Titanic Ashes by Paul Butler Page A

list is now so pronounced the lifeboat will
have trouble balancing from the ropes and could easily
scud against the side and tip over.
    “Women and children first, ” Wilde shouts. Two or
three seaman join the first inside and get ready to
receive. There’s a pause from the huddled grey clump of
third-class passengers, then at last the bustle of movement, white funnels of breath, maybe two dozen or so
women in coats and several children, like young deer
among a herd, confused, quiet and moist-eyed. Shoes
clatter on hollow planking and the suspended lifeboat
sways ominously, davits creaking. A last circle of five or
six women and a few men stand on the deck, unwilling
to commit.
    “How many for this boat, Mr. Wilde?” Ismay shouts.
He means to urge the undecided forward.
    “Yes, more.” He waves his hand to encourage them on.
They go silently, gripping one another’s sleeves to keep
balanced. Hands reach out from the darkness of the
lifeboat hull, guiding the newcomers to a place.
    “Lower away, ” he says. The davit creaks violently. The
rim of the lifeboat bumps hard against the ship’s side. The
winches this time are turned by seamen and Ismay feels
suddenly weightless on the deck, a man of no substance
whose avowed purpose is grinding to a halt. He eases a
half-step away, feeling Carter’s attention on him again,
knowing that if he is to disappear and go below, this is the
time—the catastrophe is closing upon them all.
    “You have a wife and children, don’t you, Ismay?”
    The voice is disembodied, emerging from a silence andcalm somewhere beyond the creaking of the davit and the
winch.
    Ismay watches the heads jiggling upon shoulders as
the boat jerks slightly lower.
    “Yes.”
    He turns to catch Carter’s slightly bemused smile.
    “Stop, ” Wilde calls. The men at the winches halt.
“Steady, a quarter turn.” Wilde gestures to the man at the
bow side. The lifeboat sways and evens up a little.
    Silence is suddenly profound. Ismay turns to see the
bareness of the deck and the steepness of its incline. In a
few more minutes he will have to hold onto a railing merely
to stand. The sound of distant thumps, rattles, and crashes
punctuate the hush. And he knows the noise will increase
like an orchestra tuning up before a performance. He
knows it will reach a cacophony, and that agony and death
will surely follow, on the ship, in the water, in the lifeboats,
perhaps, should the sinking ship carry them under, should
the sea become choppy, should the racing Carpathia not
find them. And that this will only be the beginning.
    The shock will carry over the airwaves. The staccato
beat of wireless will transmit the news via Cape Race: that
one of the largest steamships in the world has been swallowed whole by the glassy Atlantic; that the sinking was
slow enough to provide for an evacuation of the passengers by lifeboats.
    How long will it take them to fill in the rest of thestory, that the lifeboats could hold far fewer than half the
two thousand or so on board? The early optimism will
make the blow of reality harsher. The true horror of it will
unfold through agonizing, incremental stages. Printed
news of the sinking might appear as early as the morning
in New York, in the late editions in London. The first
editorials will quiver with uncertainty, but press the need
for calm. But after the lifeboats are reached—please
God—the survivors counted, the news will likely change.
A catastrophe becomes real only when news of it is
communicated. This one will come to life with the dailies,
the phone calls, and the urgent worry of it all.
    The relatives of passengers, of officers and men, stewards, stewardesses, valets, cooks, and staff will gather at
notice boards outside the Southampton office, the New
York office, the London office. Reporters will mill among
the grief-stricken. His own—his Julia, Tom, Margaret,
Evelyn, and George—will huddle at home, awaiting the
phone call or wire.
    But none of it has happened