Women and Children First (16 page)

Throughout the night, Annie sat still and silent, her chest tight with fear. Roisin and Patrick snuggled into her sides and slept fitfully, the baby lay cradled and snuffling in her arms, but she remained wide awake, her ears alert for a Cork accent on one of the boats they occasionally drifted near.

As dawn broke and the
Carpathia
was sighted, she felt a mixture of hope and fear. Now she would know for sure if Finbarr had reached a lifeboat. Maybe they would soon be reunited. She wanted to believe it, had to believe it. Theirs had been the last boat she had seen leave the ship, but surely either Reg or Kathleen’s brother would have saved her boy. She’d put her trust in them. They mustn’t let her down.

Their boat pulled up alongside the
Carpathia
and the crew lowered a sling for baby Ciaran. She nestled him into it and he was hauled up to an opening in the ship’s side, then it came back down for Roisin, who started crying.
For God’s sake, why did she keep crying?

‘Can you climb by yourself?’ she asked Patrick, conscious these were the first words she had spoken to him since the
Titanic
sank. He nodded.

She climbed the ladder directly behind him and immediately she reached the ship, she demanded of the crew there: ‘Have you seen a young Irish boy, black hair, so high?’ She held her hand at a height just a few inches taller than Patrick.

‘Yours is one of the first boats but there are lots more coming,’ she was told. She turned to scan the ocean behind them and her spirits lifted as she saw at least a dozen other boats struggling towards them. In the distance the craggy peaks of icebergs glinted in pink dawn light.

‘If you go upstairs they’ve got blankets and hot food and drinks,’ a crew member told her. ‘We need to keep this area clear.’

She led the children up the stairs he indicated, but instead of going inside for food, she took them onto the deck and found a spot where they could see out over the railings.

‘Can you count all the boats for me, Patrick love?’ she asked, and he began counting out loud.

‘Nineteen, ma. There are nineteen boats out there, and ours makes twenty.’

More than she’d thought. Annie’s heart gave a leap. ‘Which one do you think Finbarr is on?’

‘That one,’ Roisin pointed to the closest one.

‘I think that one,’ Patrick said, pointing to the boat that was furthest away, a mere speck on the horizon.

An elderly American couple approached them. ‘You poor things, you’ve been through such an ordeal,’ the woman said. ‘Would you like to rest in our cabin? We’re in first class. There’s room for you all to have a proper sleep.’

‘I have to look for my eldest son,’ Annie told her abruptly, then added ‘thank you’ as an afterthought.

‘I’m sure he’ll be here soon, but you should at least come into the warm. The children are shivering.’ The woman was soft-spoken, with a gentle manner.

‘It’s kind of you,’ Annie said, ‘but I have to keep watch in case I miss him.’ She had failed to keep a proper eye on him when they were on the ship, so it was the least she could do now. She couldn’t risk missing him when he came on board, in case he got lost. These ships were huge.

The couple conferred with each other in low voices then wandered off, but five minutes later they were back, the woman carrying blankets and the man bearing a tray with three steaming cups of tea, a jug of warm milk and a bowl of sugar. Annie’s eyes filled with tears at their kindness.

‘God bless you,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much.’

The woman wrapped a blanket around Roisin and stirred sugar into a cup of tea for her. Annie found the baby’s bottle in her handbag and filled it with the milk, and Patrick sipped some tea as well, but Annie wouldn’t touch it. It wouldn’t feel right to take any sustenance until she knew where Finbarr was.

As each boat approached, her eyes moved from head to head, quickly at first, and then more methodically.
Not you, not you, not you.
Each time she realised he wasn’t on board, she switched her attention to the next boat that was drawing near.

‘He must come, he must. Holy Mary, mother of God, I beg you with all my heart.’

And then a particularly crowded boat appeared and she saw Reg being helped to his feet ready to disembark. Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes roved the faces in the throng but there was no Finbarr. Had Reg not found him? He made his way to the rope ladder and she could see he was having a lot of trouble climbing. His hands wouldn’t grip the rope and it looked as though his feet were too painful to take his weight. He slipped and twisted round the ladder and one of the crewmen had to help him up. Annie grabbed the children and rushed down the stairs to meet him, questions fit to burst from her lips.

