The Titanic Secret (40 page)

With a growl of rage that was almost feral in its intensity, Voss leapt at him, and the two men crashed down onto the roof of the lounge and tumbled down the sloping steel plates towards the edge, struggling together.

Then the lights of the
Titanic
flickered once and went out for the last time. With a shattering roar, the stern of the ship simply fell away, vanishing from sight. The steel of the hull had finally given way, the metal ripped apart by the enormous weight, and the mighty ship was instantly torn in two. And at the same moment, the bow section dropped away beneath the struggling men with sickening rapidity, and plunged smoothly beneath the waves, vanishing for ever.

Almost immediately, he and Voss were totally immersed, both men gasping for breath in the freezing water as debris swirled all around them.

15 April 1912
RMS
Titanic

The shock of hitting the sea was overwhelming, the plunge into the icy water heart-stopping and brutal. In an instant, it felt to Tremayne as if his body temperature had fallen off the scale. He’d never been so cold in his life, never thought he could be that cold and still live.

The water swirled around him as the massive bow section of the
Titanic
, virtually one half of the huge liner, sank rapidly into the depths. But there seemed to be little of the suction effect he’d been expecting, perhaps because it
was
the bow, designed to carve through the waves, and it disappeared from view with remarkably little disturbance.

The stern of the ship was another matter altogether. With a tremendous roar, the after end of the vessel reared up out of the water, and for a few horrifying moments it looked as if it would topple down on him. But then it, too, vanished for ever beneath the waves, creating a swirl of water that must have sucked dozens of people to their deaths.

In the aftermath of the sinking, a sudden silence fell over the scene. No longer could Tremayne hear the rending of metal as the ship broke up, or the roaring thunder of the waves, and even the sound of the hundreds of people who’d been on the deck when the ship sank was stilled, shocked into silence by the suddenness of the sinking. For a few seconds, there was absolute quiet, and then the people in the water began to scream, their howls of anguish interspersed by gasps for breath.

He knew for certain then that there was no hope. The water was so cold that unless the survivors could be pulled out within minutes, perhaps an hour at the most, hypothermia would kill every one of them. For the rescue to be as quick as that, the ship would have to be actually on the scene already. Tremayne had looked towards the horizon before the
Titanic
sank, and there were no lights anywhere in sight, no other vessels within twenty miles at least. As with the number of lifeboats, the mathematics were unarguable: there was no ship closer than an hour’s steaming, and within that hour everybody would be dead.

Within minutes, Tremayne guessed, the screams and shouts would start to die away to nothing, and then the scattered groups of people would slowly and inevitably turn into a floating carpet of corpses, the bodies buoyed up by their life jackets in a parody of life. And then, he guessed, the first of the creatures of the sea would arrive at the scene to enjoy the unexpected bounty.

But despite their predicament, and the inevitable certainty of both their deaths in the freezing water, Voss was still trying desperately to kill Tremayne. He swam straight for his victim, locked both his hands around the other man’s neck and steadily tried to choke him.

Tremayne lifted both his legs up, placed his feet against Voss’s chest and kicked out, breaking the man’s grip instantly. Tremayne was still holding the envelope, and as Voss swam forward again, he lifted it out of the water and tossed it to him.

‘You’re going to die, Voss,’ Tremayne said, forcing the words out through his chattering teeth – the cold was intense, gripping his body like a vice. ‘So you might as well have these back.’

The other man grabbed the envelope, but then renewed his attack, his face red with fury, apparently heedless of the cold.

Twice Tremayne kicked him away, but he knew he was weakening fast. Then he remembered his stiletto, the sheath still strapped to his left arm, and drew the weapon just as Voss surged towards him for the third time.

Tremayne held the knife out directly in front of him, gripping it with both hands, and Voss simply impaled himself on the blade, the needle-sharp point driving between his ribs and into his chest cavity.

For a moment, Voss just stared at Tremayne, his mouth open in a gasp of pain and surprise. Then he stopped moving, the light fading from his eyes, and floated slowly away, the hilt of the knife just breaking the surface of the sea.

