“What should we take?” I asked, moving toward my suitcase.
“Nothing!” he said. “Just take your life vest, hurry!”
I corralled the women out of the ward and directed them to the stairwell. The hallway was already flooded. Where was Emilia? Icy water seeped through my boots.
“Erika!” a desperate man shrieked. “Erika, where are you?”
The boat was nose-first and tilting left, to port side. The stairs slanted at an awkward angle, making them even more difficult to climb. The lifeless body of a child lay trampled near the stairs. I tried to stop and pick him up but the surge of the crowd knocked me forward.
Thousands of piercing screams filled the stairwell. “We’re going to drown!” a woman cried. A gunshot echoed somewhere below. Further panic swelled through the mass of people on the stairs. I was moving but not sure I was even walking. People clambered over one another as they climbed. The weaker ones fell backward and were sucked underfoot, unable to pull themselves up.
The stairway became choked. The ship tilted deeper into the water. The woman was right.
We were all going to drown.
alfred
I ran downhill along the tilting corridor, freezing water up to my knees. A small boy swam by me. All of the passengers seemed to be going the other way. But I knew something they didn’t. There were interior ladders inside the ventilation ducts. I pushed past people, continuing on my way.
“Sailor, please,” someone called out behind me.
I reached the end of the corridor. Another sailor appeared. He grabbed me by the shirt.
“Hurry, we have to get everyone out of the cabins and up on deck!” he said.
“How severe is it?” I asked.
“Three torpedoes. E deck, the engine room, and the forward compartments are destroyed.”
E deck. The swimming pool. The naval auxiliary girls were on E deck. The sailors’ bunks were in the forward compartments.
The sound of joists snapping and rivets popping echoed through the stairwell.
“She’s going down,” said the sailor. “Grab a coat if you can find one.” I followed him onto the upper promenade deck, taking a coat from a woman who was struggling with her life vest.
The sailor began smashing and breaking open cabin doors that had jammed. He shuttled people toward the stairs. “Come on!” he shouted to me. “Get these people out!”
“Yes, everyone, hurry,” I said to myself. I opened a door.
A woman and child lay bloody on the floor. In the center of the cabin, a naval officer stood with a gun to his head.
I watched, somehow fascinated. Would he do it?
He turned and pointed the gun at me.
I ran back to the ventilation ducts.
I am a thinker. I am thinking.
Torpedo strike: Approximately 9:15 p.m.
Ship’s capacity: 1,463.
Passengers on board: 10,573.
Lifeboats: 22.
But then I remembered.
Ten of the lifeboats were missing.
emilia
I made it to the top deck. Snow whipped, stinging my face. I clutched the baby. The wind lashed, trying to pull us over. The nose of the Gustloff was already beneath the water and the ship was rolling onto its left side. The icy deck glimmered, slick. I crouched down and crawled with Halinka, speaking to her in Polish. Nie p?acz. Don’t cry.
The night was dark. The sea churned, boiling and angry. Huge waves crashed against the ship. A sailor fired a flare. It soared high, a red shooting star illuminating an endless snow-filled sky. Frantic passengers tried to run as soon as they emerged from the stairs. I watched as they slipped and skidded across the icy deck, screaming and plunging into the water like human raindrops.
People cried. They fought. Sailors yelled. A grown woman kicked a teenager out of the way, ignoring her pleas for help. I stopped and crouched farther down with Halinka, holding her soft, warm body close to mine. I sang All the little duckies and hooked one arm around a metal railing on the deck. The ship submerged deeper into the sea.
Sailors struggled with the frozen winches that held the lifeboats on the left side.
The lifeboats on the right side were unusable, suspended high out of the water.
But I wasn’t looking for a lifeboat.
I was looking for the knight.
florian
We made it to the top deck.
“Hang on to me,” I yelled to the old man.
“Wait. It’s slippery. Our shoes will slide,” shouted the shoemaker. “We must crawl.”
Hordes of people emerged onto the icy deck. A man began to run. His feet slipped out beneath him. His body sailed through the air, his back snapping in two against the ship’s rail before bouncing into the sea.
I saw a lifeboat, only half full, lowered into the water. It had two sailors in it. The winds and sea spray whipped against our faces, making it hard to see or even move. People scrambled to the next boat, fighting and jumping to get in. Someone cut the back rope but the front rope didn’t release. The boat overturned and dangled, spilling all of the people into the deep black to drown.