The Callahans: The Complete Series

by Gordon Ryan

  “Thank you, Mrs... .”

  “Mrs. Virginia Van Brocklin. VeeVee, to my friends,

  Mr... . ?”

  “Well, I certainly get low marks for my manners this morning, Mrs. Van Brocklin,” he laughed. “I’m Thomas Callahan, from Salt Lake City. I’m enroute to New York to meet my family returning from a trip to Norway.”

  “It’s very pleasant to meet you, Mr. Callahan. I’ve been out to Indiana to visit my daughter. I live in upstate New York, in Hyde Park, near Poughkeepsie.”

  The waiter arrived and placed a pot of coffee next to Tom along with a small plate of toast, butter, and several strips of bacon. “Thank you,” Tom offered.

  “My pleasure, sir,” the man said.

  “How long till we arrive at the station?” Tom asked.

  “Just under an hour, sir. We’re right on time,” he smiled brightly. “Should be in at 8:12, sharp.”

  “Thank you,” Tom repeated. He placed his napkin across his lap and began to spread butter on a piece of toast.

  “Just a dreadful story in the news this morning, Mr. Callahan,” Mrs. Van Brocklin said. “Have you seen the papers?”

  “No, ma’am. I was preparing my luggage for our arrival. Was there some accident last night?” he asked, stirring his coffee.

  “Oh, yes, but the details are very sketchy. Only the wireless reports so far. The porter provided the paper as we passed through the last town, about twenty minutes ago. All they know is that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of persons may have died last night in a catastrophic ocean tragedy.”

  “Ma’am?” Tom said, his interest rising.

  “A British vessel, I think, the name ...” she hesitated, reaching for the paper and turning to the front page. “Ah, yes, here it is, ‘Hundreds Perish in Sea Disaster.’ The Titanic was her name. On her first voyage. Dreadful news, I’m afraid,” she said, shaking her head.

  “May I, please?” Tom asked, reaching for and grabbing the newspaper.

  “Yes, of course,” Mrs. Van Brocklin said, startled at Tom’s abruptness.

  He quickly scanned the headlines then hurriedly read several paragraphs into the story. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, rising and stepping into the aisle. “May I?” he asked, holding the paper up and asking to retain it.

  “Yes, certainly. Is something wrong, Mr. Callahan?”

  “My family are, uh ... are on the Titanic, Mrs. Van Brocklin. Please excuse me,” he said, turning quickly away and walking down the aisle.

  “Oh, my Lord,” Mrs. Van Brocklin exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my dear Lord.”

  Quite literally, hundreds of people milled about outside the White Star Lines’ office in New York City. The lobby of the building was jammed to capacity, and once Tom exited the taxi, he was unable to force his way into the building. He retreated across the street into a small café and asked to use the telephone.

  “Won’t do no good, sir. The line’s been jammed all morning.”

  Tom nodded and left the building, once again crossing the street to join the press of anxious, desperate relatives pleading for information about possible survivors of the Titanic disaster.

  Jostled by the crowd and waiting impatiently for definitive news, Tom was both sick with fear and angry at himself. If only he hadn’t changed their booking. It was his fault they were on the Titanic in the first place.

  Tom could see into the lobby of the building and the crowd that was being held in the main foyer by six police officers stationed at the bottom of the stairs. Shortly after noon, a man leaned out of an upstairs window and called to the crowd that a list would shortly be posted in the foyer, and that if people would cooperate, he would send someone down to distribute four carbon copies of the list, and that they would try to keep everyone updated as quickly as they received word.

  “Where are the survivors?” someone shouted.

  “The Carpathia has picked up hundreds of survivors,” the man yelled back. “They expect to reach New York by Thursday.”

  “Thursday!” the same man responded. “Surely you don’t expect us to wait until Thursday to find out if our family is alive or not!”

  “Sir, please,” the man pleaded. “We are doing our best. I will post names on the board as quickly as we receive wireless transmissions.” He shut the upstairs window.

