Carpathia

by Matt Forbeck

  "I prefer to think of us as a pair of seeing-eye dogs," Abe said.

  "So I'm blind now, am I?" Lucy arched an eyebrow at the young man.

  "Only to the possibilities that lay before us, but don't you worry about that. I'll show you the time of your life during our travels."

  Lucy pursed her lips together. "I don't have too long before my studies at Radcliffe begin in the fall," she said.

  "We'll just have to make the most of it until then." Abe patted her on her forearm.

  "I'm sure you will," Quin said, permitting himself a pang of jealousy. "You'll be whooping it across all fortyeight states while I'm stuck in an oak-lined closet somewhere in Manhattan, I'm sure."

  "If you're lucky!" said Abe. "Come on, old man. There's still time to change your mind."

  "Yes, Quin," Lucy said, her eyes shining with something like mischief. "Do come with us."

  Quin sucked at his teeth. "Would that I was born as independent and wealthy as our friend Abe here. I don't have a future as a lord looming over me or my pocketbook, I'm afraid."

  "Oh, this again?" Abe scowled. "It's not my fault I was born to nobility, is it? And that's not stopping Lucy from accompanying me. Why should it stop you?"

  "My father's not a wealthy doctor like Lucy's, complete with his own sanitarium. I'm so very fortunate he was able to pay for my education, much less send me off on a trip around the Colonies."

  "Growing up surrounded by crazy people wasn't nearly as romantic as it sounds," Lucy suppressed a false shiver.

  "It was for me," Abe said, "but then that's life among the lords, isn't it?"

  "Look." Quin had left this unsaid for long enough. He turned to Abe. "It's not that I'm ungrateful that you allowed me to join you in your cabin."

  "There's a 'but' there," Abe said. "I can hear it."

  "But I would have been happy to pay my own way across through steerage."

  Abe rolled his eyes. "And what would have been the point of that? I'd have spent every moment dragging you back up into first class then – or, worse yet, slumming with you down in the lower decks. It's so much easier for us all this way, don't you see?"

  "I'm here, aren't I?" Quin said.

  "And don't think we don't appreciate it," said Lucy. "Just imagine how dreadfully boring it would be if I'd had to spend the entire trip with only Abe around for conversation. I would have had to strike up a friendship with some of the other young ladies here, and you know that would only lead to conversations with them that would irritate their parents to the point at which Captain Smith would have to consider tossing me in the brig or throwing me overboard if only to put an end to the constant dissent."

  "Do they even have a brig on this boat?" Abe said. "Seems like they should have a proper prison instead, considering how large it is."

  "The point is," Quinn said, pressing on, "I just don't have the resources that the pair of you do, and I'd appreciate not being constantly reminded about it."

  The other two, who had been giggling at each other, fell silent at this. Abe glared at Quin, while Lucy lowered her dark eyes, embarrassed.

  "So, we're back to this again," Abe said when he managed to open his mouth. "It's always about class with you. How passé."

  "Of course it would be to you," Lucy said. "Those standing on the top of the mountain rarely have reason to curse the darkness below."

  "Is that really how you think of me? I wonder what I ever did to deserve such a fiancée?"

  Lucy held her gloved hand out in front of her, as if peering at her ring finger. "Are we engaged? How did no one inform me of this?"

  Quin grunted at this running joke between his two best friends. Lucy and Abe had always seemed to be destined to be married. Both sets of their parents approved of the match, which was one reason they'd allowed the couple to go off on this mad junket around the States. Not that Lucy would have waited for that blessing either way.

  Quin knew it was only a matter of time before Abe pulled a ring out of his pocket and proposed to Lucy. She'd put him off so far by insisting that she be allowed to concentrate on her education, but Abe was used to getting what he wanted. Quin didn't think Abe could force himself to wait until Lucy had graduated. In fact, he'd been surprised that Abe hadn't proposed to her during their first night aboard the ship.

  He was just glad that it hadn't happened yet. He wanted to be happy for his two friends, but he didn't know if he could manage to muster a smile for them if forced to bear witness to their engagement. It had been hard enough for him to agree to come along with them on this portion of the trip. If his parents hadn't insisted on them all traveling together, he would have been happy to leave England a week later and not put himself through the torture of watching his best friend woo the girl he loved.

  "That's not the sort of ice you should be worried about," a man said as he sauntered into the room. A wide and thoughtful American wearing small, wire-rimmed glasses, he fixed them with a serious look that chilled Quin's blood.

  "I hope you're not referring to the iceberg, Mr Futrelle," Abe said. "You're letting that novelist's imagination of yours run away with you if you think a little dent is going to bring down the Titanic. What would your Thinking Machine say about that?"

  The writer raised his eyebrows at Abe. "I don't have to bother my imagination about this one at all. Can't you feel the ship listing toward the starboard bow?"

