Titanic 2012: Curse of RMS Titanic

TWENTY

“Get the hell outta there, Ingles! Now!” Swigart shouted at David when he had reopened the main entry hatch to the submersible where David had spent now the longest five minutes of his life. The friendly confines of the sub’s blue-lit interior had become a wretched coffin with the awful corpse of Houston Ford in here with him.

Swigart had again worked out some sort of deal with the TV people so that they might hold off sending any images back to the mainland in his effort to keep a cap on the mayhem as everyone had a cell phone. Despite their remote location, David believed it only a matter of time before Luther Warren Kane’s spies aboard Scorpio would be informing the financier. Given the circumstance of double-murder aboard, the possibility of Kane showing up with a couple of federal agents was not remote.

Swigart had become convinced of a night dive now for certain; he must know he was racing against the time that Kane would show up and take over by force if necessary. Kane might stand with Swigart and Forbes, encouraging them to go ahead as planned, but given the game changes, no one could be sure. That scenario did not even take into consideration other crewmen who may have taken shots of the goings on here and sent them home to loved ones if not to the Star and Enquirer or CNN for that matter.

Feeling the sense of urgency, Swigart had become absolute in his belief that if they did not dive now, they would never get a dive to Titanic at all. Stubborn once he made a decision, the Commander of Divers for this expedition repeatedly shouted for his divers to get Ford’s body out of the way and to climb aboard Max for the dive. But no one wanted to be the ones to transport the body, knowing it would be difficult in the confined space and small hatchway.

Finally, Lena came up with more surgical gloves and Swigart grabbed hold of one end of Ford and ordered David to the lower extremities. Having had experience with transporting Alandale’s body to the specimen freezer, the two of them took extreme care with Ford’s body, which felt a tenth of the weight it appeared. Photos of it most likely would only raise skepticism in anyone back home who might see them.

“God, it’s the same damn thing as happened to Alandale,” muttered Swigart.

“David, be careful,” said Kelly from outside of the submersible.

“It’s a little late for that.”

“You think it’s contagious?” asked Swigart of David.

“Who knows; we don’t know enough, Lou. We’re working in the dark here. The cautious route would have us racing for home. Getting away from whatever is aboard Scorpio that’s killing healthy men.”

“I know… I know but one dive… one chance to get inside Titanic. Dave, you can’t say it’s not pulling on you, too. If we don’t do it now, we may never get another chance. Others will take over for us… for our failure here.”

But not all the divers felt the pull so strongly as Swigart or even David. Even before they could get Ford’s still intact body into the biological specimen alongside Alandale’s remains. Some of the divers were muttering among themselves; some looked to be wearing ‘second thoughts’ on their brows. Gambio muttered something about the curse of Titanic. Jens more than anyone seemed about to bolt, having second thoughts about climbing into the submersible where Ford’s body had possibly contaminated the air. At the same time, none of them wanted to be left out; they were all thinking of the riches waiting for them. Both greed and fear ran high, each in a tug of war inside every diver now. No one wanted to die but everyone wanted to complete the mission. Everyone wanted to be able to say, ‘I was among the first to walk the corridors of Titanic in 2012’.

David followed Kelly into the sub as she took the lead, saying, “If the bodies are contagious, we’re already infected, but I haven’t felt anything, no symptoms of illness.”

Bowman, a bit tentative, finally joined them inside, suited up like the others, his liquid air pack on his back. Kelly had just whispered in David’s ear, “Whoever the carrier is… he may well be going down with us.”

Mendenhall climbed aboard, saying nothing to anyone, maintaining his calm and quiet demeanor. Lena came in next saying, “What the hell. You only die once, right?”

“Got that right,” replied Bowman.

Steve Jens held back, hesitating at the hatchway. Fiske, directly behind him, bellowed, “In or out, Jens! Either way, outta my way.” He’d been given the green light to join them in the sub.

Jens shouted to back. “All right, all right” before disappearing into the sub ahead of Fiske.’

Lou saw Kane waving some paper over his head, and Lou merely waved him off and slammed the hatch closed from inside. Finally, they were now all in; all in the pressure cooker, about to be lowered over the side when Captain Forbes banged hard on the glass and slapped a message in bold magic marker that read: Abort Now!

