Chapter 17
It will not astonish you to learn that conversation aboard the Saint Paul primarily concerned the Lusitania.
It seemed every corner I turned had people clustered together, eating or drinking or smoking or playing cards, all of them talking about what happened, chewing to pieces every juicy detail like morsels of steak.
Fact or rumor, it hardly mattered. I heard a few survivors were aboard as well, returning to America on our American-flagged steamer, but if there were, I never encountered them.
I imagine they remained in their cabins for the duration.
That’s what I would have done. What I wanted to do, but my unquiet thoughts would not allow it.
The medical facilities aboard. How Cunard offered them, gratis to everyone, even those in steerage, and how so many pregnant third-class women took advantage of it—those were their exact words, took advantage of it—by attempting to time their delivery dates to coincide with the week’s voyage.
So that their babies might be born in a clean room, in a clean bed, with a real doctor and nurse attending.
The first-class ladies enjoying this particular conversation over their tea did not use the word babies, however. They said litters.
I stopped short my pacing; it felt as if the very air had been siphoned from my lungs. I could only stare at them, their à la mode gowns, their cultured pearls, their discreet sneers.
I remembered that story we heard in Queenstown about the man who witnessed a woman in labor in the ocean after the sinking, a woman still without a name.
How she was tossed amid the wreckage, deck chairs and bodies and dogs, screaming for help even as she was giving birth.
But he couldn’t reach her through the suction and debris. No one could reach her.
In my mind’s eye, I see it so vividly. A scarlet bloom spreading around her like poppy petals against green waters. Her dead infant squeezing from her body. Her ashen face as she finally went under.
Oh God, was all I could think, staring at those smug, smiling ladies. I wanted to go over to their table and smash in their heads with the teapot.
Oh God, that poor woman. That poor, poor baby.
FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1915
ABOARD LUSITANIA
Rita couldn’t sleep. Her headache worsened through the night, a slow, relentless throbbing.
She rolled over in the dark, punched her pillow to fluff it and settled back again.
She tried to distract herself with pleasant thoughts.
Her family’s faces when she showed up at Winter Queen beside George.
Or maybe she’d hide just behind him, popping out—Surprise!
—and how happy everyone would be. How good it would feel to be among them again, even temporarily.
The laughter, the hugs, the cheerful loud chaos.
Her old room, no doubt still with its antique Tudor bed smelling of beeswax, and the butterscotch silk wallpaper painted with wagtails.
But her imagination could only take her so far.
Hours passed; she had no idea how many or what time it might be.
The cabin held her close in its small, velveteen dark.
She had the regrettably gratifying realization that even the staterooms with portholes were now equally dark and airless, since they were all hidden from the night.
No silvery starlight, no briny breeze for anyone now.
She wondered how the people in the lounge were faring. If they were as uncomfortable as she, tossing and turning on sofa cushions.
At one point, exasperated, Rita got up and flicked on the lights so she could check the time. About a quarter to six.
She rubbed her eyes and turned off the lights again, clambered back into the bed. She stared up into the blank nothing of the room, fighting a sigh, then sighed anyway.
The minutes ticked by. She dug her fingers into the sheets, relaxed them. At this rate, she was going to have to skip breakfast entirely and head straight to luncheon. Hell, maybe dinner, if she could ever, ever get some sleep.
And, ah … just as she was finally beginning to sink into that floating moment between dreams and awake, that tender space soft as cotton wool—the foghorn bellowed.
It might have been worse. Had she had an exterior room, it would have assuredly been worse. Even so, the sudden blast screamed along her nerves, sent a painful jolt straight through her heart, leaving her gasping.
Rita brought her hands to her ears, praying that was the last of it.
It wasn’t. The foghorn went off once a minute after that, every single minute, for the next five hours.
She tried sleeping on her side with a pillow covering her ear. She tried sleeping under the covers, with the pillow on top of those. She tried clenching and then relaxing all the muscles in her body, from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, concentrating on relaxing.
Blaaaast! Silence. Blaaaast!
Nothing helped. It occurred to her that if Captain Turner had decided to deliberately reveal their position as they steamed along, he could not have chosen a better method.
Eventually, in a dozy blur, she realized the blares from the horn had ceased. Rita opened her eyes, actively listening now, counting out the seconds. One minute, another. At a full three minutes of silence, she turned over again, readjusted the duvet, and slipped into blessed sleep.
