets or shells, throwing stars of any colour or description, fired one at a time at short intervals” is the proper method for signalling distress at night?’