Voyage in Time: The Titanic (Out of Time #9) (26 page)

Edmund whistled. “And that’s not good.”

Simon agreed. “It makes him that much more dangerous.”

“We shall have to be all the more vigilant,” Niels said.

The thought was deeply troubling, but not more so than what was about to come. Simon caught Elizabeth’s eyes for a moment. Vigilance wasn’t all they would need tonight. He drew her attention to the clock over the mantel—11:40 p.m.
 

His expression was grim as he turned back and took hold of her hand.

She held on tightly. “Don’t let go.”

Their eyes were locked onto each other when it happened. There was no crash, no sound of metal rending, just the slightest tremor. Anyone who wasn’t paying attention, which was nearly everyone, barely noticed it. The few people who remained in the lounge gave no sign of having felt anything at all. And yet, just twenty feet below the water line, six different compartments had been ripped open by the jagged edges of a massive iceberg. All of them were already flooding. The fatal blow had come and no one even knew it.

The
Titanic
was sinking.

S
IMON
HELD
HER
HAND
and they sat together in silence. The rest of the ship, the rest of the world faded away. It was just the two of them. Then the thought came suddenly, like the water rushing into the ship, cold and powerful; it could be their last time together.

“Simon.”

As if he could read her mind, he shook his head.
Don’t even think it.
 

Niels was a keen observer, though, and whether from the sensation itself or from their reaction to it, he knew something was wrong.

“What has happened?”

Before either of them could reply, they heard a raised voice outside of the lounge.
 

Simon gave her hand one last squeeze and turned back to Niels. “I think we’d better find out.”

They left the lounge and headed out on deck. The voices were one deck up and they hurried to the stairs. When they emerged on A Deck, three men were standing by the starboard railing as close to the bow as they could be.

They were talking excitedly, but they weren’t worried.

“I swear I saw it,” one of them said. “Fifty feet high over the deck.”

“Look at this,” another added, as he picked something up off the deck and held it out. Ice.

“Do you know what happened?” Edmund asked.

“Didn’t see any other ships,” one replied.

The other shook his head. The third was about to speak, but then suddenly stopped. And listened. They all listened. Elizabeth was confused at first, she didn’t hear anything. Then it struck her, that’s exactly what they were listening to—silence. There had always been a gentle or not so gentle hum of the engines depending on where on board she was, but now, there was nothing. The engines had stopped dead.

“Maybe we threw a blade,” one of them suggested. “Let’s see what we can find out.”

The three men went back inside, leaving the rest of them nearly alone on deck. One couple walked down the deck, arm in arm, oblivious to what had happened.

Edmund bent down and picked up a small chunk of ice.

“Do you think we hit an iceberg?” he asked.

“It appears so,” Simon said, in an infuriatingly calm voice.

Niels leaned over the railing, but there was nothing to see. The night was clear, and even though there was no moon, the stars were bright. The water was as still as glass.

“Well,” he said, “I’m sure we will be fine.”

“Right,” Edmund added. “A little ice against this ship?”

Simon took the ice from his hand. “You might be surprised.”

“But still, it’s the
Titanic
.”

“He is right,” Niels said. “The watertight compartments will keep us from any real danger.”

“And if too many of them have been breached?” Simon asked, handing him the ice.

Niels’ eyebrows went up as he considered that. “We will sink.”

