Book Oracle - Chapter Three

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Oracle: A person who delivers authoritative, wise, or highly regarded and influential answers.

Chapter Three

SURVIVAL

On the Atlantic, 1912

The engines stopped, as though embarrassed. The silence was deafening. Leo threw on the warmest clothes he had, knowing how bitterly cold it was outside, and instructed Victorine to do the same. "Warn the Ryersons.Get all the life vests out and put them on . This may be bad."

When he reached the deck he headed for the stern in time to see a pyramid of ice looming black against the starlit sky. A few seconds later it vanished into the night, leaving a slate flat sea in the bitterly cold and deadly calm air.

Men stood about the deck as if nothing had happened. Some wandered aimlessly, some stood staring into the sea at the floating bits of ice. Even though the Titanic lay dead in the water, her funnels blowing off steam rancorously, most of the passengers remained utterly calm, like dolphins floating at ease. Some went back to bed, or on with their whist games, or else resumed drinking highballs in the Cafe Parisien.

Major Penchen appeared in the Smoke Room door, excitedly suggesting that they go to a spot overlooking the starboard well deck. Tons of ice had apparently been brushed off into the Third Class recreation yard and the steerage passengers engaged in all sorts of highjinks with the chunks of ice that had fallen. A perfect time to take a look at steerage; if serious damage had been done to the ship it would show down there first.

He and Major Penchen went down the number two hatch all the way to deck G. They looked down the spiral staircase that led to the firemen's quarters and were horrified to discover sea-green water swishing around the case iron landing. Retreating, they met Officer Boxhall on a fast inspection of the ship at the Captain's direction. The ship's carpenter approached, holding a handkerchief to a split lip and shouting, "Tell the Captain she's taking on water fast."

The mail clerk from the deck below, nearly hysterical, added, "The mail hold is swiftly filling up."

By the time Leo and the Major got to the bridge, Captain Smith and Mr. Ismay had left to confer with Thomas Andrews, Director of the shipyard that had designed and built the Titanic. On the way up the wheelhouse steps Leo experienced an odd sensation like that of a tightrope walker whose wire had slipped.

"Officer Murdoch, I believe the ship is listing."

Murdoch replied by asking him to advise the Captain and gave them directions to the Captain's sitting room. The Major and Leo arrived just in time to hear Andrews announce a 300 foot gash in the starboard bow, with the first five compartments flooded."

The Captain looked up at Leo and the Major. "Yes?" he said, looking stern.

"Mr. Murdoch sent us to advise you that the ship has developed a slight list," the Major told him.

The Captain turned back to Mr. Andrews. "If I understand what you are saying, the ship can survive with four compartments flooded, but not with five. Why is that?"

Leo already knew what was coming. He had seen it with his own eyes today on the infamous O'Reilly tour.

"The bulkhead between the fifth and sixth compartments reaches only to Deck E. If the first five compartments flood, the bow will sink so low that the water will overflow into the sixth, then the sixth into the seventh, and so on ad infinitum."

"How long have we got?" asked the Captain, his usually ruddy face jaundiced.

"I wouldn't count on over an hour."

"An hour!" shouted the Captain. "We should keep the news under wraps, lest we cause a panic." said Ismay.

At midnight Captain Smith ordered the Chief Officer to uncover the boats and Murdoch to muster the passengers. Leo asked the First Officer if they could help in any way. Murdoch looked at him as if recognizing him for the first time. "You're the oarsman?"

Leo nodded.

"Yes, you can help me load the boats on the starboard side—stand by in case we need an oarsman." He assigned the Major to help Officer Lightholler load the lifeboats on the port side. "Try to keep the passengers calm."

"They seem almost too calm," said Leo.

"Everyone swallowed the "unsinkable" fallacy," said the Major, "and the ship's officers insist on making nothing out of something."

"My job is to get them in the boats." Murdoch hurried off as if his pants were on fire.

An intermittent flickering of lights caused steward's bells to ring all over the ship. Passengers wanted to know what was going on. His steward told Leo that he reckoned the Titanic had lost a propeller—evidently looking forward to a free holiday in Belfast.

