Title: Last Messages
Author: tarotgal
Rating: PG (maybe- how do you classify massive amounts of death?)
Warnings: depressing but possibly inspirational story ahead, beware the angst and tragedy, man the tissues
Bunny: #18 (and very loosely #2)
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, based heavily on a number of different accounts of the Titanic disaster. It is based in history but makes absolutely no claim whatsoever about being completely historically accurate. It includes facts which are known to be true and supposed to be true. But the telling is all completely fictional and does not imply that the author knows anything about these extraordinary people or is connected to them in any way. The author makes no presumptions that this is in the least bit historically accurate. It is simply a telling of events, some of which may certainly be true, and some of which are certainly not. This is a work of fiction, grounded historically. I mean no offense to the true people I've characterized here. I have nothing but respect and admiration for all of them, and my deepest sympathies to them and their families. But, again, this is not meant to be the truth. This is a story, and no matter how many details were researched for many long hours it is not an entirely accurate account and doesn't claim to be. It is grounded in history but my personal take on the emotions concerning the men and this event. And the main two sources have been listed for those wishing further reference.
Summary: After the rescue, operator Harold Bride joins his best friend in the wireless room to keep busy and keep his mind off his emotions about the event... but ends up relating his story in the end
Notes: Many thanks to two exceptional sources whom I credit FULLY with much of the direct dialogue and events of the night and morning. They tell the story as well as I if not better and should be commended fully. I learned a Hell of a lot from both, and spent many hours reading through messages sent from ship to ship and watching videos of how Marconi machines worked. I spent time staring at the photos of the men and the set-ups in the very few pictures of the rooms available. And I spent MUCH time crying over what exceptional gentlemen these three were in not only saving so many lives but dedicating themselves to their duties, and holding onto their friendship so strongly. Though more than these (technically 2) websites were used in the writing of this, these were the strongest points of fact-gathering and must be noted highly for their content-
Marconi calling (general website with wonderful historical archive)
More specifically, the Marconi presence on Titanic
Harold Bride, mini bio
Story of Harold Bride (too darn cute for his own good)
Harold Cottam bio
More notes: This story was heavily inspired by Craig Kelly's lovely portrayal of dear Harry Bride in the movie Titanic. (See movie pictures: Harold and Jack & Harold) Thank you to Craig for being such a cutie and making me research the man behind the character who's quickly become my hero :-)

They were heating the blankets in the boiler room before putting them around some people, Harold noticed. Even those who had survived looked dead, though he couldn't imagine going through what had just happened and coming out the other side like this feeling just fine and dandy. His own hands still hurt with phantom pains, as though he was still clinging to Young Jack Thayer's life vest so the two wouldn't slip off the capsized Collapsible. Thayer had held onto him so tightly that last half an hour to keep him from falling. A man, a boy, of only seventeen, holding him tight to keep him alive. That was something he wouldn't forget, even after the sensation left his hands.

He flexed his hands, then ran one over head, making sure his short brown hair was in some semblance of order. He tightened the thick grey blanket around his shoulders as a fierce shiver struck, making sure it was warmly around him and covering his rumbled and torn uniform. Harold Bride's young face looked up at the man hovering over him. The officer was positioned above him so that he blocked out what little sun there was in the sky.

"He says he could really use your help. If you're able to, that is." The man's accent was strong but his voice soft and yielding. He had explained the importance but did not want to go where he was unwanted.

Harold gave it a moment, then nodded determinedly. It was better to do something, anything, then sit helpless on the deck in the cold and let the memories of the deathly silence, the icy nothingness, the pitch black darkness, echo through his mind. Better to keep busy doing what he could. What Jack would have done. He pulled the warm compress off his feet and nodded. "Of course." He couldn't feel his feet still. They had spent too much time underwater. He surely wouldn't be able to stand on them now. "But someone will have to help me there."

Harold was carried across the deck of the Carpathia, past the sea of bodies, dead or near dead. He caught a glimpse of Titanic's Second Officer Charles Lightoller with a blanket around his shoulders as well, stumbling around, getting survivors' names. He saw the man pause, turn to cough harshly, then quickly resume his work. Harold wanted to call over and tell the man to stop and take care of himself. The man looked exhausted and ready to drop at any moment. But then the memory of the way he'd made everyone in the Collapsible surf the waves so as not to fall off, how he'd blown on his whistle to tell the rescue boats they were in trouble and had to turn back to collect them, and had helped make sure everyone was moved over to the rescue boats before abandoning the Collapsible B. There was a man who understood the importance of keeping busy at a time like this.

