A narrow wooden stairway led up past the windows of the dining saloon, and there was another flight above that. Joanna climbed up. The stairs ended at a door with a porthole in it. It must lead to the deck outside, she thought, but when she looked through the porthole, she couldn’t see anything but darkness. She opened the door.
She still couldn’t see anything. The sudden coldness told her she was outside, but she couldn’t feel any wind on her face, not even a breeze. It was utterly still that night, she thought. Mr. Briarley had talked about that in class, about how the survivors had all commented how still the water had been, without any waves at all.
She stared into the darkness, her hand on the door, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Maybe it’s like the passage, she thought, and there’s no light for them to adjust to, but after what seemed like a very long time, she began to make out shapes. Railings, and a horn-shaped vent, and, looming above her on the right, a tall, massive shape.
One of the funnels, she thought, looking up at its black shape against the blacker sky. She was in a little area bounded by railings. At first she thought the railings completely enclosed it, but after a minute she saw a little metal staircase, four steps leading up to a higher deck.
She started toward it, letting go of the door. It began to swing shut. Joanna grabbed for the handle and then stood there, unwilling to let it shut. She looked around the little deck, but she couldn’t see anything on the deck to prop the door open with, and she didn’t dare shut it in case it locked.
She transferred the handle to her other hand, bent down, and took off her shoe. She wedged it in the door, closed it carefully, and walked over to the stairway. She climbed the steps, holding on to both railings, and started along the upper deck. This had to be the Boat Deck. There were the giant funnels, four of them, looming above, and the thick cables of the rigging, the cargo cranes. But where were the lifeboats? She couldn’t see them. They should be all along the deck.
What if they’re already gone? she thought, and felt a stab of panic. But they couldn’t be. Collapsible A hadn’t gone until two-fifteen, when the bow was already underwater and the slant of the deck was so bad they had had to cut the ropes and float her off, and the deck here was still level.
And even after the boats had gone, there had been people on the Boat Deck, the Strauses and the Allisons, and all the men who hadn’t been allowed in the boats, all the steerage passengers who’d found their way up from belowdecks too late.
And the band, Joanna thought. They’d been on the Boat Deck, playing ragtime and waltzes the whole time they were loading the boats, and then “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” They had been on deck playing till the very end.
So it can’t be after the boats have gone, Joanna thought, because there was no one on the darkened deck. No one at all, and no sound, except for the uneven patter and tap of Joanna’s bare foot and remaining shoe.
The stretch of deck ended abruptly in a low white structure with a latticed roof. Next to it, a set of metal stairs, longer than the first one, led down through a cut-out roof to a covered deck. Joanna climbed down, looking back as she did to memorize the route she’d come so she could retrace it, and then turned around.
And there were the boats. They hung in their white metal davits, suspended from pulleys and thick bundles of ropes, and Captain Smith must not have given the order for the boats to be lowered yet. They were still shrouded in their canvas covers.
But there should still be officers on the deck. Captain Smith had sent two of the officers to investigate the damage, but he’d stayed on the bridge with the other officers till they returned, and some of the passengers had come up to see what had happened. And there were always officers on watch, and passengers walking around the deck. It had never been completely deserted like this.
Maybe it’s not the
That had to be it. She could see her breath, and her bare foot was freezing. They were inside. Far up ahead, she could see light coming from a line of windows. It shone out in a golden square onto the deck. That’s where they are, she thought, and walked toward it, past a long, low, white building. “Officers’ Quarters,” a sign on the door said.
That’s where they stored the collapsibles, Joanna thought, and looked up at the flat roof, trying to see the lifeboats, but it was too dark, she couldn’t make them out.
And if this was the officers’ quarters, the lights ahead were from the wheelhouse, and the bridge. She walked on till she was standing in the light that shone out on the deck. There were steps leading up. Passengers aren’t allowed on the bridge, Joanna thought, and climbed up.
The bridge was deserted. The huge wooden wheel stood in the center, in front of the windows. Beyond it were two large metal drums with knobbed levers. The boiler room and engine room telegraphs. They had writing on them: Astern. Ahead. Full. Dead Slow. Stop. The levers on both were at Dead Slow.
Joanna walked between them to the windows and looked out, but she couldn’t see anything but darkness. It was utterly black. No wonder they couldn’t see the iceberg, she thought, peering forward into the darkness. You can’t even see where the water meets the sky. It had been a dark moonless night, she remembered Mr. Briarley saying, so dark the stars came right down to the horizon. But she couldn’t see any stars either, only black, blank darkness.
“No time for that,” a man’s voice said below her and off to the side.
Joanna looked through the side window of the bridge, but she couldn’t see anyone. She ran back to the head of the steps. Two men were below her, one in the dark blue uniform of an officer, the other in sailor’s whites.
“The captain wants you to set up the Morse lamp,” the officer said. “Over here.”
As he spoke, the two men moved off, and Joanna scrambled down the ladder after them, straining to see where they’d gone in the darkness.
“The Morse lamp?” the sailor said, his voice registering disbelief. “To use it on what?”
“On that,” the officer said. They were over by the railing, and the officer was pointing into the blackness. She could see the sailor, both hands on the railing, lean far over it, his neck extended. “What? I don’t see anything.”
“The light,” the officer said, pointing again. “There.” The
“They are. They can’t raise her. Do you have the key?”
“It’s in the…” Joanna lost the last word as he turned away. They started across the deck in front of the bridge, and Joanna followed them, but this part of the deck was littered with coiled ropes and chains, and by the time she’d picked her way through them, the two men had disappeared.
Joanna hesitated, trying to decide which way they’d gone, and, after a minute, the men came back across the deck past her and over to the railing, the sailor carrying an old-fashioned lantern.
He hoisted it up onto the forecastle railing. The officer struck a match and reached inside the lantern. Yellow light flared. The sailor shifted the lantern, so it sat at an angle, and slid a piece of metal down in front of the glass, obscuring the light. A shutter, Joanna thought. It made a scraping noise as he slid it down. “What do you want me to send?” he asked.
The officer shook his head. “Mayday. SOS. Help. I don’t know, anything that’ll work.”
The sailor pulled the shutter up, and the light flared out again. Down, up, down, the shutter scraping along the glass as he raised and lowered it. Up, down, up.
Joanna stared out across the darkness, looking for an answering flicker, a light, but there was nothing, not even a glimmer. And no sound except the scrape of the lantern. Down, up, down. Scrape, scrape. She moved away from the men a little, listening for the lap of water, but there was no sound of water slapping the bow, no breeze. Because we’ve stopped, she thought, because we’re dead in the water.
“She’s not responding,” the sailor said, lowering the shutter. “Are you sure it’s a light and not just a star?”
“It better not be a star,” the officer said. “We’re taking on water.”
The sailor’s hand jerked on the lantern, making the light flicker. “Isn’t anyone coming?”
