- 15 hours ago
Titanic Sinks Tonight - Season 1 Episode 4 -
Swimming and Sinking
Swimming and Sinking
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00:00My husband tried to join me in our lifeboat, two men grabbed him, officers were there with guns,
00:20he offered no resistance and backed off back onto the ship,
00:25I began yelling and crying as I wanted to join him on the sinking ship.
00:55He told me that apparently we'd struck something.
01:07I didn't become alarmed.
01:08There was no danger, they said.
01:16I told her to come at once, we were sinking.
01:18You can imagine the chaos and the fear and the terror of finding water in your cabin,
01:26and you're in the bowels of the ship. It makes me panic just thinking about it.
01:32The story of the Titanic is the human condition spread out, pinned on a board for us to examine.
01:40Then came the terrible cry, women and children, women and children.
01:46Two men lifted me up and put me in a boat.
01:51It's these small decisions, these little butterfly effect moments that change the outcome.
02:09It really was every man for himself.
02:11It's a split second decision. What would you do? What would I do?
02:38It was a terrible son.
02:48Men, swimming and sinking.
02:58I'd been brought up to believe in a hell after death.
03:08But now I think I went through a hell of that night.
03:21I don't know.
03:51I was working in the engineering.
04:10We got the order, all hands on deck, put your life preservers on.
04:17The deck was full of male third-class passengers.
04:21The last boat was getting lowered.
04:26About this time, I met all the engineers as they came trooping up from below.
04:33Until that time, they had loyally stuck to their guns.
04:37When the crew come up on deck, these guys who've worked so heroically to try to keep Titanic afloat,
04:50they expect that there will be a place for them in the lifeboats.
04:55And, of course, that is not the case.
05:00British hierarchical society is always there to shaft the underdog.
05:05Those people who had risked their lives were not going to get any help at all.
05:14It was a bleak and hopeless spectacle that met their eyes.
05:17Empty falls, hanging from every david head.
05:23Not a hope for any of them.
05:25Titanic has enough people on board that we're really seeing the whole range of reactions to facing death.
05:41From resignation, to fight and flight, to acting out of love and empathy to help other people.
05:48And, at this point, some people choose to do things that may look quite strange.
05:55One fellow said, go to the first cabin bar.
05:59There was a steward filling up tumblers on her tray.
06:04He said, go on, lads, drink up.
06:08She's going down.
06:09Some people prefer to stay in their cabin and let the waters rise up.
06:18Others go to the bar and just start drinking the place dry.
06:22Everyone has to choose to die in their own way, whatever that is.
06:26I was for going down into one of the first-class cabins, but if how Matty wouldn't let me,
06:34Matty said to me,
06:35I'll have to jump for it.
06:39It makes me panic just thinking about it, because I can imagine the chaos and the fear.
06:53It's not fair, you know, when passengers embarked on this ship.
06:59They were told it was unsinkable.
07:00They probably didn't pay much mind to how many lifeboats there were,
07:03but now that it's of the most crucial importance to them,
07:06they see that they've been failed.
07:09Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews, the ship's designer, must have been in hell.
07:21This was their unsinkable ship.
07:25Thomas Andrews was trying to do something,
07:28because he is the architect of this disaster.
07:32Andrews was seen throwing steamer chairs into the water with the idea of actually helping those who got into the sea to have something to support them.
07:44It's very difficult to know what the captain's final moments were.
07:53During the Falklands War, I was a captain of a ship that was bombed, which I had to abandon.
07:58And so I know the pressures he was under.
08:00And I personally think that he probably stayed on the bridge and waited to meet his fate.
08:07But I think he would have been feeling to himself that he had failed in this last great appointment of his.
08:13There's something of the stiff upper lip happening here, but inside there must be inner turmoil.
08:22Because survival instinct is really powerful.
08:25And the captain is probably suppressing it as much as he can.
08:29The social codes of conduct fighting against that very ancient part of the brain,
08:33the primitive part that just drives us forward biologically.
08:37People just have that, the will to survive.
08:42The adrenaline system is working overtime.
08:45They've almost got nothing to lose.
08:48I wanted to jump out and try to catch one of the empty lifeboat falls.
08:56Jack Thayer has been on a dream holiday in Europe with his parents.
09:02They've got separated in the crowds, and now that dream has become a nightmare.
