The Midnight Watch (28 page)

‘Was Herbert scared of him?’

‘A little. He always tried to please him, but never could.’

She told me how hard Herbert had worked to get his First Mate’s Certificate and to obtain his position as second officer on the
Californian
. He’d looked forward to working with Captain Lord, whom he knew to be one of Leyland’s best skippers. But he’d been disappointed: for some reason, the captain seemed not to like him. Herbert had made some mistakes – small ones, but the captain never forgot them. ‘My husband is a shy man,’ Mrs Stone said. ‘The captain need only have encouraged him a little.’

Life at sea was difficult, but Herbert had made a go of it. The encouragement he did not get from his captain he found in his books. He loved the American novel
Moby-Dick
most of all, and hoped always to be as loyal to his captain as Starbuck was to Ahab.

‘Even unto death?’ I asked.

‘Unto death,’ she said, again without doubt or irony.

Mrs Stone looked at me with beautiful eyes. A delicate wetness had formed at their edges and in one there was a single tear. ‘Please do write his story,’ she said. ‘I would be grateful.’

‘I will write it,’ I said, ‘and I will do it justice.’

‘Do you promise?’

‘I do.’

She took from her handbag the photograph of the Sage family and handed it to me. ‘Then you must keep this,’ she said. ‘I have a spare. And remember: he knows their names. Every single one.’

*   *   *

I had three days before the
Californian
witnesses were due to give their evidence in London, so the following morning, Sunday, I said goodbye to Liverpool and took a train to Peterborough in Cambridgeshire. The journey lasted more than four hours but I was glad I took the trouble. The air flowed more freely through this town than through Liverpool. Parks sparkled with the moisture of spring and lace curtains swayed gently in open windows. I ate a boiled egg and drank some gin at the station bar then walked the short distance to Gladstone Street. On the corner of Hankey Street I stopped before a small bakery nestled up against a long row of broad, two-storey brick terraces.

Outside, withered flowers were piled in an empty bread crate. When I stepped closer I saw an assortment of cards among them. ‘God Bless You John and Annie, and your dear, dear children. How sad we are for you.’ ‘For Fred, Gone to a Better Place, from Management, Lane Brickworks.’ I saw one note in a child’s handwriting: ‘To my Freind Connie who Sleeps with the Angels.’ This last was accompanied by a small drawing in light, feathery strokes of a stick-like figure lying back on what may have been wings, or otherwise the petals of a flower.

I knocked on the door of the bakery but there was no answer. An elderly woman emerged from the adjoining house to tell me that the family – the new family – were away for the day on a picnic. I asked her if she had known the Sages.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘They were my neighbours.’

I asked if she might be so kind as to tell me a little about them. ‘Whatever you like,’ she said, holding her door open for me. She showed me to a seat in her front parlour and brought tea and cakes. She was an ample woman, with teeth as brown as wood and a surprising cluster of jewels at her throat. Her name, she said, spreading herself on the sofa, was Mrs Goddard, with no children and a husband long dead.

She spoke freely, as if I were an old friend. The Sages, she explained, had bought the bakery next door two or three years ago. They’d lived in rooms above and behind it. In one corner of the large yard was a deep well, in which one of the girls, young Dolly, had nearly drowned. ‘After that,’ Mrs Goddard said, sucking crumbs from her fingers, ‘Annie had the well filled in and swore that her girls would never go near water again. Never. And now – just think of it! – they’ve
all
drowned.’

I thought about telling her that they’d died of cold, not drowning, but Mrs Goddard had already moved on. She told me that the town of Peterborough was so terribly sad about what had happened. Nobody could bear to take the flowers away. ‘We will never forget them,’ she said, dabbing at her eyes with the loose sleeve of her blouse. She told me of John Sage, the father, an adventurer who dragged his family hither and thither in search of fortune. The children, she said, were high-spirited. The middle boys, Doug and Fred, played rugby and bounced their chests together like seals; one of them had done some bricklaying. The youngest boy, Tom, not much more than a baby, had golden curls, and the youngest girl was an excellent mimic. Eleven-year-old William dreamt his days away and was forever getting lost. He cried once when he saw a caterpillar eaten by a sparrow. ‘The mother was too soft with that boy,’ Mrs Goddard said. ‘I don’t know why. Somehow his gentle ways mesmerised her. He was her favourite.’

