The two shared an uneasy smile and grasped each other’s hands.
‘Come on Peggy. I don’t like the look of that water at all. We need to get up to the lifeboats.’
Shivering from the icy chill of the water which seeped out of their shoes, their feet squelching inside, the bottom of their coats and nightdresses soaked and clinging around their knees, they made their way back to the dining room as quickly as they could.
*
Within the few minutes they had been gone it was transformed into a scene of total panic and confusion. There seemed to be twice as many people in the room as there had been before and the two girls made their way back to the area where they’d left the others. They were still there, but there was still no sign of Kathleen.
*
Harry struggled as he pushed his way through the crowd which had gathered on the staircase to the upper decks. It was almost impossible to get up with the cases and lifejackets impeding everyone’s movements. It was becoming a desperate situation and he knew that time was running out. It was almost an hour now since the ship had struck the iceberg. He knew that there could only be an hour left for them to get off the ship.
He was trying to get a group of around twenty five passengers up from the steerage accommodations, but it was virtually impossible. As he finally emerged onto the deck, the noise and the icy chill of the bitterly cold night air hit him with surprising force. It was a very different scene to the one he had left an hour ago when a strange calmness had clung around the ship. Now, there was anything but calmness, as a frantic attempt to get people into the lifeboats was well underway; crewmen shouting orders to each other across the intermittent hiss of steam rushing to escape from the funnels - a deafening, shrieking noise which made him place his hands over his ears.
Relieved to have got the group of passengers safely up on deck, he moved them towards the portside aft of the boat, where he knew the lifeboats would be lowered first. Officers were shouting instructions as passengers hesitated, unsure of climbing into the wooden lifeboats which were being slowly lowered over the side of the ship to begin the terrifying seventy foot descent to the freezing ocean below.
‘I’ll not get in John, I’ll not,’ he heard one woman pleading to a man who was coaxing her to get into the lifeboat. ‘I’ll not leave without you.’
‘I’ll be in the next boat,’ he assured her. ‘When all the women and children are safely in, then they’ll let the men go. Now, get in. You’re holding up the others and we don’t want to cause a fuss.’
The woman relented finally, climbing reluctantly into the lifeboat, where she sat among forty or so other women and young children. At that, it was lowered down the side of the massive ship. It occurred to Harry that there seemed to be room for many more in the boat, but he assumed the crewmen knew what they were doing. Perhaps the lifeboats could only take so much weight?
Having shepherded his own group of twenty-five or so towards the front of a group waiting to get onto the next lifeboat, Harry retraced his footsteps to get back to the dining room to collect more. He was especially keen to see Peggy and the others, assuming that they were all still down there, waiting for instructions as to what to do next.
Returning to the stairwell, he realised there was little point trying to make his way back down. It was, by now, a seething mass of bodies and luggage. Stewards and crewmen were standing at the top of the stairs blocking anyone from stepping onto the deck. It was clearly going to be impossible to try and get back down that way. Harry looked about him, from left to right. It was the same scene everywhere he looked.
‘Oi mate,’ he called across to one of the stewards who he recognised from the dormitory and who seemed to be in charge of the mass of steerage passengers trying to get up from the lower decks. ‘What’s goin’ on? Why’re you not lettin’ ‘em up?’
‘Officer’s orders mate. They’re creating a panic, all rushing to the lifeboats and tryin’ to jump into them as they’re being lowered over the side. I’ve already seen one woman fall into the sea. They’ve gone crazy. And they’ve all brought their bloody luggage. Look at ‘em. Cases, trunks, the lot. You’d think they were trying to re-book themselves onto a pleasure cruise not get off a sinkin’ bloody ship.’
‘But you can’t keep them penned into the stairwells. How’s anyone else gonna get up?’
The two men looked at each other and the steward shrugged. ‘Damned if I know mate. Damned if I know. I’m just followin’ orders. That’s all.’ There was a sense of resignation in his voice which Harry didn’t like.