No Greater Love (9 page)

“But I don’t want to go!” She started to cry, as the big burly man swept her up in his arms, grabbing a blanket off one of the beds, and wrapping her in it, with the doll she still clung to. “I want to wait here!… I want my mommy!”

“We’ll find your mommy, little one. But there’s no time to waste.” He ran up the stairs with his small bundle in his arms, and as he was about to pass the level of the Promenade Deck, one of the crew members called out to him.

“The last one’s almost gone. No more lifeboats on the Boat Deck. The last one’s off the Promenade, and they were about to lower it a minute ago … come on, man … hurry!”

The heavyset steward ran out onto the Promenade Deck in time to watch Lightoller and another man standing on a windowsill struggling with the davits of number four lifeboat, hanging right outside the open windows. “Wait, man!” He shouted. “One more!” But Alexis was screaming and kicking and calling for her mother, who knew none of this, and thought Alexis long since safely stowed in another lifeboat. “Wait!” Lightoller was already lowering the boat as the crewman ran to the open window with Alexis. “I’ve got one more!” The second officer looked over his shoulder, and it was almost too late to stop now. He gestured with his head, as just below him the lifeboat hung in the balance, carrying with it the last women willing to leave the ship, and among them young Mrs. Astor, and Jack Thayer’s mother. John Jacob Astor had asked Lightoller if he might go with them, as his wife was in a “delicate state,” but Lightoller had remained adamant, and Madeleine Astor had boarded with her maid instead of her husband.

The steward glanced down at the lifeboat just below them, and there was no way to bring it back up, and he didn’t want to keep Alexis on the ship, so he looked down at her for an instant, and planted a kiss on her forehead as he would on his own child’s, and then threw her from the window into the boat, praying that someone would catch her, and if not, she wouldn’t fall too badly or break too many bones. There had already been several sprained ankles and broken wrists as people were pushed or thrown into boats, but as Alexis fell, one of the sailors at the oars reached up and broke her fall, as she lay screaming in the blanket, and only one deck above her, her unsuspecting mother stood quietly talking to her husband.

The heavyset steward watched from above as Alexis was safely stowed next to a woman with a baby, and then Lightoller and the others carefully lowered the boat the fifteen-foot drop toward the black icy sea. Alexis sat staring in terror, holding on to her doll, wondering if she would ever see her mother again, and she began to scream again as she looked at the huge ship looming up beside them, as they hit the water. The sailors and the women began to row almost immediately, and feeling as though something terrible were about to happen, Alexis watched the enormous ship as they moved slowly away from it. At 1:55
A.M.
, they were the last real lifeboat to leave the
Titanic.

And at 2:00
A.M.
Lightoller was still struggling with the four collapsible lifeboats, three of which could not be freed. But collapsible D was finally lowered. And there was no doubt now that this would be the last chance for anyone to leave the ship, if they even made it, which seemed doubtful. A circle of crew members was formed around collapsible D, which was to allow only women and children through. Two unidentified babies were put in, and a number of women and children.
And at the last instant, Bert finally induced Lightoller to let Phillip into that lifeboat. He was only sixteen, after all, and then collapsible D was gone too, precariously descending to join the others, as Bert and Kate watched it. And after that, the rescue efforts were over. There was nowhere to go, no way to escape, those who had not made it to the lifeboats would go down with the ship now. And Bert still could not believe that Kate had refused to leave with Phillip. Bert had tried to push her into the boat before it was too late, but she had clung to him. And now he held her close in their final moments.

As the Strauses walked quietly arm in arm, Benjamin Guggenheim stood in full evening dress on the Boat Deck with his valet. And Bert and Kate kissed and held hands and stood talking quietly, about silly things, how they had met … their wedding day … and the births of their children.

