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"I thought I'd never see you again."
Boxhall blinked a few times, shook his head to try to get his brain to work, and looked over.
Pitman got the worst of it, in some ways. He was in the cold for the longest, and he had nothing to do. As he was boarding the Carpathia, Boxhall heard Lightoller muttering about how Pitman was doing nothing the whole time, and couldn't he have helped- but that was just the thing. Pitman couldn't have helped. And that was what made his time in the lifeboat so awful.
"I hoped…." Boxhall said, and trailed off. It felt wrong to hope to live, to hope his friends would live, when so many had died.
Pitman nodded to show that he understood. He understood what Boxhall meant, and he understood why he couldn't say it.
Lightoller and Lowe, the bastards, were still running around, working. Lightoller was trying to account for all of the crew that he could, because he was the most senior officer, now. (Boxhall overheard him asking for Murdoch, again and again and again, and tried to disguise his own guilt as sympathy.)
Lowe, well, he should've been there with Pitman and Boxhall, wrapped in a blanket with a hot drink in his hands. He did his part; he did more than his part. (He was the living proof that Boxhall was wrong when he told himself that he and Pitman couldn't have helped from the lifeboats.) But instead, Lowe was jumping around, helping take care of the passengers, making sure the Carpathia's wireless operator was sending out lists of survivors, doing anything he could to help. Boxhall had a feeling that Lowe needed to keep moving, to keep his mind busy. He also had a feeling that before long, Lowe would collapse right where he was.
"I'm glad," Pitman said. "That I'm seeing you again, that is."
Boxhall shuddered, and pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
Pitman continued, more gently, "It's ok to be glad you're alive."
But it wasn't. It wasn't ok. None of this was ok. Why Boxhall? Why did he get to live, when so many died?
Initial counts, first by Lowe then by one of the officers of the Carpathia, put the estimated number of deaths between 600 and 900. Boxhall still remembered the look Lowe gave the officer (what was his name, Bisset?) when he brought the number down from 900 to 600. A look that said, you weren't there. Boxhall knew that if he were less tired, Lowe would've argued back, would have said that he was being conservative with his own guess of 900, and didn't Bisset understand that he couldn't understand what it was like to be there?
But Lowe moved on, and it was Boxhall who had to have a quick, quiet conversation with Bisset, to ensure that someone would actually go around and count the survivors.
"We need to know how many died," Boxhall had said, and maybe Bisset didn't want to argue with him, cold and wet and desperate as he was.
No one came to tell Boxhall and Pitman what the survivor count was. A little bit ago, he saw someone tell Lightoller, and he saw Lightoller's expression. And that was enough.
Pitman stood after a long while, and Boxhall squinted up at him.
"Let's get some rest," Pitman said. And Boxhall felt terrible for it, felt terrible for having the nerve to sleep when so many were lost, but he doubted he'd be any use passed out on the deck.
He was lent one of the officers' rooms (to share with the fellow ex-Titanic officers), a room he felt guilty to feel relieved to receive, and he slept, to wake up again the next day.