S.O.S. Titanic (12 page)

"Jonnie'll kill me if he sees me up here," Pegeen said, and stepped back. "I'd better go."

"I suppose," Barry said. He wondered if he should try warning her again about a coming disaster. Maybe it had to do with this iceberg, though nobody seemed worried.

When he turned around he saw Colonel Sapp behind him. The colonel had a glass in his hand, and he took a sliver of ice off the deck and dropped it into his drink.

"Bit of bad seamanship there, I'd say," he boomed in his parade-ground voice. "Still, not everyone can ice up his drink with ice from an iceberg, what?"

"It will make a good story for your collection," Barry said, and the colonel gave him a suspicious stare. He eyed Pegeen from top to toe.

"I don't believe I've met the lady."

Instandy Barry knew, by the emphasis on the word "lady," that the colonel understood Pegeen was a steerage passenger and was not a person he would ever call a lady in the real sense of the word. How did the colonel fix her place so quickly? Was it the black shawl, the kind that factory workers and poor country women wore? Was it the way she kept her head lowered, didn't speak? Barry felt anger building inside him. He wanted to kick the colonel's teeth in.

"This is Miss Pegeen Flynn, Colonel Sapp," he said, willing Pegeen to lift her eyes and be the person she'd been down in steerage, sure of herself, proud and confident.

"How do you do, sir," Pegeen said, and bobbed her knee, the servant to the master.

Barry stared. How could she? Bowing like that to silly old Colonel Sapp!

"Huh." The colonel muttered something else unintelligible. "Well, I'm going back inside," he said to Barry. "There's obviously nothing to be seen out here, and it's cold enough to freeze an Eskimo's eyeballs." He lowered his voice. "Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Astor are in the reception room. I had the good fortune to have the table next to them and I caught a word or two of their conversation. Absolutely charming. Lovely people. I hope the table's still free. Probably not, though. There's always some bounder ready to take advantage." He gave Pegeen a curt nod and turned away.

"Daft old coot," Barry muttered, his anger still hot inside. Before he could stop himself, he added, "You didn't need to lower yourself to him like that. You should have stood up." He'd moved her inside, out of the cold.

"Be quiet, Barry O'Neill," she said, and her voice shook. "Don't you think I'm ready to die of shame at the way I acted? Don't you think I'm wishing I could be different? I'm afraid of the colonels and the captains and the sirs and the ladies. But they've made me be this way. They look down their noses at us. I forgot I'm not still in Ireland and I shouldn't be bowing and scraping to them." She let the shawl fall from around her head and the brightness of her hair made her look pale. "You can be sure I'll learn to be different in America."

"It's just—," Barry began sheepishly, knowing the truth of what she was saying and wishing he'd kept quiet.

"There's no pleasing the likes of you, is there? You want to be bowed to. You don't want us to talk back. If we do we're in trouble, like Frank and Jonnie always are."

Barry swallowed. "I'm sorry, Pegeen—," he began.

"You're not sorry. You don't know anything. You don't know how they treat the Flynns in Mullinmore."

"We never treated you badly." It was Barry's turn to be angry. "My grandpop wouldn't. My grandmother wouldn't."

"They don't treat us any way. They don't see us, but them that works for them does. That Bowers, and that Dickie that drives for your grandparents." She spit out the word "Dickie" as if it tasted sour in her mouth.

"Bowers and Dickie?" Barry wanted to reach out, touch her cheek, tell her again he was sorry, but it would be no use. They were standing at the top of the grand staircase. From the smoking room came the sound of men's voices raised in laughing argument.

"I was hoping you could take the first five tricks," someone said loudly. There was a gust of laughter.

"Keep dreaming," someone else said. The mighty bridge game going on. Bridge as usual.

A smoking-room steward passed, balancing a small silver tray with four glasses on it. "Excuse me, sir, madam," he said politely to Pegeen and Barry.

Everything was the same, except that the great glass dome over their heads was perfectly still, not rattling its sweet, silvery rattle in accompaniment to the ship's movement. Everything was the same, except that the engines had stopped and a great mountain of ice had just passed them by.

"I'll walk you to your cabin, Pegeen," Barry said. "Didn't Mick Kelly say it's all right to walk you to the cabin door and no further? We'll take the elevator down."