Tremayne looked at the body and shook his head. ‘I did do you a favour, you bastard, and that was one of my favourite knives.’

15 April 1912
Atlantic Ocean

Alex Tremayne was a powerful swimmer, but he knew immediately that swimming wouldn’t save him, not in those conditions. His biggest enemy was going to be the cold, simply freezing to death in the icy water. He’d heard that dying in that fashion was not an unpleasant way to go, though he’d never been entirely sure how anybody could possibly know that for certain. Still, he reflected with a rueful smile, there was no doubt that he would soon find out for himself.

The cold was intense, and already Tremayne could feel a deep chill starting to spread through his body. The heavy coat which he’d put on before he and Maria left the stateroom would have been fine in a lifeboat, but now it was waterlogged and hampering his movements. He fumbled with the buttons down the front and after a few seconds managed to shrug it off. But that would provide, he knew, only a temporary respite. He could now move more freely, and was no longer in danger of being dragged under by the sheer weight of the garment, but the cold was going to get him. There was no doubt whatsoever about that.

Swimming seemed pointless. There were no lifeboats anywhere near him, no wreckage floating on the surface that he could climb onto, and still no sign of any ships approaching. There weren’t any other people swimming in the water nearby. Even Voss’s body had drifted some distance away and, as he watched, the corpse slipped beneath the waves and didn’t re-appear. He was going to die alone. It was fitting, perhaps. He’d lived alone for most of his life, and had no family who would mourn his passing. Though he hoped Maria might shed the occasional tear to his memory.

Then he sensed a sudden commotion in the water below him, as if some huge animal was rising to the surface, and something struck him very hard on the back of his head. For an instant, stars blazed in front of his eyes, and then he felt no more.

15 April 1912
HMS
D4

‘Right,’ Bernard Hutchinson said, ‘I think that’s far enough.’

The submarine had been maintaining a steady speed for the last four hours, heading east at five knots, and was then about twenty miles clear of the location where they had launched their two torpedoes. Now it was time to send the confirmation signal to the Admiralty in London and for Hutchinson to confirm that he had successfully completed his mission.

He did yet another complete sweep of the horizon through the periscope, and then ordered the boat to surface. As soon as positive buoyancy had been established and the vessel was securely on the surface, he clambered up the ladder to the conning tower and used his binoculars to check for anything he might have missed through the periscope. The night air smelt fresh and clean after the fug of the control room.

Then he clambered back down the ladder. ‘You take the watch, Bill,’ he instructed Evans. ‘Steer the same course but get the diesels started and increase the speed to ten knots. But first, get the mast up and that radio aerial rigged, as quickly as you can.’

That operation didn’t take long: the men had done it on many occasions. Five minutes later, Hutchinson was back in his cabin, writing the plaintext for the signal he was about to send, prior to encrypting it, when a signalman appeared outside.

‘Yes? What is it?’

‘There’s been a new signal for us, sir,’ the man said. ‘It’s sent in the clear again, and it’s really short.’

‘What is it?’ Hutchinson asked again.

‘It’s just two groups, sir. The first is “Abort” and the second is “RTB”. And that’s all, sir.’

For a few moments Hutchinson just sat there, staring at his half-written signal. Then he muttered a curse, screwed up the piece of paper and tossed it to one side, a slew of conflicting emotions coursing through his body.

Then the signalman appeared again, now clearly in a state of excitement.

‘What?’ Hutchinson demanded.

‘Sir, the air’s full of radio messages about the
Titanic
,’ he said. ‘She hit an iceberg about four hours ago and now they think she must have sunk, because there’s been no contact with her for well over an hour. The ship reported launching lifeboats, but there were no ships close by to help rescue them.’

‘Right,’ he said, and strode back into the control room. ‘Right full rudder,’ he ordered. ‘Reverse course. Steer two-seven-zero. When the boat’s steady on west, increase speed to fourteen knots.’

