by Chris Pauls
Hartley turned to face his assembled musicians, still tuning and preparing to play for a boisterous audience of first-class passengers.
George Krins, first violinist and master of the strings section, appeared out of sorts. His eyes darted around the lounge at the wealthy passengers in their finery, arguing with their spouses, complaining about the service, and obsessing about the latest fashions. It was Krins’s first tour on a liner—his previous job was playing at the Ritz in London. He was accustomed to audiences waiting in hushed anticipation for the music to begin. The last thing this distracted mob seemed to be interested in was the band.
Hartley had performed for many such audiences. He walked alongside the young violinist. “Mr. Krins,” said Hartley in a low voice next to his ear, “I understand that you are used to playing under rather different conditions.”
“We could be replaced with a gramophone for all they care,” said Krins. “Half of them are unhappy and no one appears interested in anything but his own business. They’ll never listen.”
“Titanic is my third liner,” said Hartley, “so you’ll have to trust me on this: When we start playing, they’ll forget their cares. Nothing is nobler than to use our God-given gifts for such good.”
Krins raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he smiled and gave a brief, deferential nod.
Across the room, Charlotte Wardle Cardeza curled a finger and summoned her favorite personal maid. “Miss Anna, go retrieve my bottle of L’Heure Bleue. It is well past the hour for a puff of Guerlain. I believe it’s in trunk number nine.” Lady Cardeza posed prominently in front of one of the panoramic windows, gazing out at the blue waters of the Atlantic. “Hurry now, I don’t want to be beaten to that fragrance by some Luddite from London.”
The maid scurried off to fetch the perfume. As another servant stood ready at her side, Lady Cardeza surveyed the room for a social figure of at least equal stature. It had been fifteen minutes since she had been seen with anyone of standing.
She spied her former dinner guest Emil Kaufmann, alone and sipping a martini one window bay over. She hadn’t spotted him of late and didn’t quite know what to make of the man—a reasonably handsome face and position of some regard but so enigmatic. No matter, she decided. He would have to do.
Lady Cardeza sashayed with practiced elegance across the room, only to trip and stumble halfway to her quarry. Doubtlessly, the five martinis she had earlier consumed accounted for the error. The Lady checked the room furtively to ensure no one of consequence had witnessed the incident. Her wig was akimbo; she artfully adjusted it as if nothing had happened. You pay a king’s ransom for these things, she thought, and they never stay on straight.
“Lady Cardeza,” Kaufmann said agreeably. “I’m afraid you could do far better than I for company at the moment.”
She batted her eyelids. “Why would you say such a thing, Mr. Kaufmann?”
“I am confronted with a nuisance that apparently cannot be remedied and am feeling quite dour. I never expected to be inconvenienced so, on this, of all ships.”
“Do tell, sir. I, too, shall complain at the first opportunity about that horrible rug back there. It has more bumps than a cobblestone street!”
“As well you should complain. What good is it to have the ear of those in power if you’re unwilling to bend it from time to time?” Kaufmann’s charming smile was a tonic, but not the one Lady Cardeza needed. She snatched another martini from a passing valet’s tray. The gentleman touched Lady Cardeza’s hand and nodded discreetly across the room. “Why, there’s Mr. Ismay right now.”
“It most certainly is,” hooted Lady Cardeza. “Let’s go have a word with him.”
Yet before Lady Cardeza and Kaufmann could reach Ismay, he was confronted by another agitated passenger, George Dunton Widener.
“Bruce,” Widener said, his hand wrapped around a glass of whiskey and a fat cigar clenched between his teeth, “my wife would like to take a Turkish bath.”
Ismay laughed nervously. “Well, by all means,” he said. “I wish I had time for such pleasures myself, but I really must be …”
“Your staff won’t allow it!” thundered Widener. “Knock some sense into them. She’s tried to go ten different times but they won’t even let her in the stairwell. Eleanor is beside herself!”
“Mr. Ismay!”
