"Well, Mr. Holmes," Alphie went on, "the water hit me hard, and it was the coldest I've ever felt, but I had my arms and legs moving a soon surfaced. The life vest I was wearing kept me up, and I swam just like Mr. Watson had told me to. I kept my eye on something in the water, got to it, and soon found myself floating on a broken table a little ways off from the ship. I remember coughing because I'd swallowed some water and shivering head to toe. I never thought I'd ever be warm or dry again."

"Then, sir, I remembered the doctor's promise to be right behind me. I knew he would have jumped, too. He wouldn't have broken his promise and stayed on the ship. So where was he? I looked for him when I realized he wasn't with me…" Alphie's strict self-control broke then, and he slipped back into his quick, accented talk. "'E was floating in the water a ways off, see, an I saw 'e was moving but I knew he wasn't gon' make it to me."

"I kicked hard, sir, and pulled my arms through the water and got the table over to 'im." Once more, Alphie wiped his eyes. "'Alphie,' he says to me, his teeth chattering something terrible, 'good lad. I knew you could do it. You're a strong boy.' 'E was still so kind, sir, even then. 'E clung to the side of the table, said he couldn't climb on for fear of turning it over and capsizing me. 'There's enough sinking going on tonight,' he said, and I laughed, Mr. Holmes. Right there, barely sittin' an inch above the ocean, I laughed."

Holmes smiled to himself, in part because of Watson's gallantry as he died, and in part because he'd deduced why Alphie kept trying to speak so properly. He was trying to sound and act just like Watson.

"So he held on, sir, and I paddled us out to the lifeboats I could see beyond us. There were some people in the water, sir, most of them dead and just floatin' there. Some were still livin, like we were, and called out to me, but I dinna stop for them. I remembered what the doctor'd said about it bein' okay to want to live, an if he'd 'ave capsized me then they others sure would have, too. It was hard goin' paddlin' that table and dragging the doctor along with me with just a broken board I'd found in the water, but I didn't stop, sir. Well, twice I did. Once, when the lights on the ship went out all suddenly. They flicked a few times, an then stayed out. And then… there was this horrible breaking sound. The ship broke, sir."

"Broke?" Holmes breathed.

Alphie nodded. "Yes, sir. Broke in half. There were screams and this horrible crash and I saw it break. It scared me. I wanted to get away from it quick, an I put my full strength into paddling. Mr. Watson was tryin' to swim and push us along, too, but 'e wasn't really able to help an I knew I needed to get him out of the water afore he froze up completely. The next time I looked back, the ship was gone. Just... gone. As if it'd never been. There were screams, lots of screams, but they stopped after a while…"

Alphie trailed off, and Holmes waited with patience. The boy, he knew, would never forget that night. He'd live with the memory of it until his dying days. But, thanks to Watson, he would live.

"Well, sir," Alphie continued softly, "for all I'd been trying to be strong and to paddle, I dinna think I'd have made it except for that the lifeboat I'd been aiming for started paddlin' towards me, too." He smiled slightly. "It was me mum's lifeboat, sir. 'There's a merciful God in heaven,' she cries when she sees me. But when she spies the doctor clingin' the to the table, well, the other ladies in the boat start to chatterin' and arguin. They pulled me 'board right enough, but some lady says that trying to get the doctor 'board could capsize em."

"Another lady says that lady is plain dumb, and that she's survived a wreck afore and so she should be the one who knows. I dinna really hear all that was said on account a me teeth chatterin' so, but in the end me mum and a sailor man pulls the doctor aboard just so and the boat don't turn over."

"Mr. Watson wasn't so good, sir, and couldn't barely so much as lift his arms for them to grab, but they got him all laid down in the bottom of the boat well enough. Me mum dried his hair off with her dress an then wrapped his head up with a blanket like an old Russian lady I met once. The lady who'd survived a shipwreck afore stole a blanket from the dumb lady an wrapped his hands up. Then some other ladies gave they blankets up, too, an one was laid on the doctor an the other was laid on me."

"I thought then that maybe 'e was doing better than I was, cause e'd all but stopped the shiverin' and I was still shiverin' somethin' terrible, but then me mum starts praying an asking God to 'member that e'd saved me and to 'ave mercy on his soul when 'e stood afore him an I knew 'e was dyin."

Alphie wasn't looking up at him in that instant, and so Holmes closed his eyes briefly. Watson had saved his life before, too. And others. Surely the good Lord would remember them all. Please, God, remember them all.

