The band stood on the sinking deck

Playing music but nothing too sad

The last of the lifeboats were over the side

The situation was bad

The waiter brought the band a drink

Which they thought was rather nice

But the cello player who was rather posh

Had the audacity to ask for ice

The water reached their waist line

It was getting rather cold

Of all the times to lose his hat

The violin player was bald

The ship it is unsinkable

Ships engineer was sure

Shouting above the mania

Whilst waving the ships brochure

The ship it tipped up on its stern

They were almost in the sea

Without a worry for themselves

Played “Nearer My God to Thee”

© Julian Race 02/06/2021

Twitter @JulianRace1

Eight brave souls continued playing music even as the Titantic began to keel to its impending doom.

Without thought to their own safety, they continued playing calming, soothing melodies in some form of hope to keep the passengers as calm as possible.

Five were from England comprising of a pianist, two cellists and a bassist, and the Bandmaster, a violinist. The remaining three were from France, Scotland, and Belguim, were cellists. The oldest was forty, the youngest, twenty.

But neither age, or impending doom stopped them from what their intent was. To play music to soothe the soul, to quiet the screams, the raving madness that had enveloped everyone in panic.

These eight men, eight musicians continued playing as the ship listed slowly at first, then quickly to the bottom of the murky depths of the North Atlantic Ocean.

History may not recall these men very often, but as with most emsemble groups, they were required to know 352 songs when playing on seafaring cruises, and they would play at various times during each day at tea time, after dinner concerts, as well as other occasions such as a birthday, or wedding anniversary, and also weddings on board cruise ships. They had a song for practically every occasion you could imagine.

The bravery to sit and play and never once think of their own lives is something a medal should be awarded. A film made, a book read, in order to understand true heroism in the face of certain death. To the outside world they were simply musicians tryig to earn a buck. But that fateful night, they became so much more than simply a musician. They became a beacon of hope and salvation for those who survived.

In the end, as all the remaining lights disappeared, as the ship finally was covered by the ocean swallowing them whole, survivor's recall hearing "Nearer My God To Thee" before, in the end, it became faded and then forever gone.

We will never know what they said to one another, or if they even spoke at all. We will never know the amount of sweat that probably ran in rivlets down their face, or the tears that flowed from their eyes. But they remained in their chairs and the band played on.

Theodore Ronald Brailey – Pianist (aged 24)

Roger Marie Bricoux – Cellist (aged 20)

John Frederick Preston Clarke – Bassist (aged 30)

Wallace Hartley – Bandmaster, Violinist (aged 33)

John Law Hume – Violinist (aged 21)

Georges Alexandre Krins – Violinist (aged 23)

Percy Cornelius Taylor – Cellist (aged 32)

John Wesley Woodward – Cellist (aged 32)

They were perhaps the bravest of all.

A young man in a suit slowly drew his bow over the strings on his violin. The notes hung in the air and seemed to sparkle. The rest of the orchestra drew their last notes also. The cellow bellowed it’s final note softly, leaving a small group surrounding them in awe.

The director gathered the orchestra into a group, they whispered and nodded. As soon as everyone took their places, the director started swinging his hands, motioning for the wind instrument players to begin.

The men and even a woman brought their flutes and clarinets to their lips and began playing an upbeat, swinging tune. The trumpet players positioned themselves and began some steady notes, giving the music some solidity to the swirling of the wind players.

The young man who was playing the violin, brought it up and poised his bow, waiting for the director’s motion to begin. His foot tapped along with the beat and his bow never slowed. The music swept around and around, keeping the listeners entertained.

They ended the music with a few short, quick notes and lowered their instruments, breathless. The crowd clapped and danced excitedly, the music had sparked new energy in everyone’s spirit that evening.

As the orchestra took a moment to rest, the violinist adjusted his tuning on the violin. His blue eyes darted around, watching the people moving aboard the ship. The sky was slowly starting to fade to black. He held the violin up and tested his tuning, satisfied, he set it down and waited for the other members to finish their tuning.

