Chapter twenty two:

"What is it?" Rose mumbled, scraping back a tangled curtain of hair from her face.

At first Jack's face was disembodied in the darkness, but as Rose's eyes adjusted, the rest of him became dimly visible.

"I don't know, it sounds like a gunshot."

"But I felt the very walls tremble."

"I smell smoke," Jack said.

Such words were never used lightly, nor could they ever be dismissed without investigation. Fire was an ever-present concern no matter where one lived. It could start in any number of ways, from overturned candles, lamps, sparks that leaped from the hearth or embers from coal-burning ovens. And fire aboard a ship this large would be nothing less than disaster, but it was also, seemingly un heard of. It sounded as though it could be a bad dream. Perhaps it was imagined, and fear was contagious especially against the small minds of society.

Struggling from the bed, Rose hunted for the clothes which had been discarded during Jack's exploration of her body.

''Here, you stay. Do not move from here, not until I return. Get yourself dressed in the warmest-''

Jack paused, seeing that she wore only her night gown as he pulled his own shirt over his head. ''Did you fetch more things?''

''Yes, just a small bag; a few dresses, a coat and a shawl with a hat and gloves and shoes.''

''Dress yourself as you can. Take any garments which you may need from my wardrobe and do not move, all right?''

Jack's voice was laced with far more shudders than he cared for and he felt Rose nod as he kissed her weary head.

''Could a fire do much damage to a ship of this size? But that couldn't explain such a noise, could it?''

''I don't know what it could do.''

Jack moved to the door which such a purpose and glanced out at the corridor. People moved about, as though there wasn't really a care in the world and then, the odd steward would dash past with a shifting eye and an averted gaze. It was well past midnight, late enough for passengers to be asleep in their rooms well past now.

Turning back on the threshold, Jack watched her stood alone clad in white in the centre of his room. His heart was right there with her.

"Only flee if you must for your safety."

"Yes," her eyes were large and frightened but as he kissed her forehead he savoured every scent of her.

Jack marched out into the corridor and went towards the centre of life aboard the ship. Reaching the top of the Grand Staircase, Jack sniffed hard but could detect nothing other than the familiar accumulation of cleanliness, fresh paint and faint scent of dinner which had finished a couple of hours before.

"I don't smell any smoke." Beside him, Molly Brown joined him upon the bottom step, with tired, dark eyes and a large hat to shield from her face. "Folk gotta be all tangled up out here for nothing."

Jack inhaled slowly. Waiting for it to hit him. Nothing, until, something. A trace of it.

"Your nose isn't awake. Try again." Jack told her.

This time there was a definite taint of something burning. Alarm speared through her.

''What in God's name is happening here?''

''I don't know, Molly, but I pray that we will find out soon enough.'' Jack noted the casual sitting of passengers on the chaise across from the staircase. How people were so very calm. How this was like a strange and warped dream from which one expected to awake from soon.

"Mr. Andrews!" The whip-crack force of her voice caused Jack to jump. He gripped her arm to steady her, as the master shipbuilder approached them with eyes darker than smoke itself.

''Hello, Mrs. Brown, Mr. Dawson.''

''Can you tell us what the Hell is going on, we're in the middle of the Atlantic and it sounds as though we're out in the war fields. I've heard rumours of fires, smoke, gunshots and now, we're all strolling about here, too afraid to go back to damned sleep.''

Mr. Andrews glanced between the two, his eyes narrowed, as he beckoned them to a quieter corner. Once they were away from prying eyes, he spoke, low. ''There has been a fire in boiler room five since before Southampton.'' Jack's heart started to pound immediately, as Mr. Andrew's continued, ''the crew thought nothing of it, and simply tried to remove the offending coal since Wednesday but there was no luck and the fire spread. I was alerted just this morning as it appeared to have grown much worse and weakened the entirety of the bunker. The explosion what you heard was the disintegration of the entire wall as the rivets had weakened and now, there is smoking and fire completely covering the boiler rooms. We have closed the water tight doors in case the outer edge is damaged but there are still men trapped down there.''

''My God-''

''Tell only who you must, there cannot be a panic and we will not evacuate the ship unless absolutely necessary.''

