by Ash Hartwell
Captain Smith stood on the near silent bridge looking out at the ocean that had been his life for so long. The dark expanse of water stretched to the horizon where it merged with the sky that arched high above them. It was a cloudless night and the stars shone brightly, their light reflected in the water below.
The ship’s bows were already submerged, the larger waves breaking against the superstructure which would ordinarily perch high above the waterline, but now threatened to topple forward with each wave. The ship would not be afloat much longer; Smith felt it in his old bones. He just prayed when the time came she would carry every last infected soul to the ocean floor.
“Sir?” He hadn’t heard the fresh-faced sailor approach, but he took a moment to study his features. He appeared so young, a reminder of his responsibilities. A reminder of when he was a fresh-faced young able seaman, with his whole life ahead of him.
“Well? Do you have bad news for me?” He arched his eyebrow expectantly and tried to offer the youth an optimistic smile.
“I’m afraid I do, sir. Mr. Moody has secured the lifeboats but doesn’t expect to hold them for long. The people, sir, they look dead, yet they still walk. They are getting closer to the lifeboats with every passing minute.” As if to punctuate his point several distant gunshots disturbed the bridge’s almost tranquil peace.
The captain’s gaze returned to the darkness beyond the observation window, aware the eyes of every crewman on the bridge were on him.
“Gentlemen, Hell’s demonic pirates may take this ship from us, but not as a luxurious flagship, but as their grave. I will, of course, remain on this bridge until the sea claims my soul. I thank you for your loyalty and service and discharge you from your duty.” As he spoke, Smith looked into the face of each man in turn. Not one looked away. To the young seaman, he added, “I suggest you hasten to secure a berth on a lifeboat.”
The able seaman replied with conviction, his voice strong. “I am neither a woman nor a child, sir, and therefore I do not have a berth on a lifeboat. However, I believe Mr. Moody could use an extra pair of hands to help launch those lifeboats.”
Captain Smith nodded and with a feeling of immense pride, not just in that one able young man but his entire crew, saluted the young man so willing to accept his own death so others may live.
“Good luck, my boy.” With the captain’s best wishes ringing in his ears, the sailor hurried away to assist in the battle to launch the lifeboats.
Six decks below, Chief Engineer Bell and his men were fighting the same battle. Unaware of the extent of the chaos in the rest of the ship, they were fighting to keep her afloat long enough to allow rescue. Many stood waist deep in the freezing water still roaring through the gaping hole in the ship’s hull. They crewed pumps and ran hoses trying to delay the inevitable while keeping the generators, providing vital electric light and power to the rest of the ship, running.
Steadily, the rapidly rising water pushed the survivors back, claiming compartment after compartment. With each lost compartment, with each door they closed, more men were trapped, subjected to the terrifying realization they were going to drown, leaving no corpse to be pulled from the savage sea, no body for their loved ones to bury.
Finally, aware their titanic struggle was in vain, Bell discharged his men from their duty. But by then, both he and his men knew any chance of salvation had passed, their escape routes already claimed by the rising water. Even if they could climb up through the dark decks without falling victim to the marauding bands of flesh-hungry killers, they would only find the lifeboats gone, filled with the women and children and, no doubt, the wealthy and titled. So they stayed at their post, aware it was for naught, but resolved to die a proud death with their shipmates at their side.
Fifty-seven
Bridget followed the small band of survivors down the dimly lit corridor. The lights were beginning to fail, some sections of the ship were already in darkness, and the temperature was dropping. The heating had failed, which Bridget surmised, meant the ship’s boilers had failed, and if that was due to the collision allowing seawater to extinguish the furnace, then surely it was only a matter of time before the Titanic sank. She tried to cajole the old lady using her arm for support to move faster, urging her on with calm reassurance while her own fear danced a rousing polka in her chest. Having no idea how long it would take for a vessel this size to sink, she was in no mood to tarry.