Each steward had nine or ten cabins to attend to and thought of these passengers as a sort of family to comfort and protect. Most couldn't see any good reason to leave their warm beds and go up on the cold deck. Especially since they knew the Titanic was no more in danger of sinking than a Minke whale. No general alarm sounded and no bells or sirens set off. Word of imminent peril passed so quietly among them that the endangered passengers refused to take seriously the urgency of the situation.

Second Class Chief Steward personally roused twenty or more rooms, pounding on each door. He kept shouting, "All on deck. Life preservers on at once."

Below decks no one was expressing any doubts. The alleyway on E deck, called Scotland Road by the crew, was jammed with pushing steerage passengers making their way through the below water labyrinths, desperately hugging their worldly goods.

Leo saw that the class system prevailed even in catastrophes. First class doors got knocked on, second class got pounded on, and third class got thrown open. Steerage got treated like cattle. Sickening. Even more sickening was the way each class automatically kept to its own deck.

After what seemed an endless lapse of time they got most of the passengers on deck in lifebelts. Once there, the passengers lollygagged about the boat deck while the crew assembled on orders from Sixth Officer Moody who was in charge of boat assignments. The bitter cold drove most of them inside again. Their incongruous dress, consisting of coats over dressing gowns, evening clothes and furs with woolen mittens and scarves, heavy jerseys over satin frocks, full length mink coats over trailing nightdresses made a strange contrast with the magnificently carved paneling and the delicately etched dome over the first class foyer.

Leo glanced at the pretentious clock on the rear wall, adorned with two bronze nymphs. The hands stood at twelve-thirty. If the builder knew a hawk from a handsaw, they would founder in ten minutes. Not a single passenger had been put aboard a lifeboat. He'd better get himself out there and help with the loading. But then what?

It occurred to Leo that no one had mentioned rescue. People couldn't float about the sea in weather like this indefinitely. A shiver went through him. He bounded up the First Class Stairway to the wireless shack. He found both wireless operators awake and on the alert. The operator had already tried to reach the steamship California without success. According to the Second Operator, the crew of the Californian might be aggravated because their man had barged in on the Titanic First Operator around eleven o'clock, when he was busier than a one-handed piano player, with some message about icebergs. The First Operator had told him to bugger off.

Leo dashed to where the crew swarmed over the boats readying them to be lowered. Some seamen stood by the davits, putting in cranks and uncoiling lines. As the cranks turned the davits squeaked, the pulleys screeched, and most of the boats swung out free of the ship. One or two boats seemed to be hung up in the machinery. Finally they got Number Five in position.

Some of the braver women edged forward. When no more women would go alone, a few couples were allowed, then a few elderly men. This was Murdoch's procedure, women and children first, but fill up the boat with men if necessary. Things moved along smoothly, so Murdoch suggested Leo give Lightoller a hand on the port side.

The Second Officer had lowered Boat 4 level with Deck A. Unfortunately he forgot that the windows on the Promenade Deck were sealed shut. He had to take everyone back up to the Boat Deck, to load them on Boat 6. Easier said than done. The Captain had told Lightoller "Women and children first, put them in the lifeboats and lower away." The problem was a lot of women wouldn't go without their husbands. They felt safer aboard the warm, lighted ship than bouncing about on the icy, bruise-grey ocean. After all the Titanic was unsinkable.

Hoping to soothe the waiting passengers, the Bandmaster moved his men to the Boat Deck. The band played ragtime. One person not soothed was Mr. Ismay. Standing on deck in his fur coat and bedroom slippers and frantic at the time this was taking, he began shouting, "Lower away, lower away."

The boat was only half filled. Leo couldn't see boats designed to hold sixty-five persons launched with twenty, or in one case twelve. Not only that but one of the lines had become entangled in the davit. To lower the boat in that situation could result in the women and children being tossed into the sea. Rowe, the officer in charge, shouted at Mr. Ismay. "You'll have me drown the lot." Ismay turned on his heel and left.

When they finally got the lines disentangled several couples attempted to enter the boat but were driven off by Officer Lightholler. "Women and children only," he kept yelling. In the end they again lowered a half-filled boat.

Leo was furious. The way he calculated, if you put 65 people into 14 boats and 40 in the cutters, you could save about a thousand people. Over 2000 had boarded at Southhampton. It was murder to send these boats off unfilled. Each empty place meant someone would go down with the ship.

