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Title: The Loss of the SS. Titanic
Author: Lawrence Beesley
Posting Date: March 16, 2014 [EBook #6675]
Release Date: October, 2004
First Posted: January 12, 2003
Language: English
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THE LOSS OF THE S. S. TITANIC
ITS STORY AND ITS LESSONS
BY
LAWRENCE BEESLEY
B. A. (_Cantab_.)
Scholar of Gonville and Caius College
ONE OF THE SURVIVORS
PREFACE
The circumstances in which this book came to be written are as
follows. Some five weeks after the survivors from the Titanic landed
in New York, I was the guest at luncheon of Hon. Samuel J. Elder and
Hon. Charles T. Gallagher, both well-known lawyers in Boston. After
luncheon I was asked to relate to those present the experiences of the
survivors in leaving the Titanic and reaching the Carpathia.
When I had done so, Mr. Robert Lincoln O'Brien, the editor of the
_Boston Herald_, urged me as a matter of public interest to write
a correct history of the Titanic disaster, his reason being that he
knew several publications were in preparation by people who had not
been present at the disaster, but from newspaper accounts were piecing
together a description of it. He said that these publications would
probably be erroneous, full of highly coloured details, and generally
calculated to disturb public thought on the matter. He was supported
in his request by all present, and under this general pressure I
accompanied him to Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company, where we
discussed the question of publication.
Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company took at that time exactly the same
view that I did, that it was probably not advisable to put on record
the incidents connected with the Titanic's sinking: it seemed better
to forget details as rapidly as possible.
However, we decided to take a few days to think about it. At our next
meeting we found ourselves in agreement again,--but this time on the
common ground that it would probably be a wise thing to write a
history of the Titanic disaster as correctly as possible. I was
supported in this decision by the fact that a short account, which I
wrote at intervals on board the Carpathia, in the hope that it would
calm public opinion by stating the truth of what happened as nearly as
I could recollect it, appeared in all the American, English, and
Colonial papers and had exactly the effect it was intended to have.
This encourages me to hope that the effect of this work will be the
same.
Another matter aided me in coming to a decision,--the duty that we, as
survivors of the disaster, owe to those who went down with the ship,
to see that the reforms so urgently needed are not allowed to be
forgotten.
Whoever reads the account of the cries that came to us afloat on the
sea from those sinking in the ice-cold water must remember that they
were addressed to him just as much as to those who heard them, and
that the duty, of seeing that reforms are carried out devolves on
every one who knows that such cries were heard in utter helplessness
the night the Titanic sank.
CONTENTS
I. CONSTRUCTION AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST VOYAGE
II. FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO THE NIGHT OF THE COLLISION
III. THE COLLISION AND EMBARKATION IN LIFEBOATS
IV. THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC, SEEN FROM A LIFEBOAT
V. THE RESCUE
VI. THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC, SEEN FROM HER DECK
VII. THE CARPATHIA'S RETURN TO NEW YORK
VIII. THE LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC
IX. SOME IMPRESSIONS
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE TITANIC From a photograph taken in Belfast Harbour. Copyrighted by
Underwood and Underwood, New York.
VIEW OF FOUR DECKS OF THE OLYMPIC, SISTER SHIP OF THE TITANIC From a
photograph published in the "Sphere," May 4,1918 TRANSVERSE (amidship)
SECTION THROUGH THE TITANIC After a drawing furnished by the White
Star Line.
LONGITUDINAL SECTIONS AND DECK PLAN OF THE TITANIC After plans
published in the "Shipbuilder."
THE CARPATHIA From a photograph furnished by the Cunard Steamship Co.
CHAPTER I
CONSTRUCTION AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST VOYAGE
The history of the R.M.S. Titanic, of the White Star Line, is one of
the most tragically short it is possible to conceive. The world had
waited expectantly for its launching and again for its sailing; had
read accounts of its tremendous size and its unexampled completeness
and luxury; had felt it a matter of the greatest satisfaction that
such a comfortable, and above all such a safe boat had been designed
and built--the "unsinkable lifeboat";--and then in a moment to hear
that it had gone to the bottom as if it had been the veriest tramp
steamer of a few hundred tons; and with it fifteen hundred passengers,
some of them known the world over! The improbability of such a thing
ever happening was what staggered humanity.
If its history had to be written in a single paragraph it would be
somewhat as follows:--
"The R.M.S. Titanic was built by Messrs. Harland & Wolff at their
well-known ship-building works at Queen's Island, Belfast, side by
side with her sister ship the Olympic. The twin vessels marked such an
increase in size that specially laid-out joiner and boiler shops were
prepared to aid in their construction, and the space usually taken up
by three building slips was given up to them. The keel of the Titanic
was laid on March 31, 1909, and she was launched on May 31, 1911; she
passed her trials before the Board of Trade officials on March 31,
1912, at Belfast, arrived at Southampton on April 4, and sailed the
following Wednesday, April 10, with 2208 passengers and crew, on her
maiden voyage to New York. She called at Cherbourg the same day,
Queenstown Thursday, and left for New York in the afternoon, expecting
to arrive the following Wednesday morning. But the voyage was never
completed. She collided with an iceberg on Sunday at 11.45 P.M. in
Lat. 41° 46' N. and Long. 50° 14' W., and sank two hours and a half
later; 815 of her passengers and 688 of her crew were drowned and 705
rescued by the Carpathia."
Such is the record of the Titanic, the largest ship the world had ever
seen--she was three inches longer than the Olympic and one thousand
tons more in gross tonnage--and her end was the greatest maritime
disaster known. The whole civilized world was stirred to its depths
when the full extent of loss of life was learned, and it has not yet
recovered from the shock. And that is without doubt a good thing. It
should not recover from it until the possibility of such a disaster
occurring again has been utterly removed from human society, whether
by separate legislation in different countries or by international
agreement. No living person should seek to dwell in thought for one
moment on such a disaster except in the endeavour to glean from it
knowledge that will be of profit to the whole world in the future.
When such knowledge is practically applied in the construction,
equipment, and navigation of passenger steamers--and not until
then--will be the time to cease to think of the Titanic disaster and
of the hundreds of men and women so needlessly sacrificed.
A few words on the ship's construction and equipment will be necessary
in order to make clear many points that arise in the course of this
book. A few figures have been added which it is hoped will help the
reader to follow events more closely than he otherwise could.
The considerations that inspired the builders to design the Titanic on
the lines on which she was constructed were those of speed, weight of
displacement, passenger and cargo accommodation. High speed is very
expensive, because the initial cost of the necessary powerful
machinery is enormous, the running expenses entailed very heavy, and
passenger and cargo accommodation have to be fined down to make the
resistance through the water as little as possible and to keep the
weight down. An increase in size brings a builder at once into
conflict with the question of dock and harbour accommodation at the
ports she will touch: if her total displacement is very great while
the lines are kept slender for speed, the draught limit may be
exceeded. The Titanic, therefore, was built on broader lines than the
ocean racers, increasing the total displacement; but because of the
broader build, she was able to keep within the draught limit at each
port she visited. At the same time she was able to accommodate more
passengers and cargo, and thereby increase largely her earning
capacity. A comparison between the Mauretania and the Titanic
illustrates the difference in these respects:--
Displacement Horse power Speed in knots
Mauretania 44,640 70,000 26
Titanic 60,000 46,000 21
The vessel when completed was 883 feet long, 92 1/2 feet broad; her
height from keel to bridge was 104 feet. She had 8 steel decks, a
cellular double bottom, 5 1/4 feet through (the inner and outer
"skins" so-called), and with bilge keels projecting 2 feet for 300
feet of her length amidships. These latter were intended to lessen the
tendency to roll in a sea; they no doubt did so very well, but, as it
happened, they proved to be a weakness, for this was the first portion
of the ship touched by the iceberg and it has been suggested that the
keels were forced inwards by the collision and made the work of
smashing in the two "skins" a more simple matter. Not that the final
result would have been any different.
Her machinery was an expression of the latest progress in marine
engineering, being a combination of reciprocating engines with
Parsons's low-pressure turbine engine,--a combination which gives
increased power with the same steam consumption, an advance on the use
of reciprocating engines alone. The reciprocating engines drove the
wing-propellers and the turbine a mid-propeller, making her a
triple-screw vessel. To drive these engines she had 29 enormous
boilers and 159 furnaces. Three elliptical funnels, 24 feet 6 inches
in the widest diameter, took away smoke and water gases; the fourth
one was a dummy for ventilation.
She was fitted with 16 lifeboats 30 feet long, swung on davits of the
Welin double-acting type. These davits are specially designed for
dealing with two, and, where necessary, three, sets of lifeboats,--i.e.,
48 altogether; more than enough to have saved every soul on board
on the night of the collision. She was divided into 16 compartments by
15 transverse watertight bulkheads reaching from the double bottom
to the upper deck in the forward end and to the saloon deck in the
after end (Fig. 2), in both cases well above the water line.
Communication between the engine rooms and boiler rooms was
through watertight doors, which could all be closed instantly from the
captain's bridge: a single switch, controlling powerful electro-magnets,
operated them. They could also be closed by hand with a lever,
and in case the floor below them was flooded by accident, a
float underneath the flooring shut them automatically. These
compartments were so designed that if the two largest were flooded
with water--a most unlikely contingency in the ordinary way--the ship
would still be quite safe. Of course, more than two were flooded the
night of the collision, but exactly how many is not yet thoroughly
established.
Her crew had a complement of 860, made up of 475 stewards, cooks,
etc., 320 engineers, and 65 engaged in her navigation. The machinery
and equipment of the Titanic was the finest obtainable and represented
the last word in marine construction. All her structure was of steel,
of a weight, size, and thickness greater than that of any ship yet
known: the girders, beams, bulkheads, and floors all of exceptional
strength. It would hardly seem necessary to mention this, were it not
that there is an impression among a portion of the general public that
the provision of Turkish baths, gymnasiums, and other so-called
luxuries involved a sacrifice of some more essential things, the
absence of which was responsible for the loss of so many lives. But
this is quite an erroneous impression. All these things were an
additional provision for the comfort and convenience of passengers,
and there is no more reason why they should not be provided on these
ships than in a large hotel. There were places on the Titanic's deck
where more boats and rafts could have been stored without sacrificing
these things. The fault lay in not providing them, not in designing
the ship without places to put them. On whom the responsibility must
rest for their not being provided is another matter and must be left
until later.
When arranging a tour round the United States, I had decided to cross
in the Titanic for several reasons--one, that it was rather a novelty
to be on board the largest ship yet launched, and another that friends
who had crossed in the Olympic described her as a most comfortable
boat in a seaway, and it was reported that the Titanic had been still
further improved in this respect by having a thousand tons more built
in to steady her. I went on board at Southampton at 10 A.M. Wednesday,
April 10, after staying the night in the town. It is pathetic to
recall that as I sat that morning in the breakfast room of an hotel,
from the windows of which could be seen the four huge funnels of the
Titanic towering over the roofs of the various shipping offices
opposite, and the procession of stokers and stewards wending their way
to the ship, there sat behind me three of the Titanic's passengers
discussing the coming voyage and estimating, among other things, the
probabilities of an accident at sea to the ship. As I rose from
breakfast, I glanced at the group and recognized them later on board,
but they were not among the number who answered to the roll-call on
the Carpathia on the following Monday morning.
Between the time of going on board and sailing, I inspected, in the
company of two friends who had come from Exeter to see me off, the
various decks, dining-saloons and libraries; and so extensive were
they that it is no exaggeration to say that it was quite easy to lose
one's way on such a ship. We wandered casually into the gymnasium on
the boatdeck, and were engaged in bicycle exercise when the instructor
came in with two photographers and insisted on our remaining there
while his friends--as we thought at the time--made a record for him of
his apparatus in use. It was only later that we discovered that they
were the photographers of one of the illustrated London papers. More
passengers came in, and the instructor ran here and there, looking the
very picture of robust, rosy-cheeked health and "fitness" in his white
flannels, placing one passenger on the electric "horse," another on
the "camel," while the laughing group of onlookers watched the
inexperienced riders vigorously shaken up and down as he controlled
the little motor which made the machines imitate so realistically
horse and camel exercise.
It is related that on the night of the disaster, right up to the time
of the Titanic's sinking, while the band grouped outside the gymnasium
doors played with such supreme courage in face of the water which rose
foot by foot before their eyes, the instructor was on duty inside,
with passengers on the bicycles and the rowing-machines, still
assisting and encouraging to the last. Along with the bandsmen it is
fitting that his name, which I do not think has yet been put on
record--it is McCawley--should have a place in the honourable list of
those who did their duty faithfully to the ship and the line they
served.
CHAPTER II
FROM SOUTHAMPTON TO THE NIGHT OF THE COLLISION
Soon after noon the whistles blew for friends to go ashore, the
gangways were withdrawn, and the Titanic moved slowly down the dock,
to the accompaniment of last messages and shouted farewells of those
on the quay. There was no cheering or hooting of steamers' whistles
from the fleet of ships that lined the dock, as might seem probable on
the occasion of the largest vessel in the world putting to sea on her
maiden voyage; the whole scene was quiet and rather ordinary, with
little of the picturesque and interesting ceremonial which imagination
paints as usual in such circumstances. But if this was lacking, two
unexpected dramatic incidents supplied a thrill of excitement and
interest to the departure from dock. The first of these occurred just
before the last gangway was withdrawn:--a knot of stokers ran along
the quay, with their kit slung over their shoulders in bundles, and
made for the gangway with the evident intention of joining the ship.
But a petty officer guarding the shore end of the gangway firmly
refused to allow them on board; they argued, gesticulated, apparently
attempting to explain the reasons why they were late, but he remained
obdurate and waved them back with a determined hand, the gangway was
dragged back amid their protests, putting a summary ending to their
determined efforts to join the Titanic. Those stokers must be thankful
men to-day that some circumstance, whether their own lack of
punctuality or some unforeseen delay over which they had no control,
prevented their being in time to run up that last gangway! They will
have told--and will no doubt tell for years--the story of how their
lives were probably saved by being too late to join the Titanic.
The second incident occurred soon afterwards, and while it has no
doubt been thoroughly described at the time by those on shore, perhaps
a view of the occurrence from the deck of the Titanic will not be
without interest. As the Titanic moved majestically down the dock, the
crowd of friends keeping pace with us along the quay, we came together
level with the steamer New York lying moored to the side of the dock
along with the Oceanic, the crowd waving "good-byes" to those on board
as well as they could for the intervening bulk of the two ships. But
as the bows of our ship came about level with those of the New York,
there came a series of reports like those of a revolver, and on the
quay side of the New York snaky coils of thick rope flung themselves
high in the air and fell backwards among the crowd, which retreated in
alarm to escape the flying ropes. We hoped that no one was struck by
the ropes, but a sailor next to me was certain he saw a woman carried
away to receive attention. And then, to our amazement the New York
crept towards us, slowly and stealthily, as if drawn by some invisible
force which she was powerless to withstand. It reminded me instantly
of an experiment I had shown many times to a form of boys learning the
elements of physics in a laboratory, in which a small magnet is made
to float on a cork in a bowl of water and small steel objects placed
on neighbouring pieces of cork are drawn up to the floating magnet by
magnetic force. It reminded me, too, of seeing in my little boy's bath
how a large celluloid floating duck would draw towards itself, by what
is called capillary attraction, smaller ducks, frogs, beetles, and
other animal folk, until the menagerie floated about as a unit,
oblivious of their natural antipathies and reminding us of the "happy
families" one sees in cages on the seashore. On the New York there was
shouting of orders, sailors running to and fro, paying out ropes and
putting mats over the side where it seemed likely we should collide;
the tug which had a few moments before cast off from the bows of the
Titanic came up around our stern and passed to the quay side of the
New York's stern, made fast to her and started to haul her back with
all the force her engines were capable of; but it did not seem that
the tug made much impression on the New York. Apart from the serious
nature of the accident, it made an irresistibly comic picture to see
the huge vessel drifting down the dock with a snorting tug at its
heels, for all the world like a small boy dragging a diminutive puppy
down the road with its teeth locked on a piece of rope, its feet
splayed out, its head and body shaking from side to side in the effort
to get every ounce of its weight used to the best advantage. At first
all appearance showed that the sterns of the two vessels would
collide; but from the stern bridge of the Titanic an officer directing
operations stopped us dead, the suction ceased, and the New York with
her tug trailing behind moved obliquely down the dock, her stern
gliding along the side of the Titanic some few yards away. It gave an
extraordinary impression of the absolute helplessness of a big liner
in the absence of any motive power to guide her. But all excitement
was not yet over: the New York turned her bows inward towards the
quay, her stern swinging just clear of and passing in front of our
bows, and moved slowly head on for the Teutonic lying moored to the
side; mats were quickly got out and so deadened the force of the
collision, which from where we were seemed to be too slight to cause
any damage. Another tug came up and took hold of the New York by the
bows; and between the two of them they dragged her round the corner of
the quay which just here came to an end on the side of the river.
We now moved slowly ahead and passed the Teutonic at a creeping pace,
but notwithstanding this, the latter strained at her ropes so much
that she heeled over several degrees in her efforts to follow the
Titanic: the crowd were shouted back, a group of gold-braided
officials, probably the harbour-master and his staff, standing on the
sea side of the moored ropes, jumped back over them as they drew up
taut to a rigid line, and urged the crowd back still farther. But we
were just clear, and as we slowly turned the corner into the river I
saw the Teutonic swing slowly back into her normal station, relieving
the tension alike of the ropes and of the minds of all who witnessed
the incident.
[Illustration: FOUR DECKS OF OLYMPIC, SISTER SHIP OF TITANIC]
Unpleasant as this incident was, it was interesting to all the
passengers leaning over the rails to see the means adopted by the
officers and crew of the various vessels to avoid collision, to see on
the Titanic's docking-bridge (at the stern) an officer and seamen
telephoning and ringing bells, hauling up and down little red and
white flags, as danger of collision alternately threatened and
diminished. No one was more interested than a young American
kinematograph photographer, who, with his wife, followed the whole
scene with eager eyes, turning the handle of his camera with the most
evident pleasure as he recorded the unexpected incident on his films.
It was obviously quite a windfall for him to have been on board at
such a time. But neither the film nor those who exposed it reached the
other side, and the record of the accident from the Titanic's deck has
never been thrown on the screen.
As we steamed down the river, the scene we had just witnessed was the
topic of every conversation: the comparison with the Olympic-Hawke
collision was drawn in every little group of passengers, and it seemed
to be generally agreed that this would confirm the suction theory
which was so successfully advanced by the cruiser Hawke in the law
courts, but which many people scoffed at when the British Admiralty
first suggested it as the explanation of the cruiser ramming the
Olympic. And since this is an attempt to chronicle facts as they
happened on board the Titanic, it must be recorded that there were
among the passengers and such of the crew as were heard to speak on
the matter, the direst misgivings at the incident we had just
witnessed. Sailors are proverbially superstitious; far too many people
are prone to follow their lead, or, indeed, the lead of any one who
asserts a statement with an air of conviction and the opportunity of
constant repetition; the sense of mystery that shrouds a prophetic
utterance, particularly if it be an ominous one (for so constituted
apparently is the human mind that it will receive the impress of an
evil prophecy far more readily than it will that of a beneficent one,
possibly through subservient fear to the thing it dreads, possibly
through the degraded, morbid attraction which the sense of evil has
for the innate evil in the human mind), leads many people to pay a
certain respect to superstitious theories. Not that they wholly
believe in them or would wish their dearest friends to know they ever
gave them a second thought; but the feeling that other people do so
and the half conviction that there "may be something in it, after
all," sways them into tacit obedience to the most absurd and childish
theories. I wish in a later chapter to discuss the subject of
superstition in its reference to our life on board the Titanic, but
will anticipate events here a little by relating a second so-called
"bad omen" which was hatched at Queenstown. As one of the tenders
containing passengers and mails neared the Titanic, some of those on
board gazed up at the liner towering above them, and saw a stoker's
head, black from his work in the stokehold below, peering out at them
from the top of one of the enormous funnels--a dummy one for
ventilation--that rose many feet above the highest deck. He had
climbed up inside for a joke, but to some of those who saw him there
the sight was seed for the growth of an "omen," which bore fruit in an
unknown dread of dangers to come. An American lady--may she forgive me
if she reads these lines!--has related to me with the deepest
conviction and earnestness of manner that she saw the man and
attributes the sinking of the Titanic largely to that. Arrant
foolishness, you may say! Yes, indeed, but not to those who believe in
it; and it is well not to have such prophetic thoughts of danger
passed round among passengers and crew: it would seem to have an
unhealthy influence.
We dropped down Spithead, past the shores of the Isle of Wight looking
superbly beautiful in new spring foliage, exchanged salutes with a
White Star tug lying-to in wait for one of their liners inward bound,
and saw in the distance several warships with attendant black
destroyers guarding the entrance from the sea. In the calmest weather
we made Cherbourg just as it grew dusk and left again about 8.30,
after taking on board passengers and mails. We reached Queenstown
about 12 noon on Thursday, after a most enjoyable passage across the
Channel, although the wind was almost too cold to allow of sitting out
on deck on Thursday morning.
The coast of Ireland looked very beautiful as we approached Queenstown
Harbour, the brilliant morning sun showing up the green hillsides and
picking out groups of dwellings dotted here and there above the rugged
grey cliffs that fringed the coast. We took on board our pilot, ran
slowly towards the harbour with the sounding-line dropping all the
time, and came to a stop well out to sea, with our screws churning up
the bottom and turning the sea all brown with sand from below. It had
seemed to me that the ship stopped rather suddenly, and in my
ignorance of the depth of the harbour entrance, that perhaps the
sounding-line had revealed a smaller depth than was thought safe for
the great size of the Titanic: this seemed to be confirmed by the
sight of sand churned up from the bottom--but this is mere
supposition. Passengers and mails were put on board from two tenders,
and nothing could have given us a better idea of the enormous length
and bulk of the Titanic than to stand as far astern as possible and
look over the side from the top deck, forwards and downwards to where
the tenders rolled at her bows, the merest cockleshells beside the
majestic vessel that rose deck after deck above them. Truly she was a
magnificent boat! There was something so graceful in her movement as
she rode up and down on the slight swell in the harbour, a slow,
stately dip and recover, only noticeable by watching her bows in
comparison with some landmark on the coast in the near distance; the
two little tenders tossing up and down like corks beside her
illustrated vividly the advance made in comfort of motion from the
time of the small steamer.
Presently the work of transfer was ended, the tenders cast off, and at
1.30 P.M., with the screws churning up the sea bottom again, the
Titanic turned slowly through a quarter-circle until her nose pointed
down along the Irish coast, and then steamed rapidly away from
Queenstown, the little house on the left of the town gleaming white on
the hillside for many miles astern. In our wake soared and screamed
hundreds of gulls, which had quarrelled and fought over the remnants
of lunch pouring out of the waste pipes as we lay-to in the harbour
entrance; and now they followed us in the expectation of further
spoil. I watched them for a long time and was astonished at the ease
with which they soared and kept up with the ship with hardly a motion
of their wings: picking out a particular gull, I would keep him under
observation for minutes at a time and see no motion of his wings
downwards or upwards to aid his flight. He would tilt all of a piece
to one side or another as the gusts of wind caught him: rigidly
unbendable, as an aeroplane tilts sideways in a puff of wind. And yet
with graceful ease he kept pace with the Titanic forging through the
water at twenty knots: as the wind met him he would rise upwards and
obliquely forwards, and come down slantingly again, his wings curved
in a beautiful arch and his tail feathers outspread as a fan. It was
plain that he was possessed of a secret we are only just beginning to
learn--that of utilizing air-currents as escalators up and down which
he can glide at will with the expenditure of the minimum amount of
energy, or of using them as a ship does when it sails within one or
two points of a head wind. Aviators, of course, are imitating the
gull, and soon perhaps we may see an aeroplane or a glider dipping
gracefully up and down in the face of an opposing wind and all the
time forging ahead across the Atlantic Ocean. The gulls were still
behind us when night fell, and still they screamed and dipped down
into the broad wake of foam which we left behind; but in the morning
they were gone: perhaps they had seen in the night a steamer bound for
their Queenstown home and had escorted her back.
All afternoon we steamed along the coast of Ireland, with grey cliffs
guarding the shores, and hills rising behind gaunt and barren; as dusk
fell, the coast rounded away from us to the northwest, and the last we
saw of Europe was the Irish mountains dim and faint in the dropping
darkness. With the thought that we had seen the last of land until we
set foot on the shores of America, I retired to the library to write
letters, little knowing that many things would happen to us all--many
experiences, sudden, vivid and impressive to be encountered, many
perils to be faced, many good and true people for whom we should have
to mourn--before we saw land again.
There is very little to relate from the time of leaving Queenstown on
Thursday to Sunday morning. The sea was calm,--so calm, indeed,
that very few were absent from meals: the wind westerly and
southwesterly,--"fresh" as the daily chart described it,--but often
rather cold, generally too cold to sit out on deck to read or write,
so that many of us spent a good part of the time in the library,
reading and writing. I wrote a large number of letters and posted them
day by day in the box outside the library door: possibly they are
there yet.
Each morning the sun rose behind us in a sky of circular clouds,
stretching round the horizon in long, narrow streaks and rising tier
upon tier above the sky-line, red and pink and fading from pink to
white, as the sun rose higher in the sky. It was a beautiful sight to
one who had not crossed the ocean before (or indeed been out of sight
of the shores of England) to stand on the top deck and watch the swell
of the sea extending outwards from the ship in an unbroken circle
until it met the sky-line with its hint of infinity: behind, the wake
of the vessel white with foam where, fancy suggested, the propeller
blades had cut up the long Atlantic rollers and with them made a level
white road bounded on either side by banks of green, blue, and
blue-green waves that would presently sweep away the white road,
though as yet it stretched back to the horizon and dipped over the
edge of the world back to Ireland and the gulls, while along it the
morning sun glittered and sparkled. And each night the sun sank right
in our eyes along the sea, making an undulating glittering path way, a
golden track charted on the surface of the ocean which our ship
followed unswervingly until the sun dipped below the edge of the
horizon, and the pathway ran ahead of us faster than we could steam
and slipped over the edge of the skyline,--as if the sun had been a
golden ball and had wound up its thread of gold too quickly for us to
follow.
