Page 37

“ She’s sinking for certain, and quickly.

” A disembodied male voice broke over the quiet conversation.

There was no denying it. The tip of the bow was already under water.

Elizabeth was grateful for the physical exertion and the pain of the burgeoning blisters on her hands. It kept her from bursting into sobs.

“ I wonder where Georgie is. Am I to be a widow so young?” Lydia asked mournfully. And, Darcy, where are you? Are you safe?

***

At two in the morning, Darcy remained on the boat deck as the last four collapsible lifeboats were filled.

Exhausted, he witnessed Ida Straus, the wife of the Macy’s department store magnate, refuse to leave her husband.

A string quartet stayed on deck, playing their final dirges into the night as the ship listed toward the starboard bow.

Everything seemed dreamlike. Women were thrown by their husbands into sailors’ arms and forcibly taken into the last lifeboats.

Darcy scanned the horizon. The light was so deceptive.

If all had been well, this would have been a most glorious night.

The sea was as still as a millpond, the stars blazing, unveiled in their magnificence.

And yet, here they all were, hundreds of them, about to be swept under the freezing, black water by the death throes of this monstrous vessel.

Still, there was a slight chance. It crept upon him as he helped load the lifeboats and looked down into the black abyss of the ocean.

Matthew Webb swam the English Channel, which was cold, but certainly not as hellish as this icy ship’s graveyard.

He was in the water over twenty hours because of the grease he slathered over his body.

The kitchens were on the saloon deck between first and second-class dining saloons.

Certainly, there would be grease there. Fighting his way through the increasingly panicked crowd, Darcy descended the listing staircase and made his way through the nearly abandoned dining rooms.

Strangely, some people lounged about there.

“ Have a drink, friend.” A very drunken man beckoned Darcy over. “We’re all going to die, anyway,” he slurred. “Might as well be drunk.”

Darcy sped past him and his other nearly unconscious companions and flung open the kitchen doors.

The place was deserted. Stoves creaked against the bolts that held them to the floor and wouldn’t stay in place long.

In desperation and scouring the place for a bucket of discarded fat, he even considered looking in the refrigerated compartment on the port side and coating himself with that French ice cream.

It couldn’t be any colder than the water into which he was about to plunge.

Only a minute or two into his search, he found what he was looking for.

Stripping off his coat, shirt, trousers, socks, and shoes, he stood in his underclothes and then, looking about, stripped those off as well.

Taking handfuls of stinking grease from the buckets, he began with his head, and as quickly as he could, slathered himself in grease.

His back. What would he do about his back?

Thinking quickly, he dipped his underclothes in the grease and put them back on.

The long sleeves and leggings that reached his ankles might afford him extra protection.

The ship’s heavy appliances groaned and strained as the ship listed.

He needed to leave before he was crushed as their bolts tore loose from the floor and hurled themselves toward the bow of the ship.

He put on his coat and his shoes and climbed the leaning stairwell to the deck.

The last of the lifeboats were gone. The passengers who remained were crowding, foolishly and hopelessly, to the stern of the ship, screaming and clinging to the railings. All was madness.

Darcy knew that it meant almost certain death were he to attempt to swim in the iceberg-laden, glacial water.

Still, it seemed a better end to freeze to death whilst swimming than to lie in a dark cabin as it slowly filled with water, or cling to this wounded titan as it sucked him down into the dark depths.

He shuddered. After moving to the stern of the ship that was crowding with increasingly panicking people, he looked down into the impenetrable blackness.

The walls of the vessel seemed higher now than ever they were.

It was now or never. The stern of the ship was nearly out of the water.

Soon the Titanic would plunge headlong into its watery grave, taking all of them with her.

If he jumped from this position, he might break his legs as he landed.

Although it seemed counterintuitive, he moved toward the bow, which was now almost completely submerged.

He needed to move immediately, or the death throes of the Titanic would suck him under with the rest of these poor unfortunates.

After a few shallow breaths, he sat down on the sloping deck and removed his shoes and his coat.

After standing only in his underclothes, he climbed over the rail.

“ He’s going to jump,” a woman screamed.

The next second, he plummeted toward the icy water.