Titanic 2012: Curse of RMS Titanic

TWENTY THREE

If Dr. O’Laughlin was skeptical, Captain Edward Smith was incredulous—and with good reason. Sadly, Smith proved all too willing to believe the worst, that he had on board three scoundrels with an elaborate scheme to sabotage operations by spreading fear. That they’d come aboard Titanic with the intention of spying on Smith’s progress, and to do all in their power to slow him down. How else to explain these unwashed men? How could they be anything but what they appeared? Goons no doubt hired by the unscrupulous people at the Cunard Line.

“We expected this, anticipated it even. You fools,” Smith stood and shouted at the three of them. “You’ve got some bully nerve, the three of you! Mr. Lightoller, Mr. Murdoch do your duty. Arrest ’em and put the brig to good use!”

“The brig, sir?” asked Lightoller. “Not lockup?”

“Under house arrest, Mr. Lightoller, means the brig, same as for any rowdy aboard. Understood?”

“The same as reserved for the Black Gang, sir?”

“Far below and out of sight, yes!” Smith’s patience had fled, if he’d actually had any; Ransom decided that Smith was playing poker all along.

“And the photos, sir?” asked Murdoch, pointing to where they lay atop the table.

“Confiscate them.”

“They’re sheer nonsense,” added Dr. O’Laughlin.

“Don’t let anyone aboard see or hear of these photos, Mr. Murdoch—and the same goes for all you officers. You too, Dr. O’Laughlin—no gossip mongering. I know how medical men talk—like common washer women at a clothesline. But if I learn this has leaded out, you’ll all be swimming back to England. Understood?”

Smith had been in control from the moment he’d stepped into the room. “We will not have a panic aboard ship on the basis of a dark-skinned—likely torched dummy posed as a corpse, not even four of them! Do you take me for a fool, sir?” Smith addressed Alastair directly. “Shame on you as well!”

“For what?” demanded Ransom.

“For dragging these boys into your schemes! For forgery and impersonation; for attempting to perpetrate a hoax! I had thought I’d seen the worst of men until now!”

“All right then, you three miscreants,” added Murdoch, “come along quietly. That’s good lads.”

“Here we go again,” bemoaned Thomas, his manacled hands extended. “Now we can bloody well die along with everyone else aboard.”

“Stop that kind of talk aboard my ship, young man!” ordered Captain Smith, his stern, white-whiskered face pinched and sour.

“But he’s right,” shouted Declan. “Captain Smith, mistaking us for saboteurs is as serious an error as when you rammed the Hawke with Olympic, ah… sir.”

Smith’s eyes grew wide, his neck and cheeks blushing red against his snow white beard.

“You must believe us!” shouted Ransom, his cuffed hands raised. “We came direct from Belfast, I tell you!”

Smith stepped as close to Ransom as he might to keep from the days-old travel odors emanating from the man. “And you look and smell like a Belfast sewer rat, Constable. So you came from the ship yard at Belfast—Harland & Wolff is it?”

“Yes, yes. Contact them. Get Constable Ian Reahall on the wireless. He’ll tell why we’ve come; that I am his deputy, and that these lads are interns at the surgery at Mater Infirmorum and Queens Univeristy in Bel—”

“There’ve been Cunard spies lurking around those ship yards since we began building Olympic. I suspect, sir, you are one of that riff-raff. As for these young fellows, I am sure you paid them well for their time and trouble—as you did the Captain of Trinity, long behind us now. How did you plan to get off Titanic?”

The Titanic crew and officers laughed along with their captain, Lightoller included. Ransom knew it was another jail cell for him, but this one was a floating death cell, and not a sentence imposed by a judge and jury, rather one imposed by a captain at sea. Under maritime law, the captain was judge, jury, and executioner.

“Get them out of my sight. We’ll deal with them later. Turn ’em over to the authorities in Queenstown, eh?”

“You’re making the third mistake in an otherwise spotless record, sir!” shouted Declan as he was being led away.

“The third?” asked Smith, somewhat amused at the lad’s impertinence.

“First the Hawke, second was almost sending The New York to the bottom! We watched from Trinity, and you nearly scuttled us as well. Don’t make a third fatal error.”

Thomas took up the argument. “We killed ourselves to get to you on time. You must abort this voyage—at least long enough to determine if the ship is carrying this horrible parasitic disease… to determine if you have a carrier on board.”

