The side-by-side mooring of these ships made a narrow channel more narrow; the quayside was lined with spectators, and still more people leaned at the rail on the deck of the New York, where they had boarded to get a good look at the greatest ship in the world as she started her maiden voyage, gawking and waving at the Titanic’s lucky passengers from a mere eighty feet away.
“I don’t like this,” Futrelle said, standing back from the rail.
May, who was returning waves to the spectators on the New York deck, asked, “Why? What’s wrong, dear?”
“The way those liners are bobbing,” he said, nodding toward what he was talking about. “This big ship of ours is displacing too much water… causing too much turbulence….”
“Oh dear, I’m sure the captain knows what he’s doing…”
What might have been a gunshot cracked the air. Then another sharp crack!
And four more reports, as if every chamber of a six-gun had been emptied into the sky.
“Jack!”
The New York’s massive metal mooring ropes had snapped like cheap shoelaces.
Futrelle put his arm around his wife and held her close. “It’ll be fine, darling… don’t worry….”
The metal ropes arced and coiled in the air like lasso tricks gone awry, sending spectators scurrying and shrieking, quayside. On the deck of the New York, the people who’d boarded for a better look were scattering and screaming, quickly abandoning ship, or trying to.
And on the boat deck of the Titanic, the clanging of bells from the bridge providing accompaniment, counterpointed by the sirens of tugboats rushing to attempt rescue, the passengers were frozen in disbelief-no screams, just occasional gasps and outcries, as couples (like the Futrelles) embraced, witnessing the New York, loose now, begin to swing, like an awful gate, stern first, toward the Titanic.
Ismay’s assertion that his ship was unsinkable seemed about to get an early test.
The Titanic picked up speed, slightly, and her wake seemed to push the smaller ship back, but as close as the New York was, this didn’t seem to be enough; the bigger ship moved forward, and the smaller ship swung toward it, stern toward stern….
Agonizing seconds that seemed like minutes dragged by, as the two ships seemed about to touch, and as the passengers braced for the screech of steel, hugging each other desperately…
… the stern of the New York missed the Titanic’s stern by inches.
Around the boat deck, sighs of relief and some laughter and even some applause and cheers floated through the air, aural confetti being tossed; and the orchestra began to play a catchy ditty that Futrelle later learned was “The White Star March.”
In the meantime, the New York was still drifting free; however, the tugboats were steaming into position to take care of that, and the Titanic was coming to a premature stop, till all this could be sorted out.
“You’re right, dear,” Futrelle said.
May looked at him, relieved but dazed. “Pardon?”
“This is exciting.”
She smirked and hugged him, but Futrelle-writer of suspense that he was-could not shake a sense of foreboding. This near miss-actually, it was a near hit, wasn’t it? — was an inauspicious start for such a grand voyage.
On the other hand, if he ever wrote that Titanic mystery for Ismay, he had a hell of a first chapter, didn’t he?
THREE
Sun spilled like melted butter onto the boat deck, but topcoats were needed. The nip in the air came as a shock, though Futrelle-typically bareheaded-found it bracing, and May, swaddled in her black beaver coat, wanted to take advantage of the nice spring day, since the weather would only grow colder as they crossed the North Atlantic.
During the hour’s delay caused by the incident with the New York, the First-Class passengers had been summoned to luncheon by the ship’s bugler, who passed from deck to deck playing the White Star’s traditional call to luncheon, “The Roast Beef of Old England.” To American ears, it was like a cavalry charge.
Shortly after, D deck’s elegant First-Class Dining Saloon-its patrons looking decidedly underdressed in their departure attire in the massive white wedding cake of a room-had served up orchestra selections from The Merry Widow and a sumptuous buffet. May warned her husband not to overdo-the evening meal was reserved for that purpose-and Futrelle had passed up the exotic likes of corned ox tongue and galantine of chicken for some rare roast beef of old England (not wanting to disappoint the ship’s bugler).
Conversation in the Dining Saloon ran largely to talk of the New York incident, and of course introductions-the Futrelles sat with the Harrises and two of the latter’s Broadway investors, Emil Brandeis from Omaha, department-store magnate, and John Baumann from New York, a rubber importer. Rounding out the table for eight was the dignified old couple, Isidor and Ida Straus.
These were the assigned tablemates for all meals in the First-Class dining room (though the Futrelles would be guests at the captain’s table tomorrow evening), and it was no accident that these passengers-but for the Harrises’ traveling companions, the Futrelles-were all Jewish (though only the Strauses ordered the special kosher meals made available).
“That was a close call,” Brandeis had said, referring to the New York. He was a pleasant heavyset fifty with a walrus mustache and healthy appetite.
“I was impressed by how skillfully Captain Smith averted disaster,” Baumann said, touching a napkin to tender lips. He was a lean, bright-eyed, clean-shaven thirty.
“I agree with you,” Futrelle said, “but I’d be more impressed if they’d anticipated the problem.”
“How so?” Baumann asked.
“I fear it’s a sobering indication that no one’s quite sure what a ship this size can do.”
“It wasn’t so long ago,” Mr. Straus said in his softly resonant voice, raising a glass of red wine near his lips, “that Ida and I took passage on the New York’s maiden voyage.”
“The last word in shipbuilding, it was, they said,” Mrs. Straus added. She had lovely dark blue eyes in a smooth kindly face whose matronly beauty was accentuated by the backward sweep of her still mostly dark hair into a bun. Both the Strauses were conservatively dressed, but-witness Mr. Straus’s golden-brown silk tie and Mrs. Straus’s dark blue silk and lace shirtwaist-expensively.
“Did I tell you about that mysterious stranger who accosted me?” Rene asked suddenly.
“Did some man bother you?” Henry said, looking up sharply from his veal-and-ham pie.
Henry’s concern might have been a bothersome insect, the way Rene waved him off, continuing her tale in wide-eyed animated fashion: “Shortly after the incident, when we were coming down off the boat deck, still in a state of shock, a stranger… tall, with a trim mustache, and piercing dark eyes… you’d have hired him at once as a leading man, Henry B…. asked me, ‘Do you love life?’”
“My goodness!” Ida Straus said, cutting her corned beef.
May’s laugh was a tiny squeal. “And what did you say?”
Henry was frowning.
Rene giggled. “Well, of course I said, ‘Yes, I love life.’ And do you know what he said then?”
“Go ahead and tell us,” Futrelle said. “I can’t stand suspense unless I’m dispensing it.”
“He said, ‘That was a bad omen. There’s death on this ship. Get off at Cherbourg-if we get that far. That’s what I’m going to do!’”
Everyone laughed at this melodramatic story, if uneasily.