Titanic (2 page)

‘Name?' said the man at the table. He had a large open face and short dark hair. His uniform was well pressed and his buttons gleamed. On
one corner of the table was a brass nameplate that read
Chief Purser H.W. McElroy
.

‘Billy Fleming, sir.' Billy put his hands together to stop them trembling.

‘What makes you think you could work on the Titanic, Billy?' said Mr McElroy. His accent was English. ‘We only want the best crew for her.'

‘I'm a hard worker sir, anyone in the shipyard will tell you that, sir.'

‘I'm sure you are, but most of the labourers we've seen are only suited to be deckhands or stokers. I'm hiring stewards and waiters and bellboys.'

‘Oh, I'm not a labourer, sir,' Billy said quickly. ‘I'm an apprentice fitter, but I want to do some other kind of job. Something where you don't have to…'

Billy stopped, uncertain how to continue. He had almost said
something where you don't have to risk your life every day
, but had decided that might not strike the right note. Mr McElroy finished what he was saying for him.

‘Where you don't have to get your hands dirty,' he said, and smiled.

‘That's it, sir,' said Billy, smiling back. ‘I'd like to better myself.'

‘Very commendable.'

Mr McElroy paused for a moment and studied him. Billy felt his cheeks turning red, but he held the Chief Purser's gaze. ‘Your luck might be in. I'm still looking for a couple of likely lads to be bellboys. It would mean being at the beck and call of wealthy people and doing a lot of fetching and carrying for them. Could you manage all that, Billy?'

‘Aye sir, definitely. I wouldn't let you down, sir.'

Mr McElroy tapped his pen on the table. Then he took a sheet of paper from a stack at his elbow and started writing. ‘All right, I'll give you a chance. How old are you?' Billy told him. ‘I see – you'll need your father's consent.'

‘My Da died a week ago, sir. We only buried him yesterday.'

‘I'm sorry to hear that, Billy.' Mr McElroy looked up. ‘Still got your mother?' Billy nodded. ‘She can sign it for you, just here.' He handed Billy the paper and pointed at a line that read
Consent of Parent or Guardian
. ‘Bring it back tomorrow and we'll see about getting you kitted out. Next!'

Billy stood up and moved away from the table feeling slightly dazed, the paper in his hand. The boy in the suit brushed past him but Billy took no notice. He felt a surge of joy and grinned as he walked out of the hall.

His grin vanished halfway down the stairs. There would be no job if Ma didn't sign the paper. And getting her to do that might not be so easy.

* * *

Ma sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and the paper Mr McElroy had given Billy. She had shooed the girls out of the house when Billy told her what he had done, but they had soon sneaked back in. He knew they were on the other side of the kitchen door, their ears pressed up against it.

‘Sorry if this is a bit of a shock for you, Ma,' he said.

‘It's maybe not so much of a shock as some I've had recently,' said Ma. Billy saw Da's coffin in his mind's eye and felt a wave of guilt. ‘Besides,' Ma went on quietly, her eyes fixed on his, ‘I was expecting it, so I was.'

‘Really?' said Billy, although he wasn't surprised.

‘I don't mean you getting a job on the big ship. I knew you wouldn't want to stay on at the shipyard, that's all. Not after your Da was gone.'

Billy didn't know what to say, and was silent for a moment.

‘You don't think badly of me, do you, Ma?' he said at last.

‘No, I don't, Billy. And I hope you don't think badly of your Da either. He was only trying to do his best for you.'

‘It didn't feel like that. Not sometimes, anyway.'

‘Well, your Da could be stubborn, and he should have known life is too short for arguing. But I don't mind you leaving the shipyard. I only wish you didn't have to go gallivanting off half way across the world.'

Billy smiled at her, relieved. ‘You're always saying half of Ireland has gone to America, Ma. The Titanic's maiden voyage is only to New York. I'll be back in a couple of months. You'll hardly know I've been gone.'

‘I doubt that, Billy,' she said. ‘I'll miss you every second.'

‘Are you sure it's all right, though? What about my wage?'

‘Don't you worry about that, Billy. We'll manage. Are
you
sure it's the right thing for you, though? It's a big step for someone your age.'

