Dom took her in his arms and looked at me over her head. “’Tis all right, Maeve,” he said. “We’ll wait together for the next boat. They’re bound to be letting men into them by then. Isn’t that right, Delia?”

I nodded. But as I did, I had the awful feeling I would never see either of them again. Reluctantly, I eased myself down into the lifeboat and turned my face toward the sea.

Nora

Nora

I sank down on the nearest seat, then sat bent over, clutching my ankles, my teeth chattering, and my eyes closed shut. The boat rocked each time a new passenger was helped in, and my stomach did a cartwheel.

I kept my head down at first, but soon my curiosity got the better of me and my fear eased a bit. I looked up at the women who sat on the rough seats, prim and proper as if in a church pew. You’d have thought some of the passengers were off to a garden party with their silk dresses, big hats and fur stoles. Some wore fur coats over their nightgowns. Fecking fur coats, if you please. I nearly choked on their strong perfume. Their faces showed no signs of fear as they sniffed through long noses at the conditions around them. Must be a great thing to be brought up that way, I thought, expecting that trouble will never touch you.

I looked up at the deck, doing my best to keep myself distracted. I wondered was Delia up there, but there was no sign of her. I knew I had no right to expect it after the way I had treated her, but I wished fervently that she was here beside me; she would have known what to do. She would have eased my panic.

A mob of people, mostly men, pressed forward, even as the crewmen were trying to hold them back. They barked orders at the crew, like men used to having their own way. But the crew held their ground.

“Women and children only,” they repeated over and over.

One ignorant lout pushed a crewman aside and jumped into the boat. The women squealed like schoolgirls. You’d think they’d never seen a man before. I smiled in spite of myself. The feller was thrown out in short order, and he disappeared into the crowd, cursing mightily. He’d no sooner gone than a tall, thin woman smothered in lace, rapped her walking stick on the floor of the boat and called up to an old man with white whiskers.

“Charles, go and find the maid and have her bring a pot of hot tea. It’s freezing in here. Go along now, there’s a good chap. No sense standing about. It will be a while before they begin letting men into the lifeboats.”