The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel (22 page)

Reaching up to her top bunk bed, Peggy grabbed her hat and the gloves which she always kept inside them. Turning to clamber back down, hardly able to bear the thought of putting her legs back into the freezing water, she noticed Maggie’s small black case sitting at the foot of the opposite bunk bed.

‘
Are ye plannin’ on leavin’ that here or d’y want to take it with you?’ she said, pointing up at the case.

‘
Jesus Peggy – I forgot about it completely,’ Maggie replied as she stood on the edge of Kathleen’s bed, the bottom bunk, and reached up, feeling around until she grabbed hold of the case.

Stepping hesitantly back down into the water, she instinctively reached into her coat pocket, the reassuring bulk telling her that the packet of letters were still there.

They then left the narrow room which had become their home for a few brief days, splashing back up the corridor.

‘
We had some fun in there, didn’t we?’ Maggie commented, remembering their giggles after Harry had smiled at Peggy and the chats they’d had late into the night about what it would be like to live in America and the look Kathleen had given them when she’d caught them deciding what Maggie would write in her telegram message to Séamus. They’d gone up the ladder to the upper decks then to spy on the rich and famous. She briefly wondered what was happening up there now; their after-dinner drinks and restful slumber rudely interrupted no doubt by the noise being made as the crewmen got the lifeboats uncovered.

‘
We did, didn’t we.’

Peggy stopped, turning to face her friend. ‘Maggie, I can hardly believe this ship is sinkin’ and with us drenched in water from the freezin’ Atlantic Ocean. I’d think I was dreamin’ if I wasn’t so scared out of my mind. We will be alright y’know. That fella in Queenstown said I would survive – and I’m not survivin’ without you, y’know.’

The two shared an uneasy smile and grasped each other’s hands.

‘
Come on Peggy. I don’t like the look of that water at all. We need to get up to the lifeboats.’

Shivering from the icy chill of the water which seeped out of their shoes, their feet squelching inside, the bottom of their coats and nightdresses soaked and clinging around their knees, they made their way back to the dining room as quickly as they could.

Within the few minutes they had been gone it was transformed into a scene of total panic and confusion. There seemed to be twice as many people in the room as there had been before and the two girls made their way back to the area where they’d left the others. They were still there, but there was still no sign of Kathleen.

Harry struggled as he pushed his way through the crowd which had gathered on the staircase to the upper decks. It was almost impossible to get up with the cases and lifejackets impeding everyone’s movements. It was becoming a desperate situation and he knew that time was running out. It was almost an hour now since the ship had struck the iceberg. He knew that there could only be an hour left for them to get off the ship.

He was trying to get a group of around twenty five passengers up from the steerage accommodations, but it was virtually impossible. As he finally emerged onto the deck, the noise and the icy chill of the bitterly cold night air hit him with surprising force. It was a very different scene to the one he had left an hour ago when a strange calmness had clung around the ship. Now, there was anything but calmness as a frantic attempt to get people into the lifeboats was well underway, crewmen shouting orders to each other across the intermittent hiss of steam rushing to escape from the funnels; a deafening, shrieking noise which made him place his hands over his ears.

Relieved to have got the group of passengers safely up on deck, he moved them towards the portside aft of the boat, where he knew the lifeboats would be lowered first. Officers were shouting instructions as passengers hesitated, unsure of climbing into the wooden lifeboats which were being slowly lowered over the side of the ship to begin the terrifying seventy foot descent to the freezing ocean below.

‘
I’ll not get in John, I’ll not,’ he heard one woman pleading to a man who was coaxing her to get into the lifeboat. ‘I’ll not leave without you.’

‘
I’ll be in the next boat,’ he assured her. ‘When all the women and children are safely in, then they’ll let the men go. Now, get in. You’re holding up the others and we don’t want to cause a fuss.’

It seemed like a very considered conversation, considering the circumstances they were having it in. The woman relented finally, and climbed reluctantly into the lifeboat where she sat among forty or so other women and young children. At that, it was lowered down the side of the massive ship. It occurred to Harry that there seemed to be room for many more in the boat but he assumed the crewmen knew what they were doing. Perhaps the lifeboats could only take so much weight?

