Imaginary Hardship

Martin Harte stared down at his ticket. At just over six pounds, it was the equivalent of four days' work in the silver mines of Ballysadare, Martin’s hometown in Ireland. Martin had a hard life. He worked hard and suffered mentally and physically from his ten hour days in the mines. Unbeknownst to those around him, Martin was schizophrenic and suffered delusions of grandeur. He boarded the Titanic thinking he was joining the sailors aboard the HMS Belfast heading for the Caribbean to crack down on privateering and pirating.

The RMS Titanic launched on April 10, 1912. Martin Harte traversed around the F Deck and spent most of his time in the F Deck saloon drinking cheap rum and enjoying not being in the silver mines of Ireland. Other passengers tended to find him emotionless or lost in his cups, but they certainly remembered him later.

Five days went by much the same for Martin. He stumbled around the F deck and slept in fits and starts. Then the fateful day of April 15, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the night. Martin Harte’s mind snapped at the sound of the collision. Suddenly, Martin saw himself on the deck of the HMS Belfast taking heavy cannon fire from a Spanish ship on one side and a pirate schooner on the other. The sun shone over the vast beauty of the light blue ocean. Martin’s head snapped left and right, trying to determine the nearest danger.

Martin’s arms were chiseled from his days in the silver mines. The F Deck was a mess of families running around in panic. Then the dogs burst out of the F Deck kennels, adding to the hysteria. Martin picked up women and children and carried them to the safest places he could find. Martin could be seen ducking imaginative cannon balls and brandishing a piece of railing as a sword.

Nora Healy was from beautiful Galway in Ireland. The first time she entered the dining saloon on the F Deck she was drawn to the troubled soul of Martin Harte. His rough, attractive face caught her attention. Living in America later in her life, his face crept into her dreams. His chiseled arms and strange demeanor were ingrained in her memory as he lifted her out of rushing water and higher up the F Deck.

Nora Healy eventually made her way to lifeboat number sixteen, surviving one of the most notable disasters of the twentieth century. Each month she found herself thinking of Martin Harte, his incoherent yells of sailor jargon and talk of cannon fire. She loved him for saving her, but it was his death that truly stuck with her.

Martin had helped another passenger up to the E Deck and was bumped into. He grabbed his imaginary sword, the piece of wood broken from a staircase. He brandished it at many passengers trying to escape upwards. Suddenly the boat tipped, and Martin fell backwards. In his mind the pirate in front of him had pushed him back into another pirate just as he turned his sword on Martin, stabbing him through the chest. However, all Nora Healy saw was a strong man falling from one deck to another and landing on a splintered staircase as it fell towards deep water.

Many lives were lost that day. Nora Healy never questioned her survival. Instead, she credited a man for his last moment of delusion but especially for his last moments of bravery. Sometimes the scenes in the mind are more terrifying than the events of life. It is the individuals that overcome real and imaginary hardship that truly inspire Nora.