"Can you imagine that, Mr. Lowe? For at least all summer, the Olympic and the Titanic are so far the largest ships on the S'ton to New York route, until our friends the Germans get their new Imperator afloat," James marveled, looking up in the cloudy gray skies against the towering ship, as he walked alongside the 5th.
The sky-blue eyed English fellow had only a while ago introduced himself to Harold Godfrey Lowe at the Belfast Royal Avenue Hotel.
And though he was an Englishman, he was also 6th officer, which meant he and Lowe were instantly brothers as the soon-to-be whipping boys of the officers' bridge.
"I cannot describe any part of a ship which needs 85 clocks and 16 pianos to furnish it! Not even the Oceanic compares," Moody went on goodheartedly to Lowe. "She may even prove a bit more to handle than your Belgic as well. From a wee cargo ship to an ocean liner, now that's quite a move. Not bad for a Hawsepipe Officer whose family only owns a jewelry shop."
"Humble as the Belgic was, she was no waltz for jam," Lowe muttered, studying a copy of the ship's blueprint he'd sketched the night before, like it was the answers to a test. And perhaps it was, as they'd been ordered by Officer William Murdoch to play about the ship and familiarize themselves with all 268 meters and 46,000 tons of her.
And since dinner last night with the other officers, Lowe felt enormously pressured as "the odd one out" to make a good impression.
As the 2nd officer had so kindly remarked to their colleagues, not all White Star officers were cut from the same cloth, and that the "Welshman" was joining them after being plucked from some "cockowax ragboat", instead of the Olympic or Oceanic like the rest of them.
'The clock strikes at twelve, Cinderellas,' his senior had left both Lowe and Moody feeling cheap, with one last parting remark.
His mimodrama having Lowe know that, though the 5th officer looked smart in his fancy White Star uniform, he would never be one of them.
"Ah, sponge it out," Moody waved it off. "Lightoller's a grand old man, for sure. Don't let him anchor you down. There's nothing to be ashamed of. We all had to start on some 'ragboat', and we're all in the same one now, aren't we?"
"Suppose the man's got a point though," Lowe allowed that. "I am a total stranger to the North Atlantic and to Mail Ships, generally."
His eyes traced the gangway door to the very tip-top of Titanic's funnel, gleaming against moody skies in the orangish gold of White Star's buff.
"I've never been assigned a ship they call unsinkable though," Lowe remarked to Moody. "I won't lie to you. Any man expert enough to call her unsinkable must be an expert. I'm only a fecking sailor, though, so what should I know?"
"Ah, you'll be a swell bloke to work with," Moody chuckled at Lowe's sarcasm. "I remember my first transatlantic crossing. You'll come through alright, mate. Just keep your head up and do as you're told. It's not Lightoller that matters right now anyway. Murdoch's our man, he is."
"Murdoch, eh?" Lowe gave thought to the unanimous respect the other officers had for the sailing prodigy, calling him a most canny and agreeable gentleman. "What's he like, I wonder?"
But before Moody could tell him anything more about their superior officer, his feet detoured suddenly to the side of the gangway ramp.
Dodging a stewardess who'd stopped right in front of them, holding up the rest of the line most inconsiderately.
Moody looked back at Lowe, as if to say can-you-believe-this, before clearing his throat to catch her attention.
"Alright, miss?" he greeted the ship maid.
But the stewardess didn't appear to notice or care that she was blocking the way of the two officers.
Frozen and gazing down into the ocean rushing under the gangway ramp, as if she were sick after only a few drinks.
Moody cleared his throat again. Louder, this time.
"Ehem...We'd be most obliged if you'd allow us to pass through, miss."
Still, she gave him no answer.
Moody glanced back at Lowe again, grinning, "Don't suppose she'll faint before it's over, do you? Never you mind, miss. I'm sure there's a fellow here good enough to marry you and save you from ever having to work again on a ship."
And delivering what he deemed a good-hearted joke, he offered Lowe the right of way around the maid.
"After you, Mr. Lowe."
"After you, Mr. Moody."
"I must insist, Mr. Lowe."
"Will you just go on ahead, Mr. Moody?"
"I couldn't possibly, Mr. Lowe. You outrank me, after all. You go, I'll follow."
"For the love of Christ, very well then! Suit yourself."
Lowe walked on ahead of him.
And just as Moody stepped forward to follow him, he stopped again in afterthought.
