Deadly Voyage

by Hugh Brewster

  “Good morning to you, Jamie!” Frank Browne called out when I reached the boat deck. He was there with his camera and said he’d just taken a beautiful shot of the sunrise.

  “Have you seen the coast of Ireland yet?” I asked.

  “It’ll be a while before we see that, I expect,” he replied. “I did spot something in the distance that I think was Land’s End.”

  Even though my English geography wasn’t perfect, I knew that Land’s End was at the tip of Cornwall, on the southwest coast of England. I hadn’t realized we would go by there on our way to Ireland.

  “I thought that I might take a snap inside the Marconi room, if they’ll let me,” Frank said as he walked toward a room on the boat deck that had wires hanging above its roof. “It’s amazing to think they can send wireless messages from the middle of the ocean nowadays.”

  He knocked on the door and we walked into a tiny room where a wireless operator was sitting at a desk against a wall that had two clocks on it, as well as boxes with dials and switches. He had earphones on and was using a small lever on the desk to tap out messages in Morse code.

  “Can’t talk — too busy,” he said, glancing briefly up at us. I was surprised to see how young he looked, perhaps only four or five years older than me.

  “Can I take a quick photo?” Frank asked. The man nodded.

  While Frank took his shot there was a rattle from one of the brass tubes that curved down from the ceiling against the wall. Then a small cylinder popped out from the horn-shaped end of the tube and landed in a tray on the desk.

  “Another one!” said the operator as he flipped open the end of the cylinder and pulled out a rolled-up piece of paper. “You leave your message at the enquiry office,” he told us, glancing briefly our way, “and they shoot ’em up ’ere through this tube.”

  Just then another wireless operator, who seemed to be the boss, opened a door and glared at us. Behind him I could see a second small room filled with equipment. Frank and I quickly backed out the entry door onto the boat deck.

  “Well, I suppose passengers aren’t supposed to just drop in,” Frank remarked as we walked away. “But that pneumatic tube system is remarkable! Works on compressed air, I believe.”

  I’d seen one in a department store in Montreal, and remembered being amazed when our receipt and some change had come rattling down the pneumatic tube after my mother had bought me new shoes.

  Frank checked his watch. “I think it’s time for breakfast,” he said. He headed toward the grand staircase while I made my way back to our stateroom.

  “Up early, I see,” said my father when I got there. He was already dressed and waiting for my mother.

  As we walked into the dining saloon I noticed that some people were having fish for breakfast, which made my stomach flip. I wrinkled my nose at the herring and haddock on offer and chose fresh fruit and Quaker oats instead, followed by a tomato omelette and raisin scones with marmalade.

  As soon as I was finished I asked my father if I could take Maxwell for a walk.

  “The kennels are on the boat deck, but I’m not sure exactly where,” he said. “I’ll come with you after breakfast if you like.”

  I said I’d be fine on my own and headed off to find Max. When I reached the boat deck the sun broke through the clouds. I strolled along beside the railing, listening for the sound of barking from the kennels. Then I saw a man in a white apron carrying a bucket of what looked like bones. I followed him to just behind the fourth funnel, where he opened a door and the sounds of yips and barks floated out on the sea air. Inside were rows of cages filled with many different kinds of dogs. Maxwell noticed me immediately and began jumping up and yelping. As the man in the white apron put down his bucket of bones, the dogs started barking even more loudly.

  “One ’a them yours?” the man asked in a broad Yorkshire accent.

  “Yes, that one there,” I yelled above the din, pointing to Maxwell. “I’d like to take him for a walk.”

  “You’ll ’ave to ask the steward,” he said. “I’m just the ship’s butcher. I bring ’em bones and scraps from the galley.”

  The steward soon arrived and unlocked Max’s cage. I managed to snap his leash onto his collar just as he made a dash for the door. He was so excited to be out of the kennel, he pulled me out into the sunshine and I had to run to keep up. I eventually stopped him by the portside railing to see if there was any sight of land.

  “An Airedale!” I suddenly heard a voice say. “Hello, pup, hello!”

