The Watch That Ends the Night, page 11
Shocked and somewhat indignant that they
would for a second think me capable of theft.
I told them, “John Coffey took the girl’s money.”
“He was acting suspiciously, that fellow was,” I said.
I suppose that’s the reason he deserted in Queenstown.
I knew from the first, there was something wrong with that one.”
Oh, I laid it on thick, I did.
The pursers checked out Johnny’s berth
and of course they discovered he had jumped ship.
They set off to the Marconi shack
to wire the authorities in Queenstown.
And good luck to ’em.
By then it was time for another four-hour shift,
so I got up and took me dunnage bag into the latrine.
I was after a fresh pair of socks stowed there,
but first, I stopped to linger in the privacy of me stall,
to fish out the money belt bulging with bills.
Just to make sure it was all still there.
And it was — one hundred pounds, by my count.
Well, what was I to do? I ask ye.
The girl must’ve tied the belt too loosely.
It fell out of her skirts all by itself, it did.
Titanic is aptly named the Millionaire’s Special;
a poor stoker is paid handsomely for his labor.
And even the third class throw sacks of money about.
THE THIRD-CLASS PROMENADE
Stomp. Swish. Pitter-patter. Shrieks and shouts.
The steerage take their walkabouts.
A traveling circus on parade.
Behold the third-class promenade.
Children clamor. Infants wail.
Nappies dry on poop-deck rails.
“Give us a song!” “Come, now, let’s dance!”
A chat. A smoke. A game of chance.
They speak, in many varied tongues,
of where they’re going, where they’re from.
Six months of hard-earned wages paid
to join the third-class promenade.
They walk so they might see the sea.
They walk to see and to be seen.
Their pants well patched. Their skirts homemade.
A poor folks’ fashion promenade.
Stomp. Swish. Pitter-patter. Shrieks and shouts.
The steerage take their walkabouts
and talk about the plans they’ve made.
Titanic’s third-class promenade.
FRANKIE’S GANG
JAMILA NICOLA-YARRED THE REFUGEE
I was frantic with the loss of Father’s money.
How could I have been so careless?
Elias kept saying, “You see? Father should have
entrusted the money to me! I’m the man!”
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I wasn’t cut out for this.
In my secret heart, I felt shame at having failed.
I felt anger at Father for placing me in charge.
I felt guilt for feeling angry with my father.
A kind Lebanese man named Fahim Leeni
offered to help. Mr. Leeni was from Tula;
he was on his way to Cincinnati and spoke English very well.
He explained how one of the ship’s stokers
had taken the money and snuck away at Queenstown.
Mr. Leeni helped to calm me down a bit.
This poor man had his own problems.
“I was forced to leave my wife, Elsie, in France,” he said,
“just as you were forced to leave your father.
But don’t worry — you will be together again.”
The thought of being reunited with my father
was both comforting and terrifying.
How could I tell him I lost all the money?
That evening I skipped dinner. I stayed inside my cabin.
What will happen once we reach America penniless?
I found a tiny empty space in my secret heart
and wished the Titanic would just sink,
and take me with it, to the bottom of the Atlantic.
OLAUS ABELSETH THE IMMIGRANT
Miss Marie Stene,
Ørskog P.O.
via Ålesund, Norway
12 April 1912
Friday
My dearest M —
Today, we saw nothing but the open sea. Anna and Karen did not leave their cabin. Their stomachs are unsettled, and it makes me thankful that the seas are so calm. If the waters were at all choppy, these delicate girls would truly be in trouble.
For exercise I walk with Peter, Sigurd, and Adolf, exploring the miles of corridors and decks. We walk until we come to a sign that reads “First-Class Passengers Only.” We walk another way until we come to a sign that reads “Second-Class Passengers Only.” We walk yet another way and it is “No Third-Class Beyond This Point.”
I saw a man standing at the top of a set of steep metal stairs that join the third-class deck to the second-class above. There is a little gate there about waist high. And this man is holding hands across the gate with a lady on the other side. They say nothing at all. They just hold hands, ignore the commotion below, and look out over the ocean.
I thought about us, Marie. I thought about the ocean that now separates us and how that separation grows wider every minute.
A thousand miles away, I am still your one and only
Ole
CHARLES JOUGHIN THE BAKER
Late at night is the best time for baking.
It isn’t so hot, and there are no passengers to tend to.
That Friday night, my staff was cleaning up from dinner
and baking the big loaves for the morning.
My cabin on E deck was very near the bakery.
Just one deck down for a quick swig of whiskey.
I had been worshipping at the shrine of Bacchus
almost since I first set to sea as a cabin boy on the SS Melbourne,
but I never took a drink before the sun was over the yardarm.
