Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
James
Clinging to the overturned lifeboat, James couldn’t be sure how long it had been since the RMS Titanic had slipped beneath the waves.
For the first few minutes after she sank, frantic screams had rung out around them, filling the otherwise calm night with an orchestra of harrowing terror and unfathomable grief.
Several men and women thrashing in the water nearby had pleaded to be let aboard their lifeboat, but the officer up front had instructed James and the other passengers to keep people away, for their vessel was already overly full.
At first, some of those people in the water had fought back, several even trying to pull others off of the overturned boat, but soon, once most swimmers had either run out of energy or had otherwise accepted their probable fate, they began to only verbally request to be let on board.
Most times, they were denied. Except for a few instances.
Like when some passenger who had lost consciousness had fallen off only moments before.
All throughout this ordeal, James had mostly kept to himself.
Knowing that he might not have had the strength, either mental or physical, to fight back if someone tried to pull him off the lifeboat, James had shifted his position to move his legs closer to the boat’s keel, largely out of reach from those fighting for a place on board.
Cassian had helped keep him balanced, with one of his arms around James’s waist and the other hanging onto the boat.
Once, James had witnessed Cassian shoving someone away, protecting both himself and James from being ripped off the boat.
He’d pushed the man back before swinging out his leg out and kicking him, too, knocking him unconscious and sending him adrift.
James’s first thought had been something akin to “Thank God,” but then, immediately thereafter, shame had settled in his heart for having thought it.
And now, with the cacophony of screams having been reduced to an echo of soft whimpers and cries, James found himself lingering on that hazy memory of Cassian saving them. He felt both grateful and guilty at once.
Around the lifeboat, bodies of the men and women who had perished in the icy Atlantic waters bobbed about, looking like pieces of wreckage floating in the ocean.
Every minute that passed, the screams and cries and whimpers became fainter and fainter, though their original volume and intensity still echoed in James’s ears.
Soon, the night was silent and still, and the oppressive lack of sound—save for the waves lapping at the boat—stole the last bit of strength that James still possessed.
He slumped backward, becoming limp.
“James?!” Cassian whispered harshly from behind him, shaking his shoulders once. “James, you better not be—”
“I’m still here, Cassian,” James whispered back. He let out a long, slow breath. “But the silence . . .”
“I know,” Cassian said softly, his voice seemingly the only warmth in the unforgiving waters. James felt Cassian’s hold tighten. “I know.”
Shaking, both from the cold and from the rush of sorrow and pain, James found Cassian’s hand and linked their index fingers together. He prayed that no one would see them. Or that if they did, they would not care.
Minutes passed like this. Eventually, James stopped shaking and shut his eyes.
Despite the ever-present pins-and-needles feeling in his legs and feet, he otherwise managed to forget where he was for a little while, instead focusing on the rise and fall of Cassian’s chest behind him rather than the rocking of the boat or the knot in his stomach.
But James’s short stint of peace was interrupted when someone in the middle of the boat collapsed, the man falling into the sea with an ominous splash.
Immediately, people began to fill the void the man had left, shifting forward as carefully as possible. Some stood.
Encouragingly, Cassian whispered, “Both of us ought to move forward and stand, too, like those people, so that only our feet will still be in the water. It’s our best chance.”
Exhausted, his limbs numb, James wasn’t sure if he could, even though he knew that Cassian was right. Cassian must have sensed his hesitation.
“You made it this far, James. You can do this.” Gripping James’s lifebelt, Cassian began to rise. “Stand up.” James remained on his knees. Cassian pulled some more. Straining slightly as he tried to lift James to his feet, Cassian whisper-yelled, “Up! Now!”
Reluctantly, James shifted his weight and hobbled to stand. He felt the boat sway as he found his footing and vaguely wondered if it might sink or throw him over. Yet he couldn’t even muster the strength to be properly frightened by the fleeting thought.
Soon, most on the overturned lifeboat were on their feet, everyone clinging to each other for balance. It took seconds for James to realize that he was holding onto the man in front of him, his hand on the fellow’s shoulder. Cassian, of course, was still hugging him close.
After a little longer, someone closer to the front called out, “Carpathia is coming.” And the phrase barely even registered to James as more than nonsensical babbling until that same man repeated it for a second time, clarifying, “Carpathia—she’s a smaller liner some one hundred kilometers southeast—she’s coming for us.
We should see her lights at about four. Or a little after.
It might seem like a long while, and it is, but still, she will be here to help us soon enough. Her crew will take us aboard.”
“How do you know this?” someone else asked, sounding slightly incredulous.
“I’m one of the men from the Marconi room,” he said. “You know, one of the wireless telegraphers. Jack Phillips and I had been in communication with the other ship shortly before Titanic foundered.”