09:07I couldn't just jump.
09:10We might hit wreckage or a steamer chair and be knocked unconscious.
09:14Milton dissuaded me.
09:17Milton Long, 29-year-old American law clerk, and Jack had struck up a conversation many hours earlier in the dining saloon.
09:25And now they find themselves facing this life-or-death moment together.
09:31So many thoughts passed through my mind.
09:35Thought of all the good times I'd had.
09:37Of all the future pleasures I'd never enjoy.
09:45My father.
09:48My mother.
09:51I was watching myself as though from some far-off place.
09:58Sincerely pitied myself.
10:00Back in the wireless room, Jack Phillips has stuck to his post right to the end.
10:22Even when Captain Smith has said it's every man for himself, because he believes he's doing something useful.
10:28He's spent the last few hours trying to communicate with other wireless operators, oblivious to everything going on around him.
10:36And his junior, Harold Bride, is deeply loyal to and respectful of Jack Phillips.
10:43The sea has almost reached the wireless room, and they have just minutes before it's filled with freezing water.
10:51I was back in my room, getting Phillips' money for him, and as I looked out the door, I saw a stoker, or somebody from below decks, slipping the life belt off his back.
11:04You know, I remembered in a flash, the way Phillips had clung on, how I'd had to fix that life belt in place because he was too busy to do it.
11:12I felt a passion not to let that man die a decent sailor's death.
11:26I did my duty.
11:33I hope I finished him, I don't know.
11:37We left him on the floor of the wireless cabin.
11:40He wasn't moving.
11:42I climbed on top of the officer's quarters.
11:51Yet I saw the last of Phillips.
11:55Jack Phillips is absolutely overwhelmed by the impossibility of this situation.
12:02He, uh, disappeared, walking aft.
12:08He doesn't say goodbye, he doesn't give any explanation, there's no clap on the back.
12:12Back to his junior.
12:13He's done everything.
12:14There's nothing more to do.
12:16The man is ready to die.
12:18At this stage, all the lifeboats on the boat deck have been launched, and of course, there's a panic that there are no lifeboats left.
12:37But there is actually two more stashed away on the roof of the officer's quarters, collapsible A and B.
12:44I saw the boat and the men trying to push it off.
12:59They couldn't do it.
13:01I went up to them, lending a hand.
13:04The collapsible lifeboats were very much a secondary option, which would need to be rigged so they could be used.
13:12Now, the crew are trying to launch them in increasingly difficult and desperate conditions.
13:21Just then, the ship took a slight but definite plump.
13:27And the sea came rolling up.
13:34And a large wave washes collapsible A and B overboard.
13:39You've just been given that hope.
13:41But in amongst the chaos, the lifeboats are stolen from you by the elements.
13:46And that is just devastating.
13:49The big wave carried the boat off.
13:53I had hold of an oarlock and went off with it.
14:00Water was washing right across the deck.
14:04And we were in water right to our hips.
14:06Another lurch threw myself off and away from the ship into the water.
14:15I fell into a mass of people.
14:22I was underwater.
14:24I knew I had to fight for it.
14:28The temperature in the water is minus two degrees.
14:32So as soon as that cold water hits the body, there's a shock reaction.
14:36And the mind is reacting in a state of panic.
14:41Everything I touched seemed to be woman's hair.
14:47Children crying.
14:50Women screaming.
14:54Their hair in my face.
14:56If only I could forget those hands and faces that I touched.
15:14The ship was sinking on its head very quickly.
15:18The water was right up to the bridge.
15:19The crowd moved with it.
15:23Pushing towards the stern.
15:27A sight that doesn't bear dwelling on.
15:31To stand there above the wheelhouse.
15:34Watching the frantic struggles to climb up the sloping deck.
15:38Unable to even hold out a helping hand.
15:42We were a mass of hopeless, dazed humanity.
15:50Trying to keep our final breath until the last possible moment.
15:54I knew the futility of following that instinct for self-preservation.
16:02It would only be postponing the plunge and prolonging the agony.
16:09Turning to the bridge.
16:12I took a header.
16:12Striking the water was like a thousand knives being driven into one's body.
16:24For a few moments I completely lost grip of myself.
16:33We were at the starboard rail to keep away from the crowd.
16:38The ship began to shoot down fast.
16:41The water rushing up towards us.
