The Titan Drowns

Max

  With Eilish’s gloved hand firmly gripped in his bent elbow, Max steered her through the crowd who had disembarked their train at the dock. The hotel porter, carrying their luggage, cleared a path through the milling passengers for them. The air of excitement was electric and until this moment, Max had not felt any sense of distress over their coming journey. It had seemed unreal. Now it was all too real, as he looked at the faces of the first- and second-class train travellers around him.

  Suddenly, the magnitude of what was to happen in a few short days hit him hard. Would that mother with two toddlers be a victim or survivor? How about the tall, darkly handsome young man who was looking around him with such enthusiastic interest? Was this to be the first time he travelled far from home? Or would it be the last time he travelled anywhere?

  It did no good to think about it, so he refocused his attention on the lovely woman at his side. They had known each other a month now, and with each passing day, their bond grew stronger. Because of it, he had been able to inform his wife politely that he had made arrangements to travel to New York for work in a few days and would not be available until later in the Season to accompany her on her many planned outings. He had serenely weathered her tantrums and emotional blackmail, until she realised that her only course of action was a tactical retreat. Over Easter, she was heard to tell friends that, “work must come first, of course, for darling Maxwell.”

  He wondered fleetingly whether the rumours of his new mistress had reached Agnes’ ears yet. If they had, she made no mention of them. For the few days over Easter when she was back from Kent and before he had left for Southampton, they had remained as artificially polite with each other as they had always been.

  In that time, he had not seen Eilish, and his craving for her had been like a drug. They'd been inseparable for weeks, him staying openly at her suite and going to work from there. Even his brother had made comment on it and insisted on meeting her.

  That had been a hard night for him. His brother’s proclivities where women were concerned made Max insecure and jealous. What if Eilish preferred Phillip once she met him? The idea had panicked and horrified him. She was as important to him as breathing now, and if she should leave him, he had no idea what he would do. Of course, Phillip was not her Target, and even if she did prefer him, she couldn’t randomly pluck him off the streets and take him back to her future world. Only specific people like himself had that happen to them.

  But, for all his fears, the dinner went pleasantly. Phillip had approved of Eilish and she had been polite and friendly, but no more, toward him. So his sanity was safe for the time being at least. The only issue then had been dealing with his brother’s insistent demands for him to make an honest woman of Eilish and divorce Agnes. How could he tell Phillip that such an action was unnecessary considering he was about to drown? Instead, he put him off by saying he would see to it when he returned from New York.

  When he finally saw Eilish again, after nearly a week’s absence, he had been hard-pressed to keep his hands off her. It still seemed incredible the change that had been wrought in him by this one lovely woman. A month ago, he was an amicable, passionless eunuch. Now he was foolishly, head-over-heels in love and had an intimate life second to none. Any lingering concerns about sex being evil or sinful had been washed away by Eilish’s easy pragmatism. He had even pleasured himself without a qualm in the days of their absence, because it was the only way he could ease the pressure and stay sane.

  And now they were together again, if only for one night. He had convinced her to stay with him at South Western House before meeting up with her team in the morning. During the voyage, she would be acting the part of a third class passenger and they wouldn’t see each other until the night of the fourteenth, when they would meet just before the ship hit the iceberg. Then he’d go with her through the Portal.

  How was he going to handle spending all those hours alone, sitting next to people in the restaurant or other social areas, knowing that many of them were enjoying their last hours on earth? It was so tempting to try to do something to change the course of history or, at the very least, arrange to save some of the people who would disappear just like him. However, the Retrieval team had analysed the information concerning the ship, its passengers and crew, and they had decided whom they could and could not rescue. It was not his place to try to influence their decisions or interfere with their selection process.

  Nevertheless, the risks were great for all of them. Anything could go wrong at the last minute and cause their escape path to be blocked. They might all die when that ship went down.

  Max tried to imagine how he might feel knowing that he would die on that ship, when he’d never meant to travel on her in the first place. But, if there had been a choice between meeting Eilish and meeting his death beside her, or living a long and lonely life never having known her, he knew which one he’d choose. As melodramatic as it had always seemed to him, he now knew that one could very easily love a lifetime in a few short days. If they managed to make their escape, then the rest of eternity spent with Eilish would be just icing on the cake.

