Chapter 17 #2
SHE TOOK THE time to enjoy her meal, the rosy anchovies, the grilled filet mignon as thick as her fist. The Bordeaux lost its unexpected sweetness as she ate but not its creaminess, a perfect companion to the beef and lobster and fried potatoes.
The wild sky at her shoulder beamed down at her, honed the shadows along the tablecloth into sharp gray-and-bright. Rita appreciated the air the porthole allowed in, even as she wondered if it should, in fact, be open at all.
If a torpedo hit them—
If the liner should be hit, and tip—
She glanced around, curious now. Nearly every porthole down the wall was open. It seemed the same across the saloon, but the wall over there was far from her, the entire width of the ship, and she couldn’t be certain.
Likely they were open because the Royal Navy was escorting them now. The Lusitania would be safe under the care of the Admiralty, her best destroyers, so what would it matter if the clean air flowed in and freshened the room?
She finished her meal, savoring the last bite of soufflé, the last swallow of her second glass of Bordeaux, then sat a few minutes longer, listening to the orchestra playing “The Blue Danube” as warm air skimmed her face and neck.
She noticed again the water in the bud vase. Its mild, predictable tilting.
Beneath the mahogany paneling and gilded trim, the beveled mirrors and damask adorning this chamber—beneath this wide, domed, fairyland of a saloon—there was a modern and very real vessel still burning coal, still steaming along, transporting Rita and another two thousand or so souls across the globe.
A miracle of sorts, when she considered it, that iron could float.
Rita replaced her napkin on the table, stood up, and began to make her way back to the main doors. All down the exterior walls, that blue, blue sky was captured again and again by the portholes, unobscured by glass, a little too blinding to look at long.
SHE RETURNED TO her cabin, a short walk from the saloon. She closed the door and perched on the edge of the bed, feeling sleepy again, thinking it might be nice to take a short nap, only a half hour or so. Then she could ring Charles or George and see what everyone else was up to.
She was bending down to unbutton her boots when the explosion came, a hard hollow WHUUUMP!
that stabbed her eardrums and shook the room, toppling the vase of peonies and her water glass from the nightstand.
Both cracked against the floor, liquid streaking across the carpet, and at once the world tilted, a hard lean to starboard that dumped her from the bed and cleared the basin of all her cosmetics and perfume bottles in a clatter.
Her ears were ringing, a hard, high whine.
Oh, God. Had they actually been hit? Had they actually—
A second explosion, thunderous but slightly more muffled. The floors and walls and ceiling shuddered; the doors to the wardrobe popped open.
As she was staring at that, shocked, all her clothing swaying wildly on their hangers, George’s voice—his strong, beautiful voice—rang through her.
Get outside as quickly as you can.
Rita scrambled to her feet, staggering, and made it to the door. She yanked it open and peered down the hall, expecting smoke or cinders, expecting screaming and blood, but there was only a young lady down the corridor gawking back at her from her own doorway, hugging her life jacket.
“Is it a U-boat?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“That, or a loose mine. You should go up, quickly.”
Grab your lifebelt before, if you can.
Rita didn’t wait to see if the girl followed her advice.
She turned around, fighting the ship’s pronounced list to reach the wardrobe, but the top shelf was too high for her.
She grabbed the brass railing of the bed, heaved herself up to stand on the covers, fighting to stay upright.
With her left hand braced against the wall, she reached inside the wardrobe with her right, groping along the shelf until she found the life jacket.
It was heavy, thickly padded, tapes dangling from every which way, nothing like the lifebelts she’d seen on other voyages, stiff vests made of canvas and cork.
She sat down carefully, slid from the bed, and the duvet slid with her, creasing into a pile around her ankles.
She lifted up the jacket and shoved her arms through what she hoped were the proper openings; she’d worry about tying the tapes later.
The glass stopper from one of the perfume bottles had come loose. Her mother’s Christmas gift to her, that scent that evoked phlox and Winter Queen, saturated the chamber.
There’ll be a scramble for the lifeboats.