Billy thought for a second. It was a
huge
step for him, and a scary one. But it would be exciting too. ‘Yes, I'm sure,' he said.

‘So be it, then,' said Ma, her eyes glistening. ‘Now come and give your Ma a hug before I sign your life away on this paper.'

She held him tightly then let him go so that she could wipe her eyes with the wee hanky she always kept tucked up her sleeve. ‘I'll still worry about you, so I will,' she said. ‘The shipyard is a hard place, but sea voyages can be dangerous too.'

‘I'll be fine, Ma. Didn't you hear what the Reverend said? The Titanic is going to be unsinkable, the safest ship there's ever been.'

‘I'm glad to hear it,' she said. ‘But it still killed your Da.'

Billy frowned. He hadn't thought of it quite that way.

The next morning Ma went in with Billy and spoke to his foreman. Billy had thought it might be difficult to get out of his apprenticeship, and that Da's workmates might give him a hard time. But it wasn't, and they were pleased for him. ‘The Titanic! Good on you, Billy!' one of them said. ‘You're better off out of this hellhole. A life of excitement and adventure, that's the ticket.'

‘Not
too
much excitement and adventure, I hope,' said Ma, and the men had laughed and clapped him on the back and wished him all the best. Then Ma had gone home to the girls – she had left Ada in charge of the young ones, but
they always fought – and Billy went to the offices to find Mr McElroy. He handed over the signed paper, and Mr McElroy smiled and shook his hand.

‘Welcome to the Titanic's crew, Billy,' he said. ‘You are now an employee of the White Star Line, a fine company and the owners of the greatest ship the world has ever seen. It will be the making of you, I'm sure.'

Over the next few days Billy was instructed in his duties by Mr McElroy, who had plenty of patience, and some of the senior stewards, who had a lot less. He was kitted out with his uniform too, and Ma was impressed by the military-style black trousers, smart red jacket and pillbox hat. But his sisters howled with laughter, and Billy himself thought it would take some getting used to.

He also met the other bellboys. There were ten altogether, most of them decent lads. One, however, was the boy Billy had briefly sat next to on the day he'd got the job. George Anderson was a couple of years older than the rest of them, a big, solid lad with slicked-back black hair. He
was very cocky, and had clearly decided that he didn't like Billy Fleming.

Things came to a head on the day Mr McElroy took the bellboys out to the Titanic. The hull had been launched a year ago, and now, less than a week before sea trials, the ship was tied up in the outer dock and accessible only by boat. Billy felt excited as he sat with the other boys in the dinghy. It chugged across the choppy waters, the great ship looming over them, its four funnels outlined against the clear sky, its smooth side a seventy-foot steel cliff.

Suddenly he felt someone cuff his head from behind. His pillbox hat flew off and landed at his feet, and he snatched it up just before it rolled into a pool of dirty water in the dinghy's bilges. Mr McElroy was standing in the bows and looked round at that moment. ‘Be careful with that hat, Billy,' he said. ‘You'll have to pay for it out of your wages if you lose it.'

Billy quickly put his hat back on. ‘Aye sir,' he said. ‘I'll be sure to look after it.'

Mr McElroy turned his gaze forwards again, and Billy looked round to see who had knocked
off his hat. George Anderson was sitting directly behind him, his arms folded and a smug grin on his face. The other lads laughed and nudged each other. ‘I'll be sure to look after it, sir,' George whispered so Mr McElroy wouldn't hear, mocking Billy in a sing-song voice. ‘Aye sir, no sir, three bags full, sir.' There was more laughter, the hissing of suppressed giggles.

Billy scowled, but just then the dinghy arrived at the Titanic, clunking against a small platform. A ladder rose from it to a gangway in the hull about thirty feet up. Billy climbed with the others and soon found himself standing at one end of a long corridor inside the great ship. Men bustled past and in and out of the doors lining the corridor, hurrying to get the interior finished. ‘Follow me, boys,' said Mr McElroy, and he strode off.

