XXV
Above the Grand Staircase, the chandelier hung askew.
They descended level after level in Morgan’s wake. A few stewards stood along the stair, holding lifebelts before them as if presenting arms.
The ship groaned around them, offering preternatural grumblings as she vainly dealt with the Atlantic’s piecemeal intrusion. Morgan was thinking about a book he’d once read. Like Stead’s portentous novel, it dealt with an ocean liner lost at sea after colliding with an iceberg. Similarly, it had been published in the previous century, its dire message unheeded. It had been titled Futility.
Futility, from the Latin futilis, as in leaky or related to pouring.
He tried to dismiss the image of crumpled bulkheads and surging waters.
They were back on D deck, their cabin only yards away down the corridor. They had stood here, long ages ago, with Wells saying, “We need to get off this level. We need to be on the boat deck.” He was up there now, perhaps boarding the last lifeboat.
Morgan led them down a smaller staircase and out along Scotland Road. The corridor, so accustomed to the tramp of crewmen, was empty. It leaned crazily towards the bow. They worked their way against the gradient towards a wrought-iron gate by the engine casing. The enclosing walls of the great turbines below were cool and silent now. He twisted the latch and held the gate open for his companions, and suppressed the impulse to run back down the passageway.
The gate slammed after them with disconcerting finality.
“I hope you remember the way back,” Astor whispered.
Morgan gave him a strange look. He was thinking about breadcrumbs. The Astor he remembered was an elderly man who’d led his country through turbulent years. That country would never come into being, and this man would be dead within the hour. Morgan nodded to him reassuringly.
A wooden block was set in the wall above the doorway ahead. “Crew Quarters” was carved into it. Morgan reached the door and tried the latch.
He gazed back at Kennedy, his expression empty. “It’s locked.”
Kennedy shoved him aside and tried the latch. He pulled back and threw himself against the door. It held firm.
“Is there another way?” Astor ventured.
Kennedy slammed against the door again. It creaked its objection. Something was propped up behind it.
Morgan couldn’t think straight. They would have to back up. Traverse the aft corridors and return below, somewhere rear of the quarters.
Kennedy took a few steps back, his head tucked down and his shoulder forwards as he prepared for another charge.
There was a snapping sound from beyond and the door fell away on its hinges. Wells was standing there, within the small landing. He was wearing a lifebelt. His clothes were wet. He held an axe at his side.
Kennedy straightened up.
“Turns out the collapsible wasn’t to my taste either.” Wells smiled at Morgan. He nodded a greeting to Astor and added, “Down here.”
They took the winding metal stair down to F deck. They twisted their way between the boiler casings along a dimly lit passage. The carpet was damp in patches but there was no sign of water. The walls were dry. The kennels lay ahead.
Astor pointed up. A stain stretched across the ceiling.
“The compartments above us are flooded,” Wells said. “We’ll have to leave by the way you came.”
The door to the hold was secured by a heavy lock. It split at Wells’ third attempt. He left the axe quivering in the wooden panelling.
The entry opened into an expansive, high-roofed compartment lit by a series of naked bulbs that dangled away from them to cast wild outlines on the walls. A foul stench assailed Morgan, disorienting him further. The howls of distraught animals tortured his ears.
He eyed the caged animals. They pressed against metal, hackles raised, ears folded back. He watched Astor make his way to a larger stall at the far end of the hold. Stood transfixed as Kennedy followed him, the axe in hand. He had the weapon reversed, the haft upright.
Astor was calling for his dog in muted tones. A sharp yapping reply was echoed by the other animals. Morgan couldn’t stir from his place. Kennedy had the weapon raised. There was a swift movement and a dull clatter as it struck the floor. Wells was close by Kennedy. They struggled silently while Astor, preoccupied, worked the stall gate.
Morgan regained his motility. He raced up to them.
“He’s seen on deck with the dog, damn it.” Wells’ voice was a growled whisper.
“It’s just a story,” Kennedy replied, just as softly. He reached for the holster at his belt.
