Titanic 2020: Cannibal City

21 Ham

Jimmy entered the mess hall with his head up, shoulders back, eyes front. Though he looked battered, he was determined to show everyone that he was not beaten. But, in fact, 'everyone' was not that interested. The hall was packed with hungry soldiers intent on filling their faces with as much food as they could before another hard day of training. They weren't bothered about one soldier's miserable experience. Many of them had their own hard-luck stories. The din of plates and cutlery was deafening, the chatter incessant. It seemed to be one of the only places in the fort where they were free to let their hair down. Nobody paid him any attention as he joined the queue for food.

He may not have been beaten, but he had changed. Or, at least, he thought he'd changed. He had decided it wasn't fair on his fellow troopers to keep getting into trouble — otherwise they'd all starve to death. And, if he didn't keep his mouth zipped, then attention would remain focused on him, which would make it much more difficult to escape from the fort.

He needed to quieten down, blend in more.

With his plate piled high Jimmy found a space at one of the long trestle tables that filled the hall. The soldiers around him weren't any older, but they had clearly been at the fort for a lot longer; they looked lean and fit and had something of a confident swagger about them. Maybe the training regime here wasn't all bad. Or perhaps they hadn't been trained by Mohican.

As he tucked into eggs and ham, another boy he recognised from his own troop sat down opposite him — clearly by mistake, to judge from the surprised expression on his face when he noticed Jimmy. His immediate response was to look around for somewhere else to sit. But there wasn't anywhere close by, so he decided to make the best of it. He kept his eyes on his food.

'So how's it going?' Jimmy asked.

The boy, with short black hair and round, black glasses, looked up. 'OK,' he said, rather flatly. His eyes darted about to see if anyone was watching.

'What do they call you?'

'Harry Potter.'

'Seriously?'

'My real name's Christopher Carter. But they started calling me . . .' He shrugged. 'Stuck with it now.'

'I'm Jimmy Armstrong.'

'I know that.' He took a mouthful of food and chewed it methodically. When he'd swallowed and allowed ten seconds for digestion, he glanced up at Jimmy. 'Your face — must hurt.'

'A bit.'

'You kept getting up.'

'Stubborn, I suppose.'

'When it was my turn, I got hit once and stayed down. Hit by a girl. She's half my size. Mohican says that if we go to war, I can carry the First Aid kit.'

'It's important to have First Aid,' said Jimmy.

'I faint at the sight of blood,' said Harry.

'Well, maybe we won't go to war.'

Harry blinked at him. 'Then why build an army?'

It was a good point.

An officer stood up at the far end of the hall and blew a whistle. There was an immediate scramble to finish off, deposit the empty plates and get back to barracks. Jimmy, his mouth full of ham, had intended to return with his new friend, but Harry magically lost him in the crush.

This time, when he walked in, all eyes were immediately upon him. They were already getting changed into the training kits they'd been issued with, but all movement stopped.

Jimmy stood in the doorway.

'I'm back,' he said.

He held his hands up in what he hoped looked like an apologetic gesture.

A big guy called Gomez walked up to him. 'Here,' he said, and thrust a fresh set of T-shirt and shorts into his hands. 'You'll need these.'

'Cheers,' said Jimmy.

'You take a good punch,' said Gomez. He nodded once and returned to the side of his bed to continue changing.

'Mohican was mad as hell!' someone shouted from the other end of the hut.

'You just wouldn't stay down!' someone else called.

Jimmy smiled crookedly. 'Next time I will,' he said. Laughter rolled around the barracks.

'There won't be a next time.' It was Rain Man. The lightness evaporated immediately. 'We all went hungry because of you.'

'Yeah, well,' said Jimmy.

He moved to his bed and began to get changed. He could feel Rain Man's eyes on him.

'Give Frankie a break,' someone shouted.

'Yeah — Frankie took his punishment, and now he's back, so give him a break.'

Jimmy looked up. 'Cheers,' he said, 'but the name's Jimmy.'

'Have you looked in the mirror lately, Frankie?' Gomez asked.

