The Lifeboat: A Novel (2 page)

WE HAD BEEN
in the lifeboat for perhaps five hours when the sky turned a deep pink shading to blue, then purple, and the sun seemed to inflate as it dropped toward the darkening line of water to the west. In the distance we could see the black shapes of other lifeboats, bobbing the way we were bobbing, set down in that pink and black vastness with nothing to do but wait, our fortunes in the hands of other crews and other sea captains who must by now have heard of our distress.

I had been anxious for dark to fall because of a pressing need to relieve my bladder. Mr. Hardie had explained the mechanism by which this was to be done. It involved, for the ladies, using one of the three wooden bailers, whose primary purpose was to scoop excess water out of the bottom of the boat. He stumbled awkwardly over his words as he suggested that one of the bailers be put in the possession of Mrs. Grant and that we were to tell her when we had need of it and were to switch places with someone who was sitting at the railing whenever nature dictated that we need this sort of service. “Hech!” said Mr. Hardie, looking up from under his heavy eyebrows in an almost comical way. “There, that’s that! I’m sure ye’ll figure it out.” He who had seemed so sure of himself when, only minutes earlier, he had gone over a list of supplies carried by each of the lifeboats and explained the use of each one was rendered progressively speechless by this task.

When the orange rim of the sun had completely disappeared, I took my turn with the bailer at the rail. To my dismay, I noticed that while the sky had turned dark and night had fully fallen, the black had texture to it, and sources of light, and shadows, and, behind the shadows, eyes. I was distressed to find that nighttime was not the concealing cover I had been expecting, and also that our quarters were so cramped there was no disguising the action I was performing. I thanked whatever forces had a hand in arranging things that I was surrounded mostly by women and that they were delicate of feeling and pretended not to notice what I was doing. We were in similar circumstances, after all, and an unspoken etiquette was arising where we would not look the beast of physical necessity in the eye. We would ignore it, we would dare it to claw apart our sense of decorum, we would preserve civility even in the face of a disaster that had almost killed us and that might kill us yet.

I was immensely relieved on several counts when the task was finished. I had been so preoccupied with how I would accomplish it that I had scarcely paid attention to Mr. Hardie’s accounting of our circumstances and inventory of supplies. Now I was able to realize that each of the lifeboats had come stocked with five blankets, a life ring with a long rope attached, the three wooden bailers, two tins of hard biscuits, a cask of fresh water, and two tin drinking cups. In addition to these supplies, Mr. Hardie had somehow procured a lump of cheese and some loaves of bread and salvaged two additional casks of water from the wreckage, which he surmised had come from a capsized lifeboat. He told us that there had once been a box of compasses stored on the deck of the
Empress Alexandra,
but it had gone missing on a previous voyage, and because the ship’s owner had moved up the departure date on account of the brewing war in Austria, it had never been replaced. “Ye can say what ye like, but seamen are neither more nor less honest than anybody else.” He also made a point of telling us that it was only through his quick thinking that the canvas cover that had kept rainwater out of the boat when it was stored on deck ended up in the boat with us. “But why do we need it?” asked Mr. Hoffman. “It’s exceedingly heavy, and it takes up a lot of room.” But all Mr. Hardie would say was “It can get wet in a lifeboat. Ye’ll see that for yerselves if we’re here long enough.” Most of us wore life vests, but they had been stored in our cabins, and during the confusion of the disaster, not everyone had had the time or forethought to retrieve them. Mr. Hardie, two sisters who sat huddled together and rarely spoke, and an older gentleman named Michael Turner were among those without.

Soon after I had returned to my seat, Mr. Hardie opened one of the tins and introduced us to hardtack, which were rock-hard wafers approximately two inches square that could not be swallowed unless first softened with saliva or water. I held the biscuit between my lips until pieces of it began to dissolve and looked off into the not-quite-dark sky at the myriad stars that pricked the heavens, at the endlessness of the atmosphere that was the only thing vaster than the sea, and sent a prayer to whatever force of nature had arranged events thus far and asked it to preserve my Henry.

