Raging Sea, Searing Sky

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Really?’ he asked, trying to be cold, but warming up rapidly as she moved her hip against his in that so well remembered way; there seemed so much more of her, practically naked.

  ‘Well, I had to apologise. We could have had such a lovely voyage. But Daddy and Mummy suspected something was going on...the fact is,’ she confided, ‘they think I am a naughty girl. There was this boy on the way across, and then the boy in New York...’ she gazed at him, eyes enormous. ‘Do you think I’m terrible?’

  ‘I think you’re wonderful,’ he said, and kissed her. This time he did the holding and the kissing, and he didn’t care if she did feel him against her...and this time she had only the thin evening gown for protection.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad. I mean...I didn’t like any of the others as much as I like you.’

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ he said.

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow night...you could come to my cabin.’

  He goggled at her.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You would be a gentleman, wouldn’t you? Not like Jimmy...well, that’s what upset Daddy, I suppose.’

  ‘On the way over,’ Lew said, several large pennies beginning to drop with resounding thuds.

  ‘Jimmy was not a gentleman,’ May said. ‘I mean, he wanted to...well, we won’t discuss that. But you and I could have such fun together. Will you come?’ His arm had returned with the surprise of her suggestion, and now she took his hand and rested it on her left breast. ‘Number seventy-four.’

  He gazed into her eyes. Presumably there was something the matter with her. He had no idea what. And should he care? They would never see each other again after the ship docked. And in the meantime she was the most delicious thing he had ever encountered, or could ever imagining encountering. And if she wanted him to kiss her...or touch her like this — he had never known a sensation quite like it, of feeling her soft flesh swelling into his hand as she breathed. Of course he would be a gentleman, and only do what she wanted. ‘Oh, I’ll come,’ he promised, and wondered if he was being a cad. And just how he was going to sneak out of the cabin without Mom and Shirley finding out.

  But that bridge he would cross when he came to it.

  *

  Another sleepless night, as his brain bubbled with the implications for tomorrow. May had let him touch her breast. He had always wanted to touch a girl’s breast, but had doubted any girl he had ever met would like it — he simply could not imagine Shirley wanting anyone to touch her breast, and she did have them already. While Mother was always so smilingly unaware of herself as a woman, it had seemed to him, and anyway, Mom was really quite old, for all her good looks. But May...

  He thought he was going to burst, was up early and promenading vigorously round the deck. It was a simply lovely day, with only a light breeze, and a calm, deep blue sea, which during the morning began to change colour; they had crossed the continental shelf and were nearly at land.

  May did not look at him during luncheon, but he now knew what she really thought and didn’t care. Indeed he was tremendously pleased about the mental intimacy that indicated, and was quite the life and soul of their table. The meal ended early with a lot of cheering from passengers who had already left the salon, and together with Mom and Shirley he hurried on deck to gaze to the north, and the low green hills which had appeared in the distance, perhaps ten miles away.

  ‘Ireland,’ Christina said, and hugged them both. ‘Your ancestral home.’

  ‘We’ve stopped zig-zagging,’ Shirley observed.

  ‘Well, I suppose there’s no longer any need for it,’ Christina said.

  ‘It’s to enable the Captain to take a fix,’ Lew explained. ‘He showed me yesterday. That headland is the Old Head of Kinsale, and by steering straight at it and using his sextant to obtain a distance off, he can determine his position exactly.’

  ‘Why, that’s brilliant,’ Christina said. Together they walked to the rail; the water was now quite green. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that really was a lovely crossing, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Lew said, and there is still a night left, he thought. A night...he gazed at a peculiar line of white froth, under the green of the water, and racing straight at the ship. At the same time he heard shouts from the bridge, and the entire ship made an abrupt turn. So abrupt he found himself lying on the deck. Or had he been thrown there by an explosion? Because above his head for a moment there was a plume of water and metal and wood. He was quite dazed, and then there was definitely an explosion, far louder than the first, and the deck seemed to heave, and come down again.