16:44We had no time to think.
16:46Only to act.
16:49We wished each other luck.
16:53Then we jumped up on the rail.
16:58Milton looked up at me and he said,
17:02You're coming, boy, aren't you?
17:11And I said, uh, go ahead.
17:16I'll be with you in a minute.
17:20Then he'll let go.
17:29The people who choose to jump are ultimately the people who take some form of control in a situation where you are powerless.
17:37We were about five minutes away from the ship.
17:57But we could still see it as the light stayed on.
18:05The ship stood almost on its nose, slowly sinking.
18:11The people on the Titanic were yelling and crying.
18:17I could see some of them as I jumped into the water.
18:22I found myself drawn against the grating, covering a ventilator.
18:42The pressure of the water glued me there.
18:49The shaft led to a stokehold, a sheer drop of 100 feet right to the bottom of the ship.
18:56I struggled and kicked for all I was worth.
18:59It was impossible to get away.
19:04As fast as I pushed myself off, I was dragged back.
19:09Every instant expecting the wire to go.
19:13To find myself shot down into the bowels of the ship.
19:18The shock of the water took the breath from my lungs.
19:25Down and down I went, spinning in all directions.
19:31The cold was terrific.
19:34Most people think of drowning in a circumstance like this.
19:38It is that ultimately your body runs out of energy.
19:40But actually you can drown as soon as you first hit freezing water.
19:45There's something called cold water shock.
19:47And part of the reaction is to have a big intake of breath and that prepares you for action.
19:51In the case of hitting cold water, it's not in your favor to have a sharp intake of breath.
19:58Some may have cardiac arrest almost immediately because of the shock.
20:04I was still fighting when a blast of hot air came up the shaft and blew me right away from the air shaft and up to the surface.
20:13Finally I came up, my lungs bursting.
20:27The ship was in front of me.
20:30Suddenly the second funnel seemed to be lifted off.
20:33The funnel started to fall right amongst the struggling mass of humanity already in the water.
20:45It missed me by only 20 to 30 feet.
20:49The suction of it drew me down.
20:53Those poor people were sucked down in those funnels.
20:57As I came to the surface, my hand came against something.
21:09One of the collapsible lifeboats.
21:11It was floating in the water, bottom side up.
21:15About four or five men clinging on to her.
21:18So I asked them to give me a hand up, which they did.
21:23Sitting on my haunches, holding on for dear life.
21:27It seemed as though hours had passed since I left the ship.
21:32People like Jack and Officer Lightower are swarming onto the collapsible bee upside down,
21:38using it like a raft in the freezing water, just as a way of trying to survive.
21:48The end was very close.
22:01Something in the bowels of the Titanic exploded and sparks shot up to the sky.
22:09Two other explosions followed, dull and heavy, as if below the surface.
22:14The impact was so great, it shook the waters, and we thought our lifeboat would sink.
22:24Everyone screamed.
22:26The huge weight of seawater in the bows and in the stern meant that the two things were unable to remain as one part.
22:36The whole superstructure of the ship seemed to split.
22:41The lights suddenly go out, and then darkness falls.
22:45The Titanic broke in two before my eyes.
22:59The four-part wallowed over and disappeared instantly.
23:03The ship seemed to right herself, like a hurt animal with a broken back.
23:12It's a strange hallucinatory moment.
23:19It looks as though everything's going to be fine, because the weird, wonky, distorted angles of the great ship start to settle.
23:30There's people that think that some sort of safety feature has kicked in.
23:34You know, at least this half of the ship is going to somehow survive, and those on board are going to be spared.
23:38But ultimately, that is short-lived.
23:43I saw the Titanic go up in the air.
23:47Ever so big.
23:50A huge ship reared herself on end.
23:55Rudder and propeller clear of the water.
23:57Till at last she assumed a perpendicular position.
24:02We saw groups of the 1,500 people still aboard, clinging like swarming bees.
24:13The contents of the Titanic is now falling through it, and tragically, people as well.
24:20I think it was only at that moment that many of those poor souls on board realized their fate.
24:29If we're going to die, I said, it would be best to die gripping something.
24:36We gripped the rail.
24:37A sharp exclamation from my husband.
24:52My God.
24:54She is going now.
24:57The steamer without a sound.
25:02Except for the shrieks of the people still on board.
