The Ship of Dreams: Chapter 14

Once they had amassed a sizable group of people on top of the collapsible boat, they two climbed aboard. From that point on, there was nothing more for them to do but to wait. As they did so, everyone’s attention was directed to the bulky mass that was what remained of the mighty Titan. It truly was something that you don’t see every day as the unsinkable Molly Brown said.

Titanic was as big as the greatest skyscrapers known to man at that time, and over half of her eight-hundred-eighty-two feet in length rose from out of the water likened to one of these great towers. Geoffrey tried to calculate the mathematics of it all in that over four hundred feet and twenty thousand tons ascended above the ocean surface. From the hull to the boat deck were ten stories, which meant that over forty floors loomed over them.

The most remarkable feature of the whole thing was the way that in her final moments, the Titanic still put on one hell of a light show with every one of her portholes and other lighting features revealing the horrendous event for all to see: that or the way that all the stern with her great three-story rotator blades surpassing them all overhead. It amazed Geoffrey that any of her funnels should remain with all the pressure that was acting against her, and at that moment, in the fleet of the lifeboats, he was reminded of the dream that he had had, although he didn’t want to think about that.

Then all of a sudden there was a deafening moaning that emitted forth from the great mass that was the Titanic around her midsection. It was combined with a splintering snapping. For the ship could no longer withstand the sheer weight of the volume that the bottom half bear unto her. The sound was the most earsplitting thing that Geoffrey had ever heard.

For a while longer the Titanic remained whole, erect, and intact, and then all at once another tearing issued forth out into the night. Titanic then split where she met the sea level, metal, wood, and all in the most horrifying sight that Geoffrey ever saw.

To the survivors, there were two accounts of how the Titanic went down that night. The first entails that as this happened, the stern was pulled back down and parallel with the ocean once more waiting there sometime until the bow pulled her back into her upright position that was vertical to the waters below. It was here that it would bob like a cork in water for several minutes before the bow of the ship would pull it down with it, turning her on her side as it did so.

In the other rendition of the tragedy, it was slightly different than this, more or less. It is hard to say because it was in the dead of the night, and as the Titanic split into two, so too did the power that operated the behemoth go out, making the night like a pitch-black veil. It was in this version, however, that as the Titanic snapped, her lights going out at that time, the ship went inwards onto itself, making a kind of v shape as it did so. It was in this v shape that both sections were pulled down to Titanic’s watery grave and final resting spot two miles below on the ocean floor. It took Titanic an hour and a half to sink, and yet Titanic’s final journey took her only five minutes to hit bottom.

Whatever the case two thousand two hundred souls had just become stranded in the Atlantic Ocean. A handful of them were confined in whatever safety the lifeboats offered them, and the rest fighting for their lives in the submersion of the deep.

Geoffrey could not speak for the other passengers, but it was the most frightened and vulnerable he had ever felt in his entire life. With nothing other than the water and the sky all around them, one could not even see their hand nor their very own breath that issued forth from their chattering lips in the bleak darkness, for Titanic no longer offered them the beacon of light to see their way through the night. Sixteen some vessels maneuvered through those sea waters that were infested with God knows what, and it was near impossible to see anything at all, although the voices and cries could certainly be heard.

But that was not all there was to it. Not at all. It went back to the mixed feelings of being a hero that Geoffrey had experienced earlier. For those that had managed to make their way into the life rafts, there was nothing for them to do except for to way. Wait for nothing at all. Or to wait once again for something to save them, which may or may not ever happen. And it pressed on the nerves being so stranded and vulnerable, not knowing one’s fate in any case.

It was also difficult in considering the life, and the loss of it that was floating all around in the waters surrounding the boat. One could not put an estimate on how long it would take for the people in the freezing waters to catch hypothermia, or something of the like, and freeze to death.

Considering this fact, put those that had made it into the lifeboats into a difficult position. They could go back and look for survivors, with so many of the boats having extra space remaining on them. However, the difficulty was that so many, in fear for their own lives, dreaded the idea that in doing so they would capsize the boat in the process. For this reason, most of the remaining boats decided against it, although there were those that did.

For those subjected to this predicament, all there was to do was persevere and endure. This was just the way it was for a total of three and a half hours when the Carpathia arrived at the scene at 4 a.m. in the morning.

From the moment that the Carpathia had received the Titanic’s distress calls, they had exhausted every effort to ensure that they arrived as fast as they possibly could. The journey for them to the site of the survivors was approximately fifty-seven miles, and it should have taken the steamship longer with a top speed of around fifteen knots. However, with little extra coal and fire stoking they were able to make the voyage in less time than they usually could.