The White Star chairman recognized the shrill, piercing voice of Lady Cardeza. She had that German, Kaufmann, in tow. Ismay winced. What now?
“Mr. Ismay,” Lady Cardeza puffed, “Mr. Kaufmann and I have bones to pick with you.”
“Yes, well, of course, if there’s any problem at all I’d like to know straight away.” Manners dictated that Ismay address Lady Cardeza first, but he overrode such concerns to concentrate on the competition. “Mr. Kaufmann, what is the trouble?”
“I have business several decks below, but I’ve been restricted by ship personnel from venturing there,” said Kaufmann, jaw clenched tight. “I’d like an explanation.”
Widener harrumphed in agreement. “You heard the man, Bruce. Please explain why we’re being denied our amenities.”
With effort, Ismay pushed his anxieties aside and nodded reassuringly. “I understand and apologize for the inconvenience. Purely unintentional. We’re just conducting some routine maintenance. I assure you, it will be finished soon.” Ismay snapped his fingers at a waiter, who rushed over with a bottle of champagne. Ismay put his arms around both Kaufmann and Lady Cardeza. “Please accept this with my compliments, and anything else that suits your pleasure for the rest of this evening.”
“I had better be able to go about my business soon, Ismay,” warned Kaufmann, “or you’ll surely hear from me again.”
Lady Cardeza brandished the opened bottle. “Thank you for the champagne, Mr. Ismay,” she called, pulling Kaufmann away. “But your rugs are still bumpy.”
Once they’d gone, Widener spun his cigar. “A new ship does routine maintenance?”
“Especially a new ship,” Ismay said, one tycoon to another. “Think of your own street cars—do new models off the line run to form on the very first day?”
Widener chewed and puffed thoughtfully. “I suppose not. But we’re charging people an awful lot of money for you to work out the kinks!”
“Let me set your mind at ease,” said Ismay. “I have the ship’s designer himself down below making sure everything is in tip-top shape. I expect the baths will be open again within the hour.”
“Andrews, eh?” nodded Widener. “Very well then. Send someone to get me when Eleanor has run of the ship again, will you?”
“You can bank on it,” said Ismay, silently cursing Smith and the men several decks below. New York could not come fast enough.
Widener turned to leave but stopped as music filled the air. He tilted his ear, listening critically. “These chaps are quite good, Bruce. Quite good.”
For once Ismay and Widener agreed on something. They stood shoulder to shoulder, transfixed by the music as Wallace Hartley’s bow danced across his violin.
31
DECK F, STEWARDS’ QUARTERS.
SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1912. 6:48 P.M.
“The safest route,” whispered Andrews to his huddled group of compatriots, “is along the walls. Let’s make our way around the room to the door.”
“One of those things is going to grab us,” said Lou.
Captain Smith put a callused hand to the girl’s mouth. She got the picture. No more talking.
Andrews led the way, back and heels to the wall. The others followed in a line, moving slowly and quietly in the darkness. After turning the first corner without incident, Andrews halted. Ahead, he heard the sound of an infected man banging his head against the wall. He would be blocking their path to the door.
“Go back the other way?” whispered Weiss.
“No. Bunks are back there,” Andrews replied. “Bunks full of them.”
“Then,” said Smith, “go over him, Mr. Andrews.” He prodded Andrews forward
.
Andrews carefully leapt the prone figure, who was none the wiser. Next was Weiss, who thought, It’s not as if I haven’t had practice navigating in the dark, yet still … He hesitated, then took a long, tentative step over the thrashing creature. As Weiss raised his back foot, he brushed against the zombie’s flailing hand. Weiss bit his lip. The poor creature simply kept throwing his cranium at the wall.
Captain Smith was next and leaped as easily as Andrews, but Lou stopped at the prone figure, afraid to continue.
Hargraves first tried to encourage her, but then he simply slipped his hands beneath the child’s armpits and lifted her toward the waiting arms of Captain Smith.
