A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter Nineteen
In the cabin, Cal is sitting on the couch,
while Ruth walks back and forth. The rest of the group is there too. Barnes is
talking with Pastor Walker. The number one steward is looking at Jack’s
drawings and Rose’s.
"I think they’re very good, sir."
Cal gets up and takes the drawings away from
him. "Don’t touch anything. I want the entire room photographed."
Jack and Rose cross the foyer, entering the
corridor. Parrish is waiting for them in the hall as they approach the sitting
room.
"Just keep holding my hand," said
Rose.
"We’ve been looking for you," said
Parrish.
Parrish follows them, and moves close behind
Jack and smoothly slips the diamond necklace into the pocket of his overcoat.
"Here we go."
Everybody looks up, when the two entered the
room. Everybody looks serious. But Rose and Jack are more serious. Rose looks
down at the table and sees her drawing lying on top of Jack’s drawings. She
smiles, then looks at Cal.
"Something serious has happened,"
said Rose, as she put her other hand over their held hands, tightly.
"Yes, it has!" said Cal. He looks
at Parrish and Parrish nodded. "Two things dear to me have disappeared
this evening. Now that one is back." He looks from Rose to Jack. "I
have a pretty good idea where to find the other." He turns to
Master-at-Arms. "Search him."
The Master-at-Arms steps up to Jack.
"Take your coat off, mate."
"Now what?" said Jack.
Parrish pulls at Jack’s coat and Jack shakes
his head in dismay, shrugging out of it. The Master-at-Arms pats him down.
"Dad, what are you doing? We’re in the
middle of an emergency here. What’s going on?" Rose coming up to Cal.
Steward Barnes pulls the "Heart of the
Ocean" out of the pocket of Jack’s coat. "Is this it?"
Rose is stunned. Needless to say, so is Jack.
"This is horseshit!" To the
necklace handed to Cal, then looks at Rose. "Don’t you believe it, Rose.
Don’t!"
"He couldn’t have," said Rose,
uncertain.
"Of course he could. Easy enough for a
professional. He memorized the combination when you opened the safe," said
Cal.
Rose suddenly has a flashback. Her at the
safe, looking in the mirror and meeting Jack's eyes as he stands behind her,
watching. She shakes her head. "I was with him the whole time. This is
stupid."
"Perhaps he did it, when you were
putting your clothes back on, Sweetheart."
Rose closes her eyes, feeling the guilt, for
posing nude.
"Oh, real slick, Cal," said Jack,
then looks at Rose. "They put it in my pocket."
"Shut up!" shouted Cal.
"It’s not even your pocket, son,"
said Parrish, holding Jack’s coat. "Property of A.L. Ryerson."
Parrish shows the coat to the Master-at-Arms.
There is a label inside the collar with the owner’s name.
"That was reported stolen today,"
said Master-At-Arms, reading the label again.
"I just ‘borrowed’ it. I was going to
return it. Rose--"
"We have an honest thief here,"
said Cal.
Rose feels utterly betrayed, hurt and
confused. She shrinks away from Jack. He starts shouting to her as Lewis and
the Master-at-Arms drag him out into the hall. She can’t look at him in the
eye. Finally, she sees Cal whisper something to Lewis. He nods, and left.
"You know, I didn’t do it, Rose! Don’t
you believe them, Rose! You know it! You know, I didn’t do it," he shouted
at the door to her.
"Let’s go, Son," said
Master-At-Arms.
"You know, I didn’t do it, Rose!
Rose!"
"That’s a good lad."
"You know, I didn’t do it! You know
me!"
Rose is devastated. Ruth lays a comforting
hand on her shoulder as her tears well up.
Smith and Andrews come down the steps to the
Mail Sorting Room and finds the clerks scrambling to pull mail from the racks.
They are furiously hauling wet sacks of mail up from the hold below.
Andrews climbs part way down the stairs to
the hold, which is almost full. Sacks of mail float everywhere. The lights are
still on below the surface, casting an eerie glow. The Renault is visible under
the water, the brass glinting cheerfully. Andrews looks down as the water
covers his shoe, and scrambles back up the stairs.
Bridge/Chartroom
Andrews unrolls a big drawing of the ship
across the chartroom table. It is a side elevation, showing all the watertight
bulkheads. His hands are shaking. Murdoch and Ismay are over behind Andrews and
Captain Smith.
"Water, fourteen feet above the keel ten
minutes...in the forepeak...in all three holds...and in boiler room six,"
said Andrews.
"That’s right, sir," said
Hutchinson, came upon Andrews.
"When can we get underway, dammit?"
asked Ismay.
"That’s five compartments. She can stay
afloat with the first four compartments breached. But not five. Not five. As
she goes down by the head, the water will spill over the tops of the bulkheads
at E-deck from one to the next," said Andrews, showing the drawing.
"Back and back. There’s no stopping it."
"The pumps?" asked Captain Smith,
pointing the drawing.
"The pumps buy you time...but minutes
only. From this moment on, no matter what we do. Titanic will founder."
Ismay looks at Andrews, shocked. "But
this ship can’t sink!"
"She is made of iron, sir. I assure you,
she can. And she will. It is a mathematical certainty."
Captain Smith looks like he has been gut
punched. "How much time?"
"An hour, two at most," said
Andrews.
Ismay reels as his dream turns into his worst
nightmare.
"And how many aboard, Mr. Murdoch?"
asked Captain Smith, as Murdoch walks in.
"Two thousand, two hundred souls aboard,
sir."
A long beat, Captain Smith turns to his
employer. "I believe you may get your headlines, Mr. Ismay."