  Lew bumped his head, but made himself sit up, because he felt it was very important to do so, and immediately became aware of a great many things, that the Lusitania was travelling as fast as ever, but seemed still to be turning, and that as she turned she was heeling, and seemed to be plunging into one of those troughs he remembered from the first day out...only there were no troughs today. And that there was a great deal of shouting and screaming and a tremendous sound of breaking crockery, and that Mom was on the deck beside him, staring at him with wide, terrified eyes. And that a good deal of the screaming was coming from Shirley, on his other side.

  ‘We’ve been hit,’ Christina gasped. ‘My God, we’ve been torpedoed.’

  It just didn’t make sense. Even the pirates of the old days didn’t just sink a ship, without at least making its passengers captives. And this was 1915, when there weren’t any pirates about, at least in the North Atlantic.

  There was a tremendous jangling sound, and a sailor ran by. ‘Abandon ship!’ he was shouting. ‘Abandon ship. Women and children to the lifeboats.’

  ‘Come on,’ Christina snapped, scrambling to her feet and grasping Shirley’s hand. When Lew moved more slowly, she shouted, ‘Don’t be stupid, Lewis; you’re a child.’

  ‘I’ll be right with you,’ he said. ‘I have to find May.’

  ‘May?’ Christina cried, but she was already being pushed towards the steadily heeling rail by a mass of women, and children. No one paid any attention to Lew, who was clearly a man to the casual glance, and he pushed people left and right as he ran to the dining salon doors; he had not seen the Gerrards emerge.

  In the doorway he encountered Mr Vanderbilt, who was allowing his valet to encase him in a life jacket. ‘You should be in a boat, young McGann,’ Vanderbilt said.

  ‘Oh, I...I’m looking for someone, sir,’ Lew stammered.

  ‘Well, you should certainly have a jacket,’ the millionaire sportsman remarked, and took his off. ‘Wear this.’

  ‘But you, sir...’

  ‘George will find me another. Won’t you, George?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ the valet said.

  ‘Well, thanks a million,’ Lew said, dropping the jacket over his head and tying the cords around his stomach as he reached the head of the staircase, and looked down on a scene of total catastrophe. The tables had of course been bolted down, but the crockery and cutlery and bottles and trolleys and flower vases had not, and these had all fallen off, partly no doubt from the explosion and partly from the steadily increasing list, to accumulate in a vast mass, in the midst of which was a huddle of people. Some had got free and were scrambling up the stairs, others were still fighting to do so...and amongst them was May, and her parents.

  ‘May!’ he shouted, and plunged into the throng. People buffeted him and bounced off his size as he pushed through them to seize her arm and drag her to her feet. There was wine spilled down her gown and she had cut her lip.

  ‘Lewis!’ she shouted. ‘Oh, Lewis!’

  ‘My God, what’s happening?’ Mr Gerrard gasped, helping his wife up.

  ‘We’ve been torpedoed,’ Lew told him.

  ‘Torpedoed? But that’s not possible. The Lusitania?’

  ‘Well, she’s sinking,’ Lew said. ‘We have to get to the boats.’

  He didn’t know how Mr Gerrard was going to get on, and he didn’t care; he had May in his arms and was half
carrying, half pushing her to the stairs, which were now at a very difficult angle indeed. They fell over together, and he got her up again, while she panted and wept, and they clawed their way upwards and reached the door and the deck. Where Lew paused in horror. The list was much more pronounced up here, and was compounded by the sag forward, which was now quite frightening, as if the Lusitania had entered a trough from which she was not going to rise. There were people all over the place, but he thrust them left and right as he pushed May to the rail, and gazed at an even more horrific scene. For the ship was still travelling forward at full speed, and the water was sloughing past the side; it was already bubbling over the bow. But worse, at least one of the boats had been let go, and must have entered the water at something like twenty knots. It had simply fallen apart, and there were screaming, gasping, drowning women down there; even as he watched another boat entered the water, and promptly turned upside down, pitching its occupants into the raging sea next to the doomed liner.

  Were Mom and Shirley down there? He didn’t know. He had no idea where they were, was aware only of the screaming girl in his arms.

  ‘Can you swim?’ he shouted.

