Written by Ayane Murdoch
Based on some situations originated by James Cameron.
Wireless Operators Jack Phillips
and Harold Bride were sitting in the Marconi and Wireless room, feeling very
bored. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas, and the Titanic was sailing
around the Arctic. The ship had gotten lost, thanks to a drunk Captain Smith
giving out crazy orders. It was always the drunk person.
"This is shit. Why can't we
put up decorations?" Bride twirled a pen between his fingers as he spoke.
"Don’t know," Phillips
answered honestly. He didn't know why they weren't putting up decorations. In
fact, they hadn't done anything apart from taking messages and sending messages
since the Titanic had gotten lost. It was the captain's fault. To make matters
worse, the wireless room wasn't even decorated!
"Hmm..." Bride thought
for a moment as a message came through.
Phillips wrote it down and said,
"It's the Californian again."
Bride sighed. "Again? What
is it this time?"
"Er…Fuck off! That's
it. State of them."
"Hmm...perhaps we should
warn Fred and Reg about them," Bride suggested, leaving them room to head to
the bridge. Sixth Officer James Moody was there.
"Excuse me, sir," began
Bride. What was he going to tell him? Luckily, Moody was an easy-going person
and let Bride use the phone when he was asked. He didn't even ask why.
"Phew!" Bride muttered
under his breath as the phone rang.
"Yes?" came Frederick
Fleet's voice.
"This is Harold Bride. I
have a warning. Watch out for the ship the Californian. Avoid them at all
costs. They're a shower of bastards. Thanks."
Once he was finished, Bride
walked back to the Wireless room, where Phillips was battering out another
message with incredible force and speed. He was grumbling to himself, and
didn't look up or appear to acknowledge the fact that Bride had entered the
room.
"Fucked up pricks..."
muttered Phillips as Moody walked in, accompanied by Mr. Andrews. "Bloody
stupid bastards..."
"Jack! Officer Moody and Mr.
Andrews are here!" Bride got up off a nearby chair and greeted them.
"Oh..." Phillips finished
battering out the message. He felt very foolish and hoped that they hadn't
heard him. Unfortunately, they had.
"Is everything okay?"
Moody asked, trying not to laugh. "Would this have anything to do with the
phone call you made earlier?" He turned to Bride, who looked nervously at
the floor.
"No," Bride said,
almost certainly. He didn't like to lie to an officer, but he didn't want to
get into trouble, especially when Mr. Andrews was around.
"Okay, then. Myself and
Officer Lightoller will be in here later to put up some decorations,
okay?" Moody headed for the door when Bride stopped him.
"Sir, can we help? Please,
because everyone else--"
"Sure. See you later."
Moody walked out, with Mr. Andrews following.
Bride did a little dance, much to
Phillip's amusement, before saying, "Here we go!"
"Here we go what? Them
bloody Californian buggers have sent back a reply. Listen to this...Ha ha,
you're stuck there sending messages to rich bastards while we're doing it with
beautiful women. Ha ha. Bunch of arseholes." Phillips threw a pencil
to the floor.
"Bollocks. They're lyin'.
They'd be sacked faster than you can say Christmas. Believe me." Bride sat
down and ended up drifting off into a quiet nap.
Several hours later, when he
eventually woke up, he discovered that the room had been decorated. He was
angry, and hit Phillips with some baubles that were stuck to the wall.
"Hey! I tried to wake you
up, but you told me to fuck off!" Phillips insisted, dodging the baubles.
"Even Moody and Lightoller tried to wake you up! But no, you told them to
fuck off, too!"
"Ah..." said Bride,
sheepishly. "I suppose it's my fault, then..."
"Yeah, well, we'll talk more
tomorrow. We're off duty now!" Phillips hoped to cheer Bride up. It did.
Slightly. Bride was still annoyed that he was asleep when the decorations were
put up. He'd be even more annoyed the next night.
The next night, first officer
William Murdoch came running into the room at full speed and clubbed Bride over
the head with a stick. Repeatedly.
"You fucking prick!"
Murdoch bellowed at Bride.
Phillips cowered away under the
desk. He was frightened, because he didn't want to encounter Murdoch's wrath.
"What the hell were you
thinking?" Murdoch was unable to control his rage. He whacked Bride again.
And again. And again.
"What did I do?" Bride
squeaked, trying to avoid Murdoch's stare and his stick.
"What did you do?"
Murdoch's Scottish accent echoed in the room and outside. "What did you
do? I'll tell you what you did! I'm gonna fucking--"
Murdoch slipped on one of the
baubles that was on the floor from Bride's bombardment of Phillips from the
previous night. He hit the floor with a loud thud.