Shivering, Harold Bride pulled the blanket more closely around his shoulders as the cold wind whipped past him, making his face sting and his nose run. Feeling half dead himself, he was placed carefully into a chair in the wireless room for the Carpathia. He muttered a feeble thank you to his deliverer, and turned to see the soft, familiar face of his best friend, Harold Cottam. Cottam seemed to understand that mere words of inquiry and compassion would be pointless at a time like this. Instead, he brandished a few pieces of paper.

Bride sniffled and reached out for them, then quickly retracted his hand, cupping it to his face. "h'IHShhhh!" The sneeze set him off shivering again, and he didn't want to do that. Not with Cottam there to see. "S-sorry," he said, reaching out for the papers again.

"Have a handkerchief?" Cottam asked, already knowing the answer and already fishing his own out of his pocket.

Bride didn't care that it was wrinkled and slightly used. The cloth was warm against his nose as he blew it, then balled it into his fist. "I've been like this since I woke up," he explained about the shivering and sniffling.

Cottam nodded sympathetically. "You do not need to do this. If you're feeling too ill-"

"I need to do this," Bride insisted, taking the papers and looking them over. There were more names than he thought... but far fewer than there should have been. He closed his eyes a moment to resist the urge to look them over for familiar names. Names of the passengers who had paid for their messages to be sent out. Names of passengers who had stopped by the Wireless Room to accept messages. Names of the crew he had spent some time getting to know. "H-how many?" he asked. Cottam looked quite hesitant to speak, his lips pursed. "Please, I must know."

Cottam shook his head. "They're not finished with the lists yet. But right now, six hundred-something."

The shock was almost too great to bear. But he knew it was not his to bear alone. Many hours in the frozen waters had taught him that much. Well, that and the fact that as soon as he was able he was going to break off his engagement, but that was hardly important at a time like this. There was no rhyme or reason to who lived and who died. Even those who survived felt the touch of death. And, thanks to the wireless, so now did the rest of the world. Bride fought back tears. He couldn't bear to think of a death list. He had to concentrate on the list of those who were still alive.

Bride felt a hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes to see Cottam looking even more sympathetic. Sympathetic and full of regret. After all, he'd had a small part in getting Bride assigned to the Titanic in the first place. If only he hadn't had a soft spot for the junior officer left over from their chance meeting years ago before Harold Bride had even begun training. And though Cottam was a little younger than Bride, both men looked exhausted and aged far beyond their young years from just the one night. Cottam hadn't slept or left his post in over a day and a half, otherwise he would never have even asked for Bride's help. He looked just as worn and grief-stricken as the survivors. "Just take it one name at a time," Cottam said softly. "Concentrate on the one, then move to the next. We're to ignore all incoming and outgoing communication. Only transmit disaster-related messages. That's the best way to help. Can you do that, Harry?"

Very few people called him that. It was his mother's nickname for him. Somehow, though, it made him feel a little better. His hand moved slowly towards the pad and begun to tap out the names in Morse code using the transmitter. Once he began, he found it easier to continue. After one name came another. And another. Slowly he began to feel a bit better. Every one of these people probably had someone who wanted to know if they were alive or dead.

Bride had a few of those people, himself. His family. His friends. His fiancé. Bride groaned inwardly at the thought. Mabel. She had nagged him for weeks to propose, just so she could brag that her fiancé was going to be on the Titanic. Back then it had been so fantastic. And now it was all still so surreal, just in a much different way. He wondered briefly if she was concerned for his welfare or just for her future. But he pushed the thoughts aside as his body shook with another strong shiver. He didn't want to think about her. He wasn't a private person until the Carpathia hit shore. Until then, he had a job and he was going to do his duty and do it bravely without another thought to himself.

Something he could not so easily push away were the sniffles in his nose. Perhaps he had caught a chill from the water... or had too much sea water up his nose from his spill overboard from the boat deck. He'd choked and coughed when he resurfaced beneath the Collapsible B, able to breathe from the pocket of air supplied by the overturned boat. But when he finally swam out from beneath and resurfaced, the top of the boat was already full of people. He'd been lucky to be the last they'd helped aboard.

