The last of the lifeboats careened in the distance over the waves, so tightly packed with men, only a few could loosen their arms to paddle the boat away from the capsizing ship. The small rafts made zigzags in the water as the waves carried them off. The men for whom there had been no room in the lifeboats clung to any object made of wood that had snapped off the ship’s décor or slid off the deck into the ocean as the ship tilted. Antica could see a long wooden banister, a tabletop, and the back of a cane chair—all had human life attached to them in some fashion. The survivors, their desperate faces lifted to the light, looked like a field of sunflowers following the sun.
The seawater was up to Antica’s knees.
Antica sat down on the deck, placing his hands by his sides to steady himself. The cacophony of the ship’s contents crashing as the boat tipped over made Antica’s heart pound faster.
The water crept up to Antica’s chest and neck. As the Arandora Star sank into the Atlantic, Arcangelo Antica did not hold his breath, nor did he call for help or panic; instead, he let the ocean take his life from him. The water was cold, but Antica did not feel it. He let go.
* * *
McVicars and the crew stood behind Captain Moulton. Don Fracassi emerged from the hatch to join them. His black cassock dragged on the floorboards, soaked with oil from the lower decks. He had blessed the men before they jumped to save themselves. For the Italians, the last words many heard before dying were a prayer in their native language. The priest managed a smile for McVicars, who made his hand into a fist in solidarity with the priest. “Coraggio,” Fracassi said to McVicars as he took his place with the crew on the bridge. Moulton moved to look over the side of the ship.
“Jump!” Moulton shouted to a boy who clung in fear to the nets on the side of the ship, tears covering his face.
The captain reassured the boy: “Don’t be afraid, son! You can do it! Jump!”
The boy jumped into the sea. Moulton returned to his position with the men.
John McVicars stood tall as the Arandora Star sank into the ocean. The crow’s nest was swallowed by the depths. John took the last moments of his life looking not out to sea but up, to the sky. His last thoughts were of Domenica Cabrelli, the Italian girl he had been lucky enough to love and marry. A smile crossed his lips when he pictured her, the delicate woman with the will of a general and the heart of a healer. She was the best person he had ever known. His heart was full of so much love, he imagined that her love might save him. He kept his face to the sky. The sea was no longer his world, and he had seen enough of it. He embraced the morning sky and the clouds that had moved in. The clouds were so low, he could touch them. He said a prayer of his own. McVicars would find his way back to God, and in so doing, he was certain that he would see his wife again. He reached into his uniform jacket and pulled the holy medal Domenica had given him to his lips. He kissed the medal.
* * *
Domenica woke in the bed she had shared with her husband as thunder shook the windows in the stone cottage in the convent garden. The front door blew open in the wind, banging against the wall behind it. Heavy rain began to beat on the ground as lightning seared through the black clouds. Domenica sprung out of bed and stumbled to the door. A fierce gale-force wind blew her back inside and off her feet. She got up, pushed the door closed, and bolted it.
She had locked the door the night before. She had closed all the windows. Something was wrong. She feared the house would crumble. Domenica was not usually a fearful woman. A terror seized her, and she was unable to move. The world seemed to be ending. She would wait until the storm subsided and run to the convent over the hill, where she knew she would be safe.
* * *
Piccolo clung to a wooden baluster from the grand staircase of the Arandora Star that had been thrown into the water by a desperate sentry who had run out of life preservers. Piccolo was a good swimmer, and he wore a life jacket, but he saw good swimmers slip out of the life preservers and drown all around him.
When the ship Ettrick arrived to rescue the survivors, Piccolo was pulled from the wreckage on the surface of the water. He set out to find his father aboard the rescue ship sailing back to the port at Liverpool. He called out his father’s name so many times, he lost his voice. He found a man who had last seen Mattiuzzi on the first tier. He went from man to man, asking if any of them had seen his father. His worst fear would become his lifelong grief. Amedeo Mattiuzzi was gone.
Piccolo did not learn the fate of Antica, though he knew that a man of his age would not have survived jumping into the ocean. Savattini was not among the survivors on the rescue ship either, but Piccolo figured if anyone could survive the bombing of a mighty ocean liner, it would be the stylish ma?tre d’ from London. Savattini was a gold lariat of a man; he slipped through trouble with ease, any knot in the chain that bound him was easily undone.