April 14th, 1912

Room 18, 1st class deck

9:30pm

Lily's clothes were all neatly folded. She didn't know why, but she felt a sudden urge to take all her frocks, pullovers, underwear and just general belongings, and put them all into her big tweed bag. Her tongue would escape from her mouth every so often as she concentrated on packing everything as tightly as possible.

"What on earth are you doing?", exclaimed Joan as she emerged from the en suite.

"Packing," Lily laughed, sliding her pink dress between a coat and a vest. Joan laughed, half amused, half exasperated.

"My God, girl, we'll be onboard a good while yet!"

"Yes I know. I just – oh, I don't know, I just wanted to pack. There!" she puffed triumphantly, pulling the toggles together and twisting them tautly shut.

"Lily Shaw, you are quite mad!" Joan sighed. Lily smiled at her as she put her large bag next to her on the bed and gave a small, contented little sigh.

Dinner had been an impressive 5-course affair, and tired out with bloatedness, Lily had slunk back to her room and got into her night clothes. She was now utterly exhausted.

"Joan? I am utterly exhausted. I think I'll sleep now."

Joan smiled down at her young companion affectionately.

"Yes, my child, you sleep. It'll do you good."

11:10 pm

It was a rustle that awoke Lily. Just a rustle. The simple result of a frictionous meeting between her blanket and her sheet, but Lily nevertheless awoke with an unearthly jolt. So big, in fact, was this jolt, it quite shook all the tiredness out of her, right there and then.

She sat up, looked around, and that instant knew she would not be able to get back to sleep for several hours. And the one thing Lily couldn't bear was having nothing to do, alone, at night. She could read, but then she would have to turn on all the lights, and she didn't want to wake Joan.

Lily felt nervous at the idea that had just sprung into her head, but knew that she really had not much of an option. It was go for a little starlit exploration of the ship, or be bored to tears until daybreak. And she knew which one, to her, seemed infinitely preferable...

Lily's hands trembled a little as she reached out to pick up her underclothing. She slipped it all on as quietly as she could. Then she picked up her warmest blouse, the pretty cream one, but dropped it. In her laziness, Lily could not be bothered to stand up and walk to pick it up, so she shot out a hand, so as to streeetch it out and pick up the item. But as her arm went forth, it somehow sliced against the edge of the chest. This particular piece of wood had sides like blades, and so Lily felt a horrifying pain. It shot up her arm like a bullet. She looked down, feeling almost faint, and saw an enormous, gouged red line all the way down her lower arm, and also realised that blood was flowing from the slit rather too fast.

It was now that Lily had come seriously close to waking Joan, the pain was almost unbearable, but Lily had common sense, and as steadily as she could, she tiptoed into the bathroom, and rinsed the cut under the tap. The stinging was absolutely horrific, and Lily felt hot salty tears streaming down her face and into her mouth. She kept her arm under for a good 30 seconds, then removed it, grabbed a thin face towel, and pressed it onto the fleshy wound with all her might.

Removing a hair ribbon from her hair, she tied the towel to her arm tensely and slipped on her blouse. She then put on some stockings, her pretty navy skirt, her sweater, a coat, her shoes, and a hat and gloves, then bravely, perhaps foolishly, made her way out of the door...

11:35 pm

Lily stood out on one of the lower decks, looking out to sea. It was like a navy curtain, stretching out from the foot of the ship to where the Earth meets the sky. Lily was extremely cold now, and rubbed her arms firmly. Her face was starting to feel a little numb, and the combination of this and the burning sensation of her wound was beginning to turn her stomach. She was just contemplating returning to her room, when Rose and Jack came bursting through a door, breathless from mirth. She could not help smile at the infectious sight.

"What is it?" she smiled.

"We-, we're being chased," gasped Jack, laughing still more. Rose touched Lily's arm.

"We didn't mean to startle you, Lily sweet." she said. Lily grinned to herself and made her way back across the deck.

On the deck above, the officers could see Jack and Rose kissing passionately, and grinned to themselves. Cal Hockley was not a man they were particularly fond of, to say the least.

Meanwhile, watchmen Fleet and Lee stood near the bow, swearing at the bitter cold and talking amongst themselves. The ocean was at a dead calm. All was peaceful.

Lily was standing right at the front of the ship, the very tip. It was an amazing experience, and it took her breath away. She could not help closing her eyes, feeling the crisp, moderate breeze tickle her face...

She opened her eyes, and saw something that made her feel sick to her very stomach. That knocked the air from her lungs, knocked the sense from her mind. Around 300 yards, just a few metres, ahead, was a huge, towering, unmistakable iceberg...

