The Glass Ocean

by Beatriz Williams

  Tess was struggling to sit up. “I’m fine. I can walk.” She stuck out her hands toward her sister, her movements erratic and uncoordinated like a small child’s. “Ginny. Please. Stay with me. We can do this together.”

  But Ginny was already standing, furtively glancing around the room. “Since you can walk on your own, little sister, it’s time I say goodbye. For now.” She paused. “But I’ll find you.” With something that sounded almost like softness, she bent down and whispered into Tess’s ear, “I promise.”

  With a sneer directed at Caroline, Ginny grabbed the pile of clothing and jewelry on the bed and began backing out of the room. “And good riddance to you, ma’am,” she said, emphasizing the one word.

  Before Caroline could react, Ginny bolted out of the door, dropping a strand of pearls in her haste. She paused just a second then dashed out into the corridor.

  The ship shuddered and groaned as Tess’s eyes went wide. “What’s happening?”

  “We’ve been hit by a torpedo,” Caroline said. “We need to get out of here quickly.” She reached for the girl’s shoulders to help her stand, but Tess pulled away.

  “Where’s Ginny? I need to go with her.”

  “She’s gone. It’s up to us to get out of here.” Caroline glanced over at the bed. “She forgot her life belt.” She stood, stumbling against the dresser as the ship trembled again. She grabbed the jacket and tossed it to Tess. “Here—put this on.”

  Without waiting to see if Tess followed her instructions, Caroline bent down to look under her bed where she’d stored her life belt at Claire’s telegrammed request, “just to be sure.” She’d hug her sister-in-law when she next saw her. Just the thought of a future plan gave her the courage to slip on the jacket and fasten it.

  Tess struggled with the fasteners and Caroline hurried over to help. Tess tried to push her away, but it was clear she was still groggy and unable to coordinate her movements. “Let me help you. My husband showed me how to fasten these new Boddy life belts correctly. If we don’t do it right we might end up facedown in the water.” When she’d finished, Caroline grabbed Tess’s arm and dragged her out into the darkened corridor, taking a moment to pause and get her bearings despite the panic that tugged at her hem.

  “Where are we going?” Tess asked, her voice stronger now.

  “Hopefully out to a lifeboat.” Caroline moved forward into the corridor.

  Tess tugged her back. “But what if there aren’t any left?”

  Caroline resumed her forward movement, pulling Tess with her. “Then I hope you can swim.”

  Chapter 27

  Tess

  At Sea

  Friday, May 7, 1915

  “I can swim,” Tess retorted breathlessly, trying to break free of Caroline Hochstetter’s arm. “Can you?”

  “Stop quibbling and run.” Tess hadn’t imagined that Caroline had such resolution in her. She’d always pictured her drooping romantically like a Tennyson heroine. But that was steel in Caroline’s arm and her voice. “Unless you want me to leave you here?”

  “You don’t need to sound so hopeful,” muttered Tess, but she upped her pace to match Caroline’s longer stride.

  The other woman moved like a cat through the dark corridors, taking the steps two at a time, never missing her footing. Tess’s head felt fuzzy as she stumbled along behind her. Maybe this was all the fault of that blow to her head. Maybe she was lying on the floor, imagining being tugged along in Caroline Hochstetter’s perfume-infused wake.

  A torpedo, Caroline had said. A torpedo.

  But Ginny had said . . . Ginny had been so sure . . .

  Around them, the ship shifted and rumbled.

  Tess yanked at Caroline’s arm, pulling her back. “Are you sure? A torpedo?”

  She could feel Caroline check for a moment, then keep going. “I’d hardly joke about it, would I?”

  She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. Trying desperately to keep up, Tess said, “I need to find my sister.”

  And Robert. She needed to find Robert and tell him about Margery Schuyler. Robert and Ginny, Ginny and Robert.

  Caroline didn’t bother to look back. “Then stop talking and move.”

  “Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Tess gasped, but she was grateful for the other woman’s supporting arm.

