Cold April (25 page)

That bubble burst at once. Kathleen—despite the fact she now called her “Mama”—did not belong to her. Richard’s cousin had arranged to meet them on the dock in New York. Even though they would arrive via the Carpathia and not the Titanic, she had no doubt the woman would be there. She would be ready, willing and able to take Kathleen into her own home, or one that Richard’s money would provide. Beth felt certain Richard had purchased insurance sometime in his life, or perhaps Lord Wheatly’s company provided insurance for its employees.

She, on the other hand, had no way of caring for a child. Her temporary home in New York belonged to the Wheatlys and, once she’d fulfilled her obligation to them, she would have to leave and find her own apartment. Even if she found one with room for Kathleen, how would she support her? She had no job, and when she did finally find employment, she would have to work every day and could neither care for a child nor afford to pay a governess.

She was sobbing aloud now, and dared not go back to Kathleen until she had composed herself. She had loved a wonderful man for a cruelly brief time and now he was lost to her. She would surely lose his child, her only link to him.

Why had the Wheatlys booked her travel on the Titanic instead of some other ship? Why had the ship’s captain sailed into iceberg-filled waters? Why had the boat designer not foreseen the necessity of raising the partitions of the water-tight compartments? Why had the White Star Line not provided enough lifeboats for everyone?

Chapter 26

Richard stared in stunned silence as the last lifeboat, Collapsible B, slipped off the deck, carried away by a slight swell in the roughening waters.

“
C’mon, man,” Bride shouted. “Jump on!”

Heeding his own words, the radioman leapt forward and landed on the overturned hull of the boat. Two seconds later, Richard followed. Soon, a dozen other men, who’d either jumped into the water or been swept into it, did the same. They clambered up, snatching for a handhold on the wooden surface.

Although he couldn’t see them, the shouts of others rang in Richard’s ears. They swam toward the boat, gasping. One of them was the other radioman, Jack Phillips. Bride grabbed his hand and hauled him on board.

“
Ahoy.”

The voice seemed familiar, and Richard risked turning and sitting up on the hull to look toward the place where he’d heard the call. The man, wearing a long, wide black coat that floated out, revealing his white life vest underneath, waved and shouted again. Harry Palmer, his sandy-colored hair hidden under a woolen scarf tied under his chin, struggled in the water just feet from the boat.

Richard reached for him, but a swell pushed Palmer farther away.

“
Grab my hand.”

Palmer tried, but their fingers didn’t touch. Another swell came between him and the boat.

Richard waited until the wave moved in the other direction and, lying on his stomach again, extended his arm toward Palmer. His fingers closed around the floating end of Harry’s black magician’s coat. He grabbed it and pulled. Gradually, Palmer floated closer, until Richard could finally reach his hand. Two other men on the hull grasped Palmer’s arms and, together, they managed to haul him on board.

Shivering, gasping for air, Harry mumbled, “Thanks, mates,” before collapsing next to Richard. “I do appreciate this. I shall see you all have free tickets to my stage show in New York.”

Richard’s almost frozen features formed a grimace of a smile. “Your Beth,” Harry gasped out, “she saved my life, didn’t she?” Without waiting for an answer, he pointed to the place on his coat where Beth had stitched the torn sides together with needle and thread. “It held, didn’t it?” Apparently exhausted , he closed his eyes and turned over.

Suddenly a head appeared from the side and an officer, whom Richard had seen loading passengers on the port side of the ship, appeared and scrambled aboard. He, too, gasped for air. “Been trapped underneath. One more survivor on top and I’d’ve lost my air pocket.”

During the next half hour, a few more men managed to reach the overturned boat and, helped by the others, drag themselves onto the hull. Then nothing. No other swimmers nearby. With no oars, the boat simply floated away from the bodies and debris in the water.

Richard wondered how long the boat would remain afloat with almost thirty men clinging to it.

Harry opened his eyes again and began rubbing his head with the woolen scarf, most of which had somehow remained dry. He poked the man next to him, suggesting he do the same, but the man never answered and simply slid off the boat into the water, head down. He was dead.

Richard felt his gut tighten. He rubbed his arms to keep the circulation going. He refused to think of anything but staying alive.

The officer stood and raised his voice. “Okay, men, listen to me, please. We’ve got to keep this vessel floating.” Heads raised and turned in his direction, but no one spoke. “This is what we’ll do. We’ll all stand up in the center, in two straight lines facing the bow.”

