A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter Twenty-Six
CLUNK! Cal opens his safe and reaches inside.
As Parrish watches, he pulls out two stacks of bills, still banded by rubber
bands. Then he takes out the "Heart Of The Ocean," putting it in the
pocket of his overcoat. Both items in each pocket. Jack’s portfolio is in the
safe.
"Do you have my gun?" asked Cal,
getting ready to close the safe.
"Yes." He shows him the gun in his
waistband, there sitting a Colt .45 Automatic, and it’s gray.
Cal grins and locks the safe, and the two go
out with the rest of the men.
Jack, Rose, Fabrizio, and Tommy are lost,
searching for a way out. They push past confused passengers, past a mother
changing her baby’s diaper on top of an upturned steamer trunk, past a woman
arguing heatedly with a man in Serbo-Croatian, past a man kneeling to console a
woman, who is just sitting on the floor, sobbing. Jack stops.
"Come on!" said Tommy.
"No. Come on. Let’s go this way,"
said Jack.
They pass another man with an English/Arabic
dictionary, trying to figure out what the signs mean, while his wife and
children wait patiently.
Jack and the rest come upon a narrow
stairwell, and they go up two decks before a small group pressed up against a
steel gate stops them.
The steerage men are yelling at a scared
steward. "Just go back to the main stairwell and everything will be sorted
out there. It will all be sorted out there. Go back to the main
stairwell."
"Open the gate!" said Jack, in
front and in between the gate from the steward.
"Go back to the main stairwell!"
"Open the gate, right now!"
"Go back to the main stairwell, like I
told you!"
Jack loses it. "God damn it! Son of a
bitch!" Shaking the gate. He leaves the gate and sees a bench. He grabs
one end of the bench bolted to the floor on the landing. He starts pulling on
it. "Fabri, Tommy, give me a hand here."
Tommy and Fabrizio pitch in until the bolts
shear and it breaks free. Rose figures out what they are doing and clears a
path up the stairs between the waiting people.
"Stop that!" said the steward.
"Move aside!" said Rose.
"Pull! Pull!" said Jack.
"Move aside. Move aside."
"Put that down!" said the steward.
"Move aside!"
"Put that down!"
"One...two...three," said Jack.
Jack, Fabrizio, and Tommy ram the bench into
the gate with all their strength.
"Again!" said Jack.
They do it again, and this time it rips loose
from its track and falls outward, narrowly missing the steward. Led by Jack,
the surges though. The steward is trying not let them get away.
"Let’s go. Let’s go, Rose," said
Jack, holding her hand.
"You can’t go up there! You can’t do
this!" said the steward. Tommy hits him.
Boat six. Lea rows with Molly, two other
women, and incompetent sailors. Lea rests on her oars, exhausted, and looks
back at the ship. It slants down into the water, still ablaze with light.
Nothing is above water forward of the bridge except for the foremast. Another
rocket goes off, lighting up the entire area. There are a dozen boats moving
outward from the ship.
At the boat deck rail, Captain Smith is
shouting to boat six through a large metal megaphone. "Come back! Come
back to the ship!"
Chief Officer Wilde joins him, blowing his
silver whistle.
Boat six. The whistle comes shrilly across
the water. Quartermaster Hitchens grips the rudder in fear. "The suction
will pull us right down if we don't keep going."
"Stop. We have to go back!" said
Molly, waving her hand in the air.
"No! It's our lives now, not
theirs."
"We got room for lots more. I say we go
back."
"And I'm in charge of this boat, Madame!
Now row!"
Captain Smith, at the rail of the boat deck,
lowers his megaphone slowly. "The fools."
First Class Smoking Room. There are still two
card games in progress. The room is quiet and civilized. A silver serving cart,
holding a large humidor, begins to roll slowly across the room. One of the card
players takes a cigar from it as it rolls by. "It seems we've been dealt a
bad hand this time."
A-Deck Promenade. Cal, Parrish, and the rest
are walking aft with a purposeful stride. They pass Chief Baker Joughin, who is
working up a sweat tossing deck chairs over the rail. After they go by, Joughin
takes a break and pulls a bottle of scotch from a pocket, opening it. He drains
it, and tosses it over the side too, then stands there a little unsteadily.