“Funny how while on this humongous contraption that you hardly feel a thing in the way of movement,” said Ransom to the others. “But while on that damn French raft with all that cargo, we were so certain of doom below our feet.”
“It is rather like being on terra firma, isn’t it?” agreed Declan.
Although Lightoller started to reply, Murdoch grunted instead. Neither
“They’re wound a bit tight,” Thomas characterized the officers in a whisper.
“Especially Murdoch,” agreed Ransom.
Arriving at the ship’s expansive twelve-bed hospital, the likes of which many a small hamlet across the Irish-English-Scottish and Wales countryside would each cherish. Declan thought of a certain village back in Wales that had so little. He half-joked,“More beds than lifeboats, eh?”
“We have an additional six-bed infectious ward, and a four-bed clinic and surgery room on C, not to mention a treatment room on the aft side of Hatch #6 right here.”
“Remarkable,” said Declan, eyes going everywhere around the hospital.
“We’ve well over two thousand people on board counting maids, crewmen, and officers,” Lightoller added.
“The doctors mostly handle seasick passengers,” added Murdoch, deflating the focus on the extensive medical facilities aboard, “but the crewmen can be careless, accidents happen. The nurses are already seeing to a few minor cases. Children with measles or sniffles, ladies with headaches, that sort of thing.”
They stood now before a row of pharmaceutical chests with an adjacent doctor’s office where a huge placard over the door read: Dr. William Francis Norman O’Laughlin.
“This is where your pill-dispenser spends all his time, eh?” asked Ransom, looking around.
On seeing their arrival, a young doctor with dark features started toward them, but Murdoch unceremoniously waved the assistant surgeon off even as Lightoller introduced him to the trio who’d boarded without tickets. “Gentlemen, this is our Assistant Surgeon, Dr. John Simpson.” He then addressed the doctor directly, “Dr. Simpson, we need Dr. O’s attention on this matter.”
Simpson nodded appreciably, replying, “Don’t let him hear ya callin’ him Dr. O, Charles! As for me, my hands’re full with the aches and pains of the rich and famous.”
Just then Dr. O’Laughlin, a tall, commanding man with sandy hair and dull brown eyes, got up from some paperwork at his desk in his windowed office, and he came out to meet Murdoch, assuming there was some medical emergency. Ransom guessed his age at mid-forties, but he moved somewhat shakily, like an older man, and he wondered if the doctor was perhaps hung over. Still the man appeared eager to be of service, introducing himself to his would-be patient or patients, rolling out all four of his names like a duke and this his realm. Once quick introductions were made, Officer Lightoller politely but firmly explained the situation, ending with the suggestion from their guests that
“Quarantine
“Of course, we know that, sir. We are officers,” replied Murdoch, his mustache twitching at the suggestion otherwise. “We know very well, Doctor, what we’re about, and rules don’t allow us to gamble, sir.”
“Oh, pity that. Stuff the rules, I say.”
“By now everyone aboard understands that, sir,” Lightoller’s tone became patronizing. “Look for a taste of your stashed rum, we can all have a seat and discuss the matter in more detail… get to the bottom of Constable Ransom’s concerns, and move on.”
“Show him the photos, Declan—the autopsy photos,” said Ransom.
“I can assure you, gentlemen,” began O’Laughlin, “There’s no sickness aboard
“On a ship of this size? Four New York blocks long? How can you be sure. This is like… like a floating city, and every city has its underbelly.” While Ransom and the boys were amazed at what their eyes took in at every juncture of the
“He’s correct, Dr. O’Laughlin,” said Lightoller. “Fact is there is everything from dysentery to consumption just among the Black Gang alone. I mean they fake not having their various disorders, but there’s no signing on 900 crewmen and women that I know of that is without a good share of illness. You may as well suggest there’re no rats aboard!”
“The Black Gang?” asked Thomas. “Who would they be?”
“Stokers—the men feeding the boilers, Tommie,” said Declan.
Lightoller added, “The fellas who see to it the boilers are hot and turning those giant turbines and propellers below.”
“How else do you think we churn out 22knots,” replied O’Laughlin. “Black as coal miners they are from shovelin’ the stuff… mountains of it each day. They’ll be carrying ’em up from time to time with heat stroke, I assure you, but unlikely anything else save a case of consumption now and again.”
“I saw no one terribly disturbing come aboard.” Murdoch said of the Black Gang. “But you can bet there’re a number who’re carrying one sort of pestilence or another.”
“And some as soon slit your throat as not?” asked Ransom.
“Aye, that too.” Murdoch met Ransom’s glare.
“They seem a good bunch to me,” defended Lightoller. “Certainly know how to throw a party.”
“Are you saying they have rum, whiskey, rye?” asked Ransom.
“That and more.” The doctor laughed but it was cut short when his eyes fell on the photos Declan held out for his perusal.
Everyone fell silent. O’Laughlin with Murdoch and Lightoller looking over each shoulder studied each of eight photographs of three separate bodies, twenty-four in all.
“What do you make of it, Dr. O’Laughlin?” asked Murdoch.
“These are burn victims,” he replied and shrugged. “Hardly disease victims. What kind of hoax are you about, you men?”
“Burn victims?” shouted Thomas. “These are not!”
“That darkened skin is the result of complete, total dehydration, Dr. O’Laughlin,” insisted Declan. “Look, we are students at Queens University Medical.”
“How wonderful for you,” replied O’Laughlin, unimpressed, his eyes never leaving the photos.
“Well, I mean presently we’re doing residency at Mater Infirmorum, surely you’ve heard of it? I’ve a letter from my professor and the dean there—read them.”
“I knew this would be a waste of time!” Ransom exploded, grabbed up the photos and was about to hand them to Declan for safekeeping when suddenly a robust-looking Captain Edward Smith stepped into the doctor’s quarters, asking, “What is going on here, William?” He instantly glared eye-to-eye with Ransom. “My officers, crewmen, and passengers have been startled by you men. Do you wish to explain yourselves?”
“They’re not exactly stowaways, sir,” began Lightoller. “Sorry but they talked their way aboard. My doing entirely sir… .I mean my misjudgment.”
Murdoch did his best to cover for his junior officer. “Mr. Lightoller’s brought this to my attention, sir, and I thought it best to bring it to Dr. O’Laughlin’s before we should bother you with any of it, sir, and glad we did.”
The ship’s doctor piped in with, “T’would seem these fellows are here to pull off some sort of fraud, a dreadful, misguided hoax!”
“Ahh yes, a hoax of some sort, just the thing,” replied Captain Smith, looking Ransom and his young partners in crime up and down. “It’s the only thing hasn’t happened aboard yet. We have a lady topside shouting bloody murder about some dream she’s had—demanding she be put off the ship at Queenstown. Making a terrible row among the passengers to the point we had to lock her in her berth until we reach Queenstown. Now this!”
“Deputy Constable Ransom and his traveling companions,” began Murdock, “are claiming the ship’s being ravaged by a plague!”
“Nonsense, of course,” put in the doctor.
