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The White House
Washington, DC
9:00 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time)
Senator William Alden Smith
The senator waited outside the door of the president’s office. He held a handkerchief to his nose and hoped he would not have to wait for very long. Sawdust and paint fumes still lingered in the air as a reminder of the construction of the new West Wing of the White House and Taft’s new and unusual oval office. The president often worked with his office door open, but today it was closed, with Charles Hilles, Taft’s personal secretary, hovering protectively outside.
“He won’t see you, Senator.”
Bill removed the handkerchief from his nose and spoke quietly but firmly. “I have an appointment.”
Hilles shook his head. “Unless you have news of Major Butt, he will not see anyone.”
Bill pursed his lips impatiently. “The Carpathia has been transmitting names as the survivors come aboard. Major Butt was not on the list.”
Hilles sighed. “I know. The president is apprised of every name on the list, but he finds the situation unacceptable.”
“We all find it unacceptable,” Bill said irritably.
Hilles smiled sadly. “The president continues to hope that some of the rumors we hear are true and perhaps another ship has arrived on the scene and taken in the remaining passengers. We have a list of only seven hundred names, and it’s impossible to think that there are no other survivors. Half of New York society was on that ship, and so far we have only been given the names of the women, such as Mrs. Astor, Mrs. Ryerson, and Mrs. Thayer.”
“The rule of the sea,” Bill said impatiently. “Women and children first.”
Even as he spoke, Bill wondered if that rule had really held true out there on the deep Atlantic with no one to see what was happening. Had forceful men like Jacob Astor, Arthur Ryerson, John Thayer, Benjamin Guggenheim, and Martin Rothschild really followed such an archaic, unwritten law and allowed poor immigrant women to board the lifeboats first? Had Major Archibald Butt, confidant of the president and bearer of secret messages from the German kaiser, given up his seat in favor of a lady’s maid or a half-starved Irish child?
Before Bill could give in to temptation and voice his doubts, the door of the president’s office opened and Taft himself stood framed in the doorway. The president’s considerable bulk obstructed Bill’s view of the new office. He caught only a glimpse of deep-green walls and a massive desk littered with papers, but Taft showed no sign of inviting him inside to sit down and talk about the reelection campaign. Perhaps it had been unreasonable of Bill to think that on this spring morning, with the Titanic disaster headlining every newspaper, William Taft would want to talk about an election that would not happen until November.
Taft acknowledged Bill with a brief nod before turning to Hilles. “Any word?”
“No, Mr. President. We are told that the list is complete. The Carpathia has wired the names of every survivor they have taken on board.”
“But what about the other ships?” Taft asked in a pleading tone. “There are other ships. The Virginian, the Parisian. What about this rumor that the ship is under tow and headed to Halifax? Don’t you know what the newspapers are saying?”
When Hilles hesitated, Bill spoke up. “Mr. President, I know what the newspapers are saying, but they are publishing wild rumors. The Marconi operator on the Carpathia is transmitting the truth. I’m sorry to say it, sir; there are no other survivors. The Titanic has gone to the bottom of the Atlantic. The only survivors are on the Carpathia, and they are mainly women and children.”
“But the men must be somewhere,” Taft argued. “Is it possible that they are on an iceberg, waiting for rescue?”
Hilles shook his head. “I don’t believe they could climb onto an iceberg.”
“Well, floating ice,” Taft snapped. “They could be on an ice floe. Even now a ship could be coming for them. I’ve ordered ships to be dispatched to continue the search.”
Hilles nodded. “We’re sending the Mackay-Bennett as soon as she’s provisioned and ready. She’s in Halifax and she’s the closest ship we have.”
Taft frowned, with his eyes turning to mere slits above his puffy cheeks. “From what I hear, there were any number of ships close by, and surely they have arrived on the scene by now.”
Bill looked at Hilles. Official news from the Carpathia had been passed on to the offices of senators and congressmen, and Bill was confident that his information was up to date, but no one had mentioned another ship. Was it possible that some of the rumors were true? Had another ship been close by?
Hilles shook his head. “Another British ship, the Californian, arrived on the scene this morning, sir, but the Carpathia was already preparing to depart. She had picked up every survivor. She could do no more. The Californian has returned to her original course, and the Carpathia has broadcast a message to all shipping that the rescue operation is complete. When the MacKay-Bennett arrives, it will be to pick up bodies, not to search for survivors.”
“No!” The president’s voice was firm and commanding. “This is not the end of the matter. I’m told that the Titanic had waterproof compartments. Is it possible that some of the passengers are even now sheltering in those compartments, maybe even below the surface? Could we send down divers? If Butt is alive, I want him found.”