''So, we just limp on until we reach New York?''

''Yes, whilst navigating a very dangerous ice field. We had planned to turn over the engines overnight but that isn't an option now. We have to proceed but with absolute caution. We only have so much coal left to power the ship."

''But can there be other ships nearby?''

''Warning has been sent. If we can be evacuated to another ship then it could be easier to make it to the dock.''

Fear flickered in Molly's eyes. ''So, what now, we just sit and wait to burst into flames?''

''Wait for instruction.''

''Instruction of what?'' Molly demanded but Jack held out his hand to her, shocked as adrenaline surged through him. ''What of the men trapped?''

Mr. Andrews diverted his eyes to an officer, bounding down the staircase in search of him and he simply nodded his head in egress before joining the member of crew.

Sweeping the hair from his face, Jack teetered on the edge of anger. ''God damnit! So innocent men are to burn to their deaths for the failings of the White Star Line?''

''Jack, we have to-''

''Molly, go to your room and collect some things if you wish to prepare for the worse, go to my stateroom, C-28 on the port side and join Rose there. If anything happens, take her to safety and evacuation.''

''What will you do?''

''Promise me, Molly.'' He urged, taking her hands in his own with such a force that she was almost knocked back. ''Promise me that much. Promise me to keep her safe, as you would do a mother to a daughter.''

''Don't be stupid, if you love her and intend to marry her as the letter that you left me said, then you must not leave her.'' She warned, her voice edged with displeasure.

''You fail to understand,'' Jack told her, clasping onto her sleeves like a child would its mother. ''Yes, I do love her, and I intend to marry her, but I also have a duty as a man to help as I can whilst I am able bodied.''

''Your uncle would roll in his grave.''

''My uncle is in his grave so will not be here to argue with me, and neither will you. Go to Rose, keep her safe until I return.''

Before Molly could plea with him further, Jack was descending the staircase two steps at a time and bounding further into the ship with such an ease, that he could sparsely believe that they could be any fault. The walls felt solid, the ground held only the faintest of rumble from the engine, and the steel which was on the very ship was made by his own workers in Boston. Perhaps that was the part which had enticed him to the crew passage down below the depths of a ship which no passenger should venture. Jack was vaguely familiar with the layout of the fleet having supplied the steel for the liner which he sailed on and both of her sister ships as asserted by his own uncle before his death and having studied blue prints of the interiors before the voyage, it was now mapped within his head.

A wailing was heard from the dining room, as passing the third-class quarters where they would take their meals, there was a gathering of fellows, some with women and children beside them. Several coughed their way up to the separating gate of first and third class. There it was; the barrier of life and death.

''Is it smoke?'' Jack called out, startling the youngest stood closest to the gate.

''Yes, sir. Tonnes of it from below decks. Some have been freed out the main stairwell whilst they had the chance but we have been made to wait.''

''Is there a fire?''

''Some say so,'' he nodded. The gate, Jack observed was locked from the first-class side, and his stomach bubbled.

''I shall return with a key, if you see help in the meantime, demand that Jack Dawson asks for you to be freed.''

''Would they listen?''

''It's worth a damned go.'' Jack nodded his goodbyes and started for the crew passage and moved with such determination that his shoes skidded along the polished floors and his breath was caught as when faced with the sign of Scotland Road which was named after a road in Liverpool where many of the crew of the White Star Line lived. It was the main access passage for crew and third-class passengers and ran the entire length of the ship on the port side, although the part which Jack approached was near the centre of the ship. As he turned off Scotland Road to the crew passage, Jack was faced with smoke, thickening at the doors of the boiler rooms. A sullen glow came from the direction of boiler room five, an ominous flickering light bleeding beneath the door.

"Hello!" Jack flung the door open and recoiled at a furnace blast that struck his entire body. One entire wall was covered in flames, rippling and curling upward in hot tentacles. Through a bitter haze of smoke, several bulky forms were visible on the floor. Closing the door behind him to not allow smoke to filter out, Jack felt as though he was running into the depths of Hell.

''Hello!'' He called out, as his voice was lost amongst the engines. The roar of the fire. A figure ran to him and grasped the folds of his shirt, and tugged so hard that the cloth began to give and the seams crackled. "Fire.''