  She couldn’t tell whether the shifting of the ground beneath her was the ship listing or the blow to her head. She could see her father standing in front of a patient, two fingers up. How many fingers? But she couldn’t see anything in the dark stairwell, not her fingers, not anyone else’s. There were other people on the stairs, she knew that from the thrum of footsteps, the swish of fabric against her side. But she could see them only as shadows. Like ghosts.

  This couldn’t be happening. None of this was happening. It had all been like a child’s game, threatening letters in the papers, saber rattling and bluster. Tess knew—she’d known—that in France and Belgium men were fighting and dying, that in the Atlantic Ocean ships were going down beneath the waves, but it was like watching a game of soldiers played on a dusty wood floor, paper ships being sailed in a creek. Not real, not back in New York, where the lights glowed above Broadway and the El hissed and hummed on its tracks.

  They burst through the door to the deck, the sunlight blinding after the lightless interior. Just a drill, Tess expected someone to say. Everyone back to their cabins.

  But everything had changed. The tubs of flowers next to the Verandah Café had tumbled sideways, spilling flowers and dirt that were being trampled into the ground by terrified passengers darting this way and that, the rusty blacks and browns of the third-class passengers mingling with the bright frocks and lush furs of the parlor set, everyone made one, everyone brought to the same level by the fear that distorted their faces, twisted their limbs.

  “You weren’t joking,” said Tess dumbly, but Caroline’s attention was elsewhere.

  “Gilbert!” Caroline released Tess, sprinting to her husband, who caught her in one arm, pressing his lips against her forehead, his eyes closed as if in prayer. The expression on his face—Tess had no words for it. He was like a man finding his chance of heaven.

  Over them, Tess could see Robert freeze for a moment, watching them. Then he seemed to shake himself awake, going back to corralling women and children into one of the lifeboats.

  “This way! Women and children first!” she could hear Robert’s crisp voice rising above the crowd, taking command as though he had been born to it.

  She watched him stoop to help a child with a life vest, and realized, suddenly, the unfamiliar weight of the vest on her own shoulders. Not her life vest. Ginny’s. Ginny’s life vest.

  The straps were too tight across her chest. The pain in her head receded as panic flared through her, rendering her vision more acute, all her senses on high alert. Sweat, perfume, coal dust, smoke. The pink of a child’s coat; the high-pitched sound of a baby’s wail.

  Ginny. Tess began fighting her way through the crowd, searching for a dark head, a stolen fur. She had to find Ginny. Ginny, who had no life vest.

  A woman grabbed at Tess’s arm. In her other hand, she held a small boy by the wrist, tugging him along behind her. “My baby—have you seen my baby? I gave her to a man in a plaid vest, but I can’t find them.”

  “I—no, sorry.” The haunted expression on the woman’s face cut through to Tess’s bones. “What does he look like? The baby?”

  “She. She’s a girl. I wrapped her in a yellow blanket. . . .” The woman surged forward again, pulling at someone else. “My baby. Have you seen my baby?”

  A Scotsman put out a hand to steady her. “Don’t worry yourself. The captain says the ship will not be sinking this day.”

  But the woman shook him off. The little boy stumbled, but his mother pressed forward, dragging him behind her.

  Tess could hear her words, echoing behind her. “My baby—have you seen my baby?”

  All around her, parents were searching for chi
ldren, reunited families clutching each other. Those lucky enough to have life vests were shrugging into them as best they could. A portly man attempted to stick his neck through what Tess was pretty sure was an armhole. A woman struggled to tape hers over what looked like four layers of clothes and a heavy fur-lined coat. People, people, everywhere, but not one of them was Ginny. Or a baby in a yellow blanket, or a man in a plaid vest.

  Have you seen my mother . . .

  My husband . . .

  My baby . . .

  No, Tess said, and again no, hating herself more with each denial, trying to tamp down the rising fear as the boat listed to the side, the water beginning to creep across the deck, damping her shoes. She’d gone nearly full circle, but there was no sign of Ginny, no sign of her sister.

  No! They hadn’t come so far only to be separated now. Tess would find her, she would. And then—she’d deal with that when they got to then.

  Tess pushed past the Hochstetters, who were having a low-voiced argument about lifeboats.