Small children milled around the orchestra members. The violinsit smiled at a darling little girl, her bright yellow curls bounced as she danced in a circle. Silence ensued everyone as they sat on the deck. Suddenly, a hard bump jostled the whole ship. Everyone gasped and steadied themselves.

“We’ve hit an iceberg!” A faint cry sounded from further away.

Some women gasped and grabbed their suitor’s arms and mothers grabbed their children’s hands. A man from the crowd walked out and shouted. “No worries, folks! This ship is unsinkable! Nothing to worry about.” His voice was filled with confidence. “Orchestra, would you please play something upbeat for us?” He waved at the director.

The orchestra members stood. The same violinst stood and poised his bow over the violin. The director started the stringed players section, the violinist moved his bow back and forth, his foot keeping time. The night sky had now come, stars shining brightly.

About 20 minutes later, near the middle of the song, a panicked shout sounded from somewhere. “The ship has sprung a leak!! We’re all gonna die! The ship is going to sink!” Screams sounded as the people were sent into a panic.

The violinst’s hands started to shake, but he kept playing. It was his duty to help keep the spirits up in the midst of this trouble. He swallowed hard, nearly choking on the fear building into his chest. The orchestra had vowed earlier that night, no matter what happened, they would keep playing.

People swarmed everywhere, women screamed for their children. Lifeboats were starting to get lowered. The music ended for a split second before shifting to a more calm, soothing song. The stars twinkled innocently in the sky above. Panicked screams sounded from people all around. Footsteps bounded across the deck. The orchestra kept playing, despite the chaos. The ship seemed to slowly lower into the icy ocean. The violinist blinked back tears, he focused on playing.

“Women and children on the lifeboats!” A male voice shouted into the darkness. Women and children scurried to the lifeboats, they were packed with people. Everyone was going crazy.

The orchestra had finished six songs, or so, as the last lifeboat lowered. The ship started to move vertically, throwing everyone off balance. The orchestra moved to playing the song, “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” The violinist drew his notes softly on the violin. The ship started to go more vertical, causing people to fall into the dark, icy waters. The orchestra members fell, one by one. Only two were left, the violinist, who now found a stable place to stand, and a flute player, who stood next to him. They slowly drew the last notes of the song, “Nearer, my God, to Thee”. The ship suddenly snapped, the one half sunk rapidly and was sucked into the waters. The other half also started sinking. The violinist let his tears fall freely. Icy water soon reached his neck, he drew in a deep breath and held it as the water filled in over his head.

His eyes stung in the icy waters, he pushed as hard as he could with his legs to reach the surface. The water pulled him further down, he pushed harder against the swirling water that pulled dozens of other people down. He somehow managed to make it out of the swirling water, his whole body numb, and his lungs ready to burst, he finally broke through the surface.

His teeth chattered uncontrollably as he was treading water to stay afloat. The man’s lips had turned slightly blue. His teeth knocked against one another as he could no longer feel any part of his body. Thoughts flew to his mind: thoughts of the tight hugs he gave before leaving his beloved wife, thoughts of the tears they shed, thoughts of how his parents begged him to stay. The frigid water lapped against his body, he fought harder to stay afloat as his arms and legs grew stiff. One last thought tormented him, an image of his new wife, now heartbroken, lost, and grieved by the loss of her husband. His extremeties could no longer move, and his body slipped into the dark, frigid ocean depths.

***

I’m not sure exactly how accurate I got this historically, so if any of you readers notice a mistake in it, please tell me and I can fix it. :) Hope you all enjoy it!

