Eastland Read online

  I prayed as the first woman bobbed up, splashing and kicking at some unseen menace below. She must have gained her freedom because a moment later, she went slack and flopped across the coop. Seconds, then minutes went by, but the second woman never reappeared. Neither did the man.

  A policeman on the wharf pulled the floating woman to safety, where she collapsed into a heap, crying, “Hazel! Hazel!”

  Was Mae out there right now being dragged to her death?

  No! Karel had said Mae was a strong swimmer. Mae would fight. Mae would survive.

  The tugboat Kenosha, the one that was supposed to pull the Eastland out onto Lake Michigan, maneuvered instead into place between our capsized ship and the wharf. The tug set planks in place on each side of her deck, creating a bridge from our hull to the tug, and from the Kenosha to the wharf.

  Yet even with the planks in place, no one around me moved. Were they all too stunned to leave? Or were they like me, waiting and hoping for a glimpse of a loved one?

  My toes tingled. Was the hull vibrating?

  I dropped down and pressed my hand against the white steel. I’d been too busy watching the river to realize that passengers had been trapped in the decks below. They were alive! People had survived and were pounding on the hull for help.

  Rescuers had arrived on the hull and were cautiously making their way along the slimy surface toward us. These liberators worked feverishly to pull trapped passengers through the portholes, but with the openings about a foot and a half in diameter, only the most slender could slip through.

  Could Mae make it through something that tight?

  A few yards away, a head appeared through a porthole. It was a girl about my age. Two men reached for her as she thrust up her arms. But try as they might, they couldn’t ease her shoulders through the opening. In the end, they had no other choice than to lower her back into the ship.

  “You can’t leave me here!” Her pitiful cries pierced the air. “Help me! Please!”

  But her two would-be rescuers could do nothing to help. They both sagged to their knees and bawled.

  They weren’t going to leave that girl in that flooded prison? There had to be another way out!

  What if Mae was down there? How would she get out? Then, as if by some divine intervention, a mirage materialized through the rainy fog. I wiped my wet face and stared in amazement as a team of welders approached. They were lighting their torches, preparing to cut holes in the exposed hull, when a familiar figure came storming at them.

  “What’re you doing?” demanded the captain. “I won’t let you destroy the integrity of my ship!”

  “This boat,” a welder sniped, “is already compromised. It’s capsized. Or haven’t you noticed?”

  The captain waved a burly fist. “I’ll right her again. And when I do, I don’t want any damage to my hull.”

  The whole team of welders advanced on the captain. A policeman jumped into the fray.

  “Now, gentlemen.” The cop stretched out his arms to hold back the welders. “Let’s be civil and remember why you’re here.”

  “Copper’s right,” one welder said. “Forget the captain. There’s work to be done.” The welder lit his torch. The captain charged at him.

  Before the team could react, a woman on the dock shouted, “Toss him overboard!”

  “Drown him! Drown him!” echoed a chorus of spectators.

  Had the captain injured his head in that fall when he’d attempted to escape? Was he delirious now or just plain deranged? And why had he survived when so many others had not? Isn’t a captain supposed to go down with his ship as the captain of the Titanic had done?

  The cop pulled out his handcuffs. “You’re under arrest.” He secured the captain’s hands behind his back. “For your own protection.”

  Several other policemen rushed forward to assist, and together they escorted the captain off the Eastland and through the angry mob on the dock.

  I looked down at my delicate, golden watch. A gift from my best friend. It was eight-thirty.

  An hour had already passed? So where was Mae? Almost all the survivors had been pulled from the water. All that was left were shoes and deck chairs and lifeless bodies floating by on the current.

  No! Mae must have been rescued, only I didn’t see it happen.

  Doctors had arrived on the dock and were checking unconscious victims for signs of life. One gray-haired doctor was ministering to a toddler with a pulmotor, a frightening apparatus that looked more like a bicycle pump than a resuscitation device. The doctor placed a mask over the boy’s nose and mouth and then pumped air into the youngster’s lungs. A few torturous seconds later, the boy coughed back to life.

