The Midnight Watch (33 page)

‘Yes, that is the way it’s always done, as far as I know.’

‘And you knew that perfectly well on the night of the 14th of April?’

Once more the Drill Hall falls still and quiet. Even the traffic outside on Buckingham Gate seems to have paused. The giant cross-section of the
Titanic
suspended beneath the ladies’ gallery by slender ropes undulates slowly in the warm air.

‘Yes,’ Stone says. He did know it perfectly well on the night of the 14th of April.

When the ladies close their eyes, they are there with this strange man on his dark bridge, looking over his shoulder, trying to see what he sees.

Lord Mersey intervenes. ‘And is not that exactly what was happening?’

Stone looks at his feet. He seems to have forgotten what was asked. Lord Mersey waits, but still Stone says nothing. The spring pollen makes someone sneeze. Scanlan, feeling perhaps the dismay of the ghosts he represents but also sympathy for the downtrodden, guides Stone gently along.

‘Now,’ he says quietly, as if coaxing a schoolchild to tell the truth about missing sweets, ‘you have heard my lord put that question?’

Stone nods.

‘Well, you must answer it. That was what was happening?’

‘Yes.’

Both Lord Mersey and Scanlan stare hard at him. ‘The
very thing
was happening,’ says Lord Mersey, less gently than Scanlan, ‘that
you knew
indicated distress?’

‘If that steamer had stayed on the same bearing after showing these rockets —’

‘No, no.’ Lord Mersey holds up a hand to stop him. ‘Do not give a long answer of that kind. Is it not the fact that the
very thing
was happening which you had been taught indicated distress?’

‘Yes.’

Scanlan presses. ‘You knew it meant distress?’

‘I knew that rockets shown at short intervals, one at a time, meant distress signals, yes.’

‘Do not speak generally. On that very night – think of it – when you saw those rockets being sent up you knew, did you not, that those rockets were signals of distress?’

Everybody waits. Some ladies do not realise they have moved forward on their seats – to the very edge. Finally, it comes.

‘No.’

It is an affront to logic, and the whole hall feels it. It is too much for Lord Mersey. ‘Now, do think about what you are saying!’ he cries out, as if in pain.

A hushed murmuring runs around the hall. There’s rustling of dresses in the gallery; a man is pushing past knees to get out to the aisle. Stone is again casting his eyes about, searching, more frantically this time. Something is at work in him, something more powerful than truth and dignity. It’s as if a puzzling drama were being enacted in the hall, one that needs the grand entrance of its main player to make sense of it all.

The fifth rocket

Will Sage has always been a special child. Stella remembers him crying once because he saw a caterpillar being eaten by a sparrow. Another time he fell asleep in the fork of a tree and could not be found for hours. There’s something in the soft texture of his being that delights his mother and makes him her favourite; her love for him is absolute. Stella has seen the pair of them sitting for hours in the long grass of their backyard, watching bumblebees and looking for dragons in rain clouds. Will is an innocent; when he makes daisy bracelets to give to his sisters he doesn’t know that his brothers laugh at him. There is something other-worldly about him; his spirit seems to come from far off.

So now Stella is angry at herself. She should have watched him always, she should have held his hand. ‘I’ll go and find him, Mother,’ she says. ‘I’m faster than you are, so you stay here with the others and I’ll go down.’

Connie rubs her mother’s dress against her cheek. ‘Don’t worry, Mummy,’ she says, placing her open hand on her chest as she’s seen Mr Hart do. ‘There’s no occasion.’

Stella laughs in spite of herself. ‘Very good, Connie,’ she says, ‘very good.’ She takes her mother by both hands. ‘Connie’s right. There’s no occasion to worry. Wait here. I’ll bring him to you.’

She pushes past the first-class passengers back into the Grand Staircase foyer and runs down the stairs, weaving in and out of people who mill about and get in her way. They whisper and tut-tut but she does not care. On the B-deck landing she looks about, calling Will’s name loudly, but cannot see him. She wonders whether he has gone lower, perhaps all the way to his father and brothers.

‘You looking for a boy, Miss?’

Stella turns to see four bellboys, perhaps thirteen or fourteen years old, standing to one side of the electric lifts in their bright green, brass-buttoned suits. They have matching green caps adorned with the emblem of the ship’s line: a white star on a red background. They’re smoking cigarettes.

