1919

Half an hour later, Holmes walked out of the place where Moody’s room was (Officer’s Quarters) and onto the bridge. He was a little bored and guessed that it wouldn’t hurt to come out for a while just as long as nobody spotted him. But he was wrong. As soon as he walked a few steps from Officer’s Quarters, another officer spotted him. "Stop right there, sir!" he called. Holmes stopped. The officer came to him. "Have I seen you somewhere, sir?" he asked.

"Err... well...." Holmes started.

"Which place are you in?" he asked.

Holmes was thinking for a suitable answer when he heard Moody calling, "Mr. Hepburn!!!" He turned around and Moody walking towards him as fast as he could. "Hallo, Mr. Murdoch." Moody greeted the officer.

Murdoch looked at him. "Do you know this man, James?"

"Yes, Mr. Murdoch, he is the...err...new wireless operator!"

"New wireless operator?" Murdoch frowned. "How come I didn’t hear the Captain or Henry talking about it?"

"Because...err...you see...the Captain and Mr. Wilde, they probably talked about it when you are not around," Moody said nervously.

"Oh. Well, I would expect to see this new wireless operator in the wireless room instead of here. What is your name, sir?" he asked.

"Steven Hepburn, sir," Holmes lied.

"All right, Mr. Hepburn, you can get to your work now," Murdoch smiled.

"Thank you, sir," Holmes replied. "By the way, James, have you seen Harold around?" Murdoch asked.

"No, I have not seen him since my last watch, sir," Moody said slowly.

"That’s strange...he has been gone since around 4.30 am. Thank you anyway."

"You’re welcome, sir."

Then Murdoch walked away.

When Murdoch was gone, Moody wiped an imaginative sweat off his forehead. "Phew, that was close." He turned to Holmes. "Why did you come out of my room, Mr. Holmes?"

"I am sorry, Mr. Moody, but I was too bored. But thanks to you, I have a new job. Could you please show me to the Wireless Room?"

"Yes, I'd be glad to. Come with me.... Do you know how to use Morse code?"

"Yes."

"Good for you. Here we are, the Wireless Room." Moody opened the door near the bridge.

In the room, there was a young man with a baby face, wearing earphones on his head and writing down something on the paper. "Hi, Bride, is Jack in his bunk sleeping?" Moody asked cheerfully.

Harold Bride took off his earphones. "Yeah, he is sleeping like a log." He grinned and noticed Holmes. "Who is he, Jimmy?"

"Well, he is your new working partner, Steven." Moody smiled.

"Oh, well, how do you do? I am Harold Bride. The other one asleep is our senior, Jack Philips." Bride held his hand and Holmes shook it.

"Why don’t you start working, Mr. Hepburn? You will sit over there. And change your suit to one like what Bride is wearing." Moody pointed at the seat beside Bride.

Holmes sat down and Bride gave him some messages with names on them and two lists. "Help me to check where these people’s cabins are, please? Thank you. And write them and the message numbers down on this yellow list."

"So, Bride, any ice warning message today?" Moody asked.

"Nope."

"All right, I must go off now before Mr. Wilde discovers that I am missing from the bridge...."

"MR. MOODY!!! WHERE ARE YOU???!!!!" a voice yelled from the bridge.

"Oops, too late. Bye!" Moody ran out of the room.

After he changed his clothes, Holmes looked at one of the paper and saw a name of the person that he had heard of. "John Jacob Astor?" Holmes thought. From what he knows, Astor is one of the richest men of the world. He took the passenger list and looked for Astor’s name. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "He actually lives in Cabin A-17, 19, and 20?" he asked.

"Who?" Bride looked at the list. "Oh, Astor. I think because he brought along his wife, children, maids... hey, do you know how old his wife is?" Bride didn’t wait for Holmes to answer. "A few years younger than I am! Amazing, isn’t it? Astor is old enough to be her grandfather... Err...we better get back to work." They went back to their work.

As Holmes wrote down Astor’s cabin numbers and the message number, he began to feel glad that he could get use to this time travel thing. Then, for some reason, he felt a little lonely.