“I know,” Futrelle said. “When we decided to come home a trifle early from our European tour, the Titanic was really our only option.”
“Well, we transferred bookings from half a dozen of our other liners onto the Titanic, and without this tactic, frankly, we’d have been embarrassingly underbooked for our maiden voyage. Even so, we’re only 46 percent of capacity in First Class and 40 percent in Second Class… though steerage is 70 percent capacity.” He chucked dryly, adding, “Finding poor people who want to go to America is never much of a problem.”
“This is a stumper.” Futrelle adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “The maiden voyage of the world’s largest liner-that should have attracted ticket buyers like bees to honey.”
“Oh, we’ve a respectable booking, but the damned strike’s damaged the entire shipping industry… with cancellations and postponements making travel so unpredictable, leaving passengers stranded, bewildered, disenchanted…. People just aren’t traveling at this particular time, a time which is so crucial to us with the launching of this ship.”
“You may have been up against another problem, Mr. Ismay-Bruce.”
“Yes? What would that be?”
“Fear.” Futrelle raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t there those who feel that your ‘monster ship’ is simply too big to float?”
Ismay sighed. “Unfortunately, Jack, you’re right-though that’s such sheer poppycock it barely merits a response. This ship is the last word in modern efficiency, every expert considers it literally unsinkable. It’s utter ignorance, and the pity is, it’s not just coming from the great unwashed, but from intelligent, educated people, as well.”
“And what can be done about that?”
He leaned forward. “Reeducation. This is where you could be of service to the White Star Line, Jack.”
Futrelle sat back. “To repay my luxury suite, you mean?”
“No. There are no strings attached to that, other than the right to inscribe you upon our glittering First-Class passenger list. But I understand you and Mrs. Futrelle make at least one European crossing, annually…”
Futrelle nodded, folded his arms. “It’s the nature of my business. You indicated yourself, I have a following on your side of the pond.”
“Exactly. How would you like to have free annual passage on any White Star liner, a permanent open ticket-First Class?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
“Not at all. It’s a business proposition, actually.”
“How so?”
“Mr. Futrelle-Jack… if you could concoct a novel, with the Titanic as its setting… a mystery… an adventurous romance… detailing the lovely surroundings, the fine cuisine…”
“I’m not an advertising writer, sir.”
Ismay held up his hands, palms out, as if Futrelle were a highwayman he was facing. “Please! I don’t mean to offend you. But isn’t a vivid, intriguing setting for his story something any good writer of popular fiction strives to achieve?”
“Yes, of course…”
Ismay shrugged again, risked a small smile. “Well, then. The White Star Line would simply like to see you use our magnificent ship as the backdrop for your next exciting novel.”
“Bruce… Mr. Ismay. Frankly, what you suggest strikes me at first blow as distasteful… and yet I admit I really can’t see a reason not to at least consider your suggestion.”
“Good!” He leaped to his feet, quick as a jack-in-the-box; this response from Futrelle was apparently enough for Ismay to consider this phase of the negotiations closed. “Your consideration is all I ask, at this point.”
Almost reeling from the suddenness of this, Futrelle rose, and Ismay cheerfully took his elbow and led him to the door. “… Now, in the meantime, please enjoy your voyage. I’ve arranged for you and Mrs. Futrelle to sit at the captain’s table, tomorrow evening-that should be a nice way to start off our first evening out at sea.”
“Well, uh… thank you, Bruce. I know my wife will be pleased.”
Ismay opened the door. “Ah, I only wish I could have brought Florence and the children along, this time. They came aboard this morning, for a tour of the ship…. You should have seen my Tom, George and Evelyn, running up and down the private promenade.”
“I have a girl and a boy, both teenagers,” Futrelle said politely.
“I’m always at your service,” Ismay said, and shut the door.
And Futrelle stood staring at the portal to B52 for a few moments, and was bemusedly heading back down to his own stateroom, wondering whether he should tell his wife about Ismay’s slightly unpalatable offer, when he noticed another passenger in the corridor.
Swinging his cane, pearl-gray fedora cocked to one side, John Bertram Crafton was coming Futrelle’s way.
“Mr. Crafton,” Futrelle said. “We meet again.”
Crafton, without pausing, nodded, touching his hat, saying, “We’ll have a chance to get better acquainted soon, Mr. Futrelle, I assure you.”
Futrelle kept walking, but glanced back, and hell and damnation, if Crafton hadn’t stopped at Ismay’s door-where he was knocking!
The little scoundrel did get around.
As departure time approached, Futrelle and his wife were among many other First-Class passengers making their way to the uppermost deck of the ship, the boat deck. There they stood at the rail near a davit-slung lifeboat and looked down at the crowd of citizens, from Southampton mostly, who appeared tiny indeed with the massive White Star sheds looming behind them and gigantic loading cranes towering above them-yet both the sheds and cranes were dwarfed by the Titanic.
At the stroke of noon, a measured, deafening blast from the full-throated, triple-toned Titanic steam whistle announced imminent departure. May pointed down and Futrelle’s eyes followed: like the drawbridge of a castle, the gangway was raising, to the frustration of what appeared to be a clutch of tardy, frustrated crewmen, literally missing the boat.
Another deafening blast from the steam whistle, and the immense mooring ropes that held the ship to the pier went splashing into the water, to be drawn quickly ashore by dockworkers. Rude little snorts from the horns of the tugboats moving into position made an almost comical contrast with the hollow power of the Titanic’s steam whistle.
From elsewhere on deck-Futrelle couldn’t be sure, exactly-a small orchestra was playing selections from the operetta The Chocolate Soldier, only to be momentarily drowned out by the final blast of the steam whistle, announcing that, finally, the great ship was in motion, easing gently, quietly from her berth, not under her own steam as yet, but propelled by those half a dozen tugs.
The unseen orchestra was playing “Britannia Rules the Waves” now, while everyone on the boat deck waved down to the strangers below, who waved back, hankies fluttering; some of the passengers, May among them, cast flowers into the water. As the massive liner began to slide from the dock, the crowd down there ran alongside, keeping pace, shouting farewells, cheering.
“Oh Jack,” May said, her face aglow, eyes glittering with happiness, “it’s all so exciting!”
And it was-there was an epic sweep to it, the mammoth ship, the crowd waving from the dock, the orchestra playing, the pungent smell of burning coal, the billowing of smoke from the stacks of the tugs pulling, pushing, prodding the so-much-bigger ship out of the dock area.
It was a storybook departure, until-expertly maneuvered into the channel in a turn to port by the tugboats, who then cast off-the Titanic gave a faint tremor, telling the more seasoned passengers that the great ship was at last getting way under her own power, however tentatively. Moving at a modest six knots, the liner steamed past two ships-the White Star Line’s Oceanic and a smaller American ship, the New York, moored at the quay, two of the liners put out of commission by Ismay’s coal strike.