by Kim Izzo
She sat up slowly. Someone had removed her clothes and dressed her in a muslin shift. She saw her dress and shoes in a pile on the floor. In the heap of clothes was the scarf. She picked it off the floor and hugged it even though it was still wet and smelled of salt water.
“Hey there, don’t try to stand yet,” a nurse called out, and dashed over, feeling her forehead for a temperature.
“Where am I?” she asked the nurse.
“You’re in Queenstown, luv,” the nurse responded. “In Ireland. Just lie back down.”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice raspy. Her limbs felt weak but that couldn’t stop her. “I need to find my sister and Edward.” Sydney looked at the nurse imploringly. She couldn’t know who Edward was.
“Looking for family, eh?” the nurse said, and gave Sydney a look of sympathy. “Who did you lose?”
“What makes you think I’ve lost anyone?” she asked anxiously. “What do you know?”
The nurse began to backtrack. “There, there, calm yourself,” she murmured. “I only meant, who is missing?”
This new word mollified her. “Missing, yes. My sister and . . .” She hesitated. How should she describe Edward? “A man, her fiancé.” The words hung on the air and she wished she could snatch them back. “Are all the survivors here?”
“No, dear,” the nurse answered. “But have a look. The ones in better shape are in hotels, others in the hospital. They were bringing ’em in into the night. But mostly corpses now.”
“Has anyone come looking for me? Sydney Sinclair?” she asked desperately.
“Hmmm, can’t say they have,” she said. Then, seeing the worry on the young woman’s face, she added, “That don’t mean a thing. Your sister and her fiancé could be in a hotel or too sick to move.”
Sydney nodded. But if Brooke and Edward were in any shape to be in a hotel they would have come searching for her. Against the nurse’s orders she stood up and got a head rush. She immediately sat back onto the cot and waited for the dizziness to pass. When the room had stopped spinning and her eyes were able to focus she pushed off the cot and stood again. Her legs trembled at first then steadied. It was as though she’d forgotten how to walk and had to concentrate in order to force one foot in front of the other.
“You might want to dress properly,” the nurse suggested. “Several of the townswomen kindly brought over some things for you to wear.” She pointed to a table that was stacked with simple cotton dresses. “You can change behind that curtain. But mind me when I say you should rest more.”
Sydney must have cut a pathetic figure in her muslin shift as she inched along, for the same nurse came and took her by the elbow. At the table Sydney grabbed the first dress she found and headed behind the curtain. The dress was too big but it would do. Slipping the dress over her head she remembered the amber gown. The first night she wore it to meet Edward at the Grand Entrance. The beautiful gown was somewhere at the bottom of the ocean and she’d never see it shimmer in candlelight or feel its silky fabric again. Tears welled up and she wiped them away. How stupid to cry over a dress, she chastised herself. When she emerged from behind the curtain the nurse was waiting.
“Here’s some boots,” the nurse said, holding up a pair of battered lace-up boots that looked like they were from a farmer’s daughter, caked in mud and manure. They fit perfectly. “I can stay with you if you like.”
“I think I can manage now,” Sydney told her, and smiled faintly for proof. The nurse smiled back and let her go.
“If you need anything let me know. And come back and rest when you’ve found your sister.”
“I will,” she said. “We will both need the rest.”
Sydney began her painfully slow journey up and down each row of cots looking into the eyes of the living and barely living. Scared, haunted eyes stared back at her, set in faces that contorted in pain or heartbreak and attached to bodies that were mangled or whole. More than once survivors reached out with their hands and pleaded with her to locate their families. Sydney could do little but offer hope; it was all she had to give and all she had to sustain herself. But no matter where she searched none of the faces belonged to Brooke or Edward.
She reached the end of the last row. There would be the hospital and hotels to check. It would be like Brooke to check into a luxury hotel first thing. She’d probably already drawn a hot bath and was sleeping on a feather bed. The image gave Sydney an excuse to smile. She found a topcoat on the table of clothes and headed for the door. A man wearing a suit greeted her outside. He was carrying a gas lamp in one hand and several papers in the other.