  ‘I...yes,’ she shrieked. ‘But...a boat...’

  ‘No good,’ he said, and swung her over the rail.

  ‘No,’ she screamed. ‘No! Mother...’

  Lew flung his leg over and propelled himself forward, still clutching her in his arms. Her scream became a banshee like wail of the purest terror as they plummeted downwards for the longest of split seconds, then struck the water with an enormous splash. They went beneath the surface, and he felt her kicking and fighting at him, but he refused to let her go, and their combined buoyancy, thanks to his borrowed life jacket, rapidly brought them back to the air.

  But Mom and Shirley hadn’t had life jackets. Oh, my God, he thought. He didn’t know where they were.

  ‘Aaagh!’ May was screaming, trying to kick him away. ‘Help me! Aaagh!’ Then a wavelet flopped into her mouth and she choked and vomited.

  Lew could understand her terror. They looked up, at the Lusitania, towering above them, and apparently about to heel over on top of them. And then she was gone, driving ahead and driving down, and they were being tossed in her wake, while May alternately screamed and choked and vomited. Lew kicked water with his feet to propel them out of the maelstrom, still holding her arms and shoulders and waist and hips and breasts and hair as in her terror she constantly wriggled free and he constantly pulled her back. But now he heard shouting closer at hand, and a moment later other fingers were reaching for them, and bringing them into the side of an upturned boat, to which several people were clinging.

  ‘Here,’ said the sailor who had been one of the boat’s crew. ‘Saw you jump, young fellow. That were the thing to do. Saw you jump.’

  His hands were guided to grablines, and he rested his head on the wet wood, his left arm still round May, who had stopped fighting, but more from exhaustion, he guessed, than from reassurance.

  ‘Them others should jump too,’ the sailor said, holding on to the grablines beside him. ‘Christ, that were quick.’

  Lew looked up and back, at the Lusitania. She was now several hundred yards away, her bows completely submerged, her stern rising higher and higher...and more and more crowded with people, who were fleeing the rising water. Why don’t they jump?’ he wondered. Why don’t they jump?

  Were Mom and Shirley in that fear maddened mob? Or had they been in one of those boats which had struck the water too fast and turned over? They might have been in this one. He twisted his head left and right, gazed at shocked and terrified female faces, clinging to the ropes as he was, but could recognise none of them. ‘My mother,’ he said to the sailor. ‘My sister...’

  ‘Don’t know about your mum, son,’ the sailor said. ‘But your sister looks okay to me. You saved her life, boy.’

  ‘My...’ Lew looked down at May’s face. Her eyes were closed, and he supposed she might have fainted. But she was breathing. ‘That’s not...’

  ‘Christ,’ the sailor said again. ‘Look at that.’

  Lew looked up again, and could hardly believe what he was seeing. For the Lusitania had stopped sinking. Instead she was motionless, hanging there, her stern now more than a hundred feet out of the water, crammed with people, while beneath them the huge propellers continued to turn.

  ‘She’s on the ground,’ the sailor said. ‘By God, her bow’s on the ground.’

  Lew, understood; the great ship was some eight hundred feet long, and the water here could hardly be more than three hundred deep, judging by the colour. So the bows had touched the bottom, while the stem was still high in the air. Oh, if only it could remain there forever, or at least until rescue came. But it wasn’t going to do that. Even as he watched, the stem began to settle, slowly at first, and then with tremendous speed, while a huge wail reached out across the water.

  ‘Holy Christ,’ the sailor said. ‘Oh, Holy Christ!’

  The stern sank into the waves, the wail was extinguished, and Lew watched a great bubbling wall of water rise up. He had only time to tighten his grip on May’s waist before it was upon them, hurling the lifeboat over again, throwing them over it, driving them down into the sea once more, before allowing them to come bubbling back up to the surface, retching and gasping. Then the wave was gone, and the sea was a mass of little crests, on which they bobbed, up and down, clinging to each other, sustained by Lew’s strength as much as by his lifebelt.

  The lifeboat and the terrified women and the friendly sailor had disappeared...and so had the Lusitania.

