Free Titanic by Tom Bradman Page B

had been alone and the lifeboat had almost run him down.
    A huge crowd clamoured on the pier as the Carpathia docked – people desperate for news of their families, reporters yelling questions, the New York police trying to hold them back.
    To his relief, Billy was whisked off with the other survivors to a hostel. There he was given a complete change of clothes – he was still wearing the trousers and pullover he had found in the abandoned cabin with George and Anya. Then he curled up on a bunk and slept for two days.
    A week later, a man from the White Star Line’s Manhattan office came to see him. Most of the American survivors had gone home by now, but plenty of people from other countries had been on the Titanic and they were still waiting until they were well enough to go on to their final destinations. Others – especially those who had lost loved ones – simply wanted to go home, and were waiting for their passages to be arranged. By now Billy knew there had been over 2,200 people on the ship, and over 1,500of them had died. So he really had been one of the lucky ones.
    The man from the White Star Line wrote down Billy’s name in a notebook, and told him the company would pay for his passage home to Belfast.
    â€˜Can I ask you something?’ said Billy. ‘Is there a list of survivors?’
    â€˜Sure is,’ said the man, smiling. He was plump and balding and had a strong New York accent. ‘I got a copy of it right here with me. Who are you looking for? Captain Smith isn’t on it, and neither is Mr Andrews. They went down with the ship, which seems right, I reckon, as one of them was the captain and the other one built it. Maybe Mr Ismay should have done the same.’
    Billy had read some of the New York newspapers, so he knew that Mr Ismay wasn’t the most popular man in the world at the moment. It seemed that he had escaped in one of the collapsible lifeboats before the end, and the newspapers had said quite openly he was a coward who should have given his place tosomebody more deserving. Many women and children had died. Most of them had been third-class passengers.
    â€˜What about the officers?’ said Billy. ‘Did Mr McElroy make it?’
    The man frowned and ran his eyes down the list. After a while he looked up and sadly shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Was there anybody else?’
    â€˜Anderson,’ Billy said. ‘George Anderson.’ The man ran his eyes down the list again, and once more shook his head.
    Poor George
, Billy thought, closing his eyes to remember his friend. That only left Anya and her mother and sisters.
    â€˜What about a little Polish girl called Anya?’ he said. ‘Is she on the list?’
    The man ran his eyes down the list one more time and Billy held his breath. At last the man looked up at him with a smile.
    â€˜Well, I don’t think I can say her last name – it’s full of c’s and z’s,’ he said, pronouncing the last letter as ‘zee’ in the American way. ‘But there’s definitely an Anya, and there are fourothers with the same surname – they’re listed here as a mother and four daughters.’
    At last, Billy smiled too. He found out later that Anya and her mother and sisters had been sent to Ellis Island, the place where immigrants to the USA were processed. As survivors of the sinking of the Titanic they would definitely be allowed to stay. It was strange to think that a boy from Belfast had saved a little girl from Poland he had only met days before. Strange, but good.
    * * *
    Two weeks later Billy was on a small steamer heading back across the Atlantic along with the small number of White Star Line employees who had survived. To his surprise he didn’t feel at all scared. If anything, he felt at home on a ship, pleased to feel the deck throbbing beneath his feet and know that he still had his sea legs while others