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On Board the Carpathia
4:30 a.m. (Ship’s Time).
Kate Royston
Kate pushed her way through a throng of passengers and crewmen. After a long night of preparation, the Carpathia was almost at her destination. The first rays of dawn were filtering above the horizon and glinting blue white on the surrounding icebergs. Now Kate understood why the Carpathia had made such slow progress. Surely the captain, the crew, and every person on board wanted to speed to the rescue of the Titanic’s passengers, but in the predawn dark, surrounded by ice, all they could do was creep toward the stricken ship.
At night the icebergs had been invisible, but Kate had felt their lurking presence, darker than the dark of the ocean, searching hungrily for another ship to sink. A light breeze arrived with the dawn, doing little more than ruffling the surface of the ocean into a short chop, and the icebergs seemed to spread themselves like the sails of a great ship, drifting across the horizon. At another time, she may have thought them beautiful, but not today.
With a sudden hiss and a flare of green light, a rocket shot up from the bow of the Carpathia. We are coming, it seemed to say. We are almost there.
Kate had worked alongside the crew all night, preparing blankets and beds, and moving passengers from their cabins. She had even moved the Van Buren children from their beds. She had stood to one side under the protection of Mrs. Broomer, the chief stewardess, as Magda van Buren complained bitterly at having her children moved to sleep on blankets on the floor of their parents’ cabin.
Mrs. Broomer barely listened to Mrs. van Buren’s unhappy whining. “We know that the Titanic has gone down,” Mrs. Broomer said, “and we do not know how many people are in the lifeboats. We do know that they will be suffering from shock and severe cold. Your children will come to no harm and the Cunard Line is grateful for your cooperation.”
“But what about Miss Royston?” Mrs. van Buren asked, eyeing Kate with malevolent intent. “We are entitled to her services. She is governess to our children.”
Mrs. Broomer managed to hide her surprise. Of course she had not known that Kate was a governess.
Although the chief stewardess raised a curious eyebrow, she did not give an inch. “Miss Royston is assisting the crew,” she said. “We cannot spare her at this time.”
Now the preparations were complete. The Carpathia was nosing past the icebergs to the last known position of the Titanic. Kate wondered what they would find. Some of the crew speculated that they would find the great liner listing heavily, maybe with water washing over her decks, but she wouldn’t go down, not so quickly. She had waterproof compartments. She could not sink. They crossed their fingers as they spoke. That young radio operator had it wrong. The Marconi device was not to be trusted. The words of that infernal Morse code were a mistake. Of course they would do as the captain ordered, but they would not believe a word of it. The Titanic could not sink.
Kate saw Harold Cottam at the rail and pushed her way toward him. His face was haggard in the morning light with no hint of triumph at being proved correct. He had said the Titanic was going down, and it seemed that he’d been right, for she was nowhere in sight. Kate wished that he’d been wrong.
As she pushed toward him, he turned and looked at her. “Have you been up all night?” he asked.
“Of course I have. Have you?” she responded.
He nodded. “I’ve just come off duty. Captain sent me to get some rest. He said we’d be busy once we bring the survivors on board.” He waved dispiritedly at the empty ocean. “If there are any survivors,” he said softly. “I don’t see anyone, not a thing, not even any wreckage. This is where they should be, and—”
“There! Over there!”
The hoarse cry drowned out Cottam’s whispered words as the crew lined up along the rail began to shout and point. Kate clung to the rail, refusing to be jostled from her vantage point, and found herself looking down at a body floating facedown as if staring into the inky Atlantic deep. The body, held on the surface by a beige life jacket, was that of a woman. Her drab brown dress billowed as the waves passed beneath her. Her hair was loose, rising and falling on the waves.
“Irish,” Cottam muttered.
Kate turned to look at him. “How can you know?”
“By her dress. The Titanic was packed full of Irish immigrants. Her last port was Queenstown.”
