Together

“Anyone else then?”
The man loading the lifeboat was looking directly at Carrie as he asked the question. A few men scrambled inside to take up seats the women rushing by didn’t take notice of. With a big gulp, Carrie looked over her shoulder one last time. Could she get on this boat if everyone she cared about stayed on the sinking ship?
A familiar face came into view through the crowd, and Carrie’s heart leaped into her chest. “Wait!” she shouted as she realized he wasn’t alone. “Two seconds! Here comes a young woman!”
He turned and looked over his shoulder with an expression Carrie couldn’t quite read. Either he was annoyed or just so nervous about his own fate he didn’t seem to want to pause for anything, but then Hannah was there, Jonathan right behind her, and Carrie was able to help the young woman into the boat.
“Can you believe this?” Hannah looked into Carrie’s eyes, a tremor of excitement showing there, not the terror Carrie felt welling up inside of her. “We got hit by a torpedo!”
“I know,” Carrie assured her. “Sit down, sweet girl. Where’s Mrs. Smythe?”
“We went back to where she had been sitting, but she wasn’t there,” Jonathan explained. “I hope she got in a lifeboat.”
There was no time for Carrie to mention that even if she’d gotten in, that didn’t mean she was safe. After all the boats she’d seen dumped or dropped on top of other boats, she was still apprehensive about getting in herself.
“Come on, Miss Carrie,” Hannah said as the crew in charge of lowering the boat began to send it down.
“Get in, Carrie,” Jonathan insisted.
She locked gazes with him and saw a changed man. The cool, calm, collected Jonathan she’d always known and loved was gone. Behind his eyes, she saw the feral, wild animal she knew he’d turn into as soon as she got into that boat. Just like the others running around in a panicked state, he’d be left to fend for himself, trying to find a way to survive, and he’d already had to do that once.
It really wasn’t fair at all.
Shaking her head, Carrie said, “I’ll stay with you. I need to find Robert.”
A chuckle escaped his lips, one that hinted at the madness that was to come. “No, it’s okay. Robert wouldn’t want you to stay behind and look for him. You know that. Get aboard. I’ll be fine.”
She imagined that was just what Mr. Ashton had told Mrs. Ashton before he plunked her into the lifeboat.
“Now or never,” the crewman told her.
Jonathan began to help her into the little boat, even without her consent. “Really, it’s better this way. Besides, you remember what Ruth said. Time is almost up, Carrie.”
She understood what he was getting at. If he were to find a way to keep himself alive, he couldn’t be worried about her. Still, with all of the pandemonium unfolding behind him, Carrie felt wrong leaving him behind.
“There’s room!” she noted. “We can squeeze you in.” The boat was fuller than most of the others as the crew had done a good job of grabbing people who were running by and letting them in on the secret of the lifeboat’s existence, something many of them had failed to note as they frantically looked for loved ones or simply got swept up in the fury of thousands of people running wild.
Jonathan shook his head, and she knew what he was thinking. “I can’t.”
“You can,” she argued as the crew began to lower the boat. They were over the water now, but it was so close to the deck, he could still get on. “You’re not taking anyone else’s seat when no one is trying to get in.”
He continued to shake his head, but then one of the ropes lowering the boat caught, throwing it off balance. Images from earlier when people went tumbling into the ocean filled her mind. Carrie grabbed onto Hannah who was screaming now, all the ideas of adventure gone from her mind as fear filled her every thought, no doubt.
The lifeboat banged into the side of the ship, hard. Someone’s hand was crushed. The woman screamed in pain, and the lady next to her tried to help as the lifeboat careened closer to the boat again.
“Cut the rope, damn it!” Jonathan shouted. “It’s already low enough. You’re going to dump it!”
The rope slipped again, pitching them forward. The same chaos aboard Lusitania they’d all been fleeing filled their little lifeboat as the crewmen continued about their tasks as if they didn’t realize they were going to dump everyone.
A wave bounced the lifeboat against the hull again, with a loud clank. “We’re at the water!” Carrie shouted. “Just release us!”
“For God’s sake!” Jonathan pushed one of the crew members aside who didn’t fight him as he pulled a knife from his pocket and began to saw through the rope that was preventing them from leveling out. It took him a few moments, but he managed to cut the lifeboat free just as the crew got the other side loose from the lowering mechanism. By now, the Lusitania had sunk so much, Jonathan was only a few feet above her head.
“Come on!” Carrie shouted to him as the rope began to slip from its pulley. “Ride the rope down!”
Other people in the boat also encouraged their savior to join them. “You saved us!” a little girl yelled. “Please–we need you!”
Jonathan didn’t have much time to think with the rope slipping through the pulley, but when he locked eyes with Carrie and she gave him a pleading look, he cursed under his breath and rode the rope down until it slipped from his fingers, and he landed in the lifeboat on top of one of the crew members who was in the lifeboat to help them row.
