Читать книгу The Classic Morpurgo Collection - Michael Morpurgo, Michael Morpurgo - Страница 39

I never saw the iceberg, nor did any of us stokers, but we soon met one of the crew who was there when the ship struck, and who had seen it all. He said the iceberg was at least a hundred feet high, looming above the ship, and not white like icebergs are supposed to be, but dark, almost black. But it had been a glancing blow, he said, no cause for alarm, no need for panic. And no one was panicking. No one was rushing anywhere. By now more and more passengers were beginning to appear on deck, to find out what was happening, just as we had. I saw a couple strolling by arm in arm. They looked completely unconcerned, as if they were simply taking the air. Even after the collision, like everyone on board, they clearly still accepted, as I did, the absolute assumption – and one that had after all been confirmed to me in person of course by Captain Smith himself – that the Titanic was unsinkable, that everything would be all right.

It was when the ship began to list, and this happened quite soon, that the first doubts began to creep in. But only when I saw men and women gathering in numbers on deck, and putting on their life-preservers, did I truly begin to understand the dreadful danger we were now in, and only then did I think of Lizziebeth and Kaspar in their stateroom on deck C. It took me a while to locate the right corridor, and when I did I had some difficulty in finding my way to number 52. There was no time to stand on ceremony. I hammered on the door, yelling for them. A moment or two later Mr Stanton was standing there, in front of me, his face grey with anxiety. He was fully dressed, with his life-preserver already on, as were the rest of the family.

They looked at me as if I’d come from another planet. I just blurted it out. “I stowed away.” That was all I said by way of explanation. There wasn’t time for any more, and now it didn’t matter anyway.

“Are we sinking?” Mrs Stanton asked me. She was quite calm and controlled.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. But I think we should get out on deck.”

Mrs Stanton was picking up her bag.

“We must take nothing with us, my dear.” Mr Stanton spoke to her very gently but firmly, as he took it from her.

“But all my precious things, my mother’s necklace, my photographs,” she cried. “You and Lizziebeth are all that’s precious,” he said quietly. He turned to me. “Johnny, you will take care of Lizziebeth.” Lizziebeth’s hand had crept into mine. It was cold. She looked up at me, her eyes full of bewilderment. She seemed still only half awake. It was only as we were leaving the cabin that she seemed to begin to comprehend what was going on. She grabbed her father’s arm suddenly. “Papa, what about Kaspar? We can’t leave Kaspar.”

“We leave everything behind, Lizziebeth, and I mean everything.” Mr Stanton spoke very firmly to her. “Now follow me and stay close.” Staying close was not easy because the corridors and gangways were full of people, and many of them were carrying or dragging heavy bags. Lizziebeth kept saying it again and again, to me now, “What about Kaspar? We can’t leave him Johnny, we can’t. Please. All those people, they’ve got bags, they’re carrying things. Please.” She was trying to tug me back all the time, but I knew there was nothing I could say to comfort her. I had to ignore her and keep going.

As we got up on to the Boat Deck and out into the cold air I realised that the ship was listing noticeably more severely than before. I saw dozens of post bags being piled up on deck, and abandoned luggage everywhere. Boats were being lowered away, and the band was playing. Everywhere people were gathered in small groups, huddling together against the cold, some with blankets round their shoulders. A few were praying aloud, but most stood in silence, waiting patiently.

I recognised Mr Lightoller, the officer we’d seen in the Captain’s cabin, going about the deck, organising, spreading calm as he went, and explaining to everyone that it would be women and children first, that when all the women and children were safely away in the lifeboats, then the men could leave. When he turned to Mrs Stanton and told her it was her turn to get into one of the boats, she clung to her husband and refused.

“I won’t leave my family,” she said. “We belong together, and if it’s God’s will, then we will die together.”

Mr Stanton took her gently by the shoulders and, looking deep into her eyes, he spoke to her very softly, almost in a whisper. “You will take Lizziebeth, my dear, and you will do as the officer says, and go to the boat. Johnny Trott and I will come after you, I promise you. Go, my dear. Go now.”

