A Duty to the Dead

CHAPTER ONE

Tuesday, 21 November, 1916. 8:00 A.M.

At sea…

This morning the sun is lovely and warm. All the portholes below are open, to allow what breeze there is to blow through the lower decks and air them. With no wounded onboard to keep us occupied, we are weary of one another’s company. Beds are made up, kits readied, duties done. Since Gibraltar I’ve written to everyone I know, read all the books I could borrow, and even sketched the seabirds. Uneventful is the password of the day.

I lifted my pen from the paper and stared out across the blue water. I’d posted letters during our coaling stopover in Naples, and there wasn’t much I could add about the journey since then. I’d already mentioned the fact that Greece was somewhere over the horizon and likely to stay there. Someone had sighted dolphins off the bow just after first light, and I’d mentioned that too. What else? Oh, yes.

We discovered a bird’s nest in one of the lifeboats, no idea how long it had been there or if the hatching was successful. Or what variety of bird it might have been. Margaret, one of the nursing sisters, claimed it must surely be the Ancient Mariner’s albatross, and we spent the next half hour trying to think what we should name our unknown guest. Choices ranged from Coleridge to the Kaiser, but my personal favorite was Alice in Wonderland.

I always tried to keep my letters cheerful, even when the wards were filled with wounded, and we were working late into the night, fighting to save the worst cases. My worries weren’t to be shared. At home and in the trenches, letters were a brief and welcome respite from war. It was better that way. And now we were in the Kea Channel, just off the Greek coast at Cape Sounion, and steaming toward our final destination at Lemnos. It was the collection point for wounded from Greek Macedonia, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. There, post could be sent on through the Army.

I’d grown rather superstitious about writing to friends as often as I could. I’d learned too well just how precious time was, and how easily someone slipped away, dying days or weeks before I heard the news. My only consolation was that a letter might have reached them and made them smile a little while they were still living, or comforted them in their last hours. God knew, the Battle of the Somme over the summer had been such a bloodbath no one could say with any certainty how many men we’d lost. I could put a face to far too many names on those casualty lists.

A gull flew up to land on the railing close by me, an eye fixed on me. Most were nearly tame, begging for handouts. In the distance, over the bird’s shoulder, was a smudge that must be Kea. The sea here was a sparkling blue and calm, Britannic’s frothy wake the only disturbance as far as the eye could see in any direction. Sailing between the island and the mainland was a shortcut that saved miles and miles of travel.

Or as Captain Bartlett had told me on my first voyage out, “Keep Cape Sounion on your left and Kea on your right, and you can’t go wrong.” And so I looked for it every voyage thereafter, like a marker in the sea.

One of Britannic’s officers paused by my deck chair, and the gull took flight with an annoyed squawk. “I see you’re already enjoying the morning air, Miss Crawford. The last time we passed through here, it was pouring rain. You could hardly see your hand before your face. Remember?”

Browning was sun browned, broad shouldered, and handsome in his uniform. We’d formed a friendship of sorts during the voyages out, flirting a little to pass the time. Neither of us took it seriously.

“Much pleasanter than France this time of year,” I replied, smiling up at him. “No mud.”

He laughed. “And no one firing at you. We should be safe as houses soon.”

“That’s good to hear.” But I knew he was lying. It was a game all of us played, pretending that German U-boats weren’t a constant threat. Even hospital ships like Britannic were not safe from them, despite our white paint and great red crosses. They were said to believe that we hid fresh troops among the wounded or stowed munitions in the hold amongst the medical supplies. There was no truth to their suspicions, of course. And this channel was well traveled, always a temptation. For that matter, mines paid no heed to the nationality or purpose of the hull above them, when a vessel sailed too near. You couldn’t dwell on it, or you’d live in fear.

He moved on, overseeing the change of the watch, and I capped my pen.

There was something about his laugh that reminded me of Arthur Graham. When it caught me unawares, as it had done just now, the gates of memory opened and Arthur’s face would come back to me.

During training, we’d been warned about letting ourselves care too much for our patients. “They are yours to comfort, yours to heal, but not yours to dream about,” Matron had told us firmly. “Only foolish girls let themselves be drawn into romantic imaginings. See that you are not one of them.”