  His voice sounded so calm and even in contrast to the words he spoke that Quin wondered if the man might be pulling their legs. He looked over at Abe's refilled whisky glass, though, and saw that the man had not exaggerated in the slightest.

  "What does it mean, Mr Futrelle?" Lucy's voice filled with concern as she turned to face the man fully.

  "Call me Jacques, Miss Lucy," he said. "After all, if we're all going to die together, it's best that we do so amongst friends."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "You're sure about this?" Captain Arthur Rostron said as he stared at the scrap of paper Harold Cottam had handed him, running one hand back through his thinning hair.

  "Aye, captain," Harold said. "I confirmed it with them. Titanic is going down."

  The captain pressed his lips together so hard that they turned white. "Damn it." He rubbed his eyes. It had already been a long day for him and his crew, but that paled against the troubles of the people trapped aboard the Titanic.

  "Right," he said with a sharp nod. "Take this to the bridge. Tell them to head out, full speed ahead. I'll be there presently."

  Harold spun on his heel and left, shutting the door to the captain's cabin behind him. Rostron pushed himself to his feet and climbed back into his uniform. He'd been asleep when the radioman had knocked on the door of his cramped cabin, but he was as wide awake now as if he'd fallen overboard into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.

  As he readied himself, he did some quick calculations in his head. At the moment, they had just under seven hundred and fifty passengers on board, but the Carpathia could hold over twenty-five hundred, more than three times that. They often had plenty of passengers when hauling emigrants from Europe to New York, but few people came back the other way, mostly American tourists looking to explore the Old World.

  The Titanic wasn't a Cunard ship like the Carpathia. It belonged to the rival White Star line, which meant that the captain didn't know as much about it as he might otherwise. Still, it had been impossible to avoid news about the gigantic ship and its maiden voyage over the past few weeks. He'd absorbed a few facts about the Titanic just by the fact that his ship sailed the same lanes.

  From what he remembered, the Titanic could hold as many as thirty-five hundred souls. He doubted they'd been packed to capacity though, given the premium prices the White Star offices had been charging for travel aboard its new flagship. He didn't know where they'd find the space for so many people on the Carpathia if it came to that, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try and save as many poor souls as he could either way. They'd double up bunks and have people slee
p on the open decks if they had to. Anything would be a far sight better than a watery grave.

  By the time the captain reached the bridge, his first officer had already gotten the Carpathia moving in the right direction. "Report, Mr Brooks," Captain Rostron said.

  "We're underway and already up to fourteen knots, sir."

  Rostron frowned. "And how far out from the Titanic are we?"

  "Less than sixty miles, sir."

  Rostron did the math in his head. "We need more speed. At that rate, we won't reach them for five hours."

  "Can't Titanic hold on for that long, sir?" Brooks said. "She's supposed to be unsinkable."

  "I'm afraid the only things unsinkable around here are the icebergs, Mr Brooks. If Titanic is as wounded as her radioman claims, they won't last five hours for sure. Tell the engine room to cut the steam to everything but the engines."

  "Including the heat in the rooms, sir? Won't the passengers complain?"

  "They'll still be warmer than any of the blessed souls who wind up out there in the drink tonight. Tell the chief engineer: divert all available power to the engines. Squeeze every damn bit of speed out that our fine lady here can spare."

  "Aye, captain." Brooks ran off to execute Rostron's orders.

  "Mr Crooker and Mr Blum," Rostron said to his second and third officers. "We're about to take on more visitors than our ship should rightly hold. We need to make the best use of the next few hours to get Carpathia in shape to greet them."

  "Aye, captain," the two men said in unison.

  "Mr Crooker: get our own lifeboats out on their davits, ready to put to sea. There's no telling how many people we might have to fish out of the water, and it'll give us more room on our decks at the very least. While you're at it, open all the gangway doors so we can take in our guests no matter from which angle they arrive.

  "Ready the rope ladders for each of those doors. Get some cargo netting secured too. Some of the older passengers might not be able to make the climb on their own."

  "What about any children, sir?" Crooker said. "They'd slip right through the ropes."

  "Good point. Gather some empty mail sacks for them. Dump out the mail if you have to. We can secure them with ropes and bring the little ones up that way if need be."

  He turned to Blum. "Gather the pursers and stewards and fill them in on our situation. Have them get every room on the ship ready. We may have to double or triple up to fit everyone in."

  Blum's eyes widened as he absorbed the enormity of what they were facing. "Can we get beds ready in the middle of the night for several thousand people in just five hours, sir?"

  "I certainly hope so, Mr Blum. If our engineer does his job, we might be there in less than four. I also want blankets and hot soup and drinks ready, so alert the kitchens. Get Doctor Griffiths to set up a sickbay in the first class dining room."

  "He should know if we have any other physicians on board, I'd think," Blum said. "If so, maybe they can help."