“It’s Alexis’s birthday today,” Kate said softly, as she looked up at Bert, remembering the day six years before, when Alexis had been born on a sunny Sunday morning in their house in San Francisco. Who would have thought then that this could ever happen? And it was a relief now just to know that their children would survive them, that they would be loved, and cherished, and well cared for by their oldest sister. It was a relief to Kate to know that now, but it made her heart ache to think of never seeing them again, and Bert fought back tears as he held her.

“I wish you had gone with them, Kate. They all need you so much.” He was so sad that it had come to this, an end no one could have dreamed of. If only they had taken another ship home … if only the
Titanic
hadn’t hit an iceberg … if only … if only … it was endless.

“I couldn’t bear to live without you, Bert.” She held him tight, and then reached up to kiss him. They kissed
for a long time, and he held her close, as people started to jump from the ship. They watched, and saw Charles leap off. The Boat Deck was only ten feet above the water, and some were reaching the lifeboats safely, but he also knew that Kate couldn’t swim, and there was no point trying to jump overboard yet. They would do it when they had to, but not sooner. And they still hoped that perhaps, somehow, when the ship went down, they might reach the lifeboats around them, and survive it.

As they talked, efforts were being made to free two more of the collapsible lifeboats, but even once freed of the ropes that had secured it, it was impossible to get collapsible B off the deck, given the extreme angle at which the ship was now listing. And finally, Jack Thayer jumped overboard as Charles had only moments before, and miraculously reached collapsible D, where he once again met Phillip. They were forced to stand up in the boat, though, because it was taking in so much water.

But just above him his parents were holding each other tight, as the water rushed onto the ship. Kate gave a quick gasp, surprised by the brutal chill of the water. And Bert held her as they went down. He tried to keep her afloat for as long as he could, but the downdraft was too great, and as he held her, the last words she said to him, as the water rose up around them, were “I love you.” She smiled then, and was gone. She slipped through his hands, and he was struck by the crow’s nest moments later just as, very near them, Charles Fitzgerald was relentlessly pulled under.

The radio shack was under water by then, too, and the bridge was gone, as collapsible lifeboat A floated away like a raft on a summer beach, and hundreds dived into the water everywhere, as the huge bow plowed into the ocean. The ragtime sound of the band was long gone by then, and the last anyone had heard from them
was what many thought to be the somber strains of the hymn “Autumn,” drifting out toward the lifeboats, to the women and children there, and the men who had been fortunate enough to reach the lifeboats on the starboard side, far from Lightoller’s sterner vigil on the port side. The hymn seemed to hang like ice in the frigid night air and it was a sound that would haunt all of them for the rest of their lives.

Now those in the lifeboats sat and watched as the bow plunged into the ocean so sharply that the stern swung up in midair, pointing at the sky like a giant black mountain. The lights seemed to remain on, strangely, for a long time, blink off finally, come on again, and then disappear for good in the terrifying darkness. But still the stern stood pointing at the sky like a demonic mountain. There was a hideous roar from within as everything possible came loose and shattered, a din mixed with cries of anguish, as the forward funnel broke off and hit the water in a shower of sparks, with a thunderous noise that made Alexis scream as she lay in her blanket beside a total stranger.

And then, as Edwina watched the three giant propellers outlined on the stern against the sky, there was a roar like no other she had ever heard, as though the entire ship were being torn asunder. Many explained it afterward as sounding as though the ship were actually breaking in half, but all were told that this couldn’t have happened. And all Edwina knew, as she watched the hideous sight, was that she didn’t know where Charles or Phillip or Alexis or her parents were, or if any of them had made it to safety. She clung tightly to George’s hand, and for once he had no words for what they had both seen, and she pulled him close to her and hid his eyes as they both cried in lifeboat number eight, watching the tragedy that had befallen the unsinkable
Titanic.

And as the huge ship finally sank toward the ocean floor, the stern finally disappearing at last, they all gasped in disbelief. It was over. She was gone. On April 15, 1912, at 2:20
A.M.
It was exactly two hours and forty minutes after she had struck the iceberg. And Edwina watched, clutching Teddy and Fannie to her, as she sat next to George, praying that the others had survived it.

