The Titanic Plan

by Michael Bockman

  CHAPTER 62

  “You’re drunk,” Madeleine said, smelling the alcohol on Astor’s breath. He had just returned from the celebratory meeting in the First Class Lounge. Astor wavered, his eyes skittering away from his scowling wife. “Yes, I am,” Astor slurred. “Drunk with love for you.”

  Astor’s besotted declaration made Madeleine laugh. “Oh, my husband…” she said, shaking her head.

  “Oh, my wife…” Astor responded, moving to her and extending his hands. “Please, I want to feel our baby in your belly.”

  “Let’s go to bed, John.”

  “The baby…Now!” Astor insisted, placing his hands on her stomach. He closed his eyes.

  “I don’t think the baby is ready yet.”

  Astor began to gently hum, as if that would somehow reach the baby in the womb. “There! Yes! I felt kicking.”

  “I didn’t feel anything. John,”

  “He kicked! I’m sure of it.”

  “How do you know it’s a him?”

  “It’s an Astor. It must be a him. A new Astor!” Astor spoke excitedly then leaned down and kissed Madeleine’s belly. “A new Astor.”

  * * *

  Archie raced down the Grand Staircase to the B-Deck, then ran down the long corridor that separated the First Class guests quarters from their servants. C-81! That was it, the cabin the Inquiry Room clerk said was Wheeler’s. Archie pounded the door. There was no response, so Archie thumped again, then pressed his ear to the door, trying to hear if anyone was rustling in the room. Nothing. Wheeler was somewhere on the ship and Archie had to find him. He closed his eyes and prayed – to God, to Mick, to any force that might lead him to Wheeler. He tried summoning Wheeler’s image into his mind, as if that might somehow help locate him. But as he focused his thoughts, his concentration was broken by the jangle of music coming from a deck above. The ship’s band was blaring Come Josephine, In My Flying Machine. Annoyed, Archie stepped away and wandered back down the corridor. He didn’t know where to go next, so he climbed a single flight of stairs that led to the Men’s Smoking Lounge. As soon as he stepped in, he heard a familiar voice calling: “Archie, over here.” He swiveled to see Millet waving from a card table. Millet was sitting with two friends, Arthur Ryerson and Clarence Moore. “Pull up a chair, Arch,” Millet said. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I can’t right now.”

  “Something wrong, Archie?” Ryerson asked.

  “I have to take care of some business. I’ll join you all in a bit if I can.”

  “Promise?” Millet asked.

  “Frank, I wouldn’t miss a game with you for anything.”

  “Good then. We’ll hold your place”.

  Archie quickly stepped through the Smoking Lounge then out to the Promenade, where his face was hit by the cold sea air. He breathed it in, feeling the tang of salt in his nostrils and the wisp of moistness on his lips. There was no moon. The smooth surface of the water mirrored the black satin sky that glittered with a million stars. He felt calm, serene. His serenity lasted only until he saw a man gazing out over the railing near the bow, a man with a hulking body and big jug ears. He quickly set out to the front of the ship. “Wheeler,” Archie called when he got close. The large man did a slow turn and saw Archie only a few feet behind him. The light caught the crescent scar that ran down the man’s jaw.

  “Archie Butt,” Wheeler said, his voice soft and full of menace. “Our paths cross in the oddest places, don’t they?”

  “What are you doing here?” Archie asked, trying to measure Wheeler out.

  “Crossing the Atlantic like you. Going home.”

  Archie had no time for games. “You’re here to blow up this ship.”

  “Now where in the world did you get such a silly notion?” Wheeler said through his sinister grin.

  “When I threw the dynamite that you left in the cargo hold overboard.”

  “Dynamite?! You say there was dynamite on this ship?! And now it’s gone? Well, I say the only dynamite that existed must have been in your imagination.”

  “It was in the cargo hold and there’s got to be more.”