‘I am,’ Stella says, hurrying over to them. ‘My brother. Have you seen him? A skinny boy of eleven?’

‘Grey knickers and striped shirt?’ asks one.

‘That’s him.’

‘We saw him, Miss,’ says the bellboy. ‘Down there.’ He points to the same alleyway Mr Hart brought Stella and her family along earlier. ‘He went aft.’

Then he
is
going to his father and brothers, Stella thinks. She thanks the bellboys and runs off down the alleyway, but she’s perplexed. Will has always preferred being with his mother rather than his father. What, she wonders, could he be going to him for?

At the foyer of the fancy restaurant she pauses to catch her breath. Glancing in, she sees that many of the lamps with pink silk shades have fallen over. The slope of the deck is increasing. She can see men climbing up the outside of the bay windows.

And then she sees Will, standing near the buffet tables. He’s taking the polished brass rings off the napkins and putting them in his pocket.

‘Will!’ she calls, running to him and taking him by the arm. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ he says.

‘Why are you taking those?’

‘Because I want them.’

‘Oh, you silly, silly boy!’ says Stella, tightening her grip on his arm and leading him from the restaurant. ‘They’re not yours to take. And Mother is beside herself with worry. Come along.’

‘But I’m not finished yet.’

‘I said come
along
!’

Back on the boat deck, Stella finds her mother and sisters standing with their group, just a little further forward from where she left them. Her mother falls on Will, pushing her face into the cloth of his cap, but he wriggles free and turns to Ada. He takes from his pocket a large, bright orange, holds it to his nose and breathes in its scent. It seems to soothe him.

‘This is for you,’ he says, holding out the fruit on his open palm as if it were the most solemn of offerings. ‘That’s why I went back. This is what we’ll grow in America.’

Ada, speechless, kisses her brother on his soft cheek. Turning back to his mother, Will says, ‘And this is for you.’ He reaches into his pocket again and hands her a brass napkin ring. ‘I polished it especially.’ She takes the ring from him and kisses it, her face serene. Stella wonders what she is thinking. It has never been easy to tell, and she marvels at how, amid all this drama, her mother can be so calm.

But now is a time for action, not tranquillity. Stella looks around for Mr Hart but cannot see him. He has gone, Dolly explains, to look for a lifeboat. It seems there aren’t many left with space enough for all the women in the group. They are to stay here until he returns. Stella helps her mother usher the children into a nearby alcove where they can huddle against the cold.

A ship’s officer is giving orders further forward along the deck. He must be a senior officer, Stella thinks when she catches sight of him: he has no lifejacket, but wears a greatcoat instead, with golden rings on the cuffs. Every now and then he talks to his men with an odd politeness: ‘Steady there, if you please. Belay that, gentlemen. Hold fast there, if you wouldn’t mind.’ He is attending to a boat, smaller than the others, which has been lowered to sit level with the boat deck. Eight or so first-class passengers have gathered there, including, Stella sees, the man with the top hat and waxed moustache who spoke to her so sarcastically. His wife is rearranging the fur around her shoulders, adjusting the ostrich feathers in her hat, and giving instructions to a woman Stella assumes is her maid. One by one the officer helps the women step across the narrow gap between the ship’s side and the flimsy boat.

Stella is astonished by what she sees next. The woman with the ostrich feathers reaches her hand back to her husband, who says to the officer, ‘May I go with my wife?’ He takes care always to keep his top hat straight.

‘Oh, certainly do,’ says the officer. ‘Please do.’

The man steps daintily into the boat, and other men follow. A moment later the officer gives an order and the boat begins its descent to the sea. Stella counts twelve people in it. Half of them are men. And there are seats for at least thirty more. Why in the name of God are her father and brothers being held below in the crowded third-class foyer when these men are being let into half-empty boats with a ‘certainly do’ and a ‘please do’?

Even as she watches them, another rocket is fired. Stella has been keeping track: this is the fifth. It’s so close the hissing and explosion shock her, and by its white light she sees something that, for the first time, brings real fear. The black seawater is only a few feet below the forward welldeck.

