The Classic Morpurgo Collection. Michael Morpurgo

seen in the Captain’s cabin, going about the deck, organising, spreading calm as he went, and explaining to everyone that it would be women and children first, that when all the women and children were safely away in the lifeboats, then the men could leave. When he turned to Mrs Stanton and told her it was her turn to get into one of the boats, she clung to her husband and refused.

      “I won’t leave my family,” she said. “We belong together, and if it’s God’s will, then we will die together.”

      Mr Stanton took her gently by the shoulders and, looking deep into her eyes, he spoke to her very softly, almost in a whisper. “You will take Lizziebeth, my dear, and you will do as the officer says, and go to the boat. Johnny Trott and I will come after you, I promise you. Go, my dear. Go now.”

      At that moment Lizziebeth broke free of my hand and ran for it. I knew straight away that she was going back for Kaspar. I went after her at once, and caught her at the top of the gangway. She struggled against me, but I held her tight. “I can’t leave him!” she cried. “I can’t! I won’t!”

      “Lizziebeth,” I said. “Listen to me. I must take you to the boat. It’ll be gone soon. You have to go with your mother. You have to save yourself. Leave Kaspar to me. I’ll find him. I’ll save him.”

      She looked up at me, her eyes full of sudden hope. “You promise me?”

      “I promise,” I told her.

      “And you, Johnny, what will happen to you?”

      “I’ll be all right, there’s plenty of boats,” I said.

      When we got back to the railings, the lifeboat was nearly full and almost ready to launch, but I could see the crew were having the greatest difficulty in lowering it. With the help of Mr Stanton and a sailor we helped Lizziebeth and her mother into the boat. But still the boat could not be lowered. One of the crew was slicing away at the rope with his knife, cursing as he did so, and cursing even louder when he dropped his knife into the sea below. There were several lifeboats in the water already and rowing away from the Titanic. I glanced towards the stern and saw it was a great deal higher than it had been before. I could feel the great ship settling ever lower into the sea.

      I caught Lizziebeth’s eye then. She was willing me to do it, and to do it now. I knew that if I left it any longer it may well be too late. I would show her there and then that I meant to keep my promise if I could. I turned to Mr Stanton beside me. “I’m going for Kaspar,” I said. “I shan’t be long.” He shouted after me to come back, but I ignored him.

      By now the decks were crowded with men, all of them corralled by the crew who had made a human cordon to keep them back as the last of the women and children were being helped into the boats. But there was no pushing, no shoving. I saw among them dozens of my fellow stokers, most of them black with coal dust, and all unnaturally quiet. As I pushed my way through them to get back down below, one of them called out to me. “You should be in one of they boats, Johnny lad. You’re only a slip of a boy. You’re young enough. You’ve got the right.”

      The gangway was packed with passengers trying to make their way up on deck, some of the older and more infirm still in their nightgowns. One of the sailors who was trying to help them tried to stop me going down. “You can’t go. There’s water coming in everywhere down there, the whole ship’s flooding fast.” I dodged past him. “Idiot!” he yelled after me. “You blithering idiot! You go down there and you won’t come back up again!” I ran on.

      After losing my way in the warren of corridors, I reached the right corridor on deck C and I knew then that the sailor had been right. The sea-water was ankle deep, and rising all the time. And once I opened the door to number 52, I saw the carpets were already under water. I looked around me frantically for Kaspar, but couldn’t see him anywhere, not at first. It was Kaspar himself who told me where he was, yowling at me from the top of the wardrobe. I looked around for the picnic basket to carry him in, but couldn’t find it. I reached up and took him off the wardrobe, and held him tight; but then, as I went out, I had the presence of mind to snatch a blanket off the nearest bed. All the way back along the corridor, I was wrapping Kasper up in the blanket, not against the cold, but to stop him clawing at me, for I knew that even if he wasn’t frightened now, he very soon would be.

      But as I ran back down the corridor I was beginning to realise that the blanket had another use, and a much more essential one too. If no luggage was being allowed in the boats, I reasoned, then they would hardly accept a cat. This was why, by the time I got back up on deck again, Kaspar was well hidden deep inside the blanket. And now he was beginning to yowl.

      “None of your fuss, please Kaspar,” I whispered to him. “Quiet now, and stay quiet. Your life could depend on it.”

      I pushed my way through the stokers, ducked under the cordon of crewmen, and saw to my great relief that the lifeboat was still hanging there. But then I found my way suddenly blocked by an officer in a peaked cap, who grabbed me by the shoulder. “No you don’t, lad. No men allowed in the boats until all the women and children are loaded,” he said. “I can’t let you on. I can’t let you pass.”

      “He’s not a man,” someone shouted from behind me. “He’s only a kid, can’t you see?” All around me the stokers were suddenly clamouring at him to let me through, and they began pushing angrily against the ring of sailors desperately trying to hold them back. I could see the officer was taken by surprise at the sudden rage of the crowd, and that he was hesitating.

      I saw my chance. “I’m not going on the boat,” I told him. “I just went to fetch a blanket. It’s for a child, a friend of mine. She’ll freeze to death out there without it.” I still don’t think he’d have let me through if Mr Stanton hadn’t come up at that moment and vouched for me.

      “It’s all right. He’s my son,” he said to the officer, “and the blanket’s for his sister.” I was through. With Mr Stanton holding me fast round the waist I leaned across and handed the blanket, and the miraculously silent Kaspar, into Mrs Stanton’s outstretched arms.

      “Be careful,” I told her as meaningfully as I could. She knew as she was taking it from me that Kaspar was inside the blanket. She hugged it to her and sat down again in the boat. I could see from the way Lizziebeth was smiling up at me that she knew it too.

      Distress rockets were fired up into the sky, lighting the ocean all around us, lighting too the scattering of little white boats out on the open sea, each of them crammed with women and children.

      I remember thinking how extraordinarily beautiful it all was, and wondering how something as terrible as this could be so beautiful. On board behind us the band played on, as Lizziebeth’s boat was finally lowered into the water. Mr Stanton and I stood side by side and watched from the railings as it was rowed slowly away. “That was a fine and noble thing you did, Johnny,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “God will guard them, I know it. And for us there’ll be a boat along soon enough to take us off. Mr Lightoller says they’ve seen the lights of a ship not five miles away. The Carpathia. She’ll be on her way. They’ll see these rockets for sure. They’ll be alongside soon enough. Meanwhile, I think we should help with the women and children, don’t you?” That was how we busied ourselves for the next hour or so, passing the women and the children into the boats.

      I marvel now when I think of it, at the courage I witnessed around me that night. I saw one American lady waiting to get into a boat with her elderly sister, but she was told there was no room. She didn’t object or protest in anyway, but merely stepped back and said: “Never mind. I will get on a later boat.” I never saw her