His name is John. Tears silently stream down the reddened cheeks of the violinist as he continues to play the haunting melody along with his fellow orchestra mates. He is unable to hold the tears back; they fall unabashedly, streaking his face and hitting the dark black of his jacket. He is only twenty-one years of age. His face is still very much that of a young boy’s innocence in its ruddy complexion, not quite fully developed into the coarser or wiser features that embody an adult’s visage. He finds it strangely ironic that there is such beauty in the strains of Chopin’s Nocturne Op 48 No. 1 in C Minor as the massive ship continues to tilt and fill with water, knowing it will eventually immerse itself completely into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. He realizes that he shall never again see his sweet mother or his homeland of Scotland. In his mind, he already hears his sweet Mum’s sobs when she learns of his final moments upon the Oceanic Liner, the Titanic. Life was not supposed to end like this. The horizon seemed limitless when he first set sail. His fingers numb, he continues to play his violin, wishing his mind would be as numb in the horror of the moment.

Roger is even younger than John; he is only twenty years of age and hails from France. He hangs his head in a foreboding sense of abject defeat as he slowly and methodically strums his cello. All about him, people are running and screaming, but he attempts to concentrate on the music instead. It won’t do to worry unnecessarily about what the next hour will bring: it has already been determined, and he knows his fate is sealed. As his bow move effortlessly across the strings of his cello, he wonders what it would have been like to kiss Sophie – or any girl for that matter. He’d never quite gotten up the nerve, and now, more than ever, he regretted it with a rawness that resided deep within his being. Looking up and seeing the throngs of passengers on the deck, many of them wailing in dismay, he turns his attention once again to Chopin’s Nocturne, thinking to himself that a livelier piece would have been much more in order for such an impending event or disaster.

As if reading his mind, the pianist, Theodore, only twenty-four years of age, ends the piece by Chopin and begins a new and perhaps a more soothing one, hoping to quell the panic than has ensued all about them. There is a drastic shortage of lifeboats and the passengers are panicking, each intent on securing a spot in one of the few boats reserved for such. Theodore stares at his bandmates, nods knowingly, and briefly begins a waltz by Johann Strauss. However, moments after beginning the waltz, full fear and pandemonium occur, as the boat groans and disaster looms closer. Theodore realizes the end is nearing. Immediately, he instead begins to play hymns, hoping they will offer comfort in some small measure. Tears fill his eyes. He will never again see London or his beloved wife, Abigail, and his three small children – at least not in this life. The regret that resides in his heart is deep and lasting and will go down with him as the huge ship sinks to reside far beneath in the chilling, frigid waters. He is crying, both for himself and for others. There are so many hopeless souls upon this ship - so many that will never see the dawn of tomorrow.

“Nearer My God to Thee” is now playing. All eight of the orchestra players remaining on the cold deck playing the hymn are now silently crying as the steel of the massive ship releases a moan into the silence of the still night and groans as it breaks in half. Slowly, as if in a dream, the players slide along the deck toward the depths of the encroaching darkness of the sea, tightly holding their instruments in hand. Their last thoughts are a mixture of fear, God, flashes of happier times, and memories of loved ones. With one final lurch, the ship slowly submerges itself completely beneath the icy waters while those in lifeboats silently watch from afar, an overwhelming feeling of sickness enveloping them. There are no words with which to describe the sorrow and the loss that’s felt.

After what has seemed like long hours but has in fact been only a brief lapse of time, it is over. While the courageous musicians played their music, hoping to soothe and comfort the nerves of others, they perished, becoming an immortal part of the Titantic. The eight musicians, the ship, and all its remaining passengers are gone quickly into the eternity of the ocean’s darkness and depths, nearly as if they never existed, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is a tragedy that the world will never forget, as it will never forget the eight brave souls who continued to play despite the doom that they knew would be their end.

“Many brave things were done that night, but none were more brave than those done by men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea.” Lawrence Beesley, Titanic survivor

The ship was sinking and yet I was still playing,

How badly I wanted to run,

Yet like the captin,

Hurrying music must be played,

And down with the ship,

I have to go.

This was the best way to die.

Not the cold, the struggling to breathe as my skin screamed and I tried to swim with heavy, numbing limbs.

Not the way some wayward piece of ship rammed into my skull and ended it, although that was better than drowning.

Would it have been the drowning or the hypothermia that got me first?