Taft’s eyes turned toward Bill. “Senator Smith, I cannot see you today. I will see no one.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Taft turned to Hilles. “I want him found.”
Hilles spoke as a man would humor a child. “Yes, Mr. President, of course.”
Taft, his shoulders drooping, lumbered back into his office and closed the door, not with a bang but with a quiet click. Bill thought it was the sound of despair.
On Board the Carpathia
10:00 a.m. (Ship’s Time)
Kate Royston
Kate stood on the deck watching as the Californian made a belated search of the floating wreckage. The cargo ship had arrived too late to be of assistance and soon she would resume her course toward Boston. There was nothing she could do, no one left the rescue. The Carpathia had already done all that could be done. Every survivor was on board. Even the lifeboats had been taken up and stowed on the foredeck. The grave of the Titanic was marked by nothing but a sea of debris and a ghastly procession of floating bodies—too many for the Carpathia to bring aboard.
What was the point? Kate thought. Those bodies that could be snagged and brought onto the deck would only be returned to the sea as soon as they had been identified. Only the rich and famous were sewn into canvas shrouds and laid alongside the lifeboats on the foredeck. The poor, who had risked everything for a chance to make good in a new land, were stripped of their life vests so that their bodies would not float into the shipping lanes, and then they were returned to the ocean with prayers from the ship’s chaplain. Perhaps the chaplain prayed his Protestant prayers over unknowing Catholics, Jews, and atheists, but the dead could not know, and Kate chose to believe it would not matter. The bodies were mere remnants, and their souls had already been returned to their maker.
Listening to the prayers had brought memories of another mass burial where bodies had lain side by side, not on the deck of a ship but on the green grass of Pennsylvania. Choking back sobs, Kate turned away from the deck and the sight of the Californian making her fruitless search. Blinded by tears, she pulled open the closest door and stepped inside, trying to find a corner of the ship where she could weep in peace.
As soon as she was inside, she was greeted by a blast of warm air and a wash of sound from hundreds of voices. How absurd to think that she could find a private corner or that she could weep alone. Seven hundred survivors of the night’s tragedy were crammed in among the Carpathia’s existing passengers. Distinctions between classes barely existed. Women in shawls and ragged, hollow-eyed children filled the passageways and crammed into the first-class smoking room.
Kate, exhausted from the night’s activities and completely overtaken by her own memories, sat down among them. Finally she had found a place where she could weep unnoticed. No one here would be aware that she was weeping for her own reasons and for her own losses.
For the first time in a year, Kate allowed herself to remember the mangled and drowned bodies that had been collected and committed to the rich earth of Royston, Pennsylvania. She remembered her father standing expressionless as vile words were flung at him. She wished that she had done something, anything, to help him stand beneath the weight of those words. Instead, she had turned her back on the place where she had been born and started on the journey that had brought her here on board the Carpathia, masquerading as a governess and sitting among widows and orphans.
Finally her choking sobs turned to quiet tears, and she experienced a feeling of relief that she had been seeking for almost an entire year. She took a deep breath. She had faced her past, faced her father’s guilt, even faced her own part in his final tragedy, so what was she to do now? Her conscience prodded at her. Do something for them. You did nothing for your father’s victims; do something for these people.
She looked at the people surrounding her, mostly women but a few men and a few children. The tall, angular figure of Mrs. Broomer, the chief stewardess, was moving among them, apparently searching for someone. As Kate rose to her feet, she caught Mrs. Broomer’s eye and realized that she need look no farther. Mrs. Broomer would find her something to do.
The stewardess beckoned her forward, and they left the smoking room together for the relative peace of the ladies’ reading room which was occupied only by Dr. Lengyel and the most severely injured survivors.
“I want to help,” Kate said.
Mrs. Broomer nodded. “And so you shall, Miss Royston.”
“You know my name?”
“I learned it from Dr. Lengyel. He was most impressed with all that you did during the night. However ...” Mrs. Broomer paused and looked at Kate with an expression worthy of the sternest schoolmarm. “However,” she repeated, “I find that you are not a first-class passenger and you are, in fact, a governess.”
“Well ...”
“No doubt you are penniless, like most of your breed—we see them all the time on a ship such as this—but you are not without education. I imagine that you have somehow fallen on hard times, but I will not ask for details. Your past is none of my business and I feel that you are a young woman who will rise to a challenge.”
“I just want to help,” Kate said.