"Thanks, but I'll go the way I came, and I'll go by myself." She held out her hand. "I'll say good-bye. I'm not thinking we'll see each other again till we land, and probably not then." This time he took off his glove. Her hand was ice-cold and so were the eyes that looked directly into his. If there had once been stars in them for him, they weren't there now.

"Good-bye." He watched her push open the doors to the deck. "Can't I at least walk you back?"

"No," she said without looking at him, letting the doors slam flat behind her.

It took him a minute standing there to get himself together. Hard to believe he felt so lost and alone. He didn't know Pegeen Flynn. She was nothing to him. But if they
had
dropped a propeller blade, and if they
did
have to go back to Belfast, wouldn't he see her then? There'd be time. They could get to know each other. While they waited for the ship to be fixed, the White Star Line would probably put the passengers in a hotel, the Grand Central or the Wellington.

Not the third-class passengers, though. The White Star Line would find them decent digs somewhere like the Shore Road or Grosvenor Street.

Barry hit his hand against the side of his head, forgetting the bruise that Mrs. Adair had warned him about, feeling it start to jump and throb. He was thinking that way again. First class here, third class there. "They've made me be this way," Pegeen had said. Well, they'd made him this way, too, or he'd made himself. "It'll be different in America," she'd said. That would be good.

He went slowly down the stairs, past the Café Parisién. Inside he could see people seated at the little wicker tables. The ship's orchestra was playing at the far end of the café, almost hidden by the potted plants. Two couples were dancing. He didn't see Mrs. Adair; probably she'd gone below in case the bump had wakened Jocelyn and frightened her.

When he got to his own cabin he saw that Mr. Scollins was awake and reading in bed. He had his gems and jewels book open across his chest.

"What a botheration," he said to Barry. "Nothing ever works right anymore. Our Mr. Billings got one of those new cash registers for the shop—we couldn't get it to open properly. They had to send one of their men three times before we got it right. But who would think a ship like the
Titanic
would have a problem? Someone's head is going to roll for this."

"Have you seen Watley?" Barry asked

"He went to find out how long we will be delayed. I do think someone might make an announcement, at least to the first-class passengers. I'm anxious in case my New York firm will blame me if I don't turn up on schedule."

"You can send them a wireless tomorrow," Barry said, only half listening. He took off his gloves and cap and scarf and tossed them on the bed. The whistle gleamed silver in the cabin light, and he slid it inside against his skin. Pegeen was probably right about how the poor were treated in Ireland. But given half a chance, the Irish poor would treat the rest of them pretty badly, too. If he hadn't had his whistle tonight, they'd have murdered him dead, wouldn't they? He went to the mirror to take a look at his face.

There was a discreet knock and Watley came in. He stood just inside the door, his hands folded in front of him.

"Mr. O'Neill, Mr. Scollins, I'm afraid I have some disturbing news."

Scollins groaned. "I knew it. We're going to be delayed for hours and hours."

"I have been below," Watley said. "The sea has broken through to Boiler Room Five and Boiler Room Six. I'm afraid the iceberg came rather too close and sliced the side of the ship. The watertight doors are closed fast, and I'm told there is no danger. The
Titanic,
as you know, is unsinkable." He looked straight at Barry, his dark, hooded eyes expressionless. "But I must advise you and my other passengers to dress warmly and put on your life jackets. I will guide you to your lifeboat stations."

"We're to go outside? On deck? Now, in the middle of the night?" Scollins was getting more and more irritated with every question. He swung his legs out of the bed. "Is this an emergency practice, or something equally ridiculous? I'd say stopping the ship and giving us alarming messages is going too far."

"It is not a drill, Mr. Scollins. I beg you to take this seriously and do as I say. Do you require assistance with your life jackets, or may I leave you and attend to my other passengers?"

"We can manage," Barry said. He paused. "Watley, can the ship stay afloat if two of the watertight compartments fill up?"

"They say it will stay afloat even if six are flooded," Watley said.

"And," Scollins urged, "if the watertight doors are down the water can go no farther?"

Watley bobbed his head. "That is the theory, sir. I will be back shortly."

