BUNDLE TITLE HERE

Walter Lord

Contents

A Night to Remember

1 “Another Belfast Trip”

2 “There’s Talk of an Iceberg, Ma’am”

3 “God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship”

4 “You Go and I’ll Stay a While”

5 “I Believe She’s Gone, Hardy”

6 “That’s the Way of It at This Kind of Time”

7 “There Is Your Beautiful Nightdress Gone”

8 “It Reminds Me of a Bloomin’ Picnic”

9 “We’re Going North Like Hell”

10 “Go Away—We Have Just Seen Our Husbands Drown”

Facts About the Titanic

Acknowledgments

Passenger List

The Night Lives On

I. Unsinkable Subject

II. What’s in a Name?

III. Legendary from the Start

IV. Had Ships Gotten Too Big for Captain Smith?

V. “Our Coterie”

VI. “Everything Was Against Us”

VII. The Gash

VIII. “I Was Very Soft the Day I Signed That”

IX. What Happened to the Goodwins?

X. Shots in the Dark

XI. The Sound of Music

XII. “She’s Gone”

XIII. “The Electric Spark”

XIV. “A Certain Amount of Slackness”

XV. Second-guessing

XVI. Why Was Craganour Disqualified?

XVII. Unlocking the Ocean’s Secret

Gleanings from the Testimony

Acknowledgments and Selected Sources

Index

A Night to Remember

Walter Lord

To My Mother

Contents

Foreword

1 “Another Belfast Trip”

2 “There’s Talk of an Iceberg, Ma’am”

3 “God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship”

4 “You Go and I’ll Stay a While”

5 “I Believe She’s Gone, Hardy”

6 “That’s the Way of It at This Kind of Time”

7 “There Is Your Beautiful Nightdress Gone”

8 “It Reminds Me of a Bloomin’ Picnic”

9 “We’re Going North Like Hell”

10 “Go Away—We Have Just Seen Our Husbands Drown”

Facts About the Titanic

Acknowledgments

Passenger List

Foreword

IN 1898 A STRUGGLING author named Morgan Robertson concocted a novel about a fabulous Atlantic liner, far larger than any that had ever been built. Robertson loaded his ship with rich and complacent people and then wrecked it one cold April night on an iceberg. This somehow showed the futility of everything, and in fact, the book was called Futility when it appeared that year, published by the firm of M. F. Mansfield.

Fourteen years later a British shipping company named the White Star Line built a steamer remarkably like the one in Robertson’s novel. The new liner was 66,000 tons displacement; Robertson’s was 70,000. The real ship was 882.5 feet long; the fictional one was 800 feet. Both vessels were triple screw and could make 24-25 knots. Both could carry about 3,000 people, and both had enough lifeboats for only a fraction of this number. But, then, this didn’t seem to matter because both were labeled “unsinkable.”

On April 10, 1912, the real ship left Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. Her cargo included a priceless copy of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and a list of passengers collectively worth two hundred fifty million dollars. On her way over she too struck an iceberg and went down on a cold April night.

Robertson called his ship the Titan; the White Star Line called its ship the Titanic. This is the story of her last night.

Plan of Boat Deck of RMS Titanic

Time and place of events during the sinking of the Titanic

1) 11:40 P.M. - The bridge thanks the crow’s nest for reporting the iceberg.

2) 12:00 Midnight - Lawrence Beesley notices the deck has started to tilt.

3) 12:30 A.M.  - John Jacob Astor slices open a life belt to show his wife what’s inside.

4) 12:45 A.M. - The first rocket is fired.

5) 12:55 A.M. - Major Peuchen proves a yachtsman can be a seaman

6) 12:55 A.M. - Fifth Officer Lowe bawls out the head of the steamship line.

7) 1:10 A.M. - Mrs. Isidor Straus refuses to leave her husband.

8) 1:15 A.M. - “If they are sending the boats away, they might just as well put some people in them.”

9) 1:20 A.M. - Ben Guggenheim appears in evening clothes to go down like a gentleman.

10) 1:25 A.M. - Steward Ray remembers he persuaded a family to sail on the Titanic

11) 1:30 A.M. - Fifth Officer Lowe has to use his gun.

12) 1:35 A.M. - First Officer Murdoch prevents a rush on Boat 15.

13) 2:05 A.M. - Edith Evans gives up her chance in order to save a married woman with a family.

14) 2:10 A.M. - Wireless Operator Phillips’ life belt is almost stolen.

15) 2:15 A.M. - The band plays “Autumn.”

16) 2:18 A.M. - Colonel Gracie recalls a trick he learned at the seashore.

Plan of Bottom Deck of RMS Titanic

Time and place of events during the sinking of the Titanic

1) 11:40 P.M. - Engineer Hesketh and Fireman Barrett have to jump through the watertight door.

2) 11:40 P.M. - Iceberg tears 300-foot gash, ripping open first six watertight compartments.

3) 11:50 P.M. - Water is swirling round foot of spiral stairs.

4) 11:50 P.M. - Water pours in so fast that escaping air forces up hatch cover and hisses out of forepeak tanks.

5) 12:45 A.M. - Engineer Shepherd breaks his leg.

6) 12:45 A.M. - Electrician Alfred White brews some coffee.

7) 1:00 A.M. - Greaser Thomas Ranger turns off 45 fans.

8) 1:15A.M. - Stoker Fred Scott frees a trapped friend.

9) 1:20 A.M. - The sea pours in on Trimmer George Cavell.

CHAPTER 1

“Another Belfast Trip”

HIGH IN THE CROW’S nest of the New White Star Liner Titanic, Lookout Frederick Fleet peered into a dazzling night. It was calm, clear and bitterly cold. There was no moon, but the cloudless sky blazed with stars. The Atlantic was like polished plate glass; people later said they had never seen it so smooth.

This was the fifth night of the Titanic’s maiden voyage to New York, and it was already clear that she was not only the largest but also the most glamorous ship in the world. Even the passengers’ dogs were glamorous. John Jacob Astor had along his Airedale Kitty. Henry Sleeper Harper, of the publishing family, had his prize Pekingese Sun Yat-sen. Robert W. Daniel, the Philadelphia banker, was bringing back a champion French bulldog just purchased in Britain. Clarence Moore of Washington also had been dog shopping, but the 50 pairs of English foxhounds he bought for the Loudoun Hunt weren’t making the trip.

That was all another world to Frederick Fleet. He was one of six lookouts carried by the Titanic, and the lookouts didn’t worry about passenger problems. They were the “eyes of the ship,” and on this particular night Fleet had been warned to watch especially for icebergs.

So far, so good. On duty at 10 o’clock … a few words about the ice problem with Lookout Reginald Lee, who shared the same watch … a few more words about the cold … but mostly just silence, as the two men stared into the darkness.

Now the watch was almost over, and still there was nothing unusual. Just the night, the stars, the biting cold, the wind that whistled through the rigging as the Titanic raced across the calm, black sea at 22½ knots. It was almost 11:40 P.M. on Sunday, the 14th of April, 1912.

Suddenly Fleet saw something directly ahead, even darker than the darkness. At first it was small (about the size, he thought, of two tables put together), but every second it grew larger and closer. Quickly Fleet banged the crow’s-nest bell three times, the warning of danger ahead. At the same time he lifted the phone and rang the bridge.

“What did you see?” asked a calm voice at the other end.

“Iceberg right ahead,” replied Fleet.

“Thank you,” acknowledged the voice with curiously detached courtesy. Nothing more was said.

For the next 37 seconds, Fleet and Lee stood quietly side by side, watching the ice draw nearer. Now they were almost on top of it, and still the ship didn’t turn. The berg towered wet and glistening far above the forecastle deck, and both men braced themselves for a crash. Then, miraculously, the bow began to swing to port. At the last second the stem shot into the clear, and the ice glided swiftly by along the starboard side. It looked to Fleet like a very close shave.

