Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge

at least two of the design team fell in behind the purser and marched mistakenly off, not to join us again until we reached the Marconi telegraph room. Here I was present, albeit squeezed out into the corridor, when one of the wireless operators read out a message received from the French vessel La Touraine , bound from New York to Le Havre, congratulating the Titanic on her maiden voyage, wishing her God Speed and warning of ice ahead.
    I was half afraid I would encounter Adele during our inspection of the steerage decks. How should I greet her? If I ignored her it was surely on the cards, seeing she roamed over the ship as she pleased, that it would be reported to Scurra, who would then think less of me. In the event, though the public rooms swarmed with men, women and children, mostly emigrants babbling in a mixture of tongues, Adele was not among them.
    When we came at last to the engine and boiler rooms, only Smith, Andrews and the chief engineer were allowed access. The rest of us went off to examine the refrigeration area and the cargo holds, through which we tramped to the pinging of that ghostly violin.
    Twenty minutes later the engine room detail emerged into the corridor, Andrews mopping his brow, droplets of perspiration sparkling in the Captain’s beard. Their glowing faces gave nothing away and neither a reference to fire nor any expression of doubt as to the stability of bulkheads was made in my hearing.
    Midday, we rose to the upper levels and gave our attention to the enclosed promenades. Andrews was concerned that a number of steamer chairs had gone from the port side. He instructed me to make a note of it. I hadn’t a pencil and turned my back on him, pretending to scribble. Fortunately the missing items were spotted moments later piled behind the door of the Café Parisien. Starboard side, the small grandson of Mrs Brown of Denver was caught finger-drawing on the windows. Told to desist, he put out his tongue. His nurse rubbed the glass clean with her handkerchief and shooed him below.
    Once on the boat deck there was a wearisome trudge of its length and an even longer scrutiny of its cranes, winches and ventilators. All were judged to be in good working order. As we passed the base of the forward mast the look-out men of the crow’s nest were changing shifts. The two men coming off duty were arguing about a pair of missing night-glasses, one claiming he’d seen them when the ship left Cherbourg, the other adamant he’d not set eyes on them from the day he’d signed on. I heard their exchange quite clearly because our procession had come to a temporary halt while Thomas Andrews greeted Mr and Mrs Carter who were taking a stroll before lunch.
    We were further delayed when it came to an inspection of the life-boats, of which there were twenty, including four Englehardt collapsibles, Captain Smith wishing to know if they were sufficiently stocked with emergency blankets. Smiling, the chief steward submitted that they were and had been double checked. All the same, Smith insisted Number 7 boat be lowered immediately so that he could see for himself. Bored with this procedure Andrews strode off before it was completed and led us towards the bows.
    I had been waiting impatiently for the moment when we would go up on to the bridge and view the marvels of modern technology within the wheelhouse, and actually had, at last, one foot on the companionway when Andrews, spying a female figure squatting beside a bench midway beneath the first and second funnels, suggested that someone should go to her assistance. As I had turned to hear what he said and it chanced he was looking straight at me, I was in no position to dodge the request.
    The woman was middle-aged and wrapped in furs against the wind. Eccentrically balanced on her haunches, she peered intently at the deck. Upon my enquiring if she had lost anything she pointed at what I took to be a button stuck to the side of the bench bolt. As I bent to pick it up