Titanic 2012 Part 5

I'd debated all morning whether or not to bring it, finally deciding it was far more accurate than my sometimes-spotty memory.

The noise level in the room exploded when Harlan entered and now began to subside, the reporters eager for their story. Harlan bent down to the forest of microphones.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I want to thank all of you for coming. Rather than make a statement now, I am going to reserve my personal remarks for the christening ceremony. I will, however, entertain your questions."

A swarthy reporter with a mustache raised his hand.

Harlan pointed to the man. "Yes, sir."

The man stood and consulted a PDA held in his pudgy hands.

"Pierre Emile, La Monde. Mr. Astor, the people of my country would like to know...why it is you have done this?"

Harlan turned toward me, our eyes making contact. He nodded knowingly, as if to say, "I see what you mean."

"You get right to the point, don't you?" Harlan said to the reporter.

The room erupted into laughter.

The conference lasted for half an hour, adjourning when Trina received word that Kate Winslet's limousine had arrived. Harlan led the way out of the room and the reporters followed. I caught up with him when he neared the entrance. "You enjoy your little surprise last night?" he asked, feigning a nonchalance I knew he didn't feel.

"I'm not telling. And where the h.e.l.l did you get that champagne, anyway?"

He shot me a conspiratorial wink and said, "Moet et Chandon have kept a case from every vintage year since 1895. I bought the one from 1912. We're using one of the bottles for the christening."

I had to laugh. It was a typical Harlan Astor touch. G.o.d only knew how much money he'd parted with to persuade that prestigious winery to part with that year's case.

Outside the building, I was startled to see the entire street fronting the black hangar now completely filled with spectators.

Several helicopters circled overhead, cameras mounted to their noses, their blades chopping through the air with the usual whock-whock sound.

When the crowd spotted Harlan, they cheered en ma.s.se, a happy, l.u.s.ty sound of those who'd completed a job well done. No doubt they'd also heard my friend had paid his bill in full.

We started down the wide steps and the crowd parted in front of us, like a scene from an old Cecil B. DeMille epic. Voices yelled endearments, and hands reached out to Harlan, seeming to caress him when he pa.s.sed. I realized then I'd misjudged these people. He'd seduced them with his dream, as surely as he'd seduced me.

Farther down the road, we met Kate Winslet's limousine, the chauffeur and bodyguards keeping the crowd at bay with baleful glares and intimidating size. One of the bodyguards opened the rear door and the winsome actress alighted, the sun striking her strawberry-blonde locks, making them glow as if aflame. She caught sight of Harlan and threw her arms around him. The crowd cheered again.

"Harlan, love, you look absolutely smas.h.i.+ng," she said.

"So do you, Kate," he replied.

She laughed, her blue eyes sparkling.

"And you're a bleeding liar. I'm as fat as a dray horse."

At Harlan's request, she'd dressed for the occasion in a replica of the purple and white boarding dress from the film, the wide purple hat perfectly accenting the lines of her face. And while she was now a mature woman of thirty-seven, she was far from fat.

Harlan turned and said, "Kate, I'd like you to meet my friend, Trevor Hughes."

Her eyes widened. "Good Lord, the mystery writer?"

I felt myself blush.

"Guilty as charged," I replied, taking her proffered hand. Her skin felt cool and silken.

"I b.l.o.o.d.y love your books! I've read every one."

To say I was flattered would do a disservice to her compliment. I was, as the cliche goes, speechless.

"We'd better get this show on the road," Harlan said, breaking the spell. "Kate has a plane to catch."

Moving again, we stepped onto the concrete jetty and made our way to the reviewing stand. The crowd pushed forward, wanting to follow, but were held back by a cordon of armed police.

The reviewing stand, while large and accommodating to the dozens of dignitaries crowded onto it, nevertheless looked insignificant compared to the hangar, like a wart on a giant. Guards on the platform ushered all of us to one side, allowing the crowd and the cameras to get an unimpeded view of Harlan and Kate Winslet. I saw my friend now had a microphone in his hand, and when he spoke, his voice boomed out of the two speaker towers on either side of the platform.

"One hundred years ago, when my ancestor, John Jacob Astor IV set sail aboard the original t.i.tanic, he had no idea what fate had in store for him and the 2200 others on board. They were of an age when nature and fate were presumed to be forces subservient to Man, and they learned of their folly in the most horrific of ways. And yet, my ancestor, and the others who died aboard that grand vessel, showed the world that the Spirit of Man was greater than all his works combined, and their sacrifice was the greatest of all legacies to come out of that harrowing moment in time.

