“The prince’s party, sir?”
“Yes. He must be kept safe at all costs. If the ship sinks, so be it. He cannot be lost. If that happens, the Lage Lander Line is lost. We cannot permit it. You are my best junior officer. If we have to abandon ship, I want you in command of that boat, of that party!”
“But, sir. Someone assigned that boat to Maansteen.”
“And it was a fool thing to do. Maansteen, damn it, is a maître d’. I’m not going to trust the life of the most important passenger in the world after our own beloved queen to an arranger of tables even if he was a seaman once.”
“Yes, sir. But what about our other special passenger?”
“Don’t worry. He’ll turn up. When he does, I’ll get him into the other steel motorboat. I’ll hold it in reserve. But the prince is more important. He is royalty, Kees. English royalty!”
“That makes him more important?”
“Not in the world I would make but certainly in this one. Now go. Go!”
“Yes, sir!”
Kees hurried away, moving over the oily wet floor and up the metal stairs as nimbly as if they were dry and made of rubber.
“Who shall we send in to turn off the pumps, sir?” van Groot asked.
“We’ll send no one,” said van der Heyden. “I’ll go.”
“But sir!”
“Quiet! I want to make sure this job is done! Until I get back, you’ll be in command. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Captain—”
“I’ll go with you,” Brinker said. He turned to van Groot. “Have those men keep hoses on our backs as we go through there. I want to keep my skin. Ohms—get us some heavy oilers’ gloves!”
The subordinate hurried away, glad he had not been assigned this suicidal task but wanting to help. “We’ll do everything we can,” said van Groot. “Good luck.”
“Luck,” said van der Heyden. “You’ve got the wrong ship for that.”
Most of the prince’s party were at the steel motorboat by the time Kees got to them. Lady Cunard was extremely agitated and the young American, Parker, was crying, but the others seemed calm, if frightened.
“It’s all right,” Kees said. “We are getting the fires put out. We see no need yet to abandon ship. Please don’t worry.”
“I want my daughter, Nancy,” Emerald said. “I want her with me. I want her now.”
“She’ll be fine,” Duff said. “There are more than enough lifeboats for everyone.”
“I want her with me.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting into the boat?” Edwina asked.
“Not until it is ordered,” Kees said. “We get into the boats only when they are to be lowered. We must follow the rules.”
“I thought I was in charge here,” said Maansteen, the maître d’, his voice a tremulous whine.
“No,” said Kees. “I am now. Captain’s orders. Our special passengers.”
“Should I be here? What should I do?”
“Go to the kitchens and bring some food. Hurry.”
“I insist on having Nancy here.” Emerald was at a loss to speak as they all might have expected. She had lost her wit as completely as if it had been removed in a surgical operation. Channon had never ever seen her in this way before. The woman who had terrified Britain’s greatest artists and aristocrats with her tongue was acting like a vulnerable, helpless child.
The Countess von Kresse, her face ashen, came up to them, clutching at her brother though Edwina had her arm around him.
“Is the ship going to sink?” Dagne asked. “Should we leave the ship?”
“Not yet, Countess. Please, stay calm. Everything is under control.”
“I see flames!” said Lady Diana. “Coming from the funnel, the third funnel. How bloody Greek. It’s like the fall of Troy.”
“Wallis as Helen?” said Duff, sotto voce.
Major Metcalfe ran up to them, Brownlow and Runcie following. He was gripping a large canvas bag.
“Here you are, Wallis. The lot. At least all I could find.”
Mrs. Simpson jerked the bag away from him, tearing the closures open and peering desperately inside. She pawed through it frantically.
“You fool!” she bellowed. “You didn’t get my charm bracelet!”
“I looked everywhere.”
“It was in my closet. In a small velvet box in the pocket of my dressing gown!”
“Wallis, I’m sorry. You didn’t tell me.”
“You damned fool!” she cried and, pulling away from a startled Prince Edward, ran stumbling toward the entrance way to the main first-class corridor. The prince, startled, hastened after, as did Metcalfe and Lord Brownlow. But she would not let them restrain her. When the prince caught her arm as she was ascending the carpeted interior staircase, she called him a filthy name.