Having shepherded his own group of twenty-five or so towards the front of a group waiting to get onto the next lifeboat, Harry retraced his footsteps to get back to the dining room to collect more. He was especially keen to see Peggy and the others, assuming that they were all still down there, waiting for instructions as to what to do next.

Returning to the stairwell, he realised there was little point trying to make his way back down. It was, by now, a seething mass of bodies and luggage. Stewards and crewmen were standing at the top of the stairs blocking anyone from stepping onto the deck. It was clearly going to be impossible to try and get back down that way. Harry looked about him, from left to right. It was the same scene everywhere he looked.

‘
Oi mate,’ he called across to one of the stewards who he recognised from the dormitory and who seemed to be in charge of the melee of steerage passengers trying to get up from the lower decks. ‘What’s goin’ on? Why’re you not lettin’ ‘em up?’

‘
Officer’s orders mate. They’re creating a panic all rushing to the lifeboats and tryin’ to jump into them as they’re being lowered over the side. I’ve already seen one woman fall into the sea. They’ve gone crazy. And they’ve all brought their bloody luggage. Look at ‘em. Cases, trunks, the lot. You’d think they were trying to re-book themselves onto a pleasure cruise not get off a sinkin’ bloody ship.’

‘
But you can’t keep them penned into the stairwells. How’s anyone else gonna get up?’

The two men looked at each other and the steward shrugged. ‘Damned if I know mate. Damned if I know. I’m just followin’ orders. That’s all.’ There was a sense of resignation in his voice which Harry didn’t like.

It was then that he heard a dog barking. Turning to the direction the sound was coming from he caught sight of the First Class woman whose dog he had walked on the upper decks a few days ago. She was standing in a white, silk evening gown, her fur stole around her neck, a fur hat on her head and her coat draped elegantly over her shoulders. The dog was in her arms, barking at all the noise and commotion. Her fiancée was fussing over her to put on her lifejacket.

‘
Oh stop fussing so will you Robert, for goodness sake,’ she chided. ‘I am perfectly sure that the officer meant only for the lifejackets to be worn once people are in the lifeboats. There is absolutely no good reason for putting the damned thing on when we’re still standing around on the deck, it would just get in the way. They’re such ugly looking things anyway. I’ve no mind to wear it about myself any sooner that is absolutely necessary.’

‘
Oh, on the contrary darling,’ her fiancée replied, trying to lift the lifejacket over her head. ‘They're the very latest thing this season. Everyone is wearing them now! Look around.’

‘
Oh Robert, for goodness sake,’ she chastised, a look of absolute disgust on her porcelain face. ‘Don’t be so bloody facetious.’

Harry watched the exchange in disbelief. She seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever to get into a lifeboat and was she
really
worried about how she looked at that particular moment? The ship was sinking for God’s sake. People were already dying in their efforts to save themselves and all Vivienne Walker-Brown was worried about was how she looked and whether her precious little dog was alright.

Harry recalled how he had taken an instant dislike to the woman from the minute he’d first seen her. She now appeared to him the epitome of selfishness and he wondered how the Irish girls could have been so impressed by her when he’d sneaked them up the ladder to the upper decks to spy on her and the other First Class idiots.

The ladder!

Why hadn’t he thought of it before?

Gathering his bearings, he ran around to the other side of the ship, past the gentlemen’s smoking room and the Palm Court, towards the crew ladder which he had brought the girls up earlier that morning. In his hurry, he barely acknowledged the fact that many of the First Class passengers were standing around in their lifejackets chatting pleasantly, finishing their drinks and smoking their cigars while the musicians played soothing music in the background. The iceberg still loomed ominously in the distance and people were still crowding around where the chunks of ice had been knocked off onto the deck.

