From Time to Time

28

THIS—not my photograph, and taken in daylight—but this is what I saw now, only in black silhouette, a giant cutout sharp against the moonlit sky over the river waiting to receive her in two more days. Just under the knife of its prow, the shadowy reviewing stand waiting for the lady with the christening champagne, I supposed. Who would smash her bottle against that black steel, and—I had read—“the hydraulic launching trigger” would be pulled. Then the almost imperceptible slow widening between prow and dripping bottle: a foot . . . a yard . . . then with abrupt speed, down the incline she’d slide, this enormous black mass, her stern smashing into the Lagan, waterspout soaring, then this great black hull bobbing a little, afloat at last. To be towed to the dock where cranes would lower her superstructure, the ship would be fitted out, and in a remarkably short time the Titanic would sail out on her black, murderous, only journey.

But no; now it would not. Standing in the dark between my two buildings, I looked at and—abruptly, surprisingly—hated the new ship rising to the sky there across the yard. We personify ships, they seem to have human qualities; there are good ships, stubborn resistant ships, and now I saw this giant silhouetted shape as evil, blackly malevolent: she knew—this monstrous bulk knew she would betray the hundreds who, trusting her, would sail out on her only voyage. At this moment somewhere across hundreds of ocean miles the great berg lay drifting toward their rendezvous, this black prow waiting now to slide along the mass of blue ice it might just as well have missed by the feet or even inches that would have made the difference.

Well, I was here to prevent that rendezvous, and I walked out—moving from shadow to shadow, pausing to listen—toward the Titanic, her cargo ports open. This was Rube’s simple idea: launch her now, down the ways into and under the Lagan.

At the prow just past the ceremonial stand, I used my flashlight to hunt for “the launching trigger.” It would have to be somewhere forward here easily in sight of lady and bottle to synchronize trigger pull with, “I christen you Titanic!”

I couldn’t find it; nothing that to my mind even resembled a trigger, and I walked back and around to the starboard side. Not here, nothing like a launching trigger, and I walked on and into this tunnel directly under the Titanic’s hull—again, not my photo but it’s what I saw now in the wavering oval of my flash: this forest of stumps supporting the unimaginable bulk just above me. And here in the almost dark, as alone as I’ve ever been, I felt my face flush. How, how could we have been so stupid? No ship could be left to be easily or accidentally launched! More, much more had to be done here before the final ceremony. Something, some sort of rolling support riding on the track—I could see this easily here—had to replace this forest. And all these stumps had to be knocked out by swinging sledges in the moment just before the launch. How had we ever supposed that somehow I could send this monster prematurely sliding down the ways? I felt like a child, and shut my eyes, ashamed.

Hopelessly crouched under this great black evil, I moved my light across the peeled roundness of these endless supports, then lifted it to slide the little patch of light along the riveted rows forming the Titanic just over my head. The thing had beaten me, no contest, this monster untouchable. In frustration and weak anger, I lifted my fist and brought it up hard to strike the riveted steel but even in anger I turned my fist, defeated, to strike with the soft edge of my hand, not the knuckles that this thick cold steel would have crushed. And the ship didn’t care, the steel cold and wet with dew, my little blow no more making a sound than striking granite.

There under the Titanic I switched off my light, crouching helplessly for a moment longer, then crept out. Out and back the way I’d come, back along the streets to my hotel. Nothing, nothing, nothing could be done to prevent what I alone in this world knew was going to happen.

And yet, walking back, I began to feel that I wasn’t finished. Something had to be done. And what I did next was to walk the length of Ireland.

I’d always wanted to, had occasionally thought about it, and now here near the century’s beginning, the country unspoiled, this was my chance. And in the morning I bought what I needed: hiking shoes, canteen, knapsack, map. I talked to store clerks, to hotel people, and got plenty of advice. Shipped my luggage ahead by train, and set out the following morning.

This isn’t the story of that long almost happy journey, but I saw what visitors to Ireland always see, that the fields truly are a shade of green seen nowhere else. I walked dirt roads, standing aside for great flocks of sheep, shepherd and I nodding, touching caps. Stopped at a farm for water, was welcomed by a shy, truly charming couple with faces and hands permanently dirty, seldom—ever?—washed. Who gave me water, and food I hadn’t asked for in a kitchen through which live chickens wandered. Back on the road, miles ahead, I looked for a place to throw away the sandwiches, empty my canteen, felt ashamed, and ate them and drank.

I stood staring across fields at the strange castlelike fortresses of centuries past, still standing, their entrances high above the ground, against siege from—Vikings? I wasn’t sure. Sometimes I stayed overnight, a couple days, a week if I felt like it, in a village or town that took my interest. At the local inn or hotel, getting clothes washed, walking around, talking to people, usually friendly though not always. Twice I camped near a cliff overlooking the sea, once for almost a week. And spent days mostly sitting on the edge watching the waves far below flood up onto the stony beach, then wash back down; not actually thinking, not quite, but letting the problem waiting for me move through my mind. Spent a month in Dublin, walking it, visiting Joycean pubs. Was he here in Dublin now? I couldn’t remember, if I ever knew. If he was I never saw him, or if I did, didn’t know it.

