Women and Children First: Bravery, love and fate: the untold story of the doomed Titanic. Gill Paul

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СКАЧАТЬ sea and sky, and the few stars were distant dots in some other galaxy. Onboard lights had been turned to a dim glow as the 1,300 passengers slept below. The steps were slippery with salt spray and Reg took them slowly so as not to slosh tea from the pot.

      When he entered the bridge, he was disappointed to see that it wasn’t the captain on duty but another officer, one he didn’t recognise, who was standing alone by the wheel gazing out at the ocean ahead.

      ‘Put it down there,’ he said, without looking round, just pointing vaguely.

      Reg had hoped he might be able to get into conversation and ask questions about the function of all the fancy modern buttons and levers and dials, but there was no encouragement to friendliness in the square set of the officer’s shoulders.

      ‘Thank you, sir,’ Reg said before turning to leave. If it had been Captain Smith, he could have asked his questions. He’d sailed under the captain two years earlier, had been his personal dining steward on the voyage, and he’d found the grizzly-bearded old man to be a genial, fatherly sort. Whenever he was dining on his own, he’d been happy to answer questions about the propellers and bulkheads and top speed of the ship. He loved his ships, and encouraged Reg’s boyish curiosity.

      Reg stopped just outside the bridge to examine the sextant, with which the captain checked the ship’s position at noon every day, then he gazed down the length of the vessel, past the huge funnels and towards the stern. It was a floating hotel, like the Ritz at sea. Of course, he’d never been to the Ritz Hotel, never even been to London, but he’d read all about it in the papers when it had opened six years earlier. The upper classes went there to sip tea in the opulent Palm Court, among real palm trees. Even King George was sometimes glimpsed there. One day Reg would like to visit, he thought, but in the meantime, they had their very own Palm Court and Verandah Restaurant on the Titanic and it too had real palm trees in exotic wooden tubs. No detail had been spared; there was nothing but the best for their well-heeled clientele.

      A movement caught his eye and he turned to see a girl standing behind one of the lifeboats, right next to the railing. Her back was to him but he could see that she was very slim, with copper hair secured by a diamond clasp, and wearing a shimmery white dress. She was holding something bulky and brown and, if he wasn’t mistaken, furry. Could it be an animal, perhaps a pet dog? It seemed rather large for that.

      She turned and Reg shrank back, not wanting to be caught staring, but she didn’t once glance up towards the bridge. She was gazing beyond the lifeboat towards the entrance to the Grand Staircase and shifting her weight from foot to foot as if she were agitated about something. Suddenly she turned back towards the ocean, lifted her brown bundle and tossed it high into the air, right over the railing. Reg jumped in horror and opened his mouth to yell, the thought that it might be a dog foremost in his mind, but as it flapped in the air he saw that it was a coat. A fur coat. It seemed to float in slow motion, caught on an ocean breeze, before disappearing from view.

      Why would anyone do that? It was a gesture of such extravagant abandon that he was struck dumb.

      The girl glanced over her shoulder, presumably to check whether anyone had witnessed her bizarre behaviour. In the lamplight, her face was small and exquisite, like a flawless china doll. She had diamond earrings to match her hair clasp, and her robe plunged open at the front in quite the most revealing manner Reg had ever seen on an upper-class lady.

      Yet, there was no doubt that she was upper class. Everything about her seemed genteel and expensive, and the gown was cinched in around a waist so tiny Reg felt sure he could have linked his hands round it.

      ‘She’s perfect,’ he thought to himself. ‘Truly perfect.’ But what was she up to? She took a step towards the Grand Staircase, then turned back again as if not sure what to do for the best. She leaned against the railing and bent over to look at the ocean 75 feet below. Reg took an instinctive step towards her. Was she planning to jump? Or just trying to see where her coat had landed? Should he rush over and be ready to grab her if she started to climb the railing? She would die instantly on impact with the water. That tiny neck would snap as surely as if she had leapt off a ten-storey building and hit the pavement below.

      He stood, torn by indecision. What if she leapt and he didn’t get there in time to stop her because he’d been too busy gawping? He’d feel terrible, knowing he could have prevented it. Should he make some kind of sound so she knew he was there? He could approach and ask if he might fetch anything for her. He rehearsed the words in his head. ‘Good evening, ma’am. May I be of assistance?’

      She turned again and just at that moment, Reg noticed a figure coming up the Grand Staircase and emerging onto the deck. He walked past a lamp and Reg saw that it was Mr Grayling, an American gentleman whose table he waited on in the first-class dining saloon. He could easily have spotted Reg hovering on the steps to the bridge, but he didn’t look that way. Instead, he strode directly towards the lifeboat where the girl was waiting. As she saw him approach, she gave a little cry, ran towards him, and threw herself into his arms. Her tiny white figure was enveloped in his large, dark-suited one.

      Mr Grayling held her close for a while then he leaned back to cup her chin in his hands. He said something to her, but Reg could only catch the word ‘sorry’, before he bent to kiss her full on the mouth. She raised her pale, thin arms around his neck, while he placed a protective hand in the small of her back. It was a posture so intimate Reg knew that they had to be lovers, and not just new lovers. There was a familiarity about their passion. Perhaps they had been apart for some time and this was their reunion.

      An awful fact nagged at Reg’s brain as he stood watching. Mr Grayling was married to a woman Reg knew and liked, who was with him on this trip. He’d waited on Mrs Grayling on a Mediterranean cruise the previous year, when she’d been travelling with a woman friend, and they’d had several friendly conversations. Reg had been touched that she remembered him this time and professed herself delighted to see him once more. She was nicer than any other passenger in first class, where familiarity with the staff was somewhat frowned upon. How could Mr Grayling betray her? What kind of a man would bring his mistress onto the same ship as his wife?

      The lovers slipped in behind the lifeboat, still caught up in their embrace, and Reg decided he had best get a move on before he was spotted. They wouldn’t be at all pleased if they thought they were being spied upon. He knew to his cost that if a first-class passenger made a complaint against a steward it would always be believed, no matter how unjust the circumstances. On his last voyage, an elderly gentleman had lost a silver cigar case and accused Reg of stealing it. His belongings were searched and of course it wasn’t found. It finally turned up under a table in the smoking room, but Reg knew the incident was recorded in his particulars at the White Star Line office. He’d seen it with his own eyes when he signed on for this voyage. There was an indelible shadow on his record because of it. He’d protested indignantly to the secretary at the employment office but was told it was just a record of an event, and nothing would make them remove it.

      Reg stamped his foot on the step and walked down with a heavy footfall, so no one could accuse him of sneaking around. At the bottom of the steps he turned left towards the port side of the ship so as not to pass Mr Grayling and the girl, who were on the starboard. When he reached the Grand Staircase, he didn’t look back but hurried down. He caught the elevator to D deck, said good night to the night shift operator, then descended a further flight of stairs to Scotland Road, a corridor stretching half the length of the ship, where he had a berth in a dormitory with twenty-seven other saloon stewards. It was one-thirty, and he had precisely four hours to sleep before it was time to get up and prepare for breakfast service.

      Chapter Two

      Lady СКАЧАТЬ