Excerpt from THE RESTLESS SEA, the 27th in the Morland Dynasty series

Teddy went up the grand staircase again and out onto the boat deck on the port side, where the ship’s band was playing tunes from Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Another rocket shot up into the sky and burst into stars. He began to push slowly through the crowds, looking for Ashley. A lifeboat was being loaded by Lightoller and Moody. A crowd of men stood watching as the women were helped in over the side. Most were being very stoical about parting, but one woman clung to her husband and sobbed, and had to be forcibly detached and lifted in. Another woman put her arm round her and comforted her.

When there were no more women to hand, Lightoller ordered the boat to be lowered; but it was only half full. What was the man about? Teddy thought of Amalfia and George Penobscot, and of Ashley – of Colonel Astor down below on A deck, whose adored young wife was heavily pregnant - of all these men standing by, who had kissed their wives and obediently stood back. He felt a desperate anger on their behalf. Empty places on the boat – lives needlessly thrown away! He pressed his fingernails into his palms to control himself, and as the working party moved on towards the next lifeboat he managed to push his way through the crowds and catch Lightoller’s sleeve. The officer turned.

‘For God’s sake, man,’ Teddy said in an low, urgent voice, ‘don’t send the boats off half empty! You could have got a score of men into that last one.’

‘It’s women and children only,’ Lightoller snapped. ‘Captain’s orders.’

‘But the captain said women and children first, not women and children only. I heard him.  He can’t have meant you to  ― ’

Lightoller interrupted. ‘I can’t allow special treatment for you, Mr Morland, no matter who your friends are. Please stand aside and let me do my duty.’

Teddy flushed with anger. ‘I wasn’t asking for myself, but for these gentlemen whose wives are in the boats.’

‘Women and children only,’ said Lightoller again. ‘It’s the rule of the seas, sir, and my specific orders.’

Teddy saw immoveable stubbornness in his eyes. ‘Then won’t you at least hold back the boats and order a search for the women?’ he begged.

‘There is no time for that. I must get the boats off as quickly as possible.’

‘But you can’t condemn people to die just because ― ’ Teddy began.

The officer cut him off angrily. ‘This is wasting time. Stand aside, sir, and don’t interfere with the working of the ship, or I’ll have you clapped in irons.’

He looked fierce enough to do it. Teddy thought of being locked up below in the ship’s last moments and quailed before the image. He dropped his hand and Lightoller walked on with his working party. Teddy turned away, and the group of gentlemen left on the deck parted round him, some giving him curious, others distasteful looks. He ignored them, deep in thought.

The ship was far down by the head now. It was half past one. There was not much time left, and by his guess half the lifeboats were away, yet there must be hundreds of women still aboard. He felt desperate to do something, not only to help but to keep the sick dread at bay. He thought of Lightoller’s determination on ‘women and children only’. Did the officer not know the true situation? Or was it that, knowing everyone could not get off, he preferred to let all the men die rather than have to choose between them? Perhaps it was neither of these things, but simply that he was clinging in a desperate situation to something he knew. None of them, he supposed, could be thinking very clearly. What had he done, after all, but wander about pointlessly, numbed with shock and fear, as much adrift as everyone else?

Well, he could change that, at least. He could do something useful while there was still time. He shook his head to clear it, and went back inside to look for women.

Teddy went through the public rooms again, but though there were people about – not so many of them as before – they were all men. The first class passengers seemed to have resigned themselves and to be determined only to meet their end like gentlemen. Where were all the women? Had they all gone to the boats, or had some gone back to their cabins? He could hardly perform a cabin search. Perhaps there were still women in the second class. He went on down to B deck and walked uphill with some difficulty towards the after end of the ship, where there was a second class smoke room behind the à la carte restaurant. The restaurant was empty; the tables were half laid, and glasses that had fallen off onto the floor had rolled until various legs of furniture had impeded them. As he stepped through the door a domed silver trolley – the sort that had a spirit lamp underneath for keeping joints hot – passed the critical point and began to trundle down the slope towards him. Teddy stopped at the sight of it – mentally exhausted as he was, he could not think what to do about it – but the inherent instability of its castor wheels made it veer sideways, hit a column and overturn with a metallic crash. Almost in the same instant a stack of plates slid from a serving table onto the floor and several broke. Teddy proceeded cautiously, as though the furniture might rise up and strike him, and passed through onto the second class stairway and thence to the smoking room. But it, too, was empty, though there was smoke in the air, cigarette and cigar ends in the ashtrays, and empty tumblers on tables. As he stared around, one that had fallen on its side rolled over the edge and crashed to the ground. Despite the slope on which he was standing, it was hard to connect these movements with the ship’s list. It was as though inanimate objects were coming to life, taking advantage of the humans’ plight.