Clambering down the ladder, which was empty, Harry ran then along the length of Scotland Road, weaving and negotiating his way along the, now familiar, labyrinth of corridors to the dining room, encouraging the people he passed to wait there. ‘I’m coming back,’ he shouted to them. ‘Wait here. The stairwells are blocked. I know a way up. Wait here.’

By now the dining room was completely chaotic. He shoved and pushed his way through the crowd, heading towards the piano where he had last seen Peggy and the Irish group.

They weren’t there.

He looked frantically around the room until he saw a distinctive green hat. Relieved, he ran towards the group, hurrying them along, urging them to go with him. He grabbed Maggie by the shoulders. ‘Maggie listen. You’re not going to be able to get up on deck using the stairs. D’you understand? They’re all blocked with people and they’re not letting anyone up at the moment.’

She looked at him, a wild terror in her eyes. ‘I can’t swim Harry,’ she blurted out in desperation. ‘I can’t swim. I’m afraid of the water.’

‘
You’re not going to have to Maggie. Listen, d’you remember the ladder? The one I took you up this morning?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Go there now. It’s the only way up. Take your group and I’ll meet you up there. D’you remember the way?’

Peggy was listening. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I remember. I’ll take them.’

‘
I’m going to fetch some others to come up with us,’ Harry continued. ‘I’ll see you on the deck. Wait at the top of the ladder. I know where there’s a lifeboat.’

Maggie grabbed his arm. ‘Harry, can you take the family sittin’ over there?’ She pointed in the direction of Elsie, the young English girl and her family. ‘They’ve a small baby.’

‘
OK. I will. Now go, all of you. And hurry. There isn’t much time.’ Seeing them start reaching for their cases and luggage he spoke again. ‘You’ll have to leave the luggage. There’s no room for it and it’s making it difficult for people to move, getting in the way an’ all.’

Maggie watched as Harry moved over to the English family and spoke quietly to the father.

Among her own group, there was consternation as they started discussing whether they should leave their cases behind as Harry had said.

‘
Well, let’s do as the man says,’ Maura Brennan announced in a clipped tone, assuming the role of group leader in Kathleen’s absence. ‘There’s nothin’ in these cases we can’t replace. If it’s my life or my possessions, I know which I’d rather be keepin’. Now come on, all of ye. Let’s at least give ourselves a chance.’

Reluctantly they walked away from the pile of cases, Ellen Joyce crying more than most at the thought of leaving all her wedding gifts behind. Katie put her arm around her as they walked out of the room. ‘You still have your ring Ellen and your beautiful gold watch. Your fella wouldn’t want you to be fussin’ about linen and lace when we’re in such trouble y’know.’

Maggie didn’t even notice that she was still clutching her small, black case as she and Peggy led the rest of the Ballysheen travellers out of the dining room and along the long corridor to the crew ladder.

As Harry had said, it was virtually empty of other passengers. Their route to the decks, and to safety, was clear.

Kathleen was hemmed in on the stairwell. She couldn’t move up onto the decks because the officers wouldn’t let them and she couldn’t move back down because of the surging mass of people behind her.

She’d started up the stairwell to help a little boy who’d become separated from his mammy. She came across him in the corridor on the way back to the dining room after she’d realised that the three girls had gone from their cabin. ‘Mammy, Mammy,’ was all he would say, whimpering like a frightened animal, cowering in a corner. There wasn’t a bone in Kathleen Murphy’s body which could leave him where he was. Urging him to tell her where he’d last seen his mammy his tiny finger eventually pointed towards the chaotic stairwell. Taking his hand, Kathleen rushed with him to the stairs. His mother was near the top, calling for him, frantically searching the sea of faces behind her. Kathleen had carried him up to her and was now stuck.

She was sure she could make out the voice of the steward Harry, asking the officer at the top of the stairwell what was going on. If she hadn’t been a proud woman, she night have considered calling out to him to ask him to tell the others that she would see them up on deck, but she still had her dignity despite the desperate situation and screeching someone’s name like a fishwife was not in Kathleen Murphy’s nature. So she stood among the many others and waited patiently until it was their turn to ascend to the decks and get into the boats.