Far below them, the woman’s body drifted gently alongside for a long, painful moment before the Carpathia, adjusting her course, dragged it down beneath her hull. If only they could have pulled her aboard, Kate thought, perhaps she could have been revived. She knew the thought was pointless. The woman was frozen in death, her hands white and stiff, with chunks of ice clinging to her hair, and even if she were still alive, how would they bring her aboard? The hull of the Carpathia was as high and smooth as any mountain cliff. If the poor woman raised a hand, no one could lean down and grasp it.
“We’re setting out rope ladders for those who can climb, and canvas slings for those who are too weak, and cargo nets for whatever else we find,” Cottam said, as if reading her thoughts.
Although Kate had spent the last few hours assisting Mrs. Broomer and the stewards in preparing for survivors, she had not given a thought as to how the survivors would be brought aboard. Obviously, Captain Rostron had everything planned. When Kate had boarded the Carpathia in New York, the ship had been alongside a pier, and a gangplank had allowed the passengers to walk easily onto the promenade deck and proceed to their cabins. Impatient to leave New York behind and be safely on her way to Europe, Kate had been only vaguely aware then of the size of the liner or how high she stood above the water.
Now she startled as the Carpathia blew a long blast of her horn. Another green rocket shot into the air, and an amplified voice echoed across all decks. “Stand by to pick up survivors.”
Cottam pointed. “Over there.”
Kate looked out toward the horizon. The dawn light, whichthat had first revealed the icebergs, now revealed a small cluster of lifeboats rising and falling on the short, choppy waves.
“God help us,” Cottam whispered. “Is that all of them?”
As Kate watched, a red flare rose upward from the huddle of boats, and a plaintive cry reached them across the water. Kate searched in vain for another flare from another direction. Surely there were more lifeboats.
She looked down as something splashed into the water far below. Leaning out over the rail, she saw that the crew was on the boat deck, placing ropes and ladders and cargo nets.
Cottam stepped back. “I’ll have work to do,” he said. “We’ll be taking names as they come aboard and sending messages back to Cape Race. People will be waiting to hear. The New York Times is holding the front page.”
Kate looked at him in astonishment. “They know about this?” she asked.
He nodded. “Oh, yes, they know. This will be a feather in his cap for Marconi, I suppose, and maybe it’ll be a good word for us radio operators. Now people will realize we can do more than just send messages to other ships. Cape Race picked up the Titanic’s distress signal and passed it on to New York. Already the newspapers know that the unsinkable ship is sinking and we are racing to her rescue. We’re the first ones here, so whatever signal we send next will tell the world what we found and who we found. Fortunes will be made and lost today if the richest men in the world are not in those lifeboats alongside their wives.”
“It’s hard to believe,” Kate whispered.
Cottam stepped back and looked at her. “You should get dressed,” he said, “while you can.”
Kate brushed away a long strand of dark hair and realized that, despite the horror ahead, she was blushing. In spite of everything that had happened in the last year, the terrible accusations against her father and the loss of her family’s fortune, she was still the victim of her mother’s rigorous, unswerving etiquette. Young ladies did not appear in public with their hair loose and without a corset.
She looked back at the cluster of lifeboats. She imagined that Captain Rostron wanted to reach the survivors as soon as he possibly could, but he had chosen caution over speed. Although the ladders were deployed and the crew was standing by, the Carpathia had not raised extra steam. Her approach was still painfully slow and steady. Kate would have time to dress properly before reporting to the Grand Salon to help Mrs. Broomer.
She took one last look down at the water. The Carpathia had gained an escort of floating debris, deck chairs, crates, furniture, and human bodies, some in life jackets, some tangled in the flotsam. She saw men and women, many in immigrant clothing, others in nightclothes, a few in crew uniforms. When the first child floated by, little more than a baby held in the frozen arms of its mother, she turned away. She could do nothing about the horror that had already taken place, but she would do what she could for those who still lived.
The Home of Senator William Alden Smith
Washington, DC
6:45 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time)
Senator William Alden Smith
The senator stared down at his empty coffee cup. He looked across at the sideboard, where he would expect to find the silver coffeepot, a selection of chafing dishes, a rack of toast, and a maid waiting to serve his breakfast. When he found none of these things, he called out for his wife.
“Nana, where’s my breakfast?”