Good advice. But Matron hadn’t foreseen Arthur Graham. He’d been popular with the other wounded, the medical orderlies, and the nursing staff. It was impossible not to like him, and liking him, it was impossible not to feel something for him as he fought a gallant but losing battle with death. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe it was love, but I was honest enough to admit I cared more than I should. I’d watched so many wounded die. Perhaps that was why I desperately wanted to see this one man snatch a victory out of defeat and restore my faith in the goodness of God. But it wasn’t to be.

And truth be told, I had more than one reason for remembering Arthur Graham and his laugh. There was a promise I’d made. Freely.

If you gave your word so freely, my conscience argued, then why have you never kept your promise?

“There’s been no opportunity!” I said the words aloud, then in embarrassment turned to see if anyone had overheard me.

Liar. You never made the time.

It isn’t true-

You traveled through Kent on your last leave. You could have kept it then.

I resolutely uncapped my pen and tried to distract myself with my letter. The seagull returned to keep me company.

There’s a cheeky seagull on the railing every morning. I’ve christened him Baba, for the man who sat outside our gate in Agra and examined the goods the merchants brought to the house. Afterward he’d come round to the back garden and talk Cook into giving him

The gull flew up just as there was a deafening explosion, and the ship seemed to rock on her spine. The deck lurched where I was sitting, pen and paper flying from my lap. It was all so unexpected that I was thrown out of my chair as it too went over. I struck the bulkhead with such force that I rebounded hard against the stairs just behind me. My right arm took the brunt of that, and pain shot up to my shoulder.

I cried out in alarm, trying to scramble to my feet. The explosion had left me stunned. I could hear the shouts and screams all around me, but they seemed to come from a great distance. And then I was standing upright, holding on to the stairs with my left hand. My hearing gradually returned, and I forced myself to think clearly, to remember all those drills we’d attended again and again, and sometimes laughed about over tea.

My life belt. It was in my cabin. I had forgot to bring it on deck with me.

A rating ran by, stopping every few feet to look over the railing.

“What is it?” I called to the young seaman. “What’s happened?”

He didn’t answer, his attention on the ship’s waterline. But I really didn’t need to hear it from him. A submarine had found us and torpedoed us somewhere near the bow. It was the only explanation. Was there a second torpedo already on its way?

There was no time to stand and speculate.

Still dazed, I stumbled through the nearest sea door and went toward my cabin for my life belt. The dark-haired Irish nurse, Eileen, came running toward me in the passage, crashing into me as if she hadn’t seen me at all. It jarred my arm, and I smothered a cry. I tried to steady her, but she shook her head and ran on, disoriented and badly frightened.

I came to the next set of stairs, and it struck me suddenly that all this elegance surrounding us-elegance intended for happier voyages, for travelers dancing the night away without a care in the world-might wind up at the bottom of the sea.

Like Titanic. Or for that matter, Lusitania.

No, that mustn’t happen here-this great ocean liner would survive.

As the General Alarm was being sounded, the orderlies were collecting under the Major’s sharp eye while the rest of us were hurrying to take our stations. Since I was coming from the open deck, everyone asked me for news as they passed, but I could only shake my head and tell them I knew as little as they did. Dr. Menzies stopped me and reached for my arm.

I hadn’t noticed that my arm was cut, much less that it was bleeding rather badly. His fingers ran quickly, surely, over the skin closest to the gash. I winced at his touch.

“I rather think it’s broken. Have you got something to stop the bleeding? I’ll set it for you as soon as we know what’s happening.” And he was gone.

I reached my cabin, found my life belt on its nail, and cursed Dr. Menzies as I struggled to put the vest on properly. I hadn’t had time to notice how my arm was beginning to ache until he drew my attention to it. Now, it hurt like six devils, and I felt a first inkling of nausea from the intensity of the pain. He was right, it must be broken. I wasn’t about to touch it myself and find out.

And this wasn’t the time to be a problem for others. Using my left hand and my teeth, I managed to wind a scarf around the gash to contain the bleeding.

My kit bag lay at the foot of my bunk. Holding my right arm close to my chest, I reached into it and pulled out the small oilskin packet in which I’d learned to keep my papers and money. Shoving that down the front of my shirt, I turned and hurried back into the passage.

It was eerily quiet, as if no one was left onboard but me.

“Anyone need help?” I shouted to be sure no one was lying hurt somewhere. If I’d been thrown to the deck, it was possible that others had been tossed about as well. I listened and heard only the sounds of the ship herself. I opened the nearest doors, only to find the cabins empty. Their occupants were all on deck, then, trying to see what sort of damage we’d sustained, getting to their stations in some sort of order, waiting for instructions. Time that I joined them.

