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“This is astonishing! I have never seen anything like this before. It’s all rather confusing, to say the least.”
Doctor Sampson stood next to Patrick’s fresh corpse, the worry lines on his brow were etched deep as he surveyed the bloody scene before him. He’d joined the Titanic for two reasons, easy money and easier women, and neither involved young men violently bleeding to death on his floor. The description given to him by a friend, who himself applied for the position, suggested he would have an easy life. Nothing more taxing than treating the occasional elderly lady for a spot of seasickness while dining and dancing with an endless stream of rich young ladies, whose fathers would be ecstatically happy to see them marry a doctor.
Immediately following the man’s untimely death, Sister O’Malley tried wiping away the blood dripping from Dr. Sampson’s ruddy jowls and slightly bulbous nose, but the rich coppery smell and the violent images of the previous few minutes got the better of her constitution. Much to her professional embarrassment, and for the first time in her long career, Nurse O’Malley rushed to the hand basin and vomited.
The doctor removed his bloodstained tunic and used the cleaner patches to wipe himself down, while Sister O’Malley cleaned up around the sink before rinsing her face in refreshingly cold water.
“I’m so sorry, Doctor. I really am. I don’t know what came over me,” she muttered sheepishly. Embarrassed, her stomach had so spectacularly let her down in the presence of Doctor Sampson, a man for whom, despite his roguish reputation and her advancing middle age, she still carried a small, but hopeful, candle.
Doctor Sampson had given her a reassuring smile. “That’s alright, Agatha. I think we just witnessed something extraordinary. Perhaps it would be best if we wrap the body, clean up this mess, and make no further mention of the events surrounding this man’s dreadful demise, save those medical in nature?” He looked at Sister O’Malley, seeking her agreement.
“I think that would be a wise course of action, and one I will be eternally grateful for.”
The look of discomfort on the nurse’s face eased with the combined realization her indiscretion wasn’t about to become common knowledge about the ship, and Doctor Sampson had used her Christian name.
Together, they loosely wrapped Patrick’s limp body in a white linen sheet before lifting him onto the examination table in the doctor’s office. While he wrote some brief notes detailing his observations of the patient’s rapid decline, Sister O’Malley mopped the deck, trying to clean up the sticky pool of blood before it left an embarrassing stain on the new floor. Closing his journal, the doctor returned to stand next to the corpse, repeating absentmindedly as he gazed at the wrapped body, “Quite astonishing!”
His thoughts were interrupted by the hurried arrival of a dishevelled looking junior engineering officer. The young man was out of breath and appeared hot and flustered, so much so Sister O’Malley hurried forward to offer him some aid in case he should collapse. The officer waved away her offer of help but still took a few moments to gather his breath.
“Are you ill, sir?” The doctor asked with a note of impatience in his voice.
He sensed Patrick’s death raised far more questions than it answered. Questions, he felt sure the captain and master-at-arms would want answered before their arrival in New York, and he was keen on getting the grisly business of examining the corpse completed.
“No, sir. Chief Engineer Bell ordered me to fetch you down to the cold store outside engineering, and to ’urry about it. It was farther than I expected, and I’m a little taken of breath.” He spoke quicker as he got to the end of his last sentence, then started to cough.
Sampson rolled his eyes theatrically in Sister O’Malley’s direction, who smiled and looked away, then waited for the young engineer to compose himself before asking, “Why does Chief Bell need me fetched to the cold store?”
“Tis a rum do, sir, no mistaking that. Hoggie, one of our stokers, and a giant of a man, we found ’im dead only minutes after completing ’is watch. The strangest thing, though, sir, was the bite marks, and ’is neck. Like a wild animal ripped it clean open.”
Glancing self-consciously over his shoulder at the wrapped bundle on his examination table, Doctor Sampson replied, “Wild animal bites are not as unusual at sea as you would expect, young man, at least not today.” Turning his full attention back to the Junior Officer, he said, “Now tell me. Did this Hoggie fellow show any sign of being unwell? Sickness, sweating, any strange markings or rash, particularly around, what we assume to be, the bite marks?”
The young officer thought for a brief moment, then shook his head. “I don’t believe so, sir. That is, at least not to my knowledge.”
Sister O’Malley finished mopping and stood next to the doctor, the little smile of just a few moments before long forgotten. Her eyes betrayed her growing unease at the developing events. She waited patiently for Doctor Sampson to ease her concerns about the presence of a fearsome beast loose about the ship, but she sensed this would not be forthcoming, at least not until he had inspected both bodies.
Doctor Sampson offered her a weak smile, hoping he appeared more confident than he felt. It had to be more than a coincidence. Two fit and healthy men die within minutes of each other following what, at least taken at face value, were animal attacks. One thing was for certain; the harbour authorities and the company would want answers. Answers he wouldn’t find standing here.