“Good evening,” he said solemnly. “I’m from Cunard.” Sydney nodded and brushed past him but he caught up with her. “May I get your name, Miss? I need to update the survivor list.” This stopped her in her tracks.
“You have the list? Can you check some names for me?” she asked, her heart pumping so hard that her head began to pound along with it. “Brooke Sinclair and Edward Thorpe-Tracey.”
The man tried to scan the list but he was having difficulty so Sydney held the gas lamp for him. His finger traced the names up and down, page after page, until he reached the end. “Sorry.” He could tell it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“What about Hannah MacGregor? She’s a little girl,” Sydney explained, desperate for some good news.
Again he looked and shook his head. “Can I get your name?”
“Sydney Sinclair,” she whispered. “Is that the whole list?”
“So far,” he answered, and jotted down her name. “Where are you from?”
“New York,” she said. “What do you mean ‘so far’?”
“I haven’t spoken to everyone inside, or at the hotels,” he explained. “It’s tough to find people.”
She was immensely relieved. “That’s the best news I’ve heard. Where is the hotel?” she asked.
“The Commodore is where most of them are. It’s a bit of a walk,” he said, his expression darkening. “You might want to check in there.” He pointed to a large, imposing building a few yards away. Sydney didn’t like the look of it. It was dark and foreboding.
“What is that place?” she asked.
“That’s the Queenstown Town Hall . . . where they’re putting some of the dead,” he said gravely. “It’s a sort of temporary morgue. It’s closer than the hotel.”
“I’m sure my people are in the hotel,” she insisted, not taking her eyes off the brick building.
“I hope you’re right, Miss. But the town hall is closer and you won’t be waking anyone up in the middle of the night like you would at the hotel.”
She became indignant. “Fine. I will go there. Just to prove you wrong.” She wanted to storm away in a fit of temper but her weakened body would only allow a slow shuffle.
“Is that Sinclair with an i or a y?” he called out after her but when she didn’t answer he crossed out the y and scribbled i in its place.
The gloom inside the town hall descended on her like a cloak. She felt the weight of sorrow pressing down on her and the other survivors who moved around slowly, searching out friends and family, practically ghosts themselves. Several gas torches illuminated the floor where the bodies lay. Volunteers were carrying in more bodies, drenched and swollen from their final death throes in the frigid water. Sydney knelt down and peered under one blanket. It was a woman but not her sister. The woman held a dead baby in her arms. At least they died together. She continued to crawl along the ground, checking body after body, lifting each blanket in fear of discovering a familiar face.
Another body was brought in and placed close by. It was a man wearing hip waders and a thick wool sweater.
“He was on the ship?” she asked. He didn’t look like any of the passengers. Perhaps he had worked below deck as a stoker or fireman.
“He’s a fisherman,” the volunteer, a swarthy man, told her. “He drowned pulling bodies out of the water.”
Sydney could say nothing. The tragedy wa
s determined to keep taking long after the ship had made its final plunge. She crawled along until she reached the end of the first row. It was especially dark at this end of the hall because there were no gas lamps nearby. Once again fear gripped her as she began to lift up the corner of the blanket, just as someone on the opposite side of the body lifted the other corner. This annoyed her. Searching through death was a private affair. She looked up at who was doing this and gasped in shock. It was Edward. She stood up so fast she nearly fainted again. Equally stunned, he stepped around the corpse and grabbed on to her. She fell into his arms.
“Is it really you?” she breathed. “Speak to me! Edward? Please let it be you.”
“It’s me,” he said, his voice whisper-soft. “Oh Sydney. When I saw you fall into the water I thought you were dead!”
“So did I,” she said. He kissed her on the lips and held her tight to his chest so that she could scarcely breathe. She saw at once that his head was bandaged and his face was cut and bruised. She touched his cheek.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “But I had to escape a rather pushy doctor in order to come here.”
“Have you found Brooke?” she asked, feeling a surge of hope that all would be well for her people. He shook his head. Sydney inhaled sharply. “Alfred?”
