Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“Everyone calls them suicide boats, you know.”

“But it was suicide to remain on board, and yet… they waited too late.”

“Every crewman knew they had to get their boats away from the ship as fast as possible. You all did your best. What you had to do.”

“Our best? We all disobeyed Smith’s orders. All but Murdoch.”

“What do you mean?”

“I skipped over to talk to him, to tell him it was useless, but before I got to him, he’d gotten the last collapsible boat away, and then he shot a fellow coming at him as if… as if he believed the man infected. The bastard had bitten him. Then when he heard me shout his name, he turned, looked at me, raised his gun and shot himself in the head. That’s when I was knocked overboard.”

“I helped pull you from the water,” Thomas said.

“And for that I’m grateful. I was completely under, held there by some passing debris, almost knocked unconscious. Lucky to be alive.”

“Sad… sad business. We’ve all lost so much.”

Lightoller stood and made his way back through the crying and moaning of the discomfited passengers, going for his position at the helm. “Keep her steady, Mr. Coogan,” he called back to Thomas. “We sent out a number of distress signals at the last with the flares going up. A ship called Carpathia is steaming for our position, and if we keep rowing in the direction I indicated, we should be seeing them sometime around dawn, perhaps.”

It was 3:10am.

Thomas looked down at his forearm where Varmint had bitten him. He kept telling himself that the dog was in distress, terrified. That it had nothing to do with the parasitic creature that had brought down Titanic and had killed his best friend along with Andrews, Smith, and Alastair Ransom. Fine men all. “Better men than I,” he muttered.

A young woman beside him, the one Ransom had helped aboard, asked, “What is it you’re saying?”

“Nothing… nothing really.”

“Do you think us safe now?”

“Hardly, ma’am. Not till we step aboard the deck of this ship coming to our aid will we be safe.”

“Oh dear… oh dear.”

Afterward for 1912 Inspector Alastair Ransom storyline:

Altogether the White Star-commissioned ships sent out to the North Atlantic in search of bodies find a total of 328 corpses still in their life jackets.

May 2 to July 3: British Board of Trade Inquiry is conducted. 25,622 questions are asked of 96 witnesses, including such expert witnesses as the inventor of radio, Marconi, and the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton regarding ice and icebergs. The only passenger witnesses are Sir Cosmo, Lady Duff Gordon, and J. Bruce Ismay. Other witnesses include Captain Lord of the Californian, Lightoller who endures 1,600 questions alone, members of the crew, the ship's owners, and even select experts who happen to be members of the British Board of Trade itself. The final judgment recommends "more watertight compartments in ocean-going ships, the provision of lifeboats for all on board, as well as a better lookout."

1913 April: International Ice Patrol created to guard sea lanes of North Atlantic under direction of U.S. Coast Guard.

1914 February: Titanic 's second sister ship, Britannic, is launched.

1916 November: Britannic, converted to a hospital ship, is sunk by underwater German mines.

1929 November 18: The Grand Banks Earthquake is thought to have triggered a huge underwater mudslide which some feel may have buried wreck of Titanic in same vicinity.

1935 After 24 years of safe and reliable service, including war service carrying troops, and four major re-fittings, Titanic ’s other sister ship, Olympic is retired. She had crossed the Atlantic 500 times, steamed a million and a half miles, and earned the nickname Old Reliable.

Afterword for 2012 David Ingles storyline:

1980 July: U.S. entrepreneur and explorer Jack Grimm funds scientific expedition which sets out to locate wreck of Titanic . Dogged by bad weather and equipment malfunction, expedition fails to find Titanic .

1981 June: Jack Grimm's second expedition sets out to locate Titanic , but again fails to find the wreck.

1983 July: Third and final expedition funded by Jack Grimm fails to find Titanic .

1985 September 1: Franco-American scientific expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard finally discovers and photographs remains of the wreck of Titanic at a depth of 12,460 feet on the ocean floor.

1986 July: Dr. Ballard returns to Titanic with a second expedition. Landing the submersible Alvin on her decks, he explores and photographs the entire wreck and debris field in detail.

1987: The U.S. Congress moves to make Titanic an international memorial. A French expedition recovers approximately 900 artifacts from the Titanic wreck.

1995: Director James Cameron begins production on a movie based on the disaster starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet.

2012: Captain Juris Forbes’ expedition to Titanic has, for the first time, divers entering these depths and independently entering Titanic ’s hull to investigate her interior with cameras mounted on their persons. Expedition ends in disaster when all members of an eight-person away team die along with the loss of a submersible. This failed expedition promptly put an end to any further visits to plunder Titanic .

The end…

Let Author Robert W. Walker know what you think of his retelling of the Titanic epic as your remarks could become “blurbs” and reviews for the book on Rob’s Facebook Wall. You can contact the author directly at: inkwalk@sbcglobal.net

Author website located at: www.robertwalkerbooks.comand for a blog devoted to the creation of Titanic 2012 along with instruction in creative writing, visit Rob at Dirty Deeds, at Write Aide, at Acme Authors, and Make Mine Mystery. Articles on the art and science of fiction found at: www.speakwithoutinterruption.com and www.1stTurningPoint.com or purchase Rob’s how-to on writing—Dead On Writing—at Amzon.com/Kindle or Wordclay.com for print copy. Finally, if you liked Titanic 2012, seek out Children of Salem by this author.

Adolf Hitler smiled and rocked on his heels, feeling safe, even smug here where Bismarck was hidden from prying British air patrols. The mightiest German battleship ever built was now anchored amid the Balkans, far to the west of Hamburg where the ship had been assembled. Here amid multiple land masses, and fjords in the straits between Germany and Sweden in the only port in occupied Poland.

Hitler felt comfortable here standing 5′10″ inside his British-made Wellington boots. He smiled and turned his head in all directions from his vantage point on the bridge of the deadliest ship ever to set sail on the high seas. Her 16-inch guns were the largest ever mounted on a seagoing vessel. She represented superior fire power and future control of the entire North Atlantic.