Eleanor

by RA Williams

  ‘I remember you,’ she said. ‘The cabin steward in my lifeboat who lost his arm – he knew you.’

  His brow furrowed. ‘Tony Swinburne. First Class steward. Kentish boy. He survived. Gone back to Folkestone, last I heard.’

  ‘You saved my father and Corky O’Shea.’

  ‘That Irish fella?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s still around. Looks after my father’s boat.’

  Beedham looked away. ‘I was once that sort, an’ all. Disregarded fatigue and suffering for a life at sea.’ He spat some pulp onto the packed sand floor. ‘Navigated from the sixth degree south to the sixth degree north in vessels so exposed, entire crew were pallid with fever. I seen the oceans wreak havoc among men from Batavia to San Blas.’

  Juice dribbled down his chin as he began chewing again.

  ‘Last time I went to sea, I was a torpedo mate on a frigate in the Great War.’

  He chuckled for the first time, as his Papillon puppy rolled onto its back, a palm husk in its paws.

  ‘I hunted German underwater boats, until one torpedoed us off Uruguay.’

  Leaning forward, he let the morning sun light his face through the courtyard palms.

  ‘I got picked up by a Honduran banana boat returning to the Mosquito Coast. My nerves were broken. Never will I go to sea again.’

  ‘You were a ship steward on Titanic?’ she wished to confirm.

  He nodded.

  ‘I wonder if you remember a passenger?’

  ‘Long time ago now, that is,’ Beedham replied.

  ‘His name was Balthasar Toule.’

  ‘Pfft. I wouldn’t forget that name if I’d heard it.’

  ‘He was tall. Dark hair. Slender. Would have been in his mid-twenties back then.’

  ‘Second Class passenger?’

  ‘I couldn’t say.’

  ‘If he wasn’t Second Class, I had nothing to do with him. White Star Line regulations forbade it. Unless, of course, the bloody ship sank. Did he perish?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You been looking for him all these years?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Poco a poco, eh?’

  ‘Little by little,’ she replied sadly. ‘I’ve heard that today already.’

  ‘It comes in handy.’

  ‘On the Mosquito Coast?’

  ‘And in life.’

  Beedham stood, toddling over to his puppy before unwinding the clothes line tied around an old cannon set on end, hibiscus flowering from the muzzle. Patting the Papillon on its head, he turned back to Elle.

  ‘I’ll fetch your room key. Why not wait in the bar? I’ve a few bits and bobs on display.’

  She followed a dimly lit hallway from the courtyard towards the hotel bar. Open French doors across the other side of the clubroom faced scrub-grass, leading to a beach strewn with flotsam, most of which looked like the source of the bar’s decoration. On the walls were tacked ship flags, dirty foul-weather jackets, a stuffed boar’s head and various-sized shark jaws. In a corner was a collection of sponging harpoons, a walking stick and an umbrella, all shoved into a dinged-up spittoon. Deposited neither here nor there about the room were worn-out floral armchairs occupied by felicitously dressed Americans from the sailing flotilla, slinging back glasses of rum and swapping stories with a pair of sponge fishermen.

  On the well-varnished bar, a Victrola played ‘I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg’. Behind the counter, a no-guff-looking Caribbean polished pint glasses. Stacked behind him were gloriously full bottles of spirits, the likes of which Elle hadn’t seen since before Prohibition. Hotel Scotland Road was her kind of gin joint.

  Feeling eyes on her, she took a circuitous route around the back of the clubroom, passing built-in bookcases stuffed with conch shells and Jack Daniel’s bottles with half-melted candles shoved in the necks.

  She stopped as her eye caught something familiar on a shelf. Pushing a yellowed copy of the Miami Herald to the side, she saw a teacup and saucer with a furrowing red banner on it. Beside it sat a chipped egg cup, White Star Line inscribed on it. A small photograph of a ship leaned against a leather ledger, its cover falling to bits.

  Delicately, she took the picture off the shelf. It was a postcard. A postcard of Titanic. She read the scribble on its back: Farewell and much love. From Dougie to Mum. As she went to put it back, she saw behind it a patinated frame holding a photograph of two men. She recognised them both.

  Dougie Beedham as she remembered him, youthful and rail-straight in his white steward’s jacket. Beside him, a man she knew but couldn’t quite place.