Wells had his hands locked around Kennedy’s wrist. “A bullet wound will be much worse.”
Kennedy stopped thrashing. He could have taken Wells any number of ways. “That’s why you came down here?”
“We don’t change a thing, and we don’t interfere.”
“How do we know this isn’t how it’s supposed to play out?”
“You didn’t murder me. You don’t kill him.”
“Why do you think I came down here?”
“The same reason you haven’t left on a lifeboat. To bear witness. To pay penance.”
Morgan took in the scene bitterly. It’s going to cost us, he thought.
Astor returned, smiling triumphantly. Behind him padded a small wiry dog, its coat dappled in gold and black. The terrier jumped repeatedly at the back of his thigh. He leaned over to scratch behind her cocked ears. “We should probably get going.”
“What about the other dogs?” Wells said. “What shall we do?”
“Rules of the sea, old boy.” Astor laughed. “Every man—and dog—for himself.”
Hurriedly, they moved among the cages, opening them. Within moments the cargo hold was transformed into a menagerie of animals that ran furiously around the room, snatching at portions of food and menacing one another.
They made for the doorway. They had difficulty avoiding the animals underfoot. Astor had his dog tucked up under an arm, the terrier licking excitedly at his face and chin. Morgan held the doorway open and Astor scurried through, pursued by a small horde that raced, barking, into the damp passageway.
Morgan heard a faint mewling sound. Wells stood before him, a small cat in his arms.
“Hurry up,” Astor shouted from up the hallway.
Morgan said, “You’re out of your mind. Leave it.”
Wells shook his head decisively.
“Kill it.”
“Gentlemen, I urge you to hurry.” Astor’s voice was more distant.
Kennedy was nowhere in sight. He still had the gun.
They ran out into the passageway.
Kennedy stood beside Astor at the foot of the winding stair. Water was spilling down in a cascade of icy spray. The dogs, directionless, were milling around their feet.
“Let’s go,” Astor cried, and began climbing the stairs.
They followed at his heels. The dogs pursued them up the watery stair. At the top they found Astor staring. The crew’s quarters were flooded. A wave frothed towards the landing. Beyond, the water surged out towards the corridor’s roof. Underlit, it seemed to course with a malign intelligence.
They sloshed their way hurriedly past the iron gate, calf-deep in the freezing water. They forded a path through the swirling debris to the next stairway. The dogs thronged at their knees.
On D deck, the reception area was saturated. A tide of water lapping at the vestibule coaxed wicker furniture down into its maw.
A middle-aged man in a corner of the room was hunched over an open suitcase, picking at the scraps that floated away from his overturned valise. Kennedy called out to him and the man answered with a feral growl. Wells advanced and the man swiped him away with a poorly thrown punch. One of the dogs, a greyhound, bounded forwards and tore at his jacket with snapping jaws. His eyes flashed primordial understanding. He threw the bag aside and ran for the Grand Staircase. They all dashed after him.
Morgan slipped on the sta
irs, slamming his jaw against hard oak. He scrambled to his feet, with Kennedy dragging him up by the collar. The ship seemed to heave beneath them, shifting violently. He couldn’t catch his breath. A knot of muscle in his chest clenched tightly. Springing up onto A deck, he was granted a view of the stairwell below. It wound down into the briny water.
The first-class entrance had been abandoned, save for two men. Guggenheim and his valet. Neither wore a lifebelt. Guggenheim turned to Astor and said, “Goodbye, John.” He knelt down to pat the terrier, and offered the rest of them a cursory nod.
Soft music greeted them on the boat deck. Hartley’s group had abandoned their spirited ragtime in favour of a waltz. The pack of dogs dispersed along the slanting floor, their yelps only compounding the surreal aspect of the night. The shrieks from distant decks might have been the wind but there was no movement over the ship. The air was a frigid mantle.
