Touched by Angels (17 page)

“Twenty dray horses per item,” Boxhall told him, “and a crane a third as big as the Eiffel Tower to lift them.”

“What about the propellers?” asked a thin, retired surgeon at the end, as the chandelier glinted from his monocle.

In his element, Boxhall smiled, as he leaned back in the sumptuous comfort of his chair. He rakishly lit a cigarette.

“Three of them. Sixteen feet across, copper alloy, forty-five tons apiece.”

The statistics flooded from him. About two thousand two hundred people on board. Ten months to fit the interior installations, and several million man-hours to perform them. Fourteen thousand men built her. Many were injured. Some died. Twenty-three tons of tallow, train oil and soft soap were needed to grease the ways as the ship was launched.

He told the gathering, that in spite of the ship’s vast size, the launch had taken just sixty-two seconds, and that six anchor chains, plus two piles of drag chains, weighing eighty tons each were needed to help slow her down. She had nevertheless reached twelve knots before striking the water.

When the gasps of awe had subsided, Straus laughed and said, as he looked around, “As I ’spected. Not a single question from a dame. No offence, Ma’am,” he said to Lil, as he stuck his chin out, “but as my Daddy always said…” and here he leaned forward, his face a grinning, sweating moon, “… it’s the fellas who do all the thinkin’.”

After a long guffaw, he leaned back, winked at Robert, and several of the men nodded and laughed in accord.

Ida glared, and mouthed at him to be quiet, before Lil asked, very quietly, “How many lifeboats, Mr Boxhall?”

The chatter slowed and then died at several surrounding tables.

Boxhall had been putting a fresh cigarette to his lips. His face clouded over, as he admitted a little quietly, “I’m er… I’m not rightly sure. Thirteen… fourteen. Something… something like that. Not that we’ll need them, of course.” He smiled thinly, though the maths that went through everybody’s minds didn’t need vocalising.

Boxhall tried not to show his relief when Robert announced, “I would love to see the crow’s nest.”

He invited Lil and Robert on a tour of the ship the following day as by then, they would be crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and he would have a couple of hours free.

That night, they retired to their beds euphoric, but so exhausted, they were asleep in minutes.

Forty-one

The next day, they anchored off a place called Roche’s Point, near Queenstown in Southern Ireland, to pick up more passengers and bags of mail, where the crowds were as ecstatic as those in Southampton, if not quite as numerous.

Then the ship nosed its way into the Atlantic Ocean, and, under Boxhall’s guidance, Lil and Robert explored it from the poop deck to the forecastle deck, and every square foot of space in between. The only blot was that the First Officer forbade Robert a trip into the crow’s nest, saying it was too dangerous.

They visited the bridge and then the wheelhouse, where the Quartermaster, Robert Hichens, allowed Robert to take the wheel.

There were smiles as he remarked it was nowhere near as big as he had thought it would be. He had a lot of difficulty believing it could steer a ship weighing as much as Boxhall had said.

He even met the Captain himself, but felt a little tense as he shook his hand; and not just because he reminded him of Mr MacPherson, the grocer on Cross Street, but because a ship’s captain had always occupied a very aloof place in his imagination.

The thick white beard and gleaming medals pinned to his white tunic added to the mystique, as he said, shaking Robert’s hand, “Captain Edward Smith.”

All eyes were on him, as Robert replied nervously, “Robert… er… Robert Brookes. And… this is my mum.”

“Enjoying the voyage, young man?”

“Yes, thank you,” Robert said, unable to bring his voice above or below a level plane.

As they made their way back out onto A deck, they heard him demanding if a pair of lost binoculars had been found yet. After learning they hadn’t, he snapped, “Then for Heaven’s sake, show some initiative, man! Hunt for them, properly! We
must
have them, before the ice.”

Seeming relieved to be out of the line of fire, Boxhall took them to see the compass platform, amidships, from where he explained most of the navigation was conducted.

The last place he took them to, at Lil’s request, was the wireless room, and she sagged in relief the moment she clapped eyes on it. It was a heap of brass, wires and dials, with a very stressed and uncertain looking man sitting before it. If anything, it looked dangerous.