The rest of the group were already some yards ahead, and Bridget worried they would become separated, losing their way in the dark. This would make them easy prey to the first slavering creature they encountered. She pulled on her charge’s arm, urging her onwards with a reassuring smile, but in her anxiety to leave the shadowy corridor behind, she used too much force. The old woman stumbled and, for a precious moment, time stopped as she struggled to regain her footing, then she slumped forward as if propelled by some invisible force, dragging Bridget down with her.
The two of them crashed to the floor. Bridget, using her free arm to brace her fall, still felt the force of the impact. She heard a loud crack and in the brief moment of surreal silence that followed, she instinctively knew what had happened. Then, the old lady’s anguished screams of pain broke the silence, confirming her fears.
Bridget pushed herself up onto her knees and looked down at the woman’s horribly bent leg. Her long skirt covered the actual break but the right foot, protruding from under the hem, pointed out at a sickeningly unnatural angle, her toes pointing towards the ceiling while she still lay face down.
“Help me!” The woman pleaded between screams as Bridget carefully climbed to her feet, pushing the woman’s desperate, imploring hands away. She knew the old lady’s chance of escaping had been dealt a serious blow and to leave her meant condemning her to death, but she could not help her. She had to think of herself and her unborn child.
“I can’t.” Bridget turned away, unable to look her in the eye.
The woman’s traveling companion bustled past Bridget, a Bible already open in her hand. “You go on, my child. Hurry! Or else they will leave without you. Time is of the essence.”
Bridget set off down the corridor in pursuit of the steward and the line of survivors following him without a backward glance. From behind her, she heard the hysterical sobs of the injured woman, then they were drowned out by her companion’s strong voice reading a passage from the Bible as she sat with her friend to await their fate.
Bridget hurried on, taking the stairs up to the boat deck two at a time, her breathing becoming deeper and more laboured with each stride. Her back, thighs, and calves felt like someone had taken an iron bar to them. She offered up a silent ‘Thank you’ to William. He had inflicted more pain on her than this, more torture and mental suffering than any one person should ever experience and it had strengthened her body; strengthened her resolve. She kept moving, digging into that resolve, determined to reach the lifeboats. She had not come this far only to fail now. If Bridget Grafton was nothing else, she was a survivor.
Fifty-eight
Esme staggered out into the cold night air. Her breath would have made little wisps of condensation if her rotting lungs were still functioning. The last vestige of her humanity shrivelled with her internal organs as she finally succumbed to the virus putrefying her body tissue with increasing ferocity, leaving nothing but a decomposing shell dependent on fresh meat for its survival.
The remaining sources of fresh meat were gathering here, on the boat deck. She could sense its warmth; feel its pulse beating like a drum, calling to her. She started to move down the boat deck, drawn onwards by the lure of food, ignoring the half-eaten bodies and the cold, dead creatures feeding on them. Her desire was for a fresh kill; her only purpose was to feed.
A warm bodied figure stepped across her path in the darkness, its back towards her, unaware of her presence. The figure hurried to join a group moving towards the crowd at the far end of the deck. Esme smelt the emotions flowing from her new prey’s skin like a rich, intoxicat
ing perfume. Anxiety, apprehension, and fear blended with courage and determination to form a powerful musk.
She quickened her pace, closing the distance. There was something else, something different, something almost imperceptible: a second heartbeat. It was softer and quicker than the prey’s own life-sustaining pulse, but she could almost feel its rhythm deep within her hunger.
Esme’s fetid corpse had its prey in sight and wasn’t about to be denied such a delicious prize.
Bridget stumbled on, the coldness of the breeze blowing across the deck catching her by surprise, drawing the air from her lungs. The ship’s bow had sunk from sight, the aft slowly climbing into the night sky, setting the deck at an almost impossible angle. Large chunks of ice still slid wildly across the deck, threatening to upend anyone unlucky enough to be in their path, sweeping them to their death.