  As they made their way across the road to the large French Renaissance influenced hotel, Max once more thanked his lucky stars. Eilish had told him so much about her future world and the limitless time they had to enjoy it. It was like being told about Heaven and what he could expect to do there. However, to get to this Heaven he didn’t need to die first. Not really.

  They swept into the main foyer of the hotel and were greeted by a flowing, grand staircase that was quite stunning in its ornate and gilded style. He remembered reading somewhere that this staircase had inspired the impressive centrepieces on the Olympic and Titanic.

  At the reception desk, they were greeted by a superior-looking gentleman with a large moustache and a ruler-straight part down the centre of his well-greased hair. As he took their details, his face creased into a subservient smile.

  ‘Oh, Mr Ingham, delighted to have you staying with us. You have a beautiful suite on the third floor at the front. Dinner will be served at eight o’clock in the main dining room on this floor. If you require room service at any hour, please let us know and that, too, can be arranged.

  ‘You need not rush for the ship in the morning, as check-in for RMS Titanic can be done from this very desk tomorrow. Then you can join one of our especially arranged trains that will transfer you directly from our front door to the terminal.

  ‘If you will please now follow the porter, he will take you to your rooms immediately.’

  ‘Wow, they really go out of their way to minimise the inconveniences of travel, don’t they?’ Eilish whispered as they moved away from the desk.

  ‘At these prices they would want to. I could buy a race horse for what I am paying for a night here.’ He grinned at her and she leaned up to place a kiss on his cheek.

  ‘Yes, it is utterly outrageous and unnecessary, but I have come to enjoy the life of the upper-crust in the last month. It will be quite a shock going down to steerage after this. They have only two baths for all of us ladies to share and not many more water closets. I do not know how I will cope.’

  ‘Well, if you prefer to sleep in comfort or take a bath, you need only come to me on B Deck. I am sure I can bribe a steward to clear the way for you.’

  ‘Do not tempt me. It has been hell being away from you over Easter, and the idea of you being only a few decks above me will be the worst kind of torture. But it will not be easy crossing the class barrier and we do not want to create rumours of indiscretion that might outlast the ship’s demise. Anyway, I have brought only my steerage clothes with me. The rest I had the maid at Claridges deliver to a local charity.’

  ‘Not everything, my love. I rescued that wonderful blue dressing gown creation you wore the first time we dined together. It is in my trunk. If you feel like a little luxury or want to spend a little time with your lonely lover, you will be properly outfitted for the occasion.’

  Eilish
shook her head and slapped him gently on the arm. ‘That was my favourite outfit and it will have to go down with the ship now. I liked to think of someone getting the chance to wear it again.’

  The porter had opened the door to their suite and ushered them in. For a moment, their conversation was paused as they entered their ornate and luxurious sitting room. Max had spared no cost on this journey. After all, he could not take his money with him, and the room they entered was lavish by anyone’s standards. Even so, Eilish paid it little notice. Instead, she tore off her hat, rushed over to the window and looked out into the evening’s gathering dusk.

  ‘Oh Max, look! We can see the Titanic from here. My god, it is huge. It is one thing to talk about it being the biggest ship in the world; it is quite another to witness its size in person. Do you know that one of those four smoke stacks is a fake?’

  Max came over to the window and placed his arms around her waist as he looked out the window toward the dock where the gargantuan Titanic sat passively awaiting its first and last journey. It was an impressive sight, he had to admit, and his inner conflict between awed excitement and fatalistic dread amped up another notch.

  ‘Say you will come to me, Eilish. I am already feeling the pressure of doubts and fears about what we are about to do. If I am left to my own devices, I may well take it upon myself to tell the captain to avoid the iceberg and I will be declared a madman and locked in the hospital infirmary for my troubles. And then you will not be able to save me.’ He was only partly joking. It was a war between his needs and those of the many. If he saved the Titanic, if he could save it, he would lose his chance to go to New Atlantis with Eilish.

