The Cats Left The Ship

By Rick Hartford

Ratso Rizzo and Itchy Brother stood at the bow of the great ship surveying the horizon.

“I got a bad feeling about this trip,” Ratso said. Itchy Brother nodded, his tail twitching.

Both rats had come up from below, where they lived deep into the hull of the Titanic, on its maiden voyage to New York City. Since they lived in the deepest part of the ship the rats were privy to the deep sounds of the ocean. But those sounds had been changing as late, causing Ratso to come to the conclusion that as time passed, underwater glaciers, or icebergs, were growing closer to the surface of the water. The trip to the bow was to try to get a visual on the icebergs, but they could see nothing.

“I don’t think that any of the crew is watching for icebergs either,” Itchy said. “If your estimation is correct we are going to collide with an iceberg before the night is over.”

“And there is a good chance that the hull will be breached and the ship will sink, with us on it,” Ratso said.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Itchy said.

“I’ve come up with a plan,” Ratso told him.

“Remember last night when we went up to the galley to look for leftovers from dinner? Well, in the coatroom next to the dining area I spotted a very long mink coat. Might have been Mrs. Astor’s, actually.”

“So how does that help us?” Itchy said.

‘My idea is to hide inside the coat,” Ratso said. “Coats, actually. We’ll need about five.”

“Why?” said Itchy.

“Perfect cover for us. We get under the coats with our families, women and baby rats first, of course, and make our way to the lifeboats. We steal on board of the rescue craft and then wait for the general alarm to go off.”

I know there is more than a good chance we will be discovered, but we don’t have any options,” Ratso said.

“And what’s going to happen after everybody gets into the lifeboats?” Itchy said.

“We will most likely get picked up by another ship and at that point we are home free.”

The two went down into the hull and told the others of their plan. Then it was a matter of getting under the coats and beginning the long journey up to the upper deck, taking the employee staircases and then slipping out through the reinforced steel door to the bow, which was unattended.

When all of the rats were on the lifeboats Ratso and Itchy went from one boat to another, making sure that the rats were tucked neatly in the narrow bow of the lifeboats, in back of the lifejackets and first aid containers.

They waited for hours when, in the middle of the night, the alarms came and soon passengers, many of them drunk, clamored aboard the lifeboats, launched by the davits.

Ratso listened forlornly as the ships chamber group played “Nearer, My God, to Thee.“

Suddenly, he thought of something. He whispered to Itchy. “Itchy, did you happen to see Jenny, the ship’s cat? She could mean real trouble for us.”

“I heard that she left the ship with her kittens before the boat set sail,” Itchy said.

“So the cats left the ship,” Ratso said.

“Ain’t that a hole in the boat.”

Author’s Note:

Legend has it that the caretaker of Jenny, Jim Mulholland, a Titanic crew member, saw Jenny taking her kittens off the ship before it sailed. He took it as an omen and decided not to board the ship on its maiden voyage. He credited Jenny with saving his life. '''''''