"Hh'IHShhhh! IHTSH!" Bride raised the handkerchief and snuffled into it. He muttered an apology, which Cottam refused, telling him instead to sneeze as much as he needed to. The sound helped keep him awake, anyway.

Deciding it was better not to hold back if his nose was really trying to get rid of an irritation, Harold Bride did just that. But he had to time the sneezes well. He simply could not sneeze whenever he needed to. A pause in transmission would ruin a letter or divide part of a name incorrectly. So Bride had to hold his sneezes in until he was between names. Then he'd burry his face in the handkerchief and sneeze until the tickle faded away for the time being.

Cottam's ears were sore from the headphones, so he took them off for a little while. The need to constantly listen was gone now, anyway. The sound that filled the room was of tapping beeps, long and short, and of Bride sniffling and sneezing when he was able to do so.

They ignored, for the time, all of the incoming messages. They gave no immediate reply to the woman asking about the actress. They gave no response to the inquiry of Saks and her husband. They even refused to reply to a request from the president himself. They ignored it all, as they concentrated only on the list. The names. That was what was most important. Transmission. Rescue. It was all Bride had thought of for all those hours with his legs jammed against the cork fender or submerged in the icy waters. He'd told his shipmates again and again "The Carpathia is coming. I gave her our position. There is no mistake. We should see her lights at 4 or a little after." And, finally, it had come. Harold Cottam had not let him down with his message promising rescue. The rescue had been the only thing he could think about then, and now it was the only thing that was important. Determined and diligent though dog-tired and distraught, the two Marconi Men read through the list and tapped out name after name.

Though he felt another sneeze coming on, Bride moved on to the next name on his list. He started it strong, but felt his will falter halfway through. His hand hurt. His legs were still rather numb, and he was certain to need to stop and sneeze before the name was up. Very unluckily, the name had been a rather long one. He fought back the feelings and stayed strong as a fierce tickle took up residence in his nose. Harold Bride just had a chance to finish the letter ‘P' in ‘STOP' before bursting into un-restrainable sneezes. "huh'CHHHH! Hh'SCHH! Huh'CHIHShhhh! Heh... huh-UHShhhhh!" The blanket around his shoulders fell to the floor, and he shivered violently, but he found he could not move. "heh'SHHHH! Hhh'SCHhhhh! KShhhhh!"

Cottam marked the place in the list as to where he'd stopped, and turned in his chair to help. The room was large enough only to fit all the necessary equipment. They had room to move along the length of the desk at their workstation. But in reality they were so close they were nearly touching. Cottam picked up the fallen blanket and wrapped it around the man again. He offered no words of sympathy about the sneezes and suffering. But Bride could sense the man's feelings, and see the pity in his eyes.

Bride shivered again and Cottam darted away, into the Marconi Man's sleeping quarters, returning with the blanket off his bed. He draped it over Bride in the front, letting it hang down over his legs. Cottam gently tucked it around him, then ran his hands up and down Bride's upper arms. "Little better?" he asked.

Bride nodded, sniffling into the handkerchief for a moment before sneezing again. "heh..." Cottam stood and stepped away, giving Bride room to move about as he needed. "huhhh... hh'CHIHH! H'IHShhhh!" He sniffled and rubbed his nose dry. The tickle was gone again, though his nose was starting to feel a little tired from all the sneezing now. "Better," he replied. Then they took their positions again at the transmitter to get the names through.

Bride suggested, after hours, that Cottam should try to sleep for a short while. The man was overextending things thanks to the fatigue. His tapping was getting punchy, though his rhythm was steady. But Cottam refused and stayed by Bride's side, working.

. They continued transmitting name after name, then tried to get some semblance of order assigned to the more individual messages that needed replies. They ignored all the members of the press. The New York Times asked the Captain for personal stories from the survivors. Other newspapers were sending offers of money to survivors already. These they put at the bottom of the stack but logged their arrivals to the second. They ignored all incoming requests that didn't have names. There was a liaison between the wireless room and the rest of the ship. So Bride and Cottam didn't need to make up their own replies or read through the list for names, even though most of the replies were already paid for in advance. They gave the messages away and got responses. Many were good responses, as those who could afford to wire usually had friends or relatives in first class. But there were a number of replies of a less positive nature. Words and phrases like ‘lost' and ‘not aboard' seemed to feel so much worse communicating than ‘safe' and ‘picked up by Carpathia'. It seemed neither the passengers or the Captain wanted to use the word ‘dead' and Bride was rather glad of that. He was not sure he could bring himself to spell out those words.

