The Lifeboat: A Novel (13 page)

IT MIGHT HAVE
been a mistake to eat so much, for some of us suffered the pains of indigestion, and throughout the night came the muffled sounds of people addressing their physical needs. I had no such trouble, and as the light faded, the strange ease and sympathy for my fellow man I had felt during the afternoon increased. I don’t know what to call the feeling that expanded in my breast except optimism, and when Mary Ann put her little hands around my shoulders and pulled me toward her in a hug, I squeezed her back.

Because Mr. Hardie had seated us next to each other that first day, Mary Ann had adopted the habit of looking to me for guidance. I think this instinct also had something to do with Mr. Hardie’s cold unapproachability—one needed a representative, almost, to get an audience with him—along with the fact that Hannah and Mrs. Grant were always in such demand, whereas I was not in demand at all. Earlier in the evening, as the sun burned toward the horizon, everything in the boat had been bathed in a rich glow, which made our blood-caked faces seem to belong to a pack of demons. Hannah had dipped a rag into the sea and gone about the boat wiping the blood off people’s faces. Mary Ann suddenly seemed to realize how frightful she must look, if only because all of the others in the boat were caked with feathers and gore and it stood to reason that the same must be true of her. “Grace,” she whispered, hiding her face in her hands. “Do you have a bit of cloth?”

“What do you want it for?” I asked.

“I want to wash my face! It looks ghastly, doesn’t it?”

I told her I had no cloth, but that Hannah had one and would soon help her the way she was helping everyone else.

“I want to do it myself!” she cried. “Can you help me get to the railing, then? I can lean over and wash in the sea.” She pointed to an empty space beside Mr. Preston, so I let her hold on to me while she moved over, but she didn’t let go and insisted, “No, you must come, too. You don’t mind switching with Grace, do you, Mr. Preston?”

At that point, Mary Ann had nearly pulled me down on top of him and he had little choice in the matter but to move. When we were settled, Mary Ann said, “Now we will wash each other. I will be your mirror and you will be mine.” By then, the sun had half disappeared over the horizon, and soon it would be dark. “In a minute we won’t be able to see anything,” I said. “A mirror is of little use in the dark.”

“That’s why we must hurry,” said Mary Ann.

I thought perhaps she was concerned that by the time Hannah got to her, it would be too dark for her to do a proper job of cleaning. It also occurred to me that Mary Ann was suffering from stomach cramps and only wanted an excuse to sit by the railing so she wouldn’t have to make a fuss about it later on. It was only when Hannah came to us some thirty minutes later and asked if she could help to wash our faces that I found the real explanation for Mary Ann’s urgent insistence that we help each other wash. The reason that arose in my mind when I looked up at Hannah and heard her say, “Right, then. It looks as if you are all set,” was jealousy. I decided that Mary Ann had noticed the looks Hannah and I had shared, few as they were, and wanted to prevent us from sharing another such opportunity, and for a moment I was filled with resentment at having been manipulated in such a way.

Of course, I might have been wrong. In looking for a rational explanation for one of the things Mary Ann did, I ignore the countless other instances where her actions defied explanation of any sort and could only be accounted for as the behavior of someone in deep emotional distress. I would be hard-pressed to explain all of my own actions there in the lifeboat, so to require explanations of someone who was clearly in a precarious mental state is hardly fair. Still, this is what I thought at the time and so, in the interest of honesty, I have written it down. I also relate this incident to show that during the endless hours when we had little occupation, our minds sought to make sense of things, just the way people have always sought to make sense of their situations.

Later that night the moon rose and bathed the boat in its cold light. I knew that ancient people had worshipped the moon because they couldn’t explain it, and without thinking about what I was doing, I sent up a little prayer that we might be saved. I spent some time wondering if my prayer would only be valid during a full moon and not the waning crescent that was present that night. Then I said a prayer for Henry, filled with shame that he had recently been so far from my thoughts.

