I took a few more breaths of deep, salt air and forced myself to calm down as much as I could. I had been so wound up since Susan disappeared, I hadn’t let myself stop. And all of this morning I had been plain scared. But now I was here. I was alive. And I had people to find and a thousand more questions to ask Susan.
But first, it seemed the most logical thing I should do was get inside, out of the wind and the cold. I took one more long look at the ocean and then went over to the pack. I grabbed it by the shoulder straps and half carried it, half dragged it in the direction of the rope barrier.
As I came near the rope, a door opened in the bulkhead and two men came out. One was wearing a decorative uniform indicating he was one of the ship’s crew. The other wore a thick turtleneck sweater. They were talking about something to do with the operation of the main card room.
“Excuse me,” I said as loud as I could, so they would hear me over the wind and the low rumble of the ship’s engines.
Neither man looked up.
“Hey! Excuse me!” I shouted again. All I wanted was a little information as to where I might check in. or whatever a person was supposed to do when they came through one of those mirrors.
The two men walked right past me, the officer missing me by less than an inch. Neither gave the slightest notice that I was standing there.
I watched them as they ducked under the rope and went through large double doors into what looked like an open, carpeted area. Through the wooden, paned windows, I could see them move across the room and start down some stairs.
Something wasn’t right. I forced myself to stop and really look around. I had seen pictures of cruise ships. They were sleek and modern. This one looked elegant, but in the fashion of an old home instead of a new ship. Those windows had thick drapes framing them. The stairs inside had wrought-iron and wood-sculptured railings. The lifeboats were huge and made of wood. No modern cruise line would do that. Of course, I don’t know why I expected this would be a modern cruise line. Alex had been gone since 1909, so it would seem logical that it might be an old ship. But with one glance, anyone could tell this ship didn’t show the wear of time. This was a new ship with an old design.
I glanced up at the flags flying in the stiff breeze near the front of four smoke stacks. Four smoke stacks? Something about that struck a bell in my head, but I couldn’t quite grasp the memory. One of the flags looked British. The other had a white star.
I dropped the pack and went over to the nearest covered life boat. There, stenciled on the canvas cover were the words RMS TITANIC.
I was going to be sick. I could feel the huge lunch Constance had fed me twisting in my stomach as I tried to deny the possibility of my being on the Titanic. I rubbed my hands across the words and then quickly went down the deck and checked the next boat. It was the same. This was either one huge joke or I was on the Titanic.
What the hell was going on?
I looked slowly and carefully around. The strange coats and dresses the passengers wore were straight from the early part of the century. So were the ornate wood carvings along the windows, the wooden deck chairs, the thick drapes. And the officers’ strange uniforms. Everything fit the Titanic.
Except me.
Susan had said the mirrors took people to places where they were held. Why would the mirror stick me on a ship that was going to sink? Punishment? Maybe a test? Or an intermediate stopover?
It made no sense. I must have been sent to a different place, and time, than Susan. What had I done wrong?
Holy Christ, I was on the Titanic. I leaned against the rail and looked around at the ship. For me, the Titanic had been an obsession. I think I had read everything ever written and watched every movie ever made about the ship and that night it sank. The shock waves of this ship’s sinking had been felt throughout the world. I had never stopped being totally fascinated by its myth.
So what was I doing on it? Was this just a trick my mind was playing on me? That was a possibility. Was I really still sitting there in the lodge?
I’d better be finding some answers damn soon.
I went back over and grabbed the pack and somehow swung it up so that both straps were on one shoulder. Then I shifted its weight around so that it rested on my lower back. I could make it a ways, but I doubted if I could walk the entire length of the ship. I figured my best bet would be to go into one of the main dining rooms and find someone who would be willing to answer a few questions. Seemed logical enough.
I followed the same route the two men had taken earlier and went through the huge double doors.
Inside, I found myself looking down at the top of the grand staircase.
The only clear word for the grand staircase was impressive. It could easily have been the center of an English castle, or a southern mansion. But instead it had been built on a ship.
Reverently, as if I were a small child entering an ancient cathedral, I moved over and ran my hand along the polished oak and wrought-iron rail. It felt warm and smooth to my touch, almost alive. Below me, the wall above the stair’s first landing was covered with a wooden sculpture of two figures holding a crown over a clock. I could remember reading an article about that very sculpture and the story behind why it was there. But right at the moment, I couldn’t remember the piece’s name.
The clock read 7:30. What day? Another damn important question. The ship sank at 2:20 in the morning on April 15. I just hoped this wasn’t the evening of the fourteenth.
I spent the next few minutes easing my way down the huge staircase to the next deck, holding on to the rail to keep the pack from tipping me over. At least a dozen passengers passed me and not a one even noticed I was there, or even glanced at me because of my strange clothes or overloaded backpack. By the time I got to the bottom, I was pretty well spooked by that fact alone. And absolutely convinced I couldn’t go another step with the pack.
I moved off to a corner where I figured I would be out of the way and eased the pack down to the thick carpet. I was amazed I hadn’t hurt myself trying to carry the stupid thing. I leaned it against the oak-paneled wall. The pack was going to stay there until I found some answers.
