The Titanic Enigma (29 page)

He remembered how Billy had crashed across reception, colliding with the steward. He retraced the boy’s steps, found the corridor and swung into it. Two men ran towards him;
they were chefs from the First Class kitchen, their white jackets and striped trousers smeared with grease, faces streaked black. Fortescue stood to one side as they rushed past
him.

Moving slowly along the corridor, he drew parallel with the kitchens and swung a pair of doors inwards. He could see no one. Then he spotted fames, a line of fire across the back of
the room, an upturned barrel, a smudge of oil on the metal floor. A ball of fire roared towards him and he jumped aside, landing heavily against the door to the cold room, his back smashing into
the foot-long handle. He cried out in agony and slid to the floor, scrambling away as a spray of flaming oil smashed into the door and across the wall.

Out in the corridor, he had the presence of mind to slam shut the heavy steel door into the kitchen. Gasping for air, he tried to push aside the pain as he checked left and right. No
one around. He went to move and another thunderous explosion shook the vessel.

Half a dozen steps along the corridor he saw a door on the right. It was slightly ajar. The ship creaked and groaned. He edged forward cautiously.

The lights flicked off in the corridor. Snapped back on. He could just make out the sound of two, maybe three men far off, shouting loudly, their words indecipherable. He tried to
steady his breathing, the pain in his back was almost overpowering.

He was about to move when he caught a flash of colour to his right. Frieda emerged from the doorway a couple of yards away. She had a pistol in her left hand. In her right hand she
held the larger of his boxes; the small one containing the isotope was tucked under her arm. She lifted the gun a few inches, pointing it at Fortescue’s heart.

He put his hands up involuntarily and felt the blood drain from his face as he stared at her. She stood like a marble statue.

‘Where is Charles?’ Her voice was barely recognizable as belonging to the woman he had made love to earlier.

‘Dead.’

She blanched. ‘Get in there.’ She flicked the gun towards the doorway. Fortescue edged around the door, never taking his eyes from the barrel of the gun a few feet from
his nose.

‘Stop.’

They stood just inside the storeroom in an open space about ten feet square encircled by a jumble of crates and boxes. A few of them had tumbled over. One had split open, a spidery
jumble of wires and lengths of metal just visible through the cracked side panel.

She put Fortescue’s boxes on the floor and gripped the gun with both hands.

‘Why are you doing this now?’ Fortescue said. ‘There’s no hope. The ship’s going down . . . fast.’

‘I will get a lifeboat. It’s always women and children first. Once I reach New York I shall be met by a colleague. You, though, will end up in the Atlantic just as you
would have done had the ship not struck the damn iceberg.’

‘But it won’t help you. You won’t know what to do with the isotope. That box,’ and he flicked a glance at the larger of the two, ‘only contains some of
the information you need.’

‘Liar.’

‘I’m not lying.’

She shrugged dismissively. ‘No matter. We have been spying on you and Rutherford for a long time; we know more than you think. Contrary to what you may imagine, we do have some
rather fine scientists in Germany.’

She took a step closer. Fortescue could see her finger tightening on the trigger.

‘I could help you.’

She held his gaze, trying to read his expression.

‘I have the rest of the theory in my cabin.’

‘No, you don’t. Charles would have retrieved it.’

‘Too well hidden.’

‘You take me for a fool? No, I’m sorry, John . . . Egbert.’ She tugged on the trigger and Fortescue tensed, waiting for the inevitable. The gun went off, a
fantastically loud boom resonating around the metal-walled room. He closed his eyes involuntarily and felt a thud in his guts that knocked the air from his lungs as he fell backwards against a pile
of crates two feet behind him.

He opened his eyes and saw Frieda stumble to the floor, her gun twisted sideways about her finger. The bullet had hit the metal floor and ricocheted, sending off a random spray of
shrapnel. And there, close to where the woman had stood, was Billy O’Donnell, a thick metal rod in his hands.

He lowered his arms and Egbert took a step towards Frieda’s prone form. Blood gushed from a massive laceration across her neck. Her head was twisted unnaturally. She was quite
dead.

Fortescue ran over to Billy. The kid looked stricken and started to shake. Fortescue crouched down, grabbed his left arm, lifted the weapon from the boy’s
grip and tossed it aside.

‘Billy. Billy, listen to me.’

He stared past him, eyes glazed in shock.

‘Billy. We have to get you onto a boat.’

He seemed suddenly to snap back to reality and grabbed Fortescue’s shoulder. ‘Is she . . .?’

‘She is, Billy. But you saved my life. That was an incredibly brave thing to do.’

His face was still blank.

Egbert withdrew a wad of paper from inside his jacket. ‘Billy,’ he said. ‘Now listen to me very, very carefully. This ship is going to sink. Many people will die. I
probably won’t survive, but you have a chance.’

‘But—’

‘No “buts”, Billy. I am not who I said I was.’

The boy looked confused.

‘What—’

‘I’m a scientist, I have been sent on a very important mission. I have to deliver a special chemical and my notes on how to use it to a team of American scientists. I
can’t explain any more. But I know I shan’t make it. You must make sure this document –’ and he held out the bundle of pages ‘– reaches the right people.
I’ve written the name and address on the reverse of the title page.’

The ship shook violently. Fortescue almost lost his footing and Billy fell sideways against one of the storage crates, just breaking his fall in time.

‘Mr Wickins . . .’

‘My name is actually Fortescue, Billy. Dr Egbert Fortescue.’

The boy swallowed hard, trying to hold back his tears.