AT
1:50 A.M., THE
CARPATHIA
RECEIVED HER LAST MESSAGE
from the
Titanic.
By then the
Titanic’
s engine room had been full to the boilers. But after that, nothing more was known. They steamed toward the
Titanic’
s location at full speed, fearing that they would find her in serious trouble, but at no time did they suspect that she could have gone down before they reached her.

At 4:00
A.M.
, they reached the location that she had radioed to them, and Captain Rostron of the
Carpathia
looked around in disbelief. She was gone. The
Titanic
was nowhere to be seen. She had vanished.

They moved cautiously about, anxious to see where she had gone to, but it was another ten minutes before green flares in the distance caught their eye. With luck, it would be the
Titanic
, already on the horizon, but in a moment, Captain Rostron and his men realized what it was. The flares were being fired from lifeboat number two, not on the horizon at all, but quite near them. And
as the
Carpathia
edged toward the lifeboat just below, Rostron knew for sure now that the
Titanic
had gone down.

Shortly after four o’clock, Miss Elizabeth Allen was the first to board the
Carpathia
, as passengers from that ship crowded the decks and the corridors and looked on. Through the night, as they felt the
Carpathia
changing course, and caught glimpses of the crew’s urgent preparations, the passengers knew that something very serious must have happened. At first, they feared it was trouble on their own ship, and then they heard it from crew members and passed it on … the
Titanic
was sinking … the unsinkable ship was in trouble … an iceberg … going down…. And now, as they looked around them, over an expanse of four miles, they saw the lifeboats all around them. People began to call out, there was waving and shouting from some, and from other boats only silence, as shocked faces looked up. There was no way to tell anyone what had happened, no way to say what they had felt as they looked on, the huge stern sticking straight up into the night sky, toward the stars, and then plunging down, carrying with it their husbands and brothers and friends, gone forever.

As Edwina watched the
Carpathia
move closer to them, she let George hold the baby for a while, and wedged Fannie in between them. George’s hands were too cold to row anymore, and still wearing Charles’s gloves, she took a turn rowing toward the ship, sitting next to the Countess of Rothes, who had rowed relentlessly for the past two hours. George had done his fair share, too, but Edwina had spent much of the time holding the baby, and trying to comfort Fannie, who had cried for Kate ever since they left the ship, and more than once she had asked for Alexis. Edwina had assured her that they would find them all again as soon as they could.

Edwina assumed somehow that her mother had found Alexis by then, even though Edwina had led her to believe that the child had been put in the lifeboat with them. But it was possible that Alexis would have reappeared, and Edwina also tried to assume that the rest of her family, and Charles, were in another lifeboat nearby. She had to believe that. People were still calling out to other boats as the
Carpathia
neared, hoping to find husbands and friends, asking who was on board, or if they had seen them. Several of the lifeboats had tied up together by then, although number eight and several others were still on their own, moving slowly through the ice-speckled water. And then finally at seven o’clock in the morning, it was their turn, as they hovered near the rope ladder and the rope sling that the
Carpathia
had prepared to bring them up to the deck, where the others were now waiting. There were twenty-four women and children aboard lifeboat number eight, and four crewmen. And Seaman Jones at the oars called up to the men on the ship and explained that there were several very small children. The deckhands on the
Carpathia
lowered a mail sack then, and with trembling hands, Edwina helped Seaman Jones carefully put Fannie into it as she cried and begged Edwina not to make her do it.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. We’re going up to the big ship now, and then we’re going to find Mama and Papa.” She said it as much for herself as she did for her little sister. And as she watched the tiny dark head at the top of the mail sack, she felt tears sting her eyes, thinking of what they had been through. She felt George squeeze her hand, and she squeezed it back without looking at him. She knew that if she did, she would begin to sob. She couldn’t allow herself the luxury of letting go yet. Not until she knew that the others were safe, and in the meantime, she had to take care of Fannie,
Teddy, and George, and that was all she could allow herself to think of.