Titanic Affair (23 page)

He climbed aboard.

‘Lower away!’ came the call.

With a creaking of new ropes, they began to lower the boat. Emilia counted only twenty-eight men, women and crew on board. She saw their faces getting smaller and smaller as the boat was lowered down the side of the ship until it finally hit the sea. She could just make out Pansy’s hat, with the glow of Robert’s cigar next to it, and wondered whether Pansy would have a chance to talk to Dorothy Gibson as she hoped. Knowing Pansy, she thought it only too likely!

She watched as the boat began to pull away from the ship. It glided away on a sea so calm it could have been made out of glass.

It was a beautiful night, with not a breath of wind, and a clear sky. The cheerful strains of the orchestra playing ragtime music filled the air. With the intermittent booms of the rockets, and the white stars exploding overhead, there was a festive atmosphere.

Emilia glanced at her watch. It was 12. 45, just over an hour since the ship had hit the iceberg, and about half an hour since Carl had gone below to help his mother. He should soon be returning to the deck.

She went round to the port side of the ship to see if he had already, perhaps, returned. Just as she was passing one of the gangways, a fireman staggered up from below. His arm was bleeding from a long gash.

A woman close to him looked horrified. ‘Is there any danger?’ she asked him hesitantly.

‘Danger?’ he yelled. ‘I should just say so! It’s hell down below. This ship will sink like a stone in ten minutes.’

He was obviously in a great deal of distress, but before Emilia could do anything to help him, First Officer Murdoch took charge. He was a firm man, and strong minded. He placed crew at the top of the gangways so that no one else could come up from below as the fireman was helped.

Emilia understood why. It would not do to have the passengers alarmed by such talk. Whether there was any dreadful danger she did not know. The fireman would obviously believe so if he himself had been wounded, but that meant nothing. He could simply have come from a part of the ship that had been badly damaged, whilst the rest of the ship remained intact. There did not seem to be any great danger. There was  slight list to the ship, it was true, but nothing very much. Even so, the incident was unsettling.

There was no sign of Carl on the port side of the ship, so she returned to the starboard side.

She wished he would come.

Her eyes travelled round the deck. She saw a number of other passengers, all talking in desultory fashion and discussing the untoward turn of events. She recognised Mr Astor. He was with a number of other gentlemen. Some were smoking cigars and some were drinking brandies. They all seemed calm and collected.

Her eyes travelled on.

She saw Mrs McLaren, her stewardess, standing by lifeboat no 5. Next to Mrs McLaren was a man in a dressing-gown and slippers. With a shock Emilia realized it was Mr Ismay. The last time she had seen him he had been dressed in his evening clothes, looking cheerful and gay. Now his face was strained.

‘Get into the boat,’ he was saying to Mrs McLaren and another stewardess.

‘But we’re not passengers,’ Emilia heard Mrs McLaren protest. ‘We’re only members of the crew.’

He spoke firmly. ‘Nevertheless you are women and I want you to get into the boat.’

With doubtful looks at each other, the stewardesses at last did as he said.

Emilia felt the stirrings of unease. Mr Ismay’s face was grave, and the fact that he was forcing the stewardesses to leave the ship made her fear the situation was worse than she had supposed.

Fortunately her thoughts were broken into at that moment by a cry ringing out over the jumbled noise of conversation and officers’ instructions being relayed through megaphones.

‘Emilia!’

The voice belonged to Carl.

She turned round to see him heading towards her, with his mother on one arm and Miss Epson on the other. Both ladies were dressed warmly in thick coats, with stout shoes, muffs and gloves, and both were wearing life jackets. Carl, too, was warmly dressed, and was wearing an overcoat, boots and life jacket.

‘Well, what a lot of fuss and no mistake,’ said Mrs Latimer as they drew close. ‘Carl’s telling me I’ve got to get in a lifeboat, but I don’t like the look of them. They’re too small. I’d sooner stay on the ship. There’s nothing wrong with it as far as I can see. A bit of a tilt, maybe, but nothing much.’

A crewman hurried past and she called out to him, ‘Is it really serious?’

‘No, ma’am, there’s no danger,’ he said reassuringly. ‘There’s been some damage to the ship, but it’s only trivial, and just in case it proves worse than we fear we’ve summoned four other ships by wireless. The first one will be here inside an hour.’

‘You see,’ she said to Carl. ‘There’s no use leaving the ship. If it’s serious after all, the other ships will take us off when they get here. They’ll be a lot safer than those cigar boxes,’ she said, eyeing the lifeboats dubiously. Then she turned to Emilia. ‘He’ll listen to you. Tell him he’s making a fuss.’

Emilia glanced at Carl, then back at Mrs Latimer. She did not want to cause alarm, but she was concerned. Mr Ismay’s face and his insistence that the stewardesses must get in the boats, to say nothing of the fact that he, the White Star chairman, was personally helping people into the lifeboats, had begun to make her anxious. For the first time she thought it possible there might be some danger.

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ said Emilia. ‘Pansy and Robert have gone. So has Dorothy Gibson. It will be something to talk about when you get home.’

