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Will Murdoch watched as the junior officers worked the ropes, lowering the lifeboats. He wasn't intimately familiar with any of them, although he'd heard Boxhall and Piman's names thrown around, and Lightoller assured him that Moody was excellent. He was told that the Titanic got the best of the best, but, on these first few days of watching them work, he was inclined to believe that they were merely the potential best of the best.
Sixth Officer James Moody was still a bit timid, and didn't seem to have the lungs for yelling out to the sailers.
Fifth Officer Harold Lowe, the one most unfamiliar to the senior officers, did not have that problem, and was, in fact, quite good at yelling. The problem with him was that he was always yelling, with barely contained annoyance, which made his words lose some of their emphasis. If he was always on the edge of tipping into fury, what was the point of keeping him appeased?
Murdoch almost thought that Fourth Officer Joseph Boxhall, instead of being too timid or too impatient, was too pretty. Even as the junior officers and sailors went through the routine examinations of the lifeboats, Boxhall was warding off the affections of a young, curious woman. ("Wait till you see his navigation work," Lights had assured Will, in response to the first and only time he voiced this concern.)
As for Third Officer Herbert Pitman, well, he was sitting down a bit away, trying not to hurl.
At the moment, the only officers that Murdoch trusted were his captain, his best friend, and his second officer, David Blair.
Murdoch was distracted from his deliberation by movement in the corner of his eye, and he looked over as Lightoller knelt and picked something up off the deck.
"Heads or tails?" Lights said, standing back up.
"Tails."
Lights flipped the coin and grimaced in faux sympathy. "Heads. Go again?"
They were supposed to be working. It was a busy business, getting a ship ready to take sail, and as senior officers, they took the brunt of it.
Lights waved the coin in the air, trying to get an answer out of him. Will allowed himself to smile, and nodded for him to go ahead.
The next four were each heads. On the sixth throw, Will snatched it out of the air before Lights could, and examined it. One side showed heads, the other, tails. He threw it back, and Lights caught it. It came up heads.
"Fate or luck?" Will asked.
"Is there a difference?" Lights returned.
Heads.
"One, the coin is weighted, or two, this is no stranger than the fact that you've survived three shipwrecks to date."
Heads.
"But, ah, how do you know that the fact that I've survived, mind you, four shipwrecks isn't fate?"
"Call it fate, then."
Heads.
"That would make it easier," Lights agreed.
"Easier for whom?"
This time, the coin was caught, not by Lights nor Will, but by an older man who held himself in a way that made him seem taller than he was. Upon the interruption, the carefree look vanished from Lights's face at once, and Murdoch felt himself tense up.
The man's gaze caught on the sleeves of their uniforms, and he said, "Ah. You must be the first officer- Lights, is it?- and the chief officer. Murdoch." There was something in the way he said Murdoch's name that made him uneasy.
Lights reached for the man's hand, a professional smile plastered on his face. "That's Lightoller. And you are?"
"Henry Wilde." Wilde had to fumble with the coin for a moment to shake Lights's hand, and Murdoch suspected that Lights was less so going for a handshake than he was for his coin. "I work with the White Star Line. Most recently the Chief Officer of the Olympic."
He'd worked with Captain Smith, then. It must have been after Murdoch left the Olympic himself. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" Murdoch asked, shaking his hand in turn.
Wilde pressed his lips together, and there was a noticeable pause before he said, "I'll be seeing you around."
"Wilde!" The familiar voice made both Murdoch and Lights turn, and Captain Smith came up from behind them to clap Wilde's shoulder. "I'm glad to see you. Come to my office, won't you?"
"Of course." Wilde nodded at Murdoch and Lights in turn, and when he was a few feet away, Lights cleared his throat. Wilde faltered, and turned to toss the coin to them. Lights caught it, and once Wilde and Smith had disappeared behind a corner, he slapped it over his other hand.
Heads.