At this moment Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe was standing watch on the after bridge. For him, too, it had been an uneventful night—just the sea, the stars, the biting cold. As he paced the deck, he noticed what he and his mates called “Whiskers ’round the Light”—tiny splinters of ice in the air, fine as dust, that gave off myriads of bright colors whenever caught in the glow of the deck lights.

Then suddenly he felt a curious motion break the steady rhythm of the engines. It was a little like coming alongside a dock wall rather heavily. He glanced forward—and stared again. A windjammer, sails set, seemed to be passing along the starboard side. Then he realized it was an iceberg, towering perhaps 100 feet above the water. The next instant it was gone, drifting astern into the dark.

Meanwhile, down below in the First Class dining saloon on D Deck, four other members of the Titanic’s crew were sitting around one of the tables. The last diner had long since departed, and now the big white Jacobean room was empty except for this single group. They were dining-saloon stewards, indulging in the time-honored pastime of all stewards off duty—they were gossiping about their passengers.

Then, as they sat there talking, a faint grinding jar seemed to come from somewhere deep inside the ship. It was not much, but enough to break the conversation and rattle the silver that was set for breakfast next morning.

Steward James Johnson felt he knew just what it was. He recognized the kind of shudder a ship gives when she drops a propeller blade, and he knew this sort of mishap meant a trip back to the Harland & Wolff Shipyard at Belfast—with plenty of free time to enjoy the hospitality of the port. Somebody near him agreed and sang out cheerfully, “Another Belfast trip!”

In the galley just to the stern, Chief Night Baker Walter Belford was making rolls for the following day. (The honor of baking fancy pastry was reserved for the day shift.) When the jolt came, it impressed Belford more strongly than Steward Johnson—perhaps because a pan of new rolls clattered off the top of the oven and scattered about the floor!

The passengers in their cabins felt the jar too, and tried to connect it with something familiar. Marguerite Frolicher, a young Swiss girl accompanying her father on a business trip, woke up with a start. Half-asleep, she could think only of the little white lake ferries at Zurich making a sloppy landing. Softly she said to herself, “Isn’t it funny … we’re landing!”

Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, starting to undress for the night, thought it was like a heavy wave striking the ship. Mrs. J. Stuart White was sitting on the edge of her bed just reaching to turn out the light, when the ship seemed to roll over “a thousand marbles.” To Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon, waking up from the jolt, it seemed “as though somebody had drawn a giant finger along the side of the ship.” Mrs. John Jacob Astor thought it was some mishap in the kitchen.

It seemed stronger to some than to others. Mrs. Albert Caldwell pictured a large dog that had a baby kitten in its mouth and was shaking it. Mrs. Walter B. Stephenson recalled the first ominous jolt when she was in the San Francisco earthquake—then decided this wasn’t that bad. Mrs. E. D. Appleton felt hardly any shock at all, but she noticed an unpleasant ripping sound … like someone tearing a long, long strip of calico.

The jar meant more to J. Bruce Ismay, Managing Director of the White Star Line, who in a festive mood was going along for the ride on the Titanic’s first trip. Ismay woke up with a start in his deluxe suite on B Deck—he felt sure the ship had struck something, but he didn’t know what.

Some of the passengers already knew the answer. Mr. and Mrs. George A. Harder, a young honeymoon couple down in cabin E-50, were still awake when they heard a dull thump. Then they felt the ship quiver, and there was “a sort of rumbling, scraping noise” along the ship’s side. Mr. Harder hopped out of bed and ran to the porthole. As he looked through the glass, he saw a wall of ice glide by.

The same thing happened to James B. McGough, a Gimbel’s buyer from Philadelphia, except his experience was somewhat more disturbing. His porthole was open, and as the berg brushed by, chunks of ice fell into the cabin.

Like Mr. McGough, most of the Titanic’s passengers were in bed when the jar came. On this quiet, cold Sunday night a snug bunk seemed about the best place to be. But a few shipboard die-hards were still up. As usual, most were in the First Class smoking room on A Deck.

And as usual, it was a very mixed group. Around one table sat Archie Butt, President Taft’s military aide; Clarence Moore, the traveling Master of Hounds; Harry Widener, son of the Philadelphia streetcar magnate; and William Carter, another Main Liner. They were winding up a small dinner given by Widener’s father in honor of Captain Edward J. Smith, the ship’s commander. The Captain had left early, the ladies had been packed off to bed, and now the men were enjoying a final cigar before turning in too. The conversation wandered from politics to Clarence Moore’s adventures in West Virginia, the time he helped interview the old feuding mountaineer Anse Hatfield.

Buried in a nearby leather armchair, Spencer V. Silverthorne, a young buyer for Nugent’s department store in St. Louis, browsed through a new bestseller, The Virginian. Not far off, Lucien P. Smith (still another Philadelphian) struggled gamely through the linguistic problems of a bridge game with three Frenchmen.

At another table the ship’s young set was enjoying a somewhat noisier game of bridge. Normally the young set preferred the livelier Café Parisien, just below on B Deck, and at first tonight was no exception. But it grew so cold that around 11:30 the girls went off to bed, and the men strolled up to the smoking room for a nightcap. Most of the group stuck to highballs; Hugh Woolner, son of the English sculptor, took a hot whisky and water; Lieutenant Hokan Bjornstrom Steffanson, a young Swedish military attaché on his way to Washington, chose a hot lemonade.

Somebody produced a deck of cards, and as they sat playing and laughing, suddenly there came that grinding jar. Not much of a shock, but enough to give a man a start—Mr. Silverthorne still sits up with a jolt when he tells it. In an instant the smoking-room steward and Mr. Silverthorne were on their feet … through the aft door … past the Palm Court … and out onto the deck. They were just in time to see the iceberg scraping along the starboard side, a little higher than the Boat Deck. As it slid by, they watched chunks of ice breaking and tumbling off into the water. In another moment it faded into the darkness astern.

Others in the smoking room were pouring out now. As Hugh Woolner reached the deck, he heard a man call out, “We hit an iceberg—there it is!”

Woolner squinted into the night. About 150 yards astern he made out a mountain of ice standing black against the starlit sky. Then it vanished into the dark.

The excitement, too, soon disappeared. The Titanic seemed as solid as ever, and it was too bitterly cold to stay outside any longer. Slowly the group filed back, Woolner picked up his hand, and the bridge game went on. The last man inside thought, as he slammed the deck door, that the engines were stopping.

He was right. Up on the bridge First Officer William M. Murdoch had just pulled the engine-room telegraph handle all the way to “Stop.” Murdoch was in charge of the bridge this watch, and it was his problem, once Fleet phoned the warning. A tense minute had passed since then—orders to Quartermaster Hitchens to turn the wheel hard a-starboard … a yank on the engine-room telegraph for “Full-Speed Astern” … a hard push on the button closing the watertight doors … and finally those 37 seconds of breathless waiting.

Now the waiting was over, and it was all so clearly too late. As the grinding noise died away, Captain Smith rushed onto the bridge from his cabin next to the wheelhouse. There were a few quick words:

“Mr. Murdoch, what was that?”

“An iceberg, sir. I hard-a-starboarded and reversed the engines, and I was going to hard-a-port around it, but she was too close. I couldn’t do any more.”

“Close the emergency doors.”

“The doors are already closed.”

They were closed, all right. Down in boiler room No. 6, Fireman Fred Barrett had been talking to Assistant Second Engineer James Hesketh when the warning bell sounded and the light flashed red above the watertight door leading to the stern. A quick shout of warning—an ear-splitting crash—and the whole starboard side of the ship seemed to give way. The sea cascaded in, swirling about the pipes and valves, and the two men leaped through the door as it slammed down behind them.

