All+Stations!++Distress!

All Stations! Distress!: April 15, 1912: The Day the Titanic Sank by Don Brown
 * April 15, 1912
 * It took twenty three tons of animal fat, soap, and oil to grease the slide.
 * One hundred thousand people watched.
 * It needed more months to be fully fitted, but its launching is something of a birth and everyone was excited.
 * No one could have guessed that she would be dead within the year.
 * Poor, yet ambitiuos ,they were traveling to America to start a new life.
 * The frigid night was moonless and black, but strkingly clear.
 * They'd been told to watch out for "small ice".
 * Finally, she curled to port, or to the left...but not fast enough.
 * He heard a "slight grinding noise".
 * It was as though we went over a thousand marbles.
 * A wave of green foam came tearing between the boilers and I jumped for the escape ladder.
 * The doors separated teh sixteen compartments.
 * The wound was fatal. it was doomed. He calculated it could float for another hour and a half at best.
 * The men weren't able to transmit their voices.
 * Instead they used Morse code, jiggling a telegraph key to make a series of clicks that represented letters.
 * C.Q.D.M.G.Y.
 * Steam shrieked as it escaped the boilers.
 * Women and children first!
 * Despite having room for sixty-five, the lifeboat lowered away with only twenty eight people aboard.
 * No. I must be a gentleman
 * There were long looks, kisses, and encouraging words.
 * I'll look out for myself.
 * We have been living together for many years, and where you go I go.
 * We started together and if need be we'll finish together.
 * The decks slanted more steeply, and the sense of urgency grew.
 * Children were thrown in.
 * As she plunged toward the sea, a quick-handed crewman grabbed her by the ankle.
 * The band played ragtime.
 * One man got dressed in his finest evening clothes and proclaimed he was prepared to go down like a gentleman.
 * He is only thirteen, his father argued.
 * They were called colapsibles because of their folding canvas sides.
 * Men, you have done your full duty. you can do no more.
 * They fought the thief for it, and left him senseless on the the cabin floor.
 * For no reason other than the stubborn notion that the poor shouldn't mix with the rich, not even in the face of calamity, they had been kept below.
 * Around him, the sea was dotted with hundreds of people.
 * The pressure of water rushing into it "glued" him to it.
 * Suddenly a terrific blast of hot air came up the shaft and blew me right away.
 * Its giant black silhouette stood out against the brilliant stars of the night sky.
 * She remained for half a minute. Then she took her tragic dive.
 * When she plunged, he neatly hopped off at the water's surface, barely wetting his hair.
 * But we rowed and rowed and rowed, and then we all suggested that it was simply impossible for us to get to it.
 * It was a mystery she chose to ignore.
 * Where would we have been if it had not been for our women?
 * As the night grew longer and the cold deepened, tempers shortened.
 * But others had greater troubles than bickering and bad feelings.
 * WE stood up in columns, two abreast, facing the bow.
 * We maintained a balance by shifting our weight.
 * Lean to the right! Stand upright! Lean to the left!
 * He was reunited with his mother, but cold and exhaustion prevented them from recognizing each other.
 * Something flashed across the southern horizon.
 * Her bravery and sharp wit earned her fame.
 * Was his behavior derelict or reasonable? The argument goes on to this day.
 * Though gone from view, she remains ficxed on teh horizon of our imagination, where she steams endlessly, haunting us.