That evening, I had a quick nip in my cabin,
then returned to the bakery, where I spent most of my time at sea.
Like the boiler men belowdecks, we bakers endured the heat of the ovens.
Only instead of being blackened by coal dust, we were whitened by flour.
You might call us bakers the White Gang. Ha, ha.
We were just a small part of Titanic’s massive victualling crew,
whose job it was to feed every soul on board:
first class, second class, third class, officers, engineers, Marconi boys,
sea-post men, firemen, sailors, servants, and every variety of steward.
On the few occasions when the bakery was not in use,
I would lock the thick metal doors with the heavy keys
that always jangled at my belt. These keys also unlocked
my secret sanctuary: the flour room.
The flour room was on G deck with the other food stores.
This is where I would sometimes go to be alone
and just stand amid the neatly numbered barrels
the way a wealthy man might stand in his countinghouse.
But that night there was no time. The loaves were cooling on the racks.
The cooks were passing by, carrying sacks of potatoes.
Cook Maynard stepped into the bakery to heckle me for fun.
But now, whenever his handlebar mustache waggled,
I would think of his rodent namesake and secretly smile.
THE SHIP RAT
scuttle
scuttle
sniff sniff . . . ?
sniff sniff . . . bread?
sniff sniff . . . bread
scuttlescuttlescuttle
bread
bread
BREAD!
LOLO THE TAILOR’S SON
papa is asleep in a chair.
he sits and watches me sleep.
but now i am watching him.
today papa told a lady
that mama was dead.
he thought i wasn’t listening
but i was.
in london
we saw dead birds in the gutters.
momon picked one up.
papa slapped momon’s hand
and momon cried.
papa said they were orphan birds.
papa said the birds
came from far away.
they came from far away
and they died.
we are going far away too.
papa, me, and momon.
we are orphan birds too.
THE ICEBERG
I am the ice, an Arctic emigrant.
I’ve seen both life and death along my way,
pushed on by winds and currents turbulent
past inlets, capes, peninsulas, and bays,
each named for brave explorers who got lost.
Another life, another toll to pay.
The ice fox with its fur of winter white,
the ptarmigan with feathers just the same —
against the snow they disappear from sight.
The winter dance of predator and prey.
A polar bear keeps watch upon a hole
in hopes a seal may try to steal a breath.
I’ve watched the gentle bowheads meet their death
beneath the greedy whalers’ barbed harpoons —
the blubber bound to fill Great Britain’s lamps,
the whalebone bound for bodices in France.
The snow geese, murres, and buntings fill the air.
The kittiwakes harass the Arctic hare.
Inuits cooking dovekies in a stew;
with teeth worn smooth, an elder woman chews
to make a sealskin soft enough to wear.
I am the ice. I have ten thousand brothers,
all born of Greenland’s ancient glacial mother.
A colony of emigrating ice
set sail to reach the heart of paradise.
Soon after our migration had begun,
a million dovekies blotted out the sun;
swept eastward by the Arctic winds they went.
They flew until both wind and wings were spent,
their journey come to this: exhausted flutters
of dying wings in distant London gutters.
I am the ice. I have no need of wings.
I only need the hearts Titanic brings.
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
Friday, our third day out.
Our first full day away from land.
This was the time when the wireless man
feels most at home — dit-dit-dit-dit dash-dash-dash dash-dash dit.
From all points of the compass, messages flooded in,
from stations on land or from other passing ships,
and I translated the dits and dashes into language.
Best of luck on your maiden voyage
God Speed RMS Titanic.
All good wishes to the White Star Line.
I even received a relayed message from my mate Cottam,
headed toward the Mediterranean aboard the Carpathia.
And Titanic’s passengers sent their replies
to New York, to London, to Paris, Toronto,
wherever they wished. It seemed there was no corner
on earth that could not hear Titanic’s voice.
During my morning shift, I had fallen behind.
But Phillips, the ten-year veteran, had caught us up
(thirty words per minute!) before his shift was half over.
Messages addressed directly to Captain Smith’s attention
were to be delivered by hand to an officer,
and with Phillips at the key, that task fell to me.
“Here’s one for the boys on the bridge,” Phillips said.
It was from the French liner La Touraine.
As I walked with it along the corridor, past the officers’ quarters,
I tried not to pry, but one particular phrase
seemed to float upward from the notice . . .
saw another ice-field and two icebergs.
It stuck in my mind, for earlier that morning
the Empress of Britain had mentioned ice as well.
But that message had not been addressed to the captain.
Had Phillips not stopped me, I would have run it to the bridge,
but now I know to take such notices in stride.
“Nothing to be alarmed about, Bride,” said Phillips.