The lifeboats were close but to reach them she would have to run a gauntlet of the dead. They were closing in on the thin cordon of sailors protecting the davits and the small group of survivors crowded around the last few boats. The crewmen were using the lifeboats’ long oars to ward off the horde, keeping them at a safe distance. Occasionally, more gunshots would rent the unnaturally quiet night as the diseased threatened to breach the cordon, forcing the crew to use the remains of their scarce ammunition to repel the assault.
As she got closer, the crewmen used the oars to lunge at the seething mass of decaying flesh, momentarily pushing it back to create a narrow gap. The steward frantically ushered the line of survivors through the gap, and Bridget, bringing up the rear, was just about to make a last desperate lunge through the gap before it closed when Officer Moody stepped towards her, revolver raised.
A bullet whistled past her ear, then the deafening roar of the gunshot rolled over her senses, disorientating her. She tried to focus on Moody, but her eyes stung from the blast of gunpowder blown across her face, her ears ringing with the shot’s violent concussion.
“I’ve got you, Mrs. Grafton.” Moody’s voice was strong, comforting. His firm grip on her wrist, pulling her roughly into his strong chest felt more comforting still. She allowed herself to sink into his strong arms, overcome by the emotions of the last few hours, as he almost carried her through the gap to the waiting lifeboat.
Fifty-nine
Esme had closed to within a few tantalising yards of her helpless prey before she heard the soft metallic click. From over the shoulder of the strangely familiar figure staggering away from her—the scent triggered distant memories, memories of the emotions she no longer experienced—appeared the face of another warm bodied survivor. Driven on by the prospect of a kill and the desire to feed deeply on their soft flesh, she surged forward, her eyes fixed on the face of the man pointing at her.
Esme did not hear the revolver’s second click or the sound of the explosion as the firearm erupted a few feet from her face.
For an instant, she saw the barrel flash. Then she plunged into oblivion. Blood, as thick and as black as the tar that liberally coated the ship’s pulleys, rolled down her face from the perfectly round hole in her forehead. Then her body, finally at peace, slumped onto the icy deck.
Sixth Officer Moody pulled the confused looking Mrs. Grafton to his chest, not wanting her to see the young chambermaid’s decomposing body leaking vile, putrid ichor across the deck. Time was short; he couldn’t afford for her to panic or have a moment of sentimentality over the young servant who’d once, with a brighter soul than the creature she became, been her friend.
“I’ve got you, Mrs. Grafton,” was all he could say as she negotiated the rapidly closing pathway between his men’s oars. He wanted to say so much more. He wanted to tell her how his heart leapt whenever he saw her, how she had captured his heart that first night as they sat at the Captain’s Table. But now was not the right time, and for him, time had run out.
More and more of the rotting dead were joining the throng around their precariously positioned perch high on the increasingly steeply sloped boat deck. They were literally caught between the Devil’s cohorts and the cold, black sea. Behind him the sheer weight of the dead pressing forward in search of flesh caused the cordon to breach, allowing the creatures to drag his men down one by one.
Moody swept Bridget off her feet and swung her into the last lifeboat while shouting at the men manning the davits, “Lower away, while you still can!”
She clutched his coat as the lifeboat began to descend at an agonizingly slow pace. “Come with me?” She pleaded. Her face, beautifully luminescent in the moonlight, upturned to his, her bright eyes filled with fear. He leant in, kissing her for a brief moment that would last an eternity, then pushed her hands away as the lifeboat swung out over the icy waves far below.
Sixty
Bridget’s outstretched arms still reached towards the gallant and dashing Officer Moody as the infected swarm overran his position. She watched, the salty tang of his kiss still on her lips, as the dead dragged him down. She couldn’t turn away as they swarmed over his body ripping, biting, and tearing it apart so violently he did not have time to scream. Just as the boat dropped below deck level, and she would no longer be able to see their disgusting feast, another sailor, the dead clawing at his body, pointed his revolver at Moody and without hesitating, shot him in the head.