‘Follow me. No time to waste. Please, just take the papers and pass them on for me. You understand?’ He thrust them towards the boy, but could not risk giving him the
isotope. It was far too dangerous.

Billy nodded solemnly and pocketed the notes. Fortescue turned and picked up the boxes.

From beyond the passageway came a confusion of sounds – shouts, screams, the grinding of metal on metal.

They ran towards the end of the corridor and out onto the First Class deck. A few yards to stern a group had gathered about a lifeboat. There were at least sixty or seventy people
clustered around it, including half a dozen crewmen issuing instructions.

‘Women and children only . . . Just women and children,’ one of the crew hollered.

Fortescue tucked the smaller box under his arm and, grasping Billy’s hand, they rushed over to the railings. Peering over the side, they could see the ocean churning. A packed
boat was in the water; a young officer stood in it surrounded by seated women and children. He was trying to manoeuvre the boat away from the ship to make room for another fully laden lifeboat
sliding down on cables towards the waves.

They turned back towards the crowd of terrified passengers, each of them trying to find a place on the remaining lifeboat. ‘My uncle and aunt,’ Billy said. In the light
from the stricken ship his eyes looked huge.

‘There’s nothing we can do, Billy. They’ll have to fend for themselves.’

‘But they’ll drown!’

Egbert looked down into the boy’s face. ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he said. ‘If you don’t get on this boat, you will die
too.’

They reached the edge of the crowd. It was so tightly packed he could not see the lifeboat, just the cables holding it. Then he heard a terrible wailing as women were separated from
their husbands and grown-up sons. He could see couples shoving their children onto the boat and stepping back. Then came the cries of the young ones as they realized their parents were not going
with them.

‘Excuse me,’ Egbert called. No one noticed. ‘Excuse me!’ he yelled. ‘I have a youngster here.’

Still nothing. He let go of Billy’s hand for a second and grabbed the shoulder of a man in front of him, pulling him back none too gently.

‘Curse you!’ the man exclaimed, but Fortescue’s blood was up. He ignored the man, reached for Billy and squeezed forward. Together they made some headway, and in a
few moments Egbert had forced their way to the front.

‘Sir . . . Hang on a second.’

Fortescue looked up and met the eyes of Third Officer Pitman. The man was clearly petrified but was doing a gallant job of disguising it.

‘Mr Fortescue. It’s women and . . .’ He looked down and saw Billy.

‘I’m well aware of that, Pitman!’ Fortescue shouted and shoved Billy forward.

‘But, sir, the boy’s from Third!’

Fortescue glared at the man. ‘Don’t you even dare think about it . . .’

‘Sir, I cannot allow . . .’

Fortescue let go of Billy again and raised his fist to within an inch of the officer’s nose. He hadn’t felt such rage for many years.

A middle-aged woman stood beside Fortescue. He recognized her as Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, whom he had been introduced to at Frieda Schiel’s party. ‘There’s no need
for that, Mr Fortescue!’ she said loudly. ‘Mr Pitman, you shall let this little boy onto the lifeboat.’

‘But—’

‘Now!’ She was so aggressive it made Fortescue jump, and suddenly Billy was being pulled away and carried towards the boat.

Lady Duff Gordon, her face almost spectral, was close behind Billy and stumbling towards the others in the boat. Fortescue caught a glimpse of Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon off
to
one side, his expression wooden.

Billy found Fortescue’s face in the crowd. ‘I won’t fail you, Mr Wickins!’ He held up the bundle of papers and was about to lower them again when a gust of
freezing wind swept along the deck. The top page of notes flapped, separated and flew up into the air. Billy went to grab for it, but it shot up, twisting and flapping out of reach. The lifeboat
slipped down a dozen feet, shuddered to a stop, swung on the support ropes and began to slide towards the water again.

Fortescue looked on in disbelief. He pushed forward, but was met by a solid wall of humanity, a crowd four deep pressed hard up against the metal rails of the ship. ‘It needs
to reach Professor Lewis!’ Fortescue shouted. ‘Department of Physics, University of . . .’

But Billy could not hear him. Egbert saw the boy’s lips move. ‘What?’ he was calling back. ‘What? Mr Wickins?’ The sound lost in the
wind.

‘Professor Lewis . . .’ The words bounced straight back at him and the lifeboat disappeared into shadow.

*

Fortescue was groaning, a horrible note of despair deep within his throat, a tortured cry of pain. He barged his way back through the throng and eventually reached
an open space on the deck close to the doors. Pausing, he drew breath. The pain in his back was excruciating, but he had to ignore it. Then he felt a new shot of agony along his left side. He
lowered a hand and brought his fingers up covered with blood. Looking down, he saw that his shirt and jacket were soaked. He ran his fingers along his side and found the nexus of the pain. A solid
object was protruding from his body – a piece of shrapnel had lodged there.

He started to feel sick and felt his face grow cold. He could not stop now. He still had one thing to do. He had to leave a record of where the other half of the notes were to be
found, especially now Billy had the full set but had no idea who to take them to. Edging towards the door, he felt incredibly weak and noticed in the light from the ship that he was trailing blood
along the deck.

As he reached the door, it swung outwards, almost knocking him off his feet. He managed to grip a handle with one hand and keep hold of the precious metal boxes with the other. A
couple of young men charged out onto the deck.

Inside the reception area there was the same medley of human and mechanical sounds. He looked around and for a moment he could not work out which way to go. Totally disorientated, he
found a chair and sat for just a few seconds. He remembered he was on C-Deck, close to his room. That, at least, was something.