“
Stand up?” someone shouted back. “That’ll swamp us for sure.”

“
Not if you do as I say.” Silence. “We’re very low in the water, and any strong wave could capsize us.”

“
We know that,” a man shouted.

“
If we all stand, we can shift our weight as necessary. If a wave comes to port side, we’ll shift that way, and so on.”

”
You’ll get us all killed the quicker,” another man said in a low tone. “But I’m game, if the others are.”

Slowly, carefully, the men rose and followed the officer’s instructions. Richard found himself in the center of one of the two lines and decided he felt no colder than he had lying down on the hull. So far, so good. Plus, if it kept the collapsible from going under, why not?

He didn’t know how long he stood on the hull, mindlessly obeying the officer’s orders to shift his weight. Occasionally, a man would slump down on the deck, and—knowing he had died—no one made a move to prevent him from sliding off into the water. One of them, Richard saw with dismay, was radioman Phillips. Richard knew many of the men had swum to the boat and thus had been submerged in the icy water, whereas he’d been drenched only up to his knees when, at Bride’s command, he’d jumped into the boat.

But each time a man slid off, Richard felt a surge of fear. They were floating farther and farther away from the other lifeboats. Would a rescue ship find them?

* * *

By the time the sky began to lighten and the Carpathia loomed on the horizon, water was sloshing over Richard’s feet. A slight haze hung over the ocean, and he saw great fields of ice, which the morning sun turned pink and lavender. No sign of other boats. Zombie-like, the other men on the hull began to mumble and shift.

“
Hold on a little while longer,” the officer said.

“
Will they see us in this fog?” someone asked.

“
Not fog. It’ll lift.”

The haze parted, again bringing the Carpathia into view. But it was still so far away. If only their sinking hull would stay afloat until they could get there. Three lifeboats appeared headed toward the rescue ship, and the men yelled and screamed at them to no avail. Finally, the officer reached into his pocket and pulled out a whistle. At its blast, the survivors in Boat Twelve spotted them.

They turned about to pick them up.

“
Don’t all jump in the boat at once,” the officer warned, “or you’ll capsize us for sure.”

Silently, no one cheering, they climbed into Boat Twelve, now dangerously overloaded, and headed for the ship. Finally, lashed next to the Carpathia, they were helped up the rope ladder or hoisted in a sling, as most of the women and children had been. An officer from the Carpathia took one look at the freezing men who’d been on top of the collapsible and ordered them taken to the infirmary.

* * *

Beth returned to where she’d left Kathleen. The girl didn’t appear to have moved and had eaten every bit of the food and drunk all the milk. Beth decided that the child had retreated to the only safe place available: the comfort of familiar food. Her former happy life had been turned upside down, with one catastrophe after another. Tear stains crossed her cheeks, and her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.

Beth knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry I was so long. You were a good girl to stay here and wait for me.”

“
Did you find Pa-pa?”

“
Not yet.” She told herself she hadn’t lied because, dead or alive, she had no idea of Richard’s whereabouts.

A steward came up to them. “I am to inform you a service will be held in the ship’s lounge this evening in memoriam for those lost at sea.”

“
How many were lost?”

He cleared his throat before answering. “We believe about fifteen hundred.”

Beth gasped, and her knees wobbled. “How many were saved?”

“
At last count, seven hundred and five.” He walked off.

Beth slumped onto the deck at Kathleen’s feet. Fifteen hundred dead! She had no more doubts, no more hope. Richard had perished. She cried openly, shoulders shaking, gasping for air, her voice a wail of anger and frustration. Kathleen threw her arms around Beth’s neck and cried with her.

Richard found them there an hour later, Beth sitting in the deck chair, Kathleen in her lap, rocking back and forth, dry-eyed and silent.

He stooped in front of them. “Don’t cry. I’m here.”

Kathleen leaped into her father’s arms. Beth, in spite of his words, burst into tears again. Tears of overwhelming joy.

“
I’ve been in the infirmary. They wouldn’t let me go until they were sure I’d be all right.”

“
You’re alive!”

“
Are you all right?”

“
Yes, oh yes!”

He looked into Kathleen’s smiling face. “And you. Are you all right?”

“
Yes, Pa-pa. I am now.” She kissed him.

Beth kissed him even longer, covering his mouth and cheeks with wet kisses and hot tears. Richard was alive and her life hadn’t ended.

It was just beginning.

THE END