  A young boy came down the inside stairwell and tried to shove his way through the unruly crowd to post his document on the bulletin board. An elderly man grabbed one of the sheets from his hand and tried, against the press of those surrounding him, to scan the list for names. Several people reached for the list, resulting almost immediately in the paper being torn in pieces, rendering it useless to anyone. Finally, the man who had leaned out the window appeared at the top of the stairs and leaned over the railing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, please, if I may have your attention. Please!” he shouted.

  Someone in the crowd yelled, “Shut up! Be quiet!” and the noise began to slowly subside.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, shaking his head. “This is a disaster of unprecedented proportions. We understand your anxiety and your need to know the fate of your loved ones. This is not the way. Please allow us to try to provide you the information you need as quickly as it comes to us. I assure you, we will distribute information as soon as it becomes available.”

  “Wilson,” a man in the crowd shouted. “Do you have any Wilsons on your survivor list?”

  “Sir,” the man responded, “can you not see the hundreds of concerned people who all wish to know if their families are alive? We have alphabetized the names we’ve received. We’ll continue to add names as quickly as they come in. If you’ll just let the lad post the list and allow all to have a few seconds to review it, we’ll be able to assist you much faster. Now, if you’ll all just try to form some sort of line ...”

  The young boy struggled again through the crowd, attempting to reach the board, but once again, a hand grabbed the list the lad carried, tearing the paper as the boy held on to its end. Finally, the man at the top of the stairs leaned over to the police officer standing on the top step and said something to him. The officer handed the man his baton, and with short raps, he banged the baton on the railing, obtaining quick response from the crowd.

  “This is not going to work unless all cooperate. If I may have your attention, I will try to read the names we’ve received. We have over five hundred names so far, and more are coming by wireless, so this will take some time. It would be far quicker if you allowed us to post a list and scanned it as you walked by, but for now ...”

  The crowd surged forward, toward the stairs, with several shouts for quiet, as the man at the top of the stairs began to read out the names.

  “Addison, A., Addison, R., Altheimer, P., Brubaker, L., Brubaker R., ...” He continued for some time, with each movement from one letter of the alphabet to another bringing desperate cries of anguish from the crowd as the name they anxiously awaited was not read. Several women fainted in the press of the crowd at the news, or absence of news, regarding their particular family member.

  Having squeezed his way into the building, Tom stood toward the back of the crowd. After a time, screams and sighs of relief alternately coming from the crowd, the man at the top of the stairs reached the C’s. “Cagney, H., Call, P., Call, S., Callahan, K., Callahan, T., Cordova, C., ...”

  Tom leaned against the wall of the lobby, thoughts racing through his mind. Only one “T” and no “B.” Maybe the wireless operator thought it was a duplicate. But the lists were incomplete, the man had said, and Tommy and Teresa both start with “T.”

  Clearly it would be hours, if not days, before the lists were sorted out completely, and, in fact, not until the rescue vessel actually arrived in New York would they know for sure. Tom waited until the man reached the I’s, and then the J’s, without hearing any Hansen name called.

  The lobby began to clear somewhat as the reader progressed through the alphabet. People i
n the crowd reacted with jubilation or grief and despair, based on the names that were read. For the next three days, however, until the actual arrival time of the Carpathia was determined, the offices of British White Star Lines continued to be besieged by relatives, press corps, and friends of those known, or thought to have been, on the Titanic.

  The Carpathia was warped into her berth at Pier 54 on Thursday, 18 April 1912, shortly after dark. Coming up New York harbor, the ship had been surrounded by dozens of smaller craft filled with reporters and family members, holding up signs and placards bearing the names of relatives. Finally, the ship was secured to the pier, and the passengers began to depart, with the Carpathia passengers, for the most part, giving way to the Titanic survivors. Bedraggled and confused, some of the survivors needed to be assisted down the gangplank, not so much because of physical injuries as from the shock of the disaster. Hardly a survivor had not left other family members at the scene of the sinking, and during the intervening four days on board the Carpathia, they had time for their loss to settle into their subconscious, bringing some to an emotional state of mental withdrawal.

