One Night to Remember (7 page)

“Is the ship steaming away?” the officer asked, peering through the dark. “Or are my eyes playing tricks?”

Elizabeth hadn’t taken her eyes off of the ship in question since leaving the Titanic and she still couldn’t gauge its position for certain. “It’s either moving away or further away than we initially believed,” she said.

“There…” A gentleman in a top hat pointed to the edge of the boat at Elizabeth’s side. “There’s a pocket in the slats of wood just there. See if there’s a flashlight. Maybe we could get the ship’s attention by flashing Morse code.”

Elizabeth rummaged through the boat, her fingers rigid from the numbing cold. She pulled out a wrench, a wood plank, and a wound up length of rope.

“No light.” She crouched low so as not to throw off their balance, and searched the remaining sides. She crawled over the middle bench, near three women huddled together. Their teeth chattered so loudly Elizabeth thought it might’ve been their heels tapping against the wood planked floor of the boat. “No emergency blankets either.”

“Well keep lookin’,” the officer shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth, blowing into them. “Keep rowin’!”

The gentleman rowed hard, slamming the oars into the water, pulling with all his might. But no matter how hard he seemed to row, no matter how much force he put behind each stroke, the lights they’d seen on the horizon seemed to be moving further away.

“I can’t go on like this for much longer,” he said when they were a good hundred yards from the Titanic. The oars went still, drooping over the sides. “My hands…they’ve cramped from the cold. I can’t feel them.”

“Switch me.” The man behind Elizabeth stood, rocking the boat. The women huddled in the center gasped, clutching one another as if any movement would capsize them.

The men swapped seats, but as the burly gentleman’s gaze drifted back toward the Titanic he stopped, bone still. An empty, helpless chill skittered across Elizabeth’s skin.

“Mary Mother of God,” he breathed. “Look.”

Elizabeth followed his line of sight and gasped, seizing the man’s arm. The Titanic was leaning, dipping its nose under water. The circular yellow lights that were supposed to run parallel to the water were anything but. They were angled down at a dreadful angle, disappearing into the dark clutch of the sea.

It was the most horrifying sight Elizabeth had ever seen.

A flare shot through the night sky like a firework, arching over the ship, popping into an arc of white sparks. The decks lit up and for a split second Elizabeth could see people lining the sides of the ship. They were shadows. Faceless shapes—a mob—moving toward the stern. A lifeboat on the starboard side was dipping into the water at an angle—its front end lowered quicker than the back. Sparks from the flare rained down, fizzling away, taking their only source of light with it.

As a knowing hush fell over the lifeboat, Elizabeth wondered if Thomas was still on deck, helping women and children into lifeboats. Was he handling the one that’d been tipping awkwardly? Would he have gone below to help others? Into the bow that was now submerged? Would he have made it out and back on deck by now?

Thomas would, she told herself. He was strong and could take care of himself. But as Elizabeth looked at the fear-stricken faces of other ladies in the lifeboat, she realized they too had probably left strong men behind. Thomas was no different than the rest of the men on board—the men who would stay behind if help didn’t come. Thomas stood no more of a chance than the others, did he?

“Keep rowing.” Elizabeth’s voice lacked strength, fracturing under pressure. She cleared her throat. It was dry and cracked like she’d swallowed a mouthful of day old bread. “Keep going. We must bring back help.”

There were no other lifeboats in the vicinity, at least none Elizabeth could detect. Though seeing anything in the dark without a light was nearly impossible. If it wasn’t for the Titanic’s slanting orbs of yellow and orange, they’d be immersed in blackness, blind to everything but the piercing cold.

As the oars sliced into the water again and the lifeboat began trudging through the sea once more, Elizabeth kept her eyes on the ship in the distance.

It was their only hope.

They rowed for another five, ten, twenty minutes. The air seemed to grow colder as they paddled from the Titanic. It was a dry cold, cracking Elizabeth’s lips when she’d open them to push out a shivering breath.

The concept of time slipped away, replaced by the incessant checking of the slanting lights on the ship they’d left behind.

The water is up to C Deck now, see that?

