Samuel Joseph Scott

Almost a year after Samuel Scott died, the Titanic was nearly ready for her sea trials. And here I was. Waking up at 5am watching the sun rise for the three hundred and second time, as I walked without Sam to the shipyard in the heart of Belfast city. For the first morning in a while, I lay in bed and thought. My head had flattened the thin pillow below me and my side ached from sinking through my mattress into the hard slates of my wooden bed. Grunting I rolled over, trying to share out the pain between each side to make it bearable enough to enjoy my final moments of rest.

I sacrificed my loose grasp on my last few minutes of sleep and begrudgingly got out of bed to bathe. For over two years now, my life had now revolved around this ship. As I squeezed my sponge over my shoulder I wondered if the other men working there watched the water run down their skin and thought of the ship. It was like I was becoming a part of her. With every rivet that held her together, with it a part of me became fused to the ship. With my own body covered in the freezing water I imagined hers, itching to sail, to be immersed in the numbing water for the first time, to be where she was supposed to be. The waves of the sea lapping up her hull as her weight created her own current, the way my skinny legs pathetically attempted to emulate in my own little bath.

I never ate breakfast before work. This was to ma’s disgust as she claimed I was “wasting away for God’s sake” and that “up them ladders, a light breeze could send me flyin’”, but I had become accustomed to my own schedule, or the one that was set for me. I had a ‘breakfast’ break that was usually awarded after about five hours of working, at a time that no longer qualified as anywhere close to breakfast, followed by an even shorter lunch break depending on how many thousand rivets had managed to be put in place since breakfast.

My house was a small bungalow on the Ormeau Road, a relatively short walk from the Thomson dock, where she slept. I enjoyed the walk to work. I liked leaving early enough that I could pass by the Ormeau House gates and walk over the bridge on a day when the water was clear. Sometimes I could get carried away and not arrive at work until after 6.15am by which point, I would already be deemed undeserving of my breakfast break and left to ignore my stomach until late lunch would arrive. My late lunch was later than all of the other late lunches because of the unspoken but firmly established pecking order. As a scrawny seventeen-year-old, I was not exactly at the top of the social shipyard hierarchy. Those top spots were reserved for the bearded, big bellied and broken nosed, forty something year olds that could mock your ‘bum fluff’ moustache and inability to store weight, but if needed could most definitely deliver a broken nose.

Despite its size you could always hear the shipyard before you could see it. Three thousand men don’t go anywhere quietly whether its six in the morning or not. After the frame had been mostly established, I had found a small portion of the ship where I could be, and had been, more or less left to my own devices. The stage we were at now was very different to that. When the frame was in focus we were constantly moving to ‘get her bare bones up boys!’ as soon as possible. But now everything we were doing was about reinforcement, precision, beauty. And although I had spent every day for six hundred and sixty-seven days here (and three hundred and two minus the sabbaths without Samuel) the sheer size of her was never anything short of astounding. At 175 feet tall, nothing made you feel any closer to insignificant that standing at her base and looking up, barely able to see where she ended, and the sky began. While walking towards the stern, I would run my hand along what would soon be her fully fledged starboard side in between ladders and every day feel her get smoother, fuller, stronger.

I found my ladder and started mentally preparing for my day. ‘Ach kiddo, back again?’ It was John. John could have been anywhere from an old thirty-two to a young forty-five. He wasn’t tall but he was big, so he appeared a lot taller than he really was and in the few hairs he had left on his head, a good proportion of them were greying. His face was round and well filled out and his dark beard stretched over it the way his suspenders stretched over his stomach. He had found himself a plot pretty close to me and got comfortable, which had led to our daily routine, a Belfast variation of ‘do you come here often?’ ‘Sure, you know me John, I just can’t stay away.’ I usually replied. ‘Fancy a ciggy son?’ I turned to an open packet of cigarettes staring me in the face, one turned upside down and one risen among the rest, making eye contact with me. ‘Aye go on.’ I lit the cigarette in my mouth with his lighter and felt the smoke fill my lungs with warmth while simultaneously realising that despite it being nearly spring it was very much freezing.

I had never smoked before working in the shipyard even though most of my friends started around twelve or thirteen. But it was nice to be able to excuse a minute’s break with what was regarded an acceptable excuse or what John ironically called, ‘some fresh air.’ To try and subdue my hunger, I smoked right down until I hit the filter and started to burn my fingers in the ash.