‘Well, I suppose so,’ sighed Mrs Latimer. ‘I’d better go. You’ll only bully me until I do,’ she said to Carl. ‘Miss Epson, you’d better get in first,’ she went on, turning to her companion.

Chivvied along by Mr Ismay, and assisted by Carl and one of the crewmen, Miss Epson approached the side of the deck.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Miss Epson nervously.

‘Easy now,’ said one of the crewmen. ‘Nothing to fear. Just put your foot over the side and into the lifeboat. I’ve got you,’ he said reassuringly, as she put one tentative foot into the boat whilst the other was still on deck. With a little push from Carl and a little pull from the crewman, she managed to complete the manoeuvre successfully, and sat down in the boat.

‘Oh, it’s really quite comfortable,’ she said, surprised..

‘Now, you’re next,’ said Mr Ismay, helping Mrs Latimer.

Carl turned to Emilia. ‘And then it will be your turn.’

‘Very well. As long as you come too.’

‘It’s women and children first,’ he reminded her.

‘There were a number of gentlemen in the first boat. If there are not enough women and children to fill the second boat, then men will be allowed in, too.’

He frowned.

‘I’m not going without you,’ she said firmly.

‘Very well,’ he conceded. ‘As long as there’s room. If not, you’re to go in the boat - no arguments - and I will get a later one.’

She saw the sense of this.

‘Very well.’

He smiled. Then, putting his hands on her shoulders he drew her to him and kissed her on the forehead. She could feel the warmth of his body radiating outwards. If they had been alone . . . But they were not alone.

Reluctantly he let her go.

‘Oh!’

Emilia heard Mrs Latimer let out a startled cry. Mrs Latimer had almost fallen as a distress rocket, going off with a resounding boom, had taken her by surprise.

Carl gave his mother his attention, holding her beneath the elbow until she had successfully crossed to the small boat and settled herself down next to Miss Epson.

‘Oh, it really is quite comfortable,’ Mrs Latimer said in surprise, as Miss Epson spread a blanket over her knees.

Having seen her safely settled, Carl turned back to Emilia.

Or, at least, back to where she had been, but she was no longer there.

‘Emilia?’ he said, looking round. Then, with a puzzled note in his voice. ‘Emilia?’

His eyes scanned the boat deck. They roved over Mr Astor’s party, on past a group of ladies, then stopped and searched the group to make sure none of them were Emilia, before travelling across the deck to the lifeboat again. But he could not see her.

He looked round again, more quickly this time, his eyes sweeping every group and scanning every face. He refused to accept what he was seeing, but as his eyes searched every last inch of deck around him, he had to face the truth.

Emilia had gone.

Emilia was watching Mrs Latimer climb into the lifeboat when she felt a hand clamp itself over her mouth from behind and she was dragged backwards, away from the boat, through the milling throng of people on the boat deck. She was so surprised that it was a minute before she could take in what was happening, let alone do anything about it, and the people she was dragged through were too intent on listening to the officers’ orders to take an interest in one young woman who had nothing to do with them.

She was pulled from the boat deck to the promenade deck, by which time she had recovered from her shock enough to struggle. She began to hit and kick out with all her might. But it was to no avail. Her assailant cursed, but otherwise ignored her efforts to break free as he dragged her towards the lift.

She could not see who it was that had hold of her, as he - by his strength, she guessed it must be a man - was behind her. He dragged her into the lift, then his hand punched one of the buttons - and nothing happened.

The lights were still working, Emilia noticed, but when the ship had struck the iceberg, the power for the lifts must have gone out.

‘Damn! The bloody lift’s not working,’ said her assailant.

Her spirits sank. She recognized his voice. It was Barker.

She knew that Carl’s man had been keeping an eye on him during the voyage, making sure he remained in steerage, but in all the confusion he must have managed to get away.

She renewed her struggles. She didn’t know what Barker had to gain by seizing her at such a time, but he meant her no good, and the sooner she broke free the better.

He dragged her out of the lift again, his hand still clamped over her mouth, then pulled her kicking and struggling down the stairs.

If only someone would notice, she thought. But the sight of a woman struggling in the grip of a man was no longer noteworthy. Below deck, conditions had deteriorated. Stewards were no longer politely asking passengers to put on their lifejackets and soothing them with reassurances that nothing was wrong. Instead they were pulling reluctant women from their staterooms and forcibly preventing them from returning, so that no one found it strange or objectionable to see a woman being treated so roughly.

How quickly things can change, thought Emilia. A few hours before, Barker would not have dared try such a thing, and if he had, he would have been immediately apprehended by the stewards. But he had dared it now. She must find a way out of the situation, because no one was going to help her. She would have to help herself.

Barker seemed to have no clear idea of what he was doing or where he was taking her. He pushed her in front of him, taking her whichever way seemed easiest, where the people were not so densely clustered. He eventually turned into one of the corridors leading to the staterooms. They were, Emilia thought, in second-class, although she could not be sure. She had lost her bearings in all the confusion. The narrow corridors all looked alike. If only she had taken more notice when she had visited second class before. But it was too late to think about that now.