“On the North Atlantic run, we get ice reports
quite often this time of year. But just remember:
they are reports, not warnings,
and unless they begin with MSG”—that’s Master Service Gram —
“you can take them to the bridge at your leisure.
Paying customers first, Bride. Paying customers first.
Remember: ‘Business before brass; customers for cash.’”
A lesson well learned.
The MARCONI INTERNATIONAL
Marine Communication Company, Ltd.
Marconi-gram
From: Capt. Caussin, La Touraine
To: Capt. Smith, Titanic
Date: 12 April 1912
Time: 7:10 P.M.
MSG. To Captain, Titanic. My position 7 P.M. GMT lat. 49° 28' N, long. 26° 28' W. Dense fog since this night. Crossed thick ice-field lat. 44°58', long. 50°40' .Saw another ice-field and two icebergs lat. 45°20', long. 45°09' . Saw a derelict lat. 40°56', long. 68°38' . Please give me your position. Best regards and bon voyage.
Caussin
The Marconi International
Marine Communication Company, Ltd.
Marconi-gram
From: Capt. Smith, Titanic
To: Capt. Caussin, La Touraine
Date: 12 April 1912
Time: 7:45 P.M.
MSG. Thanks for your message and information. My position, 7 P.M. GMT, lat. 49°45 ‘ N, long. 23°38' W. Had fine weather. Compliments.
Smith
April 22, 1912
MONDAY
Aboard the cable ship Mackay-Bennett
ATLANTIC OCEAN
The Grand Banks
700 Miles from Halifax, Nova Scotia
JOHN SNOW
THE UNDERTAKER
My search for the names of the dead has begun.
Number the corpse. Fill out the card. Tag the body.
Look for clues. Document the clothing. Disrobe the corpse.
Count the coin, the cash, the checks, the stocks.
Describe the socks. They do not lie. Neither do the shoes.
Listen to the dead men’s whispered clues.
Guess the deceased’s identity. Determine any damage.
Embalm the upper class if I can. Place the lower classes on ice.
Bag the badly damaged for burial at sea.
“For as much as it hath pleased . . .”
Splash. Splash. Splash.
“. . . we therefore commit this body to the deep.”
Body after body, I write each entry in my little log,
my Record of Bodies and Effects. Do not become upset, John Snow.
So many phrases. Clipped. Succinct. And descriptive.
I must say so much in so little space. I sum up the dead
in an undertaker’s grave macabre verse:
Snow & Company, Ltd.
John R. Snow, Jr., Undertaker
Record of Bodies and Effects
NO. 1: MALE. ESTIMATED AGE: 10 –12.
HAIR: LIGHT.
CLOTHING: Overcoat, grey; one grey coat; one blue coat; grey woolen jersey; white shirt; grey knickers; black stockings; black boots
EFFECTS: Purse containing few Danish coins and ring; two handkerchiefs Marked “A”.
PROBABLY THIRD CLASS
FOURTH WATCH
FRIVOLOUS AMUSEMENTS
850 MILES OUT SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1912
BRUCE ISMAY THE BUSINESSMAN
Saturday. Three days since we left Southampton.
Time for the passengers to find their stride.
By now the worries of the world have melted away —
too far from departure to worry about the past,
too far from arrival to worry about the future.
This is when the White Star Line is at its best.
This is the time for frivolous amusements.
Let the Cunard Line race its speeding greyhounds.
Let them arrive in New York on Tuesday if they like.
Titanic is a Wednesday ship. Titanic takes her time.
For on board Titanic, time stands still and illusion walks the decks.
Outside, the passengers promenade
as if strolling the seaside in the Hamptons.
Indoors, passengers travel the world,
relaxing in the Turkish bath, sweating in the electric bath,
pretending that they’re becoming more trim
with before-and-after sessions in the weighing chair.
The Palm Court simulates tea in a Jacobean manor,
with live ivy climbing up the trellised walls.
Descending the grand staircase into the reception room,
the lady imagines herself arriving at the palace ball.
Even the second class are given the illusion that they’re in first class.
And the third class imagine that they are in second.
If the day is overcast, the sun still shines
via electric lights behind opaque glass.
This is the time for frivolous amusements.
THOMAS ANDREWS THE SHIPBUILDER
Yes. I designed Titanic, in part, to make guests forget
that they are on a ship at sea: the elaborate trappings
after the fashion of the palace of Versailles.
Rooms in the style of Louis the Fifteenth or Sixteenth,
Italian Renaissance or Modern Dutch,
Regency, Georgian, or even Queen Anne!
Those with the means may choose their illusion.
But there is no escaping the telltale thrum,
that not-so-subtle murmur of propellers and pistons.
It begins in the noisy inferno of the engine rooms
and casts its vibrations to every extremity of the ship
from the chamber pots in the third-class barracks
