Titanic 2012

He took it from her hands as she pushed it toward him. The journal itself was a beautifully bound antique with a clasp and a lace bookmark peeking from the top. “I’ve marked some pages in particular that you must read.”

“You want me to have this on loan, I presume? To read?”

“We don’t have time to wait for the movie release,” she joked then glared at him as she undid the clasp even as the book remained in his hands. It opened onto pages brittle and yellowed with time. “You’ve got to read his account of things, David, please.”

“Tonight? Now?”

“Here and now, yes. There isn’t much time before we reach Titanic—what, two, two and a half days?”

“Present rate of speed, should make it Thursday AM.”

“Read,” she commanded. “It’s imperative.”

“It’ll explain the saber tooth and why the Titanic’s captain scuttled his unsinkable monument to man’s greatest nautical achievement up ’til that point in time.”

“Sit, read… all of it will become clear.”

Frowning and giving in, David fell into the single chair at the desk protruding from one wall—everything here was shiny metal. “This book is why you think—or rather say that it was Captain Edward Smith who gave orders to —I can’t believe I am even saying this—ram the largest oceangoing vessel on the planet into an iceberg, and that his most trusted officers carried out Titanic’s intentional sinking.” He laughed and shook his head.

“Read the book, David—it’s proof, evidence of the truth of my story!”

“I really suggest that you don’t repeat this ahhh… theory to anyone.”

“Dave, I know you haven’t had time to digest all this—and it’s a helluva lot to digest.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “All I ask is that you keep an open mind and take a look at the journal.”

“What could possibly prove such a notion?” He remained steadfastly skeptical. It seemed the only logical response to this unusual game she was running on him. He expected at any moment for her to burst out laughing and to admit that he was being set up—punk’d! He prayed she’d suddenly shout ‘Gotcha!’

“Start here then if it helps.” She turned the pages to a marker. “Start with the fact Captain Smith had seven Marconi messages in his pocket that warned of a huge ice field that was uncharacteristically floating out ahead of Titanic—directly in the shipping lanes. See right here.”

David read the words at the end of her fingertip: ‘Capt. Smith knowingly chose to remain in on the final solution—to remain firm with the cabal that we had unwittingly become—a cabal whose aim was the sudden end of Titanic and the god awful curse aboard her, like a worm within the folds of a flower.’

Despite his skepticism, qualms, and reservations, David read on to learn from the author of the journal what he could possibly mean by this marginal notation, this medical internist named Declan Irvin who then wrote: ‘Capt. Smith’s features telegraph his internal battle with the horrible decision fate has placed in his hands. Looks as if he might fall from a stroke, he is that hurt.’

David swallowed hard, digesting this bit about Smith in the tight, controlled hand of the author. He then read on: ‘I left Detective Ransom and my closest friend, Thomas Coogan with Titanic’s chief operations officers who continued to stare at the evidence of this alien creature aboard. Worried about the aged Captain Smith, I escorted the man to his quarters and gave him an elixir for nerves and a brandy—but this only after the stalwart old gentleman had given orders to all officers in his command to destroy Titanic. Before we parted, he looked into my eyes and handed some seven Marconi messages he snatched from his pocket, pushing these on me. I later read the wireless messages and while from separate sources they all had one warning—“Ice Ahead—your position.” These I’ve folded into the back of this journal.’

David flipped to the rear of the journal and sure enough the authentic wireless messages sent to Titanic, messages warning of miles-long rivers of icebergs ahead of them—the actual Marconi messages—stared back at David.

He had to take a deep breath before looking up at Kelly who held out a shot of whiskey. “I know you like it on the rocks.”

He accepted the drink and took a long dram, sighing heavily, and saying, “Hold on. You know how I take my whiskey down to my brand—” he indicated the bottle of Jack Daniels on the nightstand where she’d left it—“but you acted as if you didn’t know me when you first came on board? What’s up with that?”

“All right, I wanted you to chase me so I could get you alone, so as to confide in you, David.”

“So I’d give chase, really?”

“Read!” she ordered and he dropped his gaze back onto the pages of the yellowed book and read: ‘Smith had worked out a plan; he put First Officer Murdoch and Second Officer Lightoller in charge of scuttling the mammoth vessel—specifically ramming its bow into the first sizeable iceberg they might encounter. You must understand, we had marched the officers deep into the bowels of the ship to where the freezer compartments were, and there displayed the reason why Titanic must go to the bottom of the sea without a single survivor. At least, that was the plan, but of course, as Robbie Burns reminds us—‘best laid plans of mice and men do oft go astray’!”

Kelly drilled the page with her finger now from where she stood looking over his shoulder. “So you see now, David? Captain Smith goes to bed with some sort of apoplexy or to pray—or whatever he did alone there with God —with seven ominous warnings in his possession all about giant icebergs in Titanic’s path, but he orders no slow down, no change of course—full steam ahead into the ice floes. That was Lightoller’s orders, and like Smith, Lightoller and Murdoch were also well aware of the bergs awaiting Titanic’s arrival—and arrive atop them she did!”

“I’ve read in history books that Smith was warned repeatedly, but he must’ve had his reasons… must’ve thought he could make it through. This allusion to some plague on board is not in any documents or books, Dr. Irvin.”

“David, he ordered all but one pair of binoculars confiscated and thrown overboard.”

“There’s nothing in the record to indicate that!”

“The record—the inquests records—state they left port without binoculars, that they forgot them! How lame is that? You don’t build a crow’s nest without a peg for the binoculars.” Her voice rose a few octaves. Realizing this, she stopped herself, obviously frustrated. She then added, “You just keep reading, David Ingles, and you will have it on good authority—my ancestor—that Smith ordered every pair of binoculars and spyglasses aboard discarded over the side save his own, which he turned over to Murdoch and Lightoller, arming the two poor devils—officers he’d ordered to carry out the terrible job of spotting an iceberg with the intention of—”

“Hold on… are you really suggesting a conspiracy to-to—”

“I’m not suggesting anything; I am stating a fact—a lost fact, lost to history.”

“History indeed!” his tone made it clear how preposterous he thought this discussion had become.

“Captain Edward Smith went to his cabin where he remained in sleep or contemplation of the coming collision—on his orders.”

“No way.”

“He could not know if Lightoller or Murdoch could carry such an order out, or if junior officers below them might balk at their orders. But make no mistake, Captain Smith put the order in motion. His orders.”

“According to the account of this single ancestor of yours?”

“A singular man, he was… yes,” she countered when they heard a noise outside the hatchway. She placed a finger to her lips, and they fell silent. “No one else can know.”

TWELVE

After giving David time to digest what she’d already put forth as the truth of Titanic’s end, Kelly slipped her head out into the causeway outside her berth but found no one there. When she closed the hatchway again and turned to David, she saw the disbelief still floating in his