My eyes flash open.
What woke me up? I wait with bated breath for anything that could have woken me, a bell summoning me to assist one of the passengers, or even a scream, but nothing comes.
"Carrie? Carrie!" I whisper into the darkness.
"Ann? Are you awake too?"
"Ya, why? I mean, what woke us up?"
"I'm not sure." We lay in our bunks for another minute. Then a knock comes. A short, sharp rap; an urgent rap.
I hear Carrie shuffle off her bunk, throw on a robe and answer the door.
"Pardon the intrusion, ladies, but we are to to awake our passengers and tell them to put on their life belts and report to the boat deck." I sit up quickly, forgetting the low ceiling, and inevitably hitting my head. The boat deck? In the middle of the night? We are in the northern Atlantic by now! It's freezing outside!
"Is something wrong?" I call down from my top bunk.
"The Titanic has hit an ice berg." With that our fellow steward shuffles down the hall to wake the others.
I jump down from my bunk, in too much of a hurry to use the ladder. My head is spinning. We quickly dress in our uniforms and look at each other.
"When you have woken your passengers, meet me on the boat deck," says Carrie. I nod.
"Alright. Take care, my friend."
"Until we meet again."
We hug, then go to the door, and turn our separate ways.
The Lord is my shepherd
I hear the feet of many shuffling stewards around me as we rush to wake our passengers.
I knock on the first door. Mr. Some-thing-or-other opens the door, his mouth already forming harsh words towards me.
"My apologies for the intrusion, but you are to put on your life belts and go to the boat deck."
His wife comes to stand behind the still fuming man.
"Is something wrong," she asks in a voice that betrays her fear.
"No, M'am," I answer, not at all sure of myself. "It's just routine. I suggest you dress warmly."
I shall not want.
I turn to the next door and repeat the message. Over and over, down some halls, up others, we spread the news.
"Get dressed, put on your life belt, and go to the boat deck. No there's nothing to be afraid of. It's just routine." Just routine. As staff know that there may be more to this than we tell. We know what happened. We know what could be the consequence. But the Titanic is unsinkable!
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
I arrive at the last door on this hall. I knock loudly and rapidly. A governess opens the door.
She already has her life belt on. The child next to her clutches her skirt, and a baby screams from her arms.
"You need to go to the boat deck. Hurry!" I whisper, "There may still be time."
She looks in my eyes, and understands. There is time for her, a nanny of privileged children, to save herself and the children, but there is no time or room for a stewardess.
She nods. As she walks past me she says, "Godspeed!" then hurries down the hall, pulling the older child by the hand.
He leads my beside still waters
I turn and run to the C deck; the entrance to the third class. I rush down the stairs, though I'm not sure why I'm going down here. There is a huge mass of people trying to get up the stairs. They look so desperate. It is then that I realize that just as there is no hope for a stewardess to survive, there is no hope that any of these passengers will live.
The stewards are barring the way of these third class passengers, assuring them that they will be let up soon. I see a mother standing at the front of the mass, holding a baby in her arms.
She looks at me with a pleading glance.
"Please," she screams, "if I can't go up, please take my baby!"
Why aren't the stewards letting them to the boat deck? Don't they have a right to survival too?
I look again at the screaming mother. Even if I can't let them all up, I can take the baby.
I squeeze through the wall of stewards. As I do, I can see by their faces that they do not enjoy their task of holding these people from their last hope of survival.
I hold my arms out towards the mother.
The look of relief in her eyes is incommunicable. She transfers the little one to my arms with a whispered, "Thank you, and God bless ye kind heart."
I rush back up the flight of stairs with the baby, praying that there is a life boat left. I turn to run down the hallway leading to the boat deck. Then my heart stops. The hallway is slanted. O Lord, save us! The Titanic is sinking!