The penny dropped. Frankie for Frankenstein. His face was so battered he looked like a monster. Claire, who was well-read, could have pointed out that Frankenstein was actually the name of the guy who built the legendary monster out of body parts and not the monster itself. Jimmy was none the wiser. And it didn't matter.

He laughed. 'Frankie,' he repeated. 'Frankie.'

Training didn't get any easier. In the morning, and then again in the afternoon, Mohican worked them like dogs over an assault course built at the northern tip of the fort. They climbed mock cliff-faces, swung on ropes across imaginary gorges, balanced on narrow beams and crawled through mud while being screamed at to keep their heads down to avoid invisible bullets. Jimmy threw himself into it all enthusiastically. He helped out the slow and the lame and the exhausted and, in turn, when he faltered he was helped out by his comrades. They were learning not just to help themselves, but to help each other. They were becoming a team, a troop, a well-oiled machine.

When the sun finally began to dip Mohican ordered them back to the barracks for a shower. They were all exhausted, but it was a good kind of exhaustion. They'd all come through a tough day. When they crossed to the mess hall it was as one big group. On the way there it was all, 'Frankie this,' and 'Frankie that'. His sins had been forgiven, if not forgotten. Only Rain Man stayed clear of him.

Just as Jimmy finished eating, Mohican appeared at his shoulder and said he was wanted over at the White House. Jimmy made a surprised face at his comrades and rose. They marched over together, silently. This time, instead of being shown into the President's office, he was led along a corridor and told to wait outside while Mohican went on in. As he stood he studied a series of framed photographs hanging on the wall. The President featured in all of them — there he was raising his right hand and taking the oath of office; there he was helping to build Fort Hope; another showed him standing with young recruits, overseeing their training; yet another pictured him with his senior officers — Mohican standing proudly on one side and . . . another somehow familiar face on the other . . . Jimmy knew it, he definitely knew it, but he just couldn't place . . . and then a shiver of recognition coursed through him. It was the Minister . . . the man who had so recently tried to kill him . . . even though he had only observed him at a distance, there was something so striking about him that Jimmy was absolutely certain that this was the same man, the same murderer. Except that here he was wearing an army uniform . . . he wasn't a man of the cloth, he was a soldier. But what on earth had he been doing then, dressed as . . . ? Jimmy jumped as the door opened suddenly behind him and Mohican was back, clicking his fingers at him to enter. Jimmy, his thoughts still jumbled, stepped into a large, bright room. Each of its walls was covered in maps; different coloured pins were stuck in them. He had seen rooms like this in movies.

It's a war room.

They're planning a battle or an invasion or . . .

'Ah, Private Armstrong.' The President, who was standing with several of his officers before a street map of New York City, indicated for Jimmy to walk with him. He led him to a large-scale map showing the eastern United States. The President's officers stood behind Jimmy 'I'd like you to show me, if you could,' said the President, 'the ports that the Titanic has stopped at in the past few weeks.'

Jimmy stepped calmly forward and pretended to examine the map, but his mind was racing. He already knew that the President planned to seize the ship, but he would have to find it first. Jimmy was determined not to give anything away that might help him track it down, but he had to do it in such a way that he appeared to be trying to help. If he was cooperative then he could continue to plan his escape; defiance would only land him in more trouble and place him under even more intense scrutiny.

He shook his head slowly. 'I'm sorry, but most of the places we stopped at, they're new settlements, they're not on any map.'

'You must have a rough idea,' said one of the officers.

'Not really. Last one we stopped at was Tucker's Hole.' He waved vaguely at the map. He wasn't giving anything away — that was where he'd first encountered the President, and the President knew it. 'I'm not even sure where it is . . .'

The President jabbed a finger at the map. 'Here.'

'A ship that size,' said one of the officers, 'is going to need hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil to refuel. You don't pick those up at the settlements. What cities has the ship stopped at?'

Jimmy looked helplessly at the map. It wouldn't be hard for them to discover where the Titanic had started her voyage — it had been well publicised before the plague struck that she was bound for Miami for the first leg of her journey. So he pointed at it on the map. 'After that, I'm not too sure, there were a couple of stops, but I didn't pay a lot of attention.'