  A hand patted her arm. She jumped, nearly dropping the picture. Turning, she stood facing a fair-haired man with a strong neck and a stronger tan.

  ‘Wollen Sie etwas trinken, schöne Frau?’

  She gazed down at the hand upon her arm.

  ‘Slam on your anchors, Herr Mack. I can buy myself a drink.’

  He released her. ‘Entschuldigung. Wir haben uns beim letzten Mal nicht miteinander richtig bekannt gemacht.’

  ‘Scheiße,’ she mumbled. ‘Der Deutsche.’

  Not just any German. It was the German. The German who had accompanied Titch and escaped her scathing remarks on the night to remember.

  ‘Americans.’ He laughed. ‘Not ones for mincing words.’

  ‘Also, not one for taking kindly to being manhandled.’ She smiled. ‘Never mind, I’m happy to see you survived.’

  ‘Are you?’ Extending his hand formally this time, he said, ‘Erik Frisch.’

  ‘Eleanor,’ she said, shaking it. ‘Eleanor Annenberg.’

  ‘Your friend?’

  ‘Titch Blaine-Howard?’

  He nodded.

  ‘She survived.’

  ‘Gottseidank,’ he replied, eyeing the barman. ‘We can raise a glass to those who did not?’

  Grudgingly, she joined him as he ordered two glasses of rum. Two short glasses were dutifully filled. Passing one to her, Erik raised his.

  ‘And though death waits off the bow, we need not answer to him now… To the poor souls lost.’

  ‘We’ll not answer to him now… To the poor souls lost,’ she replied, her glass clinking against his, guardedly. There had been rather too many coincidences for one morning. And she didn’t believe in coincidences. She threw back the rum and put the empty glass down beside his.

  Looking over towards the other Americans, the German asked, ‘You are participating in the regatta?’

  ‘No. Came in on a schooner. Planning on doing a bit of sport diving.’

  ‘Ah, ja. On the reef.’

  ‘Heard it’s a treat.’

  ‘The sea fans are remarkable,’ he replied. ‘Although this is not a place a woman goes alone. There are Riesenhaie. Very big sharks.’

  ‘Nice try, Herr Frisch. Give you points for originality, but even I know a basking shark eats only plankton.’

  ‘You are as bright as you are lovely.’ He laughed nervously.

  ‘You’re a long way from home, Herr Frisch.’

  ‘Erik,’ he replied. ‘You are very welcome to call me Erik.’

  ‘What brings a German all the way to these islands, Erik?’

  ‘I’m in command of a survey vessel.’

  ‘Surveying what?’

  ‘At this moment, the Gulf of Honduras. We seek to improve the navigational charts.’

  ‘Who is “we”?’ she asked. His explanation clearly intended to mystify.

  ‘We?’ The German stumbled. ‘We are a German surveying contingent. This can be beneficial for all nations navigating through these waters.’

  Watching him drop a few centavos onto the counter, presumably for another round, Elle decided it was time to take her leave. She scooted off her stool and turned to the door. He followed right after her.

  ‘Way ya goin’?’ the broad barman asked.

  ‘To the reef,’ said the German.

  ‘Oh, really?’ she replied to him.

  ‘Da reef? Watch out dem sharks now,’ s
aid the barman, his Bahamian drawl warm and endearing. ‘Dem bull sharks rip the guts right out ya.’

  ‘Guts,’ repeated Elle. The mention of it stirred something long forgotten in her mind. The barman and Herr Frisch fell silent. ‘Guts,’ she said once more as she turned away from them, approaching Beedham’s Titanic collection and spying the photograph on the shelf once more. The man beside Beedham… She remembered.

  Ring of keys jingling on his belt as he bobbed like a cork in Titanic’s flooding hold. Vacant eyes staring at her through cracked spectacle lenses, his body opened up. Guts scooped out. Unwittingly, Elle had met Beedham’s friend.

  But she had bigger fish to fry now. Ditching the German, she escaped through the open French doors, scurrying down a narrow towpath lined with lavishly blossoming poincianas. Nearing the end of the path, she saw Adel anchoring offshore.

  ‘Your vessel?’ Herr Frisch asked, catching up to her.

