“Thank you, George. My handsome son is safe,” Bessie said, “and, Hud, we are together. God grant us peace as we make this journey together.” In her husband’s arms, Bessie stood, holding Loraine. George Swane stood on Bessie’s other side protectively. She nuzzled her baby daughter and looked out onto the sea with a smile.
Loraine was the only child from First Class to perish; Bessie was one of only four women from First Class to lose her life.
Several chickens and a rooster were lost, as well as a pet canary. As many as ten dogs drown, and when the boats gathered the remains of those who died, they found a drowned woman still holding on to her dog; she had stayed with her pet until the end.
The Titanic’s mascot, a cat named Jenny, was lost, along with her week-old litter of kittens.
The US and British inquiries agreed that too few lifeboats were onboard, but put the blame, mostly on Captain Smith, citing the excessive speed of the ship, a failure to heed ice warnings, and insufficient training for the use of life boats.
Within twenty minutes, almost all of the survivors who floated on the ocean water were dead. However, oddly, three men were rescued almost an hour after going into the water, making for a true mystery of how this was possible. By crawling up on some wreckage, they survived.
One was a Japanese man who had tied himself to a door. Waves washed over him, and he was almost frozen solid. The officer in charge, Lowe, remarked that it was only a ‘Jap’ and was not worth the effort, but he changed his mind, and they pulled the man into the boat.
As soon as the man was out of the water, he rallied himself, and seeing that one of the oarsmen was weak and injured, he pushed him aside and took the oar himself, rowing expertly.
Lowe promptly apologized and said the man was worth ten of the crewmen from Titanic.
Almost every survivor cited some heroic action of another.
Men and women stepped up and showed the best of humanity.
Chapter Eight: Titanic is Lost
Those crushed beneath the heavy funnel made the water run red with their blood; it was as gruesome sight as one could imagine.
As men fell in the water, they spied the two boats that finally slipped free and swam to them. Some made it, and others did not. Those injured or exhausted held on to the sides of the boats, but within ten or fifteen minutes, they slipped away as they froze or had heart attacks.
There was a huge roar of machinery shifting to the bow, and maybe the monsters bellowed their anger. The lights went out. The ship, with a mighty groan, split into two parts, and the bow, with all the machinery stuffed into it, plunged to the bottom of the sea.
Everyone on the end sank into the sea. The stern floated there on the water, just half a ship, but it filled up quickly. Those on it, and there were hundreds, realized in those precious seconds, the stern would fill since it was twisted away and also it would slip into the water. Some jumped off, preferring the cold water to falling from a great height.
The open end tilted toward the sea little by little until it, too, was almost straight up in the water. Men, women, and deck furnishings slid across the decks and into the water. Some held on to the railing that was several hundred feet in the air. All fell screaming. A few held on until the stern dropped into the icy sea.
There once had been a massive ship over eight hundred feet, floating majestically on the water, all lit up and furnished with the most expensive décor and carried an expensive cargo. Now several hundred bodies floated on the surface of the water in the darkness, and the Titanic was settling into a watery grave over twelve thousand feet deep.
For many, it was like watching a beautiful dream end. But a nightmare was beginning.
Chapter Nine: Boat Seven
At first, there were hundreds of voices calling for help. Those going into the water felt a sudden shock; then, they began to shudder and lose control as their extremities froze. However, if they had no life belt, they could no longer tread water and would drown, but there were no more than a handful without life belts.
Besides drowning, there were other ways the passengers died. Most froze to death after ten or fifteen minutes in the cold water; they suffered acute stabbing pain until they died.
A few died of heart attacks from the shock or fear. Many had broken legs, arms, ribs, and even broken necks, but it depended on where they were when they fell into the water. If they were holding onto the stern’s railing, they fell two hundred feet, and their bones snapped like twigs.
Some of the passengers had been killed by the first funnel that fell, yet the other three funnels crushed many, either killing them or injuring them severely. A few dead bodies floated among the living, bobbing in the ice water.
Crewman Hogg told the passengers they would look for survivors in the water. He and the other men pulled hard on the oars, ignoring those who protested going back towards the wreckage. Bits of furniture, deck chairs, linens, and every sort of rubbish imaginable floated about the lifeboat.
“They will swamp us,” Maggie Darby said. Her husband was the injured Lewis Darby who had been attacked by the fish below decks. “And we have to row to the rescue ship for Lewis.” She cried incessantly as she watched the water; their small lamp only lit a little of the area, but it was horrific to view.
Hogg was confused, “Do you see a rescue ship?”
A woman, floating in the water, raised her head, her frozen hair almost a solid piece; she reached blue fingers towards the boat. Her moaning was deep and constant as she suffered. Her eyes were frozen in an open stare. Her lips and tongue were already unmovable from the cold. Her pale pink gown of silk was brittle.
“I agree. We cannot go back,” Caroline Prescott protested. “What is wrong with them?”
“The water is just below freezing, Ma’am. What is wrong with them is that they are dying. Salt water can get below freezing and still be water instead of ice.”
To their port side, a man floated on his back with his arms twisted backwards, broken along the joints and down the bones, so his arms moved like being boneless, like a loose tentacle. A terrible gash was opened on his forehead, but the blood did not run; it was frozen. The more disheartening issue was that he was groaning and whining as he died. Fifteen minutes in the water was a lifetime of hell for him.
Clinging to a deck chair was a woman, her fingers like blue claws. She was as stiff and inflexible as the ice itself. Her face was a mask of pain and fear. Several were on deck chairs or tables, freezing into statues.
Hogg and Jewell continued to row back amid the bodies.
“Help me,” a man called out.
“We have about got you.” Hogg and the other men pulled him aboard, stripped away his sodden clothing, and dressed him in rugs, or blankets and whatever they could find. He could not stand or unbend his near-frozen body. He shivered and shook uncontrollably while his eyes rolled with the pain. Hogg wondered if he would survive; he most surely would lose appendages and flesh to frostbite.
Hogg reached for another man, and he and the other men lifted him, but dropped him with shocked yelps, wiping their hands against their chests in revulsion; he was bobbing along with his lower half mangled and the other part gone. Three more were that way as well. It made them anxious to reach for anyone who was not moving and making sounds.
“What happened to them?” one of the women asked. She was so afraid that she would have climbed onto the floor of the boat had there not been a slight bit of water there.