15

LILLY

Friday, June 15, 1838

Midnight

A man sloshed through the water that puddled on the deck, and as he drew closer Lilly recognized him—Mr. Couper from Savannah. She’d met him the first evening, a dapper man in charge of a widowed woman, Nelle March, and her ten-year-old son, Theodore. Yes, they, too, were scrambling toward the larger, hanging quarterboats being lowered from davits.

“Mrs. Forsyth, come with me.” Mr. Couper took Lilly’s hand. “Do make haste.”

They pushed through the crowd of people who were slipping and sliding with the tilt of the failing ship. But with single-minded intent they reached the quarterboat as two sailors finished lowering it into the sea, the ropes hissing beneath their hands and against the rails. The first quarterboat was already in the water, pitching against the wild waves.

“Now, give me your child,” Mr. Couper demanded in a voice that did not allow for argument. He spoke as if he stood in full military uniform instead of in a nightshirt and pantaloons, a blue cloak wrapped around his body.

Lilly untied her child but still held tight. “I will die before I let her perish.”

“You will not die. Now jump down into the quarterboat and I will hand her to you. Go.” Lilly gently handed Madeline to Mr. Couper and looked to the boat. It held six men, two women and one child. There seemed to be no more seats and yet Lilly and Priscilla held hands and jumped, landing with a crack, gasping for breath and waiting for the vessel to settle before sitting up. Lilly’s ankle screamed against its second blow but she cared only for her child. Together they glanced toward the deck, Lilly’s arms held out for Madeline as the steamship lurched, emitting a great shriek of splintering wood as its bow and aft ascended and the middle section began to sink.

With horror, a scream clogged in her throat, Lilly watched as Mr. Couper slid from the rising deck and tumbled beneath the waves, still holding her child. Lilly flung her body forward, arms outstretched over the side of the quarterboat, but Priscilla held her back. “Wait!”

Lilly’s scream then broke loose. “Madeline!” She would jump in the sea; she would dive to the bottom of the deep blue for her daughter. “Madeline!” she called again as Mr. Couper’s face emerged above the crest of a silver wave, his cloak floating about him like an ink stain. Directly next to the boat, he held Madeline over his head. He focused on Lilly and tossed the child toward her. With arms already held out, Lilly caught Madeline about the waist and together they fell back onto two other men who held her from behind. With Priscilla by her side, they watched as Mr. Couper used his great arms to heave himself into the quarterboat, gasping for air while Madeline screamed her distress in high-pitched lament.

With a hard seat beneath them, Priscilla and Lilly sat wet and shivering, Lilly rocking Madeline back and forth, uttering her name over and over into her neck. She felt her jewelry pouch still dangling from her wrist where it had been tied tight. If she had slid into the ocean it might have been a hindrance, but now it settled with the weight of the future, if one existed at all.

“The ship is sinking! Grab the oars,” Mr. Couper commanded the men. “Row away or we will be sucked into the vortex.”

“We must save the others!” a woman cried out. “My family!”

“We will find them if we can. But for now, we must save those here.”

Mr. Couper and a bald man with a thick mustache rowed with all their might until a third man, his beard speckled with water glimmering in the moonlight, took the second oar and assisted as they rowed away from the collapsing ship. The second quarterboat with Mate Hibbert also moved away. Only the two lifeboats that had hung outside the ship were safe, and they were in one of them.

Mr. Couper removed the cloak that could have drowned him and spread it out on the bottom. With strong force, the men drew the lifeboat away from the ship and then stopped two hundred yards away. Silence fell and the weight of night was so heavy that Lilly felt as though the starlit sky pressed down on her. She watched as the center section of the ship caved in the middle as both bow and aft shot to the sky.

The promenade deck broke free first, timbers splintering, splitting the sea, sloping and sending passengers into the waves before bobbing up to float like an apple in a barrel. The aft deck disconnected with a startling elegance, also breaking free and sinking only to rise again. Then the screams began, the horrifying cries of passengers echoing across the water.

Mr. Couper closed his eyes as he spoke. “There she goes.” His voice broke with emotion.

They all watched in horror as the remainder of the great Pulaski sank beneath the waves with an impossibly silent slide, its two ends rising with passengers scrambling onto it and clinging to the edges. Lilly considered what sank with her, and the sum of it all—human and material—was incalculable and infinite.

“Dear God, they shriek in their last mortal struggle.” Mr. Couper leaned over the edge of the lifeboat, gasping for breath.

For Lilly, these moments existed as a dream from which she could not awaken. No one spoke a word, each lost in their thoughts of those suffering their last breaths in the arms of an indifferent sea. They had boarded the ship together but they died alone, as everyone must. Minutes passed and the harrowing shrieks changed to the echoing calls of “Hellllloooo. Is anyone out there?”