  I said a silent Hail Mary, but my joy was cut short by an unnerving scene.

  Another doctor was working on a woman who had lost her dress in the river. She lay stretched out on the dock indecently exposed in her camisole and bloomers as the doctor pumped with his pulmotor. All too soon, he stopped. He removed the mask from the woman’s face.

  “She’s gone. Take ’er away.”

  Catholic priests had gathered on the wharf, more priests than I’d ever seen, even at a High Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. One boyish-looking priest knelt over the dead, indecently exposed woman. He covered her with a blanket and then gave her last rites before several firemen carried her corpse away.

  Had Mae been given last rites? Had her lifeless body been taken to some morgue? Or had she been resuscitated and whisked away to a hospital? Or was she still in the hull? Or still in the river?

  Where was she?

  My head throbbed with the frightening possibilities. I’d left Mae below deck so I could go find Karel. What kind of friend did something like that? A selfish, thoughtless friend like me. I pulled my hair, trying to get the clatter and pain to stop.

  But there was only one way.

  7

  I crept toward the edge of the hull and peered into the water. “I’m coming to join you, Mae! I won’t ever leave you again.” A hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Miss! Miss! What’re you doing?”

  A husky voice. Masculine. Why was this strange man pestering me?

  I shook him off and looked back at the river. A little girl’s doll bobbed past, one porcelain arm sticking straight up, her bright blue eyes flipped open. She stared at me, begging for help.

  “Don’t worry! I’ll come for you. I’m coming for Mae too! You won’t be alone anymore.”

  I teetered further out over the edge of the hull and reached down for the doll.

  “Easy now, miss.” It was the annoying voice. “Let’s settle ourselves.” The hand gripping my shoulder eased me back from the edge. Thick arms enveloped me. This man, this intruder, felt damp and cold. I wanted to be free of him.

  “Leave me alone!” I struggled, but he held fast.

  “There’s nothing down there for you.”

  “You don’t know that! Mae might be down there. She needs me.”

  I leaned toward the water again, but he pulled me back against him.

  “You’re shivering.” He rubbed my arms with massive hands that seemed to cover the entire lengths of my sleeves. “Probably in shock.”

  Shock? Me? I laughed at this brutish meddler and his ridiculous notions. I wasn’t in shock. I knew exactly what I wanted. I tried to squirm free.

  “Please, miss, please. It’ll be okay.”

  Okay? Women had plunged to their deaths. Children had been thrown overboard. Babies had sunk to the bottom of the river. Didn’t he see?

  Nothing was right about any of this.

  So who was in shock here? Me or him? I laughed ’til my teeth chattered. He rubbed my arms faster, but any faster, and I might start on fire. Now, that was funny.

  “You need help, help,” he kept repeating.

  “Y-you need h-help,” I chittered. I needed Mae. I twisted toward the river.

  “Listen!” He shook me firmly, but gently. “You can’t go into that river. Understand? I�
�m not letting go of you.”

  He wrapped his powerful arms around me again. The air went out of me. I had no strength left to resist. He rubbed my arms more slowly now, and I knew I wouldn’t burst into flames. I exhaled, and stopped laughing.

  “That’s better. You’re safe now with me. Oh, but you really don’t know who I am. Name’s Lars Nielsen, first assistant engineer. And you are?”

  He paused, obviously waiting for an answer, and for the first time I noticed that he was part of the Eastland crew.

  He wore the standard white uniform. A long-sleeved shirt with a wide, square collar that draped halfway down his back, bell-bottomed pants, and a round cap. But this seaman was not dress-code clean. His uniform was slimy and damp, as though he’d been rolling across the hull instead of standing on it. His hair, white-blond like Mama’s starch, hung down all sweaty around his ears. He looked sturdy as a full-grown maple with a thick voice that seemed to match his imposing size.

