SAVE ALL WHO DARE THE EAGLE’S FLIGHT
Chapter Seventeen

O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger's hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe'er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.

I remember screaming.

As Fabrizio caught Tommy, I jumped out of the boat and ran towards them. No one stopped me. Together, Fabrizio and I lifted him up, but it was too late; his eyes were closed and blood was pouring from his mouth. Tears blurred my vision; I blinked rapidly to see again. It wasn’t just that Tommy looked dead; he felt dead, too. His body was still in a way no human body ever should be; there was no breath inside of him and his heart had ceased to beat. I suppose I should be glad he died quickly instead of suffering in the cold water until he met his agonizing death, but still; if he had not been shot, he might have made it. He might have lived…

All the while I was crying, Fabrizio kept muttering, "Oh, Tommy, oh, no, oh no!" He looked up at the Scottish officer at one point and shouted, "Bastardo!"

There was no mistaking the insult.

I was less dignified than Fabrizio; while he had had the composure to only hurl one insult at Tommy’s murderer, I hurled more. "You stupid bastard!" I spat. "He was pushed! He was pushed! Damn you, you son of a bitch!"

My voice broke on this last insult and I had to look away before I cried harder. I looked down, only to find Tommy’s blood seeping down the deck, toward the man who had killed him. It seemed so wrong, so out of place that Tommy should be shot when the Titanic was sinking. And all I could think of was Why? Why had this happened? What had Tommy ever done to deserve this? He had not boasted that God could not sink this ship like so many others had; he had no reason to be punished.

I did not quite see what happened next, for I was still huddled over Tommy’s lifeless body, mourning him with Fabrizio. I heard the other officer suddenly shout, "No, Will!"

And then, there was a gunshot. Some women screamed, and my natural reaction was to look up. All I saw was the flip of the Scottish officer’s feet before he disappeared over the edge. A splash followed mere seconds later—he had taken his own life. I often wonder why he did it. Was it because he was afraid to die in the icy water? Was it because he felt the need to do penance for allowing a bribe? Was it because he shot Tommy and the other man? I will never know. The crowd stilled for a moment after his death, and then it pulsed and surged again.

"Stand back, damn you!" the other officer ordered, pushing the other men back.

And still, no one disturbed Fabrizio and me. We cradled Tommy’s body and wept together. Sometimes, in traumatizing situations, people think of the stupidest things. At the moment, I remember thinking that Tommy’s lifebelt had been a complete waste. I remember thinking that he couldn’t be dead because we had to bury him, and how can you bury someone properly in water? My mind dulled; it’s not surprising, when you consider that I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep and knew I was on a ship that was most definitely sinking, and quickly, if the tilting deck was any indication.

On the other side of the deck, I could hear a mournful but brave violin. It was joined after a few moments by the other instruments. Many people say that the song was an Autumn Waltz or some such thing. I conceded that the waltz was played near the end, but I also assure you that the very last piece the band played was very slow and perhaps the saddest music I have ever heard. I would later find out that it was Nearer, My God, to Thee, but at the time, I had no idea what it was called. All I knew was that it was the most fitting music possible for that moment.

Water began to wash over the bow, pulling it down. People screamed and ran aft, some with lifebelts and some without. It was the water that brought me back to the present, and I remembered that the ship was sinking. Part of me wanted to stay and let it drown me; if Tommy was dead, what reason did I have for pushing on? But instinct took over, reminding me that I still had Fabrizio and that I must survive.

"F-Fabri," I stuttered, shaking his arm.

He was staring ahead at the water, but he was numbly unfastening Tommy’s lifebelt. I couldn’t get up; no matter what, it seemed as if my knees were glued to the deck. Fabrizio, who had always been so nimble at fastening lifebelts, fumbled with the ties. He finally secured the blood-stained lifebelt and rose shakily to his feet as the water began to rush around our legs. He had to pull me up; my legs felt like jelly, and the shock of the freezing water did nothing to help.

The Englehardt had still not launched; the falls were holding it back. I couldn’t climb in the lifeboat; the water was shocking me, refusing to let my legs work. The officer pointed his revolver at the falls and yelled, as water spattered on him, "Cut those bloody falls!"

Fabrizio whipped out his pocketknife and opened it with his teeth. He climbed up a little bit and sawed away at the ropes. I could only stand there stupidly, unsure of what to do or where to go. The boat was filling with water; its occupants began to edge to the bow, screaming as the water seeped up towards them. Water was rising all around me; I soon found myself lifted up by its sheer force. I paddled and kicked, screaming every time a wave of water washed over me.

Fabrizio disappeared under the surface and I shouted out his name, near hysteria. His head bobbed in and out of the water, gasping for air. He was struggling with something. I don’t exactly remember how I knew to do it, but the next moment, I found myself under water, holding my breath and keeping my eyes open. The coldness and the salt stung, but I refused to close them. Fabrizio was trying to untangle himself from the davit ropes that had ensnared him. I pulled on a few, my fingers going numb, and he was finally free. We kicked to the turbulent surface, gasping for air.

"Come on, let’s go this way!" he shouted, grabbing my hand and literally yanking me aft. I could only follow him, kicking to stay above the surface and holding up my head to breathe. The air that had felt so cold earlier was blessedly warm in comparison to the icy water I was submerged in now. I couldn’t think; I could only let Fabrizio pull me. And then quite suddenly, he was being jerked away from me. My faculties snapped back when I saw that he was pushing against the wall surrounding a window big enough for Fabrizio to fit in. It is the opinion of several experts on the subject that the windows broke under the pressure of the water and water drained into them. The result was for them to suck in whatever might be nearest, including Fabrizio.

