It was Maura Brennan who saw them first. ‘Maggie! Girls! Over here,’ she called, standing up on a table so they could see where the voice was coming from.
‘Oh thanks be to God girls, look. It’s Mrs Brennan and the others.’
They pushed their way through the gathered groups of people, stepping over cases and trunks which lay scattered around on the floor, weaving in and out of people who blocked their path. Maggie passed the young English girl, Elsie. She was sitting with her family, cradling her baby brother in her arms. The two girls looked at each other and smiled a desperate smile. She saw the Uilleann piper talking rapidly with a group of other men. It struck her how familiar these faces had become in the few days they had shared this space on this magnificent ship. She wondered what would become of them all.
‘Where’s Aunt Kathleen?’ Maggie enquired, immediately scanning the familiar faces of the Ballysheen group, but not seeing her aunt’s face among them.
‘She’s been waking everyone Maggie. Just like your aunt, organising us all, walking up and down those corridors until every one of us was woken and dressed with our coats and shoes. She told us all to wait in here – that she’d join us.’
Maggie glanced around again. ‘But, she’s not here Mrs Brennan! I don’t see her.’
‘Well, she must have gone back to fetch ye girls. She’ll be here soon. Don’t be worryin’ child.’
‘We shouldn’t have gone without her. She’ll be wonderin’ where we’ve got to. Maybe she’s waitin’ for us in the cabin? Should I go back?’
‘Good Lord girl. You will certainly not go back. The ship is sinking. If we need to go anywhere, it’s up to the decks.’
‘Ah Jesus, Mary and Joseph – my hat. I forgot my feckin’ hat.’
Peggy was already turning to walk back for it.
‘Wait! Peggy, wait,’ Maggie cried. ‘I’ll come with you.’
And with that, before anyone could stop them, the two girls started to push their way back through the crowds, out into the corridors, running where they could and excusing themselves to push past people when they couldn’t.
As they approached the cabin, they saw the water creeping ominously along the corridor.
‘Oh Jesus Peggy, look. It’s already goin’ down!’
Without thinking for a moment Peggy strode through the water, pulling Maggie with her, the cold making them both gasp and shriek, the bottom of their coats dragging through the water. ‘Yes Maggie. It is goin’ down. And I, for one, am not plannin’ on goin’ down with it.’
Entering the cabin, they quickly realised Kathleen wasn’t there. Maggie felt frightened for her and hoped that she would be among the others by the time they got back to the dining room.
Reaching up to her top bunk bed, Peggy grabbed her hat and the gloves which she always kept inside it. Turning to clamber back down, hardly able to bear the thought of putting her legs back into the freezing water, she noticed Maggie’s small black case sitting at the foot of the opposite bunk bed.
‘Are ye plannin’ on leavin’ that here or d’ye want to take it with you?’ she said, pointing up at the case.
‘Jesus Peggy – I forgot about it completely,’ Maggie replied as she stood on the edge of Kathleen’s bed, the bottom bunk, and reached up, feeling around until she grabbed hold of the case.
Stepping hesitantly back down into the water, she instinctively reached into her coat pocket, the reassuring bulk telling her that the packet of letters was still there.
They then left the narrow room which had become their home for a few brief days, splashing back up the corridor.
‘We had some fun in there, didn’t we?’ Maggie commented, remembering their giggles after Harry had smiled at Peggy and the chats they’d had late into the night about what it would be like to live in America and the look Kathleen had given them when she’d caught them deciding what Maggie would write in her telegram message to Séamus. They’d gone up the ladder to the upper decks then to spy on the rich and famous. She briefly wondered what was happening up there now; their after-dinner drinks and restful slumber rudely interrupted, no doubt, by the noise being made as the crewmen got the lifeboats uncovered.
‘We did, didn’t we.’ Peggy stopped, turning to face her friend. ‘Maggie, I can hardly believe this ship is sinkin’ and with us drenched in water from the freezin’ Atlantic Ocean. I’d think I was dreamin’ if I wasn’t so scared out of my mind. We will be alright y’know. That fella in Queenstown said I would survive – and I’m not survivin’ without you, y’know.’