  Yet this hulking, young seaman had a smile that radiated warmth and the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. They were hypnotic— a greenish-blue turquoise like Lake Michigan and nearly as deep. I seemed to be losing myself in their depths.

  I shook myself back to sanity, or at least, some measure of it.

  “Delia Pageau.”

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Pageau.” Lars Nielsen gave a sprightly tip of his cap. “Wish we could have met under different circumstances.” He dropped his arms from mine. “You’ve stopped shivering. Good. And look!” He pointed to the far end of the steamer. “Firemen are spreading ashes on the hull. That should make the surface a lot less slippery.”

  Survivors at the other end of the hull had finally decided to move, but Lars begged me to remain in place until the ashes had been spread about our feet.

  “Now we can leave.”

  He guided me along the length of the sooty hull toward the tugboat. We continued across the plank bridge, over the deck of the Kenosha, across the other plank bridge, and onto the wharf.

  “You’re back on solid ground. Now please wait here while I go for help.”

  “No! No thank you. I don’t need any more help, Mr. Nielsen. I’m fine. See.” I pointed to my feet. “My new snakeskin shoes don’t have a scratch on them. Mae might be dead, but I still have pretty little slippers.” I burst into hysterical laughter.

  But Lars didn’t seem to get the joke. Instead, he stood, waving feverishly at someone.

  “Over here! We need one here.”

  A fireman carrying an armload of blankets rushed toward us. Lars grabbed a blanket, placed it over my shoulders, and wrapped it about me.

  “There. This should stop the shakes.”

  I nestled into the itchy wool, too exhausted to argue, or to laugh.

  “Now, let’s get you home, Miss Pageau. Your family must be worried sick.”

  “Mama! Oh, but I can’t leave without Mae!”

  “Tell me about her. I promise I’ll do my best to find your friend.”

  I described Mae’s one-of-a-kind couture outfit.

  “Lilac. Got it. Now please tell me your address.”

  I told him as we climbed the wharf steps to street level. One glance around, and I knew we’d left the stunned quiet of the hull behind.

  Firemen yelled commands, horns blared, and thousands of animated spectators all seemed to be talking at once. The curious crowd had grown so thick that the police had been forced into a human barricade, lining up shoulder to shoulder on either side of the pavement to create a passage. Rescuers carried the wounded through the cordon and out to the waiting ambulances.

  We made our way along the police passage to Clark Street where traffic had stalled almost to a standstill. People wanted a peek at the sight below. Heads of drivers and passengers poked out of every car, truck, and trolley window. Workers in surrounding buildings stood in doorways or at windows. Some had even climbed to rooftops for a better view.

  “Over here!” A woman in a stiff white cap and maroon cape waved to us.

  I recognized her as a Western Electric nurse. A first aid pavilion, manned by company nurses, had been planned for the picnic. All the nurses were supposed to leave on the first steamer, so they could get the pavilion ready before the majority of the picnickers arrived. This nurse must have been running late.

  “Where’s the girl going?” she asked Lars.

  “Cicero.”

  The nurse stepped into the sluggish traffic and hailed the first car she encountered. Quicker than I could blink, she opened the rear door, and ushered me into the backseat. The three children inside squawked in alarm. The two adults in the front seat barely had time to protest before the nurse slammed the rear door shut. She banged the hood.

  “Go! See her safely home.”

  I peered out from the car. Lars stood on the curb, waving at me.

  “Bye, Miss Pageau. Take care of yourself.”

  I was holding up my hand to wave, when the car nosed back into traffic.

  Lars Nielsen, first assistant engineer, was gone.

  8

  I had survived the morning’s devastation without a scratch, yet I couldn’t make it back home without the help of five startled strangers who’d been forced to share their motorcar with some half-crazed young woman. The driver peeked over his shoulder at me in the rear seat and then cleared his throat as if embarrassed he’d been caught staring. He turned his attention back to the road.

