Titanic: The Long Night (21 page)

But first, they both had to return. The moments were ticking away, and people were leaving in the lifeboats, and still there was no sign of Paddy or Brian.

Monday, April 15, 1912

Standing on the ship’s starboard side near lifeboat number five as it was being lowered, Elizabeth could see, far below her, one boat already sitting on the flat black sea, bobbing like a bathtub toy. “Why are both boats nearly empty?” she asked Max, now standing at her elbow. The ear-splitting roar of steam from the huge funnels above them made it necessary to shout. “Shouldn’t they be full? There are so many people on board.”

“They’ve probably assigned those boats the task of picking up—” he stopped abruptly, as if regretting his words.

But Elizabeth knew what he’d been about to say. “Picking up survivors.” And he’d stopped in midsentence because he didn’t want her thinking about survivors. He didn’t want her picturing people flailing around in those icy waters, shouting for help.

But if the ship went down before every passenger and crew member had been removed by lifeboat, that ugly image would become reality.

No wonder Max had stopped speaking. It was too horrible a possibility to even think about.

Her only response was a shocked “Oh.” She was having trouble regulating her breathing. Impossible to tell herself there was no cause for alarm. How could she, when there were now two lifeboats pulling away from the ship?

But then, pointing, Max said, “There’s a steamer in the distance. See the lights? They’re probably on their way here right now to take on passengers.”

That thought was somewhat reassuring.

Elizabeth wondered nervously if that was why there was not much of a crowd waiting to board the next lifeboat. Because people believed they’d be safer staying on board, waiting for the steamer to arrive? Perhaps they all thought it would take hours for the
Titanic
to sink, and long before that happened, the steamer would have pulled alongside.

Or had the word not gone round yet that the ship was sinking? Had no one made the announcement in the gymnasium, or in the smoking rooms or the lounges?

She asked her father what time it was.

“A little after twelve-thirty,” he answered.

Forty-five minutes since the engines had stopped. Yet, except for that almost imperceptible tilt to the deck, the ship still seemed as stable and as safe as ever.

But Elizabeth knew it wasn’t.

“Father,” she called, touching his sleeve to get his attention over the roar of the steam, “there are ships on their way to rescue us. Couldn’t we just wait here with everyone else until they arrive? It seems so much safer than the lifeboats. And you can see mother is frightened about leaving the ship. So am I.”

The expression on his face told her he was as reluctant to separate the family as she was. “We shall stay together as long as it is safe,” he consented. “There seems to be no urgency just yet. But when I say the word, Elizabeth, I want no argument. None, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Father.” Satisfied with that, Elizabeth grasped Max’s hand and held it tightly as the Farrs moved slightly backward, away from the line preparing to board boat number three. Perhaps there would be no need to leave the
Titanic
at all…if the rescue ship arrived soon.

Her mother looked so pale. How frightened she must be, not just at the thought of the lifeboat’s terrifyingly long drop from the deck to the water below, but at the possibility of having to leave her husband behind, not really knowing when she would see him again.

As if reading Elizabeth’s thoughts, Nola turned suddenly and embraced her husband. “I’m not going to leave you,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “I’m not. The boats are leaving only half full. Other men are boarding. No one will mind if you come with us. Please, Martin, you must!”

His handsome face filled with pain. But he shook his head, and although he put his arms around his wife to comfort her, he said, “Oh, Nola, you know I can’t do that.” He held her silently for a few moments, then gently pulled away, saying in a firm but gentle voice, “We will wait for a bit, together. I feel no immediate danger. But as I told Elizabeth, when I say you must go, that will be that. Understood?”

Relief in her face, his wife said, “Yes, Martin.”

It was clear to Elizabeth that her mother believed, as she herself wanted to, that if they waited long enough, a rescue ship would save them from being lowered out into that cold, dark sea in a small boat.

As boat number five began to drop the last few feet to the sea, a voice shouted from the deck, “See to the plug, see to the plug!”

“What plug?” Elizabeth asked Max.