"I burrowed myself under his blanket on the bottom of the boat an laid half atop o 'im and started in to cry," Alphie said sadly. HHe was cold, real cold, an 'e wasn't breathin' much, but when I put my hand on his face 'e opened his eyes…"

Once more Alphie trailed off, no doubt recalling with vivid detail being on the hard bottom of a lifeboat and staring into Watson's eyes through the dark. "I asked him not to die," Alphie said finally. "'Please, Mr. Watson, don't die,' I said. And then I realized that maybe he was the same doctor Watson who'd wrote all those stories I've read and loved about Mr. Sherlock Holmes. I asked him, and he said yes. He smiled at me and said I was smart. And here, sir, is where you come in."

"'Mr. Holmes is in New York,' he says. 'He's waiting there for me. You're smart, Alphie. If you can, find him for me. Tell him it has been my pleasure all these years. Tell him to be happy. Reach into my pockets, lad,' he says. "Take my watch and my wallet. Give them to him. He'll recognize what they are, and he'll know that you're my true messenger.'" Alphie eyed with naked envy the watch in Holmes' hand.

"All this time, sir, I'd had to struggle to hear him and thought he'd finished speaking, but then he says, 'live, Alphie, and you, too, be happy.' And with that it was like he'd used up all he had and he lay still and cold like. But I refused to let him go, sir, and I stayed with him in the bottom of that boat until the sun was not yet come up and another ship made it to us. I remember some lady's shoe was pokin' me in the back and mum was praying and they all began to chatter about 'the lights! The lights!' I got up, then, and saw it, too. Way off was these lights, and we all knew it was lights of a ship."

"When it was our turn to get on the sun had risen. The ladies and me mum climbed up this terrible-looking ladder up the side of the ship, but those who couldn't climb were to be lifted up the side of the ship in this big net. I didn't want to leave the doctor and he hadn't woken up yet, and so I went in the net with him and Rachel, my sister. There were a couple other kids there, too."

"The net was frightening, sir, but not so much as the ladder looked, and certainly not as much as jumping had been. I was lifted up with the others, and was brought onto the ship. That one, the Carpathia. And even though I'd been on the Titanic, when I was safe on the Carpathia's deck, it felt like the grandest ship in the world."

Historical Clarifications:

The Titanic did indeed break. Now that her remains have been found, we know that for certain. For some reason, though, those survivors who reported seeing her break weren't believed. That's why the film A Night to Remember doesn't show the ship breaking whereas the more famous film, Titanic, has a very famous breaking scene. Titanic was filmed after the wreck was found.

Children and those who could not climb on ladders up to the Carpathia's deck were lifted up in a cargo net. These survivors had been sitting in the cold for hours. They hadn't known if anyone was coming for them, and most of them had left someone they loved on the ship to die. On top of that, climbing a rope ladder up the side of a ship is a daunting task under normal circumstances. On her way to the wreck of the Titanic, the captain of the Carpathia had ordered the nets and slings to be ready.

Most of the Titanic's lifeboats didn't go back for survivors, and Alphie's mother's boat was no exception. The only rescue mission attempted was organized Harold Lowe, who moved his boat's passengers to another lifeboat and risked being capsized (by survivors trying to climb aboard in a panic) as well as the suction pull of the Titanic as she sank to go back for those who floated in the water. He was able to find nine people who were still alive, three of whom died shortly thereafter. Harold Lowe has been called "the real hero of the Titanic."

The lady who'd survived a wreck before was Violet Jessop (a nice "Doyle-esque" name), a stewardess. She was lying; she had never been in a crash this bad, but we'll forgive her since she lied to help Watson. She had been on the Olympic when it struck another ship, the HMS Hawke, but, despite considerable damage, the Olympic made it to port and Violet disembarked without being hurt. During the Titanic wreck, an unknown baby was thrust into her arms, and she kept it safe until she boarded the Carpathia where the child was literally snatched out of her hands and taken away by a lady who she could only hope was the child's mother. Later, she'd be aboard the Britannic when it sunk. She wasn't as lucky then, unable to get a lifeboat. She jumped, cracking her skull against the hull of the ship, but she lived. She later quit working for the White Star Line, worked for the Red Star Line, and then later worked on Royal mail ships before retiring. She died of heart failure at the age of 84. Most people forget about her in favor of "The Unsinkable" Molly Brown, an activist who rose to international fame after surviving the TItanic and raising funds for her poorer survivors.