It’s the last night on earth before the great divide
My hands are shaking; time was never on our side
And there’s no such thing as a beautiful good-bye
As an ordinary day I prayed for you a thousand times
It’s never enough
No matter how many times I tried to tell to tell you this is love.
On the port side of the ship, Lightoller was getting people into Boat 2. He kept his pistol in his hand. Twenty feet below them, the sea was pouring into the doors and windows of B-Deck staterooms. They could hear the roar of water cascading into the ship. “Women and children only, please! Step back, sir! Come through, Madame!”
Even with Jack’s arms wrapped around her, Rose was still shivering in the cold. Near her, a woman with two young daughters looked into the eyes of a husband she knew she might not see again. Tommy could feel Sharon’s hands shaking. Knowing she would be parted from her brother, a soft cry escaped her lips.
“It’s good-bye for a little while, only a little while. There’s another boat for the daddies. This boat is for the mommies and children.” The woman stumbled to the boat with the children, hiding her tears from them. Beneath the false good cheer, the man was choked with emotion.
Some of the women were stoic. Others were overwhelmed by emotion and had to be helped into the boats. A man scribbled a note and handed it to a woman who was about to board. “Please get this to my wife in Des Moines, Iowa.”
Jack looked at Tommy with Sharon. Time was running out fast and Jack wanted to at least get Rose and Sharon safe into a boat. “You two go check the other side. If there’s a boat ready, then get in it. Don’t worry about us.” Tommy nodded, leading Sharon to the starboard side.
Rose watched the scene in front of her, the man saying good-bye to his wife and children. Shaking, she turned to Jack. “I’m not going without you,” she told him.
“Get in the boat, Rose,” Jack told her firmly.
Tears welling in her eyes, she shook her head. “No, Jack. Not without you.”
“Rose, please, get in the boat.” He stroked her curls softly, not believing he had to say good-bye to his wife. “Please, Rose, get in the boat.” His voice cracked softly. Tears streamed down her face.
“Quickly, ladies, get into the boat!” Lightoller grabbed Rose’s hand, and in a numb blur, she was led into the boat.
“Jack, please, get into the boat!” she shouted at him, tears streaming down her face. She grabbed his hand, fearing it would be the final time in her life that she saw him.
“Don’t worry about me, darling. I’m a survivor, remember?” He smiled at her reassuringly, but inside he was dying. It was all a rush and a blur.
“Lower away!” Lightoller called.
Jack watched as the boat began to descend. The ropes were going through the pulleys as the seamen started to lower it.
Lightoller shouted, giving out orders, but all of Rose’s senses disappeared and all she could hear was her blood pounding in her ears. This cannot be happening. A rocket burst above in slow motion, outlining Jack in a halo of light. Rose’s hair blew in the wind as she gazed up at him, descending away from him. She saw his hand trembling, the tears at the corners of his eyes, and could not believe the unbearable pain she was feeling. She could make out his lips moving, mouthing the words I love you.
Jack knew he was alone now. He would have to find a way to save himself now, to see Rose again, but for now, he wouldn’t waste his last view of her.
Suddenly, Rose was moving. She lunged across the woman beside her, attempting to hurl herself at the A-Deck promenade, but she was pulled back by Quartermaster Hitchens.
“Rose! No!” Jack cried, watching as she attempted to scramble back onto the ship, but it was too late. The boat was lowered into the water and was a few meters away from the ship. He could hear his wife’s screams and cries as she was forced to sit back down, her heart breaking, but Jack knew it was for the best. Taking one last look at her, he tore his eyes away and went to find a way for himself to survive—he had to see Rose again.
If tomorrow never comes
I want you to know right now that I
I’m gonna love you until the day I die
If tomorrow falls asleep can you hold me first
I’m gonna love you like it’s the last night on earth
Like it’s the last night on earth.
At Collapsible A, Murdoch was no longer in control. The crowd was threatening to rush the boat. They pushed and jostled, yelling and shouting at the officers. The pressure from behind pushed them forward and one man fell off the edge of the deck into the water less than ten feet below.
“Give us a chance to live, you limey bastard!” Tommy shouted.
