Call Me Ismay (42 page)

It was just the distraction that Bartholomew Gidley needed. He dashed into the radio room, taking a seat and placing a hand on the transmitting apparatus. From his coat pocket, he pulled out the message Lyons had asked him to take down, and began tapping furiously.

1:59 A.M.

Lyons opened the door of the gymnasium, and found Ismay hunkered down in the exact same position that he had left him in nearly half an hour before. He pulled Ismay up roughly by the nape of his neck and whispered to him.

“This is where we part ways, Mr. Ismay- physically, but not mentally or spiritually. This night will follow you for the rest of  your life like a little black dog, constantly nipping at your heels, determined to never let you out of its sight. The next words you will say will be calling for any more women or children for the boats, but as you will see, there will be no one. I've taken the liberty of removing them from this side of this ship.” He gazed at Ismay intently. “Indeed, I have removed a lot of things from your miserable little life this evening- including your memory.” Lyons picked Ismay up by both sides of his collar and carried him like a rag doll back onto the deck, placing him just to the fore of Collapsible C. The crew members were entirely too preoccupied with their work to even take notice.

“This blood
shall
be enough, Mr. Ismay,” Lyons whispered, snapping his fingers in Ismay's face, and leaving promptly for the aft end of the ship.

Ismay, staggering and uncertain, wobbled a bit, his back bumping into the starboard rail just behind him. Any exposed part of skin- his face, his ears, his hands, his ankles- had the sudden sensation of being reintroduced to the biting cold. He blinked and shuddered as he exhaled; his breath freezing about his head in great clouds. 

After collecting himself as best he could, Ismay looked up and down a mostly deserted deck. There were a few cries in the distance, but otherwise there was an overwhelming sense of complete solitude on the deck of a ship that unquestionably had begun to founder.

“Any- any more women or children here?” he called out in a trembling voice.

An officer who had been overseeing the deployment of Collapsible C stepped forward. “There are no more women on this ship, Mr. Ismay.”

Looking about him, confused and shakily unsure, he thought that only moments before he had seen the collapsible lifeboat being pulled off the roof of the officer's quarters, and yet it was now on the ship's side. Feeling woozy, he felt that he needed to take a seat, and the nearest seat was in the lifeboat right in front of him.

Ismay got in and sat down. The lowering began. It was a rough process, taking at least five minutes, the collapsible rubbing up against the
Titanic's
hull because of her growing list to port. Ineffectually, he joined in the cries of “shove away,” directing the women nearest the hull to push them clear as the lifeboat was lowered into the water.

2:00 A.M.

Gidley quickly tapped out the last few letters of his covert spark, and was quite pleased with his accomplishment. However, he was very limited in his wireless skills. He had failed to take into account that he should have adjusted his transmitter to compensate for the dying power supply from
Titanic's
engine room. Consequently, the message he had just sent was ragged and blurred at best.

Gidley took his leave of the radio room, and hustled down the corridor from whence he came. Phillips and Bride had just settled their score with the cowardly stoker in Phillips' cabin, leaving the man unconscious.

After Gidley made his way to the bridge, he took a moment to survey the
Titanic's
main engine telegraphs which were illuminated from within. SLOW, HALF, and FULL, among other speed orders, glowed from the face of each dial in the watery darkness. He turned to port to exit the bridge, when none other than Captain Smith, shellshocked by the final night of his maritime career, appeared in the doorway. The white of his hair and beard, once the mark of a distinguished captain, now seemed only to emphasize his fright.

“Well, if it isn't tragedy's grandfather!” Gidley blurted, taking perverse delight in Smith's horrible dilemma. “Don't worry, old man- they'll soon be erecting statues for you out of pity.”

2:01 A.M.

From
Titanic's
perspective, the North Atlantic seemed a cold and lonely place in April of 1912. For more than an hour, at least eight distress rockets had been fired, and just as their manufacturer had promised, they detonated in the night sky with the report of a gun and the sparks of a rocket. But no ship was to make it in time to save those who would become victims, despite the valiant efforts of the
Carpathia.
Under the command of Captain Arthur Rostron she had made a full speed attempt to come to the rescue by darting through a dangerous ice field. Rostron, in an almost unbelievable act of duty, courage and responsibility, prepared his ship for what he was concerned might be hundreds of deeply traumatized survivors, while guiding the ship through the same ice field that had claimed
Titanic.
To navigate their way through the dark night,
he assigned one of his officers to the ship's bow to, literally, call out the direction the ship should take by determining positions of the icebergs. At the other end of the spectrum, was Captain Stanley Lord- whose ship, the
Californian
, may have been as little as eight miles away from the site of the disaster. When notified by his crew that a nearby ship was firing rockets into the sky and appeared to be in trouble, Lord inexplicably stayed in bed and fell asleep.

There were other ships on the sea that night, including the RMS
Virginian.
She belonged to the Allan Line, carrying only about two hundred passengers. She was about 170 miles north of the
Titanic's
position when the collision had occurred, and her wireless operator overheard what became increasingly frantic distress signals. Just after 2AM, there came a blurred message that no one managed to take down, but it was said to have included the words 'cargo,' 'hull,' and 'insure.' In a moment of tremendous pressure, it was repeated only by word of mouth, and there began rumors of ship officials apparently trying to reinsure
Titanic's
cargo. The fact that there was no hard copy of the transmission only fed fuel to the fire, and in the unregulated, chaotic atmosphere that was to be found in the world of wireless communication in 1912, the insinuation quickly spread. In short order, the
Virginian
herself would find her way into the maelstrom of bad information, with newspapers the world over erroneously reporting that she was towing a badly damaged, but still afloat,
Titanic
to Halifax.