Then he called the signalman over. ‘Acknowledge that signal from the Admiralty,’ he instructed, ‘and tell them that the
Titanic
has reported hitting an iceberg and is believed to have sunk, and that we are proceeding to the location to render all the assistance that we can. Send it in clear, and mark it “most urgent”. No matter what they reply, ignore it. Don’t even tell me about it. I know where our duty lies.’

15 April 1912
Atlantic Ocean

At approximately three thirty in the morning, having proceeded at a maximum speed through treacherous waters, littered with ice and icebergs, and in consequence putting both his crew and his passengers at grave risk, the captain of the RMS
Carpathia
finally ordered his ship to come to a stop at the exact geographical coordinates supplied by the radio operator on board the
Titanic
. But they found absolutely nothing there. There was no sign of a ship, or lifeboats, or wreckage of any sort.

He could only assume that the
Titanic
had now sunk – if the ship was afloat, it was so big that it would almost certainly still be visible – and he presumed that the ocean currents in the area must have moved the wreckage and the lifeboats. The night was very dark and still. There was no moon and the surface of the sea was uncharacteristically calm, no waves or white horses visible anywhere.

The captain ordered his ship to begin steaming slowly, searching for lifeboats or debris, and had distress rockets fired, in the hope that some of the survivors would be close enough to see them, and would be able to respond with torches or rockets or whatever they had in the boats.

Fortunately, after some time without attracting any response, the rockets were finally seen by some of the people in the lifeboats, and they did what they could, lighting scraps of paper and pieces of dry clothing, anything which would burn. Some of the lifeboat crews began trying to row their vessels towards the
Carpathia
, and one of the officers in a lifeboat ignited a green smoke flare.

Finally, the crew of the
Carpathia
saw the first lifeboat and, at about ten past four in the morning, it was pulled alongside the ship, quickly followed by others. The survivors were assisted on board, clambering onto the waiting vessel using rope ladders and slings. Once safely below decks, they were provided with clean, dry clothing, hot drinks and food, and then their names were taken so that the sad task of identifying both the survivors and those missing, presumed dead, could begin.

After Maria Weston had undergone this brief processing operation, she went back up on deck, and stayed outside for the rest of the night, standing by the ship’s rail heedless of the cold, her eyes ceaselessly scanning the water around the slowly moving
Carpathia
as she endlessly searched the wreckage and bodies for any sign of Alex Tremayne.

Dead faces, their skin turned white by the intense cold, their eyes open and staring sightlessly, almost accusingly, back at her from the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, the bodies buoyed up by the life jackets most of them were wearing. The very word ‘life jacket’ suddenly seemed to her like a cruel joke: the only purpose they were serving was to keep the bodies on the surface. They had done nothing to save the lives of the poor souls wearing them.

And it wasn’t just the odd corpse. The surface of the ocean was literally covered with bodies, their limbs moving limply in the swell, their faces clearly visible. Maria couldn’t even count them, there were so many. Hundreds and hundreds of men, women and, to her mounting horror, even a few children, passed silently beside the hull of the slow-moving ship.

In the end, that was what she remembered the most. Not the bodies themselves, but the silence of that appalling scene. No cries for help, no whimpers. Nothing. Just the silence as the ship moved through the sea of corpses.

She would only leave her post after dawn broke, when the
Carpathia
’s captain would reluctantly terminate the search and head slowly away from the area towards New York, her cargo the pitifully few survivors of the sinking of the greatest liner of the age.

15 April 1912
HMS
D4

It took the submarine nearly two hours to reach the position where Bernard Hutchinson had seen the
Titanic
steaming towards him, lights blazing. But, like the crew of the
Carpathia
, at first he could see no sign of a shipwreck, or even of the iceberg which had – according to the radio messages still flooding the airwaves – apparently done so much damage to the transatlantic liner. There had been no mention, as far as he could tell, of torpedoes hitting the ship.

Hutchinson and Evans were both in the conning tower, staring in different directions through the darkness, alert for the first signs of any wreckage.