The ship’s dipping hard.

Water’s nearly to the wheelhouse and moving fast.

“Focus,” Elizabeth said, drawing their attention around. “We’re making progress.”

“Little more than we were an hour ago,” the officer said. “The ship looks to be steaming away…we aren’t going to make it. We should head back and fill our boat with more passengers.”

“We haven’t come this far to turn back now. We are too close to quit.” Elizabeth spun around, pleading to the officer. They
were
closing in, even if it didn’t seem like it. “Look at the lights. They’re rounder and brighter than they were before. And if you focus, you can make out the ship’s mast. It’s sticking straight up like a shadowed finger.
There.
” She pointed. “Can you see it against the horizon?”

Only the man who’d been rowing turned his eyes away from the Titanic. “You’re right, miss. The lights are larger, but barely. It could very well take us another two hours to reach its side. From the way the Titanic is listing, I don’t think she’ll make it that long.”

The situation couldn’t be that helpless, could it? How many could they fit in their lifeboat? Another forty? Fifty? There was no way to assist everyone without bringing back a larger boat. Maybe the wireless operators had received news from another ship…

Elizabeth’s gaze snapped back to the Titanic as another distress flare rocketed toward the stars. From their distance away the flare seemed tiny, a mere stream of light that barely topped the smokestacks. When the sparks cascaded down, illuminating the decks, a wave of nausea bowled Elizabeth over. The stern was rising at a stomach-wrenching angle. The upper deck swarmed, moving as one dark mass.

“Wha—what’s that?” a woman in a man’s coat asked. “Moving over the deck? Is that—”

“People,” Elizabeth breathed. “Thousands of people.”

Passengers flooded the deck, crawling over one another, making a mad dash from the sunken bow to the stern. A high pitched wail skittered across the waves, bashing into Elizabeth’s eardrums, hollowing her out. As her body shuddered beneath the weight of the sound, the Titanic’s lights flickered and died out, drenching them in dark.

The only way they could see the ship now was from its blackened silhouette, sickeningly off-kilter, blocking the light of the stars.

Lord Almighty
, the back end had lifted completely out of the water…

“All right, that’s it,” the officer in charge bit out. “We could be chasing this ship all night while our brothers and sisters perish out there. Its lights are dimmin’, turning away, and we’re not making much ground. If it doesn’t notice the Titanic’s flares, it isn’t going to notice her sinkin’ when she’s blacked out. This is a lost cause…” he paused, and then, “We’re heading back.”

We’ll never make it in time,
Elizabeth whispered the words, hating herself for thinking them at all.

CHAPTER TEN

A massive wave of water washed over the deck, carrying away men and women, deck chairs and small tables, and desires and dreams—all equally. The lifeboats had gone, save for a collapsible on the port side, but even if there had been any left, the angle was too severe to lower them safely.

Every man for himself.

The order was given two heartbeats ago, when it was certain there would still be women and children who would go down with the ship. The captain looked grave, ill with regret, and had retired to the wheelhouse alone.

As the stern rose higher and higher, pitching people down its decks, Thomas swallowed down the fact that there was nothing more he could do. There were far too many cries for help, too little time to help everyone, and his situation was no better. Helplessness, it seemed, would be his bitter companion to the end.

He wondered if Elizabeth would be on her way back by now. If the lights of the rescue ship were too dim to be seen, but there nonetheless.

He watched in horror as men trampled women to avoid the rising sea. Shivered as the cries of women and children melted into one long, drenching moan. Walked by a couple counting to three, readying themselves to take the leap into the Atlantic’s frigid waters. He took solace in the fact that Elizabeth wasn’t among them.

Thomas had witnessed it all, and knew for certain he’d never forget a second of this night for as long as he lived. It did not matter that the ship’s lights had gone out. Each moment was highlighted by imminent death, carved into his memory as his possible last.

He’d moved to the port side, where a crowd of men were trying to ready the last of the collapsibles for launch. It was stored overturned on the top of Officer’s Quarters and contained the last of their hope. Smaller than the others, Collapsible B could only hold twenty or so passengers. But twenty more was twenty more, especially if you were one of the lucky few to hold a seat.

