ALL I NEED
Chapter Ten

I ran down the first class corridor, bumping against some people, and without looking back, I finally reached the Grand Staircase and went all the way up the stairs. It was when I reached the open deck that I found hell; there were officers and crewmen everywhere I looked. They were untying the boats on the boat deck, and a lot of screaming was going on between them. I scanned them carefully, trying to find Harry. No sign of him.

"Come on, lads! We've got no time to waste!" a familiar voice shouted from the middle of the crowd. I looked in its direction--Officer Murdoch.

"Mr. Murdoch! Mr. Murdoch!" I called, walking through the men and reaching him on the other side.

"Miss Hockley! For goodness’ sake! Are you all right?" I was panting. Probably my eyes were very red from the crying and my face was still wet. "Did someone...did Officer Lowe--no, he wouldn't. Would he?" He gestured to my cheeks, to Cal's slap marks.

"No, it wasn't him," I said quickly, and he sighed in relief. "He would never do that." I paused, breathing heavily as he once again he shouted at the men, giving orders. "Mr. Murdoch, I need to find Harry. Where is he? What's happening?"

"Miss Hockley, you are shaking." He quickly changed the subject. "You have no coat on. Go back inside and get yourself a lifebelt."

"A lifebelt?" I asked as I felt a chill in my stomach. I was no fool. A lifebelt? Lifeboats being lowered? "Is the ship going to..." My voice trailed off.

"Yes, miss, it will," he said straightforwardly, directing me through the men to the first class entrance. "Now, go back in, get yourself a lifebelt, and come back to get into a boat. And please, don't spread the information, though I believe it's quite obvious."

"What was that shudder? Wait! Wait!" He opened the door to the first class entrance and literally pulled me in, though not hurting me. "Wait, Mr. Murdoch. I have to find Harry."

"He will be on the boat deck soon. He was sleeping. It wasn’t his shift now. He looked for you all day. Anyway, he will be up here soon, and then you will find him. Now, do as I told you." And without waiting for an answer, he closed the door and went back to help the others.

There was a lot happening at once and I backed off the step as I stared in shock, looking through the window at the crewmen starting to prepare the boats. The ship will sink. It will sink.

"Oh, dear, careful there or you will fall." Another familiar voice came from behind me and someone took my arm; I looked back and saw Mrs. Brown. "Oh, my God. What happened to you? Were you hit by the ice?"

I closed my eyes and shook my head as I gestured slowly with my hands. Calm down, Catherine, calm down, I kept repeating in my head. Now, I have to do what Murdoch told me. Yes, I have to. Look for a lifebelt. All right.

"Mrs. Brown, do you know where I can--"

"Mr. Lowe, finally! Where were you?" I heard Murdoch's voice from outside.

"Blimey! I was bloody sleeping! What did you expect?" Harry's voice. I looked out the window again and saw him immediately taking lead on one of the boats. "I already know what happened, so let us get this thing together. Come on, lads!"

I attempted to run back outside, but Mrs. Brown quickly caught my wrist, pulling me back gently.

"Sweetie, don't. Not now," she said as I looked at her. "You look frightened. I see it wasn't the ice that hit you and neither was it your dream boy over there. I do have an idea of what happened, but that's not important now. You can't go out there. He needs to work now. If you go out there he will be deadly concerned about you and that will not be good...he needs to be there. They need him there."

"But I have to talk to him!" I exclaimed, a little too loudly, and a bunch of passengers around looked at us. "Molly, you don't know what happened--"

"You don't have to tell me now. Here. Hey, sonny!" She gestured to a steward passing by with lifebelts and took one, giving it to me. "Put that on."

I did as she told me and looked around, finding Cal coming towards us with Rose, Mrs. DeWitt Bukater and Lovejoy following them. I quickly turned my back on them and looked at Molly.

"What exactly happened to the ship, Molly?" I asked her, still by her side.

