AN ADVENTURE TO REMEMBER AND A MEMORY TO FORGET
Chapter Fifteen
Victoria’s POV
Rose was leaning up against me,
crying. I could tell she didn’t want to leave Jack. She looked up long enough
to see Jack and Cal talking. Cal said something to Jack, and his facial
expression went from bad to worse. I figured that Cal had done something to
hurt Jack to make Rose come back to him, and I was right. She looked at me, and
I knew what she was going to do. In one leap, she jumped out of the lifeboat,
back on the Titanic, and looked at me. I knew what she wanted me to do. I
followed her lead with the echoes of the lifeboat crew yelling at us to come
back. I looked back long enough to see about a dozen other passengers jump into
the boat in our places. Jack and Cal saw Rose jump off and ran to meet her in
the hallway. I watched as they met up. Jack ran to her, picked her up, and
hugged her tightly.
"Rose! You're so stupid. Why
did you do that, huh? You're so stupid, Rose. Why did you do that? Why?"
He was kissing her as she was crying.
She stopped crying long enough to
look at him. "You jump, I jump, right?"
Jack looked shocked, as if she
remembered something he didn’t expect her to. "Right." He kissed her
again.
Rose looked at me, then at Jack.
"Now what do we do? I’ve dragged us both into this mess. How are we going
to get out?"
Jack surveyed the room.
"It's all right. We'll think of something." He saw Cal looking down
at us from the balcony. Jack started to take us both out of harm’s way, but
Cal’s manservant took him away. Jack focused back on Rose. I looked up to see
Cal aiming a gun at all of us.
"Run!" I shoved Rose
and Jack out of the way and followed them into the water. Rose led us down to
the dining area, which was already flooded. Cal followed us, shooting at us as
we ran.
We stopped as we got inside the
dining area. Cal had fired a few more shots at us before I heard him yell at
Rose. With the water and the noise in the dining room, I couldn’t hear what he
said. Jack peeked around the corner.
"I don’t see him." Jack
led Rose back up the staircase and out of the water. I followed them.
"What a bastard." Jack
was talking, trying to keep both Rose and me calm. We got back up to the main
deck. With no sign of Cal or that awful manservant of his, we made our way back
to the last two remaining boats. Jack knew he didn’t have a chance of getting
in a boat, but tried to get Rose and me to board. Rose refused to go without
Jack, and I wasn’t going without Rose.
The ship, by this time, had a
severe tilt to it. It was getting harder and harder to walk. The three of us
made our way to the back part of the ship, following the crowd of people. When
we got to the end of the balcony, Jack helped me over first, then Rose. We fell
to the lower decks. Jack followed us and led us to a tiny staircase that put us
at the back of the ship. A man in front of me was walking slowly, praying as he
was walking.
"Yea, though I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death..." I heard him saying as he was
walking.
Jack was shoving the man to walk
faster. "You want to walk a little faster through that valley there?"
He took the hint and started to catch up with the rest of the group.
We got to the very back part of
the ship. It was obvious by now that the weight of the water would pull the
ship’s back end up in the air, then sink it. Jack was busy formulating a plan.
"If we climb on top of these
rails, we can ride the ship down. When it goes under, kick towards the surface
of the water, and we’ll wait on a boat to come back and get us."
I was terrified of the icy water,
but if Rose trusted Jack, I could, too. I had to survive. I had to survive for
my family, and most of all, for Harry.
Harry’s POV
"Row faster! The ship is
about to go under, and if it does, it’ll pull us under!" I was yelling at
the three crewmen as I was watching the horror unfold in front of me. I
silently said a prayer, hoping that by chance Victoria would be okay. I was
going to say something to her about her stupidity when I saw her again. There
wasn’t going to be an if I saw her again. It was going to be when I saw her
again.
I heard a couple of the passengers
in my boat talking about how spectacular everything was.
"It’s not every day you get
first hand seats at something this spectacular."
I looked at the lady who spoke.
She was obviously from first class. I figured I’d lose my job over this, but I
didn’t care. I had to say something.
"You call this spectacular?
A sinking of a huge luxury liner spectacular? The loss of thousands of lives
spectacular? Shut up, lady!"
I could see the horrified look on
her face as I finished speaking. She didn’t say anything else. The look on her
face matched the look on my face as I saw the Titanic’s stern rise in the air
before it fell back into the water with a gigantic splash. I saw at least a
dozen, if not more, people fall off the back of the ship as it settled back into
the water.
"God almighty!" The
woman who I had just told to shut up now had a different outlook on what was
going on.
I just watched from the safety of
the lifeboat, horrified at what was unfolding in front of me. I had to do
something. I just didn’t know what.
Victoria’s POV
We heard a loud cracking noise.
Jack looked over, and he said the ship was cracking right down the middle. Rose
and I watched as planks from the deck were being snapped like toothpicks and
metal pieces were flung out into the sea. The ship started to rise. Jack told
Rose and me to hang on. As the ship was pulled vertical, we hung on. It only
stayed upright for a moment before it went crashing back into the dark sea. It
about knocked me unconscious as it fell back. I hit my head hard on the
railing. I touched the sore spot on my head and saw blood.
Before I could do anything else,
Jack climbed over the railing of the stern. He helped Rose and me over.