From 12 noon Thursday to 12 noon Friday we ran 386 miles, Friday to
Saturday 519 miles, Saturday to Sunday 546 miles. The second day's run
of 519 miles was, the purser told us, a disappointment, and we should
not dock until Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night, as we had
expected; however, on Sunday we were glad to see a longer run had been
made, and it was thought we should make New York, after all, on
Tuesday night. The purser remarked: "They are not pushing her this
trip and don't intend to make any fast running: I don't suppose we
shall do more than 546 now; it is not a bad day's run for the first
trip." This was at lunch, and I remember the conversation then turned
to the speed and build of Atlantic liners as factors in their comfort
of motion: all those who had crossed many times were unanimous in
saying the Titanic was the most comfortable boat they had been on, and
they preferred the speed we were making to that of the faster boats,
from the point of view of lessened vibration as well as because the
faster boats would bore through the waves with a twisted, screw-like
motion instead of the straight up-and-down swing of the Titanic. I
then called the attention of our table to the way the Titanic listed
to port (I had noticed this before), and we all watched the sky-line
through the portholes as we sat at the purser's table in the saloon:
it was plain she did so, for the sky-line and sea on the port side
were visible most of the time and on the starboard only sky. The
purser remarked that probably coal had been used mostly from the
starboard side. It is no doubt a common occurrence for all vessels to
list to some degree; but in view of the fact that the Titanic was cut
open on the starboard side and before she sank listed so much to port
that there was quite a chasm between her and the swinging lifeboats,
across which ladies had to be thrown or to cross on chairs laid flat,
the previous listing to port may be of interest.
Returning for a moment to the motion of the Titanic, it was
interesting to stand on the boat-deck, as I frequently did, in the
angle between lifeboats 13 and 15 on the starboard side (two boats I
have every reason to remember, for the first carried me in safety to
the Carpathia, and it seemed likely at one time that the other would
come down on our heads as we sat in 13 trying to get away from the
ship's side), and watch the general motion of the ship through the
waves resolve itself into two motions--one to be observed by
contrasting the docking-bridge, from which the log-line trailed away
behind in the foaming wake, with the horizon, and observing the long,
slow heave as we rode up and down. I timed the average period occupied
in one up-and-down vibration, but do not now remember the figures. The
second motion was a side-to-side roll, and could be calculated by
watching the port rail and contrasting it with the horizon as before.
It seems likely that this double motion is due to the angle at which
our direction to New York cuts the general set of the Gulf Stream
sweeping from the Gulf of Mexico across to Europe; but the almost
clock-like regularity of the two vibratory movements was what
attracted my attention: it was while watching the side roll that I
first became aware of the list to port. Looking down astern from the
boat-deck or from B deck to the steerage quarters, I often noticed how
the third-class passengers were enjoying every minute of the time: a
most uproarious skipping game of the mixed-double type was the great
favourite, while "in and out and roundabout" went a Scotchman with his
bagpipes playing something that Gilbert says "faintly resembled an
air." Standing aloof from all of them, generally on the raised stern
deck above the "playing field," was a man of about twenty to
twenty-four years of age, well-dressed, always gloved and nicely
groomed, and obviously quite out of place among his fellow-passengers:
he never looked happy all the time. I watched him, and classified him
at hazard as the man who had been a failure in some way at home and
had received the proverbial shilling plus third-class fare to America:
he did not look resolute enough or happy enough to be working out his
own problem. Another interesting man was travelling steerage, but had
placed his wife in the second cabin: he would climb the stairs leading
from the steerage to the second deck and talk affectionately with his
wife across the low gate which separated them. I never saw him after
the collision, but I think his wife was on the Carpathia. Whether they
ever saw each other on the Sunday night is very doubtful: he would not
at first be allowed on the second-class deck, and if he were, the
chances of seeing his wife in the darkness and the crowd would be very
small, indeed. Of all those playing so happily on the steerage deck I
did not recognize many afterwards on the Carpathia.
Coming now to Sunday, the day on which the Titanic struck the iceberg,
it will be interesting, perhaps, to give the day's events in some
detail, to appreciate the general attitude of passengers to their
surroundings just before the collision. Service was held in the saloon
by the purser in the morning, and going on deck after lunch we found
such a change in temperature that not many cared to remain to face the
bitter wind--an artificial wind created mainly, if not entirely, by
the ship's rapid motion through the chilly atmosphere. I should judge
there was no wind blowing at the time, for I had noticed about the
same force of wind approaching Queenstown, to find that it died away
as soon as we stopped, only to rise again as we steamed away from the
harbour.
Returning to the library, I stopped for a moment to read again the
day's run and observe our position on the chart; the Rev. Mr. Carter,
a clergyman of the Church of England, was similarly engaged, and we
renewed a conversation we had enjoyed for some days: it had
commenced with a discussion of the relative merits of his
university--Oxford--with mine--Cambridge--as world-wide educational
agencies, the opportunities at each for the formation of character
apart from mere education as such, and had led on to the lack of
sufficiently qualified men to take up the work of the Church of
England (a matter apparently on which he felt very deeply) and from
that to his own work in England as a priest. He told me some of his
parish problems and spoke of the impossibility of doing half his work
in his Church without the help his wife gave. I knew her only slightly
at that time, but meeting her later in the day, I realized something
of what he meant in attributing a large part of what success he had as
a vicar to her. My only excuse for mentioning these details about the
Carters--now and later in the day--is that, while they have perhaps
not much interest for the average reader, they will no doubt be some
comfort to the parish over which he presided and where I am sure he
was loved. He next mentioned the absence of a service in the evening
and asked if I knew the purser well enough to request the use of the
saloon in the evening where he would like to have a "hymn sing-song";
the purser gave his consent at once, and Mr. Carter made preparations
during the afternoon by asking all he knew--and many he did not--to
come to the saloon at 8.30 P.M.
The library was crowded that afternoon, owing to the cold on deck: but
through the windows we could see the clear sky with brilliant sunlight
that seemed to augur a fine night and a clear day to-morrow, and the
prospect of landing in two days, with calm weather all the way to New
York, was a matter of general satisfaction among us all. I can look
back and see every detail of the library that afternoon--the
beautifully furnished room, with lounges, armchairs, and small writing
or card-tables scattered about, writing-bureaus round the walls of the
room, and the library in glass-cased shelves flanking one side,--the
whole finished in mahogany relieved with white fluted wooden columns
that supported the deck above. Through the windows there is the
covered corridor, reserved by general consent as the children's
playground, and here are playing the two Navatril children with their
father,--devoted to them, never absent from them. Who would have
thought of the dramatic history of the happy group at play in the
corridor that afternoon!--the abduction of the children in Nice, the
assumed name, the separation of father and children in a few hours,
his death and their subsequent union with their mother after a period
of doubt as to their parentage! How many more similar secrets the
Titanic revealed in the privacy of family life, or carried down with
her untold, we shall never know.
In the same corridor is a man and his wife with two children, and one
of them he is generally carrying: they are all young and happy: he is
dressed always in a grey knickerbocker suit--with a camera slung over
his shoulder. I have not seen any of them since that afternoon.
Close beside me--so near that I cannot avoid hearing scraps of their
conversation--are two American ladies, both dressed in white, young,
probably friends only: one has been to India and is returning by way
of England, the other is a school-teacher in America, a graceful girl
with a distinguished air heightened by a pair of _pince-nez_.
Engaged in conversation with them is a gentleman whom I subsequently
identified from a photograph as a well-known resident of Cambridge,
Massachusetts, genial, polished, and with a courtly air towards the
two ladies, whom he has known but a few hours; from time to time as
they talk, a child acquaintance breaks in on their conversation and
insists on their taking notice of a large doll clasped in her arms; I
have seen none of this group since then. In the opposite corner are
the young American kinematograph photographer and his young wife,
evidently French, very fond of playing patience, which she is doing
now, while he sits back in his chair watching the game and interposing
from time to time with suggestions. I did not see them again. In the
middle of the room are two Catholic priests, one quietly
reading,--either English or Irish, and probably the latter,--the
other, dark, bearded, with broad-brimmed hat, talking earnestly to a
friend in German and evidently explaining some verse in the open Bible
before him; near them a young fire engineer on his way to Mexico, and
of the same religion as the rest of the group. None of them were
saved. It may be noted here that the percentage of men saved in the
second-class is the lowest of any other division--only eight per cent.
Many other faces recur to thought, but it is impossible to describe
them all in the space of a short book: of all those in the library
that Sunday afternoon, I can remember only two or three persons who
found their way to the Carpathia. Looking over this room, with his
back to the library shelves, is the library steward, thin, stooping,
sad-faced, and generally with nothing to do but serve out books; but
this afternoon he is busier than I have ever seen him, serving out
baggage declaration-forms for passengers to fill in. Mine is before me
as I write: "Form for nonresidents in the United States. Steamship
Titanic: No. 31444, D," etc. I had filled it in that afternoon and
slipped it in my pocket-book instead of returning it to the steward.
Before me, too, is a small cardboard square: "White Star Line. R.M.S.
Titanic. 208. This label must be given up when the article is
returned. The property will be deposited in the Purser's safe. The
Company will not be liable to passengers for the loss of money,
jewels, or ornaments, by theft or otherwise, not so deposited." The
"property deposited" in my case was money, placed in an envelope,
sealed, with my name written across the flap, and handed to the
purser; the "label" is my receipt. Along with other similar envelopes
it may be still intact in the safe at the bottom of the sea, but in
all probability it is not, as will be seen presently.
After dinner, Mr. Carter invited all who wished to the saloon, and
with the assistance at the piano of a gentleman who sat at the
purser's table opposite me (a young Scotch engineer going out to join
his brother fruit-farming at the foot of the Rockies), he started some
hundred passengers singing hymns. They were asked to choose whichever
hymn they wished, and with so many to choose, it was impossible for
him to do more than have the greatest favourites sung. As he announced
each hymn, it was evident that he was thoroughly versed in their
history: no hymn was sung but that he gave a short sketch of its
author and in some cases a description of the circumstances in which
it was composed. I think all were impressed with his knowledge of
hymns and with his eagerness to tell us all he knew of them. It was
curious to see how many chose hymns dealing with dangers at sea. I
noticed the hushed tone with which all sang the hymn, "For those in
peril on the Sea."
The singing must have gone on until after ten o'clock, when, seeing
the stewards standing about waiting to serve biscuits and coffee
before going off duty, Mr. Carter brought the evening to a close by a
few words of thanks to the purser for the use of the saloon, a short
sketch of the happiness and safety of the voyage hitherto, the great
confidence all felt on board this great liner with her steadiness and
her size, and the happy outlook of landing in a few hours in New York
at the close of a delightful voyage; and all the time he spoke, a few
miles ahead of us lay the "peril on the sea" that was to sink this
same great liner with many of those on board who listened with
gratitude to his simple, heartfelt words. So much for the frailty of
human hopes and for the confidence reposed in material human designs.
Think of the shame of it, that a mass of ice of no use to any one or
anything should have the power fatally to injure the beautiful
Titanic! That an insensible block should be able to threaten, even in
the smallest degree, the lives of many good men and women who think
and plan and hope and love--and not only to threaten, but to end their
lives. It is unbearable! Are we never to educate ourselves to foresee
such dangers and to prevent them before they happen? All the evidence
of history shows that laws unknown and unsuspected are being
discovered day by day: as this knowledge accumulates for the use of
man, is it not certain that the ability to see and destroy beforehand
the threat of danger will be one of the privileges the whole world
will utilize? May that day come soon. Until it does, no precaution too
rigorous can be taken, no safety appliance, however costly, must be
omitted from a ship's equipment.
After the meeting had broken up, I talked with the Carters over a cup
of coffee, said good-night to them, and retired to my cabin at about
quarter to eleven. They were good people and this world is much poorer
by their loss.
It may be a matter of pleasure to many people to know that their
friends were perhaps among that gathering of people in the saloon, and
that at the last the sound of the hymns still echoed in their ears as
they stood on the deck so quietly and courageously. Who can tell how
much it had to do with the demeanour of some of them and the example
this would set to others?
CHAPTER III
THE COLLISION AND EMBARKATION IN LIFEBOATS
I had been fortunate enough to secure a two-berth cabin to myself,--D
56,--quite close to the saloon and most convenient in every way for
getting about the ship; and on a big ship like the Titanic it was
quite a consideration to be on D deck, only three decks below the top
or boat-deck. Below D again were cabins on E and F decks, and to walk
from a cabin on F up to the top deck, climbing five flights of stairs
on the way, was certainly a considerable task for those not able to
take much exercise. The Titanic management has been criticised, among
other things, for supplying the boat with lifts: it has been said they
were an expensive luxury and the room they took up might have been
utilized in some way for more life-saving appliances. Whatever else
may have been superfluous, lifts certainly were not: old ladies, for
example, in cabins on F deck, would hardly have got to the top deck
during the whole voyage had they not been able to ring for the
lift-boy. Perhaps nothing gave one a greater impression of the size of
the ship than to take the lift from the top and drop slowly down past
the different floors, discharging and taking in passengers just as in
a large hotel. I wonder where the lift-boy was that night. I would
have been glad to find him in our boat, or on the Carpathia when we
took count of the saved. He was quite young,--not more than sixteen, I
think,--a bright-eyed, handsome boy, with a love for the sea and the
games on deck and the view over the ocean--and he did not get any of
them. One day, as he put me out of his lift and saw through the
vestibule windows a game of deck quoits in progress, he said, in a
wistful tone, "My! I wish I could go out there sometimes!" I wished he
could, too, and made a jesting offer to take charge of his lift for an
hour while he went out to watch the game; but he smilingly shook his
head and dropped down in answer to an imperative ring from below. I
think he was not on duty with his lift after the collision, but if he
were, he would smile at his passengers all the time as he took them up
to the boats waiting to leave the sinking ship.
After undressing and climbing into the top berth, I read from about
quarter-past eleven to the time we struck, about quarter to twelve.
During this time I noticed particularly the increased vibration of the
ship, and I assumed that we were going at a higher speed than at any
other time since we sailed from Queenstown. Now I am aware that this
is an important point, and bears strongly on the question of
responsibility for the effects of the collision; but the impression of
increased vibration is fixed in my memory so strongly that it seems
important to record it. Two things led me to this conclusion--first,
that as I sat on the sofa undressing, with bare feet on the floor, the
jar of the vibration came up from the engines below very noticeably;
and second, that as I sat up in the berth reading, the spring mattress
supporting me was vibrating more rapidly than usual: this cradle-like
motion was always noticeable as one lay in bed, but that night there
was certainly a marked increase in the motion. Referring to the plan,
[Footnote: See Figure 2, page 116.] it will be seen that the vibration
must have come almost directly up from below, when it is mentioned
that the saloon was immediately above the engines as shown in the
plan, and my cabin next to the saloon. From these two data, on the
assumption that greater vibration is an indication of higher
speed,--and I suppose it must be,--then I am sure we were going faster
that night at the time we struck the iceberg than we had done before,
i.e., during the hours I was awake and able to take note of anything.
And then, as I read in the quietness of the night, broken only by the
muffled sound that came to me through the ventilators of stewards
talking and moving along the corridors, when nearly all the passengers
were in their cabins, some asleep in bed, others undressing, and
others only just down from the smoking-room and still discussing many
things, there came what seemed to me nothing more than an extra heave
of the engines and a more than usually obvious dancing motion of the
mattress on which I sat. Nothing more than that--no sound of a crash
or of anything else: no sense of shock, no jar that felt like one
heavy body meeting another. And presently the same thing repeated with
about the same intensity. The thought came to me that they must have
still further increased the speed. And all this time the Titanic was
being cut open by the iceberg and water was pouring in her side, and
yet no evidence that would indicate such a disaster had been presented
to us. It fills me with astonishment now to think of it. Consider the
question of list alone. Here was this enormous vessel running
starboard-side on to an iceberg, and a passenger sitting quietly in
bed, reading, felt no motion or list to the opposite or port side, and
this must have been felt had it been more than the usual roll of the
ship--never very much in the calm weather we had all the way. Again,
my bunk was fixed to the wall on the starboard side, and any list to
port would have tended to fling me out on the floor: I am sure I
should have noted it had there been any. And yet the explanation is
simple enough: the Titanic struck the berg with a force of impact of
over a million foot-tons; her plates were less than an inch thick, and
they must have been cut through as a knife cuts paper: there would be
no need to list; it would have been better if she had listed and
thrown us out on the floor, for it would have been an indication that
our plates were strong enough to offer, at any rate, some resistance
to the blow, and we might all have been safe to-day.
And so, with no thought of anything serious having happened to the
ship, I continued my reading; and still the murmur from the stewards
and from adjoining cabins, and no other sound: no cry in the night; no
alarm given; no one afraid--there was then nothing which could cause
fear to the most timid person. But in a few moments I felt the engines
slow and stop; the dancing motion and the vibration ceased suddenly
after being part of our very existence for four days, and that was the
first hint that anything out of the ordinary had happened. We have all
"heard" a loud-ticking clock stop suddenly in a quiet room, and then
have noticed the clock and the ticking noise, of which we seemed until
then quite unconscious. So in the same way the fact was suddenly
brought home to all in the ship that the engines--that part of the
ship that drove us through the sea--had stopped dead. But the stopping
of the engines gave us no information: we had to make our own
calculations as to why we had stopped. Like a flash it came to me: "We
have dropped a propeller blade: when this happens the engines always
race away until they are controlled, and this accounts for the extra
heave they gave"; not a very logical conclusion when considered now,
for the engines should have continued to heave all the time until we
stopped, but it was at the time a sufficiently tenable hypothesis to
hold. Acting on it, I jumped out of bed, slipped on a dressing-gown
over pyjamas, put on shoes, and went out of my cabin into the hall
near the saloon. Here was a steward leaning against the staircase,
probably waiting until those in the smoke-room above had gone to bed
and he could put out the lights. I said, "Why have we stopped?" "I
don't know, sir," he replied, "but I don't suppose it is anything
much." "Well," I said, "I am going on deck to see what it is," and
started towards the stairs. He smiled indulgently at me as I passed
him, and said, "All right, sir, but it is mighty cold up there." I am
sure at that time he thought I was rather foolish to go up with so
little reason, and I must confess I felt rather absurd for not
remaining in the cabin: it seemed like making a needless fuss to walk
about the ship in a dressing-gown. But it was my first trip across the
sea; I had enjoyed every minute of it and was keenly alive to note
every new experience; and certainly to stop in the middle of the sea
with a propeller dropped seemed sufficient reason for going on deck.
And yet the steward, with his fatherly smile, and the fact that no one
else was about the passages or going upstairs to reconnoitre, made me
feel guilty in an undefined way of breaking some code of a ship's
régime--an Englishman's fear of being thought "unusual," perhaps!
I climbed the three flights of stairs, opened the vestibule door
leading to the top deck, and stepped out into an atmosphere that cut
me, clad as I was, like a knife. Walking to the starboard side, I
peered over and saw the sea many feet below, calm and black; forward,
the deserted deck stretching away to the first-class quarters and the
captain's bridge; and behind, the steerage quarters and the stern
bridge; nothing more: no iceberg on either side or astern as far as we
could see in the darkness. There were two or three men on deck, and
with one--the Scotch engineer who played hymns in the saloon--I
compared notes of our experiences. He had just begun to undress when
the engines stopped and had come up at once, so that he was fairly
well-clad; none of us could see anything, and all being quiet and
still, the Scotchman and I went down to the next deck. Through the
windows of the smoking-room we saw a game of cards going on, with
several onlookers, and went in to enquire if they knew more than we
did. They had apparently felt rather more of the heaving motion, but
so far as I remember, none of them had gone out on deck to make any
enquiries, even when one of them had seen through the windows an
iceberg go by towering above the decks. He had called their attention
to it, and they all watched it disappear, but had then at once resumed
the game. We asked them the height of the berg and some said one
hundred feet, others, sixty feet; one of the onlookers--a motor
engineer travelling to America with a model carburetter (he had filled
in his declaration form near me in the afternoon and had questioned
the library steward how he should declare his patent)--said, "Well, I
am accustomed to estimating distances and I put it at between eighty
and ninety feet." We accepted his estimate and made guesses as to what
had happened to the Titanic: the general impression was that we had
just scraped the iceberg with a glancing blow on the starboard side,
and they had stopped as a wise precaution, to examine her thoroughly
all over. "I expect the iceberg has scratched off some of her new
paint," said one, "and the captain doesn't like to go on until she is
painted up again." We laughed at his estimate of the captain's care
for the ship. Poor Captain Smith!--he knew by this time only too well
what had happened.
One of the players, pointing to his glass of whiskey standing at his
elbow, and turning to an onlooker, said, "Just run along the deck and
see if any ice has come aboard: I would like some for this." Amid the
general laughter at what we thought was his imagination,--only too
realistic, alas! for when he spoke the forward deck was covered with
ice that had tumbled over,--and seeing that no more information was
forthcoming, I left the smoking-room and went down to my cabin, where
I sat for some time reading again. I am filled with sorrow to think I
never saw any of the occupants of that smoking-room again: nearly all
young men full of hope for their prospects in a new world; mostly
unmarried; keen, alert, with the makings of good citizens. Presently,
hearing people walking about the corridors, I looked out and saw
several standing in the hall talking to a steward--most of them ladies
in dressing-gowns; other people were going upstairs, and I decided to
go on deck again, but as it was too cold to do so in a dressing-gown,
I dressed in a Norfolk jacket and trousers and walked up. There were
now more people looking over the side and walking about, questioning
each other as to why we had stopped, but without obtaining any
definite information. I stayed on deck some minutes, walking about
vigorously to keep warm and occasionally looking downwards to the sea
as if something there would indicate the reason for delay. The ship
had now resumed her course, moving very slowly through the water with
a little white line of foam on each side. I think we were all glad to
see this: it seemed better than standing still. I soon decided to go
down again, and as I crossed from the starboard to the port side to go
down by the vestibule door, I saw an officer climb on the last
lifeboat on the port side--number 16--and begin to throw off the
cover, but I do not remember that any one paid any particular
attention to him. Certainly no one thought they were preparing to man
the lifeboats and embark from the ship. All this time there was no
apprehension of any danger in the minds of passengers, and no one was
in any condition of panic or hysteria; after all, it would have been
strange if they had been, without any definite evidence of danger.
As I passed to the door to go down, I looked forward again and saw to
my surprise an undoubted tilt downwards from the stern to the bows:
only a slight slope, which I don't think any one had noticed,--at any
rate, they had not remarked on it. As I went downstairs a confirmation
of this tilting forward came in something unusual about the stairs, a
curious sense of something out of balance and of not being able to put
one's feet down in the right place: naturally, being tilted forward,
the stairs would slope downwards at an angle and tend to throw one
forward. I could not see any visible slope of the stairway: it was
perceptible only by the sense of balance at this time.
On D deck were three ladies--I think they were all saved, and it is a
good thing at least to be able to chronicle meeting some one who was
saved after so much record of those who were not--standing in the
passage near the cabin. "Oh! why have we stopped?" they said. "We did
stop," I replied, "but we are now going on again.". "Oh, no," one
replied; "I cannot feel the engines as I usually do, or hear them.
Listen!" We listened, and there was no throb audible. Having noticed
that the vibration of the engines is most noticeable lying in a bath,
where the throb comes straight from the floor through its metal
sides--too much so ordinarily for one to put one's head back with
comfort on the bath,--I took them along the corridor to a bathroom and
made them put their hands on the side of the bath: they were much
reassured to feel the engines throbbing down below and to know we were
making some headway. I left them and on the way to my cabin passed
some stewards standing unconcernedly against the walls of the saloon:
one of them, the library steward again, was leaning over a table,
writing. It is no exaggeration to say that they had neither any
knowledge of the accident nor any feeling of alarm that we had stopped
and had not yet gone on again full speed: their whole attitude
expressed perfect confidence in the ship and officers.
Turning into my gangway (my cabin being the first in the gangway), I
saw a man standing at the other end of it fastening his tie. "Anything
fresh?" he said. "Not much," I replied; "we are going ahead slowly and
she is down a little at the bows, but I don't think it is anything
serious." "Come in and look at this man," he laughed; "he won't get
up." I looked in, and in the top bunk lay a man with his back to me,
closely wrapped in his bed-clothes and only the back of his head
visible. "Why won't he get up? Is he asleep?" I said. "No," laughed
the man dressing, "he says--" But before he could finish the sentence
the man above grunted: "You don't catch me leaving a warm bed to go up
on that cold deck at midnight. I know better than that." We both told
him laughingly why he had better get up, but he was certain he was
just as safe there and all this dressing was quite unnecessary; so I
left them and went again to my cabin. I put on some underclothing, sat
on the sofa, and read for some ten minutes, when I heard through the
open door, above, the noise of people passing up and down, and a loud
shout from above: "All passengers on deck with lifebelts on."
I placed the two books I was reading in the side pockets of my Norfolk
jacket, picked up my lifebelt (curiously enough, I had taken it down
for the first time that night from the wardrobe when I first retired
to my cabin) and my dressing-gown, and walked upstairs tying on the
lifebelt. As I came out of my cabin, I remember seeing the purser's
assistant, with his foot on the stairs about to climb them, whisper to
a steward and jerk his head significantly behind him; not that I
thought anything of it at the time, but I have no doubt he was telling
him what had happened up in the bows, and was giving him orders to
call all passengers.
Going upstairs with other passengers,--no one ran a step or seemed
alarmed,--we met two ladies coming down: one seized me by the arm and
said, "Oh! I have no lifebelt; will you come down to my cabin and help
me to find it?" I returned with them to F deck,--the lady who had
addressed me holding my arm all the time in a vise-like grip, much to
my amusement,--and we found a steward in her gangway who took them in
and found their lifebelts. Coming upstairs again, I passed the
purser's window on F deck, and noticed a light inside; when halfway up
to E deck, I heard the heavy metallic clang of the safe door, followed
by a hasty step retreating along the corridor towards the first-class
quarters. I have little doubt it was the purser, who had taken all
valuables from his safe and was transferring them to the charge of the
first-class purser, in the hope they might all be saved in one
package. That is why I said above that perhaps the envelope containing
my money was not in the safe at the bottom of the sea: it is probably
in a bundle, with many others like it, waterlogged at the bottom.
Reaching the top deck, we found many people assembled there,--some
fully dressed, with coats and wraps, well-prepared for anything that
might happen; others who had thrown wraps hastily round them when they
were called or heard the summons to equip themselves with
lifebelts--not in much condition to face the cold of that night.
Fortunately there was no wind to beat the cold air through our
clothing: even the breeze caused by the ship's motion had died
entirely away, for the engines had stopped again and the Titanic lay
peacefully on the surface of the sea--motionless, quiet, not even
rocking to the roll of the sea; indeed, as we were to discover
presently, the sea was as calm as an inland lake save for the gentle
swell which could impart no motion to a ship the size of the Titanic.
To stand on the deck many feet above the water lapping idly against
her sides, and looking much farther off than it really was because of
the darkness, gave one a sense of wonderful security: to feel her so
steady and still was like standing on a large rock in the middle of
the ocean. But there were now more evidences of the coming catastrophe
to the observer than had been apparent when on deck last: one was the
roar and hiss of escaping steam from the boilers, issuing out of a
large steam pipe reaching high up one of the funnels: a harsh,
deafening boom that made conversation difficult and no doubt increased
the apprehension of some people merely because of the volume of noise:
if one imagines twenty locomotives blowing off steam in a low key it
would give some idea of the unpleasant sound that met us as we climbed
out on the top deck.
