My sadness ballooned inside me. Nobody spoke, silence reigned in our lifeboat. Everyone gazed at the final seconds of that most majestic ship, paying homage to her like the great goddess of the sea that she was. We all knew these moments would stay clear in our memory until the day we ourselves died. The air was heavy with the most wretched grief.

‘Look! They’re leaving,’ I whispered, reluctant to break the silence. ‘But somebody’s still up there, on the bridge, look!’ Wet, shaking, and clutching my bruised belly with one arm, I lifted the other and pointed.

‘Your hand’s bleeding,’ the priest said. ‘You must have caught some of that broken glass.’

I looked down and noticed the rip in my sodden apron bib. In a flash of clarity, I remembered the sharp stab as I had tried to grasp the lifesaver tapes. ‘No, it was Sissy’s watch pin,’ I said while imagining my dear sister’s silver timepiece descending through the turquoise Aegean. Only God could know how deep the water was at that point? Perhaps the watch was still spinning slowly towards the seabed. Perhaps it was the glint of silver that had attracted the dolphin’s attention in the first place. Could my mother’s gift have inadvertently saved my life? So overwhelmed by this glorious thought, I trembled and started to cry silently.

The baker put his arm around my shoulders. ‘You’re in shock,’ he said. ‘But try and stay calm, you’re safe as can be, and we’ll soon be on dry land.’

The sea had drawn level with the Britannic’s control centre. Staring at the vessel, the chaplain crossed himself again. ‘Look, that’s our brave captain, still in his pyjamas. May God save his soul. If he doesn’t get away now, he’ll be sucked under with the ship.’

The men, one in uniform, one in pyjamas, walked off the deck at the side of the bridge, straight into the water. They swam to a raft, we all watched, willing them on, as they pulled themselves to safety. The sinking ship groaned and gasped in its dying moments. A lifeboat picked up the two men and rowed clear, while HMHS Britannic seemed to hesitate for a moment.

A series of deafening detonations rose from below. I guessed the ship’s boilers had exploded. Not that I knew anything except what I had read in the broadsheets about the Titanic’s demise. I had found the personal accounts of surviving passengers fascinating, but never dreamed I would, one day, find myself in a similar situation.