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

I think it’s the best place I’ve ever been.’

      Annie smiled. ‘I expect he would tell you to finish your schooling first and be a good boy and you would be in with a chance.’

      She dawdled as they walked out through the first-class reception room towards the stairs down to E Deck. She wanted to feel that carpet under her feet for just as long as she could. There were huge bouquets of spring flowers on side tables and their scent floated through the air. How come they looked so fresh when the ship had already been at sea for four days? Was it the lilies-of-the-valley that had such a sweet smell?

      Her new friends Eileen and Kathleen and Mary were chatting nineteen to the dozen about the grand ladies they had seen.

      ‘Did you notice the diamond bracelet on yon lady in the lilac? It looked so heavy it must strain her arm.’

      ‘I should have such problems!’

      ‘It was the size of the hats that got me. Who would have thought you could balance so much on your head without getting a headache?’

      Annie was only half-listening. She looked at the rich reds and greens of the embroidered upholstery and wished she had shades like these for her own work. Embroidery threads could be expensive and she’d only brought four basic colours with her. She imagined herself sinking into an armchair by one of the big picture windows with their vast views of the ocean and summoning a steward to bring her a glass of stout as an aperitif before dinner.

      The baby wakened and smiled sleepily up at her, and she kissed his perfect plush cheek and breathed in his milky smell.

      Chapter Twelve

      As passengers began arriving for breakfast on Sunday morning, Reg rehearsed in his head some ways in which he could thank Mrs Grayling for her generosity. She had hinted that she didn’t want her husband to know about the gift, so it was tricky to decide how to phrase it without giving the game away. He decided that he would simply say ‘Thank you very much for your kindness yesterday, ma’am’, and if Mr Grayling demanded an explanation, he would say that she’d been very supportive after the accident in which he dropped the plates. That should cover it.

      When Mr Grayling arrived and walked over to the table, he was alone. Reg hurried to pull out his chair.

      ‘Would you like to wait for Mrs Grayling before ordering, sir?’ Reg asked.

      ‘My wife’s unwell. She won’t be taking breakfast today.’

      Reg immediately felt concerned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Shall I ask the ship’s doctor to call on her?’

      Mr Grayling dismissed this with a shake of his head. ‘It’s just a touch of seasickness, or perhaps she ate something that disagreed with her. She’ll sleep it off in no time. Now I think I’ll have the lamb collops this morning.’

      ‘Very good, sir.’ As he walked away to place the order, Reg thought cynically that Mrs Grayling’s illness would be very convenient for Mr Grayling and his young mistress. Most fortuitous for them, but less so for him. It didn’t feel the same in the dining saloon without her kindly face.

      Reg was tired and after breakfast service finished, he nipped back to the dorm for a nap. John and some of the others had gone to the church service but Reg had never been religious. It was all hocus-pocus to him, a great big fairy story designed by the ancients to try and make us behave ourselves. He couldn’t bring himself to believe in a giant bearded figure in the sky who decided when you lived, when you died, who was born rich and who destitute. There was no logic to it.

      Reg reckoned he’d be wakened in time to have a bite to eat before lunch service, because the lads’d be making such a racket when they got back from the sermon he’d never sleep through it. He was wrong, though, because John thumped his shoulder when there were just five minutes left to rush upstairs to work.

      ‘I thought you needed your beauty sleep,’ he explained.

      ‘But I’m bloody starving,’ Reg complained. ‘I need my grub even more than I need my kip.’

      ‘Sorry, man; thought you’d eaten earlier.’

      When he reached the dining saloon, with all the smells of soup and gravy and roast meat wafting through from the galley, Reg’s stomach began to gurgle and he had to press it hard with his fist.

      ‘Your jacket’s creased,’ Old Latimer chided, and Reg pulled it down firmly by the hem, smoothing it flat with his hands.

      The occupants of his tables arrived all at once, and he had a flurry of trying to greet them and take their orders without anyone waiting for too long. Mr Grayling was once again unaccompanied and in answer to Reg’s enquiry, he said he was sure that his wife would be better in time for dinner that evening. Everyone placed complicated orders, for starters, soups, mains, side dishes and puddings, as if church had made them ravenous. Having already thanked God for their food, they felt free to eat it without guilt. He carried plate after heaped plate of piping hot meals to tables, and hunger gnawed at his belly, as if the acidic digestive juices were trying to digest his own insides. He comforted himself by imagining all the helpings of food he would devour down in the mess at three that afternoon. He would heap the food as high on his plate as it would go without collapsing over the sides.

      One o’clock came and went, then one-thirty, and then two. By two-fifteen, Reg only had a couple of tables left, and one of them was on desserts. He cleared the main course plates from the other, deftly stacking them with the fullest on top, and as he did so he noticed an untouched piece of filet mignon in gravy. The lady concerned had toyed with her mashed potato but the steak was still a perfect oval, just as he’d brought it out from the galley. Reg had never tasted filet mignon but he’d heard the meat was so tender it would melt in your mouth without chewing. His belly gurgled like a rusty old water tank.

      He pushed the swing door into the pantry and headed towards the washing-up area, his eyes darting round the room. It was crowded but everyone was busy with their own tasks: finishing the individual decorations on desserts, scrubbing the cooking pots, covering leftovers and taking them into the store. Reg balanced his plates on the edge of the table, had one more swift look round the room then lifted the filet mignon and took a bite. It was sumptuous; everything he’d heard and more. The texture was like velvet, the flavour rich and meaty. He swallowed, and then he couldn’t resist one more bite. It was the fatal flaw, he thought later; the greed that means a burglar returns for one last piece of silver and is caught red-handed. His mouth was full and the filet mignon was still in his hand as Latimer strode into the pantry and came straight over.

      ‘What are you doing, Parton?’

      If he tried to swallow the chunk of meat whole he would choke, but he couldn’t be seen to be chewing it, so Reg tried to slip it under his tongue and speak normally. ‘Nothing, thir,’ the words came out, then he started coughing and had to spit the meat into his hand. It hadn’t melted in his mouth after all.

      ‘Any guests passing by could have glanced in the door and seen you guzzling their leftovers like a wretched dog. This will go on your report, Parton. I thought you would have been more careful after yesterday but it seems you don’t care about your position here.’

      Reg hung his head and whispered, ‘I do care, sir. I’m sorry.’

      ‘Get back out to your tables.’ Latimer marched off, enjoying his status in officialdom.

      Reg was sunk into gloom. He was booked to wait first class on the Titanic’s return voyage to Southampton, but after that he would almost certainly be relegated to second or third class. They expected impeccable standards in first, with no room for imperfection or slovenliness.

      ‘Bad luck, man,’ John said once they were standing in the dinner queue in the mess. ‘We all do it from time to time, but it’s rotten that you should be caught straight after that eejit woman got you into trouble yesterday. You’ll just have to work twice as hard and