Page 60 - Titanic: Forbidden Stories Hollywood Forgot

46 Jack Fritscher

ordered. To his dis may, at midnight, as Sunday, 14 April,
became Monday, 15 April, he found that no more than
twelve square feet of Titanic had been breached, but
those twelve feet stretched, in a tear 3 inches wide, 300
feet along the ship’s length, flooding five compartments.
The ship could float with even the first four compart-
ments flooded; but she could not survive the breaching
of the fifth. “Had we but a moon,” the Captain said, “we
might have seen the face of the berg.” Well he might
have said, “Had we but a moon, we might have seen
the face of God.”
At 12:15, the Marconi Wire less room sent Titanic’s
first distress signals. Twenty-one-year-old Robert Hallam,
wireless operator on the east bound Carpathia, 58 miles
south of Titanic’s position, was stripping for bed, sleepily
touching his penis, and about to turn off his receiver for
the night, when he caught the call. Carpathia’s Captain
wheeled his course around making his slow, careful way
through the ice fields of the open sea.
“I believe we’ve stopped,” I said.
Still nothing changed. Through the Grand Ballroom
win dow, I could see into the first-class dining rooms.
Stewards were putting the finishing touches on the
breakfast table settings.
Molly kicked one high-but toned shoe up on the white
linen table cloth. “My feet are still dry!” She made ev-
eryone laugh, but our laughter, our laughter—that had
changed.
By 12:30, Thayers, Astors, Wideners, Ryersons, hus-
bands, wives, families, accustomed to giving orders, not
taking them, assembled on A Deck’s forward side. The
band stood on deck playing popular songs from operetta

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