Lilly shivered in her nightgown, now feeling the physical sensations that had been numbed by shock and fear. Her skin crawled; her stomach lurched; her ankle beat with its own painful pulse; her bones shivered beneath her dimpled skin. She became aware, for the first time, of the absolute state of undress in which they found themselves, of their complete vulnerability. Stripped of social status and pretention, they were—all of them—frightened, humbled, and all too human.

Oh, Lilly thought, the terror of those alone floating on small remnants of wood. How could they leave them? What could be done? Tears poured down her face, over her chin and onto the soft head of baby Madeline, who against all odds slept as peacefully against her bosom as if they were still in the safety of their cabin. Why was she deserving of this seat in the lifeboat? Where was her beloved family? Her Augusta protecting the children?

Those who were in the dark waters grabbed for whatever floating debris they could and in the darkness, they called for other survivors. Lilly tuned her ear for a familiar voice—Augusta; Aunt Melody; Uncle Lamar. She listened until she heard the deepest voice, only feet away, yelling, “Help me. Do not row away; I can pay!” Priscilla grabbed Lilly’s hand and squeezed.

Adam.

Lilly’s heart leapt into her throat, her body quivering with fear. She could speak up now, tell them all that it was her husband who called only twenty feet away in the dark night, and Mr. Couper would grab him from the waters.

Or she could remain silent and allow Adam to perish.

She didn’t hesitate: she allowed his death.

She would never deliberately take his life. But she would merely allow it. Here, neither fate nor God existed; only her decision mattered. Her choice. Her life in exchange for his death.

Priscilla and Lilly sat quietly and unmoving, stricken by their guilt but unwilling to alter it.

Mr. Couper spoke over the desperate cries for help and the crashing waves. “Let’s reach the other lifeboat and assess our situation. We have twelve on our boat and it is leaking. We can’t take anyone else or we will all perish.”

Two of the men—Lilly hadn’t ascertained most of the names yet—rowed toward the second quarterboat where First Mate Hibbert flagged them with a scrap of white fabric.

Around them, passengers swam to floating pieces of wreckage, to rigging, settees and barrels, to flotsam and luggage, timber and decking. “Please bring in more of them,” a woman next to Lilly cried out. “I can’t bear to watch them suffer.”

Mr. Couper’s voice came hard as flint. “All of their hopes rest in finding flotage until we reach shore to send for help.”

As the two quarterboats drew near to each other, Mr. Couper and First Mate Hibbert began to discuss the situation. The two yawls on deck had been rotted by exposure to the sun and were of no use. Those who had boarded them were gone, swallowed by the sea. Lilly’s boat was full, and yet First Mate Hibbert’s carried only five people. He could pick up at least eight more. It was decided that together they would row among the wreckage and pluck whatever souls they found first, making no judgment as to their worthiness, and pull them aboard. To elect by any other means seemed inhumane. They first saved two severely burned Negro firemen, then a judge from New York, a woman from Charleston, and two more men. With Hibbert’s boat now full, they had no choice but to row away from the devastating scene.

Lilly held her breath each time they came upon another soul, praying in a way she was certain would send her to hell. Please don’t find Adam.

“You can’t leave,” Nelle March cried out as they rowed away from the flotsam. “There are people still floating. There are . . . children and mothers and families.” She held close to her young son, who buried his face in her shoulder. Seawater slapped the edges of the boat, splashing into their laps and faces, oblivious to the horror. It was merely doing what the sea does—surging and rising and sinking without mercy.

Mr. Couper sat before Mrs. March, his face pained and his hands bleeding. “Mrs. March, if we put any more on either of these boats, we will sink. We are bailing as it is now.”

Lilly looked to the gentleman using his hat to dip water from the bottom of the boat and toss it to the sea.

Mr. Couper continued, “We must save those we can.”

Waves crashed against wreckage and bodies, spraying, turning the sea to silver. The Pulaski had disappeared and only the light of the waning moon and the diamond glint of stars was reflected on the water.

Mr. Couper spoke to them all in a firm voice. “We must row toward land.” He glanced at the sky. “It seems to be about three in the morning and First Mate Hibbert believes we are thirty-five miles east of the North Carolina coast. We will make for land as quickly as we can and send help for the others.”

“Where is Captain Dubois?” a man asked.

Mr. Couper shook his head. “We can only pray for his rescue. Meanwhile, Mate Hibbert is as knowledgeable and proficient as Dubois. We will listen to him.”

Using the stars for guidance, they began the hard row toward shore.

In a voice saturated with despair, Mr. Couper said, “The young, the beautiful, the wise, and the brave now sink.”

With Madeline wrapped close to her body, Lilly covered her ears with both hands, pressing so tightly she felt the air trapped and swirling against her eardrums. Her heart withered inside—leaving a living soul calling for help was anathema to all she knew. But she would save Madeline, whether it meant she went to hell or not. Right now she cared nothing for the afterlife, only for the life after this horror.