2:02 A.M.

Captain Smith's eyes were moist, his expression confused and his heart was obviously hurting. The ship under his command was now definitely sinking, and he had come to the bridge with the intention of never leaving it again. Yet here was this odd little man, Bartholomew Gidley, hurling the most ghastly and insensitive of insults at him. In the event that he had entirely misunderstood Gidley's statement, he took the liberty of showing politeness by removing his captain's hat.

“I- I beg your pardon?” he responded in a hoarse whisper.

“No better than a murderer of men, an eater of babies, you are!” Gidley snapped viciously. “You can prance about the deck in your fancy little uniform, deluding yourself that you are in command and control of all of nature on your solid planks of wood, but the fact remains that even
you
are subject to destruction and indeed are one of the creators of doom tonight!” Gidley cried out.

“Who the devil are you?” a bewildered Smith whispered.

“The devil?”
Gidley exclaimed, his black coal eyes boring into Smith with meanness and hate. “A rather interesting entity to evoke tonight, don't you think, Captain?” He began walking towards Smith, whom, despite his emotional state, firmly stood his ground. “Indeed, should we go ahead and proclaim the
Titanic
... Satanic?” He pointed at Smith with a theatrical swoop of his cane. “'Ahab went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.' Tell Me, Captain, did you
really
believe in your withered old heart that this vessel is the greatest ship to ever set sail, supplied with men of the sea that are tough, seasoned, and disciplined? Because, if you did,” Gidley grinned, enjoying this moment of torment, “I have known priests who were far more adept in the act of pederasty than this crew has been in stewarding a ship.”

Captain Smith could bear it no longer. Taking a step back and then swinging with tremendous force, he threw an exceptionally strong punch to Gidley's left jaw.

Gidley was for an instant spun around and, with his vision jarred, truly taken aback by the blow he had just received. He was surprised the old man had so much fight in him. However, it was, of course, a dreadful mistake on Smith's part. In seconds Gidley turned back around and tackled Smith, driving him at once out of the bridge's entryway and onto the port side bridge wing, where water was just starting to spill. Gidley landed on top of Smith, and, with unflinching vigor, sank his fangs into the captain's neck, not keeping the attack in any way clean.

2:04 A.M.

Lillith and Langston had remained on the port side bench, ignoring the pandemonium around them. They were desperately clinging to each other, their foreheads resting together in mutual love and defeat. As more of
Titanic's
superstructure was claimed by water, Lillith suddenly convulsed, the horrible shriek of an unclean killing piercing her ears once more. The force of her seizure knocked her off the bench and onto the deck, her eyes rolling up into her head and cries of pain strangling in her throat.

“No! Unclean! Noooo!”
she screamed.

Langston, once more utterly helpless, cradled her neck in his hands. He tried to soothe and console her. All at once, the
Titanic
took a dramatic, definite lunge downward, sending them both tumbling. Passengers all over the ship let out a terrified cry, and Langston could see the water beginning to roil more than it had before at the forward end of the Boat Deck.

Langston quickly recollected her in his arms. “Lillith!
Lillith!”
he cried. “Can you hear me? Lillith, where is this happening? Is it anywhere close?”

In agony, her eyes never opening, Lillith flailed her arms behind her.  “Not far, not f-far, just... oh God!”

Langston looked up and forward, determining that she must have meant the bridge. “Down there? Lillith, do you mean down there, I mean forward?”

“It's... it's just behind...
oh God!”
Langston felt an electric jolt of fear course through him as he saw Lillith's tears turn to blood, rivulets of red now coursing down her tortured face. He glanced over to the bench, where the kit still lay, having slipped just a bit forward after the ship had lurched.

“That's it! That's it, then, I must stop this!” he collected her in his arms and, with the adrenaline now completely numbing the pain in his ankle, and took her back to the bench and grabbed the kit. As she sobbed and rocked, he took the shawl off her shoulders and placed it lovingly over her head, wanting her to retain her dignity. “Lillith, Lillith, I must go. I cannot let you suffer.
Please stay right here!”
He tucked the kit under his arm, kissed her on the top of her head, drew in a deep breath, and immediately headed forward.

In too much pain to stop him, unable to counsel him further past a repeated “No, no, no...” Lillith collapsed on the bench, her eardrums feeling as though they'd just been shredded.

2:06 A.M.

Now successfully launched into the water, Collapsible C began drifting steadily away from the
Titanic
as oars were grabbed and put to use. Ismay, stinging from the cold, felt compelled for a moment to turn and look back, but the sight of the great ship sagging deep into the water, her green starboard light beginning to blur and disappear, was too much for him. He turned away, trying to not listen to the shouts of anger and fear that were echoing off the decks of the doomed liner-
his
doomed liner. He closed his eyes, hoping that his fellow passengers on the lifeboat wouldn't realize who he was. His hands were much too cold and sore to make any contribution to the rowing of the oars after attempting one or two pulls, so he kept his arms folded tightly to his chest, trying to make his abandonment of any rowing duties not too obvious. Because of the cold and a fear of being deemed shameful, he could not cover his ears to muffle the sounds of panicked horror that were coming from the ship, and, in the windless air, the noise would only grow worse.