So I grabbed him, um, by the collar, and stared him out, and then he followed me outside. When we were outside I said ‘hey, tell me the truth, what is going on?’ I could still hear Maria screaming from outside, even from outside the goddamned room. So this guy, he looks me in the eyes and says ‘we’re sinking’, he said we hit some ice and so now we’re going down. Yeh, I couldn’t believe it either. There I am having been told there is no way this ship will ever fail and now this guys telling me this invincible ship is now gonna sink and take us with it? So…I thanked the guy, for err, telling us, gave him a few dollars and he said he’d make sure there was a boat for us. Then I told George the situation and we went to find the captain, the captain of the sinking ship. Well, to hell with that plan, the crew were all rushing about trying to uncover the boats and pushing us out the way. I was just thinking, I paid thousands of dollars to be on this goddamned thing and now they’re treating me like this? Anyway, it’s well past midnight so I go up on the deck and there’s ice everywhere and I’m, err…sliding about, and there’s bright lights on the water. Some of the crew are firing distress rockets, trying to get help and I can feel it now, and its real, and we’re sinking, sinking into the freezing water…
Suddenly, I guess it was then I realised that I needed to get off this thing, else I was going with it. So…I ran and, err, I tried to find Maria (coughs) but she wasn’t in the room, she wasn’t in the room godammit. Now I was panicking, and I swore, I’m not gonna leave this ship without my wife, and my wife of nearly 45 years! I grabbed my watch and some of my other valuables and ran out. There was water leaking in and my shoes were full of it, full of this freezing, you know…really cold water. I got outside and the air was full of sound, screaming women and kids, there were some really little kids on their own…just running about screaming. So I saw the boat, one of the little rescue boats. One had already gone, the No.7 and it was floating away into the distance and I thought, my Maria is on there; she’ll be on that boat. There was another boat and they were putting us on, anyone with money, anybody who deserved to be saved. The guy was reluctant to let me on, I was telling him, letting him know who I was. I said ‘Hey! I’m a Phelps, I’m Edward Phelps’ but he just wanted the cash. So…failing to find the guy I had paid earlier I gave this guy $50 and he let me on. George and his wife, Helen they were already on…they said they had seen Maria on the other boat, they said she was on that other boat, the No.7 which had already gone. It was about 2.00 am and they were lowering the boat. I saw this one guy, he was hovering on the edge of the ship and I watched him as he jumped off into the water and he was gone, gone right down like the ship was soon going to be. Everyone was hopeless and soon there we were, we were in the water and we were sailing off. All of us, we were freezing and watching the ship as it became more and more distant and err, it was bad. The lights, all of them, they just went out and it was so dark, you couldn’t really see the ship well, but like hell, yeh you could hear it. There were screams and shouts and shots and a great indescribable sound as it broke in two…and one end sunk quickly, and the other end, um, just bobbed in the water and gradually, very gradually it went down and it took all of the people with it. You could see the outlines of people, jumping and falling and hear them, just before the sea muted their screams, as they went under. From our boat they were sending out rockets, to let the rescue ships know where we were…and they found us eventually. Helen, she was hypothermic and her skin was all blue. She didn’t make it…err, she got taken back and they tried to warm her up but George…he was devastated. So we got to New York and they gave us blankets and hot tea and I went in search for my Maria. George and Helen, they had said, they had told me she was on the No.7. She wasn’t.
