by Joseph Rubas
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Six bodies lie crumpled on the deck, dark red blood spreading under them. Most of the agitators were dead or fled, some aft and some forward. The remnants of the army stood along the wall, watching with cold, calculating eyes, too afraid to move forward lest they meet the same fate as their marauding comrades. Had Art not had the pistol in his pocket, the jeering sea of cowardice would have overtaken the davit and swamped the boat.
Panting and holding the gun before him, Art stepped back and looked down over his shoulder. The boat sat suspended several feet over the black water, the white, round faces peering up at him haunting and indistinct.
“How is he?” he called. He turned back to the deck; the remaining ruffians stood tense and coiled. One of their numbers broke away and brushed rudely past Van Helsing, who wore a worried expression,
“He’s unconscious but alive!” a woman shouted back, and Art’s heart leapt. He relayed the information to Van Helsing, who looked relieved.
At least John was safe. For that he was endlessly grateful. If only Van Helsing had fallen into the boat with him…
“He take the gun with him?” Lightoller asked.
“Went into the drink!” someone replied.
Lightoller looked back to the tiny remains of the crowd, sizing them up. “Here, you”- he said to Art- “help me with this and let’s be done.”
Van Helsing stood back along the wall while Art assisted with the lowering. A few of the leftover men made a run for it and leapt into the sea, perhaps hoping to climb into the boat once it was down. The officer on deck craned his head over the side, and from below someone yelled. Another report cracked in the night.
These men were cowards, but they didn’t deserve to be gunned down like vermin. Van Helsing closed his eyes and muttered a prayer for their poor, yellow souls.
Shortly, Lightoller relieved Art, who shook his hand and came back to Van Helsing’s side. “The ship’s doctor happens to be in that boat,” he said, “and he says John is just knocked out. He’ll probably wake up in an hour with a splitting headache, but that’s all.”
“Good,” Van Helsing replied, but before he could add anything further, Lightoller was at Art’s shoulder.
“There’re two last boats on the poop deck,” he said, looking from one man to the other, “if you’re interested, follow me.” He brushed past Van Helsing and hurried down the deck, fighting his way through the growing crowd. Without speaking, Art and Van Helsing followed, struggling to match Lightoller’s pace, nearly losing him in the massive crush of humanity.
Close to the wheelhouse, Lightoller scurried up a metal ladder. Art went to follow, but stopped when Captain Smith appeared from the wireless hut.
Van Helsing didn’t know the man very well, but he seemed a study enough sort. It was surprisingly then that he should look as stricken as he did. His face was nearly as white as his beard, and his shoulders were stooped as if under the enormity of the disaster unfolding around him.
“Edward!” Art shouted.
The captain didn’t seem to hear, or if he did he didn’t register: He turned and made his way dazedly down the deck, disappearing into the wheelhouse.
Art hesitated, seemed to consider going after him, but climbed the ladder instead. Van Helsing came behind, casting a worried glance forward: The water was almost to the deck, tinged an ethereal green by lights along the forward enclosed promenade deck, now submerged.
On the raised poop deck, Van Helsing stumbled and nearly went down. A man grabbed him and righted him. The old doctor turned to thank him, and saw that it was the wireless operator, the one he had spoken to earlier.
“Thank you,” Van Helsing said.
“Think nothin’ of it,” he replied and started toward the boats, which, Van Helsing saw, were lashed upside down in the shadow of the rising forward funnel. A group of men circled each one, trying frantically to free them. Something occurred to him then.
“Son!” he called, hobbling to catch up.
The wireless operator turned.
“There are rescue ships coming? Correct?”
“The closest is fifty miles out,” the operator replied gravely. “We’ll be an hour and a half down by the time they get here.”
Without a further word, he turned and went to one of the boats.
Fifty miles out.
The thought boggled Van Helsing’s mind. Fifty miles. By the time it arrived, all of the people onboard Titanic would be dead; even the strongest of men couldn’t last more than a half an hour in such frigid water.
Shaking his head, Van Helsing went to one of the boats. Men were shouting and sawing the thick ropes with pocket knives. He couldn’t help but wonder why in the name of God they had stowed the boats here, far from the nearest set of davits. The answer, of course, was arrogance. The Titanic was unsinkable. What need was there for boats?
He almost believed that the Titanic deserved to sink, for what was it but a temple to arrogance? To ego? To pride?
The last twenty years of the Victorian Age had produced more marvels than any generation before it. The reason was simple: God had finally decided to open new vistas of knowledge to man. But instead of thanking and praising Him, man praised himself. Electricity, the automobile, the telephone...came not from man, but from God. They were gifts, and man had proven himself unworthy. Yes, the Titanic deserved to sink. Not one soul aboard her deserved to die, but they would, hundreds of them. Ours is a jealous God, we are to have no gods before him, and man was becoming his own god. This was a punishment, a warning, and a harsh lesson in humility. God would not suffer fools, He would not suffer human hubris, He would not suffer idols in the shape of ships.
This...this was the day of reckoning, the end, the apocalypse and Judgement Day. Men around the world would see and take note. They would realize that they are not Gods, nor supermen, but lowly, childlike creations attempting to usurp the Almighty.
It was over.
The nineteenth century.
Now for the twentieth.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah.
The Titanic began to sink.
“Hurry, damn it!” Lightoller yelled, glancing toward the bow. “She’s going!”
Art was next to Lightoller, holding a rope with one hand and furiously sawing with the other. His face was red from a mixture of the cold and the work; snot ran freely from his nose.
