The watch that ends the.., p.27
The Watch That Ends the Night, page 27
Now, hoist that sail!”
OLAUS ABELSETH THE IMMIGRANT
“Look there,” I said. “At that light on the horizon. It’s a ship. Come to rescue us.”
The stoker in the dinner jacket slumped in my arms. “Do not go to sleep now.” I chafed his coal-blackened hands as I spoke. “Not when salvation is so close!”
The stoker just stared at nothing and said, “Who are you?” It may sound odd, but I think he was asking the question not of me but of someone else. He acted as if he were conversing with a number of different imaginary people. First a man named Heart. Then a man named Gold. Then finally the Devil. He tried to shrug me away and said, “Leave me be. Just leave me alone.” Then the stoker died in my arms.
The rescue ship was in plain sight!
Then out of the mist, we see another lifeboat rush up to ours under a billowed sail.
“You look as if you need a lift,” said the officer at the helm. On board he had a Jap or a Filipino at one oar. A very large man propped at the stern looked to be dead. It was an odd sight to behold, but beautiful.
“We can’t last another minute,” someone answered. And it was true.
We jumped to the safety of what I found out later was lifeboat number fourteen, and the officer’s name was Lowe.
There were maybe a dozen of us left alive. Many had fallen off during the night. That stoker wearing the dinner jacket — the man who died in my arms? He was one of three dead bodies left in the raft.
Then we turned toward the ship, tacking on under full sail.
THOMAS HART THE STOKER
Who are you?
I had emptied every bin of fuel.
I was a derelict ship set adrift.
Rudderless. Me boilers cold.
From bin to bin I searched me soul,
and finally in one corner
I seen a tiny lump of coal.
But when I picked it up,
it crumbled to nothin’
between me frozen fingers.
Leave me alone.
I was no longer alone.
Sharing the empty bin with me
was Tommy Hart, Sean Gould, and the Devil.
They spoke together as if they were a single voice:
“The rescue ship has arrived!” they said.
“But first,” said the Devil, “we’ll need
your official certificate of discharge, please.”
I searched me jacket pockets and found
only a worthless bank draft, ruined by water.
“Someone’s done burgled me discharge book,” I said.
And all of them — Tommy, Sean, and the Devil —
laughed out loud in three-part harmony.
So I quickly turned to take my leave,
only to discover
there weren’t no door.
Then the Devil tips his captain’s cap
and laughs. “Welcome aboard.”
FRANKIE GOLDSMITH THE DRAGON HUNTER
When I woke up,
I was looking through
a little metal circle
in our lifeboat’s canvas side.
I had to close one eye
to watch the world
that way. So small.
When I raised my head
from Mum’s lap,
the world became so big
I couldn’t see it all at once.
The sun was up
and we were surrounded by icebergs
like frozen floating mountains.
I wondered which one held
the ice dragon’s crystal cave.
I had woken up when I heard the cheers.
Another steamer ship was near.
Likely my father had arranged it.
The adults were afraid
that we wouldn’t be seen,
so they set my mother’s hat on fire,
and lifted it up on the end of an oar!
Imagine that. Mum’s good straw Sunday hat!
It was brilliant.
Then the men started rowing like mad.
“Dad’s sure to see that signal torch,” I said to Mum.
“There’s no way he could miss that!”
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
When I heard a rescue ship was near,
firing its rockets over the horizon,
I knew it had to be the Carpathia.
My only concern was whether we could last
long enough for the ship to reach us.
One man, the chief baker, had been dangling
half in the water all night long. It seemed a miracle
that he was still alive.
Then Officer Lightoller saw another lifeboat in the distance,
and he blew on his whistle and waved.
And lucky for us, what turned out to be lifeboat twelve
waved back, turned around, and was by our side in no time.
The baker said, “Let go, Maynard.” And he swam
with a funny dog-paddle over to meet boat twelve.
They pulled him in. Then one by one we each transferred.
Lightoller was last man off and he took command.
Lifeboat twelve had been launched half empty,
so there was plenty of room for us. I searched the faces
for Phillips, but he was nowhere to be seen.
As we rowed our way toward the waiting Carpathia,
I took in my surroundings for the first time.
In the daylight, about twenty icebergs were visible
all around us, some of them over a hundred feet high.
They were a variety of colors, sizes, and shapes.
.. -.-. . -... . .-. --.
Last night no one could believe we’d struck an iceberg at all.
Now I could only wonder how we didn’t strike one sooner.
MARGARET BROWN THE SOCIALITE
My experience in lifeboat number six
had grown more bizarre with each passing minute.
Without warning, a man emerged from under a bench
and scared the life out of many of the ladies.
He spoke to us in what I took to be Arabic
and tried to work an oar with his clearly broken arm.