Astor turned to face them and said, “My gratitude to you all.” He continued to Kennedy, “I believe you would have made it quick, and I’m thankful for that, but I so wanted one more moment with Madeleine, even if it’s shared across the water.” He drew the terrier into his arms and left them, returning to the railing.
Kennedy’s jaw hung slack.
Wells said, “He must have seen you.”
There were no lifeboats in sight. Passengers stood quietly in small groups. A few glanced back at them with quick, furtive movements.
Kennedy said. “He’s as tied to this as we are.”
Wells reached into his pocket and withdrew the scrawny mass of the cat. He presented it to Morgan.
Morgan glanced at Kennedy.
“Patricia likes cats.” Kennedy’s tone was remote.
Some undertow had already taken hold of them. It curled about in a manifest coda to all their dark nights on this ship. It promised an end, at last, to misery.
Morgan felt it reaching a tendril towards him. He found himself taking a step back.
“Do any cats survive the sinking?” he asked softly.
“It can be our secret,” Wells replied.
Morgan reached out and drew the cat away from their dark current. It stirred, warm in his palms.
XXVI
The band fell silent.
In the ensuing stillness Morgan heard voices joined in prayer. A small gathering on the second-class promenade began singing a hymn.
The stern decks were crammed with steerage passengers and crew. Ahead, the Titanic’s bow had yielded to the black ocean. Her rigging jutted out of the rising water, isolated and forfeit. Much further out, the lifeboats coasted beneath the flicker of lantern light; lost stars spread out across the water.
The singers wavered. Individual voices struggled to carry the melody, faltering, until the deep tones of a cello swelled beneath them, bracing their song. The rest of Hartley’s band joined in.
“Is that what I think it is?” Kennedy asked.
“Nearer, My God, to Thee,” Wells intoned. “That’s last call, gentlemen.”
Some crewmen were gathered around the officers’ quarters. Oars had been arranged beneath the collapsible lifeboats. It looked like they planned on sliding them down onto the deck. Within moments, collapsible A was loose. It crashed down to entrench itself in a portion of the splintered floorboards. Collapsible B dropped next and landed upside down on the port side of the deck.
Wells looked at them and said, “They’re going to be our best bet.”
“It’s going to be a shit fight,” Morgan replied.
Captain Smith emerged from the wheelhouse. He had a megaphone pressed to his lips. “Do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves.” He moved across the deck, repeating the message at regular intervals.
“If you miss out on the lifeboats, get into the water fast,” Wells said. “You don’t want to be caught on the stern. The crowds will drag you down, if the ship’s suction doesn’t.” He was bent forwards, hands on his knees, as if preparing for a sprint. “The ship’s baker has thrown most of the deckchairs overboard. Gather a few together. Stay as dry as you can. It’s the cold that will get you, not the water.” He turned to them and said, “Good luck.”
Kennedy tightened his lifebelt.
Morgan’s eyes strayed to the bulge of his holster.
Kennedy caught the movement and said, “Do you want me to shoot you?”
“I’ll take my chances, Major. See you on the lifeboat.”
Kennedy crouched down too, more for balance, as the bow dipped further towards the water.
“Joseph?”
“What is it?” Kennedy’s eyes, hooded in shadow, revealed nothing.
There was a sudden gurgling noise as the ocean began boiling over the forwards railings. It swept towards the bridge.
“May your dance bring good cloud.”
Kennedy gave him the broadest smile. “Good cloud, Darren.”
The ship lurched suddenly. Then Kennedy was running, Wells at his side, towards the upright lifeboat. Morgan, stumbling, gave chase.
Someone had cut the falls of the collapsible and it was sliding forwards. Passengers and crew pitched themselves desperately into the retreating boat. A crest of water crashed over the boat deck, spilling most of the collapsible’s occupants. It careened into a davit and began drifting against the forwards funnel. The bridge slipped beneath the water.
Smith had cast aside the megaphone. Morgan caught a last glimpse of him diving over the ship’s side.
Kennedy and Wells were lost to sight.
