TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Forty-Nine

The bow swept along, and toward the foremast, in the half-cylinder of the crow’s nest, were lookouts Fleet and Lee. They were stamping their feet and swinging their arms, trying to keep warm in the twenty-two knot freezing wind, which whipped the vapor of their breath away behind.

"You can smell ice, you know, when it’s near," Fleet said to Lee.

"Bollocks."

"Well, I can."

*****

Their words barely audible over the roar of the furnaces, the stokers told two stewards which way Rose and Jack went. The stewards moved off toward the forward holds.

*****

Cal stood at the open safe. He stared at the drawing of Rose, and his face clenched with fury. He read the note again: "Darling, now you can keep us both locked in your safe. Rose."

Lovejoy, standing behind him, looked over his shoulder at the drawing. Cal crumpled Rose’s note, then took the drawing in both hands as if to rip it in half. He tensed to do it, then stopped himself.

"I have a better idea."

*****

The two stewards entered hold number two. They had electric torches and played the beams around the hold. They spotted the Renault with its fogged up rear window and approached it slowly.

The torch lit up Rose’s passionate handprint, still there on the fogged up glass. One steward whipped open the door.

"Got you!"

The back seat was empty.

*****

Rose and Jack, fully dressed, came through a crew door onto the deck. They could barely stand, they were laughing so hard.

Up above them, in the crow’s nest, lookout Fleet heard the disturbance below and looked around and back down to the well deck, where he could see two figures embracing.

Jack and Rose stood in each other’s arms. Their breath clouded around them in the now freezing air, but they didn’t even feel the cold.

"When this ship docks, I’m getting off with you," Rose told Jack.

"This is crazy."

"I know. It doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I trust it."

Jack pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely.

In the crow’s nest Fleet nudged Lee.

"Cor...look at that, would ya."

"They’re a bloody sight warmer than we are."

"Well, if that’s what it takes for us two to get warm, I’d rather not, if it’s all the same."

They both had a good laugh at that one. It was Fleet whose expression fell first. Glancing forward again, he did a double take. The color drained out of his face.

A massive iceberg was right in their path, five hundred yards out.

"Bugger me!"

Fleet reached past Lee and rang the lookout bell three times, then grabbed the telephone, calling the bridge. He waited precious seconds for it to be picked up, never taking his eyes off the black mass ahead.

"Pick up, ya bastard."

*****

Inside the enclosed wheelhouse, Sixth Officer Moody walked unhurriedly to the telephone, picking it up.

"Is someone there?" Fleet was getting frantic.

"Yes. What do you see?"

"Iceberg right ahead!"

"Thank you." Moody hung up, and called to Murdoch. "Iceberg right ahead!"

Murdoch saw it and rushed to the engine room telegraph. While signaling "Full Speed Astern!" he yelled to Quartermaster Hitchens, who was at the wheel.

"Hard a’ starboard!"

Moody was standing behind Hitchens. "Hard a’ starboard. The helm is hard over, sir."

*****

Chief Engineer Bell was just checking the soup he had warming on a steam manifold when the engine telegraph clanged, then went...unbelievably...to Full Speed Astern. He and the other engineers just stared at it a second, unbelieving. Then Bell reacted.

"Full astern! Full astern!"

The engineers and greasers scrambled like madmen to close steam valves and start braking the mighty propeller shafts, big as Sequoias, to a stop.

In boiler room six, Leading Stoker Frederick Barrett was standing with Second Engineer James Hesketh when the red warning light and "Stop" indicator came on.

"Shut all dampers! Shut ‘em!"

From the bridge Murdoch watched the berg growing...straight ahead. The bow finally started to come left, since the ship turned the reverse of the helm setting.

Murdoch’s jaw clenched as the bow turned with agonizing slowness. He held his breath as the horrible physics played out.

In the crow’s nest Frederick Fleet braced himself.

The bow of the ship thundered ahead, and crunch! The ship hit the berg on its starboard bow.

Under water the ice smashed in the steel hull plates. The iceberg bumped and scraped along the side of the ship. Rivets popped as the steel plate of the hull flexed under the load.

In number two hold the two stewards staggered as the hull buckled in four feet with a sound like thunder. Like a sledgehammer beating along outside the ship, the berg split the hull plates and the sea poured in, sweeping them off their feet. The icy water swirled around the Renault as the men scrambled for the stairs.

On G Deck forward Fabrizio was tossed in his bunk by the impact. He heard a sound like the greatly amplified squeal of a skate on ice.

In boiler room six Barrett and Hesketh staggered as they heard the rolling thunder of the collision. They saw the starboard side of the ship buckle in toward them and were almost swept off their feet by a rush of water coming in about two feet above the floor.

On the forward well deck Jack and Rose broke their kiss and looked up in astonishment as the berg sailed past, blocking out the sky like a mountain. Fragments broke off it and crashed down onto the deck, and they had to jump back to avoid flying chunks of ice.

On the Bridge Murdoch rang the watertight door alarm. He quickly threw the switch that closed them.

"Hard a’ port!"

Judging the berg to be amidships, he was trying to clear the stern.

Barrett and Hesketh heard the door alarm and scrambled through the swirling water to the watertight door between Boiler Rooms six and five. The room was full of water vapor as the cold sea struck the red hot furnaces. Barrett yelled to the stokers scrambling through the door as it came down like a slow guillotine.

"Go lads! Go! Go!"

He dived through into Boiler Room five just before the door rumbled down with a clang.

Jack and Rose rushed to the starboard rail in time to see the berg moving aft down the side of the ship.

In his stateroom, surrounded by piles of plans while makes notes in his ever-present book, Andrews looked up at the sound of a cut-crystal light fixture tinkling like a wind chime.

