Robert Walker - Titanic 2012

“Setting the camera aboard Max for automatic, Juris, to get some shots of us all arriving and venturing out onto the deck now. Coming around to landing… closer… closer…”

All aboard struggled to get a sight of Titanic from the large bubble over the top front of the sub—having to take turns to do so. The sight amazed the divers. Kelly grabbed David’s hand and squeezed hard, unaware just how hard. He nodded to her, a signal he was here to watch her back. She squeezed harder before letting go.

Swigart had positioned the sub to hover over the over the ‘safe’ deck which sent up a cloud of debris and particles, but he announced, “The deck here will hold us. I’m putting Max on auto hover while we are away. We’ll get an exterior shot of Max hovering over Titanic as well, eh? We’re OK. Don’t let the slime and rust frighten you.”

“It’s so surreal,” said Kelly, speaking for them all. “Like it’s someone else’s dream, and we’re just intruders.”

“Don’t want to hear it, Irvin,” ordered Swigart.

“We’re not here to wax poetic,” Mendenhall backed Swigart. “Leave that crapola for Bob Ballard’s generation.”

“Yeah!” said Lena. “We’re in it strictly for the money and the adrenaline rush! Right, Will?”

“We’re here to plunder.” Bowman sent up a fist overhead, creating a wave throughout Max’s interior.

“Best remember that,” muttered Mendenhall.

“Get the hatchway door, Fiske?” commanded Swigart. “Best remember we don’t want this compartment flooded with salt water!”

It was the only reason the sub had a hatchway for the divers where they must take turns entering and leaving as only two divers fit into the space between the two hatchway doors. Once the hatchway was clear of saltwater, they exited and another pair entered. For safety precautions, this hatchway opened manually from the outside as well with a mere push of a button that opened the hydraulic portal.

Now, two by two, they ventured out and away from the hovering submersible that looked for all the world like a hovering Chinook helicopter with no blades. From Max, they went directly for the target area and were almost immediately assembled onto the deck of Titanic , including Swigart, leaving the sub to hover in such a manner as to be facing the length of Titanic ’s crushed, ruined deck where all the divers assembled for the group photo being careful to remain atop the metal roof they’d found.

The interior temperature gauge aboard Max on their leaving her had read 43 degrees Fahrenheit. One lesson learned early: Max couldn’t generate enough heat to combat the onslaught of cold down here—not for long. Their thermal suits helped, but fear ran high that outside their safe shell the temperatures would be even harder on the team.

The plan was to place one dive team at the stern aft section here, the second team would re-board Max to travel to the more intact forward bow section, approximately a mile away. But first a group photo atop the deck at the stern section was the plan, thanks to Kelly’s suggestion and Swigart’s uncharacteristic change in orders and plans.

It was almost as if he’d become intoxicated, so intent had he become on this single idea. It did seem a sudden fixation to be sure.

From the point of view of the scientists and Forbes on Scorpion, no one thought it a good idea for all the divers to vacate the submersible for the deck. Mendenhall, whose expertise was underwater photography, carried the camera equipment. By the same token, Swigart, being dive commander had set the recording camera mounted on the sub as well to get photos from this separate view.

Everyone was acutely aware that at the moment—as they jostled for position in the bully photo— that time was fast ticking away, that their four hours on the breathing packs was already down to three and a quarter hours. They had literally turned over their lives to the technology they carried on their backs; they all knew how fast and efficiently the ocean would kill them should any malfunction or accident occur.

“Let’s make this fast,” said Bowman. “I wanna go exploring! Imagine being inside her hull!”

Once positioned and with Mendenhall giving them the international sign for success, a thumb’s up, he set the timer, and with a cacophony of voices coming over the com-links, everyone shouted for Mendenhall to hurry in order to get himself in the frame, but he hadn’t counted on a current that jostled him and left him fighting time. The camera began clicking off several shots with Mendenhall’s back to the camera before he finally got into position. David suspected that perhaps one frame alone caught the man’s full frontal features.

David wondered if Mendenhall, a meticulous fellow in everything he did, had not planned it that way. Was Mendenhall the thing… the ‘it’ of Declan Irvin’s journal and nightmare, the disease-spreading murderer aboard Scorpio ? And now here! His finned feet touching the spongy deck of Titanic . Here not for the first time, but rather for a second time?

David had been confused at the last moment by changed orders from Lou; orders that paired Ingles not with Bowman as in training sessions up till now but with Mendenhall. He struggled to make sense of the switch in orders, the last minute change up, but Lou had offered no explanations only orders, and one was that Swigart himself would dive with Kelly Irvin. That Swigart would dive into Titanic himself was in itself a shocker to them all, but when he announced the pairings David and Kelly exchanged a concerned look. David with Mendenhall at his back did not sit well, and Kelly without David nearby worried them both as well.

Once again Captain Forbes via communications above advised against this sudden new idea of Lou’s about joining the dive. Forbes cited his age, cited some early brush with some nebulous condition that could cause problems at this depth despite the technology keeping them all safe. Lou wouldn’t hear any of it; he was enraptured with the idea of entering Titanic —a lifelong dream and perhaps his plan all along, and at these depths with him in charge, who was there to argue otherwise?

At the surface, Captain Forbes and his crew were not idle as they had sent down one of the huge platforms that would act as an elevator for cargo and discoveries plundered from within this section of Titanic . From Scorpio a secondary pull-away ship, considerably smaller but in actuality a floating crane for all intents and purposes, too would be moving to hover over the second section of Titanic a mile off, where it would be deploying an underwater platform at the second location.

Even with this state of the art equipment, time remained the enemy. A secondary ship for this purpose had been sought, but nothing built other than Scorpio could possibly lift the sizeable platforms if and when full, so the search for a second ship had long ago been called off and the design for Scorpio put into play, a design that had a ship within a ship, so to speak.

Half the team were waved off now to go and explore the torn apart aft section—Lena, Bowman, Fiske, and Jens while Swigart ordered Kelly, Mendenhall, and David back aboard the waiting sub.

The last minute arrangements seemed odd, like another decision on Swigart’s part as he had now rather off-handedly and spur-of-the-moment re-shuffled the dive partners. The end result was that David, originally partnered with Bowman, was now partnered with Jacob Mendenhall, while Kelly, originally partnered with Jens was partnering with Lou.

David wondered if Kelly had at some point talked Swigart into this shuffle of the cards, or if it was just Swigart keeping them all on their toes? Or given the fact two people aboard Scorpio were now dead, perhaps Swigart had a game plan in his head no one else was supposed to know about.