Every officer, every diver, and every crewman who could be spared was ordered to the conference room aboard Scorpio, which was standing room only, spilling out into the corridor. TV cameras that had stood idle before now came in from two directions. A deal had been cut—no live feed at this time for total access to the ship and crew—and every item brought up from the deep—later. There was hardly room for these technicians and cameramen in the room; it was, after all, a research and salvage vessel and so the space had been built for small groups of seamen at a time.

Forbes and Swigart ran the meeting personally, and David was interested to hear what they had to say now that not one but two bodies lay in state in the freezer. Before the meeting began, even as they filed into the room, the tasteless black humor laced jokes ran their course: “A couple of stiff ones would go well right about now” followed by “One vodka neat—no ice, please” on the heels of “Dry martini for me”.

David managed to get a seat where he could watch Kelly’s every expression from across the room; for now, she looked despondent, a kind of sad hopelessness playing tiddlywinks about her eyes. She continued to be a fascination for him and his fantasies, but his logical side kept lecturing and returning to one question: How do you know it’s not her behind all of it? Behind two killings as well as the sabotage. But it didn’t add up; if she were this maniacal killing machine—had it taken her over, why would she have tried to sabotage the mission? Yet it was the perfect cover for the beast to pretend being a descendent of this young intern Declan Irvin. It seemed now a factual account—Irvin’s journal. Of course, it could just as well be a fictitious account, a fake, the book totally inauthentic. Yet the thing certainly felt authentic down to its odor of a hundred years, down to its feel and crumbling, discolored with age pages.

He tempered this with saying, “But nowadays,the damn thing might just as well be the work of a kid with a Mac, time on his hands, and a hell of an imagination.”

This thing, the so-called carrier… he, she, or it, whatever it was, if it were inhabiting Kelly and not Forbes at all, it was busying itself gaining David’s trust this way, step by step, moment by moment, journal page after journal page—messing with his head, so that he would feel compelled to watch her back for any sort of attack on her-his-or-its person when they were two and a half miles below and inside Titanic—its ultimate goal to collect up and find a new life for its progeny above the surface, aboard Scorpio first? And then?

Suspicion proved a poison in an imaginary IV-drip, the stuff seeping into his psyche all this time… little by little. Incrementally causing him to question every minute detail, every word, and every tick not just belonging to Kelly but belonging to everyone aboard Scorpio.

Someone in this room, he thought, is the carrier—the weak one who not only hosts the alien creature but has become its eyes and ears, limbs and heart, one who has become its collaborator rather than fight it like Tuttle, Fiore, and the two miners did, forcing it to find a home elsewhere—someone weaker, someone who might even revel in newfound energies and power. This hardly seemed anyone on board, much less Kelly, but how was one to tell?

Ingles looked around the crowded room at their leaders, the other divers, the crew, and he realized it could be any one of them. How does a man detect the undetectable, and how does he fight it off—much less kill it once detected? It appeared impossible. Even had he a mechanism for, detecting the creature, even if it was found out, it would appear that once found out it was too late! For the moment a man like Alandale guessed it—guessed something terribly wrong in another human being—that the other was hosting an alien presence, he was snatched, taken over, and killed.

He looked from one face to another for any sign, any clue whatsoever, a shade darker in the eyes, perhaps a passing shadow across the brow, some nervous twitch or other that a demonic entity could not control—a clue being broadcast by the host in a last ditch effort to have even a semblance of humanity, a sign of choice, of will power.

He studied Mendenhall’s frown—a perpetual one to be sure. Could it be a sign? A mere frown? Were there any photos wherein Mendenhall’s face was lit up with a smile?

He studied Bowman’s dark features and thought his eyes somewhat jaundiced, but when the man’s head turned, David realized it was only a light shaft from one of the open doors hitting the diver’s face.

David then studied Lena Gambio’s softer features. She looked the picture of an Italian mother of three who ought to be home with her kids instead of here, he thought, then recalled her tough exterior and decided that if she had any kids, they likely could use time away from her. She looked harmless to the tenth degree but she played the role of the grungiest and toughest among the divers. As with most of the divers, David knew next to nothing of her personal life—just as Swigart and Forbes had planned things. And yet, Kelly had a dossier on him.

He turned his attention on Steve Jens, who’d seemed as gung-ho to dive as Bowman and David, but for the moment he’d gone sullen, dejected, an unhappy man indeed. Again no outward sign of being some sort of demonic vessel. Just wholly upset with the onboard deaths of two men—an all too familiar human response. Or was it more to do with fear? Fear of being next?