At that point in the night, I am nearly certain that Mary Ann still sat beside me at the railing, but it wasn’t a matter that concerned me at the time so I cannot be sure. In any case, when the sun rose the following morning, she had moved back to her seat on the thwart and so was sitting close beside Mr. Preston, who still occupied my usual place. They were both awake and seemed to be sharing some private words, but drew apart when Mary Ann glanced over and saw I was looking at her. I remembered her desire of the evening before to move to the railing and her insistence that I accompany her, and my interpretation of those events began to change. Now I wondered if the entire charade had had more to do with a desire to speak privately with Mr. Preston than anything to do with Hannah and me, but I suspected that my imagination was running away with me. People in the boat were beginning to stir, and the events of the next days would drive all thoughts of Mary Ann’s petty motivations from my head.

THE DAY AFTER
the bird-fall, one of the other lifeboats reappeared in the distance. Whether it was one of the two we had seen earlier or a different one altogether, there was no way of telling, although Hardie seemed sure it was one of the original pair. Mr. Hoffman was responsible for watching the northeast quadrant of the ocean and was the first to see it, but it immediately disappeared from his view, so we had only his word for it until later in the day. By that time, news of this kind was assumed to be the product of a hallucination and did not cause an immediate stir. There was, of course, a kind of wishful interest, but nothing resembling belief.

The hole in the boat had left us in a perilous position, and there was the unspoken fear that if bad weather again hit, we might once more have to lighten our load. “Can’t it be patched, Mr. Hardie?” asked Mrs. Grant as soon as the sun showed itself above the horizon. “Surely you can think of something!” But try as he might to stuff the hole with blankets, the flow of water could not be altogether stopped. “It’s not a simple round hole,” he said. “You can see for yourself how the wood has splintered.” But every now and then Mrs. Grant repeated, “Surely you can think of something, a man of your experience and resolve.” Finally, he lost his temper and shouted, “Patch it yourself, then! Take charge of the whole bloody mess!”

I was shocked to see him lose his temper at such a slight provocation, especially when we had eaten our fill the day before and had the strips of meat that were drying on top of the canvas boat cover to look forward to for breakfast. I tried to send Hannah a questioning look, but her thoughts were evidently turned inward, and she seemed insensible to her surroundings until Mrs. Grant asked her to pass two strips of bird meat to each of us. On most days, Mr. Hardie took charge of the water barrel, but he grumbled something to Mr. Hoffman, who responded by taking the duty of passing around the tin cup upon himself. With so little moisture in our mouths, it was hard to swallow the lump of meat, and I wondered if we should have taken the pains to dry it. I watched as Isabelle dipped her piece into the ocean and knew that while seawater might make the flesh easier to chew and swallow, the added salt would do nothing but further deplete her body of its precious store of water and add to her thirst.

The waves came at us in a hypnotic pattern of large swells. The up-and-down motion was as regular as clockwork and mostly we were silent and inert, except for the bailers, who scooped at the water and threw it back over the side the best way they could. We were dazed and wishful and lulled, almost, by the strain on our bodies and minds and by the rhythmic rocking, until, miraculously, both boats rose simultaneously on the backs of separate swells, and there it was, silhouetted against the sky at a distance of perhaps a quarter mile before they and then we slid down the glassy green haunch of the ocean and into another trough.

This time, several people saw it. “Man the oars!” shouted the Colonel, breaking the stunned silence. “Make for the craft!” There was a flutter of activity as people absorbed this news, as they checked it against the dwindling list of things they knew for certain and against the much longer list of things they only hoped. With much bumping and clattering, the oars were dislodged from where they had been jammed in under the rail and where they had lain mostly dormant since the gale, but Hardie rose, arms outstretched like Christ on the cross, and admonished: “It’s Blake’s boat! Damned if it isn’t! Ship the oars!”

“I don’t care if it’s the devil himself,” said the Colonel. “Prepare to row!”

It was at this point that Hannah began to make her way aft, crouching low and holding on to whatever presented itself in order to keep her balance. Mr. Hardie’s attention lay elsewhere, and he appeared not to notice her until she had her hands on one of the two water barrels that remained to us now that we had lost one in the gale.

“Back to yer seat, damn ye!” cried Hardie, noticing her too late to stop her from ripping off the lid. He lunged in her direction, shouting, “Ye will imperil us all!” but Hannah’s hand disappeared into the barrel and emerged with a wooden box, which was tied tightly around with a bit of rope.

