The Ocean Liner

SS Manhattan

Commodore Randall was on the bridge when the new signal came in. He watched the blinking light impassively.

‘They’re giving us ten minutes to abandon ship,’ the rating stammered nervously but unnecessarily, for they had all understood the Morse Code.

‘Heave to,’ he commanded the helmsman. The great liner swung slowly to starboard, presenting the U-boat with its broad side.

‘You’re giving them a perfect target,’ Symonds said in dismay.

‘I’m giving them a good look at our funnel. Get as many lights on it as you can. And keep signalling, “American ship”.’

He had deemed it best not to order a lifeboat drill before now. The Manhattan was so heavily overcrowded that it would inevitably cause chaos. And the truth was that the ship’s sixteen passenger lifeboats, together with two for the crew, were inadequate for the number of souls that would have to be saved. The realising of this would have caused unnecessary dismay among those on board. Like the Titanic, there were going to be hundreds who would have to either jump or go down with the ship. He himself knew he would choose the latter option.

‘How is manning the lifeboats progressing?’ he asked.

‘Surprisingly little panic,’ Symonds replied. ‘It’s going to take longer than ten minutes, though. And there will be a lot of passengers left standing.’

‘We’ll put the excess passengers in the crew lifeboats. You agree?’

‘Aye-aye, Captain.’

Randall grunted and trained his night-glasses on the location of the U-boat, around a mile and a quarter away. After that last, ominous signal, she had remained silent. He could just make out a light, presumably on her jackstaff.

‘Strange,’ he said in a conversational tone. ‘Here’s a group of boys eager to do the right thing by their country. Probably kind to animals and good to their mothers. If you met them at a baseball game they’d be fine fellows whose hands you would shake. Yet here they are, itching to kill us all, even though they know that doing that is going to break thousands of hearts just like their mothers’ hearts, and wreck thousands of innocent lives, just like their own lives. Can you figure that out, George?’

‘No, sir, I cannot.’

‘Me neither.’

‘They’re signalling again,’ the cadet called.

They watched in silence. This time the message was even shorter:

‘Ten minutes.’

Randall turned to the signalman. ‘Change the message. Send: “Manhattan, American liner”. Keep sending that. Don’t stop.’

‘Sending,’ the cadet said, operating the blinker with arms that were by now starting to ache.

‘What if they don’t understand English?’ Symonds asked.

‘Then let’s keep them busy consulting their dictionaries, rather than calculating torpedo trajectories, George.’

Nobody recognised Fanny Ward as the sailor pushed her on to her lifeboat. Her knobbly hands so loaded with rings and bangles that she could hardly lift them, her scrawny neck so weighted with necklaces that her head drooped, she stumbled over the thwarts and almost fell on to Mrs Kennedy.

‘Help the old lady,’ Mrs Kennedy snapped at Patricia. Pat grabbed Miss Ward’s arm and guided her to her seat. She collapsed into it with a gasp. Wigless, unpainted, she crumpled into her life jacket like an old tortoise drawing its head and limbs into its shell. Mrs Kennedy suddenly perceived that the old woman was the Eternal Beauty, wearing a fortune in heavy jewellery.

If that old crone falls overboard, she thought to herself, she’ll go straight to the bottom with all her bullion.

Madame Quo Tai-Chi was hampered, as she clambered into the lifeboat, by the Ming Dynasty vase she was clutching to her chest. The thing was huge, nearly half as big as she was, ornately (and auspiciously) painted with horses galloping over waves. It was four hundred years old, as priceless as it was fragile. But it caused resentment among the other occupants of the lifeboats, as did the second Ming vase, only slightly less huge, carried by her young son Edward, who followed close behind her.

‘You can’t bring those damned things on to the lifeboat,’ someone exclaimed. ‘Throw them overboard!’