  A boy was kneeling down beside Max, patting him and getting licked all over his face. “We have an Airedale back home,” he said. “What’s yours called?”

  “Maxwell,” I said, “or just Max. He answers to both.”

  “Maxwell, Maxwell, Maxmaxmax,” the boy went on as he buried his face in Maxwell’s neck. “You’re a very good dog, a very good dog, yes you are!”

  I realized that this was the same boy I’d seen in the Palm Room last night.

  “What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.

  “We call him Otsie,” he replied.

  “Otsie?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  “Well, we got him near our summer place on Lake Otsego, so my sister said we should call him after the lake. I thought it was a dumb name, but when you shorten it to Otsie, it’s okay. And we’re all used to it by now!” he explained.

  “I’m Jamie Laidlaw,” I said, “from Montreal.”

  “Jamie Canuck!” he said, standing up and shaking my hand. “I’m John Ryerson.”

  “Johnnie the Yank!” I replied, and he grinned.

  “Do you speak French?” he asked.

  “Only a little,” I said.

  “Better than me!” he said with a laugh. “I can’t speak any. My mother has a French maid named Victorine and I can’t make out a word she says.”

  Suddenly Johnnie grabbed Max’s leash and raced off down the deck with him, yahoo-ing loudly.

  “Hey!” I yelled, chasing after him. I found him catching his breath near one of the lifeboats.

  “Just thought I’d put Max through his paces,” he said with a grin.

  “Yankee dog thief!” I said, punching his arm.

  He tapped me back on the shoulder and said, “Aww, you Canucks just have to learn to keep up!”

  “Look,” I said, pointing over the rail, “Land ho!” There was just the faintest trace of some hills in the distance.

  “The Emerald Isle,” said Johnnie. “Too bad we’re not landing there. I’ve never been to Ireland.”

  Suddenly Max started barking and pulling on his leash. He had spotted another dog — an Airedale walking alongside a tall man with a large black moustache. The man brought his dog over and the two Airedales began sniffing each other.

  “You boys have good taste in dogs,” the man said. “What’s his name?”

  “Maxwell,” I replied.

  “Kitty, meet Maxwell,” the tall man said to his dog just as the two Airedales began growling at each other and raising their hackles. It looked like a fight was about to start, so the man pulled on Kitty’s leash and quickly moved on down the deck.

  “You know who that was?” Johnnie asked me after he’d left.

  I shook my head.

  “John Jacob Astor,” he said.

  I shook my head again.

  “The Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, you’ve heard of that?” he asked. This time I nodded.

  “Well, he owns it,” Johnnie continued, “and most of New York City as well. My father says he’s America’s richest man.”

  “Well, we have Canada’s richest man at our table,” I replied. “Mr. Molson has his own yacht and owns a bank and also Molson’s beer — maybe you’ve heard of that?”

  “They served beer at lunch yesterday,” Johnnie said. “I asked for some but the steward said I was too young.”

  “My father would have a fit if he caught me drinking beer,” I said. “At my school in England, some boys were expelled for going to a pub. E
nglish boarding schools are very strict. I’m glad to be out of there.”

  “Did you have to play cricket?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I could never make sense of it,” I replied. “Baseball seems a much better game to me.”

  When I asked him where he went to school in the States, he looked down and hesitated a little before saying, “Well, umm, I have a tutor, Miss Bowen. But only because we’ve been travelling abroad. She’s actually on board with us.”

  I thought having a tutor and being taught at home would be even worse than being sent to an English boarding school, so I decided to change the subject by suggesting we take Maxwell back to the kennels. After we had put Max back in his cage and admired the other dogs we went down one level to the A-deck promenade. Its enclosed windows made it a little warmer for sitting on deck chairs.

  Before long, we came closer to the Irish coast and I could see jagged cliffs with waves crashing against them. There were sandy coves and looming headlands too, with green hills shrouded in mist.

  “Look, there’s a castle,” I said, pointing to a ruin on a hilltop.

