Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom)

by Robert W. Walker

  Ransom, Thomas, and Declan had all made their way up to the forecastle and boat deck after having had no luck in locating the monster. Old Farley rested his aching peg leg on a bench, Varmint curled at his one foot, exhausted. Lightoller, too, sensing something terribly wrong had rushed to the boat deck as well, just in time to see the mountain of ice coming at them.

  He saw and heard Fleet shouting to Lightoller, “Dead ahead, sir! Ice!”

  “And so it begins sadly enough,” muttered Lightoller. “It appears your final solution is to be our only course, Constable.”

  In the pilot house, Murdoch hesitated, wanting to follow Captain Smith’s orders, wanting to do his duty but second guessing his captain and himself, but then he grew determined to do exactly as his captain had ordered.

  He rammed the engine room telegraph handle to full stop, knowing that at their present speed or 21knots, they could not stop before hitting the iceberg. Staring across at Quartermaster Hitchens at the wheel, he ordered, “Hard-a-starboard, now, Mr. Hitchens! Now!”

  Hitchens needed no second telling as he’d already assessed the problem and had ripped the wheel to starboard. Murdoch then ordered, “Full-throttle astern, Hitchens! Astern, full-throttle!”

  But it was already too late.

  The iceberg was already atop them, towering over the port side like a curious colossus. The hard to starboard order kept them from hitting the berg head on just as Captain Smith had ordered, allowing the wall of ice and the spur beneath the waves to claw at the massive port side bow, just as planned, allowing the iceberg to grind away at her, wrenching open a gash, badly wounding Titanic.

  A small avalanche of snow and chunks of ice rained down over Ransom and the men with him. Ice rained down and pounded the well deck, creating a sound like a death rattle that reverberated about the ship.

  No one aboard knew the extent of the damage, but Chief Engineer William Bell down below knew it was not good as he searched from inside to assess the damage. He was soon shaken to learn that below the waterline a bulging, knobby protrusion indicated buckling and a loss of rivets, a tear—in fact a great gash.

  Then it began, a ripping metal sound, and Bell helplessly watched as the wall he stared at broke open; on and on, the water continued into compartment after compartment, until it touched on six in total extending from the ship’s nose. His mind screamed within his skull to run to the nearest stairwell and to climb and climb until he was at the topmost decks, and he did.

  Reports of damage raced through wires to the bridge, and Captain Smith was awakened by Wilde on orders from Murdoch. Ismay and Andrews immediately showed up at the well deck and soon rushed to the bridge and conferred with the officers and Captain Smith.

  Ransom watched from afar as Smith and Andrews began rushing for the lift, boarded, and went down to inspect the damage first hand.

  “You okay, Declan?” Ransom asked on seeing the look on the young man’s face.

  “Okay? Gawd blind me, no! This thing’s beat us, Alastair… beat us well and truly.”

  “Not at its damnable egg sacs go down with the ship—”

  “Along with the rest of us,” moaned Thomas.

  Alastair stood with legs firmly apart, “Men, Captain Smith will order Lightoller and Murdoch to tell any crewmen manning lifeboats to remain close to the ship so as to not disturb the passengers any more than already stirred up. When this monster sinks, and it will, it will draw a shaft of tons of water in its wake that will ram it to the bottom and take anything and everything within twenty or thirty feet down with it.”

  “You’re right of course. Perhaps then we will’ve won, as long as this thing has no chance of survival.”

  Thomas squeezed the back of his neck. “Time for victory drinks, I should think. A lot of good spirits and bonded whiskey is going to be lost tonight.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Ransom pointed the way. “We’ve done all we can, my friends.”

  A small group of passengers were laughing and having a snowball fight on the well deck where pack ice had rained down from the towering iceberg. At the same time, below in the First Class Saloon, the band played a haunting melody, a love-gone-wrong song. A crooner could be heard, but they could only make out the mournful tune and not the words.

  “Knowing what we know,” said Declan, “that sounds like a dirge.”

  “I saw a card game going on in the First Class Smoking Room,” said Ransom. “Think I’d like to bet a fortune.” He laughed loudly, drawing attention. “Hell, perhaps I’ll put up every cent in the purser’s safe, eh-what?”

