TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Sixty-Five
1996
Inside the imaging shack on the Keldysh,
Rose’s ancient, wrinkled face gazed at the assembled group, who were looking at
her in sorrow.
"Fifteen hundred people went into the
sea when Titanic sank from under us. There were twenty boats floating nearby,
and only one came back. One. Six were saved from the water, myself included.
Six, out of fifteen hundred."
As she spoke, she looked slowly across the
faces of Lizzy and the salvage crew on Keldysh. Lovett, Bodine, Buell, the
others...the reality of what happened there eighty-four years before had hit
them like never before. With her story, Rose had put them on Titanic in its
final hours, and for the first time, they did feel like grave robbers.
Lovett, for the first time, had even
forgotten to ask about the diamond.
"Afterward, the seven hundred people in
the boats had nothing to do but wait...wait to die, wait to live, wait for an
absolution which would never come."