4

BOAT DOCK. SOUTHAMPTON, ENGLAND.

TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 1912. 4 P.M.

Each time before he set out to sea, Captain Edward Joseph Smith liked to walk his entire ship, stem to stern. It kept the men on their toes, if nothing else. And on this voyage, as much as and more than any other in his distinguished career, Captain Smith wanted his men on their toes. When Titanic launched in less than twenty-four hours, the whole world would be watching.

Activity on Titanic hummed at a fever pitch. He watched burly men, wet with sweat despite the cool April breeze coming off the water, labor to fill six holds with exotic cargo. Other workers craned aboard provisions—food and drink to satisfy more than two thousand paying passengers on a five-day voyage.

“To the left, you daft!” cried a red-faced able seaman at the crane operator, who was attempting to lower a cargo net containing a heavy wooden crate through the hatch coaming. The crane man scowled and spat.

“Doin’ my best, aren’t I?”

“We need a damn sight better than that,” returned the seaman at the hatch. Then, with a start, he threw back his shoulders and broke into a full salute. The crane operator locked his controls and saluted as well. Neither man inhaled as the snow-bearded Captain Smith, marching across the deck, stopped to glance quickly from net to crane. The captain scowled, and the seamen flinched. Had he heard them cursing and squabbling? Had they damaged the new hatch with their clumsy work? Finally, Smith nodded at the men and moved on.

“Thank you, Sir!” the seamen called after the captain in unison. Smith had read the situation immediately. The scowl was to end their fight and return focus to the job. After all, putting a little fear in the men kept them sharp.

Smith had put Titanic through her paces just days before, and the sea trials in Belfast had gone off satisfactorily. “She turns well enough, though damn slowly,” Smith had remarked to Titanic’s designer, Mr. Thomas Andrews, who was aboard for the trials.

“I’m sure you’ve found that true of all large ships,” said Andrews, not at all defensively. “And Titanic is larger than any.” He was practically giddy. “From 12 knots to all-ahead-full speed in only ten minutes time,” he enthused. “And when you called for a stop, she was still in the water less than a thousand yards after your order.”

“Yes,” allowed Smith. “She will serve.”

Now, the Captain was eager to leave preparations behind and launch for America. There had been a lot of interest in the world’s largest liner, and Smith had begrudgingly done his part to accommodate the press. “A sailor’s best days at sea,” he told one reporter, “are his first and his last.” His last was close at hand. “All I want to do is put an oar on my shoulder and walk inland until someone asks what on earth that thing is. And that’s where I’ll spend the rest of my life.”

For the better part of two decades, the sea had been his escape from everything he wished to leave behind on land. But as the years passed, the need for diversion had waned, and now he had a wife and daughter, Helen, waiting for him at the end of every voyage. How long until the girl was off having her own adventures? Titanic’s maiden trip across the Atlantic would be Smith’s last at the helm of any ship. He was more than ready to hang up his captain’s cap.

He had only one chore left to accomplish before sailing, and he trusted no man but himself to do it.

Captain Smith arrived at his suite, using a slim key to open the freshly painted white door. The three rooms were more luxurious than he needed, certainly more than he wanted. The parlor alone was the size of three steerage cabins. A polished chrome railing, its purpose more decorative than functional, circumnavigated the room. Four well-stuffed chairs surrounded a sophisticated mahogany table, upon which sat a long wooden crate that he’d delivered himself earlier that day.

Smith carefully lifted an oil painting from its nail. The still life depicted a bowl of figs. He’d have a steward find a more suitable spot for the work. It didn’t belong in his cabin.

He reached inside a canvas sea bag and pulled out two wooden hooks, a small mallet, and a leather pouch containing a handful of mismatched screws and nails. He mounted the hooks in the holes where the painting had hung, cracking a little plaster along the way.

Using a pen knife, Captain Smith pried a brittle plank from atop the thin crate with a splintery pop. He removed a long, narrow package wrapped in midnight-blue silks, carefully unwinding the cloths to reveal a worn but rugged leather scabbard, with a loop for attaching to a belt. He kept the blade’s slightly curved forty-four inches trapped safely inside the ceremonial sheath, with only a hammered brass pommel exposed to the air. In his hands, the treasure was curiously lightweight and substantial at the same time.

He carefully hung the sheathed sword on the hooks, then stepped back and admired his work. Now stay up there on the wall where you belong, Smith thought.

Captain Smith was ready to launch Titanic.