  “My, my, my,” Wheeler said, shaking his head. “Not only do you have quite an imagination, but a paranoid one as well. Don’t you read the advertisements? Trying to blow this ship up with dynamite would be futile. This is the Titanic. It’s unsinkable.”

  Archie had had enough. He moved close to Wheeler. “You will tell me where the rest of the explosives are or, as an officer of the United States, I will arrest you this moment.”

  “Don’t you remember, I’m an officer of the United States as well?” Wheeler sneered, then added, “It’s too late anyway. Now get out of my way.” Wheeler took a step past Archie, only to be grabbed by the arm. Wheeler appeared shocked that Archie dared to lay a hand on him. The huge man whipped his massive arm back with such strength and quickness it stunned Archie. Then the first blow came swiftly and brutally, smashing into Archie’s solar plexus. It felt like a sledgehammer driving into his body. Archie doubled over, breathless and unable to stop the vicious onslaught. Wheeler sent a torrent of punches into Archie, who tried to block them. It did little good. Wheeler’s giant fists smacked through Archie’s meager defense and found their targets, slamming into Archie’s ribs and stomach. Archie fell, dazed and gasping for breath. There was no mercy in Wheeler, who stomped his boot into Archie’s neck. “That was for the scar you put on my face,” Wheeler said, then gave Archie one last kick to the back of the head. “Bon voyage, Major.”

  * * *

  From his perch in the crow’s nest, Fredrick Fleet noticed a strange haze develop on the water. Then, ten minutes later, a black mass, towering some 55 feet over the ocean emerged from the haze. Fleet immediately rang the crow’s nest bell three times – emergency code that an object was dead ahead. He picked up the telephone that was connected to the bridge. “Iceberg, right ahead.” The officer who answered, James Moody, responded with a quick “Thank you,” then turned to First Officer William Murdoch and repeated, “Iceberg right ahead.” Without hesitation, Murdoch ordered “Hard-a-starboard!” At the helm, Quartermaster Robert Hichens cranked the wheel as fiercely as he could.

  The harsh clanging of bells then the panicked shouts of men broke through the fog clouding Archie’s mind. He struggled to open his eyes and when he did, he caught sight of a looming mountain of ice. Crawling to the rail, Archie grabbed the top bar and strained to pull himself up. What he saw filled him with awe and terror. The Titanic was headed straight into the center of the gigantic iceberg. A collision appeared certain. As the bow of the ship glided ever closer to the ice, Archie tightened his grip on the rail and braced himself. It happened quickly, but Archie knew this was it: all the premonitions, all the dread feelings, all the disturbing undercurrents that he had been living with for months, were now being crystallized in the reality of the ominous iceberg. At that instant, Archie calmly embraced his inevitable fate; he was almost relieved it had finally arrived. Then, right at his moment of surrender, the great ship pulled hard left. It turned at such a severe angle that it appeared it would avoid the iceberg. For a brief second, Archie felt oddly let down. Everything in his life was leading to the climactic moment of impact. But the grand climax was being aborted.

  The Titanic drifted so close to the iceberg that Archie felt as if he could reach out and touch it. Then the ship trembled slightly and there was a scraping as the iceberg slid along the starboard side. It seemed like a rough kiss. Ice chunks began raining down upon the decks. Archie had to step back and avoid the small white missiles.

  While the scrape with the iceberg was felt throughout the ship, few paid it any mind. It seemed incidental, not violent at all. One officer said it felt like “a chain running over a windlass.” Another person described it like a “jar and grind.” Others said it felt like “a slight trembling and grinding,” “a dull thump,” “as though somebody had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship,” “a slight shock,” �
��a bump,” “ripping sound like a piece of cloth being torn,” “nothing more than an extra heave of the engines.”