By the time Thomas arrived on scene, the men had rigged wood planks to the roof of the building, slanting them down the width of the deck. A few men had climbed onto the roof and were shoving at the overturned hull with all their might. Hordes of passengers ran by, under the boards, over them, scurrying away from the water biting at their heels.

Another few seconds and the sea would swamp the deck at their feet.

“One!” The men heaved, aiming to roll the boat right-side-up, down the boards and onto the deck. “Two!”

Thomas watched the boat rock. Saw the angle at which they’d secured the boards.

It wasn’t going to work.

“Three!”

“No! Wait!”

It was too late.

With a great heave, the men slid the collapsible boat right over the side of the building. It hit the boards, breaking them in half, and landed clumsily upside down. A surge of water gobbled up the deck. Men swept out, yelling, scrambling to grab onto the ropes that dangled finger reach away.

Water sucked at Thomas’s boots, cold icy fingers that stabbed through the leather like knives. He jumped onto the hull of the overturned boat, holding onto the ropes for balance as the force of the sea lifted it right off the deck.

They were still tethered…

An officer beside him unsheathed a knife from his boot and sawed away. Two men on the other side withdrew knives of their own and followed suit. The Titanic was sinking fast, pulling hard into the sea. Their collapsible lifeboat swiveled, tugging against the lines, lifting up when the ship disappeared beneath them.

As the ropes snapped in two and the collapsible washed away from the ship, Thomas lost his balance and lurched overboard. Needles of icy water pierced his skin, numbing his arms and legs on impact. His insides burned like they were on fire, radiating starbursts of pain through his body. The water was liquid ice, freezing the air that was left in his lungs. His heart rate sped, thumping loud against his ribs.

Through the cold, stinging numbness and panic of it all, Thomas’s thoughts raced to Elizabeth. It was a single second of calm in the chaos. A fractured image of her face, smiling radiantly through the dark.

Holding thoughts of her in his mind, Thomas kicked to the surface, fighting slow tugs of suction pulling him into the deep. Although he’d always thought himself to be a great swimmer, Thomas’s body seemed to have forgotten the motions. He broke the surface with a gasp, struggling to replace the frozen air in his lungs.

An arm reached out, brushing his side. Someone latched on to Thomas’s elbow and dragged him onto the side of the overturned collapsible boat. It was a large man with a shaggy beard, suspenders and scratchy twill pants. He had soft brown eyes that reminded Thomas of his father’s. But it wasn’t the warm familiarity of the man’s gaze that captured Thomas most—although that should’ve been staggering enough. It was the fact that the gentleman was
dry
. He must’ve ridden the bottom of the lifeboat as it detached from the ship…

Thomas latched onto his arms and pulled himself out of the water the rest of the way. The man spoke, though Thomas couldn’t make out the words. His ears were ringing, his head too fuzzy, to interpret clearly.

When he glanced up at the steel body of the Titanic, all thoughts wiped from his brain completely.

It was looming over them, nearly straight up. People slid down the decks, spinning and screaming, slamming into others before freefalling into the deep. There was no time for emotion, no time for thinking about the number of people clinging to life.

There was only noise—a rumbling roar, louder than any sound Thomas had ever heard, that could only be explained as the boilers detaching from their hold and bursting through the decks of the ship. The symphony of noise lingered on the air forever, a regurgitation of rattles and smashes, groans and explosions.

Until one explosion trumped everything.

Fracturing from the trunk, a smokestack warped its shape, tipped, leaned…and then with a thundering boom it crashed into the water. A tremendous wave smacked into their boat, pitching a handful of men off and swallowing a few others.

When the tide receded, the man gripped Thomas’s side. For the first time, Thomas realized the man wasn’t wearing a life vest.

“It’s going fast now,” the man yelled as Thomas straddled the keel of the boat. “We have to move away from the ship! She’ll drag us right down!”

Using their arms as paddles, the few men holding onto the boat dug deep, leaned over the side and pushed through the water.