Full passage
Even the conductor had slowed his steps, glancing towards the sea. ‘That’s her,’ he called down the carriage. ‘That’s your ship.’
The passengers leaned to see. Some gasped. A few murmured prayers. Others simply stared, awed into silence.
As the train pulled into the Queenstown terminus, the harbour shimmered gold beneath the midday light. Small tender boats bobbed gently beside the dock, ready to ferry second- and third-class passengers to the Titanic, which lay beyond the pier — too vast to dock at Queenstown directly.
When they disembarked, Hannah-Jane reached up to take her parents’ hands, her voice small but urgent. ‘Is that really our ship, Ma?’
Julia smiled down at her, blinking quickly. ‘It is, love. That’s the Titanic.’
They stood together on the edge of the platform, bags at their feet, looking out towards the ship. It dominated the view, its size making everything around it seem toy-like. And yet it moved not at all — it rested on the sea with stillness and confidence, a thing made to last forever.
Jimmy exhaled slowly, then picked up the trunks without a word. As they made their way to the tender that would take them out to it, he looked over his shoulder one last time — not back towards the land they were leaving, but forward towards the ship that would carry them from it.
They joined the crowd of second-class passengers waiting to board the Titanic from the tender ship that ferried them across the water. The mood was a mixture of awe and nervous anticipation — men clutching hats against the wind, women holding their children close, and trunks and carpet bags jostling in every direction. People murmured in accents from all over — Cork, Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool, and even the clipped tones of middle-class English clerks. Some families were plainly dressed like the MacKails, others better off, with pressed coats and travelling gloves, the kind who had perhaps once dreamed of first class but made do with second.
On the tender, as they drew close, the ship grew impossibly large. Hannah-Jane gasped aloud. From this angle, the Titanic’s hull rose like the side of a black cliff, its rows of portholes gleaming in the light. The sound of it filled the air: the clang of winches, the shouts of deckhands, the low hum of machinery far below.
They climbed the gangway with the others, their shoes thudding softly on the wooden planks. At the top, stewards checked their tickets and asked a few routine questions about health and destination. Julia answered with quiet efficiency, while Jimmy kept an arm around Hannah-Jane, who looked up at everything with wide eyes.
As they stepped aboard, a sudden gust of warm air swept out from the ship’s interior, scented faintly of fresh paint, coal smoke, and polished wood.
‘It smells like paint, Ma,’ Hannah-Jane said, wrinkling her nose.
Julia laughed. ‘Well, it’s a brand-new ship, love. They’ve just finished building it.’
The interior was brighter than they had expected — tiled floors, white-painted walls, and brass fittings gleamed under the electric lights. Second class was a world apart from steerage: the corridors were wide, the ceilings high, and a quiet elegance lingered in the details. There were framed prints on the walls and the occasional vase of spring flowers that someone, somewhere, had thought to place.
Some of their fellow second-class passengers looked their way — an older couple in Sunday-best woollens, a schoolteacher travelling alone, a well-dressed widow with a book tucked beneath her arm. Everyone seemed to be measuring one another, trying to guess how long they’d stay in New York, and how far they might go once they got there. A few offered smiles; one boy about Hannah-Jane’s age gave her a nod. She stuck close to Julia, her nerves still overshadowed by excitement.
Their cabin was located on C-Deck, towards the stern, and just above the waterline, though the porthole offered a narrow, slanting view of the grey sea. The steward who escorted them carried himself with stiff courtesy, pausing only briefly to unlock the door before disappearing down the corridor.
The cabin was compact but neat: two bunk beds, a washbasin, a small folding table, and a built-in wardrobe. The walls were white with a light panelled wainscoting, and the floor was carpeted in dark red. The air still carried the scent of fresh varnish and laundry soap.
Hannah-Jane scrambled up onto the top bunk before Jimmy could say a word. ‘I can see the water!’ she shouted. She peered out through the porthole, which was small and circular, no wider than her head. ‘It’s green — and it’s moving funny!’
Jimmy laughed. ‘Don’t fall out of that bunk now. We’ve enough water outside.’
Julia opened the wardrobe and laid out their coats. ‘It’s warmer than I expected.’
‘It’s steam-heated,’ Jimmy said, patting the metal pipe that ran along the skirting board. ‘You could live in a place like this.’
‘You are living in it,’ Julia replied, brushing dust off the pillow. ‘At least for a few days.’