The Company of the Dead

by David Kowalski

  The sun was lost within a fold of heavy cloud, turning the ocean blue-black. Waves beat and broke against the ship’s hull in sprays of white froth, the water parting unwillingly before her steady advance. Along the foredeck, men scurried back and forth between the wireless room and the bridge, heads down, scraps of paper clutched to chests or beneath jacket folds, bearing a stream of radio traffic.

  Lightholler returned to the darkened wheelhouse and turned his attention to the amassed correspondence that awaited him there: confirmations of arrival times, changes in docking procedures, and offers of congratulations that seemed premature in the face of the approaching squall.

  He examined the close-circuit screens, the only anachronism permitted aboard his floating memorial. A light rain from the west drizzled against freshly scrubbed decks, driving most of the passengers indoors. On the poop deck some people stubbornly remained standing by the ship’s rail or seated on benches out of the wind’s path. He cued the audio. The occasional shouts of children merged with the squawks and cries of circling gulls. At the ship’s stern a flag—white star on red—slapped against its pole with every sudden gust.

  Passengers sat in the Palm Court drinking tea and coffee, listening to a string quartet play Mozart. In the smoking room they stood in small clusters discussing the recent events in Europe and Asia; the talk mostly of war. The majority, though, would be in their cabins and staterooms, packing away the last of their belongings. The ship sailed on, buffeted by rough wind and water, but in the lounges and dining rooms the only reflection of the turbulence was the gentle swish of liquid in crystal decanters. In fully laden cargo holds, naked light bulbs swung pendulously, marking the ship’s passage in wide arcs.

  By the time lunch was announced, the rain had passed and the wind had dropped to a caress. A wall of grey fog greeted passengers who had been summoned on deck by the knock of a steward at the door or the trumpet call of young boys in brass-buttoned jackets. The ship lay swathed in a blanket of cloud, occasional beams of sunlight shining through gaps in the haze like the face of God.

  Lightholler sent word to the wireless room, giving instructions to alert the harbourmaster. They would be arriving at dock shortly. He requested that a pilot be standing by to guide the ship up the Hudson to the newly constructed pier on Manhattan’s lower west side. Then, for the first time in days, he allowed himself to relax. The politics and the ice floes lay well behind them. Staring out of the bridge window into the swirling haze, he allowed a smile to form on his face and contemplated his evening ashore.

  III

  Manhattan lay crouched in the fog.

  The ferries to Liberty Island had ceased running at eleven o’clock due to overcrowding. Later estimates suggested that there were twelve thousand people in Battery Park that day, but no one could say how many people swarmed around the terminal and streets surrounding piers nineteen and twenty. From the pebble-strewn beaches of Brooklyn, on past Governors and Ellis islands to the Jersey shore, a flotilla of small boats and yachts rose and fell among the waves. Every now and then a shout would rise from somewhere in the multitude, swell to a roar and fade away in false alarm.

  Finally, wreathed in the last of the fog, she appeared on the horizon. At first, in the distance, it appeared as though a small part of the city, its prodigal, was returning home. The great ship grew from the armada’s midst, billows of smoke rising from her funnels and swirling into the clouds above. The small fleet scampered and parted before her prow. The liner’s promenades brimmed with passengers, shouting and waving. All along the boat deck the ship’s officers stood at rigid attention as she steamed past Liberty Island.

  A small group of tugboats detached themselves from the piers off Battery Park and slalomed a path through the wall of pleasure crafts to the approaching leviathan.

  Lightholler, standing at the ship’s wheel, turned to the first officer and gave the order. Blast after blast emerged from the ship’s foghorn. Johnson, at his station on the forecastle deck, signalled the release of the rockets and one by one they screamed, piercing the dense veil above to explode in flares of blue and white.

  New York replied with a series of fireworks that erupted into the grey skies from countless barges. Fire ships in the bay shot jets of steaming water hundreds of feet into the air, turning the heavens into a deluge of rainbows where the sun caught the spray. A cacophony of horns and trumpets bellowed from red-faced men lining the shores and crowding the bobbing boats.

