On a Cold Dark Sea(71)
Mr. Healy puts down the lantern. “We will do what we can.”
Mr. Healy picks up his oar, but everyone else looks around, as if waiting for countermanding orders. Charlotte can’t understand why they’re all acting so helpless. Every minute they spend debating is a human life potentially lost.
“Mrs. Trelawny,” Charlotte urges. “Your husband may be there . . .”
Mrs. Trelawny hisses at Charlotte to be quiet. “Not in front of the children!” she says in an angry whisper. “I will not have them upset!”
They’ll be far more upset if their father dies, Charlotte wants to retort, but she manages to hold back. They’ll get nowhere if they descend into bickering. Tommy’s eyes are clamped shut, but Charlotte gives Eva an encouraging smile.
“It will come out all right,” Charlotte says, trying to be kind, but Eva is old enough to know she is lying. Mournful, she presses her face into her mother’s shoulder.
“Do not speak to my children again,” Mrs. Trelawny orders. Defiantly, she turns away, freezing Charlotte out.
Charlotte picks up an oar and settles on the opposite side of the bench from Mr. Healy. “I’ll row,” she offers. Then, to the boat at large, “Who else?”
Charlie is ready, though he looks more apprehensive than energized, gauging the prevailing mood. Esme takes advantage of his stillness to shift slightly closer. If she could only touch him. She lays one hand on the bench between them, hoping he’ll notice. One squeeze is all she needs to settle her worries. If only that incessant wailing would stop. If only she weren’t so afraid of all those desperate hands, grabbing at the boat, pulling and pushing, tipping them over.
The screams come at Anna like knives, cutting her with guilt. She hears Emil and Sonja, demanding to know why Anna has been saved and they have not. Had Papa not ignored Mama’s objections and taught her to swim, she’d never have made it to the boat. It was only her ability to kick and push her body forward that brought her miraculous rescue. Anna is not sure what Charlotte is saying, but from the way she is gesturing at the water, it is clear she wants to go back. Anna points to Charlotte’s oar and mimes that she will row, too. It will mean moving to a different part of the boat—she can’t row while she’s seated between Charlotte and Mr. Healy—and she tries to stand. But her shoeless feet have long since gone numb, and she staggers against Charlotte and falls back.
In the back of the boat, the Armstrong sisters have drawn into an even more tightly contained unit.
“I don’t think that is the wisest course of action,” Mrs. McBride says.
“We have space,” Charlotte says, gesturing toward the wooden platforms that run along either side of the boat. Designed as seating, neither are being used. “We could easily take a dozen people. Perhaps more.”
“It’d be risking all our lives,” Mr. Wells objects. “We’ll be swamped.”
“Oh goodness,” Mrs. Dunning says, and her breathing shifts.
Nurse Braxton climbs down from her position at the tiller and leans toward her employer. “You mustn’t distress yourself, ma’am.” To Mr. Wells, at her right, she says, “You think it’s dangerous to go back?”
“It would be madness,” he says.
He can’t know, Charlotte thinks. He’s a fireman, a job little removed from factory work. He’s already admitted he knows nothing of boats or sailing. But she notes the way Mrs. McBride and her sisters are listening to him, as if he’s some sort of oracle. Mrs. Trelawny has shifted her attention from her children and is listening, too. Mr. Wells, gratified by the attention, nods like a grizzled old sage of the sea. All pointedly ignore Mr. Healy’s expectant stare.
“We’d set off a frenzy,” says Mr. Wells. “Imagine, all those poor fellows, fighting to get in ’ere. Wouldn’t be surprised if we capsized.”
The Armstrong sisters produce a unified murmur of concern, and Mrs. Dunning frowns. Nurse Braxton takes a small package from her pocket and hands a pill to Mrs. Dunning.
“She mustn’t be distressed,” Nurse Braxton says, as if Mrs. Dunning were a child frightened by a ghost story. “She has a weak heart.”
“Please . . . ,” Mr. Healy urges, trying to maintain his authority, and Charlotte knows she is the only one who can sway the rest to his side.
“People are dying!” she shouts.
That’s a bit much, Esme thinks, and she can tell from her shipmates’ expressions that most agree. The sounds coming from the water are awful enough without Charlotte haranguing them, too. She’s not the captain of their shaky little vessel; the sailors are the ones who know what’s safe. And Charlie, of course. Esme knows he’ll make the right choice.
“We don’t have to go all the way back,” Mr. Healy says. “Only a little farther, close enough to see if any swim to us.”
An uneasy compromise, but it’s the best he can do in the circumstances. Mr. Healy and Charlie and Charlotte dip their oars in the inky water; the boat slides forward. Mr. Wells might well be right. Returning to the scene of the sinking could put them all in danger, and Mr. Healy’s first loyalty must be to those lives already in his hands. Still, it’s likely they’ll be able to rescue a few people. A bulky mass floats by their starboard side, some indistinguishable remains of what was once the finest ship he’d ever seen. Mr. Healy gives the signal to stop. He waits, still and tense, as pleas from the water wash over him like curses, impossible to track and impossible to ignore. They are ghosts that will haunt him for the rest of his life.