Barrett found things almost as bad where he was now, in boiler room No. 5. The gash ran into No. 5 about two feet beyond the closed compartment door, and a fat jet of seawater was spouting through the hole. Nearby, Trimmer George Cavell was digging himself out of an avalanche of coal that had poured out of a bunker with the impact. Another stoker mournfully studied an overturned bowl of soup that had been warming on a piece of machinery.

It was dry in the other boiler rooms farther aft, but the scene was pretty much the same—men picking themselves up, calling back and forth, asking what had happened. It was hard to figure out. Until now the Titanic had been a picnic. Being a new ship on her maiden voyage, everything was clean. She was, as Fireman George Kemish still recalls, “a good job … not what we were accustomed to in old ships, slogging our guts out and nearly roasted by the heat.”

All the firemen had to do was keep the furnaces full. No need to work the fires with slice bars, pricker bars, and rakes. So on this Sunday night the men were taking it easy—sitting around on buckets and the trimmers’ iron wheelbarrows, shooting the breeze, waiting for the 12-to-4 watch to come on.

Then came that thud … the grinding, tearing sound … the telegraphs ringing wildly … the watertight doors crashing down. Most of the men couldn’t imagine what it was—the story spread that the Titanic had gone aground just off the Banks of Newfoundland. Many of them still thought so, even after a trimmer came running down from above shouting, “Blimey! We’ve struck an iceberg!”

About ten miles away Third Officer Charles Victor Groves stood on the bridge of the Leyland Liner Californian bound from London to Boston. A plodding 6,000-tonner, she had room for 47 passengers, but none were being carried just now. On this Sunday night she had been stopped since 10:30 P.M., completely blocked by drifting ice.

At about 11:10 Groves noticed the lights of another ship, racing up from the east on the starboard side. As the newcomer rapidly overhauled the motionless Californian, a blaze of deck lights showed she was a large passenger liner. Around 11:30 he knocked on the Venetian door of the chart room and told Captain Stanley Lord about it. Lord suggested contacting the new arrival by Morse lamp, and Groves prepared to do this.

Then, at about 11:40, he saw the big ship suddenly stop and put out most of her lights. This didn’t surprise Groves very much. He had spent some time in the Far East trade, where they usually put deck lights out at midnight to encourage the passengers to turn in. It never occurred to him that perhaps the lights were still on … that they only seemed to go out because she was no longer broadside but had veered sharply to port.

CHAPTER 2

“There’s Talk of an Iceberg, Ma’am”

ALMOST AS IF NOTHING had happened, Lookout Fleet resumed his watch, Mrs. Astor lay back in her bed, and Lieutenant Steffanson returned to his hot lemonade.

At the request of several passengers Second Class Smoking Room Steward James Witter went off to investigate the jar. But two tables of card players hardly looked up. Normally the White Star Line allowed no card playing on Sunday, and tonight the passengers wanted to take full advantage of the Chief Steward’s unexpected largesse.

There was no one in the Second Class lounge to send the librarian looking, so he continued sitting at his table, quietly counting the day’s loan slips.

Through the long white corridors that led to the staterooms came only the murmurs of people chatting in their cabins … the distant slam of some deck-pantry door … occasionally the click of unhurried high heels—all the usual sounds of a liner at night.

Everything seemed perfectly normal—yet not quite. In his cabin on B Deck, 17-year-old Jack Thayer had just called good night to his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. John B. Thayer of Philadelphia. The Thayers had connecting staterooms, an arrangement compatible with Mr. Thayer’s position as Second Vice President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Now, as young Jack stood buttoning his pajama jacket, the steady hum of the breeze through his half-opened porthole suddenly stopped.

On deck below, Mr. and Mrs. Henry B. Harris sat in their cabin playing double Canfield. Mr. Harris, a Broadway producer, was dog-tired, and Mrs. Harris had just broken her arm. There was little conversation as Mrs. Harris idly watched her dresses sway on their hangers from the ship’s vibration. Suddenly she noticed they stopped jiggling.

Another deck below, Lawrence Beesley, a young science master at Dulwich College, lay in his Second Class bunk reading, pleasantly lulled by the dancing motion of the mattress. Suddenly the mattress was still.

The creaking woodwork, the distant rhythm of the engines, the steady rattle of the glass dome over the A Deck foyer—all the familiar shipboard sounds vanished as the Titanic glided to a stop. Far more than any jolt, silence stirred the passengers.

Steward bells began ringing, but it was hard to learn anything. “Why have we stopped?” Lawrence Beesley asked a passing steward. “I don’t know, sir,” came a typical answer, “but I don’t suppose it’s much.”

Mrs. Arthur Ryerson, of the steel family, had somewhat better results. “There’s talk of an iceberg, ma’am,” explained Steward Bishop. “And they have stopped, not to run over it.” While her French maid Victorine hovered in the background, Mrs. Ryerson pondered what to do. Mr. Ryerson was having his first good sleep since the start of the trip, and she hated to wake him. She walked over to the square, heavy glass window that opened directly on the sea. Outside, she saw only a calm, beautiful night. She decided to let him sleep.

Others refused to let well enough alone. With the restless curiosity that afflicts everyone on board ship, some of the Titanic’s passengers began exploring for an answer.

In C-51 Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur military historian by way of West Point and an independent income, methodically donned underwear, long stockings, trousers, shoes, a Norfolk jacket, and then puffed up to the Boat Deck. Jack Thayer simply threw an overcoat over his pajamas and took off, calling to his parents that he was “going out to see the fun.”

On deck there was little fun to be seen; nor was there any sign of danger. For the most part the explorers wandered aimlessly about or stood by the rail, staring into the empty night for some clue to the trouble. The Titanic lay dead in the water, three of her four huge funnels blowing off steam with a roar that shattered the quiet, starlit night. Otherwise everything normal. Toward the stern of the Boat Deck an elderly couple strolled arm in arm, oblivious of the roaring steam and the little knots of passengers roving about.

It was so bitterly cold, and there was so little to be seen, that most of the people came inside again. Entering the magnificent foyer on A Deck, they found others who had also risen but preferred to stay inside where it was warm.

Mingling together, they made a curious picture. Their dress was an odd mixture of bathrobes, evening clothes, fur coats, turtleneck sweaters. The setting was equally incongruous—the huge glass dome overhead … the dignified oak paneling … the magnificent balustrades with their wrought-iron scrollwork … and, looking down on them all, an incredible wall clock adorned with two bronze nymphs, somehow symbolizing Honor and Glory crowning Time.

“Oh, it’ll be a few hours and we’ll be on the way again,” a steward vaguely explained to First Class passenger George Harder.

“Looks like we’ve lost a propeller, but it’ll give us more time for bridge,” called Howard Case, the London manager of Vacuum Oil, to Fred Seward, a New York lawyer. Perhaps Mr. Case got his theory from Steward Johnson, still contemplating a sojourn in Belfast. In any event, most of the passengers had better information by this time.

“What do you think?” exclaimed Harvey Collyer to his wife, as he returned to their cabin from a tour around the deck. “We’ve struck an iceberg—a big one—but there’s no danger. An officer told me so!” The Collyers were traveling Second Class, on their way from Britain to a fruit farm just purchased in Fayette Valley, Idaho. They were novices on the Atlantic, and perhaps the news would have roused Mrs. Collyer, but the dinner that night had been too rich. So she just asked her husband if anybody seemed frightened, and when he said no, she lay back again in her bunk.

John Jacob Astor seemed equally unperturbed. Returning to his suite after going up to investigate, he explained to Mrs. Astor that the ship had struck ice, but it didn’t look serious. He was very calm and Mrs. Astor wasn’t a bit alarmed.

