On the Titanic, Jack Phillips left his post at the wireless and took another walk around. It was 1:50 a.m. With the lifeboats gone and the bow underwater, the scores of people remaining on board seemed strangely calm, either because they still felt hopeful or because they had resigned themselves to the fact that there was no hope at all. As the icy water filled the staircases and lapped across the Promenade Deck, he saw small gatherings of women and men holding hands and praying, as if, knowing they would soon be dead, they had elected to conduct their own requiems.
When Jack returned to the wireless shack, he told Harold Bride to put on his life belt. “Things look queer,” he said. “Very queer indeed.”
Then he went back to the wireless set, sending one message after another, even though the power was fading and it was hard to get a spark. In any case, by then he would have known that it was far too late for his efforts to prove anything but futile.
At 2:05 a.m., Captain Smith appeared in the shack again. “Men, you have done your full duty,” he told them. “You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it’s every man for himself.”
If Jack heard the Captain, he gave no sign. His bruised, reddened fingers still tapped out CQD… SOS… CQD…
“You look out for yourselves,” Captain Smith said, more forcefully. “I release you.” Then, as if talking to himself, he added softly, “That’s the way of it at this kind of time.”
But Jack would not stop. “Come quick,” he cabled the Carpathia, “engine room is filling up to the boilers.” He was so engrossed that he did not notice the water seeping across the floor. Nor did he see the stoker who had crept up behind him and was trying to remove the life belt that Harold had fixed in place because Jack had been too absorbed in his task to bother with it. Harold grabbed the stoker. Jack leapt up. The incalculable frustrations of the past few hours were released as they beat the stoker senseless.
By then the wireless had lost all power. Harold Bride ran fore. Jack ran aft. There was no time to say “Godspeed.”