2

Jack and Owen, carrying everything they own in the world in the kit bags on their shoulders, sprint toward the pier. They tear through milling crowds next to the terminal. Shouts go up behind them as they jostle slow-moving gentlemen. They dodge piles of luggage, and weave through groups of people. They burst out onto the pier and Jack comes to a dead stop... staring at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long. The Titanic is monstrous.

Owen runs back and grabs Jack, and they sprint toward the third class gangway aft, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as Sixth Officer Moody detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.

"Wait! We're passengers!" Jack yells. Flushed and panting, he waves the tickets.

"Have you been through the inspection queue?"

Lying cheerfully Jack laughs "Of course! Anyway, we don't have lice, we're Americans. (glances at Owen) Both of us."

"Right, come aboard."

Moody has Quartermaster Rowe reattach the gangway. Jack and Owen come aboard. Moody glances at the tickets, then passes Jack and Owen through to Rowe. Rowe looks at the names on the tickets to enter them in the passenger list.

"Gundersen. And...(reading Owen's) Gundersen." He hands the tickets back, eyeing Owen's rate faced looks suspiciously.

Grabbing Owen's arm Jack says calmly "Come on, Sven."

Jack and Owen whoop with victory as they run down the white-painted corridor... grinning from ear to ear.

"We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!" Jack gushes.

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The mooring lines, as big around as a man's arm, are dropped into the water. A cheer goes up on the pier as Seven Tugs pull the Titanic away from the quay.

Jack and Owen burst through a door onto the aft well deck. They run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. They get to the rail and Jack starts to yell and wave to the crowd onthe dock.

"You know somebody?" Owen asks.

"Of course not. That's not the point." Jack replies then yells to the crowd "Goodbye! Goodbye! I'll miss you!"

Grinning, Owen joins in, adding his voice to the swell of voices, feeling the exhilaration of the moment. "Goodbye! I will never forget you!"

The crowd of cheering well-wishers waves heartily as a black wall of metal moves past them. Impossibly tiny figures wave back from the ship's rails.

Titanic gathers speed.

Jack and Owen walk down a narrow corridor with doors lining both sides like a college dorm. Total confusion as people argue over luggage in several languages, or wander in confusion in the labyrinth. They pass emigrants studying the signs over the doors, and looking up the words in phrase books.

They find their berth. It is a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks. Exposed pipes overhead. The other two guys are already there.

OLAUS and BJORN GUNDERSEN.

Jack throws his kit on one open bunk, while Owen takes the other.

"Where is Sven?" one whispers as he wondered when their cousins are.

By contrast, the so-called "Millionaire Suite" is in the Empire style, and comprises two bedrooms, a bath, WC, wardrobe room, and a large sitting room. In addition there is a private 50 foot promenade deck outside.

A room service waiter pours champagne into a tulip glass of orange juice and hands the Bucks Fizz to Ianto. He is looking through his new paintings. There is a Monet of water lilies, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstract works. They are all unknown paintings... lost works.

Lee is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines on trellises, talking through the doorway to Ianto in the sitting room.

"Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money."

Ianto is looking at a cubist portrait "You're wrong. They're fascinating. Like in a dream... there's truth without logic. What's his name again... Picasso?"

Coming into the sitting room Lee replies "He'll never amount to a thing, trust me. At least they were cheap."

A porter wheels Lee's private safe into the room on a hand truck.

"Put that in the wardrobe." Lee demands and Ianto follows them into the bedroom. Ianto enters with the large Degas of the dancers. He sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Toshiko is already in there, hanging up some of Ianto's clothes.

"It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean... just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I'll be the first …" Toshiko says to Ianto then pauses as Lee appears in the doorway of the bedroom.

"And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first." Lee leers as he winks.

Blushing at the innuendo Toshiko glances at Ianto "S'cuse me, Sir."

She edges around Lee and makes a quick exit. Lee comes up behind Ianto and puts his hands on his shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy. "The first and only. Forever."

Ianto's expression shows how bleak a prospect this is for him, now.

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Titanic stands silhouetted against a purple post-sunset sky. She is lit up like a floating palace, and her thousand portholes reflect in the calm harbour waters. The 150 foot tender Nomadic lies-to alongside, looking like a rowboat. The lights of a Cherbourg harbour complete the postcard image.

Entering the first class reception room from the tender are a number of prominent passengers. A Broad-Shouldered Woman in an enormous feathered hat comes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags.

"Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny. Take 'em the rest of the way if you think you can manage."

At Cherbourg a woman came aboard named Gwyneth Cooper, but we all called her Gwen. History would call her the Unsinkable Gwen Cooper. Her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what mother called "new money".

At 45, Gwen Cooper is a tough talking straight shooter who dresses in the finery of her genteel peers but will never be one of them.

By the next afternoon we had made our final stop and we were steaming west from the coast of Ireland, with nothing out ahead of us but ocean...

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Jack and Owen stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing so familiar from images of the wreck. Jack leans over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.

On the bridge, Captain Smith turns from the binnacle to First Officer William Murdoch. "Take her to sea Mister Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs."

Murdoch moves the engine telegraph lever to ALL AHEAD FULL.

In the engine room the telegraph clangs and moves to "All Ahead Full".

"All ahead full!" the Chief yells and on the catwalk Thomas Andrews, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as the engineers and greasers scramble to adjust valves. Towering above them are the twin engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants.

"Twenty one knots, sir!" Murdoch calls.

"She's got a bone in her teeth now, eh, Mr. Murdoch." Smith accepts a cup of tea from Fifth Officer Lowe. He contentedly watches the white V of water hurled outward from the bows like an expression of his own personal power. They are invulnerable, towering over the sea.

Jack and Owen lean far over the bow, looking down.

In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appear, under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Jack watches the dolphins and grins. They breach, jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.

Owen looks forward across the Atlantic, staring into the sun sparkles. "I can see the Statue of Liberty already. (grinning at Jack) Very small... of course."

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"...and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up." A fat man called Ismay is booming to those assembled in the drawing room.

He indicates a handsome 39 year old Irish gentlemen to his right, Thomas Andrews, of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders. The group is assembled for lunch. Ismay seated with Lee, Ianto, Rhiannon, Gwen Cooper and Thomas Andrews in the Palm Court, a beautiful sunny spot enclosed by high arched windows.

Disliking the attention Andrews says softly "Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is...willed into solid reality."

"Why're ships always being called "she"? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" Gwen asks.

They all laugh as Gwen looks around the table, "Just another example of the men setting' the rules their way."

The waiter arrives to take orders. Ianto lights a cigarette.

"You know I don't like that, Ianto." Rhiannon scolds as Ianto rolls his eyes.

"He knows" Lee replies as he takes the cigarette from him and stubs it out. He then turns to the waiter "We'll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce."

To Ianto, after the waiter moves away he says "You like lamb, don't you sweet pea?"

Gwen is watching the dynamic between Ianto, Cal and Rhiannon.

"So, you gonna cut his meat for him too there, Lee?" she snorts then turning to Ismay she asks "Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?"

"Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury... and safety…"

"Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay." Ianto drolls as Andrews chokes on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.

"My God, Ianto, what's gotten into…" Rhiannon splutters.

"Excuse me." Ianto sighs as he stalks away.

Mortified, Rhiannon addresses the table "I do apologize."

"He's a pistol, Lee." Gwen laughs "You sure you can handle him?"

Lee is tense but feigning unconcern "Well, I may have to start minding what he reads from now on."