The blackened face of a stoker was like witnessing the grim reaper himself.

''I know, have they closed the water tight doors?''

''Yes, there are men down there. It is too thick with smoke to find a way out.''

The ladders leading down below to the ground where the fire was blazing was like a lead down into the Devil's own quarters but Jack was dragging the stoker back to the door leading out to Scotland Road and without even a second word, he thrust open the door and propelled the stoker through it. "There are third class passengers stuck in the dining room, please ensure that they are freed!"

At that he closed the heavy door to enclose himself back into the boiler room. The bodies littering the floor were already deceased from smoke inhalation, or the impact of the explosion itself, and after offering help to any men down below, he would find a way to get the bodies to a secure place. Yes they had died but they were still someone's family or friend.

Digging in his pocket, he found a white handkerchief and covered his mouth before diving into the cloud of smoke and using whatever light he could find to navigate his way downward.

"Is there anybody down here?" He called as loud as he could manage before choking on the fumes before he was even toward the ladder. Glancing down there was nothing but more bulky forms lying about the ground and as he shook them one by one, there was no response from any. He suppressed a sob of sickness and choked again before calling out louder and fuelled by determination for justice. How could just a short time ago he be laid in bed with Rose? How could he have felt so happy planning a life with her, a marriage, when all this was happening below them?

"Is there anyone alive down here?"

Jack turned his back to the lower levels and descended the ladder downwards. A small explosion erupted east and he cowered, jumping to the ground just less than half way to the bottom and quickly removing his jacket as he perspired from the heat.

"Hello—" he choked, bending over double to cough and replacing his handkerchief with his hand to wave it about in the smoke to both clear it and perhaps garner the attention of others who could be alive.

A cough startled him and then another as he ventured deeper so that he was now adjacent to the abandoned bunkers and in the very centre of the flames. Beneath a section of a wheel, a number of stokers took sanctuary, their faces and once white shirt burned and black. Beside them, several of the deceased were laid lifeless beside them.

"What are you doing down here?" One coughed. "Th-there is no way out of this hell hole."

Jack couldn't speak at that moment and it was clear that although the men were holding their dead fellow workers close, almost to cradle them as they succumbed to death themselves, he simply waved his hands for them to follow him. It must have taken a second for one or two of them to understand for they seemed to still or grow sluggish at his instruction.

Jack started for the way to the ladder but the fire was closer, the smoke clawing at his throat but the stokers had been below longer and had more of a need than his own.

"Come on, lads."

Jack heard one say clearly with a renewed sense of purpose. A group of five or six followed, some burnt and needing assistance and others running as though their life depending upon it, and it did. Jack climbed the ladder up and remembered the way to the boiler room five exit, stopping every few seconds to ensure than he was followed.

"Go, lads, go." One seemed to know the way from then and stormed ahead of Jack, pounding upon the door and eventually finding the handle to open it and fell through with an almighty crash to the ground and others followed but soon smoke filtered out into the corridor of the ship. Jack turned to see the more able bodied of the men were collecting the bodies of the deceased, hauling them across their shoulders and choking back their tears.

"Get out now, while you can." Jack called, coughing as a massive rumble below sounded.

"We will once we have the other two, it's too late for the ones below, come on let's get out."

Jack shook his head. "No I will find more."

"There are no others left alive. The smoke is too thick and the flames too high. We have to leave them no how it pains us."

Yes, it did pain him. If he could help one more to safety then it would be worth it. Frustrated tears sprang to his smoke-stung eyes. But then a large stoker was there, pushing him aside none too gently. Bending, he picked two bodies up and hoisted them over a broad shoulder with a grunt. "Follow me," he said brusquely to the stokers. Soon, the exit of boiler room five loomed and even though the corridor was filled with smoke, it wasn't half as dark as the interiors.

Quickly, Jack reached the corridor to take a fresh breath of painful, almost clean air before turning back to the boiler room and slamming the door closed behind him in ignorance to the pleas to return.

