"She's hard hit," said Linnell to Lavis, "though there's few know it yet. And won't in a hurry."
"Then I'd better be going above?"
"That's right, do. Will you be back this way again?"
Lavis let his hand rest lightly on Andie's head. "I'm not sure." He extended his hand to Linnell. "If I don't see you again, good-by."
"Good-by, Mr. Lavis." The engineer stepped closer and whispered: "If any honest chance offers to leave the ship, leave her."
Lavis found his way through the crew's quarters to the lowest sleeping deck of steerage. Here a few old people and some children, too discouraged, too indifferent, or too helpless, were clinging to their bunks. On the next deck he found a gathering in the open space surrounding a freight hatch. One whom he knew for a Polish woman, with her baby at her breast, was on the edge of the crowd, and, like most of the others, glancing up to see what was doing on the higher decks. The Polish woman was too concerned with her baby to see exactly what they were doing on that high deck where all the boats were, but another woman was telling her how it was.
Lavis stepped closer and listened. She was telling, the tall one, how there were many men running about excitedly—ship's men with only shirts above their trousers some, and others with coats buttoned up. And they were pulling and hauling and knocking away blocks. Such a clear night one could see them—see their forms—and hear, too, their blows and shouts. The woman with the baby nodded. Without looking up she could hear the blows. And now the electric light had come, resumed the tall one; she could see that many women had gathered there, and some were pushing forward and others pushing back, and now women—yes, and a man—were being put into a boat.
"And now the boat is lowered," resumed the tall one.
"I can hear them," said the young mother. "And now it is rowing away from the ship in the dark."