  After a while, we felt the Titanic slowing down. I asked a crewman standing nearby if we were arriving at Queenstown.

  “We’re not too far away,” he replied, “but we ’ave to pick up the ’arbour pilot. Then we anchor off Roche’s Point.”

  I didn’t quite understand what he was saying at first because he had such a strong accent. But he eventually explained that the harbour pilot would help guide the ship toward Queenstown, where it would anchor outside the harbour.

  Johnnie and I watched the pilot come on board and later saw the lighthouse on Roche’s Point near the mouth of Queenstown harbour. I suggested to Johnnie that we have an early lunch and took him down to our stateroom to ask my parents if he could sit at our table.

  “I have a better idea,” my mother said. “I’ll ring for the steward and ask him to bring you boys some sandwiches.”

  I quickly agreed with her, because we didn’t want to waste a lot of time in the dining saloon. And I didn’t want Major Peuchen to pepper Johnnie with questions about his family. It seemed as if Johnnie’s family was really rich, so the Major would want to know all about them.

  After we had eaten the sandwiches, Johnnie and I put on our coats and hurried back up to the boat deck. A tender down below had piles of mailbags on it, along with the people who were waiting to come on board. One of them was playing the bagpipes on the tender’s deck.

  A second tender was approaching from the harbour with smoke belching out of its single funnel. Soon there were crowds of people up on deck watching as the mailbags were unloaded and the arriving passengers were brought aboard through a lower gangway. Some vendors from Queenstown came on board too, and held up handmade Irish lace for passengers to purchase. I noticed Mr. Astor bargaining with one woman and then pulling out a wad of bills to buy something.

  When I saw the last tender being loaded I suggested to Johnnie that we head down to D deck so I could say goodbye to Frank Browne and Jack Odell. We caught up with Frank and the Odells in the Palm Room. He shook my hand, wished me well and said that he would never forget his two days on board this beautiful ship. Johnnie and I went back up onto the boat deck to wave him and the Odells off. I smiled when I saw that Frank was still shooting photos as he departed.

  Then came the clanking of the anchor being raised. Over that din came some startled shrieks. People were pointing at the fourth funnel. Johnnie and I looked up and began to laugh. A man with a soot-blackened face was peering out from the top of it. I realized that he was just one of the stokers who had climbed up a ladder inside the funnel to get some fresh air. Obviously some people didn’t know that the fourth funnel was a dummy just used for ventilation.

  “He gave me such a fright! I thought it was the Devil himself!” said one woman in a very proper English accent. This made us both burst out laughing once again. “I thought it was the Devil himself!” would become a favourite laugh line for Johnnie and me.

  Smoke started belching out of the funnels as the Titanic got underway and began steaming along the south coast of Ireland. Johnnie and I walked the decks with Maxwell as we admired the passing scenery. After a few hours the coastline ended and we swung past a tall white lighthouse on a small rocky outcrop that marked the southern tip of Ireland. From there the ship turned westward to head out across the Atlantic. The sun was edging lower on the horizon when I heard the sound of the bagpipes again and spied the piper from Queenstown standing at the Titanic’s stern. As the Irish coastline retreated in the distance, he saluted the homeland he might never see again with a mournful dirge. Overhead, seagulls wheeled in the air as the green hills slowly became ever smaller, until they finally disappeared in the mist.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  AT SEA

  Saturday, April 13, 1912

  By Saturday, Johnnie and I were getting a little bored on the Titanic. It seemed like we had done everything there was to do on the ship. We had given Maxwell regular walks around the boat deck. We had tried playing deck shuffleboard, but neither of us knew the rules of the game. The gym instructor had kicked us out of the gymnasium on Friday morning for fooling around on the exercise machines. I had tried the stationary bike while Johnnie straddled the mechanical camel — a crazy contraption which gave you a wobbly ride that was supposed to be good for your liver. Johnnie had bounced around on it pretending to be an Arab sheik barking out commands to a camel. I thought it was hilarious, but the gym instructor, a short Scotsman who took his job very seriously, turned red in the face and told us to leave. So we went down and sweated in the Turkish Bath and relaxed on the loungers in the room with the coloured tiles and the bronze lamps. Charles Fortune and his father came in after their squash game and Charles joined us for a plunge in the swimming pool. The sea water had been heated a little, so it wasn’t icy cold.