As I turned to the companionway, Captain Bartlett began speaking to the ship’s company, and I tried to make out what he was saying. My ears were still full of cotton wool and I couldn’t distinguish all the words. Something about assessing damage and no need to worry. The Abandon Ship alarm hadn’t sounded, and that was reassuring. Britannic had watertight doors. Wounded she might be but certainly not doomed. Of course they’d said the same about Titanic… At least there hadn’t been a second torpedo. Yet. I didn’t want to think about what that might have done to us.

I reached the lifeboat station as someone just ahead of me remarked, “I expect we hit a small craft. A fishing boat, most likely.” There was a nervous edge to her voice. “This is probably nothing more than a precaution.”

Marilyn Johnson answered, “I wish the captain would tell us more. But then he probably doesn’t know himself, yet.”

Most of the nurses were wearing their life belts, but several still clutched them in their hands.

The crew was busy with the boats, not lowering them yet, just preparing them. And then ahead of our station, a working detail of ratings panicked, racing to get a boat launched early, and I realized with a shock that they were intending to commandeer it.

My next thought was, Had they been down below, and did they know how bad it really was?

An officer was trying to deal with them, his voice hard and calming. “There’s no need to panic. Do your duty, damn you, and your turn will come!”

I thought it was my friend Browning, but there was tension and anger in the voice as well, changing its timbre. Not encouraging, surely.

Behind me Dr. Brighton joined the queue. He was an older man, a very good doctor, and unflappable. I’d watched him in the operating theater. He noted the scarf around my arm. “What’s this?”

I saw that blood was seeping through the pretty pattern of lilacs. “A cut,” I told him, unwilling to admit to more.

He began to unwind the scarf, then saw for himself what lay beneath. Rewinding it more efficiently, he confided to me in a low voice, “I don’t think it’s a good idea to go below for something to stabilize that bone. The portholes on E and F decks are still open, worst luck, and there’s no chance of closing them now. We’ll sink fast if the watertight doors are damaged.”

“Where was the explosion?” I asked as quietly, striving to keep my arm steady as he worked. “Starboard side, I think, near the bow-not far from where I was sitting.”

“Yes. Bartlett has just sent a distress signal. Meanwhile, damage reports are still coming in. They aren’t good.”

The ship was turning now, toward Kea in the distance, but I wasn’t sure we could make it. Something didn’t feel right about Britannic-she seemed heavier. I’d sailed in her often enough to recognize a difference. I prayed it was only my imagination running away with me.

Dr. Paterson, nearer the rail, called to Dr. Brighton. “They’re using the screws to turn, not the rudder. I don’t think that’s a good sign.” Dr. Brighton finished tying up my arm and then hurried over to join him, staring down into the water.

How many of these people can swim? For that matter, could I, with this arm?

That thought flashed through my mind as I watched the crew at their work as they readied the great arms of the lifeboat launching system.

Everyone knew the drill, but no one had believed it would ever be necessary. Five voyages into the Mediterranean, with no trouble. That had given us a false sense of security.

I watched one of the younger seamen fumble the ropes, and an older rating swore at him to mind what he was about.

Browning was by my side, saying, “I don’t like the look of that arm, Miss Crawford. Ask someone to help you into a boat, if the time comes.”

I turned. “Does anyone know what happened? I’d swear Britannic seems sluggish, as if she’s taking on water.”

He didn’t answer me directly. “U-boat. Mine. Does it matter?”

“Are we sinking? Is this a precaution or real?”

“Damned real,” he said tightly, and was gone.

There was a nurse just up ahead with bruises on her face. Someone had tied an impromptu bandage around her head, and already the blood was seeping through. Serviettes from the dining room? They gave the woman a rakish air, and I wanted to laugh.

No, that’s hysteria. Stop it, I warned myself.

The Irish nurse had come up beside me, trying to edge her way up the queue. Her face was so pale the freckles across her nose stood out. “I don’t like the water,” she was saying, “I’d rather take my chances here-”

I put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t be silly, Eileen. If anything happens, the lifeboats are the safest place for us to be.”

Eileen froze, fear stark in her eyes. “Then it’s true, we’re sinking-”

I could hear shouting now, and saw that Harry Dyke, one of the officers, was looking up at the poop deck, where firemen from below were trying to launch a lifeboat for themselves.