  Cries of anguish were heard as survivors met with waiting family members who were then told of others who had perished. Each with his or her own fears in their heart, they waited, clinging to the hope that somehow their loved one had been spared. Even those for whom personal family was not involved, such as reporters, police, and medical personnel, the sights and sounds occurring along the length of the pier spawned open displays of emotion.

  Tom’s first view of Katrina was as she descended the gangway, Tommy and Teresa close by her side. He pushed his way through the few people standing in front of him and jostled the gate guard to one side as he stepped onto the pier. The guard tried to restrain him, but with Tom’s entry, several other people clambered through the gate, and instantly, the guard had more than he could handle.

  Katrina saw Tom in the rush of people and ran the last few steps down the gangway, collapsing in his arms, weeping and unable to speak. Tom held her tightly as the children burrowed in as closely as they could to their father. They were bumped back and forth by other families, meeting or seeking their loved ones. Yet, each family gathering assumed an aura of privacy amid the collective chaos.

  Without words, Tom knew from his absence that something dreadful had happened to Benjamin, but until the moment when Katrina would mouth the words, he dared hope and pray that Benjamin would be carried off on a stretcher, or that perhaps he was on another rescue vessel. Deep in the bowels of his being, Tom knew that his hopes were fallacious. Word had come two days earlier that the Californian, the second rescue vessel on the scene, and all other subsequent rescue craft, had failed to find another living person from the tragedy. The Carpathia, the newspapers had said, carried over seven hundred survivors. Seven hundred out of over two thousand.

  “Benjamin’s gone,” Katrina sobbed in Tom’s ear. “Our baby’s gone. Oh, Thomas—and Momma and Poppa. It was awful, Thomas, just awful. All those poor people ...” she whimpered.

  The children were crying as well, and Tom sought to remove his family from the pressure of the crowd. He had paid a taxi driver to wait near the entrance to the terminal, and slowly he maneuvered his family through the crowd toward the street. Once in the taxi, Tom ordered the driver to go directly to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

  It was well after ten before the family was settled into the hotel suite. Both children were bathed, fed, and put to bed by hotel staff who were gracious in their solicitations to the Callahan family. In all, nineteen survivors of the Titanic disaster spent their first night on dry land in the plush surroundings of the Waldorf-Astoria, protected from and oblivious to the throng of reporters that filled the lobby throughout the night, clamoring for a response from the survivors and their families.

  Sometime after midnight, Katrina woke from a fitful sleep and found Tom’s side of the bed empty. She rose, threw on a robe provided by the hotel, and walked into the sitting room where Tom sat in the dark, muted somewhat by the glow of light coming through the window from the streets of New York below.

  “Thomas?” she said.

  At the sound of her voice, he rose quickly and stepped to take her in his arms. She laid her head against his shoulder, and he stroked her hair, neither speaking. Tom gently urged her toward the couch and both sat, Katrina leaning against her husband with her feet curled up under her. The deep, welling sobs had been expended hours earlier, and the quiet mourning was just beginning. Till nearly daylight they sat together on the divan, few words exchanged other than when Katrina asked for a glass of water.

  “Your mother was a brave woman, Katie,” Tom eventually said. “And I understand her desire to remain with Lars. I know it must have been difficult for you to watch them together, but they’re still together now.”

  Katrina nodded her head slightly, and slid her hand behind her husband’s neck. She raised her face from his chest and looked into his eyes. “And Benjamin will be with them, Thomas, won’t he?”

  “Yes, my darling, he will be, and they’ll love him until we can see him again.”

  “Will we, Thomas? Will we see him again?” Katrina whispered.

