The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel

by Hazel Gaynor

‘It’s my fiancée I’m waiting for. We’re to be married next month. I didn’t see his name on the list, but I had a dream that he survived. He has to have survived.’

  ‘Mammy and Da and mi four little brothers were sailing. Only Mammy survived,’ a young girl sobbed. ‘It was their first time coming over. We was all planning a life here together.’

  It was unbearable to hear.

  She walked past large groups of Salvation Army and Sheltering Society volunteers, dressed in their uniforms, ready to act and provide assistance wherever possible, serving hot coffee and sandwiches to the waiting relatives and to the dozens of dock workers who had arrived of their own will, keen to help in whatever way they could.

  A dozen or so, black-robed Sisters Of Charity stood in quiet prayer, awaiting the rescue ship’s arrival alongside representatives from the Pennsylvania Railroad who were ready to provide assistance and tickets to those trying to travel onwards to Philadelphia or points west of there. It was a rescue and humanitarian operation the scale of which Catherine had never seen before and it moved her immensely.

  ‘You’re doing a wonderful job,’ she remarked to a Salvation Army volunteer who offered her a cup of hot coffee. ‘It is much appreciated.’

  ‘You’re welcome Miss,’ the young volunteer replied. ‘It’s all so terribly sad, we’re just glad to be able to help in some way, no matter how small. There’s thousands and thousands gathered in Battery Park y’know. Just waiting to see those poor folks safely home.’

  Catherine walked on as the storm clouds gathered ominously overhead and the first cracks of lightening lit up the sky.

  The atmosphere among the waiting crowds was one of numbed sobriety and tension; anxiety and grief lining the faces of those she passed, dark shadows and red-rimmed eyes bearing witness to the suffering these people had already endured as, like her, they had scoured and scoured the lists of survivors only to discover that the names they were looking for were not present.

  Observing the steadily growing mass of people and waiting volunteers now gathering along the wharf did nothing to calm Catherine’s fears or reassure her troubled mind. Would Katie be on the Carpathia or would her worst fears be realised when all the survivors had disembarked?

  She’d telephoned the White Star Offices every day since news of the disaster broke.

  ‘What have you heard?’ she asked when her call was answered.

  ‘Nothing new Miss,’ came the sombre reply from the anonymous voice at the other end of the line.

  Catherine very quickly realised that ‘Nothing new’ meant that the first reports of survivors hadn’t changed and that the names of many of the travellers from Ballysheen, which had been reported as lost, were accurate and had not changed. So far, only the seventeen-year-old girl Maggie Murphy was known to have survived the ordeal. But although Catherine had not found the name Katie Kenny on any of the issued survivor lists, her heart would not allow her to give up hope. She had seen a Kate Kennedy listed and a Katherine Denny and had prayed every day that one of those was her sister, the name having been misprinted or mistakenly taken down in all the confusion.

  Despite issuing lists of survivor names, there’d been an otherwise frustrating silence from the Carpathia over the last few days; the anticipated details of the events which had unfolded on Titanic had not been forthcoming and rumours among the press were rife that the surviving Marconi radio operator, Harold Bride, had been told to keep quiet until the Carpathia docked, at which point his story would be sold for a large sum of money. Looking around at the harrowing scenes of grief and despair, Catherine found it impossible to imagine that anyone could hope to prosper from this unimaginable tragedy.

  As the hours passed, Catherine and the thousands of other anxious and distressed relatives and friends of the survivors who were known to be aboard the Carpathia or who, like Catherine, prayed that there had been a mistake and that their loved ones would emerge from the liner, huddled against the strong breeze and lashing rain and watched the gathering darkness of nightfall.

  ‘It is as if the entire city is stricken with grief’ Catherine read in the newspaper she had picked up at the stand, keen to follow the latest reports. ‘Rich and poor are united under one great wave of sorrow and sympathy. God has indeed spoken.’

  Turning her rosary beads over and over in her hands, Catherine sat under the large letter ‘K’ she had been assigned to wait under, corresponding to the surname of the survivor she was so hoping to greet and said a silent prayer, closing her eyes against the rain and the harsh reality of the situation being played out in front of her.