Though soaked, van der Heyden was gasping from the heat as he groped his way through the lateral bilge well that led to all-important pumps. The water from the hoses arrayed behind them seemed to boil away from his skin. Brinker bumped against him, making him stumble.
“I don’t think the fire hoses are helping!” Brinker shouted.
“We’re alive, aren’t we? But it’s too dark. We should have brought an electric torch!”
“There’s fire up ahead. We’ll soon see clearly enough!”
He was right. The small chamber, encased in shiny metal sheeting, was aglow with the flame around the pump mechanism. It was much like crawling inside a bright lamp.
Brinker had brought a wrench. He lunged for the small metal wheel that controlled the flow of oil through the machinery.
“No,” said van der Heyden. “Let me. I’m the stronger.”
He clutched at the chief engineer, but instead of halting the man, he caused him to fall. Brinker’s head, arm, and shoulder struck the flaming metal, and he cried out, horribly, as from a death wound, his hair above his right ear disappearing in sparks.
Van der Heyden dragged him away, beating at the crackly flames on Brinker’s jacket with his gloved hands until the burned threads were no longer aglow.
The blows caused Brinker to scream.
“Wait, Jan. I’ll get you out. But the pump. We must turn off the pump.”
The metal of the wheel seemed to quiver with fire. When van der Heyden touched the wrench to it, the heat shot through the tool’s length and through the thick material of the glove to his hand. His skin might as well have been bare. With a cry, he dropped the tool.
His life, his future, all their fates, they were all reduced to this. It was a simple matter. There was no doubt to it, no uncertainty. An uncomplicated choice. To live, for all of them to live, he had to turn the valve. To die, to perish horribly in flame or in the cold darkness of the sea, he had merely not to turn the valve. To live, he need simply burn the flesh of his hands. To evade the pain, he need only die.
He pulled off his jacket and wrapped part of it around the wrench. It took two or three attempts, but he got the bite of the wrench’s jaws around a spoke of the valve wheel. He swore from the agony that came to him despite the folds of cloth, then took a deep breath and pulled.
Nothing budged. His jacket had caught fire. Swearing continuously now, he pulled again, with all his might, with all his hate, with all his fury. He begged God for forgiveness for all his life’s sins. He begged for mercy. He begged for the metal to move. He promised never to touch alcoholic drink again in whatever remained of his life.
The valve wheel moved.
The public address system announced insanely that the stores had been opened in the main hall’s shopping center so that passengers could obtain sweaters and other warm clothing.
“Are they going to charge for them?” Duff asked. “Are we going to stand in line signing chits while the bloody ship burns to the water line?”
Kees Witte, the only person who could answer him sensibly, had gone below to find Nancy Cunard for Lady Emerald. It had meant abandoning his post and his orders, but he had deci
ded of a sudden on a different set of priorities. The prince’s was not the only life of value aboard.
“Chips,” said Spencer. “Let’s you and I go. We’ll bring back things for the others.”
Channon looked at him with as much panic as Nora did, and she was holding onto Spencer as if he were a life preserver.
“I’ll go with you,” said Duff. “It shouldn’t take but a minute. Edwina’s going to perish of pneumonia before we even get into the boat if we don’t find her something warmer. We would have lingered longer in our cabins to change, if they hadn’t panicked us.”
Spencer kissed Nora’s cheek, then pried her hand from his arm. “It’s all right. I’ll be back in a moment. I will.”
“Are you my friend?”
She had a wonderful sense of the irrelevant.
“I love you madly. I’ll be back. I’m not leaving the ship, after all.”
Leaving the princess behind, the Foreign Legionnaire and Charlie Chaplin disappeared into the crowd.
Half supporting and half dragging the heavy Brinker, van der Heyden emerged from the bilge well staggering with his burden and his pain. Crewman took the chief engineer from him, laying the semiconscious man on the deck. Van Groot rushed to his side.