“You fools!” he yelled. “Stay onboard-we’re trying to beach her-”

But they were frantic to be gone, and without waiting for orders or other passengers to join them, they launched anyway.

“Stay away from the ship,” Dyke was shouting to them now. “And for God’s sake, try to pick up any of the crew who’ve already jumped!”

Surprised, I turned to look at the sea and could see bobbing heads treading water, those who hadn’t waited for a boat to be lowered. From the look of them, they were already tiring. The water was November cold, after all, in spite of the sun’s warmth.

Eileen fled before I could stop her.

The firemen were paying no heed, but I thought they’d heard Dyke. I saw one reach out an arm to drag a swimmer inboard.

Then the third officer, Lawes, was trying to prevent two of his boats from automatically launching. So far the Abandon Ship signal still hadn’t been given. We were all at our stations, worried and waiting for instructions. None came. I eyed the distance to Kea. Could we make it that far, wounded as we were? Or was the submarine lurking nearby, watching, ready to try another shot if it looked as if we’d be successful? I shivered at the thought.

I saw that Lawes was too late-the boats dropped to the water with such violence that spray swept the side of the ship. By a mercy, both stayed upright. To my surprise, Eileen was in one of them.

Britannic was listing now, it wasn’t just my imagination, and it was harder to understand why the Captain hadn’t ordered the boats away. I could appreciate how the passengers on Britannic’s sister ship, Titanic, must have felt in the cold darkness of the North Atlantic. At least here there was daylight-

Someone behind me was pushing hard, eager to be nearer the lifeboat, as if afraid she’d be left behind. She jostled my right arm, and I felt faint from the stab of pain.

I stepped back, letting her have my place, then sat down on the deck, lowering my head, swallowing hard. Nausea was there, all too close to the surface, dizzying in its intensity. I hadn’t realized that a break in a bone could be so exquisitely painful. I’d feel a greater tolerance for the wounded after this.

One of the other nurses came to bend over me, and then we heard people shouting and screaming a warning. I managed to get to my feet and turn to look over the railing.

The two boats from Lawes’s station were in trouble, and Bartlett was bellowing to them through the loud-hailer. “Mind the screws, damn it!”

I stood there, unable to turn away, as one of the lifeboats caught in Britannic’s wake was being dragged inexorably back toward our three propellers, already partly out of the water, their great brass wings shining wet in the sun as they went round.

Like everyone else along that rail, I cried out in horror, staring down at the frightened, helpless faces turned first up to us and then back toward the stern. There was nothing that anyone could do. No way to stop what was about to happen. In what seemed to be slow motion, but must have been only a matter of seconds, the first boat was swept into the screws. The sound of wood rending reached us. Screams echoed across the water, and then there was silence.

I don’t think anyone on the ship moved.

Wood debris and torn bodies churned into the bloody wake.

I felt sick. In five sailings with severely wounded onboard, I had never seen anything quite so terrible. The image stayed with me, repeating itself over and over again.

Dr. Paterson, swearing like a trooper, raced toward the stern, looking over into the water for survivors.

The Abandon Ship alarm was sounding now, and I realized that while we’d been absorbed by the drama on the water, Britannic’s list had increased alarmingly. Someone came up to me, cursing me, telling me to get into one of the lifeboats before it was too late to lower them.

It was Lieutenant Browning, harried and angry, his expression a mask of duty but his mind already leaping ahead to what we were about to face.

It was the last thing I wanted to do now-leave this ship. I could see other boats in danger of the same fate as the first one. It would be better to drown than to face those churning blades. But when I turned, drawn to stare at them, I was surprised to see that the screws were barely moving, that someone had ordered all engines stopped. It was then I knew with cold certainty that we were sinking.

Collecting my wits, I said, “Look-the boat I’m assigned to is full-”

Browning shook me, and I cried out from the pain in my arm.

He stopped, saw how bloody my scarf was, and ripped my apron off below my vest, using it to fashion a makeshift sling.

“This way, Sister!” He took my good hand and led me through the ship to another boat station, lifting me bodily into the first one we came to just as it was ready to lower. “This one has a better chance of making it.”

What he didn’t add was that with the ship listing it would be touch and go on the other side.

The occupants reached up to pull me safely aboard.

“Be safe-Godspeed!” he told me, and then he was gone.

We hit the sea heavily, bobbed dangerously, then steadied. Someone was calling frantically to us from the water, and I turned to see that it was the Irish nurse, clinging to a shard of wood from one of the broken boats.