“What do they say is the trouble?” asked William T. Stead, a leading British spiritualist, reformer, evangelist and editor, all rolled into one. A professional individualist, he seemed almost to have planned his arrival on deck later than the others.

“Icebergs,” briefly explained Frank Millet, the distinguished American painter.

“Well,” Stead shrugged, “I guess it’s nothing serious; I’m going back to my cabin to read.”

Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson Bishop of Dowagiac, Michigan, had the same reaction. When a deck steward assured them, “We have only struck a little piece of ice and passed it,” the Bishops returned to their stateroom and undressed again. Mr. Bishop picked up a book and started to read, but soon he was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mr. Albert A. Stewart, an ebullient old gentleman who had a large interest in the Barnum & Bailey Circus: “Come on out and amuse yourself!”

Others had the same idea. First Class passenger Peter Daly heard one young lady tell another, “Oh, come and let’s see the berg—we have never seen one before!”

And in the Second Class smoking room somebody facetiously asked whether he could get some ice from the berg for his highball.

He could indeed. When the Titanic brushed by, several tons of ice crumbled off the berg and landed on the starboard well deck just opposite the foremast. This was Third Class recreation space, and the ice was soon discovered by steerage passengers coming up to investigate. From her cabin window on B Deck, Mrs. Natalie Wick watched them playfully throwing chunks at each other.

The ice soon became quite a tourist attraction. Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a middle-aged manufacturing chemist from Toronto, used the opportunity to descend on a more distinguished compatriot, Charles M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railroad. “Mr. Hays!” he cried. “Have you seen the ice?”

When Mr. Hays said he hadn’t, Peuchen followed through—“If you care to see it, I will take you up on deck and show it to you.” And so they went all the way forward on A Deck and looked down at the mild horseplay below.

Possession of the ice didn’t remain a Third Class monopoly for long. As Colonel Gracie stood in the A Deck foyer, he was tapped on the shoulder by Clinch Smith, a New York society figure whose experiences already included sitting at Stanford White’s table the night White was shot by Harry K. Thaw. “Would you like,” asked Smith, “a souvenir to take back to New York?” And he opened his hand to show a small piece of ice, flat like a pocket watch.

The same collector’s instinct gripped others. Able Seaman John Poingdestre picked up a sliver and showed it around the crew’s mess room. A steerage passenger presented Fourth Officer Boxhall with a chunk about the size of a small basin. As Greaser Walter Hurst lay half-awake, his father-in-law—who shared the same quarters—came in and tossed a lump of ice into Hurst’s bunk. A man entered the stewards’ quarters, displaying a piece about as big as a teacup, and told Steward F. Dent Ray, “There are tons of ice forward!”

“Ah, well,” Ray yawned, “that will not hurt.” And he prepared to go back to sleep.

A little more curious, First Class Steward Henry Samuel Etches—off duty at the time of the crash—walked forward along the alleyway on E Deck to investigate, and ran into a Third Class passenger walking the other way. Before Etches could say anything, the passenger—as though confronting Etches with irrefutable evidence about something in dispute—threw a block of ice to the deck and shouted, “Will you believe it now?”

Soon there was far more disturbing evidence that all was not as it should be. By 11:50—ten minutes after the collision—strange things could be seen and heard in the first six of the Titanic’s 16 watertight compartments.

Lamp Trimmer Samuel Hemming, lying off duty in his bunk, heard a curious hissing sound coming from the forepeak, the compartment closest to the bow. He jumped up, went as far forward as he could, and discovered that it was air escaping from the forepeak locker where the anchor chains were stowed. Far below, water was pouring in so fast that the air rushed out under tremendous pressure.

In the next compartment aft, containing the firemen’s quarters and cargo hatch No. 1, Leading Fireman Charles Hendrickson was also aroused by a curious sound. But here it was not air—it was water. When he looked down the spiral staircase that led to the passageway connecting the firemen’s quarters with the stokeholds, he saw green seawater swirling around the foot of the grated, cast-iron steps.

Steerage passenger Carl Johnson had an even more disturbing experience in the third compartment aft. This contained the cheapest passenger accommodations—lowest in the ship and closest to the bow. As Johnson got up to see what was causing a mild commotion outside his cabin, water seeped in under the door and around his feet. He decided to dress, and by the time his clothes were on, the water was over his shoes. With a detached, almost clinical interest, he noticed that it seemed to be of very even depth all over the floor. Nearby, steerage passenger Daniel Buckley was a little slower to react, and when he finally jumped out of his bunk, he splashed into water up to his ankles.

Five postal clerks working in the fourth compartment were much wetter. The Titanic’s post office took up two deck levels—the mail was stacked, along with First Class luggage, on the Orlop Deck and was sorted just above on G Deck. The two levels were connected by a wide iron companionway, which continued up to F Deck and the rest of the ship. Within five minutes water was sloshing around the knees of the postal clerks, as they dragged 200 sacks of registered mail up the companionway to the drier sorting room.

They might have spared themselves the trouble—in another five minutes the water reached the top of the steps and was lapping onto G Deck. The clerks now abandoned the mail room altogether, retreating further up the companionway to F Deck.

At the top of the stairs they found a married couple peering down at them. Mr. and Mrs. Norman Campbell Chambers of New York had been attracted by the noise, while returning to their cabin after a fruitless trip to the Promenade Deck. Now, the Chamberses and the postal clerks watched the scene together, joking about the soaked baggage and wondering what might be in the letters they could see floating around the abandoned mail room.

Others joined them briefly from time to time—Fourth Officer Boxhall … Assistant Second Steward Wheat … once even Captain Smith. But at no point could the Chamberses bring themselves to believe that anything they saw was really dangerous.

The fifth watertight compartment from the bow contained boiler room No. 6. This was where Fireman Barrett and Assistant Second Engineer Hesketh jumped through the watertight door just as it slammed down after the collision. Others didn’t make it and scrambled up the escape ladders that laced their way topside. A few hung on, and after a moment some of the others came down again.

Shouts of “Shut the dampers!” and then “Draw the fires!” came from somewhere. Fireman George Beauchamp worked at fever pitch as the sea flooded in from the bunker door and up through the floor plates. In five minutes it was waist deep—black and slick with grease from the machinery. The air was heavy with steam. Fireman Beauchamp never did see who shouted the welcome words, “That will do!” He was too relieved to care as he scurried up the ladder for the last time.

Just to the stern, Assistant Second Engineer Hesketh, now on the dry side of the watertight door, struggled to get boiler room No. 5 back to normal. The sea still spouted through a two-foot gash near the closed door, but Assistant Engineers Harvey and Wilson had a pump going, and it was keeping ahead of the water.

For a few moments the stokers stood by, aimlessly watching the engineers rig the pumps; then the engine room phoned to send them to the Boat Deck. They trooped up the escape ladder, but the bridge ordered them down again, and for a while they milled around the working alleyway on E Deck—halfway up, halfway down—caught in the bureaucracy of a huge ship and wondering what to do next.

Meanwhile the lights went out in boiler room No. 5. Engineer Harvey ordered Fireman Barrett, who had stayed behind, to go aft to the engine room for lanterns. The connecting doors were all shut; so Barrett had to climb to the top of the escape ladder, cross over, and go down the other side. By the time he retraced his steps, the engineers had the lights on again and the lanterns weren’t needed.

Next, Harvey told Barrett to shut down the boilers—the pressure, built up while the ship was at full steam, now lifted the safety valves and was blowing joints. Barrett scrambled back up the ladder and drafted 15 or 20 of the stokers wandering around E Deck. They all clattered down and began wetting the fires. It was backbreaking work, boxing up the boilers and putting on dampers to stop the steam from rising. Fireman Kemish still remembers it with feeling: “We certainly had one hell of a time putting those fires out …”

Clouds of steam gushed through the boiler room as the men sweated away. But gradually order returned. The lights burned bright, the place was clear of water, and, in No. 5 at any rate, everything seemed under control. There was an air of cheerful confidence by the time word spread that the men on the 12-to-4 watch were dragging their beds to the recreation deck because their rooms were flooded. The men on the 8-to-12 watch paused in their work, thought this was a huge joke, and had a good laugh.

