The harried officer throws up his hands, and the crewmen crank the davits.
Olly’s eyes are wide enough to net butterflies. I’m winding up to throw another stick on the fire when I realize Wink is gone.
While Jamie continues to spout protests, I gently put my hand on Olly’s arm, not wishing to alarm him further. “Where’s Wink?”
“I—I dunno.” He looks wildly about. “He was standing here a moment ago.”
I see only men nearby. A group huddles on a bench, swigging from champagne bottles. Another couple of gents stamp the deck, their breaths curling like white ribbons. One of them stands a whole head above the other. It’s Mr. Ismay, the chairman of White Star Line, with his crane-like legs and shrewd eyes.
Stooping, he glances furtively about. If it’s true that his zeal for speed led to this catastrophe, he will have a long wait at the pearly gates, accounting for many lost souls. I stare him full in the face, knowing he has lost his power over me. He blinks, as if trying to remember where he’s seen me.
I leave him to work it out and return to the crisis at hand: Wink. “Did he say anything?”
Olly’s potato nose scrunches up, the poor lad. His whole face is red, whether because of crying or the cold, and I hug him to me. “It’s okay, Olly. Tell me what he said.”
“I—I wasn’t feeling so good, and h-he told me to think about the tree house we’re going to build in America, and the Oreos we’ll eat . . . And I said we can’t get those things now without money.” His lip trembles. “And then I lost track of him. I’m sorry.”
I pat his back. “You did fine, Olly. And I’m going to go fetch him. I need you to stay here and get on a lifeboat when they find you a spot. Don’t worry about Wink. I promise I’ll take care of him, okay?”
Olly swallows and nods.
A crewman hands out life belts. While Olly and Fong help each other with their straps, I grab one for myself and one for Jamie, who’s now speaking with another officer.
The officer struggles to raise the sides of the collapsible stored next to the cutter. Jamie uses his good hand to hold the boat steady for him. “Five of us,” he says.
I hurry over. “Three of us for now,” I drop in Jamie’s ear. “Wink is gone.”
“Wink?” Jamie grabs at his head. “Bloody cats. Where’d he go?”
“I think he went to fetch the money. Where is it?”
“I gave it to Wink to hold while we took care of Skeleton and his mates. Then we all went to look for you. I’m not sure where he put it.”
“My guess is somewhere in the room.”
“Oh, this is grand.”
“I’ll be right back. Go on ahead.”
“No way.” He grabs me by the elbow. “We’ll go. Fong, take Olly. The crew are in a rush to drop the boats. We’ll figure something out.”
The old trimmer nods.
We tie on our life belts. I unhook one of the lifesavers, just in case we need it, and wear it like a necklace. Then we descend the crew stairs from the bridge. This time, no one protests our use of them. We tread carefully on the heavily slanted staircase.
“Stinkin’ codfish,” Jamie mutters. “When we find that minnow, I’m going to wring his scrawny neck and serve him with a wedge of lemon.”
Reaching the well deck, we move carefully over the icy planks. Jamie sucks in his breath and adjusts his injured arm. He’ll be of more help to Wink if he’s not in so much pain.
“Let me fix your sling. Smartly, now. I dunno why you didn’t just stay up on the Boat Deck. You’re dragging us down as always,” I say irritably as I untie the sling and help him reposition his left arm so that it lies comfortably outside of the life belt. Somehow being crabby eases my anxiety.
“Stop fussing over me, for cod’s sake.”
“Stop getting into scrapes, you codfish.”
He grunts, and for a moment, he feels as far away as the moon. “Do you remember what Ba would say whenever he’d wake from one of his spells?”
My ears perk. Jamie rarely brings up Ba. “‘Family saves family.’”
He stretches back his shoulder, and a shadow crosses his face. “But he was always the one putting us in jeopardy.”
I begin to protest, but the truth stares me in the face. Ba had put us in jeopardy—our savings, our home, Mum’s health. His intentions might have been good, but even when his schemes profited, catastrophe always seemed to wait around the next corner, like a thief with a bludgeon. And every time he got into a tight spot, we had to save the family, slipping our takes into the cracked teapot, bandaging each other up when the going got rough.
“I wish I could’ve done better by her,” Jamie says quietly.
“What do you mean?”
“Stuck up for her more. Stood up to Ba. I’d see him take the money from the teapot when she wasn’t looking. Why didn’t I ever say anything?”
No wonder Jamie is so angry. Family saves family, but we couldn’t save Mum. As I watch him biting his lip, hurting from somewhere deeper inside, I sway, but not because of the movement of the ship.
The person Jamie can’t forgive isn’t Ba.
It’s himself.
“We were just kids,” I say.
The shadows hide his face, but I can smell his ache, as sharp as the briny sea.
“Well, if you’re going to blame yourself, you’d better blame me, too, you guilt hog. In fact, why don’t we throw some extra lifesavers around our necks, just to make it extra hard to move? Because I could really use more things to weigh me down. What about you?”
He glowers at me, and I reflect it back. Then I finish retying his arm, and we set off again.
The rush of the water snarls in our ears even before we get to E-Deck. By the time we reach the Collar, seawater has already filled the corridor, at least waist high. Room 14 lies just around the corner.
I cry out at the cold, and Jamie hisses.
“Think about, I dunno, summer,” I grumble, pulling the lifesaver down to my waist. We move as if walking in thick mud, each step requiring the whole body. Holding up our arms, we slog forward as if we’re coming to Jesus.
Most of the doors are closed. Objects float by: a child’s cap—fortunately, not Wink’s—a ball like the sort I saw in the barbershop. A roiling scrap of white grabs at my waist—a towel. I quickly pluck it off as if it were a dead animal, and let it sail away.
“Summer in London isn’t exactly warm.”