I leaned forward to touch the shoulder of the officer in charge of our boat and pointed. Looking around, he saw Eileen.

Nodding, he tried to steer the boat nearer to her. She was having a dreadful time staying afloat as the plank perversely danced away on the next swell. Afraid of losing her, several of us leaned over at once to try to reach out for the bit of wood she gripped so frantically, and nearly capsized ourselves in the process. The officer shouted a warning, and then I saw the boat hook lying in the bottom. I picked it up, swung it over everyone’s head, and out toward Eileen. She hesitated, reluctant to let go of the only security she knew, and then in a final desperate lunge that took all her strength, she grasped the curved end of the hook. I could see the despair in her eyes as she held on for dear life. With Barbara Mercer’s help, I dragged her to the side of our boat.

Because I was nearest her, I passed the boat hook to someone else and put out my left hand to catch Eileen’s. Barbara did the same, and with an effort I hadn’t dreamed I was capable of, we began to haul the girl up over the side. Eileen was crying, begging us not to let her go. Nurses on either side of us caught at her wet clothing as it tried to pull her down, and we soon had her safely aboard.

Other hands lowered her gently into the well. It was then I saw the lacerations on her legs, and the tatters of skirt and petticoat that only half covered them.

The wounds were deep and bleeding profusely. It must have been a torment for her almost beyond bearing. But the coldness of the water had helped stanch the rate of bleeding long enough for her to be rescued.

Barbara and Margaret began to bind up the wounds, but the pain was intolerable now. Eileen fainted.

“Just as well,” Barbara muttered as she worked.

Our boat crew began to row now with vigorous strokes, pulling us as far from Britannic as possible, their backs arched over the oars and the muscles in their shoulders straining with the effort.

There was nothing more I could do. I sat back, nursing my arm. I’d damaged it picking up the boat hook with both hands, trying to reach Eileen and pull her to us. The ends of the bone felt as if they were grinding together now. But what else could I have done? In the closely packed lifeboat, there had been no time or space to shift places. I tried to touch the area around the break, but it hurt so much I stopped. It was too late to worry now.

Besides, the little lifeboat was rolling in a fashion that Britannic never had done, even in storms. I was feeling increasingly uneasy. Or was it the agony in my arm? It was overwhelming, and seemed to have reached a crescendo. I closed my eyes, trying my best to cope.

Think of anything but your arm, I commanded myself. Anything-

England? No, don’t think of home. Something else…

My great-grandmother had danced at a ball in Belgium on the eve of Waterloo, while Napoleon was racing north across the French border. She had watched my great-grandfather slip from the ballroom to ride to meet his regiment, then smiled to hide her fear from the others present, and turned to dance with a new partner. Later she’d had her portrait painted in the ball gown she wore that night. I tried to picture her floating across the polished floor in the arms of another man while the one she loved was facing the greatest battle of his career. Would I be painted in my torn, bloodstained uniform, after surviving Britannic? My mother would have a fit-

There was a single blast of the ship’s whistle, and I opened my eyes in time to see that her bridge was almost on a level with the water. Britannic was going. That beautiful ship-

Tears began to run down my face, salty on my lips. I shook my head to clear it, and unable to turn away, watched the great liner die. On all sides of me other people were crying as well, their eyes fixed on the ship, not ready to absorb what this meant-or what lay ahead of us.

We could hear the boilers exploding as the cold water reached them and the splash of gear and equipment sliding down the decks to crash into the sea. The ship itself was creaking, as if she were alive, protesting.

The engineers, last to leave, were madly scrambling out of funnel four, after holding their positions until the end.

Lucy, across the boat, exclaimed, “Oh, my God. Just like Titanic.”

Barbara, beside me, said dryly, “No, dear, Lusitania. There aren’t any icebergs in the Mediterranean.”

“Was it a mine?” someone else asked.

I was shading my eyes against the sun’s glare as one of the officers assigned to our boat cleared his throat and answered the question.

“Must have been. None of the lookouts saw any sign of a U-boat or reported a torpedo’s wake. But if it was a submarine, thank God it didn’t attack again.”

“Bloody U-boat wouldn’t have picked us up, even so.” It was the rating at the helm.

We had moved smartly in a dash to put ourselves beyond reach of the great ship’s death throes, afraid of being pulled under with her, but she filled our world still.

Then someone said, “There’s the end of her!” in a hollow voice, as if they couldn’t believe their eyes.

