And the Band Played On by Christopher Ward Page B

under his eyes from lack of sleep and the corner of his mouth had slipped as though he had suffered a slight stroke. His hair was unkempt. Alice’s hair, piled up high like a governess, gave her a haughty look but she had kind eyes and a gentle mouth. She, too, was very pale. Mary was relieved that Alice was there. It would have been a more difficult conversation with Andrew on his own.
    ‘I came to tell you that I am expecting his child. I thought you should know.’
    Andrew took a menacing step towards Mary, his face flushed and furious. For a moment Mary thought he was going to strike or strangle her. But he just put his face close to hers and hissed: ‘Get out of here you little slut, peddling lies about your bastard child. I doubt you know who the father is but it’s certainly not my son.’
    Alice took her arm, in a kindly way, and led Mary back to the front door. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice. ‘You must understand . . .’
    Mary was back home in Buccleuch Street less than three minutes later. It had all gone badly wrong but Mary felt curiously calm and wondered if Andrew Hume had any idea what a formidable enemy he had just made.

9
    The ‘Death Ship’ Docks
    30 April, Halifax, Nova Scotia
    The summit of Citadel Hill in Halifax offers a commanding view of the Nova Scotia coast, a strategic asset that once protected Halifax from its enemies and gave the city its nickname ‘Warden of the North’. On a clear day you can see the old Marconi signal station at Camperdown, more than ten miles away. But early on the morning of 30 April 1912 a cold mist hung over the sea and, even with a telescope, the signalman who had been on lookout at Citadel Hill since before dawn was struggling to see the mouth of the harbour.
    Shortly after 8 a.m. he saw what he had been searching for: two masts, a single funnel, and the blurred but unmistakable outline of the cable ship Mackay-Bennett . The signalman hoisted a black flag, the agreed signal, to alert those waiting below. He heard shouted commands and, seconds later, saw five men running to pre-arranged destinations and a horse and carriage taking off at speed.
    The cathedral bell was the first to toll, joined one after another by the bells of more than forty churches in Halifax, a deafening chain of grief echoing across the city to mourn the dead who were finally nearing the end of their long voyage. All around the world people who had lost loved ones on the Titanic had been waiting for this moment. But the Mackay-Bennett would bring no good news for anyone today, not in Halifax – ‘the City of Sorrow’ – nor in Dumfries, where the Humes and the Costins were waiting anxiously for news, nor anywhere else. The best the bereaved could hope for would be to put a name to a corpse, to plan a place where they could later come to grieve. The worst news would be not knowing – not knowing for days, weeks or even months. But most likely not knowing ever what had happened to the person you loved whom you would never see again.
    On the deck of the Mackay-Bennett Captain Larnder could hear the church bells in the distance as the ship passed McNab’s Island. For the past three days, as they headed back towards Halifax, Larnder had felt a profound sense of relief that this unpleasant mission would soon be over. He – indeed, all the Mackay-Bennett ’s crew – had managed to disassociate themselves from the human horror of their work by concentrating on the logistic and physical challenges of their task. Now, surrounded by coffins and corpses, haunted by the sound of the bells in the wind, Larnder faced for the first time the emotional reality of his mission and braced himself for the worst that was still to come. In the distance he could see hundreds, no thousands, of people standing in silence, shoulder to shoulder, the full length of the wharves, their hats removed. Others, further back from the water’s edge, were standing on rooftops. Ships in the harbour cut their engines,