"It hit an iceberg," she whispered to me. I gasped, my hands in front of my mouth, and she nodded with a concerned face. Suddenly, an officer who I didn't know opened the door and ordered the people to start getting into lifeboats. Molly and I waited for most of the people to go first and then I felt a hand slipping over my wrist.

"You are coming with us," Cal's controlling voice said at my side. He started to pull me out as he walked.

"Get your hands off me, Cal. I'm warning you." I must have sounded extremely serious, because he did let go of me and kept going, or he was just too busy with his own narrow problems.

"Here, honey. You come with me, all right?" Molly had been watching me with Cal. She took my hand in hers and finally we both headed to the open deck. I had my eyes fixed on Harry as he helped with the second boat to be loaded.

Harry didn't notice me. He was so focused on his work and he had such a concerned look on his face as he kept helping women and children get into the boat that I didn't dare to go up to him. Then, suddenly, Mr. Ismay came out of nowhere.

"There is not much time! Lower away!" Mr. Ismay said, working his way between Harry and Mr. Murdoch, who was lowering the other boat. Harry looked at him angrily.

"Step back, you fool! You want me to lower away quickly?" Harry asked as he pushed Ismay away. "You will have me drown the lot of them!"

"Do you have any idea of who I am?" Mr. Ismay asked.

"You're a passenger and I'm a ship’s bloody officer!" Harry yelled at him. "Now, do as I told you!"

Ismay muttered something, stepping back, but Harry had already turned his attention to helping Murdoch again. I did not dare to go up to him. Just then, I noticed that the situation was indeed extremely serious. Molly pulled my hand and we stopped in front of another boat.

"Only women and children!" another officer by our boat yelled. "Come on, you lot. Only women and children!"

"Come on. You heard the man." Mrs. Brown, noticing that the women were reluctant to get into the lifeboats, took the lead, helping the officer. "Get in the boat, sister." She started to help a few women get into the boat.

"Will the lifeboats be seated according to class? I hope they're not too crowded." Mrs. DeWitt Bukater spoke from my left. That was when I noticed her, Cal, and Rose standing there.

"Oh, Mother, shut up!" Rose burst out. "Don't you understand? The water is freezing and there aren't enough boats...not enough by half. Half the people on this ship are going to die."

Cal said something quietly to her that I couldn't hear. Then she started to argue with him as I looked at Molly helping Mrs. DeWitt Bukater into the boat.

"Now, come on, Catherine," Molly said, offering me her hand.

For a moment there, everything froze in front of me. I couldn't hear anything. I looked at her hand, waiting warmly to help me out, at Mrs. DeWitt Bukater ordering Rose to get into the boat--and she just didn't. Then I looked to my left, at Harry helping Murdoch load the other boat...that was when he noticed me, when he also took a look around. His eyes stopped as they met mine.

"Rose, get into the boat! Rose!" I heard Mrs. DeWitt Bukater calling, my eyes fixed on Harry.

"Catherine! Come on, dear!" called Mrs. Brown.

"Catherine! Rose! Goddamn it! Get into the boat!" Cal's voice now.

Both Rose and I moved quickly. Rose went to her right and I saw, in the corner of my eye, Cal running after her, Lovejoy following him. That was my chance; I looked at Mrs. Brown and nodded as a good-bye.

"Catherine, no!" she yelled as I walked to my left, in Harry's direction.

"Lower away!" the officer in charge of Molly's boat said.

"No! Stop right there, Lightoller!" Harry's voice shouted. He, quick-witted as always, noticed when I had just turned to go after him that I wasn't getting in the boat, and then he ran towards me.

"Catherine, you have to get into that boat. Now." His voice was as steady as ever when I threw myself into his arms.

"No. Not without you," I said under my breath as he hugged me tightly. I'd been looking for that hug for so long.

"Please don't do this, Catherine. They are waiting. Go." He pulled himself away from me and took my face in both of his hands, slowly caressing my cheek, noticing that I had been hit. Suddenly, I saw his expression becoming much more serious.