He tried to get Officer Lightoller to hold up lowering boats until they were filled, but he just kept pointing to his watch. Nor would he fill the boats with any passenger available. Lightoller would have blindly followed orders to put tarpaper on his mother's coffin. Disgusted, Leo started over to the starboard side to help Murdoch again.

He met Augie Roebling on the Officer's Promenade . "Good news, Leo. The Carpathia's coming to our rescue."

"What a relief. How far away is she?"

"The wireless operator says 58 miles, "coming hard."

"What is that in hours? How many knots can she do?

"I'd say six hours at best."

Leo groaned. "I'm thinking of the ones that don't make it into the boats."

"Namely, us."

"Right. A man can't last over thirty or forty minutes in water this cold."

"To tell you the truth, Leo, it will be a miracle if either one of us makes it."

"I know. We"ll all die because a true gentleman doesn't leave until the last woman and child has been saved—not counting steerage, of course."

Augie grinned. "I see you are becoming Americanized already."

"They keep sending the boats off half-filled. It's criminal. I promised Murdoch I'd help load the boats. What you should do, Augie, is get the people out on the deck and make them see the danger so we can get them into the boats. Maybe a little panic would be beneficial."

"I'll try to get the men to insist their wives go."

"Good. I'll go back and try to get that idiot Lightoller to allow more people in the boats before lowering them. I'm bigger than he is, but he has a pistol."

"It should be easy to convince the men to get their wives aboard. I don't think most of the wives have any idea they won't be seeing their husbands again. They're utterly convinced the ship won't go down and we'll all be saved."

"I say, how about trying to get some of the women and children in steerage up on deck?" said Leo.

"Great idea. I—ll round you up some customers one way or another. See you later."

Leo no more than made it to the Second Class Promenade where Officers Lightoller and Lowe struggled to deal with Boat Four, which had been jinxed all night, when a dazzling streak of light split the sky. A murmured "Ohhhhh." rose from the deck, followed by "Ahhhh" as blue-white stars slowly descended like tiny parachutes. A stream of rockets whistled up from the starboard side into the black sky.

Leo knew that his worries about rounding up passengers to fill the lifeboats would soon evaporate. Even the lowliest landlubber knew what a ship firing rockets in air meant. Still, he was glad to have Augie on the job. A few timid souls were sure to be closeted in their cabins waiting to be extricated. He might even succeed in getting some out of steerage, even that bunch of Irish lasses all named Kathleen that Johnson had been raving about.

Major Penchen up on the davit struggled with the block and tackle for Boat B. He finally got the lines working and jumped down at Leo's feet.

"Nice job. Done like a pro."

Penchen smiled. "I'm an old yachtsman."

"Meet an old sculler."

Lightoller, standing nearby heard the exchange. "We've got only one seaman for this boat," he said. "I don't have a soul who has ever handled a small boat. You two gentlemen, man this one. Anyone who'd get out onto that fall deserves it."

"The Major agreed, but Leo told Lightoller he would wait for his friend Roebling.

Major Penchen swung out on the forward fall and slid into a boat full of women and children. A female with varnished hair, friend of the Major standing in line for Boat 4 told Leo, "He's Vice-Commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, you know."

Leo didn't know, and was surprised to find out the Major was a Canadian. He tried to think of any difference between his behavior and the Americans he'd met. Neither one ever seemed to try to establish their social status in the first fifteen minutes after you met the way the English did.

It would be Boat 4 that got hung up. The passengers who had been assigned that boat, a prominent bunch from Philadelphia including the Wideners, Thayers, Carters, and Ryersons had been lounging around ever since Lightoller originally directed them to A Deck, planning to put them aboard there. When the first mate found that they also must saw off the sounding spar which blocked the way down, he postponed loading #4 until after he had all the other boats lowered. Now, with all the other boats gone, he tackled Boat 4. The sailor he'd sent for a saw turned up with an axe and made quick work of it.

Leo had a sturdy pocket knife and pitched in with the crew members getting the windows unstuck. By the time they had four windows free, the man with the axe had chopped off the spar. With one foot on the rail of the lifeboat and one on the open window sill, Leo helped wives, children, maids, and nannies onto a deck chair pushed up against the rail and into the lifeboat.