But after all it was the kind of phenomenon we ought to expect:
engines blow off steam when standing in a station, and why should not
a ship's boilers do the same when the ship is not moving? I never
heard any one connect this noise with the danger of boiler explosion,
in the event of the ship sinking with her boilers under a high
pressure of steam, which was no doubt the true explanation of this
precaution. But this is perhaps speculation; some people may have
known it quite well, for from the time we came on deck until boat 13
got away, I heard very little conversation of any kind among the
passengers. It is not the slightest exaggeration to say that no signs
of alarm were exhibited by any one: there was no indication of panic
or hysteria; no cries of fear, and no running to and fro to discover
what was the matter, why we had been summoned on deck with lifebelts,
and what was to be done with us now we were there. We stood there
quietly looking on at the work of the crew as they manned the
lifeboats, and no one ventured to interfere with them or offered to
help them. It was plain we should be of no use; and the crowd of men
and women stood quietly on the deck or paced slowly up and down
waiting for orders from the officers. Now, before we consider any
further the events that followed, the state of mind of passengers at
this juncture, and the motives which led each one to act as he or she
did in the circumstances, it is important to keep in thought the
amount of information at our disposal. Men and women act according to
judgment based on knowledge of the conditions around them, and the
best way to understand some apparently inconceivable things that
happened is for any one to imagine himself or herself standing on deck
that night. It seems a mystery to some people that women refused to
leave the ship, that some persons retired to their cabins, and so on;
but it is a matter of judgment, after all.
So that if the reader will come and stand with the crowd on deck, he
must first rid himself entirely of the knowledge that the Titanic has
sunk--an important necessity, for he cannot see conditions as they
existed there through the mental haze arising from knowledge of the
greatest maritime tragedy the world has known: he must get rid of any
foreknowledge of disaster to appreciate why people acted as they did.
Secondly, he had better get rid of any picture in thought painted
either by his own imagination or by some artist, whether pictorial or
verbal, "from information supplied." Some are most inaccurate (these,
mostly word-pictures), and where they err, they err on the highly
dramatic side. They need not have done so: the whole conditions were
dramatic enough in all their bare simplicity, without the addition of
any high colouring.
Having made these mental erasures, he will find himself as one of the
crowd faced with the following conditions: a perfectly still
atmosphere; a brilliantly beautiful starlight night, but no moon, and
so with little light that was of any use; a ship that had come quietly
to rest without any indication of disaster--no iceberg visible, no
hole in the ship's side through which water was pouring in, nothing
broken or out of place, no sound of alarm, no panic, no movement of
any one except at a walking pace; the absence of any knowledge of the
nature of the accident, of the extent of damage, of the danger of the
ship sinking in a few hours, of the numbers of boats, rafts, and other
lifesaving appliances available, their capacity, what other ships were
near or coming to help--in fact, an almost complete absence of any
positive knowledge on any point. I think this was the result of
deliberate judgment on the part of the officers, and perhaps, it was
the best thing that could be done. In particular, he must remember
that the ship was a sixth of a mile long, with passengers on three
decks open to the sea, and port and starboard sides to each deck: he
will then get some idea of the difficulty presented to the officers of
keeping control over such a large area, and the impossibility of any
one knowing what was happening except in his own immediate vicinity.
Perhaps the whole thing can be summed up best by saying that, after we
had embarked in the lifeboats and rowed away from the Titanic, it
would not have surprised us to hear that all passengers would be
saved: the cries of drowning people after the Titanic gave the final
plunge were a thunderbolt to us. I am aware that the experiences of
many of those saved differed in some respects from the above: some had
knowledge of certain things, some were experienced travellers and
sailors, and therefore deduced more rapidly what was likely to happen;
but I think the above gives a fairly accurate representation of the
state of mind of most of those on deck that night.
All this time people were pouring up from the stairs and adding to the
crowd: I remember at that moment thinking it would be well to return
to my cabin and rescue some money and warmer clothing if we were to
embark in boats, but looking through the vestibule windows and seeing
people still coming upstairs, I decided it would only cause confusion
passing them on the stairs, and so remained on deck.
I was now on the starboard side of the top boat deck; the time about
12.20. We watched the crew at work on the lifeboats, numbers 9, 11,
13, 15, some inside arranging the oars, some coiling ropes on the
deck,--the ropes which ran through the pulleys to lower to the
sea,--others with cranks fitted to the rocking arms of the davits. As
we watched, the cranks were turned, the davits swung outwards until
the boats hung clear of the edge of the deck. Just then an officer
came along from the first-class deck and shouted above the noise of
escaping steam, "All women and children get down to deck below and all
men stand back from the boats." He had apparently been off duty when
the ship struck, and was lightly dressed, with a white muffler twisted
hastily round his neck. The men fell back and the women retired below
to get into the boats from the next deck. Two women refused at first
to leave their husbands, but partly by persuasion and partly by force
they were separated from them and sent down to the next deck. I think
that by this time the work on the lifeboats and the separation of men
and women impressed on us slowly the presence of imminent danger, but
it made no difference in the attitude of the crowd: they were just as
prepared to obey orders and to do what came next as when they first
came on deck. I do not mean that they actually reasoned it out: they
were the average Teutonic crowd, with an inborn respect for law and
order and for traditions bequeathed to them by generations of
ancestors: the reasons that made them act as they did were impersonal,
instinctive, hereditary.
But if there were any one who had not by now realized that the ship
was in danger, all doubt on this point was to be set at rest in a
dramatic manner. Suddenly a rush of light from the forward deck, a
hissing roar that made us all turn from watching the boats, and a
rocket leapt upwards to where the stars blinked and twinkled above us.
Up it went, higher and higher, with a sea of faces upturned to watch
it, and then an explosion that seemed to split the silent night in
two, and a shower of stars sank slowly down and went out one by one.
And with a gasping sigh one word escaped the lips of the crowd:
"Rockets!" Anybody knows what rockets at sea mean. And presently
another, and then a third. It is no use denying the dramatic intensity
of the scene: separate it if you can from all the terrible events that
followed, and picture the calmness of the night, the sudden light on
the decks crowded with people in different stages of dress and
undress, the background of huge funnels and tapering masts revealed by
the soaring rocket, whose flash illumined at the same time the faces
and minds of the obedient crowd, the one with mere physical light, the
other with a sudden revelation of what its message was. Every one knew
without being told that we were calling for help from any one who was
near enough to see.
The crew were now in the boats, the sailors standing by the pulley
ropes let them slip through the cleats in jerks, and down the boats
went till level with B deck; women and children climbed over the rail
into the boats and filled them; when full, they were lowered one by
one, beginning with number 9, the first on the second-class deck, and
working backwards towards 15. All this we could see by peering over
the edge of the boat-deck, which was now quite open to the sea, the
four boats which formed a natural barrier being lowered from the deck
and leaving it exposed.
About this time, while walking the deck, I saw two ladies come over
from the port side and walk towards the rail separating the
second-class from the first-class deck. There stood an officer barring
the way. "May we pass to the boats?" they said. "No, madam," he
replied politely, "your boats are down on your own deck," pointing to
where they swung below. The ladies turned and went towards the
stairway, and no doubt were able to enter one of the boats: they had
ample time. I mention this to show that there was, at any rate, some
arrangement--whether official or not--for separating the classes in
embarking in boats; how far it was carried out, I do not know, but if
the second-class ladies were not expected to enter a boat from the
first-class deck, while steerage passengers were allowed access to the
second-class deck, it would seem to press rather hardly on the
second-class men, and this is rather supported by the low percentage
saved.
Almost immediately after this incident, a report went round among men
on the top deck--the starboard side--that men were to be taken off on
the port side; how it originated, I am quite unable to say, but can
only suppose that as the port boats, numbers 10 to 16, were not
lowered from the top deck quite so soon as the starboard boats (they
could still be seen on deck), it might be assumed that women were
being taken off on one side and men on the other; but in whatever way
the report started, it was acted on at once by almost all the men, who
crowded across to the port side and watched the preparation for
lowering the boats, leaving the starboard side almost deserted. Two or
three men remained, However: not for any reason that we were
consciously aware of; I can personally think of no decision arising
from reasoned thought that induced me to remain rather than to cross
over. But while there was no process of conscious reason at work, I am
convinced that what was my salvation was a recognition of the
necessity of being quiet and waiting in patience for some opportunity
of safety to present itself.
Soon after the men had left the starboard side, I saw a bandsman--the
'cellist--come round the vestibule corner from the staircase entrance
and run down the now deserted starboard deck, his 'cello trailing
behind him, the spike dragging along the floor. This must have been
about 12.40 A.M. I suppose the band must have begun to play soon after
this and gone on until after 2 A.M. Many brave things were done that
night, but none more brave than by those few men playing minute after
minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea and the
sea rose higher and higher to where they stood; the music they played
serving alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be
recorded on the rolls of undying fame.
Looking forward and downward, we could see several of the boats now in
the water, moving slowly one by one from the side, without confusion
or noise, and stealing away in the darkness which swallowed them in
turn as the crew bent to the oars. An officer--I think First Officer
Murdock--came striding along the deck, clad in a long coat, from his
manner and face evidently in great agitation, but determined and
resolute; he looked over the side and shouted to the boats being
lowered: "Lower away, and when afloat, row around to the gangway and
wait for orders." "Aye, aye, sir," was the reply; and the officer
passed by and went across the ship to the port side.
Almost immediately after this, I heard a cry from below of, "Any more
ladies?" and looking over the edge of the deck, saw boat 13 swinging
level with the rail of B deck, with the crew, some stokers, a few men
passengers and the rest ladies,--the latter being about half the total
number; the boat was almost full and just about to be lowered. The
call for ladies was repeated twice again, but apparently there were
none to be found. Just then one of the crew looked up and saw me
looking over. "Any ladies on your deck?" he said. "No," I replied.
"Then you had better jump." I sat on the edge of the deck with my feet
over, threw the dressing-gown (which I had carried on my arm all of
the time) into the boat, dropped, and fell in the boat near the stern.
As I picked myself up, I heard a shout: "Wait a moment, here are two
more ladies," and they were pushed hurriedly over the side and tumbled
into the boat, one into the middle and one next to me in the stern.
They told me afterwards that they had been assembled on a lower deck
with other ladies, and had come up to B deck not by the usual stairway
inside, but by one of the vertically upright iron ladders that connect
each deck with the one below it, meant for the use of sailors passing
about the ship. Other ladies had been in front of them and got up
quickly, but these two were delayed a long time by the fact that one
of them--the one that was helped first over the side into boat 13 near
the middle--was not at all active: it seemed almost impossible for her
to climb up a vertical ladder. We saw her trying to climb the swinging
rope ladder up the Carpathia's side a few hours later, and she had the
same difficulty.
As they tumbled in, the crew shouted, "Lower away"; but before the
order was obeyed, a man with his wife and a baby came quickly to the
side: the baby was handed to the lady in the stern, the mother got in
near the middle and the father at the last moment dropped in as the
boat began its journey down to the sea many feet below.
CHAPTER IV
THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC SEEN FROM A LIFEBOAT
Looking back now on the descent of our boat down the ship's side, it
is a matter of surprise, I think, to all the occupants to remember how
little they thought of it at the time. It was a great adventure,
certainly: it was exciting to feel the boat sink by jerks, foot by
foot, as the ropes were paid out from above and shrieked as they
passed through the pulley blocks, the new ropes and gear creaking
under the strain of a boat laden with people, and the crew calling to
the sailors above as the boat tilted slightly, now at one end, now at
the other, "Lower aft!" "Lower stern!" and "Lower together!" as she
came level again--but I do not think we felt much apprehension about
reaching the water safely. It certainly was thrilling to see the black
hull of the ship on one side and the sea, seventy feet below, on the
other, or to pass down by cabins and saloons brilliantly lighted; but
we knew nothing of the apprehension felt in the minds of some of the
officers whether the boats and lowering-gear would stand the strain of
the weight of our sixty people. The ropes, however, were new and
strong, and the boat did not buckle in the middle as an older boat
might have done. Whether it was right or not to lower boats full of
people to the water,--and it seems likely it was not,--I think there
can be nothing but the highest praise given to the officers and crew
above for the way in which they lowered the boats one after the other
safely to the water; it may seem a simple matter, to read about such a
thing, but any sailor knows, apparently, that it is not so. An
experienced officer has told me that he has seen a boat lowered in
practice from a ship's deck, with a trained crew and no passengers in
the boat, with practised sailors paying out the ropes, in daylight, in
calm weather, with the ship lying in dock--and has seen the boat tilt
over and pitch the crew headlong into the sea. Contrast these
conditions with those obtaining that Monday morning at 12.45 A.M., and
it is impossible not to feel that, whether the lowering crew were
trained or not, whether they had or had not drilled since coming on
board, they did their duty in a way that argues the greatest
efficiency. I cannot help feeling the deepest gratitude to the two
sailors who stood at the ropes above and lowered us to the sea: I do
not suppose they were saved.
Perhaps one explanation of our feeling little sense of the unusual in
leaving the Titanic in this way was that it seemed the climax to a
series of extraordinary occurrences: the magnitude of the whole thing
dwarfed events that in the ordinary way would seem to be full of
imminent peril. It is easy to imagine it,--a voyage of four days on a
calm sea, without a single untoward incident; the presumption, perhaps
already mentally half realized, that we should be ashore in
forty-eight hours and so complete a splendid voyage,--and then to feel
the engine stop, to be summoned on deck with little time to dress, to
tie on a lifebelt, to see rockets shooting aloft in call for help, to
be told to get into a lifeboat,--after all these things, it did not
seem much to feel the boat sinking down to the sea: it was the natural
sequence of previous events, and we had learned in the last hour to
take things just as they came. At the same time, if any one should
wonder what the sensation is like, it is quite easy to measure
seventy-five feet from the windows of a tall house or a block of
flats, look down to the ground and fancy himself with some sixty other
people crowded into a boat so tightly that he could not sit down or
move about, and then picture the boat sinking down in a continuous
series of jerks, as the sailors pay out the ropes through cleats
above. There are more pleasant sensations than this! How thankful we
were that the sea was calm and the Titanic lay so steadily and quietly
as we dropped down her side. We were spared the bumping and grinding
against the side which so often accompanies the launching of boats: I
do not remember that we even had to fend off our boat while we were
trying to get free.
As we went down, one of the crew shouted, "We are just over the
condenser exhaust: we don't want to stay in that long or we shall be
swamped; feel down on the floor and be ready to pull up the pin which
lets the ropes free as soon as we are afloat." I had often looked over
the side and noticed this stream of water coming out of the side of
the Titanic just above the water-line: in fact so large was the volume
of water that as we ploughed along and met the waves coming towards
us, this stream would cause a splash that sent spray flying. We felt,
as well as we could in the crowd of people, on the floor, along the
sides, with no idea where the pin could be found,--and none of the
crew knew where it was, only of its existence somewhere,--but we never
found it. And all the time we got closer to the sea and the exhaust
roared nearer and nearer--until finally we floated with the ropes
still holding us from above, the exhaust washing us away and the force
of the tide driving us back against the side,--the latter not of much
account in influencing the direction, however. Thinking over what
followed, I imagine we must have touched the water with the condenser
stream at our bows, and not in the middle as I thought at one time: at
any rate, the resultant of these three forces was that we were carried
parallel to the ship, directly under the place where boat 15 would
drop from her davits into the sea. Looking up we saw her already
coming down rapidly from B deck: she must have filled almost
immediately after ours. We shouted up, "Stop lowering 14," [Footnote:
In an account which appeared in the newspapers of April 19 I have
described this boat as 14, not knowing they were numbered
alternately.] and the crew and passengers in the boat above, hearing
us shout and seeing our position immediately below them, shouted the
same to the sailors on the boat deck; but apparently they did not
hear, for she dropped down foot by foot,--twenty feet, fifteen,
ten,--and a stoker and I in the bows reached up and touched her bottom
swinging above our heads, trying to push away our boat from under her.
It seemed now as if nothing could prevent her dropping on us, but at
this moment another stoker sprang with his knife to the ropes that
still held us and I heard him shout, "One! Two!" as he cut them
through. The next moment we had swung away from underneath 15, and
were clear of her as she dropped into the water in the space we had
just before occupied. I do not know how the bow ropes were freed, but
imagine that they were cut in the same way, for we were washed clear
of the Titanic at once by the force of the stream and floated away as
the oars were got out.
I think we all felt that that was quite the most exciting thing we had
yet been through, and a great sigh of relief and gratitude went up as
we swung away from the boat above our heads; but I heard no one cry
aloud during the experience--not a woman's voice was raised in fear or
hysteria. I think we all learnt many things that night about the bogey
called "fear," and how the facing of it is much less than the dread of
it.
The crew was made up of cooks and stewards, mostly the former, I
think; their white jackets showing up in the darkness as they pulled
away, two to an oar: I do not think they can have had any practice in
rowing, for all night long their oars crossed and clashed; if our
safety had depended on speed or accuracy in keeping time it would have
gone hard with us. Shouting began from one end of the boat to the
other as to what we should do, where we should go, and no one seemed
to have any knowledge how to act. At last we asked, "Who is in charge
of this boat?" but there was no reply. We then agreed by general
consent that the stoker who stood in the stern with the tiller should
act as captain, and from that time he directed the course, shouting to
other boats and keeping in touch with them. Not that there was
anywhere to go or anything we could do. Our plan of action was simple:
to keep all the boats together as far as possible and wait until we
were picked up by other liners. The crew had apparently heard of the
wireless communications before they left the Titanic, but I never
heard them say that we were in touch with any boat but the Olympic: it
was always the Olympic that was coming to our rescue. They thought
they knew even her distance, and making a calculation, we came to the
conclusion that we ought to be picked up by her about two o'clock in
the afternoon. But this was not our only hope of rescue: we watched
all the time the darkness lasted for steamers' lights, thinking there
might be a chance of other steamers coming near enough to see the
lights which some of our boats carried. I am sure there was no feeling
in the minds of any one that we should not be picked up next day: we
knew that wireless messages would go out from ship to ship, and as one
of the stokers said: "The sea will be covered with ships to-morrow
afternoon: they will race up from all over the sea to find us." Some
even thought that fast torpedo boats might run up ahead of the
Olympic. And yet the Olympic was, after all, the farthest away of them
all; eight other ships lay within three hundred miles of us.
How thankful we should have been to know how near help was, and how
many ships had heard our message and were rushing to the Titanic's
aid. I think nothing has surprised us more than to learn so many ships
were near enough to rescue us in a few hours. Almost immediately after
leaving the Titanic we saw what we all said was a ship's lights down
on the horizon on the Titanic's port side: two lights, one above the
other, and plainly not one of our boats; we even rowed in that
direction for some time, but the lights drew away and disappeared
below the horizon.
But this is rather anticipating: we did none of these things first. We
had no eyes for anything but the ship we had just left. As the oarsmen
pulled slowly away we all turned and took a long look at the mighty
vessel towering high above our midget boat, and I know it must have
been the most extraordinary sight I shall ever be called upon to
witness; I realize now how totally inadequate language is to convey to
some other person who was not there any real impression of what we
saw.
But the task must be attempted: the whole picture is so intensely
dramatic that, while it is not possible to place on paper for eyes to
see the actual likeness of the ship as she lay there, some sketch of
the scene will be possible. First of all, the climatic conditions were
extraordinary. The night was one of the most beautiful I have ever
seen: the sky without a single cloud to mar the perfect brilliance of
the stars, clustered so thickly together that in places there seemed
almost more dazzling points of light set in the black sky than
background of sky itself; and each star seemed, in the keen
atmosphere, free from any haze, to have increased its brilliance
tenfold and to twinkle and glitter with a staccato flash that made the
sky seem nothing but a setting made for them in which to display their
wonder. They seemed so near, and their light so much more intense than
ever before, that fancy suggested they saw this beautiful ship in dire
distress below and all their energies had awakened to flash messages
across the black dome of the sky to each other; telling and warning of
the calamity happening in the world beneath. Later, when the Titanic
had gone down and we lay still on the sea waiting for the day to dawn
or a ship to come, I remember looking up at the perfect sky and
realizing why Shakespeare wrote the beautiful words he puts in the
mouth of Lorenzo:--
"Jessica, look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."
But it seemed almost as if we could--that night: the stars seemed
really to be alive and to talk. The complete absence of haze produced
a phenomenon I had never seen before: where the sky met the sea the
line was as clear and definite as the edge of a knife, so that the
water and the air never merged gradually into each other and blended
to a softened rounded horizon, but each element was so exclusively
separate that where a star came low down in the sky near the clear-cut
edge of the waterline, it still lost none of its brilliance. As the
earth revolved and the water edge came up and covered partially the
star, as it were, it simply cut the star in two, the upper half
continuing to sparkle as long as it was not entirely hidden, and
throwing a long beam of light along the sea to us.
In the evidence before the United States Senate Committee the captain
of one of the ships near us that night said the stars were so
extraordinarily bright near the horizon that he was deceived into
thinking that they were ships' lights: he did not remember seeing such
a night before. Those who were afloat will all agree with that
statement: _we_ were often deceived into thinking they were
lights of a ship.
And next the cold air! Here again was something quite new to us: there
was not a breath of wind to blow keenly round us as we stood in the
boat, and because of its continued persistence to make us feel cold;
it was just a keen, bitter, icy, motionless cold that came from
nowhere and yet was there all the time; the stillness of it--if one
can imagine "cold" being motionless and still--was what seemed new and
strange.
And these--the sky and the air--were overhead; and below was the sea.
Here again something uncommon: the surface was like a lake of oil,
heaving gently up and down with a quiet motion that rocked our boat
dreamily to and fro. We did not need to keep her head to the swell:
often I watched her lying broadside on to the tide, and with a boat
loaded as we were, this would have been impossible with anything like
a swell. The sea slipped away smoothly under the boat, and I think we
never heard it lapping on the sides, so oily in appearance was the
water. So when one of the stokers said he had been to sea for
twenty-six years and never yet seen such a calm night, we accepted it
as true without comment. Just as expressive was the remark of
another--"It reminds me of a bloomin' picnic!" It was quite true; it
did: a picnic on a lake, or a quiet inland river like the Cam, or a
backwater on the Thames.
And so in these conditions of sky and air and sea, we gazed broadside
on the Titanic from a short distance. She was absolutely still--indeed
from the first it seemed as if the blow from the iceberg had taken all
the courage out of her and she had just come quietly to rest and was
settling down without an effort to save herself, without a murmur of
protest against such a foul blow. For the sea could not rock her: the
wind was not there to howl noisily round the decks, and make the ropes
hum; from the first what must have impressed all as they watched was
the sense of stillness about her and the slow, insensible way she sank
lower and lower in the sea, like a stricken animal.
The mere bulk alone of the ship viewed from the sea below was an
awe-inspiring sight. Imagine a ship nearly a sixth of a mile long, 75
feet high to the top decks, with four enormous funnels above the
decks, and masts again high above the funnels; with her hundreds of
portholes, all her saloons and other rooms brilliant with light, and
all round her, little boats filled with those who until a few hours
before had trod her decks and read in her libraries and listened to
the music of her band in happy content; and who were now looking up in
amazement at the enormous mass above them and rowing away from her
because she was sinking.
I had often wanted to see her from some distance away, and only a few
hours before, in conversation at lunch with a fellow-passenger, had
registered a vow to get a proper view of her lines and dimensions when
we landed at New York: to stand some distance away to take in a full
view of her beautiful proportions, which the narrow approach to the
dock at Southampton made impossible. Little did I think that the
opportunity was to be found so quickly and so dramatically. The
background, too, was a different one from what I had planned for her:
the black outline of her profile against the sky was bordered all
round by stars studded in the sky, and all her funnels and masts were
picked out in the same way: her bulk was seen where the stars were
blotted out. And one other thing was different from expectation: the
thing that ripped away from us instantly, as we saw it, all sense of
the beauty of the night, the beauty of the ship's lines, and the
beauty of her lights,--and all these taken in themselves were
intensely beautiful,--that thing was the awful angle made by the level
of the sea with the rows of porthole lights along her side in dotted
lines, row above row. The sea level and the rows of lights should have
been parallel--should never have met--and now they met at an angle
inside the black hull of the ship. There was nothing else to indicate
she was injured; nothing but this apparent violation of a simple
geometrical law--that parallel lines should "never meet even if
produced ever so far both ways"; but it meant the Titanic had sunk by
the head until the lowest portholes in the bows were under the sea,
and the portholes in the stern were lifted above the normal height. We
rowed away from her in the quietness of the night, hoping and praying
with all our hearts that she would sink no more and the day would find
her still in the same position as she was then. The crew, however, did
not think so. It has been said frequently that the officers and crew
felt assured that she would remain afloat even after they knew the
extent of the damage. Some of them may have done so--and perhaps, from
their scientific knowledge of her construction, with more reason at
the time than those who said she would sink--but at any rate the
stokers in our boat had no such illusion. One of them--I think he was
the same man that cut us free from the pulley ropes--told us how he
was at work in the stoke-hole, and in anticipation of going off duty
in quarter of an hour,--thus confirming the time of the collision as
11.45,--had near him a pan of soup keeping hot on some part of the
machinery; suddenly the whole side of the compartment came in, and the
water rushed him off his feet. Picking himself up, he sprang for the
compartment doorway and was just through the aperture when the
watertight door came down behind him, "like a knife," as he said;
"they work them from the bridge." He had gone up on deck but was
ordered down again at once and with others was told to draw the fires
from under the boiler, which they did, and were then at liberty to
come on deck again. It seems that this particular knot of stokers must
have known almost as soon as any one of the extent of injury. He added
mournfully, "I could do with that hot soup now"--and indeed he could:
he was clad at the time of the collision, he said, in trousers and
singlet, both very thin on account of the intense heat in the
stoke-hole; and although he had added a short jacket later, his teeth
were chattering with the cold. He found a place to lie down underneath
the tiller on the little platform where our captain stood, and there
he lay all night with a coat belonging to another stoker thrown over
him and I think he must have been almost unconscious. A lady next to
him, who was warmly clad with several coats, tried to insist on his
having one of hers--a fur-lined one--thrown over him, but he
absolutely refused while some of the women were insufficiently clad;
and so the coat was given to an Irish girl with pretty auburn hair
standing near, leaning against the gunwale--with an "outside berth"
and so more exposed to the cold air. This same lady was able to
distribute more of her wraps to the passengers, a rug to one, a fur
boa to another; and she has related with amusement that at the moment
of climbing up the Carpathia's side, those to whom these articles had
been lent offered them all back to her; but as, like the rest of us,
she was encumbered with a lifebelt, she had to say she would receive
them back at the end of the climb, I had not seen my dressing-gown
since I dropped into the boat, but some time in the night a steerage
passenger found it on the floor and put it on.