25:05Stood right on end.
25:13It stood there several moments, and slid straight down into the water.
25:22As easily as a pebble in a pond.
25:27Our proud ship.
25:30Our beautiful Titanic.
25:33Everyone around me on the upturn boat,
26:03to breathe the two words, she's gone.
26:15I did not wish to see her go down.
26:19I'm glad that I did not.
26:24My back was turned to her.
26:28We were pulling away.
26:29This is his ship.
26:33This is his company.
26:35And there is intense professional and personal shame here.
26:40I think that was just too overwhelming for him to be able to look.
26:48Probably a minute passed with almost dead silence and quiet.
26:53Then an unforgettable cry went up from 1,500 despairing throats.
27:09Bedlam of shrieks and cries.
27:11A nightmare of both sight and sound.
27:20Hearing desperate, disembodied voices in the darkness of the ocean.
27:25A cacophony of tears and shouts and despair.
27:34It's almost like a soundscape of hell.
27:37Potentially it's your husband, your brother, your father, your loved one's voices.
27:42I don't know how you recover from that.
27:46I've never heard such screams
27:51from the hundreds of people
27:55floating about us.
28:04They were piercing.
28:06It was horrible, Rao.
28:29One young man near me shouted,
28:31Mother!
28:31Mother!
28:32Mother!
28:32Mother!
28:32Mother!
28:32Mother!
28:33Mother!
28:34Mother!
28:34Mother!
28:35Mother!
28:36Mother!
28:36Mother!
28:37Mother!
28:37Mother!
28:38Mother!
28:39Mother!
28:40Mother!
28:40Mother!
28:41Mother!
28:42Mother!
28:42Mother!
28:42Mother!
28:45Mother!
28:46Mother!
28:46Mother!
28:47Mother!
28:47Mother!
28:48Mother!
28:49Mother!
28:50Mother!
28:50Mother!
28:50Nobody knows how they will react in that circumstance.
28:53You're surrounded by others in a panic with you.
28:57You begin to lose the function of your arms, the function of your legs, the thing that you
29:01need to keep afloat.
29:02And that can happen extremely quickly because that body's reaction…
29:04because that body's reaction to keep your vital organs warm
29:08is so powerful, and it's painful.
29:11Like, you are being tortured, essentially.
29:17The people in the lifeboats are sitting and listening to others die.
29:23And everyone's response to that trauma situation will be different.
29:28We chatted of little unimportant things,
29:34as people do when they've been through great mental strain.
29:39Try to make feeble jokes.
29:42I remember I teased Miss Frankatelli.
29:46Just fancy, you left your beautiful nightdress behind you.
29:53And we all laughed.
29:58Though in our hearts we felt very far from laughter.
30:04Never you mind, madam.
30:07You were lucky to come away with your lives, said one of the sailors.
30:11Don't you bother about anything you had to leave behind you.
30:18Lucy's comments sound tone deaf to us,
30:21but I think they're a trauma response.
30:24It is far easier to comprehend the loss of a beautiful piece of clothing,
30:32she's a fashion designer, of course,
30:34than it is to wrap their heads around the extraordinary horror
30:41of the loss of human life that they're seeing before them.
30:43For those in the water, a fatal countdown has begun.
30:50Once severe hypothermia sets in,
30:53you've got about 15 minutes until you become unconscious.
30:58When I was wounded in Afghanistan, I knew that that helicopter was coming.
31:03But if you don't know that a rescue is imminent,
31:09how long are you capable of holding on for?
31:12A large number of people gave up the struggle,
31:15and were content to die.
31:17For the water was...
31:19so cold.
31:20and there seemed no help but rescue.
31:25When the darkness starts to creep in on you,
31:27that's when you have to have a real word with yourself
31:29and remind yourself that you still have some fight in you.
31:32I swam this door, I was in a race.
31:41I got myself away from the crowd.
31:45Behind me there was the horrible volume of groans which...
31:50I can hear them now.
31:55I came up to my chum, John Bannon.
32:00John Bannon.
32:02And I said...
32:03Cheerio, Johnny.
32:05And he said...
32:08Am I right?
32:12Then he told me he had seen a...
32:14a flashlight some distance away and pointed out the direction.
32:20As I went off, I cried out...
32:23Well, so long, Johnny.
32:30Poor chap.
