UNDERCOVER on the TITANIC (book 1)

Part 42 - Playing with Ice

'Quick, back up the stairs!' Denny said sharply. 'We've come too far down. The nexus was on the Orlop deck.'

We raced back up the spiral staircase where Denny started to pat the steel walls around us. 'I am sure this is the place,' he said urgently. 'Oppy made the connection here.' 

There was a barely perceptible shudder and we looked around at the dimly lit, blank steel walls. It had become ominously silent. The pervasive vibration had stopped. 'The engines have stopped!' Denny said, a hint of hysteria in his voice. 'Quick. Does anyone know how long we have left before she goes down?' 

Licia, Miguel and I shook our heads in unison.

The man, jogging along the firemans' passage toward us, called up the staircase, 'Sir Saint Denny. What are you doing back down here?'

'Er, Mister McIntyre, isn't it?' Denny asked. 'We looking for a friend but we came too far. What's going on?'

'We hit something,' the fourth engineer replied grimly as he caught up with us. 'The senior engineer on watch sent me forward to investigate. Have you seen any water?' His voice was drowned out by an immense echoing roar that battered at our ears as if we were inside a giant organ pipe.

We looked at each other in terror until we realized that Mister McIntyre was smiling. He put his mouth to my ear and bellowed, 'Relief valves. Releasing steam from the boilers. Stopped engines not using steam.' Denny and Licia and Miguel put their head close together so he could repeat the message. 

Two men suddenly clattered down the stairs behind us and shouted at Mister McIntyre. The roar of released steam seemed a little less, we could hear his shouted response. 'We hit something. The bridge put the engine room telegraph to "stop" and closed the bulkhead doors as I was on my way from boiler rooms six to see what happened for'ard.'

One of the men leaned forward and shouted, 'There's a ton of ice in the third class recreational space. The passengers are playing with it.' 

'Wha's zat sound,' the other man asked. Accompanying the roar of escaping steam was an eerie high pitched whistle. Mister McIntyre suddenly looked alarmed. 'That's air under pressure. It is escaping, between the plates, from the anchor chain lockers. They must be filling up with water. She must be holed in the peak.' 

 'Hudson,' he spoke to one of the men. 'Go directly to the bridge and report this news. The anchor lockers are flooding. The pumps are not holding the inflow. We've shut the boiler dampers and are pulling the fires in boiler rooms six and five as a precaution. We will maintain steam pressure to keep generating electricity for the pumps and lights. Now repeat that back to me.' Hudson repeated the message carefully to demonstrate that he had remembered it correctly. Mister McIntyre spoke to the other man. 'Harrison, go with Hudson. When you have delivered the message to the bridge, wake up the men off watch. Make sure they're dressed and ready to . . . help. Now go . . . and good luck to you both. Go!' The two men looked at him aghast for a second before scrambling back up the spiral staircase. 

Mister McIntyre looked at us. 'You have no duty here,' he said to Denny, 'I suggest you go up to the passengers' areas as quickly as ever you can. There's no watertight bulkhead door before the passage and I'll wager the rivets have gone. It is only a matter of time before this compartment is flooded. Fortunately, the other compartments should keep the ship afloat. I'm going to check below. So, I'll say goodbye.'

He reached out to shake Denny's hand, turned and jogged down the spiral staircase to the Tank Top. 

'I'm sorry guys,' Denny shouted over the diminishing roar of escaping steam. 'It looks like I got you into a blooming pickle. Oppy should have the nexus . . . the connection . . . here now. I don't know what happened.'

'Who is Oppy?' Licia asked.

Denny looked embarrassed. 'I'll explain later.'

'What did Mister McIntyre mean about rivets?' I asked.

'The hull is constructed with steel plates held together with iron rivets,' Denny said. 'They may have broken on impact.'

'So, what do we do now?' Miguel asked.

'I think we should wait,' Denny said. 'I could have gotten the time wrong.'

'No,' Kozak said. 'Come wizz me. I can help.'

Licia looked alarmed. 'Mister McIntyre said we should go back up.'

'And Dunc said Triple Oh would meet us on deck,' I added.

We were still arguing when Mister McIntyre came racing back. 'Go!' he screamed at us. 'The passage is full of water. We'll all drown in a few minutes.'

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