  "Excellent point. If that's the case, set them up in the second and third class dining rooms as well. Also, be sure to have the stewards get the names of our guests as they assign them to rooms. We should keep them apart from our current passengers as much as we can. We don't want to lose anyone we bring on board, and having to shuffle through everyone to make sure they're taken care of will only slow things down."

  "Yes, sir." Blum swallowed hard at the list of monumental tasks the captain had entrusted him with.

  "Don't look so shocked. Grab anyone else you can to lend a hand. Wake everyone up. We need all hands for this. Now get to it!"

  "Aye, captain." Blum sprinted off toward the head steward's cabin to set to work.

  Rostron glanced over at his third officer, who had the wheel. "Steady as she goes, Mr Shubert," he said.

  "Aye, sir." The bearded man had a look of grim determination in his eyes, as if he could make the ship go faster by concentrating on it as hard as he could.

  "Mr McPherson?"

  The fourth officer, a tall Canadian with a gentle accent, stepped forward. "Aye, sir."

  "Gather as many binoculars as you can find – ask the men to haul out their own if they have them – and set watches all around the ship. Turn on every damn light you can find too. We want to see those people out there, and we want them to see us coming too.

  "Tell the men to keep an eye out for bergs and to not be shy about reporting them in right away. The ice has already taken down one great ship tonight, and in a few moments we'll be moving faster than this ship was ever designed to go. Let's not be so foolhardy as to believe it might not be able to mortally wound us as well."

  "Very wise, captain," McPherson said. With that, he trotted out of the room, leaving Rostron alone with Shubert at the wheel.

  Rostron strode toward the front of the bridge and held onto the rail that ran under the windows as he stared out into the inky darkness beyond the nimbus of light that surrounded the ship. No moon sailed across the cloudless sky tonight, just a sparkling scattering of stars that provided too little illumination.

  Rostron had gone to sea at the age of sixteen, and at the age of forty-two, he'd spent more time on the ocean than he cared to think about. But he'd spent precious little time in it. He thought about being caught out there in the dark, floating in the icy black ocean with nothing more than a lifejacket to keep himself afloat, waiting for help to arrive while the freezing waters leeched every bit of warmth out of him with each passing second.

  "Hold on out there, young lady," he whispered to the Titanic. "Just hold on as long as you can."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "I'm not going," Lucy said. "Not without the two of you." She stuck out her chin in a way that Quin knew meant she'd made up her mind and wasn't about to let anyone or anything change it.

  The band, which had set up in the reopened First Class Lounge, played a lively ragtime tune as people milled about in the chilly air on Deck A, some of them ducking in and out of the lounge to keep warm while they waited for news of the Titanic's fate and what part they might play in it. Many of them hadn't taken the time to dress properly and wore little more than a coat tossed on over their nightclothes. Others, like Lucy and the boys, were still in their dinner clothes, never having resigned themselves to preparing for a solid night's sleep. Nobody seemed particularly concerned by events. It was more like a pleasant diversion had been arranged, an added event to the evening's programme.

  While the ship had been moving, there had always been some kind of breeze on the promenade, but with the ship stalled in the freezing waters, Quin realized that the air wasn't moving at all. If it had, he was sure it would have bit into him like a polar bear, raw, fast, and savage. Instead, it seemed to nibble at him like an illness, eating away at the warmth he'd brought out into the world with him. He had no doubt which side would eventually win that battle. Without respite, the chill would consume them all.

  "Lucy, dear," Abe said. "When the captain says, 'Women and children first,' I'm afraid he's serious. Despite what you might think of us in your darker moments, Quin and I don't qualify."

  "No one else is leaving the ship." Lucy gestured to a lifeboat being rowed away from the Titanic on the glassy water, the few people on board pulling at three sets of oars in unison to a beat a sailor in the prow called out. It looked so tiny compared to the great ship, but it had to be large enough to hold dozens of desperate souls. "Only a bunch of worried old ladies and women with babies still on their hips." She put her hands on her hips for emphasis and squared off against her friends. "I'm certain you're not implying I'm such a person who cannot fend for herself."

  "You wouldn't go on the first lifeboat," Quin said. "You said you'd wait for the next one." He gestured to Lifeboat 6 as it hung alongside the railing from its davit on the ship's port side. "That's the third one there, and there's plenty of room on it. What's keeping you?"

  Lucy threw up her hands and let out an exasperated sigh. The fog of her breath hung around her like a halo, glowing in
the lights. "I'd rather not freeze my boots off out there while we wait for the captain to give the all-clear signal and send us back to our cabins. This is a useless exercise, and I don't want to take any part in it."

  "Come now," Abe said. "Just think of the story you'll have when we reach New York. You'll be the toast of Manhattan society, the woman who braved the icy waters of the Atlantic while the rest of us cowards huddled here on the ship's deck, too fearful to join you in your grand adventure."

  Lucy squinted an eye at Abe. "Abraham Holmwood, don't you think I don't know exactly what you're trying to do here. I'm insulted that you'd think I'd fall for such a transparent appeal to my independent spirit."