But the most impressive of all the children, she said, was Stella, the eldest daughter. She was an excellent dressmaker, but in recent months had put away her sewing machine and collected signatures in support of the London window-smashers instead. She was only nineteen but had spoken at the town hall through a speaking trumpet and travelled alone to London, in defiance of her mother and father. ‘Such spirit that girl had,’ Mrs Goddard said, standing up to take a folded newspaper from the drawer of a side table. She opened the paper to a double-page spread of thirty or so inch-square images of people lost on the
Titanic
. ‘There,’ she said, pointing to one of them, ‘that’s her.’

I was astounded by what I saw: the high spirits, the wilfulness, the playfulness. Stella Sage was not smiling, but she seemed to be on the verge of an explosion of laughter. There was such mischief in her eyes that I nearly laughed myself. I saw in that picture a girl with an inexhaustible fund of strength and an unstoppable drive for life. In short, I saw my own daughter.

‘She never wanted to go,’ said Mrs Goddard. ‘Her work was in London, not the farms of Florida.’ She took back the clipping and looked again at Stella’s photograph. ‘I liked her most of all.’

‘I’m sure she was extraordinary,’ I said.

As I accepted one more of Mrs Goddard’s little cakes, I wondered how it was that this young woman who’d given public speeches and travelled to London by herself had been unable to find her way into a lifeboat. And how could it be that not one of her brothers and sisters had been saved?

CHAPTER 16

Samuel Johnson said that if you are tired of London you are tired of life. I must have been tired of life. It was the midst of the London Season and as I walked along I was buffeted by men in top hats and women clutching theatre programs. It was warm – so warm that people sweated and grunted on the underground train and complained that it was as hot as midsummer. On the streets trams rang their bells, automobiles broke down and horses fought for space. I smelled gasoline, spring flowers and excrement all at once. The newspapers advertised matinées and evening performances at a hundred theatres. The hotels were full; I found no lodgings until I drifted south across Waterloo Bridge and took a room in a cramped hotel in the shadow of the railway station. The station, the desk clerk told me, was being rebuilt – during the day there would be dust and noise, which was why the rate was so reasonable.

I laughed when I saw the room: a narrow bed, a thin cupboard and a desk squeezed into a space no more than two yards across. But the hotel was within walking distance of Buckingham Gate, where the
Titanic
inquiry was being held, so I signed the register and wired my new address to my daughter. I then lay on my bed and drank myself to sleep.

The next morning I woke early. I wanted to be sure of a good seat at the inquiry. The day was overcast but still warm and as I walked across Westminster Bridge swampy vapours drifted up from the river. The grass in St James’s Park was lush with a heavy wetness and the flowers along Buckingham Gate sagged with the weight of bumblebees.

At half past nine I arrived at the Scottish Drill Hall. It was a vast place with three or four hundred folding chairs on the main floor and in two galleries above. There were towering walls, acres of oak panelling, and floorboards polished by years of soldiers’ marching boots. At the front of the hall was a raised chair for Lord Mersey, the Commissioner, and to the left and right were lower chairs for his assisting assessors. Before them were rows of desks for the barristers and solicitors. The witness stand – a small, flimsy desk on a raised platform surrounded by a thin rail – was an exposed, vulnerable place. Mounted behind it was a model of the
Titanic
’s starboard side, perhaps twenty feet in length, and a large chart of the North Atlantic. A little further along, hanging from an upper gallery, was an enormous cross-section of the ship’s interior.

It was wise of me to arrive early. Very soon there was a crowd of people bustling to find seats, and by ten o’clock the hall was full. Feathered hats bobbed impatiently and there was much tut-tutting. People grumbled about the acoustics, about the insects, about the uncomfortable chairs: there ought to be someone to show you where to sit; it was too hot and the curtains made it hotter; it was impossible to hear anything from such a distance. The reason the hall was so full, I learned from a newspaperman sitting next to me, was that two famous survivors of the disaster were due to give evidence that morning. Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon was said to have bribed the crewmen of his lifeboat not to row back for survivors, and Lady Duff-Gordon, his wife, was said to have complained about the loss of her secretary’s beautiful new nightdress. London society had turned out to hear how this couple might defend themselves.