He wasn't paying much attention to whom he was helping until Victorine arrived, shepherding the Ryerson children. He saw she had no lifebelt, and quickly removed his own. Stripping off the heavy serge coat she wore, Leo buckled the lifebelt on before helping her with the coat. If she had to swim she might have to jettison the heavy coat. Otherwise it would be a Godsend in this cold air. Before slipping his hand out Leo couldn't resist momentarily cupping one magnificent breast.

"Merci, Monsieur," said Victorine.

"Bon voyage, Mademoiselle."

Lightoller prepared to lower the boat. Many of those assigned to it had tired of waiting and gone on to other boats, so Boat 4 would go half-empty, but the danger hour approached. The crystal chandeliers of the restaurant hung at an odd angle. The slant of the deck became so steep that the deck chairs slid down to the rail. Men standing about started pitching chairs into the water.

At the rail Leo heard the Philadelphia banker discussing the rise and fall of the Roman Empire with J. B. Gough, both dressed for a windy day on Rittenhouse Square. Augie approached, escorting a small group of bedraggled steerage women and children. Before anyone could stop him Leo started handing them out the window and the seaman assigned to the boat handed them down. Again there was no other man qualified to row on the boat. Lightoller's back was turned. Leo signaled Augie to board. "They need hands," he said.

Augie had promised to go back for the Irish girls and declined.

"This is the last boat except for two tangled collapsibles lashed to the roof of the officer's quarters," Leo told him. "I'll meet you in the smoke room after it leaves."

Lightoller had discovered a flutterfoot in the fall. If it couldn't be ironed out the boat couldn't be lowered. Leo went up to the boat deck and slid down the fall to the snag. He felt giddy up there without a lifebelt. After struggling with it for fifteen minutes with his pocket knife, great beads of sweat standing out on his face, he called up to the Boat Deck for a razor. He had a long wait.

Clinging to the fall in the bitter cold he became chilled to the bone. The sweat on his face turned to frost. At last one of the seamen handed up a straight razor and he managed to free the lines. Lightoller gave the order to lower away. The boat slid down the fall into the sea. Leo, climbing back up the slippery fall to the boat deck grasped the rail but his bare fingers had turned numb. He felt himself slipping backwards through the air. He landed with a crash, half in, half out of the lifeboat as it spun round in water the color of motor oil. A dozen pairs of hands seized him and pulled him aboard.

Stunned, the wind knocked out him; he lay on the bottom of the lifeboat. His leg felt as if a lorry had run over it.. He sat up, but he could hardly straighten it out or put any weight on it. He realized it was shattered. A tiny elderly lady volunteered her miniscule cane as a splint. Mrs. Ryerson took off a long silk scarf she wore under her overcoat and wrapped it around his leg and the cane. After a while he stretched out and began to take notice. Apart from the pain in his leg and a few bruises, he seemed to be in one piece. The lone seaman had commandeered three husky looking women from steerage to take on the rowing. Unfortunately, though willing, none of them knew an oar from a tennis racket. The boat was turning in circles not far from where it had dropped next to the Titanic. They could hear the strains of a hymn drifting down from the Titanic deck.

"Why are we hanging about here?" asked a voice.

"The First Officer told me to stand by the ship. I think he was hoping we might pick up passengers when the ship founders," replied the seaman.

They didn't have to wait until the ship foundered. A greaser from boiler room 4 trying to slide down the empty fall ended up in the water not far from them. He doggy paddled erratically toward them, dodging deck chairs and other debris that now came raining down from the listing ship. They managed to fish him out, wringing wet and half-frozen. One of the ladies wrapped him in her woolen shawl. After that a steward made a running leap off one of the lower decks. He dove into the water and swam like a marathon swimmer for their boat. They pulled him aboard clutching a full bottle of gin he'd tucked in his waistband.

Leo was not in any hurry to move out to sea. The rescue ship was so far away that it would be hours before they could expect to be picked up. He hoped Augie would turn up. Although there might be some danger in being too close when the ship went down—a certain amount of suction—the prospect of rescuing Augie made it worth the risk. He had lots of chums at home and in school, but he had never immediately felt a kindred spirit for anyone else. He was desperate not to lose him. Perhaps leaving family and friends, or heading all alone to a foreign county, made him needy. Whatever the cause, something inside him required a soul mate. He seldom prayed, but he found himself praying that Augie would make it.