“And so you shall,” said Mrs. Broomer. “First, of course, I will expect you to get dressed. It’s all very well for these wretched women to be in their nightclothes and rags, but I imagine you have a dress somewhere in your cabin.”
“Of course I do, but I am not sure if I still have a cabin. I was told that the survivors were to occupy some of the cabins.”
Mrs. Broomer nodded. “Yes, your cabin is indeed occupied, somewhat unsuitably, in my opinion, but I can assure you that the occupant, or I should say occupants, have no interest in your belongings. Go and get dressed and then report back here. I have a task for you.”
Kate thought there was an element of veiled menace in Mrs. Broomer’s words. “What task?”
“You will see. Better wash your face too. It’s obvious you’ve been crying. Pull yourself together. The survivors we have on board have every reason to cry, but you do not.”
“If only you knew,” Kate muttered to herself as she left Mrs. Broomer behind and made her way to the cabin she had shared with the Van Buren children.
She paused outside the door. Mrs. Broomer had said the cabin was occupied. In fact, she had hinted it was occupied by more than one person. What if one of the gentlemen had taken up residence? How was she to go in there and change her clothes? Would he leave if she asked? It was all very well to have spent the night with nothing but a coat over her nightgown and with her hair unbraided, but this was different. Now it was daylight. Now the terrible urgency of the night before was behind them, and she was suddenly self-conscious. She remembered how she had flung herself at Harold Cottam, how she had climbed the crew ladder in her slippers and spent hours helping the doctor without even a passing thought of her disheveled appearance. She shrugged. Her family’s reputation was already in tatters. What difference would it make for a gentleman to see her in her nightclothes?
Her gentle tapping on the cabin door was answered by a growl and then a deep bark. She took a step back. What on earth was in her cabin?
The door opened a crack, and the blonde head of the Countess of Rothes peered out. “Oh, it’s you, the recorder of names. Come on in. Wolfie won’t hurt you.”
“Wolfie?” Kate queried.
“A dog should have a strong name,” the countess replied. “Come in and meet him.”
Kate stepped inside the cabin that had once been hers and inhaled an overpowering smell of wet dog. Wolfie, the dog who had almost drowned Mrs. Eva Trentham, was stretched out on one of the beds. His fur, still stiff and spiky with salt water, was drying to a shaggy brown-and-black pelt. Despite his name, he bore no resemblance to a wolf. His eyes were wide and brown, and his ears long and drooping.
Kate, remembering her father’s insistence that dogs, even small ones, belonged outside, eyed Wolfie suspiciously. “Shouldn’t he be in the ship’s kennel?”
The countess extended her hand and patted Wolfie’s head. “After everything he’s been through, he deserves a nice warm bed. In fact, we all deserve a nice warm bed. I don’t think the kennel would be at all suitable. I thought it would be best to get him off the floor and give him a chance to dry. We don’t want a sick dog on our hands.”
“Are you going to keep him?” Kate asked.
“Heavens, no. As soon as I get him dry, I’ll take him to Mrs. Trentham. There’ll be hell to pay if we lose the creature now after she practically drowned a boatload of very important people in order to save him.”
The countess reached under the pillow on Wolfie’s bunk and produced a whiskey bottle. “Drink, Miss Royston? You are Miss Royston, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am, and no, thank you. I came to change my clothes. The chief stewardess has work for me to do.”
The countess looked her up and down and then nodded. “I agree, you should change. You look quite fetching in that outfit, my dear, but this is hardly the time for it, is it? We all need to roll up our sleeves, tie up our hair, and get down to business.”
“Well, you seem to ...” Kate bit her tongue. What was the point of complaining? The countess was firmly ensconced in the cabin. Wolfie was no doubt soaking the blankets on one of the bunks, and goodness knew what else he would do if he wasn’t taken outside soon. The whiskey that the countess poured for herself brought back sharp, angry memories of Kate’s father. Best to say nothing, change her dress, and get out of there and never come back.
Kate opened the closet and took out a modest gray woolen dress. She removed her nightgown and slipped the dress over her head; now was not the time to truss herself up in a corset. She rebraided her hair and pinned the braids to the top of her head. The countess had ceased to pay attention to her and was reclining on the bunk beside Wolfie and sipping lazily on the whiskey. She looked up as Kate was about to leave.
“Well done,” she said. “You look quite smart.”
Kate closed the door behind her with a resentful bang. Quite smart! There had been a time when people had called her a beauty and prophesied that she would marry well, that her father’s money might even attract the attention of an impoverished noble family. The Royston dollars and Kate’s looks could reel in an English earl or a German count. The possibilities were endless so long as Kate was willing to pay with her body for her father’s ambition for his grandchildren.
