Marlene Dotterer - Shipbuilder

“Aye, Sir. I need more time to look it over.”

Smith nodded once, and gestured to Tom to lead the way down. “Let’s go see for ourselves, shall we?” He turned to Murdoch. “Remain at full stop. Send the carpenter down to help sound the ship.”

Tom felt a brief rejoicing. At last! Something has changed! He left the bridge with Smith behind him.

At the first compartment, they climbed the short ladder to the upper hatch, swinging it open. They stared in dismay at the water flowing freely down the bulkhead and pooling on the deck below. It was worse the farther forward they went. The forepeak was completely flooded. Tom estimated the flow rate in each compartment as best he could. They discovered holes in the sixth compartment as well. The water flow was much slower there, moving in a thin, but solid, stream down the wall in three places.

“The post office is flooded,” Tom remarked as they reached the staircase on their way back to the bridge. He spoke quietly as there were a few passengers about, whispering to each other or to stewards. They looked curiously at Smith and Tom, but no one approached.

Smith’s face was tight. “I’ll see if they need help moving the mail. Would you bring the ship’s plans to the bridge? We’ll discuss the damage with the staff in a few minutes.”

They parted and Tom went to his room to retrieve the plans. He paused a moment as he entered. His stateroom was quiet and clean, just as he had left it. Vertigo seized him and made the room spin for a moment. He rubbed his face with his hands.

The entire world had changed. He’d known it was coming, but now that it was here, he felt inadequate and guilty, full of fear. All this time, I’ve never faced the reality of this. It’s all been hypothetical. I never believed it would really happen.

He should have stopped it.

Smith, Lightoller, Chief Officer Wilde, and Bruce Ismay were waiting in the chart room when he arrived. He spread the plans on the table.

Six compartments were flooding. Tom showed them the consequences of their collision, pointing out the sections on the plan. “The watertight doors are all sealed, but these compartments are filling with water. Once the water reaches C Deck, it’ll start flooding into the stair wells.”

Ismay sputtered, but Captain Smith held up a hand to silence him, never taking his eyes off of Tom. “Will she stay afloat?”

“No sir.” Tom thought for a moment that those words would kill him.

“That’s ridiculous! This ship can’t sink.” Ismay moved next to them, sounding angry, but uncertain.

“Without a double hull, the water is filling those compartments. It will reach the top of the bulkheads on C Deck and from there will flood the rest of the ship. We have no way of blocking off the stair wells past that point.” Tom could barely bring himself to look at Ismay, he was so angry.

“What about the pumps?” the Captain asked.

Tom shook his head. “The pumps have a new efficient mechanism developed recently, but they can’t stop it. They buy us time, though. A few hours, maybe.”

He reached for paper and pencil, making a rough calculation. “Conservatively, we can stay afloat for about four hours, maybe five.” Whatever else, they were in better shape than in the other time line, when the ship had sunk in two-and-a-half hours. “We need to get everyone off this ship, quickly, and call for help.”

RMS Carpathia , North Atlantic, 1:30 a.m.

Harold Cottam sighed with relief as he pulled off his dratted boots and pulled down the sheets. This was the last time he ever went to sea as the lone wireless operator. In the future, if he didn’t have a backup, he wouldn’t take the job. He had hoped to turn everything off and be in bed an hour ago, once he received a reply from the liner Parisian. But that reply had required a response, and now he was waiting for a confirmation to that. But that was it. He was going to bed the second the response came through.

Once he was ready for bed, to keep himself awake for the reply, he switched over to the Titanic’s frequency. He’d heard several messages come in for them, but they had not been replying. Eejits, he sniffed disdainfully. They had two wireless operators and still couldn’t keep up!

Ah, they were transmitting, now. Too tired to translate, he leaned on his elbow and listened to the clicks, until something made him sit up. What was that? Had that been a CQD? All Stations Attend: Distressed. He started translating automatically. The Titanic was broadcasting her position. He wrote it down and waited. Nothing else happened and he tapped quickly: Repeat your message. Did you say CQD?

The reply came back in an instant: Yes. Come at once. We have struck a berg Old Man. Going down by head. CQD. CQD. They repeated their coordinates.

“Blimey,” Cottam breathed. Throwing on his boots and jacket, but otherwise not bothering to dress, he grabbed the message and ran to the bridge. He presented his disheveled self to the first officer, who read the message and pulled Cottam with him to the captain’s quarters.

Captain Rostron had just fallen asleep, leaving him groggy and irritated at the interruption, but the message he read woke him instantly. Dressing quickly, he took the others to the chart room to determine distance and course. He sent Cottam back with a message for Titanic : we’ll be there in four hours. Then he immediately began giving orders to turn his ship into a rescue boat.

Dunallon, Monday 15 April 1912, 4:00 a.m.

Neither Sam nor Casey knew when they could expect news. The telegraph office opened at six, but they had no idea when a specific telegram would be sent to someone at Harland & Wolff and from there, to them. They did expect that telegraphed messages were flying through the airwaves from ship to ship as Titanic called for help, and these would be picked up by various news sources. News should be getting out soon.

If events followed the original timeline, Titanic would have hit the iceberg at 3:40 a.m., Belfast time. By 6:20, she would have sunk and Tom would be gone. Casey, fighting rising panic and despair, fainted twice, until Sam insisted she lie down on the sofa. He put a pillow under her feet and a cool rag on her forehead and forbade her to move.

At seven o’clock, the doorbell rang. Ham stood on the step, his hat in hand, his long face miserable, as he faced Sam. “Dr. Altair,” he began, and paused in shock as Casey came into view. Sam realized how strange her appearance must seem to Ham: her hair was loose and wild, her face pale and pinched, with deep lines around her mouth, her eyes groggy and unfocused.

Ham seemed to throw off his shock, though, stepping inside and gripping her shoulders. “Casey, I have some news. Let me say first that, as far as we know, Tom is okay.”

Her expression didn’t change and he took an uncertain breath. “We’re still trying to find out what’s happened, but wireless messages between ships at sea have been picked up by several news services. Mr. Kempster received a call about an hour ago from a reporter who had heard about the messages.”

He glanced at Sam, instinctively begging for help with Casey’s blankness. “ Titanic hit an iceberg sometime last night. We don’t have details, so we don’t know when it happened or what the damage was. The last we heard, they’re loading people onto boats. We know that several ships are working their way to her. That’s all I know.”

Casey stared at him a moment, her hands on his chest, but before she spoke, Sam put a hand on each of them and turned them toward the parlor. “Sit down, Ham,” he directed, as he guided Casey to a divan. She went with no argument, staring blankly at the floor. Sam sat next to her, bringing his attention back to Ham. “Do you have any idea of when or how you’ll learn more?”