Ice, Part Two
North Atlantic
2:19 AM, April 15th, 1912
James Moody saw the stern lift higher and higher into the air as the screams of the passengers echoed across the icy water. Then a new, insistent note reached his ears, the straining and tearing of wood and riveted steel. His head snapped towards the ship's waterline, where metal and wood snapped and flew away with a cacophonous sound and a burst of light. As the great ship began to rip itself apart, a new calamity occurred, the bright lights of the
Titanic blinked once and then shut off. plunging the world into inky blackness as the bow finally ripped itself free.
Charles Lightoller pulled himself up onto the overturned collapsible to a chorus of tortured metal, what he thought must have been the boilers ripping free of their moorings. Then he was bathed in darkness as the
Titanic's lights blinked out. He looked over at one of the Wireless Operators, Bride, maybe? Asking him in a low voice "How far is the
Carpathia?" He didn't like the answer.
Joseph Boxhall saw the ship's lights extinguish themselves and heard the ripping and tearing of metal slowly replaced by a great moaning and screaming as the ship began its final plunge. The entire boat was silent, stilled by the noise of the great calamity unfolding itself before them. Although they couldn't see the stern, they knew that the ship was surely in its death throes. Then the chorus of moaning, screaming voices grew louder as the people on the stern were plunged in to the icy North Atlantic. Boxhall spoke up, looking at the people in his boat, wondering whether to go and try to get pull a few more people into his boat. He spoke up, "Ought we go back and pick up some of them?", at the same time terrified that he might overload his boat. The shell shocked passengers seemed pensive, but finally nodded, overwhelmed by the screams of the passengers. He nodded to able seaman Osman and they began to row back towards where the
Titanic had sunk.
Archibald Butt swam through the darkness away from the ship, careful to avoid the suction which he was sure would follow upon the ship's final plunge. But the cold and the water weighed upon him, and his strokes slowed as he was chilled by the icy Atlantic. Finally he stopped paddling and just began to float, his arms icy and deadened by the ocean, his legs frozen like the berg which had rudely tossed him into the water. Then suddenly, just a few yards off, someone shone a flashlight on him and yelled "Man in the water!" Summoning the last of his strength, he swam to the side of the boat, where someone grabbed him, he knew that he was saved when he heard someone yelling, "Seaman Osman, help me with this one!"
Joseph Boxhall was naturally cautious and although the sea was still glassy, he had already filled the boat to capacity and he did not trust it to take more. As the women tended to the ten or so people they had plucked out of the ocean, he had already started to row the boat away from the wreck site, but suddenly out of the dark, he saw a puff of condensing breath and the head of a man bobbing above the ocean. He immediately threw a beam of light on the man with his flashlight and then exclaimed "Dear Lord, MOODY!"