April 14th 1912 – 00:00am
Thomas got up onto the bitterly cold boat deck, and instantly his ears were met with the most deafening sound he had ever heard. High above the ship, the funnels were loudly blasting out thick black smoke and steam, which billowed up into the starry night sky. This could only have meant that the boiler rooms were rapidly cooling down... but how? The ship stood still in the middle of this vast and endless ocean, like a firefly on a mill pond, glowing and twinkling on the calm, black surface of the water.
Looking around, he saw hardly anyone. Several passengers wearing their pyjamas were leaning over the forward railing. He walked over to join them, and as he glanced down onto the well deck, he saw two boys from 3rd class kicking a large chunk of white ice around as if it were a football. The laughed and shouted happily at the sight of the Arctic scene on the well deck. The berg must have brushed off against the side of the ship, grating of shards of ice and thing layers of the berg itself which looked almost like snow. The winter scene warmed these children's hearts, but it chilled Thomas to the bone.
"Mr Andrews!" A deep voice bellowed through the noise from above.
Turning around sharply, he saw Captain Smith heading towards him. "Captain, what the hell happened?"
"An iceberg, Mr Andrews. Fleet called it in before the boys on the bridge could notice it. Black ice Sir, the worst kind."
"I knew this would happen!"
"Well we knew of ice, Mr Andrews, but we didn't know we'd hit it. We couldn't have any idea."
"But I knew we'd get complacent. The unsinkable Titanic sailing towards ice, and we just keep charging forward at full speed!"
"We were trying to keep a steady schedule, Mr Andrews."
"No! We were trying to keep that blasted Mr Ismay happy!" Thomas yelled and walked off briskly into the Officers Quarters, followed closely by Captain Smith. "Where the hell is everyone, Captain?"
"They're busy inspecting the damage."
Thomas felt his stomach turn... he had been trying to avoid that word... "What is the damage?" he asked in a quiet voice, struggling to come to terms with that concept.
"It's not good... she's..." Captain Smith went pale, he too struggling to speak. "She's taking on a lot of water."
"How much water are we talking about?"
"14 feet above the keel in ten minutes."
Thomas was speechless... he couldn't believe it... the thought of his ship flooding beneath his feet... it was too much to comprehend... he still didn't believe it. "I need to go down Captain and inspect it for myself." He began to head for the door, his mind already made up.
"Mr Andrews, I can assure you, they've got it under control, we needn't worry about-"
"I needn't worry? Edward, the ship is taking on water! . . . Do you know how many of the watertight compartments have been opened?"
"I'm not sure... but down there, they'll know." He signalled his head to the floor, seeing in his mind the boiler rooms, the way he had seen them earlier that day. Boiling hot and bone dry apart from the moist sweat in the air... but in Thomas' mind, he couldn't help but imagine the rooms filled with furiously flooding ocean water.
Rose was almost up to the boat deck with Ruth, and was amazed by the lack of people out of their cabins. Everyone seemed to have gone back to bed, not worried by the soothing silence of the ship now that her engines had stopped their routine humming from far below. If the ship was flooding, why weren't they raising the alarm yet? Was it true? Was the Titanic really unsinkable? Perhaps they would start the engines again soon, after laughing at the mere wound caused by the collision... Rose could only hope.
"Is the flooding serious?" Ruth sounded worried.
"I'm not sure mother... I don't think so... well, not dangerously serious anyway."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Mother, look around..." They were in the Grand Staircase by now, which was now eerily empty, their voices echoing in the marvellously elegant room which was normally a hive of activity. "The place is deserted. Everyone is safe and sound in their beds. If it was a real emergency everyone would be getting into the lifeboats."
"Isn't a flooding ship an emergency in itself?"
"Well, yes... but no one is screaming abandon ship yet, so I think we're alright... and Mr Andrews would tell us if there was any threatening danger." thinking of Thomas eased her mind as she tried to ease her mothers.
They made it out onto deck, and Ruth instantly put her hands over her ears. "Oh my word! What on Earth is that hellish noise?"
Rose looked around, then looked up to the large funnel. Why was it making such a racket? She scanned the deck. It was more or less empty, apart from a few passengers strolling around on deck. It amazed Rose how calm everyone was. But the screaming funnels which lead down into the terrified bowels of the ship told another story, their ear piercing blasts of black smoke contrasting with the tranquil air on deck.
Mr Andrews was down into the very soul of the ship. The places that kept her moving, or in this case, had stopped her in her tracks. Now, he was beginning to wish that he hadn't designed the ship to have such complex and maze-like corridors. The warm, comfortable cabins and restaurants were above him, but now he was one of the rats, running along the metal floors, climbing down stairwells and melting in the intense heat that was emanating from the boilers that were in the floor below. A small room at the end of this current corridor, which served as a broom closet, was his next stop. A hatch in the floor with a long ladder leading downwards lead into the boiler rooms. It wasn't the main entrance into this area of the ship, but he had designed this room to have the hatch as an emergency exit or entrance hatch.
Suddenly, before he had even made it to the hatch, he heard loud footsteps and shouting ahead of him. Rounding the corner came a crowd of men, some shirtless, some wearing loose shirts, but all of them covered in suit and black dust. Another thing they had in common was the fact that they were dripping wet from head to toe.
"Lads, what the hell is going on?"
They stopped, panting, out of breath, shaking, their eyes wide with fear. "Mr Andrews, don't go down there!"
