Call Me Ismay

by Sean McDevitt

  “You will be responsible for the death of at least half- perhaps more- of the passengers on board,” Gidley weighed in, gazing upon Ismay with a perverse expression of sympathy. “It's not the first life We've ruined, nor will it be the last. Still got the ice warning somewhere in your pockets, have you?”

  Ismay's eyes glazed over. “How in the name of hell did you know-”

  “Oh, We've ages of experience,” Lyons interrupted. “We are masters at violence, including scuttling one of your own ships.” He looked at Gidley. “Perhaps We could make it a tradition- the foundering of ships across the seven seas, the Great Lakes, the rivers Nile and Mississippi, since We've apparently become quite adept at it. We are getting closer and closer to fulfilling the Prophecy, as it turns out- and just what was that other ship's name, Mr. Gidley?”

  Ismay stared at both men. Sweating and dazed, his ability and desire to communicate with either of them was evaporating. “You are both completely insane. I shall take my leave of you at once. He rose from his chair, and quickly fumbled with his jacket to ensure that it was closed.”

  “Naronic, Mr. Ismay,” Gidley uttered mysteriously. “At first We believed the Prophecy to say 'the stricken hull, the doomed, the Naronic'- but it seems We were wrong, or perhaps only just delayed in fulfilling Our destiny.”

  Ismay's ears burned as his blood pressure rocketed from fear. He turned and, without another word, rushed out of the suite in such a hurry that he did not successfully close the door behind him.

  Edward Lyons's voice spilled out into the passageway. “Naronic, I warn you, Mr. Ismay- Naronic was Titanic, and Titanic is Naronic!”

  Two stewards, fumbling with lifebelts at the far end of the passageway, heard Lyons calling out to Ismay. One of them turned to the other.

  “What's he on about? Moronic, moronic?” the humorless steward asked.

  “Ironic,” the other steward corrected him. “Well, of course, it's all ironic. We're messing about with lifebelts when it's an unsinkable ship.”

  12:10 A.M.

  Lillith had taken the “no matter what commotion you might hear” portion of Gidley's threat with a grain of salt, knowing she couldn't put herself at risk by leaving the room but also assuming that his melodramatic remark was yet another dose of nauseating braggadocio. The only sound she had heard over the slight rumble of the Titanic's engines was perhaps the occasional soft joking of a steward or two. Now that the ship had obviously come to a stop, and had remained in such a status for about half an hour, the unusual volume of several voices out in the hallway at such an odd hour had raised her suspicions. She could hear cabin doors open and closing. The tone of the stewards in the background- while she could not make out each word of what they were saying to the passengers- had gone from cheerful to stern. Her mind raced and came to a dreadful conclusion: Gidley or Lyons or both of them had perhaps attacked some of the ship's crew, and that Lyons would put his experience in the Royal Navy to use in an attempt to commandeer the ship. She strained again to hear what the stewards were saying. She experimented with the position of her ear to the door, pressing firmly against it and then cocking her ear forward from a distance of a few inches. Either way, she could only make out about every fourth or fifth word. She placed her forehead in weepy frustration against the door, still too paralyzed by fear to bring herself to open it.

  12:15 A.M.

  Ismay, feeling feverish rushes of frightened pain coursing through him, made his way past the beautiful windows encasing Titanic's Grand Staircase, and took a lift back up to the Boat Deck. He returned to the bridge just in time to hear Captain Smith deliver an order.

  “Clear the boats. Unlace the covers.”

  Officers Pitman, Lightoller and Boxhall immediately left the bridge, obeying his orders without question. The captain and Thomas Andrews were left behind, two thunderstruck compatriots who carried knowledge that would soon become obvious to all of those on board.

  Ismay, desperate for clarification, spoke in a whisper. “Lifeboats? Clear the lifeboats?”

  Andrews turned to look at him while Captain Smith remained unmoved with his back to Ismay, staring straight out towards the ship's bow. Titanic's architect, his eyes enormous, nervously nodded his head in the affirmative for Ismay's benefit.

  “Y-yes,” Andrews stammered. “Mr. Murdoch hard-a-starboarded and reversed the engines, trying to port round the iceberg but it was too late. I- I give her an hour, an hour and a half to...” He choked on his next word.

  “An hour and a half to...?” Ismay's voice trailed off. “Oh dear God.”

  The captain seemed to rub his face or clear his eyes, but from Ismay's vantage point it was difficult to determine exactly what he was doing.

  “Yes, carry on, women and children first,” Captain Smith said to no one in particular, with all of his officers gone.

  “We- we looked down No. 1 hatch and there is quite a stream of water, c-c-coming in from the starboard side,” Andrews stuttered in an oddly jocular way, his nervous shock forcing him to state the facts as if he were talking about anything other than a great calamity. “Y-Yes, coming in a pretty good rush. It is- it is now within six steps of c-c-coming onto E Deck.” He turned to face forward, where in the distance chunks of ice could still be seen on the forewell deck. “Three of the c-cargo holds are gone, they're gone already, at least- at least three of them.”