I studied the large, high-ceilinged foyer. I was in the first-class section of the ship. On both sides of the foyer were wide double doors that led outside to what must have been the “A” deck. To my left was a five-person-wide, carpeted and windowed hallway. Most of the people seemed to be heading or coming from that hallway, so I dropped in behind a young couple and followed them.
A door to the right opened into what looked to be the first-class reading room. I stayed behind the couple and went through the oak and glass double doors at the end of the hall into a large, open room.
I was stunned by the beauty of the room. Twenty-five to thirty people sat at tables or lounged on couches, talking, laughing, or sipping drinks. Thick, patterned carpet, oak chairs and tables, polished wood columns, and thickly draped, paned windows. I stood there in the doorway with my mouth open, staring. It wasn’t until two men rose and started at me that I moved out of the way.
“Excuse me,” I said. Both men were dressed in striped three-piece suits. The one on the left was taller, maybe my height. The other man was short and heavyset, with a thick, black moustache. Both totally ignored me.
“Pardon me,” I said a little louder as they came near me. “Could you please tell me—”
They walked right on by, the tall man brushing past me and holding the door open for the other man. Neither one acknowledged my presence. It was as if I were invisible. Hell, for all I knew, maybe I was. Or more likely, I was just making all this up in my own head.
I took one more look around the huge lounge and then turned and followed the two men. If they were going to ignore me, the least they could do was lead me around for a while.
They headed down the right side of the grand staircase. I did a quick check to make sure my pack was still where I left it, then followed.
The next deck down looked v
ery much the same as the one above, except without the hall on the right. Instead, across the open foyer at the bottom of the stairs were two wooden doors that led down halls to rooms. The two men went around to the right and continued down. I stayed about five steps behind them, listening as they talked of the medical problems of their wives. It seemed that both their wives were always complaining about some sickness or another.
The next deck was like the one above it and the two men didn’t hesitate for a moment before going around and down the right-hand stairway. So far, in two flights of stairs, I had passed a good fifty passengers and a dozen stewards. Not one of them had looked as if they might belong to a time other than 1912. And not one of them noticed me, or even so much as glanced in my direction.
The next deck was considerably different than the ones above it. The bottom of the grand staircase opened out onto a large, ornately furnished room with at least thirty oak tables surrounded by upholstered armchairs. Less than a dozen passengers sat at the tables, most of them over near the windows on the port side.
The short man made a comment about how their wives must already be seated and both men headed for a double door on the far side of the room. I remembered from my reading about the Titanic that the first-class saloon, or dining room, was through those doors.
It was the largest single room on the ship, capable of holding over two hundred diners at one time, all eating elegant meals, served at the highest of society’s standards. I almost beat the two men to the door in my eagerness to see that famous room.
And it was everything I had ever imagined it to be. Handcrafted oak chairs, linen-covered tables, ornate wood columns, deep oak paneling on the walls. The air was full of rich food odors and the sounds of people talking, silverware clinking against plates, and ice swirling in fine crystal.
I moved out of the doorway and stood and watched as an army of waiters catered to every whim of over a hundred people at once. The two men I had followed went to a table near the center of the room and sat down with two women. After a few minutes, another party of six people entered from the port-side entrance and were seated at another table near the center. The maitre d’ who had seated them headed in my direction, looking stern. Finally, someone had noticed me.
But I was wrong. He walked right past me and through the doors into the waiting area and the grand staircase. That scared me. The way I was dressed, in a ski parka and jeans, I should have at least gotten a dirty look from a man used to everyone wearing fine clothes to dinner. I quickly followed him back into the waiting area to his small desk.
“Excuse me,” I said, standing in front of his desk. “Could you tell me what day this is?”
He didn’t even look up.
“Hey, I asked you—” I reached forward to touch his arm. My hand went right through him and touched the desktop ledger instead.
I thought I’d been shot.
Not only did my hand pass through him, but he must have been wired with electricity. I got a jolt that sent me staggering back across the room and into a table. I suppose I should have sat down right at that moment, caught my breath, and thought everything through. But I didn’t. It didn’t even cross my mind.
Instead, I turned and ran.
It took me no more than ten seconds to cross that large room and get up those stairs. At the next deck, winded, sweating, scared, and my heart again threatening to jump out of my chest, I slowed down to a walk. But I didn’t stop until I got back to my pack two more decks up. There I slumped down on the carpet with my back against the oak paneling.
I wasn’t moving until I got my head clear and I felt rested. For the next half hour I sat and watched the steady stream of ghosts climbing up and down the grand staircase.
Or was I the ghost? Either way, I had gotten myself into big trouble this time. It hadn’t just been the shock from the maître d’ that had sent me running. As I reached for him, I had caught a glimpse of the date on his ledger.
April 14, 1912.
Unless the mirror pulled me off real soon, in a few hours I was going for one very cold swim.