Then too David must consider the silent, self-effacing seventh diver, the backup in the event anything should happen to any of the rest, waiting in the wings in vulture fashion—Kyle Fiske; what sort of emotion should he be exhibiting? It seemed he had remained damned cool, perhaps too cool in the face of two murders aboard.What emotions ought to be playing out like a film across Kyle’s square-jawed face? David didn’t know.

In fact, all he knew for certain was that all the divers seemed and appeared to be all too human! Each one filled with emotions boiling over. Swigart was angriest of all, and he shouted now from the lectern beside Forbes, “We’re not going to let some psycho running loose on this ship deter us from our mission, ladies and gentlemen. It has become apparent to Dr. Entebbe, Captain Forbes, and me that someone has gotten aboard who wants this mission scuttled and scrapped.”

Swigart stopped speaking to coldly stare around the room as if his gaze might be a laser detector that would surely fall on the culprit. It instead fell on David. “Someone with a political agenda so filled with hatred of our plans to plunder Titanic of her riches that he… or she… is willing to kill for this misguided purpose. Whoever you are… what ever your purpose, you will pay dearly!”

“We refuse to take our orders from some home-grown terrorist,” Forbes forcefully added. “And make no bones about it, these horrible murders—these are acts of terrorism designed to turn us back to port, designed to leave the ghosts of Titanic in peace”

“Imagine it!” Craig Powers erupted. “Murder aboard Scorpio—two crew members lose their lives while in search of a ghost ship in a watery grave.” His hands and arms went up as if he were writing headlines in the air.

“Fanatics don’t have to make sense, but we suspect that this one is fanatical about Titanic,” added Swigart, “for a belief in Bob Ballard’s desire to keep Titanic untouched by further exploration except by remote submersible and photos.”

“We’ll have this person in custody before we make port in Woods Hole,” added Forbes, a hand upraised, clenching his fist as if grabbing an invisible person by the throat. “Be assured of that. We’re going to comb through everyone’s background. If we find anything that has you stumping for Ballard’s views, you can figure on the ship’s brig for the duration.”

For ninety nine percent of those present and hearing this, it seemed a most logical explanation; there must be a logical explanation. While they had no idea the method of murder or what could cause human bodies to shrivel into dehydrated mummies, the idea of terrorism had been ingrained in them for their entire lives thanks to 9/11 and 2012 doomsday prophecies.

Yes, this was plausible; it made all the sense in the world. Some horrid person or terrorist with a chemistry set had gone about the business of terrorizing every man and woman aboard Scorpio until the traditionally superstitious among the crew might be willing to take up arms, mutiny, take charge of the ship, and turn her toward home.

After all, they were planning to desecrate a graveyard.

People had in the past concocted lesser reasons for murder and mayhem—even mass murder. Now this made good sense; something tangible after the seemingly supernatural Alandale-Ford business.

This theory assuaged the mind so that all aboard could somehow sleep tonight. David sarcastically informed himself of these ‘truths’. The entire ship and crew might be destroyed… might all be blown to Kingdom Come if indeed there was a terrorist plot afoot but at least this was an enemy they knew and understood, a tantalizing one at that considering the alternative.

Indeed, David thought, the enemy one knows is easier to combat than the unknown. Who had concocted the reasoning for such a theory of someone aboard who’d not stop at murder to preserve the ‘graves’ of those with Titanic where she lay? Had it been Swigart? Forbes? Entebbe perhaps? Who had first put forth this story?

David’s gaze returned to Kelly.

He stared long and hard, trying to see beyond the beauty… to see into her psyche and soul, but again he realized that such insight was impossible.

Suppose her entire story of her ancestry was a concocted lie to cover another lie. That she had actually come aboard Scorpio with the express purpose of sabotaging the mission; suppose she was the Ballard fanatic and disciple? Suppose the story of Ransom and the young surgeons was all an elaborate concoction? What kind of fool did this make David Ingles?

Pull one string and it all begins to unravel, he told himself now, and she played me like a violin. Fool, he quietly admonished himself for believing a word of any of it.

Fiction.

The whole of it, damned fiction.

