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

military posture, an incongruous sight striding across the deck towards the officers’ quarters in his bedroom slippers.

      Small groups of crew and passengers stood around talking in low voices. The hiss of the escaping steam drowned them out and all Reg got was a vague impression of murmuring, and a sense of curiosity. Everyone was waiting and wondering, or peering into the dark trying to see what they had struck. He stopped close to one group and listened in.

      ‘I’ve never seen an iceberg before. What do they look like?’ a woman asked, but no one answered her.

      ‘I heard Colonel Astor said to the bar steward, “I asked for ice in my drink but this is ridiculous.”’

      ‘Someone told me it was Ismay who said that.’

      ‘Well, someone did.’

      One man pointed out to sea and several more turned to follow the direction of his finger. A couple of crew members joined the group and Reg wandered over to see what had attracted their attention.

      ‘She looks as though she’s stopped for the night,’ he heard someone say and, glancing towards the horizon, he thought he could just make out tiny pinpricks of light. He squeezed his eyes shut then refocused on the spot and was pretty sure they were right: there was another ship out there. It was good to know they weren’t completely alone in the vast darkness – just in case. He didn’t clarify to himself what the ‘case’ might be.

      Just then, he saw Captain Smith coming down the steps from the bridge and he hurried in his direction to try and be close enough to hear what was said. Before he got there, an order was given and several men scurried towards the lifeboats and began unfastening the cumbersome tarpaulin covers. Reg felt a twinge, like a fist clenching round his heart: why were they preparing the boats? It must be bad news. Then he told himself it was most likely a precaution. There was probably some maritime rule about it, and Captain Smith would, of course, follow it to the letter.

      Near the entrance to the Grand Staircase, the captain was hailed by Colonel Astor and this time Reg was close enough to make out his words.

      ‘We’re putting women and children into the lifeboats. I suggest you and your wife go below and don your life preservers and some warm clothing.’

      ‘Thank you for your frankness,’ the colonel said.

      Reg wanted to grab the captain’s arm and ask all the questions that were swirling round in his head, but he strode off in the other direction, all brusque and busy.

      We must be holed, Reg decided, and they want to get passengers off for their own safety while we carry out the repairs. Lots of doubts assailed him, though. Why put thirteen hundred passengers, including some of the world’s wealthiest families, into wooden rowing boats in the middle of the night if it wasn’t strictly necessary? In all his years at sea, he’d never experienced anything like it. Even when they dropped a propeller that time, they had limped to port with everyone still on board. But then, they had been in the Mediterranean and not far off shore, while the Titanic was still two days’ sail away from New York.

      How was it going to work? They hadn’t had a lifeboat drill on the Titanic. No one would know where to go. Most other ships made the passengers take part in a mock evacuation during the first day on board, so they could find their way to their allocated lifeboats if need be, but no one had bothered on this voyage. He supposed it hadn’t been thought necessary, but now it meant they risked chaos. People might start swarming up to the boat deck and crowding onto boats.

      And why women and children first? Surely they would remain calmer with their menfolk by their sides? Of course, there weren’t enough boats for every passenger to have a place all at once, but he imagined the ship he’d seen on the horizon would be radioed to come and pick them up so the lifeboats could return for more. If it came to that. Which it probably wouldn’t.

      He felt charged up, anxious to be doing something to help, so he walked across to the officer who was overseeing the preparation of the lifeboats on starboard side.

      ‘What can I do, sir? Can I help with the boats?’

      The officer glanced at his steward’s jacket. ‘Go and rouse passengers. Tell them to make their way up here wearing warm clothes and life preservers. No panic, though. Tell them it’s nothing to worry about.’

      ‘Aye aye, sir.’

      Reg walked to the Grand Staircase, and he must have assumed a new air of authority and purpose because now passengers stopped him and asked what they should do. He passed on the message, adding some elaboration of his own.

      ‘It’s maritime rules after an incident such as this, sir. A few hours and we’ll be on our way.’

      On A Deck, he looked into the smoking room and saw some men sitting round a card game, drinks by their elbows. There was concentrated silence apart from the flare of a match as someone lit a cigar, and a clinking sound as the barman tidied his stock.

      Reg stood in the doorway for a moment wondering if he should say anything, but he didn’t recognise any of the men and shyness made him reluctant to make an announcement to strangers. They probably wouldn’t take him seriously in his victualling steward’s uniform. What did he know? No one so much as looked round, so after a while he closed the door and carried on down the stairs towards the first-class cabins on B Deck.

      Chapter Sixteen

      Annie McGeown was lying in her bunk unable to get to sleep when the ship struck the iceberg. She’d been imagining the new home they would have in New York. It was hard to form a picture of it in her head, because all Seamus had told her was that it had three rooms – three! – and a yard out the back where the childrun could play. It was an apartment, a word that had been new to her until a few weeks ago. They would be on the ground floor and there were neighbours living upstairs, and more again above that. Annie wasn’t sure if they’d have to share a kitchen but she hoped not. She’d like her own kitchen, where other wives couldn’t pinch her flour and salt or leave burnt pans steeping in the sink. The lavvie would be out in the yard and everyone in the building would take turns. She hoped they were clean people; there was nothing worse than clearing up the mess others left behind.

      She thought about how she would decorate the apartment and turn it into a real home. She’d find fabric to make pretty window curtains, she’d embroider some pictures for the walls, and she’d pick wild flowers and put them in jars, just like those huge bouquets of flowers she’d seen up in the first-class lounge. She was a good housekeeper. She’d learned all the old tricks from her mother, like using vinegar and newspaper for the windows and wiping down walls with a solution of washing soda to discourage mould. She’d maybe plant some vegetables in the yard, if she could just find a few seedlings to start off with. Oh, but she had so many plans for their new life …

      Annie felt the ship turn sharply just before the collision. The movement almost made her roll on top of the baby. Then there was a jolt, and a noise that seemed to her like the sound of the big cogwheels grinding the corn at Dunemark Watermill. That was her first thought: why do they have a watermill at sea? She got up and crept to the porthole but outside all was black.

      The engine noise stopped abruptly and now the only sounds were her children snuffling and sighing in their sleep. Something’s broken in the engine, she thought. They’ll have to fix it. I hope it won’t make us late arriving in New York. I don’t want Seamus to be hanging around. He was taking the day off work to meet them, and she wanted them to have as much time together as they possibly could.

      In the corridor outside, she heard voices. People were emerging from their cabins to discuss the reason for the unscheduled stop. Annie stood with her ear to the door to listen, not wanting to go out in her nightclothes, but then she heard voices she recognised as belonging to her friends from Mayo. She pulled her coat over the top of her nightdress and quietly eased the door open.

      ‘You all right, love?’ Kathleen asked. ‘Did it wake you?’