Maybe there are people out there who would say what a silly question, but I didn't know. That's what I was thinking in the water, how will I die tonight?

Also, I hope my cello isn't crushed.

I'm not sure why that was so important to me; I guess I just liked the image of it, sitting way deep down under the water, lodged in the thick silt with seaweed and fish weaving in and out of it.

But the hours leading up to the fall into the icy water, those were beautifully surreal.

At first there were whisperings, stirrings, the hints that something was wrong because you can always feel it in a crowd, when something starts to go wrong.

Sometimes that would throw me off, that crowd-flutter of anxiety, but on the night of my death, I felt so steady.

The music was warm and wavering and solid, holding me up, my bow casting a web of flowing sound that helped hold up the crowd, too.

I felt so powerful, in a quiet sort of way, a humble sort of way.

I thought, this is what's it's like to be God, isn't it? You do what you can to hold everything together, and even as it crumbles through your fingers, you can feel the tangible spaces of peace you created.

There's nothing like music to connect a crowd, the same notes flowing through everyone's ears, the same rhythms in their bodies, the same music in their minds.

I felt like I was doing something important.

I felt as if the distant screaming, the flickering pulse of person after person realizing they're about to die, it was all something fantastical. Supernatural.

Magical.

Yes, there was something distinctly magical about playing on the deck as everything fell to pieces around us.

We were one entity, one orchestra, playing until death do us part, breathing the same notes.

One young woman in the crowd joined us too, for a moment, standing close and keeping her feet firm, her stance stable as everything collapsed; she watched the motions of the music and closed her eyes, swaying slightly, effortlessly joining our connection.

An older woman came and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her away, shouting words in her ear that were carried off by the chaos, but she kept her eyes closed, she held onto the music, until the woman gave a yank and she stumbled out, blinking, confused.

The older woman was screaming something about lifeboats.

The younger woman was shaking her head, glancing back at us, at the strings of my cello vibrating their deep, shimmering hum.

Giving up with a flustered flutter of arms over her head, the older woman rushed off.

Perhaps she lived.

The younger woman died, died with us as the deck tipped and we slipped off, and there was a moment where she met my eyes, in that still moment just before the fall is real.

We had stopped playing, just clinging to our instruments now, clinging to each other, to anything, the panic finally catching up with us.

But she met my eyes, and we both heard it.

The music, the same music holding us together.

I think if everyone had paused right then and listened, they all would have heard it too, but maybe instead it was only the two of us.

And then we fell, and the water was shockingly cold, and my lungs were screaming for air, and I was holding stubbornly against the urge to gulp in whatever I could, but I knew soon it would be too much and I'd fill my own lungs with water.

And I was thinking, I wonder how I'll die tonight.

And I was thinking, I hope my cello isn't crushed.

And my head was crushed instead.

And as I died, I listened to the music.

the brass sank first, They had little hope,

the saxophones , not wooden, they,

were not held up by their reeds,

just filled with water and pulled you down.

the woodwinds, and most of the strings, were not successful in staying afloat.

the percusion section were divided, sad to say. xylophone, and cymballs went down fast, while the timpany and drums held on against the ice cold water,

so did the cellos and double bass, who were fine, until the bridge broke as you grasped it desperately.

the piano went down , with the exact angle as the ship, the securing carriage saved the last boat from it rolling down. it slid down the water with somber grace.

the music sheet, the baton, the stage, the chairs , all had no hope.

it does not matter what was played, or that the accordion was mysteriously washed up in the tropical paradise. it lacked the musician, and seemed to the naiive natives, as a sea monsters’ proboscis.

thus ended the music, the valses, the light polkas of the victorian age,

saved from later horrors perhaps.

