From TITANIC: Book 1 – UNSINKABLE
PROLOGUE
RMS CARPATHIA – Monday, April 15th , 1912, 9:xxx a.one thousand.
They stood four deep on the afterdeck of the Carpathia , chilled to the bone, staring out at nothing.
Night water, low-cal swells – no evidence that barely seven hours before, the largest and most magnificent ship the world had ever seen had sailed hither in all her glory. The truth was nearly impossible to believe, possibly the play tricks of an evil wizard. The unsinkable RMS Titanic lay at the bottom of the body of water, along with anybody who sailed in her, save the 706 souls rescued and now aboard the Carpathia .
"Await!"
The cry energized the wearied throng. A flash of color among the endless waves. A survivor?
And so the swell turned over the item that stirred their frozen hearts with momentary hope. A deck chair. Nothing more.
How could this exist? The Titanic was more than a steamship. She was a floating metropolis, a sixth of a mile in length, and ninety anxiety abeam, 66,000 tons gross displacement. Was this piece of flotsam all that was left? How could and so much have become so fiddling?
A uniformed steward – no more than seventeen years sometime – tried to take the arm of a lady who was shivering in the folds of a Cunard Line blanket.
"There'south tea and soup below, ma'am. Please come out of this cold and wind."
She shook him off, mindless of his attempted kindness. "Go away. We accept simply seen our husbands drown."
The young seaman chip his tongue. She would probably take no condolement in the reality. Of the 1517 passengers and crew lost in this tragedy, very few lives had been snuffed out past drowning. The bounding main that had swallowed their ship was 28 degrees Fahrenheit, well beneath the freezing point of fresh water. What the victims had suffered was unimaginable, as if their unabridged bodies had been all of a sudden packed in ice. Stupor would accept set up in after barely 60 seconds. Side by side, unconsciousness, followed swiftly by death. No human could survive more than a few minutes in water that was as cold every bit the ice that ripped open the belly of the dandy ship.
That ice was very much in evidence around the Carpathia . The horizon was dotted with distant bergs, and, to the north, pack water ice.
Many ships had encountered ice on the north Atlantic crossing the previous dark. All but 1 had survived. The greatest of them all.
The unsinkable Titanic .
CHAPTER I
BELFAST – Wednesday, March 27, 1912 – 2:12 pm
The dial struck Paddy foursquare in the jaw, rattling his teeth. Information technology hurt more he expected – more than information technology needed to injure. He wasn't fifty-fifty acting when he staggered backwards into the human being in the hounds-molar bank check cloak.
A slim white hand slipped out of the boy's ragged sleeve and found its way into the coat'due south patch pocket. It emerged a split 2nd later on, the small fingers deftly clutching a gold money clip fat with banknotes. That too disappeared, flicked nether his threadbare jacket.
The human being roughly shoved him away, growling, "Proceed your brawling from decent people, boy!"
Paddy suppressed a smiling. He always enjoyed information technology when the mark helped out past sending him off with the stolen handbag. By the time the rich fool realized he'd been robbed, Paddy would be far abroad, counting the windfall.
All that remained was to cease the street theater that had provided embrace for the theft. He lunged at Daniel, burying his fist in his partner'due south stomach – revenge for that haymaker to the jaw.
"I'll practice you for that!" Daniel wheezed.
Then, like and then many times before, Paddy fled the scene, Daniel in hot pursuit, bellowing threats. The oversupply parted to permit them go, as if the passersby were their accomplices, and the equus caballus-drawn buggies and electrical trolleys had been placed at that place as obstacles to assist their escape.
The pair kept running, dashing down side streets and through the dorsum lanes they knew so well. At terminal, they collapsed against each other, laughing and celebrating their success.
"Curse your evil heart, Daniel Sullivan! Were you trying to suspension my jaw? I'll exist black and blueish for a week, thank you to you!"
"It can merely make you handsomer," Daniel chortled, rubbing his stomach. "You talk like yous didn't just knock the breath out of me. If I tin can't run away, who are you going to kickoff your adjacent dust-up with? Yourself?"
