The Watch That Ends the Night, page 12
to the china teacups in the ladies’ first-class reading room.
Whenever I feel the slightest self-doubt,
whenever I feel I’m not up to the task,
I need only stop and listen for the thrum
as it rises up through Titanic’s rivets and girders
into the very marrow of my bones.
It is the distant drumming of industry and of life.
The calming vibration of the earth turning on its axis.
The certainty of life in my sleeping daughter’s breath.
The hum that I hear when I place my ear to a hive.
THOMAS HART THE STOKER
They told me that the fire had been going since Belfast.
No doubt they coaled up by improperly wetting it down.
The coal wants to burn so badly that it starts on its own.
Now, how about that? More a smolder than a flame,
but that’s how it goes. And by that Saturday, the fire was gone.
Though it had taken about a dozen men working round the clock.
Finally the bunker was empty, and I climbed down into it myself
to examine the damage. It took me breath away, it did.
You could easily see where the extreme heat had deformed the metal walls.
It was as if the Devil himself had been trapped inside.
And all the while the fancified folk up top kept on as normal,
for when you’re at the top, you’re always the last to see the flames.
And if you’ve got enough servants and working men,
you’ll likely never even smell the smoke;
you won’t even know you was in danger at all.
There’s a dragon on the loose belowdecks:
the coal bunkers are smolderin’, the boilers are about to blow,
the ship’s dropped a propeller, the stokers and crew are on strike —
that’s right, the stokers and the deck crew and the bootblack stewards,
and the cooks and cleaners and the elevator boys.
Ha!
The Titanic would come to a dead stop in the water
and she’d likely ride the Gulf Stream halfway to Bermuda
before the toffs in first class started wondering
why no one was putting their dinner on the table.
FIREMAN’S CHANT THE STOKERS AND TRIMMERS
We shovels the coal
and we puts on the steam.
Like rats, we’re the Black Gang
and seldom we’re seen.
On deck they forgets
that this ship wouldn’t go
without the Black Gang
at the boilers below.
The boilers are dragons,
each furnace a maw.
The Devil’s lead fireman.
He lays down the law.
But the Devil forgets
that this ship wouldn’t go
without the Black Gang
at the boilers below.
We’ve fire in our bellies.
We’ve fire in our ’arts.
We’ve fire in our britches.
We’ve fire in our arse!
So never forget
that this ship wouldn’t go
without the Black Gang
at the boilers below.
No, never forget
that this ship wouldn’t go
without the Black Gang
at the boilers below.
THE FIRST-CLASS PROMENADE
Like figures on a carousel,
around the upper-crust rondelle,
they swagger, sway, sashay, glissade:
Titanic’s first-class promenade.
They walk so they might see the sea.
They walk to see and to be seen.
Six times around, they’ve gone a mile.
A witty joke. A winning smile.
In vogue and cosmopolitan
they clutch their Pomeranians
and walk among the millionaires
or watch from swayback steamer chairs.
Behold the posh aristocrat.
Can you believe he’s wearing that ?
Brown shoes and boater? Now, that’s odd!
So goes the first-class promenade.
Old money trumps the nouveau riche,
for even first-class has a niche
with which to further classify
each promenader passing by.
They walk so they might see the sea.
They walk to see and to be seen.
They walk in blissful harmony.
They wear their very best facade.
Titanic’s first-class promenade.
MARGARET BROWN THE SOCIALITE
Today I tried my hand at quoits.
You toss the little ring of rope
in an attempt to lodge it round a peg.
I was at it a good portion of the morning.
And I felt as though I had become quite good.
The quoits landing nearest the little peg win a point.
A “leaner” is good for an extra point; a “ringer” is good for three.
But a ringer that happens to land upside down
is called a “lady” and doesn’t count!
“That sounds a lot like politics,”
I said to my playing partner, Mrs. Candee,
who was surrounded, as usual, by her coterie.
“Even if a lady is mentally capable of voting,
her vote doesn’t count on Election Day!
“You know,” said Mrs. Candee,
“I’m a suffragette as much as you, Maggie.
I’ve put in my hours at meetings and rallies.
But remember: a woman can legislate in other ways.
For when beauty assails, reason has no part.”
Her gaggle of men murmured their approval.
“That’s easy for you to say,” I replied.
“For you are more beautiful than I.”
And in answer Mrs. Candee took my face in her delicate hands,
and she said, “Margaret Brown, you have beauty enough.
All women have beauty enough.”
Her gaggle murmured again,
and Mrs. Candee began to hold court
there among the quoits boards.