Mrs. Broomer waylaid her in the corridor and nodded approvingly. “You look the part. Now, remember, whatever happens, keep a cool head. The old lady has a reputation for making trouble, and I’m afraid she’s in a good deal of pain, so that will make her even worse. I’m searching among the immigrants for a woman with nursing experience. You are not required to nurse her. To be honest, I don’t know what will be required of you. All she will tell me is that she requires someone who can read and write and comport herself well in polite company. She will no doubt try your patience but not for long. It has been decided that the Carpathia will return to New York, so you will only be needed for two or three days.”
Kate’s heart sank. “We’re returning to New York?”
Mrs. Broomer raised her eyebrows. “Where did you think we would go? Did you think we would take all of these people on a Mediterranean cruise?”
“Well, no, but—”
“They were all bound for New York, so the least we can do is deliver them to their destination. We heard talk of Halifax, but who is to say that Canada will give them entry? No, we’re bound for New York. It will be up to each of our own cruise passengers to make a decision when we reach there. Perhaps some of them will not wish to take to sea again after what they have witnessed. You, of course, will have to speak to your employers about your commitment to them.”
“Oh yes,” Kate muttered, “my employers.”
She shuddered at the thought of returning to the country she had so recently fled. “Will we be required to leave the ship in New York?” she asked.
Mrs. Broomer narrowed her eyes. “Do you have any objection to leaving?”
“I would prefer to stay.”
“That will be up to Mrs. van Buren. If she and her children decide not to continue with their cruise and prefer to leave the ship, then so must you. Now, please stop asking questions. I am very busy, and Mrs. Trentham is very demanding.”
“Mrs. Trentham,” Kate repeated unhappily. “The woman who brought that dog on board?”
“Try to please her,” Mrs. Broomer said. “She’s in a lot of pain. Her leg is broken and her wrist is sprained, so she cannot move and she cannot write. She tells me that she has Marconi messages to send, so it will be up to you to make sure that Mr. Cottam sends them. Try not to fail her. She has a way of making life very unpleasant for people who displease her.”
The Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
10:30 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time)
Senator William Alden Smith
Bill stared down at the printed paper laid neatly on his desk and then looked up at the worried face of Richard LaSalle, his new, young clerk.
“So this is it, LaSalle?”
“Yes, Senator. They say this is the final list from the Carpathia. Here are the names of everyone brought on board. Seven hundred and six people and four dogs.”
“Dogs?”
“Yes, Senator. Two Pomeranians, one Pekinese, and one large hound of unknown origin. The small dogs were carried on board by their owners, and the large dog was rescued from the water by Mrs. Eva Trentham. The owner is unknown, presumed drowned.”
Bill scrutinized the list. “How is this divided?”
“Third class, second class, first class, crew, and officers.”
Bill nodded and continued to read. “Third class did not do well,” he commented.
“No, sir.”
“Why is that?”
“We don’t know, Senator. We cannot know anything until the Carpathia docks.”
“Oh, we’ll know before that,” Bill commented. “I hear the president has sent two military cruisers to intercept the Carpathia. He’s desperate for information on Major Butt.”
“Major Butt is not on the list of survivors.”
“I know that, LaSalle, and so does the president, but he is not willing to believe it.”
LaSalle frowned. “I know that Major Butt was a great help to the president, but if he is not on board, I don’t see what can be gained by dispatching military vessels to ask questions.”
Bill continued to study the list, but his clerk was not prepared to let the question rest. “Senator, I’ve heard that Major Butt was on a mission. Some say to the Pope; others say that he did in fact go to Germany.”
“You should not listen to what other people say.”
“But—”
“We will not discuss Major Butt. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Now, take another look at this list. What do you see?”
“I see that the captain and the first officer were not saved.”
Bill nodded. “I sailed with Captain Smith several times. He was a good man, and a good commander. I cannot imagine how he could put his ship in collision with an iceberg.”
“It was dark, sir.”
“That’s no excuse. I just don’t understand it. Now, look at these other names. Four deck officers were saved, but no engineering officers. One assumes they were trapped below in the engine room. One Marconi operator lost, one saved, along with another operator, who was traveling as a passenger. Only one senior fireman saved, but a great number of stewards and cooks. It’s hard to imagine what was happening here or how priorities were established. Thomas Andrews, the man who designed the ship, went down with her, but Sir Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, owner of the Titanic, did not. Apparently, he is safe on board the Carpathia. I don’t know what to make of that, LaSalle, but I don’t like it.”