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.She must have gasped with surprise, because in an instant she was coughing and her eyes began to smart.Hurriedly she ran towards the main landing on which the Purser’s Office was situated and, when she reached it, she found it crowded with people coming not only from the cabins on the First Class deck but also up the stairs from below.She saw that a number of them were Chinese, Malayan and Indian and she thought they were being driven up because the fire must be in the bowels of the ship.“Fire!”“Fire!”The Stewards were still shouting the word and now the crew were trying to assemble people into some sort of order on deck.“Go to the boat-stations!”“Go to the boat-stations!”Instructions were repeated over and over again.It was then, as she was being carried along by the sheer pressure of people on either side of her towards a door opening onto the deck, that Bertilla saw ascending the stairs the dark head of Mr.Van de Kaempfer.Instinctively, because she was afraid of him, she fought her way out of the stream surging onto the decks towards the boats and hid herself in the coffee room.It was situated on one side of the Purser’s Office and was, she saw at a glance, deserted.She could see through the large portholes what was occurring on deck and she thought there was no hurry.If she kept her head and waited, Mr.Van de Kaempfer would go off in one of the first boats and she would not come in contact with him.The boats were being lowered one after another and the ship’s Officers were assisting the women and children into them and seeing that there were also sufficient men to man the oars.It was all quite orderly and for the moment no one was panicking, although some of the children were crying and their mothers looked white and anxious.The noise was shattering, not only from the orders being given by the crew at the tops of their voices but also because the ship’s sirens were sounding and the bells were ringing.Through the portholes of the coffee room Bertilla could see that two or three of the boats had drawn away from the ship and in the fading light were moving into the darkness which covered the shore.‘One good thing is that the mainland is not far away,’ she told herself, ‘so the boats do not have very far to go.’Everything was happening very quickly, but there still seemed to be people coming up from the lower decks.Now she heard what sounded like a small explosion and it shook the whole vessel.‘I must get out and find myself a place in a boat,’ she decided.But she had a great reluctance to join the crowd on deck.It seemed safer and less frightening where she was.Then she saw Lord Saire.He was still wearing his evening clothes, so she knew that he too had not gone to bed.Like the ship’s Officers, he was directing passengers into the boats, speaking sharply to one man who tried to push in front of an elderly woman.He was calm and unhurried and Bertilla thought, as she watched him, that he stood out amongst everyone else.She felt that the people he spoke to trusted him, as she did, and had confidence that he would see them to safety.She was so busy watching him as he worked a little way farther down the deck that she was suddenly aware that directly outside the coffee room everyone had gone.The deck was clear and the Officers who had been herding the passengers into the boats were no longer there.‘I must go!’ Bertilla thought.Now she was aware that the ship was listing a little and she had to walk uphill to reach the door.She went out on deck and as she did so an Officer appeared to say almost angrily,“Where have you been, madam? All the other ladies have been got away!”He took her arm and hurried her down to a boat, which was just being filled and, as they reached it, Lord Saire turned and saw her.“Bertilla!” he exclaimed.“I thought you had gone long ago!”He lifted her up in his arms as he spoke and put her into the boat.As he did so, she saw that behind him flames were coming out of the portholes of the Saloon and the smoke made it almost impossible to see the rest of the ship.“I think that is everybody,” the Officer said to Lord Saire.“Please get in, my Lord.”Lord Saire obeyed and the Officer jumped into the boat after him and it was lowered away.Only as they reached the sea below did Bertilla see that the whole stern of the ship was on fire.“Pull away! Pull away!” she heard the Officer shout
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