She said, “If you fling demands at tired men
who hold favors, you don’t get them.
If you ‘ask pretty,’ tactfully choosing
the time that suits the man
and never mind yourself,
only then are you more likely to win.
And this condition will prevail
so long as men are strong
and women are charming.”
To punctuate her little speech, she sent a quoit sailing
and it landed upside down and a good three feet
from the pin. It was a “lady,” and yet Mrs. Candee had certainly won!
Mrs. Candee could win more points by losing
than I could win by winning.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR THE MILLIONAIRE
I am not terribly close to Mrs. Brown,
and yet I know her well enough to know what’s wrong.
She is feeling dissatisfied with her money,
because she thought money would help her to like herself.
I don’t have that problem because I am “old money.”
Old Money figured out long ago that the rich
are just as miserable as the poor — sometimes more so.
From the public and press, I endure
ludicrous extremes of adulation and ridicule.
I am the closest thing to royalty the Americans have got,
but when I raise and outfit my own artillery regiment
and donate my yacht to the cause,
I’m accused of preciousness and playing at soldier.
Yet was I not there, in the thick of it (or at least nearby),
when Colonel Roosevelt stormed up San Juan Hill?
My horse even caught a bit of shrapnel in the fray.
(He pulled through just fine. A wonderful beast.)
I admit there is a certain intensity that my life
may lack because I will never be poor,
because I feel no danger of ever going hungry.
I have never wondered whence my next meal would come.
Indeed I am rich enough to eat a hundred meals
each day for a hundred years and never wash a dish.
Yet what fault is it of mine that I am who I am?
I, and no one else, was born to be the richest man in the world.
It’s all a matter of where you happen to be standing
when the bolt of lightning strikes.
I was next in line for the Astor fortune.
I did not position myself in the line on purpose.
These riches and power were given me unasked.
If you were me, you’d feel like a god as well.
LOUIS HOFFMAN THE TAILOR
I had nearly forgotten, in that moment, who I was.
“Mr. Hoffman? Mr. Hoffman? You’re next in the chair, sir.”
The barber must have thought I was just a bit strange.
(You are a stranger. You are not who you say you are.)
I have come to the barber shop to shave my mustache
in the hopes that I’ll be less recognizable.
(I see you. I know who you are.)
I have no way of knowing if Marcelle may wire ahead.
Of course, this is my right. They are my children.
(Do with them as you please.)
Now Lolo is crying.
He does not want me to shave my mustache off.
Lolo is crying, “Non, Papa. Non, Papa.”
And perhaps he is right. (The boy is right.)
And why should I try to hide my true face?
(You cannot hide from me. For I am you.)
I have done nothing wrong.
(We have done nothing wrong.)
(Stop it! I’ve changed my mind, you fool!)
“Stop it! Please,” I tell the barber, “I’ve changed my mind.
I have done nothing wrong,” I say.
“Of course not, sir,” the barber says. “Nothing wrong at all.”
“Come back if you like. You know where I am.”
(I know where you are.) I do not need to hide.
(We can do no wrong.) I have done nothing wrong.
LOLO THE TAILOR’S SON
titanic is the big ship.
titanic is the hot meals.
the edge of the world
outside the big windows.
the barber shop is toys.
the barber shop is dolls
hanging up high.
the barber shop is a razor.
the barber
he wants to shave at papa’s mustache.
so i cry.
too many things are gone.
papa is a mustache.
and papa is pockets.
with biscuits. with bullets.
and a pistol. bang. bang.
papa buys me a doll.
my face is wet.
papa kisses my wet face.
momon sleeps and sleeps.
THE SHIP RAT
JAMILA NICOLA-YARRED THE REFUGEE
As the tale of our stolen money spread,
I began to realize just how many Syrians and Lebanese
were with us on board Titanic. Many knew of Hakoor,
and some of them even knew Father and Mother.
All Saturday morning, Arabic-speaking passengers
offered me their sympathies and extended offers of help.
After breakfast in the third-class common room,
I heard a man named Fraza singing at the piano.
He was quite a good singer and very charming,
but of course he was old, nearly twice my years.
A girl my own age named Selini stared at him.
“Is he not handsome?” she said in a dreamy voice.
“He is handsome,” I said, “for an old man.”
Selini laughed, and as we listened to Fraza sing,
we sat and talked about the lives we had left behind.
It was good to speak with a girl my own age.
I noticed her fingernails, painted dark red.
In my country this was tradition for new brides.
“You are married?” I said.
“Yes,” said Selini. “To that ‘old man’ singing at the piano.”
“Oh, I am so sorry, Selini. I did not know.”