  “Safe bet, eh?” joked Thomas.

  Together they bid Farley and Varmint a good night, and Farley waved them off as he yawned, while Varmint made a high-pitched whine, ears straight up as if he wanted to go with Thomas and Declan, despite the company they kept.

  “Do you think the authorities aboard would concern themselves with a dog in the Grand Saloon?” Alastair asked, seeing that the dog had followed them.

  “Not sure, but Varmint has good taste in friends,” replied Declan bending at the knee to pet the canine.

  “Well then, come along, Varmint.”

  Down below in the ship, Captain Smith stood beside the saddest man on Earth other than himself—Thomas Andrews, the ship’s architect—a man who had loved Titanic from her inception. “We must prepare our minds for what God has determined as our fate, Mr. Andrews,” Smith said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “And the fate of our ship. I am so very sorry.”

  The two men stood on the companionway and stared down at the flooding in the mail room, watching mailbags floating past. Brave young clerks remained on duty, despite water over their knees, desperately fighting to salvage the two hundred bags of registered mail—some four hundred thousand individual pieces. The postal clerks had already dragged the bags up two decks as the rising water pursued them. Soon they and their precious cargo, would be floating on F-Deck.

  “Come along, Mr. Andrews,” Smith said to the architect—a man half his age. “Nothing we can do here.”

  “I can’t believe it, Captain… how? How could you let… how could this happen?”

  “I suspect it’s time to fill you in… completely, but for now, I’m needed above to oversee what needs be done. We need to get to the Marconi Room, get the boys there to send out distress signals, determine if there are any other ships nearby… and the lifeboats—we must get the life boats launched.” He didn’t tell Andrews he would use the old method of sending out a distress call rather than the new code given them—SOS.

  “My god, there’re not enough lifeboats for this… never was!”

  “A fact I know only too well. We must get women and children off first.”

  “Yes… yes, of course.”

  By now Andrews understood that the ship was going down. But he was hardly alone in this assessment.

  Declan Irvin was taking it harder by far than the others, as they lounged at the bar in the Grand Saloon. They had taken the Grand Staircase down and into the saloon dining area, nodded at Wallace Hartley and his band, found the bartender, and began partaking of spirits, even pouring Irish ale into a bowl for Varmint. This done, Declan proposed a toast with his wine glass held high. Thomas and Ransom had whiskey. They all raised glasses to the sound of Varmint lapping up his red ale.

  “To the R.M.S. Titanic on her last night above the sea.” Declan threw back his Chardonnay too quickly, straightening, gasping, and coughing to the laughter of the whiskey drinkers.

  “Never could drink, not even that girly stuff,” Thomas said, punching his friend in the arm.

  “Look about you, boys… all these people without a clue they’re about to die soon.”

  “Smith’s even delayed any distress calls going out from the wireless, hasn’t he?” Thomas said.

  There were no answers to the questions swirling about the minds of the threesome. “Be damned if I’ll miss that dog,” muttered Ransom, garnering a laugh.

  Thomas laughed. “You
two haven’t enjoyed the best relations, now have you?” Ransom noticed that Declan was not laughing but rather staring at the huge clock on the wall at the other end of the dining room. “You two clowns do realize that it is April 14th and the clock reads 12:13—rather odd. Wonder why I no longer care about jotting another infernal note in that bloody journal of mine, but I do want the thing to survive beyond this night.”

  “Slim chance of that.” Thomas sipped more gingerly now at his refreshed whiskey.

  “Slim indeed, and this along with it.” Declan held up the enormous sabre tooth to the light.

  “I see a cavity,” joked Thomas.

  “We should raise a glass to all the men who’ve died and have yet to die thanks to that evil parasite,” suggested Ransom.

  “And to our last night together,” added Thomas.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said a stranger passing by, lifting his glass and thinking the others were toasting their last night of the voyage rather than everyone’s pending death. “To our last night on board Titanic and reaching safe harbor sometime on the morrow with a new world’s record won, what?” said the stranger, grinning wide, already drunk and falling into Declan, sending everyone looking after his own drink, and making Vamint snarl at the stranger worse than he’d ever snarled at Ransom.

