Titanic: An Amourshipping Story

Chapter 12

An hour had passed since Captain Drake retired to bed, and the sea was still exceptionally calm. At around 11:30, Marlon relieved Siebold to take over the bridge watch. Siebold went to his cabin to retire, still hoping there was nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, two sailors named Falkner and Orson were keeping watch at the Crow's Nest. Faulkner stood on the right side of the Crow's Nest while Orson stood on the left. Both were rubbing their arms and shivering, having been keeping watch for a few hours or so.

"Ugh, it's so freaking cold," Orson complained. "What I wouldn't give for an extra coat or a heater installed on this bloody station. Could do with some binoculars too. I can't see jack."

"Ah, we don't need any binoculars. I can smell ice when it is near," Falkner claimed.

"What? Rubbish," Orson said.

"Well, I can. Alright? You just wait. If there's a berg as much as 12 ft tall, I'll detect it, no sweat," Falkner said.

Orsen scoffed and rolled his eyes before going back to looking out. Shortly afterward, they heard two stewards exiting the ship's cargo hold from its entrance to the forward deck. They looked down to find the stewards searching the area thoroughly. The stewards looked at each other, silently agreeing that what they were looking for wasn't there with annoyed looks. One of them saw Marlon looking out from the balcony up on Boat Deck and walked in his direction.

"Excuse me, sir, have you seen a man and a woman come out here from the cargo hold?!" he called out.

"No. I've only been watching for the past few minutes and haven't seen anyone but you down there!" Marlon replied.

The stewards frowned, thinking the people they were after were long gone. They took the stairs to D Deck, hoping they might be lucky there. Falkner and Orson looked at each other and shrugged, figuring it was nothing serious. They went back to keeping a lookout until they heard the door to the cargo hold opening again a couple of minutes later. A man with raven hair peaked out to make sure the coast was clear before he came out with a woman with honey-blonde hair, hand in hand. The pair laughed as they walked to the forward deck, pleased with their handiwork in avoiding their pursuers. The laughter died down when the woman turned to her husband with a coquettish look, and he took the invitation to lock lips with her.

Unbeknownst to them, Marlon was still up on the balcony next to the bridge. The first officer smirked as he watched the couple make out. He figured they were who the stewards were looking for and knew passengers were not allowed in the cargo hold, but Marlon might've decided to let the young pair have their fun so long as they didn't cause serious trouble. Up in the Crow's Nest, Falkner looked down to find the couple kissing. He nudged Orson with his elbow and gestured to him to have a look. Orson looked down, then he and Falkner looked at each other, smirking and nodding.

"Lucky fellow down there. Ain't he?" Falkner said.

"Yeah, reckon they're a lot warmer than we are," Orson said.

"Well, if that's what it takes to get warm, I'd rather not try it here if it's all the same to you," Falkner said, pushing Orson away.

The two men chuckled as they went back to looking ahead. For about half a minute or so, they didn't see anything. Then Falkner's face slowly fell as he saw a black shape covering the stars shining above the flat ocean. Falkner and Orson looked at the mysterious object perplexed until its shape became more apparent, and their faces grew pale.

It's unconfirmed, but most say the iceberg was about 50 to 100 feet high from the waterline and four times the maximum length. If this is accurate, this would've made the iceberg more than four times Titanic's length in breadth and roughly so tall that its tip reached past the Boat Deck. Either way, it was the largest iceberg Falkner, and Orson had ever seen, and the ship was heading straight toward it at 25 miles per hour.