TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Seventeen
The ship glowed with the warm creamy light of
late afternoon. Jack and Fabrizio stood right at the bow gripping the curved
railing. Jack leaned over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cut the
surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.
On the bridge, Captain Smith turned from the
binnacle to First Officer William Murdoch.
"Take her to sea, Mister Murdoch. Let’s
stretch her legs."
Murdoch moved the engine telegraph lever to
All Ahead Full.
In the engine room the telegraph clanged and
moved to All Ahead Full. Chief Engineer Bell shouted the command.
"All ahead full!"
On the catwalk Thomas Andrews, the
shipbuilder, watched carefully as the engineers and greasers scrambled to
adjust valves. Towering above them were the twin reciprocating engines, four
stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the
turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thundered like the footfalls of
marching giants.
In the boiler rooms the stokers chanted a
song as they hurled coal into the roaring furnaces. The "black gang"
was covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles working like part of the
machinery as they toiled in the hellish glow.
Underwater the enormous bronze screws chopped
through the water, hurling the steamer forward and churning up a vortex of foam
that lingered for miles behind the juggernaut ship. Smoke poured from the
funnels as the riven water flared higher at the bow as the ship’s speed built.
Above the prow stood Jack, the wind streaming through his hair.
Captain Smith stepped out of the enclosed
bridge onto the wing. He stood with his hands on the rail, looking every bit
the storybook picture of a Captain...a great patriarch of the sea. First
Officer Murdoch stepped up to him.
"Twenty-one knots, sir!"
"She’s got a bone in her teeth now, eh,
Mr. Murdoch?"
Smith accepted a cup of tea from Fifth
Officer Lowe. He contentedly watched the white V of water hurled outward from
the bows like an expression of his own personal power. They were invulnerable,
towering over the sea.
At the bow Jack and Fabrizio leaned far over,
looking down.
In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appeared,
under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow.
They did it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Jack watched the
dolphins and grinned. They breached; jumping clear of the water and then dove
back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.
Fabrizio looked forward across the Atlantic,
staring into the sun sparkles.
"I can see the Statue of Liberty
already." He grinned at Jack. "Very small...of course."
Jack grinned, caught up in the sheer joy of
the moment. Throwing his hands up in the air, he balanced precariously on the
bow rail, shouting exuberantly. "I’m the king of the world!"
Framed against the sea, he and Fabrizio
shouted joyfully, looking west toward America.
The ship rolled endlessly forward. Her
funnels marched past like the pillars of heaven, one by one. The people
strolled on the decks and stood at the rail.
And the Titanic moved on, black and severe in
her majesty.