Prompt: Sudden freeze. Include ice in today's story, whether literal or metaphorical, from trustingHim17
"Watson."
"Watson, you must wake up!"
I awoke to my friend, Sherlock Holmes shaking me by the shoulder. It took a few moments to remember that I was not in my rooms on Queen Anne Street, but onboard ship, accompanying Holmes to America, where he had been asked to consult on a case of some importance in New York City.
This was hardly the first occasion Holmes had awakened me far too early to assist him on one case or another, yet one look at his face told me this was no ordinary occasion. He appeared worried, as if he were seeing something far away while still looking at me.
"What is wrong, Holmes?" I asked, sitting up in bed.
"I am not sure," he said. "Only I know something must be wrong, else they would not have stopped the engines."
Now that he said it, I realized the comforting hum of the ship's engines, barely noticeable throughout our journey, had indeed stopped. Strange.
"Perhaps we have sighted another ship and wish to avoid a collision," I suggested, though I put on my watch and began searching for my hat as I spoke. I had heard of several horrible collisions between ships, most recently between the sister of the very ship we were on and one of His Majesty's battleships last autumn*. Such caution would be prudent. "Or an iceberg," I said. "It is very cold out."
Holmes's sharp grey eyes were now focused on the porthole. "Perhaps," he said vaguely, before turning to look at me. "I think you should dress fully, Watson."
I stopped in the middle of putting my shoes on. I had been intending to simply wear a heavy coat over my dressing gown and pajamas. Surely we would be underway before long and all this fuss would be over with.
But Holmes had taken the time to dress in the warmest items he had with him, and so deeply did I trust his judgment that I nodded. "Alright. I will meet you outside in just a few moments." I am a quick dresser, having never lost the army habit of needing to be ready within minutes.
Holmes nodded. "Good. I have nothing concrete to offer you as proof, but intuition is merely a fact that one has not yet consciously realized, and I have learned to listen to mine."
I had also learned to listen to his intuition, and wasted no time in getting ready. Five minutes later, I closed the door to my stateroom and followed Holmes out into the corridor.
We were not the only people who had noticed something amiss. Several of our fellow passengers had emerged from their staterooms and were questioning the stewards. No one seemed especially concerned, merely curious, and I heard one gentleman explaining to another that we had likely dropped a propeller blade. More than one fellow passenger retreated back to their rooms at this news, though several more followed Holmes's example and began to head up on deck.
"No one seems particularly concerned," I remarked.
"If there is something to be concerned about, I doubt it would be apparent yet," Holmes answered. "You remember my maxim, Watson, about how it is a mistake to theorize without facts? It applies to anything unexplained, not merely criminal investigations."
"Well," I said. "Perhaps there will be an officer on deck who knows more, or some other evidence we can find out."
"Precisely," Holmes said. He bounded up the stairs before stopping halfway.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Do the stairs feel strange to you?" he asked.
I stepped onto the first step. I was about to respond that nothing seemed out of the ordinary about the stairs, when I realized that as I climbed higher, something was slightly off. I had to hold the handrail tightly so my bad leg did not unbalance. It was as if I was ever so slightly going downstairs, while I was climbing up.
I met Holmes's eyes. "Something is not right." The ship had been as steady as a rock for the previous five days of the voyage. I had marveled at her strength and power; my previous shipboard experiences could not possibly compare.
"Come, Watson," Holmes said, his voice suddenly businesslike and more serious than I had ever seen him while not in the midst of an investigation. Along the way, we passed throngs of passengers, all talking amongst themselves and wondering what the trouble was. Gradually, one word began to make its way past the general hum of conversation: ice.
"It seems we have had a brush with some ice," I mentioned to Holmes. We were in the magnificent foyer, the staircase that was the ship's greatest showpiece currently full of passengers in various stages of dressing while officers and stewards in crisp uniforms made their way among them. It had rather the atmosphere of a grand party, if everyone was not in their pajamas and it was not nearly midnight.
"We shall soon find out," Holmes said. He pushed open the door to the Boat Deck, where we were immediately greeted by a rush of cold air. I do not believe I have ever experienced as cold a night, and I was immensely grateful Holmes had insisted we dress warmly. With no moon, the darkness was nearly absolute without the ship's light and the brilliant stars strewn throughout the night sky, more than I had seen since my time in the mountains of Afghanistan. As my eyes adjusted, I was able to look over the railing to see the ocean lying calm and still below us, something I have never seen before or since.**
The peace of this tableau was ruined, however, by the noise coming from the funnels, three of which were emitting a roar and copious amounts of steam. "What is that dreadful noise?" I asked.
"I imagine they must be blowing off steam," Holmes said, looking up at the funnels, his voice raised so I might hear him.
"I thought something might be wrong," I answered.
"Something is undoubtedly wrong, though I do not think it has anything to do with that," Holmes said. He bent down and picked up a piece of ice from the deck. It was merely a small chunk, yet he looked worried as he turned it over in his hand. As we walked further down the length of the ship, more ice became apparent, some larger pieces and others which were mere slivers. Several passengers who had braved the cold were now showing the ice to each other, some keeping pieces as souvenirs and laughing. Towards the back of the ship, we saw the third class passengers on their own deck playing a round of football with the larger pieces.
"It looks as if an iceberg brushed by us," I said.
"Yes," Holmes said, looking at the ice all over the deck. "A close shave, I would say. If it was a shave, and not a blow."
He refused to say anything further, leaving me to ponder what he meant.
"Surely," I said, "if something were wrong, it should be more apparent." The ship appeared as strong and stable as ever. Yet the stairs…
Holmes did not answer as we returned to the front portion of the ship. He was watching a flurry of activity on the bridge, a couple of decks above us, where blue-uniformed White Star officers were running about and gathering in small groups to have whispered conversations. At their center, I recognized the white-bearded figure of the captain.
"Watson," Holmes said. "I think we should return below and get our lifebelts."
I began to say that surely it could not be as bad as all that. No one else seemed so concerned. But as I watched the group of officers descend from the bridge accompanied by a man in a bathrobe over his pajamas who had been pointed out to me as the Director of the shipping company and a second gentleman carrying rolls of blueprints, all with serious expressions, I remembered the sheer amount of ice on deck. Surely that much ice could not have come from a mere brush? That, the fact that we had not begun moving again, and the strange tilt of the stairs all came together in my mind until I found myself nodding slowly. "I believe you are right, Holmes," I said. I quickened my pace.
Something told me we would not want to wait.
A/N: Ice...Holmes and Watson...hey, they could have been on the Titanic! and so this story was born.
I was going to footnote stuff so you knew where it came from but I crammed way too many facts into this. I'm quite a Titanic nerd and I took the descriptions of the first few moments after the iceberg hit almost directly from Walter Lord's 1955 book A Night to Remember, which is an excellent narrative history of the night the Titanic sank, based on his interviews with Titanic survivors. If it seems familiar to anyone who's seen the movie, that's because James Cameron did exactly the same thing (and fun fact, Lord actually worked on the movie as a historical consultant).