            Where now? He tried to cudgel his brain into remembering the layout of the second and third class public rooms. He thought there was something on C deck below this – the second class library, was it? – and, ah yes, right aft on C deck were the third class smoke room and general room. That would be a fertile hunting ground. Surely that would be where the passengers would gather, if they hadn’t gone up on deck. He went back to the staircase and started down it, fighting down the sense of horror that was building in him at the prospect of going further down, when his animal instincts were screaming at him to go up. Suppose the lights went out? God only knew how they were still burning. If they went out and he was left here in the blackness! He would never find his way up. His heart was pounding. He gulped air, longing for outside, longing for the bitter night and the stars, for however long was left to him. If he must die, let it be seeing the sky, not trapped below in muffling, unnatural darkness.

            But there must be women somewhere. He waited a moment, clinging to the banister rail until his legs stopped trembling, and went on down. At the turn of the stairs he saw something glinting down below; a few more steps, and he saw it was water. The water had reached C deck! It made a tide mark across the staircase hall, and even as he watched it crept insidiously, moving further aft. D deck must be under water then – D deck where the first class dining saloon was, the second class lounge, the two third class bars. And the cabins, all the cabins on D, E and F, and those forward on C, were now under water. If people had been in them, asleep, they would be drowned by now. A howl rose up in his throat: he could feel it, and fought against it, the desire to howl like an animal. He had to hold on.

            Then he heard voices – high, frightened, female voices. They were coming from the corridor than ran forward, giving access to cabins – all first class, if he remembered rightly. He turned towards them; stepped down into the water and splashed towards them, feeling the icy clamminess soak through his boots and socks and then his trousers. He crossed the staircase hall and entering the corridor, the water up to his knees now. He called out, and was shocked to hear his own voice, reedy and trembling like an old man’s. He forced it down, and shouted again, more normally. ‘Is there anybody there?’ An indecipherable clamour was the response, a splurge of human cries. ‘Where are you? Come this way!’ he called. ‘Come quickly.’

            There was more calling, and it had a desperate note. He waded on, afraid, as the water went over his knees; and then someone emerged from a side passage ahead of him, a woman in a cloth coat holding a small child. She turned her face towards him, white and shocked, and made an inarticulate sound of relief.

            ‘This way, come this way!’ he called.

            ‘Thank God, oh thank God!’ she cried. More women were emerging behind her, and a man, elderly, white-stubbled, with a cap pulled down tight and a cheap, shiny suit. Third class passengers, without a doubt.

            As they saw him, they all began to clamour at once.  

‘Thank God you found us!’

‘Can you show us the way out, mister?’

            ‘We got lost. We’ve been wandering about for hours.’

            ‘The water keeps comin’ up and comin’ up.’

            ‘Oh Jesus, can you get us out, sir?’

            There were seven women, the man, the child in arms, and two boys of about ten; the women were wet to the waist, the boys to their chests. Teddy said, ‘Come this way. Follow me,’ and turned in his tracks. They hurried after him, still all talking at once, trying to tell him what had happened, but he hardly heard them. When he reached the staircase again he got up onto a dry stair and turned to them. ‘You women and children must get up on deck at once and get into a lifeboat. Are there any more of you?’

            ‘We don’t know where they are. We got lost,’ said the woman with the child. ‘We saw some people but they didn’t speak English. Down below, that was. They went the other way. And the water kept coming up. Our men were in the smoke room, but we can’t find it.’

            ‘It’s that way,’ Teddy said, gesturing. ‘I’d better go and warn them. Can you find your way up to the boat deck?’

            ‘No, no! Don’t leave us. We’d get lost again. For pity, sir, show us the way.’

            The old man came forward, almost shyly, reached out a hand but did not quite dare to tug Teddy’s coat to get attention. ‘Is that the way of it, sir,’ he said in a soft voice like mist rolling down a field. His eyes fixed on Teddy’s earnestly. ‘Is it women and children only?’ Teddy nodded, unwilling to pronounce sentence. ‘Then it’s no use to me. Would ye ever take the women up above, sir, to the boats? I’ll go to the smoke room and warn the men. No use of you wasting time doin’ it.’

            ‘No, Grandad, you’ve got to come with us,’ said the woman with the child, her voice sharpening. ‘Sure they’ll let you on. You’re just an auld one.’

            ‘I can’t show you the way, Mary dear. Go on with the officer, all of ye, and I’ll get and tell the men. Go on now, there’s no time to waste.’

            That at least was true. The water was right across the hall now. Teddy said, ‘You must come at once. Quickly, quickly.’ He led the way, hardly knowing if they would follow; but the old man took himself off briskly, to release them, and in fear of being left behind the other women followed Teddy, surging past the one holding the child as she stared after the old man. Then she turned and followed too.