Call Me Ismay (37 page)

She gently massaged part of her scalp, irritated by the constant pressure of cloth against her head. Suddenly, she heard the doorknob that was just behind her ear starting to slowly turn.
Christ
, she thought,
it's Gidley come to collect me.
She quickly leaned forward, thinking that if she could make it back to the settee in time she might have a chance at resisting him. Before she could, however, the door popped open and, poking his head out from behind it, was a pale-faced Marcus.

“Oh no, oh no!” he exclaimed, stepping inside the cabin and closing the door behind him. “We've been separated from our master, what are we going to do?”

“Marcus, where have you been?” Lillith asked with purpose, attempting to commandeer the conversation.

“In our master's suite, shining his shoes. He left there a few hours ago and hadn't come back. I started looking for him as soon as I heard the engines stop. Now they're telling the passengers to don their lifebelts! I do not know where he is, and I fear something terrible has happened!”

“Marcus, Marcus, listen to me.” She spoke with clarity and force. “Mr. Lyons and Mr. Gidley can take good care of Themselves. We must think of our
own
lives now, and the lives of others outside our little world. For once, we will not take into consideration what those two will need.”

“But Miss Lillith! The crew's all on about lifebelts and lifeboats! I saw them getting lifeboats ready and there's talk of 'women and children first' and our master needs us!”

“Marcus,” she stated flatly. She reached out, cupping his chin in her hand, and for an instant let the faintest hint of a spark loose in her eyes. The frightened valet instantly calmed down. “Marcus. There is another man on this ship who needs us.” She grabbed her shawl off the settee. “He is in Third Class and somehow we've got to locate him. He has tools that we need, and he also has my heart in his hands. His name is Kerry Langston.”

12:35 A.M.

Lyons remained stoic while Gidley appeared amused, as they stood off to the side of the foot of the Grand Staircase on D Deck. A man was rushing up the stairs three steps at a time, refusing to answer passengers questions, a look of terror on his face. That man was Thomas Andrews.

Gidley spoke over Lyons's shoulder. “That's the ship's designer, I presume,” he muttered.

“Hmmm,” Lyons acknowledged, matter-of-factly, with his arms crossed. “If that's his reaction, then We can assume that Our little maneuver was a success. There are occasions when time spent in the Royal Navy is useful.”

Gidley leaned in closer. “Mr. Lyons, will We be seeing red tonight, or no?”

“Soon, and when We do, it must serve a purpose and not be an arbitrary feeding,” Lyons replied, never taking his eyes off the men and women who were clustered near the Staircase. He paused for a moment before continuing.

“Tell Me, Gidley- what do You see here?”

Gidley cut his eyes over at Lyons, then replied with sarcasm. “I see a potential smorgasbord of blood that is going to turn into blocks of ice if We don't act soon.”

Lyons brushed him off. “No, no- listen to Me. What We see here is a perfect slice of Our rich patriarchal society. You can see all of it falling into place, there are perfect little examples right here before Us. The men are eschewing the lifebelts- they're pushing them onto the women as We speak. They know what's best.
They
will make the life or death decisions.
They
will sit at the head of the table.
They
will oversee the workers who toil and trouble over all of the elegance before Us- the carved wood, the wrought iron, the glass- poor, poor workers who will never share in the enjoyment or the comforts of First Class. They are
men
- men who are expected to go down with the ship in honor and glory.” He slowly nodded his head in dark confidence. “And that is why We must ensure that Mr. Ismay is going to survive this evening's disaster, but his dignity and pride will not. Come. I want You to take down a message.”

12:40 A.M.

A very short distance away, up on the Boat Deck, J. Bruce Ismay stood with his trembling hands thrust into his coat pockets for warmth. He was just vaguely aware that his unprotected ankles were starting to get irritated by the cold air because he was only wearing slippers.

He watched in helplessness as
Titanic's
officers scrambled to uncover the lifeboats and clear them away. Not knowing any of the officer's names, while vaguely familiar with some of their faces, he walked up alongside one of them who was preparing lifeboat No.5.

“There is no time to waste,” Ismay said in a very quiet voice, his breath freezing in great clouds. “We had better get this boat loaded with women and children.”

Third Officer Herbert Pitman, who had never seen Ismay before, gave him a funny look before replying. “I await the commander's orders,” he said, returning to his work.

Ismay, his self-confidence already shattered, pursued the matter no further. “Very well,” he muttered politely, and stepped away.

He looked up into the heavens, the very last of
Titanic's
steam now completely dissipated. The stars were so numerous and bright that as his eyes came back down towards the starboard side's horizon, he excitedly thought he could see the lights of perhaps another steamer in the vicinity! A mere moment later he realized, despairingly, it was just the reflection of stars on an ocean that was as still as a pond.

12:43 A.M.

The chatter in Third Class had now reached a clamour. A large group of single men such as Langston now crowded the staircase that led to the aft well deck, along with immigrants who argued amongst themselves in Arabic, Greek and Hebrew. The indecisive steward still paced at the top of the stairs, appearing at times to be preparing to unlock the gate that led above deck. At other intervals, he was shouting out that “First and Second Class have priority!”

