Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“How much should we concern ourselves, Constable?” asked Konrath.

“Oh, I am just an amateur at the game, I assure you.”

They all laughed and the rough-looking Konrath replied, “I was referring to Mr. Andrews’ call for the life preservers and the boats!”

“Frankly, there’s no place on the ship you can go that will be any better than right here, gents. Unless you can walk on your knees, or fashion a dress and a bonnet.”

The group sent up more raucous laughter over this.

“Looks like it’s every man for himself at this point, Thomas,” said Declan. “I have something I must do before the game’s entirely over.”

“Is it something I can help you with?”

“I think not… at least not at the moment. Wait for me here.”

The two young interns shook hands then grasped one another in a quick, manly hug in the manner of team members at the final bell. Their quick embrace brought gasps from a few tables, and at one, a loud, raucous overly-dressed and feathered elderly lady in her mid-to-late fifties shouted at the ladies at her table for tittering. “I hate that in our gender! It does not serve the women’s movement well at all, ladies, and for God’s sake, they’re twenty years your junior, those boys!”

In their attempt to calm the woman, Declan heard someone call her Molly.

Declan rushed off on whatever chore or mission he had put himself to. Thomas felt the slight tilt of the floor beneath him. He noticed the tables too had seriously begun to tilt as the ship listed to one side; even the card players now sat in chairs tilted awkwardly to one side, nearly going over.

No one seemed at all concerned about the dog, but then Varmint had curled into a ball at Thomas’ feet and remained asleep.

Within his mind, Thomas had hardly resolved to die on board this ship or in the freezing depths below.

His resolve flip-flopping, broken one moment, then set in stone the next, Thomas hadn’t the heart to speak of it aloud, not to Ransom, and certainly not to Declan, as both of them seemed so stoic and manly in the face of death.

He watched Ransom laughing, smoking and playing cards with the other men who had disregarded every word Mr. Andrews had uttered from the stage. The band continued playing, all of them just sitting with their various instruments, playing on as if it were any other night.

“I want off this damned ship,” he whispered to the dog at his feet. “How about you, Varmint?”

The dog lifted its head and nodded successively as if he might actually understand Thomas Coogan.

“We’ll get to Murdoch; he may be having second thoughts as well. Lightoller’s a lost cause—a choir boy, but Murdoch’s the soft one. He talks a big game but in the end… .”

Just then Declan came back down the flowing staircase, his journal in hand. He came directly to Thomas and said, “I recovered it from Lightoller. He’s assured me it will survive the sinking if he has to take charge of it himself.”

“Good… good idea. Give it to Lightoller.”

“No, no. I’ve been working him for some time, and I convinced him that you’re the man for the job, Thomas.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

Declan placed both the book and the sabre tooth into Thomas’ hands.

“What? What’re you saying?”

Declan whispered while grimacing as if in pain, “Go to Officer Lightoller, port side boat deck. He’s already filling lifeboats with women and children. He’s expecting you.”

“I’m hardly a woman or a child, Declan!”

“No, you misunderstand. He’s had a horrible time of it, getting the crew to go along with things, despite captain’s orders. He believes himself clean of the creatures and plans to get on the last boat under his command himself, and he’s promised that he’ll take you along too.”

“But I thought Lightoller resolved?”

“Resolve falters for some.”

Thomas nodded. “We can’t all be heroes, can we now, Declan? So what about you?”

“Me? I’m going back to the freezer compartment where they’ve stacked every bloody diseased body found on board.”

“But why? The war’s over, Declan.”

“I mean to make certain nothing gets out of that freezer, not by anyone’s hand.”

“Don’t be crazy; come away with me.”

“No, I have to do this.”

“But why?”

“Its… the only sure way.”

“How do we know that the women and children on that final boat aren’t diseased? It would only take one to be contagious, and it starts all over again! On land somewhere.”

“We have to believe that at some point the carrier can reproduce no more, and in fact, that last fellow we found, when I cut him open, there was a poor showing indeed… looking like the early efforts we first saw back in Belfast.”

“You think the monster’s played out then?”

“I believe so, yes, weakened at least in terms of reproducing.”

“Come with me, Declan! No need to play the bloody hero. This is no time for dramatics and posturing. You’re a damn fine surgeon, a man the world needs.”

“The world needs a gatekeeper more this time ‘round. Suppose the carrier returns for even a handful of those eggs and makes it onto a lifeboat, and from there to New York? It will’ve all been for naught. Every bit of it!”

“There’s a guard on the damned freezer, remember?”

“Gone already—frightened as we all are.” He shrugged, “Poor fellow looking to save himself with the water rushing in.”

The two young surgeons looked long into one another’s eyes and embraced for the last time. In Thomas’ ear, Declan whispered, “Live on, Tommie—live well for me; live well and prosper! Ya bastard—become a fine old country doctor in the heartland of America, or back to Wales with ya.”

“Aye Wales and family, I suspect.”

“No New York or maybe even Ransom’s Chicago?”

“More likely home and family for me, after this.”

Varmint stood at Thomas’ leg now. Declan petted the dog again, saying, “Off with you both; Lightoller’s a softy. He’ll give the dog space too if he can.”

“I don’t feel right about this, Declan; I should stay with you. You and Alastair… see it through to the end.”

“No, old friend. One of us needs to live on and keep the record of what really happened this night aboard Titanic alive.”

“Then you do it; it’s your bloody journal, it’s always been your bloody fight!”

“No, we’ve been Dumas’ Three Musketeers, we have!”

“And you are Aramis, me Athos!” Thomas replied with a wane smile.

“And Ransom’s been Porthos—our raucous brag-a-bout, anxious for a smoke and a drink!” joked Declan, but it didn’t work.

“Declan, brother, you-you have Rachel to think of, man.”

“She’s my greatest regret of all, your sister, my secret bride.”

“Then come with me,” Thomas pleaded.

“No , Tommie. It’s for you to do. My destiny is here. Take courage in living on to a ripe old age, as I take courage in doing what I must do—kill this thing once and for all.”

“And that’s what I’m to tell Rachel and your child? That you sacrificed yourself on the altar of Titanic ?”

“To kill this thing once and for all,” he repeated. “To slam it with the last blow. I-I wish you could understand. Sometimes one’s fate is written, and we’ve no way to change it.”

With Varmint at his heels, Thomas took the gilded staircase two and three steps at a time, angry, frustrated, rushing now for the boat deck and Lightoller, with Declan’s journal and the ancient tooth in his hands. Watching his best friend and secret brother-in-law disappear, Declan bit his lip, fought back a tear, and steadied himself. He glanced in Ransom’s direction and wondered if he ought to ask him to back his play, but the old copper looked so happy and in his element that Declan balked at the idea. Ransom had already won a wonderful, shiny pair of dress shoes, followed by successive hands at the poker game. He still maintained control of four bottles of whiskey as well. Let this good man, this Porthos character, die happy and successful, he thought.