“It’s worse than the smallpox and the Black Plague combined!” shouted Ransom but by now they had all been hustled out of the floating clinic and down a flight of stairs to the lower deck, and here, at gunpoint, Murdoch and Lightoller marched them to the same lift they’d used earlier to meet the charming Dr. O’Laughlin. But this time, the lift was taking them down and down, reminding Ransom of the mine shaft where this long journey had begun. Down further still and down into the lowest reaches of Titanic where they had no idea regarding the size of the accommodations awaiting them.

“You know, Declan,” said Thomas along the way, “since we met Alastair here, we have spent more time in jail cells than in our entire lives previously.”

“It’s not my bloody fault that this captain is a fool.”

Murdoch’s back-hand slap took Alastair off guard, and he reeled from the blow. Murdoch said in a stentorian voice, “You’ll show no disrespect to the captain, sir.”

“None whatsoever,” agreed Lightoller.

Murdoch stood a head taller than Alastair, and both officers were younger, thinner, and both apparently slaves to maritime protocol and law.

When the lift doors opened, this time it was on the lowest level in the ship, a place where cargo shared space with pets and animals of so many sorts it seemed a veritable Noah’s Ark. Most of the traveling pets were dogs and cats, but the occasional exotic parrot or zoo animal was also heard but not seen as they made their way toward the back reaches to indeed find a cell for restraining miscreants.

“Will your captain at very least wire Belfast?” asked Declan as they were being locked away in a barred cage the size of a twelve-by-twelve room, four bunks occupying the space within. “We’re not saboteurs.”

Neither officer replied, remaining silent, momentarily staring at the threesome now safely locked behind bars. Finally, Murdoch ordered each to extend his hands though the bars so as to have their wrists chains off. Using a key, he quickly, efficiently loosed all their restraints, holding each up for a crewman to collect.

“What about our letter and the photos, Mr. Murdoch? The letter from Professor Bellingham and signed too by Dean Goodfriar? Will it mean nothing to your captain?”

“Don’t count on your ruse going an inch further, my young prisoner.”

“My bag! It’s been searched and of no use to you, but there is a journal inside, a daily account I have kept since before Olympic was completed. Tell your captain to read the journal from the entry just before the time that you launched trials for Titanic. Please, do it.”

“The confiscated bag I looked through?” asked Lightoller who materialized out of the gloom just behind Murdoch. He had Declan’s bag with him. “Captain said to return it to you.”

“Didn’t find any bombs in there, eh?” asked Ransom in a jocular manner that ticked Murdoch off.

“You find everything too funny, Mister.”

“When you get my age, son,” replied Ransom, “things and people became quite laughable while dogs, cats, and mimicking parrots seem to grow smarter.”

“Careful with your tongue, man!” Murdoch warned to the sound of barking dogs and whining animals stowed somewhere in the left of darkness.

Lightoller handed the bag through the bars to Declan; he looked somewhat apologetic at how things had worked out, but he said, “Did I not warn you three?”

“You did indeed, sir, but I thought it the drink talking.”

Lightoller and Murdoch strolled off toward the lift to return to the upper reaches of Titanic, but it was as far as Lightoller got. Murdoch abandoned Lightoller to the duty of overseeing the prisoners. Lightoller must now assign men twenty-four hours a day to act as jail keepers.

“Mr. Lightoller,” Alastair said to him, “do you believe a word of our story? Have you not a single doubt? Man, we are who we say we are; my badge is authentic.”

“It matters little what I think, Constable.”

“Can you get a wireless message to Belfast—if not the police then the ship yard to get word to Constable Reahall?”

“I doubt I can get a wireless sent.”

“Why not? You’re an officer.”

“The wireless shack is inundated with requests to send messages both to America and Paris… it seems everyone aboard thinks it’s a novelty. Those poor chaps in the wireless room haven’t had any sleep!”

“But this is important.”

“Besides, I take a risk doing that; I’d be thrown in there with you men.”

“Then at least read this,” pleaded Declan, handing him his journal. “Please read it—and our letters of recommendation tucked in the back.”

“That much I suppose I can do. I am sorry about this, lads, and I don’t think you’re working for Cunard.”

“What’s the tipoff?” asked Ransom.

“You… you’re American.”

“How can you know that?”

“Your Belfast accent comes and goes.”

“Ahhh…”

“All I know for sure is that Cunard doesn’t hire American spies. Fact is, they dislike you Americans, intensely so; they rely on London-born chaps as a rule. That and Liverpool. Or Southampton for such as sabotage. You young fellas, you just don’t look the part.” He eyed Ransom, clearly believing that he did look the part of some kind of charlatan.

