The Ocean Liner

SS Manhattan

Rachel Morgenstern was reluctantly forced to admit that Thomas König had been helpful during the crisis. Without his assistance, the girls would have found the experience very difficult; and it was doubtful whether Stravinsky would have made it to the lifeboat at all.

‘Of course, you did it for Masha,’ Rachel said to Thomas. ‘You prefer Masha to me, don’t you, Adolf?’

‘I like you both the same,’ Thomas replied awkwardly. Rachel made him very nervous.

‘Liar. You think I am an ugly, spiteful Jewess.’

‘You are not ugly,’ he replied, flushing, ‘and your religion is not important to me.’

‘Liar again. Nor have you denied that I am spiteful.’

‘You are not spiteful.’

‘Liar a third time.’ She considered him with her sharp blue eyes. ‘How did you know which was our lifeboat?’

‘I found it out.’

‘When?’

‘The first day I saw you.’

‘So you could impress my cousin?’

‘So that I could be useful.’

‘How lucky we Jews are to have a little Nazi looking out for us. You were useful, I suppose.’ Grudgingly, she leaned forward and touched her lips to his cheek. ‘There. You had better go and wash that off now, before the Führer finds out about it.’

Thomas would far rather the kiss had come from Masha, but he accepted it with good grace. Masha did not kiss him, but she took Thomas’s hand in her own and walked along the deck with him. ‘You have never told me about your mother,’ she said. When he made no reply, but just looked away, she went on, ‘I would like her to know what a good, brave young man she raised.’

Well-intentioned as this remark was, it had the effect of emptying the cup of Thomas’s happiness in an instant, leaving him bereft, taking him back to the moment he had last seen his mother. ‘It was nothing,’ he mumbled.

‘It was not nothing,’ Masha replied. ‘You looked after us.’

‘The submarine didn’t even fire a torpedo.’ Thomas felt almost disappointed, as if that eventuality would have enabled him to show true heroism, rescuing Masha from the waves.

Masha smiled, perhaps reading his thoughts. ‘That’s not the point. You behaved like a grown-up. Like a man.’

Thomas squirmed, both at the praise and at the reminder of his youth. ‘It was only my duty.’

‘I think it was more than duty,’ Masha replied gently. ‘From the start, you’ve been very kind to us. It’s meant a great deal to me. To both of us. If my cousin is harsh with you, I want you to remember that her life has been hard. She’s suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The way she treats you isn’t personal.’

Thomas felt that it was very personal indeed, though he didn’t say so. He was still aching for a kiss from Masha’s soft lips, which he was watching yearningly; but it didn’t come. Masha simply pressed his hand, looking warmly into his eyes. ‘Thank you, Thomas. I won’t forget it.’

And he had to be content with that.

Miss Fanny Ward was in a highly agitated state. She had called Mr Nightingale into her stateroom and was clutching at him with tears in her eyes.

‘I know someone has stolen them. And they’re precious, so precious. It’s not just the value of the stones, Mr Nightingale. They were given to me by Dotty’s father. They’re diamonds of the first water from South Africa. I would lose anything sooner than those. We must search the ship. Every cabin, every suitcase.’

‘Now then, Miss Ward,’ he said soothingly. ‘Now then. I couldn’t help noticing, in the lifeboats last night, that you were wearing rather a lot of jewellery. Is it possible that in all the excitement, you dropped the rings overboard?’

‘Look,’ she said piteously, holding out her hands for him to see. ‘They hardly fit over my knuckles any more. They simply can’t fall off!’

‘Let’s retrace your steps. Where were you when the alarm went off?’

She pointed to the bed. ‘Asleep.’

‘So you got up.’

‘I got up and I opened the door to ask what was going on. They told me there was a submarine. So I ran to my jewellery box and I took as many of my things as I could carry.’

‘Did you put the two diamond rings on?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember. I can’t remember if I did or not.’

‘And you’ve searched your jewellery box thoroughly?’

‘I’ve had every single thing out,’ she wailed. ‘I believe someone came into my cabin while I was in the lifeboat, and simply helped themselves!’

‘Let’s see, now.’ Mr Nightingale inspected the heavy, inlaid box. Then he took the walnut chest of drawers on which the box stood, and showing a surprising turn of strength, pulled it away from the bulkhead. He insinuated his slender body in the gap behind it, and bent down. When he straightened again, he was holding something in his hand.

‘One,’ he said, presenting Miss Ward with a sparkling diamond ring, ‘and two.’ He gave her the other.

Her face turned pink with delight, and for a moment it was as though she were indeed eternally young, eternally pretty.

‘Oh, Mr Nightingale. You are wonderful. They must have fallen down there while I was digging through the box.’

‘All’s well,’ Mr Nightingale said, pushing the chest of drawers back into its alcove, ‘that ends well.’

‘You must think me an awful old fool,’ she said, looking up at him through sparse, wet lashes. ‘But you know, at my age – well, this is all I have left.’

‘You still have your beauty,’ Mr Nightingale replied gallantly.

‘You’re a brave man,’ Miss Ward said gently. ‘In more ways than one. We all saw that the crew lifeboat was given up to the passengers.’

‘Just doing our job,’ he replied airily. ‘I’ve been doing this for a lot of years, as you well know, Miss Ward. And the passengers behaved awfully well.’

‘It’s one thing to endure dangling in a lifeboat; but it’s quite another to face going down with your ship and keeping a smile on your lips.’ Miss Ward selected a handsome ruby ring from her hoard and slipped it on to Mr Nightingale’s finger. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever make this voyage again. This is something for you to remember me by.’

Flushed with pleasure, Mr Nightingale took her knobbly little claws in his own well-manicured hands and kissed them. ‘Bless you, Miss Ward.’

‘Bless you,’ she murmured, ‘Naughty Nightie.’