32:35He was drowned.
32:39It was a terrible sight all around.
32:52Men swimming and sinking.
32:55I saw a boat of some kind and I put all my strength...
32:59into an effort to swim to it.
33:01It was like work.
33:03I was all done.
33:05When...
33:07I had reached from the boat, pulled me aboard.
33:10Collapse will be that had been stored on the roof of the officers' quarters...
33:16was washed off deck and is now the last hope of the men who jump from the Titanic.
33:24Among the 30 men on Collapse will be...
33:27we have...
33:29Harold Bride, Jack Feyer, Eugene Daly and Charles Lytole.
33:33Others came near, nobody gave them a hand.
33:36The bottom-up boat...
33:39already had more men than it would hold and was sinking.
33:42We were very low in the water.
33:45Standing, sitting, kneeling, lying in all conceivable positions.
33:49People came up beside us and begged us to get on this upturned boat.
33:58Saving ourselves, we were obliged to push them off.
34:05One man was alongside us and asked if he could get up on top of it.
34:10We told him that if he did, we would all go down.
34:15His reply was, God bless you.
34:20Goodbye.
34:23To look another human being in the eye and say to them,
34:27you're going to have to perish.
34:29Like, that is an impossible thing, not just to live through in the moment,
34:33but then to have to live with.
34:35There are 1,500 people in ice-cold water in the Atlantic.
34:42And there are some lifeboats that are full to capacity,
34:46and there's nothing they can do.
34:48But there are many others that are even less than half full.
34:52There are less than 700 people in the lifeboats.
34:56Because the 18 lifeboats are not at capacity,
35:00there's still space for over 400 people.
35:03It could save them from almost certain death.
35:08Within the lifeboats has an intense dilemma.
35:12Do they go back and save people,
35:14or do they stay at a safe distance so that they don't get overcrowded
35:17and everyone in that lifeboat end up in the water?
35:23These boats are fragile.
35:24They're in the middle of this vast sea.
35:27There's already been tragic and terrible, huge loss of life.
35:31This is their one and only chance to survive.
35:36Three times an officer ordered his men to turn about.
35:41But each time they were prevented from doing so by some of the passengers.
35:47They grasped the oars so that the seamen were forced to give up turning back
35:53to rescue any of the unfortunates.
35:59In the Duff Gordon boat, one of the crew members says,
36:03it's up to us to go back and see if we can pick anyone up.
36:06The Duff Gordons object.
36:08They say they'll be swamped and they persuade the crew not to go back.
36:13At the later inquiry, Cosmo Duff Gordon said,
36:17it's difficult to say what occurred to me.
36:19I was minding my wife and we were in a rather abnormal condition, you know.
36:26I find it chilling that the Duff Gordons are just openly hostile
36:30to letting anyone in their lifeboat.
36:32All along, they have been given privileges that other people haven't been given.
36:37and to die slowly in ice-cold water within earshot of people who might save your life.
36:44I think there's a particular cruelty to that.
36:47Men and women were going to their death beneath the icy waters of the Atlantic,
36:56but I noticed in a hazy, detached sort of way.
36:59I've gone through too much in those aisles to think clearly.
37:08Lucy's talking about trauma here.
37:09She's talking about going through so much emotion that she's effectively shutting down.
37:13She's so traumatized, she's not able to get out of her own experience enough to engage with what those people in the water are going through at that time.
37:24Partially filled lifeboats standing by, only a few hundred yards away, never came back.
37:36Why on earth they did not come back is a mystery.
37:41How could any human being fail to heed those cries?
37:51I think it is extremely unfortunate the lifeboats didn't go in and start to rescue people.
37:56They were willing to sit with people screaming and dying in the water, and I find that quite surprising.
38:02We're highly attuned to other people's emotional expressions.
38:06Out on the lifeboats, it's dark and they're quite far away.
38:10So not seeing those faces may be one way of distancing themselves from that suffering.
38:19I became so numb I could hardly swim.
38:24My head was so queer.
38:32But when I was almost at my last gasp I shouted,
38:35Boats are high!
38:38Only off chance that one might be near.
38:44I had room for a dozen more people in my boat.
38:49But it was dark.
38:54We didn't pick up any swimmers.
38:56We all like to think that we'd be the noble one that does the right thing.
39:03But that's not how survival works.