He shook his head again. “I was with Charles Frohman and his gang at the end. We were swept off the deck by a wall of water such as I’d never seen before. It was the thing of nightmares.”
Sydney stared at him. He looked gaunt and tired. His clothes were torn and he wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Our maid, Sarah,” she said, shivering at the memory. “She’s dead.”
Edward pulled her back to him again. “Let’s keep looking,” he said.
They remained together, holding hands as much to steady each other as for intimacy, and checked body after body. The town hall was packed with corpses and with the living searching for loved ones. It was a quiet activity save for the shrieks of grief that broke out whenever a loved one was found. Consoling words between survivors were passed around like a church plate.
They had come to the end of yet another row, near the darkness of the dimly lit row where they’d discovered each other, and drew near a woman who was sobbing quietly. Her back was to them but Sydney thought she recognized her. When she got beside her she realized it was Rita Jolivet.
“Rita!” she called out. They hung on to each other for dear life. “My God! I’m so glad to see you.”
Rita didn’t respond. “I lost Charles,” she said. “He helped save me. Told me what to do. But I can’t find him.”
“Of course he did,” Sydney said to comfort her. “He may still be on a fishing boat on its way here. Like my sister could be.”
Sydney looked away. She caught sight of a body. Or rather she saw the fabric of a dress. It was yellow silk—the same yellow that matched their car. Sydney cried out and yanked the sheet away. It was Brooke. The dress was ripped in places and she was barefoot. Her eyes were mercifully closed and she wore an almost angelic expression. Sydney had never seen Brooke look so at peace. But it was of small comfort as Sydney fell to her knees and wailed pitifully. Edward and Rita tried to soothe her but she was inconsolable.
“No,” she kept repeating softly. “She can’t be dead. She can’t.”
Rita looked at Edward. “Take her away from here. Get her to the Commodore Hotel. There are doctors there who can give her a sedative.”
But Edward didn’t move; he kept staring at Brooke. He reached out and brushed an errant strand of dark hair off her face. Sydney watched him do this. He did care for Brooke. She could see it in his eyes. He didn’t love her and had broken off their engagement but he was grieving her too. It was a strange thing to unite them.
Eventually Edward stirred and lifted Sydney into his arms and carried her out. She continued to stare back at the torn yellow fabric laid out on the floor; its brightness seemed to challenge the darkness of death.
Isabel
The birds fluttered above her head as they flew from branch to branch. May was one of the loveliest months of the year in St. James’s Park. The gardens were at their spring best, as though the flowers were marching in a parade. Isabel had walked the entire circumference of the park and with each step she had grown angrier. Her work had taken on the patina of death. Her Important employment was not supposed to include standing by while the British government used innocent lives as targets. Maybe all the passengers were saved. That was it, she told herself. Perhaps few lives were lost.
As she walked through the beauty of St. James’s Park, she imagined that in Queenstown there were hundreds of rescued passengers. Children were reunited with their parents. Lovers found each other. It would be a grand adventure. Maybe the Americans would enter the war and Churchill would be seen to be a great leader. Then again, he wasn’t even in England. He was nowhere near the Admiralty to direct the matter, a fact that made her conspiracy theory far less likely.
She had reached the Mall. She should return to Room 40 and see if there was more news. She sighed. For the first time since starting her job she wasn’t in a hurry to get there. The air was warm and a light breeze lifted the hair off her neck. She stood still and lifted her chin and closed her eyes to feel the sun. It would turn out all right. The Lusitania might be lost, which in itself was tragic given her beauty. But the people would be saved.
“Careful, you may darken your skin.”
Isabel didn’t have to open her eyes to know who had spoken. “What do you want?” she asked, and opened her eyes to find herself face to face with Mildred Fox.
“I came for a walk. Just like you.” Mildred stood with her hands on her hips. Her beauty was marred by a sneer that went from cheek to brow.
“You’re nothing like me,” Isabel said.