Murdoch fired his Webley twice in the air, then pointed it at the crowd. “If anyone tries to get past me, I’ll shoot them.” A man next to Tommy rushed forward, and Tommy was shoved from behind. Murdoch shot the first man, and seeing Tommy coming forward, he put a bullet into his chest. Tommy collapsed and Sharon grabbed him, holding him in her arms as his blood flowed out over the deck. She screamed, feeling the blood seep into her skirts as she hugged his lifeless body.
“You bastard! You fucking bastard!” she cried out, her body numb from the pain. She felt pain in her abdomen and screamed, clutching her stomach.
Seeing this, Murdoch turned to his men and saluted smartly. Then he put the pistol to his temple and shot himself in the head. He dropped like a puppet with the strings cut and toppled over the edge of the boat deck into the water only a few feet below.
Sharon’s screams were louder. A first class man attempted to help her up, but it did nothing. Within a few moments, her screams subsided and she lay lifeless next to her brother. The first class man closed both of their eyes and said a short prayer before attempting to save himself by getting in the collapsible.
*****
Jack ran out of the Palm Court into a dense crowd. He pushed his way to the railing and looked at the state of the ship. The bridge was underwater and there was chaos on deck. He found a lifebelt and put it on.
People streamed around him, shouting and pushing. He knew he had to stay on the ship for as long as he could, so he pushed his way through the panicking crowd, heading aft. He clambered over the A-Deck aft rail. Then, using all his strength, he lowered himself toward the deck below. He joined a crush of people literally clawing and scrambling over each other to get down the narrow stairs to the well deck, which was the only way aft. Seeing that the stairs were impossible, Jack climbed over the B-Deck railing. Near him, at the rail, people were jumping into the water. The ship groaned and shuddered. The man ahead of Jack was walking like a zombie.
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—”
“You want to walk a little faster through that valley, fella?” Jack pushed him up the stairs.
Hundreds of people were already on the poop deck, and more were pouring up every second. Jack struggled on the tilting deck. As the bow went down, the stern rose.
From the boat, Rose looked up at the ship, tears streaming down her face. Screams could be heard and passengers were visible, jumping from the sides of the ship. Rose prayed that Jack was not one of them and that he was safe in a lifeboat. People were jumping from the well deck, the poop deck, the gangway doors. Some hit debris in the water and were hurt or killed.
Jack struggled aft as the angle increased. Hundreds of passengers clung to every fixed object on deck, huddled on their knees around Father Byles, who had his voice raised in prayer. They were praying, sobbing, or just staring at nothing, their minds blank with dread.
Pulling himself from handhold to handhold, Jack pushed through the praying people. A man lost his footing ahead and slid toward him. Jack helped him up. The propellers were twenty feet above the water and rising fast. Jack made it to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole.
Above the wailing and sobbing, Father Byles’ voice carried, cracking with emotion. “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The former heaven and the former earth had passed away and the sea was no longer.” The light flickered, threatening to go out. The stern rose into the sky, the night ablaze with stars. “I also saw a new Jerusalem, the holy city coming down out of heaven from God, beautiful as a bride prepared to meet her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne ring out. This is God’s dwelling among men. He shall dwell with them and they shall be his people and He shall be their God who is always with them.”
Jack looked about himself at the faces of the doomed. Near him, the Dahl family was clinging together stoically. Helga looked at him briefly, and her eyes were infinitely sad. There was also a young mother next to him, clutching her five-year-old son, who was crying in terror. “Don’t worry, darling. It’ll be over soon. It’ll all be over soon.”
From lifeboat number two, Rose sat silently, seeing the ship. It was worse than hell itself. The lights went out all over the ship. The Titanic became a vast black silhouette against the stars.
The stern half of the ship, which was almost four hundred feet long, fell back toward the water. On the poop deck everyone screamed as they felt themselves plummeting. A few unfortunates swimming in the water directly under the stern shrieked as they saw the keel coming down on them like God’s boot heel. The massive stern section fell back almost level, thundering down into the sea and pushing out a mighty wave of displaced water.
Jack struggled to hold onto the rail. He felt the ship almost right itself. Some of the crowd was praying it was salvation. “We’re saved!” some people screamed, but Jack knew they weren’t.