Up on the bridge, Captain Smith tried to piece the picture together. No one was better equipped to do it. After 38 years’ service with White Star, he was more than just senior captain of the line; he was a bearded patriarch, worshiped by crew and passengers alike. They loved everything about him—especially his wonderful combination of firmness and urbanity. It was strikingly evident in the matter of cigars. “Cigars,” says his daughter, “were his pleasure. And one was allowed to be in the room only if one was absolutely still, so that the blue cloud over his head never moved.”

Captain Smith was a natural leader, and on reaching the wheelhouse after the crash, he paused only long enough to visit the starboard wing of the bridge to see if the iceberg was still in sight. First Officer Murdoch and Fourth Officer Boxhall trailed along, and for a moment the three officers merely stood peering into the darkness. Boxhall thought he saw a dark shape far astern, but he wasn’t sure.

From then on all was business. Captain Smith sent Boxhall on a fast inspection of the ship. In a few minutes he was back: he had been as far forward in the steerage as he could go, and there was no sign of damage. This was the last good news Captain Smith heard that night.

Still worried, Smith now told Boxhall, “Go down and find the carpenter and get him to sound the ship.” Boxhall wasn’t even down the bridge ladder when he bumped into Carpenter J. Hutchinson rushing up. As Hutchinson elbowed his way by, he gasped, “She’s making water fast!”

Hard on the carpenter’s heels came mail clerk Iago Smith. He too pushed on toward the bridge, blurting as he passed, “The mail hold is filling rapidly!”

Next to arrive was Bruce Ismay. He had pulled a suit over his pajamas, put on his carpet slippers, and climbed to the bridge to find whether anything was happening that the President of the line should know. Captain Smith broke the news about the iceberg. Ismay then asked, “Do you think the ship is seriously damaged?” A pause, and the Captain slowly answered, “I’m afraid she is.”

They would know soon enough. A call had been sent for Thomas Andrews, Managing Director of Harland & Wolff Shipyard. As the Titanic’s builder, Andrews was making the maiden voyage to iron out any kinks in the ship. If anybody could figure out the situation, here was the man.

He was indeed a remarkable figure. As builder, he of course knew every detail about the Titanic. But there was so much more to him than that. Nothing was too great or too small for his attention. He even seemed able to anticipate how the ship would react to any situation. He understood ships the way some men are supposed to understand horses.

And he understood equally well the people who run ships. They all came to Andrews with their problems. One night it might be First Officer Murdoch, worried because he had been superseded by Chief Officer Wilde. The next night it might be a couple of quarreling stewardesses who looked to Andrews as a sort of Supreme Court. This very evening Chief Baker Charles Joughin made him a special loaf of bread.

So far, Andrews’ trip had been what might be expected. All day long he roamed the ship, taking volumes of notes. At 6:45 every evening he dressed for dinner, dining usually with old Dr. O’Loughlin, the ship’s surgeon, who also had a way with the stewardesses. And then back to his stateroom A-36, piled high with plans and charts and blueprints. There he would assemble his notes and work out his recommendations.

Tonight the problems were typical—trouble with the restaurant galley hot press … the coloring of the pebble dashing on the private promenade decks was too dark … too many screws on all the stateroom hat hooks. There was also the plan to change part of the writing room into two more staterooms. The writing room had originally been planned partly as a place where the ladies could retire after dinner. But this was the twentieth century, and the ladies just wouldn’t retire. Clearly, a smaller room would do.

Completely absorbed, Andrews scarcely noticed the jar and stirred from his blueprints only when he got Captain Smith’s message that he was needed on the bridge.

In a few minutes Andrews and the Captain were making their own tour—down the crew’s stairway to attract less attention … along the labyrinth of corridors far below … by the water surging into the mail room … past the squash court, where the sea now lapped against the foul line on the backboard.

Threading their way back to the bridge, they passed through the A Deck foyer, still thronged with passengers standing around. Everybody studied the two men’s faces for some sign of good news or bad; nobody could detect any clue.

Some of the crew weren’t so guarded. In D-60, when Mrs. Henry Sleeper Harper asked Dr. O’Loughlin to persuade her sick husband to stay in bed, the old doctor exclaimed, “They tell me the trunks are floating around in the hold; you may as well go on deck.”

In C-51 a young governess named Elizabeth Shutes sat with her charge, 19-year-old Margaret Graham. Seeing an officer pass the cabin door, Miss Shutes asked him if there was any danger. He cheerfully said no, but then she overheard him further down the hall say, “We can keep the water out for a while.”

Miss Shutes glanced at Margaret, who was uneasily nibbling at a chicken sandwich. Her hand shook so badly the chicken kept falling out of the bread.

No one was asking questions along the working alleyway on E Deck. This broad corridor was the quickest way from one end of the ship to the other—the officers called it “Park Lane,” the crew “Scotland Road.” Now it was crowded with pushing, shoving people. Some were stokers forced out of boiler room No. 6, but most were steerage passengers, slowly working their way aft, carrying boxes, bags, and even trunks.

These people didn’t need to be told there was trouble. To those berthed far below on the starboard side, the crash was no “faint grinding jar.” It was a “tremendous noise” that sent them tumbling out of bed.

Mrs. Celiney Yasbeck—a bride of 50 days—ran out into the corridor with her husband. Instead of making the long hike to the deck, it was easier to look below for trouble. In their nightclothes they walked along to a door leading down to the boiler rooms and peeked through. Engineers were struggling to make repairs and get the pumps going. The Yasbecks needed no second glance—they rushed back to their cabin to dress.

Far above on A Deck, Second Class passenger Lawrence Beesley noticed a curious thing. As he started below to check his cabin, he felt certain the stairs “weren’t quite right.” They seemed level, and yet his feet didn’t fall where they should. Somehow they strayed forward off balance … as though the steps were tilted down toward the bow.

Major Peuchen noticed it too. As he stood with Mr. Hays at the forward end of A Deck, looking down at the steerage passengers playing soccer with the loose ice, he sensed a very slight tilt in the deck. “Why, she is listing!” he cried to Hays. “She should not do that! The water is perfectly calm and the boat has stopped.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mr. Hays replied placidly, “you cannot sink this boat.”

Others also felt the downward slant, but it seemed tactless to mention the matter. In boiler room No. 5, Fireman Barrett decided to say nothing to the engineers working on the pumps. Far above in the A Deck foyer, Colonel Gracie and Clinch Smith had the same reaction. On the bridge the commutator showed the Titanic slightly down at the head and listing 5 degrees to starboard.

Nearby, Andrews and Captain Smith did some fast figuring. Water in the forepeak … No. 1 hold … No. 2 hold … mail room … boiler room No. 6 … boiler room No. 5. Water 14 feet above keel level in the first ten minutes, everywhere except boiler room No. 5. Put together, the facts showed a 300-foot gash, with the first five compartments hopelessly flooded.

What did this mean? Andrews quietly explained. The Titanic could float with any two of her 16 watertight compartments flooded. She could float with any three of her first five compartments flooded. She could even float with all of her first four compartments gone. But no matter how they sliced it, she could not float with all of her first five compartments full.

The bulkhead between the fifth and sixth compartments went only as high as E Deck. If the first five compartments were flooded, the bow would sink so low that water in the fifth compartment must overflow into the sixth. When this was full, it would overflow into the seventh, and so on. It was a mathematical certainty, pure and simple. There was no way out.