Britannic seemed to roll uncertainly, then bow first she raced down through the water, as if she had a rendezvous below and was late. The roar of her passing was like something human, a cry like nothing I’d ever heard. The sight and sound were heart wrenching, and as I looked out at the turbulence where the great ocean liner had once been, I knew I’d remember those last appalling moments until the day I died.

The sea seemed lonely now. Wide and endless and unfriendly. We were in the middle of nowhere. Kea was off on the horizon, and this was a busy sea lane, but the water was so desperately empty. Even crippled, Britannic had been comforting, a place we knew, large and able to hold its own against the vastness of the sea. Or so we’d wanted to believe.

“Did everyone get off?” Lucy asked anxiously. “Oh, my God, what if we’d had more than three thousand wounded onboard?” She began to tremble.

We were all shaken, uncertain, trying not to think about that. We’d had enough lifeboats, and we knew the procedures by heart, but it was a daunting prospect in the face of our present situation.

Attempting to shift the subject, I said, “Did anyone respond to the Captain’s distress call?”

“There was no mention of other boats in the area, as far as I know,” Margaret replied. “They must have learned about the mine laying…”

In the bottom of the boat, Eileen moaned a little, and Barbara asked, “Is there a medical kit onboard? She needs something now for the pain.”

There was a swift scramble to find the kit, and I let myself go for a few minutes, drifting on a tide of sickness and pain. Even so I could hear Barbara talking as she worked on Eileen’s limbs, worried that the girl would bleed to death.

I tried to recapture the image of that ballroom in Belgium, and my great-grandmother whirling past long candlelit windows in a daring waltz, smiling up at a young lieutenant while out of the corner of her eye, she watched another officer slipping out the door and hurrying away. But behind my lids now was only the red glare of the sun.

As I opened my eyes again, other lifeboats had drawn within hailing distance of ours. One of them called to us and asked if everyone was all right. I thought it was Lieutenant Browning-prayed it was.

The officer in our boat bellowed, “We’ll do.”

Someone else called across the water, “How many boats did we lose?”

“Four.” The number seemed to hang in the air like signal flags on a lanyard.

“Try to stay together, then. We’ve a better chance.”

I was nearly sure it was Captain Bartlett speaking now, but water tended to distort voices. Would he be blamed for what happened, like the captain of Titanic? You couldn’t see a mine in time, could you? They were purposely low in the water, bobbing, hiding in the froth, a cruel and unseen killer.

We roused ourselves and began taking stock. Three others in our boat were wounded, in addition to Eileen. The only doctor among us had sustained a blow to the head, the knob rising like a small hill, and he was slow to respond to questions about how he felt. Two of the nurses had rather serious cuts. Barbara was already ripping apart her skirts for makeshift bandaging, and others followed suit.

“Salt air is a healer,” Lucy was saying, trying for cheer. “But I doubt it was meant this way, medically.”

Barbara said succinctly, “Bloody Germans!”

I said, noticing that somewhere I had lost my cap and the heat was beating down, “We need to shield our heads and faces from the sun. Try to rig something if you can. We’ll burn in no time.”

My apron was around my arm, but I borrowed a pocketknife from the man at the helm, and with a little help managed to hack a strip from my skirt that I could wind, turbanlike, around my head.

“You look like an Arab,” one of the other women told me, and there was a general nervous laugh. But I noted that others were following my example. I managed to cut another strip and handed it to Barbara to shield Eileen’s face from the sun, rigging it over the bucket used for bailing. The glare from the water was very different, this close to it, and I found I was squinting horribly until I’d created my own shade.

We fell silent for a time, overwhelmed by events. There seemed to be no one else in the world but ourselves, a cluster of small boats at the mercy of the sea.

Thank God it was not raining or stormy.

I felt myself drifting away again on the thought, the wash of the sea against the sides of the boat and the warmth of the sun surprisingly soothing for a little while. My great-grandmother seemed to have abandoned me, leaving me to my own devices, and for a time I tried to pretend we were on the ship that had brought us back from India, lying on deck with our backs to the mast, watching moonlight streaming across the dark sea. It had been too hot to sleep below, and the passengers had come up to find a breath of air, counting stars until that palled.

POSH…I hadn’t thought of that in ages. It stood for Port side Out, Starboard side Home. The best cabins, the cooler ones, were on the port side of a vessel traveling out to India, and on the starboard side coming home. And still there were nights when not a breath of air stirred, and if the ship hadn’t been moving, we’d all have surely died of heat exhaustion.