"To mind to your whining," Paddy bantered, "you'd recall I couldn't get along without you. With you lot clapped upwardly in jail, this fatty purse would be all mine." He took out the money clip and the two examined their prize.
Daniel's eyes bulged. "I didn't know the Prince of Wales was walking down Victoria Street!"
Paddy nodded. "This is a fortune!"
They brutal silent, counting the haul over and over again. They were accustomed to worn purses containing a few meager coins. Simply the prune held twelve crisp bank notes worth one pound sterling each. This was enough coin to supplant their rags with warm clothing and proper shoes. Information technology would keep their always-empty bellies full for a long time.
Paddy caught his breath commencement. "If I'd known about this, I'd take had his watch, too! And maybe the gold out of his teeth!"
At fifteen, Daniel was a yr older and more worldly. "We'll have no easy time spending these," he predicted. "When the likes of us hands over a make-new banknote, in that location'due south not a shopkeeper in Belfast who won't know we stole it."
That wasn't what Paddy wanted to hear. "Are you saying we fell on a king'due south ransom, and it'southward worthless to us? Maybe you're afraid to spend information technology, but I'm not."
Daniel tried to be patient. "Call up, Patrick. What kind of man likes his money in paper notes printed past a depository financial institution? Someone who'southward got so much of it he'd need a barrow simply to carry the silver. When you spy your reflection in a window, do yous meet that person?"
Paddy was stubborn. "I'one thousand going to exist that person someday, so this will exist good practice."
Daniel threw his easily up. "I'1000 only maxim be careful. And if y'all had half the brains God gave geese, yous'd know it."
They argued often, but never with lasting effect. Despite all their insults and grouse, Paddy Burns and Daniel Sullivan had been closer than brothers since the day they'd met. It was a bond forged by friendship, but too by something darker. Daniel was an orphan who had fled the life of a chimney sweep's climbing boy. Paddy had walked lx-seven miles to Belfast after the last whiskey-driven beating he intended to endure from his stepfather. There was no question that each was all the other had in the globe.
They stashed the coin in their secret hiding place behind a loose brick in an aboriginal wall – "In that location are pickpockets and footpads out there," Paddy reminded his friend. "Look what happened to the admirer who used to ain all this lovely money."
Then they headed back toward the most crowded function of the city – Queens Island, domicile of Harland and Wolff, the largest shipyard in the world. It was a hub of activeness, with more than fifteen grand employees working shifts around the clock. All Belfast seemed to orbit this middle. It was a pickpocket's dream.
The boys watched from across the road every bit a trolley let off dozens of passengers. Paddy'southward eyes settled on a short squat homo whose overcoat bulged where a pocketbook might be carried.
Daniel read his friend's listen. "No, not him. Look how down-at-the-heel his boots are. He needs the money."
The two had an breezy understanding never to make a victim of a poor man – even though they themselves were always much, much poorer. Their unfortunate state of affairs forced them to live by their wits and steal to survive. But there was a line they would not cantankerous, knowing that they were non the just hungry youngsters in Belfast. Likewise, there were plenty of peacocks, plump in the pocket, just waiting to be plucked.
And there'due south one correct now, idea Paddy.
The gentleman stepping down from the hansom cab wasn't dressed so differently from the other men on the street – in tweed glaze, arrange, and bowler hat. All the same every commodity seemed pressed and perfect, downwardly to the elegant knot of his silk cravat. There was a quiet confidence to his bearing, a sureness to his step. And, Paddy guessed, a fullness to the pocketbook curtained by his overcoat.
With an almost imperceptible betoken to his friend, he cruel in line behind the new mark, heading toward the shipyard gate.
"No!" rasped Daniel, rushing to proceed pace. "Don't you lot know who that is?"
Paddy nodded vigorously. "A proper swell who can well afford to part with a few coins for our favorite charity."
"That's Mr. Thomas Andrews, the designer of the Titanic !"