It is not easy at this time to call to mind who were in the boat,
because in the night it was not possible to see more than a few feet
away, and when dawn came we had eyes only for the rescue ship and the
icebergs; but so far as my memory serves the list was as follows: no
first-class passengers; three women, one baby, two men from the second
cabin; and the other passengers steerage--mostly women; a total of
about 35 passengers. The rest, about 25 (and possibly more), were crew
and stokers. Near to me all night was a group of three Swedish girls,
warmly clad, standing close together to keep warm, and very silent;
indeed there was very little talking at any time.
One conversation took place that is, I think, worth repeating: one
more proof that the world after all is a small place. The ten months'
old baby which was handed down at the last moment was received by a
lady next to me--the same who shared her wraps and coats. The mother
had found a place in the middle and was too tightly packed to come
through to the child, and so it slept contentedly for about an hour in
a stranger's arms; it then began to cry and the temporary nurse said:
"Will you feel down and see if the baby's feet are out of the blanket!
I don't know much about babies but I think their feet must be kept
warm." Wriggling down as well as I could, I found its toes exposed to
the air and wrapped them well up, when it ceased crying at once: it
was evidently a successful diagnosis! Having recognized the lady by
her voice,--it was much too dark to see faces,--as one of my vis-à-vis
at the purser's table, I said,--"Surely you are Miss ----?" "Yes,"
she replied, "and you must be Mr. Beesley; how curious we should find
ourselves in the same boat!" Remembering that she had joined the boat
at Queenstown, I said, "Do you know Clonmel? a letter from a great
friend of mine who is staying there at ---- [giving the address] came
aboard at Queenstown." "Yes, it is my home: and I was dining
at ---- just before I came away." It seemed that she knew my friend,
too; and we agreed that of all places in the world to recognize mutual
friends, a crowded lifeboat afloat in mid-ocean at 2 A.M. twelve
hundred miles from our destination was one of the most unexpected.
And all the time, as we watched, the Titanic sank lower and lower by
the head and the angle became wider and wider as the stern porthole
lights lifted and the bow lights sank, and it was evident she was not
to stay afloat much longer. The captain-stoker now told the oarsmen to
row away as hard as they could. Two reasons seemed to make this a wise
decision: one that as she sank she would create such a wave of suction
that boats, if not sucked under by being too near, would be in danger
of being swamped by the wave her sinking would create--and we all knew
our boat was in no condition to ride big waves, crowded as it was and
manned with untrained oarsmen. The second was that an explosion might
result from the water getting to the boilers, and dèbris might fall
within a wide radius. And yet, as it turned out, neither of these
things happened.
At about 2.15 A.M. I think we were any distance from a mile to two
miles away. It is difficult for a landsman to calculate distance at
sea but we had been afloat an hour and a half, the boat was heavily
loaded, the oarsmen unskilled, and our course erratic: following now
one light and now another, sometimes a star and sometimes a light from
a port lifeboat which had turned away from the Titanic in the opposite
direction and lay almost on our horizon; and so we could not have gone
very far away.
About this time, the water had crept up almost to her sidelight and
the captain's bridge, and it seemed a question only of minutes before
she sank. The oarsmen lay on their oars, and all in the lifeboat were
motionless as we watched her in absolute silence--save some who would
not look and buried their heads on each others' shoulders. The lights
still shone with the same brilliance, but not so many of them: many
were now below the surface. I have often wondered since whether they
continued to light up the cabins when the portholes were under water;
they may have done so.
And then, as we gazed awe-struck, she tilted slowly up, revolving
apparently about a centre of gravity just astern of amidships, until
she attained a vertically upright position; and there she
remained--motionless! As she swung up, her lights, which had shone
without a flicker all night, went out suddenly, came on again for a
single flash, then went out altogether. And as they did so, there came
a noise which many people, wrongly I think, have described as an
explosion; it has always seemed to me that it was nothing but the
engines and machinery coming loose from their bolts and bearings, and
falling through the compartments, smashing everything in their way. It
was partly a roar, partly a groan, partly a rattle, and partly a
smash, and it was not a sudden roar as an explosion would be: it went
on successively for some seconds, possibly fifteen to twenty, as the
heavy machinery dropped down to the bottom (now the bows) of the ship:
I suppose it fell through the end and sank first, before the ship. But
it was a noise no one had heard before, and no one wishes to hear
again: it was stupefying, stupendous, as it came to us along the
water. It was as if all the heavy things one could think of had been
thrown downstairs from the top of a house, smashing each other and the
stairs and everything in the way. Several apparently authentic
accounts have been given, in which definite stories of explosions have
been related--in some cases even with wreckage blown up and the ship
broken in two; but I think such accounts will not stand close
analysis. In the first place the fires had been withdrawn and the
steam allowed to escape some time before she sank, and the possibility
of explosion from this cause seems very remote. Then, as just related,
the noise was not sudden and definite, but prolonged--more like the
roll and crash of thunder. The probability of the noise being caused
by engines falling down will be seen by referring to Figure 2, page
116, where the engines are placed in compartments 3, 4, and 5. As the
Titanic tilted up they would almost certainly fall loose from their
bed and plunge down through the other compartments.
No phenomenon like that pictured in some American and English papers
occurred--that of the ship breaking in two, and the two ends being
raised above the surface. I saw these drawings in preparation on board
the Carpathia, and said at the time that they bore no resemblance to
what actually happened.
When the noise was over the Titanic was still upright like a column:
we could see her now only as the stern and some 150 feet of her stood
outlined against the star-specked sky, looming black in the darkness,
and in this position she continued for some minutes--I think as much
as five minutes, but it may have been less. Then, first sinking back a
little at the stern, I thought, she slid slowly forwards through the
water and dived slantingly down; the sea closed over her and we had
seen the last of the beautiful ship on which we had embarked four days
before at Southampton.
And in place of the ship on which all our interest had been
concentrated for so long and towards which we looked most of the time
because it was still the only object on the sea which was a fixed
point to us--in place of the Titanic, we had the level sea now
stretching in an unbroken expanse to the horizon: heaving gently just
as before, with no indication on the surface that the waves had just
closed over the most wonderful vessel ever built by man's hand; the
stars looked down just the same and the air was just as bitterly cold.
There seemed a great sense of loneliness when we were left on the sea
in a small boat without the Titanic: not that we were uncomfortable
(except for the cold) nor in danger: we did not think we were either,
but the Titanic was no longer there.
We waited head on for the wave which we thought might come--the wave
we had heard so much of from the crew and which they said had been
known to travel for miles--and it never came. But although the Titanic
left us no such legacy of a wave as she went to the bottom, she left
us something we would willingly forget forever, something which it is
well not to let the imagination dwell on--the cries of many hundreds
of our fellow-passengers struggling in the ice-cold water.
I would willingly omit any further mention of this part of the
disaster from this book, but for two reasons it is not possible--first,
that as a matter of history it should be put on record;
and secondly, that these cries were not only an appeal for
help in the awful conditions of danger in which the drowning
found themselves,--an appeal that could never be answered,--but
an appeal to the whole world to make such conditions of
danger and hopelessness impossible ever again; a cry that called
to the heavens for the very injustice of its own existence; a cry
that clamoured for its own destruction.
We were utterly surprised to hear this cry go up as the waves closed
over the Titanic: we had heard no sound of any kind from her since we
left her side; and, as mentioned before, we did not know how many
boats she had or how many rafts. The crew may have known, but they
probably did not, and if they did, they never told the passengers; we
should not have been surprised to know all were safe on some
life-saving device.
So that unprepared as we were for such a thing, the cries of the
drowning floating across the quiet sea filled us with stupefaction: we
longed to return and rescue at least some of the drowning, but we knew
it was impossible. The boat was filled to standing-room, and to return
would mean the swamping of us all, and so the captain-stoker told his
crew to row away from the cries. We tried to sing to keep all from
thinking of them; but there was no heart for singing in the boat at
that time.
The cries, which were loud and numerous at first, died away gradually
one by one, but the night was clear, frosty and still, the water
smooth, and the sounds must have carried on its level surface free
from any obstruction for miles, certainly much farther from the ship
than we were situated. I think the last of them must have been heard
nearly forty minutes after the Titanic sank. Lifebelts would keep the
survivors afloat for hours; but the cold water was what stopped the
cries.
There must have come to all those safe in the lifeboats, scattered
round the drowning at various distances, a deep resolve that, if
anything could be done by them in the future to prevent the repetition
of such sounds, they would do it--at whatever cost of time or other
things. And not only to them are those cries an imperative call, but
to every man and woman who has known of them. It is not possible that
ever again can such conditions exist; but it is a duty imperative on
one and all to see that they do not. Think of it! a few more boats, a
few more planks of wood nailed together in a particular way at a
trifling cost, and all those men and women whom the world can so ill
afford to lose would be with us to-day, there would be no mourning in
thousands of homes which now are desolate, and these words need not
have been written.
CHAPTER V
THE RESCUE
All accounts agree that the Titanic sunk about 2:20 A.M.: a watch in
our boat gave the time as 2:30 A.M. shortly afterwards. We were then
in touch with three other boats: one was 15, on our starboard quarter,
and the others I have always supposed were 9 and 11, but I do not know
definitely. We never got into close touch with each other, but called
occasionally across the darkness and saw them looming near and then
drawing away again; we called to ask if any officer were aboard the
other three, but did not find one. So in the absence of any plan of
action, we rowed slowly forward--or what we thought was forward, for
it was in the direction the Titanic's bows were pointing before she
sank. I see now that we must have been pointing northwest, for we
presently saw the Northern Lights on the starboard, and again, when
the Carpathia came up from the south, we saw her from behind us on the
southeast, and turned our boat around to get to her. I imagine the
boats must have spread themselves over the ocean fanwise as they
escaped from the Titanic: those on the starboard and port sides
forward being almost dead ahead of her and the stern boats being
broadside from her; this explains why the port boats were so much
longer in reaching the Carpathia--as late as 8.30 A.M.--while some of
the starboard boats came up as early as 4.10 A.M. Some of the port
boats had to row across the place where the Titanic sank to get to the
Carpathia, through the debris of chairs and wreckage of all kinds.
None of the other three boats near us had a light--and we missed
lights badly: we could not see each other in the darkness; we could
not signal to ships which might be rushing up full speed from any
quarter to the Titanic's rescue; and now we had been through so much
it would seem hard to have to encounter the additional danger of being
in the line of a rescuing ship. We felt again for the lantern beneath
our feet, along the sides, and I managed this time to get down to the
locker below the tiller platform and open it in front by removing a
board, to find nothing but the zinc airtank which renders the boat
unsinkable when upset. I do not think there was a light in the boat.
We felt also for food and water, and found none, and came to the
conclusion that none had been put in; but here we were mistaken. I
have a letter from Second Officer Lightoller in which he assures me
that he and Fourth Officer Pitman examined every lifeboat from the
Titanic as they lay on the Carpathia's deck afterwards and found
biscuits and water in each. Not that we wanted any food or water then:
we thought of the time that might elapse before the Olympic picked us
up in the afternoon.
Towards 3 A.M. we saw a faint glow in the sky ahead on the starboard
quarter, the first gleams, we thought, of the coming dawn. We were not
certain of the time and were eager perhaps to accept too readily any
relief from darkness--only too glad to be able to look each other in
the face and see who were our companions in good fortune; to be free
from the hazard of lying in a steamer's track, invisible in the
darkness. But we were doomed to disappointment: the soft light
increased for a time, and died away a little; glowed again, and then
remained stationary for some minutes! "The Northern Lights"! It
suddenly came to me, and so it was: presently the light arched fanwise
across the northern sky, with faint streamers reaching towards the
Pole-star. I had seen them of about the same intensity in England some
years ago and knew them again. A sigh of disappointment went through
the boat as we realized that the day was not yet; but had we known it,
something more comforting even than the day was in store for us. All
night long we had watched the horizon with eager eyes for signs of a
steamer's lights; we heard from the captain-stoker that the first
appearance would be a single light on the horizon, the masthead light,
followed shortly by a second one, lower down, on the deck; if these
two remained in vertical alignment and the distance between them
increased as the lights drew nearer, we might be certain it was a
steamer. But what a night to see that first light on the horizon! We
saw it many times as the earth revolved, and some stars rose on the
clear horizon and others sank down to it: there were "lights" on every
quarter. Some we watched and followed until we saw the deception and
grew wiser; some were lights from those of our boats that were
fortunate enough to have lanterns, but these were generally easily
detected, as they rose and fell in the near distance. Once they raised
our hopes, only to sink them to zero again. Near what seemed to be the
horizon on the port quarter we saw two lights close together, and
thought this must be our double light; but as we gazed across the
miles that separated us, the lights slowly drew apart and we realized
that they were two boats' lanterns at different distances from us, in
line, one behind the other. They were probably the forward port boats
that had to return so many miles next morning across the Titanic's
graveyard.
But notwithstanding these hopes and disappointments, the absence of
lights, food and water (as we thought), and the bitter cold, it would
not be correct to say we were unhappy in those early morning hours:
the cold that settled down on us like a garment that wraps close
around was the only real discomfort, and that we could keep at bay by
not thinking too much about it as well as by vigorous friction and
gentle stamping on the floor (it made too much noise to stamp hard!).
I never heard that any one in boat B had any after effects from the
cold--even the stoker who was so thinly clad came through without
harm. After all, there were many things to be thankful for: so many
that they made insignificant the temporary inconvenience of the cold,
the crowded boat, the darkness and the hundred and one things that in
the ordinary way we might regard as unpleasant. The quiet sea, the
beautiful night (how different from two nights later when flashes of
lightning and peals of thunder broke the sleep of many on board the
Carpathia!), and above all the fact of being in a boat at all when so
many of our fellow-passengers and crew--whose cries no longer moaned
across the water to us--were silent in the water. Gratitude was the
dominant note in our feelings then. But grateful as we were, our
gratitude was soon to be increased a hundred fold. About 3:30 A.M., as
nearly as I can judge, some one in the bow called our attention to a
faint far-away gleam in the southeast. We all turned quickly to look
and there it was certainly: streaming up from behind the horizon like
a distant flash of a warship's searchlight; then a faint boom like
guns afar off, and the light died away again. The stoker who had lain
all night under the tiller sat up suddenly as if from a dream, the
overcoat hanging from his shoulders. I can see him now, staring out
across the sea, to where the sound had come from, and hear him shout,
"That was a cannon!" But it was not: it was the Carpathia's rocket,
though we did not know it until later. But we did know now that
something was not far away, racing up to our help and signalling to us
a preliminary message to cheer our hearts until she arrived.
With every sense alert, eyes gazing intently at the horizon and ears
open for the least sound, we waited in absolute silence in the quiet
night. And then, creeping over the edge of the sea where the flash had
been, we saw a single light, and presently a second below it, and in a
few minutes they were well above the horizon and they remained in
line! But we had been deceived before, and we waited a little longer
before we allowed ourselves to say we were safe. The lights came up
rapidly: so rapidly it seemed only a few minutes (though it must have
been longer) between first seeing them and finding them well above the
horizon and bearing down rapidly on us. We did not know what sort of a
vessel was coming, but we knew she was coming quickly, and we searched
for paper, rags,--anything that would burn (we were quite prepared to
burn our coats if necessary). A hasty paper torch was twisted out of
letters found in some one's pocket, lighted, and held aloft by the
stoker standing on the tiller platform. The little light shone in
flickers on the faces of the occupants of the boat, ran in broken
lines for a few yards along the black oily sea (where for the first
time I saw the presence of that awful thing which had caused the whole
terrible disaster--ice--in little chunks the size of one's fist,
bobbing harmlessly up and down), and spluttered away to blackness
again as the stoker threw the burning remnants of paper overboard. But
had we known it, the danger of being run down was already over, one
reason being that the Carpathia had already seen the lifeboat which
all night long had shown a green light, the first indication the
Carpathia had of our position. But the real reason is to be found in
the Carpathia's log:--"Went full speed ahead during the night; stopped
at 4 A.M. with an iceberg dead ahead." It was a good reason.
With our torch burnt and in darkness again we saw the headlights stop,
and realized that the rescuer had hove to. A sigh of relief went up
when we thought no hurried scramble had to be made to get out of her
way, with a chance of just being missed by her, and having to meet the
wash of her screws as she tore by us. We waited and she slowly swung
round and revealed herself to us as a large steamer with all her
portholes alight. I think the way those lights came slowly into view
was one of the most wonderful things we shall ever see. It meant
deliverance at once: that was the amazing thing to us all. We had
thought of the afternoon as our time of rescue, and here only a few
hours after the Titanic sank, before it was yet light, we were to be
taken aboard. It seemed almost too good to be true, and I think
everyone's eyes filled with tears, men's as well as women's, as they
saw again the rows of lights one above the other shining kindly to
them across the water, and "Thank God!" was murmured in heartfelt
tones round the boat. The boat swung round and the crew began their
long row to the steamer; the captain called for a song and led off
with "Pull for the shore, boys." The crew took it up quaveringly and
the passengers joined in, but I think one verse was all they sang. It
was too early yet, gratitude was too deep and sudden in its
overwhelming intensity, for us to sing very steadily. Presently,
finding the song had not gone very well, we tried a cheer, and that
went better. It was more easy to relieve our feelings with a noise,
and time and tune were not necessary ingredients in a cheer.
In the midst of our thankfulness for deliverance, one name was
mentioned with the deepest feeling of gratitude: that of Marconi. I
wish that he had been there to hear the chorus of gratitude that went
out to him for the wonderful invention that spared us many hours, and
perhaps many days, of wandering about the sea in hunger and storm and
cold. Perhaps our gratitude was sufficiently intense and vivid to
"Marconi" some of it to him that night.
All around we saw boats making for the Carpathia and heard their
shouts and cheers. Our crew rowed hard in friendly rivalry with other
boats to be among the first home, but we must have been eighth or
ninth at the side. We had a heavy load aboard, and had to row round a
huge iceberg on the way.
And then, as if to make everything complete for our happiness, came
the dawn. First a beautiful, quiet shimmer away in the east, then a
soft golden glow that crept up stealthily from behind the sky-line as
if it were trying not to be noticed as it stole over the sea and
spread itself quietly in every direction--so quietly, as if to make us
believe it had been there all the time and we had not observed it.
Then the sky turned faintly pink and in the distance the thinnest,
fleeciest clouds stretched in thin bands across the horizon and close
down to it, becoming every moment more and more pink. And next the
stars died, slowly,--save one which remained long after the others
just above the horizon; and near by, with the crescent turned to the
north, and the lower horn just touching the horizon, the thinnest,
palest of moons.
And with the dawn came a faint breeze from the west, the first breath
of wind we had felt since the Titanic stopped her engines.
Anticipating a few hours,--as the day drew on to 8 A.M., the time the
last boats came up,--this breeze increased to a fresh wind which
whipped up the sea, so that the last boat laden with people had an
anxious time in the choppy waves before they reached the Carpathia. An
officer remarked that one of the boats could not have stayed afloat
another hour: the wind had held off just long enough.
The captain shouted along our boat to the crew, as they strained at
the oars,--two pulling and an extra one facing them and pushing to try
to keep pace with the other boats,--"A new moon! Turn your money over,
boys! That is, if you have any!" We laughed at him for the quaint
superstition at such a time, and it was good to laugh again, but he
showed his disbelief in another superstition when he added, "Well, I
shall never say again that 13 is an unlucky number. Boat 13 is the
best friend we ever had."
If there had been among us--and it is almost certain that there were,
so fast does superstition cling--those who feared events connected
with the number thirteen, I am certain they agreed with him, and never
again will they attach any importance to such a foolish belief.
Perhaps the belief itself will receive a shock when it is remembered
that boat 13 of the Titanic brought away a full load from the sinking
vessel, carried them in such comfort all night that they had not even
a drop of water on them, and landed them safely at the Carpathia's
side, where they climbed aboard without a single mishap. It almost
tempts one to be the thirteenth at table, or to choose a house
numbered 13 fearless of any croaking about flying in the face of what
is humorously called "Providence."
Looking towards the Carpathia in the faint light, we saw what seemed
to be two large fully rigged sailing ships near the horizon, with all
sails set, standing up near her, and we decided that they must be
fishing vessels off the Banks of Newfoundland which had seen the
Carpathia stop and were waiting to see if she wanted help of any kind.
But in a few minutes more the light shone on them and they stood
revealed as huge icebergs, peaked in a way that readily suggested a
ship. When the sun rose higher, it turned them pink, and sinister as
they looked towering like rugged white peaks of rock out of the sea,
and terrible as was the disaster one of them had caused, there was an
awful beauty about them which could not be overlooked. Later, when the
sun came above the horizon, they sparkled and glittered in its rays;
deadly white, like frozen snow rather than translucent ice.
As the dawn crept towards us there lay another almost directly in the
line between our boat and the Carpathia, and a few minutes later,
another on her port quarter, and more again on the southern and
western horizons, as far as the eye could reach: all differing in
shape and size and tones of colour according as the sun shone through
them or was reflected directly or obliquely from them.
[Illustration: THE CARPATHIA]
We drew near our rescuer and presently could discern the bands on her
funnel, by which the crew could tell she was a Cunarder; and already
some boats were at her side and passengers climbing up her ladders. We
had to give the iceberg a wide berth and make a détour to the south:
we knew it was sunk a long way below the surface with such things as
projecting ledges--not that it was very likely there was one so near
the surface as to endanger our small boat, but we were not inclined to
take any risks for the sake of a few more minutes when safety lay so
near.
Once clear of the berg, we could read the Cunarder's name--C A R P A T
H I A--a name we are not likely ever to forget. We shall see her
sometimes, perhaps, in the shipping lists,--as I have done already
once when she left Genoa on her return voyage,--and the way her lights
climbed up over the horizon in the darkness, the way she swung and
showed her lighted portholes, and the moment when we read her name on
her side will all come back in a flash; we shall live again the scene
of rescue, and feel the same thrill of gratitude for all she brought
us that night.
We rowed up to her about 4.30, and sheltering on the port side from
the swell, held on by two ropes at the stern and bow. Women went up
the side first, climbing rope ladders with a noose round their
shoulders to help their ascent; men passengers scrambled next, and the
crew last of all. The baby went up in a bag with the opening tied up:
it had been quite well all the time, and never suffered any ill
effects from its cold journey in the night. We set foot on deck with
very thankful hearts, grateful beyond the possibility of adequate
expression to feel a solid ship beneath us once more.
CHAPTER VI
THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC SEEN FROM HER DECK
The two preceding chapters have been to a large extent the narrative
of a single eyewitness and an account of the escape of one boat only
from the Titanic's side. It will be well now to return to the Titanic
and reconstruct a more general and complete account from the
experiences of many people in different parts of the ship. A
considerable part of these experiences was related to the writer first
hand by survivors, both on board the Carpathia and at other times, but
some are derived from other sources which are probably as accurate as
first-hand information. Other reports, which seemed at first sight to
have been founded on the testimony of eyewitnesses, have been found on
examination to have passed through several hands, and have therefore
been rejected. The testimony even of eye-witnesses has in some cases
been excluded when it seemed not to agree with direct evidence of a
number of other witnesses or with what reasoned judgment considered
probable in the circumstances. In this category are the reports of
explosions before the Titanic sank, the breaking of the ship in two
parts, the suicide of officers. It would be well to notice here that
the Titanic was in her correct course, the southerly one, and in the
position which prudence dictates as a safe one under the ordinary
conditions at that time of the year: to be strictly accurate she was
sixteen miles south of the regular summer route which all companies
follow from January to August.
Perhaps the real history of the disaster should commence with the
afternoon of Sunday, when Marconigrams were received by the Titanic
from the ships ahead of her, warning her of the existence of icebergs.
In connection with this must be taken the marked fall of temperature
observed by everyone in the afternoon and evening of this day as well
as the very low temperature of the water. These have generally been
taken to indicate that without any possibility of doubt we were near
an iceberg region, and the severest condemnation has been poured on
the heads of the officers and captain for not having regard to these
climatic conditions; but here caution is necessary. There can be
little doubt now that the low temperature observed can be traced to
the icebergs and ice-field subsequently encountered, but experienced
sailors are aware that it might have been observed without any
icebergs being near. The cold Labrador current sweeps down by
Newfoundland across the track of Atlantic liners, but does not
necessarily carry icebergs with it; cold winds blow from Greenland and
Labrador and not always from icebergs and ice-fields. So that falls in
temperature of sea and air are not prima facie evidence of the close
proximity of icebergs. On the other hand, a single iceberg separated
by many miles from its fellows might sink a ship, but certainly would
not cause a drop in temperature either of the air or water. Then, as
the Labrador current meets the warm Gulf Stream flowing from the Gulf
of Mexico across to Europe, they do not necessarily intermingle, nor
do they always run side by side or one on top of the other, but often
interlaced, like the fingers of two hands. As a ship sails across this
region the thermometer will record within a few miles temperatures of
34°, 58°, 35°, 59°, and so on.
It is little wonder then that sailors become accustomed to place
little reliance on temperature conditions as a means of estimating the
probabilities of encountering ice in their track. An experienced
sailor has told me that nothing is more difficult to diagnose than the
presence of icebergs, and a strong confirmation of this is found in
the official sailing directions issued by the Hydrographic Department
of the British Admiralty. "No reliance can be placed on any warning
being conveyed to the mariner, by a fall in temperature, either of sea
or air, of approaching ice. Some decrease in temperature has
occasionally been recorded, but more often none has been observed."
But notification by Marconigram of the exact location of icebergs is a
vastly different matter. I remember with deep feeling the effect this
information had on us when it first became generally known on board
the Carpathia. Rumours of it went round on Wednesday morning, grew to
definite statements in the afternoon, and were confirmed when one of
the Titanic officers admitted the truth of it in reply to a direct
question. I shall never forget the overwhelming sense of hopelessness
that came over some of us as we obtained definite knowledge of the
warning messages. It was not then the unavoidable accident we had
hitherto supposed: the sudden plunging into a region crowded with
icebergs which no seaman, however skilled a navigator he might be,
could have avoided! The beautiful Titanic wounded too deeply to
recover, the cries of the drowning still ringing in our ears and the
thousands of homes that mourned all these calamities--none of all
these things need ever have been!
It is no exaggeration to say that men who went through all the
experiences of the collision and the rescue and the subsequent scenes
on the quay at New York with hardly a tremor, were quite overcome by
this knowledge and turned away, unable to speak; I for one, did so,
and I know others who told me they were similarly affected.