  “Calm down, dog!” said Thomas, shooing him off as the drunken stranger dabbed at Declan with a napkin stamped RMS Titanic to clean up the spill. Declan was shouting for the man to get off, and Ransom grabbed the fellow and led him out a side door and out onto the promenade where the cold night air hit them.

  Ransom returned to the boys and continued sipping his whiskey while Thomas cursed and said, “What a sot. You all right, Declan?”

  “Fine… just a bit wet.”

  Varmint had gone back to his ale, nearly kicked over by the stranger.

  Declan drank more wine and grew more solemn.

  Thomas joked, “Do you think we should place on life jackets? Water temperature is just under fifty degrees.”

  Ransom glanced at him, shouted for a refill, and raised his glass to make another toast, “To us good fellas, all good-hearted men! The boys from Belfast.”

  “Belfast for me,” corrected Declan, “but by way of Wales where I first met Tommie—and his family.”

  “Aye, Belfast for you, Wales for this duffer,” added Thomas, pouring another round and raising his glass.

  “So you’re a Welshman, Thomas,” commented Ransom after another drink.

  “Yes, Wales for me,” said Thomas, pouring another round and raising his glass. “Where I leave a sister, a mother, and a father to grieve my lost soul, sure.”

  “And a lovely girl Rachel is, too,” said Declan, glancing at a photo he’d snatched from a pocket. “A toast to your sister, Tommie, and may God bless her with a beautiful future and many children and a good man and to your parents as well, Tommie.”

  “By way of Chicago,” added Ransom, almost missing the exchange of words about Declan’s sister but snatching the photo, he stared long and hard at a blonde-haired beautiful young woman. Declan took the photo back, tucking it away.

  “Wish I could get word to Rachel somehow,” said Declan.

  “You might’ve avoided all of this had you gone to her after her letter to you, you stubborn fool.”

  “Who’s more stubborn than you? Insisting we come on this wild-goose chase.”

  “Hold on! Wasn’t my idea but yours!”

  “We tossed a coin, remember? Heads we go, tails we stay—and you called it.”

  Thomas’s face grew sullen and anguished. “Hell and high water soon now!” He nervously laughed. “What’ll come of your son or daughter now, Declan, what with no father? What’ll come of Rachel?”

  Declan’s anguish spilled over, his eyes filling with tears which he quickly wiped away.

  “Hell and high water soon, and damn that officious captain,” brooded Thomas before downing another whiskey. “Had that stubborn old fool listened to us from the start, we might be writing another history here tonight, gentlemen.”

  “Agreed,” returned Alastair. “We’re the three wise men among a ship of fools.”

  “Not all fools,” countered Thomas. “There’s young Mr. Lightoller.”

  “He’s one of them, same as the Captain. Wouldn’t listen,” muttered Ransom. “I mean when it might’ve done some good to listen.”

  “I hardly see how this is Mr. Lightoller’s fault at all; I mean he at least read Declan’s journal, and he was first to come round.”

  “A toast to Mr. Lightoller!” exclaimed Thomas. The trio was drinking to everyone and everything now, but Declan had slowed his intake of wine.

  “We can hardly hold Captain Smith at fault either,” added Declan.

  “If that silly man, and his officious officers, and that damned Dr. O’Laughlin had listened to us at the outset, Declan, we might’ve had a chance!” wailed Thomas again.

  “All may not have been lost,” finished Alastair, head down, eyes focused on his shoes, which seemed to be whirling about thanks to the whiskey. “Still, wish I had new pair of shiny shoes to go out in. These are for shit!”

  “Perhaps if you asked the captain nice,” joked Declan, smirking.

  “He did look your shoe size,” finished Thomas, and the boys had a good laugh at Ransom’s expense.

  After feigning hurt and saying he was much bigger than Smith, Ransom joined in the laughter.

  “Frankly, I don’t care to ask Smith for a thing ever again. Perhaps I could win a new pair at cards, I mean before the ship descends.”

  “Now there’s a gamble,” said Declan.