Swigart dismissed them all, confining them to their quarters until such time as he called for the dive, a decision he would continue to discuss with Captain Forbes. Everyone went to their quarters, all but David’s roommate who was asked to hold back, Swigart needing him for what Lou jokingly called a “dirty job”.

Again David found himself in his cramped quarters alone with his thoughts. In order to reinforce his conclusion that the whole of Kelly Irvin’s claims and those of her ancestor aboard Titanic was a hoax perpetuated on him alone, David dug out and lifted his Kindle reader and thanks to Whispernet, in a matter of milliseconds, he brought up his copy of a compendium on the history of that night—Fate of The Titanic by Joseph Kilborn.

David toggled to the pages he had bookmarked, opening the electronic book up to a section on the exact timeline that Kilborn had worked out for that night, and so now he read the comforting facts:

David stopped in his reading to contemplate what might be meant by Divine. Might the food be ‘divine’ or the chef’s name Divine? A famous fellow of his day? Or a typo so often found in published books now; rather than Divine, might it be Dine or Dinning? He decided it unimportant and read on:

11:40 AM: Dutch liner Noordam reports "much ice" in about the same position as the California had reported.

Noon: As usual, the ship's officers gather on the wing of the navigating bridge to calculate daily position with sextants: "Since noon Saturday, 546 miles."

1:42 PM: Iceberg warning received via the Baltic and "large quantities of field ice" in latitude 41º 51'N, longitude 49º 52' W about 250 miles ahead of Titanic. Message delivered to Captain Smith. Smith later gives it to J. Bruce Ismay, who puts it in his pocket.

1:45 PM: "Large iceberg" warning received via Marconi wireless from German liner Amerika (41º 27' N, 50º 8' W). Message not sent to the bridge, deemed repetitious.

5:30 to 7:30 PM: Air temperature drops ten degrees to 33ºF.

5:50 PM: Captain Smith slightly alters ship's course south and west of normal course— possibly as a precaution to avoid ice. However, no one knows what is in his mind at this point.

6:00 PM: Second Officer Lightoller relieves Chief Officer Wilde on the bridge.

7:15 PM: First Officer Murdoch orders forward forecastle hatch closed to stop the glow from inside interfering with crow's nest watch above. Mystery as to why it was open in the first place.

7:30 PM: Three more intercepted warning messages concerning large icebergs ahead from the Californian (42º 3' N, 49º 9' W). Message delivered to bridge. Captain attending dinner party below. Ice now only 50 miles ahead.

8:40 PM: Lightoller gives order to look after ship's fresh water supply, as outside seawater is now close to freezing.

8:55 PM: Captain Smith excuses himself from dinner party, goes directly to bridge, and discusses calm and clear weather conditions with Lightoller, as well as visibility of icebergs at night.

9:20 PM: Captain Smith retires for the night with the order to rouse him "if it becomes at all doubtful… "

9:30 PM: Lightoller sends message to crow's nest to watch carefully for icebergs until morning.

9:40 PM: Heavy ice pack and iceberg warning received from the Mesaba (lat. 42º N to 41º 25' N, long. 49º W to 50º 30' W). Message overlooked. Wireless operators busy with passenger wireless traffic, as passengers find the new mode of communication an entertainment. Altogether the day's six ice warnings show a huge field of ice some 78 miles long directly ahead.

10:00 PM: Lightoller is relieved on bridge by First Officer Murdoch. Lookouts in crow's nest relieved. Warning to watch for icebergs passed between the watches. Temperature is 32º F, sky cloudless, air clear.

10:30 PM: Sea temperature down to 31º F.

10:55 PM: Some 10 to 19 miles north of Titanic, the Californian is stopped in ice field, and sends out warnings to all ships in area. When the Californian's wireless operator calls up Titanic, his ice warning is interrupted by a blunt "Keep out! Shut up! You're jamming my signal. I'm working Cape Race." The Californian's sole operator listens in to Titanic's wireless traffic and then at 11:30 turns off his set and retires for the night, as is the custom.

11:30 PM: Lookouts Fleet and Lee in crow's nest note slight haze appearing directly ahead of Titanic. Lee claims hatchway with light again causing visibility problems. Neither man has binoculars and are told all binoculars had been accidentally left on ferry at Cherbourg and not loaded.

