Titanic 2012

TEN

Walter had insisted they each wear a miner’s hat with a battery-operated light just above their foreheads but Declan’s went out, and Thomas kept shining his into the others’ eyes, blinding them. Alastair Wyland insisted they forego the damned hats.

But they left the paltry lights on the helmets as they went down and down into the black hole, it grew darker and danker. To while away the time, Wyland gave the boys a history and economics lesson.

“You know boys, given the recent backroom deals surrounding these giant ships the White Star Line is having built in Belfast? Brings prosperity, jobs, and management believes themselves saints for supplying jobs to working men—miners, shipyard workers, tugboat captains and crew, but they’ll be hiring on British crews for their Olympic class monsters like Titanic just as they did with the Olympic launched in October 1910.”

“The British are paying the freight… it’s a British held company.”

“Not anymore, lads.”

“What do you mean?”

“As early as 1869 J. Bruce Ismay’s father, Henry formed the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company in order to establish the White Star Line as a high-class steamship service in the Atlantic passenger trade, and he contracted his first ships to be built by Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolff. All rather hush-hush until the son took over in 1891 when under pressure, Ismay admitted to partnership of the White Star Line. He then took over completely after his father's death in ’99.”

“What’s this to do with us going down into the mines?”

“Getting to that. In ’94, William J. Pirrie became chairman of Harland & Wolff. And four years later, American author Morgan Robertson published his novel entitled Futility in which a British passenger liner called the Titan—get it?—hits an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage without enough lifeboats in the month of April in the North Atlantic. The fictional ship is eerily similar to the yet-to-be conceived Titanic in size, speed, equipment, numbers of passengers—both rich and poor. And in the end of the novel, the number of passengers who perished, God forbid, would be the same as on Titanic should she go down in the North Atlantic.”

“A novel… so what? Fiction is frivolous,” said Thomas. “What’s it to do with—”

“Robertson had information on the company—an insider feeding him information; the company planned to build three Olympic class ships they called unsinkable from the outset. Morgan Robertson’s book, which I’ve read, is a running history of how Titanic, Olympic, and the yet to be built Britannic were conceived by men interested in money and power.”

“This is fascinating,” commented Declan. “Go on.”

“Well in 1902, the White Star Line was purchased by the International Mercantile Marine Company, a shipping trust headed by U.S. financier J. Pierpont Morgan.”

“Hold on,” said Declan, “do you mean the same J.P. Morgan who operates the largest transportation lines and all the trains in America?”

“One and the same, yes. While the White Star’s ships still fly the British flag and carry British crews, the company is essentially controlled by American interests, and by ’04, Ismay, now age forty or so—with Morgan’s full support—becomes President and Managing Director of International Mercantile Marine with complete control.”

“And why is that a bad thing?” asked Thomas. “I smell something awful; you smell that?”

“Yeah,” added Declan. “Smells like decay.”

Alastair ignored this, continuing his tale. “Another thing, Morgan Robertson is related to Morgan—hence the name, but he’s a black sheep member. And another thing—”

A sudden jolt and the platform beneath their feet shuddered, but as the shaft was tight on all sides, they didn’t fear falling from either side, at least not yet. They heard something beneath them tumble as if caught on a rock and the platform had sent whatever it was hurtling downward with a rattling bumpity-bump pounding their ears. Still the platform continued on, lowering them still deeper.

In unison, the detective and the young interns breathed a sigh of relief, and Wyland continued his history lesson as if nothing had happened. “As well, Harland & Wolff chairman William J. Pirrie became that same year a director of Mercantile Marine.”

“All rather chummy,” said Thomas.

“Inbred is what it is,” Declan replied. “And the public knows naught of it?”

“At a dinner party in 1907, held at William J. Pirrie's London mansion, Ismay discussed the construction of two huge ships—with a third to be added later—and the young author was in attendance to hear their plans; it gave him the insidious idea to make himself happy by fictionally sinking their plans before they’d begun if he could convince a publisher to take on his hair-brained novel entitled Titan. But back to the London party—it was all to do with competing, you see, with the luxury, size, and speed of rival cruise lines. These Olympic-class ships were to be known as the greatest and fastest liners afloat, intended specifically to beat out the Cunard Line for the Atlantic luxury passenger trade.”

“You make it sound so criminal,” countered Thomas Coogan. “It is called free enterprise… capitalism.”

“Not my point.”

“What then?”

“July 29, 08.”

“What about it?”

“The White Star owners, including Ismay, approved in principle the design plan for the Olympic class ships prepared by builders Harland & Wolff under direct supervision of Lord Pirrie, with the assistance of his nephew Thomas Andrews—architect of the ships.”

“Yes, all in the family.” Declan worked the lever to slow the platform here where the shaft narrowed about them.

“I met the author, Robertson, once—had a bright son named Stephen who was fascinated with law enforcement and the science of detection back in… in Boston. At any rate, Robertson showed me a duplicate copy of a contract letter dated July 31^st of that year; a letter signing off on construction in the Belfast shipyards for Olympic, Titanic, and a third sister ship at the time unnamed but to follow. In part it read ‘Ultimate decisions of design, equipment, and decoration are to be made by J. Bruce Ismay. The size of Titanic will be 882 feet 9 inches long, 94 feet wide, and 100 feet high to the bridge level. Final cost: ?1,500,000 or approx. $7,500,000. New docks had to be built in Belfast, Southampton, and New York to accommodate the size of these ships. Harland & Wolff built specially strengthened slips to take their weight, and a new gantry under which these gargantuan ships would be built.”

“You tell a rambling tale, sir,” interrupted Thomas. “To the point, perhaps?”

“Thomas! Where are your manners?”

“I left them in the world above.”

“Ah, it’s no matter, Declan,” replied Wyland. “Frankly at my age, I know that the more sense I make, the less anyone cares to hear it. Or perhaps it was always that way!” He laughed at his own remarks.

“Oh but sir, please go on. I am something of a big fan of Titanic; I wish to hear all of it.”

“Wellll now… as planned, December 16^th the keel for the first ship is laid down at Harland & Wolff’s slip number 400 and Olympic construction begins, as you likely know; at any rate, this was quickly followed March 31^st of ’09 when Titanic’s keel was laid down in yard number 401 and Titanic—”

“Yes, where Titanic construction began.”

“And now here we are today with Pinky’s guarding her and anarchists wanting to blow their precious plans to kingdom come. Now mysteriously three men who in one manner of another are associated with the yards’ve vanished. Gentlemen, it smacks of anarchy or monies to be had, and quite possibly blackmail.”

“Blackmail?”

“How so?”

“Suppose the three had devised a scheme to reveal all the fictional elements of Robertson’s book as fact? The hidden details of all that has gone on behind closed doors regarding Titanic and her