I felt hopeful, but all around me women had started to break down and cry. Mr. Hardie stood up in the rocking boat and said, “Yer loved ones might be dead or they might not be. There’s a good chance they’re in one of the other lifeboats bobbing about out there, so ye’d do well not to waste yer body’s water in tears.” Despite his words, little wails and whimpers burst from the darkness throughout the night. I could feel the young woman sitting next to me shudder now and then, and once, she let out a throaty, animal sob. I lightly touched her shoulder, but the gesture seemed only to upset her further, so I took my hand away and listened to the soothing music of the water against the sides of the boat. Mrs. Grant made her way between the thwarts, trying as best she could to console the most stricken until Mr. Hardie cautioned her to sit still and told us we would be wise to make ourselves comfortable and get some rest, which we did as well as we could, leaning against each other and offering or asking for reassurance according to our needs and abilities. Against all odds, most of us managed to sleep.

BY THE TIME
we awoke on the morning of the second day, Mr. Hardie had worked out a duty roster, which included turns at the oars for the strongest. Mrs. Grant and all of the men except for the frail Mr. Turner were seated by the boat’s eight oarlocks and took turns passing the four oars back and forth whenever Mr. Hardie called on them to row. He took some time gauging the breeze and the current, and I heard him remark to one of the men sitting near him that use of the oars would compensate for drift, for our best bet was to stay in the vicinity of the wreck. The rest of us took turns with the bailers. We were floating very low in the water, and even though there was little wind to speak of, every so often a swell splashed over the railing, which Mr. Hardie called a gunwale, so that our clothing and the blankets that were part of the boat’s little store of emergency supplies were in constant danger of getting wet. It was worst for those who sat in the ends of the boat or on the two long seats that ran lengthwise on either side. They formed a wall of protection for the rest of us, who were lucky enough to occupy the thwarts that spanned the breadth of the boat between them.

After passing out a ration of hardtack and water, Mr. Hardie bade us arrange the canvas boat cover and blankets in the crease formed by the forward part of the boat in such a way that the canvas protected the blankets from any water that might pool in the bottom of the boat as well as from spray that splashed in over the rail. He declared that the women could take turns resting there, three at a time, for a period not to exceed two hours. Because there were thirty-one women—if you counted little Charles—it worked out that we each were entitled to one turn per day in what was immediately dubbed the dormitory. The extra time would be given over to any of the men who desired it.

Once this was accomplished, Mr. Hardie charged the oarsmen with keeping the other lifeboats in sight as far as was possible. I gave myself the task of helping them, so I spent the day squinting into the distance, using my hands to shield my eyes against the blinding sparkle of the sun on the sea. In this way I felt I was contributing to the welfare of the people in our boat. Mr. Nilsson, who said he had worked for a shipping company and who seemed a stickler on points of organization, asked Mr. Hardie how long our supply of food would last, but Mr. Hardie put him off, saying food would not be an issue unless we were not rescued, which he fully expected we would be. For the most part, there was little conversation, and I could tell by the blank stares and enlarged pupils of many of the women that they were suffering from shock. At that point I knew only two of my fellow passengers by name. Colonel Marsh, a large, distinguished gentleman whose wife had died some years before, had sat at the captain’s table with Henry and me, and I had often seen Mrs. Forester, a silent woman with wary eyes, trailing about the
Empress Alexandra
with a book or knitting in her hand. The Colonel nodded efficiently in my direction, but when I aimed a smile of recognition at Mrs. Forester, she looked away.

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, we gazed out over the water for signs of a passing ship, while Mr. Hardie alternated between stoic silence and eruptions filled with geographical facts and lore of the sea. I found his short monologue on the effect of the sun on the water at the equator versus its effect on the curving surface at the poles bewildering, but I recall very clearly some of the other things he said. He called Lifeboat 14 a cutter and said it had been designed both to row and to sail; and indeed, there was a round hole in one of the forward thwarts where a mast could be inserted, but we had neither mast nor sail. He told us that because the speed of the earth’s rotation is much greater at the equator than it is at the poles, there were, over the surface of the earth, various wind belts. We had been traveling due west at approximately forty-three degrees north latitude when the ship went down, a position that put us, Hardie said, right in a belt of prevailing westerly winds. He explained that westerly winds blew from the west rather than to the west and that we were situated in the middle of well-traveled shipping lanes, which had been plotted in the era of sailing vessels to take advantage of these winds. He told us that typically both winds and current were against a ship going from east to west as we had been, but the advent of steamships had made it possible to take the shorter northern route, even if it meant heading into the wind. He raised visions of overbooked steamers to the point where we expected at any moment to have our choice of the vessels rushing to rescue us. Only Mr. Nilsson interjected a sour note by saying, “Who’d be coming to Europe now? There’s a war on!” The mention of war caused the Colonel to throw his shoulders back and say, “Quite so,” but Mr. Hardie gave them both a black look as he said, “There’s ships that’s going both ways. Keep yer eyes peeled so one of ’em doesn’t run us over.” While we watched together for some sort of vessel to arrive, the slight man, who now identified himself as a deacon, led us in a prayer.

