India Rose & The Eternals - The Fountain Of Youth Chronicles Vol. 1

Chapter 7 - Out Past Midnight

The Atlantic Ocean, 1907, 1 P.M, 75th Day Of Spring

For The Station Master, being a passenger on a modern steamship, with all of its fancy gadgets and newfangled nautical instruments, was like a child sleeping in a candy store at night and being told not to touch anything.

For the first few days of the voyage, The Station Master would while away his time below deck, taking out his compass and marking coordinates on a map of the Atlantic Ocean that he had brought with him. He would mutter things to himself like "That's about a two-degree turn there," and, "I think that the Captain should increase the speed by five knots through this section of Ocean."

Finn, who spent his time sketching in his notebooks and playing with the Third Class passenger children, was used to these sorts of eccentricities from The Station Master, and generally gave him space to do his calculations and mutterings.

A few times, The Station Master included Finn in his observations. For instance, one time he woke Finn up in the middle of the night and rushed him over to a far wall in the compartment.

"Hold your hand there, Lad!," he said, placing Finn's hand on the metal wall. "What do you feel?"

"I feel tired Master Leo," said Finn.

"No, no! Do you feel the throb there on the other side of the wall? The pistons in the engine room have almost doubled in their movements! I calculate that we're almost at full speed now, that means we've almost cleared the ice fields of the North Atlantic and are in the homestretch now. I detected a change a few hours ago."

"Master, that's fantastic," yawned Finn. "May I go back to sleep now?"

"Yes, yes. But I don't know how you can sleep so much with all of this going on around you!" said The Station Master, heading back to their area in the compartment.

When the Third Class passengers were allowed on deck, The Station Master peppered the crew with questions of every kind, not realizing until the third day of questioning, that the crewmembers were not responding because of strict rules about fraternizing with passengers, particularly those from below deck. If a First Class passenger had a question or a request, a crew member would drop everything that he was doing to accommodate that person. But those down below were not to be bothered with at all.

In his great desire for information, The Station Master did not sleep very much at all after the first few days at sea.

After taking all the measurements in speed and direction that he could from the depths of the ship in the Third Class compartment, The Station Master started taking forays about The RMS Majestic in the middle of the night while most of the ship slept.

Although the gates of the compartment were locked tight most of the time, there was not a lock in existence that The Station Master could not figure out if given a moment or two of silence. And, perhaps, he had a hand in the invention of most of them in the first place.

It was not his normal pattern of behavior to pick locks and sneak about so, but it was his normal pattern of behavior to explore. He reasoned within himself that the Third Class passengers were being unethically treated like prisoners and that his midnight jaunts to explore were justified. He did not, however, let Finn in on what he was doing. It was simpler this way. He would let the boy sleep and not worry about him. After all, The Station Master had been sneaking in and out of places for a long, long time.

He was most interested in the ship's engine room, as could be expected, and spent many hours near midnight and beyond, watching the great boiler send steam power through the ship. He took more notes in his notebook, took measurements and muttered again to himself as he hid behind staircases and the various nooks and crannies of the engine compartment.