39:06Ultimately as human beings we are animals who have survived.
39:11That's how we've evolved to be what we are.
39:13So survival instinct is absolutely within our DNA.
39:15And so you have no idea what you are capable of until you are pushed to an extreme.
39:20Disasters reveal an aspect of your personality that you might not know is there and you might not like being there.
39:28To save your own life, to let hundreds of people die, I think that's something that would weigh heavily on you for the rest of your life.
39:34Perhaps a thousand.
39:39Perhaps more.
39:41Gotten down with her.
39:44There's a cluster of lifeboats closer to where the Titanic went down, including lifeboats 14 and 4.
40:03And this is a kind of case of right place, right time for some people in the water.
40:10Fortunately, my shout was heard.
40:13Over here!
40:15I was hauled into lifeboat number four.
40:19About seven people are rescued because of that boat, including Thomas Dillon.
40:25I think I'd been 20 minutes in the water.
40:31I was told afterwards I was unconscious for a long time.
40:36I was not properly right when I came to.
40:41Thomas Dillon survived because he's young and he's fit.
40:45But by the time he's picked up by the lifeboat, he's got early symptoms of hypothermia.
40:50I would rather die a hundred times than go through such an experience again.
41:14Mr Lowe went in search of other lifeboats.
41:17He found four or five and took command of the little fleet.
41:22The whole of you are under my orders.
41:25Lifeboat 14 is very full, but Lowe realises that actually if this group works together,
41:32they have a chance of being able to launch a rescue mission.
41:36He ordered that the boat should be linked together with ropes to prevent any drifting away.
41:43You're able to redistribute those passengers and they actually free up an entire lifeboat,
41:49which allows them to go in and search for survivors.
41:52I went with just the boat's crew, no passengers.
41:59Of course, I had to wait for the yells and shrieks to subside.
42:05For the people to thin out.
42:07Officer Lowe is very aware of the potential risks.
42:14You can be capsized when trying to pull survivors into the vessel.
42:18The vessel can be swamped, but they choose to go back.
42:22They're not just survivors in this moment.
42:24They continue to be crewmen.
42:25Their sense of service, particularly those that had a military background, ultimately outweighs their sense of survival.
42:34Your training just kicks in and you have a responsibility to those around you, even before yourself.
42:39I searched the wreck thoroughly and found four persons.
42:45One was a Mr. Hoyt from New York.
42:49He was bleeding from the mouth.
42:53I listened to shirts as to give him every chance to breathe.
42:59But, unfortunately, he died.
43:04I suppose he was too far gone when we picked him up.
43:15Most of those who jumped in the sea died within a quarter of an hour.
43:19The awful moaning ceased after that.
43:21We saw nothing but ice into our bodies.
43:33I remember the very last cry.
43:35It was a man's voice.
43:37Calling loudly.
43:40My God.
43:42My God.
43:43I think it would have been very haunting to slowly hear fewer and fewer voices.
43:55And that's one of the most traumatic memories that people had, is the sound of those screams.
44:00The air was leaking from under the boat, lowering us further and further into the icy water.
44:17Soaking wet, freezing.
44:18The pack of huddled men on Collapsible B have survived so many odds.
44:30But that's all for nothing if nobody comes to your rescue.
44:34And they don't know if that's coming.
44:36Some lost consciousness and slipped overboard.
44:41Every wave threatened to swamp us.
44:42The problem with trying to stay on an upside down boat, which are now using as a raft, is that it's not stable.
44:55This is a balancing act, literally, to save your life.
45:00Every bit of strength and spirit from every one of those men on that boat raft was going to be about staying alive.
45:09Their class differences ceased to be important.
45:12We've got men from first class, men from third, crew members united by this will to survive.
45:19We prayed and sang hymns.
45:25Harold Bride helped keep our hopes up.
45:29He said time and time again, the Carpathia is coming as fast as she can.
45:33The Carpathia is coming as fast as she can.
45:36Lytaler found his whistle.
45:42After desperate calling, we got the attention of the other lifeboats.
45:51Two of the boats realized the position we were in and drew toward us.
45:57They had a right side up boat.
46:02And it was full to its capacity.
46:08Yet they came to us and loaded us all into it.
46:24Officer Boxall took some green flares from the bridge.
46:27And now he's lighting them, hoping that he will attract the attention of the approaching rescue vessel.
