S.O.S. Titanic (2 page)

"I'll never forget you. Never."

He was sniffling and sobbing, though he'd promised himself he wouldn't, clutching the old worn gloves as he stumbled behind Mr. Scollins to where the tender waited.

"Let me hold that bag for you till you get on," Tommy Henderson told Mr. Scollins.

"No, don't touch it at all. I'll take care of it myself." Mr. Scollins held the small Gladstone bag against his chest.

"All right, then, you two gendemen sit here. You'll be first off as well as first on."

They sat where he pointed.

The tender was filling quickly, few wanting to go but none wanting to be left behind. The Flynns were among the last aboard.

Barry realized he'd been watching for them. The girl, Pegeen, had been crying, too. Her eyelids were softened with tears. "Poor things," Grandmother had said. "Poor..."

"What are you gawking at, you galoot?" Frank Flynn shouted. "Keep your eyes in front of you, where they belong."

"Where I keep my eyes—," Barry began.

Jonnie Flynn interrupted. "I have a question for ya. Can ya swim?"

"What?" Barry asked.

"Nothing, just a question." Jonnie Flynn smiled.

The
Erin's
engines roared to a start. Her bow started the wide circle that would turn her around and take her to the harbor mouth, where the ship waited.

Could he swim? What kind of a deadly question was that?

Barry kept looking back at Grandmother and Grandpop. Grandpop waved his hat, Grandmother her handkerchief. They were getting smaller and smaller now. Behind them, on the edge of the quay, he saw horses and carriages and carts, and he saw Dickie, the manservant who drove for Grandpop. And he saw Blossom and Midnight, their two mares. Blossom had a white splash like a flower in the middle of her forehead.

Barry swallowed hard. He didn't want to leave. He didn't. Everything, every person he loved, was here in Ireland. What did he care about going to New York, to live in a place called Brooklyn with those two strangers who were his parents? Nothing.

In the end, though, all the arguments had failed. He was going. Grandmother and Grandpop were just two specks now among the other specks on the dock.

The sun, which had been hidden by clouds, came blinking through, filling the harbor with sparkles, turning the town into a fairy-tale place. The fields behind were velvety green. Those brown dots were cows—maybe O'Neill cows. On the faraway dock the crowd was singing. The words and the melody came drifting toward them the way snow flurries drift in the wind, coming easy, then stronger:

Will ye no' come back again?
Better loved ye'll never be.
Will ye no'come back again?

Barry looked up at the side of the ocean-going liner that towered over them, dark and steep as the black cliffs of Moher. A gangplank hung over the side. On the bow, in white letters almost as big as he was tall, was the name RMS
Titanic.

"We're here," Tom Henderson said.

As Tom Henderson had promised, Barry and Mr. Scollins were first up the gangplank. The railings along the top deck of the ship were already crowded with passengers. In the still ocean air Barry could hear some of the conversations above him.

"They say they're all traveling steerage ... immigrants, you know."

An American voice then, a woman's, saying, "Wouldn't you wonder why they want to leave here? It looks so peaceful and beautiful. I wish we could have extended our trip, Walter. I would love to have taken in Ireland."

And a man answering, "It would be all right for a vacation, sweetheart, but you'd hate it if you had to live there."

Is that so?
Barry thought.
Speak for yourself, you yahoo.

Stewards in white jackets with brass buttons waited at the top of the gangway. One of them stepped forward, notebook in hand. He was the smallest man Barry had ever seen, with hair as black and shiny as his little pointed black shoes.
Boot polish,
Barry thought quickly.
On the shoes and on the hair, too.

"You'll be Master O'Neill and Mr. Scollins?" he asked. And when Scollins nodded, he said, "My name is Watley. I'll be your cabin steward. If you will kindly follow me ... May I take your bag, Mr. Scollins?"

"Thank you, no," Scollins said. "I will carry it myself."

Barry glanced back, looking for the Flynns, and he found them by the blaze of Pegeen's hair. They'd been last onto the tender, and they were last off. For a moment he watched Pegeen climb the gleaming gangway, which said White Star, Ltd. in big letters along its railing. Once she stopped and looked across the Queenstown Harbor, and Barry saw her shoulders slump. Behind her, Frank Flynn put a hand to her waist.
Plenty of us happy to be going, but plenty of us sad,
Barry thought.

