Had they not been watching the giant fish and the mist, they would have seen the iceberg sooner. It was as if the shark had purposely distracted them.
“Iceberg,” breathed Fleet. He was not imagining that. It was five hundred yards away. Distracted, he made a mistake.
After ringing the big brass bell three times, they signaled the bridge; the sixth officer, Mr. Moody, contacted Mr. Murdoch who instinctively ordered “Hard-a-starboard.”
Only a few seconds elapsed from the sighting until the ship began changing course; the system was smooth, and each man responded as he was well trained.
At the time of the orders, Mr. Murdoch had no doubt the orders he gave would result in nothing more than a slight list as they turned. No one would even notice, except for the crewmen.
Murdoch rang the alarm bell ten seconds so those below knew the doors were about to be closed and they should get to safety. It was standard protocol. He told the engine room to stop all engines and ordered, “Full astern.” And he closed the watertight doors.
Although the ship veered to port, part of the iceberg, a spar under the water, struck the ship on the starboard side, cutting open small gashes, six in all, along three hundred feet, opening five of the sixteen watertight compartments.
The over-all damage was small, but rivets popped with the pressure, forming a hole about the size of a door. It had been a mere thirty-seven seconds between the sighting of the iceberg and the collision.
Water rushed in at seven tons per second, which was about fifteen times faster than it was pumped out. Firemen barely got out of the compartments before ice water shot through the holes.
As trained, they vented the steam so that the freezing water would not cause the hot coal to explode, and they found themselves waist deep in the cold water before they could escape the flooding.
The bulkhead, although very tall and with watertight doors, did not reach through all of the ship’s decks. Water filled one compartment and ran into the next as the ship settled into the sea. As each compartment filled, it dipped lower, allowing the sea to pour into the next area, like dominoes falling.
Captain Smith, like many of the others, felt a shudder; those deeper in the ship felt more of a rumbling and bumping. He found the curious movements unusual and was at once concerned. What had caused them to reverse the engines?
The Captain went immediately to the bridge for a full report, nodding at Mr. Murdoch grimly. The orders were exactly as he would have given. There were ice, broken off the berg on the upper decks and passengers who had awakened and were walking saw it and kicked at it happily. A few of the younger men played a game with the ice.
Captain Smith knew the ship, and he knew the Titanic had struck the iceberg, but he could not imagine how much damage was done or what the damage might mean.
“Someone one bring Thomas Andrews to me at once,” Captain Smith ordered. Of all aboard the ship, Thomas Andrews, the architect who designed the ship, knew her the best. Smith cursed his luck aboard the sister ship to the Olympic, who had given him trouble in the past.
Andrews appeared quickly, saying he was awake, felt the movements, and was headed for the bridge when he was called; together the men went below to check the damage.
Bruce Ismay tried to have a conversation with them, but they hurried along, too busy to listen, “We were making excellent time. She will stay afloat. Start the engines,” he called.
“It was but a small shudder,” Thomas Andrews said, hopefully.
“More like a dragging,” Smith agreed, “but it was a berg.”
“And the berg caught her side?”
“We were turning when she hit. I fear it was a low impact.”
He was correct. When the ship hit the spar of ice, she was turning so that ice snagged at the lowest part of the ship, well below the waterline.
“You designed her. What are your initial thoughts?”
“She has bulkheads, and she can limp along easily with two or three of them filled. She might stand even a fourth damaged. If it is worse than that, we will be fine until the rescue ships arrive if they are quick about it,” Andrews said.
The forward cargo held; the squash court and the mailroom were awash with several inches of seawater. Over 3,500 bags of mail were soaked, but there was more to consider than mere mail.
The ship was flooded with fifteen feet of water. The forward holds were under water.
“Boiler Room six is under water,” William Abrams said, “Captain, things ain’t right. There’s things in Boiler five, and we heard a horrid screaming from the mail hold.”
“Did you check the mail hold?”
“No, Sir.”
“Why didn’t you check? Of all things….”
“Captain, you can yell all you want, but not a man among us would venture into that room….”
“They were drowning and needed aid,” Thomas Andrews said, “That’s cruel of you to ignore their cries for help.”
“I beg your pardon, Sir, but I’ve work many a’ship, and that weren’t the screams of any man a-taken by the sea. We heard the screams of men having their flesh and minds ripped away.”
“Really now,” Andrews said. He had no time for such drama. Men brought him reports, and he took the information in and considered it.
Abrams nodded, “it is bad enough what we’ve got around us. Never ‘ave I imagined such madness, Sir.”
“Mr. Abrams, please explain about Boiler Room 5, and remember I have much to do,” Captain Smith said, but he became aware of shouting and squealing coming from the boiler room in question. He walked over to look with Abrams and went pale as milk. The firemen struggled to pump the water out, but they had to stop often and swipe at the creatures that swam, splashing dangerously on the water.
At first, Captain Smith thought the creatures were fish swimming on the surface, but he did not understand why men hit them with shovels until one of the lumps washed close enough for him to see it clearly.
“My God,” Captain Smith said, as he looked at the rat-like thing that had stubby legs, webbed claw feet for swimming, and a scaled body with some type of fungus or fur between its scales. It had the repulsive face of a spider complete with wicked-looking little fangs and a tiny opened orifice as a mouth. The creature’s eight eyes, two large and six small, focused on the Captain, moving as he moved. With revulsion, he kicked it away.
It was so obscene that it was an affront to every living thing on earth.
“What….” Thomas Andrews could not form the question properly.
One of the firemen yelled and shook the creature that grasped him before it could sink those terrible fangs into his flesh. The slick scales made it hard to grasp the abomination, so it wriggled and slid in the man’s hands.
Fortunately, it could not hold on well because of the webbing of its feet, and with a curse, the fireman dashed it into the steel wall. Because the man threw it like a ball, the creature exploded into red and green glop.
“What… what are they, Abrams?” The Captain could not help but imagine the poor souls in the mail hold if those appalling things swarmed them. No wonder they shrieked. What if it were something worse although the Captain could not imagine anything more repellent.
“I don’t know, Captain. They may come from deep in the ship or washed in wit’ the water, but I ain’t never seen such things and don’t think they are… natural.”
“They aren’t from the ship,” Andrews said.
“They ain’t from a sea that I ever seen,” said Abrams and Andrews who were in a standoff with the origin of the creatures.