"Who did this to you?" he asked quietly.

I opened my mouth to answer and I remembered Cal's threat. Then I closed my mouth again. His dark eyes were intently looking at mine; of course, he imagined that Cal did this to me. He could do the math. But he wanted me to say it.

"It's not important now. It was an accident," I replied quietly. Once again, I was crying. His eyes were telling me that he did not believe me. "I'm not going without you."

"No," he said steadily, closing his eyes as if trying to focus and then opening them again. "Mrs. Brown will take care of you; I will take the first boat that I can command, all right? But now you have to go." He shook his head, as if trying to take the will to kill Cal out of his thoughts.

"I can't--"

"Yes, you can," he said, and made a long sigh. "Please, just go. I will meet you, I promise. You're not ready to manage your wheel by yourself, remember? And I promised I would help. I keep my promises. Now, go."

I hugged him tightly again and he kissed the top of my head gently. Then I felt him nodding and a pair of hands pulling me away from him. It was the other officer.

"Come on, miss. We need to hurry," the other officer, Lightoller, said, and then, with a fast movement, he lifted me and put me in the boat. I looked back at Harry and he had a slight smile on his face, nodding his head quietly to me as a sign for me to trust him.

"Lower away!" Harry's voice shouted over all the panicked voices, and Molly helped me to sit beside her as the boat started to lower.

"Come on, sweetie," she said as I sat beside her. "He's a very good officer. He will make it. You will see." She managed to smile as I looked at her.

When I looked back up, Harry had disappeared. I tried to search for him, but we were almost touching the water already. I looked down and closed my eyes, feeling the tears rolling slowly down my face. It was freezing, and only then could I really feel the low temperature. I started to shake a little bit, containing myself as we finally reached the water and the ropes were cut loose. Then the few crewmen started to row away from the ship.

The man in charge of our boat started to scream at the few men to row evenly, but I wasn't really paying attention until Molly took charge once again, asking for my help with the oar, and then I helped her to row away from the disaster. Not even for a second did I look in the Titanic's direction. Not even for a second.

*****

I must have been totally oblivious to the things happening around me. All the noises were unclear as I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on the wooden boat floor; I heard low voices, the water slowly touching the edges of the boat, the few men and women now rowing away from the ship. I stopped helping, feeling my body much too tired. Far away, I could hear screams from the Titanic; they weren't really that far...my mind was far. A little before I started to slowly sense the things around me again, we had heard the captain ordering us to go back, but the man in charge of the boat ignored him and ordered us to keep rowing away.

"Now, there’s something you don't see every day." Molly's voice was the first thing that I heard clearly again. I looked up at her, and then, for the first time in a long time, I looked back at the Titanic.

Half of it was already underwater; the bow was entirely underwater and the stern was sticking up in the air. The lights of the ship were extremely bright in the middle of the dark ocean, and we saw a rocket bursting in the sky. They were trying to call for help. Jesus Christ, there were people jumping, falling into the freezing water.

"It's all right, Cathy." I felt Mrs. Brown’s hand over my shoulder; on her other side was Rose's mother. Her icy eyes were full of tears as she remained quiet.

Then there were gunshots, one after the other, about four in a row. I looked up at the ship again and couldn't clearly see what they were for. I swallowed the nothing in my mouth, looking down again. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't.

I tried to look around the few lifeboats close to us and tried to find Harry. I scanned each one of them the best that my eyes could see. No, nothing. No sign of him, not that I could see. More shots. Oh, my God. I was terrified. With each second, I could feel the fear increasing inside of me. I put my elbows on my knees and closed my eyes, my hands supporting my face. I was still shaking, though I wasn't sure if it was because of the cold or the fright.

In my mind, I started to think of all the people I knew, people who I had seen, who could be dead now...or ready to die. Now and then my mind would think of Harry. I started to cry again, the tears never stopping as I sobbed quietly. I even thought of Cal and Lovejoy. They were bastards, but Cal was my brother...my blood. And Lovejoy--he was just doing his job.