The image of a dark ship on a dark sea faded, abandoning me too. I came back to the present, unable to escape for very long.

My arm had settled into a dull, constant ache as long as I kept it close to my body and braced. I think all of us were feeling the exhaustion of the last hours. God knew, after what we’d been through, it wasn’t surprising.

Then suddenly I was awake again, overheated in the full strength of the sun, and thirsty. I wanted to dip my hands in the cool water surrounding us and bathe my face. But I knew better. Not only would it dry my skin more, but it would also make it burn and blister.

People were sleeping for a few minutes at a time as I’d done, or staring out to sea without actually seeing it. No one seemed inclined to talk now. I wondered what memories they were chasing, and if theirs had succeeded better than mine. I turned my head to look forward, at the officer. He was anxiously scanning the horizon. The ratings were trying to keep us on course with the other boats, but I didn’t think we were making much progress toward Kea. I looked around and found that several of the boats had even drifted away. The rhythmic slap of the waves against the sides of ours was the only sound.

Surely Kea was farther away than before? It had looked closer from the decks of Britannic. Hadn’t it? I couldn’t be sure.

Where I was sitting, my back had very little support, and soon it began to ache in concert with my arm, in spite of my sling. I straightened, trying to ease both. Why had the mast on the ship from India seemed comfortable, and here there was no comfort to be had?

Barbara, stretching, turned to me and said, “The arm hurts, I daresay. But from the looks of it, this isn’t the best place to try and set it.”

“A little, yes,” I answered, managing a smile. “But nothing like what Eileen must be feeling.”

“More than a little. I broke my arm when I was twelve, falling out of the apple tree while trying to emulate my brothers. As for Eileen-” She shrugged expressively.

“Yes.” If we weren’t found soon, if she didn’t have proper care…

“We were lucky,” Barbara went on, as if to convince herself. “We got off, and no one in this boat was terribly hurt.” She glanced down at Eileen. “Except of course for her. We’ll have to bathe her legs in seawater again soon, to keep the wounds from suppurating. It’ll have to do.”

I knew what was in Barbara’s mind. The Irish girl might survive, but she could lose one or both legs to infection.

Barbara was older than most of us, an experienced nursing sister before the war had begun in 1914. She had told me once that her family had been horrified when she decided to train as a nurse. Now, with the war on, it was socially acceptable to tend the wounded. But not then, not a woman of her class, not in 1905.

With a sigh I leaned back as best I could, still trying to find comfort for my spine. The life belt was cumbersome and very little help.

One of the nursing sisters moved a little, as uncomfortable as I was. “We will be rescued, won’t we?”

“Of course we will,” I answered to cut off the rising fear in the girl’s voice. “There must be shipping, fishing boats-”

Barbara added, “There are so many of us. If a ship finds one lifeboat, it will begin to search for others. If you must worry, ask yourself how we are to get home, with no Britannic to carry us to England.”

A very good question. Her words turned all of our thoughts from rescue to passage back.

Lucy said, “They’re chronically short of nurses. That’s in our favor.”

“I’d rather not be sent to Egypt,” Margaret put in. “I hear hospitals there are appalling.”

Most of us understood appalling conditions. We’d worked in them, more often than not. “Egypt is no worse than the others,” I said.

Fishing boats out of Kea began to appear over the empty horizon. A cheer went up. After what seemed to be an eternity, the first one arrived on the scene, and then others, spread out behind it. Watching them move past us, I realized that there were people bobbing in the water, even though from our position we couldn’t see them, and the boats went first to pull them out. But there wasn’t much space on the little craft, and so they couldn’t manage taking any of us from the lifeboats.

While we were watching them turn back for Kea, wondering how long it would be before we saw them again, HMS Scourge steamed into view and began to pick up survivors.

Our boat wasn’t one of them. But Scourge was followed soon enough by HMS Heroic, which seemed to tower over us as she came up.

The worst of the wounded, including Eileen, were sent by motor launch to Korissia, the port on Kea. We were taken aboard, climbing the ladder if we could or waiting our turn on the sling if not.

From Heroic’s deck, I watched our progress in, the mountainous interior growing higher, the numerous small coves and bays giving the shore a ragged outline. What sort of medical care would we find here? I wished I had two good arms. It rankled that I was a burden. There were enough injured without me.