“That’s true,” Mildred said, and smirked. “I’m clean.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You know very well what it means, Isabel,” she answered. “Look at you. Back wearing your hair like that and lipstick too! No more unattractive schoolmarm, eh?”
“I don’t have time for this,” Isabel said, and walked away. “I have important work to do.”
“Oh yes. Your work. Everyone knows how you kept your job,” Mildred called out after her. “All the girls are talking about it.”
Isabel stopped dead. She closed her eyes and counted: One, two, three. Then turned and marched back to Mildred. “What did you say?”
Mildred laughed. “You heard me. After what happened with Mr. Chambers in Oxford? The only way you could have kept your job with those men in Room 40 is by bedding them, or at least one for certain.” Isabel’s chest tightened. Mildred was taking great pleasure in her words, and wore a big smile on her face, a great teeth-baring smile. “Denniston, isn’t it? At least he’s handsome, unlike—”
Her words were cut off by the force of Isabel’s slap. Mildred’s head snapped to the right. She drew her hand to her face; the big toothy smile had vanished and her left cheek burned red from the impact.
“If you ever speak one more lie about me and any of my colleagues, so help me God, I will find you and—” Isabel stopped speaking. She could see that Mildred was cowering in fright. She had said and done enough. Isabel straightened her hair; it had fallen across her eyes when she’d slapped Mildred. Satisfied, she walked away. She didn’t want to be late.
“That’s it?” Mildred cried after her. “That’s all you have to say?”
Isabel turned around but continued to walk slowly backward, ensuring she was moving away from Mildred. “I don’t have time for the likes of you, Miss Fox. I have important work to do. There’s a war on, you know.”
It was nearly seven thirty and as Isabel walked to the bus stop Kentish Town seemed a world away. She was so tired and hungry that even Mrs. Ogilvie would prove a welcome sight. The day had been long. The reports from Queenstown weren’t good. Hundreds of people had perished. The final tally wasn’t in yet but there wer
e more dead than alive. Survivor reports indicated that there had been mass chaos on board and that the crew hadn’t done their jobs. Rumours had already begun to circulate the Admiralty, saying that Captain Turner was to blame. He had miraculously survived the sinking and would be questioned immediately. The reports said he had not followed instructions and had kept too close to the coast and wasted precious time taking a bearing near Kinsale. Isabel found this ridiculous. Schwieger was to blame. So was the Admiralty for not warning Turner about the other sinkings and for not sending an escort.
“You mind if I ride with you?” It was Henry. He had caught up with her.
“No,” Isabel answered. She didn’t want to be alone with such thoughts.
“I saw Mildred,” he said.
“And?” She was disappointed that he was bringing her up when there were far more interesting things to discuss.
“I saw Mildred after you slapped her,” he said.
She lifted her chin proudly, challenging him to say anything further.
“Good for you.” He smiled.
Isabel was stunned. “I thought you and she were—”
“Not anymore,” he said. “She told me what she said to you. Bragged about it really.”
Isabel shrugged. Of course she did. Henry was grinning now. “I told her if she wasn’t a woman I’d have flattened her myself.”
The bus arrived and they got on. It was nearly empty so they sat together at the back. “I suppose this means you want to be friends again?” she asked.
Henry inhaled deeply. “I’d like that. Can you forgive me?”
Isabel put her hand on his leg and squeezed gently. He smiled a moment, then stared down at her hand touching him. She wanted to laugh. It was more of her so-called improper behaviour but she didn’t care. There were far more pressing issues to think about.
MAY 11
Sydney
Elland was an old mill town in West Yorkshire, just south of Halifax, by the River Calder. Sydney had travelled by train after resting in Queenstown. She, Edward and Walter had attended the funeral for victims of the sinking. Mass graves were dug and pine coffins lowered into the ground. There would be a memorial made. She had ensured her sister’s body would be preserved to be shipped back to New York and buried alongside their parents. Rita Jolivet had made similar arrangements for Charles Frohman. His body was discovered the day after the sinking. Charles Klein and George Vernon had also perished.
