DISCLAIMER: I OWN ANYTHING!
While the seamen detach the falls, Boat One rocks next to the hull. Lucile and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon sit with ten others in a boat made for four times that many.
I despise small boats." Lucile complained. "I just know I'm going to be seasick. I always get seasick in small boats. Good Heavens, there's a man down there."
In a lit porthole beneath the surface she sees Edward looking up at her... a face in a bubble of light under the water.
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Harrison stops trashing the room, and stands there, breathing hard. "There's no key in here."
They look around at the water, now almost two feet deep. Edward pulled his feet up onto the bench and looks at Harrison.
"You have to go for help."
"I'll be right back."
"I'll wait here."
He runs out, looking back at him once from the doorway, then splashes away. Edward looks down at the swirling water.
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Harrison splashes down the hall to a stairwell going up to the next deck. He climbs the stairs, his long coat leaving a trail like a giant snail. The weight of it is really slowing him down. He rips at the buttons and shimmies quickly out of the thing. He bounds up the stairs trying to ignore the freezing cold water. He enters a long corridor... part of the labyrinth of steerage hallways forward. Harrison is alone here. A long groan of stressing metal echoes along the hall as the ship continues to settle. He runs down the hall, unimpeded now.
"Hello? Somebody?"
He turns a corner and runs along another corridor in a daze. The hall slopes down into water which, shimmers, reflecting the light. The margin of the water creeps toward him. A young man enter the corridor he was in, running through the water, sending up geysers of water. He pelts past him without slowing, his eyes crazed.
"Help me! We need help!" He calls after him.
He doesn't look back. It is like a bad dream. The hull gongs with terrifying sounds. The lights flicker and go out, leaving utter darkness for a beat, they come back on. He finds himself hyperventilating. That one moment of blackness was the most terrifying of his life.
A steward runs around the nearest corner, his arms full of lifebelts. He is upset to see someone still in his section. He grabs him forcefully by the arm, pulling him with him like a wayward child.
"Come on, then, let's get you topside, sir, that's right."
"Wait. Wait! I need your help! There's-" He tried to pull the steward in the direction of Edward.
"No need for panic. Come along!"
"No, let me go! You're going the wrong way!" He tried to get out of his hold but the steward was not listening and he wouldn't let him go.
He shouts in his ear, and when he turns, he punches him squarely in the nose. Shocked, he lets him go and staggers back.
"To Hell with you!"
"See you there, buster!"
The steward runs off, holding his bloody nose. He spits after him. Just the way Edward taught him. He turns around and sees a glass case with a fire-axe in it. He breaks the glass with a battered suitcase which is lying discarded nearby, and seizes the axe, running back the way he came. At the stairwell he looks down and gasps. The water has flooded the bottom five steps. He goes down and has to crouch to look along the corridor to the room where Edward is trapped. Harrison plunges into the water, which is up to his waist... and powers forward, holding the axe above his head in two hands. He grimaces at the pain from the literally freezing water.
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Edward has climbed up on the bench, and is hugging the water pipe. Harrison wadesin, holding the axe above his head.
"Will this work?" Edward smiles at him.
"We'll find out."
They are both terrified, but trying to keep panic at bay. He positions the chain connecting the two cuffs, stretching it taut across the steel pipe. The chain is of course very short, and his exposed wrists are on either side of it.
"Try a couple practice swings." He says jerking his head toward a wooden cabinet on the other side of the room. Harrison waded across the room toward the cabinet. He hefts the axe and thunks into it.
"Good, now try to hit the same mark again."
He swings hard and the blade thunks in four inches from his original mark.
"Okay, that's enough practice." He gives Harrison a shakey smile.
He winces, bracing himself as Harrison raises the axe. He has to hit a target about an inch wide with all the force he can muster, with his hands on either side.
"You can do it, Harrison. Hit it as hard as you can, I trust you."
Edward closes his eyes. So does Harrison.
The axe comes down. K-WHANG! Harrison gingerly opens her eyes looks... Edward is grinning with two separate cuffs.
"Nice work, there, Paul Bunyan."
Harrison drops the axe, all the strength going out of him. Edward climbs down into the water next to her. He can't breathe for a second.
"Shit! Excuse my French. Ow ow ow, that is cold! Come on, let's go."
