Read S.O.S. Titanic for Free Online Page B

post." But there was no wind in him to say anything.
    "Give him a chance, Jonnie. Let him off the ropes," someone called.
    And then a girl's voice, "It wasn't sporting of you, coming up on him se-credy like that." Through the haze that filled his mind he recognized Mary Kelly's voice. His new friend. The only friend he had here—if she still was one.
    Barry got up, shaking his head the way their hound, Oliver, shook his when he came through water, and he got his own fists up.
    There was a crowd around them now. Barry lashed out. Somehow and by good luck he found Jonnie Flynn's stomach, flailing away with both arms, pumping, getting himself far from the railing and the drop to the deck below—and below that, the drop to the cold, dark sea.
    "This is for your ould rascal of a grandfather," Jonnie Flynn grunted. He threw a punch to the side of Barry's head—the good side that hadn't been cut before but might be now. A handful of stars jumped from the sky and danced around him inside the place where his brain used to be.
    But the mention of his grandpop was strong as smelling salts. Barry flung himself at Jonnie Flynn's knees, both of them down now, rolling over and over on the deck.
    Feet in boots and buttoned shoes and laced-up brogues stepped back to give them room. No need for gendemen's rules. The boys were gouging, scratching, grunting words in Gaelic and in English.
    And then they were being pulled apart. Someone had Barry by the back of his sweater, lifting him up. Across from him Jonnie Flynn struggled in the hands of a seaman who was saying, "Easy now, boy, easy," the way Bowers, their groundskeeper, spoke to Oliver, pulling on his collar. Barry couldn't see who was behind him. Someone big and with the smell of strong tobacco on his hands.
    And standing a bit away, in the uniform with gold braid on the sleeves and on the peak of his cap, was Captain Smith.
    "What's going on here?" he asked, his voice deep and dark as the ocean itself. "I won't have fighting on my ship."
    His hands were in his jacket pockets. His short gray beard shot out from his chin, stiff and angry. He was fiercer looking even than the pictures Barry had seen of him. Captain Edward J. Smith. Previously in command of the
Olympic
, the
Titanic'
s sister ship, his photograph in all the newspapers in Ireland; here now, in person, scolding them.
    "Mr. Feeney! Taffy!" Captain Smith said. "You may release the young gendemen." The tobacco hands behind Barry loosened their grip.
    The crowd was quiet, paying close attention.
    "What's your name, young man?" This to Jonnie Flynn.
    "Jonnie Flynn, Captain, sir." It was the same bad-mannered, insulting way of talking he had when he spoke to Barry or to Grandpop, or to Bowers or Dickie, even. It said,
I'm me and I don't give a, rat's tail for any of you.
    "And you?" The captain's steady eyes examined Barry.
    "He's Barry O'Neill, a toff down from first class. Down slumming," someone called. Barry thought he recognized Frank Flynn's voice.
    "Got more than he bargained for," someone else added, and there was laughter and applause. Barry's face burned. He fingered the cut on his face and the swelling around his mouth.
    "I dropped my glove," he said, or thought he said, through his swollen mouth.
    "Huh," a voice mocked. "He came down here to make trouble."
    "No, it's my grandpop's glove and it's up there in the rope. I lost it through the railing."
    "I'll have no more of this," the captain said, as if he'd heard nothing—and maybe he hadn't. Maybe every word Barry had thought he'd said had been only inside of his head.
    "You two young gendemen—and all of you—will stay inside your classes for the rest of this voyage," Captain Smith said. "Those are the rules. You know them. They are posted on the gates and barriers. We do not tolerate disrespect for the rules. Mr. Feeney, Taffy, escort Mr. O'Neill back to his cabin. A stop off at the ship's doctor would be in order. He may need a sdtch or two in that face."
    He