  Time passed slowly.

  It was just before nine o’clock when a unified shiver seemed to cross among the waiting crowd as the first sightings of the Carpathia steaming down the Hudson River were relayed from the tug boats which had gone out to meet her. Everyone stood up then, desperate to see the ship itself, as if until that moment, this could all be imagined. Men, women and children stood on tiptoes, craning their necks, peering into the gloom as if watching a theatre show; waiting for that moment when the magician delivers the prestige.

  The unmistakeable single funnel of a steam liner then emerged from the murky mist. Just a few lights were visible from the upper cabins and the lights on the masthead. Other than this small degree of light, all was darkness around the great mass of the ship.

  Catherine watched the ship move, as if in slow motion, taking an endless amount of time to manoeuvre towards the White Star Line Pier Fifty Nine where she rested to unload the lifeboats belonging to Titanic. It was a sombre moment, the S.S. Titanic ensign on the white lifeboats the first sighting for all gathered there of the much lauded ship, a simple, humble calling card of the greatest ocean liner ever to sail the seas.

  For many, the suspense and grief from the last few days was too great, and they collapsed into great convulsions of crying at the sight of the rescue liner. For Catherine, it was a moment she wished she could in some ways suspend in time; not sure whether she finally wanted to learn the fate of her sister, to learn whether the face she was waiting so desperately to see would come walking ashore or whether she had lain at the bottom of the ocean for the last four days and would never, ever be seen again.

  An eerie hush fell over the waiting crowds then as the huge steamer approached the Cunard Pier, just the quiet, muffled tears of the women audible above the wind and splashes of rain on umbrellas and the corrugated iron containers on the wharf side.

  The dozens of doctors and nurses, the volunteers from the Women's Relief Committee and all the officials from the city, government and White Star Line walked purposefully now among the crowds, the tension and stress evident on their faces as they prepared themselves to carry out their duties.

  Later in her life, Catherine would find herself saying that the scenes she witnessed as the survivors were gradually brought ashore were too terrible to define. What her eyes and ears tried to comprehend during those moments was indescribable. Not in the furthest, darkest reaches of her imagination could she ever have believed such outpourings of grief and emotions were possible in a public place. For every poignant reunion, it would seem that there was also a heart-breaking moment of finality at the realisation that relatives or friends had not walked off the liner.

  Husbands clutched wives who had returned without their children, children clung to grandparents; their parents lost at sea, sisters greeted sisters and wept for their lost brothers, brothers greeted sisters and cried for their lost mothers and fathers. Not one person didn’t shed a tear for themself or for someone else.

  As Catherine waited, she watched these scenes play; involved and yet strangely detached. It was through tear-filled eyes that she observed a finely dressed young lady emerge from the gangplank, a small dog under her arm and barely a hair out of place on her head. She would not have recognised her as Vivienne Walker-Brown had she not heard the shriek across the crowd.

  ‘Vivienne, darling, my darling Vivienne,’ Emily Walker-Brown cried hyst
erically as she pushed her way towards the gangway which had been erected for the disembarking passengers.

  Catherine watched, unnoticed, as the mother and daughter shared an emotional embrace, Emily weeping for the loss of her future son-in-law. But Vivienne Walker-Brown did not cry. Catherine overheard her reassuring her mother that Robert did the honourable thing and made space for the women and children as instructed, ‘unlike that dreadful Ismay fellow,’ she added at the top of her voice. ‘Shameful behaviour saving himself without a care for the poor souls left to perish in the icy sea. Robert’s seat was taken by a young woman with two children, mother. We must not be sad that his life is lost when those young lives were saved.’

  It was a chilling reality, relayed in a strangely detached manner. Catherine watched then as the family walked towards a waiting taxicab. Vivienne and her dog would be back within the comfort of their Park Avenue home within thirty minutes. The steerage passengers hadn’t even started to emerge from the Carpathia.

