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Chapter Fifteen

The boat carrying me, Josephine, Mrs Brown and about twenty other passengers is lowered down the side of the sinking ship.

The creaking sound as it swings from the davits causes some of the women to cry out in panic.

There are only about fifteen feet now between the deck and the ocean.

It’s a shock to see how far the ship has sunk.

The Titanic will soon be gone and, if Cavill and Lester don’t find a collapsible lifeboat, they will go down with it.

Perhaps Lester has found his way onto another lifeboat.

I pray that he has. I pray that I haven’t let Constance down and abandoned her nephew to drown.

If I have then I will have changed history.

Who knows what sequence of events I will have started?

As we descend, we can see through the portholes the water flooding the rooms and churning about the furniture.

It’s a terrible sight witnessing the destruction of those exquisitely decorated and crafted cabins.

I look up to see a couple in lifejackets and fancy hats leaning on the railings, watching us impassively.

Their faces are eerily white in the starlight.

I wonder whether they have chosen not to be separated and are resigned to their fate.

Or perhaps they hope the ship won’t go down.

I suppose everyone is hoping the ship won’t go down.

But tonight, hope is as useless as prayer.

The passengers in the lifeboat are strangely quiet.

Wherever we look, there is panic and chaos.

It’s too much to take in. There are already people thrashing about in the water.

People jumping overboard. People trying to swim, trying to survive, holding on to anything they can find that’s in the sea.

And we can’t save them. Not a single one of them.

I feel a dreadful mixture of relief and guilt that I am safe and dry in the boat, and a crushing feeling of helplessness and sorrow for those who aren’t as lucky.

I want to slide back to my time and save myself from having to see and hear, but I don’t.

I’ve come this far. I can find the courage to see it through.

The lifeboat touches the water with a splash and the ropes are swiftly untethered.

It takes a while for the crew seated by the tillers to get the hang of the oars, but after some awkward and out-of-step rowing, we gradually pull away from the stricken ship.

Josephine is crying. Her pitiful sobs accompany the wet sound of lapping oars.

Mrs Brown is silent for once, staring with round, incredulous eyes at the extraordinary sight of the enormous ship slowly disappearing into the Atlantic, when everyone believed it to be unsinkable.

There are twenty-five of us on board. No one speaks.

Everyone is stunned with horror. Most have left loved ones behind.

They must know now that those poor souls will likely perish.

No one wants to watch the drama, but we can’t tear our eyes away.

The sound of human panic and incongruously uplifting music from the band fades to a dull roar as the distance between us and the Titanic widens.

The passengers who are stranded on board are little more than black silhouettes, except for the stewards whose white jackets occasionally shine in the electric lights of the ship.

The Titanic ’s bow gradually dips and the stern rises.

It seems to be sinking faster now. Those black silhouettes are running up the deck, away from the wave which, with the motion of the submerging ship, rolls towards them, engulfing many.

Then the lights flicker and go out. The magnificent ship is like a giant rock outlined against the deep indigo sky.

I think of Cavill and Lester. I can’t bear to imagine what they must be going through, if they are indeed still on board.

People are throwing themselves into the sea.

Others are scrambling up and down the deck, but there is nowhere to go.

Nowhere to flee. There is only water and death.

From where we are watching, they look as small as ants and just as helpless.

I know from history that there are some who decide to die in their beds, and a great number of third-class passengers who are locked behind grilled gates and confined to die in their quarters.

I feel an overpowering sickness in my heart.

The bow sinks lower into the ocean, the stern climbs higher into the sky.

The giant black propellers are lifted out of the water and glisten sharply.

The sea swamps the deck and rises to swallow the bridge.

One of the funnels collapses and crashes into the water.

People swarm around anything solid that might stop them from falling to their deaths as the deck slopes more dramatically and makes it impossible to remain standing.

There’s a thunderous roar as the ship cracks like a branch and breaks in two.

Those giant propellers come crashing down onto the water, crushing all the people splashing about beneath it.

‘Dear God!’ mutters Mrs Brown. She pulls Josephine against her fur coat and the girl buries her face and covers her eyes.

