As the Third and Second Class passengers started to board - the First Class travellers being permitted the privilege of waiting a little while longer - the call was raised for the crew to report to their stations. Harry sprang into action, glad of the chance to begin the work he had been looking forward to for so long.
Having already negotiated the labyrinth of corridors, passageways and stairwells on E Deck to get his bearings, he was efficient at showing his passengers to their quarters. He enjoyed listening to their gasps of amazement and comments as they walked through the pleasantly furnished General Room towards their cabins which, although simple and functional, were of a standard beyond which the majority of steerage passengers had ever experienced.
As he returned to the gangways, he overheard several passengers being refused entry to the ship, having lost their tickets or failing the steerage passenger Health Inspection. Some were just too drunk from the hours they had spent in the local alehouses and were returned to the White Star Offices to exchange their ticket for another sailing, given stern instructions to sober up before they attempted to board the next ship. How awful, he thought, to have planned for this journey and now, at the foot of the gangway, being unable to come aboard. He didn’t feel sorry for the drunks, but he did feel sorry for those with nits or other medical issues.
At 12.00 noon, the Blue Peter pennant was run up the foremast to signal ‘Imminent Departure’. Ascending the three flights of stairs to the promenade deck, to get a final look as Titanic set sail, Harry got another sense of the sheer scale of the ship. Forty feet above quay level and still only half-way up the ship, he leant over the side. In each direction, for as far as the eye could see, was a wall of blackened steel. They were high above the rooftops of the buildings below them and the people on the quayside looked miniature.
‘You wouldn’t want to be afraid of heights really would you?’
Harry turned to his right where a young, fresh-faced lad stood, his knuckles white from grasping onto the railings so tightly. Harry laughed.
‘You certainly would not. It’s something else. It really is.’ He considered the lad, thinking he looked familiar. ‘First time sailing?’
‘Yep.’
Harry smiled, remembering his first crossing of the Atlantic. ‘Well, enjoy it lad.’
‘I intend to.’
‘Harry’s the name,’ he added, holding out his hand. ‘Harry Walsh.’
‘Will,’ the boy replied, shaking Harry’s hand firmly. ‘Will Johnson.’
With the last of the passengers and supplies on board, at 12.15pm the triple-valve whistles were blown three times, their deep, low tones echoing off the buildings on the quayside. The mooring ropes were cast off and the tiny tug boats, which looked like scurrying ants alongside the mass of Titanic, spewed black smoke from their funnels as they moved into place to push her out to sea.
Harry observed the crowds of onlookers all along the quayside, hanging out of the windows of the dock offices and White Star Line offices, many waving white handkerchiefs and raising their hats as a final farewell to their family and friends who massed around the port-side railings of the poop deck. He knew that some didn’t expect to return to these shores, a fact which made the scene particularly poignant. He searched the faces in the crowd for his mother. He couldn’t see her and was surprised to discover his feelings of disappointment.
As the band played a fanfare of triumphant music, the engines were fired up, sending a shudder through the lower decks. The three massive propellers sprang into life, churning the water into a whirling, broiling mass. Harry’s heart pounded in his chest, the rhythm of its beat seeming to match the pulse of the mighty engines.
Titanic was on her way.
CHAPTER 3 - County Mayo, Ireland, 1912
It was a cold, clear January evening when Séamus Doyle first asked Maggie Murphy to dance with him. They were guests at Jack and Maura Brennan’s wedding and she’d stepped outside for a moment to take a breath of fresh air, it being so hot and sweaty inside with all the dancing. She was admiring the unusual, moonless yet brilliantly starry sky when he’d appeared, as if from nowhere, at her side.
‘Maggie Murphy,’ he’d said, extending his calloused hand in invitation, a palpable edge of nervousness to his soft voice, ‘would you care to dance?’
It was the first wedding Maggie had been to, and although she would attend many others in her lifetime, she would never forget that particular wedding, because of that remarkable sky and the unexpected invitation to dance.
She was just turned sixteen at the time and felt as though she had already loved Séamus for most of her life. He was nineteen, the son of a labourer, the grandson of a labourer and a labourer himself. His crippling shyness was the thing which defined him, the thing which most people noticed about him. But not Maggie. She’d noticed his gentle manner, the freckles on his bare arms, his unusually long eyelashes, the way his feet turned inwards slightly when he walked, the way he licked his lips when he was nervous, the way he cared, uncomplainingly, for his sick father. She noticed all of this from a distance; too shy herself to acknowledge the feelings she had for this inconspicuous young man.