“I can’t believe how big the world is. We haven’t seen anything around us for days!”
Nora stepped up on the ship’s rail, climbing it like a ladder until she could fold at the waist and look down at the water below. They walked the deck at least twice a day, at her request. More than any of the elegant appointments elsewhere on the ship, she loved the ship herself, and the ocean around her. She wanted to be on the deck, outdoors—and among the crew, when they could manage it. William preferred that as well, watching the workings of the ship, but he wouldn’t have minded at all a little less eagerness from his wife. She found a way to shave a year off his life with every stroll—like dangling over the rail, which she did at least once a day.
She loved to see the ship slicing through the waves. On the other hand, he hated the way his vital organs did circles through his insides at the sight of her tempting death like that.
He stepped behind her and grabbed hold of her waist. “You know, it looks exactly the same every time you look down there.”
“Not true! Yesterday there were giant fish!”
“Not fish. Whales. Orcas. They’re mammals.”
Hanging upside down, she looked through the rail at him. “Forgive me, professor. Whales. There were whales. Which is better.”
“Nora, please. I’m too young to die of a heart attack.”
“Fine.” She let him lift her back to the deck floor, and he finally took a breath again.
She went right back to the rail and stared out at the horizon. They were in the North Atlantic, and she was right. There’d been nothing but the occasional hunk of ice looming out of the sea since they’d left Ireland behind.
William had traversed the Atlantic several times, and the Pacific twice. Witnessing Nora’s wide-eyed enthusiasm had shown him how blasé he’d become about something that truly was marvelous. The Titanic was essentially a floating city, filled with thousands of people. They had a government, a social structure, and nearly every amenity imaginable. Almost nine hundred feet long, almost a hundred feet wide, a hundred and seventy-five feet tall. Nine decks. More than forty-five thousand tons of weight and fifty thousand tons of displacement—and she floated. More than floated, she moved, skimming the sea at a top speed of twenty-one knots, a speed at or near which she seemed to be sailing steadily.
On this floating city, they moved through a world so vast they could sail for days as if they were the only inhabitants anywhere. For this week, they were of nowhere but here—citizens of the Titanic.
Seeing it through Nora’s eyes returned his own wonder to him. He could hardly wait to show her the full breadth of America.
She turned and patted his chest. “What are you thinking?”
William smiled down at his beautiful young wife. Her blonde curls tousled by the wind, her cheeks rosy from the brisk North Atlantic air, her turquoise eyes glittering with the light of her smile. There was no hint at all, no lingering scar, from the horrors she’d lived barely more than three months before. “I’m thinking that you make me happy.”
Her smile opened wide, and she jumped into his arms.
William woke and tightened his arms around Nora at once, thinking she was dreaming. Her nightmares were waning. They no longer happened every night, and when one did come, he often could settle her without her waking at all.
But she slept quietly, though her skin was chilled. They’d come back to their room right after dinner and scrambled their way out of their clothes and into bed, and they’d fallen asleep in a sweaty tangle, without actually preparing for bed. They were both naked, with only a sheet over them. Nora still wore the pearl and diamond choker he’d given her that evening, and the bracelet that matched it.
He eased his arms from her and sat up, seeking the covers. Before he could stand, the ship shuddered hard, like an earthquake, for several seconds, and was still again. Feeling that, he wondered if a similar shake had been the thing that had woken him.
William knew nearly everything there was to know about steam engines, and he knew a respectable amount about ships, so he was fairly sure what he’d just felt was an explosion in the engine room. They happened sometimes. In a ship like this, with her rapacious need for coal to feed the massive engines, there was often a fire somewhere there shouldn’t have been. Coal in such quantities had a tendency to self-combust. And coal fires had a tendency to cause explosions. Ships, and trains, were built with safeguards against crippling damage from such eventualities.
He got up from the bed and gathered up the covers and the pillows they’d lost in their erotic frenzy. He covered Nora, smiling as she sighed and snuggled in, and returned to his place behind her.
As he was easing back into sleep, he heard a deep, angry metallic groan, the wail of an injured sea monster, and he sat bolt upright. It didn’t repeat, and the ship seemed steady—but she was enormous. Any explosion that would cause her such noticeable distress would have to be enormous as well.