  * * *

  Henry shook awake. The gag was cutting into the corners of his mouth. His head throbbed and his chest burned with every breath he took. He wondered what would kill him first: would he freeze to death or would his broken body implode. As he lay helpless on the floor, he spotted the little lair he had created out of shirts and trousers only two days earlier. A refuge from the cold. He began crawling along the planks, trying to inch forward like a wounded animal. The pain from even that little movement was excruciating and he had to stop. Tears came to his eyes. He felt a complete sense of hopelessness, only to be shaken out of his despair by an earsplitting crash. What he witnessed was, at once, terrifying and astonishing: the steel plates of the hull were twisting like taffy. The rivets holding the massive plates together started to quiver in their sockets. A giant fist of dirty white ice punched through the hull then scraped along the steel plates, popping the hull’s rivets as if they were a string of firecrackers. Water exploded through the twisted steel sweeping up everything in its path, including Henry, who was sent tumbling head over heels, smashing into steamer trucks and bouncing off wood crates that were wrenched loose from their moorings. The onslaught of freezing water snapped Henry alert; his pain disappeared with a rush of adrenaline. He felt the skin on his arms contract from the chilly ocean water. His wrists became slick and he was able to wriggle them in the loosening rope. As the water gushed over Henry he frantically worked to free himself of the bindings before he drowned.

  * * *

  When Captain Smith felt the bump in his cabin, he quickly dressed and made his way to the bridge. “What was that?” Smith asked First Officer Murdoch.

  “An iceberg,” Murdoch answered. “I ordered hard a starboard and reversed the engines and I was going to hard a port around it, but it was too close.”

  Smith quickly stepped outside to see if he could spot the iceberg. He couldn’t; it had floated past. The Captain ordered the watertight doors shut. Murdoch informed him the process was already in motion. Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall appeared on the bridge to report there seemed to be no noticeable damage in the passenger areas. Everyone was relieved until the ship’s carpenter came rushing to the bridge and said that the lower decks at the front of the ship were taking on water. A mail clerk followed him and reported flooding in the mailroom. Captain Smith turned and left without saying a word. He walked fifty feet down the deck to the Marconi room, where Harold Bride had just relieved his partner, Jack Phillips, at the wireless. Smith poked his head in. “We’ve grazed an iceberg. I believe the damage is slight, but you’d better get ready to send out a call for assistance,” the Captain told Bride. “But don’t send it until I tell you.”

  It was just before midnight.

  A few passengers came out from their rooms to see what had happened. Some third class passengers had discovered ice chunks on their promenade and began kicking them playfully around. John Astor ventured into the hallway where a steward was passing by with a plate of food. “Was that anything serious?” Astor asked.

  “No, sir. Just a minor disturbance,” the steward answered. Reassured, Astor returned to his stateroom and crawled back into bed with Madeleine.

  Bruce Ismay stepped out of his room with an overcoat over his pajamas. He was telling people that he believed the Titanic had lost a blade off one of the propellers. “It’s a common mishap for ships,” he explained to the passengers. “There’s nothing to worry about.” He then headed upstairs to the bridge.

  * * *

  Henry was floating free. He had twisted out of his bonds. The cold numbed his body and brought relief from his throbbing pain. Being underwater, holding his breath, was not unpleasant. He felt like going to sleep, to surrender. It wasn’t that bad. He didn’t need another breath. He was ready to drift away. His surrender to the inevitable was broken by what sounded like a tremendous splintering of wood and steel, and then he felt himself being sucked down, as if he was a bug caught in the swirl of drain water. The sudden jolt of motion brought him back to the present. His pain returned. Through the cascade of rushing water he saw that the door to the cargo hold was blown open by the water pressure. The force of the suction was tremendous; there was no way to escape it. He tumbled toward the opening, caught in the wash along with half the cargo and debris of the hold. A large streamer trunk hurtled into his back, pushing his face into the hard edge of a metal case that was floating by. Down he was swept by the powerful current, riding it to the opening of where the door once was. But the passage was blocked again, this time by a huge wooden crate that was awkwardly lodged like a wayward boulder. The powerful jet stream of water hurtled Henry against the crate, knocking out whatever little breath he had. Instinct was the only thing left in the boy, and it was with pure survival instinct that Henry grabbed onto the side of the crate and maneuvered back into water torrent, letting the pressure thrust him to the narrow, jagged opening that the water was being forced through. Arms first, Henry maneuvered his torso into the slender breach. Normally, there was no way he’d have been able to slide through, but with the powerful force of water behind him, Henry was able to push first his chest, then hips, through the gap. But as he began dragging his legs through, his pant leg snagged on a shaft of wood that had splintered from the crate. His breath gone. He had to twist his foot to pull himself free. His ankle bones, bones that were already shattered by Wheeler, mashed against each other. Henry’s screams were muffled under roaring the water, but the pain spurred him. He writhed and wriggled his foot to no avail. Desperate and blinded by pain, Henry cupped both hands under his knee and with all his strength, yanked his leg forward, not caring if he tore his foot off in the process. Instead, the jagged bit of wood was torn off, freeing Henry and sending him shooting through the doorway, riding the rush of water down the lower deck’s long corridor.