He and Mr. Scollins followed Watley along the lower deck, then inside and up a wide carpeted stairway where everything smelled new and luxurious, along white corridors as hushed and quiet as the corridors of the big Dublin hotels where he had often stayed with Grandmother and Grandpop. Those had always held the smell of damp and mildew—maybe even of mice. To Barry those Dublin hotels meant holidays. Would he ever know them again?

From behind some of the cabin doors they passed came the murmur of people talking. Music drifted softly. Had the voices on the Queenstown quay died away, or was "Will ye no' come back again..." still wailing across the harbor? Barry bit his lips. He would be back. He'd keep telling himself that.

"Here we are, gendemen." The steward opened the cabin door and stood aside for them to enter

The cabin was large, with a mahogany dresser, a table with a tasseled lamp in the center, and two wingback chairs. Bigger by far than Barry's dorm room at school, bigger than his bedroom at home. There were two graceful four-poster beds edged with red brocade curtains, looped back now, but full enough to be closed for privacy.

"I have already unpacked for you gentlemen," Watley said. "Is there anything else you require?" His smile was like the smile of a ventriloquist's doll and never left his face, even when he talked.

"I don't think we require anything else at the moment." Mr. Scollins's superior voice plainly said that he was used to having his every need met, his unpacking done for him—and instantly.

"If you
do
require my services..." Watley touched a discreet bell by the door. "We will be sailing in about a half hour. You might like to go up on the boat deck for your last glimpse of the shoreline. Twill be a while before we see land again—but sooner than we expect, if Captain Smith gets us up to full speed. We're looking to set a record for a transadantic trip."

"Where are the third-class passengers?" Barry asked.

"Third class, sir?" Watley's smile stayed put even while his eyebrows arched.

"There's a family there from my town," Barry said.

"The steerage passengers have accommodation on the lower decks," Watley said. "Males and females are separated, though, so the girls and women will be below in the stern, the men in the bow. I doubt if you'll see much of them till we land, sir. There's no coming and going, if you know what I mean. Mixing is not permitted."

Barry was surprised by the quick sense of relief he felt. "What stops the mixing?"

"We have notices on the gates that divide first, second, and third class," Watley said. "The wording makes it quite clear where passengers may and may not go." He paused. "Some of the first-class passengers on transadantic vessels like to go down to steerage for a lark. I believe they call it slumming, and of course that is perfectly permissible." His smile never wavered. "Third-class passengers, though, may never come up here. That would not be tolerated."

"Quite," Mr. Scollins said.

It might not be tolerated, Barry thought, but unless all those gates were locked and without a gap in them, they wouldn't bother Jonnie and Frank Flynn. Not for a minute. There hadn't been a barbed-wire fence or a padlock in the whole of Mullinmore that they couldn't go over or under or through. Gentlemanly notices weren't going to stop them, or Pegeen either. Hadn't Jonnie told him she was just like them?

They'd be up. They'd be searching first class for him. "Can ya swim?" Jonnie had asked.

Mr. Scollins set his Gladstone bag on the table but kept a grip on the handle.

"One thing," he said to Watley. "I need to have this kept in a secure place during the voyage."

"Certainly, sir. I can take it straightaway to the purser's office, where it can be locked in his safe."

"Thank you, but I will take it myself."

"Perhaps I would suggest that you wait, then, until after we sail," Watley said. "It's going to be rather chaodc for a while."

As soon as he left, Scollins said, "I have strict instructions from my employers never to let this bag out of my hands until it's safely locked away. And I intend to follow their orders." He lowered his voice as if he feared eavesdroppers. "This bag contains jewels. I must say, I was deeply honored that my firm entrusted them to me." He paused. "My firm, Billings and Fetters, Jewellers, O'Connell Street? You know them?"

"No," Barry said.