'I thought you were a reporter, Private,' said the President. 'Wasn't it your job to know?'

'We weren't told. The captain didn't want to upset the passengers and crew who had families ashore. I think the plan might have been to cross the Atlantic, you know, back to Belfast. I think that's where they've probably gone now.'

The President's eyes bored into him for what felt like an eternity, before he turned suddenly away and studied the map again. 'OK. Miami to Tucker's Hole, travelling north. If she's crossing the Atlantic she's going to have to fill her tanks. So the next major port she'll arrive at would have to be . . .' He traced his finger up the map. 'New York. Agreed, gentlemen?'

The officers nodded. 'Absolutely, Mr President,' said one.

The President clasped his hands behind his back.

'That is indeed fortunate. If we get the timing right we may have the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Private Armstrong — that will be all. Gentlemen, we have a battle plan to consider.'

Jimmy tramped unhappily away from the White House. He had tried to mislead them, but it hadn't worked. From what he had overheard, from the maps and the pins stuck into them, it was clear that the President intended to lead his army into New York. But why were they discussing a battle plan? The plague had devastated all of the major population centres — who was there left to fight? And if a battle was brewing in New York, was the Titanic sailing right into it? And if the minister was really a soldier, what on earth was he up to?

Thought processes are rarely linear — they're a jumble of ideas and questions and half-formed answers, and Jimmy was trying to puzzle his way out of this maze when a voice to his right made him jump.

'Say, friend, you got a light?'

A boy of about twelve years was sitting on a bench outside one of the administration buildings, a cigarette in one hand and a lighter, which he was repeatedly flicking, in the other.

'Sorry, no,' said Jimmy.

'Damn,' said the boy.

Jimmy would have walked on, but in pausing to answer he'd caught a glimpse through the open door beside the boy and spotted an array of radio equipment set against the far wall.

'Are you not a bit young to be smoking?' Jimmy asked, but in a friendly way.

The boy shrugged. 'Am I not a bit young to be carrying a gun and learning how to kill people with my bare hands?' he asked. 'Times have changed, my friend.'

Jimmy smiled. 'Suppose they have.' He nodded through the open door. 'You the radio man?'

'One of them. I've pulled the night shift.'

'Cool.'

'You into radio?'

'A bit, yeah. I was on the new Titanic for a while, hung around with the radio operators.'

He hadn't, actually. But he had interviewed them for a feature article in the Times. Now he was desperately trying to remember what he'd learned.

'Titanic? Excellent. We had an amateur radio club in school — not very fashionable, but it got me out of gym. You want to take a look?' Jimmy nodded enthusiastically. The boy led him inside. 'They call me Ham, by the way.'

'Jimmy. Or Frankie. Whatever you like.'

The radio equipment on the Titanic had been state of the art. This stuff looked like it had been rescued from a museum.

'So is there much traffic out there?' Jimmy asked, bending to examine the equipment.

Ham pulled out a chair and sat down; he pulled on a pair of earphones, but secured them just above his ears so he could chat. 'Very little — mostly it's just communication with the other forts.'

Jimmy looked at him in surprise. 'Other forts? I thought there was only Fort Hope.'

'Oh no — there's five others. Fort Perry is the closest — it's about thirty miles away. They're all in a kind of semi-circle around New York. We're hoping to establish telephone communication soon, but in the meantime radio's the best we have. But we also use this little nightmare a lot.' He tapped a small machine beside the main radio transmitter.

'Morse code.'

'You know about Morse? Not many kids know about it.'

'I'm no expert, but I know a bit.'

He knew a reasonable amount, again from writing about it for the Times. It was a nearly two-hundred- year-old method of transmitting messages, using a series of dots and dashes to represent letters and numerals and punctuation. These short electrical pulses were originally sent along a wire between two points by being tapped into a hand-operated device called a telegraph key, but after the invention of radio these were transmitted over the airwaves as a high-pitched audio tone — it was, he recalled, the only form of digital communication that could be used without a computer, which made it ideal for emergency signalling. Jimmy had never physically written or sent a message by Morse code, but he had watched it being done. And now Ham was busy sending one himself.