I braced my feet against the wall to his right and grabbed Fabrizio with as much strength as I could muster. We both pulled and struggled and floundered for a few moments before he had managed to get out of the sucking window.

"Come on!" he shouted to me as if nothing had happened. We grabbed hands again and set off again, our legs kicking furiously against the water. We grabbed onto the Englehardt, hoping to climb on, but the first-class snob from earlier was shouting and brandishing an oar like a madman. He was quite literally throwing people out and sometimes even whacking them with his oar to get them out of the boat, all the while shouting, "No, get out! You’ll swamp us!"

"What do we do?" I bawled over the noise, my teeth chattering and my body shuddering involuntarily. My coat was warm, but it wasn’t enough.

Fabrizio raised himself up, using his arms as leverage against the Englehardt, and craned his neck. He ducked down as the oar swung towards him, just missing it by inches. "Over there!" he shouted, pointing. "There is a boat! Go!"

I needed no further encouragement; I kicked off from the boat and dipped my arms in the water, propelling myself forward. Fabrizio was right behind me, both of us spitting out water and gasping for breath. My lifebelt, thankfully, kept me up, but still, it was not enough to compete against the surging water all around me. My ears were even filled with water as it dragged me down. It seemed as if the water itself was trying to kill me, and I had to fight harder than I have ever fought before to stay up.

Because water was in my ears, I could not properly distinguish the different noises I was hearing. There were screams and shouts and metallic groans and splashes. I did hear the metal groan viciously, but I did not hear how close it was to me. I kept swimming, pushing myself as far away from the ship as possible and as close to the overturned lifeboat as possible. I did not pause at the onslaught of fresh screams, and I think that it is by divine providence that I did not. I meant to turn and find Fabrizio, but an enormous force slammed into the water, a force I believe crushed Fabrizio and the others who had been swimming around us.

The resulting wave was huge, bigger than some of the waves at the beach in Pacific Grove or Santa Monica. My lifebelt kept me above it and it lifted me up before shoving me so far forward that it is a miracle I made it that far. It carried me to the overturned lifeboat without doing me any harm save momentarily taking my breath away; I have fervently believed in God ever since. Instinct told me to cling to the boat; I held on, for my life quite literally depended upon it, even as smaller but still powerful waves washed over me. Most of the men who had already been there were washed away; only a few maintained their hold on it.

When the water had stilled--relatively speaking--I clambered carefully into a more secure position, my soaking clothes pooling around me. I slipped a few times, especially when others clambered aboard as well, and I would have fallen off entirely if Eugene had not appeared right then and there.

"Angie?" he shouted over the noise.

I nodded vigorously. "Y-yes!"

He didn’t say another word; he just grabbed my lifebelt and pulled me beside him. I rested my knees on the edge of the upturned Englehardt and let my legs float in the water; there was nothing else I could do. I gripped the bottom of the boat tightly and turned to look at the incredible and terrible sight. Titanic, in all of her glory and elegance, was rising horizontally above the water, an image of grace and beauty as her stern rose higher and higher. We could only stare, dumbstruck; so, this was how the Ship of Dreams was to sink—by sliding into the ocean she had once commanded.

The screams pierced the night air. They came from everywhere; on the ship, in the water, in the other boats. People tried to climb onto the boat, but many of the men shoved them off. I did not intentionally push anyone off, but when a few men tried to remove me so that they could take my place, I resisted as violently as I could until they gave up and tried a different person. Eugene, who was flush against me, offered just enough warmth to keep me holding onto the boat and mostly registering what was happening. I saw that one man was lying on the boat while another man sat on his legs; both panted for breath and the one lying down looked too tired to resist.

The lights on the grand ship flickered and suddenly went out. The only source of light now came from the stars, and they were not the most generous providers of light. Still, we could see the Titanic as she rose, higher and higher, reaching to the sky. It looked, for a moment, as if she really would ascend into the heavens. But then there was a terrible splintering noise, a sound I did not think could come from something made of iron. The crunching and splintering grew louder, cracking into the night. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, the Titanic was no longer a simple silhouette; I could see it clearly, and judging by the stillness and breathlessness of everyone around me, they could too.

The ship had split in two, right down the middle. The stern, which had been rising higher and higher, suddenly soared downwards to the ocean, smashing down on the water. The screams that arose were terrible; I flinched when I imagined the sensation they must be feeling. All thoughts of Tommy and Fabrizio were gone; every ounce of my concentration had been drawn to the giantess that had carried us over the ocean over the past few days. And then, just as suddenly as it had fallen, the stern, now mostly separated from the bow by a yawning chasm in the middle, was pulled into the air. The bow sank, leaving our vision completely. All that was left was the stern, poised gracefully and terrifyingly in a perfectly perpendicular position.

Even if I had wanted to take my eyes away from that sight, I could not. None of us could; once your eyes find something like that, you can’t just simply look away. Some people say that the stern stood like that for half a minute. Others say it was five minutes. And still some others claimed it was half an hour, but this I know to be an exaggeration. The ship didn’t even bob; at least, not that I can recall. It seemed to stand perfectly still. I know this is impossible; Titanic could not have stood there and she could not have been entirely still. But it certainly looked that way from my vantage point.

Some say the ship slid into the water without a noise. This is not true. The witnesses who say so were on lifeboats, floating some distance away. We were closest to the ship and we heard the horrified screams that arose as the ship made its final descent. It rumbled as it sank, water surging up around it and disturbing the water. We bobbed more than we were comfortable with, but thankfully, it was not enough to completely buck us off. We watched in horrified fascination as the Great Lady foundered and left a puddle of screaming, freezing people on the surface it had once reined over.

Almost everyone on the Englehardt, myself included, said quietly, almost like a benediction, "She’s gone."

The Titanic was no more.

Chapter Eighteen
Stories