The deacon had a beautiful voice, and although he was not someone who would attract notice in most situations, I found it hard to take my eyes off him when he spoke. I noticed later that this effect deserted him when he was confronted with an unfamiliar subject, but with the prayer he was sure of his ground, and his voice rang out over the water and unified us with its words. He had clearly found his calling, and I wondered, not for the first time, if some of life’s tragedy arose when people put themselves in situations they were not by nature suited for. I was later to revise my opinion of the deacon, and eventually his tenor seemed evidence of his general weakness; but at the time, I was content to watch the way his faith animated his features and listen as his voice brought life to the ancient words of the prayer.

Despite our common purpose, petty jealousies arose. Those who sat along the railing were far more likely to be splashed by dripping oars than those who sat amidships, and when Mr. Hardie determined the order in which we would take turns in the dormitory, a brusque woman named Mrs. McCain insisted that the older women should by rights go first. She would have it no other way, but she lasted only a few minutes on the blankets before declaring that it was beastly and hot under the canvas and that she would take her turn at night. Because of the crowded conditions, movement in the boat was difficult, and when Mrs. McCain lost her balance on her way back to her seat, a curl of water slid over the railing, causing Mr. Hardie to bark, “Keep to yer seats unless I tell ye otherwise!”

Mr. Hoffman was the first to mention what we all were thinking: the boat had not been designed for so many. A few minutes later, Colonel Marsh pointed out a brass plaque that was nailed next to the second starboard oarlock and engraved with the words
CAPACITY 40 PERSONS
. But even with thirty-nine of us, it was obvious to everyone that the boat rode far too low in the water and that it was only because the day was still that this did not present a greater danger. The plaque perplexed all of us, but it perplexed Colonel Marsh most of all, for he was a man of order who expected not only a certain regimentation to the universe, but also a gentleman’s agreement about meaning among users of the English language. “The spoken word is one thing,” he said, “but someone took the trouble to engrave this number into a plaque.” He kept rubbing his fingers over the letters and counting the thirty-nine heads in the boat, then shaking his own heavy head with the mystery of it. Once he tried to engage Mr. Hardie in a discussion about it, but Mr. Hardie only replied, “And what do you propose we do? Write to the people who made the bloody boat and lodge a formal complaint?”

We found out later that the craft was twenty-three feet long, seven feet two inches wide at her widest point, and just under three feet deep in the center and that the first owners of the
Empress Alexandra
had saved money by reducing the specifications for the lifeboats, which had been built to hold only about 80 percent of the stated capacity of forty people each. Apparently the order for the plaques had never been changed. It must have been because we were mostly women and smaller in stature than the average man that the boat didn’t sink early on the first day.

Mr. Hoffman and Mr. Nilsson often sat with their heads together, which gave me the impression they were colleagues of some sort, but since they were seated in the back of the boat and I was two-thirds of the way up toward the bow, I had little chance to talk to them and couldn’t hear what they were saying. Now and then they included Mr. Hardie in their discussions, though Hardie mostly remained aloof. We were unused to moving about the boat, and the next time a group of women were careless in making their way to the dormitory, water again splashed over the rail. Mr. Nilsson made a joke about someone volunteering to take a swim, maybe even two people, and Colonel Marsh replied, “Good idea, that. Why don’t you jump overboard yourself?”

“I’m the only one here besides Hardie who knows a thing about boats,” said Mr. Nilsson, who went on to tell us he had grown up in Stockholm, where boats were as common as motorcars. “Throw me over at your own peril,” he added, looking more defiant than seemed appropriate for a man who had merely been making a joke.