'This is what I have to do all night,' he moaned. 'Tap tap tap — it drives me mad, but they insist on it. And now I can't even light a cigarette to see me through.'

'What's the big important message? And who's it going to?'

'It's going to anyone who can pick it up, my friend — we broadcast on all the old amateur radio bands — LF, MF, HF, UHF and VHF — and what we're basically saying is don't give up, the President is alive and rebuilding civilisation. The catch is that we don't give our location. That's the way he wants it done — he thinks that only the best people will find their way here. But he also gets idiots like me.' Ham sucked on his unlit cigarette. 'I'm not convinced that one single person has ever heard it. I mean, who the hell listens to Morse code these days?'

Ham began to tap in the coded message. There was a chart showing the Morse letters and numerals pinned above the transmitter, but Ham didn't refer to it once.

'Do you not have another lighter, or matches?' Jimmy asked.

'Yeah, but if I leave my post, they'll shoot me.'

'Seriously?'

'Well, I don't really want to find out.'

'What if I stand guard and you nip out?'

His eyes brightened considerably. 'I shouldn't.'

'If anyone looks in the window, I'll be sitting in your seat, earphones on, pretending to transmit.'

'I . . . really shouldn't . . .' He took the cigarette out of his mouth and rolled it back and forth between his fingers. 'I smoke seventy-five of these a day. My dad got me started. I was the only one in my class at school who smoked. They all died of the plague, and it never touched me. Far as I'm concerned, smoking saved my life.' He took a deep breath — then coughed raggedly. 'Sorry . . . OK, deal — my barracks is just around the corner. I'll be like, two minutes, tops.'

'No problem,' said Jimmy.

Ham hesitated. 'So why exactly are you helping me out?'

'Because soldiers help each other. We're all in this together now, aren't we?'

Ham nodded enthusiastically. 'We sure are, friend.'

Ham hurried to the door while Jimmy took his seat at the transmitter and slipped on the earphones. He gave Ham the thumbs-up and the young radio operator winked and hurried out, closing the door firmly behind him.

Jimmy immediately stood and ripped the Morse chart off the wall. He propped it up in front of him and with his left hand gripped the top of the telegraph key and began to tap out his message as his eyes repeatedly flicked up and then down again . . .

— . . . .— . . . .—.. .. ...— . . . —.—.— —

He was tapping as fast as he could, but he was still frustratingly slow. He couldn't be completely sure that he got the dots and dashes completely right. As soon as he finished his short message he began to send it again.

—... .— . . . . .—.. .. ...— . . . —.—.— —

He was just starting through it a third time...

—... .—

. . . when rapid footsteps announced Ham's return. Jimmy jumped up, stuck the Morse chart back on the wall and rapidly sat again just as the door opened. Ham entered, slightly out of breath, and closed the door behind him. He slipped his cigarette between his lips, removed a shiny red lighter from his pocket, tossed it up into the air, caught it, flicked it and lit up. He inhaled deeply, held it for ten seconds, then exhaled.

'That feels soo goooood,' he said.

Jimmy slipped the earphones off and stood away from the transmitter. 'You found it then?'

'Sure did.' Ham happily flipped the lighter into the air again, but before he could catch it Jimmy stepped smartly across and grabbed it.

He held it up and nodded admiringly. Then he abruptly dropped it to the floor and before Ham could move or protest he brought his heel down on it hard, crushing it.

' What the .. . ?'

As Jimmy stepped away from it Ham dropped to his knees and tried to pick up the shattered pieces.

'Why the hell did you do that?'

Jimmy pulled the door open, but then paused and looked back. 'Ham,' he said, 'you seem like a good kid. But take my advice. I'm the big chimney, you're the little chimney. You're too young to be smoking. Understand, friend?'

Jimmy winked at him, and strode out of the room.