‘Show me a face and I’ll give you a story’ was my promise, and I almost always got it right. Often I could sum one up in a single word. For Harry Houdini, the handcuff king: trapped . For my wife, all those years ago in Venezuela: empty . For my daughter, who waited for me in Boston: life .
But what word for Philip Albright Small Franklin, Vice President of the International Mercantile Marine? I drank a straight bourbon chaser, closed my eyes and conjured his face as I’d seen it in the freight office. I saw one thing very clearly: pride. Pride in his company, in his staff, in his ships, and especially in the Titanic. Or even more than pride – love, perhaps. But there was something else, too. His face began to appear before me in the finest detail, and I could see now the slight tightening of the lips, the almost imperceptible pulsing of the eyelids, the strange quiver of the tongue, the sweat that showed itself as a smooth sheen rather than collecting in drops. Shapes emerged, colours clarified, and I knew what I was seeing. I had another word for Philip Franklin: fear .
Philip Franklin, that great empire of a man, the tycoon of American shipping, was afraid.
‘Waiting for a hooker?’
Dan Byrne slid into the chair next to mine. He wore the same stale overcoat he’d been wearing when I was in New York a year ago. He was smoking a cigarette and he exhaled the smoke directly into my face.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve just had one.’
Byrne smiled. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Your mother was in fine form, as always.’
Byrne gave a violent, snorting laugh and dropped his cigarette. He picked it up, snubbed it out, and lit another. ‘I’ve come to get you,’ he said. ‘You’re leaving too soon. Everybody’s rushing down to number 9. Franklin’s about to say something big.’
I finished off my bourbon. ‘Something big?’
‘That’s the rumour,’ Byrne said.
I stood up and breathed deeply, trying to sharpen my thinking. Byrne helped me steady myself as we left the station saloon and wandered south. Broadway was clogged with automobiles. Women, I could see, had come straight from the opera to White Star in black and silver furs. Police lurched perilously on horseback and a gasoline dynamo had been placed in the middle of Bowling Green Park to electrify a temporary instalment of large light globes. Police standing guard made announcements through megaphones: there was no access to the White Star offices at the current time; information was available at Times Square on the New York Times bulletin boards.
‘I’ve heard,’ Byrne said in my ear, ‘that there are more than four thousand people up there.’
This, I thought, was turning out to be quite a story.
Byrne’s maxim was ‘Lie to police whenever there is chaos’, so we told the policemen at the great revolving door that we were Mr Burlingham and Mr Underwood – Mr Franklin’s lawyers, no less – whom he had called upon urgently. No, we did not have our cards because we had come direct from our restaurant. The police seemed not to believe us, but they let us in anyway. Perhaps they had their own maxim: ‘Whenever there is chaos, let in the press.’
The passenger and general offices of the International Mercantile Marine were even more crowded than they had been in the afternoon. The radiator cocks were fully open and the rooms were stuffy and hot. Women standing in queues fanned themselves with theatre programs. A rack of hooks had come free of a hallway wall and coats lay in a heap like a giant dead animal. In the freight office reporters jostled for space. They had become dishevelled, unruly and impatient. Deadlines for the next morning’s editions loomed but nobody could file – not if ‘something big’ was in the wind.
‘Follow me,’ I said to Byrne as I walked past the freight office to the elevators at the end of the hallway. I pushed on an adjacent door and we slipped into a stairwell. In a moment
But what word for Philip Albright Small Franklin, Vice President of the International Mercantile Marine? I drank a straight bourbon chaser, closed my eyes and conjured his face as I’d seen it in the freight office. I saw one thing very clearly: pride. Pride in his company, in his staff, in his ships, and especially in the Titanic. Or even more than pride – love, perhaps. But there was something else, too. His face began to appear before me in the finest detail, and I could see now the slight tightening of the lips, the almost imperceptible pulsing of the eyelids, the strange quiver of the tongue, the sweat that showed itself as a smooth sheen rather than collecting in drops. Shapes emerged, colours clarified, and I knew what I was seeing. I had another word for Philip Franklin: fear .
Philip Franklin, that great empire of a man, the tycoon of American shipping, was afraid.
‘Waiting for a hooker?’
Dan Byrne slid into the chair next to mine. He wore the same stale overcoat he’d been wearing when I was in New York a year ago. He was smoking a cigarette and he exhaled the smoke directly into my face.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve just had one.’
Byrne smiled. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Your mother was in fine form, as always.’
Byrne gave a violent, snorting laugh and dropped his cigarette. He picked it up, snubbed it out, and lit another. ‘I’ve come to get you,’ he said. ‘You’re leaving too soon. Everybody’s rushing down to number 9. Franklin’s about to say something big.’
I finished off my bourbon. ‘Something big?’
‘That’s the rumour,’ Byrne said.
I stood up and breathed deeply, trying to sharpen my thinking. Byrne helped me steady myself as we left the station saloon and wandered south. Broadway was clogged with automobiles. Women, I could see, had come straight from the opera to White Star in black and silver furs. Police lurched perilously on horseback and a gasoline dynamo had been placed in the middle of Bowling Green Park to electrify a temporary instalment of large light globes. Police standing guard made announcements through megaphones: there was no access to the White Star offices at the current time; information was available at Times Square on the New York Times bulletin boards.
‘I’ve heard,’ Byrne said in my ear, ‘that there are more than four thousand people up there.’
This, I thought, was turning out to be quite a story.
Byrne’s maxim was ‘Lie to police whenever there is chaos’, so we told the policemen at the great revolving door that we were Mr Burlingham and Mr Underwood – Mr Franklin’s lawyers, no less – whom he had called upon urgently. No, we did not have our cards because we had come direct from our restaurant. The police seemed not to believe us, but they let us in anyway. Perhaps they had their own maxim: ‘Whenever there is chaos, let in the press.’
The passenger and general offices of the International Mercantile Marine were even more crowded than they had been in the afternoon. The radiator cocks were fully open and the rooms were stuffy and hot. Women standing in queues fanned themselves with theatre programs. A rack of hooks had come free of a hallway wall and coats lay in a heap like a giant dead animal. In the freight office reporters jostled for space. They had become dishevelled, unruly and impatient. Deadlines for the next morning’s editions loomed but nobody could file – not if ‘something big’ was in the wind.
‘Follow me,’ I said to Byrne as I walked past the freight office to the elevators at the end of the hallway. I pushed on an adjacent door and we slipped into a stairwell. In a moment
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