Most of the men began to murmur hopeful and appreciative comments to each other.
Into James’s ear, Cassian said, “Help is coming. Don’t give up. Don’t even let yourself consider it. Not for a second. Not ever.”
James inhaled an uneven breath and nodded.
“I won’t,” he said.
“Only and always, James,” Cassian whispered.
Despite the heaviness in his chest, James smiled a little. He found one of Cassian’s hands and squeezed his fingers.
Mustering the last bit of strength he still had in that moment, he whispered back, “Only and always.”
***
April 15, 1912
4:03 a.m.
Scanning the horizon for the Carpathia, James felt as though he might collapse.
Languidly, he shifted his weight right and left, moving exactly as instructed by the officer balanced at the front of the lifeboat.
Over the last half hour, the ocean had become choppier, and the current was now making the boat unstable.
In order to preserve the pocket of air beneath the boat—its presence the very thing that was keeping the bulk of the boat’s underside above the waterline—the crowd of men needed to counteract the effects of the waves.
According to the officer, the men atop the collapsible lifeboat could accomplish this by shifting their weight exactly as instructed, right to left, right to left. And it seemed to be working, a little.
But the constant movement was exhausting, especially since James felt so weak from having struggled in the freezing water.
He wasn’t certain for how much longer he could last. Others seemed to be facing the same problem, the men letting out exhausted sighs intermittently as they rocked from right to left.
What was worse though, was the fact that, despite their constant efforts, the lifeboat had still sunk a fair amount.
Currently, most people’s feet and calves were in the water again.
One of the men on the boat—the wireless telegrapher—couldn’t stand.
His feet were broken or crushed or frostbitten.
Or all three. And the poor fellow was either kneeling or lying flat, moving between the positions.
Because of this, he was soaked, both from the waves that sometimes rolled over him and from the occasional spray that wet his face.
James’s heart ached for him. And for everyone else, too.
Another minute passed. James continued to search the horizon, like the others on board.
“Don’t the rest of you think that we ought to pray?” a man ahead asked.
Swallowing thickly, James could only shrug. He still remembered the hymns that Titanic’s band played in those final minutes before the plunge. Even though the songs had been beautiful, he found that he wasn’t certain whether he even believed in anything anymore.
Others on the boat, though, were interested in praying.
“All right, then, we’ll pray,” the man who had suggested it said. “But, ah, what religion is everyone?”
People began to speak up.
“Catholic,” someone said.
“Methodist,” said another.
“Presbyterian,” a third called out.
Behind James, Cassian said, “Lutheran,” and James smiled, remembering Cassian’s “confirmation name.” Cassian pinched the space right above James’s hip. “You never said yours,” he said. “But you should.”
Huffing a light, raspy laugh, James replied, “Anglican.”
“Anglican?” Cassian balked. He laughed a little, too, though it sounded so weary and weak. “What an interesting thing.”
“It’s not,” James chuckled, not sounding much better himself. “It’s the Church of England. It’s the church where I’m from.”
“Still, it’s so strange,” Cassian said, still laughing a bit. He shook his head. “Anglican.”
Smiling to himself, James rolled his eyes, fondness swirling in his chest. So fervently, he wished that he could spin around and kiss the man.
Finally, the fellow whose idea it had been said, “How about we say the Lord’s Prayer, then? All of us should know it, I would think.”
Everyone agreed.
And then, together, the cluster of survivors balanced atop the overturned lifeboat began to pray, searching the sea for salvation that they feared might never come.
Later, after multiple rounds of prayer, light began to peek over the horizon.
Shortly thereafter, there was precisely enough of it that James and the others were able to see the outlines of the other lifeboats.
Up front, the officer blew his whistle. After a brief exchange with the occupants of some of the other boats, it seemed as though one or more of them might row over.
Soon, they’d no longer be partially submerged in the freezing water.
James let out a small breath of relief as boats began to row to them.
Exactly then, as the sky lightened from black to a rich, vibrant purple at the start of blue hour, James spotted the lights of the Carpathia. So, too, did everyone else.
“Do you see it?” Cassian asked, his voice, while still hoarse and exhausted, had a hint of relief and excitement in it, too. “Carpathia—she’s coming! Look, James! Look!”
Gratitude rose up in James’s chest with the next swell of the ocean, bringing tears to his eyes.
All at once, every emotion he had felt over the course of the night crashed over him.
Overwhelmed, he began to cry, his muscles shaking and convulsing from having spotted the literal manifestation of hope on the horizon.
“No, she’s not only coming,” James said through a choked-back sob. “She’s here.”