Monday, April 15, 1912
The ragtime music the orchestra continued to play did nothing to lift Elizabeth’s spirits. She stood on deck with her arms around Max, her parents just behind them, dreading the moment when her father would say, “It’s time.”
Boat number three had settled on the sea. From where she stood, it looked as if the crewman was having trouble propelling the boat away from the Titanic.
“That man doesn’t know what he’s doing,” her father said in disgust. “I’m glad we waited. I wouldn’t want you and your mother in that boat.” He took her hand. “Perhaps we’d best try port side. I haven’t seen the captain these past few minutes. He could be over there. If he is, I’ll make sure he gives your boat an experienced crewman. Come along, then.”
They were making their way along the deck to port side when there was an explosion above them and a brilliant white light appeared in the sky, spilling out a shower of stars.
“Rockets!” her father declared. Shaking his head, he urged them to hurry. “Everyone knows the meaning of rockets fired off at sea. Even people who have been clinging to a shred of hope will finally understand now what’s going on. They might rush the lifeboats. We’ve got to get you settled before that happens.”
Martin Farr hurried them over to the port-side rail and boat number six, which was just loading forward of the first-class Grand Staircase. Captain Smith, as Elizabeth’s father had hoped, was indeed there. He was standing near the officer’s quarters, calling out, “Women and children first!” A second officer in uniform stood near the boat, repeating the captain’s words. Elizabeth, her face white and drawn, assumed he was responsible for keeping order. But how much order could he keep, now that a rocket had been sent up? Fear would sweep over the ship like a tidal wave. People would panic. It would surely take more than one lone officer to calm them.
Five minutes later, as they stood in line, another rocket exploded with a startling bang. The sky lit up again.
“That’s to lead the steamer to us,” Max explained to Elizabeth. “They can use the rocket to fix our position. Of course, the captain probably already sent any ship in the area a distress message when the iceberg first struck. But it’s pretty dark out here, and the rockets will help.”
Elizabeth glanced up at the sky. She had never seen so many stars, shining down upon them as if eager to lend their light to the disaster scene. They failed to reassure her, nor did Max’s calm, matter-of-fact words ease her terror. He seemed so certain a ship would come to their aid quickly. She felt no such certainty. The lights in the distance seemed to her fixed exactly as they had been the last time she looked. If it was indeed a ship, it was moving very slowly, if at all.
The rockets continued to light up the sky at five-minute intervals. Elizabeth found their explosive noise and bright glare painful, and shuddered with each new blast. If there were ships out there, as Max believed there were, how could they fail to see the telling rocket display? Why wasn’t one of them rushing to their aid? They should know exactly where to look for the wounded Titanic.
Please, please, please, Elizabeth prayed, please come and save us so we don’t have to go out onto that cold, black sea in the dark of night! Please!
But she could see no lights approaching.
Other women were praying, too, many of them aloud. New brides cried and clung to their husbands. Elizabeth thought she saw tears in the eyes of more than one man, as well. She was surrounded by people of wealth, totally unaccustomed to showing any emotion in public and yet, in this darkest of hours, many had given up trying to hide their agony at being separated from those they loved, with no knowledge of when, if ever, they would meet again. Tears flowed freely as wives were wrenched from their husbands by well-meaning stewardesses, or pushed forcibly away and into boats by equally well-intentioned husbands. Elizabeth took in the sight of hands visibly shaking, faces stone-white with fear, mouths set in desperation, and knew that she was looking at mirror images of herself and her family.
We all look like that, she thought, her heart pounding fiercely as her father pushed them forward toward the lifeboat, every one of us. We are all more frightened than we have ever been before.
When a woman screamed hysterically that she was not leaving the ship, Elizabeth was not surprised. She wouldn’t have been surprised if every passenger on deck had begun screaming hysterically. The barely restrained panic emanating from the crowd had thickened to the point where Elizabeth felt she could reach out into the air and grasp a handful of it.
If only I could stop trembling, Elizabeth thought as they pressed forward, other bodies pressing more urgently now behind them, seeking escape. If I could stop shaking, perhaps I wouldn’t feel so frightened.
Before Nola Farr and her daughter boarded the lifeboat, her father boldly asked the second officer, whom he addressed as “Officer Lightoller,” if the crewmen in the boat would be experienced seamen. “You can understand the question,” he added. “I am entrusting my wife and daughter to them.”
“I have two men,” the officer replied as he ushered two more women into the boat. “Mr. Fleet here is a lookout, and Quartermaster Hichens was at the wheel of this ship when the iceberg hit. He’s a senior crew member, and he’ll be in charge. You can trust him.”
“I hope so.” Turning to Elizabeth and her mother, Martin Farr said with no apparent show of emotion, though his eyes were bleak, “It’s time. Get in, dears, and I shall meet you on board the steamer.”
He sounded so convincing that Elizabeth tried desperately to believe him. There were still lifeboats suspended in the davits. Couldn’t he have been wrong about a shortage? On the forward port deck, she could see women, most of them weeping openly or protesting loudly, being loaded into boat number eight. Perhaps there weren’t as many women on board as men. The remaining women might all fit into boats six and eight. Then her father and Max and any other men could leave in the boats that were left. And they would all meet again on the rescue ship Max kept mentioning, though Elizabeth still saw no approaching lights in the distance.
