“All fluid robbed of him in hours,” added Thomas. “Please, we have a letter from our Dean and our professor of surgery at Mater Infirmorum Hospital where these bodies—not mannequins were dissected.”
“Imagine every organ shriveled to a tenth its size, sir,” continued Declan. “All fluid down to the spinal fluid gone… bone marrow gone. Take a closer look at the photos.”
Both captain and ship’s doctor did so. “There are no… they have no eyes,” noticed Captain Smith immediately.
“Shriveled to the size of a walnuts!” said Thomas.
“Their eyes’ve sunken deep into the sockets!”
“Do you want to see this kind of thing happen aboard Titanic?” asked Ransom. “Captain, you need to make some serious—” Ransom stopped, interrupted by the subtle sensations below his feet. “The ship is moving at a higher rate of speed.”
Lightoller snatched out his watch from his vest pocket where it dangled on a fob and he glanced at the time. “Yes… right on time, and it would appear that you three are on your way to a Queenstown jail cell after you enjoy a stint in our brig below.”
“Captain, you must see our urgency.” Declan opened both hands into a beggar man’s gesture.
When this failed to move the stony captain, Ransom slammed a fist atop one of the photos. “This disease may not be aboard, but it may well be here now, feeding on your crew, your bakers, your wait staff, your maids, those stokers—picture them all dead! Imagine it. Are you officers of Titanic willing to gamble with the lives of all on board—sirs?” Ransom’s iron gaze went from Smith to O’Laughlin and back again.
Officer Lightoller, Dr. O’Lauglin, and Captain Smith all exchanged a variety of confused looks; they then huddled in one corner, muttering to one another until Lightoller stepped away from the two senior officers, to ask, “How’re your drinks? Need refreshing, gents?”
“Where’s Murdoch?” asked Ransom, realizing the other man had slipped from the room.
Even as he said it, Ransom realized the meaning of Murdoch’s disappearing act, for at the same moment, the doctor’s office door slammed open with Murdoch, holding a presumably loaded gun that Ransom recognized as the British Webley, a six-shooter. The two hefty crewmen were also armed and on either side of him.
Ransom instantly sobered up as Captain Smith announced, “All right—let’s see how smart the captain of the Titanic is indeed, gentlemen.”
Smith had given some coded word or signal to Murdoch to act, either that or he signaled for Dr. O’Laughlin to signal to Murdoch. Either way, Ransom and the young interns were now being put in chains and led away—their protests ignored as Captain Smith and Dr. O’Laughlin laughed and toasted their successful ruse.
Ransom heard part of the reason behind the hilarity over the laughter when O’Laughlin said, “And we took the three scoundrels down without firing a shot.”
“And no one harmed,” Smith added.
This as Ransom and his medical friends were shoved along toward the lift to be taken to some dog kennel below and locked up before being put off at Queenstown.
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 somewhere in the left of darkness.
Lightoller handed the bag through the bars to Declan; he looked somewhat apologetic at how things had worked out, but he said, “Did I not warn you three?”
“You did indeed, sir, but I thought it the drink talking.”
Lightoller and Murdoch strolled off toward the lift to return to the upper reaches of Titanic, but it was as far as Lightoller got. Murdoch abandoned Lightoller to the duty of overseeing the prisoners. Lightoller must now assign men twenty-four hours a day to act as jail keepers.
“Mr. Lightoller,” Alastair said to him, “do you believe a word of our story? Have you not a single doubt? Man, we are who we say we are; my badge is authentic.”
“It matters little what I think, Constable.”
“Can you get a wireless message to Belfast—if not the police then the ship yard to get word to Constable Reahall?”
“I doubt I can get a wireless sent.”
“Why not? You’re an officer.”
“The wireless shack is inundated with requests to send messages both to America and Paris… it seems everyone aboard thinks it’s a novelty. Those poor chaps in the wireless room haven’t had any sleep!”
“But this is important.”
“Besides, I take a risk doing that; I’d be thrown in there with you men.”
“Then at least read this,” pleaded Declan, handing him his journal. “Please read it—and our letters of recommendation tucked in the back.”
“That much I suppose I can do. I am sorry about this, lads, and I don’t think you’re working for Cunard.”
“What’s the tipoff?” asked Ransom.
“You… you’re American.”
“How can you know that?”
“Your Belfast accent comes and goes.”
