It reminded me a little bit of a time when my father took me to the horse races. People were cheering loudly at the track that day.But this was a little different. Many in the crowd were cheering for joy. Some were shouting out of disgust because their horses lost.

The people we were hearing now were screaming for their very lives. It was horrifying. And it seemed to get louder after the Titanic sank.

"Should we go back after some of them?" a woman on our boat asked the young officer in charge.
"No ma'am, we cannot," he replied. "We don't have enough room. They would swamp us."

Very few on our boat argued with him. Our boat was among the last to be launched. We were packed.

"Alright, I need anyone who has paper or cloth we can burn," the young officer shouted.
"What on earth for?" one of the women in the boat asked.
"We need a torch or two," he said. "We need to get with some of the other boats."

What he said made perfect since. Although the sky was lit up with stars and the sea was calm, there was nothing but darkness around us.We were able to scrounge for some cloth. One woman tied to canes together to make a stick large enough for a torch.

It illuminated the area around us. We saw several lifeboats around us.

Many of them were doing the same as we, building torches.
Some of the boats were not as full as ours, which startled some of us.

There was room on quite a few boats for many of the poor souls in the water.But by now, the cries were growing faint.
One of the officers leading a boat suggested that some of the boats take some of his passengers. He and the other two sailors in his boat would go back to see if there were anyone left alive to rescue.

Yet another boat was a startling sight. It was upside down. All of the men were standing up and rocking from side to side trying to keep the small craft afloat.

"See if we can squeeze together," the young officer asked us. "Maybe we can make room for a couple of more."
We did the best we could. Two women from the boat that was heading back after survivors in the water came into our boat, as did one of the men standing on top of the upside down boat.

"I believe he is one of the men who worked in the boiler room," Grandmama whispered to Rachel and me. "Rachel and I took a tour of the boat with that nice Mr. Andrews and I believe I recognize him."

Shortly after the one boat went back in search of survivors, the screams, what little of them were left, seemed to stop.
Other than the whispering and talking among the lifeboats, and there wasn't much of it, it seemed a weird, quiet calm.

I looked around at the other lifeboats in the water, hoping I would see my mother and my sisters. I did not. Most you could see on the other boats around us were silhouettes.

Rachel and I decided to get into a rowing contest. We outrowed most of the women on are boat, but after a while Rachel started complaining that her arms were hurting.
"Mine, too, Grandmama," I said.

"Ma'am, my sister and I can take over for your girls," a young woman said. She and her sister had not done much rowing since our boat was launched.

"Thank you," Grandmama said. "My babies need their rest. It's time for little girls to get some sleep."

She pulled us both tight to her. I could feel her warmth. Rachel reached out and grabbed my hand. We both tried to sleep.
It wasn't easy. It was cold. And as calm as the ocean was, the rocking of the boat still made it very difficult to rest.
People on board were coughing and sneezing.

"If we survive this," one woman said, "I believe half of us will be sick."
"Don't talk about if!," Grandmama snapped. "We will survive this!"
I had known her for only a few hours, but I could tell she was a remarkable woman. I felt safe with her.
Finally Rachel and I were able to doze off.

*****
"Look there, a light!" a woman shouted.
It woke me and Rachel from very short slumber.
"It's a ship!" Grandmama said. "I told you we were going to be rescued."

It was still far off in the distance.
"It's going to take some time to reach her," the young officer said. "We need to get some people rowing.

Rachel, I and Grandmama were among the first to grab an oar. Most of us were still very tired and weary from the nightmare we were living through, but our spirits were lifted knowing there was a ship to pull us out of the sea.

Some of the women began to sing a song Rachel said she sung in church called "Pull for the Shore."

"Pull for the shore, sailor, pull for the shore!
Heed not the rolling waves, but bend to the oar;
Safe in the life boat, sailor, cling to self no more!
Leave the poor old stranded wreck, and pull for the shore.

Trust in the life boat, sailor, all else will fail,
Stronger the surges dash and fiercer the gale,
Heed not the stormy winds, though loudly they roar;
Watch the “bright and morning Star,” and pull for the shore!"

It was still a long tiring journey that drew us closer to the ship. Night turned into early morning. We could finally make out the faces of the passengers in our lifeboat and a few of the others around us.

I was not the only boy on the boat. There were at least three others, the oldest probably 10.
The only men on the boat were the young, blond-haired officer, and the rough looking, muscled crew member from the boiler room, whose face was still covered with coal.

The women on the boat, all of us really, looked haggared, drained. Many of us were in very much an emotionless state. We were all still very much in a state of shock from what had transpired over the last few hours.

"It's not a very impressive ship," one of the women said in our boat.
"At least it's not resting at the bottom of the Atlantic," another woman replied. "That's good enough for me."

As we pulled beside her we were able to read a sign on the ship that said "R.M.S. Carpathia." I heard a woman say she believed the ship was of the Cunard Line.

Ropes and ladders were used to pull us out of the boat. It was a slow and difficult task. Many of us were afraid we'd fall into the ocean while trying to get from the lifeboat to the ship.

They pulled Grandmama up first, then Rachel and me. I breathed a sigh of relief when a member of the ship's crew grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me aboard.

"Watch your step miss!" he said.
"Thank you kind sir!" I replied.
I had been Leah now for several hours. It no longer seemed strange to be called by a female pronoun.

We were steered to a large room on the ship where cots and blankets awaited us. Many of the blankets, we were told, were donated by the ship's passengers, who were going out of their way to make us feel welcome.

Sadly, we again were divided up by class as we were aboard the Titanic, only this time, things were a little more cramped and the line between first and second class at least, was a bit blurry, which raised the possibility that I could run into my mothers or my sisters. We were traveling second class aboard the Titanic.

This was something Grandmama was keenly aware. She staked out our territory with three cots in a corner of the room and pulled us aside.

"Many of the women aboard this ship have just lost their husbands," she whispered to me and Rachel. "Some have lost sons close to your age. It might not sit well with some of they find our our secret."
We nodded in agreement.

"You must avoid your mother and sisters," she said.
"But that's going to be hard to do," I whispered back. "They're going to think I'm dead."

She understood my concern, but she told me it would be in my best interest to remain Leah Pierpoint while we were aboard the Carpathia, maybe even while we were in New York.

"Once we are safe at home in Philadelphia, I will contact your mother," she said.

She didn't explain it to me then, but not only was she afraid of causing a riot aboard ship, she was also concerned about the reporters hanging around once we arrived in New York looking for any type of tale to tell.