"Now, we are at the dawn of a new age, an age that frightens many with its rapid changes and dizzying complexities, an age where once again we must demonstrate to the world that the Spirit of Man will not be daunted.

"Many have questioned my sanity. Many have questioned why I have spent such a vast fortune rebuilding this, the greatest and most tragic of all s.h.i.+ps. I say to all those who would condemn me that they are a part of why our culture is poised on the brink of moral bankruptcy. And I say to you now that I have done this to honor those who died on her a century ago and to offer the world a new symbol of our spiritual rebirth....

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the spirit of a new age.... Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...t.i.tANIC!"

A rumbling began under our feet, and at first I feared an earthquake. Then I realized the hangar was moving, sliding back on its bed of rails. A hush fell upon the crowd and thousands of eyes watched the great black ma.s.s move back farther and farther, picking up momentum.

The gantry appeared, foot after foot of crisscrossed steel girders. Suddenly, the hangar's leading edge pa.s.sed the reviewing stand and the bow of the s.h.i.+p stood revealed. Seconds later, I saw the word "t.i.tANIC" spelled out in giant twelve-inch yellow letters.

The crowd roared.

I moved back against the railing of the reviewing stand and looked up, craning my neck. The first funnel appeared, black smoke belching from it.

Someone had fired the boilers. A minute later, the second funnel emerged...then the third, and finally the fourth. They looked like giant guardsmen marching in perfect single file. Five minutes later, the entire s.h.i.+p stood revealed in the late morning sun, its fresh paint gleaming.

Before the t.i.tanic could be launched, the hangar sh.e.l.l had to be removed. When the hangar stopped moving, two Sikorsky skycranes moved into position, hooked up their cables and flew off toward another part of the yard, the hangar sh.e.l.l suspended between them. In any other situation, the sight would have been awesome. As it was, it could not compete with the magnificence that was the new t.i.tanic.

With the sounds of the Sikorskys fading in the distance, Harlan helped Kate up the steps on the scaffolding leading to the bow. I had to hand it to her, she carried it off like the trouper she was, climbing up those rickety-looking steel steps with aplomb in that tight, confining dress.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder just then, and I turned to find Trina at my side. She handed me a bottle of the 1912 Dom Perignon sheathed in a plastic mesh to prevent injury from flying gla.s.s.

"Mr. Astor requests you join him for the christening."

"Me?"

I suddenly felt as if the world's eyes were on me. In fact, they were.

She nodded and disappeared into the crowd of dignitaries. Swallowing my stage fright, I gripped the bottle, holding it like a wide receiver running for the goal line, and moved toward the steel steps. I have to admit to a mild fear of heights. They make my knees feel as if they're going to buckle. So, I kept my eyes on Harlan and Kate while I climbed.

"How does it feel to have a front row seat, kiddo?" Harlan whispered, taking the bottle from me.

"Like I'm in a fishbowl," I said.

He grinned and attached the bottle to a harness at the end of a long rope. I looked upward and saw that it was tied off somewhere about twenty feet in front of us. The bow itself stood a little farther out.

One good shove and the champagne bottle would slam right against the peak.

With the bottle secured, Harlan tugged on the rope, testing it, then handed the bottle to Kate. She swung it back and forth a few times, and looked at him questioningly. He nodded, extending the microphone to her.

"In the name of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, and by the grace of G.o.d, I christen thee...R.M.S. t.i.tanic! May G.o.d bless her and all who sail on her."

She reared back and let the bottle fly. It swung on its short arc shattering against the bow peak with a resounding pop. Champagne sprayed back on us and Kate shrieked with laughter, yanking off her hat and spinning it into the air.

Like gunshots, explosive bolts holding the s.h.i.+p in place began firing all along its keel, and a split-second later, the giant piston of the hydraulic launch trigger pushed forward. With a deep groan, the giant vessel slipped backward into the water on rails slathered with over fifteen tons of grease, giant chains attached to stanchions on the slipway pulling taut to check its momentum.

Cheering, the crowd surged along the quay, keeping pace.

Sixty seconds later, she floated in the harbor, free of her drydock and ready for her historic voyage. Her tri-tone whistle blew, and from everywhere in the yard, steam whistles answered, saluting her birth, while half a dozen tugboats pulled alongside in preparation for her escort out of the harbor.

Tendrils of steam escaped from narrow pipes fitted alongside the first three funnels, and columns of black smoke belched out from the mouths of the funnels themselves, a sign the mammoth reciprocating engines had started. A look to the stern confirmed it: the triple screws churned up the water, now brown with silt.

