A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice by Rebecca Connolly

Author:Rebecca Connolly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2022-01-31T19:14:59+00:00

“It was like rescuing people on a polar sea. There was ice on every side, and one great berg in the distance as big as the Capitol in Washington. It was bitterly cold on deck, even for those of us who were well wrapped up. The poor people seemed half frozen.”

—Elizabeth Tarkington,

Carpathia passenger,

New York Tribune, April 19, 1912

Chapter 16

Lifeboat 13 • April 15, 1912 • 7:00 AM

“Don’t cry now—you’ve still got to climb up.”

Kate managed a laugh at Julia’s words, but the statement was remarkably true. Her legs ached something fierce, and she hadn’t even started to climb yet. Soon it would be her turn to climb the ladder to board the ship using limbs that somehow felt both pain and numbness at the same time. She had watched as a few of the other ladies had been lifted up in some sort of pulley system, and she thought, for a moment, that the same would need to be done for her.

But she had no desire to have such a fuss be made for her.

She only wanted to be safely aboard the ship, wrapped in a blanket, and given a bowl of broth. She wanted to find the people she had met aboard Titanic. The other Kate Connolly, and the two Katies she had been with. Both of the Martins, who had facilitated her getting to a lifeboat. She wanted to see the woman she’d encouraged to wear a life belt and her children.

Beyond that, she would not hope for anything.

It was unfathomable that she had ever known anything other than this cold. There was a gaping hollowness at her core that she dared not consider too closely.

She was not prone to overwhelming despair, but spending hours freezing on the water while others died all around her had hollowed her, possibly for good.

“All right, lads,” someone from the ship called. “Hold her steady. Which boat is this?”

“Thirteen,” one of the men in the lifeboat answered.

A smiling face peered over the edge at them. “Welcome to Carpathia! Who’s first?”

A young Swedish girl started toward the ladder, and she struggled her way up, several seamen reaching for her hands, steadying the ladder, and seeing to her safety.

Others from the boat began to make their way up, and Kate watched it all as if from a very great and safe distance.

Margit was swung up in a mail sack and easily caught by a strong crewman; he took a brief moment to hold the child close before handing her off to a stewardess. The woman they had pulled from the water was carefully hauled up to the Carpathia’s deck in a canvas sling. An older woman was raised up in the same manner and half crumpled as she reached the deck. Two crewmen took her arms and helped her away. Another woman was swung up to the deck.

“Careful, fellows,” a crewman called out. “She’s a lightweight!”

Lighthearted laughter broke out, but the sound grated against the silence that seemed to emanate from everything and everyone else.

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