46:38Time will be standing still.
46:41All they can do is sit in the boats and wait.
46:57About this time, the edge of the sun came above the horizon.
47:07To feel that glowing warmth, which we'd never expected to see again.
47:12That's something never to be forgotten.
47:14I have no idea of the passage of time during that awful night.
47:28We were all very tired when we saw a big light.
47:34We saw a big light.
47:39Look. Look. Look.
47:41The ship.
47:44Suddenly a flicker of hope.
47:46A ship getting closer every minute.
47:52Coming towards the site of the wreck and the lifeboats bobbing about in this freezing empty sea,
47:59finally, is the Carpathia.
48:03She's come as fast as she could through the ice flows, through the night, responding to Jack Phillips' distress calls.
48:10Distress calls.
48:19Nothing has ever looked so good to me as the lights from the Carpathia.
48:28Even through my numbness, I began to realize I was saved.
48:35That I would live.
48:40That I would live.
48:44She stopped maybe four miles away.
48:49The task of rowing over to her was one of the hardest things we had to face.
48:54At last.
49:08The Carpathia was alongside and people were being taken up by rope ladder.
49:15One man was dead.
49:16I passed him and went up the ladder.
49:29The dead man was Phillips.
49:33He had died on the raft of exposure and cold, I guess.
49:36He stood his ground until the crisis had passed and he collapsed.
49:49Only I could have slipped more clothing on Phillips.
49:51We're just saved him.
49:55When I was wounded, three people lost their lives.
49:58So I know what it's like to trawl over in your head the what could I have done.
50:01And ultimately life is unpredictable.
50:02You know, you live or you die.
50:03And you cannot change that fate.
50:07But learning to live with that, it takes time.
50:09No, someone who passed away.
50:11I have no need to be able to walk on a.
50:15To live with that, you know.
50:17It takes time.
50:19And when I was wounded, three people lost their lives.
50:21So I know what it's like to trawl over in your head the what could I have done.
50:23And ultimately life is unpredictable.
50:27You know.
50:29You live or you die.
50:31And you can not change that fate.
50:33But learning to live with that, it takes time.
50:37No survivor knows better than either.
50:43Cruelty of disappointment.
50:47I had a husband to search for.
50:53A husband whom I believed would be found in one of the boats.
51:06And he was not there.
51:14I let myself be saved because I believed he too would escape.
51:25I sometimes envy those whom no human power could tear them from their husband's arms.
51:46What do you remember of the Carpathia?
51:49And...
51:51...are...
51:54...consoling.
51:58And being consoled.
52:05My friends were all among the missing when the role was called.
52:11The loss...
52:13...affected me badly.
52:19The big narrative is always going to be about heroism and loss and sacrifice.
52:30But the Titanic was a disaster.
52:34These are real people's lives that are lost.
52:38Real people who suffer.
52:40Real people who suffer.
52:41Real people who suffer.
53:10The engineers were the heroes, I think.
53:11They kept going until minutes before the Titanic went out of sight.
53:13Not a man of them was saved.
53:18In 1912, it was taken for granted that the price of a first-class ticket included a greater likelihood of surviving.
53:24It was seen as a reflection of the natural order.
53:25What the Titanic teaches us is what happens when people's lives are given unequal value.
53:26every element, from your breakfast, to your breakfast and to your breakfast and to your breakfast and to your breakfast.
53:36What the Titanic teaches us is what happens when people's lives are given unequal value.
53:38likelihood of surviving. It was seen as a reflection of the natural order.
53:47What the Titanic teaches us is what happens when people's lives are given unequal value.
53:55Every element from your breakfast to how you're treated in an emergency,
53:59all of that is impacted by class and hierarchy and status.
54:03This happened in an age where the British stiff upper lip was stiffer than ever. But the reality
54:10is it doesn't matter how resilient you think you are, sometimes we're just not capable of processing
54:16that level of horror. Personal trauma was not recognised. You just suffered and you carried on.
54:24Those people who survived, they were just now going to have to pick up their lives as best they could
54:28and manage. These are searing memories that never leave them. And the grief was huge. But I like to
54:38imagine that there were those who felt that this encounter with death made them live the rest of
54:45their days more fully and that they owed it to those who died to live.
55:15So
55:26it's
55:29so
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