Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“Ahhh… I see. Very odd indeed.”

“I know it sounds mad… crazy, sir, but we only wish to save lives.”

“Dr. O’Laughlin, are you aware of any such unseen organism that can wreak this sort of horror on a man?” Captain Smith held up the photo of Anton Fiore, his chest splayed open.

“These are burn victims undergoing autopsy; at best old reused cadavers, sir,” the ship’s surgeon declared in a tone that said ‘end of story’.

Ransom wanted to leap across the table, grab the man by the throat, and strangle him for his closed-mindedness.

Meanwhile, Smith asked O’Laughlin, “Have you seen anything in your clinic to warrant such drastic action?”

“Nothing of the kind sir.”

“Then you cannot recommend a quarantine?”

“Absolutely not, sir.”

Ransom grabbed his cane as if it might be a weapon. “Hold on, Captain, we’ve not said the word quarantine in your presence, now have we? We may be able to isolate and freeze this thing, ensuring your passengers’ safety.”

Smith looked across the table into Ransom’s steely eyes. “It’s getting round the ship, your calling for a quarantine. Fact is, a crewman overheard something of it… I suppose from you men, and it spread rapidly from there.”

“Are you trying to panic everyone aboard our ship?” asked Murdoch. “To what end?”

“You and the lads here’ll have to do better than this,” conclude Smith. “You’re surely working for our competitors, I’d say. What do you think, Murdoch? Dr. Laughlin?”

“The Cunard people?” shouted Declan. “No, Captain Smith! We are exactly who we say we are—interns from Belfast, and this man is a former Chicago Inspector now a Belfast police officer.”

Ransom added, “I assure, you, Captain, we are not frauds, sir, and neither is the disease!”

Lightoller had made himself useful, having spread out shot glasses, Waterford crystal at that, and poured like a veteran bartender, his nostrils twitching in anticipation, eyebrows bobbing.

Ransom had two shots before he finally said to the doctor and the captain, “We have it on good authority, sir, that a malignant organism has infiltrated the ship as long ago as the day you left Belfast, if not before.”

“I’ve seen no evidence of a plague, or a militant disease of any sort,” repeated O’Laughlin.

“It may well start deep below, sir, probably with the crew… maybe the Black Gang,” said Declan, his voice filled with certainty.

“Mr. Murdoch, Mr. Lightoller,” began the captain, “tell me, have you had any crewmen or others aboard going ill?”

“Or missing?” asked Declan.

“Gone missing? Why… well, yes. You recall the lad, Burne? Burnsey the other stokers call him; rather fond of the young man, they are.”

“And before that?” asked Ransom.

“One… one of the Pinkerton agents who’d booked passage from Belfast to Southampton in fact,” replied Murdoch.

“And he failed to disembark in Southampton,” added Lightoller, stroking his chin. “Chap was called on in his quarters but not there. We spent untold hours searching for him.”

“And he never surfaced?” asked Ransom.

“When I was told of it,” Captain Smith said now, “I decided we could wait no longer and waste no more time on the man.”

“And was it from Southampton to here that—”

“Is when this fellow Burne disappeared, yes?”

“Yes,” replied Lightoller as well, “so we decided he’d somehow got by us—without his trappings and his bags.”

“What of his and the agent’s bags?” pressed Ransom,

Lightoller frowned. “Abandoned… still in their respective rooms—quite odd, really. Left me with an eerie feeling, it did, Captain.”

“Yes, well… odd behavior, but we see odd behavior a great deal in this line of work,” added Smith.

“We’re Seeing it now,” said O’Laughlin with a slight snicker.

“Not so odd behavior if you are dead and thrown overboard or hidden in some storage bin or locker aboard,” replied Ransom, holding his glass out for a third shot of rum. “Do you have anything sharper?”

“It’s rum for pirates and stowaways,” Smith said with a grin that raised his white beard. He laughed and his men, along with his surgeon joined him in laughter.

“I’d prefer my rum to any drink, but we’re hardly stowaways,” Ransom replied, lying about his favorite drink.

As Lightoller located more of the doctor’s liquor, Ransom said, “Look here, Captain Smith, sir, we must convince you to stop this ship, to go passenger by passenger to determine who needs be kept in quarantine.”

“And I tell you there is far too much riding on this voyage to allow the disappearance of one or two men to interfere with it,” replied Smith. “Every great endeavor, every great feat of mankind has required sacrifices. We are engaged in breaking all maritime speed records for a ship of this tonnage, man. To beat Olympic. Don’t you want to be a part of that?”

“A record?”

“Yes, to outperform the record holder—our own sister ship and the only ship of equal or near-equal tonnage—the Olympic.”

“Then it’s not even bout your former, chief rival? The Cunard line?” asked Declan.

“I know what Titanic ’s owner and her architect—both aboard—will say,” said Lightoller, downing his second rum.

“What’s that?”

“That you men are all imposters and belong in our brig.”

“Oo-hell-no!” moaned Thomas. “Not more jail time.”

Ransom put his head in his hands at Thomas’ blurting this out. “No, no, the lad means something entirely else—that we have spent hours talking to the authorities in Belfast about a number of murders there—deaths brought about by this plague.”

“The same plague we have chased from Belfast, the same as we are convinced is here, on board, now,” said Thomas, trying to gather back his words.

Dr. O’Laughlin poured Ransom a rum, and Ransom greedily drank it down, and Dr. O’Laughlin asked, “Feel better, do we?”

“Much better, yes. You have a good bedside manner, Doctor.”

“Mr. Lightoller is correct in what he says,” began Dr. O’Laughlin who now offered Ransom and the interns a cigar from a gold-plated tin. “The powers that be on board Titanic will not let what you propose happen; not under any circumstances. Don’t you agree, Captain Smith?”

“I more than agree, Doctor. Even if we were convinced of this uncanny and unlikely story, gentlemen—” He paused to light his cigar. “—it remains to convince Ismay, Andrews, and others with a vested interest. Slowing down much less stopping all engines? Sorry but the owners would have my head—white beard and all.”

“But this could mean the lives of all aboard—every man, woman, and child!” said Declan, punctuating with his unlit cigar while Thomas was coughing on his.

Dr. O’Laughlin had gone about the room to light each cigar in turn from a silver lighter and merely smiled at them. “The death of a few passengers? Not even slightly a deterrent for the likes of these men. Trust me, they will see you as clever saboteurs, anarchists, or worse, sent from Cunard’s Board of Directors to intentionally slow Titanic ’s progress enough that it will be disgraced, so the headlines might read: Boondoggle Titanic Limps into New York Off Schedule.”

Captain Smith, also puffing on a cigar now, backed the doctor, spreading out a hand to indicate another headline he spoke: “ Titanic Drags Tail Between Legs! Mr Ransom, gentlemen, being late to New York… now that would be the sin. Short of a bomb going off aboard, you see, or one of the boilers exploding, it’s simply not going to happen.”