Women and Children First by Paul Gill

Author:Paul, Gill [Paul, Gill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2012-03-29T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Forty-One

On Sundays, when Reg wasn’t working, he explored the city street by street, each week choosing a new area and learning it off by heart. He rode on the ‘El’, the elevated railway on which steam engines puffed all the way up the east side of Manhattan Island, blowing hot cinders into the carriages if you opened the windows. He went to watch the construction of the Woolworth Building, a vast cathedral complete with gargoyles, which someone told him would be the tallest building in the world when it was finished. He could see workmen balancing on narrow girders hundreds of feet above ground, and shuddered at the thought of what would happen if they slipped.

He noticed that immigrants stuck together in their own communities where shops sold the foods they liked: Eastern European Jews were on the Lower East Side, Italians a few streets up in ‘Little Italy’ and Greeks in Astoria. When you walked in those areas, you barely heard English spoken and the Mediterranean smells of garlic and olive oil permeated the air, making him feel a little closer to home.

It was lonely spending so much time on his own, but he didn’t want to stay at the rooming house, where Tony and the other waiters would be playing cards and drinking beer or whisky. He resisted their attempts at friendship and sank deeper inside himself, constantly mulling over what had happened on the Titanic. He started reading newspaper reports from the American Senate Inquiry, and once he picked up the first paper he couldn’t stop. It was like an addiction. He needed to know it all. He needed an answer to the big question: Why? Why did all these people die? Why did John die?

There were several articles about prejudice against the third-class passengers and Reg was ashamed to discover how few of them had made it to the boat deck. There were fewer stewards per passenger down there, and they had been slower to respond. Some third-class passengers claimed the gates allowing them to ascend had been locked, but it was probably more likely that they didn’t know the way. The only locked gate he had come across was the one Finbarr was stuck behind and that hadn’t led from a passenger area. It’s true that some of the catches on these gates could be tricky, though. Why hadn’t he gone down to help third-class passengers instead of wandering around aimlessly during the first hour after the collision?

He read Second Officer Lightoller’s account of loading the lifeboats, and then the way he had organised the men on the collapsible to prevent it sinking. To Reg, he was a god among men, one of the true heroes of the night. He wished he could somehow get in touch with Lightoller and ask his advice about what he should do with the rest of his life. He couldn’t risk it, though, because it would mean owning up to taking a false name. Surely that must be against the law? He would probably be sent to jail if it came out.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.