The deck was sliding out from under them. Van Helsing, holding one of the ropes, watched in dreadful awe as the water splashed over the wall flanking the wheelhouse, cascading and collecting on the deck. Dear God, it was here; it was finally here.
The sound of the sea gobbling the ship was very loud then. Underneath it Van Helsing detected music still. Sad, hymn-like; a funeral dirge.
Across the poop, the other boat slid off and crashed to the deck below. Several men jumped after it.
Van Helsing looked forward. The deck was entirely submerged now, the water gushing into the wheelhouse. The ship continued to slip, slip, very quickly now.
“Faster!” Lightoller screamed.
The water was up to the roof of the wheelhouse now. Looking dumbly left and right, Van Helsing saw only ocean where there had once been deck. People struggled in the water, screaming.
Suddenly, the ship jerked forward, and a great wave seemed to sweep across the poop deck. Van Helsing’s grip on the rope instinctively tightened and he braced himself just as the water hit him like concrete, knocking the breath from his lungs and pushing him down; around him men were swept away with screams of horror.
He was underwater now, the frigid ocean pouring into his mouth and nose. Under the icy surface, the sounds of people howling in pain and terror were greatly distorted and made even more hellish. The salt stung his eyes like acid.
Many years ago, as a young man, Van Helsing had once fallen through the ice of a frozen pond in December. The memory flashed acros
s Van Helsing’s mind now as the sea enfolded his legs, and threatened to carry him away. There had been a thick blanket of snow on the ground, and the pond had seemed to be solid; it had been for dozens of people. But half way across, the thought of getting into the warmth at home on his mind, the ice had snapped suddenly with a frightful cracking. Before almost even his heart could drop and his stomach could ascend into his throat, Van Helsing had fallen through, and was up to his neck. He had been ashamed his whole life to say that he could not properly describe the terrible sensation of the water numbing his flesh, biting and stabbing him from head to toe. Now he understood; there was no description for water that cold. One could equate it with being picked all over by pins, but even that was settling for subpar words. You could never articulate that degree of cold, you could only feel it.
The force of the ocean pushed Van Helsing up the deck, or so it seemed to him. He was just beginning to think that it was over when he washed up on a dry surface. Getting to his knees, he saw that he was on the boat deck, a good ten yards aft of the bridge.
Presently, the old doctor was caught up in another wave, this one a wave of humanity: Screaming and jostling passengers pushed Van Helsing aft, nearly knocking him over with their violent movements. He tried to pull himself away, but his one attempt nearly sent him to the deck, where he would surely met an unpleasant end. Up ahead, a poor girl of no more than sixteen had fallen, and was being trampled by many running feet. Van Helsing was still unable to escape the tide, and thus only helplessly passed and listened as her shrieks of agony bled into pitiful, heart tugging whimpers almost inaudible over the apocalyptic din.
Van Helsing looked over his shoulder at the frightened faces pushing him on, irrational anger simmering in his breast. These beasts! What were they doing anyway?
The stern would not save them; they would all be sucked down with the ship.
Finally, exerting more force and anger than he was accustomed to, Van Helsing ripped himself from the crowd and stumbled toward the edge of the rising ship. He would have pitched over the side had not there been a davit there for him to throw his arms around.
For a moment, Van Helsing clung to the cold steel, panting, his muscles and back signing a weary song of pain. Down the deck, a few people who had been struggling in the white water were climbing the deck, hunched over as if they were ascending a mountain. In the sea where the bow had been, Van Helsing saw many men flailing, swimming either to the deck to join the others at the stern, or to the boat which they had been working to free just before the ship plunged; it was still overturned, and some of the men had climbed atop it seeking refuge from the cold water.
Clearly it was the end, there was nothing more that he could do. His legs screamed in protest even as they were still and his arms were slipping from the davit that he clung to as the stern of the ship rose higher and higher into the night. He stood no chance in the ocean; he was exhausted, and the thought of struggling in the water, or of even standing for a moment longer, sapped his energy that much more.
He was an old man, he had had a good life, and he had done the work of the Lord twice; his purpose had been served. He had raised a family, he had taught things to young men who had taken what they had learned from him into the worlds to do good by others; he had spent many long, happy years with his wife, and he had had a chance to make the most of his time on earth.
Man’s life was but a speck of sand on the beach of time, he had once heard from a poet in France, and it was true. From the day that he had been old enough to understand death, he had known that one day it would come along, take notice of him, and claim him. There was no reason to fight, no reason to go on living in the less than perfect world of man. There was no question of God’s being there, for He was, and he was waiting for each of His children with a joyous heart and a loving smile. There was no reason to be a glutton for life; he’d had more than his fair share. His father had died at sixty, and now he himself was far beyond that.
But, even though, the thought of leaving behind the known, the comfortable, and the familiar was frightening. But Van Helsing had never been a coward.
He peered tentatively over the side at the black sea. How would it feel as the water poured down his mouth and was then absorbed by his frantic lungs? How would it feel as cold salty death shot up his nose and down into his stomach? Would it hurt, or would it be not more than an annoyance?
With a deep breath, Van Helsing rudely shoved these thoughts aside, and whispered the Lord’s Prayer to himself as the ship tilted upward, ever upward.
Hitherto, his closed eye lids had been bathed in golden light, but now, with a queer electric sound, the lights onboard Titanic flickered, and then were doused.
Still holding onto the davit with one hand, for the ship was at too extreme an angle for him to stand, Van Helsing took another deep breath.
And gave himself to the ocean.