  ‘Won the America’s Cup,’ she replied dismissively, watching as a launch rowed to shore. A crewman waved for her. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, Herr Frisch.’

  Before he could reply, she waded into the beach break towards the launch.

  ‘Miss. Miss!’ a crewman said excitedly. ‘Skipper wants us on the wreck today.’

  Pulled aboard, she asked, ‘What’s the hurry?’

  ‘Someone been snooping round.’

  ‘I wonder who that might be,’ she replied, looking over her shoulder back to land, as the launch returned to Adel. The German stood forlornly on the beach.

  She waved to him.

  Adel weighed anchor, her crew hoisting the fore-topmost sail before turning into the wind. Elle found Henrikson in his cabin, peeling through a stack of charts.

  ‘Gunny informed me of a ship carrying on some sort of inquiry in the area of our wreck,’ he said.

  ‘There was a German in Hotel Scotland Road. Captain of some research vessel or other. Surveying expedition.’

  ‘Surveying expedition? Here?’

  ‘It’s a lot of phonus bolonus, isn’t it?’

  He nodded. ‘This area has been charted twice over by the fruit companies. How’d you come by this?’

  ‘He told me,’ Elle said.

  ‘He told you?’

  She nodded. ‘Think he found Griffin?’

  ‘Doubtful. To keep the wreck’s location hush-hush, I didn’t bother with salvage rights, nor did I leave dive markers behind.’

  ‘How did you plan to find the wreck again?’

  ‘Deduced reckoning. All I need is a compass and stopwatch.’ He invited her to join him at the chart table as he hunched over a map of the Honduran coast.

  ‘This is La Ceiba on the Mosquito Coast.’

  He pointed out a port not far from the eastern border of Guatemala. Running his finger north across the sea, he passed a tiny island.

  ‘Here we are. Utila. Thirty-seven nautical miles north-north-east of the mainland. Morgan’s hideaway.’

  His finger continued to a larger island on the other side of a channel. ‘That’s Roatán.’

  Finally, his finger came to rest on a point between the islands. ‘Griffin was just that close to safety.’ Lifting a stopwatch, he checked the ticking seconds. ‘Best we get a wiggle on.’

  They returned to deck, and Elle settled into a deckchair by the stern, watching the crew tirelessly work Adel’s enormous sails. Utila fell further and further into the ship’s wake, until it was lost in a bank of cloud.

  The sun grew oppressive. Even in the shade of a canvas awning, sweat soon dripped down her nose, pattering down her chest.

  Henrikson stood at the helm, stripped to oil-stained shorts, his elderly frame surprisingly virile. He was eyeing a compass before the wheel. Checking his stopwatch, he pushed the wheel over a degree.

  ‘Six nautical miles north-east of Utila,’ he said to Elle. ‘In eleven-and-a-half fathoms. That’s where Griffin lies.’

  Turning, he ordered the sails lowered, and Adel anchored by a four-point mooring. Crewmen gathered and began attaching air lines to the pump receptacles.

  ‘Lads are cracking on,’ Henrikson said to her, retrieving a sounding line. ‘With luck we can get a dive in before lunch.’ He lowered the weighted line over the stern, the reel in his hand spinning as it descended. After what seemed like an age, the reel fell silent. Inspecting the line, he smiled.

  ‘Eleven-and-a-half fathoms. Struck bottom.’

  ‘That’s good?’ Elle asked.

  ‘Seventy feet. It’s good.’

  Bringing up the sounding line, he opened one of Adel’s sea chests, tossing the line inside before retrieving a copper diving helmet.

  ‘Fancy a go?’

  Pursing her lips, she hesitated.

  ‘Better I remain on deck and assist in stabilising anything you find down there.’

  ‘Just a quick look over the wreck? There’s but a quarter-knot current on the ebb tide as it flows through this part of the channel. It’s nothing.’

  ‘I’m better at sunbathing than diving, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Can you inhale and exhale?’

  Reluctantly, she nodded.

  ‘Well then. You can handle a John Brown rig.’

  Elle offered up a gentle smile. It grew slowly until it filled her face with confidence.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘This is a terrible idea,’ Elle huffed as the watertight bolts that attached the diving bonnet to the copper ring corselet around her neck tightened.