‘John?’

‘Aye?’

‘Why d’you always have one turned upside down?’

‘Huh?’

‘The cigarettes. You always have one turned upside down in the packet. Why?’

‘Ach. That’s love for you son’

John’s wife was very much closer to thirty-two than forty-five which was perhaps a component in the debate about his age. They were considered to be a rather scandalous match, and their relationship had almost affected his chances of getting this job. They were one of those couples that were in a mixed marriage. John a protestant and his wife, a catholic. One of the couples that ma warned me ‘not to get any ideas about’, me unaware whether she was referring to being friends with John or deciding to pursue a mixed marriage for myself. But the thing that everyone overlooked about John and his wife was that despite what was perceived to be an unforgiveable, unbelievable, and unable to be overlooked religious barrier, they were very much besotted with each other. She hung off his arm as if it would be too light without her leaning on it and he looked at her like if she asked him to, he would cut the whole thing off and gift it to her.

‘Every morning, if the missus gifts me a new deck of cigarettes, there’ll be one turned upside down. She says its good luck if you smoke that one last. I don’t believe in luck, but you can bet the entire packet I smoke that one last every time.’

I nodded agreeing that it definitely sounded like love, because it sounded like something that I didn’t quite understand.

‘She’s gonna get on this ship you know, I haven’t figured it out yet, but her sisters are in the states, the big apple… and I’m gonna send her there. When I get home at night she says ‘til me, “how’s my ship comin’ along Johnny?” and I says, “nearly there, love, just the finishing touches” and she says ‘til me “well you just let me know and I’ll pack me a wee bag.”’

I nodded again starting to wash down and smooth the metal on the side of the ship and prop my ladder up in the right place.

‘Careful climbing up on that thing, don’t wanna end up like poor wee Sam.’

No one on this shipyard wanted to end up like ‘poor wee Sam’ however, ‘poor wee Sam’ hadn’t been mentioned in one hundred and seventeen days. I hesitated on the second rail. It had been a day like this, maybe a little bit warmer, April 2nd, 1910, the last time ‘poor, wee Sam’ climbed up on the very ladder that stood in front of me for the last time. Sam lived near me but not near enough that I knew where his house was, just near enough that I could walk three quarters of the way home with him. Sam started working in the shipyard at fourteen and every man, even the nearly-men like me felt some ranging level of affection for him. In the way that John was an old thirty-two, Sam was a young fourteen and when he turned fifteen, he somehow managed to look like he was aging backwards instead.

John used to give his cigarettes out in the morning to our corner and before handing Sam one, he would break the top off it and say, ‘Would’ya look at that! A wee-un for a wee-un’ before poking him in the side with one beefy finger about the same size as Sam’s forearm. Sam smoked his half cigarette three hundred and two days ago right before he climbed up on his ladder, just like he had every day for the past year and a wee while.

Sam’s ma complained about his lack of loyalty to breakfast the way my ma did and together we complained about our mas’ complainin’ while we walked to the yard. We would take our late breakfasts and late lunches together, because of the pecking order but also because of the unspoken friendship we had acquired. And then when all was said and done, and the day was over we would walk three quarters of the way home together and in a few hours walk another quarter to meet up and complain to start the day again. Until one day I walked the whole way home by myself and from then on, the whole way there by myself too. Sam had been up on a ladder, my ladder, and had lost his footing in the April chill and fallen. He had hit his head and died instantly. And I had been standing there, smoking one of John’s cigarettes when he landed about six feet away from me.

‘Poor wee Sam’s’ poor ma then wept that if she had have made him eat breakfast maybe he would have been more stable up the ladder and he wouldn’t have fallen. In response the shipyard sent her a sum of money and sent her on her not so merry way. There had been six more dead men since Sam, but I hadn’t seen or known any of them. And most of them had been men when Sam barely even possessed the nearly-man criteria. I put a hand on the next rung and began to climb.

Seven hundred and twelve days after Samuel Scott died and three days after full construction was complete, the Titanic set sail to Southampton. However, a year before this, the launch happened. The man we had only heard the name of, and never seen the face of, was in charge of it. Robert Falconer Keith was the head foreman shipwright at Harland & Wolff, the place that we had spent more time in than our own home for the past two years.

