Next in the row stood Katie Kenny. Kathleen was very fond of the Kenny girl and knew how excited she was about seeing her sister Catherine in New York. She had kept to her promise of keeping everyone’s spirits up with her songs and had half the steerage passengers singing along to their favourite Irish ballads.
Then there was young Michael Kelly, a slight young fella whose mother was very unhappy about his decision to emigrate and join his two brothers in New York. He’d boasted of the new pocket his sister had sown on the inside of his jacket to keep his money and ticket in. ‘It’s a fine pocket with neat stitching isn’t it Miss Murphy?’ he’d announced to her.
Alongside Michael stood the painfully shy Mary Brogan and her boisterous cousin Pat with his shock of red hair. They were both going to stay with Pat’s sister in Philadelphia. After the incident with the dropped lucky sovereign, Kathleen had advised him to keep it in his sock for the duration of the journey.
At the far end of the line, Kathleen could just see the faces of the younger girls, Bridget Maloney, Maria Cusack, Margaret Daly and Peggy Madden who was still wearing her new hat. They were each heading to family in Chicago, New York and St. Louis.
It occurred to Kathleen as she looked down the row that theirs were just fourteen stories among nearly two thousand aboard this ship. Following Captain Smith in his final prayer, she closed her eyes and prayed to the Good Lord for all of their good health and good fortunes, wherever they had come from, wherever they were going and whatever their reasons for making this long and remarkable journey.
*
As soon as the service was over, Kathleen and the rest of the passengers returned to their respective parts of the ship. Captain Smith and his Officers returned to the bridge from where he gave the orders for the eleven am lifeboat drill to be cancelled, for the boilers to be stoked and for the speed to be increased to full steam ahead. He gazed out over the vast expanses of the Atlantic Ocean, proud in the knowledge that they would dock in New York in just two days’ time.
CHAPTER 17
April 14th, 1912
Dearest Séamus, all is well. Titanic is a fine ship. I hope your da is well. Don’t wait for me, come to America as soon as you can. Maggie.
Maggie put her pencil down on the bed covers and read over her words once again before reading them out to Katie who was sitting at the other end of the bed playing solitaire with a pack of cards, her legs curled under her like a cat.
‘So, what do you think?’
Katie thought for a moment as she moved the Jack of Hearts onto the Queen. ‘I think it’s grand Maggie. Stop worryin’ about it and just give it to Harry will you or we’ll be in New York and you’ll never have it sent at all.’
Maggie knew she was right, but still wasn’t sure she’d written exactly what she wanted to. Having finally plucked up the courage to ask their steward friend, Harry, about sending a wireless message to Séamus through the Marconi operators who he was friendly with, she hadn’t then been at all sure what she wanted to say. It seemed trivial almost to say so few words when there were so many more she wanted to write down, but Harry had told her to keep it short. ‘The first class passengers send these messages for a bit of a lark,’ he’d told her, ‘they’re amused by the technology and the chance to communicate with their friends and family while they are on board a ship is too big a boast to miss out on. Some of ‘em send two or three messages a day at twelve shillings and sixpence a time and think nothing of it, telling people what they’ve eaten for lunch or gossiping about a conversation they’ve overhead. It pays well for the Marconi boys – and makes the day a bit more interesting for them, otherwise it’s just relaying boring messages to the Captain from other ships about sightings of ice and wind direction. Think of it as sending a postcard from a holiday, ‘having a nice time, wish you were here’, that sort of thing.’
She read over her words again. She’d already written eight different messages before finally asking for Peggy’s advice. ‘Jesus, Maggie,’ Peggy had laughed, reading over her friend’s first few attempts. ‘Sure why would he be carin’ about what you were eatin’ for dinner last night? For the love of God, just tell him you miss him and you love him. That’s all ye need to write.’
Maggie didn’t even understand how it was possible to send a message by radio from a ship in the middle of the Atlantic ocean to a small town in Ireland, but she somehow felt that since it was possible, the words of the message should be carefully considered, should mean something to the sender and the recipient.