“I suspect,” said Declan to his friends, “it’s caused by excess steam from the idling engines.”
“That’s it. Declan’s got it,” added Ransom.
Declan explained to Thomas, “Steam makes its way up a pipe to the top of the smokestack and is released there.”
“Makes conversation difficult, to say the least,” added Thomas. “Perhaps if we get drunk enough—” Thomas laughed more—“we won’t have any need of conversation.” Ransom laughed too, but young Declan could find no more laughter in himself; he’d gone suddenly silent. He watched passing ladies and gentlemen who had been abed now lumbering by the windows of the Grand Saloon, a parade seeking the boat deck on both port and starboard sides. The men and women wore grey and beige life jackets over their expensive suits and fur coats, some of the ladies even wearing huge feathered hats in peacock fashion.
Thomas and Ransom joined Declan at the window. “Looks like the souls on their way to the boat that’ll take them across the River Styx, don’t they?” asked Ransom. “Dante’s Inferno,” muttered Thomas.
“The parade’s begun… news is finally getting ’round the ship,” Declan told his friends.
“Lifeboats.” Ransom shuddered at the thought. “A mechanism of suicide to avoid death.”
They saw Thomas Andrews leaning against a mantel at the far end of the room, staring into a fireplace as if reading the flames. The man looked as lonely and dejected as a hopeless, jilted lover.
“He’s learned the worst of it, I suspect,” said Ransom.
“I imagine Smith’s finally told him the whole story,” added Declan.
“That’d explain the blank stare on his face.” Thomas lifted two bottles, one of ale, the other whiskey and poured Varmint a heftier drink, then poured for Alastair, while Declan poured another of wine for himself. When Andrews looked in their direction, Thomas hefted the whiskey bottle high as if to invite him to join them.
Instead of joining the ‘losers’ at the bar, Andrews stepped to the bandleader, whispering into Wallace Hartley’s ear, and Hartley then nodded repeatedly. Andrews next took the stand, and the bandleader shouted for everyone’s attention, gaining all but the card players’ notice. At their table, the card sharks were fixated on their poker game so their chatter continued.
Andrews, in a solemn tone, introduced himself and added, “I am speaking for your captain, Captain Smith who wishes for everyone to go to your staterooms, find the life jackets tucked below your beds, and make your way up to the boat deck.” He paused a moment, long enough to give Ransom and his party a nod as they toasted him. “We appear to have struck an iceberg, and it could get… well, dicey.”
No one moved.
No one wanted to leave the well lit, warm room for the chilled April 14th night, and certainly, no one wanted to get on board a lifeboat. A lifeboat in the mind of most equated to being marooned, a lingering death at sea, or moreover suicide.
Behind them, however, the bartender fled for his berth and his life jacket and a possible seat on a lifeboat. Ransom sauntered around the bar, lifted four brandy bottles, and eased over to the card game and asked in.
The man who seemed in charge of the sharks looked him up and down.
A second asked, “What’ve you got there?” inquiring about the four bottles dangling from his fingers.
“Chips… chips, of course, and I should like to play for a pair of shiny, new shoes,” he replied.
Shoes?” asked their leader, the others laughing.
“I would like a size eight and a half. Anyone here an eight and a half?”
The card players broke into even more raucous laughter, but one whom the others called Konrath snatched off his shoes, slammed them onto the card table, and announced, “I’m a nine. Let’s play cards.”
The leader, a fellow the others called Walker, conferred with his cohorts primarily with eye and head movements, indicating he agreed with Konrath. He finally pointed to an empty seat for Ransom and said, “Join us, Constable.”
“You know who I am then?”
“It’s our business to know who’s who on board,” said Walker with a serpent’s grin, “and you have become something of a celebrity here, chasing a killer they say.”
“Then my reputation precedes me.” Ransom snatched out a cigar he’d saved from his time in Dr. O’Laughlin’s clinic, and on chewing off the end, another player lit it for him. He puffed and sucked in the smoke, whirling it about his palate before exhaling. It appeared these once likely raw riverboat gamblers had traded in their winnings for a chance at men like Astor and other wealthy marks here on the high seas.
“Gambling with the richest men on the planet aboard this floating palace ought to’ve netted you fellows tons of cash.”
“Are you here to jabber or play?” asked the one they called Savile.
Ransom puffed anew, smiled wide, and let out a long sigh. “Ahhh… what more could a man want on his way to Kingdom Come, gentlemen?”
“How much should we concern ourselves, Constable?” asked Konrath.
“Oh, I am just an amateur at the game, I assure you.”
They all laughed and the rough-looking Konrath replied, “I was referring to Mr. Andrews’ call for the life preservers and the boats!”
“Frankly, there’s no place on the ship you can go that will be any better than right here, gents. Unless you can walk on your knees, or fashion a dress and a bonnet.”
The group sent up more raucous laughter over this.
“Looks like it’s every man for himself at this point, Thomas,” said Declan. “I have something I must do before the game’s entirely over.”
“Is it something I can help you with?”
“I think not… at least not at the moment. Wait for me here.”
The two young interns shook hands then grasped one another in a quick, manly hug in the manner of team members at the final bell. Their quick embrace brought gasps from a few tables, and at one, a loud, raucous overly-dressed and feathered elderly lady in her mid-to-late fifties shouted at the ladies at her table for tittering. “I hate that in our gender! It does not serve the women’s movement well at all, ladies, and for God’s sake, they’re twenty years your junior, those boys!”
In their attempt to calm the woman, Declan heard someone call her Molly.
Declan rushed off on whatever chore or mission he had put himself to. Thomas felt the slight tilt of the floor beneath him. He noticed the tables too had seriously begun to tilt as the ship listed to one side; even the card players now sat in chairs tilted awkwardly to one side, nearly going over.
No one seemed at all concerned about the dog, but then Varmint had curled into a ball at Thomas’ feet and remained asleep.
Within his mind, Thomas had hardly resolved to die on board this ship or in the freezing depths below.
His resolve flip-flopping, broken one moment, then set in stone the next, Thomas hadn’t the heart to speak of it aloud, not to Ransom, and certainly not to Declan, as both of them seemed so stoic and manly in the face of death.
He watched Ransom laughing, smoking and playing cards with the other men who had disregarded every word Mr. Andrews had uttered from the stage. The band continued playing, all of them just sitting with their various instruments, playing on as if it were any other night.
“I want off this damned ship,” he whispered to the dog at his feet. “How about you, Varmint?”
The dog lifted its head and nodded successively as if he might actually understand Thomas Coogan.
“We’ll get to Murdoch; he may be having second thoughts as well. Lightoller’s a lost cause—a choir boy, but Murdoch’s the soft one. He talks a big game but in the end… .”
Just then Declan came back down the flowing staircase, his journal in hand. He came directly to Thomas and said, “I recovered it from Lightoller. He’s assured me it will survive the sinking if he has to take charge of it himself.”
“Good… good idea. Give it to Lightoller.”
“No, no. I’ve been working him for some time, and I convinced him that you’re the man for the job, Thomas.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Declan placed both the book and the sabre tooth into Thomas’ hands.
“What? What’re you saying?”