But it was still a shock. After all, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. And not just in the travel brochures. The highly technical magazine Shipbuilder described her compartment system in a special edition in 1911, pointing out, “The Captain may, by simply moving an electric switch, instantly close the doors throughout and make the vessel practically unsinkable.”

Now all the switches were pulled, and Andrews said it made no difference.

It was hard to face, and especially hard for Captain Smith. Over 59 years old, he was retiring after this trip. Might even have done it sooner, but he traditionally took the White Star ships on their maiden voyages. Only six years before, when he brought over the brand-new Adriatic, he remarked:

“I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”

Now he stood on the bridge of a liner twice as big—twice as safe—and the builder told him it couldn’t float.

At 12:05 A.M.—25 minutes after that bumping, grinding jar—Captain Smith ordered Chief Officer Wilde to uncover the boats … First Officer Murdoch to muster the passengers … Sixth Officer Moody to get out the list of boat assignments … Fourth Officer Boxhall to wake up Second Officer Lightoller and Third Officer Pitman. The Captain himself then walked about 20 yards down the port side of the Boat Deck to the wireless shack.

Inside, First Operator John George Phillips and Second Operator Harold Bride showed no sign that they realized what was happening. It had been a tough day. In 1912 wireless was still an erratic novelty; range was short, operators were inexperienced, and signals were hard to catch. There was a lot of relaying, a lot of repeats, and a lot of frivolous private traffic. Passengers were fascinated by the new miracle, couldn’t resist the temptation of sending messages to friends back home or on other ships.

All this Sunday the messages had piled up. It was enough to fray the nerves of any man working a 14-hour day at 30 dollars a month, and Phillips was no exception. Evening came, and still the bottomless in-basket, still the petty interferences. Only an hour ago—just when he was at last in good contact with Cape Race—the Californian barged in with some message about icebergs. She was so close she almost blew his ears off. No wonder he snapped back, “Shut up, shut up! I am busy; I am working Cape Race!”

It was such a hard day that Second Operator Bride decided to relieve Phillips at midnight, even though he wasn’t due until 2:00 A.M. He woke up about 11:55, brushed by the green curtain separating the sleeping quarters from the “office,” and asked Phillips how he was getting along. Phillips said he had just finished the Cape Race traffic. Bride padded back to his berth and took off his pajamas. Phillips called after him that he thought the ship had been damaged somehow and they’d have to go back to Belfast.

In a couple of minutes Bride was dressed and took over the headphones. Phillips was hardly behind the green curtain when Captain Smith appeared: “We’ve struck an iceberg and I’m having an inspection made to see what it has done to us. You better get ready to send out a call for assistance, but don’t send it until I tell you.”

Then he left but returned again in a few minutes. This time he merely stuck his head in the doorway:

“Send the call for assistance.”

By now Phillips was back in the room. He asked the Captain whether to use the regulation distress call. Smith replied, “Yes, at once!”

He handed Phillips a slip of paper with the Titanic's position. Phillips took the headphones from Bride, and at 12:15 A.M. began tapping out the letters “CQD”—at that time the usual international call of distress—followed by “MGY,” the call letters of the Titanic. Again and again, six times over, the signal rasped out into the cold, blue Atlantic night.

Ten miles away, Third Officer Groves of the Californian sat on the bunk of Wireless Operator Cyril F. Evans. Groves was young, alert, and always interested in what was going on in the world. After work he liked to drop by Evans’ wireless shack and pick up the latest news. He even liked to fool with the set.

This was all right with Evans. There weren’t many officers on third-rate liners interested in the outside world, much less wireless telegraphy. In fact, there weren’t any others on the Californian. So he used to welcome Groves’ visits.

But not tonight. It had been a hard day, and there was no other operator to relieve him. Besides, he had been pretty roughly handled around 11:00 when he tried to break in on the Titanic and tell her about the ice blocking the Californian. So he lost no time tonight closing down his set at 11:30, his scheduled hour for going off duty. Now—dead-tired—he was in no mood for shooting the breeze with anybody. Groves made a brave try: “What ships have you got, Sparks?”

“Only the Titanic.” Evans scarcely bothered to glance up from his magazine.

This was no news to Groves. He recalled that when he showed Captain Lord the strange liner that had just stopped nearby, the Captain told him, “That will be the Titanic on her maiden voyage.”

In search of something more interesting, Groves took the headphones and put them on. He was really getting quite good, if the message was simple enough. But he didn’t know too much about the equipment. The Californian’s set had a magnetic detector that ran by clockwork. Groves didn’t wind it up, and so he heard nothing.

Giving up, he put the phones back on the table, and went below to find livelier company. It was just a little after 12:15 A.M.

CHAPTER 3

“God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship”

THE DOOR TO THE cooks’ quarters whacked open against the iron cot of Assistant Baker Charles Burgess. He woke up with a start and stared at Second Steward George Dodd standing in the doorway. Normally a rotund, jolly man, Dodd looked serious as he called, “Get up, lads, we’re sinking!”

Dodd moved forward to the waiters’ quarters, where Saloon Steward William Moss was trying to rouse the men. Most of them were laughing and joking, when Dodd burst in, shouting, “Get every man up! Don’t let a man stay here!”

He moved on with Moss toward the stewards’ quarters. Just outside, Smoking Room Steward Witter was already getting some disturbing news from Carpenter Hutchinson: “The bloody mail room is full.” Moss came up and added, “It’s really serious Jim.”

The wisecracks that greeted the first warnings faded, and the crew tumbled out of their berths. Still half-asleep, Baker Burgess pulled on pants, a shirt, no life belt. Walter Belford wore his white baker’s coat, pants, didn’t stop to put on his underdrawers. Steward Ray took more time; he wasn’t worried—nevertheless he found himself putting on his shore suit. Steward Witter, already dressed, opened his trunk and filled his pockets with cigarettes … picked up the caul from his first child, which he always carried with him … then joined the crowd of men now swarming out into the working alleyway and up toward the boat stations.

Far forward, away from the uproar, Trimmer Samuel Hemming climbed back into his bunk, satisfied that the hissing sound in the forepeak didn’t mean very much. He was just drifting off to sleep when the ship’s joiner leaned in, saying: “If I were you, I’d turn out. She’s making water one-two-three, and the racket court is getting filled up.” An instant later the boatswain appeared: “Turn out, you fellows. You haven’t half an hour to live. That is from Mr. Andrews. Keep it to yourselves and let no one know.”

Certainly no one knew in the First Class smoking room. The bridge game was going full blast again. Lieutenant Steffanson was still sipping his hot lemonade, and another hand was being dealt, when a ship’s officer suddenly appeared at the door: “Men, get on your life belts; there’s trouble ahead.”

In her A Deck stateroom, Mrs. Washington Dodge lay in bed, waiting for Dr. Dodge, Assessor for San Francisco, to dig up some news. The door opened and the doctor came in quietly: “Ruth, the accident is rather a serious one; you had better come on deck at once.”

Two decks below, Mrs. Lucien Smith—tired of waiting for Mr. Smith to finish exploring—had gone back to sleep. Suddenly the lights snapped on, and she saw her husband standing by the bed, smiling down at her. Leisurely he explained, “We are in the north and have struck an iceberg. It does not amount to anything but will probably delay us a day getting into New York. However, as a matter of form, the Captain has ordered all ladies on deck.”

And so it went. No bells or sirens. No general alarm. But all over the Titanic, in one way or another, the word was passed.

It was very bewildering to eight-year-old Marshall Drew. When his aunt Mrs. James Drew woke him and said she had to take him on deck, he sleepily protested he didn’t want to get up. But Mrs. Drew paid no attention.

It was no less bewildering to Major Arthur Peuchen, despite his sightseeing expedition to look at the ice. He heard the news on the grand staircase and could hardly believe it. Completely stunned, he stumbled to his cabin to change from evening dress to something warm.

