“A shot to the chest isn’t enough?” asked Moody.
Maybe it was just the freezing temperature, but Lightoller wondered if this was the first time Moody had ever held a gun. The youngest officer was constantly fidgeting and readjusting his grip.
“No, it’s not,” Murdoch said. “Don’t ask me why, only God knows.”
“What about shooting them in the legs?” asked Lowe. Unlike Moody, Lowe wielded his personal seven-shot Browning like Jesse James ready to rob the town bank.
“Now that’s not such a bad idea,” said Lightoller.
“The head is a sure thing.”
Murdoch slowly opened the door about six inches and then peered inside the stairwell. The other officers tried to look over his shoulder.
“See anything?” Lightoller asked.
“Not yet. You sure they got out?”
“Aye.”
Murdoch opened the door the rest of the way and carefully stepped inside. The rest of the unlikely gunslingers followed his lead. Once inside, it was obvious where the infected had gone.
“Down the stairs,” said Lowe. There were streaks of blood on the floor from the general room to the staircase.
“I kind of thought that might happen,” said Lightoller, looking down the stairs. “But since they couldn’t use a door knob, I figured maybe there was a chance—”
Out of the corner of his eye, Lightoller saw a tall man appear from around the corner to the general room and lumber, arms extended, directly toward Murdoch. His grey skin and beard of blood instantly confirmed he was infected. Murdoch saw him coming as well, and squeezed off three shots in rapid succession. The first shot missed to the right. The second grazed the top of the right shoulder, tearing a hole in the attacker’s suit. The third shot hit the head, but only enough to detach an ear.
Lowe stepped forward with the Browning and took the fourth shot, shattering the man’s kneecap into pieces. Unable to balance on one leg, the tall, pale-skinned man fell face first to the floor. Lowe then placed one final shot in the head.
“Thank you,” said Murdoch.
“What was that you said about a sure thing?” asked Lowe. “You took three shots at the head and only got an ear.”
Lightoller and Moody exchanged smiles.
“I didn’t see you two do anything,” Murdoch scoffed.
“We thought you had it under control,” said Lightoller. He walked around the corner to the general room to make sure there were no more surprises. “Next time, take a second to aim.”
“I did. He moved around too damn much.”
Lightoller looked down at the remains of Abigail Barnes outside the broken down door to the general room. The infected had cleaned almost every inch of flesh off her body, leaving behind an old, frail skeleton slouched in a slop of blood. He found four more sets of bones in the general room; the four who had decided to stay behind and take care of their sick loved ones. At some point, the tables had turned, and their sick loved ones had taken care of them.
A number of distraught passengers began to come up the stairs from the lower decks. Most hardly acknowledged the gathering of officers and ran straight out the door to the aft well deck. Those that did stop tried to communicate the horror that was going on down below, often through broken English.
“Charles, what do you suggest we do with these people?” Murdoch asked. “They keep coming. Some have been scratched or bitten.”
“We can’t do anything with them,” Lightoller said. “For now we need only worry about the dangerous ones spreading the infection.”
“But how long do you think it will take for these to—you know—change?”
“I don’t know for sure. Not long. That’s why we need to hurry and find the others.”
They found two more of the others one floor down on D-deck near the third-class hospital. The two infected were walking around in circles trying to grab at anything that moved—a young mother and her baby the latest attempt.
Lowe again shot out the knee of one of them, and then let Murdoch finish it off, while Lightoller stealthily slipped behind the second one and shot him in the back of the head. Nervous Moody seemed content with staying in the back.
“I think we should split up,” Lowe said. “This is going to take too long.”
“It’s safer this way,” Murdoch countered. More passengers rushed passed them, some dripping blood. The stairs were becoming crowded with people seeking safer ground. “We’ve already killed three.”
“Yes, and it took us...” Lightoller flipped open his pocket watch and checked the time. 11:31 p.m. “It took us better than ten minutes. What about the other fifteen? All it takes is for some unlucky person to open a door and any one of them could be halfway across the ship, just like what happened last night.”
“I’d feel better if we stayed in at least teams of two.”
“No need to fret, Mr. Murdoch,” said Lowe. “You can stay with me.”
Murdoch frowned at Lowe.
“Okay, we’ll split in two,” said Lightoller. “That way we can still cover one another. I suggest you and Lowe stay on D-deck while me and Moody go down to E.”
SMITH
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
Captain Smith, troubled by the sound of the warning bell, hurried from the dimly lit chart room to the pitch black of the wheelhouse. The lights were kept off at night so it would be easier to see out of the front windows. Quartermaster Hichens was little more than a dark shape behind the wheel, Alfred Oliver also in shadow at his side.
“Was that the lookout?”
“I believe it was, sir,” said Oliver.
Smith looked over as Boxhall opened the door to the wheelhouse, bringing in a rush of cold air with him. Before Smith could say another word, the telephone rang, and Boxhall quickly answered.
“Yes. Understood,” Boxhall said, and hung up. Then he looked over at Smith. “Sir, there is an iceberg right ahead.”
Smith looked out the front window, barely able to make out the black multi-pointed silhouette of the berg against the starry sky. “Christ. Hard a’ starboard!” he ordered to Hichens, and then used the engine room telegraph to signal full speed astern, reversing the engines. Hichens began turning the wheel to the left.
Smith and Boxhall rushed out of the wheelhouse and leaned against the railing, just as they had not twenty minutes earlier, and gazed out at the mountain of ice directly ahead.
“Why is she not turning?” asked Boxhall.
“Is it hard a’ starboard?” Smith yelled back at the bridge.
“Hard a’ starboard, sir,” Quartermaster Hichens answered back.
Finally, the ship’s nose began to turn to the left.
“Come on now,” said Smith, seeing the iceberg move along the front bow, and praying that she would miss. “Spare us this once.”
Then came a thunderous scraping sound from below followed by a sudden jolt in the ship’s momentum. Smith and Boxhall braced themselves against the railing as the wooden deck beneath them shuddered. The massive iceberg moved gradually along the starboard side of the bow, chunks of it breaking off onto the well deck. It continued down ship, rubbing off smaller shreds of ice against the lower decks.
Smith hurried back to the wheelhouse. “Hard a’ port,” he said to Hichens, who began turning the wheel all the way back to the right. The captain moved the engine room telegraph from full speed astern to half ahead, and then upon further consideration, rang down to stop.