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People fell against each other; there were screams and shouting. There was a great crush on the stairs, with people barging and shoving; an officer at the top was calling out to stay calm, not to push, to take it easy. He was telling the people with suitcases that they must leave them, they couldn’t take them on the boats. Shirley was jammed against the people in front of her, she was clutching hold of Jean, and someone behind had a case knocking against her legs. Just ahead, one of the Armenian girls was weeping and wailing, the Hamilton baby propped over her shoulder.
    They got to the upper deck, but then there were more stairs up to the promenade deck, and more people. She kept looking back to see if she could see Mrs. Leech, but no sign, and anyway it was too dark to make out faces. Everyone was shouting out names, trying to find each other. Jean was terribly confused: “What’s happening? Where are we going? Why aren’t there any lights?” The officers were flashing torches to help people find the way, and when at last they were up on the top deck it was easier to see, with some moonlight. But the deck wasn’t level, it was sloping, so that there was a pull up toward lifeboat station number six, by the rail, which was theirs—and then she realized that the whole ship was listing over to one side.
    They were lowering the lifeboats from the boat deck—lascars swarming around on ropes, sailors hurrying to and fro. As more people came out of the stairway onto the deck, she spotted Mrs. Leech and Mrs. Clavering—Mrs. Leech with her dressing case, which she must have got past the officers somehow, and her silver fox fur cape.
    Mrs. Leech was hysterical. Mrs. Clavering wasn’t much better. They were relieved to find the children, but it made Jean even more upset, seeing her mother like that. Shirley tried to distract her, getting her to look at the lifeboats coming alongside the rail. The next station was already getting into their boat—about thirty people, with an officer in charge and several lascars. There was a lot of shouting from the seamen and the boat was lowered, but not gradually, it went in fits and starts, something kept getting stuck it seemed, and the people in the boat were being thrown around. She heard screams. Because of the ship’s list, the side was like a great cliff and the sea far below, dark as anything, glinting here and there in the moonlight. Shirley didn’t want to look. It would be them next.
    Each lifeboat station was alongside one of those stretches of rail that were made to be opened, as though the ship had always been waiting for this. She had stood with Alan Baker against one of them, only hours before.
    Now it was their turn to get into the lowered boat, the officer helping them on one by one, telling them to go to the end quickly, make room for the next person. Mrs. Leech was saying, “Oh, no—no, no,” again and again. Shirley had to manhandle her into the boat and onto a seat. She said, “Shut your eyes now,” and Mrs. Leech did, obedient, like a child.
    When they started to lower the boat, Shirley took Jean on her lap and held her tightly—she’d seen how those other people had been pitched about. And it was horrible. They hung there rocking, in midair, and then the boat began to go down, slowly at first, and then it dropped, and they hit the sea with a wallop, water surging over the sides, people falling off the seats.
    At once, the lascars were rowing. She saw why. They had to get away from the ship. Another lifeboat was banging up against the soaring hull, sucked in by the current, desperately trying to get clear. And up above more boats were coming down—there was a confusion of ropes and flashing torches and shouting and children crying. Shirley had to watch, she couldn’t take her eyes off the sight of it—the great leaning ship, with smoke billowing up now from somewhere, and the little