Fully awake now, he thought more clearly about that shake, and he turned on the bedside light. “Nora.” He shook her shoulder. “Nora, wake up.”
She moaned and pulled a pillow over her head. He snatched it away. “Nora!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
He hated to frighten her, but he had to tell her the truth. So he put the calm she needed into his tone. “We need to get dressed, darling. I think there might be a problem with the ship.”
That woke her. She sat up and blinked her eyes awake. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I think there might have been an explosion. Maybe a big one.”
“Oh, my God! Is it sinking?”
The Titanic was unsinkable. She had been designed and built to be exactly that. She could withstand a serious explosion. Her hull could take on water, and the crew would simply close off the compromised compartments and sail on.
And yet, that groan. With his mind fully conscious, that groan, following a shake hard enough to clear the tables, worried him badly.
They were in the North Atlantic. The water was ice cold.
But there were safeguards. Years of planning and construction had gone into this ship. This marvel of engineering and design.
“I don’t know. Let’s get dressed, nice and warm, lots of layers, just in case.”
Pale and wide-eyed, looking far more like the broken waif he’d lifted from an iron bed in January than he could stand to see, Nora got up and began to dress.
William had just closed his trousers when there was a sharp rap on their stateroom door. “Mr. Frazier, it’s the deck steward, sir.” A louder rap. “Mr. Frazier! Are you awake, sir?”
His fears thus confirmed, he opened the door. The steward’s professionally serious expression was compromised by the anxiety in his eyes. “Sorry to wake you, sir. It’s important.”
“Was there an explosion in the engine room? I felt the shake. Heard the steel strain.”
“I’ve no details, sir, I apologize. And to you, my lady. I’m very sorry to intrude.”
“That’s all right,” Nora said in a voice soft with unfocused fear.
The steward stepped in and went to the closet in the sitting room. From the top shelf, he pulled down their life vests. “The captain’s ordered all passengers on deck. Dress warmly please, and wear these.” He handed them to William. “It’s very likely only a precaution, no need to worry, but please do act with all haste. Thank you.” He bowed a bit and hurried out, closing the door behind him.
Nora turned to William and gave up any effort against her fear. “William!”
Understanding the workings of transport, and the protocols, William felt real anxiety, so potent it could become panic, begin to simmer on the floor of his gut. The captain wouldn’t put passengers on deck unless the ship were sinking. Too many people to manage, and no effective way to contain their fear—it wasn’t a move he would make unless he had no choice.
The Titanic was sinking.
William tossed the life vests to the bed and pulled Nora into his arms. “Stay with me, and we’ll be fine. We’ve passed the lifeboats on our walks every day.”
There weren’t enough for the number of passengers on board. But first-class women and children would get loaded before anyone else, and for the first time in a long time, William embraced the privilege of his wealth consciously and wholeheartedly. Nora would be saved. No matter what else happened, Nora would get off this ship.
“I’m so frightened,” she whispered against his bare chest.
He dipped his head to hers and kissed her, gently, lingering to let himself feel her completely. “We’ll be fine. But let’s hurry and finish dressing. It’s cold, so sturdy shoes—boots—warm stockings, and layers, darling. Your warm coat and gloves. And that thick scarf Nell knitted.”
First-class passengers were the first to be notified, and William had been ready for the news, so when they stepped onto the deck that only that afternoon they’d been standing on, wound together and kissing passionately at the rail, there were only a dozen or so wealthy passengers with them. Several of those were still dressed in their evening finery; it was barely midnight, and the ship’s entertainments carried on well into the night.
They all wore their vests, except for a few bored-looking men, who seemed comfortable in their certainty that the Titanic was invulnerable. But William saw the crew hurrying around them, and the men untying the first lifeboat, and knew. Nothing made by human hands would ever be without human flaws.
Nora clung to him, holding a small bag, filled with the gifts he’d given her—the jewelry, and the gilded cage music box. He’d tried to dissuade her from bringing them, but she wouldn’t hear of leaving them behind. Under her layers of clothes, close to her heart, she’d pinned her Hunger Strike medal and her Kensington Rose brooch to her chemise.