Another stowaway showed itself when Mrs. Rothschild’s
overcoat began to bark. And eventually she unbuttoned
to reveal a small Pomeranian hidden against her bosom.
Then a wind picked up.
Speaking as sweetly as I could, I asked Hichens,
“Why not set the mast and sail to take advantage of this breeze?”
He scoffed, “Because we tossed them out, of course,
to make room for more passengers.”
“But the boat is half empty,” I pointed out.
“Is that my doing?” he said.
Major Peuchen, leaning over his oar,
reminded us all again that he was “something of a yachtsman.”
“Does this look like a bloody regatta to you?” said Hichens.
It occurred to me that lifeboat number six
was under the protection of two of the men
who had wrecked the Titanic in the first place.
The man now raving at the tiller had been at Titanic’s wheel
when he failed to turn away in time.
The quiet submissive thing at the oars
was the official lookout, who had failed to see
a chunk of ice the size of a mountain.
When we ladies noticed a light on the horizon,
Hichens said, “It’s just a falling star. An omen of death.”
When the light proved to be a steamer on the horizon,
Hichens said, “They won’t see us from that distance.”
When the steamer did not pass us by but stopped a few miles off,
Hichens said, “They’re just here to pick up the bodies.”
“Should we not row toward the ship and save ourselves?”
suggested Mrs. Candee, attempting to plant the idea in Hichens’s head.
“Nobody touches an oar,” he said. “Let them come to us.”
I stood up.
“Ladies,” I said, “anyone who is able, take an oar.
If we work in shifts, we can make it to the safety of that ship.
And the exercise will help to keep us warm.”
Hichens stepped toward me, saying, “I’m in charge of this boat!”
“You take one more step toward me, fella,” I said,
“and I swear to God, I’ll throw you off this boat myself!”
My delivery must have been convincing,
since Hichens shrank back and whined, “You stay away from me
and stop rockin’ the bloody boat.”
Then for the first time all night, the wilting lookout spoke up,
saying, “Watch your language, Hichens.
Don’t you see you’re talkin’ to a lady?”
“I am in charge of this boat,” Hichens mumbled.
“Then you take charge of your little end,” said Mrs. Candee.
“And we shall take charge of the rest.”
“Well spoken, Candee,” I said.
“Thank you, Brown,” she said.
And we put our frail, helpless backs into it.
And we didn’t let up until we placed our dainty feet
upon the solid decks of the RMS Carpathia.
THE ICEBERG
They knew. They knew what damage ice can do.
And yet they kept advancing, all the same.
Titanic’s wound proved mortal. Now she’s gone.
But metal, coal, and engines weren’t my aim.
My prize was left there floating on the sea.
The humans left alive upon their boats;
some selfishly looked only to themselves.
But mostly they assisted those in need.
Surprisingly few were fueled by greed.
Surprisingly most were fueled by hope,
a hopefulness that, even through despair,
illuminates the dark and morbid night.
An officer sends up his final flare.
The rescue ship comes steaming into sight.
Then sunlight reinstates some normalcy.
Each little boat approaches with what’s left.
A bosun’s chair lifts females to the deck.
The infants ride in canvas postal sacks.
The baker makes his way up on his own.
His feet in pain from frostbite’s knife-sharp sting,
he climbs a Jacob’s ladder on his knees.
The wireless man is forced to do the same.
The lookout, immigrant, and tailor’s sons,
the gambler, refugee, and socialite,
the boy who hunts for dragons: all ascend.
Ascend to end the watch that ends the night.
And as they do, the ice leaves with the tide,
a dozen souls all clinging to my side.
April 26, 1912
FRIDAY
Aboard the cable ship Mackay-Bennett
ATLANTIC OCEAN
THE GRAND BANKS
760 MILES FROM HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
JOHN SNOW
THE UNDERTAKER
Most folks would rather not know this fact,
but here’s the honest truth of the thing:
as living creatures we are each of us
already in the first stage of decay.
The bacteria in our guts is kept at bay
while we are alive. But once we die,
our own bodies consume us from the inside out.
Embrace this fact and learn to love it.
Every living thing decays.
Be it a worm, a fish, or an alley cat.
Be it an elephant, a horse, a rat, or a man.
Both rich man and poor man. Both sinner and saint.
The earth is forever trying to reclaim
the clay from which the flesh is made.
In the first twenty-four hours,
the surface of the abdomen turns a bluish green.
The eyes film over. Blood, no longer circulating,
settles and pools due to the effect of gravity.
Rigor mortis sets in to stiffen the limbs
but soon recedes in the ebb and flow of moldering.
Blowflies and houseflies lay their eggs.
Putrefaction begins. Gases bloat loose skin.
The young maggots hatch and do their dance.