Nana did not answer. He knew she was up and about. Just a few minutes before, she had been laying out his clothes while he had shaved, and she had commented on his choice of vest “Wear the green one, dear. Taft will see it as support for the Irish.”
“Do I support the Irish?” Bill asked mildly.
“You support Henry Cabot Lodge, and he represents Massachusetts, and therefore Boston, and what could be more Irish than Boston?”
“And Lodge supports Taft,” Bill agreed as he finished shaving and opened his closet to take out a dark green vest. “I am lucky to have you, Nana.”
“Of course you are,” she agreed. “I’ll go and see about breakfast. You’d better hurry or you’re going to be late.”
Bill, now alone and abandoned in the breakfast room, called out again. “Nana, where’s my breakfast?”
Once again his wife failed to reply, but he thought he heard the sound of sobbing coming from the kitchen. He stood and pushed his chair back. Obviously Nana was dealing with some kind of servant problem. Well, he was not above serving his own breakfast. He did not really need a silver coffeepot or a selection of chafing dishes. His youthful poverty had made him self-sufficient.
He pushed through the door into the kitchen and found Nana consoling Molly, their Irish kitchen maid. The coffeepot and breakfast tray had been pushed aside, and Molly was slumped across the table with her head on her arms.
“What is it?” Bill asked. “Has someone died?”
Nana placed a comforting hand on Molly’s head and looked up at Bill. He saw that her face was white and her eyes brimmed with tears. His thoughts turned to his son. Had something happened to young Bill? He was their only child and Nana hated that he had been sent away to college in Michigan. Bill dismissed the idea of bad news involving his son. If anything had happened to the boy, Nana would have been the one weeping, but it was Molly who was sobbing and Nana who was offering comfort.
“It’s terrible news,” Nana said, “but it can’t be true.”
“It is. It is,” Molly sobbed. “I feel it in my bones. I know it’s the truth.”
“I’ll get the newspaper boy,” Nana said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Bill stood in the kitchen, watching the weeping maid as Nana opened the back door and admitted a small, ragged boy—a boy who reminded Bill of himself as a child.
“Well, Timothy,” Nana said, bending down and looking the boy in the eye. “What’s this all about? Why are you spreading rumors?”
“Not rumors,” Timothy said. “It’s God’s honest truth. She’s sunk. She’s gone down.”
The maid burst into renewed sobs, and Bill decided that he would have to pour his own coffee. His hand was on the coffeepot when the boy spoke again.
“Sunk with all hands, that’s what they say. That’s why the newspaper’s late. Washington Post is holding the front page. New York Times has the scoop, you see.”
Bill released the coffeepot and crossed the room to take hold of the boy’s collar. “Speak up. What are you talking about? What’s sunk?”
“The Titanic, sir.”
Bill fought against the tightening of his throat. “Impossible,” he barked. “Stop spreading rumors and upsetting my staff.” He released the boy and looked down at Molly, who lifted her head to meet his eyes. “Stop crying, Molly. The boy’s making it up.”
Molly contradicted him in a shaky voice. “I had cousins on that ship,” she said, “and I know it’s the truth. I felt it, sir, in the night. I woke up and I felt them go.”
Bill tried to stop himself from speaking. Surely he had nothing in common with a superstitious girl like Molly, fresh off the boat from Ireland and raised on stories of fairies and leprechauns and Catholic flummery, and yet he had to ask the question. “What time, Molly? What time did you wake?”
“It was after midnight, sir,” Molly said. “I don’t have my own clock, sir, but I can hear the clock in the hall. I woke suddenly all of a shiver, and then I heard the clock strike the half hour. I lay awake then, not knowing what was wrong, and I was still awake when the clock struck one.”
“So you woke at twenty minutes past twelve,” Bill said.
“Could be, sir,” Molly agreed.
“That’s the same time you woke,” Nana said, looking at Bill with a trace of fear on her face.
Bill nodded and turned his attention back to Timothy. “What have you heard? Tell me everything.” He looked up at Nana. “The boys on the streets of Grand Rapids always knew the truth long before their masters were told anything.”