At that moment Lizziebeth broke free of my hand and ran for it. I knew straight away that she was going back for Kaspar. I went after her at once, and caught her at the top of the gangway. She struggled against me, but I held her tight. “I can’t leave him!” she cried. “I can’t! I won’t!”

“Lizziebeth,” I said. “Listen to me. I must take you to the boat. It’ll be gone soon. You have to go with your mother. You have to save yourself. Leave Kaspar to me. I’ll find him. I’ll save him.”

She looked up at me, her eyes full of sudden hope. “You promise me?”

“I promise,” I told her.

“And you, Johnny, what will happen to you?”

“I’ll be all right, there’s plenty of boats,” I said.

When we got back to the railings, the lifeboat was nearly full and almost ready to launch, but I could see the crew were having the greatest difficulty in lowering it. With the help of Mr Stanton and a sailor we helped Lizziebeth and her mother into the boat. But still the boat could not be lowered. One of the crew was slicing away at the rope with his knife, cursing as he did so, and cursing even louder when he dropped his knife into the sea below. There were several lifeboats in the water already and rowing away from the Titanic. I glanced towards the stern and saw it was a great deal higher than it had been before. I could feel the great ship settling ever lower into the sea.

I caught Lizziebeth’s eye then. She was willing me to do it, and to do it now. I knew that if I left it any longer it may well be too late. I would show her there and then that I meant to keep my promise if I could. I turned to Mr Stanton beside me. “I’m going for Kaspar,” I said. “I shan’t be long.” He shouted after me to come back, but I ignored him.

By now the decks were crowded with men, all of them corralled by the crew who had made a human cordon to keep them back as the last of the women and children were being helped into the boats. But there was no pushing, no shoving. I saw among them dozens of my fellow stokers, most of them black with coal dust, and all unnaturally quiet. As I pushed my way through them to get back down below, one of them called out to me. “You should be in one of they boats, Johnny lad. You’re only a slip of a boy. You’re young enough. You’ve got the right.”

The gangway was packed with passengers trying to make their way up on deck, some of the older and more infirm still in their nightgowns. One of the sailors who was trying to help them tried to stop me going down. “You can’t go. There’s water coming in everywhere down there, the whole ship’s flooding fast.” I dodged past him. “Idiot!” he yelled after me. “You blithering idiot! You go down there and you won’t come back up again!” I ran on.

After losing my way in the warren of corridors, I reached the right corridor on deck C and I knew then that the sailor had been right. The sea-water was ankle deep, and rising all the time. And once I opened the door to number 52, I saw the carpets were already under water. I looked around me frantically for Kaspar, but couldn’t see him anywhere, not at first. It was Kaspar himself who told me where he was, yowling at me from the top of the wardrobe. I looked around for the picnic basket to carry him in, but couldn’t find it. I reached up and took him off the wardrobe, and held him tight; but then, as I went out, I had the presence of mind to snatch a blanket off the nearest bed. All the way back along the corridor, I was wrapping Kasper up in the blanket, not against the cold, but to stop him clawing at me, for I knew that even if he wasn’t frightened now, he very soon would be.

But as I ran back down the corridor I was beginning to realise that the blanket had another use, and a much more essential one too. If no luggage was being allowed in the boats, I reasoned, then they would hardly accept a cat. This was why, by the time I got back up on deck again, Kaspar was well hidden deep inside the blanket. And now he was beginning to yowl.

“None of your fuss, please Kaspar,” I whispered to him. “Quiet now, and stay quiet. Your life could depend on it.”

I pushed my way through the stokers, ducked under the cordon of crewmen, and saw to my great relief that the lifeboat was still hanging there. But then I found my way suddenly blocked by an officer in a peaked cap, who grabbed me by the shoulder. “No you don’t, lad. No men allowed in the boats until all the women and children are loaded,” he said. “I can’t let you on. I can’t let you pass.”