  Eilish turned in his arms and drew him in close, resting her head on his shoulder. ‘I know what this must feel like to you. I feel it too. However, we did not cause this terrible calamity and history allows only certain people to survive – on the lifeboats or with us. The rest… for the rest it is their time. I have seen so much death in my life, Max, and most of it was cruel and meaningless. But I have found a way to fight back in my own small way, and I have learned to accept my limits. We are not God, we simply do His Will. We save who we can and we leave the rest to a Greater Power…’

  ‘And the icy ocean.’

  ‘Yes… I will try to come to you. But I will feel guilty enjoying such luxuries while the rest are down below.’

  ‘I do not like the idea of you sharing a cabin with Luke.’

  The sadness of the moment before was lifted and Eilish laughed. ‘And Bart, please do not forget about Bart. If ever there was a perfect chaperone, it is that boy. He is everywhere at once, never still. I do not even know if he stops long enough to sleep. I imagine I will find out tomorrow night.’

  ‘It is a significant risk allowing a child to take part in this mission,’ Max said tentatively, rubbing his cheek against the luxuriant softness of her dark hair.

  ‘Luke told me Bart volunteered and could not be dissuaded. You have to understand that he is not a normal child. He lived on the streets of a ghetto in Poland for over a year, avoiding capture by the enemy and passing messages for the Résistance. His father was taken early for a work detail, and his mother and sister were taken for the Death Camp not long after that. He was delivering a message when the Nazis came for his mother and he did not know until he came home to find his family gone. When he was finally rounded up, along with several hundred other women and children and thrown into a livestock car with 150 others, he expected to die. They all did. They had heard the rumours.

  ‘But that was when we stepped in. Faith, Bart’s new mother and Bonded Mate to Luke, was the one to research the missing carriage. It was a mystery of the time, but little about it became common knowledge because the records were largely destroyed by the Nazis to cover up their horrendous crimes. However, Faith set the research parameters and argued for the allocation of research time for what seemed, initially, to be nothing more than a groundless rumour…

  ‘Anyway, I digress. Bart was only about seven or eight at the time; a tiny little boy suffering from malnutrition. Even so, when we got the children off the train there was Bart, trying to drag a child twice his size toward the door. Even when Luke and Jac went in for the fallen, Bart hovered protectively and would not leave until the last child was removed from that hellhole.

  ‘So, you see, this is no ordinary child. He knew he could be useful and set about convincing others of the fact. Children can be suspicious of adults, he said, especially strangers on a strange ship. He could break down the barriers and convince the children to join in the “lark.” Then we could seamlessly remove them before the chaos starts. The loss of their parents will be their only trauma and that will be offset by the world they will find themselves in.’

  ‘I look forward to meeting this young chap. He sounds remarkable.’

  ‘He is. As are so many of those we rescued that day. It has been a slow process integrating many of the women, though. But we are getting there. That is one of the reasons we do not Target everyone. It is not a kindness to some to be thrown into a world that is incomprehensible to them. You will not understand fully what I mean until you get there, but it is a little like dropping stone-age men into this world, with noisy machines and a way of life that is opposed to every value they hold. Madness, suicide, drug abuse and violence all arise from the clash of such cultures.’

  ‘So, what you are gently telling me again is that I cannot play God with the lives of these people I will be sharing this journey with. I must be satisfied that we will save a goodly number and leave the rest in the hands of God.’

  Eilish laughed mirthlessly. ‘Yes, exactly. And I will come to you if I can. It will depend on how fast we make contact with our Targets and how well we convince them to follow our instructions.’

  ‘Then there will be two reasons I will be hoping for a speedy outcome to your mission. I miss you already.’

  She reached up and began to undo his tie and the buttons of his collar. ‘Let us not worry about dinner then. Let us make a few more memories, instead, to get us through the next few days.’

  ‘We are certainly a pair of rabbits. I can hardly credit this total change of character. Nevertheless, I am glad for it.’ He took her mouth in a hungry kiss. ‘Very glad, indeed!’

  Chapter Nine

  Pia