Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“Safe bet, eh?” joked Thomas.

Together they bid Farley and Varmint a good night, and Farley waved them off as he yawned, while Varmint made a high-pitched whine, ears straight up as if he wanted to go with Thomas and Declan, despite the company they kept.

“Do you think the authorities aboard would concern themselves with a dog in the Grand Saloon?” Alastair asked, seeing that the dog had followed them.

“Not sure, but Varmint has good taste in friends,” replied Declan bending at the knee to pet the canine.

“Well then, come along, Varmint.”

Down below in the ship, Captain Smith stood beside the saddest man on Earth other than himself—Thomas Andrews, the ship’s architect—a man who had loved Titanic from her inception. “We must prepare our minds for what God has determined as our fate, Mr. Andrews,” Smith said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “And the fate of our ship. I am so very sorry.”

The two men stood on the companionway and stared down at the flooding in the mail room, watching mailbags floating past. Brave young clerks remained on duty, despite water over their knees, desperately fighting to salvage the two hundred bags of registered mail—some four hundred thousand individual pieces. The postal clerks had already dragged the bags up two decks as the rising water pursued them. Soon they and their precious cargo, would be floating on F-Deck.

“Come along, Mr. Andrews,” Smith said to the architect—a man half his age. “Nothing we can do here.”

“I can’t believe it, Captain… how? How could you let… how could this happen?”

“I suspect it’s time to fill you in… completely, but for now, I’m needed above to oversee what needs be done. We need to get to the Marconi Room, get the boys there to send out distress signals, determine if there are any other ships nearby… and the lifeboats—we must get the life boats launched.” He didn’t tell Andrews he would use the old method of sending out a distress call rather than the new code given them—SOS.

“My god, there’re not enough lifeboats for this… never was!”

“A fact I know only too well. We must get women and children off first.”

“Yes… yes, of course.”

By now Andrews understood that the ship was going down. But he was hardly alone in this assessment.

Declan Irvin was taking it harder by far than the others, as they lounged at the bar in the Grand Saloon. They had taken the Grand Staircase down and into the saloon dining area, nodded at Wallace Hartley and his band, found the bartender, and began partaking of spirits, even pouring Irish ale into a bowl for Varmint. This done, Declan proposed a toast with his wine glass held high. Thomas and Ransom had whiskey. They all raised glasses to the sound of Varmint lapping up his red ale.

“To the R.M.S. Titanic on her last night above the sea.” Declan threw back his Chardonnay too quickly, straightening, gasping, and coughing to the laughter of the whiskey drinkers.

“Never could drink, not even that girly stuff,” Thomas said, punching his friend in the arm.

“Look about you, boys… all these people without a clue they’re about to die soon.”

“Smith’s even delayed any distress calls going out from the wireless, hasn’t he?” Thomas said.

There were no answers to the questions swirling about the minds of the threesome. “Be damned if I’ll miss that dog,” muttered Ransom, garnering a laugh.

Thomas laughed. “You two haven’t enjoyed the best relations, now have you?” Ransom noticed that Declan was not laughing but rather staring at the huge clock on the wall at the other end of the dining room. “You two clowns do realize that it is April 14 thand the clock reads 12:13—rather odd. Wonder why I no longer care about jotting another infernal note in that bloody journal of mine, but I do want the thing to survive beyond this night.”

“Slim chance of that.” Thomas sipped more gingerly now at his refreshed whiskey.

“Slim indeed, and this along with it.” Declan held up the enormous sabre tooth to the light.

“I see a cavity,” joked Thomas.

“We should raise a glass to all the men who’ve died and have yet to die thanks to that evil parasite,” suggested Ransom.

“And to our last night together,” added Thomas.

“I’ll drink to that,” said a stranger passing by, lifting his glass and thinking the others were toasting their last night of the voyage rather than everyone’s pending death. “To our last night on board Titanic and reaching safe harbor sometime on the morrow with a new world’s record won, what?” said the stranger, grinning wide, already drunk and falling into Declan, sending everyone looking after his own drink, and making Vamint snarl at the stranger worse than he’d ever snarled at Ransom.

“Calm down, dog!” said Thomas, shooing him off as the drunken stranger dabbed at Declan with a napkin stamped RMS Titanic to clean up the spill. Declan was shouting for the man to get off, and Ransom grabbed the fellow and led him out a side door and out onto the promenade where the cold night air hit them.

Ransom returned to the boys and continued sipping his whiskey while Thomas cursed and said, “What a sot. You all right, Declan?”

“Fine… just a bit wet.”

Varmint had gone back to his ale, nearly kicked over by the stranger.

Declan drank more wine and grew more solemn.

Thomas joked, “Do you think we should place on life jackets? Water temperature is just under fifty degrees.”

Ransom glanced at him, shouted for a refill, and raised his glass to make another toast, “To us good fellas, all good-hearted men! The boys from Belfast.”

“Belfast for me,” corrected Declan, “but by way of Wales where I first met Tommie—and his family.”

“Aye, Belfast for you, Wales for this duffer,” added Thomas, pouring another round and raising his glass.

“So you’re a Welshman, Thomas,” commented Ransom after another drink.

“Yes, Wales for me,” said Thomas, pouring another round and raising his glass. “Where I leave a sister, a mother, and a father to grieve my lost soul, sure.”

“And a lovely girl Rachel is, too,” said Declan, glancing at a photo he’d snatched from a pocket. “A toast to your sister, Tommie, and may God bless her with a beautiful future and many children and a good man and to your parents as well, Tommie.”

“By way of Chicago,” added Ransom, almost missing the exchange of words about Declan’s sister but snatching the photo, he stared long and hard at a blonde-haired beautiful young woman. Declan took the photo back, tucking it away.

“Wish I could get word to Rachel somehow,” said Declan.

“You might’ve avoided all of this had you gone to her after her letter to you, you stubborn fool.”

“Who’s more stubborn than you? Insisting we come on this wild-goose chase.”

“Hold on! Wasn’t my idea but yours!”

“We tossed a coin, remember? Heads we go, tails we stay—and you called it.”

Thomas’s face grew sullen and anguished. “Hell and high water soon now!” He nervously laughed. “What’ll come of your son or daughter now, Declan, what with no father? What’ll come of Rachel?”

Declan’s anguish spilled over, his eyes filling with tears which he quickly wiped away.

“Hell and high water soon, and damn that officious captain,” brooded Thomas before downing another whiskey. “Had that stubborn old fool listened to us from the start, we might be writing another history here tonight, gentlemen.”

“Agreed,” returned Alastair. “We’re the three wise men among a ship of fools.”

“Not all fools,” countered Thomas. “There’s young Mr. Lightoller.”