Upon seeing a few passengers, wet to their knees, coming down the Third Class hallway, Langston decided he'd had enough. His stomach was rumbling in warning again, and his ankle was still throbbing in terrible, terrible pain, but he finally steeled himself into action by reminding himself:

I covered the bloody Siege on Sidney Street, for Christ's sake! My poor sister doesn't HAVE her damned feet- and she would be shoving me up those damned stairs!

He placed his hand over his heart and momentarily closed his eyes.
Well Nancy, if you never see me again, do the best you can. Now for God's sake, man- move on!

Bracing himself for what he knew was going to be a severe struggle, he clutched the kit to his chest, and began shoving his way up the crowded stairs, yelping in both the urgency of his mission and the pain from his troubled ankle. He was greeted with both surprise and anger from his fellow steerage passengers, but was not about to back down. At last he reached the top, finding himself with his face pinched violently against the gate. For an instant, he wondered if his predicament might turn into a mixed blessing, with his body providing enough weight to crash the gate down.

After a moment, his balance stabilized, his face and glasses no longer pressed into the gate. He gestured urgently to the steward, who had inexplicably wandered away from the landing.

“Sir! Sir, can you hear me?” he shouted over the noise. The steward came back, this time clearly recognizing Langston, confusion and scorn in his eyes.

“Sir,” Langston shouted, the voices behind him subsiding slightly as they realized he was successfully communicating with the truculent steward. “Sir, we can do this either easily, or in a more difficult manner,” he declared, clutching the vampire kit to his chest as a reminder to himself that he was in fact armed with a pistol. “Now, sir, do you have a mother?”

The steward, beady-eyed and with hair that had been shaved from the sides of his head, reacted with contempt. “Have I got a mum? The bleedin' hell kind of a stupid question is that?”

“Does she support women's suffrage?” Langston called out to him.

The steward narrowed his eyes, not answering the question, a trickle of sweat appearing on his brow. He seemed only to be growing angrier. “Does she support women's suffrage?” Langston repeated, frustrated. “You
do
know what suffrage is, right?”

“I know what it is!” the steward yelled back. “And what she believes is her own business!”

“Then I take that to mean that she does. Good, good,” Langston replied quickly. “Then you know what the suffragettes are after, right? Not special rights for themselves, but equal rights for all-
equal rights for all!
Regardless of gender or class. So if you know that your mum can support such a cause and understand what that means, then surely you know that equality applies in more than one instance! If your mum was a Third Class passenger, you would not leave her down here, would you?”

There was a split second of self doubt in the steward's eyes. He felt a crimson flush rush up his neck. Without saying another word, he immediately started fumbling for the gate's keys in his pocket.  The swarming mass behind the gate cheered.

12:47 A.M.

Ismay, still on the starboard side of the ship, had a couple of unseen observers. As he paced nervously near lifeboat No. 5, Edward Lyons and Bartholomew Gidley stood in the gloom not far from the aft end of the gymnasium. Gidley, in a devious bit of wisdom, had lighted a cigar and was puffing on it, occasionally sharing it with Lyons in an attempt to conceal the fact they were the only men outside whose breath wouldn't freeze.

Ismay had been restraining himself after the awkward exchange with Officer Pitman, observing the preparation of the lifeboats in a manner both officious and timorous. From behind where he was standing, originating at the forward part of the ship, came the unmistakable sound of water dripping, then spilling, then pouring over the well deck.

Ismay immediately panicked, lunging toward the davit rope of lifeboat No. 5, where Fifth Officer Harold Lowe was handling the slack end of the rope. “Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!” Ismay cried.

“If you would get the hell out of that I should be able to do something,” Lowe snapped, with no idea of whom he was addressing. “You want me to lower away quickly? You'll have me drown the lot of them!”

Ismay, embarrassed at his own impulses, said nothing in reply. He turned and dashed forward towards the starboard bridge rail, where looking down he could see that the well deck was indeed now awash. His hands gripped the rail as his vision tunneled only upon the ship's bow.
One damned ice warning!
he berated himself mentally.
One! Surely there were others received- but why not that one? Where in God's name was I this afternoon?

His thoughts were interrupted abruptly by a gruff command from Officer Boxhall, who was standing only a few feet away on the bridge wing. “Stand aside, sir, stand aside. Get back!”

The officer then pulled on a lanyard, resulting in a shriek of fire and a puff of smoke. Seconds later, a distress signal shell burst about six hundred feet overhead, sending about a dozen streaks of colorful sparks fanning out like an umbrella before falling back towards the ship and fizzling out. Ismay heard an appalled vocal reaction from the passengers on the Boat Deck, some of whom finally seemed to be grasping the gravity of the situation.

12:50 A.M.

Lillith and Marcus had successfully made it to the Boat Deck on the port side, both adorned with lifebelts. As they stood aft of the third funnel, another distress rocket went screaming from the ship, this time from the bridge wing on the side they were on. It, just like the other, trailed several hundred feet into the air before exploding, briefly illuminating the ship in much the same manner as a camera flash-lamp.

They both stood on their toes, straining to look forward, but quickly realized that keeping their balance was a problem.

Something's wrong, Marcus declared, looking down at the deck and then up at Lillith. “Something's out of balance, and I cannot keep my feet in the right place. Do you suppose our master is finding himself in the same condition?”