Unsinkable (12 page)

“Paddy isn’t a member of the crew, strictly speaking,” Alfie mumbled.

“What is he, then?” Juliana asked scornfully. “A stowaway?” Alfie’s shamefaced look told the whole story. “He
is!
You’re harboring a stowaway!”

Paddy looked at her defiantly. “How easy it is for you to point your finger at me, standing there in those fine clothes with a good dinner in your belly. And I’ll wager those eardrops are real diamonds!”

Juliana’s hands flew to her ears.

“You’re right,” said Sophie, almost kindly. “Neither of us has lived your life. Why don’t you tell us about it?”

“Not much to tell, is there?” Paddy replied stiffly. “I had every right to walk away from a stepfather who mistook my face for a punching bag. Daniel and I may have been hungry in Belfast, but we looked
after each other. Did we steal? That we did, because starving to death was the only other choice. And I’d be right there still, happy with my lot, if Kevin Gilhooley hadn’t killed Daniel and tried to kill me, too.” He smiled grimly. “The fact that Gilhooley had a ticket on the same ship I stowed away on — well, I guess that’s just what they call the luck of the Irish.”

Soft-hearted Sophie was liquid with sympathy, but Juliana’s expression remained stone.

“And you expect us to believe someone who jettisons a man’s property and leaves him without a change of clothes to put on his back?”

“Oh, no, miss,” said Paddy in mock seriousness. “I would never be so hard-hearted.” From the open trunk, he produced a snowy white dress shirt — the sole item remaining — and spread it out on the deck in front of him. Then, from his back pocket, he pulled a shiny Waterman fountain pen. Squeezing the rubber reservoir and dragging the nib across the fabric, he wrote a single word in indelible black ink. At last, he held up the garment to show the others:

MURDERER

He fluttered the shirt to dry the ink, then folded it neatly and placed it back in the trunk.

Alfie rushed over and closed the hatch. “Paddy, you’re daft!”

Paddy turned to Juliana. “Well, fancy lady, I suppose you’ll be wanting to report me to the captain now. Alfie knows where to look for me. Then they’ll throw me in the brig, and Gilhooley can come and kill me at his leisure.”

He hefted the trunk, which weighed almost nothing now, and walked past them into the depths of E Deck.

Sophie turned pleading eyes on her friend. “Julie, you mustn’t turn him in! It could cost him his life!”

Alfie regarded her in trepidation. It was hard to judge what the girl might do. Certainly, anything that harmed Paddy would damage him as well. Juliana didn’t seem like a cruel person. But she was so mired in the world of lords and ladies that she had no idea of the hard choices ordinary people had to make.

Finally, Juliana spoke. “I wish to return to my stateroom, please.”

“Promise you won’t tell!” Sophie persisted.

“At once,” said the daughter of the seventeenth Earl of Glamford.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

RMS
TITANIC

F
RIDAY,
A
PRIL
12, 1912, 8:05
A.M.

Black lines floated through Paddy’s mind … pencil lines?

A long shape sharpened into focus — the
Titanic
! This was Daniel’s sketch!

Yes, Patrick, Daniel’s voice resounded in his head. And you’d best take a good look at it.

Do you think an hour ever passes that I don’t? Paddy challenged. What does it mean? Help me, Daniel! I’m not clever like you!

Look harder! Daniel commanded. You’re clever enough to put your fingers on the purse of any man in Belfast! You have to open your mind.

I can’t!

“Open it!”

The sharp words cut right into Paddy’s dream, punctuated by loud banging. He shifted his position in the front seat of the motorcar. It may not have been
luxury accommodations for the swells in first class, but he had slept in worse places.

“Hush, Daniel,” he murmured.

“Open!”
roared the voice.

Suddenly, the automobile door was yanked wide, and Paddy tumbled out onto the floor of the cargo hold. He lay in a heap, blinking sleep out of his eyes, trying to focus on the sailor glaring down at him.

The man was older, red-faced, with an air of command. And definitely angry. “What are you up to, boy? Catching forty winks while the rest of us do our jobs?”

“N-no, sir!” Paddy stammered, his mind working furiously on an explanation of what he might be doing in the front seat of a Renault automobile in the cargo hold. Obviously, he wasn’t catnapping on the job — he had no job. But the truth was even worse!

You’re a brainless one, Paddy Burns! You should have known that you might slumber late after last night’s adventure!

“I’ll have you on my report for this!” the outraged sailor stormed. “You’re not fit to wear that uniform!”

You have no idea,
Paddy thought, quaking inwardly.

The tirade continued. “The company will dock your pay, just see if they won’t. What’s your name, boy?”

Paddy hesitated. Should he flee? A quick survey of the hold revealed two other seamen. Could he outrun all three …?

Suddenly, one of the younger men began to curse.

The senior sailor wheeled on him. “You keep a civil tongue in your head!”

“Sorry, Chief. But we forgot to bring the cargo manifest.”

The chief launched into a string of expletives far more colorful than the first, his angry words echoing throughout the hold and the lower decks. At last, he barked, “What are you waiting for? Go up to the quartermaster’s office and get it. And be swift about it! We’re already behind schedule, and the morning has barely begun!”

Paddy sensed his opportunity. “I’ll fetch it for you, sir!” he offered quickly.

The red face turned back to Paddy. “You?”

“To make up for” — he gestured toward the car — “that.”

The chief produced a pocket watch and glanced at it. “Go.
Run!”
He turned back to his men, muttering,
“The whelps they hire on these days! Barely out of their mothers’ arms!”