  Chapter Two

  England, 1915

  Lew realised they were not alone, as for one terrifying moment he had supposed they might be, the only survivors out of all the thousand and more people who had been on the ship. But actually, once the wave had gone, he discovered there were a large number of people, and things, littering the surface of the calm sea; upturned lifeboats, and one or two which were right side up as well; boxes and barrels and pieces of timber; and people. All manner of people.

  He saw a lifeboat, half-filled with people, quite close at hand, and waved and shouted; he was certain someone sighted him, because heads turned. Then the boat pulled away in the opposite direction. It had not been full, and Lew felt a surge of anger mixed with his fear. The water was getting colder by the second, and even his great strength was beginning to feel the effects, while May had recovered consciousness and was whimpering against his face, alternately praying and wailing, ‘Mummy? Where are you, Mummy?’

  Mom, Lew thought. And Shirley. It should be one of them, or both, here in his arms, not some boy-crazy girl he had only just met.

  He saw another lifeboat, this time capsized, but covered with bodies, some holding on to the grablines, while one or two others had managed to climb up and were draped across the keel, the most modest of women in the most immodest of situations. He kicked, and moved towards them.

  ‘Go away,’ one of the women shouted. ‘There are too many already. Go away!’

  ‘Take the girl,’ he begged. ‘Take the girl.’

  ‘Go away,’ another woman shouted. ‘Do you want us all to drown? We got here first.’

  Yes, Lew thought, I hope you all do drown. He kicked himself away from them, and felt a gentle nudge in the back. He twisted his head, heart pounding at the thought of being helped, and gazed at a man, on his face, sustained by his life jacket...but floating with his face in the water. Kicking desperately to keep May and himself above the surface, Lew turned him over. The man was dead.

  He pressed his lips against May’s ear. ‘Can you swim?’ he shouted. ‘Just for a moment.’

  ‘Swim?’ she cried. ‘Swim?’

  ‘You said you could swim,’ he reminded her. ‘Just keep afloat for a moment, and I’ll get you a jacket.’

  He let her go, and she started banging the water. She either swam very badly or she was too terrified to think. But he had to risk it; his arms we
re like lead. He tore at the cords for the man’s jacket; they were sodden but fortunately had been tied in a neat bow and came free almost immediately. He dragged the jacket over the man’s head and turned back to find May. She had drifted several feet away and was screaming, ‘Aaagh! Lewis! I’m drowning. Oh, Lewis!’

  He reached her in two strokes. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Put this on.’ He held her up with one hand while he got the jacket over her head with the other. ‘Hold my shoulders,’ he commanded, treading water as hard as he could while he pulled the jacket down, front and back, got the cord round her waist, and tied it again. ‘There,’ he said.

  She let him go and bobbed away. ‘Oh, Lewis,’ she gasped.

  Lew turned his head to find the man, but the body had already slipped beneath the surface. But they would be all right now; with the lifejackets they could float forever. Forever...

  ‘Oh, Lewis,’ May moaned. ‘It’s so cold. I can’t feel my legs. Lewis!’ She yawned.

  He swam to her side. ‘You must keep awake,’ he told her. ‘Or you will die. You must keep awake.’

  Her eyes flopped open, and then closed again. He fumbled for her body, drove his fingers into her flesh. She giggled and her eyes opened again. ‘Not so hard,’ she gasped. ‘Not so hard.’

  He felt beneath her life jacket, found softness, and squeezed that too. Her mouth flopped open. ‘Oh, Lewis,’ she muttered. ‘Oh, Lewis.’

  *

  He had no idea how long they drifted. In fact it could not have been more than an hour, he realised afterwards. But it seemed like an eternity, a horror he would never forget. Because it seemed that, gradually, they were being left all by themselves. Those boats which had oars and were right side up slowly disappeared, as they pulled towards the land. Those which were upside down lapsed into silence. He saw other floating bodies, but they, and the flotsam from the sunken liner, drifted farther apart with each slurping wavelet. He wondered where the U-boat was, why it had not surfaced to examine the effects of its terrifying work, and perhaps try to rescue some of the people it had so carelessly destroyed. He wondered why he did not hate.