  Ismay, bewildered- and unable in his stunned condition to take any notice of the piles of ice outside- took a step towards his two colleagues. “Good God, man, then there is no time to lose!”

  Captain Smith, cringing and still deliberately not making eye contact with his employer, glanced down at the ship's commutator. “We had a list of 5 degrees to starboard within five minutes of the collision, Mr. Ismay. And it is only getting worse.” His voice turned uncharacteristically incredulous and angry. “An absolutely flat sea, and perfectly clear...” Without further word he turned on his heel and headed for the Marconi room, preparing to order that a CQD be transmitted immediately.

  In the half-light of the bridge, Ismay and Andrews were left alone to regard each other.

  “Thomas,” Ismay spoke softly, dispensing with any formality and addressing Andrews man to man, “have we come all this way only to lose her? Titanic, brought down in the most ignoble fashion- by the delay of just one damned ice warning? The greatest of all ships, destroyed by an apparent lapse in providing her and her passengers the last word in safety?”

  Andrews turned his eyes away from Ismay, as they brimmed with tears in the glow of the watertight door indicator panel. “Our safety is only an illusion,” Mr. Ismay, he replied. Without saying anything more, he left through the port side of the bridge, staggering and uncertain, apparently headed for the deck below.

  Ismay, now alone on the bridge, could hear Captain Smith down the corridor talking softly to the wireless operators. He turned forward, overwhelmed by the ship's polished brass dials glowing in the darkness and its telephones and its illuminated watertight door switches. All of it had come into existence under his leadership of the White Star Line- and yet, he had absolutely no idea of what any of it really was or how it worked. After a moment, his human frailty and overpowering feelings of inadequacy became unbearable, and he quickly exited the bridge on the starboard side.

  12:25 A.M.

  Kerry Langston, standing shoulder to shoulder with increasingly agitated steerage passengers, stared up at a gate at the top of a set of stairs- the locked gates that segregated steerage from second and third class passengers. As he sensed the anxiety in the voices of several Lebanese immigrants who were gathered alongside him, he was grateful that they apparently didn't know any English. Just moments before, two stewards had hurried past shouting “All up! All up, unless you want to get drowned.”

  He watched and listened as best he could, trying to determine what had happened. Had the ship been damaged in some way? Had Gidley and Lyons somehow wreaked havoc in the engine room? He noticed that, in his hurry to
investigate what his American co-passenger had told him, everyone except himself had their lifebelts on. With urgency and dread, he realized he'd have to limp back to his cabin to retrieve his own. After a moment's hesitation, he pushed his way through a noisy, musky crowd of immigrants and hobbled back to his room.

  As he approached the door of his room, a strange glimmer of light caught his eye. Looking down, he was startled to see water about an inch deep coming in at a slight, steady pace on the passageway floor. The lights above were casting a peculiar shine on the water as it coursed in. What have those bastards done? he wondered.

  His hands, shaking with more nervousness and agitation than he had ever known, struggled to pull on his heavy, hard, cork-filled lifebelt. Still resting at the head of his bed, where he had been using it as a pillow, lay the vampire kit. He immediately grabbed it and clutched it to his chest. He felt a twinge of sadness upon realizing that taking the afghan along was now out of the question. Any further thought upon that subject was quickly banished from his mind as he turned and saw the water on the floor suddenly roll past his door by several inches.

  He stumbled back to where he had been moments before. The group of passengers gathered by the stairs had grown, and was now shouting angrily at a steward who had appeared on the other side of the gate and was apparently refusing to unlock it. Langston's stomach dropped as he realized that it was the same disagreeable, unlikable steward who had been attempting to block his every move on the Boat Deck for the duration of the voyage. An Irishman, the same one who had singled Langston out a few days before as someone he might be able to communicate with, tapped him on the shoulder.

  “You know what it's all about, don't you? The crew wanted to make a record. They ran too much steam and the boilers busted.”

  “I am not so certain,” Langston replied, peering up at the steward at the top of the stairs who was refusing to budge. He didn't seem to be actually guarding the gate as much as just loitering around it, apparently distracted by the calls of other stewards.

  “Sir? Sir?” Langston shouted at the steward. “Pardon me, sir?” The steward, vaguely annoyed and pretending not to recognize him, finally looked at Langston. “Sir, could you please tell us what has happened?”

  “It's nothing special. You are safer where you are.”

  “We are safer where we are,” Langston deadpanned.

  “Yes.”

  Langston thought for a moment, then called out to him again. “Well, if it's nothing, then why are some of the foreign passengers bringing their baggage and their children along, and why is there enough water in my room right now to cover my feet?”

  12:30 A.M.

  Lillith sat on her cabin floor with her back against the door. The activity outside her room had seemed to increase, but its details remained indistinct. Doors were still being slammed shut, and she could hear people running back and forth in the hallway. Defeated, she removed her maid's cap, pulling a few hair pins out to let strangled ringlets of dark hair dangle loosely from her sore head.

  She gently massaged part of her scalp, irritated by the constant pressure of cloth against her head. Suddenly, she heard the doorknob that was just behind her ear starting to slowly turn. Christ, she thought, it's Gidley come to collect me. She quickly leaned forward, thinking that if she could make it back to the settee in time she might have a chance at resisting him. Before she could, however, the door popped open and, poking his head out from behind it, was a pale-faced Marcus.