“He’s not a man,” someone shouted from behind me. “He’s only a kid, can’t you see?” All around me the stokers were suddenly clamouring at him to let me through, and they began pushing angrily against the ring of sailors desperately trying to hold them back. I could see the officer was taken by surprise at the sudden rage of the crowd, and that he was hesitating.

I saw my chance. “I’m not going on the boat,” I told him. “I just went to fetch a blanket. It’s for a child, a friend of mine. She’ll freeze to death out there without it.” I still don’t think he’d have let me through if Mr Stanton hadn’t come up at that moment and vouched for me.

“It’s all right. He’s my son,” he said to the officer, “and the blanket’s for his sister.” I was through. With Mr Stanton holding me fast round the waist I leaned across and handed the blanket, and the miraculously silent Kaspar, into Mrs Stanton’s outstretched arms.

“Be careful,” I told her as meaningfully as I could. She knew as she was taking it from me that Kaspar was inside the blanket. She hugged it to her and sat down again in the boat. I could see from the way Lizziebeth was smiling up at me that she knew it too.

Distress rockets were fired up into the sky, lighting the ocean all around us, lighting too the scattering of little white boats out on the open sea, each of them crammed with women and children.

I remember thinking how extraordinarily beautiful it all was, and wondering how something as terrible as this could be so beautiful. On board behind us the band played on, as Lizziebeth’s boat was finally lowered into the water. Mr Stanton and I stood side by side and watched from the railings as it was rowed slowly away. “That was a fine and noble thing you did, Johnny,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “God will guard them, I know it. And for us there’ll be a boat along soon enough to take us off. Mr Lightoller says they’ve seen the lights of a ship not five miles away. The Carpathia. She’ll be on her way. They’ll see these rockets for sure. They’ll be alongside soon enough. Meanwhile, I think we should help with the women and children, don’t you?” That was how we busied ourselves for the next hour or so, passing the women and the children into the boats.

I marvel now when I think of it, at the courage I witnessed around me that night. I saw one American lady waiting to get into a boat with her elderly sister, but she was told there was no room. She didn’t object or protest in anyway, but merely stepped back and said: “Never mind. I will get on a later boat.” I never saw her again. I saw no man ever try to push his way to the boats. To a man they accepted that it was perfectly right and proper for women and children to go first. I heard later that some men on the starboard side of the ship had tried to rush one of the lifeboats, and that shots had to be fired over their heads to drive them back. But I never saw it with my own eyes.

There were many heroes that night, but if there was one I remember best it was Mr Lightoller. He was everywhere, quietly ensuring the safe loading and launching of the boats, and picking out the seamen to row each one. I can hear his voice even now echoing in my head. “Lower away there. Lower away. Are there any more women? Are there any more women?” And one of the waiting men answered him back, I remember.

“No more women, Officer. There’s plenty of men though, but I don’t see plenty of boats.”

It was something every one of us now had come to realise, that there were hardly any boats left to take the rest of us off, and that many of the lifeboats that remained could not now be launched because of the severe list of the ship. When I saw the sea-water come washing over the bow, and rushing down the deck towards us, I knew that our chances of survival were fading fast. Like so many others, I scanned the horizon desperately for the lights of the Carpathia. We were all aware by now that she was the only ship close enough to come to our rescue. But there were no lights to be seen.

The Titanic was sinking fast, and we knew now we were going down with her. With every minute that passed now the list to port was telling us the end was near. The deck was at such an angle that it was well-nigh impossible to keep our footing. We heard Mr Lightoller’s voice ringing out. “All passengers to the starboard side.”

So that’s where Mr Stanton and I went, slipping and sliding, clutching at each other for support, until we reached the rail on the starboard side and clung on. Here we looked out at the sea, and waited silently for our end. There was nothing more to be done. “I should like to say,” Mr Stanton said, his hand resting on my shoulder, “that if I am to die tonight and I cannot die with my family, then I’d rather die in your company than any other. You’re a fine young man, Johnny Trott.”

“Will the sea be cold?” I asked him.

“I fear so,” he replied, “but don’t worry, that’s all to the good. It will all be over very quickly for us both.”