  For hours, Catherine watched and waited as the remainder of the first and second class survivors disembarked the ship and made their way unsteadily along the gangplank and into the waiting crowds, the gathered press pack, corralled behind the fencing on West Street, shouting questions to the bewildered passengers, trying desperately to get a scoop for the first editions of the morning papers. It was nearly midnight when the steerage passengers began to emerge. It struck Catherine how like the pictures they looked which she had seen depicting the waifs and strays emerging from the famine ships a generation ago; most wearing only their nightclothes, some with just a blanket around their shoulders for warmth and many without shoes. Numbly she watched the faces, staring as some survivors were taken straight to the waiting ambulances.

  Still, she stood quietly, patiently, hopefully, barely noticing the crowds dispersing around her.

  ‘Please come, Katie my love,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Please be there.’

  It was only when the crew of the Carpathia started to emerge that her hopes began to fade.

  ‘Excuse me miss.’ She turned. A White Star Line official stood by her side. ‘They are all off. It’s just Carpathia crew now miss.’

  She looked desperately into the man’s eyes. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No. They can’t all be off. I’m waiting for my sister. Katie Kenny is her name.’

  ‘I’m very sorry miss. All the survivors are ashore now.’ He tipped his hat then and disappeared into the rain.

  Catherine stood alone, drenched to the skin, staring at the looming, empty bulk of the Carpathia. The remaining people around her on the wharf dissolved into the darkness which engulfed her. ‘No. No. Not Katie,’ she gasped. ‘Not my darling Katie. Please, no.’

  She sank to her knees and wept with every part of her soul. Not even the relentless rain could compete with the flood of tears which fell in New York that night.

  CHAPTER 31 - Private Journal of Maggie Murphy

  St. Vincent’s Hospital, New York

  Saturday, 20th April, 1912

  I feel numb. Cold. Frightened. I cannot stop the tears falling. They tell me I am in a hospital somewhere in New York. I barely know how I got here. I barely know my own name. My hands are misshapen - swollen and purple from the cold and frostbite. My God it was so cold on that lifeboat.

  I can barely hold the pen. The nurse says it is good for me to write; that it will help to get my circulation going again. I don’t know what to write, don’t know what to say. Part of me wishes I had died too.

  I want to go home.

  Sunday, 21st April, 1912

  We must have been at sea for some days on the Carpathia because the girl lying in the bed next to me says it is Sunday and it was a Sunday when I last wrote in this journal. How can a whole week have passed?

  Sometimes when I wake from my sleep I forget where I am and what has happened. For a few minutes I feel quite peaceful. Then I see the bare hospital walls and the rows and rows of beds and I remember.

  I recognise some of the people in the beds near to me. It seems like a dream that we shared a song or danced a jig together on that mighty ship which is now at the bottom of the ocean. I have searched the faces again and again, desperately hoping that I’ll see Peggy or Kathleen or Katie or anyone from our group – but I know it’s hopeless to think that they somehow survived.

  I’m frightened. I don’t like being alone here.

  I do not know what will happen to me at all. I don’t know if my Aunt Mary in Chicago will know about the disaster – or anyone in Ireland. It is so terrible. So many people here have lost everyone and everything. I can barely imagine how I can live again. I sometimes wish I had gone down with the others. Why would God save me when thousands died – some of them rich millionaires? I saw babies in that water frozen blue with the cold and I think their faces will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

  I am too tired to write any more.

  I want to go home.

  Sunday 21st April, 1912 – evening time

  I do not have my coat. I remember taking it off on the lifeboat because it was damp and making me shiver. A well-dressed lady with a dog on her lap gave me her coat. I seem to remember that she was wearing two coats – an everyday one and a fur one, she said. She handed me the everyday coat to keep me warm and that was what I arrived here in. I still have it but I don’t know what became of my own coat and there were some letters in the pocket, I’m sure of it. Letters from Séamus. Poor Séamus. What must he be thinking hearing about the ship being sunk and all and me in no fit state to contact him to tell him I’m alive. I wish I had his letters – they would comfort me. Now I’ll never know what those letters said. I know I shouldn’t feel sad about a few letters what with all those poor people dead, but I do. They were all I had to remind me of him.

  I want to go home.

