The Girl Who Came Home - A Titanic Novel by Gaynor Hazel

Author:Gaynor, Hazel [Gaynor, Hazel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-03-11T08:00:00+00:00

Marconigram message sent from Mr Franklin, The White Star Line to Captain Smith, The Titanic,

15th April, 1912

CHAPTER 22 - R.M.S Titanic, 14th April 1912

‘Peggy, Peggy, pssst, are ye awake?’

Silence.

‘Katie. Katie Kenny. Aunt Kathleen?’

Silence.

Maggie sat up in her bed, stooping her head and shoulders so as not to hit off the low roof of the cabin. The electric lights had gone out. The darkness in the cabin was so intense she couldn’t see her own hand as she waved it now in front of her face. She could hear her blood pumping through her ears.

‘Psssst, wake up,’ she hissed into the black silence, raising her voice a little now. ‘Is anyone awake?’

Her heart was pounding. She had never felt more alone in all her life. Terrified to try and climb down from her bed in such darkness she sat still, unable to ignore the sense of panic rising in her, the cold and adrenaline causing her to shiver in her thin nightdress.

The lights flickered momentarily on and off again.

She could hear running overhead.

The baby started bawling in its suitcase in the cabin next door.

She sat stone still, her ears straining to catch any noise from the corridor outside the cabin; occasional shouts, thumping on doors, footsteps pounding. Her thoughts returned to Joseph Kenny’s tea leaves, Pat’s dropped sovereign and the strange man who had spoken to Peggy at Queenstown. Something was wrong. She was sure of it.

The bang on the cabin door made her jump, knocking her head on the ceiling.

‘Peggy. Maggie. You in there? It’s me. Harry.’

There was an urgency to Harry’s voice, an edge which Maggie didn’t like.

‘What the feck was that?’ The bang on the door had woken Peggy.

‘Peggy, thanks be to God….’

Another bang on the door.

‘Girls, you in there?’

‘Harry, yes, yes,’ Maggie was shouting now. ‘Wehoutre here.’

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Maggie Murphy, what the devil has you shoutin’ in the middle of the night? What time is it? Who turned off the lights?’ Kathleen was awake now, followed shortly by Katie who rubbed her eyes sleepily as the lights flickered and, much to Maggie’s relief, stayed on.

‘Oh, thank the Lord,’ Maggie exclaimed. ‘I’m coming,’ she shouted to Harry, climbing as quickly as she could down the steps at the side of the bunk bed to the floor. Walking the few steps to the door, she flung it open to reveal Harry standing in the corridor, trying to catch his breath.

Maggie shook physically, whether with the cold or anxiety she wasn’t sure. She squinted against the glare of the brightly-lit corridor. ‘Harry. What is it? What’s wrong? Why have we stopped?’ She was shocked by the look of dread and anxiety on his usually smiling, relaxed face.

By now the three other women in the room were sitting up in their beds, their blankets wrapped around them against the cold, leaning out to hear what Maggie was saying.

‘Stopped?’ Kathleen exclaimed. ‘We’ve stopped?’

Maggie turned to her aunt. ‘Yes. Did ye not feel the shuddering? The lights have been off. I was callin’ but none of ye would wake.

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