Chapter 16
James and Regulus rattled the bars, trying to break it open somehow.
"Oh God."
"Help!" Regulus yelled.
He didn't think anyone could hear him, but it was worth a try.
Regulus did not want to die, and certainly not like this. The young man hated water, always had.
He had a nightmare as a small child in which he drowned. This dream had felt so real that he had been afraid of deep water ever since, especially Regulus had been afraid of drowning.
"Help!"
Miraculously, at the same moment, a steward ran past them and wanted to go up the stairs that were on the other side of the narrow corridor.
"Wait, sir! Sir, open the gate, please!"
"Help us, please! Help us! Please!"
"Please!"
The water welled up around James and Regulus, pouring through the gate and slamming them against it. In seconds it was up to their waists.
The steward saw the two men at the gate. He saw the water pouring through the gate onto the landing.
The steward turned and went up a flight of stairs. James and Regulus thought he would just keep running.
"Bloody hell," the steward murmured.
Then he turned around and tried to unlock the grate with shaky hands. He pulled a key ring from his belt and struggled to unlock the padlock.
"Come on, come on! Come on!"
"Go, go!"
"Jesus," the steward murmured.
"Please!"
"Come on!"
"Hurry!"
"Come on!"
The light began to flicker, and the young steward was shaking so badly that he dropped his bunch of keys.
"I'm sorry, I dropped the keys."
Then the steward turned and disappeared.
"Wait please!"
"Wait!"
"Don't leave!"
"Please, send for help!" Regulus begged him desperately.
~~~~
As the lifeboat hit the surface, Sirius slumped into place. He looked up at the ship again as the boat gently pulled away from the Titanic.
Somewhere on that sinking ship was his little brother.
Sirius saw people pacing the deck and heard their screams.
And one of those people was Regulus.
That was not fair! Sirius could always help his little brother, always. And now of all times he let him down.
The older Black brother didn't realize he started crying.
Lily and Remus noticed.
The young woman put a hand on Sirius' shoulder. Remus sat down next to him. He wrapped his arms around the black-haired young man.
Sirius clutched Remus' jacket and buried his face in Remus' shoulder.
~~~~
James wasted no time, taking a deep breath and diving for the key. It took him a moment to feel for the keys. But then he had it.
"I got it! Which one is it?"
"I don't know. Try the short one."
"Hurry."
Since the lock was under water, James had to blindly feel how to unlock the lock.
"Oh no! It won't go in!"
"Try another one!"
Regulus felt so useless. The water kept rising and there was nothing he could do to help James.
"It's stuck! It's stuck!"
"Come on!"
"Hurry!"
The water had almost reached the ceiling- Then James finally managed to open the lock.
"I got it! I got it!"
"Go! Go!"
The young men shimmied along the ceiling to the stairs again. These stopped the men almost upwards.
"Move, move."
James and Regulus ran up all the stairs
Thomas Andrews stood in front of the fireplace, staring at the large painting above the mantle. The fire is still burning, and the room was empty except for Andrews.
Behind the man James and Regulus run into the room, out of breath and soaked. They ran past him towards the door then Regulus recognizes him.
The young man stopped.
"Wait, wait, wait! Mr Andrews!"
The older man looks at Regulus. He noticed that Mr. Andrews was no longer wearing his life jacket.
"Won't you even make a try for it?"
He couldn't believe that Mr. Andrews would just give up.
"I'm sorry that I didn't build you a stronger ship."
"It's going fast. We have to move," James explained, putting a hand on Regulus' arm.
"Wait," she asked Mr. Andrews.
He walked towards her and handed Regulus his life jacket.
"Good luck to you, Regulus."
"And to you," replied the young man.
Mr. Andrews briefly put his hand on Regulus' shoulders, then James and Regulus walked on.
~~~~
James and Regulus ran out of the door into a dense crowd. James pushed his way to the rail and looked at the state of the ship.
The bridge was already under water and there was complete chaos on deck. The other passengers streamed around them, shouting and pushing.
Regulus had meanwhile put the life jacket back on.
"Okay... we keep moving aft. We have to stay on the ship as long as possible," said James.
Together James and Regulus pushed their way aft through the panicking crowd. The ship groaned and shuddered.