Mrs Quo, who had already had an argument with the rating who’d tried to wrest the thing out of her arms, ignored the complaint. ‘Make room,’ she commanded imperiously. She pushed herself into her rightful place, using her surprisingly sharp elbows to make room. As she settled down, it was revealed that, in addition to the Ming vase, she was also carrying, tucked into her life jacket, a large, signed and framed photograph of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek. Her son followed suit, inserting himself next to her. Holding tightly on to the vase, she and Madame Chiang stared grimly ahead.

Thomas König helped Masha to pull the life preserver over her head. The thing was very bulky, made of rubberised fabric, a bilious yellow in colour, and festooned with a confusing tangle of toggles and straps. Thomas, however, seemed to understand how the thing was intended to work. He tied the tapes securely at her back, pulling them tight. Then he performed the same task for Rachel. Both young women were in a state of confused alarm, like everyone else; but Thomas appeared to know just what he was doing. He shepherded them out of their cabin and into the passageway, which was jammed with passengers. ‘That way,’ he commanded. The going was difficult. But halfway to the exit, Masha suddenly swung round.

‘Stravinsky’s manuscript. It’s still in the cabin!’

‘Forget it,’ Thomas said, pulling her arm, ‘we have to get to the lifeboats. The ship may go down at any moment.’

But Masha burst into tears. ‘He trusted me with it. I can’t lose it!’

‘Stay here.’ Pushing the girls into an alcove, Thomas fought his way back along the corridor to the girls’ cabin. Bruised and breathless, he found the portfolio on the little writing desk, and snatched it up. He stuffed it into his own life jacket and went back to find Masha and Rachel.

‘I’ve got it,’ he said tersely as he reached them. ‘No more delays, come.’

The lifeboat deck was chaotic, seething with hordes of passengers in livid-yellow life jackets trying to find salvation. Those who had been put in cabins had been allocated numbered seats on the boats. But all those who had been billeted in the public areas – many hundreds of people – had none. The crew were bawling orders through loudhailers, telling those who had no numbers to make for the crew lifeboats in the stern of the ship. But some were clambering into lifeboats not meant for them, and others were being pushed aside in the crush; and some, still under the impression that this was a drill, were asking whether they could go back to their cabins, now. But it was not a drill.

Bleary-eyed children clutching dogs and cats trotted in the wake of fathers clutching babies. Mothers with little ones hanging on their skirts hunted frantically for their boats. They passed an elderly man being hauled out of his wheelchair and dumped unceremoniously into a boat.

Alternately pulling and pushing the girls along, Thomas forged a path through the mob. ‘Thomas, where are you taking us?’ Rachel shouted.

‘Your boat is number sixteen. It’s the very last one at the rear of the ship, on this side.’

‘How do you know that?’ she demanded.

He didn’t waste his breath replying. Reaching their lifeboat, he gave their names to the rating stationed there, and then helped them climb aboard.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ Masha called from her seat.

He shook his head. ‘I’m going to get Monsieur Stravinsky.’

‘Thomas, no. Come back!’

But he was already gone.

Cubby Hubbard, bundled into his life preserver, was running from lifeboat to lifeboat, hunting for Rosemary. She was nowhere to be seen. But at last he caught sight of Mrs Kennedy, sitting in one of the boats with Teddy and Patricia. He hauled himself into the boat and clambered over the cursing passengers.

‘Where’s Rosemary?’ he demanded.

Mrs Kennedy, who seemed dazed by events, turned to face him. ‘Rosemary?’ she repeated, as though hearing the name for the first time.

‘Yes, Rosemary. Where is she? I don’t see her anywhere!’

Her eyes focused on Cubby, recognising him. Her expression hardened. ‘Rosemary’s not on the ship, you poor fool.’

‘What?’

‘I sent her back to her father. Do you really think I would leave her to your tender mercies?’

He stared at her blankly, thunderstruck. A rating laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. ‘This isn’t your lifeboat, son. You have to get out of the way.’

Stunned, Cubby allowed himself to be led away. Mrs Kennedy’s eyes followed him. She put her arms around her children and held them tight. For all her care, for all her ceaseless struggle to strengthen and protect them, they were about to be set adrift on the wide, rough sea of the world, there to sink or swim as God and the fates decided.