Chapter 45
The Mackay-Bennett
Halifax, Nova Scotia
April 20, 1912

The death ship had left her Nova Scotia port in eerie silence. It seemed as if none of her crew had spoken since they had received orders from their sister port in Plymouth. Captain Frederick Lardner had remained on the bridge the last several days, a pair of binoculars in his hands as they searched the northern Atlantic. In the belly of the ship lay one-hundred and twenty-give empty wooden coffins and so much ice that the kitchen was using it to store their food.

The Mackay-Bennett was the largest and closest vessel to the Titanic's sinking now that the Carpathia had sailed to New York. Captain Lardner had brought on barely enough crew to keep the ship running, wanting to leave as much room as possible for the corpses they would find at sea.

The weather seemed to match their grim mission. There had been dense fog and storms, the sea so rough that many of his hardened sailors had taken ill. Captain Lardner wondered if they would even be able to find the wreckage as it may have floated away from the location of the sinking.

It was six o'clock in the morning on the fourth day of their journey when they spotted it: several strange objects floating in the water. The sight had been difficult to stomach. Several corpses had remained afloat from their lifebelts, their features so bloated from the sea that it would be a miracle if any of their identities could be confirmed. A group of men rowed back and forth from the wreckage back to the ship, bringing back body after body until there were more dead than living aboard.

John Jacob Astor was one of the first identified, as there was a $100,000 reward for his body. But the bodies had to be embalmed, a grueling process that would slow down their departure. They were horrified to discover there were far more bodies at sea than they would be able to take back to Halifax with them.

First class would be embalmed and placed in the coffins.

Second class would be wrapped in canvas and stored on ice.

Third class would be left at sea.

They came upon a trio of corpses still clinging to a group of deck chairs. Their grip was so frozen that they had to pry the chairs from the mens' fingers. When they were brought aboard, there was a strange looking case wrapped around one of the men's chest.

"A violin," a crewmember said, staring in shock at the instrument inside. It was severely damaged, warped with and bloated with water leaking from its f-holes.

"So we found the band," another crew member said. There had been many rumors that had emerged after all in the aftermath of Titanic's sinking, but the only one that had any sort of truth to it was the band playing until the very end.

"Are these other two a part of the band?"

One of the bodies had dark hair and a long nose with no instrument on his person. There was another body who looked much younger, his dark blonde curls disheveled and face bloated from being at sea for so long. There was another violin case strapped to this young man's chest, but the instrument was missing.

"We'll identify them later," Captain Lardner said. "We've got another load coming aboard."

The three corpses were moved, each tagged with a number to be identified later. They left the empty violin case on the young man, one of his arms limply draped across it as if he was holding onto it even in death.

And the violin?

Waiting for its master in the depths of the sea.