He reached the door leading to the after deck, but could not open it. From the position of the ship, he realized that something irretrievable had happened. On the port side, the steamer was lying high, on the starboard side, it was only ten or twelve feet above the level. As the stern was also much lower than the bow, it would have been a practically hopeless venture to clamber forward across the deck, especially with the heavy seas that were constantly sweeping it.
Willy-nilly, he must return through the mole's gallery he had traversed to the forward part of the boat.
Scarcely fifteen seconds later, when he had reached the forward entrance to the deck, at the head of the companionway leading up from the dining-room, he could not have told how he succeeded in making his way through the corridor jammed with panicky passengers without having been beaten to death, strangled, or trodden underfoot. His hands and forehead were bruised, and he was clinging to the door-post with all his might, parleying violently with Doctor Wilhelm. Doctor Wilhelm clutched him, and the two physicians, in defiance of death, climbed up to the bridge, where they huddled in the shelter of the deck-house on the port side. They saw something huge rise high up in the morning twilight and fly madly above their heads. The next instant they were drenched up to their waists, and would have been washed overboard, had they not clung to the railing with all their strength.
On the bridge it looked pretty much as usual. Captain von Kessel, apparently quite composed, was leaning forward, and the giant Von Halm was searching the ever-thickening fog with spy-glasses. The siren was howling, and rockets were being shot off from the bow. On the captain's right stood the second mate. The third mate had just received the order:
"Cut the falls. Get the boats away."
"Cut the falls. Get the boats away," he repeated and disappeared to execute the order.
To Frederick, it all seemed unreal. Moments such as this, to be sure, had entered his imagination as within the realm of the possible; but now he realised that he had never reckoned with them seriously. He knew the fact confronting him stood there inexorable; nevertheless, he was unable to grasp it in convincing reality. He was telling himself he ought to try to get into a boat, when the captain's blue eyes glanced at him, but apparently with no recognition in them. The captain's commands were uttered in his beautiful voice, remotely suggesting the clinking sound of colliding billiard balls.
"Women and children starboard."
"Women and children starboard," came like a near, word-for-word echo.
Now Max Pander stepped up to the captain. He had the noble idea of proffering him a life-belt. Von Kessel's hand found its way for an instant to his cap.
"No, thank you, my boy, I don't need it. But here—" he took a pencil from his pocket, wrote a hasty line on a piece of paper, and handed it to Pander. "Jump in a boat and, if you can, bring this greeting to my sisters."
A heavy sea swept over the port side, and a tremendous swell raised and turned and twisted the colossal vessel. Frederick in vain tried to rouse himself from the leaden indifference that had come upon him in view of the incomprehensible drama. Suddenly, he was seized with horror, but he fought it down. At no cost was he to show cowardice either to himself or to others. Nevertheless, he followed Doctor Wilhelm, who stuck close to Max Pander's heels.
"We must get into one of the boats," said Doctor Wilhelm. "There's no doubt we are sinking."
The next moment Frederick found himself in Ingigerd's cabin.
"Hurry!" he cried. "The people are already jumping into the boats."
He had left the cabin door open, and close by they could see Pander and two sailors hacking away with axes at the frozen tackles by which a life-boat was suspended.
Ingigerd asked for her father. She asked for Achleitner.
"There's no time now for you to think of anybody but yourself. It's impossible to go below deck. It would mean sure death," Frederick explained. "Get dressed! Get dressed!"
Ingigerd mutely hastened to carry out his orders. It was not until then that one of the stewards passing her cabin called in his brief message, "Danger!"
"Danger! What's the matter? Are we sinking?" she cried.
But Frederick had already picked her up and carried her over to the boat, which the next instant gave way under the axe and fell into the misty turmoil below.
"Women and children on the other side!" the third mate shouted commandingly.
His order referred not only to Ingigerd, but also to the maid Rosa, who, fiery-red with her exertions, appeared on deck dragging her mistress and both the children, with the air of a housewife loaded with purchases, afraid of missing a street car.
"Women and children on the other side!" the third mate repeated in somewhat too Prussian a manner. Fortunately his presence was now required for the next boat, over which the struggles were already commencing.