They wade out into the hall. Harrison starts toward the stairs going up, but Edward stops him. There is only about a foot of the stairwell opening visible.
"Too deep. We gotta find another way out."
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The widest passageway in the ship, it is used by crew and steerage alike, and runs almost the length of the ship. Right now steerage passengers move along it like refugees, heading aft.
CRASH!
A wooden doorframe splinters and the door bursts open under the force of Edward's shoulder. Edward and Harrison stumble through, into the corridor. A steward, who was nearby herding people along, marches over.
"Here you! You'll have to pay for that, you know. That's White Star Line property-"
Edward and Harrison turn angrily to the steward. "SHUT UP!"
Edward leads Harrison past the dumbfounded steward. They join the steerage stragglers going aft. In places the corridor is almost completely blocked by large families carrying all their luggage.
An Irish woman gives Harrison a blanket, more for modesty because she is blue-lipped and shivering.
"Here, sir, cover yerself."
Edward rubs his arms and tries to warm him up as they walk along. The woman's husband offers them a flask of whiskey.
"This'll take the chill off."
Harrison takes a mighty belt and hands it to Edward. He grins and follows suit. Edward tries a number of doors and iron gates along the way, finding them all locked.
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On the boat deck, the action has moved to the aft group of boats, numbers9, 11, 13 and 15 on the starboard side, and 10, 12, 14 and 16 on the portside. The pace of work is more frantic. The crew and officers are runningnow to work the davits, their previous complacency gone.
Ginny pushes through the crowd, scanning for Harrison. Around her is chaos and confusion. A woman is calling for a child who has become separated from the crowd. A man is shouting over people's heads. A woman takes hold of Second Officer Lightoller's arm as he is about to launch Boat 10.
"Will you hold the boat a moment? I have to run back to my room for something-"
Lightoller grabs her and shoves her bodily into the boat. Thomas Andrews rushes up to him just then.
"Why are the boats being launched half full?"
Lightoller steps past him, helping a seaman clear a snarled fall.
"Not now, Mr. Andrews."
Andrews points down at the water. "There, look... twenty or so in a boat built for sixty five. And I saw one boat with only twelve. Twelve!"
"Well... we were not sure of the weight-" Lightoller says uncertainly.
"Rubbish!" Andrews shouts angrily. "They were tested in Belfast with the weight of 70 men. Now fill These boats, Mr. Lightoller. For God's sake, man!"
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"He's not on the starboard side either." Lovejoy reported to Ginny.
"We're running out of time." Ginny says frustrated. "And this strutting martinet..." She indicates to Lightoller. "...isn't letting any men in at all."
"The one on the other side is letting men in."
***"Then that's our play. But we're still going to need some insurance. Come on."
Ginny charges off, heading forward, followed by Lovejoy. They move pass a finely dressed elderly couple, Ida and Isador Strauss.
"Please, Ida, get into the boat."
"No. We've been together for forty years, and where you go, I go. Don't argue with me, Isador, you know it does no good." She looks at her husband stubbornly. He looks at her with sadness and great love. They embrace gently.
"Lower away!" Lightoller yells.
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At the Bow... the place where Edward and Harrison first kissed... the bow railing goes under water. Water swirls around the capstans and windlasses on the foc'sle deck. Smith strides to the bridge rail and looks down at the well deck. Water is shipped over the sides and the well deck is awash. Two men run across the deck, their feet sending up spray. Behind Smith, Boxhall fires another rocket.
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Fabrizio, standing with Helga Dahl and her family, hears Edward's voice.
"Fabrizio! Fabri!"
Fabrizio turns and sees Edward and Harrison pushing through the crowd. He and Edward hug like brothers.
"The boats are all going."
"We gotta get up there or we're gonna be gargling saltwater. Where's Tommy?"
Fabrizio points over the heads of the solidly packed crowd to the stairwell.
Tommy has his hands on the bars of the steel gate which blocks the head of the stairwell. The crew open the gate a foot or so and a few women are squeezing through.
"Women only. No men. No men!"
But some terrified men, not understanding English, try to rush through the gap, forcing the gate open. The crewmen and stewards push them back, shoving and punching them.
"Get back! Get back you lot!" The steward turned to the crewmen. "Lock it!"