  Lightholler and the first officer stood in the wheelhouse watching the spectacle that played out before them.

  “Well, sir, we did it,” the first officer said.

  “Better late than never, Mr Fordham.” Lightholler smiled.

  Giant airships slowly descended from the heavens. German Zeppelins competed with Chinese Skyjunks and Confederate dirigibles, bearing messages of greeting in a host of languages. A century overdue, but heartily welcome, the Titanic nudged her way into New York Harbor.

  THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

  I

  April 21, 2012

  New York City, Eastern Shogunate

  Captain John Jacob Lightholler woke with a start. Having spent the better part of a fortnight aboard the Titanic, he was pleasantly reassured to find himself in his hotel suite at the Waldorf-Astoria.

  Nightmares had plagued him through the restless nights at sea. Never an easy sleeper, he’d attributed them to fatigue, yet still they persisted. By daylight they would slip from his mind, leaving a filmy residue that often darkened his mood. Nightly, he would find himself back aboard the ship, not as its captain but as a fixture of the vessel. A figurehead like those that had adorned the ships of old, pinned to the prow as it ploughed forwards into a shelf of ice that stretched out, vast as a continent, before him.

  The last few days were a blur. Speeches, luncheons, keys to the city. He’d been hounded by the media, who delighted in reporting the fact that he was a direct descendant of two of the original Titanic’s most notable voyagers: Charles Lightholler, the ship’s second officer; and John Jacob Astor, the first-class passenger who had gone on to become the Union’s third president. It served to distract the public from the darker aspects of the voyage.

  The last-minute inclusion of the Russo-Japanese peace talks aboard ship had proved a disappointment. Under the supervision of the supposedly neutral German diplomats, no satisfactory conclusion had been reached. What had begun as a skirmish between Russian and Japanese soldiers over a border town in Manchuria held the threat of becoming a full-scale war. Newspapers carried accounts of mounting violence in Asia and the eastern provinces of Russia as the Japanese Imperial forces held to their westwards advance.

  Both the Russians and the Japanese on board had maintained a veneer of civility, despite the inconclusive nature of the peace talks. Over the past week, under the pretence of social gatherings, Lightholler had been closely questioned by Russian and Japanese envoys alike; both parties displaying a surprising interest in his take on the conference. The Germans, who had up till now remained out of the escalating conflict in Asia, seemed particularly intrigued by his opinions on the subject.

  He licked parchment-dry lips. His head throbbed.

  He gingerly picked up the phone at his bedside and ordered breakfast and the morning paper. He was told that a stack of messages awaited him at the lobby desk. He replaced the phone and lay back on the bed, gazing dreamily at the ceiling, lulled sleepwards by the faint sounds of the New York morning that drifted through his hotel window.

  He was jolted out of his reverie by a knock at the door. He eased himself out of the bed and grabbed a dressing gown that lay draped over his bedside chair. He padded down the short hallway to the door and opened it. Three men stood there, decked out in grey suits. They shared the haggard appearance of journalists chasing an elusive story.

  “I’m not doing any interviews today,” he said.

  “We’re not reporters, Captain,” the tallest of them said with a ready smile. “We’re here o
n government business.” His voice, rich in timbre, held the slightest tremor.

  Lightholler couldn’t place the accent. He arched an eyebrow, saying, “Which government?”

  “We’re from Houston.” The smile faded as the man drew a wallet out of his coat jacket and flashed his identification.

  Lightholler peered forwards to examine the card. It identified the man as Joseph Kennedy, an agent of the Confederate Bureau of Intelligence. He scrutinised his visitor.

  “Captain, if we could have a few moments of your time.”

  “Not today,” Lightholler replied curtly. “You can contact me via the offices of the White Star Line on Monday if you wish.” He began to close the door.

  One of the other men wedged his foot into the gap and placed a wide hand on the door’s frame. He was stocky, his red hair cut close to his scalp. He raised his glance leisurely to meet Lightholler’s.