During this passage, the Captain would note how the passage would depend on the ship's steering, and this was certainly the case for the rescue mission was not without its own risk with the Carpathia having to navigate through the same ice-infested waters that the Titanic waded through.

The Captain of Carpathia was that of Arthur Rostron, and every command that he gave his staff, crew, and officers went into the consideration of Titanic and her passengers and survivors. To this end, he commanded that his lifeboats be slung out into the sea waters for any remaining survivors. It was to this end that he increased the ship's speed from fourteen knots to around twenty, even though he knew it would put pressure on the ship’s engine. Rostron was able to accomplish this by also having a reduction in the ship’s heating system so that more steam could be reverted back into the engines.

These were only those orders that Rostron gave to ensure that Carpathia arrived on the scene as swiftly as possible. It would come to pass that at the very crack of dawn, the Carpathia began to seize Titanic’s surviving passengers from out of the freezing expanse of the ocean, and every due diligence went to their care.

His staff was instructed to provide them with woolen clothing, blankets, and other materials for those facing freezing conditions. In addition to this, they were to be provided warm drinks to assist in getting them back up to body temperature. It is an interesting fact that of all the cargo the Carpathia had on it, it carried with it the essentials from keeping people from freezing, especially when it was so close to the Titanic that night.

The lifeboat that Geoffrey and Lightoller had saved was one of the first to be hoisted up onto the Carpathia. Lifeboat number two was the only one that came before it. Geoffrey assumed the reason for this was due to the conditions of the passengers thereof, who were clinging to the vessel with dear life. For someone like Geoffrey, it was a grueling process, because the fact of the matter was, he hated heights. He didn’t know what being lowered into the waters was like, but at the very least, he could say that it was better than being swept away by them and that he was happy to be securely on solid ground again.

Geoffrey Archibald reflected on everything that he had been through in the last twenty-four hours. He felt like a patient aboard some kind of miniature boat hospital. He looked over the railings of the ship, and all along the ship had been constructed various devices to assist passengers on board the Carpathia; the sick, injured, and children alike. On deck, several doctors administered the necessary care that they all needed.

Taking it all, Geoffrey could not believe that he was alive and that he had survived the whole ordeal. It made him seriously reconsider his life, and every decision he had ever made all over again. He wanted to spend more time with his wife and to look for the type of love that that couple had demonstrated in front of him. Geoffrey had learned that life was too short to not spend it doing anything else than enjoying it with those that enjoyed it and that there was more to life than one’s career and social status. It made him want to get more connected with the spiritual.

There was another thing too. It was odd, but Geoffrey got what he had always wanted. He not only found a lead into a breaking story, but was the main source of one, and actually lived it. Geoffrey was quite certain that Titanic would make headlines but as strange as it was, he did not care. And he was right. The funny thing would be that the paper that would put the article out that would completely revolutionize journalism would be that of, The New York Times, which he worked for, but it would not be his piece. After some careful consideration, Geoffrey decided that he was going to put in his resignation, and look into a career change, which also gave him a lot to think about with his wife back home. He only hoped that she would take it well.

Onboard the Carpathia, Geoffrey walked over to the railing of the side of the ship. Once there, an officer approached him and offered him one of the woolen blankets and a cup of tea. Geoffrey gratefully took them, placing the blankets around his shoulders with a slight note of thanks. The tea was too hot to drink, so he placed it on the railing off to his side and leaned over the railing. He stared longingly out off in the direction of the horizon and was taken aback.

In his dream, he may not have had tea or a thick blanket, but the small convoy of lifeboats was uncannily like what he had envisioned therewithin. It elicited such a feeling in him that he could not describe, and one that he would never quite feel again. Twice it was as if his dreams had spoken to him, warned him in a way, and it made him question the contents of our dreams and features of the human condition. It made him think of his conversation with Snead, who did not make it off the ship, and whether or not they were the mind's way of warning the individual.

A lot goes through the mind of an individual that had just had a run-in with death. Shaken up though he was, he knew that this was a normal response. He also knew that he should be extremely thankful. It brought up thoughts of fate and destiny, for it was only by chance that he was still alive, but then again, all of life is a game of chance.

Geoffrey remained in his contemplative state until the sun rose above the horizon, sipping slowly at his tea as he did so. He waited there until the Carpathia loaded up every last passenger and got underway on the remaining journey back to New York where a crowd would also be waiting for an entirely different welcoming. There was a lot up in the air for the now-retired journalist. Room for a lot of change. But one thing was for certain. He could not wait to see his wife.