She turned then and Maggie watched her stride purposefully along the corridor. It struck her how less imposing she looked in just her nightdress and coat. No swishing, fashionable skirts. No carefully styled hair. She looked, for the first time in Maggie’s life, like the middle-aged woman she was. The vulnerability frightened her.
‘
Girls, listen.’ Harry stepped into the cabin, pushing the door almost closed behind him. The three girls huddled around him, all previous thoughts of flirting and playfulness gone from their minds. ‘This is
really
serious. The ship
is
going to sink and the nearest boat is too far away.’ The girls stood in shocked silence. ‘As soon as she comes back,’ he added, nodding in the direction Kathleen had just gone, ‘make sure you go up to the decks straightaway. Do you understand?’
‘
Yes Harry.’ Maggie spoke, barely a whisper escaping from her terrified voice. ‘We understand. Will ye be goin’ to tell the others so? There’s a family of nine in the cabin next to us and they’ve a small baby.’ He nodded. ‘It sleeps in a suitcase,’ she added, a fact which had troubled her every night, especially since she’d seen the opulence in which the First Class passenger’s lived on board this ship.
Harry turned to walk out, pausing for a moment as if wanting to say something else. He looked at Peggy. She returned his gaze. There was an unspoken understanding between them, even though neither one of them spoke a word.
With Kathleen gone and the sounds of Harry pounding on the door of the cabin next to theirs, and then the next and the next, the three girls sat together on Katie’s bed trying to take in what they had heard, the unspoken recollections of predictions in the tealeaves and of strangers in railway stations hanging ominously in the air between them.
Peggy spoke first. ‘Well, let’s be gettin’ our things ready then girls. Kathleen will be back soon with the others and then we’ll all be wantin’ to go up them stairs to the decks.’
‘
They’ll have opened the gates won’t they?’ Katie’s question was left unanswered. None of them knew. ‘Well, maybe we should say a prayer first,’ she suggested. ‘Y’know, for all our safety like.’
They looked at each other and nodded in agreement. Maggie grabbed the rosary beads which Séamus had given her as a parting gift and together the three girls sat on the bed, the White Star Line blankets they had admired so much when they first saw them, wrapped now around their shoulders for warmth. They recited their Hail Mary’s with more sincerity than they had ever recited them in their lives.
Their prayers complete they sat in silence, holding each other’s hands, afraid to let go.
Harry ran from cabin to cabin, pounding on the doors until they were opened and telling the occupants that they needed to put on their life vests and make their way to the upper decks straightaway. Other crewmen and stewards were doing the same.
Many of the occupants couldn’t understand what he was saying, throwing their hands upwards and speaking in a foreign language to the others in the cabin. Those he did manage to rouse barely took him seriously at all, assuming it was the drill which had been cancelled earlier that day and nodding that they would do as he said, but then returning to their beds. Others never even responded to the banging on the door, too stupefied from a night of drinking in the bar to hear him or any of the commotion which was now building in the corridors along from cabin 115.
After rushing around the cabins for forty minutes or more, getting occasionally lost still among the endless maze of corridors and companionways, Harry noticed a definite list in the ship, having to walk up an incline as he made his way along Scotland Road and using the walls on either side of him for balance. He was relieved to bump into his friend Billy.
‘
Christ mate. Have you heard? We’re bloody sinking.’
‘
Y’don’t say. She’s almost totally underwater in the first five compartments. Christ only knows what’s gone on in the boiler rooms. They’ve closed the watertight doors – with the men still inside I reckon. There’s men down there trying to keep the generators going so as we’ve some light to watch ourselves drown by.’
‘
Christ Billy, don’t. It’s fuckin’ terrifyin’. Did y’see the size of that iceberg?’
‘
Yeah. I went up. There’s fella’s up there drinking their brandy’s being serenaded by the violinists. You’d think it was a special bleedin’ iceberg cruise or somethin’. There’s a whole gang of Irish in the dining room. Have you seen them? Some are already at the booze and others are sittin’ around prayin’ with those beads they have – fat lot of use they’ll do ‘em at the bottom of the ocean. Captain Smith’s ordered the lifeboats to be swung out.’