  Lightholler sighed. “You’re Confederates. You have no jurisdiction here.”

  “We’re well aware of that, Captain. However, we have a delicate matter we need to discuss with you,” Kennedy said. “A matter of some urgency.”

  Lightholler wondered at the delicacy involved in having three Confederates barge into his hotel suite at this early hour. Relations between the Union and Confederate states remained cool at best, even though the Second Secession had occurred eighty years ago. That the separation of the southern states hadn’t led to outright civil war that time did little to alleviate the ill feelings that remained between the two neighbours.

  Kennedy now appeared more familiar to Lightholler as he swept the years away from his visage. The red-haired man was unknown. The third man, however, had been aboard the Titanic. He’d claimed to be an historian.

  Kennedy glanced over his shoulder, bared a toothy grin, and added, “Besides, you don’t want your breakfast to get cold.”

  They stood aside to reveal a thin negro dressed in the white livery of the Waldorf’s staff. He was carrying a silver dining tray. “Excuse me, Captain,” he said, smiling. “Eggs Benedict, toast, Virgin Mary and coffee?”

  Lightholler stepped back, nodding. “Yes, yes, I suppose so. Thank you.” He motioned the man towards the drawing room.

  Kennedy waited for the attendant’s departure before speaking again. “This is Commander David Hardas.” He waved expansively towards the red-haired man, who nodded in acknowledgment. “You’ve met Darren Morgan,” Kennedy added.

  Lightholler nodded. “Yes, on my ship.” He tightened the sash around his dressing gown. “So you’re Joseph Kennedy.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Joseph Kennedy.”

  Kennedy smiled.

  Lightholler reappraised the situation.

  Major Joseph Robard Kennedy, the great-grandson of Joseph Kennedy I; Joseph the Patriarch. This Kennedy had enjoyed a brief but distinguished career in the Second Ranger War, back in the 1990s. Leading the shattered remains of a Confederate division through the San Juan Mountains and across the Rio Grande, he’d cut the supply lines of the invading Mexican army. The subsequent arrival of the German Atlantic fleet in the Gulf of Mexico had led to the hasty withdrawal of Mexican troops.

  For the Texans, it was the third war they had fought with the Mexicans in a hundred years. The first was in 1920, when the Mexicans invaded the former United States of America. They were only beaten after a protracted two-year conflict that bled both countries dry. Soon after, America had endured the secession of the Southern States, while Mexico had experienced its last great revolution. The second time the Mexicans went to war with America, in the late 1940s, it was as the newly established Mexican Empire. Having absorbed its neighbours to the south, and following the occupation of Cuba, Mexico had returned its attention to the North. The Texas Rangers, forming the bulwark of the Confederate defence, had narrowly defeated them, thereby lending their name to the conflict.

  Barely fifty years later, the Second Ranger War had been another close call for the South. Though it could be argued that it was German intervention that halted the conflict, it was Joseph Robard Kennedy who had been the man of the moment. Riding high on his popularity, Kennedy had run for president of the Confederacy in 1998, but without success. His ingenuous policies were attributed to youth, but it was the stigma of his name that haunted him throughout his fleeting political career. Even then, Lightholler supposed, over thirty years after the event, Southerners recalled the blood spilled at Dealey Plaza.

  There had been little news about Joseph Kennedy since his departure from politics. Now, it appeared, he was working with Confederate intelligence. A curious form of backsliding to say the least. The easy grin that had adorned the television broadcasts of the time was barely altered by the passage of time. He still looked like he was in his early forties, at most.

  “Just what is it you want, Mr Kennedy?” Lightholler asked.

  Hardas coughed quietly and reached into his coat pocket. Lightholler stepped back abruptly.

  Kennedy let loose a good-natured laugh. “Captain, please, it’s not like that.” He nodded towards Hardas. “Here. This might help clear things up.”