Just before half past ten there was a hush. An usher called for us to stand and be silent, and in swept Lord Mersey and his five nautical assessors. They sat, and a barrister stood up and began to speak. My pressman neighbour told me the speaker was Sir Rufus Isaacs, KC, the Attorney-General. I struggled to understand what he was saying – his back was to us and he spoke quickly in a soft drone, as if already bored – but I could tell that something was wrong. A murmur sprang up in the watching crowd. Chair legs scraped on the floor. Soon Lord Mersey announced that the
Lusitania
had been delayed on its voyage from New York. The Duff-Gordons would not be appearing today.

There was rustling and whispering in the hall and some people got up to leave. The usher asked for silence. He was ignored, but through the noise I could hear fragments of what the Attorney-General was saying to the Commissioner. There were ‘some other witnesses’ due to give evidence today and he proposed to call them now. This was followed by unhappy mumbling from Lord Mersey, but Isaacs went on. ‘The reason, as your lordship will appreciate, is that we cannot always get them here. They are here today and I think it will be convenient to examine them now.’

Seated in the very front row of the public part of the hall, neatly dressed and huddled together, were the men of the
Californian
. I was behind them and many yards distant but I could see them clearly enough: Lord, Stewart, Groves, Gibson and Evans. Stone sat alone, separated from the other men by an empty seat. He was looking down at his lap, nodding his head gently and mouthing words silently to himself.

Isaacs, turning towards these men, gave a quick nod and Captain Lord stood up. The audience fell silent. I sensed their puzzlement: no one knew who he was. They saw only a tall man in a dark blue suit with a shiny bald head. In a moment he was at the witness desk.

‘This,’ said Isaacs to Lord Mersey, ‘is the master of the Leyland steamship
Californian
of Liverpool.’

Slowly Isaacs turned to Lord, and as if to double-check his facts asked, ‘
Are
you the master of the SS
Californian
of Liverpool?’

In Boston, in his chartroom, Lord had seemed monumental – in his square black uniform with its golden epaulettes that shone like beacons – but here, in his civilian suit, in this grand hall, he looked small.

‘Yes, I am,’ he said quietly, staring straight back at his questioner. Neither the Commissioner nor the Attorney-General, I noticed, had done him the courtesy of using his name.

No matter. I knew it. He was Stanley Lord – Lord of the
Californian
– preparing for one last time to tell his story.

*   *   *

It took two days for the
Californian
witnesses to give their evidence. At times they threw their words into the hall with defiance and clarity, even pride; at others they looked at their feet and mumbled sulkily, as might petulant schoolboys in a headmaster’s office. The Commissioner listened carefully throughout, encouraging, reprimanding, cajoling, and trying to make sense of the events being described to him. He seemed perplexed. Eight rockets fired by the
Titanic
and eight rockets seen by the
Californian
: what other conclusion could there be? When the round-faced, bright-eyed Groves was asked whether he thought the ship they saw was the
Titanic
, he said, ‘Most decidedly I do.’

Stewart and Stone, on oath under the penetrating gaze of the Commissioner, no longer had the courage for the blatant lies they’d told in Boston. Who was on the bridge at the relevant time? ‘Mr Stone was on watch,’ Stewart conceded, rather meekly. ‘I turned in about half past nine.’ And were any signals seen? ‘I saw white rockets bursting in the sky,’ Stone admitted. ‘I informed the master.’

Yet Lord, for hour after hour, denied absolutely that it was the
Titanic
they’d seen. Staring straight ahead with unwavering eyes, he spoke of company signals, of rockets answering Morse lamps, of rockets fired by a ship that was definitely not the
Titanic
. He said these things and seemed to believe them. His hands were never clenched and never in his pockets. There was the light of the sincere about him, and the wise. At times he seemed to smile inwardly, like a priest in possession of profound knowledge that others could not share.

‘What is in my brain at the present time is this,’ said the Commissioner, addressing Isaacs but looking directly at Lord. ‘What they saw was the
Titanic
. That is what is in my brain.’