There was no time to be lost, and despite the determined resistance of two sailors, Frederick, Pander, and Doctor Wilhelm let Ingigerd safely down into the boat. In doing so, Frederick also turned somewhat too loud-voiced and Prussian. Through his iron energy, which hewed down resistance as the sailors had hewed at the life-boat tackles, he succeeded in having the children, Mrs. Liebling, and finally Rosa lowered into the boat. It was no easy matter. Frederick heard himself shouted at, roared at, and commanded, and he, in turn, shouted at the sailors, commanded, and roared. He fought, he worked, though without a gleam of hope and with the positive consciousness that the situation was beyond salvation. All was over, all was lost. If he had not thought so before, the next occurrence would have convinced him.
A second boat had been lowered, and three sailors had jumped in. It rolled from side to side and rose on a wave. About eight or nine other persons leapt for it—Frederick thought he recognised familiar figures. It filled and disappeared. As if by sleight-of-hand, the spot where the boat with the dozen people in it had been dancing turned into empty sea with mist and spray driving over it.
Slowly the dark grey of the early dawn turned into the lighter grey of the day, approaching coldly and indifferently. When the fog lifted a little, Frederick for seconds at a time had a dismaying illusion that he was in a green valley with glorious, flowery meadows, through which a snowstorm of blossoms was sweeping. But then the mountains came, driven by the ferocious spirits of the hurricane, and closed down on the valley. The heavy, glassy heights broke, and with the weight of their fluid masses, snapped away two of the Roland's masts like reeds.
With its boilers quenched, the poor wreck could no longer send up a cry for help. Its sad body was still towering upward at the bow in colossal majesty. Rockets flew, signals of distress fluttered briskly from the foremast; a futile language in that merciless raging of the elements.
In the steerage it had grown still. But from the port side came a peculiar, persistent, unbroken sound, resembling the shouting and screaming of a crowd on toboggan-slides and merry-go-rounds at a village fair. A buzzing as of swarming bees pierced distinctly through the roaring of the tempest, while above it rose the shrieking of infuriated, frenzied women. Frederick thought of his dark-eyed Deborah. She, too, was doomed. He thought of Wilke.
Bulke, the faithful valet, appeared, leading Arthur Stoss by his coat collar. Within the next few moments, Wilke also appeared. He had been drinking, and was shouting as if the whole thing were a frolic; but he was half dragging, half carrying on deck an old, wheezing working woman. Thrusting Stoss and Bulke aside, he landed her safely in the boat.
Ingigerd was clamouring incessantly for her father and Achleitner. Instead of either of these, Stoss, whom Bulke and Wilke had lowered by a rope, dropped down beside her.
About thirty feet from Frederick, a man was standing in a cabin door, carefully hooked back. With incredible calm he was smoking a cigarette and inhaling, and stroking a yellow cat on his arm.
"It looks pretty bad, doesn't it, Mr. Rinck?" Frederick said, going up to him.
"Why?"
"Well, don't you think we're lost?"
Mr. Rinck shrugged his shoulders without answering.
"What's the matter? What's the matter?" somebody bellowed in his ear.
"Nothing," he said, stroking his cat.
In the meantime Bulke and Wilke had lowered Doctor Wilhelm into the boat.
"That girl down there is giving herself a sore throat screaming for her father," said Bulke.
Frederick decided, cost what it might, to take a look around below deck. Perhaps fortune might favour him; he might discover Hahlström and perhaps Achleitner, too, and help one or both into the boat. There was danger, to be sure, that the boat would put off before he returned.
He had worked his way as far as the unused smoking-room. It was empty. Suddenly Wilke was standing beside him.
"If you're looking for somebody, I'll help," the peasant declared.
The two together descended the rest of the companionway. The space in front of the dining-room was empty and so was the dining-room. It was tilted at an acute angle. A heap of dishes and silverware blocked the doorway.
"Hahlström! Achleitner!" Frederick shouted again and again.
Wilke pushed a short way down the long corridor, on which the cabins gave. But the spot closed off by the rising waters was only too clearly distinguishable.
"Come away, come away!" Frederick cried, and ran. He ran for his life. He ran in wild fear of missing the boat.