“It’s true,” Casey said. “Some of the Catholics and Protestants are friends with each other, at least at work. There aren’t many who are like Mike Sloan, but it doesn’t take very many to cause a lot of trouble. Sloan’s a foreman. If he wants to make trouble for a Catholic worker, he can. And they let him hold these meetings at lunch time, where he’ll get the workers riled up about something and blame the Catholics for it.” She leaned against the counter and stared at the floor. “You can always tell when he’s been doing that. It’s real tense in the yard for a while. Usually after a few hours, everyone’s back to normal—they start working together and forget about the issues. But it can be scary.”
“And Sloan thinks you’re gay?” Sam handed her the plates for the table, an eyebrow raised at her. “I could’ve told you something like that would happen.”
She sniffed. “Gay, and interested in Tom Andrews. Can’t I just tell him to mind his own business?”
Sam laughed. “Get real, Casey. Everybody these days knows” he put two fingers up in quotation marks, “that homosexuality is wrong. It’s sinful. That’s something the Catholics and the Protestants agree on.” He tossed her the napkins. “No one would be on your side.”
She caught the napkins, glaring at him. “What can he do about it? He can’t prove it.” But she looked worried. “If he starts spreading rumors, it could look bad for Mr. Andrews, though.”
“Oh, I doubt he’d try that, Casey.” Sam stared off into space, thinking. “I wonder if this guy is related to Thomas Sloan, who’s a member of parliament. A very sectarian, bigoted MP. Hates Catholics; totally committed to the Protestant cause. If so, your Mike Sloan has a formidable position as a political influence in the yard. But he still depends on Lord Pirrie more or less approving of what he does. And Pirrie is an enigma when it comes to Home Rule. He’s generally for it, if I remember my history right. But he waffles because he wants to advance in British society, and the British are obviously against it.” Casey looked confused and Sam offered a brief smile. “Basically, Lord Pirrie will want to avoid action for or against a man like Sloan. So Sloan can get away with a lot. But I don’t think he’d get away with slandering Lord Pirrie’s nephew.”
They sat at the table as Sam dished up the food. “You may be somewhat protected from Sloan by your working relationship with Andrews. Just try not to piss the guy off, okay? They do bad things to homosexuals in this era.”
Casey nodded. “Okay.”
“And try not to moon over Tom Andrews so much when you’re at work. You have to remember, he thinks you’re a boy.”
She just stuck her tongue out at him.
Chapter 10
September—October 1906
Casey dashed past the Number Seven slip, with a stack of logbooks for the office. She met up with Tom at an intersection. His grin grew wider as he shifted the machine parts in his hands, tucked some rolled plans under an arm, and handed her a few sheets of paper. “You’re on the way to the office, aren’t you?” he asked hopefully. “Just drop these on my desk. I’ll get to ’em later.”
“Sure,” she replied, following his example and placing them in a pocket. That kept them from getting mixed in with her other stuff. She paced alongside him as he made his way past the slip. “I’ve got a quick question,” she told him and he nodded as she jumped into some recent confusion about the figures from the plating shed. He was in the middle of clearing up her confusion when he went silent, lifting his head and looking around quizzically.
Suddenly, he tossed the rolls and parts at her, ran down a path and disappeared around a corner of boxes. Puzzled, she followed, and stopped in astonishment at the intersection. He was tearing through a gang of men, all of them scrambling in haphazard panic to get out of the way, as he did a credible imitation of a jig, running this way and that, knocking over tea kettles, cups, and tins of tea and sugar. Cries of consternation could be heard as several men tried to claim their crockery before it broke, some slipping in the spilled water. Tom stopped then, arms akimbo, as he regarded the dismayed gang with unforgiving sternness.
“Heating your tea water already! It’s five minutes before horn-blow! I’d like to know where the honor is in stealing time from your employer!” His glare took in each man individually, but none of them seemed willing to attempt an answer, as they looked down and mumbled a bit, most offering shamefaced apologies. One of them glared at a pale-faced youth peaking from behind a plating machine. “Ye was supposed to keep a look-out and warn us if ‘e came through!”
The boy nodded enthusiastically, eyeing Tom with awe. “Aye, I was looking. But ‘e didn’t come that way, like usual. He slipped in the back, sneaky as you please!”
“Aye,” said another, “and came tearin’ through here like a racehorse, hittin’ every bit of our mess!”
They all agreed with admiring head shakes. Tom grinned, confident they’d gotten the point. “Becker!” he roared, spying the men’s supervisor coming up the path. “Five minutes off the break for these men. They’ll have to drink their water cold, this morning! And make sure they wait for that horn from now on!”
Becker lifted an arm in acknowledgment, waving the men back to work, as Tom turned to Casey, his face split in a happy grin. He started grabbing back his papers. “Thanks for catching all that, lad. Good reflexes!”
She handed him back the rolls, shaking her head at him in mock consternation. “You had entirely too much fun with that. Sir.”
The grin turned into a laugh as they continued on their way. “Aye, well, I’ll tell you. Becker and I have been suspecting something of the sort was goin’ on, but we could never catch them. That’s why I went around back this time. Worked like a charm!”
His laugh was always infectious, and Casey joined in for a moment, then she shook her head. “But you just docked them five minutes instead of something harsher. That was kind of you.”
His smile remained in place, but he looked at her earnestly. “They’ll have to clean up that mess on their break, too, you know. But I don’t think it’s necessary to treat people harshly. I started here as an apprentice and I worked in all these departments. I know the work is hard, and it’s tempting to take it easy or skip a step. But for their own safety, we have to maintain discipline. A supervisor should build his men up, while making sure they learn self-discipline. Those men are all good workers, and their crime was mild. It’s important to me what a person’s intention is, too. I’m always willing to give someone another chance so long as they meant no real harm.” He shrugged a bit. “Provided they didn’t cause any real harm, of course.”
The smile came back in full force. “So there’s your Andrews lecture for the day, lad. Ye bore it well.” He tipped his hat at her and took off down another path. After a moment, Casey resumed her hurried pace to the drawing office, feeling some real hope that Thomas Andrews might—might—understand about, and maybe forgive her for, her own crime.
In the office later that day, Casey turned from the tonnage projections she was working on. “Have I picked up the wrong formula for figuring the number of lifeboats?” she asked Tom. “It seems wrong.”
He looked over her shoulder, checking what she had written. “Looks correct to me. What don’t you understand about it?”
“Why it’s used,” she said, looking at him curiously. “I suppose the tonnage relates to how much room there is for lifeboats, and to the number of people the ship can carry. But why not just provide enough seats for each person the ship can carry? The other way seems so inefficient. Not to mention inaccurate.”