Мариус Габриэль - The Ocean Liner

Igor Stravinsky and the young German boy had now arrived, sheltering under the same umbrella. Mr Nightingale turned to the composer.

‘Am I right, Monsieur Stravinsky? Am I right in what I say?’

‘I believe you are.’ He turned to Masha Morgenstern, and took her hand. ‘My dear child, I beg you to listen to me. You must consider—’

Whatever Stravinsky was about to say was cut short. A thunderous volley of gunfire suddenly rolled over the harbour. Deafened and panicking, passengers scattered, pushing each other out of the way, some diving for the shelter of the lifeboats, others crouching where they stood with their hands over their heads. Everyone was looking up at the skies. Some of the women were instantly in hysterics. Their screaming could hardly be heard over the guns and the sirens, which were now wailing.

‘It’s an air raid,’ a man shouted as he ran past. ‘Get under cover!’

Thomas had thrown his arms around Masha, and was trying to shelter her as she cowered on the deck in shock.

‘Everybody stay calm.’ The ship’s quartermaster had appeared, megaphone in hand, making his way among the terrified crowd. ‘Stay calm. There is no danger. The anti-aircraft batteries are having air-raid practice, that is all. Remain calm.’

The thunder of the firing spread around the docks. The smoke from the guns was filling the air, grey and sulphurous, luridly lit by the muzzle flashes. The macabre warble of sirens had now been taken up all around the harbour. Despite the quartermaster’s assurances, every report sent a shockwave through the crowd. People hurried off the deck, shaken, dragging screaming children who had been terrified out of their wits.

Mr Nightingale turned back to Masha, who was trembling. ‘Now, Miss Morgenstern. I’m going to have a hot cup of beef tea sent to your cabin. You drink that, and have a good cry, and think about things.’

Thomas released Masha and helped her to get back on her feet. The shock and noise seemed to have dazed her. ‘I will take your suitcase back to your cabin, Fräulein.’

Masha allowed Thomas to take it from her nerveless fingers. It weighed little. She had given most of her clothes to Rachel.

Stravinsky put his arm through Masha’s to support her, since she seemed unsteady on her legs.

‘I understand that young Thomas has given you a ticket to the world of tomorrow,’ he said, as he and Rachel steered her gently away between them. ‘I think you should take it.’

It was four o’clock in the afternoon by the time Cubby Hubbard got to his cabin. There had been an extraordinarily long line of passengers ahead of him, and much confusion and ill-temper at times through the day. The repeated air-raid practices by the shore batteries had told on everyone’s nerves. People were complaining of headaches, their nerves rattled. The shocking anger of those guns had brought home the reality of the war more than any broadcast speech or strident newspaper article.

The ship was already well over capacity. It was said that there were not enough in the kitchens to cater for all the extra passengers who would need to be fed, and that some three dozen Irish cooks would be taken aboard in Queenstown.

He’d had no sight of the Kennedy family. They had been secluded in their suite in the hotel since his interview with the matriarch. He presumed they would be in First Class, while he of course was in Tourist.

His cabin was meant for two, but now contained four. The three others were young Canadians of his own age, all (somewhat to his disgust, since he liked a good time) training to be Methodist ministers. Like Cubby himself, they had been on a tour of Europe. They were in a state of considerable excitement.

‘We were stranded in France,’ the freshest and pinkest of them told Cubby in his weird Canuck accent. ‘Our passage home was on the Britannic . She’s owned by the White Star Line, the same people that own the Athenia . When Athenia was torpedoed – guess what? They cancelled our ship.’

‘We managed to obtain a passage on the Manhattan through the grace of God,’ another said.

‘We were in the hands of Providence,’ the pink one assured Cubby earnestly.

‘It was a singular deliverance for us all,’ the third said, his Bible in hand. ‘The Lord conducted us safely through manifold dangers.’

While Cubby unpacked, they began an earnest discussion of St Paul, whom they clearly regarded as the prototype of their own peregrinations. It looked like being a dull trip home if he couldn’t – as he anticipated he wouldn’t – see much of Rosemary during the voyage.

When the dinner bell sounded, the Canadians took each other’s hands to pray before going to the dining room. They invited Cubby to join them, but he declined politely, and set off on his own.

Strolling along the corridor, he came upon Mr Nightingale, the malleable senior steward, knocking on a passenger’s door with a tray in one hand, on which was poised a brightly coloured drink. The occupant, a plump man wearing a flowery dressing gown, threw open the door.

‘Is that my cocktail?’ the passenger asked gaily.

‘Your cock, my tail,’ Mr Nightingale carolled, slipping into the cabin and slamming the door behind him.

Puzzled by this exchange, Cubby made his way to supper.

Joseph P. Kennedy, the United States ambassador to the court of St James, was up late in his private study.

It had been a long day. Since the outbreak of war there had been lines of people right around the imposing Mayfair mansion every day, screaming for passports, visas and other documents. His staff were exhausted. And today there had been a formal embassy dinner with a host of grandees: the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, the Earl of Such-and-Such, the Viscountess of So-and-So, the Honourable This, the Grand Panjandrum That – the usual crowd, bursting with the bitter comments and the poison barbs which the British upper classes were so adept at launching. God rot them all.

All of them hated him and knew that he hated them in return. They had all read the bulletin – ‘Ambassador recalled to Washington for consultations’ – and were praying that he had been fired.

But Roosevelt wouldn’t dare fire him yet. Not with the war just begun, and the full might of the Nazis yet to be unleashed. Roosevelt was many things, but he wasn’t a fool.

Kennedy loosened his silk tie, unfastened his collar, and ran his fingers through his thinning red hair. He needed a real drink. He sat behind his broad, leather-topped desk and poured himself a large Dewar’s. The amber stuff glowed in the Waterford crystal tumbler as he held it to the lamp. It had been his favourite whisky ever since the 1930s, when shiploads of it had built his fortune. He drained the glass and then poured another, beginning to relax.

Not that he was looking forward to the interview with Roosevelt. He didn’t hate the man. In fact they called one another friends. But there was in him much that could turn to hate – a long tally of humiliations and slights, going back twenty years. Roosevelt enjoyed taking his money, letting him believe he was part of the inner circle, then showing him clearly that he was not. The assaults on his dignity were no less vicious for being disguised as pranks.

Roosevelt had made him drop his trousers in the Oval Office to get this job. He’d stood there in his undershorts, his pale brow burning with shame as Roosevelt chuckled at his bare legs and told him he was too bandy-legged to be ambassador to Britain.

‘You’ll have to wear knee-britches and silk stockings to court,’ Roosevelt had chortled, ‘and you’re about the most bow-legged Irishman I’ve ever seen. You’d make America a laughing-stock.’