‘Mother,’ she calls, ‘they’re letting men into the boats! There are plenty of spaces for Father and the boys. I’m going to get them.’

Her mother instantly protests but Stella takes her by both shoulders. ‘I’m going, Mother, there’s no point trying to stop me.’ She speaks with as much force as she can muster. ‘And you must give me your promise, here and now, swearing on all that is sacred, that when Mr Hart comes back, you and the children will get into the next boat. Do
not
wait for me. I’ll get in a boat with Father and the boys.’

Her mother refuses. ‘I cannot go without you, Stella. I will not!’

‘You will,’ insists Stella. ‘You
must
– for the children. For Will.’

Her mother is silent.

‘Promise me: when the time comes you and the children will get in a boat. I must have your promise.’

And at last, as the stars of the fifth rocket die out, her mother gives it.

*   *   *

Captain Stanley Lord, fully clothed, sleeps deeply on the chartroom settee. His cap is drawn down over his face to shield his eyes from the light of the chart table lamp. The whistle of the speaking tube, when he at last hears it, is piercing and insistent. It drags him from the depths of sleep. Disoriented, he struggles to remember where he is as the whistle sounds again. He turns over and buries his face in the softness of a cushion, then hears it yet again, angry now at whoever is blowing it. He forces himself up and walks slowly to his cabin next door. The whistle stopper is at the end of his bunk; he removes it just as it begins to wail once more.

It is the second officer calling from the bridge above. Mr Stone sounds distant, uncertain, hesitant.

‘What is it?’ Lord asks into the speaking tube.

‘That steamer, sir. She’s firing white rockets.’

Lord pauses, still not quite awake. ‘What steamer?’

‘The one you pointed out to me.’

Now Lord remembers the vessel he saw: a small steamer, stopped by the icefield, waiting for dawn.

‘Any colour in them?’ he asks.

‘No, sir. They’re white, just white.’

‘Are they company signals?’

‘They’re white rockets.’

‘What does she want?’

‘I don’t know, Captain.’

‘Well, you had better Morse her and find out, hadn’t you?’

‘I
have
been Morsing her,’ Stone says, ‘but she isn’t answering.’

Lord hears the petulance amid the distortions of the speaking tube. He knows the second officer wants him to come up – and he will, he will – but first, Mr Stone needs to do some work himself. That is why he is paid.

‘Try again, Mr Stone,’ Lord says. ‘Try again. Find out what she wants and then send the apprentice down to tell me.’ He waits, but all he hears is the soft hush of air in the tube. The second officer has not replaced the stopper; he must still be standing there.

Lord squeezes the whistle stopper back into the tube and returns to the chartroom, still not quite awake. The light of the room hurts his eyes. He lies down on the settee and replaces his cap over his face, listening for the tapping of the Morse lamp. There it is – click-click, click, click-click. He closes his eyes and waits for the apprentice to come down and relay whatever interesting information the diligent second officer finds out.

In less than a minute he’s asleep once more.

‘What do you think it was firing rockets for?’

When the question is asked of him in London, for the first time, Captain Lord stares directly ahead. His face shines like polished bronze, his eyes are deep blue. Although he is not in uniform – he wears a blue suit and a crisp white shirt with a starched collar buttoned high and tight on his neck – the ladies and gentlemen of the galleries know what they are looking at: a captain of the British Merchant Marine, loyal, courageous and true.

Obvious as it is, the question was never put to him by the American senators. Here in the Drill Hall it hangs heavy in the air while the occupants sit in silent awe at what they think is its simple answer. But this captain before them on the stand, with all his lived experience of the sea and its ways, must see in the question a very great complexity which they do not appreciate, for he does not answer it.

The question has been asked by Sir Rufus Isaacs, KC, the Attorney-General. As he waits for a reply he reaches up instinctively to adjust his wig, then remembers he’s not wearing one and runs his hand through his hair instead. These are executive proceedings, not judicial. There are no wigs or gowns.

Isaacs’ voice is more beautiful than might be expected of a man who grew up in East London, the son of a Jewish fruit merchant, and who left school at fourteen and was sent off to sea at sixteen. Its modulations are subtle and sweet. There’s a cadence and pace to his words and never a hesitation, as if he is reading from a script he can see in his mind.