Читать книгу Women and Children First: Bravery, love and fate: the untold story of the doomed Titanic - Gill Paul, Gill Paul - Страница 20

John was worried about Reg. He seemed distracted on this voyage, and if he got himself demoted he might leave the service of White Star Line altogether – a prospect that filled John with gloom. He couldn’t face carrying on without his mate beside him. They’d sailed together for seven years, since they both started out as kitchen skivvies under a tyrannical chef on the Oceanic. They’d survived that experience by working as a team: when one had been given a mountain of potatoes to peel or thirty saucepans to scrub, the other would quietly relinquish their time off to help. They’d never put it into words but they were a unit on board rather than individuals, and that made it all more bearable.

John would miss their jaunts when they had time off in a foreign port. In the Med, they’d find a quiet spot to jump off some rocks and swim far out, ducking each other or flinging handfuls of seaweed. Reg had been the one who saved John when he panicked after swimming into a shoal of jellyfish, coming to drag him out even though he got stung himself. Whenever they had time off in New York, they’d choose a landmark and head for it. A few times, they’d not realised how far it was and had to sprint back to the ship, arriving just as the deck hands were pulling up the gangplank. They hadn’t missed a sailing – not yet – but a couple of times it had been touch and go.

John didn’t understand what was up with Reg on this trip, but he wasn’t himself. He seemed overly disturbed about one of his passengers having an affair, and in John’s opinion it all stemmed from his family background. He knew that Reg’s dad used to play around, driving his mother to the gin bottle. That’s why he was a bit puritanical about the opposite sex. He didn’t ever join in the banter among the lads in the mess about which were the best-looking passengers, or speculate on the ones in third class that might be up for a spot of how’s your father. It was unusual that Reg had commented on the looks of that girl on the boat deck. That’s why John had been pulling his leg about it; he hadn’t meant any harm.

The truth was that John loved Reg like a brother. He considered him family, perhaps more so than his own family, whom he rarely ever saw. They weren’t bad people: his mam had been loving, but unimaginative. When John announced he wanted to go to sea they hadn’t understood it. Why didn’t he stay in Newcastle and work in a factory, where there were regular wages, day in, day out? John felt he needed more colour than that. He liked a change of scenery and he loved the weather at sea: the dramatic, multicoloured cloudscapes, the way the ocean was sometimes grey-green, sometimes petrol blue, sometimes balmy turquoise. He was more of an outdoors person than Reg. Being at sea suited him.

That Sunday afternoon, John decided to try and help Reg’s situation. He wandered up to the boat deck and hovered near the officers’ quarters until he saw James Paintin, the captain’s personal steward, known as ‘the Tiger’, who had worked with him for almost four years now. Reg had filled the role briefly in November 1911 when James took time off to get married, but there was no doubt it was James’s position. He was the captain’s closest confidant in many ways, and a decent man as well.

John stopped him on the boat deck and briefly outlined the situation. ‘I know Mr Latimer is just doing his job, but he doesn’t see the problems Reg can have with the female passengers due to him being such a handsome fellow. He never encourages them but some of them are a law unto themselves. He deals with it quietly and never complains but I’m worried that if he has a bad report after this voyage, he’ll leave White Star altogether. Is there anything you can do to help?’

‘What about you, John?’ Mr Paintin teased, his voice thick with a cold. ‘No problems with the girls for you?’ He blew his nose into a big white handkerchief.

‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ John grinned.

‘Well, leave it with me. It sounds as though he deserves a reprieve on this one. I won’t have the chance to talk to anyone tonight because the captain’s at a party, but maybe I’ll see what I can do tomorrow. Don’t mention anything to Reg until then.’ His nose was red and shiny, his eyes watering.

‘You all right, sir? Want me to get you a hot toddy?’

‘I might pop down and have one with Joughin later, but not till after the party.’ He looked out towards the horizon. ‘So what do you think of the ship, John?’

‘She’s the best ever, sir.’

‘She’s a grand beast, isn’t she? Sometimes I get a queer feeling about her, but the passengers seem to be happy and that’s the main thing.’

He sneezed as he walked off towards the captain’s cabin. John stayed outside for a bit to watch the ocean until it was time to get ready for dinner service. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky but there was no warmth in the low white sunshine.