That was the moment when I realized that I was truly traumatized by all the events of that day...I didn't want Cal to die, but even though knowing that almost certainly he would die, I did not forgive him for what he did to me. Not him, not Lovejoy.

Still supporting my head in my hands, I turned to the side to look at the ship again. The stern was slowly rising, the bow completely underwater. Two-thirds of the ship was already underwater. We could see people running to the stern to try to keep themselves away from the water as much as they could. I couldn't help but gasp, holding my breath, as I saw long iron cables hitting the water like an evil whip. One of the ship's long smokestacks started to fall, down to the water, over the people. The fall merely moved our boat; we were quite a distance from the disaster.

"No..." I whispered, and felt my eyes burning with tears. I had cried so much that now it was hurting me to cry.

"God almighty," Molly said quietly to herself.

The lights of the ship went off completely seconds after she finished her sentence. The stern stopped for a few seconds, lifted up diagonally, and we heard an enormous noise of ripping iron and wood; the ship started to split into two very quickly, as a piece of paper being ripped off a notebook. With the rip, the stern fell back to the surface very quickly and we heard even louder screams, both from the people on the ship and people in the water being hit by it.

Then we heard something like a loud moan, the iron moving against the water as the stern started to lift up again, very quickly this time, until it stopped in a vertical position.

"If it falls to the side..." One of the few men spoke.

"...it will hit the closer boats." The man in charge of the boat completed the sentence, pointing to the closer boats with his eyes.

But their supposes were overruled as the stern quickly, like an elevator, started to go down vertically. The screams never ceased, not even when it went completely underwater, finishing the sinking of the Titanic. I looked at the water far away and hundreds of people were screaming at the tops of their lungs. Screaming for help.

"We have to go back." My voice was failing. My throat was extremely dry. But the man in charge of the boat could hear me clearly.

"You don't understand," he said, looking at all of us. "If we go back, they’ll swamp the boat. They’ll pull us right down, I'm telling ya!" His voice had raised by then.

"Knock it off." Molly spoke up. "You're scaring me. Come on, girls. Grab an oar. Let's go!" she said, looking around at the crying women.

"Are you out of your mind?" the man replied, his voice still loud. "We're in the middle of the North Atlantic! Now, do you people want to live or do you want to die?"

If I was at all my best, this man would have certainly gotten on my nerves. His arrogance was hitting me like a stone, but I was so out of myself that I could feel nearly nothing except sorrow, sadness, and fear.

I looked up to see Molly looking around in shock, tears in her eyes. She was a strong, wonderful woman.

"I don't understand a one of you," she said, gesturing around. "What's the matter with you? It's your men out there!" By then, I swallowed dryly again. "There's plenty of room for more!"

I was already starting to move, but the arrogant man gestured for me to stay where I was and I looked from him to Molly.

"And there will be one less in this boat if you don't shut that hole in your face!" he shouted angrily at her.

Molly looked up to him; I took her hand and made her sit by my side as she attempted to keep the argument going.

"No, Molly," I said hoarsely. "He won't let us."

She nodded and took my hand in hers, sitting beside me. The screams were slowly fading away. The ocean was getting quiet again except for the rowing of a few boats and the waves...and, of course, the quiet crying of the survivors. I looked around at the other boats and found four or five of them gathering together. A male voice shouted something at them that I couldn't understand because they were a little too far from us. By the lights the officers there had illuminating the passengers I saw that they were moving people from one boat to the others.

I squeezed Molly's hands gently and she looked at me as I pointed with my eyes at the other boats.

"They are going back," I said quietly.

"At least we have one human being in charge of boats, not all animals with no feelings," she replied quietly to me, glaring at the arrogant man.