So diligently they worked, and without stop, that they did not notice when the Carpathia docked in New York. They just sat, working through the messages, staring at the names. So furiously they were transmitting that no one seemed to have the heart to tell them to stop. But, before they knew it, Mr. Marconi himself entered the room and they froze in his presence.

He looked as worn and crestfallen as the Carpathia officers did. Bride wondered if he'd gone without sleep for as long. He looked down at the two young men in the service of his company. One so tired he was almost nodding off in front of the transmitter. The other still shivering and sniffling and unable to use his legs. "There's no point to that now, son," he said to Bride, who was in the middle of tapping out another message.

Their job was over. The Carpathia had arrived and people did not need them any more. For days they had been the only way of communicating on and off the ships. Out at sea, no one got any message on or off without them. No one knew anything without them. And if it hadn't been for them transmitting and receiving the CQD, there would be no survivors at all. But now people could see each other, talk to each other in person. No more need for the Marconi machine. Their job was finally over.

Cottam sighed, releasing his emotions heavily and slumping forward before securing the instruments and switching off the energy to the wireless. Bride, however, looked up into the face of Mr. Marconi, the man responsible for his job, his life, his passion, his fate. "Sir," he said. "Phillips is gone." The finality of the words hit him hard, and the image that had been pushed to the very back of his mind came forth again. He remembered reaching the deck of the Carpathia and strangely feeling compelled to look to his side. Looking down, he'd seen the cold, dead face of Jack Phillips, the senior wireless officer and his good friend. The reality had not hit him until just now.

Mr. Marconi nodded and said he'd been told. But it was clear that hearing it from Bride himself touched him in a way no list of names could have. And Bride had to say it. The weight seemed to lift off him, finally. Dead. Gone. That's what so many others were as well. Mr. Marconi, understanding Harold Bride's injuries, said that he'd send someone to help carry Bride and get him to a hospital for further treatment. Cottam offered to help take him over and Bride was much grateful for this.

When he'd gone to find said person, the wireless room was silent. Even the gentle hum of the electronics was gone now. Bride almost had the instinct to keep tapping, just so the silence wasn't quite so deafening. He thought of going through some of the basic exercises from Telegraphy School just so that there would still be something for his hand to do and his mind to focus on. With another fierce shiver, he realized that was just what Jack Phillips had been doing. And Harold Bride needed to tell his friend about that. His hand slipped off the transmitter, off the table completely, having sent its last message though he still had more to say. Finally, he lifted his head and looked over at Cottam.

"I knew," the young man said. "About Jack, I mean. If he'd survived, he would have been here working with us." Bride nodded. That was absolutely right. Jack would have been. Nothing could have kept him from it.

Bride had been fighting back his emotions since it happened. He had concentrated on his duty. But now that they had docked and that was all over, and he could let the feelings out, he wasn't sure he wanted to. But he knew he'd have to tell someone the story. If not his fiancé, it would be the newspapers. And he wanted Cottam to hear it from him personally before reading about it in the papers. He owed Jack Phillips that much, at least. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad saying it all first to his good friend.

"I was asleep when it happened," he said softly, into the silence. "The wireless had broken down for hours, and we were so backed up with messages from customers on both sides. Messages about things that were insignificant then... and even now they seem so trivial but how I wish we'd been able to send them all. We worked so hard, going through the piles as fast as we could. Finally Jack told me to go to bed, and I did. But I couldn't sleep the whole time. It was as though I knew there was something more important. At the time, I thought it was just the backlog of messages. So I got out of bed early to relieve him. I was still in my pajamas, and he looked so tired. He told me there'd been an accident and do you know what we did? We did just what all those first class passengers did. We joked about it. Nothing could sink the Titanic, we thought." Bride sniffled and rubbed at his nose.