Beneath them, the zombie let loose with a guttural moan. It grabbed at Lou’s dangling legs.
“It knows we’re here!” she screamed.
Andrews had found the door and was waiting by it. Now he opened it, so they could see their attacker. It was like releasing light into a mausoleum.
“Good God,” said Weiss. A dozen bodies littered the room and wailed at the light. Several turned their dead, transformed faces toward the room’s human visitors.
The zombie on the floor seized Hargraves’s leg. Pitching Lou to Captain Smith, Hargraves kicked down on the fiend till its grip released, then leaped past and through the open door on the heels of the others.
Hargraves slammed the door shut and threw the lock. They were in a small utility room with no other exit, clearly a temporary salvation at best. The room contained only three high-speed fans: two large fans for ventilating the number-one boiler casing and a third that served as an exhaust for the bakery on the other side.
Erratic blows rained down on the other side of the wooden door, which, unlike steel, would not stand up to the monsters’ brutality.
“Are we at a dead end?” asked the captain.
“Not exactly!” shouted Andrews, pointing to the back wall. “The phone we need is on the other side of that fan!”
“Where are the controls to stop the damned thing?” Captain Smith said. “Those blades will cut us to pieces.”
Andrews shook his head in disbelief as his eyes darted about the room. “I swore the switch was in this utility space,” he said. “But it must be on the other side of that wall.”
Hargraves and Weiss were both putting their weight against the utility room door, which groaned as more zombies began to throw themselves against it.
“I don’t think we’ve got much time,” Lou shouted.
“She’s right,” said Smith, drawing his rapier again.
Hargraves gestured with his ax as the door rattled behind him. “We can’t fight the monsters here. There’s no room!”
“That’s not what we’re going to do,” countered Smith. “I’m going to stop the fan with this blade.”
“But the fan will snap your sword in half,” protested Weiss. “Or mangle it till it’s useless. Then where will be—with only my cane and Hargraves’s ax?”
A thunderous blast splintered the wood by Weiss’s ear.
“She’ll hold!” Captain Smith roared as he plunged Kabul into the spinning blades near their center. Sparks flew as Kabul’s hardened steel lodged firmly and overpowered the groaning motor. The fan came to a standstill. “Go!” Smith ordered. “Go through now, all of you!”
First Lou and then Andrews and Hargraves worked their way between the fan blades and into the bakery on the other side. Another loud crack fractured the wooden door. As pieces fell away, the first zombie shoved its head and arm into the opening. Weiss quickly plunged his knife-stick hard into the creature’s head, reducing the zombie to a limp mass that plugged the opening in the partially shattered door. Yet the light and sounds of struggle had drawn all the creatures in the steward’s quarters. The zombies raged against the barriers separating them from human flesh. The door cracked further, widening the opening, and hands pushed through and pulled at the now freely splintering wood. Weiss stabbed at the reaching hands in vain.
“They’re about to break through,” Andrews pleaded from the other side of the fan.
Weiss gave up the door and raced to Smith, who continued to hold his sword firm. Weiss said, “Captain, you first. We can’t afford to lose you!”
Weiss took hold of the sword’s pommel, bracing it with his good shoulder. With a reluctant nod, the captain relented, releasing Kabul and forcing his aching body through the fan blades, cursing under his breath as they gouged into his ribs.
When he was through, Captain Smith called back to Weiss, “What are you going to do now? The fan will start up the second you remove the blade.”
In that instant, the door gave way completely. Zombies spilled through into a heap, with more pushing and shuffling behind them. Weiss wedged his right thigh against a fan blade and yanked out the sword. As the fan slowly, relentlessly began to turn, Weiss plunged his upper torso into the opening and through to the other side, then Captain Smith and Andrews grabbed his jacket and pulled just as a zombie took hold of Weiss’s legs trailing behind in the fan. Bracing himself, Captain Smith pulled mightily on the scientist, winning the brief tug-of-war. Weiss was pulled into the bakery. The zombie, who still had hold of Weiss’s feet, became stuck halfway through, caught by the frustrated fan blade.