“Well, sir,” Timothy said, “they say the Titanic hit an iceberg and she sent out a message on that new Marconi invention, the one that lets ships talk to each other. Sent out a distress signal and said she was sinking.”
“Is that possible?” Nana asked.
“Could be,” Bill said. “She was due in New York today, so she was somewhere off Cape Race. The relay station there could have picked up her signal. What else do you know, boy?”
“All sorts of ships are trying to reach her,” Timothy said. “Carpathia says she’s picked up passengers from lifeboats.”
Nana leaned over and patted Molly’s shoulders. “There you are, Molly. Everything’s all right. The passengers were put in lifeboats, and they’ve all been picked up. Now, dry your tears and get the senator his breakfast. Your cousins will arrive safely and with a grand story to tell.”
Molly stumbled to her feet and swiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “I had the shivers,” she said. “If they are all safe, why did I have the shivers?”
“I can’t answer that,” Nana said firmly as she ushered Bill out of the kitchen and into the breakfast room. “Hurry up with the breakfast.”
Bill stood unhappily beside the breakfast table. He reached out for Nana’s hand. “You’re wrong, dear. You shouldn’t have told her they would be all right.”
“Of course they will be,” Nana said. “The Carpathia has them. You heard what the boy said, and you seemed to believe him.”
Bill shook his head. “If the White Star Line had to choose who to save,” he said, “do you think they would save the immigrants or would they save the rich and famous? It may be Irish nonsense, and I’m no Irishman, but I know that I awoke in the night and I felt it.”
“Felt what?”
“A terrible sadness. I think I felt them dying.”
On Board the Carpathia
7:45 a.m. (Ship’s Time)
Kate Royston
It seemed to Kate that Captain Rostron needed to be in three places at once, and somehow he was succeeding. He was making sure that the helmsman kept the Carpathia on station and did not allow her to drift away from the sea of flotsam that marked the grave of the Titanic. He was also supervising the long process of bringing the survivors safely aboard, with many of them too weak to climb the rope ladders and having to be pulled up in a canvas sling. In addition, he had given priority to ensuring that the name of each shocked and frozen passenger was correctly given and passed to the Marconi operator.
For hours now, ever since the first survivors had stumbled half-frozen onto the Carpathia’s deck, Kate had been standing beside Dr. Lengyel, the ship’s Hungarian doctor, as he made rapid assessments of each survivor. She could only guess that the doctor had once served as an army medic—nothing else could explain his ability to make rapid decisions. He knew when to offer brandy and blankets, when to send an injury to be bandaged by one of the other doctors, and when to demand urgent treatment of frostbite. He made no distinction between rich and poor, steerage class and first class. He treated each frozen, semiparalyzed scrap of humanity in the same brusque but compassionate manner.
Kate, in a starched apron handed to her by Mrs. Broomer, worked as best she could trying to understand and record names forced out between chattering teeth while somehow avoiding answering the inevitable, stuttering questions: “Where is my husband? Where is my child?” Once or twice she had been able to give a positive response. She had been able to assure Mrs. Thayer, one of the richest women in America, that her son Jack was safely on board; she had seen him herself. Mrs. Thayer had not asked after her husband. Neither had Mrs. Astor, pale, delicate, and pregnant, or Mrs. Ryerson, clutching the hand of her daughter.
Women such as Mrs. Ryerson and Mrs. Astor were wrapped in furs. Even their maids, who had managed to accompany them, were dressed in warm coats, but the few immigrants who had made their way up from the bowels of the Titanic and onto a lifeboat had only shawls and scraps of blanket; some wore only nightclothes.
Kate saw Dr. Lengyel’s impatience with those members of the Titanic’s crew who had managed to secure themselves a place as an oarsman in a lifeboat. These men were warm and dry, and yet they grumbled when they were set to work assisting in bringing the survivors aboard.