11:40 PM: Titanic moving at 20½ knots. Suddenly, lookouts see iceberg dead ahead about 500 yards away and towering some 55-60 feet above the water. They immediately sound the warning bell with three sharp rings and telephone down to the bridge: "Iceberg dead ahead." Sixth Officer Moody on bridge acknowledges warning, relays message to Murdoch who instinctively calls "hard-a-starboard" to helmsman and orders engine room to stop engines and then full astern.

Murdoch then activates lever to close watertight doors below the waterline. Helmsman spins wheel as far as it will go. After several seconds Titanic begins to veer to port, but the iceberg strikes starboard bow side and brushes along the side of the ship and passes by into the night. The impact, although jarring to the crew down in the forward area, is not noticed by many of the passengers.

Thirty-seven seconds have elapsed from sighting to collision.

11:50 PM: During first ten minutes after impact, water rises 14 feet above the keel, forward. First five compartments begin to take on water. Boiler room No. 6, five feet above keel, is flooded in eight feet of water.

12:00 AM: Mailroom, 24 feet above keel, begins taking enough water to float mail bags. Captain Smith, now on the bridge, gets reports of water pouring into number 1, 2, and 3 holds, and boiler room No. 6. Following this, he takes his own rapid tour to inspect the damage alongside Titanic’s architect, Thomas Andrews. On seeing the worst of it, Smith asks Andrews for his assessment.

Andrews calculates the ship can only remain afloat from one to two-and-a-half hours. This is based on the mathematical certainty that if more than four holds are flooded, once a compartment fills with water, the water will spill into the next compartment and so on. Titanic's bow begins to sink. The ship is doomed.

Captain Smith orders CQD distress call for assistance sent out over ship's wireless. Titanic's estimated position: 41º 46' N, 50º 14' W. Boilers shut down and relief pipes against funnels blow off huge noisy clouds of steam.

April 15, Monday: 12:05 AM: Squash court, 32 feet above keel is awash. Orders are given to uncover the lifeboats and to get the passengers and crew ready on deck. Only enough room in the lifeboats for 1,178 of the estimated 2,227 on board if every boat is filled to capacity.

12:10 to 1:50 AM: Several crew members on the Californian, some 10 to 19 miles away, see lights of a steamer. A number of attempts to make contact with the ship with Morse lamp fail. Rockets are observed, but as they appear so low over the ship's deck, and make no sound, they do not seem like distress rockets, and no great concern is taken. Distance between ships seems to increase until they are out of sight of each other.

12:15 to 2:17 AM: Numerous ships hear Titanic's distress signals, including her sister ship the Olympic, some 500 miles away. Several ships, including Mount Temple (49 miles away), Frankfort (153 miles), Burma (70 miles), Baltic (253 miles), Virginian (170), and Carpathia (58 miles) prepare at various times to come to assist.

12:15 AM: Band begins to play lively ragtime tunes in first-class lounge on A Deck, later moving up to Boat Deck near port entrance to Grand Staircase.

12:20 to 12:25 AM: Order given to start loading lifeboats with women and children first.

12:25 AM: The Carpathia, southeast some 58 miles, receives distress call and immediately heads full speed to rescue.

12:45 AM: The first lifeboat, starboard No. 7, is safely lowered away. It can carry 65 people, but leaves with 28 aboard. First distress rocket fired. Eight rockets will be fired altogether. Fourth Officer Boxhall observes vessel approaching Titanic but it then disappears, despite attempts to contact her with Morse lamp. Boat No. 4 begins loading between 12:30 and 12:45.

12:55 AM: First port-side boat No. 6 lowered with only 28 aboard, including Molly Brown and Major Peuchen. Starboard No. 5 is lowered. Owner, J. Bruce Ismay is chastised by Fifth Officer Lowe for interfering with his command. (41 aboard - room for another 24.)

1:00 AM: Starboard boat No. 3 is lowered with only 32 aboard including 11 crewmembers.

1:10 AM: Starboard No. 5 is lowered (capacity 40) with only 12 aboard, including Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, and seven crewmen. Port-side No. 8 loaded and lowered carrying only 39 people. It is steered in the water by the Countess of Rothes.

1:15 AM: Water reaches Titanic's name on the bow and she now lists to port. The tilt of the deck grows steeper. Boats now begin to be more fully loaded.

1:20 AM: Starboard No. 9 leaves with some 56 people aboard. Titanic has now developed a noticeable list to starboard.