His bow drew across the wooden violin, dancing elegantly. Back and forth, again and again. Swift movements keeping in time with the others. He had poured so many of his days into these people, this music. The boat rocked, throwing off the young man's balance. His comrades seemed to be in the same situation, stumbling over their feet as they tried to keep steady hands to continue the piece. 'Why though?' he asked himself as he tried to regain his footing on the creaking boards. It was hard to think with all the yelling, the people in front of him tumbling over each other trying to leave the boat, but he focused on the question as he continued to move his fingers. Was it because he had poured years into his music? Or was it because he wanted to stand by his friends and complete the piece? Because he knew he wouldn't make it out alive? No, no that wasn't the case. It was because he had no fear for his life anymore. His days were monotonous, and the only thing that seemed to breathe life into him was his bow. Other than that, there was no point. He could at least give his few minutes left to the men and women scrambling on the slick wood, trying to escape death. But to him, this made no sense. Why live when there's so little to live for. So he kept playing, until the end. The water eventually engulfed the man. Death's freezing clutch had finally grasped him.

My calloused fingers never played better than on this terrific night. In two months’ time, I would have been on a stage, performing with Ms. Baker. The lights would blind me, the cacophonous echo would ring, and the crowd would cheer. The performance was set for the day of my 21st birthday, it was going to be a joyous day.

I was a skilled cellist—the best in France, according to mamma. Through the years, my love for playing vanished before my eyes—inexplicably. My heart was not broken—it was lost.

That is what brought me to The Titanic. The promise of playing for a unique audience excited me. However, the dreary days passed and nothing. My seasickness was of no help, and the distance from my hometown was as agonizing as ever.

But in that moment, as I heard Hartley’s Violin crying in the brisk air, I felt my freezing fingers move and I came to the realization—my heart had never so passionately beaten, my fingers never so fluidly caressed these strings of mine; and as the silent tears fell, I fell in love with music once more.

#titanic #thetitanic #challenge #orchestra #cello #cellist #rogermariebricoux

Ah, the wet wood slips. It slips in my hands, fingertip sliding like drips down the polish of a maple tree dead in a forest long ago. The maple is rebirthed in the music of my hands, but my fingering falters and I lose the strings. A note is lost between the treacherous fear shaking my hand at the neck and the ready calmness of my bow at the base. My abandonment of the ragtime tune shakes me. This is my lifeline, and I must play. But the wet wood slips.

“It’s alright,” the bandmaster says. His words are almost lost to me, but there is no mistake in the shape of his arms, the movement of his body, as he directs the song on from our tiny circle into the wide sweep of a dark sea. “It’s alright,” he repeats.

A violin stroke sweeps by my ear. My friend of our circle, my bunkmate, the Belgian and the next star in our constellation, plays on. He does not falter. I focus my eyes on the clench of his jaw, the shudder in his shoulders, the grey of his mouth, and the chapped and wind-beat and cold-painted red of his face. His instrument is cradled against him, his body bent into its sound, his every effort fixed on string and neck and bow. He does not look my way. He does not need to. The tune of the star beside me has no reflecting voice to its sound, and I cannot bear it to call alone.

In my hand, my bow finds again the melody I left off. We play next a waltz to the sea. The scrape of horsehair on catgut strings grounds me to a different reality. Knuckles curl around the bow, tighter than is proper, cruder than I was taught, but it holds in my grip. It swings to memories of June months on Monaco beaches in sunlight. My left hand is near to frozen in a light curl, as one might lift a cup of tea in the lobby of the Leeds Grand Hotel, each digit poised for the following movement of pounce and pressure upon its brother string. The G string sings, I feel it vibrate in my shoes and in my proud chest, and I think of a room in Lille where I have known hunger, hope, and comfort. The G string so often vibrated against that floor and into those walls. Maybe an echo of it even now hums on, across the wasteland tide, to join the pulse of the cello itself on the deck where the wet wood slips.

Rising with all the pressure of the flooding of the sea comes a compulsion to return to the warmth and the light of the lounge where we began an hour or more before. It whispers safety. It begs off the nightmare in the outer air. The wet wood of the fingerboard slides upward beneath my thumb and I must dig a fingernail into the varnish and indent it, wounding the body of my steadfast companion. But my thumb now has a grip, and my hand regains control. Surely even the lounge is now a hall of respite for sea creatures and ghosts and full of ice and salt and foam.