  Loosening the wing nut securing her faceplate, Henrikson swung it open.

  ‘These old John Brown rigs are awkward, I admit. But once we throw you in, they’re quite weightless.’

  Taking her hand, Henrikson raised it to the back of her helmet, letting her feel the connection point for the air hose, and a valve beside it.

  ‘Give the valve a half-twist clockwise, the deeper you go. It’ll regulate the flow of air so your suit doesn’t grip you too tightly.’ She looked at him nervously. ‘Just nod.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Good. Now follow behind me. Our feet are weighted with lead, so walk slowly. Once you’re down there, I promise you won’t want to come back up.’

  Before she could complain, he closed her faceplate and two crewmen spun the wheels on the pump to which her air hose was attached. Air whistled through her helmet, drowning out Henrikson’s instructions.

  ‘I’m not sure about this at all,’ she shouted, her voice echoing inside the helmet.

  Showing her a tightly twinned steel cable, he attached it to her weight belt and shouted back, ‘You have any trouble, give this a good tug. The lads will reel you in like a hooked marlin.’

  Pulling her to her feet, Henrikson duck-waddled Elle to a rope ladder strung over the side of Adel. Her suit was clumsy and, no matter how she tried, she couldn’t get her heavy foot into the top rung.

  Henrikson gave her a push.

  She toppled helmet first into the drink and was instantly surrounded by surging bubbles. She felt panic rise immediately as the air hose coiled around her legs, suddenly claustrophobic, her vision restricted by the circular glass faceplate; air blew hot through the regulator, making her feel sick. Before she could verge on sheer uncontrolled terror, a calming hand patted her on her shoulder. Henrikson smiled at her through his own faceplate, his hand gently rising and falling to simulate breathing.

  She nodded. A few slow breaths and the panic began to ebb. He gave her an ‘okay’ gesture. She mirrored it.

  Unclipping a weight belt from his waist, he secured it about hers. Immediately, she felt the pull as she began to descend, air hose and shot rope swirling up to Adel’s keel, as the boat bobbed gracefully in the swells.

  A mere twenty feet from the surface, her boots thumped against the seabed. Pillar coral and sea sponges spread out on a glorious barrier reef. Clusters of crinoids and sea cucumbers crowded moose-antlered polyps and metre-high sea fans swaying in the gentle current.

  Henrikson directed her attention to a da
rk blue tear in the sea floor. Apprehensively, she followed him towards its edge. A thin trail of bubbles rose from a team of shipwright divers below, carrying red marker poles, their air hoses trailing to the surface like inverted jellyfish. Stepping off the side of the shelf, she began to descend the reef wall.

  Tiny goggle-eyed fish darted among mutant-looking brain coral, while lobster and turbot clung to clefts in the sheer wall. Her suit began to tighten like a vice. Remembering what Henrikson had told her, she countered the pressure with a half-turn of the valve on her hard hat. The pressure easing, her breathing relaxed.

  As she continued to descend, the surface light began to fade and, with it, the world above. The jovial marine life vanished too, as inky-grey silt forced her to follow the twisting lines of ascending bubbles past her. A peacefulness she had never experienced before enveloped her.

  All nervousness was now gone.

  She felt an understanding of what those trapped within Titanic must have experienced as the ship dived for the bottom. Noise and panic remained at the surface. Here, only quiet, and rest eternal.

  Gracefully, she struck bottom, her lead boots stirring up a cloud of silt. Ahead, the other divers laid out their marker poles. Henrikson landed beside a coral formation, motioning for her to join him. Elle propelled herself towards what she thought was towering coral.

  It was a ship’s rib.

  Griffin.

  It was a strangely beautiful sight. Encrustations had formed over the entire wreck, jutting up from the bottom like Gaudí-inspired towers. And all around silence, but for the whine from the air hose.

  Henrikson beamed at her, directing her towards the divers ahead.

  Hovering over the coral, she picked out a cannon, its muzzle still sealed by its tampion. The shipwright divers squared their markers, the outline of a hull now apparent. The upper decks had long ago rotted away, but the keel remained. Even a few hull planks protruded from the encrustations. As she pulled herself up a crenelation, a great chunk of it broke off.

  What stared out from underneath caused her blood to turn to ice.