1:25 AM: Port-side boat No. 12 is lowered with 40 women and children on board. Two seamen are put in charge of this boat. After Titanic sinks, this boat is tied together with boats 4, 10, 14 and collapsible D. Later on survivors are moved from boat 14 to the other boats by Fifth Officer Lowe so he can return to pick up swimming passengers. Boat 12 is subsequently overloaded with 70 passengers, many rescued from collapsible D.

1:30 AM: Signs of panic begin to appear among some passengers on the ship. As port-side boat 14 is lowered with 60 people, including Fifth Officer Lowe, railing passengers appear ready to jump into the already full boat. Shouting warnings, Lowe fires shots into the air to fend off panicked men. Titanic's distress calls now near desperation. "We are sinking fast" and "Women and children in boats. Cannot last much longer"

1:35 AM: Port-side No. 16 is lowered with over 50 people. Starboard boat No. 13 leaves with 64 people, mostly second and third-class women and children. Starboard boat No. 15 is lowered 30 seconds later with 70 aboard and barely avoids collision with boat 13 as it is lowered on top of No. 13. The latter pulls away in the water in the nick of time.

1:40 AM: Most of the forward boats are now away, and passengers who remain aboard Titanic begin to move to the stern area. Ismay leaves on collapsible C (39 aboard), the last starboard-side boat launched. The forward Well Deck is awash.

As with every time that David read this stark account of how quickly Titanic went down, he was left with questions—questions without answer, as in how could they have truly left port for New York without binoculars for the men in the crow’s nest and the bridge? Suppose someone intentionally opened that hatchway to obscure their view. Why hadn’t Captain Smith, an experienced sea captain with no mishaps on his record, heeded all the warnings? What if Murdoch hadn't attempted veering off but rather allowed Titanic to make a direct hit as experts now believed that a seasoned seaman would prefer damage to the bow to damage to her sides.

And what of that strange report given by Boxall at the inquest that he had seen a ship off in the distance and had sent a distress signal via Morse code using the SOS signal for the first time in maritime history? But then he reports it simply disappeared as if all lights had been shut down on this mystery ship. Had Boxall seen it at all? Or had he sent a message that said clear off, that all was well aboard Titanic? As per Captain’s orders at the time?

David Then read on in Kilborn’s account taken from the records of two inquiries, one made in America via the Senate, one made in London via Parliament. Kilborn’s next entry sent a chill up David’s spine as it read:

1:45 AM: Last words heard from Titanic by the Carpathia on her way to the rescue - "… Engine room full up to boilers… " Port-side boat No. 3 is lowered and leaves with only 25 people. She can carry 40.

1:55 AM: John Jacob Astor, refused entry to port-side boat No. 4 by Lightoller, sees his wife off safely as boat is lowered with 40 women and children and some crew aboard. In the rush, 20 places in the boat are left empty.

2:00 AM: Water now only ten feet below Promenade Deck.

2:05 AM: There are now still over 1,500 people left on the sinking ship. Collapsible D is one of the last boats left. It has room for 47 people. To prevent a rush on the boat, Lightoller waves (and possibly fires) his pistol into the air and crew members form a circle around it, with arms locked together, allowing only women and children aboard. The boat is lowered with 44 aboard. Titanic's forecastle head sinks under water, the tilt of her decks growing steeper.

2:10 AM: Captain Smith releases wireless operators from their duties.

2:17 AM: Wireless operator Phillips continues to send last radio message. Captain Smith tells crew members, "It's every man for himself," and is seen returning to the bridge, possibly to await the end. Thomas Andrews, the ship's builder, is seen alone in the first-class smoking room staring into space.

Titanic's bow plunges under, enabling the ensnared collapsible B to float clear of the ship but she is upside down. Meanwhile, Father Thomas Byles hears confession and gives absolution to over one hundred second and third-class passengers gathered at the aft end of the Boat Deck. The ship's band stops playing. Many passengers and crew jump overboard moments before Titanic's forward funnel collapses, crushing a number of swimming passengers.

Collapsible A now floats free and about two dozen people in the water grab hold of it. It clears right side up, but is swamped and dangerously overloaded. Much later, Lowe, in boat No. 14, saves them just before dawn. Probably as many as half, however, have died.

2:18 AM: A huge roar is heard as all moveable objects inside Titanic crash toward the submerged bow. The ship's lights blink once and then go out. Many survivors witness the ship rip itself apart, breaking in two. The bow half sinks.