Even though the boat was empty, they waited a few minutes. I thought perhaps they were waiting for the people to calm down. The screams ceased at last. I could not hear any of them anymore, and the empty boat far away started to move quickly towards the people in the water. It took them another few minutes until they had reached the people, and then they slowed down. I tried to see if they were picking up people, but they were too far away for me. my eyes were hurt by the tears and the cold. I could barely see the things right in front me anymore. That was when I felt Molly's warm embrace around me, rubbing my arms, helping me to get warm. And once again, I looked down.

*****

I had my eyes closed. Though I wasn't actually sleeping, I was not aware of things happening around me. My head was resting on Molly's shoulder as she kept her arms around me to keep me warm. She shook me gently and called my name.

"Catherine? Cathy?" she called quietly, and I opened my eyes. The sun was already rising in the east, the red color of the sky reminding us that a lot of people had died. But my eyes caught something else--a ship.

We were rowing towards a ship. I looked up to see RMS Carpathia painted in capital letters on its black hull. It was a big ship, though much smaller than the Titanic. I moved away from Molly to see better and saw that there were already a few boats in front of us. Two, to be more precise. They were unloaded first as the officers from the Carpathia tied them up at an entrance close to the water. They slowly helped people in, and the same process was made with our boat.

"Go on, sweetie." Molly gestured for me as a Carpathia officer offered me his hand, after he had helped another woman. I sighed deeply and took his hand.

He gently pulled me up and in, where he got me by the waist to help me stay up.

"There you go, miss," he said gently, and gestured for me to follow a steward beside him. He offered me a blanket, but I shook my head, walking through the small room.

It was filled with blankets and stewards directing people as they were pulled on board to where they should go. I walked along, following a line, and looked back for a second to find Molly already catching up with me.

"It's almost over," she whispered to me, and I nodded skeptically, stopping by the door as an officer from the Carpathia stood with sheet of paper.

"What's your name, miss?" he asked. Everywhere I looked reminded me of the Titanic, of course. It was a ship. I looked around and shivered, and then I looked back the officer, waiting for my reply.

"Hockley," I said, and he noted it on his paper. "Catherine Hockley."

"First class on the Titanic, I presume?" he asked, noticing my clothes, and I nodded. "A steward will escort you to medical assistance and to a suite in our upper class level, miss." He gestured for the same steward who had been following me since I went aboard.

"Wait a minute," I said as he looked at Molly, ready to ask her name, but stopped as I turned back to him. "Do you have a list of Titanic officers who survived?"

"I do, but they are still unloading lifeboats," he said as he started to flip his papers, looking through the lists and taking a small one in his hands. "What officer are you looking for?"

"Harold Lowe," I said shortly. He looked quickly through the list.

"No. I'm sorry. No Harold Lowe as of now, but as I said--"

"Catherine!" a familiar voice called from the back of the room. I looked back and found Cal standing at the end of the line, a few people away from me; at the same time that I was happy to see him, I was also furious. I could feel my heart pounding fast in my throat with a mixture of anger, sadness, and relief at both seeing him and finding out that there was no sign of Harry just yet.

"Thank you, sir," I said, looking back at the officer, and he nodded, looking from Cal to me. "I will check back later."

"Yes, miss." He nodded, and I, completely ignoring Cal, went on with the steward.

"Now, miss, if you will come this way…" The steward started to escort me down the corridor, but I stopped, waiting for Molly. She quickly came down the same corridor and gestured for the steward with her to leave, that she would come with me. Then I went on my way with the steward and her.

"Don't worry, sweetie," Mrs. Brown started to say as she heard me sobbing quietly. "There are still a few lifeboats to be unloaded. You will see." Again, she held my hand tight in hers.

As we walked across the open decks of the Carpathia, we found a lot of her passengers looking at us with a mixture of curiosity and pity. I avoided meeting their eyes and we quickly entered the first class passageway. It was much smaller and far less luxurious than the Titanic’s, but that didn't matter to me at all. I couldn’t stop thinking about Harry.

Chapter Eleven
Stories