  “I won’t take a woman’s place. Or, God help me, a child’s.”

  “Then I won’t go either.”

  “But, Caroline. What if . . .” Gilbert Hochstetter touched a finger to his wife’s cheek with painful tenderness, his gaze dropping to his wife’s elegantly cinched waist.

  Caroline pressed his hand against her cheek, looking at him with such naked emotion that Tess had to turn away. “Then we’ll all be together.”

  Robert strode over, his cut-glass tones slicing through their argument. “Both of you, in. This is no time to be noble, Hochstetter.”

  “I’d say this is precisely the time to be noble,” said Gilbert Hochstetter quietly, but he made no move to step away from his wife. “Women and children first. You know it as well as I.”

  Robert pointedly avoided looking at Caroline’s hand on Hochstetter’s cheek. Brusquely, he said, “You have other obligations.”

  Gilbert Hochstetter pressed his wife’s palm briefly to his lips and then lowered her hand in a courtly gesture of relinquishment. “Which I have discharged.”

  “Not until someone gets to London.” The two men exchanged a long look.

  “If you would be so kind as to look after her for me—” Hochstetter began, as his wife said furiously, “I’m not a jewel box to be carried to shore!”

  But Robert cut them both off, his words like stones, immovable. “I’m dispensable. You’re not.”

  “Robert—” The voice was Caroline’s, the name ripped out of her.

  Robert nodded curtly, his eyes not meeting Caroline’s. “Both of you, in the boat.”

  And, behind them, Tess caught sight of a familiar profile. The hair was all wrong and the coat was too big for her, but blood called to blood; she felt her sister’s presence like a tug on her bones.

  Tess darted out around the Hochstetters, standing on her tiptoes, trying to keep sight of her sister. “Ginny!” she screamed. “Ginny!”

  But her voice was lost in the din, in the cries of children and shouts of sailors and the caw of the gulls overhead.

  Her sister lifted her hand, precious stones glinting on her fingers, a carnival of colors: red, green, blue. A king’s ransom of jewels reduced to fairground baubles. Blowing a kiss, Ginny called out, “See you on the other side, Tennie!”

  On shore. She meant on shore. But fear gripped Tess, sent a superstitious shiver down her spine.

  “I’m not going without you!” Tess shouted, but Ginny was already turning away, the hem of her coat sweeping the deck, the crush of humanity closing around her, hiding her from Tess’s view. “Dammit, Gin!”

  Someone grabbed her by the back of her jacket.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Robert furiously, hauling her up like a fish on a line, floundering and flailing. “Get into the boat!”

  Tess paused for a moment, clutching his wrist. “Robert, I need to tell you—Ginny’s contact. It’s Margery Schuyler.”

  Robert manhandled her toward the lifeboat. “Right now, I don’t care if her contact was the Archbishop of Canterbury. Are you going to climb in or am I going to carry you?”

  “I only stayed to tell you.” Tess yanked away, hearing a seam rip. What did it matter? The fish on the bottom of the sea wouldn’t care. “My sister—”

  “Won’t thank you for drowning. Don’t just stand there! Move!” Robert’s voice was ragged, nothing like his usual calm self. His hands were shaking, and so was his voice, and Tess remembered, as from a long time ago, Robert, a different Robert, telling her about another boat, a boat that went out and never came back. He was afraid, she realized, deathly afraid, and it came out in a roar. “By all that’s holy, Tess, get in the bloody boat!”

  “I can’t leave her. I thought you would understand. You, of all people! Your brother—” Tess’s voice broke.

  Robert stopped, staring down at her, an arrested expression on his face. “You really love her.”

  Tess resisted the urge to stamp on his foot as hard as possible. Love Ginny? Of course she loved her.

  “Did you love Jamie? She’s my sister. She’s my sister. She’s all I have in the world.”

  “Not all.” Robert’s hands squeezed her shoulders, and, for a moment, Tess felt a rush of warmth. But then he turned her around, pushing her toward the boat. “Don’t be a fool, Tess. Get in the boat. Get in before it goes.”

