Jack watched Rebecca being lowered in the lifeboat until he couldn't see her any more, then he looked around the decks to see if there was anyone he knew there. He saw an acquaintance Milton Long standing by the second funnel.

       He walked over and stood there chatting about small things with Milton for a while. All through, his mind was racing, thinking about all the things he'd done, and all the things he hadn't done. He thought about his siblings, and his parents, whom he hoped, had gotten into a lifeboat in time. He should have known that his father wouldn't have left him behind.

       By this time the ship was well down by the bow, and they had done a pretty good job of staying away from the crowds, as the crowds had moved astern. They talked about jumping overboard and swimming out to the boats, which were waiting only a hundred yards or so away. They figured that if they could stay away from the suction of the ship and the crowds en masse, they would have a fighting chance.

       As the crowds thinned around them, they went out to the rail. There were a number of chairs and such floating in the water, and they had to be careful not to hit any of them, lest they be knocked unconscious and surely drown. Milton looked over at Jack, "Are you coming, boy?" and sprang from the railing into the water.

       About ten seconds later, Jack followed...

       As soon as Jack landed in the water, the cold over took his body and his breath escaped him. He swam as hard as he could in the direction that he thought was away from the ship and toward the surface. As he came up, he saw the second funnel that he had been standing next to only moments earlier, come crashing to the surface of the water.

       He was carried under again by a large wave, and when he finally fought his way back up, his hands came upon something hard. His head surfaced and he found an overturned lifeboat, of the collapsible type.

       He struggled to climb onto the back of it, as there was only a half of an inch of keel to hold onto. By now the cold had numbed him to a considerable degree, and the only thought was holding onto the boat.

       He sat there and watched the ship tip up, with an incomparably loud sound of all the boilers and engines coming loose and crashing down to the bow. The ship then appeared to break in two and the stern continued rising. The ship soon disappeared from view, and there was silence for a moment.

       Then a chorus of voices rose from those floating in the water, begging the boats to come back. After twenty minutes, they began to quiet. There was a stillness as never before as the people in the water succumbed to hypothermia.

       The 28 people grouped on the boat dared not move, so as to not overturn their boat and be thrown into the water... Waiting only for rescue...