Bridget’s thoughts returned to her dead husband, and she suppressed a smile. All-in-all, things had turned out very well. Her loathsome husband and his whore of a mistress were both dead, and any evidence implicating her in his death would soon sink to the bottom of the Atlantic. She stood to become a very rich woman, and as added insurance to her claim on the Grafton millions, she still carried a child. It did not matter it wasn’t his; the rest of his family didn’t know that.
The only fly in the ointment was Esme’s death. She had been a resourceful and quick-witted ally, and Bridget owed her nothing short of her life. As the lifeboat finally splashed down into the churning sea surrounding the stricken vessel, she pledged to find Esme’s sister, Charlotte—it was the least she could do to repay the debt she owed.
As the two crewmen assigned to the lifeboat began rowing steadily away from the sinking ship, its stern rising high into the night sky, Bridget Grafton greeted her fellow survivors with a polite nod. There was an elderly English lady wearing far too many diamonds sitting next to a younger woman who just stared out to sea with a faraway look in her eyes. A small group of middle-aged women, a few of whom Bridget recognized from the group rescued from near her cabin, filled the centre of the boat. A mother and her daughter huddled together in the stern.
Clutched in the little girl’s arms, wrapped up tight in a woollen shawl, was a small, terrified monkey.
Author’s Afterword
Although I have played fast and loose with the tragic events of RMS Titanic’s only voyage, some people, places, and events are, for reasons of historical credibility, real. I have also, largely, remained within the voyage’s timescale and events that occurred.
The words and actions of those characters whose identities I used are complete fiction. To this end, I have provided the following.
Captain Edward John Smith. It is believed he stayed on the bridge where, some claimed, he shot himself. However, to counter this, some report seeing him in the water where he swam to a lifeboat with a child then, ensuring the child was safe, swam away again. From what I have read about Captain Smith, I’m inclined to believe the second report.
His body was never recovered. He was 62.
Chief Engineer Joseph Bell. A Member of the Institute of Marine Engineers and the Royal Naval Reserve, Bell and his fellow engineers stayed at their posts. A memorial to their bravery still stands in Southampton.
His body was never recovered. He was 51.
First Officer, William McMaster Murdoch. He was on the bridge at the time of the collision and worked diligently to load the lifeboats. One of the lookouts claimed he shot himself, taking responsibility for the collision, although this was the only e
vidence reported, it appears to have been hearsay.
His body was never recovered. He was 39.
Benjamin Guggenheim. He was indeed travelling with his mistress, Madame Aubart. Following the collision, his butler got him into a life jacket, and he escorted Madame Aubart to the lifeboats, but, accepting his fate, he returned to the cabin to dress for dinner and sat in the saloon drinking while the ship sank. Legend has it he said, “We’ve dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”
His body was never recovered. He was 46.
Madame Aubart. A singer and only 24 years of age at the time, survived in Lifeboat 9. On 18th April, she sent a telegram to Paris which read, “I’m saved but Ben lost.”
She died in 1964 at the age of 77.
Thomas Andrews. As the ship’s designer and part of the Harland and Wolff’s Titanic Guarantee Group, he had a complimentary ticket. Following the collision, he toured parts of the ship and advised the captain she would not stay afloat more than 2 hours. He spent that time encouraging people to wear life belts and make for the lifeboats. Last reports have him in the Smoking Room.
His body was never recovered. He was 39.
Bruce Ismay. The Titanic had been his brainchild from the start. He survived by securing a berth in Lifeboat C. The boat reportedly contained 11 men and only 2 women but had capacity for 32 people. The fact he survived didn’t sit well with the public or the press, and he resigned from his position the following year.
He died in 1937 at the age of 74.
Sir and Lady Duff-Gordon. Allowed to take a seat in Lifeboat 1 by Officer Murdoch, they both survived. The lifeboat contained only 12 people, of which 7 were crew. Some wanted to return and collect more survivors, but Sir Duff-Gordon refused. The crewmen, on safely reaching the rescue ship Carpathia, each received £5 from Sir Duff-Gordon to compensate for their lost kit. I leave that for you to judge.