chin was high.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked the woman.
“No, thank you,” she said proudly. “There is nothing you can do. . We will wait for these. .
“That’s probably wise,” I said, with a movement of my eyes that was meant to convey to the mother that her child would not fare well in that struggling mob.
“The captain says the ship cannot sink,” she said, like a Christian convinced of Heaven. “We have no intention of becoming alarmed.”
I was standing there-the incline so steep now that I had to work to regain my balance, especially amid all the jostling-like a boy waiting for the right moment to hop a carousel. Only a few seconds had gone by when a bloody- faced figure in stewards’ whites stumbled into me, coming up from the shelter deck, and I grabbed on to him, because he seemed barely conscious, and would otherwise have fallen and been trampled.
It was Williams, the master-at-arms!
I dragged the sturdy fellow from the crowd, and positioned myself against the wall, supporting him. He’d suffered a terrible blow or had taken a fall, his forehead bloody, one of those thick black eyebrows badly cut, and streaming blood.
“Get your breath,” I said, “and we’ll get you up to the Boat Deck.”
“Mr. . Mr. Van Dine. .” he said, eyes wide with recognition and. . what else? Humiliation? “I was a fool, a damned fool!”
“Williams, what-”
“I tried to do the right thing, sir, the humane thing. . but the bastard took advantage! Jumped me, goddamn him!”
I asked, but I already knew. “Who did this?”
“That bastard Williamson-he was my responsibility, and I couldn’t leave him to drown, could I?”
“Of course not,” I said, though I could have, easily.
“That’s not the worst of it, sir! He. . he’s got my revolver!”
Time was too precious for recriminations, so I merely hauled the bloody fool up the companionway; he seemed to have regained a clear enough head, and his balance, and he disappeared off toward the deck, muttering that he would find “the blighter.”
The Boat Deck’s Grand Entrance area, like the one below, had its furniture and potted plants upended; but the passengers were no longer thronging the area, having found their way to the decks.
And then my heart sank, because there was no sign of Miss Vance-I had been gone too long, apparently, or she had been swept up in the melodrama.
As I looked around, I saw something that at first struck me as quite absurd: Alfred Vanderbilt and Charles Frohman were seated side by side in wicker chairs, and they were surrounded by a pile of life jackets and five wicker baskets filled with slumbering babies! They were tying the life jackets to the baskets, and Frohman was bending to do so, and his discomfort must have been considerable.
I was not surprised to find Frohman staying aloof from the mass of hysteria-with his severe rheumatism, how could he hope to survive? But what in the hell were they up to? As I went over to them, Vanderbilt’s imperious valet, still in full livery, materialized with a basket in either hand, a slumbering infant in both.
“This is the last of them, sir,” the valet said.
“Good-now see what other kiddies you can round up, and we’ll help them into the lifeboats.”
“Very good, sir,” and the valet again disappeared.
I stood before this preposterous tableau-amazingly, not a child was awake and squalling! — and asked, “What in God’s name are you up to, Vanderbilt?”
“Ah,” Vanderbilt said, as casual as if he were attending a race at Ascot, “Mr. Van Dine-I’ve had my man Ronald raid the nursery. Moses’ baskets-they should float nicely.”
“Gentlemen, I don’t believe this steamer could be far from her final plunge-”
The millionaire stayed at his work, tying a life jacket to a basket. “Mr. Van Dine, it’s a wonderful irony, isn’t it? I have a white marble swimming pool at my farm, but I’ve never been in for a dip. All my time’s gone to my horses, and of course the ladies. . Never did learn to swim.”
“Let me help you get these out kids out on deck, and we’ll get you into a lifeboat, then.”
“No, Charles, Ronald and I can manage-we need to keep this precious cargo away from that rattled rabble out there. . when the water comes up, we’ll drop the wee ones in.”
I turned to Frohman. “C.F.-can I help you onto deck?”
“No, I prefer to stay with my friend Albert,” he said, grunting as he worked. “This will be a close call-we’ll have a better chance here than by rushing to the lifeboats.”
I had no time to argue; such choices were for each man to make for himself. “Have you seen Miss Vance?”
“Why, yes,” Vanderbilt said. “A lot of these fools had their lifebelts on incorrectly-heads through armholes. upside down around their waist and the like. Last I saw her. .” He pointed toward the starboard exit onto the deck. “. . she was helping as many of them as she could, in putting them on correctly.”
“Some,” Frohman said, “scurried away-must have thought she was trying to
“You have enough for yourselves?” I asked, meaning the life jackets, feeling somewhat guilty bearing a pair of them myself, for Miss Vance and me.
“Certainly,” Vanderbilt said cheerfully. “Good luck to you, man!”
“Mr. Frohman-C.F.? I can help walk you along-we are moments away from. .”
He smiled up at me, that homely face a beautiful thing. “ ‘Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.’ ”
“What’s that, a Hubbardism?”
Frohman seemed a little offended. “Hardly! James Barrie-
And the froggy producer returned to his slumbering infants in their Moses’ baskets, who unknowingly awaited far worse perils than mere bulrushes.
Disturbed though I was to have lost track of Miss Vance, I had confidence in her competence-her cool head and professionalism would rise well above the mad scramble. Or so I told myself, to hang on to hope and sanity. On the promendade, however, the rush was over, confusion replacing panic-people were milling, thronging the deck waiting for a discipline or order to be imposed upon them. .which seemed unlikely to be provided.
The Hubbards were nowhere to be seen-they had vacated (or been pushed away from) their position at the rail. In the undiscriminating mix of passengers from all three classes, I saw the occasional familiar face. Miss Pope and her Friend dove from the deck, choosing not to get involved with the lifeboats at all. Madame DePage, I noted, was bandaging the wounded with strips of cloth torn from her own dress; Dr. Houghton was aiding her. No sign of Miss Vance, though.
The lifeboat situation was hopeless.* Crewmen and male passengers were striving without luck to lower the boats, and were placing women and children into them. Horror-struck, I realized these boats would never be cleared, and would go down with the steamer. . which surely would make her final plunge any second now. Better to leave these poor souls on the deck, where they might have a chance, might find a piece of wreckage to use as a makeshift raft, a table, a deck chair, a wooden grating.
A bit aft of the main entrance, a lifeboat filled with women and children-Miss Vance not among them-waited patiently for help that would probably never come. No one was even attempting to free the craft from its davits. With the steamer sinking so rapidly, the boat would have to be cleared at once, if they were to be saved.
Staff Captain Anderson-in his shirtsleeves, his affable manner replaced by a tense grim demeanor-was doing his best to supervise the ill-advised launching of the boats. I went to him and suggested that the ship was sinking so fast, they might be better off waiting till the water reached the ship’s keel, and simply cut the ropes, and simultaneously knock the snubbing chains loose.
He was ahead of me; he pointed to a boat nearby where seamen were poised to do exactly what I’d suggested.
And at this moment a man in white who was not a crew member approached one of those seamen, and was speaking to him.