For many, first word came from their stewards. John Hardy, Second Class Chief Steward, personally roused 20 to 24 cabins. Each time he threw the door open wide, shouting, “Everybody on deck with life belts on, at once!”

In First Class it was more polite to knock. These were the days when a steward on a crack liner didn’t have more than eight or nine cabins, and he was like a mother hen to all the passengers he served.

Steward Alfred Crawford was typical. He had spent 31 years handling difficult passengers, and now he knew just how to coax old Mr. Albert Stewart into a life jacket. Then he stooped and tied the old gentleman’s shoes.

In C-89, Steward Andrew Cunningham helped William T. Stead into his life belt, while the great editor mildly complained that it was a lot of nonsense. In B-84, Steward Henry Samuel Etches worked like a solicitous tailor, fitting Benjamin Guggenheim for his life belt.

“This will hurt,” protested the mining and smelting king. Etches finally took the belt off altogether, made some adjustments, put it on again. Next, Guggenheim wanted to go on deck as he was, but Etches was adamant—it was much too cold. Ultimately Guggenheim submitted; Etches pulled a heavy sweater over him and sent him packing off topside.

Some of the passengers were even more difficult. At C-78, Etches found the door locked. When he knocked loudly with both hands, a man inside asked suspiciously, “What is it?” and a woman added, “Tell us what the trouble is.” Etches explained and again tried to get them to open the door. He had no luck, and after a few minutes’ pleading he finally passed on to the next cabin.

In another part of the ship a locked door raised a different problem. It was jammed, and some passengers broke it down to release a man inside. At this point a steward arrived, threatening to have everybody arrested for damaging company property when the Titanic reached New York.

At 12:15 it was hard to know whether to joke or be serious—whether to chop down a door and be a hero, or chop it down and get arrested. No two people seemed to have the same reaction.

Mrs. Arthur Ryerson felt there wasn’t a moment to lose. She had long since abandoned the idea of letting Mr. Ryerson sleep; now she scurried about trying to keep her family together. There were six to get ready—her husband, three children, governess, and maid—and the children seemed to slow. Finally she gave up on her youngest daughter; just threw a fur coat over her nightgown and told her to come on.

There seemed all the time in the world to Mrs. Lucien Smith. Slowly and with great care she dressed for whatever the night might bring—a heavy woolen dress, high shoes, two coats, and a warm knitted hood. All the while Mr. Smith chatted away about landing in New York, taking the train south, never mentioning the iceberg. As they started for the deck, Mrs. Smith decided to go back for some jewelry. Here Mr. Smith drew the line. He suggested it might be wiser not to bother with “trifles.” As a compromise Mrs. Smith picked up two favorite rings. Closing the door carefully behind them, the young couple headed up toward the Boat Deck.

The things people took with them showed how they felt. Adolf Dyker handed his wife a small satchel containing two gold watches, two diamond rings, a sapphire necklace, and 200 Swedish crowns. Miss Edith Russell carried a musical toy pig (it played the Maxixe). Stewart Collett, a young theological student traveling Second Class, took the Bible he promised his brother he’d always carry until they met again. Lawrence Beesley stuffed the pockets of his Norfolk jacket with the books he had been reading in bed. Norman Campbell Chambers pocketed a revolver and compass. Steward Johnson, by now anticipating far more than “another Belfast trip,” stuck four oranges under his blouse. Mrs. Dickinson Bishop left behind 11,000 dollars in jewelry, then sent her husband back for her muff.

Major Arthur Peuchen looked at the tin box on the table in C-104. Inside were 200,000 dollars in bonds, 100,000 dollars in preferred stock. He thought a good deal about it as he took off his dinner jacket, put on two suits of long underwear and some heavy clothes.

Then he took a last look around the little cabin—the real brass bed … the green mesh net along the wall for valuables at night… the marble washstand … the wicker armchair … the horsehair sofa … the fan in the ceiling … the bells and electrical fixtures that on a liner always look as if they were installed as an afterthought.

Now his mind was made up. He slammed the door, leaving behind the tin box on the table. In another minute he was back. Quickly he picked up a good-luck pin and three oranges. As he left for the last time, the tin box was still on the table.

Out in the C Deck foyer, Purser Herbert McElroy was urging everyone to stop standing around. As the countess of Rothes passed, he called, “Hurry, little lady, there is not much time. I’m glad you didn’t ask me for your jewels as some ladies have.”

Into the halls they poured, gently prodded along by the crew. One room steward caught the eye of Miss Marguerite Frolicher as she came down the corridor. Four days before, she had playfully teased him for putting a life belt in her stateroom, if the ship was meant to be so unsinkable. At the time he had laughed and assured her it was just a formality … she would never have to wear it. Remembering the exchange, he now smiled and reassured her, “Don’t be scared; it’s all right.”

“I’m not scared,” she replied, “I’m just seasick.”

Up the stairs they trooped—a hushed crowd in jumbled array. Under his overcoat Jack Thayer now sported a greenish tweed suit and vest, with another mohair vest underneath. Mr. Robert Daniel, the Philadelphia banker, had on only woolen pajamas. Mrs. Turrell Cavendish wore a wrapper and Mr. Cavendish’s overcoat … Mrs. John C. Hogeboom a fur coat over her nightgown … Mrs. Ada Clark just a nightgown. Mrs. Washington Dodge didn’t bother to put on stockings under her high-button shoes, which flopped open because she didn’t stop to button them. Mrs. Astor looked right out of a bandbox in an attractive light dress, Mrs. James J. Brown—a colorful Denver millionairess—equally stylish in a black velvet two-piece suit with black and white silk lapels.

Automobiling, as practiced in 1912, affected the attire of many ladies—Mrs. C. E. Henry Stengel wore a veil tightly pinned down over her floral hat, Madame de Villiers a long woolen motoring coat over her nightgown and evening slippers.

Young Alfred von Drachstedt, a 20-year-old youth from Cologne, settled on a sweater and a pair of trousers, leaving behind a brand-new 2,133-dollar wardrobe that included walking sticks and a fountain pen, which he somehow felt was a special badge of distinction.

Second Class was somewhat less elegantly disarrayed. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Caldwell—returning from Siam, where they taught at the Bangkok Christian College—had bought new clothes in London, but tonight they dressed in the oldest clothes they owned. Their baby Alden was wrapped in a blanket. Miss Elizabeth Nye wore a simple skirt, coat, and slippers. Mrs. Charlotte Collyer didn’t bother to put up her hair, just tied it back with a ribbon. Her eight-year-old daughter Marjory had a steamer rug around her shoulders. Mr. Collyer took little trouble dressing, because he expected to be back soon—he even left his watch lying on his pillow.

The scene in Third Class was particularly confusing because the White Star Line primly quartered the single men and single women at opposite ends of the Titanic. Now many of the men—who slept toward the bow—hurried aft to join the girls.

Katherine Gilnagh, a pert colleen not quite 16, heard a knock on the door. It was the young man who caught her eye earlier that day playing the bagpipes on deck. He told her to get up—something was wrong with the ship. Anna Sjoblom, an 18-year-old Finnish girl bound for the Pacific Northwest, woke up when a young Danish swain came in to rouse her roommate. He also gave Anna a life belt and urged her to come along. But she was too seasick to care. Eventually there was so much commotion that she went up after all, even though she still felt awful. She was quickly helped into a life belt by Alfred Wicklund, a schoolfriend from home.

Among these young men, Olaus Abelseth was especially worried. He was a 26-year-old Norwegian heading for a South Dakota homestead, and an old family friend had put a 16-year-old daughter in his care until they reached Minneapolis. As he pushed his way aft along the E Deck working alleyway, Minneapolis seemed a long way off.