Glancing over at the paralyzed stewardess still clinging onto the ramp railing. Her face mostly hidden from his view behind her black head scarf that matched her uniform, and the loose locks of her pinned hazelnut hair fluttering in the breeze.
Curiosity getting the better of him, Moody approached her, interested in knowing what had captivated her attention in the water so, that it made her oblivious to everything else around her.
Removing his officer's cap and placing it on the side of the railing opposite her, he leaned onto his elbows.
His eyes following her gaze to a trail of white carnation flowers someone had set afloat in the waves below.
"What you doin', love?" Moody asked her.
"Thinking only of what makes me happy," she answered him, without ever meeting his eyes.
"And what'll that be?"
"The smell of fresh-cut lavender on a cloudy day," she said. "Or rainfall on a glasshouse window. Or having one more slice of carrot cake than is proper. A good book twice read. Finding money in places I've forgotten...Reading old notes from people I haven't forgotten...Anything but being on this ship, I suppose."
"Seems as if we're total opposites then," Moody answered. "I can hardly stand being on land, while everything I love is at sea. And you can hardly bear going to sea, when everything in your heart is left behind on land."
A soft smile lightened her face.
"It seems you've got me all worked out then, don't you?" she challenged him playfully. "According to the Ladies' Fashionable Repository, if I just think of happy things, I can trick myself into going onboard that ship."
"And how's that going for you now?"
"The most profound of all scuttlebutt nonsense."
James grinned.
"Is this your first crossing?" he asked her.
"No, of course not," she said. "I'm not at all green to sailing."
"Ah, then you wouldn't by any chance have met a fortune-teller on the train here?" James asked her. "Don't tell me you got pulled in to letting that barmy lass read your tea leaves too? Take her word for it, and we'll all die if we get on that ship. Don't know how well you like that sort of tale, but I suppose it was one way to pass the time."
"If you really want to know," she confessed to him. "I can't actually swim."
"Fancy becoming a stewardess then."
"I know, it's a bit ironic, isn't it? But perhaps you were wrong about me," she said. "I may be afraid of the sea, but there are some things on land that are far more frightening."
"Well, I should say, we'd best take our chances by sticking together in this then," James said. "I'm James Moody...Suppose I forgot to mention that."
"Moody?" she repeated his name quietly. "I haven't met a Moody in years."
"Well, I can only hope then that my namesake made a good enough impression on-"
"Yes, this is all very touching, but you two mind getting a move on?" an impatient able-bodied seaman brushed pass Moody and the stewardess. "You're holding up the bloody line."
And when Moody turned to inform him to move along, the seaman spotted the officer's cap perched on the railing. He quickly straightened up to address his superior officer more respectfully.
"That is, fine weather for dawdling about, sir, isn't it?" the seaman chuckled nervously. "I was just thinking of wasting some time myself. Good day to you, miss."
He then tipped his hat to the stewardess, and moved on quickly.
"So, it's 'Officer' Moody, is it?" she called him out. "Suppose you forgot to mention that too?"
"Have you got it in for officers?" Moody asked her, catching a hint of satire in her voice.
"You shouldn't have shown off in front of them for my sake," she said. "They already give me hell for not 'being one of them'."
"Now they'd be damned to try."
"Ha, well you're the superior one, after all," she remarked. "Why don't you just order me out of your way, like the rest of us on this ship?"
"I might try, but that would likely lead to you calling me an arse behind my back," he said. "And I suppose, I might at least know your name in return."
"And why should I trouble you with it, Mr. Moody?" she asked him. 'It's a big ship, and there are so many places to hide. It's not likely that we'll ever meet each other again after this."
"All the more reason to learn your name," Moody said. "Knowing we are soon to become strangers again, this fleeting moment is evermore dear."
"I'm afraid I must disagree," she said softly, turning her gaze away from the ocean below them to meet Moody's eyes directly.
Leaving the 6th officer's playful blue eyes dumbstruck, when he finally got a look at her, as if he'd just looked into the face of a ghost.
"We were always kinder to each other as strangers, weren't we, James?" she said to Moody.
But the officer was still stumbling over himself to find any coherent words.
"Y-You're..."
Before he could even line up his racing thoughts in a nice neat row for her, another stewardess swept in from behind him and put herself between the two.
"Millie, what are you doing?" she scolded her fellow stewardess in a whisper, hooking her arm with hers and briskly steering her away from James. "Do you want to get yourself sacked on your first day back to work? There's no mingling with the ship officers. It's against the rules."