“Officer Lightoller said to row to the lights of the rescue ship and then back to help survivors,” Hichens said.
“Do you see a rescue ship, Man? I was on lookout and saw nothing around,” Fred Fleet said as he scowled. He was distraught.
“We will ‘ave one yet. We could be pulled down by the suction of the ship.”
“Suction? Why, she is gone, Mr. Hichens.”
“I still ‘ave my fears of it.”
“You need forbearance, Sir.”
Arthur Peuchen listened to the crewmen argue for a little while and finally broke in, “Why don’t we allow one of the women to steer, and I can man the oars.”
He was the only male passenger allowed on the boat and had shimmied down the rope to get into the lowered boat. He had been sent aboard to help row, but the doings here were troublesome.
“Enough. Be quiet. I am in charge of this boat,” Hichens yelled.
“I only thought….”
“Sir, it is not your place to think. I am in charge,” Hichens yelled louder.
They were not away from the wreckage.
“I can hear them calling for help,” Ellen Barber said. She reached for Mrs. Cavendish, her mistress. Mr. Cavendish was left on the ship.
“Be quiet, will you?” Hichens snapped.
“Excuse me?” Julia Cavendish grew angry, “She is my maid, and you will not speak to her that way. We can all hear the cries for help. That might be my husband back there.”
“Or Edgar,” Mrs. Meyer said. She had been forcibly put aboard the boat when she had wanted to stay with her husband. She was angry with the crewmen for making her go.
“I am doing what I can. Blame Mr. Leeni for not being able to row.”
“Mr. Hichens! He has broken his arm, so please have some courtesy,” Maggie Brown spoke up, “He fought frightful creatures to make it to the boat deck and was sent to help us by Mr. Lightoller himself. With the chaos, he simply did not know his arm was shattered.”
Mr. Leeni sat, rocking his poor arm. Even at gunpoint, he would never tell of the fearsome, eyeless abomination with a short, rearing appendage as his nose, and dark grey platelets of skin like armor. Along the torso beneath the muscular, fingerless arms, hundreds of tiny, thin legs wiggled as if he were part centipede. When he roared, the little legs danced with infernal glee.
Standing as high as a man, it had no legs of its own to walk on, but rather a mass of the tiny legs forming a base on which it slid on. Thick, clear ooze seeped from beneath its lower parts.
The creature’s mouth was full of razor teeth, and the monster attacked a woman, ripping away her throat and sucking down the bloody spray. So grievous was the damage in the one bite that her white gown turned crimson all the way to its hemline.
It turned to Mr. Leeni and chattered, unnerving him so that he broke and ran for all he was worth. One of the monster’s massive upper arms caught him as he ran, and he heard his own bone snap as pain welled up in his chest. The man wheezed out a cry, but still ran, climbing ladders with one hand and never daring to look behind him.
“Just sit there, then,” Hichens ordered.
Mrs. Meyers told him, “I heard the order, just as you did, before the ship sank. They called us to help those in the water. Mr. Peuchen, please remind him.”
Peuchen shrugged and looked away. He had no authority.
“Give me the oar,” Maggie Brown demanded, “these women have husbands back there. If we can save one, then we shall.”
“There is naught but stiffs back there,” Hichens snarled. Several of the women dropped their faces into their hands to weep.
Mrs. Brown was livid, “Oh, do shut up! Ladies, we shall row this boat ourselves and do it correctly. Now take up the oars, and let us look for survivors. Do not listen to his ramblings.”
“Over there,” cried one of the women as they rowed into the field of floating bodies.
They pulled the man aboard. He was one of the stokers and almost blue with the chill, “I will help row as soon as I can move my fingers without their breaking off.” He had gone down with the ship but felt no cowardice in being rescued by a lifeboat.
Maggie Brown said as she nodded, “That’ll keep you feeling warmer.” She gently helped him remove his sodden clothing, removed her own furs, and covered him fully. “You may look silly, but I will wager you feel better.”
“God bless you, Mum,” he said, thinking Mrs. Brown was an angel.
“What are you all about? Stop taking people in; the suction and wreckage….” Hichens stood over Mrs. Brown.
She thought he had been drinking; he reeked of alcohol and was out of his wits with apprehension. He was upset, but right now, she would bode no silliness when lives were at stake. “You sit down, and shut up, or I will throw you overboard myself,” she yelled at him.
As Hichen muttered curses, the stoker laughed, “You don’t know who you’re speaking to, Sir. She’s a fine loidy.”
“She is not the commander. I am,” said Hichens who sat down and watched the women and the other men rowing heartily.
“There, he is alive,” one of the women called. They dragged that man aboard and then seven or eight more. The ones they rescued were deathly cold, tired, but alive for now and out of the terrible water.
When one man died from the cold, Hichens said they should toss the body out, “The ship will be comin’ but not for rescue. It will be to get the dead ones.”
Maggie felt every eye turn to her; she was now the commander of the lifeboat.
“Yes, let Molly Brown decide,” Hichens smirked.
“Margaret, Maggie to my friends. And, yes, we shall let him go back to the sea now that he is out of his pain. The ships will gather our dead, and the crew will bury them properly, for we need the room for more survivors.” With respect, the rest gathered the body and gently let it go over the side.
“Mrs. Brown, oh, please, tell me this isn’t real? What can it be? Oil perhaps?”
Maggie looked over to where Mrs. Meyers pointed and blinked her eyes. It seemed a blob of darkness, darker than the water, so ebony in color that it made her head and eyes ache to stare at it and distinguish its color. It floated near the lifeboat, keeping pace, thin but bumpy in texture.
Peuchen watched it, “I don’t think we can perceive its true black color, see.”
“It makes my head throb,” Mrs. Meyers said.
“We try, but our brains can’t comprehend its nature, and that is why our heads and eyes ache so fiercely,” Peuchen explained.
“You think?”
“Absolutely, Mrs. Brown. It is old, isn’t it? Far older than anything we can imagine, and it is here with us. I don’t think it cares much for us.”
“You are all daft,” Hichens said.
Mrs. Meyers gasped, “Oh my, what is it doing?”
Mouths and eyes appeared randomly on the sludge, grimacing, baring teeth, blowing air, glaring, winking and still the thing kept to their port side.
“Communication? A warning?” Peuchen shrugged, “We cannot know for it is too old and foreign to our minds. I wonder how it came here and why?”
“We saw a malevolent being down below when we went to look at the damage and see about Steerage. You wouldn’t believe the things we witnessed,” Maggie said.
“Mrs. Brown, I would. When I went to grab a favorite tie tack in my room, my deck was beginning to flood. In the water, I saw horrid monsters. All of this,” he said as he spread his arms, “is not natural and not an easy situation.”
“What does he mean?” Fred Fleet asked.
“He’s daft,” Hichens said.
“Then what is that thing?” Fleet asked, “we can see it. It’s something of a nightmare, Sir.”
“And what is that?” Peuchen pointed, “Look there.” Just a few yards away, a fin broke the surface.