"The ship is going to rise
again. When it does, it’s going to sink, then pull us under. Do not let go of
my hands. When it starts to sink towards the bottom of the ocean, kick. Keep
kicking until you reach the surface. And again, do not let go of my
hands." Jack looked at me, then at Rose. We both nodded. "We are
going to get through this. Do you girls trust me?"
Rose nodded. "I trust you,
Jack." I said the same thing. As we stood up to ride the ship into the
ocean, Jack said he’d tell us when to take a breath and when to prepare to be
sucked under. The ship stood straight up in the air for what seemed like an
hour before it started to creak and groan as the water overcame it. It started
to slowly go under.
"Now!" Jack yelled over
the roar of the sinking ship. We were all sucked under as a rush of air bubbles
whirled past our bodies.
Harry’s POV
"Holy shit," I muttered
as I watched the ship stand up for the second and last time. I knew what was
going to happen next. After it began to fill with water, it’d sink, and that
would be the end. The thousand or so people left on board would slowly freeze
to death because there were not enough lifeboats aboard. I shook my head and
realized what I had to do. I told the three crewmen to row over towards another
boat about thirty feet away from us.
"Right. Listen to me! We
have to go back! I want to transfer all the women from my boat into this boat
and that boat. Quickly, please! We have to move." I looked back towards
the now sunken ship. I could hear voices screaming out in pain, begging for any
of us to come back.
I silently prayed that if
Victoria was among those in the water she’d hang on until I could come get her.
I looked into that direction again after shifting my gaze towards helping an
older lady into the other lifeboat. "Don’t give up, Tory. I’m coming for
you."
Victoria’s POV
The water was ice cold. I had
never felt anything like it. Jack had his hand wrapped around of the straps of
my lifebelt. His other one was intertwined with Rose’s lifebelt. Jack and I
made it to the surface first.
"Oh, shit, this is
cold." He stopped to catch his breath. "Rose? Where are you?" Jack
was looking around in the cold water, trying to find Rose.
I looked around while Jack was
calling out. I saw her, fighting with another man who was trying to use her as
a raft. "Jack! There she is!" I pointed in her direction. Jack
started swimming and pulled me over to Rose. He hit the man in the face, and he
fell back into the water.
"Both of you, I need you to
swim!" Jack pointed about twenty feet away from where we were to a flat
piece of wood. "We can get on that to get out of the water." Rose and
I started swimming towards the wood. It turned out to be a large door. Jack
pulled a second door over beside the one Rose and I were headed to. Rose and
Jack got on that door and I pulled myself up and got on the smaller door. Jack
had found a piece of fabric floating in the water. He threw one end of it to me
and held on to the other end. "Don’t let go. If we start to float off, at
least we’ll all be together." Jack got close to Rose to keep her warm. I
had no one to keep me warm. I listened to all the yelling around me. The people
in the water were begging for us to come back. I was lying flat on my back, but
turned my head to watch an officer of the ship blowing his whistle. He was
barely hanging on to what looked like a large wooden box.
He’d blow on the whistle, then
yell at the boats to please come back. "Please! Return the boats!"
I heard Rose and Jack talking.
"I told you that when the ship docked, I was getting off with you. Now
that it has sunk, I guess I’m still getting off with you, just not in the
manner I had hoped."
Jack smiled, trying to stay warm.
"You know this makes no sense. You’re leaving everything behind."
Rose was shivering. "It
doesn’t matter. You’re all I need."
Harry was all I needed. I just
wished I could have him with me right now. I was doing my best to stay warm,
but I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness. I didn’t know how much
longer I could last. I turned my head to face Jack and Rose, all the while
trying not to let go of the lifeline between those two and myself.
"I love you, Jack."
Rose was barely audible. Jack sat up to look at her.
"Don't you do that. Don't
say your good-byes." He was looking into her eyes as he was propped up on
one of his elbows.
"I'm so cold. I can’t feel
my body."
Jack moved in closer to Rose to
keep her warmer. "Winning that ticket, Rose, was the best thing that ever
happened to me...it brought me to you. And I'm thankful for that, Rose. I'm
thankful. You must do me this honor, Rose. Promise me you'll survive. That you
won't give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless. Promise me now,
Rose, and never let go of that promise."
"I’ll never let go. I
promise."
"You’d better not. We’re
going to get out of here. We’re going to survive this and get married. Victoria
can be your maid of honor. Her officer friend can be my best man. We can get
married anywhere you want. You name the place. They’ll be there. I’ll make sure
of it." Jack looked over Rose’s almost frozen body and looked right into
my eyes. "You’ll be there, won’t you? You and Officer…uh…"
"Lowe. Officer Harold
Lowe." I was so cold could barely talk.
"Right. Victoria and Officer
Lowe will be there. You’ve got to hang in there, Rose!"
Rose nodded. She snuggled in
closer to Jack, trying to stay warm.
"I don't know about the two
of you, but I intend to write a strongly worded letter to the White Star Line
about all of this." Jack was trying to keep us both conscious.
Rose laughed and I tried, too,
but I was too cold. I started to say something, but it all faded to black. The
last thing I heard was Jack calling out my name, begging me to hang on.