Page 65 - Titanic: The Untold Tale of Gay Passengers and Crew

Titanic 51

de livery of their mail, were swept downwards in a tidal wave
of en velopes and parcels. Hundreds and hundreds of people,
a thousand, shouting, more than a thousand, screaming, were
thrown into the cold sea thrashing in the 28 degree water. At
2:18 the lights in Titanic’s stern flickered and failed. Titanic
stood verti cally for ninety seconds, and at 2:20, the stern of
the great ship slipped gurgling beneath the surface of the
sea, sending up one immense white burst of steam toward
the unblinking stars.
Two thousand people watched Titanic sink; 706 were in
lifeboats.
Less than a mile away, an iceberg floated slowly on the
current, a scrap of red and black paint smeared like whore’s
lipstick along its face.
Madame Ouspenskaya, too old to row, sat regally in the
bow of Lifeboat 6, fully opposite Molly. Her face was impas-
sive. Voices, passengers floating, swimming, freezing, sink ing
in the sea, cried out for help in the night.
I strained to hear, really not to hear, Edward’s voice.
“Don’t listen,” Felix said. “They’d only swamp us.”
Against their distant fading cries, our lifeboat lapped
quietly on the ink-cold sea.
Molly wrapped the clothes meant for Edward around
Mr. Astor’s five-months-pregnant wife.
We rowed in the starry dark in si lence. Other lifeboats
floated on the quiet waters.
“Edward will be in one of the other boats,” Molly said.
At 4:10, less than two hours after Titanic’s sinking,
Carpathia loaded the first of the survivors up from the sea.
Dawn and Titanic both lay eastwards behind us. Carpathia’s
passen gers, standing at first in awed silence, lined the rails
as we were hoisted aboard in slings and bosuns’ chairs. They