“For God’s sake man,” shot back Ransom, “why didn’t you say all this to your captain to at least help these boys out?”

“Well it just didn’t seem… it wasn’t my place.”

“At least you don’t think we are common gutter trash.” Ransom pounded the cage and it rattled as a result.

Lightoller nervously laughed; he’d pulled back from the lockup as a result of Ransom’s bullish behavior. “I came up in Liverpool.” His last statement held a mix of pride and sadness weighing it down at once as if he might add ‘enough said’.

Lightoller took the book and letters away with him, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll send down an evening meal for you in a few hours. Have to find a crewman to take first watch over you.”

“Nice of you Titanic officers to watch over us!” joked Alastair.

“There’s nothing funny about this!” shouted Thomas, looking all about them in the semi-darkened area behind the crates of cargo stacked to the ceiling. Thomas found a bunk and threw himself onto it.

“Thomas is right, Constable Ransom. What’re we to do now?”

“Wait for Lightoller to do his light reading, and hope we have convinced at least one man outside these bars.”

“You mean hope that we get out of here before the disease gets us,” complained Thomas.

“This place down here,” added Declan, “iron ore walls somewhat like that cave in Belfast, the mine shaft; looks a perfect place for… for…”

“Go ahead, say it,” replied Ransom, “a perfect breeding ground for that thing… and we’re smack in the midst of its hunting grounds and locked here. Helpless!”

“All cheery thoughts.” Declan did a little vault onto his chosen bunk.

Thomas bemoaned, “We-We gotta get off this ship, save our damned selves.”

“If… if it begins spreading,” Declan near whispered. “I saw some lifeboats out there.”

“I see you’ve learned to take in your surroundings, Declan,” said Ransom, testing how hard his bunk was before lying back. “Make a detective of you yet.”

“Thomas makes sense, Alastair.” Declan had decided against the one bunk for the identical one beside it. Lying now on his back, hands behind his head, he again spoke, “If we get shed of these bars, we should plot our escape from Titanic altogether; live to fight another day, you know? That is if they don’t come to their senses and quickly.”

“You mean if there’s no evidence aboard that the disease is here?” asked Alastair.

“No,” said Thomas, “I mean if they remain idiots and fools here in charge, like that self-important captain.”

“Smith is a great ship’s captain, Thomas,” argued Declan. “No one could easily believe our story. Look what it took to bring even Dr. B and the dean over to our side, not to mention Constable Reahall.”

“Declan is right and you, too, are right, Thomas.” Alastair paced the cell. “And so I am right.”

“Whatever do you mean, Alastair?” asked Declan.

“I mean we should get you two off Titanic, and that I’ll stay to see this through.”

The interns looked at one another, unsure what to say to this.

Ransom added, “Look… the only reason you needed to come aboard with me was to give credence to this cock’n’bull story of ours—to carry the letter from your teachers, to be taken seriously. Obviously, that isn’t happening; hell, they don’t believe a word of it, nor the authenticity of my badge.”

They all fell silent, each taking his own council… each wondering about the wisdom of their approach taken with Captain Edward Smith. Somewhere in a nearby room the noise of caged animals, pets no doubt of the rich and famous, making the Atlantic crossing with their masters. It seemed the animals would get excited, begin yipping and crying out and then settle into a silence.

After a silence of their own and a lot of pacing among the caged men, Ransom erupted with, “Smith did have a certain smugness about him, a superior attitude.”

“He’s earned it,” said Declan.

“Attitude like that is hard to break through.” Ransom paced like a lumbering, caged bear. “Damn sick of cages!” He tried to rattle the bars until he realized they were fused to the floor and ceiling. “Can’t believe this!”

“I would think you’d be used to it by now,” muttered Thomas. “What about your burglary tools? Have ’em on ya?” Thomas almost broke into smile.

“Wouldn’t work on this lock.”

“Some detective you turned out to be.”

“Please, Thomas,” said Declan. “No need to be rude.”

“Rude? Look around you, Declan—we’re in a cell in the bowels of Titanic with this thing that dehydrates and kills a man in hours, and you’re worried I may hurt this old fart’s feelings?”

Ransom turned on Thomas and said, “This old fart is old enough to be your father, young man, so hold your tongue.”

“Yes, father.”

“Enough with the sniping, Thomas.” Declan rolled over. “If you’ve nothing kind to say, say nothing.”

“You’ll make me puke with that kind of talk. Damn it, Declan, I can’t believe they locked us up!”