  CHAPTER 63

  It was just after midnight. A new day – Monday, April 15. Captain Smith, accompanied by two crewmen and the ship’s chief designer, Thomas Andrews, rushed down the Grand Staircase to the boiler rooms. What they saw alarmed them. Water was filling the rooms. They talked to a trembling boiler stoker who described being hit by a gush of water that exploded through the ship’s hull. “Let’s get to the mailroom,” Andrews said quickly. The group wasn’t able get that far, reaching only the Squash Court, which was awash in rising water. They’d seen enough. “We need to get back to the bridge, gentlemen,” the Captain said soberly.

  Bruce Ismay, still in his pajamas and overcoat, was waiting for Smith in the ship’s bridge. When the Captain and his entourage returned, Thomas Andrews quickly laid out the chilling scenario. “There’s flooding in the first six watertight compartments. The Titanic is able to stay afloat if four are filled with water, maybe five, but not six.” Andrews then demonstrated how the water would fill up one compartment then spill over its bulkhead and begin flooding the next compartment. The ship would ultimately grow head heavy and be pulled down, bow first. There was dead silence in the room. Everyone understood what Andrews was saying: the Titanic was doomed.

  “How long?” Smith asked Andrews.

  “An hour, maybe an hour and a half at most.”

  “Uncover the lifeboats,” the Captain said firmly.

  Archie had returned to his stateroom, exhausted. He needed a moment to collect himself, unaware of the damage done by the iceberg. He stripped down to his underwear and lay down over the silk bedspread. His entire body was covered with bruises, the result of Wheeler’s attack. He closed his eyes and tried to let the horrible events of the evening evaporate, if only for a few minutes. His rest didn’t even last that long; there was a weak knock at the door.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Me, Captain,” Henry’s voice squeaked from the other side of the door.

  Archie rolled off the bed. When he opened the door, he was stunned by what he saw. Standing before him, shiveri
ng like a wet, bedraggled rat, was Henry. “My god, what happened?”

  Henry limped into the room. Archie could see the boy was in severe pain with every step he took. “It weren’t no accident,” Henry said right off, then told Archie of seeing Wheeler with Ismay together on the Boat Deck, of how he was thrown into the cargo hold and then, how the iceberg punched through the hull. Archie listened and began to realize that the situation was far dire than he thought.

  Another knock came, this one hard and quick. “All passengers on deck,” a steward loudly announced. “Life belts on please. All passengers on deck.”

  Archie began to dress. Not in a suit, like he had worn throughout the voyage, but in his plain olive military uniform. “Let’s get up top,” he said to Henry and started for the door, then made an abrupt turn and ran back to his steamer trunk. He dug through it until he pulled out a revolver. “Can’t leave half naked,” Archie winked to Henry and secured the gun into its leather holster on his hip.

  “Women and children first,” Second Officer Charles Lightoller shouted over the ear-splitting hiss of steam that was being released through the ship’s funnels. “Women and children first.”