“It’s more of a novelty, really,” Boxhall told them, seeming a trifle embarrassed at the contraption, “it’ll never catch on, er…” He looked around and said, half-playfully, “but don’t tell the captain I said that.” He winked and they both laughed.

He gave them a short lecture about Morse Code, the only sort of conversation it seemed capable of,
when
it worked.

“Dots and dashes,” he said, “with each letter of the alphabet made up of a combination thereof.” He chuckled. “I mean, I ask you! I’m hopeless at it myself, though Mr Philips here, I’m sure, will very kindly astound you with
his
speed and dexterity. I’m rather envious, if truth be known. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give him a message to tap out. We’ll see if you can guess what it is.”

He scribbled something on a thick pad, beside the wireless, whilst keeping his back to them. Then, as if he’d thought of something more appropriate, he crunched it up and tossed it in a wire basket, before writing another.

He passed it to Philips, who tapped it out in a blur.

“Well,” he asked grinning, when the clicking stopped, “can you guess?”

They both shrugged, so he said to Robert, as he passed the slip of paper to him, “Aloud, if you please.”

“We are sinking fast,” Robert recited, “all vessels please make haste. Save our souls. Thirty-six degrees North. Forty-eight degrees East.”

He couldn’t believe his ears.

“All those words in just a few seconds?”

Philips grinned too, as he removed his head phones, and said, “Good, eh? Don’t worry. I didn’t send it.”

“And nor should we ever,” Boxhall reminded them, “as you know, the ship is damn near unsinkable, on account of its double skin.”

“Very impressive,” Lil told him, feeling anything but impressed.

As they were leaving the little room, Robert stooped on the pretext of tying his shoelace and retrieved the discarded note from the bin. It said, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I wish I could marry you.”

Though shocked, he could only admire the man’s taste, as he took them to the Café Parisien, to take tea. He watched his mother in awe, as Boxhall chatted with her, but vowed never to tell her.

Forty-two

Friday and Saturday seemed to vanish in a blur.

Lil and Robert raced each other along the length of the ship, through the enclosed promenades of both first and second class, laughing as they went. Their footfalls echoed from the walls and ceilings.

In the restaurant that evening, they heard talk of a professional thief, and that several wealthy ladies had been relieved of various items of jewellery, and that other valuables had disappeared from the suites of the well-to-do.

Lil had stirred upon hearing this, thinking of the suitcase. She had not considered this possibility, such was the rush she had been in to get away.

The dinner party had been organised by George and Eleanor Widener of Pennsylvania, who were among the richest people on board, and Captain Smith, an honoured guest, sat at the far end, though he had said very little and seemed preoccupied.

Next to him sat Major Archibald Butt, the American President’s aide-de-camp, who listened to the exchange with interest.

Lil and Robert had been invited, at the insistence of Isidor and Ida Straus, mostly because Ida had taken a shine to Robert. Lil had dressed him appropriately, in a sailor suit, and Ida gazed at him benevolently.

Lil was a little embarrassed that Robert had been unable to take his gaze from Eleanor Widener, though she could see why. She had never seen such a beautiful woman in her life, and when she spoke, her voice was like indigo velvet.

“Have
you
had anything taken?” she asked Lil, as the chandelier glinted from a band of diamonds circling her neck.

“No, not yet,” Lil replied, thinking how easy it would be to break into their suite. She herself wore a necklace of rubies to complement her purple evening gown.

“But we will be on our guard from now on.”

“Wonder who he is,” Ida said, sipping champagne and looking around.

“It’s kinda obvious,” George replied, cutting a cigar, “It’s
this
young fella.” He nodded at Robert, whilst winking at Lil.

A steward stepped forward to light his cigar. Ida kicked George under the table, and he grunted, making Robert laugh.

“Perhaps it
ain’t
a fella,” Major Butt pointed out grimly, “maybe it’s a dame.”

This uncomfortable possibility brought a moment of silence, as he polished his spectacles on a napkin, but Eleanor Widener was having none of it.