Telling herself that, Elizabeth was able to hug her father tightly and tell him she would look for him, first thing, on the rescue ship. She hadn’t forgotten that he didn’t know how to swim. Still, she was hardly crying at all. Then she let him go so that her mother could say her good-bye.
But when Elizabeth hugged Max good-bye, a sense of foreboding swooped down upon her. It was so overpowering, her knees felt like seawater. She could barely whisper, “I’ll see you soon. I will, Max.” Even with the sense of dread filling her, she refused to say the word “Goodbye.” It was too final.
He kissed her, just once, but the kiss lasted a long time, because neither of them wanted it to end.
The worst moment came when they had to leave the solid, sturdy, though tilted, deck of the great liner and step out over the churning black water and into the lifeboat. Icy fingers of terror clutched at Elizabeth, telling her this was a terrible mistake. Stay on the ship, a voice in her head warned. Do not go out into the unknown.
But she had no choice.
Other women seemed to be having the same reaction. Even the bravest among them quailed at the moment of getting into the lifeboat. Some had to be physically lifted by a crewman across the slight span from ship to boat and dropped to a wooden seat. One woman tried desperately to climb back out, shaking violently with terror, only to be restrained by two women on either side of her. Even as she gave in and took her place, she wept desperately.
Elizabeth and her mother climbed in and sat down. Both kept their eyes fastened on the face of Martin Farr as long as they could.
Officer Lightoller told Quartermaster Hichens to row toward the lights of the approaching steamer, drop off the women, and come back to the Titanic to pick up more passengers. He sounded so certain that this plan would work, Elizabeth was heartened again. “More passengers” meant Max and her father.
Then Lightoller ordered the crew to lower away.
As they prepared to do so, a beautifully dressed woman on deck, speaking with a heavy French accent, was exclaiming anxiously about her jewels, which were apparently still in the care of the purser. Mrs. Brown, the millionairess from Colorado so disliked by Elizabeth’s mother, was trying to persuade the woman to enter the boat. At the very last moment, the woman gave in and was helped to a seat beside Elizabeth.
The boat began to descend. The sound of quiet, frightened weeping accompanied the creak of the davits.
Above them, Elizabeth heard an authoritative voice say, “You are going, too.” She lifted her head, hoping to see Max and her father jumping into the boat. Instead, there was a cry of protest, and Mrs. Molly Brown dropped four feet from above and into the boat with a heavy thud, her hat tilting sideways on her head as she landed.
Elizabeth wondered if Max and her father were still at the rail watching the descent. When she looked up, her vision was clouded, as if she were looking through a thick, black veil, and she realized her eyes were filled with tears. Because she didn’t want to do this. Not only did she not want to leave Max and her father, she was frozen with fear at having to leave the safety and security of the huge Titanic to venture out into the vast unknown, even if, as the second officer had said, it would only be for a short while.
She wished she could believe him.
Her hands were trembling, and not from cold.
When they came even with B deck, the quartermaster suddenly cried up to Lightoller, “I can’t manage this boat with only one seaman!”
The boat stopped its descent.
Maybe they’ll pull us back up, Elizabeth thought in her distress, and we can climb out of the boat and back onto the ship and wait with Father and Max for the rescue ship, as I wanted to do all along.
But they weren’t pulled back up. They hung instead, suspended alongside the Titanic, while the second officer above tried to decide the best way to respond to the quartermaster’s complaint.
“Even if there’s another crew member up there,” a woman whose voice seemed remarkably calm said aloud to no one in particular, “we’re two decks down. How’s he going to get down here? Can’t jump, it’s too far. Break his neck, he would. Not something I care to see.”
But Elizabeth’s mother said nervously, “If the quartermaster thinks we need more men, we should have more men. We don’t want to get out on that open sea and be unable to handle this boat.”
Elizabeth heard a noise above them. When she looked up, she saw to her astonishment a man who looked to be older than her father swing hand over hand out onto the davit and begin climbing down the ropes toward them.
Her mother gasped, Molly Brown uttered an oath under her breath, and the first woman who had spoken added, “Lost his mind, he has. Going to fall, for sure.”
But he didn’t fall.
When the man landed in the boat, the quartermaster ordered him to put the boat’s plug in place. The new arrival, a nice-looking older man with a neatly trimmed beard, who said his name was Major Peuchen, was unable to find the plug in the dark. Giving up, he went back to where Hichens was sitting. They spoke for a moment, and Elizabeth saw the senior officer pick something up and insert it into the boat. When the plug was in place, the quartermaster returned to the stern. He took his place, then declared to the major that he was in charge of the boat and would give the orders.
Elizabeth thought it very rude of him. But with no argument, Major Peuchen sat down beside the lookout named Fleet. When the boat hit the flat, calm water, both men began rowing.
