We didn’t hear a racket on B-Deck. Maybe they have a better idea of what happened down here. I strain to follow their conversation.
The man pats the woman’s arm. “Maybe it’s a shot propeller. Caught a whale or something.”
“Whales know enough to stay away from propellers. Mark my words, it’s ice.”
Ice.
The word slithers in my head and lies coiled, waiting to strike.Possible ice,the weather reports had said.
The lights flicker, and people shriek. The lights return, but no one trusts them now.
Several paces down Scotland Road, the door Drummer took me through to reach Boiler Room 6 opens. I hurry over. A man emerges, and then another, their clothes wet and beards matted.
“Sirs. Have you seen Drummer? He’s a fireman. Chinese, slim in build, plays a drum.”
Both bend and put their hands on their knees, panting and looking dazed. I’m about to repeat my question when a third man emerges, this one with hulking biceps. His chest heaves as he catches his breath. Water drips from his yellow hair into his squinting eyes. It’s Fireman Brandish, Drummer’s friend. I gasp at the sight of the whirling drum stuck in the waistband of his trousers.
“That’s—” I can’t manage to finish the sentence, as my own heart becomes a whirling drum, beating rapidly out of control.
“Aye.” He passes the drum to me. “Drummer fell when she hit, got his foot stuck. We tried, but the water in 6 was too high.”
The door closes with a heavy thud, like the sealing of a tomb.
Brandish wipes his face, which is wet with more than just seawater. “He was a good man, and I’m sorry. Plenty more souls will rise afore the night is done.” He strides away after his mates, becoming a dark blur in my vision.
The beads hang limply on either side of the whirling drum. Drummer’s laughing eyes dance before me, the liveliest notes on an instrument made to be played. I realize I never learned his real name.
Little Sister, there is much sorrow in your face.
35
April 15, 1912
A woman whose clogs punch the floor drags her suitcase over my foot, but I barely feel it. I sink against the wall of the too-quiet boiler casing, feeling lost and small. Drummer is below. It doesn’t seem right to leave him.
A steward passes out life belts to a group of men with dark beards speaking a language of rolling syllables. One presses his hands together. “Please. No English. Help understand.”
The steward flaps his arm toward the stern and snaps, “Decks! Go to yourdecks!” Then, having run out of life belts, he sets off in another direction.
“Stowaway!” says a voice only a few paces away.
Bo appears beside me, his face still handsome despite a new cut above his eyebrow and a bruise reddening his jaw, probably from his fight with Skeleton and the bottom cutters.
“He’s gone,” I gasp, showing Bo the whirling drum. “There was a flood.”
Then his strong arms are holding me, his chest a firm but comfortable spot to rest my head. I feel the rise and fall of his breath, and all the torn bits in me that still quietly inflict their damage stop hurting for a moment.
Bo’s chest sinks a little. There’s a grim set to his mouth, as if he looked into the future and saw something calamitous on the horizon. Catching me watching him, his expression softens. “If Drummer is gone, he chose a noble destiny. We will mourn the dead later. Come. We don’t have much time. They are gathering people by the lifeboats.”
“Did you see Jamie?”
“Yes. He and Tao went to fetch the men. Wink and Olly went to the Halfway There Party in the General Room, but they must have left, because I did not find them there. I thought they might return to the room. Stay here. I’ll check.”
I watch numbly as folks tread by, many still in their nightgowns and digging sleep from their eyes.
Bo returns a minute later. “Not there. Let’s try the other General Room.” He takes my hand, tugging me aft.
The woman with the clogs runs back toward us, wailing something in Dutch, heedless of the other people in the way. Bo catches me against him. The woman trips, dropping her suitcase, which springs open, littering the floor with clothes. Her sobs scratch my ears like forks over bone china. A man drags her away.
