One More Shovelful

I can’t recall how many boilers I’ve done. Or how long this shift has gone on.

Certainly longer than usual, but that is to be expected with the decidedly unusual circumstances.

It’s not within typical operations standards to be shifting between boilers.

Or to have lost all feeling in my feet and, soon enough, my ankles.

Indeed, it’s strictly against regulations to have seawater intruding on our working environs.

Look at me, laughing to myself. Can hypothermia work its way up from your toes to the brain? I’d say we would learn that soon enough.

But I fear I may not make it out of here to share my findings.

After all, there’s still work to be done.

It had been near time to rotate shifts when the deck had started to shake. Then the order had come to cease making steam. Cease making steam? Then what was to power the engines? How were we to make headway?

Soon enough, the answer came down.

Full stop.

Iceberg.

I’m not sure which came first: the tilting deck or the seawater.

But they came calling within short order, turning the skeptical into converts.

Within minutes, the order to resume shoveling came. We needed the pumps to purge the sea.

The lads set about it with great enthusiasm, the clear connection between that need and the water lapping at the soles of our shoes evident to even the least learned of our crew.

But even as we did our part, the water continued to creep among us and the slope of the deck continued to increase. Clear signs that perhaps others among the engineering complement were not keeping to their own duty despite our own dedication.

Above, the lights dim, nearly flicker out.

Then resurge with new intensity.

“Folly,” I say to myself. “How quick we are to doubt our own.”

Unseen, multiple decks away near the stern, at least one Electrician remained at the dials, transferring power between circuits as the seawater swallowed more and more wiring.

Just as one Fireman remained in Boiler Room 4.

His work provided the illumination I needed to perform mine.

Mine provided the steam to power the dynamos he needed to perform his.

Neither of us had left our posts.

After all, there was still work to be done.

And both our contributions keep the pumps fighting their losing battle. But even a battle lost more slowly was a worthwhile endeavor. Especially when every second gained bought all those above decks time.

Every second we kept this ship afloat was another second to don a lifejacket, find a lifeboat, and rattle off another distress call.

In Belfast, I’d seen men die for much dumber reasons.

Ah, but what is this gloom-laden talk?

In my stupor, I’d nearly let the seawater flood the boiler I’d just stoked. Nothing wakes you up like a scalding steam bath, I suppose.

Not that I’m sure I’d feel it anymore with the frigid water up to my waist.

Once the damper is dogged good and tight, I slog in the direction of the stern—uphill now—where less of the wash has gathered. There lies another boiler in need of a Fireman, and despite my aching arms and frozen legs, my hands can still hold a shovel just fine.

There’s still work to be done.

The Chief Engineer had arrived to speak with us sometime ago. Said the ship could no longer be saved and ours was now a mission of mercy. To do what we could to stave off the inevitable.

Like King Canute against the tide.

He had offered Boiler Room 4’s complement a choice: stay or go take our chances.

This slurry of frostbite and exhaustion has blurred the moments that followed that pronouncement. For me, there was no choice to be made.

My place is here.

There’s nothing left for me up there.

Not since Evangelina had bled out in the midwife’s arms, clutching our stillborn son as her face turned whiter than snow.

I’ve had a lot of dreams of that moment as I stood in the doorway, utterly helpless.

Like the waking nightmare, the blood pools across the floorboards, crawling towards my shoes.

Like the waking nightmare, I cannot bring myself to step in it. To run to my dying wife.

But in the dream, the blood chases me, intent to claim all that’s left of Evangelina and Peter.

“You can’t have me,” I roar to the empty boiler room.

Then I blink. It’s not crimson surrounding me. It’s the same damned seawater, you fool.

I could have run from this ichor, same as I’ve done a hundred times while wrapped in sweat-soaked sheets.

But this time, I faced it.

This time, I didn’t let it stop me from doing what needed to be done.

Eventually, it was only the Chief Engineer and me remaining. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves and grabbed a shovel as we worked side by side to feed coal into the furnaces.

Then the officer had looked up, seeking the source of a new groan coming from the hull. He had turned to me, uttered something I can’t quite recall as he set the shovel down.

But I am quite certain of my reply:

“There’s still work to be done.”

Perhaps he tried to convince me. Ordered me out.

Regardless, he had withdrawn. To another boiler room or a different part of the ship.

He is, after all, the Chief Engineer. He has other concerns besides the boilers.

Leave that to a Fireman, sir.

When I had become the sole Fireman of Boiler Room 4, I cannot say.

But with half the room’s boilers choked by seawater, the work is lighter than it once was.

Even so, there’s still work to be done.

The boiler was nearly where I wanted it when the groaning grew louder. I looked to my right, towards the deck slipping farther beneath the ever-advancing tide.

Finally, the Chief Engineer’s words came back to me.

“The bulkhead between us and Boiler Room 5 won’t hold as the flooding worsens and the pressure on the iron increases. We need to leave before we lose 4 to the sea completely.”

But this boiler is nearly where I want it. Where it needs to be.

And I am where I need to be.

I reckon there’s time left for one more shovelful.

***

TO THE MEMORY OF THE ENGINEER OFFICERS

OF THE R.M.S "TITANIC" WHO SHOWED

THEIR HIGH CONCEPTION OF DUTY AND THEIR

HEROISM BY REMAINING AT THEIR POSTS

– Titanic Engineers' Memorial inscription

They must have known that pumping could do no more than delay the final catastrophe, yet they stuck pluckily to their duty.

Driven back from boiler room to boiler room, fighting for every inch of draught to give time for the launching of the boats, not one of those brave officers was saved.

– Sir Archibald Denny, speaking at the unveiling of the Titanic Engineers' Memorial

***

Author’s Note

As you may have surmised from the memorial inscription, this story is inspired by the real actions of real people. Ordinary workers and engineers placed in an extraordinary situation who remained at their stations doing what they could to prolong the final descent of RMS Titanic until the bitter end.

We can look back on this event and rationalize their actions. Why leave their post when their chances of getting a spot on a lifeboat were so slim? But remember, that is only hindsight that affords that view. I’m not sure even the ship’s captain was aware just how dire the situation was in terms of the number of people who could be saved.

And the engineers wouldn’t have known about the order to save women and children first down in the bowels of the ship.

Again, we could also posit that an ordinary Fireman would believe his chances of getting a place in a lifeboat ahead of passengers and higher-ranking officers were slim.

So, what of those higher-ranking officers who might have been able to exert some level of influence to save themselves?

None of the senior engineering crew survived.

Perhaps some still abandoned their stations and attempted to save themselves, albeit unsuccessfully. But it’s been well-established that Titanic’s lights remained on until the final minutes before she slipped beneath the waves.

And as you might imagine, you cannot maintain electrical power as saltwater floods the interior without someone at the controls. And you don’t have electricity without the steam to spin the turbines.

On the historical accuracy front, it was never my intention to fully capture the inner workings of the steam and electrical systems. That knowledge would likely be out of the purview of our intrepid Fireman, anyway. Would he know about the electricians and their stations? He would likely have some idea, but either way, I took artistic liberty to pay homage to another part of the engineering crew and their contribution that fateful night in the freezing North Atlantic.

There are lots of great resources out there that go into all of this in much more detail, but here’s one I recommend that helped a great deal with this piece:

And if you enjoyed this treatment, might I suggest another story I wrote centered on Space Shuttle Challenger and her own fateful voyage: