The Midnight Watch Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Poor Franklin. Who isn’t on that boat?’
    There was a commotion: a desk was moved, people stood aside, a door opened and closed, and there, suddenly, as if appearing from nowhere, was the man himself. I thought he would stand behind the desk but instead, in two quick strides, he stood upon it. The pressmen shouted questions and surged closer and a table was knocked over. A man fell against a wall clock and dislodged its brass pendulum. It seemed for a moment that Franklin too might be knocked down.
    ‘Gentlemen, please,’ he said, coughing in the thick smoke. ‘Some patience.’
    One or two reporters called for silence and others suggested that respect be shown. In a moment or so the room became still.
    Philip Albright Small Franklin towered above us all. He looked monumental, as if he were a statue of himself, as if he were already immortal. In the press he was known as the tycoon of American shipping – when it came to the North Atlantic he was John Pierpont Morgan’s man. I had met him several times: when the Cedric was overdue and thought sunk, during the drama of the Republic collision, and in the days after the Triangle fire, when I learned that he had cried with grief and donated money to the dead girls’ families. He was toastmaster to the White Star’s billion-dollar passenger list, but he was a good man too. He was fatter than the previous year, I saw, but there was still a magical lightness about his being. He was known to climb ladders and leap gaps. Nothing scared him. When an Atlantic Transport ship ran aground one night in New York Harbor, he dashed out to the vessel himself in a tug, making tea for the passengers and supervising their rescue. His head was shiny-bald and his eyes were strikingly intense. They commanded attention. People who saw them thought, Here is a man who gets things done.
    ‘Everybody on the Titanic ,’ he told the assembled group, ‘is safe. The ship is diverting to Halifax.’
    It pains me to admit it, but I was dismayed. No bodies. That meant no story for me.
    ‘I have made arrangements,’ Franklin continued, ‘with the New Haven railroad to send a special train to Halifax to meet the passengers. The train will consist of twenty-eight sleepers, two diners, and coaches sufficient for seven hundred and ten people. That, you will appreciate, is enough for the entire first and second class of the ship. I have been speaking to the Canadian government over the long-distance telephone. They will do everything they can to help us. We plan to – we will – get our passengers to New York just as soon as possible.’
    Franklin undertook to answer questions.
    No, he did not have any more information about damage to the Titanic ; his understanding was that it was slight and the ship was making her way to Halifax under her own steam. If not, she would be towed. He was planning to charter a tug to send out to her if necessary. No, he had not heard directly from Mr Ismay, he was relying on dispatches from the Allan Line in Montreal. He read out a message he had received from their Boston office: ‘The Allan Line, Montreal, confirms the report that the Virginian , Parisian and Carpathia are in attendance.’ Franklin was waiting for an update from Captain Haddock of the Olympic , the Titanic ’s sister ship, which was nearing the scene.
    So, I thought, definitely no bodies then. The Boston American would send down Bumpton. He would write a dashing, racing tale of rescue and adventure – a good New York story. I needed another drink. But before I let go of the story for good there was a puzzle I wanted to solve. There was something about what Franklin had said that didn’t quite make sense.
    ‘Mr Franklin,’ I asked, ‘you said you are talking to the Olympic and other stations. But have you heard directly from the Titanic ?’
    ‘No,’ Franklin replied, with some exasperation. ‘But I am not worried at all about that, I am not worried about that.’
    ‘But Mr Franklin –