‘We must be stopped,’ she said aloud to herself. She wasn’t sure why they would have stopped though and concluded that they must do this every night, shipping rules or something. As she was usually asleep by that time, she wouldn’t have noticed it before.
To reassure herself she got out of the bed and tiptoed silently across the floor, not wanting to wake the others. Opening the cabin door slightly, she peered out into the corridor. Nobody was about, nothing seemed amiss. Reassured, she crept back into her bed, placed her journal into her small, black case and turned out her light. She shivered for a while in her thin nightdress, wishing they had been able to get those extra blankets after all.
CHAPTER 21
Harry Walsh was a man of his word. He’d told Maggie he would deliver her note up to Philips and Bride in the Marconi room, and that’s what he’d intended to do until he’d become distracted by an incident in the dining room at lunchtime when one of the passengers started to choke on a piece of bacon. There had been all manner of fuss and panic until Harry had given the man a hefty thump on the back, at which point the bacon continued with its journey to the man’s stomach. He’d been asked to write up an incident report for the Officers and when that was complete he’d called in on the man himself to check on his health.
‘I had a lucky escape young lad, thanks to you,’ he chuckled, when Harry asked how he was feeling. ‘It wouldn’t have been very pleasant for the other passengers if I’d died right in the middle of lunch, would it? Imagine the headlines the papers would have had in the morning – ‘Man chokes to death on Titanic. Safety inspection underway’ – now that would have taken the shine off the ship’s triumphant arrival in New York, wouldn’t it!?’
Harry had laughed at the man’s sarcasm. ‘Yes sir, I suppose it would! Not quite the headlines Captain Smith and Mr Ismay are after! Well, I’m glad to see that you’re fully recovered. Enjoy the rest of the trip.’
As a result of this strange interlude to normal proceedings, all thoughts about delivering Maggie’s note were totally forgotten until he was just about to make his way to bed that night.
Having laid out the tables for the following morning’s breakfast, the final task before saloon stewards were permitted to retire for the evening, he felt in his pocket for the keys to his dormitory. Feeling a piece of paper among his keys, he emptied his pocket.
‘Oh, bugger it,’ he said aloud, stopping in his tracks.
‘What’s up Harry,’ one of the other stewards asked, who was also just finishing up, having laid the starboard side of the room while Harry had attended to the port. ‘Have you just realised you’ve put a spoon facing the wrong way or something?’
The other third class saloon stewards liked to tease Harry about his particular ways and his insistence that everything was perfect before he would leave things for the night.
‘No, no, not a spoon.’ Harry was distracted, wondering what to do.
‘What’s that? A love letter from that Irish lass? You want to be aiming a bit higher mate,’ the steward continued, pointing towards the ceiling. ‘That’s where the lasses are who you want to be flirting with, not these nit-riddled steerage types.’
‘Aw, bugger off will ya. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.’
The other steward laughed and carried on ahead to the crew quarters.
Harry turned and walked back down the corridor in the opposite direction towards the elevator. In his pocket he’d found Maggie’s message to home. He’d completely forgotten about it and had promised her he would get it sent out that day. Being a man of his word, he decided that that was exactly what he was going to do.
The elevator carried him up to the portside boat deck where he ran along the corridor past the Officer’s quarters to the Marconi radio room.
‘Bride, Bride,’ he hissed, barely setting foot into the room.
Harold Bride, one of the two radio operators, turned in his seat and took the headset from his ears, his dark hair ruffled as if he had been running his hands through it, his cheeks flushed with concentration, his eyes looking tired.
‘Bloody hell Harry, what are you doing creeping around up here at this time of night?’
Harry handed him the small piece of paper. ‘Send us this would you? Favour for a steerage girl with no cash.’
Bride glanced at the folded piece of paper. ‘Dunno mate. We’re working Cape Race, there’s messages coming in thick and fast from the first class passengers. I need to get them sent out before we lose the frequency. I’m making a bloody fortune!’ He smiled and turned back in his seat. Harry could hear the distinct crackle of messages coming in over Bride’s headset. ‘And,’ he continued, ‘there’s bloody ice warnings coming in from all over the place. Here’s another one.’