On deck, resplendent in their new White Star uniforms, the crew saluted and waved. According to Harlan, they would now take a short shakedown cruise, then head to Southampton for provisioning: he wanted the pa.s.sengers to see her for the first time at the place from which she originally sailed.

Harlan left to escort Kate to the airport, but most of the crowd remained behind for perhaps another half an hour. I couldn't leave, either; t.i.tanic held me in her thrall. I watched in awe while the tugs guided her toward the mouth of the harbor, a lump in my throat. My friend's dream had come true.

And soon, in ways I could never imagine, so would mine....

4.

I set foot on the reborn t.i.tanic one hundred years to the day her namesake first sailed. After the christening, I returned to Boston and spent the next week and a half making sure my publisher was happy with the revisions to Conrad's Revenge, conferring with Marty and my new editor at Mannheim Books about the t.i.tanic project, and trying to relax.

I finally gave up and left four days early, taking those few extra days to explore the English countryside before making my way to Southampton. I'd also tried to reach Harlan in the interim, but he'd proven to be elusive.

Now, here I was, standing on the quayside, clutching my computer shoulder case and my carryall and watching the most awe-inspiring sight of my life: the t.i.tanic being readied for her maiden voyage.

Held fast to the docks by hawsers as thick as a man's arm, she dwarfed the buildings around her, funnels rising to nearly one hundred and fifty feet in the air-a reincarnated jewel sparkling in the sun.

Antic.i.p.ation and excitement crackled in the early spring chill, and I could read it in the faces of everyone I saw.

And people were everywhere.

Hundreds, maybe thousands, milled around or stood staring at the magnificent s.h.i.+p, their eyes wide with wonder; White Star crewmen, proud in their new uniforms, directed the loading of luggage and cargo, their voices shouting above the din; well-wishers hugged family members, eyes filled with tears, last-minute farewells whispered into anxious ears; and pa.s.sengers streamed into the belly of the s.h.i.+p through the three different gangways for First, Second, and Third Cla.s.ses.

It gave me a curious sense of deja vu; the sight bore a remarkable resemblance to the boarding scene from Cameron's film, which I'd seen perhaps a dozen times. The only things that broke the illusion were the occasional anachronism: a jet plane streaking overhead, sleek ultramodern cars parked by the quay, and news crews, their bright camera lights scattered about like tiny novas.

Jostled from behind by a crewman carrying his duffle bag slung over his shoulder, I strode toward the First Cla.s.s gangway. Reached by a winding flight of stairs, the gangway stood suspended fifty feet from the ground. Again, my fear of heights gripped me when I stepped onto the narrow gangway, feeling it sway under the tramping of dozens of pairs of feet. A man nudged me from behind.

"Move along, there's a good lad," he said. His precise British accent startled me into movement.

I kept my eyes glued to the B-deck hatchway, and marched across as fast as the traffic allowed, breathing a small sigh of relief when I reached it. A White Star crewman, his peaked cap set at jaunty angle, addressed me when I came abreast of him. "Your name, sir?" he said, looking down at his clipboard. I noticed it was made of solid hardwood, possibly mahogany, and fitted with polished bra.s.s fittings.

Old, yet new.

"Trevor Hughes," I replied.

The crewman scanned the list through steel-rimmed bifocals, his lips pursed. "Ahh, yes, Mr. Hughes. Starboard side. Suite B-57/59."

Harlan had done it again. I'd been given P.O.S.H. accommodations: Port Out/Starboard Home. At least it was home for me. Smiling, I thanked the crewman and stepped onto B-deck, my soft-soled shoes squeaking on the teakwood decking.

One thing I'd noticed was that more than a few people were dressed in period clothing, making me feel like one of those anachronisms. I'd thought of doing so myself, but could not work up the nerve, fearing I would be the only one. I should have guessed more than a few would succ.u.mb to the temptation, this being the greatest and most expensive re-enactment in history.

A middle-aged man dressed in tweeds and a starched collar so tall it resembled a neck-brace, pa.s.sed me with a smile and a tip of his derby hat, and I was altogether glad I'd opted for modern comfort.

My suite, B-57/59, while not one of the "millionaire suites," one of which I subsequently discovered right next door, was nevertheless a study in opulence: a tasteful mixture of Empire and Old Dutch styles, the suite was paneled in a dark walnut-stained mahogany accented with polished bra.s.s wall sconces and fittings.

