The place - On the Bridge of RMS Titanic
The year - 1912
Present,
Captain Smith (capt);
Helmsman Cattering (at the wheel);
Bosun Murphy (bugger all to do).


Captain Smith: "She's a fine ship"

Cattering: "A fine ship"

Bosun Murphy: "Ah she's lovely"

Captain Smith: "Helmsman? Crows nest! Report!"

Cattering: "Plain sailing Sir!"

Captain Smith: "What do you think Murphy?"

Bosun Murphy: "Sure and won't we all be in New York before they've woken up to see us coming before we're after arriving sir?"

Captain Smith: "....what?"

Bosun Murphy: "Plain sailing Sorr!"

Captain Smith: "She's a fine vessel. Unsinkable don't ye know?"

Cattering: "Gawd bless the King Sir!"

Bosun Murphy: "Ah that she is Sorr. That she is. And wouldn't she still be afloat if ye drilled her full of 96,000 tiny wee holes and filled her hold ninety seven foot too high with lead statues of his Holiness and set her adrift on fire with her keel missing....sure wouldn't she float still if God himself inadvertantly sat on her in mid voyage Sorr, wouldn't she though?"

Captain Smith: "I beg your pardon Murphy? What DO you mean?"

Bosun Murphy: "Unsinkable Sorr!"

Cattering: "Gawd bless the King Sir!"

(at this moment, the ship strikes the iceberg)

Captain Murphy: "I say. What the bally hell was that?"

Cattering: "Iceberg! Sir!"

Captain Smith: "She'll hold eh Murphy?"

Bosun Murphy (putting on crinoline): "I told ye! I knew it! This tub is going down quicker than a rat with a gargoyle up its arse so it is! I warned ye all! Months back so I did! It'll not get within a banshee's screech of the States I said! But no! None of ye would listen! Now zip me up quick so I can.....help in one of them lifeboats".



Key to this approach to misadventure is the ability to polemically alter one's professed world picture without fear of embarrasment. True, it is not recorded what Captain Smith or poor Cattering may have said about their former comrade's abrupt 'volte-face' as it should be remembered that they accompanied the unsinkable liner to the ocean bed. Murphy however, no matter how they cursed his inconsistency, went on to live a full happy life as senior postmistress Maeve Callaghan in west-Clare, passing away with Woodbine-dry lungs in 1976 - but not before preserving the foregoing exchange for posterity. What a true heroine of the Irish Republic! Her like will not be seen again. Click here to continue to Lession Three, Part Two.