Titanic 2012

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