The walls above the wainscoting were covered in a richly brocaded green silk, echoed in the divan and two Biedermeier chairs. The bed, a four-poster style with fluted columns topped by a wooden canopy, was nestled into the corner just to the left of the stout paneled front door. I tested the mattress, my hand sinking into its down-filled softness.

Definitely not for those with bad backs, I mused.

Turning back into the room, I noticed a framed black-and-white photo of an Edwardian couple affixed to the back of the door. The legend underneath identified them as the suite's original 1912 occupants: Arthur Larned Ryerson, Sr., and his wife, Emily. Apparently, for them, the voyage had been a sad one from the outset. The Ryersons, along with three of their children, were returning to the States for the funeral of their eldest son, Arthur, Jr., recently killed in an automobile accident. Ryerson, a homely silver-haired man in his early sixties, appeared stiff and formal, while his elegant wife stared into the camera with haunted eyes.

The portrait was a compelling and poignant touch, giving me a feeling of close connection to the past, and making me wonder what became of Emily and the children in the wake of the tragedy. According to the printed legend, Arthur, Sr.-like so many other men of his cla.s.s-had not survived.

I resumed my exploration of the suite. A quick look into the other bedroom revealed a mirror image of my room with the bathroom shared between them. There was even another smaller room, B-61, accessed through an adjoining door, that would have accommodated my servant, if I'd had one. It seemed a waste to have all of this to myself.

Back in B-59, I threw my shoulder case and carryall onto the bed and began unpacking, eager to go on deck to witness the departure. When I opened the closet to hang my suits, I was surprised to find a set of tails, circa 1912, replete with brushed beaver top hat, opera cloak and all the accessories, including a set of pearl stud cufflinks and what appeared to be solid gold collar studs. A note written on cream-colored paper stuck halfway out of the breast pocket. I pulled it out and opened it. It was a reproduction of the original t.i.tanic stationery. At the top of the sheet in the left-hand corner was the White Star Line's red and white burgee, and to the right were the words: On board R.M.S. "t.i.tanic." Underneath that was a blank line for the month and the numerals 201, with the last number of the year left blank. The note itself had been written in black ink with a fountain pen, and it took me a moment to recognize the shaky scrawl as Harlan's: If you are going to dine with "the better half" you'd better dress the part. See you in the First Cla.s.s Dining Saloon at eight. Harlan.

And though the handwriting disturbed me, I couldn't help smiling at his allusion to Billy Zane's infamous line from the film. The t.i.tanic's tri-tone whistle blew and I checked my watch.

Almost noon. Sailing time.

Grabbing my iPod touch off the writing desk, I hurried from the stateroom, taking the stairs up to the Boat deck. Pa.s.sengers clogged the rails, waving and shouting hysterically. Somewhere out on the quay a mid-size bra.s.s band struck up "Oh, You Beautiful Doll," and the crowd on the dock cheered back. Crewmen scurried about untying the hawsers from the cleats on the forecastle and p.o.o.p deck and heaving them onto the quay, where dockworkers set about coiling the thick hemp ropes.

I moved to the starboard side and spotted four stout tugboats already alongside, ready to a.s.sist the t.i.tanic out of the harbor. The tugs blew their whistles simultaneously and the t.i.tanic answered with a blast of her own.

And then she began to move.

The cheering of the crowds, both on and off the s.h.i.+p, reached a crescendo. I returned to the port side, finding a s.p.a.ce at the railing next to a middle-aged woman. She smiled at me and I nodded back, totally comprehending her nonverbal message. Yes, it was grand to be here.

A helicopter shot by, prompting me to glance upward. There were a dozen or more circling overhead, their Wescam-mounted Hi-Def cameras ogling us like voyeurs. There were more cameras on the quay, both amateur and professional, recording our departure from every conceivable angle. In a way, I was a camera, of sorts, too. It would be my memories, coupled with those whose images and voices I captured on my iPod touch who would paint the most vivid picture of this voyage. I wondered who would be my first interviewee and how I should choose him or her.

Should I walk up cold, or get to know them first? It was something to which I'd only given minimal thought and it bothered me. I'd never done non-fiction before, at least none that involved this kind of technique. Library research was a different animal. Here I became a part of the story.

It took the better part of thirty minutes for the s.h.i.+p to clear the Solent. But once she hit the English Channel, her engines opened up and I felt the surge of power. I fully intended to explore the s.h.i.+p from bow to stern, but I had the entire voyage for that. Right now I was suddenly eager to visit the wheelhouse.