I think we all came to modify our opinions on this matter, however,
when we learnt more of the general conditions attending trans-Atlantic
steamship services. The discussion as to who was responsible for these
warnings being disregarded had perhaps better be postponed to a later
chapter. One of these warnings was handed to Mr. Ismay by Captain
Smith at 5 P.M. and returned at the latter's request at 7 P.M., that
it might be posted for the information of officers; as a result of the
messages they were instructed to keep a special lookout for ice. This,
Second Officer Lightoller did until he was relieved at 10 P.M. by
First Officer Murdock, to whom he handed on the instructions. During
Mr. Lightoller's watch, about 9 P.M., the captain had joined him on
the bridge and discussed "the time we should be getting up towards the
vicinity of the ice, and how we should recognize it if we should see
it, and refreshing our minds on the indications that ice gives when it
is in the vicinity." Apparently, too, the officers had discussed among
themselves the proximity of ice and Mr. Lightoller had remarked that
they would be approaching the position where ice had been reported
during his watch. The lookouts were cautioned similarly, but no ice
was sighted until a few minutes before the collision, when the lookout
man saw the iceberg and rang the bell three times, the usual signal
from the crow's nest when anything is seen dead-ahead.
By telephone he reported to the bridge the presence of an iceberg, but
Mr. Murdock had already ordered Quartermaster Hichens at the wheel to
starboard the helm, and the vessel began to swing away from the berg.
But it was far too late at the speed she was going to hope to steer
the huge Titanic, over a sixth of a mile long, out of reach of danger.
Even if the iceberg had been visible half a mile away it is doubtful
whether some portion of her tremendous length would not have been
touched, and it is in the highest degree unlikely that the lookout
could have seen the berg half a mile away in the conditions that
existed that night, even with glasses. The very smoothness of the
water made the presence of ice a more difficult matter to detect. In
ordinary conditions the dash of the waves against the foot of an
iceberg surrounds it with a circle of white foam visible for some
distance, long before the iceberg itself; but here was an oily sea
sweeping smoothly round the deadly monster and causing no indication
of its presence.
There is little doubt, moreover, that the crow's nest is not a good
place from which to detect icebergs. It is proverbial that they adopt
to a large extent the colour of their surroundings; and seen from
above at a high angle, with the black, foam-free sea behind, the
iceberg must have been almost invisible until the Titanic was close
upon it. I was much struck by a remark of Sir Ernest Shackleton on his
method of detecting icebergs--to place a lookout man as low down near
the water-line as he could get him. Remembering how we had watched the
Titanic with all her lights out, standing upright like "an enormous
black finger," as one observer stated, and had only seen her thus
because she loomed black against the sky behind her, I saw at once how
much better the sky was than the black sea to show up an iceberg's
bulk. And so in a few moments the Titanic had run obliquely on the
berg, and with a shock that was astonishingly slight--so slight that
many passengers never noticed it--the submerged portion of the berg
had cut her open on the starboard side in the most vulnerable portion
of her anatomy--the bilge. [Footnote: See Figure 4, page 50.] The most
authentic accounts say that the wound began at about the location of
the foremast and extended far back to the stern, the brunt of the blow
being taken by the forward plates, which were either punctured through
both bottoms directly by the blow, or through one skin only, and as
this was torn away it ripped out some of the inner plates. The fact
that she went down by the head shows that probably only the forward
plates were doubly punctured, the stern ones being cut open through
the outer skin only. After the collision, Murdock had at once reversed
the engines and brought the ship to a standstill, but the iceberg had
floated away astern. The shock, though little felt by the enormous
mass of the ship, was sufficient to dislodge a large quantity of ice
from the berg: the forecastle deck was found to be covered with pieces
of ice.
Feeling the shock, Captain Smith rushed out of his cabin to the
bridge, and in reply to his anxious enquiry was told by Murdock that
ice had been struck and the emergency doors instantly closed. The
officers roused by the collision went on deck: some to the bridge;
others, while hearing nothing of the extent of the damage, saw no
necessity for doing so. Captain Smith at once sent the carpenter below
to sound the ship, and Fourth Officer Boxhall to the steerage to
report damage. The latter found there a very dangerous condition of
things and reported to Captain Smith, who then sent him to the
mail-room; and here again, it was easy to see, matters looked very
serious. Mail-bags were floating about and the water rising rapidly.
All this was reported to the captain, who ordered the lifeboats to be
got ready at once. Mr. Boxhall went to the chartroom to work out the
ship's position, which he then handed to the Marconi operators for
transmission to any ship near enough to help in the work of rescue.
Reports of the damage done were by this time coming to the captain
from many quarters, from the chief engineer, from the designer,--Mr.
Andrews,--and in a dramatic way from the sudden appearance on deck of
a swarm of stokers who had rushed up from below as the water poured
into the boiler-rooms and coal-bunkers: they were immediately ordered
down below to duty again. Realizing the urgent heed of help, he went
personally to the Marconi room and gave orders to the operators to get
into touch with all the ships they could and to tell them to come
quickly. The assistant operator Bride had been asleep, and knew of the
damage only when Phillips, in charge of the Marconi room, told him ice
had been encountered. They started to send out the well-known "C.Q.D."
message,--which interpreted means: C.Q. "all stations attend," and D,
"distress," the position of the vessel in latitude and longitude
following. Later, they sent out "S.O.S.," an arbitrary message agreed
upon as an international code-signal.
Soon after the vessel struck, Mr. Ismay had learnt of the nature of
the accident from the captain and chief engineer, and after dressing
and going on deck had spoken to some of the officers not yet
thoroughly acquainted with the grave injury done to the vessel. By
this time all those in any way connected with the management and
navigation must have known the importance of making use of all the
ways of safety known to them--and that without any delay. That they
thought at first that the Titanic would sink as soon as she did is
doubtful; but probably as the reports came in they knew that her
ultimate loss in a few hours was a likely contingency. On the other
hand, there is evidence that some of the officers in charge of boats
quite expected the embarkation was a precautionary measure and they
would all return after daylight. Certainly the first information that
ice had been struck conveyed to those in charge no sense of the
gravity of the circumstances: one officer even retired to his cabin
and another advised a steward to go back to his berth as there was no
danger.
And so the order was sent round, "All passengers on deck with
lifebelts on"; and in obedience to this a crowd of hastily dressed or
partially dressed people began to assemble on the decks belonging to
their respective classes (except the steerage passengers who were
allowed access to other decks), tying on lifebelts over their
clothing. In some parts of the ship women were separated from the men
and assembled together near the boats, in others men and women mingled
freely together, husbands helping their own wives and families and
then other women and children into the boats. The officers spread
themselves about the decks, superintending the work of lowering and
loading the boats, and in three cases were ordered by their superior
officers to take charge of them. At this stage great difficulty was
experienced in getting women to leave the ship, especially where the
order was so rigorously enforced, "Women and children only." Women in
many cases refused to leave their husbands, and were actually forcibly
lifted up and dropped in the boats. They argued with the officers,
demanding reasons, and in some cases even when induced to get in were
disposed to think the whole thing a joke, or a precaution which it
seemed to them rather foolish to take. In this they were encouraged by
the men left behind, who, in the same condition of ignorance, said
good-bye to their friends as they went down, adding that they would
see them again at breakfast-time. To illustrate further how little
danger was apprehended--when it was discovered on the first-class deck
that the forward lower deck was covered with small ice, snowballing
matches were arranged for the following morning, and some passengers
even went down to the deck and brought back small pieces of ice which
were handed round.
Below decks too was additional evidence that no one thought of
immediate danger. Two ladies walking along one of the corridors came
across a group of people gathered round a door which they were trying
vainly to open, and on the other side of which a man was demanding in
loud terms to be let out. Either his door was locked and the key not
to be found, or the collision had jammed the lock and prevented the
key from turning. The ladies thought he must be afflicted in some way
to make such a noise, but one of the men was assuring him that in no
circumstances should he be left, and that his (the bystander's) son
would be along soon and would smash down his door if it was not opened
in the mean time. "He has a stronger arm than I have," he added. The
son arrived presently and proceeded to make short work of the door: it
was smashed in and the inmate released, to his great satisfaction and
with many expressions of gratitude to his rescuer. But one of the head
stewards who came up at this juncture was so incensed at the damage
done to the property of his company, and so little aware of the
infinitely greater damage done the ship, that he warned the man who
had released the prisoner that he would be arrested on arrival in New
York.
It must be borne in mind that no general warning had been issued to
passengers: here and there were experienced travellers to whom
collision with an iceberg was sufficient to cause them to make every
preparation for leaving the ship, but the great majority were never
enlightened as to the amount of damage done, or even as to what had
happened. We knew in a vague way that we had collided with an iceberg,
but there our knowledge ended, and most of us drew no deductions from
that fact alone. Another factor that prevented some from taking to the
boats was the drop to the water below and the journey into the unknown
sea: certainly it looked a tremendous way down in the darkness, the
sea and the night both seemed very cold and lonely; and here was the
ship, so firm and well lighted and warm.
But perhaps what made so many people declare their decision to remain
was their strong belief in the theory of the Titanic's unsinkable
construction. Again and again was it repeated, "This ship cannot sink;
it is only a question of waiting until another ship comes up and takes
us off." Husbands expected to follow their wives and join them either
in New York or by transfer in mid-ocean from steamer to steamer. Many
passengers relate that they were told by officers that the ship was a
lifeboat and could not go down; one lady affirms that the captain told
her the Titanic could not sink for two or three days; no doubt this
was immediately after the collision.
It is not any wonder, then, that many elected to remain, deliberately
choosing the deck of the Titanic to a place in a lifeboat. And yet the
boats had to go down, and so at first they went half-full: this is the
real explanation of why they were not as fully loaded as the later
ones. It is important then to consider the question how far the
captain was justified in withholding all the knowledge he had from
every passenger. From one point of view he should have said to them,
"This ship will sink in a few hours: there are the boats, and only
women and children can go to them." But had he the authority to
enforce such an order? There are such things as panics and rushes
which get beyond the control of a handful of officers, even if armed,
and where even the bravest of men get swept off their feet--mentally
as well as physically.
On the other hand, if he decided to withhold all definite knowledge of
danger from all passengers and at the same time persuade--and if it
was not sufficient, compel--women and children to take to the boats,
it might result in their all being saved. He could not foresee the
tenacity of their faith in the boat: there is ample evidence that he
left the bridge when the ship had come to rest and went among
passengers urging them to get into the boat and rigorously excluding
all but women and children. Some would not go. Officer Lowe testified
that he shouted, "Who's next for the boat?" and could get no replies.
The boats even were sent away half-loaded,--although the fear of their
buckling in the middle was responsible as well for this,--but the
captain with the few boats at his disposal could hardly do more than
persuade and advise in the terrible circumstances in which he was
placed.
How appalling to think that with a few more boats--and the ship was
provided with that particular kind of davit that would launch more
boats--there would have been no decision of that kind to make! It
could have been stated plainly: "This ship will sink in a few hours:
there is room in the boats for all passengers, beginning with women
and children."
Poor Captain Smith! I care not whether the responsibility for such
speed in iceberg regions will rest on his shoulders or not: no man
ever had to make such a choice as he had that night, and it seems
difficult to see how he can be blamed for withholding from passengers
such information as he had of the danger that was imminent.
When one reads in the Press that lifeboats arrived at the Carpathia
half full, it seems at first sight a dreadful thing that this should
have been allowed to happen; but it is so easy to make these
criticisms afterwards, so easy to say that Captain Smith should have
told everyone of the condition of the vessel. He was faced with many
conditions that night which such criticism overlooks. Let any
fair-minded person consider some few of the problems presented to
him--the ship was bound to sink in a few hours; there was lifeboat
accommodation for all women and children and some men; there was no
way of getting some women to go except by telling them the ship was
doomed, a course he deemed it best not to take; and he knew the danger
of boats buckling when loaded full. His solution of these problems was
apparently the following:--to send the boats down half full, with such
women as would go, and to tell the boats to stand by to pick up more
passengers passed down from the cargo ports. There is good evidence
that this was part of the plan: I heard an officer give the order to
four boats and a lady in number 4 boat on the port side tells me the
sailors were so long looking for the port where the captain personally
had told them to wait, that they were in danger of being sucked under
by the vessel. How far any systematic attempt was made to stand by the
ports, I do not know: I never saw one open or any boat standing near
on the starboard side; but then, boats 9 to 15 went down full, and on
reaching the sea rowed away at once. There is good evidence, then,
that Captain Smith fully intended to load the boats full in this way.
The failure to carry out the intention is one of the things the whole
world regrets, but consider again the great size of the ship and the
short time to make decisions, and the omission is more easily
understood. The fact is that such a contingency as lowering away boats
was not even considered beforehand, and there is much cause for
gratitude that as many as seven hundred and five people were rescued.
The whole question of a captain's duties seems to require revision. It
was totally impossible for any one man to attempt to control the ship
that night, and the weather conditions could not well have been more
favourable for doing so. One of the reforms that seem inevitable is
that one man shall be responsible for the boats, their manning,
loading and lowering, leaving the captain free to be on the bridge to
the last moment.
But to return for a time to the means taken to attract the notice of
other ships. The wireless operators were now in touch with several
ships, and calling to them to come quickly for the water was pouring
in and the Titanic beginning to go down by the head. Bride testified
that the first reply received was from a German boat, the Frankfurt,
which was: "All right: stand by," but not giving her position. From
comparison of the strength of signals received from the Frankfurt and
from other boats, the operators estimated the Frankfurt was the
nearest; but subsequent events proved that this was not so. She was,
in fact, one hundred and forty miles away and arrived at 10.50 A.M.
next morning, when the Carpathia had left with the rescued. The next
reply was from the Carpathia, fifty-eight miles away on the outbound
route to the Mediterranean, and it was a prompt and welcome
one--"Coming hard," followed by the position. Then followed the
Olympic, and with her they talked for some time, but she was five
hundred and sixty miles away on the southern route, too far to be of
any immediate help. At the speed of 23 knots she would expect to be up
about 1 P.M. next day, and this was about the time that those in boat
13 had calculated. We had always assumed in the boat that the stokers
who gave this information had it from one of the officers before they
left; but in the absence of any knowledge of the much nearer ship, the
Carpathia, it is more probable that they knew in a general way where
the sister ship, the Olympic, should be, and had made a rough
calculation.
Other ships in touch by wireless were the Mount Temple, fifty miles;
the Birma, one hundred miles; the Parisian, one hundred and fifty
miles; the Virginian, one hundred and fifty miles; and the Baltic,
three hundred miles. But closer than any of these--closer even than
the Carpathia--were two ships: the Californian, less than twenty miles
away, with the wireless operator off duty and unable to catch the
"C.Q.D." signal which was now making the air for many miles around
quiver in its appeal for help--immediate, urgent help--for the
hundreds of people who stood on the Titanic's deck.
The second vessel was a small steamer some few miles ahead on the port
side, without any wireless apparatus, her name and destination still
unknown; and yet the evidence for her presence that night seems too
strong to be disregarded. Mr. Boxhall states that he and Captain Smith
saw her quite plainly some five miles away, and could distinguish the
mast-head lights and a red port light. They at once hailed her with
rockets and Morse electric signals, to which Boxhall saw no reply, but
Captain Smith and stewards affirmed they did. The second and third
officers saw the signals sent and her lights, the latter from the
lifeboat of which he was in charge. Seaman Hopkins testified that he
was told by the captain to row for the light; and we in boat 13
certainly saw it in the same position and rowed towards it for some
time. But notwithstanding all the efforts made to attract its
attention, it drew slowly away and the lights sank below the horizon.
The pity of it! So near, and so many people waiting for the shelter
its decks could have given so easily. It seems impossible to think
that this ship ever replied to the signals: those who said so must
have been mistaken. The United State Senate Committee in its report
does not hesitate to say that this unknown steamer and the Californian
are identical, and that the failure on the part of the latter to come
to the help of the Titanic is culpable negligence. There is undoubted
evidence that some of the crew on the Californian saw our rockets; but
it seems impossible to believe that the captain and officers knew of
our distress and deliberately ignored it. Judgment on the matter had
better be suspended until further information is forthcoming. An
engineer who has served in the trans-Atlantic service tells me that it
is a common practice for small boats to leave the fishing smacks to
which they belong and row away for miles; sometimes even being lost
and wandering about among icebergs, and even not being found again. In
these circumstances, rockets are part of a fishing smack's equipment,
and are sent up to indicate to the small boats how to return. Is it
conceivable that the Californian thought our rockets were such
signals, and therefore paid no attention to them?
Incidentally, this engineer did not hesitate to add that it is
doubtful if a big liner would stop to help a small fishing-boat
sending off distress signals, or even would turn about to help one
which she herself had cut down as it lay in her path without a light.
He was strong in his affirmation that such things were commonly known
to all officers in the trans-Atlantic service.
With regard to the other vessels in wireless communication, the Mount
Temple was the only one near enough from the point of distance to have
arrived in time to be of help, but between her and the Titanic lay the
enormous ice-floe, and icebergs were near her in addition.
The seven ships which caught the message started at once to her help
but were all stopped on the way (except the Birma) by the Carpathia's
wireless announcing the fate of the Titanic and the people aboard her.
The message must have affected the captains of these ships very
deeply: they would understand far better than the travelling public
what it meant to lose such a beautiful ship on her first voyage.
The only thing now left to be done was to get the lifeboats away as
quickly as possible, and to this task the other officers were in the
meantime devoting all their endeavours. Mr. Lightoller sent away boat
after boat: in one he had put twenty-four women and children, in
another thirty, in another thirty-five; and then, running short of
seamen to man the boats he sent Major Peuchen, an expert yachtsman, in
the next, to help with its navigation. By the time these had been
filled, he had difficulty in finding women for the fifth and sixth
boats for the reasons already stated. All this time the passengers
remained--to use his own expression--"as quiet as if in church." To
man and supervise the loading of six boats must have taken him nearly
up to the time of the Titanic's sinking, taking an average of some
twenty minutes to a boat. Still at work to the end, he remained on the
ship till she sank and went down with her. His evidence before the
United States Committee was as follows: "Did you leave the ship?" "No,
sir." "Did the ship leave you?" "Yes, sir."
It was a piece of work well and cleanly done, and his escape from the
ship, one of the most wonderful of all, seems almost a reward for his
devotion to duty.
Captain Smith, Officers Wilde and Murdock were similarly engaged in
other parts of the ship, urging women to get in the boats, in some
cases directing junior officers to go down in some of them,--Officers
Pitman, Boxhall, and Lowe were sent in this way,--in others placing
members of the crew in charge. As the boats were lowered, orders were
shouted to them where to make for: some were told to stand by and wait
for further instructions, others to row for the light of the
disappearing steamer.
It is a pitiful thing to recall the effects of sending down the first
boats half full. In some cases men in the company of their wives had
actually taken seats in the boats--young men, married only a few weeks
and on their wedding trip--and had done so only because no more women
could then be found; but the strict interpretation by the particular
officer in charge there of the rule of "Women and children only,"
compelled them to get out again. Some of these boats were lowered and
reached the Carpathia with many vacant seats. The anguish of the young
wives in such circumstances can only be imagined. In other parts of
the ship, however, a different interpretation was placed on the rule,
and men were allowed and even invited by officers to get in--not only
to form part of the crew, but even as passengers. This, of course, in
the first boats and when no more women could be found.
The varied understanding of this rule was a frequent subject of
discussion on the Carpathia--in fact, the rule itself was debated with
much heart-searching. There were not wanting many who doubted the
justice of its rigid enforcement, who could not think it well that a
husband should be separated from his wife and family, leaving them
penniless, or a young bridegroom from his wife of a few short weeks,
while ladies with few relatives, with no one dependent upon them, and
few responsibilities of any kind, were saved. It was mostly these
ladies who pressed this view, and even men seemed to think there was a
good deal to be said for it. Perhaps there is, theoretically, but it
would be impossible, I think, in practice. To quote Mr. Lightoller
again in his evidence before the United States Senate Committee,--when
asked if it was a rule of the sea that women and children be saved
first, he replied, "No, it is a rule of human nature." That is no
doubt the real reason for its existence.
But the selective process of circumstances brought about results that
were very bitter to some. It was heartrending for ladies who had lost
all they held dearest in the world to hear that in one boat was a
stoker picked up out of the sea so drunk that he stood up and
brandished his arms about, and had to be thrown down by ladies and sat
upon to keep him quiet. If comparisons can be drawn, it did seem
better that an educated, refined man should be saved than one who had
flown to drink as his refuge in time of danger.
These discussions turned sometimes to the old enquiry--"What is the
purpose of all this? Why the disaster? Why this man saved and that man
lost? Who has arranged that my husband should live a few short happy
years in the world, and the happiest days in those years with me these
last few weeks, and then be taken from me?" I heard no one attribute
all this to a Divine Power who ordains and arranges the lives of men,
and as part of a definite scheme sends such calamity and misery in
order to purify, to teach, to spiritualize. I do not say there were
not people who thought and said they saw Divine Wisdom in it all,--so
inscrutable that we in our ignorance saw it not; but I did not hear it
expressed, and this book is intended to be no more than a partial
chronicle of the many different experiences and convictions.
There were those, on the other hand, who did not fail to say
emphatically that indifference to the rights and feelings of others,
blindness to duty towards our fellow men and women, was in the last
analysis the cause of most of the human misery in the world. And it
should undoubtedly appeal more to our sense of justice to attribute
these things to our own lack of consideration for others than to shift
the responsibility on to a Power whom we first postulate as being
All-wise and All-loving.
All the boats were lowered and sent away by about 2 A.M., and by this
time the ship was very low in the water, the forecastle deck
completely submerged, and the sea creeping steadily up to the bridge
and probably only a few yards away.
No one on the ship can have had any doubt now as to her ultimate fate,
and yet the fifteen hundred passengers and crew on board made no
demonstration, and not a sound came from them as they stood quietly on
the decks or went about their duties below. It seems incredible, and
yet if it was a continuation of the same feeling that existed on deck
before the boats left,--and I have no doubt it was,--the explanation
is straightforward and reasonable in its simplicity. An attempt is
made in the last chapter to show why the attitude of the crowd was so
quietly courageous. There are accounts which picture excited crowds
running about the deck in terror, fighting and struggling, but two of
the most accurate observers, Colonel Gracie and Mr. Lightoller, affirm
that this was not so, that absolute order and quietness prevailed. The
band still played to cheer the hearts of all near; the engineers and
their crew--I have never heard any one speak of a single engineer
being seen on deck--still worked at the electric light engines, far
away below, keeping them going until no human being could do so a
second longer, right until the ship tilted on end and the engines
broke loose and fell down. The light failed then only because the
engines were no longer there to produce light, not because the men who
worked them were not standing by them to do their duty. To be down in
the bowels of the ship, far away from the deck where at any rate there
was a chance of a dive and a swim and a possible rescue; to know that
when the ship went--as they knew it must soon--there could be no
possible hope of climbing up in time to reach the sea; to know all
these things and yet to keep the engines going that the decks might be
lighted to the last moment, required sublime courage.
But this courage is required of every engineer and it is not called by
that name: it is called "duty." To stand by his engines to the last
possible moment is his duty. There could be no better example of the
supremest courage being but duty well done than to remember the
engineers of the Titanic still at work as she heeled over and flung
them with their engines down the length of the ship. The simple
statement that the lights kept on to the last is really their epitaph,
but Lowell's words would seem to apply to them with peculiar force--
"The longer on this earth we live
And weigh the various qualities of men--
The more we feel the high, stern-featured beauty
Of plain devotedness to duty.
Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise,
But finding amplest recompense
For life's ungarlanded expense
In work done squarely and unwasted days."
For some time before she sank, the Titanic had a considerable list to
port, so much so that one boat at any rate swung so far away from the
side that difficulty was experienced in getting passengers in. This
list was increased towards the end, and Colonel Gracie relates that
Mr. Lightoller, who has a deep, powerful voice, ordered all passengers
to the starboard side. This was close before the end. They crossed
over, and as they did so a crowd of steerage passengers rushed up and
filled the decks so full that there was barely room to move. Soon
afterwards the great vessel swung slowly, stern in the air, the lights
went out, and while some were flung into the water and others dived
off, the great majority still clung to the rails, to the sides and
roofs of deck-structures, lying prone on the deck. And in this
position they were when, a few minutes later, the enormous vessel
dived obliquely downwards. As she went, no doubt many still clung to
the rails, but most would do their best to get away from her and jump
as she slid forwards and downwards. Whatever they did, there can be
little question that most of them would be taken down by suction, to
come up again a few moments later and to fill the air with those
heartrending cries which fell on the ears of those in the lifeboats
with such amazement. Another survivor, on the other hand, relates that
he had dived from the stern before she heeled over, and swam round
under her enormous triple screws lifted by now high out of the water
as she stood on end. Fascinated by the extraordinary sight, he watched
them up above his head, but presently realizing the necessity of
getting away as quickly as possible, he started to swim from the ship,
but as he did she dived forward, the screws passing near his head. His
experience is that not only was no suction present, but even a wave
was created which washed him away from the place where she had gone
down.
Of all those fifteen hundred people, flung into the sea as the Titanic
went down, innocent victims of thoughtlessness and apathy of those
responsible for their safety, only a very few found their way to the
Carpathia. It will serve no good purpose to dwell any longer on the
scene of helpless men and women struggling in the water. The heart of
everyone who has read of their helplessness has gone out to them in
deepest love and sympathy; and the knowledge that their struggle in
the water was in most cases short and not physically painful because
of the low temperature--the evidence seems to show that few lost their
lives by drowning--is some consolation.
If everyone sees to it that his sympathy with them is so practical as
to force him to follow up the question of reforms personally, not
leaving it to experts alone, then he will have at any rate done
something to atone for the loss of so many valuable lives.
We had now better follow the adventures of those who were rescued from
the final event in the disaster. Two accounts--those of Colonel Gracie
and Mr. Lightoller--agree very closely. The former went down clinging
to a rail, the latter dived before the ship went right under, but was
sucked down and held against one of the blowers. They were both
carried down for what seemed a long distance, but Mr. Lightoller was
finally blown up again by a "terrific gust" that came up the blower
and forced him clear. Colonel Gracie came to the surface after holding
his breath for what seemed an eternity, and they both swam about
holding on to any wreckage they could find. Finally they saw an
upturned collapsible boat and climbed on it in company with twenty
other men, among them Bride the Marconi operator. After remaining thus
for some hours, with the sea washing them to the waist, they stood up
as day broke, in two rows, back to back, balancing themselves as well
as they could, and afraid to turn lest the boat should roll over.
Finally a lifeboat saw them and took them off, an operation attended
with the greatest difficulty, and they reached the Carpathia in the
early dawn. Not many people have gone through such an experience as
those men did, lying all night on an overturned, ill-balanced boat,
and praying together, as they did all the time, for the day and a ship
to take them off.