The buoyant stern tilted up rapidly. He felt the same rush of ascent as the fantail angled up again. Everyone was clinging to benches, railings, ventilators...anything to keep from sliding as the stern lifted. People started to fall, sliding and tumbling. They skidded down the deck, screaming and flailing to grab onto something. There was a pile-up of bodies at the forward rail.
Jack climbed over the stern rail. He scrambled over just as the railing was going horizontal and the deck was vertical. The stern was straight up in the air, a rumbling black monolith standing against the stars. It hung there like that for a long grace note, its buoyancy stable.
Jack lay on the rail, looking down fifteen stories at the boiling sea at the base of the stern section. People near Jack who hadn’t climbed over hung from the railing, their legs dangling over the long drop. They fell one by one, plummeting down the vertical face of the poop deck. Some of them bounced horribly off deck benches and ventilators.
Jack lay on what was the vertical face of the hull, gripping the railing, which was horizontal. Just beneath his feet were the gold letters Titanic emblazoned across the stern. Jack stared down, terrified, at the black ocean waiting below to claim him. Jack looked to his left and saw Baker Joughin crouching on the hull, holding onto the railing.
The final relentless plunge began as the stern section flooded. Looking down a hundred feet to the water, Jack felt the drop like an elevator ride. This was it now. In a few seconds, he would be in the water with all of these other people. As the water neared, he took a long, deep breath.
*****
From the boat, Rose watched in horror as the Titanic finally disappeared from sight beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The screams of the thousands of people in the sea was like hell.
“We can’t go back. They’ll swamp the boat,” Hitchens told a woman who had suggested going back to pick up more people.
Was it just three hours ago that Jack was making love to her in the backseat of the Renault? Now her husband could be dead. Images of him flashed through her mind and she felt the pain rise inside of her.
A penny for your thoughts
A picture so it lasts
Let’s knock down the walls of immortality
Your fingers on my skin only you can hear my fear
Only you can help me heal I see forever with you here
It’s never enough no matter how many miles stand between us this is love.
Jack kicked hard for the surface. When he reached the top, he gasped for air. Around him was a roiling chaos of screaming, thrashing people. Over a thousand people were floating where the ship went down. Some were stunned, gasping for breath. Others were crying, praying, moaning, shouting...screaming. He barely had time to gasp for air before people were clawing at him, people driven insane by the water, four degrees below freezing, a cold so intense it was indistinguishable from death by fire. All about him there was a tremendous wailing, screaming, and moaning...a chorus of tormented souls. And beyond that, there was nothing but black water stretching to the horizon. The sense of isolation and hopelessness was overwhelming.
Jack swam rhythmically, the effort keeping him from freezing. He was looking for something, anything to keep him out of the water. Floating debris caught his attention and he swam towards it. It was a piece of wooden debris, intricately carved. He pulled his weight up onto it, feeling exhausted.
Jack was still floating amid a chorus of the damned. He saw the officer nearby, Chief Officer Wilde. He was blowing his whistle furiously, knowing the sound would carry over the water for miles. “Return the boats!” he cried.
In Boat 2, Rose had covered her ears against the wailing in the darkness. The first class women in the boat sat, stunned, listening to the sounds of hundreds screaming. Twenty boats, most half full, floated in the darkness. None of them made a move to return. They just hoped, guiltily, that the noise would die down soon—and it did.
Drifting under the blazing stars, Jack looked up, seeing the endless beauty of the sky. He could picture Rose’s face, and he smiled through his shivering pain. The water was glassy, with only the faintest undulating swell. His teeth chattered uncontrollably and he heard that the noise had died down tremendously. As far as the eye could see, bodies bobbed up and down in the water.
Tears escaped his eyes as he thought about his beautiful wife—he knew he would die soon, but his pain was in knowing that he would never see his wife again, the children they could have had, the perfect life in Santa Monica—It would never be. Closing his eyes, he felt pain overcome him.
The afterglow
The horizon line
The shadows fall
Will you still be mine
Will you still be mine
Will you still be mine I ask
If tomorrow never comes
I want you to know right now that I
I’m gonna love you until the day I die
If tomorrow falls asleep can you hold me first
I’m gonna love you like it’s the last night on earth.