Unsinkable Read Online Free Page B

funnels.”
They started toward the wharf. If the Titanic dominated Belfast’s silhouette, at Harland and Wolff she stood out like a mountain range. The boys needed no directions to find her at her slip. As they made their way through the lineup of delivery wagons, they had to crane their necks to see the top of her mast and towering smokestacks. Yet despite her impressive height, the truly incredible dimension was her length — nearly 900 feet, a full sixth of a mile. Stood on end, she would have almost reached the top of the Eiffel Tower, the tallest man-made structure in the world.
At water level, the main gangway was so much lower than the gleaming upper decks that it seemed more like a pathway under the great ship than an entrance. It was crowded with dockworkers carrying equipment and bales of material aboard. At the bow, a huge hydraulic crane was loading the larger and heavier gear and provisions.
“When are they leaving?” Paddy wondered aloud.
Daniel noted the position of the sun low in the sky. “Soon. We have to find Mr. Andrews right away.”
It happened so suddenly that Paddy could barely remember it afterward. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of houndstooth fabric. And then the shillelagh came down across his back, knocking the breath from his body. It was not pain so muchas an explosion and an overwhelming force slamming him to the wharf. He heard blows falling elsewhere, and tried to see what was happening. All he could make out through the waves of nausea were several pairs of scrambling legs and big rough boots. Gilhooley’s men?
Where’s Daniel?
He heard his friend cry out. “Run, Paddy!”
He tried, but his legs were jelly and would not support his weight. He crawled across the weathered planks of the wharf, waiting for the shillelagh’s next blow, the one that would kill him.
Running feet pounded across the dock, and a voice yelled, “You take your thuggery elsewhere!”
“Gilhooley’s the name!” came the reply. “If you’ll mind your own business, my brother and I will be much obliged!”
To Paddy’s dismay, the Harland and Wolff employee retreated. He and Daniel were at the mercy of men who had no mercy.

CHAPTER SIX
BELFAST
T UESDAY, A PRIL 2, 1912, 4:40 P.M.
A large object blocked Paddy’s way. He reached for it, and his hand ripped through thick brown paper. Inside was something white and very soft. Sheets and blankets, Irish linens as feathery as clouds. Without even thinking, he rolled over sideways and wriggled his way into the bale, praying to heaven above that no one had seen his escape.
All at once, there was a cry of terror from Daniel, followed by the crack of the shillelagh striking something hard.
Paddy shifted inside his cocoon and peered out to see a dozen papers borne on the wind. One of them slapped against the bale, and he reached out and pulled it in. The four smokestacks jumped out at him immediately. It was one of Daniel’s Titanic sketches! His friend never would have let go of these unless he couldn’t hang on any longer.
Paddy began to struggle madly in an effort to free himself of the tight embrace of the linens. In a part of his mind, he understood that he had no chance of prevailing against a group of brutal Gilhooley gangsters. Yet at that moment, it seemed preferable to emerge and be murdered rather than leave Daniel to die alone.
As he wriggled and thrashed to disengage himself, his body felt a lurch that put his stomach down at his toes. And then the bale of linens lifted from the dock and rose straight up into the air.
He was so totally astonished that, for several terrifying seconds, he was sure that he was being plucked from danger by the hand of God. The reality came to him slowly as the foredeck of the Titanic hove into view.
I’m being loaded onto the ship along with the cargo!
But where was Daniel?
He tried to push his head farther out of the bale to gaze beyond the blowing wrapping paper, but it was no use. He couldn’t see