Edmund shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

“Nothing is unsinkable,” Simon said. “Nothing.”

~~~

They went back inside and started to make their way back down to their rooms. They heard murmurs along the way about the post office being flooded and the men working there to save the mail. No one seemed to have any idea of the importance of what had happened. Some people stood in the corridors, roused from sleep, but overall the passengers were relaxed and unworried.

They asked their steward what he knew, but he seemed to be as much in the dark as the rest of them.

As they went into the sitting room of their suite, Elizabeth could feel the tension coming off Simon. From the looks of things, she wasn’t the only one. Edmund’s usually easygoing expression was knotted in worry.

Simon walked over to the fireplace and turned back. “Remember I asked you to trust me, to listen to what I had to say, regardless of how strange it might seem?”

Niels and Edmund nodded.
 

“That’s never been more important than it is right now.” He paused and looked over at Elizabeth. She nodded once and he continued, “The ship is sinking.”

“How do you know that? They don’t even know,” Edmund said.

Simon frowned and looked toward a glass of water on the table. The liquid inside was sloshed up against one side. The ship was already beginning to list.

“That does not necessarily mean—” Niels started, but a knock on the door interrupted him.

Simon crossed to answer it. A steward stood on the other side, looking a little pale, but keeping his composure.

“The captain has requested everyone put on their life belts. Just as a precaution.”

“So we are sinking?” Edmund asked as he came to Simon’s side.

The steward tried to smile and shook his head. “It’s just a precaution. Do you need any assistance with them?”

“No,” Simon said. “Thank you.”

“Please go on up to the Boat Deck once you have them.” The steward tipped his cap and moved on to the next cabin. Simon closed the door behind him.

Niels’ eyebrows went up and he pushed out a breath. “I stand corrected.”

Simon started toward the bedroom. “Do you know where your life vests are?”

“Under the bed.”

“Go get them and come right back.”

They nodded and started for the door.
 

“And don’t forget about Kimball,” Simon called after them.

They exchanged worried glances, but nodded again and left.

Elizabeth followed Simon into the bedroom. He knelt down onto the floor and pulled out two white canvas life jackets. He looked at them briefly and shook his head. They were wholly inadequate for what lay ahead. But they were all they had. He held one out to her.

“If, for some reason, you should have to jump into the water,” he said, and then quickly added, “which you won’t, but if you do, take it off first. The cork is so buoyant that when you hit the water the whole thing will slide up your body and smash into your head.”

He looked down at the jacket he still held. “Many of the dead they found wearing these died from broken necks.”
 

He tossed his lifejacket onto the bed. When he looked at her, the pain and fear for her was palpable. It took her breath away.
 

She nodded quickly. “Got it.”

“Good,” he said and she saw him gather himself. “Right. Well, once the others come back, we’ll go up to the Boat Deck and get you on a lifeboat.”

“Us on a lifeboat.”

He nodded. “Right.”

Elizabeth started to go back into the sitting room to wait for the others when Simon held her arm.

“I’m sure we’ll all get through this,” he said, “but on the off chance we don’t …”

Elizabeth shook her head. She didn’t want to hear this.

“I know,” he said and cupped her cheeks. “But if this is the last moment I spend alone with you, I want you to know how very much I love you. How lucky I am to have met you.”

The catch in his voice was more than she could take. “We’re going to be all right,” she said, willing herself to believe it. “We’re—”

He pulled her to him and kissed her then. Her heart raced in her chest and her fists wound into his lapels, pulling him closer.

“We’re back,” Edmund called from the other room.

They eased out of the kiss and Simon pressed his forehead against hers for a moment. Then he kissed her forehead, and she could feel the goodbye in it. But before she could argue with him, Edmund poked his head into the doorway.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.

Simon cleared his throat and turned away, ostensibly to pick up his lifejacket, but she saw him scrub his face with his hands before he did.
 

“We’ll be right out,” he said.

Edmund nodded and left them alone.

When Simon turned around, his face was grim. “We should go up on deck.”

Elizabeth put her hand on his chest. It was her turn to stop him. “Before we left you said that the survival rate for First Class was 97%, for the women. What about the men?”

He frowned thoughtfully. “Not quite so good.”

Her heart tightened in her chest as her hand tightened on his arm. “How not good?”

“One out of three.”

“Died?”

He shook his head. “Survived.”

That took her breath away. Simon, Niels, Edmund. One out of three.

“We need to get you up on deck,” he said.

“Us. Get us up on deck. Right?”

He took her hand and kissed it, but he didn’t say anything. He merely gave her a faint smile and continued toward the sitting room.