The man ahead of them was walking very slowly, almost like a zombie.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death–" the man murmured.
James had had enough and pushed him to run faster.
"You wanna walk a little faster through that valley there?"
James and Regulus struggled to climb the well deck stairs as the ship tilts.
Hundreds of people were already on the deck, and more were pouring up every second.
The two men clinked together as they struggled across the tilting deck.
"This way. Come on!"
The propellers were now twenty feet above the water, rising faster and faster.
The young men got to the stern rail, right at the base of the flagpole. They grip the rai, jammed in between other people.
Regulus looked around. This is the spot where James pulled her back onto the ship, just two nights ago, but to him it felt like a lifetime.
The young man looked at the faces of the doomed around him.
"And God shall wipe away all the tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death–"
Near them and James was a young family, clinging together stoically. The Mother looked at him briefly with her infinitely sad eyes. She knows they are going to die.
"Neither shall there be sorrow or crying. Neither shall there be any more pain–"
Regulus also saw a young mother next to him. She was clutching her five-year-old son, who is crying in terror. The mother tried her best to calm him.
"–for the former world has passed away."
"James," Regulus said. "This is where we first met, remember?"
Of course, James remembered. This evening, this encounter had changed his life and turned it completely upside down.
His plan was to travel back to America with Lily and visit his homeland again.
Then, on that evening just two days ago, James tried to stop Regulus from jumping. James never expected it to become anything more.
When he told Lily about him, he compared Regulus to a butterfly trapped in its cocoon. He was right, only at this point he didn't know how right he was.
And here he was, at the bow of the Titanic, holding on to the railing to keep from falling into the water, with Regulus at his side.
Regulus, who should have been safe by now and came back for James – twice.
"Of course, I remember."
Suddenly the stern half of the ship, almost four hundred feet long, fell back towards the deep, cold water.
On deck everyone screams as they feel themselves plummeting.
The massive stern section fell back almost level. It thundered down into the sea and pushed out a mighty wave of displaced water.
James and Regulus struggled to hold onto the stern rail.
Now the terrible mechanics played out. It was pulled down by the awesome weight of the flooded bow.
Just seconds later the fantail angles up again.
Every single one clinked onto benches, railings, ventilators, literally anything that could keep them from sliding as the stern lifted.
The star went up and up, past 45 degrees, then past sixty. People started to fall, sliding and tumbling.
They skied down the deck, screaming, trying and mostly flailing to grab onto something. They wrenched other people loose and pull them down as well.
There is a pile-up of bodies at the forward rail.
Regulus tried to help them, but the small family next to him and James fell one by one.
"We have to move!" said James.
He climbed over the stern rail and reached back for Regulus.
Regulus saw that she could no longer hold onto the young mother with her son, and they also fell into the depths.
"Come on! I've got you!" James assured but Regulus was to terrify to move.
James grabbed his hand.
"Come on. Climb over the rail"
Regulus tried with all his might to pull himself up to climb over the rail, but it didn't work.
"I can't."
"Come on! Give me your hand."
Regulus looked at James. He let go of the railing with one hand and grabbed James' hand.
"I've got you," James explained. "I won't let go. Come on, I've got you."
James helped him over the rail.
It was the same place James pulled Regulus over the rail two nights earlier. But this time going the other direction.
The young man got over just as the railing was going horizontal, and the deck vertical. The star was now straight up in the air.
Regulus laid on the railing, looking down fifteen stories to the boiling sea at the base of the stern section.
People near them, who didn't climb over, hung from the railing, their legs dangling over the long drop.
They fell one by one, plummeting down the vertical face of the deck.
James and Regulus laid side by side on what was the vertical face of the hull, they gripped the railing, which was now horizontal.
Just beneath their feet were the gold letters TITANIC emblazoned across the stern.
Regulus stared down terrified at the black ocean waiting below them.
It was a surreal moment.
"Unsinkable, of course," Regulus murmured.
James laughed and Regulus looked at him. James looked back.
"James, I–" "Reggie, I–" the two began simultaneously.
Unfortunately, they didn't have time to finish their sentences.
The final relentless plunge begins as the stern section flooded.
Looking down a hundred feet to the water, James and Regulus dropped like an elevator.