Reg almost collapsed in the arms of the seaman who hauled him off the ladder. He was in a shocking state, white-faced, blue-lipped, with his clothes frozen to his skin. He looked up and saw Annie watching and straight away shook his head.

‘I’m so sorry. I found him then I lost him again.’

‘What happened?’ she breathed.

‘I tied him to me as the ship went down and we jumped but the knots came undone and I couldn’t find him in the water.’ He took a step towards her and staggered.

‘You need to see the doctor, lad,’ someone cautioned.

Annie felt like lashing out at him.
Why had he survived and not her son? How could he find him then let him go again?
Instead, her knees collapsed beneath her and she sank to the floor, the babe still in her arms.

‘Ma!’ Patrick yelled in terror. Roisin screamed, a shrill, horrible sound.

I can’t break down,
she realised.
It’s not an option. I have to pull myself together for the sake of these three.

Someone appeared with smelling salts, but she waved them away. She hadn’t lost consciousness; her legs had simply stopped supporting her weight. A woman took the baby from her while she leaned on a gentleman’s arm to get to her feet. Reg had disappeared, led off somewhere by the crew.

Now I know the worst
, she thought.
I just have to find out if there is any way that I can carry on living
. At that moment, it didn’t feel as though there ever would be.

In the doctor’s consulting room, Reg was stripped of his wet clothes and wrapped in blankets. A nurse manoeuvred him into a chair and lifted his feet into a basin of warm water. Still he had no sensation in them. They were big white blocks of flesh attached to the ends of his legs. The same nurse held a cup of tea for him to sip because his fingers couldn’t grip anything.

‘We’ll find some dry clothes for you,’ she said. ‘Once you’ve warmed up a bit.’

People were bustling around and he wanted to nod off to sleep, but his brain was too active. The main thought in his head was that he had to find John. He wanted to tell him about trying to save Finbarr. He wanted John to tell him that it was OK, that he’d done his best, because he was stricken with guilt. The sight of Annie’s face, the way she collapsed when he told her that her son was lost, would stay with him for the rest of his life. He replayed the events in his mind and knew he should have done more. He should never have swum off without the boy. He’d been selfish. He’d thought only of saving himself.

His feet were starting to hurt now, as if they were being jabbed by hundreds of needles.

‘That’s good,’ the doctor said. ‘The circulation is returning. A couple more minutes then I’ll dry them and put on sterile dressings.’

I don’t deserve this,
Reg thought.
They wouldn’t be so kind to me if they knew.

The nurse brought a set of clothes for him: a grey suit, a white shirt and some socks and underwear. They looked about the right size. He wondered whose they were but didn’t ask. She showed him to a cubicle where he was able to pull them on. The jacket was a little wide in the shoulders, but otherwise it was fine.

‘Where are my other clothes?’ he asked, and the nurse showed him a pile by the door.

‘We’ll launder and dry them and you can pick them up tomorrow,’ she said.

Reg slipped his fingers into his trouser pocket and felt something soggy. Very carefully, he turned the pocket inside out so he could extract Mrs Grayling’s five-pound note without tearing it. The paper was soaked through but still intact. If he dried it carefully, it would survive. He placed it in the inside pocket of his new jacket, making sure it was flat. In the other pocket he found his passport in three disintegrating pieces, and placed them in the jacket, hoping they would dry eventually. Deep down, he found the St Christopher Florence had given him, and transferred it to his new trousers.

The doctor applied bandages to his feet, carefully separating the toes so they didn’t stick together as the flesh healed. He wasn’t able to put his shoes on, but the bandages were thick and would cushion his feet while he walked around the ship.

‘There’s space downstairs in the crew dorm. Go and have a sleep,’ the doctor advised, but Reg had no intention of sleeping before he found John. He limped painfully out of the surgery holding his shoes in one hand, determined not to rest until they were reunited.