“The valve is closed,” the captain said. He was relieved to see that the flames around the boiler had already lessened.
“Captain. Your hands!”
“Yes,” said van der Heyden, with an odd calm. The palms of the gloves had largely burned away and his smudged and dirty skin was puffy with dirty white blisters. He now had the hands of a circus clown. “Get Brinker to hospital. I am going back to the bridge.”
“But you should go to hospital also.”
“Not yet. I’ll leave you in charge of this, van Groot. Get this fire out. What about the new fire, the smaller one forward?”
“I don’t know. It was under control.”
“We’ll deal with it. Now you put this one out.” Van der Heyden looked at the oily, slippery metal staircase he had to ascend to return to his proper place in the ship. He could not touch the railing with such injured hands. “I hate to take a man away from you, but I need help up to the bridge.”
Elbowing their way past greedy passengers loading up on perfume and jewelry, Duff and Spencer reached the clothing section and began gathering up woolen goods—sweaters and skirts and scarves—taking more than their party’s fair share perhaps but not wanting to stop to count the items.
The insanity of the voice on the public address system intensified. Having invited them to the stores for looting, it now ordered them to take to the lifeboats and prepare to abandon the ship. It spoke in a heavily accented monotone. “Ladies and gentlemen. Please now board your lifeboats. Passengers may be required to leave the ship. Ladies and gentlemen. Please now board …”
On impulse, Spencer snatched up a bottle of Worth perfume. He had the strange notion that a gift of it would make Nora happy.
The ship’s doctor, busy tending to Brinker, sent his assistant and the ship’s pharmacist up to the bridge to deal with van der Heyden’s hands. The captain was just as pleased, for he knew the doctor to be a drunkard. Seated in his chair by the windows with his arms outstretched, he paid the medics and his injuries little attention.
“Now who ordered them to the lifeboats?” van der Heyden asked. “Who did this?”
“Mr. van Hoorn, sir,” said Ladewijk.
“Mr. van Hoorn is not an officer of this ship.”
“No, sir. But you were gone, sir. The fire aft has spread to the aft funnel hatch and the ventilating units at the expansion joints.”
“The principal source of the fire has been put out. We have cut off the flow of oil. That’s how I did this to my hands.”
“Yes, sir. But there are flames coming out of the funnel, apparently feeding off the interior paint of the shaft. Mr. Van Hoorn was afraid there’d be panic.”
Van der Heyden took in a very deep breath. He exhaled slowly. The others on the bridge were very busy. There was constant conversation over the intercoms, and signals staff kept bringing in weather bulletins.
“Did you order all hands or just the passengers into the boats?”
“Only the passengers, sir. And their lifeboat crews.”
“Very well, Ladewijk. We probably should have gotten the passengers off at the first alarm. I don’t know who we’re trying to fool. This ship is a disaster. We should probably all abandon her.”
The young officer said nothing, unsure what was spoken thought and what was order.
“The fire forward?” the captain asked.
“In the gear casing? It’s out, sir.”
Van der Heyden looked to the ship’s telegraph. As he had ordered, the Wilhelmina was making headway, though at the slowest possible speed.
“Ladewijk,” he said wearily. “You cannot lower boats when the ship is moving, no matter how slowly. Order full stop.”
“Yes, sir! Is there anyone in the engine room to respond?”
“Full stop, damn it!”
“Full stop!”
The crewman at the telegraph obeyed instantly.
Van der Heyden could hear cries and screams and the formless sounds of fear and confusion down on the boat deck just below. On the bridge, all was seemingly under control. For the moment, he really had nothing to do.
One of the medics began bandaging his hands. “Mijnheer Dokter says I should give you morphine and send you to bed,” he said. “Don’t you feel pain?”
“Yes, by God. Massively. It makes me want to beat my hands together to make it stop.” He looked down at the two big bandaged lumps. Carefully he touched them together palm to palm. The dressing was thick and he felt little. The agony in his skin raged with or without pressure. He wondered how terrible the pain would be if he were to end up in the cold, salty sea. “But no morphine.”
