Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“Another sad fact, but hardly—”

“They could have saved hundreds more but instead, these highly trained, cool-headed professionals failed miserably in filling those boats, and in fact, took it upon themselves to order the boats lowered and moorings released too soon. Lost one entirely—sent it over the side! Maybe right along with the binoculars.”

David only now realized what she was saying—that it was all intentional. “Whatever are you getting at, Kelly?”

“Yeah, whatever… and who cares about truth anyway?”

“What truth?”

“How and why Titanic went down; you’re right—it’s no longer relevant. Only the legend is relevant. Hell, whole industries have survive on it.”

“You mean like books, films?”

“That and more, yes. There’re whole cults devoted to this shipwreck, David.”

“Be that as it may, Kelly, there’re plenty enough wild-hair theories on what eventually sent that ship to the deep—from a bomb on board to a mummy’s curse!” David shook his head in disgust. “So why don’t you subscribe to one crackpot theory or the other, and leave it at that? Ballard’s theory, the French expedition’s theory, the rivet theory, sabotage theory… . I mean how is any of it relevant to our mission today?”

“History is always relevant, David. I was being facetious. Like death, when is history not with us?” She gazed into his eyes, and for a moment, he wondered what she might be thinking, while hoping she was thinking some romantic thoughts about him, and all this talk was maybe just nerves. But why all the dancing around?

David wanted to kiss her but wondered if he should get involved with her now—after the crazy talk she was spouting. She had to simply be tossing these wild notions out there just as an intellectual exercise, to impress him with all she knew of Titanic ’s history, perhaps. But there was another concern that should keep David on a hands-off approach with her. Suppose someone saw them in an embrace?

“Swigart sees us together like this out here under the stars, he could get the wrong idea,” he said. “Best we both turn in; big day tomorrow.”

“Say you don’t think me mad, David—my ideas about Titanic ’s demise?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Kelly. That people lie under oath all the time? That maybe it wasn’t a clear night? That the binoculars were stolen?”

“I’m asking you to keep an open mind.”

“Sometimes all we have is eyewitnesses and that’s what makes it history.”

“Even though science has proven again and again that we can’t trust the human eye? Police lineups prove it wrong every day.”

“It’s all we have to go by from that night in 1912?” he shrugged. “What ya gonna do?” He again focused on her beautiful features.

“We also know that history changes depending on whoever’s writing it.”

“But there’s truth in there somewhere, and like I said, it’s all we have to go by.”

“And sometimes we live or die based on how little we know! Or how much rewritten history we’re fed!”

“Ahhh… yeah, I get it: ‘Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it’, right?”

“That’s right. Think about it. People have faith in religion, that Mark and Matthew and Luke and Peter got it right, word for word, but then theology, the study of religion replete with scholars, comes along and the true scholars of the Bible see the same set of facts from another perspective; they see facts that don’t bear out the Gospels.”

“Kelly, you’re bringing down the stars and my mood,” he said with a laugh.

She persisted in the same somber tones. “Dave, think about it, please—if we take everything in history—like how Titanic went down—as gospel, then we may be ignoring the facts, the real truth rather than the legend, and that makes us all hypocrites.”

“When the legend overtakes the truth, print the legend?”

“Precisely—not unlike our PR campaign back at Woods Hole for our mission.”

“Hmmmpf! Precisely what I mean by our being hypocrites! We buy into the same legends we create—fairytales, like the one about that night. We don’t dare even contemplate the real story as it might ruin our dream image of brave Captain Edward J. Smith and the brave crew and passengers of the Titanic Legend.”

“Ahhh… I get it now. You’re an agnostic wishing to prove God was not there that night because he’s not at home. Kelly, I’m going to end this conversation now.”

She ignored this and continued unabated. “We say we want the truth while conservatively seeking the comforting legend—that’s all I’m saying. I’m not an agnostic. I want people to take responsibility for their actions—even dead people.”

“Dead as in historical figures, you mean?”

“History is ever with us, David—as is death itself.”

“I get it. I get it.”

“Then what was in old Captain Eddy’s head when he piloted the massive Titanic into an even more massive iceberg?”

“I will agree that Titanic ’s maiden voyage should’ve gone smoothly—perhaps a bit late getting into New York harbor but essentially intact—even after striking the iceberg.”

“You make my point! Why didn’t they shut off the compartments that were built to be sealed in the event of her taking on water at the bow?”

“The story goes the riveters in the shipyards left the bulkheads between the compartments unfinished, so—”

“Again with ‘the story goes’, David. What if that was a lie told by 2 ndOfficer Lightoller at the inquest to protect Captain Smith’s memory? Suppose instead the order was given to not seal off the compartments. Suppose—”

“Whoa! That’s crazy. Why would Smith not seal off the bow section if he could? I read you were a genius IQ—and that you were cleared on the classes we all had to take for this job.”

“Trust me, I took every class you did, and I know every inch of Titanic ; I am just saying what if… what if—”

“That they all lied to protect a captain who lost his mind?”

“No, he didn’t lose his mind; he lost far more than that.”

“Kelly, damn it, you’re confusing the hell outta me.”

“Face it, David, since childhood, you’ve been brainwashed on the Titanic legend, not true history—stuff that doesn’t even approximate the truth. But your faith in the lies told became the facts; so-called facts that came from those hearings and men like Lightoller.”

“Lightoller was a hero.”

“Lightoller simply wanted to save himself after seeing what Murdoch had done.”

“You talk as if… as if you were there in some former life.”

“In a sense… I was.”

“What does that mean?”

“Lightoller, Murdoch, Smith—the entire crew, they were all supposed to go down with Titanic together, David.”

“What’re you saying?”

“That they had a pact.”

“Like some evil cabal? A pact? A pact to sink Titanic ?”

“No, not evil… not a cabal or a covenant of evil. But they had their reasons.”

David stepped away from the railing and her, pirouetting and looking as if he would stalk off; instead, he raised both hands skyward and stepped to within inches of her. “But it struck an iceberg—and what other way to strike an iceberg than by accident?”

“How about intentionally?”

He could only stare at her now and not with a good thought in mind, and certainly not with a romantic one. “Think it’s getting late, and we’ve a big day tomorrow.” “Yeah, no one’s promised a ride down,” she agreed.

“Have to pass muster on the submersible and gear, so…”