"Dublin's most prestigious jewelry company," Scollins said accusingly. "You must know them. Everybody does. They had planned on hiring an agent to bring these to the newly opened branch in New York. Then when they decided I was going to work for them in New York, it solved that problem. In the time that I have been in their employ, they have recognized that I am eminentiy trustworthy. They are killing two birds, so to speak, with one stone." His glance flicked to Barry. "They're also paying me a modest sum, which will be helpful to me as I start my new life."

Another five guineas
, Barry thought.
Scollins knows how to make a pound or two for himself on the side.

"Shall we find our way to the promenade deck?" Scollins asked. "One should, I suppose, wave good-bye to Ireland. And good riddance to it, I say."

"Well, I don't say," Barry told him. "If I could stay in Ireland..." He stopped. What was the use? He'd never be able to talk to Mr. Scollins or tell him how he felt. He'd never want to. The truth was that those in steerage were the ones who'd understand. Not the Flynns, but others like them. Reasonable ones. They'd be the ones he could cry with. He pulled on Grandpop's gloves, ignoring Scollins's look of disgust and the tone of his voice when he asked, "Do you think you'll need those?"

"I think I'll need them," Barry said.

They went up a different wide staircase, all oak and wrought iron, passing the first-class dining salon on the way. Barry saw the tables with their white linen cloths, the silver and crystal already set for the evening meal. The walls were hung with tapestries; the chandeliers glittered. Was it possible this was a ship? There was no movement. No feeling of ocean around them or under them.

As if to reassure him, one of the funnels blew a mighty blast.

"We'd better hurry," Mr. Scollins said. "Sounds as if we're ready to go."

They walked faster, finding space for themselves against the railings on the boat deck. Next to them was a woman in a dark red coat and a black hat with cherries around the brim.

Mr. Scollins cradled the Gladstone bag against his chest as he peered out at the water. The woman gave Barry a friendly smile. "I don't imagine this sailing will be as exciting as when we left Southampton," she said.

"I wouldn't know," Barry said. "We just boarded here at Queenstown."

"Oh, then you missed the fun," the woman told him. "We almost collided with another ship. Just cleared it by inches, actually." She made a face at the man beside her, who was wearing a black overcoat and a bowler hat. "My husband thought it a bad omen," she whispered loudly, "but I thought it was jolly exciting."

The man turned and smiled at her.

"He's been reading that book, you know.
Futility?
" Her whisper was still loud and teasing. "So of course he's expecting the worst."

"What book would that be, madam?" Scollins asked haughtily.

"Oh, some tiresome old book written ten or twenty years ago."

"Fourteen years ago," her husband corrected.

"It's about a ship called the
Titan.
" She rolled her eyes. "It—she—was supposed to be the most wonderful ship ever built, and she was on her maiden voyage and she was hit by an iceberg and sank." The woman lowered her voice dramatically. "Everybody
perished.
Isn't that right, Howard? Howard thinks it's a psychic's prediction. We're all going to end up
perished

Howard glanced down at her. Barry could tell he was not quite so amused anymore. She squeezed Howard's hand and said, "I'm only joking, of course."

"Well, it could never happen to this ship," Scollins said. "This is the
Titanic,
not the
Titan.
This ship is unsinkable. She has sixteen bulkheads, each with a watertight door. In an emergency..."

Howard turned a withering glance on Mr. Scollins. "Never say never, young man. And don't quote statistics at me. I have a bad feeling about this ship. She's unlucky. Some of her crew felt it, too, and deserted before the sailing. If it weren't that my wife was so keen..."

There was another, louder blast from the
Titanic?
s funnel, and Howard's wife clapped her hands to her ears, laughing and giving little happy hops. Her black hat with the cherries on it slipped to the side, and she took one hand from her ear to set it right, laughing even more. "We're moving. We're moving!" she shouted, standing on tiptoe to kiss Howard's cheek. "Oh, Howard, thank you for bringing me. It's going to be wonderful. Thank you."

Howard smiled and put his arm around her waist.

The
Titanic
was on her way.

The Flynns were probably on the deck below, watching, too, Barry thought. Feeling maybe the way he was feeling. In a way, he and Jonnie had both been forced to leave Ireland. Did that give them something in common?

Howard's wife touched his arm. "Are you Irish? I would have thought English."