I wandered through a block or two of music halls and a theater, the Opera House, with an Arthur Pinero play. And looked over the hoardings of two-a-day music halls: Cherburn’s Young Stars at the Empire, plus Elton Edwin, classical banjoist. Kitts and Windrow, The Fair Imposters and their Mélange. At the Royal Hippodrome, Alfred Cruikshank, a droll clown, in song and story. Horton and Latriska, and so on and so on. None of my vaudeville friends, though I knew they sometimes had bookings in England and Ireland.
Back to the hotel in the late afternoon, where I tried to read the Northern Whig. And finally, a little after ten o’clock, a flashlight in my pocket, I walked through the lobby, deserted now, then outside, where I followed the clerk’s directions, in which the key word seemed to be “Queen.” I crossed Queen’s Bridge . . . passed Queen’s Quay Station . . . walked along Queen’s Road. . . .
The closer to my destination, the quieter, meaner, and uglier the streets became. And presently, the street slanting down toward the Lagan ahead, the houses were ugly little two-story stone dwellings, built wall to wall, and directly beside the stone sidewalk. These were workers’ houses, dockyard and shipyard laborers. No lights now, no sound except from one where I could hear a baby crying. The roadway beside me cobbled with field or river stones. Dark through each silent block, streetlamps only at the corners, ragged-edged, smoky, orange-flame lights; I could smell the kerosene as I passed under each, my shadow bunching under my feet, then lengthening and fading off into the darkness ahead.
Now a road T-crossed this, the intersection dimly lighted. I walked across it; brick-paved, deserted, silent. On the other side, a narrow walk beside a brick wall a couple feet taller than I, easily climbed. On the other side of this wall, a scattering of buildings, some with a dim light inside, some dark. I could read the painted names of some: Foundry . . . Fettling Shop . . . Storage . . . Timber Drying Shed . . . Electric Generating Station . . . Brass Fitting Shop . . . Galvanizing . . . Pattern Stores . . . Fitting and Bolt Shop . . . Upholstery Shop . . . Paint Shop . . . and many more as I walked. Mostly dark, no movement, no sound but the soft scuff of my shoes, here on this night of 1911.
Now a break in the wall, the road branching into the walled area, a wide wooden gate across the opening, a black-and-white painted sign: Harland & Wolff, Ltd., Shipbuilders. Then the wall resumed, and more shops: Coppersmith’s Shop . . . Brass Foundry . . . Boiler Shop. . . .
On through a long dark block, then both wall and I made a right turn, down toward the Lagan. A final turn, into Queen’s Road, and now I walked between brick-walled areas on each side. Time Office . . . then Main Office, a dim night-light inside this one. And between it and Mast Shop, a narrow passageway.
Through a long minute I stood listening . . . then reached up to press my hooked hands onto the wall top. Then I heaved myself up to hang supported on my stiffened arms, listening. No whistle blast, no running feet or snarling dogs. Nothing, and I lay across the wall on my belly, squirmed my legs around and over, dropped, turned around and stood staring at what I’d known I would see from here, but hugely larger, impossibly larger than I’d ever imagined.
28
THIS—not my photograph, and taken in daylight—but this is what I saw now, only in black silhouette, a giant cutout sharp against the moonlit sky over the river waiting to receive her in two more days. Just under the knife of its prow, the shadowy reviewing stand waiting for the lady with the christening champagne, I supposed. Who would smash her bottle against that black steel, and—I had read—“the hydraulic launching trigger” would be pulled. Then the almost imperceptible slow widening between prow and dripping bottle: a foot . . . a yard . . . then with abrupt speed, down the incline she’d slide, this enormous black mass, her stern smashing into the Lagan, waterspout soaring, then this great black hull bobbing a little, afloat at last. To be towed to the dock where cranes would lower her superstructure, the ship would be fitted out, and in a remarkably short time the Titanic would sail out on her black, murderous, only journey.
But no; now it would not. Standing in the dark between my two buildings, I looked at and—abruptly, surprisingly—hated the new ship rising to the sky there across the yard. We personify ships, they seem to have human qualities; there are good ships, stubborn resistant ships, and now I saw this giant silhouetted shape as evil, blackly malevolent: she knew—this monstrous bulk knew she would betray the hundreds who, trusting her, would sail out on her only voyage. At this moment somewhere across hundreds of ocean miles the great berg lay drifting toward their rendezvous, this black prow waiting now to slide along the mass of blue ice it might just as well have missed by the feet or even inches that would have made the difference.
Well, I was here to prevent that rendezvous, and I walked out—moving from shadow to shadow, pausing to listen—toward the Titanic, her cargo ports open. This was Rube’s simple idea: launch her now, down the ways into and under the Lagan.
At the prow just past the ceremonial stand, I used my flashlight to hunt for “the launching trigger.” It would have to be somewhere forward here easily in sight of lady and bottle to synchronize trigger pull with, “I christen you Titanic!”
I couldn’t find it; nothing that to my mind even resembled a trigger, and I walked back and around to the starboard side. Not here, nothing like a launching trigger, and I walked on and into this tunnel directly under the Titanic’s hull—again, not my photo but it’s what I saw now in the wavering oval of my flash: this forest of stumps supporting the unimaginable bulk just above me. And here in the almost dark, as alone as I’ve ever been, I felt my face flush. How, how could we have been so stupid? No ship could be left to be easily or accidentally launched! More, much more had to be done here before the final ceremony. Something, some sort of rolling support riding on the track—I could see this easily here—had to replace this forest. And all these stumps had to be knocked out by swinging sledges in the moment just before the launch. How had we ever supposed that somehow I could send this monster prematurely sliding down the ways? I felt like a child, and shut my eyes, ashamed.
Hopelessly crouched under this great black evil, I moved my light across the peeled roundness of these endless supports, then lifted it to slide the little patch of light along the riveted rows forming the Titanic just over my head. The thing had beaten me, no contest, this monster untouchable. In frustration and weak anger, I lifted my fist and brought it up hard to strike the riveted steel but even in anger I turned my fist, defeated, to strike with the soft edge of my hand, not the knuckles that this thick cold steel would have crushed. And the ship didn’t care, the steel cold and wet with dew, my little blow no more making a sound than striking granite.
There under the Titanic I switched off my light, crouching helplessly for a moment longer, then crept out. Out and back the way I’d come, back along the streets to my hotel. Nothing, nothing, nothing could be done to prevent what I alone in this world knew was going to happen.