Her senses cleared and immediately she thought of Centaine.
My baby! She- started towards the door and the ship lurched under her. She was thrown back against the dressing-table and at the same moment Centaine's jewelbox slid across the table-top and would have fallen, but instinctively Anna caught it and held it to her chest.
Abandon ship! a voice shrieked outside the cabin. The ship is sinking! Abandon ship! Anna had learned enough English to understand. Her practical phlegmatic sense reasserted itself.
The jewelbox contained all their money and documents. She opened the locker over her head and pulled out the carpet bag and dropped the box into it. Then she looked around her swiftly. She swept the silver frame with the photographs of Centaine, her mother and Michael's squadron into the bag, then she jerked open the drawer and stuffed warm clothing for Centaine and herself on top of the jewelbox and the picture frame. She fastened the bag as she glanced quickly about the cabin.
That was all of value that they possessed, and she heaved open the door and stepped into the passageway beyond.
Immediately she was picked up in the relentless stream of men, most of them still struggling with their lifejackets. She tried to turn back -'I must find Centaine, I must find my baby!', but she was borne out on to the dark deck and hustled towards one of the lifeboats.
Two seamen grabbed her. Come on then, Itiv. Ups-adaisy! and though she aimed a blow at the head of one of them with the carpet bag, they boosted her over the side of the lifeboat and she landed in a tangle of skirts and limbs between the thwarts. She dragged herself up, still clutching the carpet bag, and tried to climb out of the boat again.
Catch hold of that silly bitch, somebody! a seaman shouted with exasperation, and rough hands seized her and pulled her down.
In minutes the lifeboat was so crowded that Anna was packed helplessly between bodies and could only rave and implore in Flemish and French and broken English.
You must let me out. I have to find my little girl-Nobody took any notice of her, and her voice was drowned out by the shouting and scurrying, by the moaning of the wind and the Crash of waves against the steel hull, and by the ship's own groans and squeals and dying roars.
We can't take any more! a commanding voice shouted. Swing her out and let go! There was a gut-swooping drop down through the darkness and the lifeboat struck the surface with such force that water was sprayed over them and Anna was once more thrown to the half-flooded deck with a huddle of bodies on top of her. She dragged herself up again, with the lifeboat tossing and leaping and thudding against the ship's side.
Get those oars out! The voice again, harsh with authority. Fend her off there, you men. That's right! All right, give way starboard. Pull, damn you, pull! They dragged themselves away from the ship's side and got their bows into the seas before they were swamped.
Anna crouched in the bottom of the boat, clutching her bag to her chest, and looked up at the tall hull that rose above them like a cliff.
At that instant a great white shaft of light sprang out of the darkness behind them and struck the ship. It played slowly across the glistening white hull, like the spotlight of a theatre, picking out brief tragic vignettes before passing on, groups of men trapped at the rail, a twisting figure in an unattended stretcher sliding across the deck, a seaman caught in the tackle of a lifeboat and swinging go like a figure on the gallows tree, and finally the beam rested for a few moments on the huge red crosses painted on the white hull.
Yes, take a good look, you bloody swine! one of the men near Anna in the lifeboat yelled, and immediately the cry was taken up.
You murdering Hun- You filthy butchers- All around Anna they were howling their anger and outrage.
Implacably the beam of searchlight travelled on, swinging down to the waterline of the hull. The surface of the sea was dotted with the heads of hundreds of swimmers.
There were clusters of them, and individuals whose pale faces shone like mirrors in the intense white light, and still others were dropping and splashing into the water amongst them, while the sea surged and sucked them back and forth and threw them against the steel cliff of the hull.
The searchlight lifted up to the high decks again, and they were canted at an improbable angle while the ship's bows were already thrusting below the surface and the stern was rising swiftly against the star-riddled sky.
For an instant the searchlight settled on a tiny group of figures pinned against the ship's rail and Anna shrieked, Centaine! The girl was in the middle of the group, her face turned towards the sea, looking down at the dark drop beneath her, the wild bush of her dark hair whipping in the wind.
Centaine! Anna screamed again, and with a lithe movement the girl had leaped to the top of the brass rail. She had lifted the heavy woollen skirts to her waist and for an instant she balanced like an acrobat. Her bare legs were pale and slim and shapely, but she looked frail as a bird as she leaped away from the rail and with her skirts ballooning wildly about her, fell out of the beam of light into the blackness beneath.
Cantaine! Anna screamed one last time with despair in her voice and ice in her heart. She tried to rise, the better to watch the fall of that small body but somebody pulled her down again, and then the searchlight beam was extinguished and Anna crouched in the lifeboat and listened to the cries of the drowning men.
Pull, you men! We must get clear, or she will suck us down with her when she goes. They had oars out on both sides of the lifeboat and were striking out raggedly, inching away from the stricken liner.
There she goes! somebody yelled. Oh God, will you look at that! The steRN of the huge ship swung up, higher and still higher into the night sky, and the rowers rested on their oars and stared up at her.
When she reached the vertical she hung for long seconds. They could see the silhouette of her propeller against the stars, and her lights were still burning in the rows of portholes.
Slowly she began to slide downwards, bows first, her lights still shining beneath the water like drowning moons. Faster and still faster she slid downwards and her plates began to buckle and crackle with pressure, air burst out of her in a seething frothy turmoil, and then she was gone. Vast spoutings and eruptions of air and white foam still fountained up out of the black waters, but slowly these subsided and once again they could hear the lonely cries of the swimmers. Pull back! We must pick up as many as we can! All the rest of that night they worked under the direction of the ship's first officer who stood at the tiller in the stERN of the lifeboat. They dragged the sodden shivering wretches from the sea, packing them in until the lifeboat wallowed dangerously and took water over her gunwales at every swell, and they had to hate continuously.
No more! the officer shouted. You men will have to tie yourselves on to the LIFelines. The swimmers clustered around the overloaded vessel like drowning rats, and Anna was close enough to the stern to hear the first officer murmur, The poor devils won't last until morning, the cold will get them, even if the sharks don't. They could hear other lifeboats around them in the night, the splash of oars and voices on the wind.
The current is running up into the north-northeast at four knots, Anna overheard the first officer again, we will be scattered to the horizon by dawn. We must try to keep together. He rose in the stern and hailed, Ahoy there! This is lifeboat sixteen."Lifeboat five, a faint voice hailed back. We will come to you! They rowed through the darkness, guided by cries from the other boat, and when they found each other they lashed the two hulls together. During the night they called two other lifeboats to them.