Cottam disappeared for a moment, returning with what was his last, fresh handkerchief. Bride thanked him and gave his nose a last rub with the used one. Then he continued. "We joked to each other about it, and then I told Phillips to go get some sleep. He went without a bit of protest. As he was undressing, the Captain came in, told us to get ready to send a distress call when he gave the order. We weren't ever expecting him to come back and tell us to, but Jack stopped changing just the same. And then the Captain came back ten minutes later. Just ten minutes. I joked and said that we should try and send that new call, you know SOS? To use that since it might be our last chance todo so." Bride hung his head, shaking it. If only he'd known how serious it had been and that it was Jack's last chance to ever use it.

Though, in a way, they had known. Deep down. The joking had just been their way of making it easier to send the distress call. Their way of making themselves feel better about the situation. They'd known it was serious from Captain Smith's face. They had to have. Excluding the officers, who had been ordered to lie, no one else on the ship understood quite how serious it was. The Marconi was used for customers almost exclusively. Very rarely was it used to call other ships in the areas. They'd been getting iceberg warnings all night, however. And this call seemed to put it all into focus. Suddenly, they were not just in charge of the Marconi and the customer's voices, but in charge of the fate of the whole ship, under the Captain's orders.

Feeling another tickle building into a sneeze, Bride barely had the energy left to raise the handkerchief towards his face in time. "heh'YIHShhhh! Hh'Shhhhh!" He sneezed into it, lurching forward in the chair, unable to hold himself steady around the sneezes any more. And, halfway through this emotional story, too tired to care to. "So we..." Bride stopped, fighting back a bout of dizziness. He refused to pass out yet again. He had to get through the story now or he never would.

"You don't have to tell me," Cottam said, putting his arm around Bride's shoulders and squeezing. He pulled the other blanket up so it covered one of Bride's arms, keeping the man warmer.

Bride nodded. "Yes I do, old man" he replied, using Jack's name for him. Though it was a commonplace nickname, it was humorous for at twenty-five Jack had been four years older than Cottam and three years older than Bride. Though a couple years of age difference had not kept the three from developing a bond through their work and a friendship that extended far beyond it.

Bride leaned against the younger man with a sigh at the comforting touch. He dared not pass out. He dared not close his eyes. In the darkness, that was when the haunting images returned. Harold Bride cleared his throat and continued. "So we sent out an SOS, and then the standard CQD over all frequencies. Then you responded and..." Bride waved his hand in indication for Cottam to fill in the blanks. "You know all that."

 Cottam nodded. The Carpathia had been so far away... and yet, Cottam had promised they'd come. Through the white silence that was the sea at night, nearly sixty miles away, Cottam had heard Phillips. At first he'd called over about messages the ship had waiting for them, assuming Phillips and Bride were just as tired and ready to sleep as he was. But then he'd heard Jack's reply "Come at once! We're sinking!" It had been hard to believe at first. The Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable. But Bride and Phillips were his best friends and he had done everything he could to help save them, including telling the First Officer to bugger off in order to deliver his message to the Captain. Jack had replied to his promise of rescue with a "Thank you, old man."

And then came the general CQD repeated over and over again. "CQD. Position 41.46N 50.14W require assistance struck iceberg." Evans on the SS Californian had been closer, but not heard. Or something of that sort. Bride did not know exactly. All he knew was that of all the ships out there, even the one closest, Cottam and the Carpathia had kept contact. In fact, for a while it was easiest just to relay messages to and from other ships through the Carpathia. Cottam was always there for them. He had promised the ship would come. And it had. Exhausted and risking icebergs itself, it had come to the rescue. "We're coming along as quick as we can," the message from Carpathia's Captain had said. But Bride had felt Cottam through the wireless even then. He knew the man would not abandon his post even after the promise. He knew no matter what, there was a lifeline there for him. The one way to communicate to those people beyond the ship... and he didn't even need to communicate to feel it. Cottam was exhausted but would be there for them.

"We didn't move after that," Bride continued. "They ordered the lifeboats loaded. It was quiet at first... perhaps we didn't want to hear anything but the wireless. But then it started to get worse. There hadn't been any drills, so things went mad very quickly. People fighting, women and children crying." Bride had to stop. The memory seized in his throat and he fought back tears, swallowing hard.

"Going to sneeze again?" Cottam asked concernedly, tightening his hold around Bride's shoulders and leaning forward to get a better look at the man's face.

