The Lifeboat Read Free Page A

each one was rendered progressively speechless by this task.
    When the orange rim of the sun had completely disappeared, I took my turn with the bailer at the rail. To my dismay, I noticed that while the sky had turned dark and night had fully fallen, the black had texture to it, and sources of light, and shadows, and, behind the shadows, eyes. I was distressed to find that nighttime was not the concealing cover I had been expecting, and also that our quarters were so cramped there was no disguising the action I was performing. I thanked whatever forces had a hand in arranging things that I was surrounded mostly by women and that they were delicate of feeling and pretended not to notice what I was doing. We were in similar circumstances, after all, and an unspoken etiquette was arising where we would not look the beast of physical necessity in the eye. We would ignore it, we would dare it to claw apart our sense of decorum, we would preserve civility even in the face of a disaster that had almost killed us and that might kill us yet.
    I was immensely relieved on several counts when the task was finished. I had been so preoccupied with how I would accomplish it that I had scarcely paid attention to Mr. Hardie’s accounting of our circumstances and inventory of supplies. Now I was able to realize that each of the lifeboats had come stocked with five blankets, a life ring with a long rope attached, the three wooden bailers, two tins of hard biscuits, a cask of fresh water, and two tin drinking cups. In addition to these supplies, Mr. Hardie had somehow procured a lump of cheese and some loaves of bread and salvaged two additional casks of water from the wreckage, which he surmised had come from a capsized lifeboat. He told us that there had once been a box of compasses stored on the deck of the Empress Alexandra, but it had gone missing on a previous voyage, and because the ship’s owner had moved up the departure date on account of the brewing war in Austria, it had never been replaced. “Ye can say what ye like, but seamen are neither more nor less honest than anybody else.” He also made a point of telling us that it was only through his quick thinking that the canvas cover that had kept rainwater out of the boat when it was stored on deck ended up in the boat with us. “But why do we need it?” asked Mr. Hoffman. “It’s exceedingly heavy, and it takes up a lot of room.” But all Mr. Hardie would say was “It can get wet in a lifeboat. Ye’ll see that for yerselves if we’re here long enough.” Most of us wore life vests, but they had been stored in our cabins, and during the confusion of the disaster, not everyone had had the time or forethought to retrieve them. Mr. Hardie, two sisters who sat huddled together and rarely spoke, and an older gentleman named Michael Turner were among those without.
    Soon after I had returned to my seat, Mr. Hardie opened one of the tins and introduced us to hardtack, which were rock-hard wafers approximately two inches square that could not be swallowed unless first softened with saliva or water. I held the biscuit between my lips until pieces of it began to dissolve and looked off into the not-quite-dark sky at the myriad stars that pricked the heavens, at the endlessness of the atmosphere that was the only thing vaster than the sea, and sent a prayer to whatever force of nature had arranged events thus far and asked it to preserve my Henry.
    I felt hopeful, but all around me women had started to break down and cry. Mr. Hardie stood up in the rocking boat and said, “Yer loved ones might be dead or they might not be. There’s a good chance they’re in one of the other lifeboats bobbing about out there, so ye’d do well not to waste yer body’s water in tears.” Despite his words, little wails and whimpers burst from the darkness throughout the night. I could feel the young woman sitting next to me shudder now and then, and once, she let out a throaty, animal sob. I lightly