The use of radios on ships had only recently begun to take on more popularity, particularly among wealthy passengers, who marveled at the novelty of such an invention that would allow them to send out personal messages from the ship.
While many captains were hesitant to greet the new technology, Captain Smith tried to keep an open mind, seeing the potential of the device to become a valuable tool for navigation, or at the moment, for the reporting of ice in the area.
Smith stood behind Jack and Harold and read the latest message from the White Star steamer Baltic. Earlier, he had received a similar message from the Caronia. The reports of ice weren’t unexpected this time of year, however, the Atlantic was unusually calm today, and as dusk fell, icebergs would become harder to spot. After what happened last night on D-deck, the ice warnings only reinforced the two bad choices facing Smith.
Keep the ship on its faster pace and risk the ice, or slow it down and risk further infection.
There was no right answer.
He left the wireless room and headed down to A-deck, where he ran into Bruce Ismay talking with George and Eleanor Widener, owners of the Philadelphia Traction Company. The Widener’s had organized a dinner party for this evening in the á la carte restaurant on B-deck, which Smith had previously agreed to attend.
Smith apologized for the interruption, and handed Ismay the message from the Baltic. Ismay glanced down at the little yellow slip of paper, and then without word shoved it in his pocket.
Smith walked away satisfied.
Later in the evening, just after seven, Smith found Ismay in the smoking room and asked if he still had the telegram.
“Yes,” Ismay said, and pulled the yellow paper from his pocket.
“Good. I need to put it in the chart room with the others.”
Ismay handed it over. “And what of this virus? I trust you have it contained.”
“For now,” said Smith.
Ismay took a drag from his cigar. “Good, let us try and keep it that way.”
“It’s not only your reputation that’s on the line.”
“Your reputation doesn’t matter, Edward. You’ll be retired when this voyage concludes, so what do you care? Don’t pretend to relate to my quandary.”
Smith sighed, struggling to hold back his irritation. The managing director, with his boorish tone and dancing brown mustache, had a way of lighting a fuse in him like few others.
“Good evening, Mr. Ismay.”
LIGHTOLLER
10:27 p.m.
Lightoller sat at the small table outside the third-class general room, blowing into his hands to warm them. The temperature outside was thirty-two degrees, or at least it had been when his watch ended at ten. Could have gotten even colder in the last half hour, sure felt like it.
The walk across the boat deck had been slow and painful, and the thin walls enclosing the third-class stairwell did little to keep out the bone chilling air. When he thought of lookout’s Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee sitting in the crow’s nest atop the foremast, the cold wind punishing their faces at twenty-two knots as they scanned for bergs on the dark horizon, Lightoller felt lucky to be indoors.
He had the next two hours on guard, babysitting the infected. When midnight came, he planned to be in his bed wrapped up in a blanket. Sleeping, hopefully.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so sleep deprived. If Friday night was tough, Saturday night was unbearable. It had been almost two a.m. before he made it to his room, and he had to be back up and on watch at six. Best-case scenario, sleep for three and a half hours. What he actually got was less than half that.
His mind had kept him up, even if his body was tired and his eyes felt heavy and sore. He had sat up in bed thinking about everything that happened, about all the innocent victims, about the lives he had taken and those he couldn’t save. No image haunted him more than that of the young boy he had shot in the second-class corridor.
While he didn’t regret pulling the trigger, as the boy was already dead long before the bullet hit him, Lightoller did feel regret for allowing the boy to become infected in the first place. And for the twenty or so others now quarantined within the general room. Not long ago they had dreams and aspirations, places they wanted to be, things they wanted to see. They had families that loved them, and children who needed them. Now their only desire was to spread the virus that was responsible for taking all of that away.
The virus that stole their humanity.
Lightoller slouched back in the chair, smoking his pipe and listening to the scratching and beating on the door in front of him.
That was the worst part of babysitting. The noise. It never stopped. And at times, he swore the door was swelling outward and beginning to crack under the pressure applied by the infected pushing from the other side.
He had his Webley revolver on the table in front of him, a weak defense if they managed to break through the door. He remembered what Dr. Simpson and William Dunford did to the door to the first patient room. How much longer would this door last, and how would he take down twenty infected with just six bullets?
I wouldn’t. I’d run like hell, he thought, smoke billowing from his pipe. Aye, that’s what I’d do.
As the end of the hour approached, Lightoller found it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Sleep had decided to come and try to take him at the worst possible time. He’d begin to drift away and be jolted back awake by the hot ash burning on his lap after dumping his pipe, or by his head rocking backward and hitting against the wall—both painful eye openers.
Just as he started to drift off again, he heard soft footsteps on the stairs. A moment later, a woman who looked to be in her seventies reached the apex of the staircase and looked over at him. Clasped in her hands was a single sheet of paper.
Lightoller sat up as the woman approached the table. She looked familiar. “How may I help you?”
“Do you remember me?”
“You were here last night.”
“Yes. My name is Abigail Barnes. My husband’s name is George. Is he still in there? Can you tell me how he is doing? I came here earlier today, but the man who was here said he didn’t know.”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you either, ma’am. The last contact I had was last night when you were here.”
“Oh, dear.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m just so lonely now. I don’t know how to go on without him.”
“As much as I wish I could give you good news, I can’t. Everything I said last night was the truth. I don’t know what more to say.”
“I understand.” She lifted the piece of paper up and looked down at it. Her eyes held all the sorrow of a new widows. “Would it be okay if I read something to him?”
“I can’t let you inside.”
“Can I read it through the door?”
Lightoller took a deep breath, considering her request. Finally, he sighed and said, “I suppose that would be fine.”
“Thank you.”
The elderly woman named Abigail shuffled up to the door to the general room and stood there for a moment looking like she had forgotten why she’d come. She looked down at the paper and seemed to regain her focus. Lightoller figured time must have snuffed out much of her hearing, because she didn’t look bothered by the inhuman sounds coming from the other side of the door—the noise that had never once stopped until, strangely, the woman began reading from the paper.