Lost at Sea

Memories are subjective, so I’ve heard. We often remember in fragments, feelings often shadowing any impartiality. I’ve always disagreed with this, because I feel people who don’t want to remember or choose not to have never been through something like I have.

On that fateful night. That cold, devastating night what I remember isn’t the iceberg breaking through the unsinkable ship, the icy water coming up to our ankles or the hysteria of the staff and passengers as the ship began to succumb around us…

No, what I remember from that night first and foremost as I clung to my father’s hand was four words - four words: “Women and children first!”

The deck of the ship seemed to be a sea of women and children upon first glance, my wide eyes catching the terror filled eyes of children my age or older. As the smartly dressed passengers clamber towards the first available boat, uniform staff held back several men who tried to get on with their respective wives or children.

“Only women and children!” The harsh British voice barked. I can never remember his face clearly now in my old-age, but I imagine he must’ve looked just as terrified as the rest of us.

“Come along,” Father said calmly, his voice unnaturally calm within the chaos around us. I looked up at his eyes, the same green as mine. The way he spoke, you’d think we were on our way to the theatre all caught in central London during an evening performance.

He moved with much assertiveness than most men around us, never being aggressive but also never relinquishing his hold on my hand. Despite the cold, my hand sweated within his grasp.

It’s strange what we remember… as an old woman, I cannot remember the face of the man forced to decide who got on the very few lifeboats the Titanic had to offer and yet… and yet I could remember the exact feeling I felt within my stomach, The chill of the night air and how big Father’s hand felt against my palm.

We somehow reached the front of the queue as several women were already mounting the boat. The guard glanced at me and then father, his eyes drifting behind us as if expecting to see another accompanying us.

“Where’s the girl’s mother?” The guard asked, looking over my head to Father. He clearly didn’t like the thought of putting a nine-year-old girl on a boat in the middle of the elan to see without and adults - and also terrified of the repercussions of the agitated passengers if they saw a man stepping off the sinking ship.

“Dead,” Father said simply and the guard’s face somehow paled further “I’m all she has, well except her grandparents in New York, who were are incidentally going to see. Well, until this little incident.”

He laughed… Did he laugh? It wasn’t a particularly funny joke and I don’t even think he was intending to be funny. Maybe he laughed, maybe it was more a nervous chuckle to hide his fear from my innocent eyes.

“If he’s getting on, I’m getting on with my boys!”

“Precisely, why should he have preference over the rest of us?!”

“I’m not gonna leave my wife either!”

Fragments of voices, raised and pleading pressed against my ears and for the briefest of moments I felt my body rocketed forward before Father forced me in front of him and held me against his chest. Men and women now were forcing themselves towards the tiny boats. As if one of those could hold thousands of them.

“Dad?” my small voice was choked by tears, my face buried in his life jacket. We were going to be crushed to death before the sea got to us.

“It’s all right, Lizzie. It’s-” whatever it was. I never knew, because a loud gunshot rang through the night air, it has the passengers frantically retreating. I was shaking as I glanced back at the guard, holding the pistol in the air above his head. It had the effect he prayed for.

“Boy, are you really gonna leave that girl standing on the deck like that?!” An American voice snapped, her brisk voice booming and authoritative. A plump heiress sat on the boat, her steely gaze turned to genuine concern when I caught her eyes “come on baby girl, there’s plenty of room for you and your daddy. Come on.”

Both the guard and my father glanced at each other, both weighing up the pros and cons. Father was the one to make the ultimate decision. This was one of those memories I wish I could’ve forgotten. I remember him kneeling down to my level. The sadness in his eyes speaking words that he could not articulate verbally to his child.

“I’ll wait for another boat,” he assured me and my heart felt like it had sunk into the ocean itself “it’s just for a little while, I promise.”

I sobbed, shaking my head ferociously and yet already knowing I had no choice in the matter. I’m sure I pleaded, I cried and I begged but Father took me in his arms and hoisted me onto the boat. I had barely been seated and already the boat was being lowered.

“I love you!”

I didn’t say it back. I was to overcome with tears to say it back. I wish I had, I wish I’d said it over and over again. I wish I could’ve given him that, but I was only a child and had already experienced enough heartache and loss in my young life to know this was yet another one.

Somehow the American heiress calmed me as the boat was rowing away from the stinking ship. The screams followed us, cutting through the night air like a knife. I did not look back, I didn’t know just how doomed my fellow passengers were - it didn’t matter if you were first or third class, twenty boats were never going to be enough.

All ships were required to carry enough lifeboats for everyone. Titanic carried a total of twenty lifeboats: fourteen standard wooden lifeboats with a capacity of sixty-five people each and four Englehardt "collapsible" (wooden bottom, collapsible canvas sides) lifeboats with a capacity of 47 people each. Apparently the Olympian was concerned about space on the ship being overcrowded if the lifeboats were more than twenty.

The screams reached a new level and I heard the final crack that broke the Titanic. It rippled through the night air and I couldn’t help but look back. The ship was consumed by the water depths, but I could see the pale silhouette of the survivors pleading for help, too far away to reach and yet their voices reached us with deafening clarity.

I was overcome with grief in that moment, already knowing that there was a very good chance my poor father was already lost at sea. The tears rocked my body, I almost felt like the ocean itself was pouring from my broken heart.

My memories fade after that, or maybe that’s why I tell myself. Maybe I’ve buried them, sunken them to depths of my subconsciousness. Only two boats went back - while 705 people had escaped, around 1,500 had died after the Titanic had hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. There are too many stories that have been lost in the ocean, many more that deserve to be told…