Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

Alongside everyone else, David had claimed a section of railing to watch the cable as it continued to disappear into the white caps. He now searched the enormous Atlantic for the ghosts of those who’d died here, imagining the horror of that night… imagining the cries rising up from those freezing to death in the shadow of the giant ship.

With dusk trailed by a blood orange sun dying on the horizon, and the mild whitecaps looking like debris in the water, a shape like a torn white shirt here, a napkin there, a table cloth in the distance, and the shadows beside each whitecap appeared as so many top hats, deck chairs, evening jackets, skirts, children’s dolls, door fixtures. None of which existed here except in David’s mind.

They had arrived and the divers were anxious to get below the surface, but it was rather late for a dive of such significance. Lou Swigart was saying so to anyone within the sound of his voice. Still, as any diver knew, neither surface weather nor time meant a thing two miles down.

David assumed Swigart and Forbes would be chomping at the bit to make initial contact with Titanic . Weather reports called for choppy seas only getting more so in the hours and days ahead. While topside conditions didn’t bother divers, it most certainly affected the ship and crew. It must be figured into the decision as to when to dive and when not to.

If tonight was to be it, they’d soon be preparing Mad Max—their state-of-the-art submersible—which meant the first dive team would be away within the hour. But no, given all that had happened on board it appeared the Commander of Divers wanted a halt to the excitement.

No doubt, Lou didn’t want his divers any more emotional than necessary once they were inside Titanic ’s corridors, ballrooms, Turkish bathhouse, gymnasium, pilot house, her compartments, cargo holds, and staterooms.

On hearing Jacob Mendenhall, Will Bowman, Lena Gambio and others going toward the MHD submersible, David turned from his reverie at the rail. It would be up to Swigart to determine which of the two dive teams would be making first contact with Titanic —who among them, like astronauts stepping on the moon, would be standing on the foredeck, searching her interiors and compartments, snatching open closed hatches that had remained closed for a hundred years.

Steve Jens, too, was soon sliding down ladders to get to Max, calling out that they had Titanic on sonar and adding, “Forbes’ team has dropped a camera that’s traveling to Titanic as we speak, so we’ll have eyes on Titanic from inside Max here.” He slapped the submersible as if it were his favorite backyard grill, and thanks to Jens' rings, this sent up a resounding metal chorus.

“I want first dibs,” said Mendenhall in a voice louder than anyone had heard come out of him to date.

Bowman shouted, “Our team deserves first dive, Commander, sir!” Will pulled David into him. Kelly stood off to one side.

“Lou there’s room enough in Max for all eight of us,” Kelly suddenly shouted over them. “And given the time, and none of us have had any sleep since… since Alandale was found—well, why not one dive tonight with all parties, Commander Swigart, sir?”

“Nooooo way!” said Bowman. “Bad idea, Irvin.”

“Hold on,” said Swigart. “She’s got a point. One dive, one team; we get over who’s going to be first, people. Make for a helluva photograph to send back to shore, make Kane and CNN and all the rest happy—get ’em off our backs, give ’em a headline. We can set the sub on hover and automatic for the photo. Whataya say?” Suddenly Swigart seemed like a kid opening presents at Christmas.

Meanwhile the eyes on Titanic worked their way to the deep on the Cryo-cable snake-line, so that Forbes and those both on the surface and those inside Max, might see their way two miles below. All this as Scorpio would be hovering above given her steerable station-keeping thrusters—similar to the steerable thrusters of a tugboat. Meanwhile or soon rather, the MHD sub would be scouring the bottom like a UFO as it, like Scorpio , was tied to a computer and GPS for automatic station-keeping. MAX as the divers had come to call it, in fact operated, oddly enough, like a Chinook helicopter—hovering at times as well as this was possible without anchoring. It would be a piece of cake to have it hover over the coordinates of Titanic and monitored from the control room aboard Scorpio . The coordinates which Robert Ballard, decades before, had designated as the final home of the unsinkable ship were in use. Soon now the divers inside the MHD sub would be hovering over hallowed ground, a cemetery with not one but two giant mausoleums—the stern section and the bow section, separated by a good mile.

All this while Alandale’s body silently awaited autopsy, and crewman Houston Ford remained missing, and then there was that missing collapsible, which while equipped with an integrated EPIRB beacon, and a tough one at that, had surely been disabled. Why else could they not locate a signal? Had Alandale’s killer disabled the beacon?

Mysteries within mysteries, David thought now, awaiting Swigart’s final determination of who among them would be first to step foot on Titanic ’s crushed decks—as so far no one was taking seriously the idea the entire dive team should go down to Titanic tonight, together.

Kelly had inched alongside David and whispered in his ear. “Look up just slightly.”

He did so to see Dr. Entebbe, the ship’s medical man, staring down over the noise of the divers and Swigart. Dr. Entebbe called down to them. “We think it a bad idea to risk everyone at once.”

“And besides!” added Captain Forbes who nervously paced alongside the ship’s doctor, “Lou, it’s rather late in the day; why not take down one of the teams at first light?”

Swigart looked a bit deflated at this, but he called up to Forbes and the doctor, saying, “The dive team’s my full responsibility, Captain.”

“Aye, I leave it in your hands, then Commander Swigart.”

Dr. Entebbe shouted down at Swigart, “Captain Forbes is thinking of the safety of your men, Mr. Swigart—that’s all.”

At the doctor’s side Forbes now seemed intent on examining the sky and clouds that warned of an impending storm in tandem with the growing whitecaps at sea, the clouds moving in like ships adrift. Darkness was coming on fast. Without looking back at Swigart, Captain Forbes announced, “Looks like rain overnight… maybe tomorrow.” Then he abruptly said, “Lou, you’re perfectly within your rights to do as you please with your team. I stand by you… I trust your judgment.”

“Good… good thing, sir,” replied Swigart. “’Preciate your confidence.”

“Well then… ready your divers, Captain Swigart, for whatever you decide is best. What will you do?” he asked in the end.

Swigart looked his divers up and down, feigning a grimace that turned to a smirk, and then he loudly announced, “I think Dr. Irvin has an excellent idea, and like I said, it’ll make a fine PR moment; it’d please William Kane to no end seeing the live feed we have in mind.” He gave a nod to the cameraman and news guy, Craig Powers, who waved back. David could see they certainly thought they had negotiated a sweet deal and the best lay ahead of them.

“Sooooo,” began Bowman, “does that mean what I think it means?”

“Sooooo,” mimicked Swigart, “everyone gear up for the dive of your life, and be seated in Max in ten minutes or you forfeit the moment!”

A cheer went up among the two dive teams, during which Kelly said to David, “Not like Swigart to change plans on the spur. Watch him down there.” They both knew that Swigart would be piloting the submersible and calling the plays below.