Most of the other men, those who had been dragged from the water and into the lifeboats after the Titanic had gone down beneath them, were in the worst shape and took much of Dr. Lengyel’s attention. Some had severe cuts and head injuries where they had dropped from the sinking ship as she had plunged beneath the waves. All of them had spent the long night in salt-soaked, frozen clothing. Some of these men were officers who refused medical treatment, insisting instead that they should speak to Captain Rostron, that they should assist with bringing the other lifeboats on board, that they should know how many people had been saved. Not one of them, not even the most senior officers, asked after their own captain. It had not been said, and Kate knew that it did not need to be said—Captain Smith was not in a lifeboat. He had gone down with his ship.
With the sun now well above the horizon and the crew preparing to haul another boatload of survivors up the steep ladder, Kate paused to take a breath. Dr. Lengyel flashed her a weary smile. “You have done well, young lady.” His accent bore traces of his Hungarian nationality but his English was excellent. “You have not told me your name. I must know your name so that I will remember.”
Kate considered for a moment. Yes, she had done well. Why should she give this doctor a false name? If he planned to remember her, let him remember who she truly was. All other considerations aside, he was Hungarian, and he had told her that he was not interested in immigrating to America. Her father’s name and her family’s disgrace would mean nothing to him. If an old Hungarian doctor wanted to remember her, he would remember her for her work here tonight and not for her father’s sins.
“I’m Kate,” she said. “Kate Royston.”
His pale, tired eyes gave no flicker of recognition.
“From Royston, Pennsylvania,” Kate continued. She had done it. She had attached her name to the town that her father had founded in his own name and to the dam her father had built to bring water to his pulp mill.
Dr. Lengyel nodded. “I am grateful for your help, Miss Royston.”
“I wish I could do more,” Kate said as she took up her pencil and prepared to receive the next influx of passengers. Lifeboat number eight.
She had become accustomed to hearing crying, weeping, and cursing as the survivors stumbled onto the safety of the Carparhia’s deck, but the first passenger to come aboard from lifeboat eight was neither crying nor weeping. She was a tall blonde woman wrapped in a fox-fur coat. Her cheeks were flushed red by cold but her nose and her fingers showed no hint of blue. She seemed to have survived her ordeal very well.
“Countess of Rothes,” she declared in answer to Kate’s question. “I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor. I’ve spent countless hours on the Scottish moors. I know how to look after myself.
I am also quite warm, as I have been rowing all night, as have the other ladies in my boat. If I had not taken charge, I cannot imagine what would have happened. After you haul up the crew that was sent to row us you can set them to work. They’ve done nothing all night. None of them even knew how to hold an oar. It’s a disgrace and I will make my feelings known in due course. So many fine men who could have taken charge and saved lives were left behind simply because of some ridiculous rule of the sea. Women and children first. How is that to work if you put only women, children, and incompetent stewards and cooks into the lifeboats and leave behind athletic men who would do their duty?”
Kate stared up at the tall, beautiful countess. How could she say such a thing? Surely the tradition of saving women and children from war and shipwreck and all manner of disasters was the mark of a civilized nation.
The countess was speaking again. “Where is the other ship?”
“What other ship?”
“There was another ship. We saw a light and we were told to row towards it.”
“There is no other ship,” Kate said. “No one has said anything about another ship. We were fifty miles away. You could not have seen our lights.”
“We saw someone’s lights,” the countess insisted. “Ask any of the passengers, and they’ll tell you the same thing. First we were told that we would be put into the lifeboats while the crew fixed the problem with our ship and we would be back very shortly, and then we were told that a light had been seen, a ship was coming for us, and we were to row towards it.”
Kate looked down at the paper in her hand and saw that she had been so distracted by this new information that she had not even recorded a name.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Could you repeat your name?”
“Lucy Noël Martha Leslie, Countess of Rothes.”
Kate decided she would wait until another time to check the spelling of the name. The countess was looking flushed and was swaying on her feet. “This is quite a shock,” she whispered. “Are you sure there has not been another ship? Are we really all that have been rescued?”
“I’m afraid so.”
The countess seemed to be blinking back tears. She was not asking for pity, but Kate felt pity for her. This woman had rowed for hours, thinking all the time that she was making for a nearby ship. She had spent the long night under the impression that their little flotilla of lifeboats was just one part of a greater rescue, and now she knew differently. Now she knew the full horror of what had occurred, and it seemed that she knew who to blame.