Some account must now be attempted of the journey of the fleet of
boats to the Carpathia, but it must necessarily be very brief.
Experiences differed considerably: some had no encounters at all with
icebergs, no lack of men to row, discovered lights and food and water,
were picked up after only a few hours' exposure, and suffered very
little discomfort; others seemed to see icebergs round them all night
long and to be always rowing round them; others had so few men
aboard--in some cases only two or three--that ladies had to row and in
one case to steer, found no lights, food or water, and were adrift
many hours, in some cases nearly eight.
The first boat to be picked up by the Carpathia was one in charge of
Mr. Boxhall. There was only one other man rowing and ladies worked at
the oars. A green light burning in this boat all night was the
greatest comfort to the rest of us who had nothing to steer by:
although it meant little in the way of safety in itself, it was a
point to which we could look. The green light was the first intimation
Captain Rostron had of our position, and he steered for it and picked
up its passengers first.
Mr. Pitman was sent by First Officer Murdock in charge of boat 5, with
forty passengers and five of the crew. It would have held more, but no
women could be found at the time it was lowered. Mr. Pitman says that
after leaving the ship he felt confident she would float and they
would all return. A passenger in this boat relates that men could not
be induced to embark when she went down, and made appointments for the
next morning with him. Tied to boat 5 was boat 7, one of those that
contained few people: a few were transferred from number 5, but it
would have held many more.
Fifth Officer Lowe was in charge of boat 14, with fifty-five women and
children, and some of the crew. So full was the boat that as she went
down Mr. Lowe had to fire his revolver along the ship's side to
prevent any more climbing in and causing her to buckle. This boat,
like boat 13, was difficult to release from the lowering tackle, and
had to be cut away after reaching the sea. Mr. Lowe took in charge
four other boats, tied them together with lines, found some of them
not full, and transferred all his passengers to these, distributing
them in the darkness as well as he could. Then returning to the place
where the Titanic had sunk, he picked up some of those swimming in the
water and went back to the four boats. On the way to the Carpathia he
encountered one of the collapsible boats, and took aboard all those in
her, as she seemed to be sinking.
Boat 12 was one of the four tied together, and the seaman in charge
testified that he tried to row to the drowning, but with forty women
and children and only one other man to row, it was not possible to
pull such a heavy boat to the scene of the wreck.
Boat 2 was a small ship's boat and had four or five passengers and
seven of the crew. Boat 4 was one of the last to leave on the port
side, and by this time there was such a list that deck chairs had to
bridge the gap between the boat and the deck. When lowered, it
remained for some time still attached to the ropes, and as the Titanic
was rapidly sinking it seemed she would be pulled under. The boat was
full of women, who besought the sailors to leave the ship, but in
obedience to orders from the captain to stand by the cargo port, they
remained near; so near, in fact, that they heard china falling and
smashing as the ship went down by the head, and were nearly hit by
wreckage thrown overboard by some of the officers and crew and
intended to serve as rafts. They got clear finally, and were only a
short distance away when the ship sank, so that they were able to pull
some men aboard as they came to the surface.
This boat had an unpleasant experience in the night with icebergs;
many were seen and avoided with difficulty.
Quartermaster Hickens was in charge of boat 6, and in the absence of
sailors Major Peuchen was sent to help to man her. They were told to
make for the light of the steamer seen on the port side, and followed
it until it disappeared. There were forty women and children here.
Boat 8 had only one seaman, and as Captain Smith had enforced the rule
of "Women and children only," ladies had to row. Later in the night,
when little progress had been made, the seaman took an oar and put a
lady in charge of the tiller. This boat again was in the midst of
icebergs.
Of the four collapsible boats--although collapsible is not really the
correct term, for only a small portion collapses, the canvas edge;
"surf boats" is really their name--one was launched at the last moment
by being pushed over as the sea rose to the edge of the deck, and was
never righted. This is the one twenty men climbed on. Another was
caught up by Mr. Lowe and the passengers transferred, with the
exception of three men who had perished from the effects of immersion.
The boat was allowed to drift away and was found more than a month
later by the Celtic in just the same condition. It is interesting to
note how long this boat had remained afloat after she was supposed to
be no longer seaworthy. A curious coincidence arose from the fact that
one of my brothers happened to be travelling on the Celtic, and
looking over the side, saw adrift on the sea a boat belonging to the
Titanic in which I had been wrecked.
The two other collapsible boats came to the Carpathia carrying full
loads of passengers: in one, the forward starboard boat and one of the
last to leave, was Mr. Ismay. Here four Chinamen were concealed under
the feet of the passengers. How they got there no one knew--or indeed
how they happened to be on the Titanic, for by the immigration laws of
the United States they are not allowed to enter her ports.
It must be said, in conclusion, that there is the greatest cause for
gratitude that all the boats launched carried their passengers safely
to the rescue ship. It would not be right to accept this fact without
calling attention to it: it would be easy to enumerate many things
which might have been present as elements of danger.
CHAPTER VII
THE CARPATHIA'S RETURN TO NEW YORK
The journey of the Carpathia from the time she caught the "C.Q.D."
from the Titanic at about 12.30 A.M. on Monday morning and turned
swiftly about to her rescue, until she arrived at New York on the
following Thursday at 8.30 P.M. was one that demanded of the captain,
officers and crew of the vessel the most exact knowledge of
navigation, the utmost vigilance in every department both before and
after the rescue, and a capacity for organization that must sometimes
have been taxed to the breaking point.
The extent to which all these qualities were found present and the
manner in which they were exercised stands to the everlasting credit
of the Cunard Line and those of its servants who were in charge of the
Carpathia. Captain Rostron's part in all this is a great one, and
wrapped up though his action is in a modesty that is conspicuous in
its nobility, it stands out even in his own account as a piece of work
well and courageously done.
As soon as the Titanic called for help and gave her position, the
Carpathia was turned and headed north: all hands were called on duty,
a new watch of stokers was put on, and the highest speed of which she
was capable was demanded of the engineers, with the result that the
distance of fifty-eight miles between the two ships was covered in
three and a half hours, a speed well beyond her normal capacity. The
three doctors on board each took charge of a saloon, in readiness to
render help to any who needed their services, the stewards and
catering staff were hard at work preparing hot drinks and meals, and
the purser's staff ready with blankets and berths for the shipwrecked
passengers as soon as they got on board. On deck the sailors got ready
lifeboats, swung them out on the davits, and stood by, prepared to
lower away their crews if necessary; fixed rope-ladders,
cradle-chairs, nooses, and bags for the children at the hatches, to
haul the rescued up the side. On the bridge was the captain with his
officers, peering into the darkness eagerly to catch the first signs
of the crippled Titanic, hoping, in spite of her last despairing
message of "Sinking by the head," to find her still afloat when her
position was reached. A double watch of lookout men was set, for there
were other things as well as the Titanic to look for that night, and
soon they found them. As Captain Rostron said in his evidence, they
saw icebergs on either side of them between 2.45 and 4 A.M., passing
twenty large ones, one hundred to two hundred feet high, and many
smaller ones, and "frequently had to manoeuvre the ship to avoid
them." It was a time when every faculty was called upon for the
highest use of which it was capable. With the knowledge before them
that the enormous Titanic, the supposedly unsinkable ship, had struck
ice and was sinking rapidly; with the lookout constantly calling to
the bridge, as he must have done, "Icebergs on the starboard,"
"Icebergs on the port," it required courage and judgment beyond the
ordinary to drive the ship ahead through that lane of icebergs and
"manoeuvre round them." As he himself said, he "took the risk of full
speed in his desire to save life, and probably some people might blame
him for taking such a risk." But the Senate Committee assured him that
they, at any rate, would not, and we of the lifeboats have certainly
no desire to do so.
The ship was finally stopped at 4 A.M., with an iceberg reported dead
ahead (the same no doubt we had to row around in boat 13 as we
approached the Carpathia), and about the same time the first lifeboat
was sighted. Again she had to be manoeuvred round the iceberg to pick
up the boat, which was the one in charge of Mr. Boxhall. From him the
captain learned that the Titanic had gone down, and that he was too
late to save any one but those in lifeboats, which he could now see
drawing up from every part of the horizon. Meanwhile, the passengers
of the Carpathia, some of them aroused by the unusual vibration of the
screw, some by sailors tramping overhead as they swung away the
lifeboats and got ropes and lowering tackle ready, were beginning to
come on deck just as day broke; and here an extraordinary sight met
their eyes. As far as the eye could reach to the north and west lay an
unbroken stretch of field ice, with icebergs still attached to the
floe and rearing aloft their mass as a hill might suddenly rise from a
level plain. Ahead and to the south and east huge floating monsters
were showing up through the waning darkness, their number added to
moment by moment as the dawn broke and flushed the horizon pink. It is
remarkable how "busy" all those icebergs made the sea look: to have
gone to bed with nothing but sea and sky and to come on deck to find
so many objects in sight made quite a change in the character of the
sea: it looked quite crowded; and a lifeboat alongside and people
clambering aboard, mostly women, in nightdresses and dressing-gowns,
in cloaks and shawls, in anything but ordinary clothes! Out ahead and
on all sides little torches glittered faintly for a few moments and
then guttered out--and shouts and cheers floated across the quiet sea.
It would be difficult to imagine a more unexpected sight than this
that lay before the Carpathia's passengers as they lined the sides
that morning in the early dawn.
No novelist would dare to picture such an array of beautiful climatic
conditions,--the rosy dawn, the morning star, the moon on the horizon,
the sea stretching in level beauty to the sky-line,--and on this sea
to place an ice-field like the Arctic regions and icebergs in numbers
everywhere,--white and turning pink and deadly cold,--and near them,
rowing round the icebergs to avoid them, little boats coming suddenly
out of mid-ocean, with passengers rescued from the most wonderful ship
the world has known. No artist would have conceived such a picture: it
would have seemed so highly dramatic as to border on the impossible,
and would not have been attempted. Such a combination of events would
pass the limit permitted the imagination of both author and artist.
The passengers crowded the rails and looked down at us as we rowed up
in the early morning; stood quietly aside while the crew at the
gangways below took us aboard, and watched us as if the ship had been
in dock and we had rowed up to join her in a somewhat unusual way.
Some of them have related that we were very quiet as we came aboard:
it is quite true, we were; but so were they. There was very little
excitement on either side: just the quiet demeanour of people who are
in the presence of something too big as yet to lie within their mental
grasp, and which they cannot yet discuss. And so they asked us
politely to have hot coffee, which we did; and food, which we
generally declined,--we were not hungry,--and they said very little at
first about the lost Titanic and our adventures in the night.
Much that is exaggerated and false has been written about the mental
condition of passengers as they came aboard: we have been described as
being too dazed to understand what was happening, as being too
overwhelmed to speak, and as looking before us with "set, staring
gaze," "dazed with the shadow of the dread event." That is, no doubt,
what most people would expect in the circumstances, but I know it does
not give a faithful record of how we did arrive: in fact it is simply
not true. As remarked before, the one thing that matters in describing
an event of this kind is the exact truth, as near as the fallible
human mind can state it; and my own impression of our mental condition
is that of supreme gratitude and relief at treading the firm decks of
a ship again. I am aware that experiences differed considerably
according to the boats occupied; that those who were uncertain of the
fate of their relatives and friends had much to make them anxious and
troubled; and that it is not possible to look into another person's
consciousness and say what is written there; but dealing with mental
conditions as far as they are delineated by facial and bodily
expressions, I think joy, relief, gratitude were the dominant emotions
written on the faces of those who climbed the rope-ladders and were
hauled up in cradles.
It must not be forgotten that no one in any one boat knew who were
saved in other boats: few knew even how many boats there were and how
many passengers could be saved. It was at the time probable that
friends would follow them to the Carpathia, or be found on other
steamers, or even on the pier at which we landed. The hysterical
scenes that have been described are imaginative; true, one woman did
fill the saloon with hysterical cries immediately after coming aboard,
but she could not have known for a certainty that any of her friends
were lost: probably the sense of relief after some hours of journeying
about the sea was too much for her for a time.
One of the first things we did was to crowd round a steward with a
bundle of telegraph forms. He was the bearer of the welcome news that
passengers might send Marconigrams to their relatives free of charge,
and soon he bore away the first sheaf of hastily scribbled messages to
the operator; by the time the last boatload was aboard, the pile must
have risen high in the Marconi cabin. We learned afterwards that many
of these never reached their destination; and this is not a matter for
surprise. There was only one operator--Cottam--on board, and although
he was assisted to some extent later, when Bride from the Titanic had
recovered from his injuries sufficiently to work the apparatus, he had
so much to do that he fell asleep over this work on Tuesday night
after three days' continuous duty without rest. But we did not know
the messages were held back, and imagined our friends were aware of
our safety; then, too, a roll-call of the rescued was held in the
Carpathia's saloon on the Monday, and this was Marconied to land in
advance of all messages. It seemed certain, then, that friends at home
would have all anxiety removed, but there were mistakes in the
official list first telegraphed. The experience of my own friends
illustrates this: the Marconigram I wrote never got through to
England; nor was my name ever mentioned in any list of the saved (even
a week after landing in New York, I saw it in a black-edged "final"
list of the missing), and it seemed certain that I had never reached
the Carpathia; so much so that, as I write, there are before me
obituary notices from the English papers giving a short sketch of my
life in England. After landing in New York and realizing from the
lists of the saved which a reporter showed me that my friends had no
news since the Titanic sank on Monday morning until that night
(Thursday 9 P.M.), I cabled to England at once (as I had but two
shillings rescued from the Titanic, the White Star Line paid for the
cables), but the messages were not delivered until 8.20 A.M. next
morning. At 9 A.M. my friends read in the papers a short account of
the disaster which I had supplied to the press, so that they knew of
my safety and experiences in the wreck almost at the same time. I am
grateful to remember that many of my friends in London refused to
count me among the missing during the three days when I was so
reported.
There is another side to this record of how the news came through, and
a sad one, indeed. Again I wish it were not necessary to tell such
things, but since they all bear on the equipment of the trans-Atlantic
lines--powerful Marconi apparatus, relays of operators, etc.,--it is
best they should be told. The name of an American gentleman--the same
who sat near me in the library on Sunday afternoon and whom I
identified later from a photograph--was consistently reported in the
lists as saved and aboard the Carpathia: his son journeyed to New York
to meet him, rejoicing at his deliverance, and never found him there.
When I met his family some days later and was able to give them some
details of his life aboard ship, it seemed almost cruel to tell them
of the opposite experience that had befallen my friends at home.
Returning to the journey of the Carpathia--the last boatload of
passengers was taken aboard at 8.30 A.M., the lifeboats were hauled on
deck while the collapsibles were abandoned, and the Carpathia
proceeded to steam round the scene of the wreck in the hope of picking
up anyone floating on wreckage. Before doing so the captain arranged
in the saloon a service over the spot where the Titanic sank, as
nearly as could be calculated,--a service, as he said, of respect to
those who were lost and of gratitude for those who were saved.
She cruised round and round the scene, but found nothing to indicate
there was any hope of picking up more passengers; and as the
Californian had now arrived, followed shortly afterwards by the Birma,
a Russian tramp steamer, Captain Rostron decided to leave any further
search to them and to make all speed with the rescued to land. As we
moved round, there was surprisingly little wreckage to be seen: wooden
deck-chairs and small pieces of other wood, but nothing of any size.
But covering the sea in huge patches was a mass of reddish-yellow
"seaweed," as we called it for want of a name. It was said to be cork,
but I never heard definitely its correct description.
The problem of where to land us had next to be decided. The Carpathia
was bound for Gibraltar, and the captain might continue his journey
there, landing us at the Azores on the way; but he would require more
linen and provisions, the passengers were mostly women and children,
ill-clad, dishevelled, and in need of many attentions he could not
give them. Then, too, he would soon be out of the range of wireless
communication, with the weak apparatus his ship had, and he soon
decided against that course. Halifax was the nearest in point of
distance, but this meant steaming north through the ice, and he
thought his passengers did not want to see more ice. He headed back
therefore to New York, which he had left the previous Thursday,
working all afternoon along the edge of the ice-field which stretched
away north as far as the unaided eye could reach. I have wondered
since if we could possibly have landed our passengers on this ice-floe
from the lifeboats and gone back to pick up those swimming, had we
known it was there; I should think it quite feasible to have done so.
It was certainly an extraordinary sight to stand on deck and see the
sea covered with solid ice, white and dazzling in the sun and dotted
here and there with icebergs. We ran close up, only two or three
hundred yards away, and steamed parallel to the floe, until it ended
towards night and we saw to our infinite satisfaction the last of the
icebergs and the field fading away astern. Many of the rescued have no
wish ever to see an iceberg again. We learnt afterwards the field was
nearly seventy miles long and twelve miles wide, and had lain between
us and the Birma on her way to the rescue. Mr. Boxhall testified that
he had crossed the Grand Banks many times, but had never seen
field-ice before. The testimony of the captains and officers of other
steamers in the neighbourhood is of the same kind: they had "never
seen so many icebergs this time of the year," or "never seen such
dangerous ice floes and threatening bergs." Undoubtedly the Titanic
was faced that night with unusual and unexpected conditions of ice:
the captain knew not the extent of these conditions, but he knew
somewhat of their existence. Alas, that he heeded not their warning!
During the day, the bodies of eight of the crew were committed to the
deep: four of them had been taken out of the boats dead and four died
during the day. The engines were stopped and all passengers on deck
bared their heads while a short service was read; when it was over the
ship steamed on again to carry the living back to land.
The passengers on the Carpathia were by now hard at work finding
clothing for the survivors: the barber's shop was raided for ties,
collars, hair-pins, combs, etc., of which it happened there was a
large stock in hand; one good Samaritan went round the ship with a box
of tooth-brushes offering them indiscriminately to all. In some cases,
clothing could not be found for the ladies and they spent the rest of
the time on board in their dressing-gowns and cloaks in which they
came away from the Titanic. They even slept in them, for, in the
absence of berths, women had to sleep on the floor of the saloons and
in the library each night on straw _paillasses_, and here it was
not possible to undress properly. The men were given the smoking-room
floor and a supply of blankets, but the room was small, and some
elected to sleep out on deck. I found a pile of towels on the bathroom
floor ready for next morning's baths, and made up a very comfortable
bed on these. Later I was waked in the middle of the night by a man
offering me a berth in his four-berth cabin: another occupant was
unable to leave his berth for physical reasons, and so the cabin could
not be given up to ladies.
On Tuesday the survivors met in the saloon and formed a committee
among themselves to collect subscriptions for a general fund, out of
which it was resolved by vote to provide as far as possible for the
destitute among the steerage passengers, to present a loving cup to
Captain Rostron and medals to the officers and crew of the Carpathia,
and to divide any surplus among the crew of the Titanic. The work of
this committee is not yet (June 1st) at an end, but all the
resolutions except the last one have been acted upon, and that is now
receiving the attention of the committee. The presentations to the
captain and crew were made the day the Carpathia returned to New York
from her Mediterranean trip, and it is a pleasure to all the survivors
to know that the United States Senate has recognized the service
rendered to humanity by the Carpathia and has voted Captain Rostron a
gold medal commemorative of the rescue. On the afternoon of Tuesday, I
visited the steerage in company with a fellow-passenger, to take
down the names of all who were saved. We grouped them into
nationalities,--English Irish, and Swedish mostly,--and learnt from
them their names and homes, the amount of money they possessed, and
whether they had friends in America. The Irish girls almost
universally had no money rescued from the wreck, and were going to
friends in New York or places near, while the Swedish passengers,
among whom were a considerable number of men, had saved the greater
part of their money and in addition had railway tickets through to
their destinations inland. The saving of their money marked a curious
racial difference, for which I can offer no explanation: no doubt the
Irish girls never had very much but they must have had the necessary
amount fixed by the immigration laws. There were some pitiful cases of
women with children and the husband lost; some with one or two
children saved and the others lost; in one case, a whole family was
missing, and only a friend left to tell of them. Among the Irish group
was one girl of really remarkable beauty, black hair and deep violet
eyes with long lashes, and perfectly shaped features, and quite young,
not more than eighteen or twenty; I think she lost no relatives on the
Titanic.
The following letter to the London "Times" is reproduced here to show
something of what our feeling was on board the Carpathia towards the
loss of the Titanic. It was written soon after we had the definite
information on the Wednesday that ice warnings had been sent to the
Titanic, and when we all felt that something must be done to awaken
public opinion to safeguard ocean travel in the future. We were not
aware, of course, how much the outside world knew, and it seemed well
to do something to inform the English public of what had happened at
as early an opportunity as possible. I have not had occasion to change
any of the opinions expressed in this letter.
SIR:--
As one of few surviving Englishmen from the steamship Titanic, which
sank in mid-Atlantic on Monday morning last, I am asking you to lay
before your readers a few facts concerning the disaster, in the hope
that something may be done in the near future to ensure the safety of
that portion of the travelling public who use the Atlantic highway for
business or pleasure.
I wish to dissociate myself entirely from any report that would seek
to fix the responsibility on any person or persons or body of people,
and by simply calling attention to matters of fact the authenticity of
which is, I think, beyond question and can be established in any Court
of Inquiry, to allow your readers to draw their own conclusions as to
the responsibility for the collision.
First, that it was known to those in charge of the Titanic that we
were in the iceberg region; that the atmospheric and temperature
conditions suggested the near presence of icebergs; that a wireless
message was received from a ship ahead of us warning us that they had
been seen in the locality of which latitude and longitude were given.
Second, that at the time of the collision the Titanic was running at a
high rate of speed.
Third, that the accommodation for saving passengers and crew was
totally inadequate, being sufficient only for a total of about 950.
This gave, with the highest possible complement of 3400, a less than
one in three chance of being saved in the case of accident.
Fourth, that the number landed in the Carpathia, approximately 700, is
a high percentage of the possible 950, and bears excellent testimony
to the courage, resource, and devotion to duty of the officers and
crew of the vessel; many instances of their nobility and personal
self-sacrifice are within our possession, and we know that they did
all they could do with the means at their disposal.
Fifth, that the practice of running mail and passenger vessels through
fog and iceberg regions at a high speed is a common one; they are
timed to run almost as an express train is run, and they cannot,
therefore, slow down more than a few knots in time of possible danger.
I have neither knowledge nor experience to say what remedies I
consider should be applied; but, perhaps, the following suggestions
may serve as a help:--
First, that no vessel should be allowed to leave a British port
without sufficient boat and other accommodation to allow each
passenger and member of the crew a seat; and that at the time of
booking this fact should be pointed out to a passenger, and the number
of the seat in the particular boat allotted to him then.
Second, that as soon as is practicable after sailing each passenger
should go through boat drill in company with the crew assigned to his
boat.
Third, that each passenger boat engaged in the Transatlantic service
should be instructed to slow down to a few knots when in the iceberg
region, and should be fitted with an efficient searchlight.
Yours faithfully,
LAWRENCE BEESLEY.
It seemed well, too, while on the Carpathia to prepare as accurate an
account as possible of the disaster and to have this ready for the
press, in order to calm public opinion and to forestall the incorrect
and hysterical accounts which some American reporters are in the habit
of preparing on occasions of this kind. The first impression is often
the most permanent, and in a disaster of this magnitude, where exact
and accurate information is so necessary, preparation of a report was
essential. It was written in odd corners of the deck and saloon of the
Carpathia, and fell, it seemed very happily, into the hands of the one
reporter who could best deal with it, the Associated Press. I
understand it was the first report that came through and had a good
deal of the effect intended.
The Carpathia returned to New York in almost every kind of climatic
conditions: icebergs, ice-fields and bitter cold to commence with;
brilliant warm sun, thunder and lightning in the middle of one night
(and so closely did the peal follow the flash that women in the saloon
leaped up in alarm saying rockets were being sent up again); cold
winds most of the time; fogs every morning and during a good part of
one day, with the foghorn blowing constantly; rain; choppy sea with
the spray blowing overboard and coming in through the saloon windows;
we said we had almost everything but hot weather and stormy seas. So
that when we were told that Nantucket Lightship had been sighted on
Thursday morning from the bridge, a great sigh of relief went round to
think New York and land would be reached before next morning.
There is no doubt that a good many felt the waiting period of those
four days very trying: the ship crowded far beyond its limits of
comfort, the want of necessities of clothing and toilet, and above all
the anticipation of meeting with relatives on the pier, with, in many
cases, the knowledge that other friends were left behind and would not
return home again. A few looked forward to meeting on the pier their
friends to whom they had said au revoir on the Titanic's deck, brought
there by a faster boat, they said, or at any rate to hear that they
were following behind us in another boat: a very few, indeed, for the
thought of the icy water and the many hours' immersion seemed to weigh
against such a possibility; but we encouraged them to hope the
Californian and the Birma had picked some up; stranger things have
happened, and we had all been through strange experiences. But in the
midst of this rather tense feeling, one fact stands out as
remarkable--no one was ill. Captain Rostron testified that on Tuesday
the doctor reported a clean bill of health, except for frost-bites and
shaken nerves. There were none of the illnesses supposed to follow
from exposure for hours in the cold night--and, it must be remembered,
a considerable number swam about for some time when the Titanic sank,
and then either sat for hours in their wet things or lay flat on an
upturned boat with the sea water washing partly over them until they
were taken off in a lifeboat; no scenes of women weeping and brooding
over their losses hour by hour until they were driven mad with
grief--yet all this has been reported to the press by people on board
the Carpathia. These women met their sorrow with the sublimest
courage, came on deck and talked with their fellow-men and women face
to face, and in the midst of their loss did not forget to rejoice with
those who had joined their friends on the Carpathia's deck or come
with them in a boat. There was no need for those ashore to call the
Carpathia a "death-ship," or to send coroners and coffins to the pier
to meet her: her passengers were generally in good health and they did
not pretend they were not.
Presently land came in sight, and very good it was to see it again: it
was eight days since we left Southampton, but the time seemed to have
"stretched out to the crack of doom," and to have become eight weeks
instead. So many dramatic incidents had been crowded into the last few
days that the first four peaceful, uneventful days, marked by nothing
that seared the memory, had faded almost out of recollection. It
needed an effort to return to Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown,
as though returning to some event of last year. I think we all
realized that time may be measured more by events than by seconds and
minutes: what the astronomer would call "2.20 A.M. April 15th, 1912,"
the survivors called "the sinking of the Titanic"; the "hours" that
followed were designated "being adrift in an open sea," and "4.30
A.M." was "being rescued by the Carpathia." The clock was a mental
one, and the hours, minutes and seconds marked deeply on its face were
emotions, strong and silent.
Surrounded by tugs of every kind, from which (as well as from every
available building near the river) magnesium bombs were shot off by
photographers, while reporters shouted for news of the disaster and
photographs of passengers, the Carpathia drew slowly to her station at
the Cunard pier, the gangways were pushed across, and we set foot at
last on American soil, very thankful, grateful people.