He held her closely, trying as much as he could to shelter her from the sights around them. Then the ship groaned again, a great shrieking roar, and listed forward and to port. William locked his legs against the shift, but Nora stumbled and flailed. He held her, kept her standing. All around them the steadily growing mass of passengers shouted and screamed, and the crew’s voices raised above the uproar.
The first boat was ready, and a ship’s officer turned to the crowd. ”WOMEN AND CHILDREN, PLEASE! WOMEN AND CHILDREN COME FORWARD. WOMEN AND CHILDREN ONLY, PLEASE.”
Prepared for this moment, William turned Nora’s face up, peeling her gently back from her clench around him. “Nora, I need you to get on that boat.”
She nodded. “Yes, yes. Let’s go.”
“No, darling. Women and children only. You get on this one, and I’ll board one after the women and children are safe.”
Her face lost all color and tone. Her mouth sagged open, and then she recovered and yanked at his vest. “What? No! No! You come with me!”
“Nora, I can’t.”
“You promised you’d never leave me again!”
“And I never will. I’m not leaving you. I’ll be with you when this is over. A ship will come for us, and I’ll find you there. But you have to go right now.”
“Not without you! I won’t!”
She had to get on the boat. She thought she was strong, and she certainly had a lion’s heart, but William remembered picking her up from that iron bed in Bedlam. Only three months ago. She was too small, her body too frail to withstand the freezing water, and the ship had listed harder as they’d stood here and argued. She was going down, and there was no other ship yet in sight. Anyone not in a lifeboat would be in the ocean soon, and would be there for a while.
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Nora! I’ll be all right. You need to get in that boat.” It was filling up with other passengers as they argued. He walked forward, pushing her before him, making her stumble backward as he moved closer to the boat. “I need you safe, darling. I love you.”
“I love you! I need you! I won’t go without you!” She balled her hands into fists and slammed them against his chest. “My life isn’t more valuable than yours!”
“To me, it is. Please, Nora.” The ship’s officer was right behind her. He gave William a look. Understanding it, William kissed Nora hard, wanting to etch his love for her into her body. When he leaned back, he nodded, and the officer grabbed Nora around the waist.
“On we go, madam.”
She kicked and screamed like a wild animal. Her little bag of treasures fell to the deck as she struggled. “NO! NO! WILLIAM! NO!”
The officer handed her off to the crew member on the lifeboat, and they began to winch it down to the water. Another woman on the boat, sturdily built, her face obscured by an incongruously magnificent hat, wrapped her arms around Nora and held her fast.
His heart flayed, William ran to the rail. “I love you! I’ll be with you soon!”
“WILLIAM! PLEASE! PLEASE!”
The ship listed hard forward and to port, lifting the rail farther away. People stumbled and fell. Women screamed. Men, too. Nora’s little bag hit William’s feet and tumbled away.
“WILLIAM!”
“I’LL FIND YOU! I’LL BE WITH YOU!”
He held on and watched until her boat hit the water safely, and they began to row it away from danger.
With Nora floating safely below, out of range of the sinking ship, William put his mind to doing everything he could to get the women and children on those boats, so he could get on one himself. Every woman and child he encountered, he escorted toward the boats, pushing his way through men whose panic had made them feral.
Occasionally, flares exploded in the sky above them—distress signals that made the whole world glow red for a second. Someone would see. The ocean was full of steamships moving people from the old world to the new and back again. Someone would see, and someone would come.
But once the ship began to go under, maybe two hours after he’d put Nora on the first lifeboat, the rest of the sinking happened steadily and dramatically, and chaos reigned on board. As he tried to help women and children toward rescue, he saw grown men shove women to the deck and clamber onto boats in their place.
When third-class passengers finally made the deck, most lifeboats were gone, the ship was half beneath the surface, and the officers trying to maintain order were wildly outmatched.
And yet the orchestra played. Through it all, they played soothing arrangements. William thought they were tremendously brave. They meant to go down with the ship, doing what they could to keep panic at bay.