  Tess plucked helplessly at the fastenings of her vest. “I have to—this is her life vest. Her life vest, not mine. I have to get it to her.”

  Robert’s hands settled over hers, stilling them. “She’ll find one.”

  “Or she won’t.” How many people were there on the boat? And most of them looking frantically for life vests. Were there enough on the boat for everyone? Tess hadn’t thought to ask.

  The boat shuddered, sending people stumbling into each other across the deck.

  “You won’t help her by dying.” Robert propelled Tess toward the lifeboat.

  “Dying.” Tess looked at Robert with wide eyes as he boosted her up into the boat.

  “What do you think we’re talking about? A stroll in Hyde Park? This ship is sinking. I’m not letting you go down with it.”

  “Then you’re coming, too.” Tess’s hand closed around his wrist, keeping him from turning away.

  Robert made a harsh sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. “I already let one boy die. Maybe this is expiation. Maybe this is my turn.”

  “You were a boy yourself,” Tess shot back at him. “Please. You said it yourself. You can’t help them by dying. Please, Robert. Please.”

  “Get in, Langford.” It was Gilbert Hochstetter’s voice, and it had all the command of a man who was used to the world jumping when he spoke. Caroline sat frozen beside him, her arm threaded through his, pressed tight against his side, and Tess wondered what she thought of her husband summoning her lover. Or had it all ceased to matter now? Here, between the devil and the deep blue sea. “You’ll be needed if something goes wrong.”

  “Wrong?” Next to the Hochstetters, a woman clutched her child so tightly that the toddler made a noise of protest, wriggling for freedom.

  “Nothing is going to go wrong,” Hochstetter said quickly. “Cunard employs the most skilled seamen in the world. They’re trained for this. They could launch these boats in their sleep.”

  Even as he spoke, there was a cry from down the stern. Suspended above the deck in their flimsy craft, they watched as a rope went flying free, sending a fully loaded lifeboat tipping over, women and children toppling down, down, down, into the water below. It happened so quickly that there was barely time for the passengers to scream before they hit the waves, their voices muffled by the water.

  And then—the horror of it would haunt Tess’s nightmares, she knew—the hands. The hands reaching up, futilely waving for help.

  Someone on deck started flinging down lifesavers. They looked painfully small, little specks against the vast sea.

  On the water, a child’s
doll floated, facedown, buttoned boots and lace-trimmed petticoats sodden with water.

  Not a doll. A child.

  Bile rose in Tess’s throat. Instinctively, she leaned over, reaching down, but she was caught, useless, in the cradle of rope that held their lifeboat suspended above the deck.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” The woman with the child rocked back and forth, hugging her toddler to her. The little boy had begun to whimper.

  Next to them, another woman’s lips moved in a silent prayer, her fingers on the beads of her rosary.

  “Why aren’t we moving?” a woman in a fur coat demanded, her voice high with fear. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”

  The lifeboat was held by a pin. Although a sailor stood by with an ax, ready to free the boat, he made no move to do so.

  “Yes!” echoed Tess, feeling the feverish color rise in her cheeks. “We have room! If you set us down, we could save them. . . .”

  Robert’s hand squeezed painfully tight on her upper arm, cutting off her words, and, without knowing why, Tess buried her face in his arm.

  “Shhh,” he said as though she were a child, and Tess wanted to know if this was what it had been like last time, if this was how it had felt as he watched his brother’s head disappear beneath the waves.

  She jerked away, putting all her fear into anger. “Don’t shush me! We might do something.”

  “I’ll second that.” A portly man in a heavy overcoat and one of the expensive new life vests strode up to the sailor with the ax. “Why are you just standing there? Lower the boat.”

  “Captain’s orders,” said the sailor, holding his ax a little tighter. “No launching until he gives the say-so.”

  “To hell with the captain. Do you have eyes, man? Can’t you see the ship is sinking?” The man drew a revolver from beneath his coat. He held it trained on the sailor, his hand steady. “Lower the damned boat. Don’t think I won’t use this. When I shoot, I shoot to kill.”

  A ragged cheer rose from the boat.