  “Oh no, oh no!” he exclaimed, stepping inside the cabin and closing the door behind him. “We've been separated from our master, what are we going to do?”

  “Marcus, where have you been?” Lillith asked with purpose, attempting to commandeer the conversation.

  “In our master's suite, shining his shoes. He left there a few hours ago and hadn't come back. I started looking for him as soon as I heard the engines stop. Now they're telling the passengers to don their lifebelts! I do not know where he is, and I fear something terrible has happened!”

  “Marcus, Marcus, listen to me.” She spoke with clarity and force. “Mr. Lyons and Mr. Gidley can take good care of Themselves. We must think of our own lives now, and the lives of others outside our little world. For once, we will not take into consideration what those two will need.”

  “But Miss Lillith! The crew's all on about lifebelts and lifeboats! I saw them getting lifeboats ready and there's talk of 'women and children first' and our master needs us!”

  “Marcus,” she stated flatly. She reached out, cupping his chin in her hand, and for an instant let the faintest hint of a spark loose in her eyes. The frightened valet instantly calmed down. “Marcus. There is another man on this ship who needs us.” She grabbed her shawl off the settee. “He is in Third Class and somehow we've got to locate him. He has tools that we need, and he also has my heart in his hands. His name is Kerry Langston.”

  12:35 A.M.

  Lyons remained stoic while Gidley appeared amused, as they stood off to the side of the foot of the Grand Staircase on D Deck. A man was rushing up the stairs three steps at a time, refusing to answer passengers questions, a look of terror on his face. That man was Thomas Andrews.

  Gidley spoke over Lyons's shoulder. “That's the ship's designer, I presume,” he muttered.

  “Hmmm,” Lyons acknowledged, matter-of-factly, with his arms crossed. “If that's his reaction, then We can assume that Our little maneuver was a success. There are occasions when time spent in the Royal Navy is useful.”

  Gidley leaned in closer. “Mr. Lyons, will We be seeing red tonight, or no?”

  “Soon, and when We do, it must serve a purpose and not be an arbitrary feeding,” Lyons replied, never taking his eyes off the men and women who were clustered near the Staircase. He paused for a moment before continuing.

  “Tell Me, Gidley- what do You see here?”

  Gidley cut his eyes over at Lyons, then replied with sarcasm. “I see a potential smorgasbord of blood that is going to turn into blocks of ice if We don't act soon.”

  Lyons brushed him off. “No, no- listen to Me. What We see here is a perfect slice of Our rich patriarchal society. You can see all of it falling into place, there are perfect little examples right here before Us. The men are eschewing the lifebelts- they're pushing them onto the women as We speak. They know what's best. They will make the life or death decisions. They will sit at the head of the table. They will oversee the workers who toil and trouble over all of the elegance before Us- the carved wood, the wrought iron, the glass- poor, poor workers who will never share in the enjoyment or the comforts of First Class. They are men- men who are expected to go down with the ship in honor and glory.” He slowly nodded his head in dark confidence. “And that is why We must ensure that Mr. Ismay is going to survive this evening's disaster, but his dignity and pride will not. Come. I want You to take down a message.”

  12:40 A.M.

  A very short distance away, up on the Boat Deck, J. Bruce Ismay stood with his trembling hands thrust into his coat pockets for warmth. He was just vaguely aware that his unprotected ankles were starting to get irritated by the cold air because he was only wearing slippers.

  He watched in helplessness as Titanic's officers scrambled to uncover the lifeboats and clear them away. Not knowing any of the officer's names, while vaguely familiar with some of their faces, he walked up alongside one of them who was preparing lifeboat No.5.

  “There is no time to waste,” Ismay said in a very quiet voice, his breath freezing in great clouds. “We had better get this boat loaded with women and children.”

  Third Officer Herbert Pitman, who had never seen Ismay before, gave him a funny look before replying. “I await the commander's orders,” he said, returning to his work.

  Ismay, his self-confidence already shattered, pursued the matter no further. “Very well,” he muttered politely, and stepped away.

  He looked up into the heavens, the very last of Titanic's steam now completely dissipated
. The stars were so numerous and bright that as his eyes came back down towards the starboard side's horizon, he excitedly thought he could see the lights of perhaps another steamer in the vicinity! A mere moment later he realized, despairingly, it was just the reflection of stars on an ocean that was as still as a pond.

  12:43 A.M.

  The chatter in Third Class had now reached a clamour. A large group of single men such as Langston now crowded the staircase that led to the aft well deck, along with immigrants who argued amongst themselves in Arabic, Greek and Hebrew. The indecisive steward still paced at the top of the stairs, appearing at times to be preparing to unlock the gate that led above deck. At other intervals, he was shouting out that “First and Second Class have priority!”

  Upon seeing a few passengers, wet to their knees, coming down the Third Class hallway, Langston decided he'd had enough. His stomach was rumbling in warning again, and his ankle was still throbbing in terrible, terrible pain, but he finally steeled himself into action by reminding himself: