Survival Tails_The Titanic Read online

  He followed the voice to where a line of humans waited at the end of a long walkway. It led from the quayside to an open door at the lower part of the ship. Many of the third-class passengers had only one bag. Others had nothing but the clothes on their back and a piece of paper in their hand—their ticket to a new life. A world away from the vast trunks and packages that the first-class passengers had.

  At the front of the line, a man in a black uniform and hat carried out checks of the third-class passengers’ hair, eyes, and teeth. One by one, the humans stepped up to be examined before being allowed on board. It reminded Mutt of the way Alice sometimes checked his fur for fleas, and he wondered if the humans were doing the same thing.

  Mutt sneaked alongside the line, glad he couldn’t see the water. He paused, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself to step onto the steamer. Telling himself over and over that he could do it. He could get on the boat. He could go onto the water. He would do it.

  For Alice.

  He would cross the big blue a thousand times over if it meant he would be with his girl.

  Mutt continued on, hiding behind a large lady who had a particularly wide, long skirt that bloomed around her legs like a flower. As she moved, so did Mutt. He darted behind her skirt, keeping low to the ground and as close to the woman as he dared. She reached the front of the line to be checked over and Mutt stayed as still as he could, barely daring to breathe.

  “Go ahead,” the man said.

  Mutt peeped out from the hem of the skirt at the same time that the man checked his pocket watch, catching Mutt’s eye. He frowned, then held out his arm, stopping the lady in her tracks.

  “No dogs allowed,” he grunted, nodding at Mutt.

  The woman blinked, then let out an ear-piercing shriek as Mutt peered sheepishly back up at her. She swung her handbag, hitting Mutt full-force in the head before he had a chance to scarper. With a low whine, Mutt turned and ran as fast as he could, back down the walkway, the woman’s high-pitched squeals echoing after him as he hid among the bales, sacks, and barrels on the quayside.

  There had to be another way onto the ship. It would be sailing soon, and it couldn’t leave without him. He had to get to Alice. Mutt glanced around desperately, his head throbbing and his body shaking as he took a peek at the walkway again. The uniformed man’s back was turned, and Mutt seized his chance. There was no more time to think, or worry, or plan. He couldn’t give up now, not when he was so close. He bolted between the legs of two humans, swerving around a small boy who tried to grab his tail as he passed, heading full-pelt toward the door.

  Almost there, almost made it, Mutt was thinking, when out of nowhere a burly docker with a very large, pointy hook stepped right into his path. Mutt barely managed to come to a stop before turning tail and retreating to his hiding place among the crates, not sure that he had the strength or nerve left in him for another attempt. He lay on the ground panting, frantically trying to think of another way onto the ship.

  “That didn’t go too well, did it?” a small voice said with a snicker.

  Mutt almost jumped out of his fur. He spun around, startled, to see who or what had spoken.

  “If you want to get on that ship, you’ve got to be a bit smarter than that,” the voice said.

  “Who’s there?” Mutt barked.

  A sharp, tangy smell hit his nose, along with something more familiar—the earthy scent of freshly dug vegetables packed into one of the crates nearby. Beneath that was something that made Mutt’s stomach churn—the dank, rotten smell that came with sickness and disease and dead things.

  Rats.

  “Up here,” the voice said.

  Mutt bared his teeth, looking up to see two beady black eyes peering back at him from atop the crate.

  “I suppose,” the rat said, “I could help you.”

  “I don’t need your help,” Mutt growled.

  “Is that so?” the rat replied, raising his eyebrows. “Well then, if you don’t want my advice, try your way again. See how far you get.”

  Mutt glanced up at the rat, then back at the ship. The burly man patrolled up and down in front of the walkway, swinging his hook in the air with an audible swoosh.

  “See, your first mistake was trying to get on the ship with the humans,” the rat said. “You are not a human. And unless you’re one of those well-to-do pampered pets”—he looked Mutt over and crinkled his nose—“which you obviously are not, then you have no chance.”

  “What would a stinking rat know about it?” Mutt snarled, ducking low as a dark shadow passed over them.

  “Oh, not much, I suppose,” the rat snickered. “I’ve only traveled on ships hundreds of times. I was born at sea on a pirate ship, one dark and stormy night, somewhere in the middle of the Caribbean, so the story goes. But—if you don’t want my help…”

  The rat shrugged, jumping down from the crate with a thud to scurry off toward the ship. He was bigger than most rats Mutt had encountered and had a red crusty-looking stump where his tail should have been.

  “Wait!” Mutt barked.

  The rat turned slowly, gesturing to himself with a paw. “Who, me? A stinking old rat?”

  Mutt held back the growl building in his throat. Every part of him wanted to pounce on the rat and rip him to pieces, but he needed to get onto that ship. And if a rat could help him do that, he couldn’t be fussy. “Yes, you.”

  The rat grinned. “I’ll help you… if you say please.”

  “Just tell me how to get onto the ship,” Mutt snapped. “I need to find my human.”

  The rat scuttled closer, cocking his head to one side. “Your human?”

  Mutt nodded. “She’s on that ship.”

  “Are you sure she wants you to find her? After all, if she wanted you with her, she would have taken you—like that one there.”

  He jerked his nose toward a well-dressed lady who was carrying the most ridiculous-looking dog Mutt had ever seen. It had fluffed-up white fur and a pink bow around its neck. Mutt’s lip curled. Dogs like that gave his kind a bad name.

  “She would have taken me if she could, but she’s in third class. It’s not allowed,” Mutt explained. He paced back and forth, getting more and more desperate by the second as he watched the final passengers board. He paused as a thought occurred to him. “Why do you want to help me?”

  The rat winked. “I might ask you to repay the favor sometime.”

  Mutt narrowed his eyes at the rat, but he didn’t have many other options. “Fine.” He sighed, wondering what kind of favor a rat could possibly ask for.

  The rat gave Mutt a sly, toothy grin. “How do you feel about small, dark spaces?”

  CHAPTER 3

  CLARA

  Wednesday, April 10, 1912

  Clara despised being kept in a basket. It was so undignified. The captain knew perfectly well that she could sit beside him in the motorcar without having to be imprisoned.

  But the driver had insisted when he’d picked them up from their manor house. He didn’t want the cat to “soil the interior,” he said. So with an apologetic look and a stroke of her head, the captain had reluctantly agreed and placed Clara inside a wicker basket.

  “Is this really necessary?” the captain asked the driver as they traveled to the docks, reaching his fingers in to stroke Clara’s face.

  “Sorry, sir,” the driver replied. “The boss will have my guts for garters if anything gets on the upholstery.”

  Clara turned her nose up at the driver, even though he couldn’t see her. The car bumped over a series of deep potholes along the dirt road and she shrieked, swallowing down the urge to regurgitate her breakfast of pilchards and goat’s milk. Although, she thought, maybe she would do it anyway to teach the rotten driver a lesson.

  Clara couldn’t wait to be back on a ship, with the wind in her fur and miles of ocean stretching around them as they sailed smoothly across the waves—free of the endless bumps and jolts she was enduring in the motorcar.

  “I r
eally must insist,” the captain said as Clara screeched again.

  He ignored the driver’s protests, lifting Clara out of the basket and onto his lap, stroking her head to calm her. “If there is any damage at all,” the captain told the driver, “I will pay for it.”

  That seemed to satisfy the driver well enough, and Clara licked at her paws in victory, purring as loudly as she could to irritate the driver. The captain chuckled and kissed her on the head.

  “I’ve never heard of a captain having a cat before,” the driver said as they pulled up at the docks where their ship was waiting.

  “She is a very special cat,” the captain said. “She has accompanied me on many voyages over the years. I would be lost without her.”

  The captain stepped out of the car, carrying Clara in his arms. The driver unloaded their things. Clara felt a shiver of excitement as she took in the magnificent sight of what would be her home for the next few weeks. They would sail from Southampton to New York and back home again, making stops at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland to pick up and offload more passengers and mail.

  Setting her down on the ground, Clara’s captain stood beside her for a moment, observing the crowd. Clara herself stared up in awe at the magnificent ship.

  Of all the ships Clara had sailed on—and there had been many—the Titanic was by far the finest. The unsinkable ship! That was what the humans were calling it. And indeed it did seem that a ship so well built and luxurious could be immortal.

  Some of the world’s richest and most famous humans would be joining the Titanic’s maiden voyage, including the multimillionaire John Jacob Astor IV, and Isidor Straus, owner of Macy’s department store, and his wife, Ida. Even the ship’s architect, Thomas Andrews, and the chairman of the White Star Line, J. Bruce Ismay, would be on board, making sure that everything went smoothly and taking notes on anything that needed altering. Although Clara couldn’t see what could possibly need changing. The Titanic was flawless (aside from a half-eaten sandwich inside the Turkish baths she’d found when accompanying the captain on his inspection, and that would be long gone by now).

  Clara looked up at the captain, and when he smiled back at her she couldn’t help but feel a burst of pride. As they walked toward the gangplank, they were stopped several times by first-class passengers wanting to greet the captain and shake his hand. Clara made sure to stay a few steps behind; the passengers wanted to speak to the famous Captain Edward John Smith, not pet his cat.

  “Captain Smith!” a finely dressed woman trilled, hurrying over to lay a gloved hand on the captain’s sleeve while she juggled a tiny dog beneath her arm. “So lovely to see you again!” she gushed. “Of course I insisted on sailing on the Titanic as soon as I heard you were to be her captain.”

  The captain smiled and nodded politely at the woman, then moved along to the next person wanting his attention.

  The officers paid Clara no mind as she followed the captain to the gangplank, where they were lined up waiting for the captain to board. He greeted them in turn, and only one of the younger officers, who Clara had never met before, glanced down at her, giving her a bemused look as she trotted along behind her captain, with her nose in the air and her tail held high.

  The ship’s trio of tall bronze whistles sounded, and Clara again felt the flutter of excitement in her stomach. The feeling that she was exactly where she belonged. That she was home.

  CHAPTER 4

  MUTT

  Wednesday, April 10, 1912

  Noon

  Mutt stared into one of what seemed like hundreds of huge sacks full of letters and parcels piled up on the quayside ready to be loaded onto the ship. “You want me to get into that?” he asked the rat, who was chewing at the rope tied around one of the mail sacks. “That’s your grand plan?”

  His heart raced just thinking about it. How was he going to breathe? What if the sack he was in fell into the water? What if he became trapped? He hated sacks almost as much as he hated water, and now here he was, having to confront both of his worst fears.

  “It’s your best way onto the ship,” the rat told him. “Unless you want to squeeze that big head of yours into the gap in one of those crates?”

  Mutt glanced over at the crates filled with fruits and vegetables that were being hoisted one by one by large cranes into the cargo hold of the ship. He would never fit.

  “Is that how you get on board?”

  The rat nodded. “Only the best for us rats. There’s enough food in there to keep us going just in case….” He caught the anxious expression on Mutt’s face and waved a paw at him. “Relax! I’ve been on these ships a thousand times. Nothing’s ever gone wrong before. And just wait till you see the food the humans eat! The last trip I took, I was double the size by the time we docked.”

  Mutt could believe it. He wasn’t a small dog, and the rat was almost half his size.

  “The name’s Leon, by the way,” the rat said, holding out a paw. “King Leon.”

  Mutt ignored the paw and narrowed his eyes, suspicious once again. He had never heard of such a thing as a royal rat. “King?”

  “That’s right.” King Leon nodded, standing up on his back legs so that he was almost nose to nose with Mutt. He placed his paws on his hips. “You, my friend, are in the presence of rat royalty. King Leon the Three Hundred and Thirty-Third—give or take a few—descended from the great rat king of Brooklyn himself.” He dropped back down on all fours and gave a little shrug. “Well, me and about a billion other rats.”

  “You’re from Brooklyn?” Mutt asked, realizing why the rat spoke in an unfamiliar accent. “Is that in the New World? What’s it like?”

  “The New World?” King Leon said. “I don’t know much about it being the New World, but it’s as good a world as any.”

  The air vibrated with a sudden, deafening whistle and the crowd of humans lining the quayside started to wave and cheer.

  King Leon gestured to the sack beside them. “Hop inside and try to make yourself as small as possible—and keep that wagging tail of yours still.”

  As much as Mutt hated the idea of climbing into a sack, the thought of never seeing Alice again was worse. He swallowed the last of his fear and jumped into the mail sack, wriggling and squirming his way down among the brown-paper-covered parcels and bundles of letters until he was covered well enough so that none of the humans would notice him.

  The minutes ticked painfully by. Mutt considered whether he should trust the rat and stay put, or find another way on board. As far as he could tell, the rat—King Leon—had long since disappeared. Mutt wondered if he would see him again, although he didn’t much care either way. The last thing he needed was to owe a rat a favor.

  All of a sudden, the sack shifted and Mutt felt it being lifted off the ground. Through a gap that opened up at the mouth of the sack, he saw the hull of the big ship. Huge, towering white letters painted on the side read TITANIC.

  This was it! His belly swirled with a mixture of fear and anticipation. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Alice’s face when they were reunited. The master might be a little less pleased, but Mutt was sure he’d get used to the idea. Besides, he was always complaining that Mutt should go on a boat to get over his fear of water, and it wasn’t as if he’d actually let anyone throw Mutt overboard.

  Finally, the swaying movement stopped and everything went dark. King Leon had told him to lie low until the ship got moving, but Mutt felt too anxious. He thought of Alice and how her face lit up whenever she saw him, and it calmed him a little. As the minutes turned to hours, it didn’t seem as if they had moved at all. It was too hot and too dark, and Mutt was starting to panic that he might never get out. Not to mention the fact that his rump was numb and no matter how many times he changed position, there was always something with a pointy edge digging into him.

  Mutt had a sudden horrifying thought—what if Alice had managed to change the master’s mind? What if, at that very moment, they were at home while Mutt was headi
ng out into the big blue? What would Alice do when she found Mutt gone?

  He wriggled his way through the parcels and letters piled on top of him, bursting from the top of the sack and sending the mail flying out with him. Then he clambered over the mountain of sacks identical to his own, searching for a door or a way out of the storage compartment, which was lit by a single lightbulb. But all he found was a metal door that seemed to be locked from the outside.

  Mutt whined, scratching against the metal. He was trapped. He would starve to death and Alice would never know that he had tried to find her. He scratched and scratched at the door until his paws ached. Eventually hunger and exhaustion caught up with him and he crumpled onto a sack of mail destined for a world he’d likely never see.

  CHAPTER 5

  CLARA

  Thursday, April 11, 1912

  Clara followed the captain out of the wheelhouse and past his sleeping quarters, prowling along the first-class promenade toward the stern as her master made his daily routine checks. Clara heard the captain telling some of the passengers that they might make it to America in less than seven days with the engines at full speed and if the weather was good. Clara wasn’t as worried about reaching their destination quickly. She was just glad to have the chance to accompany her captain on his final voyage before he retired, and she, as captain’s cat, with him.

  Clara continued along the boat deck. She padded silently past the lifeboats that lined the uppermost deck, past the Marconi room, where the wireless operators communicated with nearby ships and with the shore when they were close enough. She passed by the magnificent, ornate dome of glass that topped the grand staircase, then a curious room filled with equipment that the humans used for exercise. Then on to the second-class promenade toward the stern of the ship, and past the first-class smoking room.

  There were more lifeboats at the back of the ship. As Clara approached, she heard a strange sound coming from the one farthest away. She sneaked over and listened, her ears pricked up. A small squeak came from inside the boat, followed by another. Clara slunk low to the floor, her claws out as she prowled closer, thinking that a rat would make a satisfying meal. She pounced up onto the canvas lifeboat cover, easing her head beneath the rim. But she didn’t find rats. To her surprise, three black-and-white kittens huddled beneath one of the wooden benches, mewing for their mother.