Stead nodded, “You are very well read, Sir. They did share the same name. Is this not a wonderful coincidence?”
“That makes me shiver. What vivid imaginations you both have,” Jenny said.
“How strange,” John said quietly, frowning slightly.
“Imaginations?” Howard thought aloud, “is it that or is it a tendency to take reality and think, ‘what if’. And besides, is fiction not reality, only more acute in detail?”
“You do not think fiction is made up?” Stead asked, astounded.
“It is what has not yet been actualized,” Howard said. “Mr. Astor’s book… why we might one day soon voyage to Saturn.”
“Would you travel on that ship, Mr. Murdoch?” Jenny asked.
The Officer pretended to shiver, “I will take the seas if it is all the same to you. I am not one for the stars. It is safer here.”
As John began asking questions, Mrs. Brown, Jenny, and Bernice left them in a deep discussion about psychic messages, ship folklore, and strange tales.
The topics were too serious for a discussion after a heavy meal. The three ladies joined more of the young people who asked questions of Mr. Murphy and watched the sea.
Howard, John, and Mr. Stead continued to chat until late. Howard considered it was one of the most important talks he had.
Jenny and Bernice waved good-bye to Mrs. Brown, and the women slept well that night, as did almost all of the 2,224 passengers and crew. It can only be wondered if they would have rested so dreamlessly had they known some interesting facts, some of which the trio of men discussed that first night aboard the Titanic.
Stead wrote, not only about the Captain of his fictional tale being named Smith, but in particular, E J Smith. Another tale was published in 1889 and outlined nearly the same sort of story in which passengers drowned because of a shortage of lifeboats.
They did not discuss this:
The Titanic captain had added collapsible lifeboats but was still short by half because she was said to be unsinkable.
More than fifty passengers refused to sail from South Hampton after disturbing dreams about a disaster.
That first night at sea, two or three dozen claimed they had upsetting nightmares about the impending sinking of the ship and of sea monsters attacking them on board the Titanic.
For weeks, Howard had been besieged by worries about ancient monsters, beating at iron-like walls, and roaring to be released from watery prisons.
Sometimes, Howard could almost hear their unholy whispers and feel a chill in the vibrations from their fight to be freed. He felt that if the ship offered a blood token, was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if the beasts had a chance, they would escape their sleep and unleash misery upon everyone aboard the ship; he simply could not stop thinking about such things.
His aunts called the problem an anxiety and nervous imagination, but he was afraid.
In one of the cargo holds, a plump laundress sipped rotgut whiskey behind large, wooden crates as she cried. The noise of the engines filled her ears, and she felt almost overwhelmed by the smells of the cargo bay, coal, oils, rats, and mice.
She was upset about the loss of a man, a way-ward pregnancy, and no hope for her future; she was besotted with anguish. Since she could not talk it over with her fellow stewardesses and didn’t have a friend about, drinking and sitting far away from the grandeur was all she could think to do.
The laundress mentally cursed the man with dark curls and flashing green eyes who had won her trust, taken her virginity, and left her with an unwanted pregnancy. What had she been thinking to fool about with the man? She beat her fist against a crate; she would lose her job and where would she end up?
Disgusted and sure there was no other choice left to her, the laundress made a snap decision. With only a dull knife, she carved at her wrists to open them, wishing to be finished with her life and to stop her sadness. Although she might have died from blood loss in the cold compartment, her carving attempts were poor and certainly survivable. But it was right then that the cargo shifted slightly, crushing her between two crates so tightly, that she was barely able to get her breath.
Eyes wide and fearful, she called out, but her voice was quiet among the clamoring and banging of the engines, roars of the furnaces, yelling of firemen, and clanging of the shovels. Whispers and movements of passengers, decks above her were like thunder. The ocean waves pounded the steel hulls like giant hands, demanding entrance.
What was that? She could not see through the steel of the ship, and there was no porthole, and yet, it was if she could see out the glass and into the water.
At first, it was a grey-black shape, moving like lightning as it swam by, but then the woman could see it had terrible, rough skin. Its sleek, but enormous body was broken by sharp angles that formed gigantic fins and a slashing, deadly tail.
How she could see, she did not know, or care. She only wanted to stop seeing it. While there was much in the world she didn’t know such as how to repair her own life, there was one thing she did know for sure: the creature was real, and it was right outside the steel hull.
To her horror, it turned its head as it swam along the side, showing her its face if it could be called that. It had a long snout, dead black eyes, and a mouth full of rows upon rows of huge, sharp teeth. She saw that unlike other fish, this one had a look of malevolence and was only waiting the right time to attack. It enjoyed the hunt and the long moments before it would strike, and it savored the terror it had caused.
Her bosom filled with more than a fear of the fish biting her; she imagined an endless lifetime of punishment locked into the jaw of this creature. In its belly, she would struggle as her soul faced eternal misery.
Lines of blood streaked her neck as her eardrums burst, and she moaned as she imagined slimy tentacles rising from the oily floor to rip her apart as her bladder let loose and a cloying iciness rose beneath her dress, caressing her legs abominably.
Her bleeding wrists were not doing the job quickly enough, and it was what she had wanted, to die, but she fought it now, kicking at the crates and hammering against them with her crimson-stained fists.
How could she die among the horrifying voices and the monsters that lived deep in the water and deep in the ship itself? The big fish seemed to be grinning at her from the dark waters where it swam.
The Titanic shuddered only a bit, but it was enough for the crates to shift once more, crushing her flesh between them, grinding against her bones as her head broke open. Blood saturated the wood and pooled on the floor around the cargo.
Had the ship made it to shore days later, laborers would have found a decomposing mess hardly recognizable as having been human. There was less damage than the fish would have done, the shark known as a carcharodon megalodon, a species that has been extinct for millions of years, but it was enough carnage that the shark would have been frenzied with excitement had it seen her. As it was, it smelled her.
She would never been found.
But hers was not the only blood to christen the steel of the ship. As the Titanic was built, hard hats, machinery guards, and safety lines were unused, and two-hundred fifty men were injured as some fell from great heights, some were mangled or crushed, some suffered head injuries, and many lost legs, arms, feet, or hands.
Reports were hidden or forgotten, but more than a dozen died on the ship as it was constructed.
“So much blood,” Howard moaned in his sleep.