“You who fear no one act as if you fear Blake,” she cried. “Is this the reason why?” She seemed to have known the box was there, so Mrs. Grant must have seen it when she had checked the barrels for water and passed the information on.

“Put that back,” said Hardie. “Ye don’t know what ye’re doing.” But Hannah’s hands were scrabbling at the string, trying to undo its knot. For a moment, the other boat was forgotten, out of sight behind the large swells that rhythmically rocked us as if the world’s overall pattern would not be disturbed, regardless of the countless little dramas of human life; and it was easy to believe it had never been there at all. “Get his knife,” called Mrs. Grant. “Mr. Hardie,” she commanded, “produce your knife.”

Hardie looked about at us. His eyes were protruding from his gaunt face. His hand sought the scabbard at his waist and emerged with the knife, but instead of passing it to Hannah or using it to cut the cord, he held it between them in a decidedly threatening way before saying, “All right, then, if you won’t take my word for it, pass the box here.”

Before Mrs. Grant could object, the boat rose again on the back of a giant swell, began to slip over its steep side, and there, above us and poised to plummet downward on top of us, was the other boat. “To the oars!” shouted Hardie as the two boats came within inches of each other, causing Hardie and Hannah to fall against each other and the knife, whether by accident or design, to slice deeply into the side of Hannah’s face. She cried out, lost hold of the box, and fell into Hardie’s embrace. He was somehow able to catch hold of her, and again, whether by accident or design, the knife went over the side and the box must have gone with it, for it was never seen in the boat after that, and it was only by the grace of God that Hannah and Hardie didn’t go with them. Hardie swore to us—and it might have been so—that he could not have saved both the box and Hannah, but he had been invested with such powers of control that it was commonly believed he had orchestrated events so that whatever secret or evidence the box held would be lost.

Hannah was shoved to the floor while Hardie seized an oar out of Mr. Hoffman’s hands and, despite his injured arm, tore at the water in an effort to gain some distance from the other boat. “Do ye still think we should team up with them?” shouted Hardie, but of course it was a rhetorical question. “Do ye still think we’d make a cozy couple rafted up together side by side?”

I have an imperfect memory of the people in the other boat. Many of them were slumped and motionless, and it was hard to know if they were dead or only injured or sick. Only four or five people in the boat showed any life at all, and their mouths were frozen open in horror when it appeared that we would crash. One woman held out her arms to us, and a man called out something, but it was impossible to hear what he said. One thing that was crystal clear to all of us was that there was plenty of room in the other boat.

When Hardie had grabbed Hoffman’s oar, Mr. Preston had moved next to me to compensate for the changing balance of the boat. Now he leaned in toward me and said in a low voice, “Whatever was in that box must hold great value.”

“All people hold their personal possessions dear,” I said. “I’d think that nowhere is that more true than in a setting such as this, where most of us have lost everything.”

“But do we make them into such secrets? I wonder that Mr. Hardie doesn’t just tell us what is in the box. Perhaps when things calm down, someone should ask him outright rather than trying to wrest his secrets from him.”

“Now is hardly the time for that!” I said. Then I added: “And the man is used to being around all sorts of people. It’s no wonder he doesn’t know whom he can trust.”

“True, true,” said Mr. Preston, and for the second time I felt he was holding something back, that he knew more about the box than he was letting on.

After we had gained some distance from the other boat, Mr. Hardie directed that the oars be put away. “It’s her or me,” he said, pointing with his good arm at Mrs. Grant. “Either ye want her in charge of things or ye want me. Ye’d best decide.” He told us that the box had belonged to him and that it was no one’s business what it contained, and after that, he refused to say more. I remembered the box I had seen him slip inside his jacket during the storm and I could only think it was the same one. If so, he was taking great pains to keep it concealed, but I kept this observation to myself.