Declan had turned to Alastair, who was now perched on a bunk. “At least this time we get to share a single cell.”

“Somehow that doesn’t help matters,” Thomas muttered.

But Declan merely asked, “Do you have any children, Alastair?”

“Children? Me? Well no… none that I know of that is, but I almost had a daughter once… almost.”

“How do you almost have a daughter? Tell me it wasn’t a stillbirth.”

“No, no, no… .thank God. No, I was in love with her mother, and she—Gabby was her name—she adopted me, so to speak. Killed me having to leave Jane and Gabby, but staying would have only dragged them down with me.”

“I can’t imagine that,” Thomas said and then laughed.

Declan laughed, his eyes meeting Alastair’s.

Alastair could not hold it in any longer, and he burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of their situation; at the same time, he pictured his beautiful girls, the petite Dr. Jane Francis aka Dr. James Phineas Tewes when necessary, and her daughter, Gabby, a firebrand for women’s rights still, and a graduate of Northwestern Medical School, and a lovely younger version of Jane. Jane, who became James so as to deal with prejudices aimed all female surgeons. All this he missed along with his city—Ransom’s city as many called it. He silently laughed at the phrase, a kind of title bestowed on the “Bear” of Chicago. These memories made his heart a led weight in his chest. He missed the three of them—Jane, Gabby, and Chicago in that order.

The combined laughter coming from the three prisoners masked his pain and resonated about the larger room outside the cell, bouncing off crates and sacks of potatoes and boxed grandfather clocks earmarked for Macy’s and furniture crated and marked for Marshal Field’s, Chicago. “I get outta this cage… I oughta slip into that crate going to Chicago. Go straight home to my women, make it official, marry Jane, adopt Gabby. Pipe dreams… regrets, I’ve had a few.”

Then they heard a noise, something or someone approaching but making strange sounds—heavy breathing, someone struggling, knocking into things, gasping. In fact, it sounded like a man suffering from consumption—a great deal of hacking up, gut-wrenching coughing, vomiting. Echoing as it did in the chamber here, the gasping made the trio in the bars shudder when out of the darkness, a man in extreme distress banged into the cage with such force, the entire cage shook.

The distressed man’s right hand extended through the bars, eyes like blackened plums, no seeds showing in them; he reached out toward Alastair and the boys, who’d backed to the rear of the cage as far back as they could manage.

The man seemed on the verge of certain death, his skin seemingly afire—as if crawling with ants, his eyes blind, smoking, drying out before them; from his dress, he appeared a stoker—one of the small army of men aboard who shoveled coal into the furnaces. He wore a leather apron over a grimy shirt, high boots, his left hand still sporting one large leather glove. He tried desperately to walk through the bars to get at them—insanely so, rush-bang, rush-bang, rush-bang! while the inmates began shouting, screaming for someone, anyone to come to their aide.

When they realized no one could hear them except for the poor devil trying to get at them, Alastair and the boys stood transfixed, knowing what they were seeing—knowing the horrid Belfast plague was here before them!

Then as suddenly as he appeared, the victim spiraled away in a horrific, pain-fueled ballet. In fact, his body appeared saturated with pain. It was as if the poor man was attempting to run from himself.

Thomas imagined the scene played out with his uncle as victim. Declan thought of the two miners who most certainly had done this macabre dance.

Ransom imagined just how Tuttle may have gone into the water over the side of Titanic.

All three would-be heroes imagined themselves futilely running from the killer within them… imagined being the suffering stoker, blinded, in terrible pain as every cell was drained of moisture, every organ shrinking—eyes, brain, heart, lungs, pancreas, liver, skin.

All three began rattling their cage, pulling at the bars, shouting for someone to come, praying Lightoller might return soon enough to see what they had seen, but no one came and the darkness around them became darker, and the sounds emanating from the dying stoker had ceased with the suddenness of a dog put down.

“God has a sick sense of humor,” said Declan, head in his hands.

Deflated, fearful, nerves frayed to the maximum, the three inmates of this floating asylum alternately paced and pounded at the bars holding them. From down here at the bottom of Titanic, they could feel the massive ship’s equally massive engines churning. Ransom said, “Feels like Captain Smith means to make Queenstown in record time!”

“Anxious, no doubt, to put us off!” shouted Thomas, struggling with a loose shoelace and almost stumbling over.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Declan said.

Thomas echoed his words. “We’ve got to get out of here.” In the near distance, the caged dogs in a separate compartment began a frightened caterwauling as if they were now under attack by the mad stoker.