Culpa

A bright moon and a dark sea can hypnotize you, take you away from the swaying of a ship or the scurry of rats on its decks. Moon and sea, worlds apart, yet as entangled in one another as two cosmic lovers can be. On the horizon they meet, the dark ripples of the sea, made only visible by the moon’s light sent to dance upon the surface, melting into the black cloak of sky the moon wears so well.

When those entrancing effects of a celestial mirage fade away, you may find yourself back in the sway of a ship, back with those scurrying rats. That’s exactly where I found myself, on the deck of the SS Californian, having left Royal Albert Dock nine days earlier, and more rats on board than men.

It was the earliest of hours, fifteenth of April, and we had stopped our travels for the night, after finding the watery depths surrounding the ship to be decorated with chunks of ice, jutting out of the water like glacial stalagmites. I had been in the cabins sweeping the floors, swatting at any and every rat that dared stick around long enough to challenge my broom. As I stood facing the corner of the room, dueling a rat-turned-dragon with my broom-turned-Excalibur, Captain Lord entered the room, followed closely by Chief Officer Stewart. The captain’s eyes caught me engaged in my life-or-death battle against my tiny enemy, before glazing over with disinterest.

“We’re stopping for the night, Stewart. Damned ice all around.” Captain Lord said, his stern face made even more so by the shadows of the room. Stewart had walked over to a small desk and leaned against it, picking up some sort of tool to tinker with as he spoke with the captain.

“Aye, sir. Probably best.” Stewart said.

Captain Lord removed his cap and brushed his dark hair back with a single motion. He squinted, taking a couple steps forward toward the port window. Something on the other side had caught his eye.

“Stewart, are you aware of any other ships in the area?”

“Aye, sir. Only the Titanic.” Stewart replied.

“Have Cyril send out to her. Tell her we’re stopped for the night on account of ice.” Captain Lord said. Officer Stewart stood up straight and looked up from his tinkering. “Aye, sir,” he said, “I’ll see to it now.”

Captain Lord ran his hand through his hair one last time and returned the cap to his head. He nodded his approval and left through the same door he had entered.

“Aye, boy, stop with the pest and come ‘ere!” Stewart shouted. I forfeited the battle, a battle I was losing, and let my opponent saunter away, victorious. Stewart shoved a piece of paper he had just scribbled on into my palm and shouted, “Take ‘is to Cyril. Have ‘em send it out as a ‘MSG’. An’ be quick about it, aye?”

“Aye, sir.” I said.

I made my way to Cyril’s post. It was a dingy room with bad lighting and smelled of stale smoke. Cyril sat in front of his radio transmitter, chomping on the soggy end of an old unlit cigar. I put the paper down in front of him. “From Chief Officer Stewart, sir. To go out as ‘MSG’.” I said.

His eyes narrowed as he picked up the slip of paper and read it over slowly, his lips moving silently with every word. Cyril grunted and turned towards the transmitter, readying himself to set to work.

I returned to the cabins and found Officer Stewart in the same spot I’d left him. He didn’t acknowledge that I had entered the room, didn’t even look up from the small tool he still fiddled with. I gathered my broom and returned it to a small closet. Cyril entered the cabin and grunted as he did so, summoning Stewarts gaze away from his toy.

“Message went out successfully, sir.” Cyril said.

“Aye. Response?” Stewart asked.

“Aye, sir. Something along the lines of ‘Shut up, I’m busy.” Cyril said, offering a smile short of some teeth. Stewart shrugged.

I went up on deck and found Second Officer Stone keeping watch. He gestured at me as I approached his post. “Aye, boy, how’s them cabins?” he asked.

“Clean, sir.” I said. He tilted his head and looked at me with judging eyes.

“Well, cleaner, sir.” I corrected.

Stone cracked a smile and I let out a silent breath of relief. He slapped my arm gently with the back of his hand.

“You see those lights? Maybe five miles out?” Stone asked.

“Aye, sir. Chief Officer Stewart says it’s to be the Titanic, sir.” I said. “He had Cyril send word out.”

“Gibson!” Stone shouted up into the black sky.

“Aye, sir?” the black sky responded.

“Signal out. Give our condition and position.” Stone yelled.

A bright light came alive above us on the ship, a Morse light flashing and blinking its messages across the ice-chilled waters below. Stone looked out over the sea, silent for several minutes. Off in the distance, no man-made star returned our communication. Several more minutes passed.

Suddenly, the sky above the distant ship held five white rockets, looking quite small at such a distance. Stone sucked in air through his teeth.

“Aye, sir! Are those signals distress?” Gibson shouted down from somewhere in the blackness above.

Stone hesitated. “I don’t believe so!” he shouted back. Then he said to me, “Run and wake Captain Lord. Tell him the Titanic has fired…” he looked out over the ocean and counted, “…fired five rockets. Possibly a company signal.”

“Aye, sir.” I said but I was already on my way. At the captain’s cabin, I thwacked anxiously on the door. Captain Lord opened it a moment later, leaning on the door frame and squinting at the light from the hall. “What is it?” he asked.