The mental and physical condition of the rescued as they came ashore
has, here again, been greatly exaggerated--one description says we
were "half-fainting, half-hysterical, bordering on hallucination, only
now beginning to realize the horror." It is unfortunate such pictures
should be presented to the world. There were some painful scenes of
meeting between relatives of those who were lost, but once again women
showed their self-control and went through the ordeal in most cases
with extraordinary calm. It is well to record that the same account
added: "A few, strangely enough, are calm and lucid"; if for "few" we
read "a large majority," it will be much nearer the true description
of the landing on the Cunard pier in New York. There seems to be no
adequate reason why a report of such a scene should depict mainly the
sorrow and grief, should seek for every detail to satisfy the horrible
and the morbid in the human mind. The first questions the excited
crowds of reporters asked as they crowded round were whether it was
true that officers shot passengers, and then themselves; whether
passengers shot each other; whether any scenes of horror had been
noticed, and what they were.
It would have been well to have noticed the wonderful state of health
of most of the rescued, their gratitude for their deliverance, the
thousand and one things that gave cause for rejoicing. In the midst of
so much description of the hysterical side of the scene, place should
be found for the normal--and I venture to think the normal was the
dominant feature in the landing that night. In the last chapter I
shall try to record the persistence of the normal all through the
disaster. Nothing has been a greater surprise than to find people that
do not act in conditions of danger and grief as they would be
generally supposed to act--and, I must add, as they are generally
described as acting.
And so, with her work of rescue well done, the good ship Carpathia
returned to New York. Everyone who came in her, everyone on the dock,
and everyone who heard of her journey will agree with Captain Rostron
when he says: "I thank God that I was within wireless hailing
distance, and that I got there in time to pick up the survivors of the
wreck."
CHAPTER VIII
THE LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC
One of the most pitiful things in the relations of human beings to
each other--the action and reaction of events that is called
concretely "human life"--is that every now and then some of them
should be called upon to lay down their lives from no sense of
imperative, calculated duty such as inspires the soldier or the
sailor, but suddenly, without any previous knowledge or warning of
danger, without any opportunity of escape, and without any desire to
risk such conditions of danger of their own free will. It is a blot on
our civilization that these things are necessary from time to time, to
arouse those responsible for the safety of human life from the
lethargic selfishness which has governed them. The Titanic's two
thousand odd passengers went aboard thinking they were
on an absolutely safe ship, and all the time there were many
people--designers, builders, experts, government officials--who knew
there were insufficient boats on board, that the Titanic had no right
to go fast in iceberg regions,--who knew these things and took no
steps and enacted no laws to prevent their happening. Not that they
omitted to do these things deliberately, but were lulled into a state
of selfish inaction from which it needed such a tragedy as this to
arouse them. It was a cruel necessity which demanded that a few should
die to arouse many millions to a sense of their own insecurity, to the
fact that for years the possibility of such a disaster has been
imminent. Passengers have known none of these things, and while no
good end would have been served by relating to them needless tales of
danger on the high seas, one thing is certain--that, had they known
them, many would not have travelled in such conditions and thereby
safeguards would soon have been forced on the builders, the companies,
and the Government. But there were people who knew and did not fail to
call attention to the dangers: in the House of Commons the matter has
been frequently brought up privately, and an American naval officer,
Captain E. K. Boden, in an article that has since been widely
reproduced, called attention to the defects of this very ship, the
Titanic--taking her as an example of all other liners--and pointed out
that she was not unsinkable and had not proper boat accommodation.
The question, then, of responsibility for the loss of the Titanic must
be considered: not from any idea that blame should be laid here or
there and a scapegoat provided--that is a waste of time. But if a
fixing of responsibility leads to quick and efficient remedy, then it
should be done relentlessly: our simple duty to those whom the Titanic
carried down with her demands no less. Dealing first with the
precautions for the safety of the ship as apart from safety
appliances, there can be no question, I suppose, that the direct
responsibility for the loss of the Titanic and so many lives must be
laid on her captain. He was responsible for setting the course, day by
day and hour by hour, for the speed she was travelling; and he alone
would have the power to decide whether or not speed must be slackened
with icebergs ahead. No officer would have any right to interfere in
the navigation, although they would no doubt be consulted. Nor would
any official connected with the management of the line--Mr. Ismay, for
example--be allowed to direct the captain in these matters, and there
is no evidence that he ever tried to do so. The very fact that the
captain of a ship has such absolute authority increases his
responsibility enormously. Even supposing the White Star Line and Mr.
Ismay had urged him before sailing to make a record,--again an
assumption,--they cannot be held directly responsible for the
collision: he was in charge of the lives of everyone on board and no
one but he was supposed to estimate the risk of travelling at the
speed he did, when ice was reported ahead of him. His action cannot be
justified on the ground of prudent seamanship.
But the question of indirect responsibility raises at once many issues
and, I think, removes from Captain Smith a good deal of personal
responsibility for the loss of his ship. Some of these issues it will
be well to consider.
In the first place, disabusing our minds again of the knowledge that
the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank, let us estimate the
probabilities of such a thing happening. An iceberg is small and
occupies little room by comparison with the broad ocean on which it
floats; and the chances of another small object like a ship colliding
with it and being sunk are very small: the chances are, as a matter of
fact, one in a million. This is not a figure of speech: that is the
actual risk for total loss by collision with an iceberg as accepted by
insurance companies. The one-in-a-million accident was what sunk the
Titanic.
Even so, had Captain Smith been alone in taking that risk, he would
have had to bear all the blame for the resulting disaster. But it
seems he is not alone: the same risk has been taken over and over
again by fast mail-passenger liners, in fog and in iceberg regions.
Their captains have taken the long--very long--chance many times and
won every time; he took it as he had done many times before, and lost.
Of course, the chances that night of striking an iceberg were much
greater than one in a million: they had been enormously increased by
the extreme southerly position of icebergs and field ice and by the
unusual number of the former. Thinking over the scene that met our
eyes from the deck of the Carpathia after we boarded her,--the great
number of icebergs wherever the eye could reach,--the chances of
_not_ hitting one in the darkness of the night seemed small.
Indeed, the more one thinks about the Carpathia coming at full speed
through all those icebergs in the darkness, the more inexplicable does
it seem. True, the captain had an extra lookout watch and every sense
of every man on the bridge alert to detect the least sign of danger,
and again he was not going so fast as the Titanic and would have his
ship under more control; but granted all that, he appears to have
taken a great risk as he dogged and twisted round the awful
two-hundred-foot monsters in the dark night. Does it mean that the
risk is not so great as we who have seen the abnormal and not the
normal side of taking risks with icebergs might suppose? He had his
own ship and passengers to consider, and he had no right to take too
great a risk.
But Captain Smith could not know icebergs were there in such numbers:
what warnings he had of them is not yet thoroughly established,--there
were probably three,--but it is in the highest degree unlikely that he
knew that any vessel had seen them in such quantities as we saw them
Monday morning; in fact, it is unthinkable. He thought, no doubt, he
was taking an ordinary risk, and it turned out to be an extraordinary
one. To read some criticisms it would seem as if he deliberately ran
his ship in defiance of all custom through a region infested with
icebergs, and did a thing which no one has ever done before; that he
outraged all precedent by not slowing down. But it is plain that he
did not. Every captain who has run full speed through fog and iceberg
regions is to blame for the disaster as much as he is: they got
through and he did not. Other liners can go faster than the Titanic
could possibly do; had they struck ice they would have been injured
even more deeply than she was, for it must not be forgotten that the
force of impact varies as the _square_ of the velocity--i.e., it
is four times as much at sixteen knots as at eight knots, nine times
as much at twenty-four, and so on. And with not much margin of time
left for these fast boats, they must go full speed ahead nearly all
the time. Remember how they advertise to "Leave New York Wednesday,
dine in London the following Monday,"--and it is done regularly, much
as an express train is run to time. Their officers, too, would have
been less able to avoid a collision than Murdock of the Titanic was,
for at the greater speed, they would be on the iceberg in shorter
time. Many passengers can tell of crossing with fog a good deal of the
way, sometimes almost all the way, and they have been only a few hours
late at the end of the journey.
So that it is the custom that is at fault, not one particular captain.
Custom is established largely by demand, and supply too is the answer
to demand. What the public demanded the White Star Line supplied, and
so both the public and the Line are concerned with the question of
indirect responsibility.
The public has demanded, more and more every year, greater speed as
well as greater comfort, and by ceasing to patronize the low-speed
boats has gradually forced the pace to what it is at present. Not that
speed in itself is a dangerous thing,--it is sometimes much safer to
go quickly than slowly,--but that, given the facilities for speed and
the stimulus exerted by the constant public demand for it, occasions
arise when the judgment of those in command of a ship becomes
swayed--largely unconsciously, no doubt--in favour of taking risks
which the smaller liners would never take. The demand on the skipper
of a boat like the Californian, for example, which lay hove-to
nineteen miles away with her engines stopped, is infinitesimal
compared with that on Captain Smith. An old traveller told me on the
Carpathia that he has often grumbled to the officers for what he
called absurd precautions in lying to and wasting his time, which he
regarded as very valuable; but after hearing of the Titanic's loss he
recognized that he was to some extent responsible for the speed at
which she had travelled, and would never be so again. He had been one
of the travelling public who had constantly demanded to be taken to
his journey's end in the shortest possible time, and had "made a row"
about it if he was likely to be late. There are some business men to
whom the five or six days on board are exceedingly irksome and
represent a waste of time; even an hour saved at the journey's end is
a consideration to them. And if the demand is not always a conscious
one, it is there as an unconscious factor always urging the highest
speed of which the ship is capable. The man who demands fast travel
unreasonably must undoubtedly take his share in the responsibility. He
asks to be taken over at a speed which will land him in something over
four days; he forgets perhaps that Columbus took ninety days in a
forty-ton boat, and that only fifty years ago paddle steamers took six
weeks, and all the time the demand is greater and the strain is more:
the public demand speed and luxury; the lines supply it, until
presently the safety limit is reached, the undue risk is taken--and
the Titanic goes down. All of us who have cried for greater speed must
take our share in the responsibility. The expression of such a desire
and the discontent with so-called slow travel are the seed sown in the
minds of men, to bear fruit presently in an insistence on greater
speed. We may not have done so directly, but we may perhaps have
talked about it and thought about it, and we know no action begins
without thought.
The White Star Line has received very rough handling from some of the
press, but the greater part of this criticism seems to be unwarranted
and to arise from the desire to find a scapegoat. After all they had
made better provision for the passengers the Titanic carried than any
other line has done, for they had built what they believed to be a
huge lifeboat, unsinkable in all ordinary conditions. Those who
embarked in her were almost certainly in the safest ship (along with
the Olympic) afloat: she was probably quite immune from the ordinary
effects of wind, waves and collisions at sea, and needed to fear
nothing but running on a rock or, what was worse, a floating iceberg;
for the effects of collision were, so far as damage was concerned, the
same as if it had been a rock, and the danger greater, for one is
charted and the other is not. Then, too, while the theory of the
unsinkable boat has been destroyed at the same time as the boat
itself, we should not forget that it served a useful purpose on deck
that night--it eliminated largely the possibility of panic, and those
rushes for the boats which might have swamped some of them. I do not
wish for a moment to suggest that such things would have happened,
because the more information that comes to hand of the conduct of the
people on board, the more wonderful seems the complete self-control of
all, even when the last boats had gone and nothing but the rising
waters met their eyes--only that the generally entertained theory
rendered such things less probable. The theory, indeed, was really a
safeguard, though built on a false premise.
There is no evidence that the White Star Line instructed the captain
to push the boat or to make any records: the probabilities are that no
such attempt would be made on the first trip. The general instructions
to their commanders bear quite the other interpretation: it will be
well to quote them in full as issued to the press during the sittings
of the United States Senate Committee.
_Instructions to commanders_
Commanders must distinctly understand that the issue of regulations
does not in any way relieve them from responsibility for the safe and
efficient navigation of their respective vessels, and they are also
enjoined to remember that they must run no risks which might by any
possibility result in accident to their ships. It is to be hoped that
they will ever bear in mind that the safety of the lives and property
entrusted to their care is the ruling principle that should govern
them in the navigation of their vessels, and that no supposed gain in
expedition or saving of time on the voyage is to be purchased at the
risk of accident.
Commanders are reminded that the steamers are to a great extent
uninsured, and that their own livelihood, as well as the company's
success, depends upon immunity from accident; no precaution which
ensures safe navigation is to be considered excessive.
Nothing could be plainer than these instructions, and had they been
obeyed, the disaster would never have happened: they warn commanders
against the only thing left as a menace to their unsinkable boat--the
lack of "precaution which ensures safe navigation."
In addition, the White Star Line had complied to the full extent with
the requirements of the British Government: their ship had been
subjected to an inspection so rigid that, as one officer remarked in
evidence, it became a nuisance. The Board of Trade employs the best
experts, and knows the dangers that attend ocean travel and the
precautions that should be taken by every commander. If these
precautions are not taken, it will be necessary to legislate until
they are. No motorist is allowed to career at full speed along a
public highway in dangerous conditions, and it should be an offence
for a captain to do the same on the high seas with a ship full of
unsuspecting passengers. They have entrusted their lives to the
government of their country--through its regulations--and they are
entitled to the same protection in mid-Atlantic as they are in Oxford
Street or Broadway. The open sea should no longer be regarded as a
neutral zone where no country's police laws are operative.
Of course there are difficulties in the way of drafting international
regulations: many governments would have to be consulted and many
difficulties that seem insuperable overcome; but that is the purpose
for which governments are employed, that is why experts and ministers
of governments are appointed and paid--to overcome difficulties for
the people who appoint them and who expect them, among other things,
to protect their lives.
The American Government must share the same responsibility: it is
useless to attempt to fix it on the British Board of Trade for the
reason that the boats were built in England and inspected there by
British officials. They carried American citizens largely, and entered
American ports. It would have been the simplest matter for the United
States Government to veto the entry of any ship which did not conform
to its laws of regulating speed in conditions of fog and icebergs--had
they provided such laws. The fact is that the American nation has
practically no mercantile marine, and in time of a disaster such as
this it forgets, perhaps, that it has exactly the same right--and
therefore the same responsibility--as the British Government to
inspect, and to legislate: the right that is easily enforced by
refusal to allow entry. The regulation of speed in dangerous regions
could well be undertaken by some fleet of international police patrol
vessels, with power to stop if necessary any boat found guilty of
reckless racing. The additional duty of warning ships of the exact
locality of icebergs could be performed by these boats. It would not
of course be possible or advisable to fix a "speed limit," because the
region of icebergs varies in position as the icebergs float south,
varies in point of danger as they melt and disappear, and the whole
question has to be left largely to the judgment of the captain on the
spot; but it would be possible to make it an offence against the law
to go beyond a certain speed in known conditions of danger.
So much for the question of regulating speed on the high seas. The
secondary question of safety appliances is governed by the same
principle--that, in the last analysis, it is not the captain, not the
passenger, not the builders and owners, but the governments through
their experts, who are to be held responsible for the provision of
lifesaving devices. Morally, of course, the owners and builders are
responsible, but at present moral responsibility is too weak an
incentive in human affairs--that is the miserable part of the whole
wretched business--to induce owners generally to make every possible
provision for the lives of those in their charge; to place human
safety so far above every other consideration that no plan shall be
left unconsidered, no device left untested, by which passengers can
escape from a sinking ship. But it is not correct to say, as has been
said frequently, that it is greed and dividend-hunting that have
characterized the policy of the steamship companies in their failure
to provide safety appliances: these things in themselves are not
expensive. They have vied with each other in making their lines
attractive in point of speed, size and comfort, and they have been
quite justified in doing so: such things are the product of ordinary
competition between commercial houses.
Where they have all failed morally is to extend to their passengers
the consideration that places their lives as of more interest to them
than any other conceivable thing. They are not alone in this:
thousands of other people have done the same thing and would do it
to-day--in factories, in workshops, in mines, did not the government
intervene and insist on safety precautions. The thing is a defect in
human life of to-day--thoughtlessness for the well-being of our
fellow-men; and we are all guilty of it in some degree. It is folly
for the public to rise up now and condemn the steamship companies:
their failing is the common failing of the immorality of indifference.
The remedy is the law, and it is the only remedy at present that will
really accomplish anything. The British law on the subject dates from
1894, and requires only twenty boats for a ship the size of the
Titanic: the owners and builders have obeyed this law and fulfilled
their legal responsibility. Increase this responsibility and they will
fulfil it again--and the matter is ended so far as appliances are
concerned. It should perhaps be mentioned that in a period of ten
years only nine passengers were lost on British ships: the law seemed
to be sufficient in fact.
The position of the American Government, however, is worse than that
of the British Government. Its regulations require more than double
the boat accommodation which the British regulations do, and yet it
has allowed hundreds of thousands of its subjects to enter its ports
on boats that defied its own laws. Had their government not been
guilty of the same indifference, passengers would not have been
allowed aboard any British ship lacking in boat-accommodation--the
simple expedient again of refusing entry. The reply of the British
Government to the Senate Committee, accusing the Board of Trade of
"insufficient requirements and lax inspection," might well be--"Ye
have a law: see to it yourselves!"
It will be well now to consider briefly the various appliances that
have been suggested to ensure the safety of passengers and crew, and
in doing so it may be remembered that the average man and woman has
the same right as the expert to consider and discuss these things:
they are not so technical as to prevent anyone of ordinary
intelligence from understanding their construction. Using the term in
its widest sense, we come first to:--
_Bulkheads and water-tight compartments_
It is impossible to attempt a discussion here of the exact
constructional details of these parts of a ship; but in order to
illustrate briefly what is the purpose of having bulkheads, we may
take the Titanic as an example. She was divided into sixteen
compartments by fifteen transverse steel walls called bulkheads.
[Footnote: See Figures 1 and 2 page 116.] If a hole is made in the
side of the ship in any one compartment, steel water-tight doors seal
off the only openings in that compartment and separate it as a damaged
unit from the rest of the ship and the vessel is brought to land in
safety. Ships have even put into the nearest port for inspection after
collision, and finding only one compartment full of water and no other
damage, have left again, for their home port without troubling to
disembark passengers and effect repairs.
The design of the Titanic's bulkheads calls for some attention. The
"Scientific American," in an excellent article on the comparative
safety of the Titanic's and other types of water-tight compartments,
draws attention to the following weaknesses in the former--from the
point of view of possible collision with an iceberg. She had no
longitudinal bulkheads, which would subdivide her into smaller
compartments and prevent the water filling the whole of a large
compartment. Probably, too, the length of a large compartment was in
any case too great--fifty-three feet.
The Mauretania, on the other hand, in addition to transverse
bulkheads, is fitted with longitudinal torpedo bulkheads, and the
space between them and the side of the ship is utilised as a coal
bunker. Then, too, in the Mauretania all bulkheads are carried up to
the top deck, whereas in the case of the Titanic they reached in some
parts only to the saloon deck and in others to a lower deck
still,--the weakness of this being that, when the water reached to the
top of a bulkhead as the ship sank by the head, it flowed over and
filled the next compartment. The British Admiralty, which subsidizes
the Mauretania and Lusitania as fast cruisers in time of war, insisted
on this type of construction, and it is considered vastly better than
that used in the Titanic. The writer of the article thinks it possible
that these ships might not have sunk as the result of a similar
collision. But the ideal ship from the point of bulkhead construction,
he considers to have been the Great Eastern, constructed many years
ago by the famous engineer Brunel. So thorough was her system of
compartments divided and subdivided by many transverse and
longitudinal bulkheads that when she tore a hole eighty feet long in
her side by striking a rock, she reached port in safety. Unfortunately
the weight and cost of this method was so great that his plan was
subsequently abandoned.
But it would not be just to say that the construction of the Titanic
was a serious mistake on the part of the White Star Line or her
builders, on the ground that her bulkheads were not so well
constructed as those of the Lusitania and Mauretania, which were built
to fulfil British Admiralty regulations for time of war--an
extraordinary risk which no builder of a passenger steamer--as
such--would be expected to take into consideration when designing the
vessel. It should be constantly borne in mind that the Titanic met
extraordinary conditions on the night of the collision: she was
probably the safest ship afloat in all ordinary conditions. Collision
with an iceberg is not an ordinary risk; but this disaster will
probably result in altering the whole construction of bulkheads and
compartments to the Great Eastern type, in order to include the
one-in-a-million risk of iceberg collision and loss.
Here comes in the question of increased cost of construction, and in
addition the great loss of cargo-carrying space with decreased earning
capacity, both of which will mean an increase in the passenger rates.
This the travelling public will have to face and undoubtedly will be
willing to face for the satisfaction of knowing that what was so
confidently affirmed by passengers on the Titanic's deck that night of
the collision will then be really true,--that "we are on an unsinkable
boat,"--so far as human forethought can devise. After all, this
_must_ be the solution to the problem how best to ensure safety
at sea. Other safety appliances are useful and necessary, but not
useable in certain conditions of weather. The ship itself must always
be the "safety appliance" that is really trustworthy, and nothing must
be left undone to ensure this.
_Wireless apparatus and operators_
The range of the apparatus might well be extended, but the principal
defect is the lack of an operator for night duty on some ships. The
awful fact that the Californian lay a few miles away, able to save
every soul on board, and could not catch the message because the
operator was asleep, seems too cruel to dwell upon. Even on the
Carpathia, the operator was on the point of retiring when the message
arrived, and we should have been much longer afloat--and some boats
possibly swamped--had he not caught the message when he did. It has
been suggested that officers should have a working knowledge of
wireless telegraphy, and this is no doubt a wise provision. It would
enable them to supervise the work of the operators more closely and
from all the evidence, this seems a necessity. The exchange of vitally
important messages between a sinking ship and those rushing to her
rescue should be under the control of an experienced officer. To take
but one example--Bride testified that after giving the Birma the
"C.Q.D." message and the position (incidentally Signer Marconi has
stated that this has been abandoned in favour of "S.O.S.") and getting
a reply, they got into touch with the Carpathia, and while talking
with her were interrupted by the Birma asking what was the matter. No
doubt it was the duty of the Birma to come at once without asking any
questions, but the reply from the Titanic, telling the Birma's
operator not to be a "fool" by interrupting, seems to have been a
needless waste of precious moments: to reply, "We are sinking" would
have taken no longer, especially when in their own estimation of the
strength of the signals they thought the Birma was the nearer ship. It
is well to notice that some large liners have already a staff of three
operators.
_Submarine signalling apparatus_
There are occasions when wireless apparatus is useless as a means of
saving life at sea promptly.
One of its weaknesses is that when the ships' engines are stopped,
messages can no longer be sent out, that is, with the system at
present adopted. It will be remembered that the Titanic's messages got
gradually fainter and then ceased altogether as she came to rest with
her engines shut down.
Again, in fogs,--and most accidents occur in fogs,--while wireless
informs of the accident, it does not enable one ship to locate another
closely enough to take off her passengers at once. There is as yet no
method known by which wireless telegraphy will fix the direction of a
message; and after a ship has been in fog for any considerable length
of time it is more difficult to give the exact position to another
vessel bringing help.
Nothing could illustrate these two points better than the story of how
the Baltic found the Republic in the year 1909, in a dense fog off
Nantucket Lightship, when the latter was drifting helplessly after
collision with the Florida. The Baltic received a wireless message
stating the Republic's condition and the information that she was in
touch with Nantucket through a submarine bell which she could hear
ringing. The Baltic turned and went towards the position in the fog,
picked up the submarine bell-signal from Nantucket, and then began
searching near this position for the Republic. It took her twelve
hours to find the damaged ship, zigzagging across a circle within
which she thought the Republic might lie. In a rough sea it is
doubtful whether the Republic would have remained afloat long enough
for the Baltic to find her and take off all her passengers.
Now on these two occasions when wireless telegraphy was found to be
unreliable, the usefulness of the submarine bell at once becomes
apparent. The Baltic could have gone unerringly to the Republic in the
dense fog had the latter been fitted with a submarine emergency bell.
It will perhaps be well to spend a little time describing the
submarine signalling apparatus to see how this result could have been
obtained: twelve anxious hours in a dense fog on a ship which was
injured so badly that she subsequently foundered, is an experience
which every appliance known to human invention should be enlisted to
prevent.
Submarine signalling has never received that public notice which
wireless telegraphy has, for the reason that it does not appeal so
readily to the popular mind. That it is an absolute necessity to every
ship carrying passengers--or carrying anything, for that matter--is
beyond question. It is an additional safeguard that no ship can afford
to be without.
There are many occasions when the atmosphere fails lamentably as a
medium for carrying messages. When fog falls down, as it does
sometimes in a moment, on the hundreds of ships coasting down the
traffic ways round our shores--ways which are defined so easily in
clear weather and with such difficulty in fogs--the hundreds of
lighthouses and lightships which serve as warning beacons, and on
which many millions of money have been spent, are for all practical
purposes as useless to the navigator as if they had never been built:
he is just as helpless as if he were back in the years before 1514,
when Trinity House was granted a charter by Henry VIII "for the
relief...of the shipping of this realm of England," and began a system
of lights on the shores, of which the present chain of lighthouses and
lightships is the outcome.
Nor is the foghorn much better: the presence of different layers of
fog and air, and their varying densities, which cause both reflection
and refraction of sound, prevent the air from being a reliable medium
for carrying it. Now, submarine signalling has none of these defects,
for the medium is water, subject to no such variable conditions as the
air. Its density is practically non variable, and sound travels
through it at the rate of 4400 feet per second, without deviation or
reflection.
The apparatus consists of a bell designed to ring either pneumatically
from a lightship, electrically from the shore (the bell itself being a
tripod at the bottom of the sea), automatically from a floating
bell-buoy, or by hand from a ship or boat. The sound travels from the
bell in every direction, like waves in a pond, and falls, it may be,
on the side of a ship. The receiving apparatus is fixed inside the
skin of the ship and consists of a small iron tank, 16 inches square
and 18 inches deep. The front of the tank facing the ship's iron skin
is missing and the tank, being filled with water, is bolted to the
framework and sealed firmly to the ship's side by rubber facing. In
this way a portion of the ship's iron hull is washed by the sea on one
side and water in the tank on the other. Vibrations from a bell
ringing at a distance fall on the iron side, travel through, and
strike on two microphones hanging in the tank. These microphones
transmit the sound along wires to the chart room, where telephones
convey the message to the officer on duty.
There are two of these tanks or "receivers" fitted against the ship's
side, one on the port and one on the starboard side, near the bows,
and as far down below the water level as is possible. The direction of
sounds coming to the microphones hanging in these tanks can be
estimated by switching alternately to the port and starboard tanks. If
the sound is of greater intensity on the port side, then the bell
signalling is off the port bows; and similarly on the starboard side.
