On a Cold Dark Sea(76)
“We must go,” she urges.
“It’s no use.”
His voice is little more than a whisper; his shoulders are slumped in defeat. Charlotte can still hear occasional distant shouts, but so much fewer than before. So much fainter. Every voice is an accusation, and her own breath comes raggedly, as if she, too, were fighting to breathe.
“They’re drowning!” Charlotte cries.
“They’re not drowning. They’re freezing to death.”
And with that, a shocked silence settles over the boat.
Mr. Healy turns his back to Charlotte, and that is even worse than seeing his mournful face. Charlotte looks at the icicles that have formed in Anna’s hair, and she feels a chill so deep that her bones seem to shiver. The oar slides from her hands into her lap, and then into the water at her feet.
When Anna sees Charlotte’s surrender, she knows it is the end. There will be no more fighting, no more attempted rescues.
They’d come too late, in any case. When Anna made her futile grab for the rope, she’d seen how the man’s head was slumped over his life belt. He hadn’t called out or waved his hands; he hadn’t moved at all. Though she couldn’t see his face—she never did—Anna knows he is dead.
Please, let it not be Emil.
Anna shuts her eyes and prays. She can’t bear to think of Emil in the water by himself, crying out for a rescue that never came. God would not be so cruel as to guide Emil to her lifeboat only to let him die.
Or was there a touch of mercy in such an ending? During those last moments of his life, Emil would have heard Anna’s voice. He would have known she was coming. He wouldn’t have been alone.
Rage surges through Charlotte, prodding her to keep fighting. She looks ahead, at the French maid who’s been so quiet she might as well be invisible. Mr. Van Hausen and Mrs. Harper are paying no mind to anyone other than each other. They’re talking in whispers, faces practically touching, and Charlotte feels a prickle of suspicion, her instincts for trouble well honed. Then she realizes Esme’s hand is inside Charlie’s coat pocket. The intimacy of the gesture is the final piece of a puzzle, and the truth takes shape. Mrs. Harper has not been faithful to her husband.
Esme swiftly turns around. She sensed someone staring, and it’s that imperious Charlotte, hovering right behind them. Charlotte meets Esme’s accusing look with a scowl, and Esme feels a flicker of unease. She hasn’t seen anything, has she? Still, Esme pulls her hand out slowly from Charlie’s pocket and leans away from him. Feeling his skin—the rub of his thumb against her fingers—has restored her.
The screams of the dying have weakened into sporadic pleas, the calls of seagulls at dusk. Mrs. McBride’s face is set in an annoyed grimace, self-interest having twisted guilt into anger. Hurry up and die, she and her sisters seem to be thinking. Get it over with, so we don’t have to hear you anymore.
And then, at last, there is nothing. No sound but the gentle slap of water against the lifeboat’s hull. The passengers of Lifeboat 21 are alone in the vast open sea. Anna has been praying for an end to the suffering of the souls in the water, but their release brings no relief. She looks at the others in the boat, who seem equally unnerved by the eerie silence. The women in the back look angry; the sailor next to them is holding his pipe but hasn’t yet decided whether to light it. The little boy is wriggling to escape his mother’s tight grip, and his sister is watching the woman in the fur coat, who is absentmindedly stroking the cut on her cheek. The diamonds in her hair glimmer like stars.
Mr. Healy turns to Charlotte, the muscles in his face clenched tight. “We did what we could.”
As if they were equally culpable. As if they’d both given up.
“Did we?” Charlotte asks sharply.
“My duty is to my passengers,” he says. “I must put their safety above all other concerns.”
“We let a man die, right in front of us.” Charlotte doesn’t bother to hide her bitterness; she no longer needs to charm anyone into taking her side. “We as good as murdered him.”
“Murder?” Mrs. Dunning asks. “There’s no call for that sort of language.”
Mr. Wells lets out a disgusted snort, and Mr. Healy gives the fireman a reproving stare. If only Mr. Wells would stop provoking the rest of them. It’s hard enough commanding this boat without a near mutiny on his hands.
Unfortunately, Charlotte has risen to the bait. “His death is on your hands!” she says, pointing at Mr. Wells. “We had him, and you cut him loose!”
“Aye, and I’d do it again.”
“Stop it,” Mrs. Trelawny snaps. Tommy’s crying has settled into a steady whine.
“He was half dead already.” Nurse Braxton speaks with the authority of a woman who is rarely contradicted. “Even if we’d been able to lift him into the boat, it’s unlikely he would have survived.”
“She did!” Charlotte gestures toward Anna. “She was in the water, and she survived!”
Anna wishes they would all stop looking at her. She is so tired. Tired of feeling helpless, tired of being overwhelmed by words she doesn’t understand. All she wants is to go home. More than anything, she wants to hug Papa. He is the only one who could help lift the weight of her grief.
“Every one of you has that man’s death on your conscience.” The words spill out from Charlotte in a torrent of disgust. “We would have reached him in time, if you hadn’t dithered about.”