The Girl Who Came Home(54)

He remembered seeing her earlier that day, while he and the Irish girls had crept up the ladder and spied on the upper deck. It suddenly occurred to Harry that while these passengers were joking about the ice and returning to the warming blaze of the fires to finish their nightcaps, Peggy and Maggie and Katie and all the other passengers down in steerage would have no clue as to what was happening. It was also their cabins which would be closest to the damage.

As he turned to make his way back down to E deck to tell them what was happening, he passed a crewmember who was starting to uncover the tarpaulin from one of the lifeboats.

‘Excuse me sir?’

‘What is it boy?’ the man snapped, working the ropes as quickly as he could, frozen as they were with the cold and his numbed fingers unable to grasp the fastenings.

‘How long before she goes down?’

The crewman stopped then and looked at him, shocked by the directness of his question. It was a look of absolute fear that chilled Harry to his core.

‘Two hours they say lad.’ He continued to fiddle with the lifeboat ties. ‘The nearest boat won’t be here for four,’ he added, unable to look Harry in the eyes.

There was nothing else to say.

Harry turned and ran as quickly as he could, his heart pounding in his chest, his mind racing, his mother’s words ringing in his ears, ‘and mind that you look after those third class passengers just the same as you would to any o’ those wealthy first class sorts.’

He had to get to Peggy and the Irish girls. He had to get them to the lifeboats.





PART IV





Captain Smith SS Titanic: 'Anxiously awaiting information and probably disposition passengers. Franklin.'





Marconigram message sent from Mr Franklin, The White Star Line to Captain Smith, The Titanic,

15th April, 1912





CHAPTER 22 - R.M.S Titanic, 14th April 1912





‘Peggy, Peggy, pssst, are ye awake?’

Silence.

‘Katie. Katie Kenny. Aunt Kathleen?’

Silence.

Maggie sat up in her bed, stooping her head and shoulders so as not to hit off the low roof of the cabin. The electric lights had gone out. The darkness in the cabin was so intense she couldn’t see her own hand as she waved it now in front of her face. She could hear her blood pumping through her ears.

‘Psssst, wake up,’ she hissed into the black silence, raising her voice a little now. ‘Is anyone awake?’

Her heart was pounding. She had never felt more alone in all her life. Terrified to try and climb down from her bed in such darkness she sat still, unable to ignore the sense of panic rising in her, the cold and adrenaline causing her to shiver in her thin nightdress.

The lights flickered momentarily on and off again.

She could hear running overhead.

The baby started bawling in its suitcase in the cabin next door.

She sat stone still, her ears straining to catch any noise from the corridor outside the cabin; occasional shouts, thumping on doors, footsteps pounding. Her thoughts returned to Joseph Kenny’s tea leaves, Pat’s dropped sovereign and the strange man who had spoken to Peggy at Queenstown. Something was wrong. She was sure of it.

The bang on the cabin door made her jump, knocking her head on the ceiling.

‘Peggy. Maggie. You in there? It’s me. Harry.’

There was an urgency to Harry’s voice, an edge which Maggie didn’t like.

‘What the feck was that?’ The bang on the door had woken Peggy.

‘Peggy, thanks be to God….’

Another bang on the door.

‘Girls, you in there?’

‘Harry, yes, yes,’ Maggie was shouting now. ‘Wehoutre here.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Maggie Murphy, what the devil has you shoutin’ in the middle of the night? What time is it? Who turned off the lights?’ Kathleen was awake now, followed shortly by Katie who rubbed her eyes sleepily as the lights flickered and, much to Maggie’s relief, stayed on.

‘Oh, thank the Lord,’ Maggie exclaimed. ‘I’m coming,’ she shouted to Harry, climbing as quickly as she could down the steps at the side of the bunk bed to the floor. Walking the few steps to the door, she flung it open to reveal Harry standing in the corridor, trying to catch his breath.

Maggie shook physically, whether with the cold or anxiety she wasn’t sure. She squinted against the glare of the brightly-lit corridor. ‘Harry. What is it? What’s wrong? Why have we stopped?’ She was shocked by the look of dread and anxiety on his usually smiling, relaxed face.

By now the three other women in the room were sitting up in their beds, their blankets wrapped around them against the cold, leaning out to hear what Maggie was saying.

‘Stopped?’ Kathleen exclaimed. ‘We’ve stopped?’