He felt the shudder run through the ship. And it showed in his face. Too much of his soul was in this great ship for him not to feel its mortal wound.

In the first class smoking room Gracie watched his highball vibrating on the table.

In the Palm Court, with its high arched windows, Molly Brown held up her drink to a passing waiter.

"Hey, can I get some ice here, please?"

Silently, a wall of ice filled the windows behind her. She didn’t see it. It disappeared astern.

In the crow’s nest Fleet turned to Lee.

"Oy, mate...that was a close shave."

"Smell ice, can you? Bleeding Christ!"

*****

The alarm bells still clattered mindlessly, seeming to reflect Murdoch’s inner state. He was in shock, unable to get a grip on what just happened. He had just run the biggest ship in history into an iceberg on its maiden voyage.

Murdoch spoke stiffly to Moody. "Note the time. Enter it in the log."

Captain Smith rushed out of his cabin onto the bridge, tucking in his shirt.

"What was that, Mr. Murdoch?"

"An iceberg, sir. I put her hard a’ starboard and run the engines full astern, but it was too close. I tried to port around it, but she hit...and I--"

"Close the emergency doors."

"The doors are closed."

Together they rushed out onto the starboard wing, and Murdoch pointed. Smith looked into the darkness aft, then wheeled around to Fourth Officer Boxhall.

"Find the Carpenter and get him to sound the ship."

*****

In steerage, Fabrizio came out into the hall to see what was going on. He saw dozens of rats running toward him in the corridor, fleeing the flooding bow. Fabrizio jumped aside as the rats ran by.

"Ma che cazzo!"

In his stateroom Tommy got out of his top bunk in the dark and dropped down to the floor. Splash!

"Cor! What in hell?"

He snapped on the light. The floor was covered with three inches of freezing water, and more coming in. He pulled the door open, and stepped out into the corridor, which was flooded. Fabrizio was running toward him, yelling something in Italian. Tommy and Fabrizio started pounding on doors, getting everybody up and out. The alarm spread in several languages.

*****

A couple of people had come out into the corridor in robes and slippers. A steward hurried along, reassuring them.

"Why have the engines stopped? I felt a shudder," a woman asked him.

"I shouldn’t worry, ma’am. We’ve likely thrown a propeller blade. That’s the shudder you felt. May I bring you anything?"

Thomas Andrews brushed past them, walking fast and carrying an armload of rolled up ship’s plans.

*****

Jack and Rose were leaning over the starboard rail, looking at the hull of the ship.

"Looks okay. I don’t see anything," Jack said to Rose.

"Could it have damaged the ship?"

"It didn’t seem like much of a bump. I’m sure we’re okay."

Behind them a couple of steerage guys were kicking the ice around the deck, laughing. Rose picked up a piece of ice and dropped it down the back of Jack’s shirt. He yelled, jumping around, trying to reach the ice.

"Okay, Rose. Now I’m throwing you overboard!" He picked her up.

Rose squealed in mock terror. "No! No, Jack!" They both burst out laughing.

*****

Fabrizio and Tommy were in a crowd of steerage men clogging the corridors, heading aft away from the flooding. Many of them had grabbed suitcases and duffel bags, some of which were soaked.

"If this is the direction the rats were running, it’s good enough for me," Tommy shouted, hurrying forward.

*****

Bruce Ismay, dressed in pajamas under a topcoat, hurried down the corridor, headed for the bridge. An officious steward named Barnes came along the other direction, getting the few concerned passengers back into their rooms.

"There’s no cause for alarm. Please, go back to your rooms."

He was stopped in his tracks by Cal and Lovejoy.

"Please, sir. There’s no emergency--"

"Yes, there is. I’ve been robbed. Now get the Master-at-Arms. Now, you moron!" Cal was losing patience.

*****

Captain Smith was studying the commutator.

He turned to Andrews, standing behind him.

"A five degree list in less than ten minutes."

Ship’s carpenter John Hutchinson entered behind him, out of breath and clearly unnerved.

"She’s making water fast...in the forepeak tank and the forward hold, and in boiler room six."

Ismay entered, his movements quick with anger and frustration. Smith glanced at him with annoyance.

"Why have we stopped?"

"We’ve struck ice."

"Well, do you think the ship is seriously damaged?"

Smith glared at Ismay. "Excuse me."

Smith pushed past him, with Andrews and Hutchinson in tow.

*****

Stokers and firemen were struggling to draw the fires. They were working in waist deep water churning around them as it flowed into the boiler room, ice cold and swirling with grease from the machinery. Chief Engineer Bell came partway down the ladder and shouted.

"That’s it, lads. Get the hell up!"

They scrambled up the escape ladders.

*****

The gentleman, now joined by another man, leaned on the forward rail watching the steerage men playing soccer with chunks of ice.

"I guess it’s nothing serious. I’m going back to my cabin to read."

A twentyish Yale man popped through the door wearing a topcoat over pajamas.

"Say, did I miss the fun?"

Rose and Jack came up the steps from the well deck, which were right next to the three men. They stared as the couple climbed over the locked gate.

A moment later Captain Smith rounded the corner, followed by Andrews and Carpenter Hutchinson. They had come down from the bridge by the outside stairs. The three men, their faces grim, brushed right past Jack and Rose. Andrews barely glanced at her.

"Can you shore up?"

"Not unless the pumps get ahead."

The inspection party went down the stairs to the well deck.

Jack spoke to Rose in a low voice. "It’s bad."

"We have to tell Mother and Cal."

"Now it’s worse."

"Come with me, Jack. I jump, you jump...right?"

"Right."

Jack followed Rose through the door inside the ship.

Chapter Fifty
Stories