“Do you have brandy?” the countess asked.
Before Kate could reply, she was interrupted by Dr. Lengyel. “The last boat is coming up now, Miss Kate. Come along. We have work to do. There is an old lady coming up, and she is going to give us trouble.”
“Is she injured?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know if she is injured, but she is very angry, and so, I think, is everyone with her.”
As Kate stepped out from the shelter of the doorway, she realized that the countess was behind her. Together they peered down to look at the crammed lifeboat that was now secured to the foot of the ladder. Up on deck, a group of seamen hauled wearily on the ropes attached to a canvas sling containing an elderly lady swathed in what appeared to be a very damp fur coat. The sling swung in an uncontrolled arc and her complaining voice carried above the instructions of the crew and the warnings from the shivering passengers still in the lifeboat.
“I’m not letting him go.”
“Just drop him.”
“I will not.”
“If you fall, you’ll have us all in the water.”
“I’m not letting him go.”
“It’s just a dog.”
“And you’re just a sailor,” the old lady responded.
Kate leaned over the railing to study the speaker. She was wrong about the fur coat. The old lady was not wearing a fur coat; the fur coat was wearing her. Against all probability, the sailors were hauling up a sparrowlike woman wearing a bright red hat and holding a large and very wet dog. The dog was not taking kindly to riding with the old lady. Apparently they were strangers to each other, and the dog was not comforted by the old lady’s pleas for him to “sit still and be a good dog.”
Kate could fully understand the reason for anxiety. If the dog—, he appeared to be some kind of large hunting dog—fell into the tightly packed boat below, there was every possibility that it would tip or maybe even sink.
The sling inched its way up the side of the Carpathia until at long last it was level with the boat deck. The dog, seeing its way to freedom, leaped from the woman’s arms. The sling tipped, with the old lady clutching frantically for the hands outstretched to help her. Kate held her breath. Although there was no longer any danger of the dog landing in the lifeboat, there was every possibility that the dog’s rescuer could still fall headfirst onto the people below.
With a shout of triumph, one of the Carpathia’s deckhands finally managed to grasp the sling and bring it within reach. The old lady fell onto the deck with a cry of pain, and Kate heard the sharp crack of a snapping bone as the woman’s legs crumpled beneath her.
As Dr. Lengyel stepped wearily forward to assess the damage, Kate was surprised to hear a burst of laughter from the countess, who was holding the bedraggled dog by the scruff of its neck and smiling triumphantly.
“Well done,” she called. “He’s a purebred. Well worth saving. Good job.”
Kate turned to look at the countess in amazement. “She nearly killed herself.”
“And that,” said the countess, “would have made a lot of people very happy.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s Eva Trentham, possibly the richest woman in America, and quite definitely the most unpopular.”
Kate watched as the unpopular Mrs. Trentham was carried away by two sailors while the countess shook her head in wry amusement.
Dr. Lengyel peered over the side and then turned to Kate. “That was the last boat. That is everyone.”
Kate sensed movement behind her and turned to see a stocky middle-aged man who wore a heavy overcoat over his pajamas. He kept his hands in the pockets of his overcoat as he strode to the rail and looked down.
“That is everyone,” Dr. Lengyel repeated.
The stranger nodded, turned abruptly, and walked away. Kate saw him speaking to one of the Carpathia’s deck officers. He pulled his hands from his pockets and began to gesture angrily. A slip of paper fluttered to the deck as he argued with the officer. Eventually, they seemed to reach some kind of agreement, and they walked away together. Kate darted forward and picked up the paper. Perhaps it was important. For people who were coming aboard with nothing, everything was important.
She tried to catch his attention. “Mr. ... uh ... sir ...”
He ignored her and disappeared into the interior of the ship.
Kate picked up the paper and put it into the pocket of her apron. She turned to the countess. “Who was he?” she asked. “I don’t recall recording his name.”
“Well, make sure you record it now,” the countess replied. “Make sure you get it right. That’s Sir Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, the man who saved himself while his passengers drowned.”