Chapter 1 – A Promise Kept
Rose kissed his hands and watched him fall into the blackness of the water. The coldness of the water cut at his face. Rose fell into the ocean and swam to the dead officers. She pulled the frozen whistle from his mouth and blew it over and over and over. The flashlight shined on her and she began to swim away from the wooden door, towards the lifeboat. They met her half way and pulled her in, covering her quickly with a thick blanket.
As the boat sailed away, Jack kicked the final kick that brought him back to the surface of the water. He felt the cold against his face and somehow managed to kick back up. He grabbed the wooden door. He barely had the strength to get onto the door, but after a few shallow breaths, he managed to hoist himself onto it. Rose was gone. He laid there, taking shallow breaths. How he held his breath underwater that long amazed him. He couldn't even think without a lot of effort.
The boats he thought. I have to get to the boats. He took a few more breaths. Rose was on one of the boats and he needed to get to her. He knew it. He heard the whistle. And he wasn't going to give up yet. Jack turned around and laid on his stomach. He pulled himself along the water, rowing with his arms towards the boats. The cold air stung. It almost felt better inside the water.
Back on the lifeboat, Rose was covered and was slowly getting warmer. She felt so raw. She had been forced to leave her love, dead in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Her eyelids felt so heavy. The last thing she saw before falling asleep was a shooting star fly overhead. While she slept, she dreamed of Jack. They were on a boat deck at sunset.
"Teach me how to ride like a man," she told him.
"And chew tobacco like a man," he continued in a fake, but charming Southern twang.
"And…spit like a man," she laughed.
"What, they didn't teach you that in finishing school?" he asked.
"No!" she replied incredulously. As she lay asleep on the lifeboat, she rolled over onto her side and burrowed herself into the side of the boat.
Meanwhile, Jack continued to row into the darkness, closer and closer to the lights. He heard voices from the boats.
"Does anyone know what ship is coming?", "Is there a ship coming?", or "When are we being rescued?" rang throughout the sea. Jack couldn't even think about what was being said. He just focused on rowing. He told himself to push just a little further. Just a little further. Those boats ensured life. He finally began to close in on a lifeboat.
"What's that sound?" someone in the boat asked, looking in the darkness. An officer in the boat shined a flashlight in Jack's direction.
"Help me!" he said, barely audible. A woman screamed, causing the lights from the nearby boats to shine in their direction.
"Good God!" exclaimed the officer. "Row toward him, men!" They rowed closer to jack, whose skin looked as white as the iceberg he had seen hours before and he was trembling. "Pull him in lads," yelled the officer. "Regina," he said to a nurse, "Can you help him?" She nodded with hesitation. They pulled him into the boat and he fell in, his head almost hitting the edge. They covered Jack quickly in a heavy blanket and sat him on the floor next to the nurse. Jack looked at all of the terrified faces staring at him.
"Mr. Dawson?" asked a familiar voice. Jack turned his almost lifeless head to see him.
"It's good to see you got off safely, Mr. Ismay," Jack responded with biting sarcasm. Bruce Ismay turned his head toward the ocean. He laid his head in the nurse's lap. He had gotten a spot on the boat. There was no arrangement that would benefit him, and Jack still managed to gain that seat on the boat.
"It's okay," the nurse said, running her gloved fingers through his icy hair. "You're okay now." Jack felt his ears get warmer and fell asleep quickly, hoping he would wake up.