The lifeboat slipped by, yards away. Morgan felt the cat scratching wildly within his coat. He scanned for a deckchair or a barrel, seeking a dry way to safety. A crowd of people poured from the first-class entrance. They dashed aft at the sight of the oncoming water, only to find themselves blocked by the promenade railing. They swarmed over the barrier or climbed to the irrational safety of the quarters’ roof. The air was rent by their screams.
A woman tore past him, the woollen bundle of a child pressed to her chest. Two men fought over a lifebelt. It split, sending them both off balance and skittering along the deck.
The ship tilted forwards in preparation for her plunge.
Morgan reached for the side railing. Bodies slammed past him, hurled to the waves below. He dragged the hem of his coat as high as the lifebelt permitted, bringing his burden up to his neck. He gave the sloping deck a final search for Kennedy. The collapsible bobbed amid a throng of black bodies.
All along the ship the lights flickered and went out as one.
Morgan leapt out into the void.
XXVII
Kennedy flailed. A thousand blades pierced him.
He rose only to be drawn down again. The cold pinioned him. He twisted and turned—each frantic movement a paroxysmal spasm.
He broke the surface yards away from the collapsible. He searched for Wells and Morgan. A plank struck the side of his head and he was thrown into the arms of another passenger. Hands scraped his face, hooking under his belt. He lashed out viciously and reached into the darkness. His fingers scrabbled over the edge of a deckchair, tearing at the material.
He tumbled with his prize, seeking balance. The ocean foamed.
The Titanic was an impossible shuddering cliff face towering above him. It loomed there, casting an avalanche of bodies and debris. Gutted and torn from within, it trumpeted the Apocalypse; an unearthly, ear-splitting clamour that drowned out the cries of those in the water. It hung there, tottering for long moments, while overhead the vast black finger of her funnel clawed at the sky.
His breath came as rapid stabs. He kicked out towards the collapsible. One chance in twenty. Thrashing bodies churned the ocean in fierce eddies. Astor’s face, a haggard knot of terror, flashed into view. Slipped past. He reached out and his hands closed around a gnarled end of rope. Benumbed, he began pulling himself along its length, only sure of his grasp by the sight of his own frozen fingers shifting along its twining cable.
A crescendo of noise
threatened to crack open his skull. He twisted, staring up. The funnel had curved forwards on itself as if seeking severance from the ship. It broke from its mooring, plummeting, filling the night.
The collapsible was a body’s length away.
His hand clutched its side, fingernails tearing at the wood. One in—
The sky fell in an explosion that flung him bodily into a cloud of ash as the funnel struck water inches away. He was spinning, borne on a soot-capped wave, turned over and over.
He gasped for air, swallowing brackish water.
His chest was caught within a vice of frost-tipped jaws.
He knew nothing save this ice-clad, endless, wave-tossed existence.
He broke the surface.
He spun, searching the waters for a lifeboat. The Titanic towered within an expanding circle of her waste. Her stern reared back, slapping the ocean in harsh, futile protest. The wave reached him, a swell that lifted him high above the devastation for a brief moment.
He sought the ruins for a boat. He found the staves of a barrel and propped himself partially out of the water, snatching at the frigid air for sustenance. The cold worked its way through his bones. Despite the pain, his eyes were drawn back to the ship. Her stern rose again: majestic, terrible. Silently she began to glide, forwards and down, in a final approximation of her earlier grace.
The waters closed over her. Bodies, near and far, jerked among the fragments. Their cries were one long dirge. He lent his own cracked voice to the proceedings without knowing it.
Arms closed around him. Sluggish, pulling him away from the barrel and down. His own reflexive retaliation was lethargic; shrugging and twisting slow. A fist connected weakly with his jaw. An open hand tugged at his belt. He kicked, swinging broad sidewinders. Grabbed a handful of thick hair, yanking Wells’ pale face into view.
He released him.
Wells hurled himself back, treading water and staring at Kennedy.
Kennedy panted, floundering. Other bodies, still, glided between them.
The Company of the Dead Page 69