Bride shook his head that, no, he was not going to, then he stopped. He was indeed going to. He stiffened and grabbed the seat of his chair to steady himself as he brought the handkerchief back up to his face. It seemed the tickle in his nose was merciful after all. It still plagued him with this annoyance, but this time it was buying him time, allowing him to work up the courage to say what he knew he had to. "hhKshhhh! heh-Chuhhh! H'CHIH!" He sniffled and rubbed his nose into the cloth. There was another sneeze. He could feel it building slowly in the bridge of his nose. He sniffed again against the tickle, holding it back. If he didn't talk now, he wasn't sure he ever would be able to. Surely most of the survivors had left the ship by now and some of the dead were being moved off as well. It was only a matter of time before they came to take him to the hospital. It was now or never, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to live with himself if he left this ship with his last memory of Jack being of that cold dead body lying on the deck. Jack deserved so much more than that.

"I kept running messages to the Captain and checking the status on deck and all. It was horrible. I tried not to notice. I tried to keep my mind on the messages like Jack was. I hadn't even noticed I was still in my pajamas until Jack pointed it out. ‘Get some clothes on, boy,' he said. I don't think I've ever dressed faster in my life, shoving my feet into my boots without pausing to lace them up properly. But even my extra coat wasn't warm enough, it turned out."

Bride scrubbed at his nose. The tickle had returned, along with tears. He sniffed them back and wiped them away almost angrily. "Half an hour he sat, tapping out messages. And I kept a log of every single message received and transmitted. I got our money together, and I actually wrote out a whole extra copy of the logs so we'd each have one when it was time to go. I grabbed Jack's overcoat and draped it over him. He wouldn't stop transmitting long enough to slip his arms through the sleeves. And I had no idea how to get his boots on him, so I gave up on that."

Bride sighed, wishing he hadn't. "And about an hour and a half after the lifeboats started loading, the Captain came into our cabin and ordered us to abandon our station. Leave the wireless room. We'd done all we could do. Every man for himself now. But Phillips... Jack..." His voice caught again in his throat. The sneeze was there again, helping him out. He gave into the tickle, breathing out unsteadily to help draw it down to his nostrils. "ehhh... hehhhChihhhh!" He sneezed, feeling a warm wave of relief wash over him. Somehow it seemed easier to continue on after such a feeling of relief. The tickle in his nose was gone, and the lump in his throat had disappeared.

"We disobeyed the orders," Bride finally explained. He took a deep breath and continued on. "We were Marconi Men. We didn't answer to the Captain. We had a job and damnit, we were going to do it. Of course we didn't know exactly how bad it was, but we could guess. The screams made it to us, even with the door closed. But we refused to leave our station. We refused to stop sending. Jack didn't even pause in his transmission when he heard the order. Every man for himself. Well that was just what Jack was doing. He was saving himself, and he was saving the rest of the people on the ship. We were the only ones who could. And Jack... Jack Phillips wasn't giving up for anything."

Neither, it seemed where his sneezes. His nose tickled again, giving him time to compose his thoughts. He sniffled and rubbed at it a couple of times, then his whole body shook form the force, leaning forward in his seat. "hhhhShhhhh! hehShhhh! hehShahh!" He leaned back with a sigh, feeling Harold Cottam's arm wrap around him again, drawing him even closer in support. Support he needed, as his legs were still in pain and his feet useless to help steady himself.

He chuckled and laid his head on Cottam's warm shoulder, closing his eyes as the memories flooded back. "And then came this guy... he was filthy, a stoker or a third class passenger, I don't know who he was, but he was damn desperate. He came in and tried to steal Jack's lifebelt. Not only were there not enough lifeboats, but there weren't enough belts, either. I grabbed him and tried to pull him off Jack, who stopped just long enough to punch the guy. I mean, right in the side of the face, with everything he had. The guy fell against me, knocked out in my arms. By the time I laid him down on the floor, Jack was back to tapping out the help signal again. He didn't even pause to fasten his lifebelt properly. That CQD, that was his lifebelt. That was what was important. ‘Look outside and see if there are any boats left. I may not need them,' he told me. By then the room was awash, and we'd lost all power to the equipment. Jack kept transmitting, even though we knew there was no more power and no one was listening to our call. That didn't seem to matter as long as he kept trying."