New odors attract the beetles and mites.
The creamy flesh turns black, slips off,
as the fluids seep forth and the body flattens.
New smells exude to call more insects
for the final macabre buffet of mold, fermentation,
and dry decay. Then the moths flutter in
for the hair and the skin. So you see
why my skills are in such high demand.
A good embalmer can stop death’s watch for a while,
enough time for loved ones to curse or to sigh,
to wail, to weep, and say their good-byes.
Today the ship Minia finally arrives
with many much needed embalming supplies.
And so after taking aboard fourteen more bodies,
Captain Larnder sets our course southwest toward Halifax.
In all we’ve found three hundred and six bodies.
One hundred and sixteen we returned to the sea.
That leaves one hundred and ninety aboard.
The first-class dead in the privacy of their coffins.
The steerage laid out upon the windswept decks
under loosely draped tarpaulins that rise and fall.
For all the world it looks as if the corpses can breathe
as our cargo ship of sorrow picks up speed.
POSTLUDE
MORNING
ABOARD THE RMS CARPATHIA
MONDAY, APRIL 15,
THROUGH
THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1912
OLAUS ABELSETH THE IMMIGRANT
Once I was safely aboard the Carpathia, I watched as each lifeboat came in. I watched for Peter and Sigurd. I watched for Adolf. But each time I was disappointed.
Those of us who had been in the water knew the truth of it. No one could live for long submerged in that water. The coldness drew the very life from your bones.
Anna and Karen are both safe, thank God. Anna tells me that Mr. Ismay, the ship’s owner, was in the boat with her. People have begun to whisper. They wonder why Mr. Ismay was given a place when so many other men were refused. As for me, I do not wish death upon any man.
My legs are badly frosted. The pain is difficult to bear. It is very difficult even to sit up to write this letter to you, my Marie. But I must say one final thing before I’m done.
As the Carpathia steamed away from the wreck site, we were pulled up short when we encountered a floating shelf of ice some twelve feet high. It stretched on as far as the eye could see. Our ship was forced to navigate around it. One hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four hours. The ice floe was more than fifty miles long, with icebergs rising up like mountains from the fjords at home. None of the crew had seen its like before. It seemed as if God had drawn a line along the water that no man would be able to cross.
Now, my dear friend, I must close this letter. In two more days we will reach New York. And now I must write to my uncle and my sister. I must explain to them how God drew a line of ice that Peter and Sigurd could not pass. My tears fall when I think about it, because I saw what I will never forget as long as I live.
Yours,
Olaus
CHARLES JOUGHIN THE BAKER
I had to climb up the rope ladder on my knees.
My feet were that badly frostbitten.
Ours was the last lifeboat to reach the Carpathia,
which caused no end of anguish to those waiting
to see loved ones. Like forgetting the yeast
and watching a loaf that will never rise.
On board our rescue ship, life was good.
To thaw me out when I first arrived,
they popped me in an oven like one of me own pies!
You should have seen Maynard (the human) laugh at the sight.
And I laughed, too. Because I was alive.
And because I was given all the brandy I wanted.
And just to be sure it kept on flowing,
I convinced the Carpathia’s doctor that the brandy
was speeding up my thawing process.
Later I was able to walk on my own
up on the top deck, where many of Titanic’s lifeboats
had been brought aboard and stowed.
Maynard (the human) happened by and said,
“It’s a miracle that each of those boats
was stocked with your bread and they still stayed afloat!”
I replied, “And a miracle that the weather was so calm
with such a great windbag as you about.”
“I see you’ve been into the brandy, Mr. J.,” Maynard went on.
“For purely medicinal purposes, Mr. M.,” I said. “Care to join me?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Maynard.
He twirled his ridiculous waxed mustache.
And as we turned to go, I realized how much
medicinal brandy I had already taken,
for I could have sworn I saw (out of the corner of my eye)
a rat with a crooked tail scurry by.
The MARCONI INTERNATIONAL MARINE COMMUNICATION COMPANY, Ltd.
Marconi-gram
From: Bruce Ismay, RMS Carpathia
To: P.A.S. Franklin, US Pres., IMM
Date: 15 April 1912
Time: 11:00 A.M.
Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of lif e. Full particulars later.
Bruce Ismay
THE ICEBERG
The night is done. The mourning has begun.
From sea, word fills Southampton’s weary streets.
From Northam’s cottages beyond the bridge,
wives bring their children out to learn the news,
past the crepe-draped pillars of sad Guildhall,
past townsfolk dressed in black, past Union Jacks
half-mast in dingy private garden paths,
past public house, where mourners raise their pints.
Past all of this the women, infant-hipped,
with toddlers gripping to their mothers’ skirts:
the knickered boys and pinafored young girls,