The point of the launch was to be able to get the ship into the Victoria Channel before all the things that would make it impossible to move were added, engines, boilers, funnels, accommodation, and fittings. Things the men on the yard referred to as ‘fancy boy’ things which was essentially a reference to the men in charge of the interior design. These men were looked down on for a number of reasons, one being that us lot felt like they got the easy, and dare I say fun, part of the job and the second being that any man dedicating himself to the making of a luxuriously furnished ship must know what luxury was and therefore believed himself to be above the likes of us.

The slipway from the shipyard was drenched in anything and everything that would make it easier to move the ship into the water. I had been sure there was a more technical name for the process but essentially, we had to soap everything up or as John said, ‘We just builds ‘em, and shove ‘em in.’ They used everything from soap to mutton fat and train oil and ran what seemed like an ocean of it down the nearly eight-hundred-foot-long slipway number three. I remember receiving my ticket for the launch, on one of the first Mondays in two years I hadn’t gone to the shipyard but had still woken up at 5am on the dot. ‘Launch of White Star Royal Mail Triple Screw Steamer “TITANIC” At Belfast, Wednesday, 31st May 1911 at 12.15pm.’ In the top right-hand corner, it had a little flag, and on the bottom, it said, ‘Admit Bearer.’ Sam’s ma got one too, which I assumed had originally been for Sam himself.

So, on the 31st of May 1911, Sam’s Ma and I walked three quarters of the way to the shipyard together to watch everything we had built and everything we had lost finally hit the water. Although the White Star Line refused to be advocates of anything flamboyant unless it was contained in one of their ships, a huge rocket hit the sky to announce the launch at 12 noon on the dot. I had seen the shipyard surrounded before but nothing even close to anything like this. People on roofs, hanging out of windows, climbing any large structure they could to get a glimpse of the half-finished ship. There must have been tens of thousands, more people than I thought Belfast was capable of containing. People with cameras entitled by ma as ‘the press’ were there and some of the larger and higher pecking order men were gathered to help knock out the supporting timbers away from the hull so she could finally taste the water she’d been so close to for so long.

While the event took up the entire day, once the timbers were knocked out and the hydraulic triggers holding the ship in place were released. It was almost like some sort of large-scale baptism, not only because the ship’s physical dunking while surrounded by a lot of people and attention, only lasted a matter of seconds or maybe a minute before she was fully submerged, but also because for the first time in my life, I felt like I understood what it was like to be a witness to a religious experience.

As I saw the ship ease into the water for the first time, she was finally more than just rivets and sheet metal. She was early mornings and late nights. She was the collective handprints of me, john and over three thousand other men. She was blood, sweat and I’m sure some tears as well. And she was Sam. I felt a huge pressure in my chest rise into my throat, physically beginning to swell with pride. I swallowed with difficulty and blinked hard to stop any more tears going into this ship and turned to see Sam’s ma beside me, doing the same only nowhere near as successfully. ‘It’s like a little bit of him, isn’t it love?’ she breathed softly.

Despite my workload easing I continued to go down to the shipyard even when only the finishing touches were being applied. I liked seeing her in the water, so tall, so proud. And I would stand and watch her float with such ease, also tall, also proud. ‘She’s a beauty!’,

‘Aye she’s a beauty!’ People passing by, men, women, young, old, given a fraction of hope that something so magnificent could come from somewhere, that felt to us, so insignificant. I would stand in the cold spring sun, squinting and smiling.

‘I got it Kiddo.’ It was John.

‘You got what?’

‘My ticket, for the missus.’ He took his hat off and produced a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

‘You’re going on this thing?’ I was in disbelief. And drowning in jealousy.

‘Nah, not me mate, are you getting a wage I don’t know about? Could hardly be affordin’ more than one ticket for this big jalopy. Now, it’s only third class but it’s the opportunity of a lifetime! Three hundred pound but after the smile on her face I’d pay ten times it all over again. My missus in the big apple.’

He smiled fondly at the thought and every shred of jealousy left my body. ‘Good for you, John’ I said, looking him in his brown, soft eyes so he would know I was being sincere. He handed me his open packet of cigarettes, two left, one turned down and one sticking up. I went to reach for the one he had half pulled out for me.

‘You know what?’ he interjected, yanking the packet from my outreached hand, ‘Take my lucky one, I won’t be needin’ it, I’ve all the luck in the world.’