Paddy was impressed. The name Thomas Andrews meant nothing to him. Simply a fellow had to be deaf and blind not to know about the Titanic , the earth'due south greatest ocean liner, under construction right here at Harland and Wolff. Those four towering smokestacks dominated the Belfast mural. There was hardly a spot in the metropolis where they couldn't be seen.
Paddy and Daniel had first met in the enormous oversupply that had gathered to scout the launch from dry-dock a year earlier. Paddy had been there to help himself to a handbag or two. Merely as he watched the massive hull sliding down the ramp and into the water of Belfast harbor, he'd forgotten the emptiness in his pockets and his stomach. It – she – Daniel constantly corrected him that ships were always she – was a dazzling sight.
The Titanic had merely grown more magnificent equally she lay in her slip to be fully outfitted. It was said that neither a millionaire's mansion nor a king's palace was more lavishly appointed than this mistress of the bounding main.
And, Paddy reminded himself, had it non been for the Titanic , he would not have tried to pick Daniel'south pocket on that launch day. Then he would have been alone, or perhaps fifty-fifty dead. So he owed Mr. Thomas Andrews that much.
Just before the master gate, Andrews suddenly wheeled on them. "If y'all ii young gentlemen take your eyes on my purse, you'd best know that I'll not part with it easily."
It was the start fourth dimension that anyone had referred to Paddy Burns equally a gentlemen, and maybe the last time anyone ever would.
"Mr. Andrews, sir –" Daniel was nervously worshipful "– is information technology true that the fourth smokestack is a faux?"
The shipbuilder looked surprised, and then he smiled. "Does the centre of an engineer beat out inside that thin breast? Wherever did you hear about that?"
Paddy spoke up. "Daniel reads, Mr. Andrews. He even taught me a little." His friend'due south interest in books and newspapers had bewildered Paddy at beginning. Why risk arrest to steal something that can't put food in your belly? Now he saw that Daniel'southward passion for reading was a hunger just as urgent as an empty stomach. Paddy didn't sympathize information technology – not yet, anyway. But he knew it to be true.
"Impressive," Andrews approved. "Well, boys, the fourth smokestack is not connected to the boilers, but yous could inappreciably phone call it a imitation. It provides ventilation. And, of course, it is a recognizable feature of both the Titanic and her sister ship, the Olympic ."
Daniel'southward thin pale face was well-nigh debark with interest. "And she's truly unsinkable?"
The shipbuilder chuckled. "Anything made of metal has the potential to sink. But see if you can understand this: Titanic 's hull is divided into sixteen compartments. At the touch of a single push on the span, the captain tin shut watertight doors, sealing those compartments from one another." He paused. "She can remain afloat with any four of those 16 compartments flooded. It's safety to say that no one can envision an accident that would practice more than damage to her than that."
"I tin can!" Daniel exclaimed eagerly.
Andrews's eyes widened. "Do tell."
"Well, I – I don't know it correct now, sir," Daniel stammered in embarrassment. "Just if yous'll give me a little time, I'm certain something will occur to me."
The shipbuilder seemed tickled, but too intrigued. "Information technology might at that," he agreed with a smile. "And if information technology does, I should be very interested to hear it."
"He tin do it, too!" Paddy put in. "Daniel's really smart!"
Andrews's smile grew wider. "And so I shall straight my staff that if a Master Daniel and companion should come calling, they are to exist brought to me at one time."
The guard at the gate blocked the boys' mode. "Be off, yous two! And stop bothering Mr. Andrews!"
The shipbuilder made a point of shaking both boys' grubby easily. "It's all right, Joseph. We were discussing business organisation." He tipped his bowler hat to them. "Gentlemen. I trust we'll run into again." And he disappeared into the bustling yard.
Paddy and Daniel stood there long after he was gone, astonished that such a smashing man had treated two street lads with kindness and respect.
Affiliate TWO
LONDON – Friday, March 29, 1912 – 11:45 a.thou.
Piccadilly Circus was always ane of the busiest areas of London. Simply today, busy was an inadequate description. Hundreds of horse-drawn carriages and automobiles powered past gasoline, steam, and electric motors were locked at a standstill in the roundabout. Klaxons honked, bells rang, and angry drivers and coachmen bellowed their frustrations at acme volume. The traffic extended upwardly the five master streets that fed the circle, especially choking crowded Regent Street. The cacophony of protest grew louder and louder. No ane was going anywhere.
