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The cabin pitched and tossed.
Alice shrieked and wept.
Up and down, up and down, the creaking ship rode the crests in time with the angry sea.
Up and—
A crack like thunder exploded from the hold, slapping Emma from her stupor. The ship shuddered, suspended, and then plunged.
The bucket slopped. Her stomach lurched. She grabbed the rail to avoid being tumbled to the floor.
Nineteen-year-old Cora Poole, in the bunk above, began to cry. “We’re going to die. We’re all going to die.”
“I wish I was dead,” another girl groaned.
Foreboding tightened Emma’s chest. The roar of the engines still shook the air and vibrated the walls all around. But something was different. Something was…wrong. The ship lolled and rolled, no longer fighting the waves.
Emma clung to the bunk with sweaty palms, her heart tripping in her chest. She was almost as close to hysterics as her charges.
As if bursting into tears ever did anyone any good.
“That’s quite enough,” Emma said in her schoolmistress tone. If her voice trembled slightly, no one appeared to notice. “No one is going to die.”
She hoped.
She mustered her charges, struggling for balance in the narrow, pitching cabin, bundling and buttoning them into cloaks and jackets and boots in case it became necessary to go—
Dear God. Emma closed her eyes a moment, fighting panic. Where could they go? They were in the middle of the ocean.
A new sound—a deep, rhythmic rattle—rumbled from the bowels of the ship, almost drowning the crash of the waves.
Matron appeared, her face as gray as a sheet.
Emma stood, her knuckles white on the bunk rail. “What is it?” she asked quietly. “What has happened?”
“The shaft is broken. We’ve lost the propeller.”
Without the propeller, the ship was unmanageable. Helpless in this sea. Emma felt her knees fold like string and fought another wild surge of panic.
“But that sound—” She forced the words through numb, stiff lips. “The engines…”
“The pumps,” Matron said. “Captain is pumping water from the hold.”
Their eyes held a moment in silent communication. They were taking on water, then. Emma’s heart plummeted.
“What can be done?” she asked.
Matron shrugged. “Wait for another ship.”
Emma’s throat constricted. Another ship? But that meant…That must mean…
Dear God.
They were sinking.
Hours passed. The ship bounced and rolled like a log in a river. Emma staggered through the single women’s quarters, wiping faces, holding hands and buckets. As long as she kept busy, she did not have to think about the ship’s fate.
Or her own.