2:20 AM: Titanic's broken-off stern section settles back into the water, righting itself for a few moments. Slowly it fills with water and again tilts its stern high into the air before slowly sinking into the sea. Over 1,500 souls are lost in the greatest maritime disaster in history.

David had read this and all the accounts of Titanic’s demise many times over, how it had taken less than two and a half hours from point of impact with the ice to her slipping below the calm sea that night. What had never troubled him before in his reading was Murdoch’s having “instinctively” called hard-a-starboard to his helmsman and his ordering the engine room to stop engines followed by full astern. David realized now that it would have made more sense to give these orders in reverse—full astern, kill engines, hard to starboard. Ingles could not help but wonder now if it was human error, wrongful instinct, or captain’s orders? He continued to search for inconsistencies and what might be construed as outright lies in the testimony that Kilborn cited in his pages which David, his Kindle reader reflected in his glasses, continued to read:

3:30 AM: With Titanic no longer of this earth, The Carpathia's flares rise over the scene and those aboard the rescue ship sight lifeboats in the water. Carpathia’s normal speed is 14½ knots, but she has raced to the rescue at a shuddering 17½ knots.

4:10 AM: First boat, No. 2, is picked up by the Carpathia. Ice floes all about the disaster area amid debris from Titanic.

5:30 AM: The Californian advised by the Frankfort of the loss of Titanic makes for the disaster area.

5:30 to 6:30 AM: Collapsible A survivors rescued by boat No. 14, and collapsible B by boats 4 and 12.

8:30 AM: Last boat, No. 12, picked up by the Carpathia. Lightoller is the last survivor to come on board. The Californian arrives at the disaster site, comes alongside Carpathia, and then she steams through the disaster area to make a final sweep for survivors or bodies in the water.

8:50 AM: The Carpathia leaves the disaster area bound for New York. She carries 705 survivors and one dog named Varmint. An estimated 1,522 souls have been lost. Ismay wires White Star New York offices: "Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars later."

April 17: Three days later, hired by White Star Line, the Mackay-Bennett leaves Halifax to search for bodies at the disaster site. They find hundreds they pluck from the ocean and place on deck; from a distance, the cargo looks like cordwood. They fast run out of room on the boat for the corpses.

April 18, 9:00 PM: Carpathia arrives in New York Harbor. She outruns hordes of newspaper reporters in boats clamoring for news. As the Carpathia passes the Statue of Liberty, 10,000 people are on hand to watch. Titanic's lifeboats hang at Carpathia’s sides like a somber catch. She passes the Cunard pier (no. 54) and steams onward up-river to the White Star piers. There the crew lowers Titanic's boats. The Carpathia then returns to the Cunard pier to finally unload the survivors.

April 19 to May 25: Inquiry into the Titanic disaster undertaken by United States Senate Inquiry, headed by Senator William A. Smith. Eighty-two witnesses are called.

April 22: White Star sends the Minia out from Halifax to help overtaxed Mackay-Bennett, which has picked up 306 bodies. The Minia finds only a mere 17 after a week-long search.

David put aside his K6 Kindle reader, saddened once again at the plight of those on board the sinking ship that night. What made Titanic’s fate so tragic and heart-wrenching was the certainty of all those aboard thinking themselves in a safe place of warmth, lights, beautiful finery, and grace—like the house of the gods. Like a great, gilded floating terra firma below their feet. Everyone had been lulled into believing that they were in a sense on solid ground in a place where no harm could come to them aboard a well-lit, warmly heated, comfortable and lovely ‘unsinkable’ ship. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Especially if it was an inside job.

Anything manmade had the potential for disaster. Why hadn’t they been keenly aware of this during these years of the great Industrial Revolution that coincided with the Gilded Age? That fateful night everything that could have gone wrong simply did. Perhaps some things unseen… some things no one to this day would believe had hastened this fate—indeed had shaped this fate. Alastair Ransom, Declan Irvin, and Thomas Coogan had also shaped this fate, as had Captain Smith, Murdoch, Lightoller, and no telling how many others. Perhaps it was Titanic’s destiny from the beginning. Or was it? What could they’ve done? What could any one of them have done?

And how did that dog get off the ship when so many people could not get off Titanic in any safe manner?