The other man helped Jonathan right himself, and the woman next to Carrie said, “Here, sir. Sit next to your wife and little girl.” She scooted over and made room for him.
Seeing no reason to argue, Carrie patted the spot. “Join us.”
With a sigh, Jonathan sat down next to her and wrapped his arm around Carrie who still had her arms around Hannah. “You did save us,” she reminded him in a whisper as the few men aboard with oars began to pull them away from the passenger liner.
Shaking his head, Jonathan swallowed a lump in his throat. “Just doesn’t seem right, that’s all.”
“There’s nothing right or wrong about any of it,” Carrie replied. “Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people are going to die today. We don’t get to decide who they are.” Visions of Robert filled her mind again, and she tried her best to picture his smiling face in other circumstances. Jonathan had been right to tell her to get on the lifeboat because Robert would want her to do that. But her friend couldn’t be hard on himself for taking a spot no one else was trying to fill.
“How long has it been?” Jonathan asked her. “Fifteen minutes?”
“Thereabouts,” Carrie surmised. She thought about what Ruth had told her. Eighteen minutes was almost up.
Lusitania continued to take on water. It was difficult to keep an eye on the sinking vessel as the lifeboat pulled away. The crewmen were talking as they rowed. “We need to get away so she don’t suck us under,” one of them said.
Shaking his head, Jonathan said in a quiet tone that only Carrie and maybe the women around them could hear. “That’s a myth. They aren’t trying to get away from the sinking ship. It won’t pull them under, and they know that.”
“Then what are we rowing away from the ship for?” she whispered back.
He took a deep breath. “The moment Lusitania’s deck goes under, there are going to be over a thousand people in the water, and they’ll do anything to stay alive. Right now, it’s unorganized chaos on that deck as people hunt for their loved ones, thinking they have more time. The lifeboats on one side are clanking against the side of the ship, and the ones on the other are practically useless because they’re nearly floating on the water before they can get filled. We didn’t have enough time.”
She understood then. He was saying when those people found themselves floating in the frigid ocean water, they’d do whatever it took to save themselves, which included swamping the lifeboats and knocking the people sitting in them into the ocean to take their spots.
Carrie couldn’t blame anyone if that happened. She would likely do the same. It was instinct to try to save oneself, after all.
As the lifeboat pulled further away, it turned slightly, and she was able to see the other side of the boat, the starboard side. There, the lifeboats were completely useless as they clanked against the hull. A few of the crew members were still trying to get them in a position where they could be loaded, but at this point, Carrie realized the best thing for them to do would be to release the lifeboats, drop them into the water empty, and pray that people were able to get into them once the ship went under–which wouldn’t be long now.
“It’s going down.” Hannah’s voice was weak now as the excitement she’d felt earlier was replaced with mortification. “There are still people on there. Lots of them. And kids.”
“I know.” Carrie tightened her grip on the young girl.
“Why didn’t they get onto a lifeboat?” Hannah wanted to know.
“Some of them didn’t have time. Others are still looking for loved ones.” A tear began to trickle down Carrie’s cheek. In front of her, a man jumped off the back of the ship and began trying to swim toward them. He was shouting for help as he swam, his life vest keeping his head above water.
He only made it a few strokes before the frigid temperatures had him sputtering.
“We should go back and help him,” Carrie said loud enough for the crew members to hear.
No one acknowledged that she’d even spoken.
Jonathan squeezed her hand. “They won’t,” he told her. “Once the chaos dies down, they might go back and see if they can pull a few people out of the water, but probably not in time to save anyone.”
“Where are the other ships?” Hannah asked. “Won’t there be ships coming to save us?” A large wave rocked their boat, and a few women screamed, afraid they’d tumble out. They’d been lucky no one had fallen into the water when the boat was off kilter earlier. If it hadn’t been for Jonathan, they probably would have lost many occupants.
“They’re on their way, I’m sure,” Jonathan told Hannah. “But it’ll seem to take forever.”
Hannah let out a little whimper, and Carrie pulled her tight as a little child behind her began to cry. Another was calling for his daddy. The sound of weeping filled her ears, but it wasn’t nearly as loud as the other noises she heard–the rush of water and the screaming.
Lusitania was running out of time, and all Carrie could think about now that she was relatively safe herself was where in the world was Robert. She prayed that he was sitting in one of those few other lifeboats bobbing along on the water, but something told her he wasn’t.
If she knew Robert, he wouldn’t be in a rush to take “someone else’s” seat in a lifeboat either. No, he was likely up there, amidst the chaos, helping others, as the ground beneath his feet was quickly swallowed up by the angry sea.