LUCKY MR. DAWSON
Chapter One
No one would have believed that
earlier this morning the icy waters of the Atlantic had claimed fifteen hundred
souls in a little more than two hours if it had not been for the icebergs.
Hundreds had been sighted. Of course, that was typical for this time of year,
but now they posed a deadly threat to any vessel that dared cross the ocean.
One did. A lone fishing boat had been sent to scour the area for any bodies
that the search team might have overlooked. So far, they had seen nothing
except the rolling waves of the ocean below.
The two friends who owned the
boat were leaning against the railing, sipping hot drinks and talking about how
they wished they were anywhere but there.
"So, I said to him, I says,
John, this is madness! Your seriously gonna send us to the most unpredictably
weathered place in the world? Just to search for unidentified bodies? They’ve
probably sunk to the bottom by now. Not to seem selfish, of course, but I’ve
got better things to do with my time." Mackenzie snorted.
James stared out to sea
unblinkingly. His best friend had been lost, and James couldn’t help feeling
uncomfortable with the fact that this was the very spot in which it had
happened. He could almost feel the presence of the souls who had foundered that
night, could hear their screams of agony as they slowly froze to death.
However, he was brought back to earth by a loud crash. Looking down, James
found Mac kneeling on the deck, swearing and picking up the broken china that
he had dropped. James got on his hands and knees to help his friend pick up the
sharp-edged ceramic.
As he was about to stand back up,
James looked over the railing, and that was when he saw him. He was hardly more
than a boy, clinging to the back of a deck chair that was being pushed along by
the waves. Something about him suggested that he was an inch from death, but
refusing to let go of life.
"Mac, for crying out loud,
shut up for a minute and look, will you?"
Mac’s gaze turned in the
direction that James was pointing.
"Well, I’ll be
Goddamned," Mac whispered.
One Day Later
James sat at the side of the
small cot in the cabin of the fishing boat. Every now and then, he would lift a
cup of tea to the young man’s lips. The boy had only stirred once since they
had plucked him out of the ocean. It had not been easy. James had climbed down
to the bottom–most rung of the ladder and grabbed hold of the deck chair. Mac
had hauled both of them up to the deck. Now they sat by a roaring firebox with
extra blankets they had found in storage. The young man had no ID on him, so
the only way they would know for sure who he was would be when he woke. His
feet had mild frostbite and would need tending, but his thick leather shoes had
protected him against the worst of the cold. By the look of his clothes, he was
an immigrant. James guessed that he had been aboard the Titanic, bound for a
new life in America when it had gone down. It was a full three and a half days
to the nearest shore, and if the boy did not wake in that time, they would give
him up for dead.