The cold was unbearable from the moment they hit the sea. Elizabeth’s toes felt frozen though she was wearing warm boots. There were women in the boat who had only evening slippers on their feet, and one woman had no shoes at all, only hose.
Her mother, though warmly dressed, was shivering uncontrollably. Elizabeth put an arm around her. As the boat began pulling away from the Titanic, she said quietly, “Mother, we’ll be all right. That steamer out there will pick us up, and then Father and Max will meet us later. Really, we’re going to be fine.” Her father had said she must take care of her mother, and so that was what she would do. Even if she didn’t really believe the things she was saying.
Her mother’s face, bone-white under the wide-brimmed black hat, turned toward her. “Well, yes, of course, dear. We shall see your father shortly. And I must admit, I misjudged Enid’s son. I had no idea it was in him to be a hero. That was a very brave act, hoisting those two children into the lifeboat. I really must tell Enid what a chance he took.” There was no emotion in her voice. It was as if someone had written lines for her and she was reciting them. But then, she was a Langston, and Langstons did not show emotion in public. It just wasn’t done. And it seemed totally in character for Nola to then add, “I do hope that Brown woman minds her manners. It’s unpleasant enough in this horrid boat without listening to her vulgarities.” Then she sounded more like herself.
Elizabeth stifled hysterical laughter. Only her mother would insist that people mind their manners under these conditions.
She silently counted the number of people in the boat. Twenty-eight, including the crew. Bitterness surged through her. There was so much room. Fifty or sixty people could fit in this boat! Yet her father and Max were still on board the sinking ship. It seemed criminal to her, and she failed to see the reasoning behind it. Why shouldn’t the men have come along if the boat was going to leave only half full? To leave them on a sinking ship was indeed a crime of the worst sort.
And from where they were sitting on the water, well away from the Titanic, it was now painfully clear that the ship was indeed sinking. Its lights still glowing brightly, it sat at a slight but obvious tilt, its bow down, its stern raised, while rockets continued to shower it with white-hot stars from eight hundred feet above its decks. As more and more passengers in the lifeboat lifted their heads to take a good look, and understood, there were smothered sobs, open weeping, and gasps of horror.
Elizabeth forced herself to think calmly for a moment, wondering if the approaching steamer, its own lights wavering faintly in the distance, had a view of the ailing Titanic yet and could see what was taking place. Probably not. Its own outline was not yet visible, only the pale glow of its lights.
Shouldn’t it be in sight by now? Max had said that Captain Smith would have sent it a distress message. How slow it must be traveling to have made so little progress by this time. Hadn’t the message made the urgency of their situation clear to the ship’s captain? Why wasn’t he rushing toward them?
Panic rose within her again. If it really was a ship, it had to hurry. It had to! There couldn’t be much time left for those still aboard the Titanic. Her heart was breaking for her father and Max, and for all the others who were still standing at the rails. What must they be thinking and feeling? They had to be filled with terror as the lifeboats continued to pull away. Or could they still not believe this nightmare was actually taking place?
Remembering what Max had told her, Elizabeth waited for Hichens to announce that if it came to that, they would be returning to the Titanic to pick up survivors. Then she would hope with everything in her that Max and her father would be among them.
On the aft well deck, Katie was using all of her powers of persuasion to move people out of that area and up to the boat deck. Though her da had once told her with a twinkle in his eye, “Katie-girl, you could talk the stars right down out of the sky if you’d a mind to,” she wasn’t having much luck. Women refused to leave their husbands. Their husbands refused to leave the aft well deck, insisting there was no serious problem. Even if they’d been willing, by the time Katie and Paddy returned to that area, crewmen had locked the gates again and were allowing only women and children above decks.
Some of the passengers had moved to the smoking room aft of the well deck. Katie could hear the piano being played and wondered if people were actually dancing. Did they really not know what was happening, or were they just playacting, pretending this was any other night on the sea to hide their fears?
At the gate, Brian was arguing with the crewmen. She thought he was probably asking that families be allowed to leave intact, but she could see one of the crewmen shaking his head no. She could almost hear him saying, “No men, and that’s final.”
“Can you not see,” she pleaded with the mother of six young children, “that the ship has a noticeable list to it now? Think of the children! You must be savin’ them!”
The woman’s lips tightened. Her English was not good, but she understood what Katie was saying. “Karl come, too,” she said firmly, referring to her husband, a tall, blond-haired man standing behind her talking to another man.
“The men will come later, in other boats,” Katie argued. “But you and the children must go now.” She was so cold, her voice trembled. She pointed to the crewmen standing at the gate letting only women and children through. “There, you must go there. Someone will direct you to the boats.”
The woman didn’t budge. Pulling her black shawl tighter around her shoulders, she announced stubbornly, “Karl don’t go, I don’t go.”
In frustration, Katie glanced around for Paddy. He might be able to do what she couldn’t. But she didn’t see him. Below decks he was, making certain there were no stragglers left behind. Then she scanned the crowd for Father Byles, who had been circulating among them earlier. Perhaps the priest could convince this woman that her children must be saved.
She didn’t see Father Byles, either.
Giving up, Katie moved across the well deck to another family, hoping she would have better luck this time.