The cause of this huge disruption to London life was perched on the pedestal of the statue of Eros at the heart of the roundabout. Mrs. Amelia Bronson of Boston, Massachusetts, the famous American suffragist, was property a rally in the identify where she knew it would describe the almost attending. Her strident voice, directed by a large cone megaphone, rose higher up the general din.
" Votes for women! " she thundered, provoking a chant from the mass of female humanity, resplendent in imperial, white, and green, the colors of their movement.
" Votes for women! " they shouted dorsum, making the air ring with their demand.
"Move out of the road, y'all shameless baggage!" bellowed a lorry driver.
Other cries echoed his sentiments, their words not and then polite. London saw its share of political activism for a wide variety of causes. Simply not from women, who were expected to be obedient and demure. The "suffragettes" were considered unfeminine, rebellious, and fifty-fifty immoral. The oversupply was growing ugly.
14-year-quondam Sophie Bronson reached up and tugged at the hem of her mother'due south dress. "Female parent –" she said in a low voice. And was ignored. "Female parent –" A piffling louder.
"Non now, Sophie. Things are escalating."
"I know they are," her daughter complained. "This isn't like Boston or Hartford or Providence. You tin can feel the rage in the air!"
"That rage is the tool men use to cling to an outmoded system where half the population is kept down as 2nd-grade citizens!"
"Mother, you know besides as I do that almost of this rage is from people who just wish to get on their way by Piccadilly Circus."
Sudden sharp whistle blasts flake into the chill air.
"Hither come the constabulary!" Sophie exclaimed. "Yous're going to exist arrested over again!"
"I'm counting on information technology," Amelia Bronson beamed. "I didn't journey all the way to England to not brand the papers!"
Sophie groaned. "And then everything they say about yous volition be true. Yous really are a radical foreign agitator."
"I am what I need to be for the adept of our motion," was her stalwart reply.
And then the Bobbies were upon the throng – dozens of them, absorbing the women en masse, shouting and manhandling them roughly. The constables surged through the crowd, shoving the protestors out of the way in their zeal to reach the ringleader on the statue.
Nor was Amelia Bronson reluctant to face the minions of the law. She jumped down from the pedestal, held her artillery out in front of her, and alleged, "Get ahead, clap me in irons! Show the globe and your own wife and mother how y'all hate women!"
"Got nothing against women, mum," said 1 lawman in a strained voice. "It'due south American troublemakers what gives me a problem."
He fabricated to shackle her wrists, and a large Englishwoman ripped off his helmet by the chinstrap and began chirapsia him with information technology. The constable wheeled on her and brought his truncheon downwardly on the pinnacle of her caput.
Sophie had resolved to stay out of the fray. Back at habitation in Boston, her male parent had assigned her such duties every bit keeping her mother out of prison house and bailing her out of jail. Just when Sophie saw the blood running downward the face of the suffragist who had tried to defend Amelia Bronson, a red haze descended over her vision. She attacked the constable, leaping onto his back and wrapping her arms around his head.
Later, in the horse-drawn paddy wagon, Sophie was forced to suffer the double humiliation of criticism from her mother as the prisoners all sat chained together by the ankles.
"Sophie, I'g very disappointed in you. You lot know amend than this."
Sophie stared at her mother. "You were arrested too!"
"That was necessary for us to become the publicity we require for our movement," Amelia Bronson lectured. "Information technology was a calculated decision made long before that policeman arrived on the scene. What you did was dangerous and unnecessary. It added cipher to the cause. And information technology will exist very difficult for you to post my bail when yous likewise are in a cell."
Sophie shut her eyes and held her tongue. To the rhythm of the hoof-beats on the cobblestones, she counted the days until April x thursday , when she would finally get her mother out of England. She could never have imagined how hard information technology would exist to continue Amelia Bronson free of problem without Father on hand.