  “Katie, you know the church’s teachings about children, and—”

  “But you, Thomas. What about you? I’ve heard Father Scanlan talk to you about infant baptism. He’s asked you many times to reconsider your decision about baptism for the children.”

  “Katie, I—”

  “Thomas, I know that what you have done all these years was for me. But I’m asking now about you. What do you believe?”

  Tom was silent, standing to pour himself another glass of water and pausing by the window, looking at the streets below, just beginning to come awake with morning traffic. People were starting to go about their business, yet up here, in a suite in the Waldorff-Astoria, Tom’s family had been diminished by one precious son and two grandparents.

  Where was Benjamin? Tom thought as he stood, contemplating Katie’s question. Was he condemned to Purgatory as Father Scanlan had so often said was the fate of un-baptized children, and had that happened because he, himself, hadn’t had the strength to go against his wife’s wishes in these matters? Had Father Scanlan been right that as head of the household, Tom should have taken the lead and demanded the Catholic baptism of his children? He shook his head and turned to face Katrina, waiting quietly on the divan for her husband’s response.

  “Katie, I’ve told Father Scanlan several times that I do not understand a God who would be so cruel as to damn innocent children, especially if omission of their baptism was a result of their parents’ actions. No loving God could do such a thing. I must believe—in fact I do believe that Benjamin is with his grandparents and that God will take him to His bosom. I cannot ... no, I will not admit any other possibility.”

  “Come, sit by me, please,” Katrina said, patting the seat next to her. “I want you to know that I believe what you say is true. It is by the grace of Christ that these little children return to His presence. Still, I’ve thought for the entire four days on the Carpathia about this question. I have prayed for assurance, and I have besieged God with my pleadings to show me that Benjamin is with Him.”

  “And did He answer you, Katie?” Tom asked, retaking his seat next to her.

  “I don’t know, Thomas. I just don’t know. He doesn’t always work so directly as we would like. Elder McKay has told us that many times.”

  Tom nodded. “Yeah, D.O. seems to be perplexed himself at times, yet he always seems to have this quiet assurance that what he does is right.”

  “It’s not so much that what he does is right, Thomas, but perhaps ... well, perhaps it’s his knowledge that the Lord he believes in will not let him stray far from the truth. Elder McKay told me himself that he knows he has been wrong on some occasions, even since being called as an Apostle, but that he feels certain the Lord allowed him to have those learning experiences for a reason.”

 
; “Oh, Katie, this Catholic-Mormon thing has stood between us for so many years now. How could they both be right? How could a loving God allow such confusion to exist on earth? It’s at times like these—when people need Him most—that the confusion between churches hinders rather than helps us to sort out the problem. I just don’t understand.”

  Katrina again laid her head against Tom’s chest, and they remained close together, the question hanging in the air, unanswered.

  “How did he get away, Katie?” Tom asked. “I mean, how did Benjamin get separated from the rest of you?”

  “He was with Tommy, and I had Teresa. Momma and Poppa had helped us come up to the Boat Deck, but Benjamin jerked his hand free from Tommy and ran back toward the cabin. I think when he realized we were going to leave the ship, he wanted to get the model airplane Poppa had bought for him in Norway.”

  “And Tommy had hold of Benjamin’s hand?”

  “Yes. I told them to stay together, but ...”

  “Then Tommy let him get away. He lost him in the crowd?”

  “No, Thomas, it wasn’t like that,” Katrina said, her eyes now once again focused on Tom’s, the dim light barely sufficient for her to see his expression.

  “Katie, there were ship’s officers and your parents to assist. You told me earlier that you had told Tommy to keep watch over Benjamin. He didn’t listen, did he?”

  “Thomas,” Katrina said firmly, “you’ve got to stop this train of thought. You weren’t there. It was utter chaos with people screaming and running all over the place. Benjamin had no idea that we were going to actually leave the ship until we came on deck and he saw people getting into the lifeboats. He loved that silly airplane, and he probably thought it was going to get lost if he left it behind.”