He didn’t think anyone left aboard had any other choice, of course. There were lifeboats left, a few, but the list was so strong now that they couldn’t be unmoored. The Atlantic had taken over most of the deck, more every second. The first funnel collapsed, almost with a sigh of relief, and crashed down to the water, onto people who’d already fallen in.
William climbed aft, toward the stern, using the fittings of the ship as hand- and footholds on the slick, polished wood of the deck.
As he worked his way up, he encountered a maid, just a young woman, as young as Nora, huddled against the exterior wall of the veranda he and Nora had eaten their breakfast in that morning. She shivered in her uniform, weeping, her head buried in her arms. No coat or gloves, no life vest.
She looked up. She was the maid that had been helping Nora. Annie was her name.
“Sir,” she said. It could have been a greeting or a plea for help. Or simply a habit of politeness.
Damn it. William looked around, as if he might find a spare life vest simply lying about. There was none, of course. He needed to survive, and keep his promise to Nora. Nora was more important than anything. So he moved on, leaving behind the maid, struggling up toward the next place to get a grip—a bench bolted to the deck.
Looking back, he saw Annie with her head buried again. God damn it. He couldn’t leave her to sink with the ship. And what kind of man would he have been if he could have? He untied his life vest and lifted it off. “Annie! Annie!”
She looked up, and he tossed the vest to her. She caught it deftly. “Thank you, sir! Oh, thank you!” Just then, the ship lights went dark.
With a nod she couldn’t see, William turned and continued his trek to the stern. He was a strong swimmer, and he was used to the chilly waters of the San Francisco Bay. He’d simply have to tread water until they were saved. Treading water would have the benefit of keeping his body warm and active in the ice-cold sea.
The air filled with a wrenching, roaring metallic howl the likes of which William had never heard in his life, and the stern settled to nearly level again, landing on the surface in a vertiginous rush—the unsinkable Titanic had broken in half.
“Shit, shit, shit,” William muttered as he regained his feet and used the chance to run, trying to get to the aft railing as quickly as he could. Around him on the newly leveled deck, people—mostly men, but some women, almost all of them poor—relaxed, but William knew it was a false reprieve. With the hull severed, the stern would take on water in a gulping rush.
Proving his point, the stern shifted again, this time to port again as well as forward. Bodies fell all around, screaming as they hit the water. There was no way he’d make it to the rail—and it didn’t matter, anyway. They were all going down. Right now. He hung on where he could and prepared himself for a very cold bath.
When the stern finally gave up the fight, it went down as if it had been aimed and shot at the ocean floor. William took a deep breath and let go as the water hit him. The cold made his body clench and tried to trick him into taking a breath, but after the long fight of the night, he was ready for the cold, ready for the shock.
He didn’t fight the pull of the ship’s displacement. He saved his energy and let the ocean have its way with him until it let him go. Then, his lungs rioting in his chest, he waited to feel the direction of his buoyancy. When he was oriented, he kicked hard and powered his arms through the freezing water, simply refusing to acknowledge that anything would happen other than he would break the surface and fill his lungs.
Which he did. The Titanic was gone. All around him were wailing, moaning, gasping people. And bodies. So many bodies. Men and women. Children. They floated on the surface, buoyed by their life vests.
Life vests.
William swam to the nearest body—a heavyset man in dinner dress. He checked for a pulse and found none. Using the vested body as a raft, he reached up and slapped the cold, blue face. Nothing. But in this cold, the man could be alive yet. Temperatures like this slowed the body’s working.
He maneuvered so he could see the man’s face completely. Open eyes, coated with ice.
Treading water, fighting against the need to let his teeth chatter and his fingers shake, William untied the dead man’s life vest. When the body fell away, sinking into the sea, he worked his way into the vest. He couldn’t manage to put it on properly, so he pushed his arms through and heaved himself into it backward. He’d have to hold tight.
Now, to wait for rescue. To keep awake and moving, to hold tight, and wait.
Help was sure to come. The lifeboats would come back, and then a ship would come. Help was on its way. He had only to stay awake, keep moving, hold tight, and wait.
He’d made a promise to Nora, never to leave her, and he meant to keep it. He would be with her again. He’d promised.