Something within Harry sensed that he needed to go to the dining room. ‘Right, keep banging on the doors and waking people up. I’m going to the dining room to shift everyone up the stairs.’ He started to make his way back along the corridor. ‘Oi. Billy,’ he called back to his friend. ‘I’ll see you up there. Right?’
Billy turned and gave him a thumbs up with his trademark, cocky grin. ‘Not if I see you first Walsh!’
Before going to the dining room, Harry returned to cabin 115 where he found the three girls still waiting patiently for Kathleen to come back.
‘
Harry,’ Peggy gasped when she saw him. ‘We can feel the ship leanin’. We don’t know where Kathleen is.’
‘
You’ve got to go girls,’ he urged. ‘There’s a lot of Irish gatherin’ in the dining room. She’s probably gone there to find everyone in your group. You should go there. Now. It’s not safe to hang around here. The corridors are getting’ busy with people movin’ their cases and the stairs are getting’ blocked. Go on, go and wait for her in the dinin’ room. You can come back for your cases when you find her. I’ve got to go and keep helping others.’
He left them alone again then.
‘
Right then,’ Peggy announced, standing up and grabbing her coat. ‘You heard what he said. Let’s go.’
Maggie was anxious. ‘But she said to wait here.’
‘
I don’t care what she said Maggie. She might have got held up somewhere, or caught in a crowd. Y’heard what Harry said about the corridors getting blocked and I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the way this ship’s leanin’. There’ll be water creepin’ in here soon and I’m certainly not plannin’ on hangin’ around just so as I can say I touched a bit o’ the Atlantic Ocean. Come on, we’ll find her.’
Kathleen could sense the look of panic on her friend Maura Brennan’s face and noticed how she instinctively placed her hand on her swollen belly.
‘
We’ve to gather our things Maura,’ she explained to her again, ‘and make our way to the upper decks. I’m tellin’ everyone to meet in the dining room first, so we know everyone’s accounted for. Y’know, like we did on the train journey down.’
‘
Should we dress?’
‘
Coats and shoes – and hats. It might be chilly up there.’
‘
It will be OK Kathleen, won’t it? They’ll be sendin’ a boat to rescue us?’
‘
I’m sure they’ll be doin’ their best Maura, yes. Now don’t be standin’ here chattin’ and get to the dining room. I’m going to wake the others.’
From cabin to cabin, Kathleen moved quickly, efficiently and calmly, passing on the information about the iceberg and the need to get up on decks. As ever, she was purposeful and pragmatic, reminding the others in her group to take their cases and to put on their lifejackets.
As the minutes passed, she could feel the sense of panic spreading throughout the ship. Raised voices, orders being shouted, people crying, others calming them, children being soothed as they tried to understand why they had been taken from their beds in the middle of the night. The corridors were becoming crowded with people trying to manoeuvre their luggage, cases of all shapes and sizes and entire trunks being pushed along. Bodies were pressed against the walls to let others pass. Kathleen realised it was becoming chaotic, and it made her nervous.
Having passed on the instructions to the Ballysheen group and sure that they were moving to the dining room, Kathleen returned to her own cabin to collect the girls, holding onto the walls as she walked down the noticeable slope.
Her feet felt the water first, the shock of the icy cold causing her to jump. ‘Oh, Good Lord above,’ she cried out, realising that the water was already flooding the forward cabins at the front of the ship. Splashing through the ankle deep water, she shouted ahead, an urgency in her voice. ‘Girls, come along now. We must hurry.’
Pushing open the door to cabin 115 she stopped dead. It was empty. The girls had gone. Just Peggy’s hat and Maggie’s small black case remained on their beds.
