Most of the passengers were desperate to go home, but at least some of them were also beginning to see the sense of not going home.
An old woman spoke from halfway down the aisle. Jimmy glanced around and saw that it was Kitty Calhoon. She waved a walking stick towards the Captain as she spoke.
'Captain Smith! Do you think it might be all right, given the circumstances, for Franklin to come out of hiding now?'
The Captain looked genuinely perplexed. 'Franklin?' First Officer Jeffers stepped forward and quietly spoke in his ear. The Captain sighed. 'Mrs Calhoon, I think that will be fine.'
She smiled happily and sat. Another man just to her right, with his shirt open to his navel and a V of sunburned skin got to his feet.
'Captain Smith,' he said,'we've paid good money for this trip and if it's going to be disrupted by this illness, if we're going to be unable to go on the excursions we were promised, then we're going to be entitled to some compensation.'
This brought applause. Captain Smith sighed again and turned to Mr Stanford. 'Perhaps, Mr Stanford . . .?'
Claire's dad got stiffly to his feet. He looked gaunt and pale as he approached the microphone. 'We — ah, at White Star . . . we pride ourselves on always . . . putting . . . our customers. . . first. But perhaps this . . . isn't the time to . . .'
'I didn't pay five grand for a cruise on a plague ship!'
More applause.
'We'll sue you for a million bucks!' an elderly man shouted.
'Please — there's no need for . . .'
'We want a full refund, we want compensation, we want—'
'Stop it!' Mr Stanford shouted suddenly, his eyes blazing. 'Don't you understand? Everything is going to hell out there! Money doesn't matter any more! It's all over . . .!'
Captain Smith quickly returned to the microphone and gently nudged his employer to one side. 'If you can, I'd like you all just to go back upstairs and to do your best to enjoy the ship and all its facilities. Hopefully the news from home will start to—'
'Captain Smith!'
Jimmy turned to his left and saw that the chef Pedroza was standing in the aisle, with about twenty of his colleagues grouped around him.
'Yes, Mr Pedroza?'
Many of the passengers had already begun to vacate their seats, but they stopped now; it was something in the way Pedroza spoke, and the resignation in Captain Smith's voice in response.
'Captain Smith — what the boss says about the money, not mattering any more. Is he right?'
'I'm not sure what you mean, Mr Pedroza.'
'If everythings is crazy out there, then money — it has no value, right?'
'What's your point, sir?'
'If money's worth nothing what are we working for? Why should we do what you say?'
His colleagues murmured their support.
Captain Smith fixed Pedroza with a hard look. 'You will do what I say because you signed a contract agreeing to work! Any man who refuses to obey an order will be arrested and charged with mutin— !'
He stopped as Mr Stanford, who had been standing beside him, suddenly collapsed forward, just missing the audience below and landing in a crumpled heap at the very edge of the stage. Dr Hill and Jonas Jones rushed to help him and a moment later Claire climbed up to join them.
Dr Hill removed Mr Stanford's tie and was just unbuttoning his shirt to give him some air and to check his heart when Claire dropped to her knees beside her father.
'Please . . . is he . . .?' But then she saw what Dr Hill had already spotted.
Red blotches across her father's chest.
'Oh no . . .!' she cried. 'Please no . . .!'
24
The Fire
Mr Stanford, as befitted his position as owner of the White Star Line, was taken to a private cabin. Claire went up with him, holding his hand as he lay on the stretcher. Mrs Stanford was summoned from their suite. Both were advised to stay away because of the danger of them catching the Red Death as well, but they ignored this. They loved him. Also, it didn't seem to make any difference. Mr Stanford hadn't been anywhere near the hospital wing, but he'd still caught it.
Dr Hill was grey with fatigue and despair. Nothing he did seemed to help. In his darker moments he thought it might be simpler to scuttle the ship and end everyone's misery. Jonas Jones thought it was a miracle that the doctor himself hadn't caught it. Dr Hill said that when you first became a doctor you tended to catch everything within the first few months but that the body's immune system quickly built up its resistance, otherwise doctors would be off sick all the time. So he was pretty confident that he could fend off the Red Death, despite being exposed to it all day long. Jonas Jones didn't disbelieve him, but still kept his distance. They communicated by phone.
***
Acrid smoke hung over the city of San Juan as the Titanic approached its harbour. Those passengers who were well emerged on to the decks to watch, vainly hoping that the port might be bustling with people, waiting to greet them and sell them cheap jewellery or time shares or who might even try to steal their wallets — anything that would make the world seem normal again. Jimmy was with them on the top deck when a match was struck just to his left, and he turned to find Captain Smith lighting his pipe. They hadn't met since the Captain had made his claims about the newspaper. He took a puff and spoke without turning.
'Two hundred years ago you'd have been swinging from the yardarm for pulling a stunt like that. Mutiny, they'd call it.'
'Two hundred years ago there wouldn't have been a newspaper on a ship, or computers and printers to make it possible.'
'Two hundred years ago you'd have walked the plank for passing seditious rumour.'
'It wasn't rumour — it was all true.'
Captain Smith shook his head. 'Do you know something, Jimmy Armstrong? You'd make a terrible soldier, because you're absolutely dreadful at following orders.' Jimmy started to say something, but the Captain held up his hand. 'On the other hand I suspect you'd make a wonderful general, because once you make your mind up there's no compromise, you absolutely stick to your guns.'
Jimmy shrugged.
'Even great leaders make mistakes. You were right about the newspaper, I was wrong. However, you will also find that great leaders often take the credit for other people's bright ideas, as I did earlier. The point is, lad, that there's only room for one captain on this ship, one leader — particularly at times of crisis. In future, if my orders are disobeyed, I won't hesitate to put you off my ship. Do you understand?'
Jimmy nodded.
'OK. Do you know what they call The Times of London?T hey call it the paper of record. When historians want to know the truth about the big, important stones of, say, a hundred years ago, they go to the British Library or go on-line and look at The Times. Well, I don't think our limes should be any different. Tragic as it is, we are experiencing something truly extraordinary, Jimmy. A plague, a breakdown in civilization, who knows what else? It shouldn't go unrecorded. Your newspaper today showed me that. We have to record our story; the Titanic Times has to be our paper of record. That's what I want you to do from now on, Jimmy — and Claire, if she's willing — keep producing the paper, make a history of our voyage, the good bits, the bad bits, the truth. Do you think you can do that?'