And then finally, on a late afternoon of the following spring, the necessary time pleasantly killed, I walked into the little port called Queenstown, almost only a village, its houses scattered over a series of terraces rising above the enormous bay of Cork harbor. At the edge of a wide dirt street I stood looking down at the great enclosed sheet of water flashing under the late-in-the-day sun, two small ships at anchor, a lightship far out at the harbor entrance. An almost empty harbor now, but not tomorrow, and I felt abruptly tired, depressed, the problem with no answer back. I found Queenstown Inn then, and a hot bath, a drink, another, then dinner, and bed.

At just past eight next morning I stood in a short line in the downtown office of James Scott & Co., agents for Cunard, Hamburg-American, White Star, and apparently every other steamship line calling in Queenstown. I wore a white shirt now, a tie and suit, weightless after tweeds and heavy boots, which I’d left behind in the Queenstown Inn closet along with my knapsack. My luggage had been waiting for me a long time now, and I had it sent to James Scott & Co. In the line ahead of me stood two men, both wearing caps and worn suitcoats with unmatching pants; and at the head of the little line, talking to the twenty-year-old clerk at the wooden counter, a young woman and an eight-year-old girl, wearing shawls over their shoulders and black straw hats.

I felt sick, looking at the child, wanting to tell them, knowing I could not, and stood watching and listening as the young woman bought a second-class ticket. Leaning to one side, I saw it, a surprisingly big sheet of buff paper imprinted with the White Star legend, and a cut of a four-funnel steamer. Thirteen pounds it cost her, which she had ready in her hand.

The clerk glanced at the two men in caps then, and without asking brought out two identical-looking tickets, but on white paper. “Steerage,” he said, not even a question, wrote on each ticket, and said, “Ten pounds, ten shillings,” and again, each had exactly that ready in his hand. I’d edged forward, curious about the ticket lying on the counter, and saw that it was actually a contract, everything spelled out including Bill of Fare: Breakfast at eight o’clock: Oatmeal porridge and milk, tea, coffee, sugar, milk, fresh bread, butter . . .

My turn, then, three more men in caps now behind me. “Sor?” said the clerk. Sounded like sor, anyway.

“One first-class.”

“First-class? First?” He smiled, happy about it. “Never before have I sold one of them.” He had to hunt through two drawers to find a first-class ticket, looking about like the others but on tan paper—and with no bill of fare. Then—no hurry, everyone behind me could wait—he brought up and unrolled on the counter, turning it to face me, a deck plan. He weighted it at two corners with an inkwell and a paper-spike. “And where would you like to be, sor? We have vacancies on every deck, many a cancellation; Southampton telephoned me only last night.”

“The boat deck. Which is the boat deck?”

“That would be Deck A, sor, the top deck.” He touched the deck plan, but I saw that all the cabins were well forward: they’d rise and fall with the sea, and I’d had enough of that. But Deck B just below, also a promenade deck, had cabins along its entire length except for restaurants near the stern. “Maybe Deck B would be better; something near the middle and as close to the staircase here as you’ve got.” I touched the little printed stairs on the plan which led up to the boat deck and boat number five. Closest to the stairs was a three-room suite with its own private promenade, but next to it, a single. “This one?”

“B-fifty-seven.” He looked at a typed list, then at a penciled list of cancellations. “Taken, sor, but B-fifty-nine beside it is available.”

“I’ll take it.” I brought out my wallet, looking at him questioningly, and he had his big moment: watching me slyly, not sure I understood what I’d gotten into, he said, “Yes, sor. That will be five hundred and fifty American dollars.”

“How about a hundred and ten English fivers?”

“That will do very nicely indeed.”

I had ready, in an inside coat pocket, an inch-thick sheaf of the strange English five-pound notes printed on one side only of a sheet of white paper big as a dog’s blanket. The little room was absolutely silent, every eye watching as I counted out a hundred and ten of these. The clerk picked them up, tapped them into alignment, and—I admired this—put them into his cash drawer without recounting. He pushed over my ticket. “Safe voyage, sor.” And I thanked him, and left, every eye following me out to the street.

Around noon I walked onto Scott’s Quay with my suitcase, set it at my feet, then stood with several dozen Irish immigrants staring out toward the distant harbor mouth. I had my camera again and, not really wanting to, I took this. There she lay waiting for us, lazy wisps lifting from her funnels; arrogantly waiting, my enemy and the enemy of us all, the great evil blackness under whose riveted hull I had stood helpless. She knew, and she knew that I knew, I alone. And I looked out at that black smoking silhouette and did not know what to do with my knowledge of what—far over the horizon ahead—lay waiting for us.

We left Scott’s Quay here, standing crowded together on the deck of the tender America, following this tender crammed with mail for the States. Plenty of excited chatter and laughter, though one young girl stood silent and white-faced. As we chugged across the bay, the waiting ship ahead began to grow, and the murmur of talk lowered. Our steady passage across the calm took maybe half an hour, details slowly emerging on the great silhouetted ship: a thin gold sheer line at the hull’s upper edge . . . a roughening of the black surface of her side becoming rows of rivets. I’d seen one of our passengers, as he boarded the tender, wearing kilts, but hadn’t noticed his bagpipe. But now as we drew near the waiting ship he began to play, a mournful squealing, and a young woman in a shawl murmured respectfully, “ ‘Erin’s Lament.’ ” Fortunately he wasn’t too close to me—when you’ve heard one bagpipe tune you’ve heard them both—but the crowd listened quietly. When he finished, the enormous ship filled our view, and the vibration of our steam engine suddenly slowed under our feet, and now I looked far up at the great white letters that spelled Titanic.