Danielle Steel - Crossings

Both the news that they heard and the sight of the burning ship were terrifying in the stillness of the summer night. There had been a gentle breeze before, but now there wasn't even that. It was as though they were moving toward hell, and all eyes were held riveted by the inferno ahead.

The captain came out on the bridge with a bullhorn in his hand, and spoke to them all in English. He knew that most of the passengers were Americans and he needed their immediate attention.

“If any of you have medical training … nursing … first aid, any experience at all, you are needed very badly. We do not know how many men from the Queen Victoria are still alive…. Will the two doctors on board please come forward … we will be taking on as many men as we can.” There was a moment of silence. “We cannot radio to other ships for help, or the Germans in the area will identify our position.” As this reality sank in, a total silence fell on them all. It was entirely possible that the Germans were still nearby, and the Deauville might be next. It was a terrifying thought, and the fire raging on the Queen Victoria was a clear illustration of what could happen to them.

“The burden of helping these men falls entirely to us. We need you all … now, those of you who have medical knowledge, please step forward.” A half dozen men moved rapidly toward the captain, he nodded, spoke to them in quiet voices, and then picked up the bullhorn again. “Please, everyone, try to stay calm. We will need bandages … towels … sheets … any clean shirts you have … medicines. We are limited in what we can do, but we must do all that we can. We are going to come as close as we can to the ship, and we will pick up as many survivors as possible.” Already, as the Deauville continued her approach, they could see one or two lifeboats in the distance, but there was no way of knowing how many lifeboats there were, or how many men were floating in the water. “We will use the dining hall as sick bay. I thank you now for your help. We have a long night ahead.” He paused again. “May God be with us.” Liane had a strong urge to say amen, and she looked at the girls, who stood beside her, their eyes filled with terror. She bent quickly to speak to them in the hubbub that ensued.

“Girls, I'm going to take you back to our cabin, and I want you to stay there. If anything happens, I will come to find you at once. If I don't come, go out into the hall, but don't go anywhere, unless one of the men takes you.” If they were torpedoed and she couldn't get back to them, she knew that someone would take care of them. “But you must wait very quietly. You can leave the door open if you're afraid. Now, I'm going to take you back.”

“We want to stay with you.” Marie-Ange spoke in a frightened wail, speaking for herself and her already crying sister.

“You can't. I'm going to do what I can here.” She had taken a first aid class when she was in Paris, although in the sudden panic now she found herself wondering how much she had absorbed. But two more hands could do no harm, so she hurried the girls back to their cabin, where she stripped her bed of both sheets, and took the top sheets off the girls' bunks. They could make do with their blankets, and in the heat of the room, they didn't even need those. But she knew that they might if later on they too had to take to their lifeboats. She pulled the blanket off her own, and tore open the room's small closet to look at their clothes. There were several of the girls' cotton shirts and she sacrificed two from each child to use as bandages for the survivors of the Queen Victoria . She grabbed several bars of soap, a small roll of bandages of her own, and a bottle of pain pills she had been given by her French dentist. Other than that, she had nothing else to contribute to the rescue. She dressed quickly and kissed the girls good-bye as she left the room, reminding them to sleep in their life vests tonight, and Elisabeth called after her with a sudden thought just as she was leaving.

“Where's Mr. Burnham?”

“I don't know,” she called back and disappeared down the hall, praying that the girls would be safe. She hated to leave them but knew that they would be safer out of the confusion.

And when she reached the dining hall, she found every single adult on board gathered in the room, getting instructions from the chief officer, a wizened man with a gravelly voice, who was giving curt, well-organized orders. They were being assigned into teams of three, and as much as possible, each group was assigned someone who had some experience in first aid, so that even if the other two people had no expertise, there would be one member of the team capable of some real assistance. The two doctors on board were already organizing supplies, and one of them made a brief speech about handling burns. His explanations turned several stomachs, but there was no avoiding reality now. And it was then, as Liane handed over her sheets and supplies, that she saw Nick at the far end of the room. She held up an arm to signal him, and he approached her, just in time for the chief officer to assign them to the same team. He preferred to assign people who knew each other to work together, it would make it easier to work as a unit, he explained briefly, and then the captain reappeared to make another announcement to the crowded room.

“We think that many of the men died in the initial explosion; however, we believe that there are still many survivors. There are only four lifeboats afloat, but hundreds of men in the water. Please take your positions on deck for the stretcher teams. My men will bring the survivors on board. We need you to treat them where they are, or assist in bringing them in here. The doctors will tell you who of all of you they want working with them in here. And I want to thank those of you who've given up your rooms. We do not know yet if we'll have to use them, but it's possible we will.” He looked grimly around the room with intense eyes, nodded, and left them. It would be another hour or more before they were close enough to pick up survivors, and now the assigned teams of three went on deck to watch and wait. Nick told Liane that more than half the men on board had given up their cabins and volunteered to sleep on the deck, so that the survivors could sleep indoors, and already crew members were hanging hammocks in the cabins to accommodate as many as possible. And he didn't tell her directly, but she gathered from what he said that he was among those who had given up his cabin. He was already sleeping outdoors anyway, and she sensed that it wouldn't have made any difference if he was not. He had been among the first to volunteer and now he appeared calm as they stood on deck, and he handed her a cup of coffee laced heavily with Scotch.

“I'd rather not …” She started to refuse but he was firm.

“Never mind. Drink it up. You'll need it before the night is out.” It was already one o'clock in the morning and they had a long night ahead. He looked at her worriedly then. “Have you ever smelled burning flesh, Liane?” She shook her head and took a sip of the brew he had handed her. “Brace yourself. It's going to be rough.” No one knew how many had survived the blaze. There was no way to tell. And even the men radioing weakly from one of the lifeboats couldn't tell them much. They had drifted far from the ship, and what they saw in the water around them were mostly bodies of the dead, they said. The Deauville had radioed back only once to let them know that they had heard their SOS. They didn't want to say more on the radio, for fear that the Germans were listening too. They gave no information about their position but as they approached, they flashed a single beam in Morse code to let the men in the lifeboat know that they were there, and a weak signal returned. “Thank God” the signal said, and Nick translated it for Liane as they waited tensely. They were not allowed to smoke while on deck, and the whiskey that had been passed around only seemed to heighten their senses. It seemed hours before they finally reached a huge mass of charred wood from the ship with a dozen or so men clinging to it, but they had been literally fried alive. There was another group of bodies after that, and then suddenly a shout from below as crew members from the Deauville carefully placed two men in a rubber raft that was hoisted carefully on board to the first waiting team. The two bodies were charred beyond belief and were rushed in to the doctors in the dining room. It had been turned into a surgery with lights ablaze behind the blackpainted windows. The lights violated the blackout regulations on the ship, but it could not be helped in the emergency. Liane had stared at the two bodies in disbelief and fought not to retch as she watched, and instinctively she had clutched Nick's arm. He said nothing to her but she suddenly felt his hand in hers, and then a moment later she felt no revulsion and no fear as she and Nick and a Canadian journalist assisted three men onto the deck, two of them burned hideously, and the third had been lucky to get burns only on the face and hands, and both his legs were broken. Liane supported the third man's head as Nick and the Canadian put him on the stretcher and another team moved to help the other two.