“No, no.” She laughed. “My Fraza is not so old.”
She talked with excitement about her new life.
And about the wedding ceremony, which had lasted three days.
She confided how nervous she had felt.
“But Fraza was just as nervous as I was,” she said.
“It is a good match. My parents arranged it.”
I told her that I would turn fourteen in two days.
I tried to describe how I felt about the brown-knee-pants boy.
“Do not worry, Jamila,” she said. “Your parents
will find you a husband soon. After you reach America.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Fraza was not so bad-looking.
But Fraza was not the boy in the brown knee pants.
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
-- .- .-. .-. -.-- / -- .
That’s “Marry me” in Morse code.
Both Phillips and I had to agree with the sea-post men:
a wireless message is not as romantic as a letter.
And yet a telegram is not without a certain kind of poetry.
Like a poet, a wireless man can say a lot in a few words.
- -.- ... is TKS, for Thanks. --- -- is OM, for Old Man.
RD means Received.
MSG means Master Service Gram.
GTH means Go to Hell.
The letter for Marconi, simply M.
STDBI means Stand By.
Shorthand for Titanic is MGY.
CQ means Everybody Stop Transmission and Listen Up.
D means Danger or Distress.
Q could mean Quiet (but it really means Shut Up).
The newest call is SOS.
By combining them a little, you can say quite a lot.
CQD: All stations listen. Distress!
TR OM TKS: Transmission received, old man, thanks.
GTHOMQ: Go to hell, old man. Shut up.
Many poems that Saturday shared a common chorus —
from the Californian, from the Montrose,
the East Point, the Corsican, the President Lincoln:
Field ice, growlers, some bergs —
along latitude 41°º50’ North.
There was no shorter way to say it.
E. J. SMITH THE CAPTAIN
The Marconi boys stand up when I enter the room.
The deckhands do, too, as I go about the Saturday inspection.
But I’m not so unlike these young men.
Even the most grand of men can come from lowly circumstances.
I still slip up from time to time when I speak,
saying “theer” in place of “there,” or “weer” in place of “where.”
My mother, God bless her soul, could barely read and write,
yet she made sure that her sons all went to school.
It’s been a long, long voyage from that little house
in the Potteries to where I stand today.
At over one hundred pounds per month,
I’m one of the best paid sailors on the sea.
With a nice Southampton home away from the docks,
a maid and a cook, spring flowers in the yard.
And when I’m at home, I hang up my captain’s cap,
and I sit in my favorite chair by the hearth
with a good-size wolfhound curled up at my feet.
I take this toothpick from my mouth and replace it with a fine cigar.
Because what I like more than anything else
is a good cigar and silence as I smoke it.
But for now I must inspect the decks and go about my duties.
I’ve earned my position through my own hard work,
not through friends handing me favors.
And if I am paid very well, then at least I earn it honestly.
And at the end of every year, in keeping with White Star policy,
I’m paid a bonus of two hundred pounds
as long as I return my ships in good order.
This year perhaps I will spend my bonus on Mel,
or perhaps her mother, Eleanor, who has sacrificed so much.
Our relocation to Southampton was not popular with her.
But without the sea, there would be no house
no cook, no maid, no Mel, no me.
THOMAS HART THE STOKER
Us Black Gang are like rats:
if you see one or two out in the open,
you can be certain there’s a hundred more hidden away.
But generally we like it that way, shy lot that we are.
We sleep and eat on the middle decks in the ship’s bow.
And, by way of a pair of spiral stairs, we descend
to the very lowest deck, then through the firemen’s tunnel
to reach our stations at the bins and boilers.
If I wanted to, I might come aboard
and never see the sun for a week,
but o’ course that isn’t what I want.
I like to stretch me legs a bit, and sometimes
me legs takes me places I’m not supposed to go.
Sometimes me legs may takes me toward the luggage holds
to rummage through the trunks and bags.
Sometimes me legs takes me toward a money belt fastened
too loose around the waist of a pretty girl in distress.
But on this fine Saturday mornin’, me legs
were only in a middlin’ mischievous mood,
and they simply took me up top to the aft well deck
to mingle a bit among the steerage folk.
And with me, since Johnny Coffey had jumped ship,
was a new acquaintance, one Mr. Samuel Collins, Esquire,
who was a fireman like meself and a good one at that.
It wasn’t long before me legs walked me over to a group of lads
discussing the truth and the blarney about sea dragons.
When it comes to matters of fabricating lies,
I was born to it, else me name ain’t Tommy Hart.
And good old Sam Collins, he joined in like Shakespeare.