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," was all her poor little mouth could utter.She craned her neck at (appropriately) breakneck speed above her, where she had heard men's voices.

"Sir! Please! YOU'VE GOT TO LISTEN TO ME!"

Fleet and Lee heard the voice of a screaming girl down below and called to her.

"What is it, Miss? Would, would you like us to fetch anyone?"

"Lo- look ahead, straight ahead," she whimpered, now evidently crying. There was a long, horrible pause.

"Bloody hell."

11:40 pm

"Bollocks, we're going to hit it straight on." Lee was breathing heavily, a waver lingered over his speech. In nervousness, Fleet was reddening and becoming aggressive.

"Well don't just stand there pissing around, fool, warn 'em!" Lee ran to a bell nearby and rung it with all the vigour he could muster. The officers looked down when they heard the clamorous din. He looked up, alarmed.

"ICEBERG, RIGHT AHEAD!" he bellowed. Murdoch looked forward. It took a while for him to apprehend the horrendous sight. The colour drained from his face.

"Lord almighty." he dashed over to the wheels, dragging them all in the opposite directions, pushing sailors in all directions.

"Move out of the bloody way, idiot, there's an iceberg, straight ahead!" By now, most of the crew had heard, and were dashing around, pushing red alert buttons and bellowing the awful message around the place.

Lily was starting to feel increasingly afraid for herself. She was standing right on the empty deck, freezing cold, with an enormous white column coming towards her ever faster. In a decent frame of mind, she would have dashed back in, but she was frozen to the spot. She closed her eyes stiffly, willing the bloody boat to turn...

There was a huge scraping noise. With that noise went every hope Mr Murdoch had. He leaned against a pillar and sunk his head into his hands. An enormous piece of ice flew into the air and onto the deck. Jack and Rose missed it narrowly, and Lily managed to duck out of the way of the main bulk of it, just in time. But large chips of ice and an extortionately large gush of water flew over her. She shrieked a blood-curdling shriek, a noise that made any crew members who heard that shriek feel sick and petrified.

"There's a child out on the deck, Harold," gulped Murdoch. Harold Lowe glanced below, aghast, and flew down the stairs. When he saw Lily, he ran over to her and grabbed her out of the way, before more water soared over the deck, enough to drown both of them. The aftermath of this horror was silence, and Lily burst into tears, wailing and sobbing, soaked and cold, freezing cold. Lowe held her close to him for a few seconds, then held her away and looked into her eyes.

"Now Lily, you must listen to me. Don't panic, don't fret, you mustn't go and tell everyone they're about to die or anything. It was only a scrape, and you look terrible. I must insist that you go back to your room now, Lily. OK?"

"Oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she cried. "How can I thank you, ever?" Lowe smiled.

"Don't thank me, thank Will Murdoch. If he hadn't spotted you and told me, you'd have been swept off by that water." Lily breathed deeply.

"You both saved my life," she wavered. "Thank you, thank you." Lily was not stupid, and Lowe's speech about 'nothing to worry about' could not console her from the blatant facts. She started to weep again. Officer Lowe looked down at Lily, his heart filled with sorrow for the girl in front of him, and he realised that she was in no fit state to just go back to her room.

"I'll get your guardian, Miss Shaw." He went off and had a word with young Officer Moody, and not 2 minutes later, she heard urgent, heavy footsteps behind her. It was Joan.

"Oh Lily, poor little thing, poor dear! Come here, then, come here, there there!" Lily hugged Joan tightly, the familiar expensive perfume filling her nose, soothing her. Lily pulled away and indicated to where some worried officers were speaking. Lowe looked faint, Wilde looked in shock, and Murdoch looked as if he was about to burst into tears.

"They saved my life, Joan. We hit an iceberg, and I was almost drowned."

"We hit an iceberg? Oh my lord, Oh dear God!"

A male voice sounded from behind them.

"Ladies, I must urge that you go back inside now!" Joan could obviously not agree more, and with a forcing call to Lily, she did so. Lily saw Captain Smith putting on his tie and walking towards Officer Murdoch.

"What's all the commotion about?" he asked. There was a nasty silence.

"An iceberg, sir. I tried to turn her, but... starboard's been ripped open, sir. First five compartments are already almost full of water. I tried, sir, but-"

Murdoch was now tearful. The captain, he looked as if someone had punched him in the stomach and taken his heart away. The sight was horrible, and Lily knew that no matter what happened, she would never forget their faces, for as long as she lived...