He began shouting his answer, which Elizabeth couldn’t really hear. But halfway through his explanation, the funnel noise stopped abruptly—“letting rainwater drain out while the boats are hanging in place, unused,” Max was saying. His shout sounded odd in the sudden silence. He lowered his voice. “If they don’t put the plug back in before they hit the sea, they’ll be swamped. I hope they thought to put a lantern on the boats, or they’ll have a devil of a time finding the plug in the dark.”

They must have found the plug and inserted it, because they began rowing aft. As they did, Elizabeth could see an officer in the boat giving orders. He seemed to be looking for something, but eventually gave up on whatever it was, and began pulling out to sea, away from the
Titanic.
The boat seemed so small, the ocean so vast, Elizabeth wondered in dread how a rescue ship would ever spot such a small blot on the endless seascape, especially in the dark of night.

Her father had turned away for a moment to talk to a crewman. Elizabeth couldn’t hear what they were saying, but her father’s expression turned grim. His glance went from one lifeboat to the next, as if he were mentally counting them, and when he had finished, his eyes looked bleak.

What terrible truth had he been told? Something about the boats.

Elizabeth knew there were more lifeboats on the port side. But she didn’t know how many. Her alarm deepened. Exactly how many lifeboats were there? How many passengers? Why had her father looked so grim after he’d done his mental counting?

“Max?” she asked, turning back to him. Fear made her voice husky. “Are there enough lifeboats?”

“Oh, sure,” he said. Too easily, Elizabeth thought. It didn’t sound genuine, and she wondered uneasily if he had heard the fear in her voice and was addressing it. As if she were a child who needed placating. “On a ship like this? Bound to be. Why?”

Elizabeth spoke insistently. “Because if everyone really believed the ship was unsinkable, they might not have installed as many lifeboats as on other ships. Because no one thought they’d be needed.”

“Oh, I don’t think that would make any difference. There are maritime laws about that sort of thing. They’d have to install the correct number of lifeboats whether they thought the ship was unsinkable or not.”

Elizabeth fought to accept that. Max sounded like he knew what he was talking about. There were laws about such things. If he was right, her father and Max would have a lifeboat, after all. They would leave the sinking ship just a bit later than Elizabeth and her mother, but they would all meet again later on the rescue ship that saved them.

Though she fought to believe that, something stopped her. It was the understanding that the builders of the
Titanic
, declaring their ship unsinkable, must have sounded like
they
knew what they were talking about, too. If they, experts that they were, could be wrong, as it certainly seemed they had been, Max could be wrong, too.

And didn’t it seem now that more of the faces around her were registering alarm? Were not the voices turning more strident and shrill as they shouted questions at the crewmen? Weren’t there more people pushing forward toward the lifeboats? Mothers gripping the hands of their children. Husbands with a protective arm wrapped around a wife’s shoulders. Honeymooners clutching each other with new desperation.

Or was she imagining these things because of her own fear?

No, she was not. There was fear in the air as thick as the morning fog.

Elizabeth turned to her father, who kept an arm around his wife’s shoulders as they waited. Her lips white with anxiety, she said, “Father? I’m sorry I made you angry earlier. I didn’t mean what I said. Of course you’re no coward. I hope you can forgive me.”

His eyes looked incredibly sad as he smiled down at her and reached out with his free arm to pull her in against him. “Ah, Elizabeth, how much time have we wasted arguing? Such a pity!” Softly, so that his wife wouldn’t hear him, he whispered into Elizabeth’s ear, “You’ll take care of your mother for me, yes? She’s not strong, like you, Elizabeth. From the moment you both leave this ship, you must do as she says. Promise me.”

Elizabeth knew then that Max was wrong. Knew it for certain. The blood in her veins chilled as if she’d been dropped into the icy sea. Her father was certain there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone. That was what he’d learned from the crewman. He no longer expected to leave the
Titanic
later, as he’d promised earlier. Maybe he had believed it then. But he didn’t now. Or he wouldn’t have that despairing look in his eyes. It spoke of no hope.

