فصل 95

alfred

I ran downhill along the tilting corridor, freezing water up to my knees. A small boy swam by me. All of the passengers seemed to be going the other way. But I knew something they didn’t. There were interior ladders inside the ventilation ducts. I pushed past people, continuing on my way.

“Sailor, please,” someone called out behind me.

I reached the end of the corridor. Another sailor appeared. He grabbed me by the shirt.

“Hurry, we have to get everyone out of the cabins and up on deck!” he said.

“How severe is it?” I asked.

“Three torpedoes. E deck, the engine room, and the forward compartments are destroyed.”

E deck. The swimming pool. The naval auxiliary girls were on E deck. The sailors’ bunks were in the forward compartments.

The sound of joists snapping and rivets popping echoed through the stairwell.

“She’s going down,” said the sailor. “Grab a coat if you can find one.” I followed him onto the upper promenade deck, taking a coat from a woman who was struggling with her life vest.

The sailor began smashing and breaking open cabin doors that had jammed. He shuttled people toward the stairs. “Come on!” he shouted to me. “Get these people out!”

“Yes, everyone, hurry,” I said to myself. I opened a door.

A woman and child lay bloody on the floor. In the center of the cabin, a naval officer stood with a gun to his head.

I watched, somehow fascinated. Would he do it?

He turned and pointed the gun at me.

I ran back to the ventilation ducts.

I am a thinker. I am thinking.

Torpedo strike: Approximately 9:15 p.m.

Ship’s capacity: 1,463.

Passengers on board: 10,573.

Lifeboats: 22.

But then I remembered.

Ten of the lifeboats were missing.