For a moment the stern, torn from the rest of the ship, bobs about like a duck with its head in the water.

There’s an excruciating pause as we hold our breath, anticipating the end.

Then with increasing speed, the final part of that great ship slides beneath the waves and disappears for ever.

‘She’s gone,’ says one of the crew. He looks at his watch. ‘It’s twenty minutes past two.’ It’s taken two and a half hours for the ship to sink.

It’s a terrible sight, that empty black space where, only minutes ago, the Titanic dominated the view. The stars, as pretty as an advent calendar, continue to twinkle serenely. Yet beneath them is suffering and death.

Screams drift on the still, icy air. The sea churns with hundreds of thrashing arms as people fight for their lives in the freezing water.

‘We must go back,’ says Mrs Brown. ‘We can’t leave them to drown. We must go back!’

‘No! That is folly!’ a woman protests shrilly. I recognise her voice at once. It’s clawing and pitiless, the voice of a woman who will always think of herself first: Delia Finch. ‘They’ll swamp the boat and we’ll all drown. It would be madness. Madness. Don’t you see? We will not go back.’

‘Those are your husbands and sons out there. We’ve got to do something!’ Mrs Brown insists, looking at each passenger in turn, but most look away. They are too afraid of being overwhelmed and drowning as well. ‘We can’t sit here and watch them die. We must do something.’

And so the legend is born. Maggie Brown immortalised into the fabled heroine ‘The Unsinkable Molly Brown’.

She is right, of course. What about Lester and Cavill?

What about the other men? ‘We must go back,’ I exclaim, but I know they won’t row back.

The boat falls into guilty silence. Even the children are mute.

The clamour of drowning people goes on and on, minute after agonising minute. When will it end?

Josephine is now too shocked to cry. All we can do is watch helplessly and wait for it to be over.

It’s quiet now. The sea is as flat as a reservoir, and as silent as a grave.

The thrashing in the water has stopped. There’s only stillness and a strange, desolate calm.

I gaze up at the shooting stars that whizz through the darkness in streaks of silver, and pray that Cavill has made it.

That Lester has made it, too. So many have died – among them, the poor captain who has gone down with his ship.

It’s hard to take in a tragedy of this scale.

I know, of course, that we’ll be rescued.

I want to reassure the others in the lifeboat, but I must not.

I just whisper to poor Josephine, who is numb with cold and grief, that I’m sure help is on its way.

Mrs Brown, in her unique style, organises the rowing because we must take it in turns to give the crew a rest. I volunteer in order to keep myself from freezing.

Two women hold the tillers in place while Mrs Brown and I row.

None of us knows where we’re headed, but it seems futile to sit in the middle of the sea and do nothing.

Time passes. The exertion gives me something to focus on and warms me a little.

Occasionally, we see the green glow of flares launched from other lifeboats and hear the calls as survivors hail one another in the dark.

The light illuminates fleetingly the icebergs that are scattered among the bobbing lifeboats.

It’s hard to distinguish them. There’s a little small talk, words of comfort, the sharing of brandy from a flask, a blanket offered to a child who is whimpering with cold.

I anticipate impatiently the lights of the Carpathia that will soon loom out of the dawn, for I have never in my life been so cold.

But the sky is black and there’s no sign of the sun.

It seems as if the night will go on for ever.

At last, a faint light can be seen on the horizon twinkling above the waterline. The boat rises and falls on the swell, causing the light to disappear and reappear in a tantalising game of cat and mouse. ‘There’s a ship out there,’ I say through chattering teeth.

‘It’s a star,’ says Delia Finch dogmatically.

‘No, it’s a boat and they’re coming to rescue us,’ I argue.

‘I’d put my money on Connie,’ says Mrs Brown, who is able to inject a timbre of humour into her voice even in this dreadful hour.

‘She’s an optimist,’ says one of the crew.

‘You’ll see,’ I reply quietly. But I don’t feel smug. Even though I know we will be rescued, the wait is unbearable. We are cold, traumatised and desperately sad.