Songs we play for seconds, minutes. It might be eternal, yet I know it cannot be so long. A mere moment, rising above the sea. Cello, violin, pianist with abandoned and now-imagined keys, and bass. We had been two bands, and now we form a new star sign against that Atlantic sky, playing as one. The songs are dancing reels and they are battle cries, and they are all the same.

The wet wood of the deck beneath my feet tilts. I move an inch, my chair shifts, and my eyes, flashing, rest on our conductor again.

“It’s alright,” he repeats to me. This time there are no words. It is spoken in the way he smiles. Even while the wet wood slips.

“Look,” says the England man, pianist. His voice I have known longest. His voice accompanied myself and my cello on another ship, another lounge, another wet wooden deck.

Upon a sea too smooth for tragedy, small boats scrabble for space amid debris. They are still departing, but their chaos of relief is distant. The crowd on the deck does not seem to be a part of us.

The Englishman smiles. His keys were left below deck, so his fingers play the air. It’s a hymn we’ve struck upon, a song I barely recall, and my hands play as though drawn along by those English strokes on imagined ivory. “They are going home,” he says to our band, to our deck, to our lonely star-stabbed sky in which we are just one more prick of light.

A crowd has gathered to our playing, swaying to the music as though their world remains unbroken. We play to them from our deck. There is just the rise of the ocean and the rise of the stern, and the boats and their passengers slowly spreading from our doom-stage like spilt oil.

“They are,” I say to my fellow stars, the bands of light in this constellation circle band. I look again to the crowd gathered, the boatless watchmen. Their calm has not yet left them. Is it ignorance or is it the music that keeps them still? With my words, I acknowledge both the boats adrift and the crowd stilled. “We will play them home.”

Fear is in all of us. Fear for the groan of the ship holding us, fear for the moan of the sea that waits us, fear for the audience we have prompted to desert us and the ones who refuse to abandon. I want a desk and a pen to write a letter, and with my bow I play as though words in ink are spread upon the page by the song. A lilt for my parents, my brother. A medley for the beaches and the hotel and the French countryside of my birth. A hymn to June months and tea and sun.

It ends, our song, and we pause. Uncertain. A shipman has frozen in his task, watching us, wordless.

Our bandmaster waves at him. “You still have work to do.” And the man conducts himself away.

“Another song?” our great star inquires of his band. We begin again.

Before, at the start, we played for calm. Now, we play for urgency, action, farewell. The song is a salute. The waves have not yet reached us. Still, I can feel their pull. The sky seems higher above me, and the ocean encompasses all.

Water on my strings, my hair, soaking my suit, trailing in diamonds on my instrument, beckons me toward the sea below us. I do not recall getting wet. It might be of the lowering of the lifeboats, the hurry of the crowd and crew up and down, the rush of the earned mutiny served this vessel and her captain only at her last breaths. It might have been of shards of the ice we struck. It might have been of the embrace of the sea greeting us. It might have been a French boy’s dreams. But it is in my pocket and glistening on my shoes. And there, under my fingers and beneath our tunes, the wet wood slips. I grip again and play it through. My hands are tight, foreign. Firm. They will play to the end of the tune.

It is the finale, the sweet crescendo of the night, and the setting of our star sign into the horizon of water coming up as we finger and bow and play and the deck slides higher.

I stand, giving up my seat on a chair on a deck as I watch crew and crowd give over their seat on a boat.

The song is complete, our repertoire spent. The bandmaster nods and turns to face the sea. Hard-knuckled and salt-swept, I still hold my bow and the carved gift of the maple tree that once lived and in song has lived again. There is madness on the sea, in the heart of the ice, in the roar of the death of a ship. But in my head there is only stars and only song.

Ah, beneath my feet the vessel deck now shudders, and the wet wood slips.