“Officer Stone sent me. We signaled earlier via Morse lamp to the Titanic. No response. They’ve now fired five rockets above the ship.”

“Distress?” Lord asked.

“Officer Stone thinks not,” I answered, “but if they are, we’re the closest ship, sir. We can-”

Captain Lord raised a hand to silence me and sighed, a comma of hair had fallen across his forehead and he returned it with the same hand that had quieted me. “Have Stone keep an eye on it. If anything about the ship changes, he should report. Have Gibson keep trying with the lamp.”

“Shall we send another wire, sir?” I asked.

“No. Just keep going with the lamp.” Lord replied through a yawn, before shutting the cabin door and leaving me in the hallway. I stood there a moment before returning to Stone, contemplating whether or not to knock again. If they were indeed signals of distress, we could arrive more quickly than any other ship. I let out a huff at the captain’s door and turned, leaving the hallway with some urgency.

I returned to Officer Stone, relaying everything I had been told. Stone looked uneasy, as if he had fallen ill while I was away awaking the captain. “It’s all very queer. A ship just doesn’t fire rockets out over the sea for no good reason. I don’t know. They can’t be distress signals can they?” he asked to no one in particular. The eye of the Morse lamp overhead blinked furiously, sending its telepathic thoughts out to the other ship.

Gibson yelled back down to us, or more likely, to Stone. “Aye, sir! She looks to have her big side out of the water, sir!” At some point, three more white rockets launched into the air, offering from our vantage point a noiseless production and three thin streaks above the horizon.

Around four o’clock that morning, a couple hours after the liner off in the distance had gone out of our view, Chief Officer Stewart came to relieve Officer Stone of his watch. I was still awake and at the post, staring off into the patch of world that had seemed to harbor a ship just hours ago. Shortly after Stone was relieved, Captain Lord strolled onto the deck and sent Stewart to find Cyril, requesting he send out an inquiry about the ship we’d encountered in the night.

I stood in silence with the captain as he scanned the horizon. The morning had grown colder and I bundled my jacket around my neck, observing the cold turn my breath into harmless smoke with every exhale. Cyril and Stewart returned. Neither of them looked well. Cyril held his hat in his hands. This was the first time I had ever seen Cyril without a hunk of cigar clenched in his teeth. Stewart looked at his feet, then pulled his head up, his eyes looking past Captain Lord and out into the morning sea.

“Word’s come in, sir,” said Stewart.

“From the Frankfurt, sir.” Cyril interrupted.

“Aye,” said Stewart, annoyed at the interruption, “the Titanic, she’s sank, sir.”

Captain Lord swallowed hard. He stayed looking ahead, but was no longer looking at Officer Stewart, but through him. For a moment, I imagined where Captain Lord had gone, for he was certainly no longer with us, even though he stood there like a hollowed tree, willing to go down with the next gust of wind. Perhaps, in that moment, Captain Lord had allowed his mind to transport him across time and space, onto the deck of the Titanic rather than the Californian, taking in each and every shriek of panic. Maybe he’d been taken to a lifeboat, aimlessly drifting on the unkind sea, huddled with others, scared out of their wits. Maybe he was in the icy water, treading for his life, wondering how it would happen, how he would die. Would his heart stop from the freezing water, or would the mouth of the sea open up and swallow him whole? The captain slowly returned to us. A hand that was silently being told by its owner not to tremble lit a cigarette.

“Raise the crew. I want us underway immediately.” Lord said. He sucked cigarette smoke deep into his lungs. “Who’s on the scene? Anybody?”

“Aye, sir. We believe Carpathia to be. Or at least be on the way.” Cyril responded. Captain Lord exhaled, the smoke and condensation mingling above him.

I stood on the deck with Captain Lord that morning as we slowly maneuvered our way across the minefield of ice. He remained quiet, as can be expected of a man who may have guilt creeping in the alleys of his mind. After steering through the ice, we changed direction, heading south. Gibson spotted the Carpathia off behind us and to the east. We quickly changed course, heading northeast towards the steam liner.

We arrived sometime after eight that morning. The Carpathia, with the few found survivors on board, left soon after, leaving us to search for anyone else who may remain.

I stood by the captain’s side as we surveyed the waters. The night before, we had been surrounded by masses of ice that littered the sea. Now, we were surrounded by what was left of the Titanic. Furniture, debris, bodies, it all bobbed calmly up and down in the water.

I noticed the captain leave his body again, just like he had done hours before, when the Titanic’s fate had first been revealed to him. However, I felt his mind had not travelled to the same place it had before. I believe before, his mind’s eye probably imagined the horrors of the scene. The same horrors we could have provided aid against, had he just made the decision. The same horrors that were no longer imagined, but absolutely real, and right in front of us. Now, as we stood in the early morning sun, looking at the scraps the sea had left after she had devoured the ship, I believed that his mind had instead travelled a great distance, travelled somewhere probably on the other side of the world, where his feet were planted firmly in the ground’s dirt, as far away from this hell as his guilty mind could take him.