Mrs. Grant looked around the boat and gave us all a chance to speak about whatever was on our minds. She set the tone by speaking first. She said it was her opinion that Mr. Hardie had misused his power and kept us from the other boat out of some personal animosity he had for the man named Blake. This might or might not have cost lives, since we had never explored the possibility of moving some of our people when we had the opportunity. Then she charged that with his lottery, Hardie had directly caused the loss of three lives and possibly more, but it was our opinion she was interested in, not her own. The Colonel rose to his full height and said that Mr. Hardie had indeed endangered all of us by failing to approach the third boat in the first days and that he had, through his own actions and lack of judgment, lost the confidence of those placed by God or fate in his charge: “It might be folly to approach the other boat in such heavy seas as we saw today, but we should have done so when we could.” The Colonel came off looking almost heroic because he spared a thought for “the poor souls we just saw, who no doubt would have benefited from our earlier involvement and aid.”

Only Mr. Hoffman spoke in defense of Mr. Hardie, pointing out that we ourselves had lost only eight of our number. There were still thirty-one of us, and except for Mrs. Forester, who was to die almost unnoticed later that day, we were in relatively good health; and while there was disagreement about whether the boat we had just seen was Blake’s boat or the one skippered by the bearded man, its occupants were clearly sicker and more depleted than we. We knew that one of the boats had started off filled beyond capacity, so if that was the one we had just seen, it seemed the chances of dying in that boat were far higher than they were in our own. It was Mr. Hoffman’s staunch belief that this was due to Mr. Hardie’s superior ability to keep his charges alive. Mr. Nilsson sat quietly by and said not a word either for or against.

Mr. Hardie growled that whichever boat we had just seen, there was now plenty of room in it. “If some of ye want to take yer chances with it, I am sure it can be arranged,” he said, but Mrs. Grant said that if any of us were to be transferred to the other boat, it should be Mr. Hardie himself. At this suggestion, Mr. Hardie’s face took on a twisted look, and I shrank against Mr. Preston in horror to think that a person could harbor in himself such opposing personalities. In any event, the boat was now nowhere in sight, so even if there were some practical way to transfer Mr. Hardie, the question was now moot.

Lisette spoke up to tell a story that had been whispered about since the third day, when we had learned that Mr. Blake had thrown two people out of his boat. I had heard the story several times, and each time it contained new details that were either factual additions from valid observers or pure fabrications based on our increasingly active imaginations. Lisette ventured that Mr. Blake’s boat was riding strangely in the water because he was carrying something heavy in it, something stolen from the locked room on the
Empress Alexandra.

Greta, who was completely enthralled with Hannah and Mrs. Grant and who had developed an irrational dislike of Mr. Hardie, then suggested that Hardie and Blake were coconspirators and that Hardie was somehow helping Blake by keeping our boat away from his. “But what evidence do you have?” I cried before I was even aware that I had a desire to speak, but the Colonel interrupted to declare, “If the charge is false, Mr. Hardie will tell us so.” Mrs. Grant, who returned Greta’s affection, said, “Greta deserves to be heard just as much as anyone else.” Then she turned to Mr. Hardie and asked, “Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

Hardie replied, “If Blake and I did steal something, something which would otherwise have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, where it would have remained buried in the muck for all eternity, I would say: What do ye know about doing without, ye who have always had everything? Poverty is a shipwreck! It’s very easy to live moral lives when all of yer baser needs are attended to. And if we didn’t steal anything, I would say only: I wish we had.”

“You are not only charged with theft, whether it be the box you have concealed from us or something more substantial that is carried in the other boat,” said Mrs. Grant. “What do you say to keeping us away from it and reducing the possibility of our rescue?”

“How has it reduced anything? I don’t expect ye to listen to Hoffman there, but the proof of his argument is floundering about out here just like we are.”

When it came her turn to speak, Mary Ann shook her head to indicate that she had nothing to say, but she leaned toward me and whispered, “I can’t help thinking about what Mrs. Fleming said. About how your husband paid Mr. Hardie to take you on board. Maybe that’s what was in the box. Maybe he was given it by your husband and didn’t steal it at all. Did the box look at all familiar to you? Did you get a good look at it? Surely you should say something if you did!”

I replied that Mrs. Fleming had been delusional and that my husband was not the sort to pay for something when he could get it for free and that when a ship is sinking, only a scoundrel would be concerned with something as frivolous as diamonds and gold.

“But they were already lowering this boat when you got on,” said Mary Ann. “They stopped it for you. I know that for a fact. And that’s when Hardie got on, too. It’s possible your husband did pay him and you just failed to notice.”