  Despite the fact that it was summer, he wore a beige trench coat, leather driving gloves, orange-tinted glass goggles, and an aviator cap with flaps that covered his ears. He obviously had money. How else could he afford this shiny black coupe for his family? The woman beside him twisted fully around, got onto her knees, and leaned over the top of her beige leather seat.

  “Are you all right?” She stared at me from behind the white netting of her bee-keeper hat. “Oh, “I’m sorry. What an absurd question! Of course you’re not. How could you be?”

  “Why? What happened?” the children screeched. Both boys and their sister were outfitted like their father, but in child-sized trench coats and smaller goggles. The three had cowered together in the opposite corner of the backseat and were staring at me as though I might want to have them as a snack. In spite of my exhaustion and fear, I wanted to laugh. They all looked so silly.

  “Quiet!” their mother snapped. “Poor thing’s been through a terrible ordeal. You need to let her rest.” The children grumbled but did as they’d been told, though they still clung to each other as if their lives were in danger. Their mother turned back around.

  I checked my watch. It was eleven-fifteen. I’d been out in the rain for hours. My short, bobbed hair was slick and wet and stuck to my head like a brunette swimming cap. I smoothed it back, though it really didn’t matter how I looked.

  Soon I would be face-to-face with Mama, and I’d have to explain why I had disobeyed her. There would be consequences, but at least I had lived to see my mother. Mae might never get that chance. I shoved the thought away.

  Karel would find Mae.

  I slippedoff the blanket Lars Nielsen had given me and eased back into the springy leather. The motorcar didn’t have any glass on the side windows, but a raised bonnet and a clear covering on the rear window kept out at least some of the dust and noise and rain. I bounced along for miles, my eyes drooping in the muggy heat before it dawned on me that I’d never been in a car. Under any other circumstance, I would have been thrilled.

  “We’re in Cicero, miss.”

  The father’s voice stirred me from my grogginess. I glanced outside. We had passed Western Electric and were nearing my block. Like earlier this morning, the whole neighborhood was outside, but now I saw no merriment or excitement—only anxious faces and tears.

  News had spread.

  Did Mama think I had died? How could I have put her through such anguish? My selfishness overwhelmed me. My stomach lurched.

  “Which way to your house?”

  I gulped down my nausea
and gave the man directions. As the car approached my street, I stuck my head out the windowopening, anxious for that first glimpse of home—overgrown bushes, ripped screen door, faded paint, and all. I longed to see Mama. I wanted nothing more than to touch the familiar calluses on her hands and inhale the sweet scent of her lavender toilet water. But would she let me? Or would she be too angry?

  By the time we reached our two-flat, my stomach was one big knot of uncertainty.

  The seven Mulligan kids from upstairs sat scattered about our front porch steps. Their mother sat on the top stoop, her plump arms wrapped around a slumped figure. I flung open the back door. The little girl beside me screeched.

  “We’re still moving!”

  I held the door closed as her father steered the car to the curb. When we finally came to a stop, I stepped onto the running board and sprang into the street. But my eager heart must have been more willing than my exhausted body because my legs gave way. I leaned on the opened car door for support as the father got out.

  “Easy, miss. Maybe you should slow down a bit. I know you want to see you family, but if another car had been passing us …”

  I straightened. My tremulous legs held. “I think I can manage now.” I closed the door and extended my hand to him. “Thank you.”

  “It was nothing. Stay safe.”

  We shook hands, and he got back into his car and drove off. I realized, too late, that I hadn’t even learned their names. I groaned and turned toward home.

  The whole neighborhood seemed to be watching me. Even the unruly Mulligan brood sat silent, their eyes bulging as they gawked my way. Then, as if a match had been struck, my speechless audience sparked to life. They rushed at me, pelting me with questions.

  “Did you see my son?”

  “Do you know anything about my sister?”

  “My husband! What’s become of him?” Mrs. Ivanko, our neighbor from across the street, pinched my arm. “Tell me! Where is he?” She pinched harder.