  Monday 22nd April, 1912

  The Salvation Army women came today. They gave us all a parcel of clean clothes and some money to go onwards on our journey. There’s all sorts of relief efforts and money being raised for the survivors – thousands of dollars. A kind lady called Elizabeth told me that my aunt Mary had been in contact and it has been arranged that she will meet me off the Pennsylvania train at Union Depot station in Chicago in two days’ time. I am writing those names down so as not to forget.

  When I was changing my nightdress to put on a clean one from the donated clothes, I found $25 in bills pinned to my old one. I hadn’t noticed it before but then I vaguely remembered a man talking to me when I was first brought to the hospital from the Carpathia. He had a whiskery beard and plump fingers and his breath smelt of tobacco. He spoke a lot of words to me but I was too shocked to take it all in. I remember he asked me to sign a paper which he handed to me. I thought it was a train ticket to Chicago I was signing for but the nurses now tell me that it was a waiver for damages. I’m not really sure what that means, but it seems that the White Star Line people wanted to make sure I didn’t come back and try to get money from them for the suffering I’ve experienced and for all my losses. They seem to think $25 is compensation enough for my troubles. I remember the man had to hold my arm to help me write my own name because my hands were too numb to hold the pen properly. I am too sad and alone right now to be angry with them.

  The newspaper men are crawling all over the hospital. They want to talk to us about what really happened the night Titanic sank. I have said a few words to them about how I got to the lifeboats, but I really do not want to go through all the terrible moments again. I cannot get the faces of those poor people out of my head, stood against the railings, praying for their lives and those terrifying sounds of the crunching, grating, screeching metal and the desperate screams of a thousand people will haunt my dreams forever I am sure of it.

  I want to go home.

  There are some desperate sights here in the hospital and some terrible tales are being told about what happened to people when Titanic sank. We sit about and say a few words to each other now and again –
normally talking about someone else’s experience rather than our own. I think we all just want to lock away our own memories and try to forget.

  One of the nurses who tends to me most of the time has told me about a young Finnish girl who doesn’t speak a word of English. She sits in the bed across the room from mine and looks to be in a constant daze. Her brother, her uncle, and the man she was to marry were all lost in the disaster. She is to sail back to Finland on Wednesday. I cannot imagine the fears she must have about sailing again. I wish I could help her in some way.

  The nurse also told me about the small Swedish woman at the end of the ward who refuses to leave the side of her two little children. Her husband, their father, was lost. The children have the fairest hair I have ever seen and the mother dotes on them day and night, so she does, stroking the little dresses which came in for them from the Women’s Committee. Apparently, she told the nurse that when she started to climb down the rope to the lifeboat which was already being lowered, she realised she could only carry the youngest child and hold the rope at the same time. Her three-year-old daughter clung terrified to her skirt all the way down that rope, the black Atlantic sea heaving underneath them. Thank the Lord the little girl held on good and tight and they all three made it safely to the boat, although the father was lost.

  There is another woman here who has just married her fiancée in the hospital. They were separated on the deck of Titanic and she thought him lost until they discovered each other in different wards of the hospital. She had been clinging to an upturned lifeboat for eight hours. The nurse tells me it’s important to try and be grateful for stories like this, despite our own terrible losses. I know she is right, but the faces of my friends and family still disturb my dreams at night.

  Tuesday 23rd April, 1912

  Some of my words have been printed in the morning newspaper. My nurse showed it to me. She has given me a whole bundle of newspapers which she says I should take with me when I leave. She says that I should keep them somewhere safe because the Titanic disaster will be talked about in a hundred years’ time and people will be interested in seeing them. I cannot see why anyone would want to remember this terrible event, but I have folded the papers and put them into my case anyway, along with the few other possessions I have somehow managed to keep with me through all of this: the silver haircomb and rosary beads which Séamus gave me on the morning we left Ballysheen, my Titanic ticket, my Health Inspection certificate, a bottle of Holy Water and a few other unimportant items. Some people might want to talk about Titanic for the next hundred years – after I leave this hospital and get to Chicago, I never want to talk about it again for as long as I live.