“We’re not talking about throwing anyone over,” said Mr. Hoffman reasonably, “we’re talking about volunteers,” but we had been in the boat for less than forty-eight hours. The sea was mostly calm and we were certain, still, of being rescued. Over the course of the afternoon, Mr. Hardie went from being dismissive of Mr. Hoffman’s arguments to seeming to consider them. That morning, when someone had asked if we should make contact with the other lifeboats, he had proclaimed, “There’s no need for drastic action. We’re sure to see a steamer or a fishing trawler,” but now and then the three men could be seen talking in low voices among themselves, and in the afternoon, when Mr. Hoffman again broached the topic of an emergency plan, Hardie nodded and then looked off into the distance as if gauging something I couldn’t see.

“If the wind comes up, we won’t have time for arguments and discussion,” I heard Mr. Nilsson say to Colonel Marsh. “Making a plan doesn’t mean we will ever put it into effect.” Mr. Hardie was not the type to take orders from anyone, and I had the feeling we were being manipulated in some way; but my mind was numb with fear and perhaps it is only in retrospect, now that I am facing a different sort of authority, that it seems there might have been webs of influence and deceit in the lifeboat from the very start.

Oddly, I became more clearheaded with the passage of time. In the first hours I was too frightened to think critically about my situation: either too hot or too cold, too hungry or too thirsty, too apt to imagine things and say to the young woman who sat beside me, “What’s that over there, Mary Ann? At two o’clock. Isn’t something glinting in the sun?” Or “What is that dark shape, Mary Ann? Does it look like a boat to you?” Toward evening on the second day, as the huge orange sun sank like a heavy ball and people seemed to wake from their stupor enough to grumble about their aching muscles or wet feet, Mr. Hoffman said, “If we don’t get any volunteers, we’ll have to decide by drawing lots.”

At that point Anya Robeson, a woman who spoke very little but whom Mary Ann had described as “someone from steerage,” gave Mr. Hoffman a stern look and hugged her son Charles under her coat. She didn’t want him to hear any of it. “Watch how you talk,” she would invariably say when one of the men spoke of death or used crude language. “There’s a child present.” I don’t know why she worried about that—perhaps so she wouldn’t have to worry about the sea, which went on and on, changing from blue to gray when a cloud passed over the sun and from gray to crimson when the sun flamed toward the horizon. A German girl named Greta Witkoppen burst into tears, and at first I thought she was crying because it would soon be dark or because she had lost a loved one, but then I realized that the talk of the men had frightened her.

Mrs. Grant leaned over to where she was sitting and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she told her. “You know how men are.” Greta then showed a bit of gumption by saying quite loudly, “You’re scaring people. You shouldn’t say such things.” Another time she said directly to Mr. Hardie, “I’d think you would care more about how you look to the world.”

“The world!” scoffed Hardie. “The world doesn’t know I exist.”

“Someday it will,” she ventured. “And someday it will judge you.”

“Leave that to the historians,” Hoffman shouted, and Hardie laughed into the rising wind and shouted, “We’re not history yet, by God! We’re not history yet!”

Greta was, I think, Mrs. Grant’s first disciple. I heard Greta say to her, “If they don’t care about the world, you’d think they’d care about God. God is omniscient. God sees everything.” Mrs. Grant responded by saying, “He’s a man. Most men think they are God,” and later I saw her pat Greta on the arm and whisper, “You just leave Mr. Hardie to me.”

Three Italian women and the governess named Maria were the only ones who didn’t speak any English. The Italian women were dressed in identical black cloaks and huddled together in the front of the boat, alternating between complete silence and rapid, incomprehensible bursts of speech as if something only they could see were about to boil over. Maria had been traveling to America to work for a family on Beacon Hill. She was nearly always hysterical, but I could not pity her. Even the most sympathetic of the women could see that her utter lack of self-control presented a danger to us all. At first I tried to calm her with the few words of Spanish I knew, but each time I attempted to communicate with her, she would claw at my clothing, then stand up and wave her arms in the air, so the rest of us, once we got tired of pulling her back into her seat, would do our best to ignore her.

I will confess that it crossed my mind how easy it would have been to rise to my feet and, in the act of trying to restrain her, fall against her and knock her out of the boat. She was sitting right next to the rail, and it was clear to me that we would be far better off without her and her histrionics. I hasten to add that I did nothing of the sort and mention it only to illustrate how the bounds of a person’s thinking quickly expand in such a situation and how part of me could understand the train of thought that had led Mr. Hoffman to suggest a way to lighten the load and also how such a suggestion, once made, was difficult to forget. What I did instead was to switch places with Maria, so that if she were to lose her balance and fall, she would fall on top of Mary Ann or me and not out of the boat and into the brine.