The ship was alive now, alive and dying, metallic ticks and groans sounding from all over, from everywhere, as the list increased. The lights began to flicker. Still holding on to the bed, Rita took in the strange, askew shambles of her cabin, trying to think of what else to grab.
Only get out if they point a gun at you.
Her pistol. Her reticule.
Another muffled explosion rocked the floor.
She found them both, and ran.
THREE FLIGHTS OF stairs from D Deck to A.
Three flights jammed with people, children and babies wailing, a few of the ladies fainting, everyone forced to climb over the scattered dirt and thick fronds of the fallen palms that had decorated each landing, their large pots either shattered or else rolling on their sides as passengers tripped and struggled to get past them.
Rita managed her way up the grand staircase by holding tight to the banister, pulling herself along hand over hand against the list, which now seemed not only starboard but forward as well, as if the liner was sinking by the nose.
Just beside her loomed the darkened, open shaft that held the electric elevators, only their cables visible now, the cages stranded far below.
Voices rose up from the bottom of that shaft, a slow rising commotion.
She would realize later that it came from people trapped in the lifts, trapped without power between landings.
But that would be later. Right now, the commotion was all around her: people calling out names, asking each other what had happened, was it truly a torpedo, had the Germans really done it, had anyone seen, was anyone killed?
One flight. Two. Lusitania shuddered and moaned.
She’s going down. It’s not real, and it can’t be true, but she’s going down—
Rita’s breathing grew ragged and her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears that she no longer really heard the racket around her, but she could feel it.
The air was dense, cloying, tasting of metal and panic, and that was bloody real.
A man shoved by, his meaty hand clamping her by the shoulder for leverage as he went.
She lost her grip on the banister and knocked back into another man, who caught her with a grunted Steady on!
but held on to her until she could find the railing again.
She thanked him without looking back, breathless, and kept climbing.
By the time she reached the Boat Deck, the tilt had begun to level out.
Rita was able to nearly sprint up the final few steps, her hair coming loose, her arms aching.
But there was a mass of passengers blocking her way to the deck outside, dawdling in the entranceway, standing around like dazed sheep.
She pushed through them, turning and squeezing, until she reached the doors.
Great black clouds of smoke smeared the sky.
The ocean was still speeding past, still blazing past. Astonishingly, the ship was plowing ahead as if nothing had happened.
She glanced around frantically for George.
In the confusion of it all, she hadn’t even noticed which side of the ship she’d exited, and now she couldn’t remember, was it supposed to be starboard or port?
Port, yes, that was right, and there he was, right where he said he’d be, standing calmly with Charles—thank goodness!
—and Captain Scott. George spotted her and immediately came forward to take her by the hand.
“There you are! Well done. Come over here with us, out of the way. Did you bring any other lifebelts?” None of them was wearing one.
“No, I—I think there was only this one in my room. Or if there were others, I couldn’t reach them.” She held her hair back from her face. She looked, bewildered, out at the glass sea, flat calm, a green bump of land in the distance. “Where are the warships? Where is our escort?”
Charles, a lit cigar in his hand, said impassively, “They never arrived.”
Her mouth opened; no sound emerged.
Never arrived. The promised safety of the Royal Navy, the assurances of the government, of the Cunard Line. Never arrived.
Deckhands were working feverishly around the lifeboats, yelling orders that were almost impossible to hear under a low, dull roar of steam escaping from somewhere, something, some crucial ruptured line or pipe that was never meant to be ruptured.
She counted barely a dozen of them; they were far outnumbered by the passengers and having scant luck keeping them at bay.
A few were already trying to push their way aboard the crafts, even before they were ready to be lowered from the davits.
She turned back to George. “Was it a torpedo?”
Captain Scott answered. “Yes. Got us starboard, not far back from the bridge. I talked to at least five people who saw it coming at us, a streak of silver across the water. Two more told me they saw the periscope of the U-boat just before.” He scowled at the crewmen, still struggling with the lifeboats’ blocks and tackles.
“I’m going to go look for more jackets. I’ll be back as quick as I can. ”
He was gone before anyone could reply.
The starboard cant was returning. The lifeboats were gradually centering more and more over the deck, instead of out beyond it. The wind rushed by.