“Nurse, can I leave you to arrange for our friend there,” he nodded towards Patrick’s corpse, “to be moved to the cold store? I would suggest you ask a couple of able seamen to do the transporting.” Then, taking his hat from the hat stand by the door, he said to the engineering officer, “Lead on, my man.”
It took the young engineering officer and the ship’s doctor almost fifteen minutes to descend through the ship’s intricate series of stairways and corridors, carefully avoiding the busier passenger areas so as not to arouse suspicion. Sampson had directed the younger man not to mention Hoggie or details of his wounds to anyone as it would in all likelihood cause undue panic, especially if the news spread to the passengers. He knew idle gossip and wayward speculation would hamper any investigation, and he couldn’t rule out foul play, thinking it more likely than having a rogue wild animal stalking the ship; he was, therefore, keen to keep details close to his chest.
Chief Engineer Bell met them outside the cold store wearing a worn, worried look that gave him the appearance of a man ten years his senior. The two men exchanged greetings with a polite nod then, without a word of explanation, Bell pulled open the heavy storeroom door. A blast of cold air hit the doctor full in the face, causing him to inhale sharply. Taking a moment to congratulate himself on remembering to wear his hat, he stepped into the storeroom, his breath forming wild eddies of warm air as he looked around.
Bell pointed to the far corner and muttered gruffly, “Over there.”
Doctor Sampson led the way as the two men approached the corpse. It lay along the back wall, and although dressed, the body was covered by carefully placed sacking. Removing the sacks, the doctor noticed the blood staining the man’s dirty gray shirt and the gaping wound where the unfortunate man’s throat should have been. He leant closer and noticed Hoggie’s face and the back of his hands bore evidence of a struggle, and a fierce one at that. One finger appeared horribly misshapen and even without closer inspection, Doctor Sampson could tell it was broken, while the little finger on the right hand was missing, sheared off at the second knuckle. All that remained was a jagged piece of flesh and a splinter of bright white bone.
“If it’s all the same with you, Doc, I think I’ll leave you to it.” Bell was already on his way back to the door as he spoke, leaving Sampson to his investigation.
Doctor Sampson knelt next to the body and examined the wounds carefully, taking special care to inspect the rough edges of the large tear opening the stoker’s throat and the stub of the missing finger. Both appeared uneven and torn, the edges shredded and ripped. It was obvious to Doctor Sampson even the most amateur killer, with a half-decent knife, would make cleaner cuts. Most of the smaller facial wounds and those to the back of the hands bore a striking resemblance to scratches inflicted by a woman’s nails. However, just above the man’s wrist on the thick muscles of his forearm was a clear set of bite marks, small and oval in shape. Doctor Sampson judged them too small to have been inflicted by an adult, and he felt sure a man of Hoggie’s size would easily be able to fend off even the most frenzied of attacks by a small child. He also noted a section of the man’s throat was missing. He shivered, not entirely convinced it was due to the room’s temperature alone.
He felt the man’s skin and was not, given the ambient temperature, surprised to find it cold and lifeless. There were no, nor was he expecting any, signs of life, and the pale pallor of the skin supported the notion of him having bled substantially before dying some time ago. Remembering the strange dark rash pervading the skin surrounding the wounds inflicted on the unfortunate man now lying lifeless on his examination table, Sampson opened the giant stoker’s shirt and inspected the man’s upper chest and shoulders. There was no sign of a rash, although the area immediately surrounding the wound did have a slight, almost indistinguishable mottling. Sampson dismissed this as the result of the trauma inflicted on the thin, delicate area of the skin.
With a puzzled expression, the doctor walked thoughtfully back to the door and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor that separated the clean refrigerated stores and the dirty superheated engine room. The chief engineer looked at him expectantly but didn’t speak. He could tell the doctor was troubled by what he had just witnessed. He couldn’t blame him. Just being in the same room as Hoggie’s body had given him a severe dose of the willies.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Sampson said, “Would you please arrange for someone to bring the body lying on my examination table down here. I think, although there are differences in the exact manner of their deaths, the two victims are in some way intrinsically linked. I just don’t know what that link may be.”
Chief Bell nodded. “I hope you don’t mind, but I thought it fitting to notify the master-at-arms.”
“No, not at all, I was about to suggest that myself. I would also venture placing a guard at this door, at least until we know what we are dealing with.”
Doctor Sampson removed his hat and dabbed the sweat from his brow with his handkerchief. He felt unusually warm this deep in the ship’s bowels and was eager to return to his office and collect his bag along with a few other medical supplies pertinent to a more comprehensive investigation into the two men’s deaths.
“I will arrange for one of my men to remain here until we find a more suitable solution, but for now I must return to engineering. I’ll send two men to you within the hour to collect the deceased. I’ll bid you, at least for now, good day.”
Bell strode away, barking orders to his men, leaving Sampson to take a more leisurely stroll back up through the decks to his office. He had a feeling it was going to be a very long night.