  Hardas drew a slender cream envelope from his pocket and handed it to Lightholler. The thick red wax bore the seal of King Edward IX. Lightholler slit the envelope with a thumbnail. The letter within was brief and to the point. He shook his head slowly. Without looking up he turned and made his way back down the short corridor. His visitors followed him into the drawing room.

  Hardas walked over to a window and rested a hand on the sill. He whistled softly to himself as his gaze took in the room’s opulence. “Hell, Major,” he said, “I think I might just have to sign up with White Star.”

  Kennedy gave him a half-smile, then turned to Lightholler. “Captain, I take it the letter’s contents are clear to you?”

  “They’re clear alright, Major. They just don’t make any sense.”

  Lightholler dragged a chair over to the dining table. Absently, he waved the others to find seats. They took up positions on the various plush chairs that lined the room.

  The letter was dated April 19, written soon after his arrival in New York. The message was terse, the orders precise. He was instructed to offer the CBI his services until further notice. He folded the document carefully and placed it in one of his pockets.

  “There must be some mistake.”

  “Why is that, Captain?” Kennedy enquired.

  “Because I resigned my commission in the Royal Navy prior to leaving Southampton. I’m a civilian. These orders are from the War Ministry.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, they’re from the King himself,” Kennedy replied.

  Lightholler swore softly to himself. He’d seen it before. Associates who’d been demobbed, then shifted from military to civilian posts, usually high-profile occupations. Within a few months their names would turn up in the local papers, brief obituaries marking their passing. It was a recognised variation in recruitment for intelligence work. American officers, both Union and Confederate, called it “sheep-dipping”. But if that was the case here, why did London want him to work directly with the Confederacy rather than MI5? And why hadn’t London informed him directly, instead of using agents from a nation that was at best, the ally of an ally.

  “Your director must be well connected,” Lightholler observed carefully.

  Kennedy grinned wolfishly. “Let’s just say that some people owe me a favour or two.”

  A scowl swept Morgan’s features. Hardas remained impassive.

  Lightholler’s initial shock was fading to be replaced by anger. “Mind if I smoke?” he asked.

  “Your room, your lungs,” Kennedy said, smiling. He glanced at Hardas. “I’m used to it.”

  Lightholler retrieved a packet of Silk Cut from the window sill.

  Hardas rose from his seat and removed a butane lighter from his pocket. He lit Lightholler’s cigarette. “Mind if I join you, Captain?” He lit one of his own and returned to his chair, where he sat hunched
forwards, his cigarette cupped in both hands. He smoked rapidly.

  Navy, Lightholler thought, with too many years on deck. Hardas’s hair was cut short, little more than a red tinge on his broad scalp. A scar, barely visible, ran from his hairline across the right temple.

  Morgan was eyeing the breakfast. Lightholler took another drag of his cigarette. Of the three, the historian looked the worse for wear. His face was pallid, accentuating the bags under his eyes. His forehead gleamed with a thin layer of drying perspiration, the kind that accompanied sleepless nights rather than any exertion.

  “You make an unusual group,” Lightholler said finally. He tapped the ash from his cigarette. “I’m surprised you were allowed past the hotel foyer. In fact, considering the recent events in Russia, I’m surprised you were allowed across the Mason-Dixon Line at all.”

  “Well, Captain, these are strange times. And as I said earlier, people owe me favours.”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  Kennedy turned to Hardas with a gesture. Hardas lifted himself from his seat with a grunt. He mashed his cigarette into an adjacent ashtray, then pulled a small rectangular object from one of his coat pockets.

  Lightholler gave Kennedy a puzzled look.

  Kennedy was examining his fingernails.

  The object in Hardas’s hand emitted a low whine. He held it before him, sweeping it in broad strokes from side to side as he walked the extent of the room. Kennedy started whistling tunelessly through his teeth.

  “We’re clear, Major,” Hardas said, returning to his seat.

  Kennedy’s whistle faded away.

  “Just a formality?” Lightholler asked. It seemed a little late in the conversation to be checking for surveillance devices.