Cottam bent his head forward again, looking worried. Not about Bride, but about Jack Phillips. He knew Phillips well, knew he was a reasonable but strong man. Bride knew it, too. "It was like a madness. Jack didn't know what else to do. That distress call, it was all he knew. Nothing was going to keep him from it. Finally I had to shake him. I grabbed his shoulders and shook hard, and I just hoped to God he wouldn't punch me out, too. He didn't. He understood. He knew what I was trying to do. He knew I cared about him. And he let me pull him out of the wireless shack, over the body of that unconscious man. And once we were out onto the deck, walking through water, Jack seemed to come back to life." No longer did they have to be the voice of the ship, the only voice it had that could reach out. The voice that had cried out beyond all those already screaming and crying.

"There were some men trying to get the collapsibles off the roof of the officers' quarters but they were having a rather rough time at it. So Jack and I, we climbed on up there and helped push one of the boats off. It landed upside-down and men were trying to turn it over as I climbed down. I looked up at Jack just before the wave hit. He was still up on the roof. I thought he'd be safer there when the wave came and washed us all overboard. The men on deck were already nearly in the water by that time anyway. I clung to one of the boat's oar locks. The water was like ice. And when I resurfaced I thought I'd see Jack. But he was nowhere. I cried out for him... he'd been above me... he should have had a better shot in swimming clear. But he wasn't on top of the overturned boat and he wasn't in the water around it like some of the officers were." Harold Bride stopped and took a deep breath. "I think, in the end, maybe he wasn't ready to leave Titanic. Possibly he didn't care if he made it off, so long as he got one last message out."

His last message had been the most powerful of them all. His chalk white face compared to Bride's which was pale yet regaining its color, had spoken for them all. He had been responsible for single-handedly saving these hundreds of lives, and sacrificed his in return. Sacrificed his... so that they, and Bride, could live. There was no reason why he couldn't have gotten down from the roof first except that he'd let Bride go first. There was no way of rationalizing who lived or died that night. And, yet, it seemed Jack Phillips had understood he was never to leave that ship alive. He seemed tied to it. And willing to serve it to his last breath, even in the middle of his escape, just to see others survive. The one who deserved more than anyone to see the survivors had not survived. There was no reason, no justice to it all. Harold had learned that in the frozen early hours of the morning without his superior officer, without his companion.

"YihChhhh!" Bride sneezed again, weakly, taken by surprise. He shivered violently and had not the energy to lift the handkerchief to his nose this time. "hehhShhhh! HIHShhhh!" He sniffed hard. This was starting to feel less like he had water up his nose every minute.

Cottam pulled him close in a hug and rubbed his back and arms through the blankets. He said nothing about Jack, nothing about the story. There was nothing he could say to that, no matter how grateful he was to know the truth about their mutual friend. He simply tried to warm Bride as best he could, for the slightly older man could not stop shaking now. "You sure you aren't coming down with the sniffles?" Cottam asked. Bride shrugged. He was sure about a lot of things, just not that. "They'll get you to the hospital and take care of you," Cottam reassured him. "Warm blankets and hot tea, and I'll stay with you if you like that."

Bride had just enough strength left to reach out and take the young man's hand. He leaned against the man, both of them still in their suit uniforms. Cottam ran his free hand through Bride's brown hair with a comforting pet. "I'd like that, old man," he said softly, and closed his eyes. In the ensuing darkness he did not see the sinking ship, or the frozen dead faces in the water. He saw himself as a twenty year old, walking into a London post office to find out about Telegraphy School and meeting Harold Bride for the first time. Cottam wasn't supposed to answer questions while on duty, but he answered every single one of Bride's questions and then some. He remembered going out to lunch with him a week later and realizing more than ever that he wanted to be a wireless operator. He remembered building an aerial antenna in his parents' garden so he could practice. He saw himself as young and innocent and just starting out. It was hard to imagine that was just a few years ago and those simple turns of events then had led him to this point now. But Cottam had been there from the start, hadn't abandoned him during the tragedy, and wouldn't be leaving him now. Harold Bride sighed as the warmth of his friend washed over him in more ways than one.

Men came to take him to the hospital not long after, and Cottam followed behind, signing off and giving his own ship's logs over to Mr. Marconi on the way. Bride gave him a soft smile to see that before passing out again to chills and exhaustion. They were safe now. They'd done their jobs well. Better than anyone could have even remotely expected them to have. They'd lost one of their own. They'd suffered tremendously both mentally and physically. But now that the messages had been delivered and the logs handed in, it was time to start feeling better.