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news, Ma,’ she said quietly. ‘I came to tell you before you’d hear it from someone else.’
    Rose felt her stomach lurch. She thought of Sarah’s children, Hugh and little Helen just home for the Easter holidays. Something had happened to one of them. An accident. Or one of them was ill. Or perhaps Sarah herself was ill and hadn’t told her.
    She rose from the table with a steadiness that surprised her and sat down in the fireside chair opposite her. She shivered, suddenly chill despite the mild, April morning and the warm glow of the stove.
    ‘Da sent me a message up from Ballievy,’ Sarah began. ‘The big ship’s sent out signals for help, but there’s no other ship very near.’
    ‘What! The
Titanic
?’ Rose gasped. ‘But how can she be in trouble? They say she’s unsinkable. What’s happened? What’s gone wrong? And how did Da hear?’
    Rose looked at her daughter steadily. She was sitting up straight in the easy chair, her hands stretched along its wooden arms, her fingers grasping the worn-smooth ends. She was wearing a high necked blouse pinned at the neck with a favourite brooch and a plain dark-blue skirt, her favourite colour. Apart from the look on her face,she seemed the calm, controlled Sarah who’d taken up her life and Hugh’s work with so little hesitation and such steadiness immediately after his death.
    ‘Someone got the news from the White Star office in Belfast this morning and it went round the mills like wildfire,’ she explained. ‘Some of the men have brothers in the crew or know someone in the handover group and several women have relatives who are passengers. There’s two families in second class emigrating from Belfast. My Mrs Beatty has a niece who’s a stewardess,’ she went on, taking a deep breath. ‘You’ve met her, Ma. She used to be on the cross channel ferry, before she was moved to the
Olympic
. They were short staffed for
Titanic
, so they moved her again. Mary Sloan?’
    Rose nodded silently. She’d had more than one conversation with her over the last years when she’d crossed the Irish Sea to visit Hannah and her mother-in-law, her own oldest friend, Lady Anne.
    ‘Oh, Sarah,’ she began, waving her hands helplessly. ‘Whatever
has
gone wrong? Was it a storm?’
    Sarah shook her head again, but did not look away. Her blue eyes lacked the old animation, gone with Hugh’s death, but they never wavered. However painful the news, she’d tell her straight.
    ‘Da telegraphed our agents in New York first thing this morning. They said nearby ships had taken off all the passengers and she’s being towed to Halifax. But a little while ago, they heard from the London office. Montreal had telegraphed that she’d gone down. Apparently, she sent out CQD for a couple of hours and then this new signal, SOS. But then all went silent.’
    Rose was so shocked she could hardly get her words out.
    ‘Sarah, Sarah, dear. All those poor people. And poor Mrs Beatty. She’ll be so anxious about Mary. Is there nothing we can do to find out what’s really happened?’
    ‘I’m on my way to the post office. I’ll talk to Billy Auld. If anyone can find out, he can. He’s in charge of telegraphs now,’ she said abruptly, as she stood up.
    Rose sat where she was, still staring at her daughter who walked across the kitchen but made no move to leave.
    ‘Who were you writing to, Ma?’ Sarah asked as she caught sight of the unfinished letter on the table.
    ‘Hannah. I was telling her the good news about Uncle Sam in America …’
    Rose broke off, aware that Sarah was watching her closely. For one more moment she sat, confused and bewildered, and then it dawned on her whySarah had come. She put a hand to her mouth and gasped.
    ‘Sam,’ she said, in a whisper. ‘Your Uncle Sam,’ she said, looking up, her eyes wide. ‘He should’ve been on her.’
    Sarah smiled bleakly, came and put an arm round her, kissed her cheek.
    ‘Yes, I know. He showed me the newspaper