Under Leo's direction the rowers managed to avoid all the flotsam and row out a safe distance, while still standing by. As they watched, the Titanic bow dipped further and further, while her stern swung up. People could be seen clinging to parts of the ship as the stern rose. The ship's lights flashed on and off. The women speculated about the steady racket that thundered across the water. The ship breaking up? Everything inside breaking loose? When the forward funnel toppled over, showering floaters with sparks and soot, it landed a few yards from what looked like one of the collapsibles.

Leo pulled out his binoculars, still hanging around his neck, and observed that the overturned collapsible had dozens of men spread-eagled upon it. Others clung to the sides or each other in the icy water. He tried to distinguish the faces and imagined he saw Augie. The boat, overloaded or losing air, sank lower and lower in the water. He wondered how long the men could exist like that. Now the Titanic, practically perpendicular, began slipping under, at first by inches, and gradually faster and faster.

"I can't look," said a woman in a scarlet shawl.

"It is gone," said another. The worst thing of all was the screaming that began. An unholy din rose from the mass of floating bodies. Moaning. Calls for help. Prayers. Beseeching. Shrieking.

Victorine plugged the children's ears, and offered ear plugs to Mrs. Ryerson. Several women craned their necks to see how near the rescue ship was. The lights kept coming closer but they had no idea when to expect the rescue.

Leo took his turn rowing. He wanted to go back closer to the spot where the ship had gone down. He hoped to find the overturned collapsible. He had a mental picture of Augie clutching the collapsible. The screams of the floaters died away, gradually bringing a peaceful silence. Minute by minute the night crept by.

Dawn brought a slight breeze. Leo's binoculars picked up the collapsible. He started rowing toward it, helped by a woman named Thayer who said she wanted to row to keep warm. As they approached the collapsible the sea grew choppy. Waves splashed over the men lying on or clinging to the overturned boat. A man rolled off the stern and disappeared into the sea. Leo was frantic to reach the raft. The rowers, exerting to the limit of their strength, managed to pull abreast of it in five or six minutes. The burly seaman and the women in the lifeboat pulled a few of the more precariously situated ones out of the water and over the side into the boat. They were barely alive. The spray had stiffened their hair and blinded their eyes.

Leo despaired of finding Augie Roebling among them. One man rose up on his own steam and grasped the edge of the boat. Four women helped him climb aboard, where they wrapped him in anything they could rustle up. A man on the collapsible who, Leo thought, might be Lightoller, pulled one of the men in the water up onto the raft to replace a man taken aboard the lifeboat.

In all they had managed to take four aboard the lifeboat. Leo rolled over the first man they had rescued. It was Colonel Gracie. The second was a man he had never seen before. The third was Bride, the wireless operator. The fourth man was Augie. Leo let out a cry of joy. He wrapped Augie in his blazer and put his wool muffler about Augie's head and neck. He took off his friend's shoes, dried his feet, and put his own socks on them. He began talking to Augie.

"Hold on. We can see the rescue ship now. It's getting closer. We are going to make it. Don't give up."

Leo requested the seaman to get the sail from the storage box. He covered all the men rescued from the collapsible with the sail. One or two were stirring. Their chattering teeth sounded like castenets.

For the next several hours Leo held Augie's head in his lap and talked to him. One of the women in the boat kept pointing out shooting stars, which was no consolation to Leo. He tried to forget the old wives tale that every time you see a shooting star someone dies. He told himself that if a thousand men had already died, we can afford to see a lot of shooting stars go by. Another flash in the sky appeared slightly brighter and was followed by a faint boom.

"Sounds like a cannon," said the seaman.

A single light showed up in the same area, and then another and another, then rows of lights. All doubts that it was the rescue steamer vanished and a great holler went up across the water. Someone on a boat nearby lit a newspaper. Boxhall, in boat number 2 burned a green flare, the last.

The bleak night gave way to a gorgeous dawn. The whole horizon became streaked with shades of peach and mauve. Leo turned to Augie. He stirred. He gazed at Leo, his eyes open. His eyes widened. He took a long breath. His body slumped and his eyes closed. He was gone.

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