The Chief Purser gave them the full tour of what seemed like a floating city. They started in the depths, in the engine room with its vast boilers and gleaming machinery and giant coal bunkers. Engineers swarmed everywhere, checking pipes and tapping dials, and stokers
shovelled coal into the furnaces, ready for the moment when the order would be given to raise steam. From there Mr McElroy took them to see the stores, colossal holds filled with all sorts of supplies for the voyage – thousands of crates and barrels and sacks.

They used the utility stairwells – narrow metal stairs meant for the crew – to move up through the ship, and passed through the third-class accommodation, barely stopping to take in the low-ceilinged dark spaces with their stacks of bunks. Mr McElroy hurried them past the second-class cabins, which were nicer, and more comfortable, than Billy's home and those of his friends.

The first-class cabins and staterooms, however, were something else. Billy had never seen anything like them in his life. A few were enormous, more like the rooms of a great castle or mansion than cabins on a ship. They were all luxuriously fitted out as well, with their own bathrooms and lavatories – no one Billy knew even had a bathroom in their house, let alone a toilet.

‘Now, boys,' said Mr McElroy, ‘I want you to remember at all times that you'll be serving people who can afford this kind of accommodation. They'll be first-class passengers and they'll expect first-class service.'

‘Are we not allowed to help other passengers, sir?' said Billy.

‘Don't be daft,' said George. ‘Why would you want to?'

Some of the boys sniggered, but stopped when they saw Mr McElroy's frown. ‘I doubt you'll have time, Billy. The first-class passengers will keep you pretty busy. And you won't often see anybody from the other classes – the ship has been designed so they're unlikely to meet each other.'

Billy couldn't help thinking that if he and Ma and the girls were emigrating, they'd probably have to travel in third class with the poor people. Mr McElroy had already shown the boys their cabin for the voyage – a cramped space in the crew quarters near the bows, just above more third-class accommodation. What gave rich people the right to sleep in luxury cabins? Billy
knew the answer, of course. The difference was money. Rich people could buy anything.

‘What about tips, sir?' said George. ‘They're allowed, aren't they?'

‘You're not allowed to
ask
for a tip,' Mr McElroy said sternly. ‘But you can accept one if it's offered. Right, now there's a little more for you to see…'

Mr McElroy led them off again. He showed them the Grand Staircase, the amazing entrance, like something in a palace, that only first-class passengers could use, and pointed out the enormous chandelier hanging from the ceiling high above them, although it would have been pretty hard to miss, Billy thought. They visited the Parisian Café and the first-class restaurant and finally made their way on deck.

The sun was shining, and Billy stood at the handrail, gazing at the shipyard and the narrow streets of Belfast in the near distance, the glittering sea far below him, the misty Mountains of Mourne beyond.

‘Right, wait here for me lads,' said Mr McElroy. ‘I just need to pick up some papers
from my office, then we can go back down to the dinghy.'

He strode off again and the boys relaxed, laughing and joking with each other. Billy glanced at the bridge. He noticed a couple of uniformed officers up there, and realised that the one with a white beard was Captain Smith – he'd seen a picture of him in a newspaper.

Then somebody pushed Billy in the back.

It was George, of course. Billy whipped round and glared.

‘I wouldn't stand too close to that handrail if I were you, Billy,' said George. ‘You might trip and fall over. It's a long way down, so it is.'

George was grinning, hands on his hips, performing for the other boys. They gathered round as boys do, hoping for trouble, maybe a fight.

Billy clenched his fists and squared up to George. He'd had enough of being pushed around and laughed at and knew there was only one way to end it.

‘Oh, so you want to make something of it?' said George, his grin broadening.

Billy was about to hit him – but glanced up at the bridge once more and saw Captain Smith staring down. Billy lowered his fists. How could he get into a fight with the Captain watching? It would be a sure way to lose his job.

‘Leave me alone, Anderson,' Billy said and walked off, pushing past.

‘Yellow belly!' George said. ‘I always knew you were a coward!'

Billy kept right on walking, but he could feel his cheeks burning.

Billy was busy over the next few days, but he still found time to brood on what had happened. He just couldn't get the scene beneath the ship's bridge out of his mind – especially not the word George had used to describe him.