Captain Smith brought Kabul down hard and fast on the zombie’s wrists, freeing Weiss’s leg from its grasp, then he rained blows on the beast until it was nearly cut in half. The fan blade finished the job, and once unblocked, the fan quickly picked up speed again.
Andrews, Smith, and Lou helped Weiss up off the ground, and everyone retreated to the farthest corner of the bakery away from the exhaust fan. Lacking all self-regard, the zombies tried to climb through, and their fingers, hands, and forearms were efficiently severed. Body parts fell harmlessly on the bakery floor, as black fluid splattered from the fan in all directions.
Captain Smith pulled the pillowcase from his head; the others did the same. “Lock and blockade the front door to this room, Mr. Hargraves. I have a call to make.”
32
TITANIC BRIDGE.
SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1912. 8:10 P.M.
Is there anyone who doesn’t want a photograph with Smith? thought Ismay upon seeing yet another tuxedo-clad passenger lurking outside the bridge. There were several reasons E. J. Smith was known as the “Millionaire’s Captain”—one was his willingness to accommodate such requests, which had been piling up in his absence. Ismay anxiously awaited word about the situation below, and passenger distractions were the last thing he needed. However, Ismay knew that one particular traveler would not be producing an Eastman Kodak folding pocket camera. It was Emil Kaufmann, and he had something other than snapshots on his mind.
Kaufmann’s arrival was just one more reminder of how long it had been since Smith and his men had ventured onto Deck E, a full fourteen hours and counting. How much longer until they finished the quarantine and the stairwells could be reopened? Passengers could be misdirected for only so long.
“So nice to see you again,” Ismay said. “However, I’m sorry to say that we’ll be unable to reopen access to the lower decks tonight. I’d like to invite you …”
“I won’t be plied with champagne any longer, Ismay,” snapped Kaufmann. “I have no plans to leave the bridge until I’m allowed access to the lower decks. There’s someone I need to see below, urgently. I’m through being cooped up.”
The bridge telephone sounded. Mr. Humphries, a petty officer assigned to navigation and maps, answered the call. He listened briefly, then held out the receiver: “Mr. Wilde. It’s the captain.”
Ismay lunged for the phone, snatching it before Wilde could respond. “It’s Ismay. Are we clear?”
Smith barked, “Close all watertight doors immediately. Every compartment down here must be barricaded shut.”
Ismay’s mouth opened in shock. When he noticed others watching, he shut it.
We’re only a day’s sail from reaching New York! he thought. Won’t closing the doors keep the
firemen from fueling the boilers? Does Smith have any idea what he is proposing? Ismay imagined men with wheelbarrows full of coal standing helplessly on the other side of metal doors as every boiler’s fire died out. Titanic would fizzle to a halt in the middle of the sea. And there was Kaufmann, arms folded, waiting impatiently for him to hang up. God, how Ismay hated him. How this man—a competitor! A German competitor!—had even been allowed to purchase passage …
Smith growled into the phone. “Ismay, are you there? Do you hear me? We’ve died nearly a dozen deaths trying to get to this phone.” When Ismay still didn’t respond, Smith shouted, “Put Mr. Wilde on immediately.”
Ismay said heartily with false good cheer, “That is wonderful news, Captain Smith. And with the engines running at full capacity, everyone aboard will be part of history when we set a new speed record.”
“Full capacity?” asked Smith. “Speed record? Are you mad?” Smith was shouting to be heard over some grisly churning noise in the background that Ismay could not make out.
“Very well,” said Ismay, smiling at the crew and the reviled Mr. Kaufmann. “We’ll keep guards restricting access to the lower decks, if you insist.”
“Shut those doors!” shouted Smith. “That is a direct order!”
“Already done,” returned Ismay. “Every boiler is at full steam. We’ll be in New York far ahead of schedule.”
“Listen to me,” said Smith gravely. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but every moment you waste, the more you damn this ship.”