THE brEAKFAST HOUR passed, and Rita didn’t stir. She got up for luncheon, though, because her stomach insisted, even though her eyes were still gritty and her mouth parched.
Eleanor poured her a glass of water from the basin. Rita sat up and drank it with her eyes closed, wishing for coffee instead. When Eleanor asked which dress to lay out, Rita yawned and said it didn’t matter, the stewardess could choose.
A small decision, an unthinking offer. One that would turn out to matter a great deal, in fact, and very soon.
Eleanor sorted happily through the hangers in the wardrobe. She turned around with a day dress of dusty peach marocain crêpe draped over her arms, organza sleeves and cuffs and a long, pleated overskirt. It was delicate, feminine, perfect for spring.
But Rita was late to sleep, and late to rise and dress, and so late to lunch, but that was all right.
She gave her name and was shown to a small, unoccupied table for two that she had to herself, toward the bow, just beneath an open porthole.
A lapis sky burned beyond it, unblemished, no hint of mist or clouds.
The room was about two-thirds filled, no one she knew. Likely George and Charles and the rest had already finished both breakfast and luncheon, and had moved on to their afternoon entertainments.
When the server arrived, she ordered Norwegian anchovies on toasted rye, grilled filet mignon, chipped potatoes, and the mayonnaise of fresh lobster. Apricot soufflé for dessert.
“And coffee, please,” she added, then held up a finger as the man nodded and began to move away. “Wait, sorry. No. Never mind the coffee. A glass of Bordeaux, thank you, and some water.”
“Of course, madam. Items ordered from the grill require an extra fifteen minutes or so, if you don’t mind.”
Despite her fatigue, she smiled. “The more time to enjoy my wine on this fine day.”
“Very good, madam.”
The table was draped in bleached linen, with a small bud vase of black-hearted anemones framed with fern that trembled almost imperceptibly with the vibration of the vessel. The water inside the vase gently slanted and fell. Slanted and fell.
Somewhere right outside the dining saloon, the string orchestra was playing Vivaldi’s “Autumn” from The Four Seasons.
The waiter returned with her wine and water.
She tried the wine first; it tasted almost sweet along her tongue, but that was probably because she was still so thirsty.
And ravenous. She was enveloped in the aroma of hot food, smoked ham and flaky pies, fish and charred meat.
Despite what she’d told her server, even fifteen minutes of anticipating her lunch sounded too long.
She took another sip of wine, then moved to the water.
“Germans,” a man two tables away was saying, his voice lifting just enough on that one word to prick her ears. “Three or four, what I heard. Hiding below decks in a steward’s closet, if you can believe it. Cowering in there all day, just waiting for nighttime to slink out and do what you will.”
“Bloody Huns,” breathed his companion.
“Aye. Don’t speak a word of English, but they sure as hell all had Brownies on them, didn’t they? Cameras and knives, yeah?”
“Yeah?”
“Fund ’em the first day on a routine check for stowaways. The first day. Captain locked ’em in the brig straight away. Tried to keep it all hush-hush.”
There was a pause. Both men looked young, no older than twenty, with the burly, muscular builds of athletes, maybe football players. They wore cashmere sweaters and brown serge trousers, and spoke with a blunt, clipped accent Rita couldn’t quite identify. Perhaps something northern, far north.
Fund ’em, she repeated silently to the vase of flowers, trying to place it. Fund ’em.
“We got a brig?” the companion asked, sounding doubtful.
“Well, we’ve got something down below, don’t we? Maybe another locked closet or a storage room. Meat locker. Ship’s got a translator too, but I reckon they wouldn’t tell him nothing, just sat there like beaten dogs. Dodgy as hell.”
“They’ll get it sorted ashore.”
“Let ’em rot in the box a while, I say. See how life behind bars loosens their tongues.”
Another pause. Rita studied the reflection of the ceiling in her wineglass, white trim and plaster dancing across a circle of dark red.
“Still …” said the companion.
“Yeah?”
“If the Huns smuggled their own aboard to spy, it ain’t likely, is it, that they’ll come after us. I mean, they wouldn’t torpedo their own, would they?”
“I’ll tell you what I think, mate. I think we’re all fodder to ’em,” said the first fellow, and let out a belch.