The day the Titanic set sail from Belfast to Southampton was one of the best days of my life. I loved the term ‘maiden voyage’. It sounded so exciting and new, like the beginning of a new life, which correlated well with the motivations of so many passengers climbing on board. I watched John from behind a roped barrier, nearly being crushed by the crowds straining to see, wave, cheer. He stood behind a group of people with his wife, a small suitcase in hand while they embraced, and she tenderly stroked his face. Once she was on board, he came to find me in the midst of the pack. ‘She’s gonna wave at me from the edge she says, she’s wearin’ blue she is, keep a look out for her.’ John and I searched from a hundred feet below the ships deck for the woman in the blue dress. ‘I see her! Look, kiddo there she is, she’s there!’

I strained and squinted in the direction of John’s pointing and air blown kisses and ended up feigning waves in what I perceived to be the generally correct area. But it wouldn’t have mattered if I was waving behind me with my back to the ship, because John was completely mesmerised by the whole experience, most of which, I think could be attributed to his wife. I laughed at him and kept on waving until the boat, a little bit later than expected began to leave and watching until her enormity was swallowed by the sea and sky. ‘I’ve never been away from her longer than a workin’ day y’know?’ I thought he might start sobbing, ‘She’ll be back in a couple of months and after that I don’t think I can bear to let her out my sight again.’ I smiled at the idea of John’s reunion with his wife and made a note to ask him the date that she would be coming back so I could keep him company until then.

The day after she set sail from Southampton, ma and I sat at the kitchen table with Sam’s ma to read the paper with the pictures of her in it. I must have read it over a hundred times. I considered framing it, hanging it up to face my bed to remind me what I woke up at 5am for two years to build. What I built. Even ma was excited about it which was possibly the only time we had ever shared a mutual excitement for anything. For the next few days all I could do was hover. Hover around the kitchen, the empty shipyard, my bedroom, the bridge. It was as if now the Titanic had set sail, I had lost the ability to stay still myself. I wanted to be on it, hell if I had to, I would have tried to swim beside it. I missed her the way John missed his wife and I had envisioned our reunion already. I imagined it nearly identical to the day she had left the docks, except with an even more pride swollen chest and a bigger smile. Almost like a child returning from a big adventure or a lover from war. For the first five days of her voyage, that image was the only thing that granted me the patient ability to await her return.

I woke up in the early hours of the fifteenth of April and looked at my clock. It was 2am. I peered at it again. I had never woken up at any time other than 5am for the past three years. I felt a tinge of sadness at the routine that I had now become nostalgic towards leaving me. On Tuesday, April the 16th, I would be awoken by ma’s screams.

‘Wake up son, get up, get up now, now!’

I peered at the same clock. Noon. Noon? That early morning interruption had really affected my sleep for the past few nights, I thought. At this point ma was practically beating me with the local paper.

‘She’s sank’

‘Who sank’

‘The ship’

‘What ship?’

‘Of for the love of God, the ship! The Titanic! She’s sank’

I leapt out of bed with the feeling that I had left my stomach still lying on the mattress.

‘She can’t have sunk, she’s unsinkable.’

‘Son, I’ m tellin’ you here, that she has.’

At this point, ma was in hysterics, her voice wobbling and hands rattling the paper so much I was barely able to grab it from her.

‘Ma, I built that ship, she is unsinkable, there must be a mistake.’

I caught her hand long enough to snatch the crumpled front page. It was the Daily Mail. ‘TITANIC SUNK. NO LIVES LOST. COLLISION WITH AN ICEBERG. LARGEST SHIP IN THE WORLD. 2,358 LIVES IN PERIL. RUSH OF LINERS TO THE RESCUE. ALL PASSENGERS TAKEN OFF.’

Titanic sunk. I stared at the words until the letters began the dance on the page. Sunk. Titanic.

It took a few days before the whole story emerged. That not all of the passengers had been taken off. That not everyone, including John’s wife, had in fact survived. And that the ship we had built was not unsinkable. Her name appeared in the paper under the ‘Third Class List’ with the word ‘missing’ in brackets beside it. The starboard side, the side covered in my rivets, my smooth bits of metal, my handprints, had been ripped open and mutilated by an iceberg. Over three million rivets, and with every single one three million little pieces of my soul, now at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean. It had taken over six thousand hours to build her up and less than three to take her down again. I stared at the little piece of paper that had been my invitation to her launch. I thought of Samuel Scott and how he had died for this. Yet only seven hundred and twenty suns had risen since and the Titanic, had now died as well.