Paddy dashed to the spiral staircase and pounded up the metal steps, grateful to leave the chief and his crew behind. The life of a stowaway, he was beginning to realize, became increasingly difficult as the voyage went on. The
Titanic
wasn’t due in New York for five days. How would he ever keep himself hidden for so long? Especially with Kevin Gilhooley and Seamus on board.

His mind whirled as he hurried along.
Why am I rushing so? I don’t have to bring him the cargo manifest or anything else! The devil with him! The devil with all of them!

Yet the more he thought of it, the more it made sense to complete the errand. The last thing he wanted was for that crew chief to complain about a mysterious young steward sleeping in the cargo hold. That would set off alarm bells all around the
Titanic.
Paddy’s life was hard enough without a ship-wide search for the boy who was impersonating a crew member.

Somehow, he had to find the quartermaster’s office and bring the chief what he needed. But how was he to do that? The
Titanic
was a huge floating city, with
nine decks, scores of passageways, and hundreds of rooms and compartments. He couldn’t wander the halls pleading for directions. That would be as suspicious as sleeping in the motorcar.

Alfie! He would find Alfie, and his protector would tell him what to do. Even if the junior steward didn’t know where to find the quartermaster’s office, at least he could ask without drawing attention to himself.

He reached the forecastle, squinting in the bright sunlight. Blinding, it was. What a difference from the clouds and drizzle of Ireland and England — especially on the lofty decks that were reserved for first class. At this hour, Alfie might be delivering morning coffee and chocolate to the staterooms, or helping in the dining saloon. Paddy hoped he could run into the fellow without too much delay.

Sure enough, he spied Alfie atop up on the boat deck. And Alfie spied him — even from this distance, he could see the dismay on the young steward’s face. Alfie hurried down the companion stairs, and Paddy started forward to meet him in the well deck.

“Paddy, have you lost your mind?” he hissed. “What are you doing out here?”

“I have to find the quartermaster’s office.”

“No, you don’t!” Alfie rasped. “You have to disappear until we reach New York!”

“We have a bigger problem.” In a low voice, Paddy recounted the story of how he was discovered sleeping in the Renault.

Alfie was horrified. “They
found
you? Now they know there’s a stowaway on board!”

Paddy shook his head. “They think I’m just a steward who got caught kipping on the job. And they’ll keep on thinking it as long as I bring them what they want — which is the cargo manifest. Now, where’s the quartermaster’s office?”

“The cargo manifest isn’t something you can pick up and walk away with like a salt mill from one of the dining saloons,” Alfie argued. “It’s a record of everything aboard the ship. The Americans have to approve it before they let us unload. Do you think the quartermaster will just hand it over to the likes of you?”

Paddy bristled. “Well, I’ve no choice but to try, haven’t I?”

Alfie thought it over. “I’ll bring it to you.”

“Did I miss the ceremony where you were promoted to captain?” Paddy demanded. “That looks like a steward’s coat you’re wearing, same as the one on my back. Why should they give it to you and not me?”

“I’m the one who can prove that he works for the
White Star Line,” Alfie reasoned. “Who knows, I might have to sign for something so important.”

“I’m not ignorant,” Paddy said belligerently. “Daniel taught me well. I can write my name — or anybody else’s!”

“But
my
name is the one on the complement of crew.” It was Alfie’s turn to be angry. “Do you think this is fun for me, Paddy? To abandon my passengers, lie to the quartermaster, and gamble my job to save your neck? I’m trying to
help
you! The least you could say is thank you!”

Paddy backed down, chastened. “You’re right. Thank you, Alfie.”

“We’ll be sharing a cell in the brig if this doesn’t work,” Alfie said nervously. “Wait here, and try to look like you belong. If anybody asks, you’re fetching bouillon for your passengers.”

“Bouillon?” Paddy repeated. But Alfie was already gone.

Paddy took a step back and did his best to fade into the background. What was bouillon? Obviously some fancy thing the swells enjoyed. Part of being poor, he reflected, was that you didn’t even know what you were missing.

He thought of the two first-class girls Alfie had brought to the baggage hold. All done up like angels
they’d been, hung with jewels, smelling of perfume, and dressed in fabrics so shiny and colors so bright — Paddy had only seen the like on ornaments hanging from Christmas trees.

Never had he expected to rub elbows with such swells. In a way, he still hadn’t. The dark-haired girl had regarded him with pity and fascination, the way you’d examine a rare bird with a broken wing. And the blond one, the one with the diamond eardrops? Well, her nose was so high in the air that she probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all except to look at the evil stowaway. To her, Paddy was not a person; he was the sum of the crimes he’d committed. The subject of morbid interest, like the grisly scrapbook that so captivated Alfie.

In truth, Paddy had expected Juliana to turn him in to the captain. That had been his first thought when the crew chief had awoken him this morning. Yet somehow Alfie must have convinced her to keep silent. Bully for Alfie. He really was more than a soft-headed stoker’s son with a wild imagination — someone to be blackmailed or manipulated. He was a friend.

The thought caught Paddy off guard. For more than a year, he had allowed himself to trust no one but himself and Daniel. But Daniel was gone, and this
certainly wasn’t Belfast. For good or ill, he had no choice but to trust in Alfie.

“I want hourly checks on the freshwater tanks….” came a voice that crackled with stern authority.

And before Paddy had the chance to disappear down a companion stairway, two men rounded a corner and were upon him. One was in coveralls, blackened with soot from the engine room. The other wore the uniform of an officer — and an important one, too. Lightoller, they called him. Paddy had seen him on the bridge, next to Captain Smith himself.

“As the temperature drops, we don’t want the lines to freeze,” Second Officer Lightoller was saying, raising his collar to protect his ruddy features from the wind. Suddenly, he stopped, his alert eyes focused on Paddy. “And who might you be?”