“Ahhh…”
“All I know for sure is that Cunard doesn’t hire American spies. Fact is, they dislike you Americans, intensely so; they rely on London-born chaps as a rule. That and Liverpool. Or Southampton for such as sabotage. You young fellas, you just don’t look the part.” He eyed Ransom, clearly believing that he did look the part of some kind of charlatan.
“For God’s sake man,” shot back Ransom, “why didn’t you say all this to your captain to at least help these boys out?”
“Well it just didn’t seem… it wasn’t my place.”
“At least you don’t think we are common gutter trash.” Ransom pounded the cage and it rattled as a result.
Lightoller nervously laughed; he’d pulled back from the lockup as a result of Ransom’s bullish behavior. “I came up in Liverpool.” His last statement held a mix of pride and sadness weighing it down at once as if he might add ‘enough said’.
Lightoller took the book and letters away with him, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll send down an evening meal for you in a few hours. Have to find a crewman to take first watch over you.”
“Nice of you Titanic officers to watch over us!” joked Alastair.
“There’s nothing funny about this!” shouted Thomas, looking all about them in the semi-darkened area behind the crates of cargo stacked to the ceiling. Thomas found a bunk and threw himself onto it.
“Thomas is right, Constable Ransom. What’re we to do now?”
“Wait for Lightoller to do his light reading, and hope we have convinced at least one man outside these bars.”
“You mean hope that we get out of here before the disease gets us,” complained Thomas.
“This place down here,” added Declan, “iron ore walls somewhat like that cave in Belfast, the mine shaft; looks a perfect place for… for…”
“Go ahead, say it,” replied Ransom, “a perfect breeding ground for that thing… and we’re smack in the midst of its hunting grounds and locked here. Helpless!”
“All cheery thoughts.” Declan did a little vault onto his chosen bunk.
Thomas bemoaned, “We-We gotta get off this ship, save our damned selves.”
“If… if it begins spreading,” Declan near whispered. “I saw some lifeboats out there.”
“I see you’ve learned to take in your surroundings, Declan,” said Ransom, testing how hard his bunk was before lying back. “Make a detective of you yet.”
“Thomas makes sense, Alastair.” Declan had decided against the one bunk for the identical one beside it. Lying now on his back, hands behind his head, he again spoke, “If we get shed of these bars, we should plot our escape from Titanic altogether; live to fight another day, you know? That is if they don’t come to their senses and quickly.”
“You mean if there’s no evidence aboard that the disease is here?” asked Alastair.
“No,” said Thomas, “I mean if they remain idiots and fools here in charge, like that self-important captain.”
“Smith is a great ship’s captain, Thomas,” argued Declan. “No one could easily believe our story. Look what it took to bring even Dr. B and the dean over to our side, not to mention Constable Reahall.”
“Declan is right and you, too, are right, T
homas.” Alastair paced the cell. “And so I am right.”
“Whatever do you mean, Alastair?” asked Declan.
“I mean we should get you two off Titanic, and that I’ll stay to see this through.”
The interns looked at one another, unsure what to say to this.
Ransom added, “Look… the only reason you needed to come aboard with me was to give credence to this cock’n’bull story of ours—to carry the letter from your teachers, to be taken seriously. Obviously, that isn’t happening; hell, they don’t believe a word of it, nor the authenticity of my badge.”
They all fell silent, each taking his own council… each wondering about the wisdom of their approach taken with Captain Edward Smith. Somewhere in a nearby room the noise of caged animals, pets no doubt of the rich and famous, making the Atlantic crossing with their masters. It seemed the animals would get excited, begin yipping and crying out and then settle into a silence.
After a silence of their own and a lot of pacing among the caged men, Ransom erupted with, “Smith did have a certain smugness about him, a superior attitude.”
“He’s earned it,” said Declan.
“Attitude like that is hard to break through.” Ransom paced like a lumbering, caged bear. “Damn sick of cages!” He tried to rattle the bars until he realized they were fused to the floor and ceiling. “Can’t believe this!”
“I would think you’d be used to it by now,” muttered Thomas. “What about your burglary tools? Have ’em on ya?” Thomas almost broke into smile.
“Wouldn’t work on this lock.”
“Some detective you turned out to be.”
“Please, Thomas,” said Declan. “No need to be rude.”
“Rude? Look around you, Declan—we’re in a cell in the bowels of Titanic with this thing that dehydrates and kills a man in hours, and you’re worried I may hurt this old fart’s feelings?”
Ransom turned on Thomas and said, “This old fart is old enough to be your father, young man, so hold your tongue.”
Titanic 2012 (inspector alastair ransom) Page 30