“Are you sure, Captain? Mr. van Groot is not injured. He can take command.”
“Mr. van Groot is busy dealing with the damned fire in No. 5 boiler room. I want no morphine. Now go attend to the others. Brinker is not the only one burned.”
When the medic had left, van der Heyden called Ladewijk over to his chair. “In my cabin, in my chest, are several bottles of Bols gin. Fill a cup and bring it here.”
The other hurried to comply. This was not a spoken thought. This was a crisp, clear-cut order. Ladewijk guessed it would be repeated many times throughout the night.
By the time Spencer and Duff returned to the steel motorboat, nearly all the royal party were aboard, including the prince and Mrs. Simpson, huddled in the boat’s middle. Kees had not come back from his third-class search for Nancy Cunard, and Emerald was leaning over the gunwale, calling out, pointlessly. Dumping their cargo of woolens into the boat, Duff and Spencer clambered over the side onto the wooden seats. They began handing out the warm clothing.
“His Royal Highness first,” said Mountbatten. “He hasn’t a shirt.”
“His Royal Highness last,” said the prince. He took two sweaters from Duff and handed them to the Parkers, as if performing a monarchial gesture of self-abnegation—Henry II accepting the lash for Thomas à Becket’s murder, the Pope washing the feet of the least among them. The famous Prince of Wales’ common touch.
“There are plenty of sweaters to go around,” Spencer said.
“And there are scarves and wool skirts,” said Duff. “Diana, you’ll need one. Edwina, darling, I daresay you could use several.”
“I’ll take one myself,” said the prince. “To cover my knees. Not much different from a kilt, what? Too bad I haven’t my pipes.”
“There’s a vision of hell,” said Duff. “At sea in a lifeboat with a man playing bagpipes.”
“Keep up our spirits,” said Edward, sounding insulted.
“We have blankets, missy,” said one of the East Indian crewmen to Mrs. Parker. “You cold. You take blanket.”
“There are blankets on this boat?” Duff said angrily.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell us?”
“You not ask, mijnheer.”
“Damn you!” thundered Mountbatten. “Break out those blankets, man!”
“Yes, mijnheer.”
“I say,” said the prince. “Wait just a moment. Where’s my valet? I assumed he was here. He’s always where he’s supposed to be. But now he’s not. We can’t leave without him.”
“It’s my fault, sir,” said Fruity. “I sent him to send a wireless message.”
“How can you send a wireless message?” Channon asked. “Aren’t they busy sending an S.O.S.?”
“A ship like this has a half-dozen wireless sets,” Mountbatten said.
“A message to whom?” asked the prince.
“To the palace, sir,” said Metcalfe.
“Buckingham Palace?”
Metcalfe sighed. “Yes, David. To inform Their Majesties that you are alive and well.”
“Well, how the devil would they know I was in any danger?”
“I’m afraid your man has been sending messages to the palace since we left England. I just found out this afternoon. Lord Brownlow and I were sifting through the day’s lot.”
“Damn and blast!” said the prince, furious. “I’ll have the man sacked.”
“He was ordered to do so, sir.”
“By bloody whom? That damned Major Hardinge?”
“By your mother, sir.”
“My mother?”
“I’m not certain the king knows. Given the state of his health, she’s likely been keeping it from him. But apparently she’s been following your progress since you arrived in Paris.”
“Spied on by my own manservant. What damnable cheek. Well, bugger him. I don’t want him with me an instant longer. We’ll cast off without him.”
“No!” shouted Emerald. “We’re not leaving without Nancy!”
The braking mechanism on the forward davit cables slipped, causing the bow to drop a good three feet below the level of the stern and sending several of them tumbling forward onto the decking and adjoining seats. Emerald and Chips fell, as did the drunken young Parker. Nora slipped from her seat, accidentally kicking Count von Kresse in the leg as she went over. He said nothing, though it must have hurt badly.
Dance on a Sinking Ship Page 34
