The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories Read Free Page B

screamed from my lofty promontory. “Hurry! Swim!” Soon the other officers - Murdoch, Lightoller, Pitman, Boxhall, Lowe, Moody - took up the cry. “The raft! Hurry! Swim!” “The raft! Hurry! Swim!” “The raft! Hurry! Swim!”
     
    And so they swam for it, or, rather, they splashed, thrashed, pounded, wheeled, kicked and paddled for it. Even the hundreds who spoke no English understood what was required. Heaven be praised, within twelve minutes our entire company managed to migrate from the flooded deck of the Titanic to the sanctuary of Mr Andrews’s machine. Our stalwart ABs pulled scores of women and children from the water, plus many elderly castaways, along with Colonel Astor’s Airedale, Mr Harper’s Pekingese, Mr Daniel’s French bulldog and six other canines. I was the last to come aboard. Glancing around, I saw to my great distress that a dozen lifebelted bodies were not moving, the majority doubtless heart-attack victims, though perhaps a few people had got crushed against the davits or trampled underfoot.
     
    The survivors instinctively sorted themselves by station, with the emigrants gathering at the stern, the second-cabin castaways settling amidships, and our first-cabin passengers assuming their rightful places forward. After cutting the mooring lines, the ABs took up the lifeboat oars and began to stroke furiously. By the grace of Dame Fortune and the hand of Divine Providence, the Ada rode free of the wreck, so that when the great steamer finally snapped, breaking in two abaft the engine room, and began her vertical voyage to the bottom, we observed the whole appalling spectacle from a safe distance.
     
    * * * *
     
    22 April 1912
    Lat. 33°42’ N, Long. 53° 11’ W
     
    We’ve been at sea a full week now. No Carpathia on the horizon yet, no Californian, no Olympia, no Baltic. Our communal mood is grim but not despondent. Mr Hartley’s little band helps. I’ve forbidden them to play hymns, airs, ballads or any other wistful tunes. “It’s waltzes and rags or nothing,” I tell him. Thanks to Wallace Hartley’s strings and Scott Joplin’s syncopations, we may survive this ordeal.
     
    Although no one is hungry at the moment, I worry about our eventual nutritional needs. The supplies of beef, poultry and cheese hurled overboard by the stewards will soon be exhausted, and thus far our efforts to harvest the sea have come to nothing. The spectre of thirst likewise looms. True, we still have six wine-casks in the first-cabin section, plus four amidships and three in steerage, and we’ve also deployed scores of pots, pans, pails, kettles, washtubs and tierces all over the platform. But what if the rains come too late?
     
    Our sail is unwieldy, the wind contrary, the current fickle, and yet we’re managing, slowly, ever so slowly, to beat our way towards the thirtieth parallel. The climate has grown bearable - perhaps forty-five degrees by day, forty by night - but it’s still too cold, especially for the children and the elderly. Mr Lightoller’s Franklin stove has proven a boon for those of us in the bow, and our second-cabin passengers have managed to build and sustain a small fire amidships, but our emigrants enjoy no such comforts. They huddle miserably aft, warming each other as best they can. We must get farther south. My kingdom for a horse latitude.
     
    The meat in steerage has thawed, though it evidently remains fresh, an effect of the cold air and the omnipresent brine. I shall soon be obligated to issue a difficult order. “Our choices are clear,” I’ll tell the Ada’s company, “fortitude or refinement, nourishment or nicety, survival or finesse - and in each instance I’ve opted for the former.” Messrs Lightoller, Pitman, Boxhall, Lowe and Moody share my sentiments. The only dissenter is Murdoch. My chief officer is useless to me. I would rather be sharing the bridge with our Bolshevik, Plotcharsky, than that fusty Scotsman.
     
    In my opinion an intraspecies diet