They struggle to get the gate closed again, while the steward brandishes a small revolver. Another steward holds a fire axe. They lock the gate, and a cry goes up among the crowd, who surge forward, pounding against the steel and shouting in several languages.
"For the love of God, man, there are children down here! Let us up, so we can have a chance!" Tommy screamed at the crewmen.
But the crewmen are scared now. They have let the situation get out of hand, and now they have a mob. Tommy gives up and pushes his way back through the crowd, going down the stairs. He rejoins Edward, Harrison and Fabrizio.
"It's hopeless that way." Tommy tells Edward.
"Well, whatever we're goin' to do, we better do it fast."
Fabrizio turns to Helga, praying he can make himself understood.
"Everyone... all of you... come with me now. We go to the boats. We go to the boats. Capito? Come now!"
They can't understand what he's saying. They can see his urgency, but Oluf Dahl, the patriarch of the family, shakes his head. He will not panic, and will not let his family go with this boy. Fabrizio turns to Helga.
"Helga... per favore... please... come with me, I am lucky. Is my destiny to go to America."
She kisses him, then steps back to be with her family. Edward lays a hand on his shoulder, his eyes saying "Let's go".
Fabrizio grabs Helga's hand and kisses it gently. "I will never forget you."
He turns to Edward, who leads the way out of the crowd. Looking back Fabrizio sees her face disappear into the crowd.
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Ginny opens the safe and reaches inside. As Lovejoy watches, she pulls out two stacks of bills, still banded by bank wrappers. Then she takes out the "Heart of the Ocean", putting it in the pocket of her overcoat, and locks the safe.
Ginny turns to Lovejoy. "I make my own luck."
Lovejoy opened his waist coat revealing a .45 revolver in his waistband. "So do I."
Ginny grins, putting the money in her pocket as they go out.
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Edward, Harrison, Fabrizio and Tommy are lost, searching for a way out. They pushpast confused passengers... past a mother changing her baby's diaper on topof an upturned steamer trunk... past a woman arguing heatedly with a man inSerbo-Croatian, a wailing child next to them... past a man kneeling toconsole a woman who is just sitting on the floor, sobbing... and pastanother man with an English/Arabic dictionary, trying to figure out whatthe signs mean, while his wife and children wait patiently.Soon they come upon a narrow stairwell and they go up two decks before they are stopped by a small group pressed up against a steel gate. The steerage men are yelling at a scared steward.
"Go to the main stairwell, with everyone else. It'll all get sorted outthere."
Edward takes one look at this scene and finally just loses it.
"God damn it to Hell son of a bitch!"
He grabs one end of a bench bolted to the floor on the landing. He starts pulling on it, and Tommy and Fabrizio pitch in until the bolts shear and it breaks free. Harrison figures out what they are doing and clears a path up the stairs between the waiting people.
"Move aside!" Harrison pushes the steerage men out of the way. "Quickly, move aside!"
Edward and Tommy run up the steps with the bench and ram it into the gate with all their strength. It rips loose from its track and falls outward, narrowly missing the steward. Led by Edward, the crowd surges though.
Harrison steps up to the cowering steward. " If you have any intention of keeping your pathetic job with the White Star Line, I suggest you escort these good people to the boat deck... now." He says in his most imperious tone.
Class wins out. He nods dumbly motions form them to follow.
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James rows with Molly Brown, two other women and the incompetent sailors. He rests on his oars, exhausted, and looks back at the ship.
It slants down into the water, still ablaze with light. Nothing is above water forward of the bridge except for the foremast. Another rocket goes off, lighting up the entire area... there are a dozen boats moving outward from the ship.
At the boat deck rail Captain Smith is shouting to Boat 6 through a large metal megaphone.
"Come back! Come back to the ship!"
Chief Officer Wilde joins him, blowing his silver whistle.
From boat 6 the whistle comes shrilly across the water. Quartermaster Hitchins grips the rudder in fear.
"The suction will pull us right down if we don't keep going."
"We got room for lots more. I say we go back." Molly says standing up against him.
"No! It's our lives now, not theirs. And I'm in charge of this boat! Now row!"
Captain Smith, at the rail of the boat deck, lowers his megaphone slowly. "The fools."
A/N: I would like to say thank you for staying with this story despite my irregular updates and I will update as soon as I can :) srry for any mistakes my sister gave me her stupid flu.