~~~

Passengers started to gather on the Boat Deck, but there was still no sense of panic, no sense they believed the ship was actually in trouble. Some had dressed hastily and thrown robes and wraps around their shoulders, while others looked dressed for dinner. None among them was in a state of panic, not even a state of worry.

The night was cold but calm. There was no wind to speak of, no sense of movement at all. The ship sat peacefully in a nearly motionless sea. It felt solid, unperturbed, and the passengers took their cue from that, from the ship itself.

Many didn’t even bothered to come on deck and remained in their cabins; some even went for drinks in the lounge or passed the time as they normally would, sure all of this was nothing more than a drill.

The quiet murmur of the crowd was punctuated by the loud roar and hiss of steam escaping as it fled the boiler and shot out one of the funnels. They’d all heard similar sounds before, steam engines did that, like a train at the station shooting steam out from its sides. But now, cutting through the quiet, and louder than she’d ever heard before, it sent another shiver up Elizabeth’s spine.
 

Nearly an hour after they’d struck the iceberg the order came, and the crew began to man the lifeboats, preparing them for launch. Even then, the crowd stood calmly and quietly by, their ranks slowly swelling as more and more people came up from below to join them on deck.

A crew member stepped away from his duties and addressed the crowd. “All women and children get down to the deck below and all men stand back from the boats.”

Simon turned to her. “That’s you,” he said and managed a smile. “On both counts.”

Even though Elizabeth knew about “women and children first,” it still took her a moment to process.

She shook her head and gripped his arms. “I’ll wait with you. We’ll all go together.”

“Elizabeth—”

“I’m not going.”

“You see,” Sheridan said. He and his family had come up on deck with the others. “She’s not going. Now, stop being so dramatic about it. The ship’s not going anywhere. There’s more danger out there than there is here.”

Louise looked frightened, but nodded and looked at Elizabeth. “If you’re not going …”

She put her arm around Emily and pulled her to her side.

“It’s not safe to stay,” Elizabeth said.

“But you’re not going, are you?”

Elizabeth could hear it in her voice. The plea. Please, tell me I’m wrong. Please, help me.

Elizabeth wanted to explain, to say it was different for her, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t different for her. She had a child to protect, too.

She turned to Simon and looked up into his anguished eyes. “I am,” she said finally. “I’m going.”

The relief and pain in his eyes at saving her and losing her in the same moment nearly broke Elizabeth’s heart. But it kept beating, louder and stronger.
 

She turned to Louise. “We need to go downstairs.”

“Don’t be foolish,” Sheridan said.

Louise managed to find strength and straighten her back as she stood up to her husband for the first and last time. She held out her hand to her daughter. “Come on, Emily.”

The girl hesitated, but took her mother’s hand and the two of them went back inside to make their way down to the deck below. Sheridan watched them go and then glared at Elizabeth before turning and walking away.

Crew members stood in the lifeboats, coiled rope, and rearranged the large heavy oars. Sailors stood by the pulley ropes and manually began to lower the nearest boat. The rope lurched as they let it slip through the cleats and the massive boat inched its way downward.

“You need to go,” Simon said.

She nodded, but made no move to do so. She just wanted to look at him, to be with him and forget about the rest. But a sudden burst of light from the forward deck and a hissing roar drew everyone’s attention. Every face on deck turned upward to watch as the flare arced high into the night sky. It burst into a shower of falling stars. They floated down to the surface of the black water and disappeared, blinking out of existence.

The rocket flare seemed to ignite the passengers’ fear. They were all still outwardly calm, but Elizabeth could feel it now. The shift from disbelief to belief. A flare meant only one thing—distress. And now they were all beginning to feel it.

“Elizabeth,” Simon said, with more control and calm than she thought possible under the circumstances, “it’s time.”

Time to say goodbye, time to go, time … why was it always time?