“We’re forty nautical miles from Piraeus,” one of the officers said reassuringly, as if he’d read my thoughts. “You’ll be all right.”

The doctors and nurses already landed there had begun working frantically to save the most critical cases, making use of whatever they could collect among themselves to bind up the severest wounds, some including loss of limbs. Supplies were being off-loaded from the naval vessels now, and that was a blessing. I was a little unsteady when I got to shore but went directly to do what I could to help. Then someone noticed my swollen hand, discovered it came from a broken arm, and ordered me to step aside.

“We’ve enough nurses,” Dr. Paterson told me. “I’ll see to you directly. Meanwhile, there’s a little shade over there. And Eileen could use the company. She’s awake now. We’ve given her something for her pain, thanks to Heroic.”

Silently cursing my uselessness, I did as I was told, pausing to speak to a pair of ratings lying on blankets and to the nurse with the bandaged head before sitting down by the Irish girl.

Eileen recognized me and said, shakily, “Well, we’re alive. It counts, doesn’t it?”

I smiled. “I should say it does.”

“I made such a fool of myself, didn’t I?” she added after a moment.

“I don’t think there’s any way we can predict how we’ll behave in an emergency until we’re there,” I answered judiciously.

“You didn’t panic.”

“My ancestors were battle-hardened soldiers. I wouldn’t dare panic,” I said lightly. “They’d rise up from their graves in horror.”

That brought a flicker of amusement, quickly gone. “I’ve never been hurt before. Not like this. It’s odd, you know. To be one of the wounded.”

“I was just thinking the same thing myself, not half an hour ago.”

“I’m not enjoying the experience.” There was a pause. “Will I lose my legs, do you think? Dr. Menzies wouldn’t answer me when I asked.”

“I doubt it. He’s always been the cautious one, you know.”

“Yes.” But I didn’t think she believed me.

One of the island women brought us cold water to drink, which was pure bliss, and then a little later gave us bread baked only that morning, with a small dish of almonds and olives. I was surprised to find I was hungry, and I dipped little chunks of bread into the water, sharing it with Eileen, insisting that she must keep up her strength, even if she didn’t feel like eating. Another woman brought us fruit, and gesturing with a smile, mimicked biting into it.

“Will I lose my legs?” Eileen asked again, as if she’d forgotten she’d spoken to me before about it. Looking at her, I could see she was groggy, and perhaps a little feverish.

“There will be scars,” I said, avoiding the question. “But who will see them? Here, have a little more of this orange. It will help ward off scurvy.” But she barely noticed my little joke.

Just then I realized that Lieutenant Browning had arrived, bringing in one of the last boats, and he began to take charge almost at once. I thought he was actually speaking Greek, but it was French, and he’d found someone among the local people who could translate for him. I smiled, thinking that it was just the sort of thing he would do, find a way to cope.

At some point in the afternoon he came over to speak to me, asking how I was.

No one had had time to set my arm, and I said nothing about it, although he could see my purpling hand, and the swelling. By that time Eileen had been taken to someone’s home where it was cooler, and I was sitting with one of the engineers, who’d broken his leg jumping into the water, listening to his tale of another sinking before the war.

Lieutenant Browning came back shortly with Dr. Brighton, and although I protested that it could wait, my arm was cleaned and braced and wrapped, and I was given a stronger sling. It looked suspiciously like a part of someone’s tablecloth. But there was no morphine to help, because we didn’t have enough.

I slept for a time after that, in spite of the pain. It was beginning to put my teeth on edge. And so my sleep was restless at best and my dreams were filled with mines and explosions and fear.

In late afternoon, two more warships came in, and I was among those taken to Piraeus. Crowds of people had come down to the grimy little port to watch us disembark, as if word had run before us like wildfire. A number of us were put up in one of the small hotels near the harbor. It was called the Athena, and the staff was very kind. Margaret shared my room and helped me undress and bathe and dress again. She also cut my meat (it tasted suspiciously like goat) and broke my bread. Four times I was taken to hospital for my arm to be seen and treated and rebound. I could tell no one liked the look of it, but there was no infection, and I thought perhaps the bone was beginning to knit. Pulling Eileen into the boat, I’d managed to turn a simple fracture into a compound one, and it appeared for a time that I’d need surgery. Thank God the doctors were wrong.

Several days after our arrival, someone came to tell us the final death toll: thirty men. It was astonishing, and I put the good news into a letter home, written with my left hand and barely legible.

The question now was how to get us back to England. And how soon.