  “Time’s been our enemy from the beginning, now hasn’t it, boys? Damned that Smith, and his officious fools like that Dr. O!”

  “Alastair, come on!” Thomas leaned into the bar. “Who do you know could swallow a tale like the whopper we spouted? True or not!”

  “Anyone here in this place would believe us in the blink of an eye.” Declan pointed about the room while draining his fourth drink. “Fantastic architecture in here, really. I mean look at the place… really look at it, Thomas.”

  “I always imagined myself dying in a barroom in Chicago,” Alastair said in a grim tone. “Nothing so grand as this, boys!”

  THIRTY SEVEN

  Titanic’s Grand Saloon and entryway were advanced design and magnificent construction—even by modern day Victorian standards found in the richest estates in England and America. Completely enclosing the winding marble staircase, gilded columns supported a vast framework of the most expensive and exquisite wood sculpture found anywhere. Carved walnut flowers adorned the stairwell from floor to ceiling. The luxuriousness of this place filled the senses: ankle-deep oriental carpeting, horse-hair sofas, and crystal chandeliers throughout—all now slowly drifting to hang at an unnatural angle.

  Suddenly from outside and high above the ship came a strangely persistent roar like the sound of a passing train. “What is happening?” was on everyone’s lips.

  “I suspect,” said Declan to his friends, “it’s caused by excess steam from the idling engines.”

  “That’s it. Declan’s got it,” added Ransom.

  Declan explained to Thomas, “Steam makes its way up a pipe to the top of the smokestack and is released there.”

  “Makes conversation difficult, to say the least,” added Thomas. “Perhaps if we get drunk enough—” Thomas laughed more—“we won’t have any need of conversation.” Ransom laughed too, but young Declan could find no more laughter in himself; he’d gone suddenly silent. He watched passing ladies and gentlemen who had been abed now lumbering by the windows of the Grand Saloon, a parade seeking the boat deck on both port and starboard sides. The men and women wore grey and beige life jackets over their expensive suits and fur coats, some of the ladies even wearing huge feathered hats in peacock fashion.

  Thomas and Ransom joined Declan at the window. “Looks like the souls on their way to the boat that’ll take t
hem across the River Styx, don’t they?” asked Ransom. “Dante’s Inferno,” muttered Thomas.

  “The parade’s begun… news is finally getting ’round the ship,” Declan told his friends.

  “Lifeboats.” Ransom shuddered at the thought. “A mechanism of suicide to avoid death.”

  They saw Thomas Andrews leaning against a mantel at the far end of the room, staring into a fireplace as if reading the flames. The man looked as lonely and dejected as a hopeless, jilted lover.

  “He’s learned the worst of it, I suspect,” said Ransom.

  “I imagine Smith’s finally told him the whole story,” added Declan.

  “That’d explain the blank stare on his face.” Thomas lifted two bottles, one of ale, the other whiskey and poured Varmint a heftier drink, then poured for Alastair, while Declan poured another of wine for himself. When Andrews looked in their direction, Thomas hefted the whiskey bottle high as if to invite him to join them.

  Instead of joining the ‘losers’ at the bar, Andrews stepped to the bandleader, whispering into Wallace Hartley’s ear, and Hartley then nodded repeatedly. Andrews next took the stand, and the bandleader shouted for everyone’s attention, gaining all but the card players’ notice. At their table, the card sharks were fixated on their poker game so their chatter continued.

  Andrews, in a solemn tone, introduced himself and added, “I am speaking for your captain, Captain Smith who wishes for everyone to go to your staterooms, find the life jackets tucked below your beds, and make your way up to the boat deck.” He paused a moment, long enough to give Ransom and his party a nod as they toasted him. “We appear to have struck an iceberg, and it could get… well, dicey.”

  No one moved.

  No one wanted to leave the well lit, warm room for the chilled April 14th night, and certainly, no one wanted to get on board a lifeboat. A lifeboat in the mind of most equated to being marooned, a lingering death at sea, or moreover suicide.

  Behind them, however, the bartender fled for his berth and his life jacket and a possible seat on a lifeboat. Ransom sauntered around the bar, lifted four brandy bottles, and eased over to the card game and asked in.