Leaving the huge natural harbour at Queenstown in the early afternoon, we headed into a fresh south-westerly breeze. An hour later we were passing the Old Head of Kinsale – a strange feature on the chart, like a man’s head extended on a skinny neck. I checked the course laid down, and, as hills and pastures gave way to the mountains of the west, handed over the watch to Mr Wilde.
Leaving the bridge, I rang for my steward and ordered some tea to be brought to my office. Sighing, I reached for the deck log in which orders and conditions pertaining to navigation were recorded. Having entered the relevant details for Queenstown, it was now time to write up the additional notes regarding our leaving of Southampton.
Pen in hand, I found myself wishing that Joe were still around – the Joe of my youth, full of wisdom and good advice. Once in a while, he would talk about loneliness, the fact that as Master you had colleagues aplenty but could never have friends. He was right. There was no one else to make decisions; no one to share responsibility. In command, you were alone.
Since the Hawke incident, I’d been acutely aware of it. And yet I was the company’s senior master, the one supposed to know it all. I didn’t. There were times when I worried that progress was increasing beyond my ability to keep up.
With the brief log entries before me, I began an account of Wednesday’s departure from Southampton on a separate sheet of foolscap. Once the incident with the New York was written up – to be verified by each of my deck officers – it would be attached to the ship’s Official Log Book, to be forwarded to the Registrar General of Shipping and used in any subsequent enquiry. By the time it was done my eyes were stinging and I needed to stretch my legs.
The wind howled against the heavy outer door, pushing it shut as I stepped over the threshold. Outside, the familiar rush of cold air buffeting the bridge-front muffled my footsteps. Between the masts, aerials were strung out like laundry lines, whistling and rattling in the wind. Although a rarity on cargo ships, wireless was increasing in coverage and in the last decade Marconi’s men had become fixtures on all the Atlantic liners. I had become accustomed to the facility – as I’d also become familiar with the telephone. But whenever I stopped to think of those young lads tapping out their messages across the ether, it seemed extraordinary to me – miraculous, even. In my young day the only form of communication between one ship and another was by Morse light or semaphore – and then only if you were close enough to be seen. All we could do in fog was ring the ship’s bell and pray.
Nowadays though, these boys could send messages over hundreds of miles; thousands at night when the atmospheric conditions were good. The day’s financial news, received from Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange, would be printed aboard for the following day’s Atlantic Bulletin. Once upon a time you left port and that was it for news until you got back; now, from this ship, they could make and transmit decisions which kept the wires humming and the financial world turning.
Such refinements kept the businessmen happy. For this maiden voyage we were carrying about half the usual number of First Class passengers, but even so we had Benjamin Guggenheim, the iron and steel magnate, as well as the American railroad kings, Charles Hays and John B Thayer. The bankers George Widener and Washington Dodge were aboard, and the head of Roebling’s civil engineering, builders of the Brooklyn Bridge. Men upon whose empires millions of people depended, and these men were below, dressing for dinner, about to enjoy a relaxed and convivial evening aboard this opulent new liner.
Where else would you find men like these together, in one place and at one time? It was the kind of rhetorical question my wife was given to uttering when I was feeling down. But if I sometimes felt a burst of pride – and love – at her reminder, I had only to be aboard like this to know the reality.
I glanced at the funnels and thought of the brave souls below, working every hour on that bunker fire. Those up top had no inkling of what it was like, what effort it took to get them safely, time after time, across the Atlantic.
Low down in the west, the dying day was painting spectacular colours across sea and sky. I paused, letting its beauty calm me, cleansing my mind of worry. Suddenly I was caught, almost unbearably, by memories of our old house by the sea, Ellie and me walking along the dunes with the dogs, watching the sunset together. How I missed that: how I missed her. It seemed an age since I’d been at home for any length of time. I closed my eyes for a moment before turning my back on the sunset and resuming my walk. Astern of us, Ireland’s mountains had become grey, forbidding cliffs – somehow they were easier to contemplate.
Earlier, there had been quite a crowd lingering at the taffrail – a last sight of home for many who had joined at noon. Now there were only two watching the ship’s silvery wake and that blue-black silhouette disappearing into night.
In her light-coloured dress the girl looked fragile, wraithlike, as though the wind might sweep her away at any moment. The man, some little distance away, seemed unaware. I studied her, wondering why she seemed so sad, and why so familiar. Hoping to get a better view, I moved in their direction; but by force of habit, I turned to check the navigation lights were lit. Seconds later, when I looked again, the man was alone, standing motionless as before.
I blinked hard and shook my head, keeping my eyes on him as I strode aft. Where was the girl? Easy to be mesmerised by the curling of the foam, to be drawn in by the wake. The man would have noticed, surely? But before I could reach the afterdeck he turned, unhurriedly, to go indoors. I couldn’t see his face but something about his build and the way he moved made me think it was my half-brother Joe.
I stopped, my head spinning. Leaning heavily against the rail, I could not have said if I was awake or dreaming. Certainly, I was more fatigued than I’d realized.