His body was wrecked with coughs, and his arm he came to see was burnt from a heightened flame from near the bunkers. He peered over the ladder and looked downwards, the flames licked almost the bottom three feet of the bottom. Descending as far as he could, Jack called out sharply and it was barely audible even to himself.

"Hello?"

Nothing. It was still of life and only flames consumed the entire area. This really was hell.

Confronted by chemicals, smoke and heat, suddenly there was a flash of red sparking his attention; Rose. She descended into the fire below, so willingly as though enticing him to a death with her.

"Rose, no!" He called, climbing down after her without even a second thought. "What are you doing? No!"

As he approached the climbing flames, he jumped over them with only the end of his handkerchief catching fire and he threw it into the greedy light to follow her. Why was she here? He had instructed her and Molly to never leave. He had—

—lost sight of her. She had seemed to have been dancing towards a pile of coal before but now it was pitch black. Empty. She was gone.

"Come out now or we'll not live. We will—" With a raspy throat, all words seemed to cease as though the devil had finally claimed him with a single hand across his mouth. A pile of coal and the grey black was smoke was the only thing visible through his narrow stinging eyes until a choke which wasn't his came about. Edging around more flames, Jack narrowly missed falling forward. A massive echo of multiple explosions followed and a shriek of absolute terror. Jack wasn't alone. Lain beneath the pile of coal was, what looked to be the body of a man; half alive and half way to hell.

As though life had been instilled into him, Jack got to his knees and started shifting through the piles to free up the mans limbs who wailed in such a pain. Even through misty gaze, Jack could see the blood of his face and chest.

"Help me, my friend." Jack called out in a painful croak and it seemed to urge the casualty to hold out his hand to Jack. In a heartbeat, he hauled him through the remainders of the piles and hauled him to a stance even though it was more than painful for him to stand by himself alone.

The man was heavier than his own body and as Jack moved through the now engulfed area, with some God given strength, he lifted the stoker to the ladder above the flames in a hope he was strong enough to catch the metal than to simply fall into fire. By another miracle, he did and turned once with a bloody perspiration leaking from his face.

"To the top, turn left and then right to find the exit." Jack choked out and watched as the man went and disappeared into the blackness above whilst dragging his half battered leg. How was it that when ones life was in the balance that God gifted us with a type of energy that one never knew existed to help.

With one last look about, the fire was just beside his leather boot and his body felt as though it was a thousand degrees. Did he have to find Rose or was she a figment of his imagination? An hallucination.

Touching the ladder as high as he could to pull his own weight, it hissed and burnt his hand creating a spine curling pain in his palm that shocked his entire body. It was too hot to get up. Metal heated by fire. Another explosion sounded and it was cleared that all of the interiors were collapsing. It was only a matter of time before the rivets gave way when weakened by the heat and allowed the ocean to seep into sink the ship. God help them.

"Jack—"

Startled by her voice, he gained awareness of his senses again. This time Rose stood at atop the ladder, and then through hazy eyes he saw something white floating to him. A garment of some sort. Oh, she was just a wonderful vision and he was dying. He had to have been.

Something soft hit his face, caressing it and reaching out he found his numbed fingers curling into soft linen.

"Use it to hold onto the rail and quickly." Her voice was breaking. The smoke was getting into her lungs already. It was enough to propel him to use the linen to reach up as high as he could above the fire and pull his own weight to keep clear of the flames. All the while, keeping Rose in his line of sight as his beacon of strength, whether she was real or not.

He would survive, he would marry her.

Those arms were extended to him and as he reached the top, he could only collapse in exhaustion into a pile of soft layers.

Her voice coaxed him onwards to the looming, glowing door which led back to the corridor and would take them both to safety— at least for now.

The whole idea of the ship sinking due to the boiler explosion is due to a theory on a Titanic documentary which I watched about six months ago about how the fire which was raging in boiler room 5 could potentially had caused all of what I had written about in this chapter. No one knows much about the fire and it seemed very much glossed over in the investigations afterward by everyone so I suppose no one will ever know but I thought that it would be a different avenue to take rather than the usual way. Factually though, it was hard to find much on it, aside from conspiracy theories and some videos on Youtube but I found it so fascinating and almost like a different story of the ship in some ways!

Thanks for reading.