CHAPTER
23
It was a strange scene which met the three girls as they arrived to the dining room with people sitting about with their luggage as if they were waiting for a train. What was usually a room full of neatly ordered rows of tables, the relaxed chatter and the clink of cutlery on china filling the space between them, was now a room full of tension and praying and anxious conversation.
Maggie watched as men paced the floor, rubbing their stubbled chins in thought and nervousness, feeling as if they should be able to rectify this situation. Some were bent down on their haunches, asking others what they had been told, trying to glean whether they knew any more than they did before returning to their own families and relaying the latest information and rumours. The only certainty was that nobody really knew what was happening. Some had been told there was nothing to worry about while others had been told the ship was sinking. What they all seemed to agree on was that they should wait there for further instruction from the crewmen or Officers. They were familiar with awaiting instruction in their life, so that is what they did now.
Amongst the men, women sat in groups reciting Hail Mary’s, mother’s wrapped blankets around their small, confused children, soothing them, trying to dispel their fears, although Maggie could tell by the look in their eyes that their own fears were as real as those of their children. Those who could not understand or speak English sat in huddled, private groups unsure of what to do or who to ask. Someone was playing the piano; others were taking advantage of the confusion and taking a drink from the bar. It struck Maggie that the tables were all laid out neatly for the morning breakfast service; the crisp, white linen tablecloths and the neatly arranged place settings at odds with the confusion and disorder going on around her. She had admired all of these small attentions to detail over the last few days – now it seemed ridiculous that a ship which was sinking with thousands of people on board still looked so neat and tidy.
It was Maura Brennan who saw them first. ‘Maggie! Girls! Over here,’ she called, standing up on a table so they could see where the voice was coming from.
‘
Oh thanks be to God girls, look. It’s Mrs Brennan and the others.’
They pushed their way through the gathered groups of people, stepping over cases and trunks which lay scattered around on the floor, weaving in and out of people who blocked their path. Maggie passed the young English girl, Elsie. She was sitting with her family, cradling her baby brother in her arms. The two girls looked at each other and smiled a desperate smile. She saw the Uilleann piper talking rapidly with a group of other men. It struck her how familiar these stranger’s faces had become in the few days they had shared this space on this magnificent ship. She wondered what would become of them all.
‘
Where’s Aunt Kathleen?’ Maggie enquired, immediately scanning the familiar faces of the Ballysheen group, but not seeing her aunt’s face among them.
‘
She’s been waking everyone Maggie. Just like your aunt, organising us all, walking up and down those corridors until every one of us was woken and dressed with our coats and shoes. She told us all to wait in here – that she’d join us.’
Maggie glanced around again. ‘But, she’s not here Mrs Brennan? I don’t see her.’
‘
Well, she must have gone back to fetch ye girls. She’ll be here soon. Don’t be worryin’ child.’
‘
We shouldn’t have gone without her. She’ll be wonderin’ where we’ve got to. Maybe she’s waitin’ for us in the cabin? Should I go back?’
‘
Good Lord girl. You will certainly not go back. The ship is sinking. If we need to go anywhere, it’s up to the decks.’
‘
Ah Jesus, Mary and Joseph – my hat. I forgot my feckin’ hat.’
Peggy was already turning to walk back for it.
‘
Wait! Peggy, wait,’ Maggie cried. ‘I’ll come with you.’
And with that, before anyone could stop them, the two girls started to push their way back through the crowds, out into the corridors, running where they could and excusing themselves to push past people when they couldn’t.
As they approached the cabin, they saw the water creeping ominously along the corridor.
‘
Oh Jesus Peggy, look. It’s already goin’ down!’
Without thinking for a moment Peggy strode through the water, pulling Maggie with her, the cold making them both gasp and shriek, the bottom of their coats dragging through the water. ‘Yes Maggie. It is goin’ down. And I, for one, am not plannin’ on goin’ down with it.’
Entering the cabin, they quickly realised Kathleen wasn’t there. Maggie felt frightened for her and hoped that she would be among the others by the time they got back to the dining room.