But she needed him to say it. Aloud. With a direct gaze that said she would tolerate nothing less than the absolute truth, and keeping an unsteady voice as low as his, she asked, “There aren’t enough lifeboats, are there, Father?”

For just a moment, she could see that he silently questioned the wisdom of telling her the truth. Then he must have decided she could handle it, because he shook his head no. Continuing to whisper, he said, “You must promise me, Elizabeth. You and your mother will be taken care of financially, but she will need much more than that. She is not accustomed to handling life alone. This might well shatter her. You must stay with her and care for her, and if you marry, you must take her to live with you.”

There flashed through Elizabeth’s mind then a picture of her mother running the town house in Manhattan and the country house with an iron hand. Things ran smoothly in both Farr households because her mother saw to it that they did. Nola Farr was not as helpless as her husband seemed to think she was. And look how she had refused to give in to Elizabeth’s pleas for college. It was as if she were two separate and distinct people: the organized, efficient matron who handled home and family brilliantly when her husband was away at work, and the sweeter, dependent woman who appeared the minute he walked in the door. “She’ll be fine, Father.” Elizabeth’s voice broke, and tears spilled from her eyes. “Mother will be fine. We will both be fine.” But she didn’t believe it for a second. How could they be, without him?

“Promise me!”

“I promise.” If Elizabeth had chosen to dwell on what she had just contracted to do, she would have been horrified. To stay by her mother’s side forever? To never go out on her own and live her own life? At least her father had said, “
If
you marry,” not “
When you marry Alan
.” He had seen how things were between her and Max, then, and was no longer taking for granted her marriage to Alan Reed. If only he’d reached that conclusion sooner.

But what did any of that matter now? It all seemed so trivial, in view of the crisis taking place on board the ship. What she wanted now, more than she had ever wanted anything, was for everyone on board the
Titanic
to survive this long, terrible night at sea.

Now that her father had shared with her the shortage of lifeboats, it was impossible to keep her hopes up. A cold, black despair welled up within her, as if the ocean had already claimed her.

At least he wasn’t rushing them off the boat, separating all of them sooner than necessary. But she could see by the anxiety in his eyes that it wouldn’t be long before he insisted they leave the ship. How she dreaded that moment! How could she say good-bye to her own father, or to Max, knowing she might never see them again?

Elizabeth, already despairing, remembered something else then, and almost wept. Her father didn’t swim. He had never learned. When they went to the country house on Long Island Sound, he was always careful to don a life vest before they took the boat out. And although he had talked periodically about taking swimming lessons, he’d never gotten around to it.

Feeling sick, Elizabeth was incapable of doing anything more than clutching her father on one side, Max on the other, for as long as she would be allowed.

She didn’t even try to stop the tears that slid quietly down her face. It would have seemed to her an abomination not to be crying.

She saw then that there were other tears on deck besides her own. Women who had begun to realize the true horror of what was happening had begun to weep openly. Those who weren’t already crying were pleading for reassurance from husbands and crew members. Everyone, it seemed to Elizabeth, was clinging to someone else, a husband, a child, a companion, a friend, as if by holding on to another human being, they could be saved from the waiting sea.

The distant sounds of sudden laughter from inside the gymnasium shocked her. The sound was so contradictory to the atmosphere on deck. Then she realized that those inside wouldn’t be aware of the shortage of lifeboats. And the people still inside, playing cards in the smoking room or the lounge or sitting in the gymnasium, still hadn’t accepted that the
Titanic
was actually sinking, or they would be out here, milling about on the boat deck, clambering for a position in one of the boats.

They didn’t know what was happening.

But they would, soon enough.

And they, too, would weep with terror.

Monday, April 15, 1912

In the quiet corner where she waited with Bridey and Kevin, Katie surveyed the crowd for some sign of Eileen. If she would arrive to take over the care of the children, Katie would be free to search for Brian and Paddy. Eileen had to be here somewhere…unless she had left the ship in the first lifeboat. She might have done that. She’d been gone from the cabin a long time.