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The Empress of Ireland sank in fourteen minutes, taking 1,012 people with her. While there were more than enough lifeboats, there was not enough time to get to them. And the crew that could get to their stations soon found that the deck had tilted so rapidly, as she rolled onto her side, that it was impossible to launch a raft.

Only five lifeboats got away, most almost empty.

Armand stared at the list of survivors. Most of them were men. Many of them, a great percentage, were members of the crew.

As the ship went down, Captain Kendall stood on the bridge clutching the railing, issuing orders, until it was clear there was nothing to be done. And no one to carry out the orders, even if they weren’t a waste of the precious few breaths he had left in this life.

Captain Kendall waited to die.

As Chief Inspector Gamache read this account, he saw himself in the Captain’s place. Looking with horror at all the men, women, children under his care who were depending on him, looking to him to save their souls. And he could not. They were going to die. Were dying.

And there was nothing he could do. Except to stand there and await his turn.

The Empress of Ireland, in her death throes, lurched, and Captain Kendall was thrown from the bridge and sucked down into the dark waters. Then, unexpectedly, he was coughed back up.

He was found half dead and semiconscious, clinging to a piece of wreckage. On being dragged into a lifeboat, he ordered it to turn back and pick up survivors. Dropping them at the Storstad, which had returned, he headed out again in the lifeboat. Again. And again.

Over and over, until his own strength gave out and he collapsed.

Later, when he realized the scope of the tragedy, how many had perished, Captain Kendall said he could have hoped to drown.

Armand could sympathize. He understood. He too had suffered survivor guilt. Even when there was no guilt to be had, they still found some. Even if guilt had to be manufactured and clung to, like debris on a calm sea.

It was later speculated in the inquiry that so many of the crew survived because they were familiar with the ship.

The passengers had only boarded twelve hours earlier. There hadn’t yet been a safety drill. So big, so complex was the ocean liner that most of her passengers had had to ask for help finding their cabins again after dinner.

Making matters even worse was that within minutes of the collision, the ship lost all power and the lights went out. Passengers and crew were in utter darkness. Most who managed to make it out of their cabins forgot in their panic to take their life preservers.

Most who did take their life preservers hadn’t read the instructions and didn’t know how to put them on.

Most who had read the instructions couldn’t find their way through the darkness to the ladders and stairs up to the deck. They felt their way along pitch-black corridors crammed with other panicked passengers as the ship they’d only just boarded tilted and doors that should have opened became twisted. Jammed shut. Locking them inside. As the cold waters rose, the passengers screamed for help, pulling and yanking and pounding on the thick metal doors that were meant to protect them.

In desperation, some tried to squeeze through portholes, only to get stuck half in, half out.

Armand realized he’d been holding his breath, as though he himself were trapped in the body of the boat. Now he gasped, taking in a huge gulp of air.

He looked at Jean-Guy, who was staring at the screen.

“How did I not know?” Jean-Guy whispered.

Their ignorance of the tragedy somehow compounded it. Though both men knew it could not possibly be worse.

How did I not know? Isabelle Lacoste asked herself.

Ruth asked.

Clara asked.

Inspector Eidinger asked.

Agent Ferdinand, staring at the photo of the family of four from Saskatoon, all of whom perished that night, asked himself, How did I not know?

Though there was another question.

Why, Chief Inspector Gamache asked himself, bringing up the crime scene photos, was the date of the sinking of the ocean liner etched so deep into a gravestone in the middle of a forest? In Lost Nation.

“And why is there a date, but no name?” he said, into the quiet room. “Who is buried there?”