  My parents seemed perfectly happy just sitting and reading in the first-class lounge and taking walks on deck. Mother was particularly glad that the weather was pleasant and the ocean so calm, since she had suffered from seasickness during our trip over on the Empress of Britain. Each day at noon the distance we had travelled was posted near the purser’s office and people would gather around to check on our progress. At lunch on Friday, Major Peuchen had said that J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the White Star Line, told him that the Titanic was performing even better than the Olympic had on her maiden voyage.

  * * *

  After lunch on Saturday I ran into Johnnie in the Palm Room just as he was stuffing something wrapped in a napkin into his pocket.

  “Snacks for later?” I asked.

  “Just getting a little food for my rat,” he replied.

  “For your what?” I asked.

  “My rat,” he repeated, as if everybody had one. “Want to see him?”

  “Sure,” I said, thinking that Johnnie was more full of surprises than just about anyone I’d ever met.

  “This will have to be our secret,” he whispered as we went into his room, “because my parents don’t know about my rat. Neither does Miss Bowen. Victorine knows, because she was with me when I bought it at a market in Paris. But she promised she wouldn’t tell.”

  From under his bed, Johnnie pulled out a small wire cage. When he took the cloth cover off, sure enough, there, sitting calmly, was a large white rat with a long tail. Johnnie poured some water into the little bowl in the cage.

  “Do you have a name for him?” I asked.

  “I just call him Rat,” Johnnie replied, as he fed him lettuce from his hand.

  The rat’s pointed nose and fat little face suddenly gave me an idea.

  “Sykes!” I said. “We should call him Sykes. He looks just like a prefect I hated at school.”

  “We can call him Sykes, if you like,” Johnnie replied as the rat nibbled lettuce from his hand.

  “Do you think Sykes would like to see the sea?” I asked.

  “I don’t think he’s ev
er seen the sea,” Johnnie said with a grin. “He probably doesn’t even know he’s on a boat. Let’s take him for a walk. I’ll just keep him in my pocket till we’re clear of my family.”

  As we walked along the A-deck promenade toward the bow, Johnnie kept his hand in his pocket to cover any telltale wriggling.

  “Oh, ugh!” he yelped as we approached the forward railing. “Sykes just pooped on my hand!”

  “Oh no,” I said, trying not to laugh as I pulled out my handkerchief. “Here, clean it off with this.”

  As Johnnie wiped his hand there was suddenly a yipping sound behind us. It was Mr. Astor’s dog, scratching at Johnnie’s leg while Mr. Astor pulled back on her leash. Kitty obviously smelled a rat. All of a sudden, Sykes popped out of Johnnie’s pocket, hit the deck and scurried along beside the railing. Johnnie took off in pursuit.

  “Wait!” I called out and ran after him, leaving a puzzled Mr. Astor behind to restrain Kitty. Sykes was already heading down the stairs to the forward well deck. He crawled underneath a metal gate at the top of the steps. Johnnie vaulted over the gate and then stumbled and rolled down the stairway onto the deck below.

  A sign on the gate said For Use of Crew Only but I decided to clamber over it anyway. When I reached the well deck I found Johnnie prowling around the base of one of the giant cargo cranes. Nearby was a hatch covered with canvas. If Sykes gets under there, I thought, he’ll be gone forever.

  “There he is!” Johnnie shouted, pointing forward. Sykes was climbing a set of steps that led up to the forecastle deck, where the foremast stood. On the deck beneath it the anchor chains were stretched out beside huge iron bollards. I knew we’d be in big trouble if we went up there, but Johnnie was already bounding up the stairs, so I followed.

  “He could be anywhere up here,” I said when I got to the top of the steps. But Johnnie was already beginning to climb up onto one of the big round windlasses that raised the anchor chains, to get a higher view.