"What's happening boys, calm down and tell me." He grabbed one of the men by the shoulders. The strongly built man with rippling muscles and tanned skin, his bear chest expose, resembling a Greek God... but now, he was a quivering wreck. "It's hell Sir, it's hell! We didn't all get out, we couldn't!"
"It's a nightmare of unimaginable proportions, Sir! Edward got swept off his feet and I didn't see him again, we were lucky to get out of that alive!"
"It's bad Mr Andrews, I'm sorry... we shut all the dampers, but the watertight doors started to shut, and we had to move. If we didn't we'd have been locked down there to drown like rats!"
"How many are still down there?" Thomas was close to tears seeing these men crying like schoolboys.
"Sir, this isn't even a handful of the men that were down there... It's too late."
That was enough. Thomas barged past them and down the hall from where the men had come. They shouted after him, but he ignored their calls. He had to see it for himself. That was it. Enough had been said for him to know it was bad. The watertight doors had been shut, which was routine, but men were still down there amidst the flooding. There had already been deaths. Tears were streaming down Thomas' face now as we continued to run down the hall, following the wet footprints.
He reached the room, hesitantly put a hand on the door handle, and slowly opened the door. There was an extremely noisy electricity generator in this room, which made a high pitched screeching sound with a slight buzz behind it. This was a noise he was used to, but the noise he could hear from below his own two feet was an unfamiliar sound. He looked at the square hatch in the floor, surrounded by a puddle of water which had come from the men's drenched clothes as they escaped. He crouched down closer to the hatch, and all he could hear was, the only way he could describe it, waves crashing off of rocks at the beach. He grabbed the handle on the hatch and pulled it up, not wanting to wait any longer, and as it came up he gasped in horror.
Normally, looking down into this hatch he would see the metallic greys and shadowy pathways of the boiler room below, dominated by men shovelling away at lumps of coal, heaping them into the scorching flames that fuelled the ship's hunger for strength. But now, an icy cold wind blew upwards, along with a spray of water, as a thunderous ton of foaming white waves pounded the ladder. He stared at the scene open mouthed, the roaring of the water intensified now that the hatch was uncovered.
With each passing second, one by one the rungs of the ladder vanished beneath the quickly rising ocean water. At first he could see at least 7 rungs. Now, after only a minute, he saw about 3. Suddenly, there was a crashing sound from further into the boiler room, and the sound of shouting and screaming male voices. The water sprayed up into his face once more, and he slammed it shut.
He thought about what he had just seen, and then collapsed onto his knees, putting his head in his hands, sobbing. He heard them shouting, he heard them, knowing he could do nothing... and the worst part of it all, was the fact that this hatch lead into watertight compartment number 5, which meant that the first 5 compartments were flooded... this wasn't good news. The Titanic could stay afloat with the first four compartments breached, but not 5... not 5.
This horrible realization now in his mind, he suddenly thought of all the 3rd class passengers all still in their beds. He ran out into the hall and pushed his way through a set of double doors, preparing to knock on every single door until he had woke up this entire corridor... but it seemed his job had been done.
The place was packed with 3rd class passengers, all rushing out of their bedrooms, shouting out in confusion and fright.
"My room is filled with water!" One woman cried.
"It's up to my ankles in here!" Another man said as he emerged from his room with a baby in his arms.
"What's going on?" A little girl screamed hysterically as she dragged a bag of belongings out of her room, dripping wet.
Just then, as Mr Andrews stood watching the scene unfold, he saw the water begin creep down the hallway towards him, like the tide coming in on the beach. Each door on each side of the room swayed open gently as more water poured out into the corridor from inside. This caused more panic as the hallway now began to flood. The little girl with the bag was picked up by an older woman who shouted, "Cora, where's your father? We can't stay down here any longer!"
Before he knew it, the waterline had reach his shoes and was lapping against them. "Ladies and Gentleman, please, may I have your attention!"
His voice echoed over their racket and every face turned to watch him. They all seemed surprised to see the wealthy Mr Andrews on their part of the ship, but not only that, he was here as it flooded. He was a dedicated man indeed, thought some. And they would would not be wrong.
"Men, women and children, would you all please start making your way up to the boat deck! On the top of your wardrobe are several life belts which should be worn now!" As he spoke, the people obeyed him, venturing back into their rooms, the water past their ankles now.
"Thomas!" a voice cried out. A voice he knew.
"Tommy, my lad!"
Tommy and Fabrizio came barging through the crowds, already wearing their life belts. "Thomas, what the hell's going on? We both felt the room shake and-"
"Tommy, I don't have time, none of us do. We have to all get out of the lower sections of the ship and get upstairs immediately!"
Tommy could see the fear in his red eyes, which had obviously been crying. He put a hand on the older gentleman's shoulder and gripped it reassuringly. "Whatever happened... or happens... this isn't your fault."
Thomas shook his head grimly, "Oh but it is... it is." and he was off, disappearing behind the double doors, to join the officers on the boat deck, and report to the them the calculations and sums he did in his mind upon viewing the flooding for himself.
The water was past ankle depth now. It scared him how fast it rose. As he passed the room with the hatch, he saw the water creeping out from the slit under the door. There was no escaping it, the ship was sinking, and fast... but no one knew it yet apart from those that had seen it with their own eyes. It was like Thomas had once told Rose, "To 1st class, if they can't see it, it's not happening, even if it's going on right under their noses."
How was anyone going to believe that his "unsinkable" ship was in fact sinking... he didn't believe it himself.