“I firmly believe that
all
of the female members of First Class are ladies first and foremost. They would
never
stoop to such treachery, as might those lesser beings beneath decks.”

“I agree,” Ida said, and began to tell the gathering about a book she had read by an eminent psychiatrist, that effectively quashed the theory completely.

Major Butt simply grunted and painfully aware of acid looks from various females, shrugged and sipped his wine.

Captain Smith stood at about nine o’clock and announced, “I will make it my business to pull out all stops in our efforts to apprehend the culprit. I sincerely hope the thief is not a crew member.”

With that, he thanked the Wideners for such a pleasant evening, and excused himself, by saying, “Duty calls.”

The comment brought polite laughter, and soon, seeing that Robert was barely able to keep his eyes open, and by now worried about her valuables, Lil made her own excuses and retired.

***

On Sunday morning, dressed in their very best, they attended a Church of England service, presided over by Captain Smith, and then in the evening, a hymn-sing in the second class dining saloon.

It was presided over by a man who introduced himself as Reverend Ernest Carter, who turned out to be the vicar of the Poor Parish Church of St Jude’s in East London.

Lil recognised him immediately, though she didn’t think he had noticed her, probably because of her new-found status.

People from her background simply didn’t rise to these dizzying heights!

She had seen him several times at the head of Temperance Society marches, mostly comprised of dour ladies in black, holding aloft banners, condemning the ‘Demon Drink’, as they sang forth such pious hymns as ‘My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord’.

He bade them pray for his underprivileged ‘flock’ back home, and in particular, little Josiah Edwards, who had died aged three, of scarlet fever. A few tears were shed.

“Let us pray for the soul of the thief on board, and that he may search his conscience, before the Day of Reckoning,” continued Carter.

A man somewhere at the back said, “Needs ’ors whippin’, the bugger, not prayin’ fer!”

There were several grunts of assent, though an embarrassed “Sssshhh!” followed.

When the prayers had finished, a lady called Marion Wright sang ‘Lead kindly light’, to the accompaniment of an upright piano, and
Carter explained afterwards that it was written as the result of a vessel wrecked in the Atlantic.

Lil thought this was not a detail calculated to engender confidence, particularly in view of the number of lifeboats available and that perilous-looking thing they used for long-distance communication. She said nothing.

Then they retired to their beds, while in a starkly different world, far below the waterline, a very fraught card game was in progress.

Forty-three

This was a world the passengers never saw. For most it didn’t even exist, yet without it, the ship was dead in the water.

Second Engineer James Hesketh called the place ‘the Midnight World’, a terrible place of risk, noise and fumes that brought headaches and nausea. It was a world populated by ‘midnight men’, with black faces, from which bright eyes stared, and white teeth grinned.

Leading Stoker Fred Barrett, who hated losing, fumed as he gazed at his hand, where not a single card had a higher value than the five of clubs. He never seemed to win these days.

His eyes shone like beacons, as he snarled, “Shit!” and tossed them on the upturned crate they were sitting round.

The sixteen-year-old Stoke Hand sitting opposite, who had no card less than a Jack, grinned, as he took the five pennies Fred had bet, and kissed them, before dropping them in his top pocket.

“You should pray more,” he said.

Fred reached out and cuffed him playfully, before snarling at the others, “Little sod’ll beggar me by time we’re docked.”

The others laughed through cigarettes clamped between their teeth, so he added, “And you buggers too,” attracting more laughter, and coughing from Angus the Scot, who was the oldest member of the tribe.

Angus touched a match to an ancient black pipe, so clogged he could barely smoke it. He regarded them disapprovingly through watering blue eyes, framed with bushy white eyebrows.

Angus always watched, but never played. He had told them repeatedly that cards were the ‘Seeds of the Devil’, and that damnation awaited them, unless they cast them asunder.

They played a few more hands and at last Barrett gazed at a King, two Queens, and a ten. He had to swallow carefully, so as not to give himself away.

“I’ll raise,” he said, almost in a whisper. He put another three pennies on the crate and the boy did the same. He picked another card. It was a Jack. He bit his lip. The boy picked a card.