She sighed. The only thing that kept her going was the anticipation of the exciting trip home. In less than two weeks, they would exist sailing on the newest, largest, and almost spectacular ship in the world, the RMS Titanic .
CHAPTER 3
SOUTHAMPTON – Lord's day, March 31, 1912 – 9:forty a.g.
Posters of the Titanic adorned all four walls in the offices of the White Star Line – every believable image from photographs of the shipbuilding process, through artists' renditions of glorious ballrooms and dining saloons, to advertisements boasting of the luxury make of soap used in the get-go grade water closets.
With the maiden voyage a scant ten days abroad, the place hummed with activity. Last infinitesimal passengers thronged the third-class ticket desk, and a chatter of different European languages filled the air, as foreigners struggled to make themselves understood.
At the opposite stop of the building, White Star officials were hiring throngs of waiters, stewards, maids, and laundry and kitchen workers. The Titanic offered features that had never been dreamed of on other ships. Employees were required to perform dozens of onboard functions, similar trainers for the gymnasium, and attendants for the pond puddle and Turkish bath. When the great send set sail on April x thursday , she would carry well-nigh 9 hundred crew members, nearly of whom would have nothing to do with the nautical functioning of a ship.
One visitor, though, had business organization completely unrelated to the pride of the White Star line. He was the youngest person in the function, sparse and round-shouldered, practically pond in his worn overcoat with the patched elbows and frayed cuffs.
Fifteen-year-sometime Alfie Huggins stood at the paymaster's wicket with his certificate of nativity unfolded on the counter.
"According to company records," said the clerk, looking down at him through thick glasses perched on the stop of his olfactory organ, "your father'due south pay goes to –" He squinted at the ledger in front end of him "– Sarah Huggins."
"That's my ma," Alfie explained, pointing out the name on the certificate.
"Well, only send her effectually and she tin can sign for the coin."
Alfie's face brutal. "I can't."
"Why non? Is she ill?"
"She'south gone."
"Gone? You mean dead?"
"Gone. And she's not coming back."
It was a tough thing to admit. Who knew why his mother had married his father in the offset place? John Huggins was a stoker for the White Star Line. His wife was dreamy and airheaded and romantic, and her husband was away at ocean all the time, leaving her with a immature son to raise.
"And what'south your name once again?" the clerk prompted.
"Alfie – Alphonse." He indicated the paper once once more. Ma was exactly the kind of person to proper name her only kid later the hero in i of the French penny novels she loved and then well.
Where was she now, he wondered wistfully? Try every bit he might, he could not bring himself to stay mad at her for deserting him. For some reason, he pictured her crossing the Continent on an exotic and glamorous railroad train. The truth was probably more than similar a milliner's shop in London, trimming hats with artificial flowers and complect. Whatever it was, he hoped she was happy.
The clerk's voice interrupted his reverie. "I'1000 deplorable, lad. Your proper noun isn't anywhere on these instructions. I can't pay you."
Alfie swallowed hard. "But how am I to feed myself, sir? I take no money at all."
The clerk was sympathetic but firm. "Information technology says here that your pa is signed onto the Titanic . Several of the Olympic'due south engine crew are laying over in Belfast until the new ship is ready to sail. He should exist here on Wednesday."
Three days! Alfie'south middle soared. Of class, he would be proper hungry by then. But at least Dad was coming dwelling house.
Withal, if he was now role of the Titanic 'southward crew, he'd be gone again – Alfie checked one of the posters – on April x thursday .
And this time I'll be lonely like a canis familiaris in the street.
His eyes savage on the line of hopefuls waiting to be interviewed for the Titanic jobs.
When the solution came to him, it seemed then obvious it was a wonder he hadn't thought of it sooner. How did yous stay with a seafaring father? Past sailing the same seas on the aforementioned vessel.
He folded upward his certificate of birth and stuffed it far into his pocket. Now all he had to do was lie a little about his age …
Copyright © 2011 past Gordon Korman, used by permission
0 Response to "Guided Reading Level for Titanic by Gordon Korman"
Post a Comment