The ship is turned towards the sound until the same volume of sound is
heard from both receivers, when the bell is known to be dead ahead. So
accurate is this in practice that a trained operator can steer his
ship in the densest fog directly to a lightship or any other point
where a submarine bell is sending its warning beneath the sea. It must
be repeated that the medium in which these signals are transmitted is
a constant one, not subject to any of the limitations and variations
imposed on the atmosphere and the ether as media for the transmission
of light, blasts of a foghorn, and wireless vibrations. At present the
chief use of submarine signalling is from the shore or a lightship to
ships at sea, and not from ship to ship or from ship to the shore: in
other words ships carry only receiving apparatus, and lighthouses and
lightships use only signalling apparatus. Some of the lighthouses and
lightships on our coasts already have these submarine bells in
addition to their lights, and in bad weather the bells send out their
messages to warn ships of their proximity to a danger point. This
invention enables ships to pick up the sound of bell after bell on a
coast and run along it in the densest fog almost as well as in
daylight; passenger steamers coming into port do not have to wander
about in the fog, groping their way blindly into harbour. By having a
code of rings, and judging by the intensity of the sound, it is
possible to tell almost exactly where a ship is in relation to the
coast or to some lightship. The British Admiralty report in 1906 said:
"If the lightships round the coast were fitted with submarine bells,
it would be possible for ships fitted with receiving apparatus to
navigate in fog with almost as great certainty as in clear weather."
And the following remark of a captain engaged in coast service is
instructive. He had been asked to cut down expenses by omitting the
submarine signalling apparatus, but replied: "I would rather take out
the wireless. That only enables me to tell other people where I am.
The submarine signal enables me to find out where I am myself."
The range of the apparatus is not so wide as that of wireless
telegraphy, varying from 10 to 15 miles for a large ship (although
instances of 20 to 30 are on record), and from 3 to 8 miles for a
small ship.
At present the receiving apparatus is fixed on only some 650 steamers
of the merchant marine, these being mostly the first-class passenger
liners. There is no question that it should be installed, along with
wireless apparatus, on every ship of over 1000 tons gross tonnage.
Equally important is the provision of signalling apparatus on board
ships: it is obviously just as necessary to transmit a signal as to
receive one; but at present the sending of signals from ships has not
been perfected. The invention of signal-transmitting apparatus to be
used while the ship is under way is as yet in the experimental stage;
but while she is at rest a bell similar to those used by lighthouses
can be sunk over her side and rung by hand with exactly the same
effect. But liners are not provided with them (they cost only 60 Pounds!).
As mentioned before, with another 60 Pounds spent on the Republic's
equipment, the Baltic could have picked up her bell and steered direct
to her--just as they both heard the bell of Nantucket Lightship.
Again, if the Titanic had been provided with a bell and the
Californian with receiving apparatus,--neither of them was,--the
officer on the bridge could have heard the signals from the telephones
near.
A smaller size for use in lifeboats is provided, and would be heard by
receiving apparatus for approximately five miles. If we had hung one
of these bells over the side of the lifeboats afloat that night we
should have been free from the anxiety of being run down as we lay
across the Carpathia's path, without a light. Or if we had gone adrift
in a dense fog and wandered miles apart from each other on the sea (as
we inevitably should have done), the Carpathia could still have picked
up each boat individually by means of the bell signal.
In those ships fitted with receiving apparatus, at least one officer
is obliged to understand the working of the apparatus: a very wise
precaution, and, as suggested above, one that should be taken with
respect to wireless apparatus also.
It was a very great pleasure to me to see all this apparatus in
manufacture and in use at one of the principal submarine signalling
works in America and to hear some of the remarkable stories of its
value in actual practice. I was struck by the aptness of the motto
adopted by them--"De profundis clamavi"--in relation to the Titanic's
end and the calls of our passengers from the sea when she sank. "Out
of the deep have I called unto Thee" is indeed a suitable motto for
those who are doing all they can to prevent such calls arising from
their fellow men and women "out of the deep."
_Fixing of steamship routes_
The "lanes" along which the liners travel are fixed by agreement among
the steamship companies in consultation with the Hydrographic
departments of the different countries. These routes are arranged so
that east-bound steamers are always a number of miles away from those
going west, and thus the danger of collision between east and
west-bound vessels is entirely eliminated. The "lanes" can be moved
farther south if icebergs threaten, and north again when the danger is
removed. Of course the farther south they are placed, the longer the
journey to be made, and the longer the time spent on board, with
consequent grumbling by some passengers. For example, the lanes since
the disaster to the Titanic have been moved one hundred miles farther
south, which means one hundred and eighty miles longer journey, taking
eight hours.
The only real precaution against colliding with icebergs is to go
south of the place where they are likely to be: there is no other way.
_Lifeboats_
The provision was of course woefully inadequate. The only humane plan
is to have a numbered seat in a boat assigned to each passenger and
member of the crew. It would seem well to have this number pointed out
at the time of booking a berth, and to have a plan in each cabin
showing where the boat is and how to get to it the most direct way--a
most important consideration with a ship like the Titanic with over
two miles of deck space. Boat-drills of the passengers and crew of
each boat should be held, under compulsion, as soon as possible after
leaving port. I asked an officer as to the possibility of having such
a drill immediately after the gangways are withdrawn and before the
tugs are allowed to haul the ship out of dock, but he says the
difficulties are almost insuperable at such a time. If so, the drill
should be conducted in sections as soon as possible after sailing, and
should be conducted in a thorough manner. Children in school are
called upon suddenly to go through fire-drill, and there is no reason
why passengers on board ship should not be similarly trained. So much
depends on order and readiness in time of danger. Undoubtedly, the
whole subject of manning, provisioning, loading and lowering of
lifeboats should be in the hands of an expert officer, who should have
no other duties. The modern liner has become far too big to permit the
captain to exercise control over the whole ship, and all vitally
important subdivisions should be controlled by a separate authority.
It seems a piece of bitter irony to remember that on the Titanic a
special chef was engaged at a large salary,--larger perhaps than that
of any officer,--and no boatmaster (or some such officer) was
considered necessary. The general system again--not criminal neglect,
as some hasty criticisms would say, but lack of consideration for our
fellow-man, the placing of luxurious attractions above that kindly
forethought that allows no precaution to be neglected for even the
humblest passenger. But it must not be overlooked that the provision
of sufficient lifeboats on deck is not evidence they will all be
launched easily or all the passengers taken off safely. It must be
remembered that ideal conditions prevailed that night for launching
boats from the decks of the Titanic: there was no list that prevented
the boats getting away, they could be launched on both sides, and when
they were lowered the sea was so calm that they pulled away without
any of the smashing against the side that is possible in rough seas.
Sometimes it would mean that only those boats on the side sheltered
from a heavy sea could ever get away, and this would at once halve the
boat accommodation. And when launched, there would be the danger of
swamping in such a heavy sea. All things considered, lifeboats might
be the poorest sort of safeguard in certain conditions.
Life-rafts are said to be much inferior to lifeboats in a rough sea,
and collapsible boats made of canvas and thin wood soon decay under
exposure to weather and are danger-traps at a critical moment.
Some of the lifeboats should be provided with motors, to keep the
boats together and to tow if necessary. The launching is an important
matter: the Titanic's davits worked excellently and no doubt were
largely responsible for all the boats getting away safely: they were
far superior to those on most liners.
_Pontoons_
After the sinking of the Bourgogne, when two Americans lost their
lives, a prize of 4000 Pounds was offered by their heirs for the best
life-saving device applicable to ships at sea. A board sat to consider
the various appliances sent in by competitors, and finally awarded the
prize to an Englishman, whose design provided for a flat structure the
width of the ship, which could be floated off when required and would
accommodate several hundred passengers. It has never been adopted
by any steamship line. Other similar designs are known, by which the
whole of the after deck can be pushed over from the stern by a ratchet
arrangement, with air-tanks below to buoy it up: it seems to be a
practical suggestion.
One point where the Titanic management failed lamentably was to
provide a properly trained crew to each lifeboat. The rowing was in
most cases execrable. There is no more reason why a steward should be
able to row than a passenger--less so than some of the passengers who
were lost; men of leisure accustomed to all kinds of sport (including
rowing), and in addition probably more fit physically than a steward
to row for hours on the open sea. And if a steward cannot row, he has
no right to be at an oar; so that, under the unwritten rule that
passengers take precedence of the crew when there is not sufficient
accommodation for all (a situation that should never be allowed to
arise again, for a member of the crew should have an equal opportunity
with a passenger to save his life), the majority of stewards and cooks
should have stayed behind and passengers have come instead: they could
not have been of less use, and they might have been of more. It will
be remembered that the proportion of crew saved to passengers was 210
to 495, a high proportion.
Another point arises out of these figures--deduct 21 members of the
crew who were stewardesses, and 189 men of the crew are left as
against the 495 passengers. Of these some got on the overturned
collapsible boat after the Titanic sank, and a few were picked up by
the lifeboats, but these were not many in all. Now with the 17 boats
brought to the Carpathia and an average of six of the crew to man each
boat,--probably a higher average than was realized,--we get a total of
102 who should have been saved as against 189 who actually were. There
were, as is known, stokers and stewards in the boats who were not
members of the lifeboats' crews. It may seem heartless to analyze
figures in this way, and suggest that some of the crew who got to the
Carpathia never should have done so; but, after all, passengers took
their passage under certain rules,--written and unwritten,--and one is
that in times of danger the servants of the company in whose boats
they sail shall first of all see to the safety of the passengers
before thinking of their own. There were only 126 men passengers saved
as against 189 of the crew, and 661 men lost as against 686 of the
crew, so that actually the crew had a greater percentage saved than
the men passengers--22 per cent against 16.
But steamship companies are faced with real difficulties in this
matter. The crews are never the same for two voyages together: they
sign on for the one trip, then perhaps take a berth on shore as
waiters, stokers in hotel furnace-rooms, etc.,--to resume life on
board any other ship that is handy when the desire comes to go to sea
again. They can in no sense be regarded as part of a homogeneous crew,
subject to regular discipline and educated to appreciate the morale of
a particular liner, as a man of war's crew is.
_Searchlights_
These seem an absolute necessity, and the wonder is that they have not
been fitted before to all ocean liners. Not only are they of use in
lighting up the sea a long distance ahead, but as flashlight signals
they permit of communication with other ships. As I write, through the
window can be seen the flashes from river steamers plying up the
Hudson in New York, each with its searchlight, examining the river,
lighting up the bank for hundreds of yards ahead, and bringing every
object within its reach into prominence. They are regularly used too
in the Suez Canal.
I suppose there is no question that the collision would have been
avoided had a searchlight been fitted to the Titanic's masthead: the
climatic conditions for its use must have been ideal that night. There
are other things besides icebergs: derelicts are reported from time to
time, and fishermen lie in the lanes without lights. They would not
always be of practical use, however. They would be of no service in
heavy rain, in fog, in snow, or in flying spray, and the effect is
sometimes to dazzle the eyes of the lookout.
While writing of the lookout, much has been made of the omission to
provide the lookout on the Titanic with glasses. The general opinion
of officers seems to be that it is better not to provide them, but to
rely on good eyesight and wide-awake men. After all, in a question of
actual practice, the opinion of officers should be accepted as final,
even if it seems to the landsman the better thing to provide glasses.
_Cruising lightships_
One or two internationally owned and controlled lightships, fitted
with every known device for signalling and communication, would rob
those regions of most of their terrors. They could watch and chart the
icebergs, report their exact position, the amount and direction of
daily drift in the changing currents that are found there. To them,
too, might be entrusted the duty of police patrol.
CHAPTER IX
SOME IMPRESSIONS
No one can pass through an event like the wreck of the Titanic without
recording mentally many impressions, deep and vivid, of what has been
seen and felt. In so far as such impressions are of benefit to mankind
they should not be allowed to pass unnoticed, and this chapter is an
attempt to picture how people thought and felt from the time they
first heard of the disaster to the landing in New York, when there was
opportunity to judge of events somewhat from a distance. While it is
to some extent a personal record, the mental impressions of other
survivors have been compared and found to be in many cases closely in
agreement. Naturally it is very imperfect, and pretends to be no more
than a sketch of the way people act under the influence of strong
emotions produced by imminent danger.
In the first place, the principal fact that stands out is the almost
entire absence of any expressions of fear or alarm on the part of
passengers, and the conformity to the normal on the part of almost
everyone. I think it is no exaggeration to say that those who read of
the disaster quietly at home, and pictured to themselves the scene as
the Titanic was sinking, had more of the sense of horror than those
who stood on the deck and watched her go down inch by inch. The fact
is that the sense of fear came to the passengers very slowly--a result
of the absence of any signs of danger and the peaceful night--and as
it became evident gradually that there was serious damage to the ship,
the fear that came with the knowledge was largely destroyed as it
came. There was no sudden overwhelming sense of danger that passed
through thought so quickly that it was difficult to catch up and
grapple with it--no need for the warning to "be not afraid of sudden
fear," such as might have been present had we collided head-on with a
crash and a shock that flung everyone out of his bunk to the floor.
Everyone had time to give each condition of danger attention as it
came along, and the result of their judgment was as if they had said:
"Well, here is this thing to be faced, and we must see it through as
quietly as we can." Quietness and self-control were undoubtedly the
two qualities most expressed. There were times when danger loomed more
nearly and there was temporarily some excitement,--for example when
the first rocket went up,--but after the first realization of what it
meant, the crowd took hold of the situation and soon gained the same
quiet control that was evident at first. As the sense of fear ebbed
and flowed, it was so obviously a thing within one's own power to
control, that, quite unconsciously realizing the absolute necessity of
keeping cool, every one for his own safety put away the thought of
danger as far as was possible. Then, too, the curious sense of the
whole thing being a dream was very prominent: that all were looking on
at the scene from a near-by vantage point in a position of perfect
safety, and that those who walked the decks or tied one another's
lifebelts on were the actors in a scene of which we were but
spectators: that the dream would end soon and we should wake up to
find the scene had vanished. Many people have had a similar experience
in times of danger, but it was very noticeable standing on the
Titanic's deck. I remember observing it particularly while tying on a
lifebelt for a man on the deck. It is fortunate that it should be so:
to be able to survey such a scene dispassionately is a wonderful aid
inn the destruction of the fear that go with it. One thing that helped
considerably to establish this orderly condition of affairs was the
quietness of the surroundings. It may seem weariness to refer again to
this, but I am convinced it had much to do with keeping everyone calm.
The ship was motionless; there was not a breath of wind; the sky was
clear; the sea like a mill-pond--the general "atmosphere" was
peaceful, and all on board responded unconsciously to it. But what
controlled the situation principally was the quality of obedience and
respect for authority which is a dominant characteristic of the
Teutonic race. Passengers did as they were told by the officers in
charge: women went to the decks below, men remained where they were
told and waited in silence for the next order, knowing instinctively
that this was the only way to bring about the best result for all on
board. The officers, in their turn, carried out the work assigned to
them by their superior officers as quickly and orderly as
circumstances permitted, the senior ones being in control of the
manning, filling and lowering of the lifeboats, while the junior
officers were lowered in individual boats to take command of the fleet
adrift on the sea. Similarly, the engineers below, the band, the
gymnasium instructor, were all performing their tasks as they came
along: orderly, quietly, without question or stopping to consider what
was their chance of safety. This correlation on the part of
passengers, officers and crew was simply obedience to duty, and it was
innate rather than the product of reasoned judgment.
I hope it will not seem to detract in any way from the heroism of
those who faced the last plunge of the Titanic so courageously when
all the boats had gone,--if it does, it is the difficulty of
expressing an idea in adequate words,--to say that their quiet heroism
was largely unconscious, temperamental, not a definite choice between
two ways of acting. All that was visible on deck before the boats left
tended to this conclusion and the testimony of those who went down
with the ship and were afterwards rescued is of the same kind.
Certainly it seems to express much more general nobility of character
in a race of people--consisting of different nationalities--to find
heroism an unconscious quality of the race than to have it arising as
an effort of will, to have to bring it out consciously.
It is unfortunate that some sections of the press should seek to
chronicle mainly the individual acts of heroism: the collective
behaviour of a crowd is of so much more importance to the world and so
much more a test--if a test be wanted--of how a race of people
behaves. The attempt to record the acts of individuals leads
apparently to such false reports as that of Major Butt holding at bay
with a revolver a crowd of passengers and shooting them down as they
tried to rush the boats, or of Captain Smith shouting, "Be British,"
through a megaphone, and subsequently committing suicide along with
First Officer Murdock. It is only a morbid sense of things that would
describe such incidents as heroic. Everyone knows that Major Butt was
a brave man, but his record of heroism would not be enhanced if he, a
trained army officer, were compelled under orders from the captain to
shoot down unarmed passengers. It might in other conditions have been
necessary, but it would not be heroic. Similarly there could be
nothing heroic in Captain Smith or Murdock putting an end to their
lives. It is conceivable men might be so overwhelmed by the sense of
disaster that they knew not how they were acting; but to be really
heroic would have been to stop with the ship--as of course they
did--with the hope of being picked up along with passengers and crew
and returning to face an enquiry and to give evidence that would be of
supreme value to the whole world for the prevention of similar
disasters. It was not possible; but if heroism consists in doing the
greatest good to the greatest number, it would have been heroic for
both officers to _expect_ to be saved. We do not know what they
thought, but I, for one, like to imagine that they did so. Second
Officer Lightoller worked steadily at the boats until the last
possible moment, went down with the ship, was saved in what seemed a
miraculous manner, and returned to give valuable evidence before the
commissions of two countries.
The second thing that stands out prominently in the emotions produced
by the disaster is that in moments of urgent need men and women turn
for help to something entirely outside themselves. I remember reading
some years ago a story of an atheist who was the guest at dinner of a
regimental mess in India. The colonel listened to his remarks on
atheism in silence, and invited him for a drive the following morning.
He took his guest up a rough mountain road in a light carriage drawn
by two ponies, and when some distance from the plain below, turned the
carriage round and allowed the ponies to run away--as it
seemed--downhill. In the terror of approaching disaster, the atheist
was lifted out of his reasoned convictions and prayed aloud for help,
when the colonel reined in his ponies, and with the remark that the
whole drive had been planned with the intention of proving to his
guest that there was a power outside his own reason, descended quietly
to level ground.
The story may or may not be true, and in any case is not introduced as
an attack on atheism, but it illustrates in a striking way the frailty
of dependence on a man's own power and resource in imminent danger. To
those men standing on the top deck with the boats all lowered, and
still more so when the boats had all left, there came the realization
that human resources were exhausted and human avenues of escape
closed. With it came the appeal to whatever consciousness each had of
a Power that had created the universe. After all, some Power had made
the brilliant stars above, countless millions of miles away, moving in
definite order, formed on a definite plan and obeying a definite law:
had made each one of the passengers with ability to think and act;
with the best proof, after all, of being created--the knowledge of
their own existence; and now, if at any time, was the time to appeal
to that Power. When the boats had left and it was seen the ship was
going down rapidly, men stood in groups on the deck engaged in prayer,
and later, as some of them lay on the overturned collapsible
boat, they repeated together over and over again the Lord's
Prayer--irrespective of religious beliefs, some, perhaps, without
religious beliefs, united in a common appeal for deliverance from
their surroundings. And this was not because it was a habit, because
they had learned this prayer "at their mother's knee": men do not do
such things through habit. It must have been because each one saw
removed the thousand and one ways in which he had relied on human,
material things to help him--including even dependence on the
overturned boat with its bubble of air inside, which any moment a
rising swell might remove as it tilted the boat too far sideways, and
sink the boat below the surface--saw laid bare his utter dependence on
something that had made him and given him power to think--whether he
named it God or Divine Power or First Cause or Creator, or named it
not at all but recognized it unconsciously--saw these things and
expressed them in the form of words he was best acquainted with in
common with his fellow-men. He did so, not through a sense of duty to
his particular religion, not because he had learned the words, but
because he recognized that it was the most practical thing to do--the
thing best fitted to help him. Men do practical things in times like
that: they would not waste a moment on mere words if those words were
not an expression of the most intensely real conviction of which they
were capable. Again, like the feeling of heroism, this appeal is
innate and intuitive, and it certainly has its foundation on a
knowledge--largely concealed, no doubt--of immortality. I think this
must be obvious: there could be no other explanation of such a general
sinking of all the emotions of the human mind expressed in a thousand
different ways by a thousand different people in favour of this single
appeal.
The behaviour of people during the hours in the lifeboats, the landing
on the Carpathia, the life there and the landing in New York, can all
be summarized by saying that people did not act at all as they were
expected to act--or rather as most people expected they would act, and
in some cases have erroneously said they did act. Events were there to
be faced, and not to crush people down. Situations arose which
demanded courage, resource, and in the cases of those who had lost
friends most dear to them, enormous self-control; but very wonderfully
they responded. There was the same quiet demeanour and poise, the same
inborn dominion over circumstances, the same conformity to a normal
standard which characterized the crowd of passengers on the deck of
the Titanic--and for the same reasons.
The first two or three days ashore were undoubtedly rather trying to
some of the survivors. It seemed as if coming into the world
again--the four days shut off from any news seemed a long time--and
finding what a shock the disaster had produced, the flags half-mast,
the staring head-lines, the sense of gloom noticeable everywhere, made
things worse than they had been on the Carpathia. The difference in
"atmosphere" was very marked, and people gave way to some extent under
it and felt the reaction. Gratitude for their deliverance and a desire
to "make the best of things" must have helped soon, however, to
restore them to normal conditions. It is not at all surprising that
some survivors felt quieter on the Carpathia with its lack of news
from the outside world, if the following extract from a leading New
York evening paper was some of the material of which the "atmosphere"
on shore was composed:--"Stunned by the terrific impact, the dazed
passengers rushed from their staterooms into the main saloon amid the
crash of splintering steel, rending of plates and shattering of
girders, while the boom of falling pinnacles of ice upon the broken
deck of the great vessel added to the horror.... In a wild
ungovernable mob they poured out of the saloons to witness one of the
most appalling scenes possible to conceive.... For a hundred feet the
bow was a shapeless mass of bent, broken and splintered steel and
iron."
And so on, horror piled on horror, and not a word of it true, or
remotely approaching the truth.
This paper was selling in the streets of New York while the Carpathia
was coming into dock, while relatives of those on board were at the
docks to meet them and anxiously buying any paper that might contain
news. No one on the Carpathia could have supplied such information;
there was no one else in the world at that moment who knew any details
of the Titanic disaster, and the only possible conclusion is that the
whole thing was a deliberate fabrication to sell the paper.
This is a repetition of the same defect in human nature noticed in the
provision of safety appliances on board ship--the lack of
consideration for the other man. The remedy is the same--the law: it
should be a criminal offence for anyone to disseminate deliberate
falsehoods that cause fear and grief. The moral responsibility of the
press is very great, and its duty of supplying the public with only
clean, correct news is correspondingly heavy. If the general public is
not yet prepared to go so far as to stop the publication of such news
by refusing to buy those papers that publish it, then the law should
be enlarged to include such cases. Libel is an offence, and this is
very much worse than any libel could ever be.
It is only right to add that the majority of the New York papers were
careful only to report such news as had been obtained legitimately
from survivors or from Carpathia passengers. It was sometimes
exaggerated and sometimes not true at all, but from the point of
reporting what was heard, most of it was quite correct.
One more thing must be referred to--the prevalence of superstitious
beliefs concerning the Titanic. I suppose no ship ever left port with
so much miserable nonsense showered on her. In the first place, there
is no doubt many people refused to sail on her because it was her
maiden voyage, and this apparently is a common superstition: even the
clerk of the White Star Office where I purchased my ticket admitted it
was a reason that prevented people from sailing. A number of people
have written to the press to say they had thought of sailing on her,
or had decided to sail on her, but because of "omens" cancelled the
passage. Many referred to the sister ship, the Olympic, pointed to the
"ill luck" that they say has dogged her--her collision with the Hawke,
and a second mishap necessitating repairs and a wait in harbour, where
passengers deserted her; they prophesied even greater disaster for the
Titanic, saying they would not dream of travelling on the boat. Even
some aboard were very nervous, in an undefined way. One lady said she
had never wished to take this boat, but her friends had insisted and
bought her ticket and she had not had a happy moment since. A friend
told me of the voyage of the Olympic from Southampton after the wait
in harbour, and said there was a sense of gloom pervading the whole
ship: the stewards and stewardesses even going so far as to say it was
a "death-ship." This crew, by the way, was largely transferred to the
Titanic.
The incident with the New York at Southampton, the appearance of the
stoker at Queenstown in the funnel, combine with all this to make a
mass of nonsense in which apparently sensible people believe, or which
at any rate they discuss. Correspondence is published with an official
of the White Star Line from some one imploring them not to name the
new ship "Gigantic," because it seems like "tempting fate" when the
Titanic has been sunk. It would seem almost as if we were back in the
Middle Ages when witches were burned because they kept black cats.
There seems no more reason why a black stoker should be an ill omen
for the Titanic than a black cat should be for an old woman.
The only reason for referring to these foolish details is that a
surprisingly large number of people think there may be "something in
it." The effect is this: that if a ship's company and a number of
passengers get imbued with that undefined dread of the unknown--the
relics no doubt of the savage's fear of what he does not
understand--it has an unpleasant effect on the harmonious working of
the ship: the officers and crew feel the depressing influence, and it
may even spread so far as to prevent them being as alert and keen as
they otherwise would; may even result in some duty not being as well
done as usual. Just as the unconscious demand for speed and haste to
get across the Atlantic may have tempted captains to take a risk they
might otherwise not have done, so these gloomy forebodings may have
more effect sometimes than we imagine. Only a little thing is required
sometimes to weigh down the balance for and against a certain course
of action.
At the end of this chapter of mental impressions it must be recorded
that one impression remains constant with us all to-day--that of the
deepest gratitude that we came safely through the wreck of the
Titanic; and its corollary--that our legacy from the wreck, our debt
to those who were lost with her, is to see, as far as in us lies, that
such things are impossible ever again. Meanwhile we can say of them,
as Shelley, himself the victim of a similar disaster, says of his
friend Keats in "Adonais":--
"Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep--He hath awakened
from the dream of life--He lives, he wakes--'Tis Death is dead, not
he; Mourn not for Adonais."
THE END
[Illustration: FIG 4. TRANSVERSE VIEW OF THE DECKS THE TITANIC
S Sun deck
A Upper promenade deck
B Promenade deck, glass enclosed
C Upper deck
D Saloon deck
E Main deck
F Middle deck
G Lower deck: cargo, coal bunkers, boilers, engines
(a) Welin davits with lifeboats
(b) Bilge
(c) Double bottom]
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