The ship was unfamiliar and much plainer than the
Titanic.
Reg hobbled along the corridor and up some stairs and found he was in a lounge. Survivors from the
Titanic
were huddled in every chair, and some were on the floor propped against the wall, wrapped in blankets and talking in hushed tones. He walked through, scanning all the faces, but they were passengers rather than crew. In one corner he recognised the Howsons and slunk past, careful not to catch their attention. He couldn’t face talking to them. Just beyond the lounge, he found a
Carpathia
steward filling a tea urn.

‘Where have the
Titanic
crew gone?’ he asked.

‘There’s some down below in crew quarters. Do you want me to take you down?’ The lad spoke so kindly that Reg felt tears spring to his eyes. He felt he could handle anything except other people’s kindness, especially that of a lad his own age.

‘I can find it.’

The steward showed him the entrance to their staff staircase and patted him on the back. Reg hobbled down the stairs, reliving the memory of his final trips on the staff stairs during the last couple of hours of the
Titanic
’s life. These stairs were level and filled with the healthy purring sound of the ship’s engines.

He found the crew dorms and walked round, peering down at the heads on pillows. He recognised a few
Titanic
crew members he knew by sight but none he knew to talk to, and no John.

He must be looking for me,
Reg decided.
Chances are, we’ll keep missing each other.
Where would John look? Either here, in the crew dorm, or out on deck perhaps? Reg turned and hobbled slowly, painfully, back up the stairs again. When he reached the lounge, he continued out onto the observation deck.

There were some
Titanic
passengers there, either sitting on deckchairs or standing by the railings looking out across the water. Reg followed their gaze and was astonished at the number of icebergs he could see stretching out to the horizon. They were easy to spot now, sharp and glinting in the morning sunlight. The water was choppy and little remained to tell of the catastrophic events of the night before: a piece of wood; something red in colour that he couldn’t make out, a stray life preserver with no one inside.

He continued further along the deck and there, by the railing, was Mr Grayling. They caught eyes, and Mr Grayling nodded to Reg.

‘I hope Mrs Grayling is all right, sir,’ Reg ventured, approaching.

‘I haven’t been able to find her yet,’ he replied gravely. ‘I put her on a lifeboat last night but there was no room for me to board, so we became separated. I expect she’s here somewhere.’

It was on the tip of Reg’s tongue to mention that he had seen Mr Grayling boarding Lifeboat 5, but he didn’t. It wasn’t his place. ‘If she got on a lifeboat, I’m sure she’ll be fine, sir. I’m very glad to hear it.’

‘If you bump into her, do tell her I’m looking for her.’

Reg agreed that he would but still he felt cross with Mr Grayling. It wasn’t right at a time like this to be fooling around with someone less than half your age. And why was he standing out on deck rather than searching high and low for his wife? It wasn’t right at all.

Reg walked on and everywhere he went he peered at the occupants of chairs and corners, searching for John. He bumped into Mr Joughin and they shook hands. Joughin slapped him on the back and said ‘Well done, lad, well done!’ but when Reg asked, he said he hadn’t seen John.

I have to search more thoroughly
, Reg told himself. He decided to zigzag down the ship, walking the length of each deck before descending to the one below. His feet were hurting badly, but that’s what he had to do. He looked in the restaurants, the gents’ bathrooms, the lounges, the crew dorms, and on every outdoor deck. He asked each member of the
Titanic
crew he came across, but no one had seen John. Once he had finished searching every deck, right down to the cargo area of the ship, he started zigzagging his way back up again. Maybe John was doing the same but in the opposite direction and they kept missing each other?

There was a hard nugget of panic deep behind his breast-bone that nagged more with each step.
What if John hadn’t made it?
Surely he must have. He was strong and brave and sensible, more sensible than Reg. If only they had been together at the end, John would have helped him to save Finbarr and they would all have been rescued together. Reg needed John. He ached for him. Frankly, he didn’t care who else had died so long as John had made it. Each time he reached a new part of the ship, he allowed himself to hope that John would be just around the corner. Each time his hopes were dashed, and panic began to take hold.

I can’t go on without him
, he thought. There was no reason why he should have survived and John hadn’t. It was random, arbitrary and unspeakably cruel. If it turned out that John was dead, Reg thought he would rather swap places with him. He would rather be dead himself than carry on living in such a hostile, unpredictable world.