CHAPTER TEN
Boat Deck
First Cycle
April 15, 1912
THE TITANIC’S BAN, tucked back in an alcove beside the first-class entrance to the boat deck, played ragtime as the ship sank. Upbeat, happy music to cheer the passengers as they prepared to die.
It wasn’t cheering me at all.
I didn’t plan on dying just yet. I threaded a rope through the wooden slats of a chair, wrapped it around the legs of the other four chairs in the bundle, then yanked on it hard to pull all the chairs tightly together. Hard to believe I had been dumb enough to get into this. Going through the mirror had been a risk. I had known that. But I never expected anything like this. In all my forty years, I had never been this confused.
Or this scared.
Or this damn cold. The hair in my nose had frozen into needles the minute I stepped back out on the wood-covered boat deck. My ears ached, my knees were numb from kneeling, and I had lost track of any feeling in my fingers two minutes after starting this stupid raft.
I blew hard on my hands, then stuck them under my jacket to see if I could regain enough touch to tie the next knot. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if the raft I was building didn’t hold together. Or if Susan didn’t come galloping to my rescue. I glanced around. Same thing as the last six hours. No sign of Susan and not a soul paying me the slightest bit of attention.
After getting jolted that first time by putting my hand through the maitre d’, I had sat against the wall with my pack until I had calmed down enough to stand up without fear of a heart attack. Then I had gone looking for Susan, being real careful to not touch anyone. I did get one other jolt when a woman in a fur coat turned suddenly and would have bumped my arm, but for the fact that my arm went right through her. Again it felt as if I had brushed up against an electric fence. I couldn’t imagine what running into someone head-on would do. Probably be fatal.
I had spent the next few hours going through the halls, dining rooms, libraries, and card rooms, yelling for Susan. I had no idea how big the Titanic was until those hours. I wasn’t able to cover even a quarter of the decks before there was an ugly rumbling noise deep in the ship and the engines stopped.
The Titanic had struck the iceberg.
That was the exact moment, as I felt the engines stop, and then listened to the huge stacks as they started blowing off the steam from the engines, that I decided I wasn’t going down with the ship. I had the advantage of knowing what was going to happen and I could figure out a way to stay alive.
I had dragged my pack back up the stairs to the boat deck, only this time I went out on the port side and up about halfway to where there was a large supply of wooden deck chairs. I would build my own raft. Simple as that.
Only the intense cold wasn’t making it so simple. I took a few shallow breaths and forced myself to try to relax and listen to the music while my hands warmed.
The small, eight-man band stood fifty feet away on the Titanic’s increasingly slanted boat deck. They were tucked out of the way in a shallow alcove formed by one of the ship’s giant funnels and the entrance to the grand staircase. Their ghost white life jackets gave them a formal look as they stood with their backs to the wall and played to the dark Atlantic night.
They had played right through the madness that had filled the boat deck during the boarding of the lifeboats. There was no doubt they were damn good musicians, but I didn’t know how they could play in this extreme cold. I could barely tie a rope, let alone finger an instrument. Yet they had played for what seemed like hours, starting in the first-class lounge, then moving outside on the boat deck. Amazing sense of duty. Legend had it they played right to the final moments. Not one of them survived. It looked like I was about to find out how true that legend was.
I blew on my hands again. My fingers felt like blocks of wood. There wasn’t even enough feeling left for them
to hurt. I was getting too damn old for this. I should have listened to Dean Haycraft and stayed on at the university. At least my office had been warm. Boring, but warm.
I studied the makeshift raft I had been frantically building as the bow of the ship sank deeper and deeper into the calm, black water. I had figured that if I tied wooden deck chairs in bundles five thick, then tied four bundles together, I might have something that would hold me and my backpack out of the ice-cold Atlantic water. It only had to stay afloat for three hours. If I remembered right, the Carpathia, the Titanic’s rescue ship, would arrive by then. I didn’t want to think about the chance that they wouldn’t be able to see me either. I’d face that problem when I got to it.
The raft didn’t look like much, but it might make the three hours. Assuming, of course, that I could get the raft over the railing and drop it into the water without it breaking apart, then paddle it far enough away from the Titanic that the suction from the huge ship going under wouldn’t pull both me and the raft with it. Damn big assumptions to be gambling my life on.
It didn’t much matter now. In a few minutes, I wouldn’t have a choice. The slant of the deck had become far more pronounced and water now rolled over the bow of the ship. The huge ship was about to stand on its nose and unless something pulled my ass out of here real soon, the raft was going to be my only hope.
I yanked another length of rope free from a discarded lifeboat cover and wound it tightly around the chair legs of one bundle, then in through the seating slats of another. Fifteen hundred people would drown or die from exposure in the next few hours. Yet, as far as I could see, I was the only one building a raft. There was certainly no shortage of rope with all the lifeboat covers tossed aside, and there had to be two hundred deck chairs on this side of the boat deck alone. But not one of the hundreds of passengers left on the boat deck was even tossing chairs into the water. They all just climbed slowly toward the stern of the ship like a death march, making no attempt to save themselves. Made no sense. Hell, nothing on the Titanic made sense.
Laying the Music to Rest Page 11