Scollins and Barry stood in silence while Watley left on his quiet little feet.

Then Scollins sat heavily on the edge of his bed. "I just don't believe it," he said. "I don't believe it."

Barry stood, trying to imagine Boiler Rooms 5 and 6, the green sea roaring around pipes and valves. Steam hissing. Had any of the boilermen been trapped when those doors slammed down?

In a vague way he noticed that the bed curtains on Scollins's bed hung at a slight angle instead of straight. He blinked and looked again. They were definitely off center, like a picture a little bit crooked on a wall. The door of his own wardrobe swung open and stayed that way. He walked across. His clothes hung at a slight angle, too, and when he latched the door it swung open again, as if the ship itself were not quite straight, as if it had dipped a little at the bow.
Water weight,
he thought.
Boiler Rooms 5 and 6, and the sea heavy inside them.

Watley led a mixed group of eight up to the boat deck. Barry was the youngest. There was one very old lady whose name was Mrs. Welsh. She walked with a cane and she had to be helped by a younger one who wore a white uniform under her long traveling coat. Mrs. Welsh had trouble with the stairs, which Watley said they should use instead of the elevators. Barry worried about Pegeen. Was she being helped up out of third class by Miss Acheson? At least she had her life jacket with her now.

A man racing down the stairs yelled to them as he passed, "They're going to put us in lifeboats and take us out. I'm off to get an extra blanket. What a caper! No one's going to believe us when we get back home."

"A ride in a lifeboat?" Mrs. Welsh exclaimed. "I'm certainly not going for a ride in any lifeboat."

"There, there." The nurse kept pushing Mrs. Welsh's life jacket away from her chin so it would be more comfortable.

Barry moved next to Watley and whispered so no one else could hear, "Aren't you going to tell them it's not a caper, that there could be real danger?"

"That is not my job, Mr. O'Neill. It's the captain's," Watley whispered back. "I would be exceeding my authority. The captain has his own faith in the
Titanic.
He will not want to alarm the passengers."

Alarm,
Barry thought.
Terrify might be more like it.

Among their group was a priest, the bottom half of a silver cross dangling below his life jacket; Mrs. Welsh; her nurse; an older man in a tweed overcoat and Sherlock Holmes cap; and two women who seemed to be sisters, very sedate and solemn. He and Mr. Scollins made up the eight. None of them seemed as alarmed as he was. None were terrified.

"You told me," Barry said. "Why won't you tell them?"

Watley didn't turn his head. "Perhaps telling you was a mistake," he said. "It was an unfortunate impulse brought on by our prior conversations."

"Well, tell me something else." It was hard to talk without being overheard, and Barry knew being overheard would make the mistake worse. People could panic, and maybe for no reason. "Is this the disaster you warned me about?"

"Why are you whispering?" Mrs. Welsh asked irritably. "I won't be kept uninformed. Just because I am old doesn't mean I have lost my wits."

"No indeed, madam," Watley said smoothly. "I consider you to be a lady of great intelligence."

"Yes," Mrs. Welsh said. "Now, let's get on with this nonsense."

The boat deck outside was crowded, but it felt like a party arranged on a too-cold night. Passengers stood in clumps to keep warm; stomped their feet, blew on their fingers. Breath froze in the air.

The man on the stairs had been right, though; they
were
doing something with the lifeboats. Barry watched the little cluster of seamen swarming over the lifeboats that were there, taking off the canvas covers. Others were passing lanterns and tins of food to be stored on the boats.

In his mind Barry heard Howard's voice again, "Not enough lifeboats. Not enough."

Mr. Scollins looked dazed. He had dressed himself completely in a dark suit and waistcoat, the hard-collared shirt and striped tie he'd worn to board the
Titanic
at Queenstown. He could have been going to a jewelers' convention, except for the life jacket strapped on top. Even the watch chain was looped across his chest, and he kept pulling the watch from his pocket to look at it, fumbling it back under the life-belt straps. His face had the same greenish tinge it had had when he was seasick.

Barry wondered if he were green himself. He felt green. His mind churned and foamed, and his stomach with it. He wished he didn't know about those flooded boiler rooms. Better to be at a boat party than standing here shivering, frightened, and unsure.