"Fuck it!" He got up,
muttering really bad swear words under his breath at Bride.
"Need help?" Bride
couldn't resist joking, despite the fact that it might well cost him his life,
if the look on Murdoch's face was anything to go by.
"What help? I'll give you
help!" Murdoch reached for Bride's throat, but was stopped by the presence
of Officer Moody.
"Will! What the hell are you
doing? First you storm away from the bridge in a mad rage, and now you're
trying to strangle one of our wireless operators! Calm down, fuck sake!"
Moody grabbed hold of the raging Scotsman and forced him down onto a chair.
Phillips whimpered under the
desk. He thought he had done something wrong, too. Bride looked at him, and so
did Murdoch and Moody.
"Jack, come out," Moody
said in his most soothing voice, although it might be the voice he used to
charm ladies. "Right," Moody began, once Phillips had crawled out
from under the table and sat on the floor next to Bride. "Everyone calm
down."
Bride's breathing slowly returned
to normal, as did Murdoch's. Moody tried to keep a grin off his face when he
saw a large lump on Murdoch's head.
"Will...if you don't mind me
asking, why do you have a lump on your head?" Moody tried to keep a
straight face, but it was mission impossible for him.
"Fell on one of those damn
baubles," Murdoch muttered darkly, giving the bauble an evil stare.
Moody tried not to laugh. He failed
miserably.
"It's not funny!"
Murdoch said, aiming a swipe at Moody. In all this, Bride and Phillips were
silent. But then again, just several minutes before, they had thought they
weren't going to live to see Christmas.
"Sorry...ha ha ha...oh,
God!" Moody calmed down and continued. "So why did you attempt to
kill Harold?" he asked Murdoch, whose face went red.
"Well, I got a phone call
from Frederick Fleet earlier, and--"
"That made you want to
murder Harold?" Moody was stunned.
"Of course not, James, you
great bloody spoon. Apparently, last night Fred received a phone call from none
other than..." Murdoch attempted to build up the suspense, and then
pointed at Bride "...Harold Bride! The little bum wipe sitting over
there!"
Bride looked at Moody, a guilty
look on his face. Phillips giggled when Murdoch called Bride a bum wipe.
"About what?" Moody
said coolly. He, too, laughed when Murdoch called Bride a bum wipe.
"Well, Harold and his little
pal…" Phillips shifted uncomfortably on the floor. "…were sending
messages to the Californian. Rude ones, I might add--"
"They sent rude ones to us
first!" Phillips spoke up. He felt braver with each word. "It's
true!"
"Ah…right! Personally, I
don't like the Californian either. Their third officer is a total bastard,"
Moody said airily.
"Well, Fred said that Harold
told him to warn one of us if they see the Californian nearby, and that we were
to avoid them at all costs," Murdoch said quickly. "So, I lost my
head and got Fred into trouble, and called him a dancing balloon--"
Moody, Bride, and Phillips burst
into fits of hysterical laughter. Apparently, Murdoch's choice of insults were
a source of hilarity because they didn't seem insulting.
"Sorry, sir! You were
saying?" Phillips said once Bride and Moody had composed themselves.
"Well...I'm sorry. I made a
mistake," Murdoch said earnestly. "Harold, I'm sorry about going a
bit mad back there--"
"A bit mad?" Bride
looked at Murdoch as though he was a strange-looking clown. "You fucking
clubbed me over the head with a stick tons of times!"
"Ah…yes...I did, didn't I?
Sorry. I'd better apologize to Fred, too. I'll make it up to you. I
promise!" Murdoch ran out of the room to phone Fleet in the crow's nest.
"Behave yourselves, guys,
and make Will's lump on his head bigger for me, okay? I need a good laugh, not
that listening to him calling people bum wipes and dancing balloons isn't
funny..." Moody smirked as he walked to his stateroom.
"Thank fuck! That was
close." Bride sat down on a chair as Phillips took another message.
"Yeah. A bit too close for
comfort. Oh, bugger!" Phillips moaned, holding a piece of paper with a
message written on it.
"The Californian?"
Bride took the paper.
"Yep." Phillips looked
at Bride's reaction to the message.
Bride laughed. He read out:
"CQD! Our captain has knocked himself unconscious and we need help!"
"Let's rub it in, shall
we?" Phillips had a mischievous look on his face, which was then
replicated on Bride's face.
Here we go again!
Murdoch's lump on the back of his
head did get bigger, to Moody's amusement. Murdoch let Bride whack him on the
head with a baseball bat several times. Typically, Bride hit Murdoch's lump
every time. Murdoch was going to regret letting Bride hit him on the head.
Hopefully, it'd be gone by Christmas!
The End.