Abelseth found the girl in the main steerage hallway on E Deck. Then, along with his brother-in-law, a cousin and another girl, they all climbed the broad, steep Third Class stairs to the poop deck at the very stern of the ship.

Into the bitter night the whole crowd milled, each class automatically keeping to its own decks—First Class in the center of the ship, Second a little aft, Third at the very stern or in the well deck near the bow. Quietly they stood around waiting for the next orders … reasonably confident yet vaguely worried. With uneasy amusement they eyed how one another looked in life belts. There were a few half-hearted jokes.

“Well,” said Clinch Smith as a girl walked by carrying a Pomeranian, “I suppose we ought to put a life preserver on the little doggie too.”

“Try this on,” a man told Mrs. Vera Dick as he fastened on her life jacket. “They are the very latest thing this season. Everybody is wearing them now.”

“They will keep you warm if you don’t have to use them,” Captain Smith cheerfully explained to Mrs. Alexander T. Compton of New Orleans.

At about 12:30 Colonel Gracie bumped into Fred Wright, the Titanic’s squash pro. Remembering he had reserved the court for 7:30 in the morning, Gracie tried a little joke of his own: “Hadn’t we better cancel that appointment?”

“Yes,” replied Wright. His voice was flat and without enthusiasm, but the wonder is he played along at all. He knew the water was now up to the squash-court ceiling.

In the brightly lit gym, just off the Boat Deck, Mr. and Mrs. Astor sat side by side on a pair of motionless mechanical horses. They wore their life belts, and Mr. Astor had an extra one in his lap. He was slicing it open with his penknife, whiling away the time by showing his wife what was inside.

While the passengers joked and talked and waited, the crew moved swiftly to their stations. The Boat Deck teemed with seamen, stewards, firemen, chefs, ordered up from below.

A curiously late arrival was Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe. A tempestuous young Welshman, Lowe was hard to suppress. When he was 14, his father tried to apprentice him to a Liverpool businessman, but Lowe said he “wouldn’t work for nobody for nothing.” So he ran away to sea and a life after his own heart—schooners … square riggers … five years steaming along the West African coast.

Now, at 28, he was making his first trip across the Atlantic. This Sunday night he was off duty and slept right through the collision. Voices outside his cabin on the Boat Deck finally woke him up. When he looked out the porthole and saw everybody in life belts, he catapulted out of bed, into his clothes, and rushed on deck to help. Not exactly an auspicious start, but then, as Lowe later explained to U.S. Senator Smith, “You must remember that we do not have any too much sleep, and therefore when we sleep we die.”

Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller was late too, but for an entirely different reason. Like Lowe, he was off duty in his bunk when the Titanic hit, but he woke up instantly and, in his bare feet, ran out on the Boat Deck to see what was up. Nothing could be seen on either side of the ship, except on the starboard wing of the bridge, where he dimly made out Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch. They too were peering into the night.

Lightoller returned to his cabin and thought it over. Something undoubtedly was wrong with the ship—first that jar, now the silent engines. But he was off duty, and until called, it was no business of his. When they needed him, they would send for him. When this happened, he should be where they’d expect to find him. Lightoller got back into bed and lay awake waiting …

Five, 15, 30 minutes went by. He could now hear the roar of the funnels blowing off steam, the rising sound of voices, the clanking of gear. But still, his duty was to be where they’d expect to find him.

At 12:10 Fourth Officer Boxhall finally came bursting in: “You know we have struck an iceberg.”

“I know we have struck something,” Lightoller replied, getting up and starting to dress.

“The water is up to F Deck in the mail room,” continued Boxhall, by way of a little prodding. But no urging was needed. Lightoller was already well on the way. Cool, diligent, cautious, he knew his duty to the letter. He was the perfect Second Officer.

On the Boat Deck men began to clear the 16 wooden lifeboats. There were eight on each side—a cluster of four toward the bow, then an open space of 190 feet, then another four toward the stern. Port boats had even numbers, starboard odd. They were numbered in sequence, starting from the bow. In addition, four canvas collapsible lifeboats—known as Englehardts—were stowed on deck. These could be fitted into the empty davits after the two forward boats were lowered. The collapsibles were lettered A, B, C, and D.

All the boats together could carry 1,178 people. On this Sunday night there were 2,207 people on board the Titanic.

This mathematical discrepancy was known by none of the passengers and few of the crew, but most of them wouldn’t have cared anyhow. The Titanic was unsinkable. Everybody said so. When Mrs. Albert Caldwell was watching the deck hands carry up luggage at Southampton, she asked one of them, “Is this ship really nonsinkable?”

“Yes, lady,” he answered. “God himself could not sink this ship.”

So now the passengers stood calmly on the Boat Deck—unworried but very confused. There had been no boat drill. The passengers had no boat assignments. The crew had assignments, but hardly anybody bothered to look at the list. Now they were playing it strictly by ear—yet somehow the crew seemed to sense where they were needed and how to be useful. The years of discipline were paying off.

Little knots of men swarmed over each boat, taking off the canvas covers, clearing the masts and useless paraphernalia, putting in lanterns and tins of biscuits. Other men stood at the davits, fitting in cranks and uncoiling the lines. One by one the cranks were turned. The davits creaked, the pulleys squealed, and the boats slowly swung out free of the ship. Next a few feet of line were paid out, so that each boat would lie flush with the Boat Deck … or, in some cases, flush with Promenade Deck A directly below.

But the going was slow. Second Officer Lightoller, in charge of the port side, believed in channels, and Chief Officer Wilde seemed quite a bottleneck. When Lightoller asked permission to swing out, Wilde said, “No, wait.” Lightoller finally went to the bridge and got orders direct from Captain Smith. Now Lightoller asked Wilde if he could load up. Again Wilde said no; again Lightoller went to the bridge; again Captain Smith gave him the nod: “Yes, put the women and children in and lower away.”

Lightoller then lowered Boat 4 level with A Deck and ordered the women and children down to be loaded from there. It seemed safer that way—less chance of falling overboard, less distance to the water, and it helped clear the Boat Deck for hard work ahead. Too late he remembered the Promenade Deck was closed here and the windows were shut. While someone was sent to get the windows open, he hastily recalled everybody and moved aft to Boat 6.

With one foot in No. 6 and one on deck, Lightoller now called for women and children. The response was anything but enthusiastic. Why trade the bright decks of the Titanic for a few dark hours in a rowboat? Even John Jacob Astor ridiculed the idea: “We are safer here than in that little boat.”

As Mrs. Stuart White climbed into No. 8, a friend called, “When you get back you’ll need a pass. You can’t get back on tomorrow morning without a pass!”

When Mrs. Constance Willard flatly refused to enter the boat, an exasperated officer finally shrugged, “Don’t waste time—let her go if she won’t get in!”

And there was music to lull them too. Bandmaster Wallace Henry Hartley had assembled his men, and the band was playing ragtime. Just now they stood in the First Class lounge, where many of the passengers waited before orders came to lower the boats. Later they moved to the Boat Deck forward, near the entrance to the grand staircase. They looked a little nondescript—some in blue uniform coats, some in white jackets—but there was nothing wrong with the music.

Everything had been done to give the Titanic the best band on the Atlantic. The White Star Line even raided the Cunarder Mauretania for Bandmaster Hartley. Pianist Theodore Brailey and cellist Roger Bricoux were easily wooed from the Carpathia. “Well, steward,” they happily told Robert Vaughan who served them on the little Cunarder, “we will soon be on a decent ship with decent grub.” Bass violist Fred Clark had never shipped before, but he was well known on the Scotch concert circuit, and the line bought him away too. First violinist Jock Hume hadn’t yet played in any concerts, but his fiddle had a gay note the passengers seemed to love. And so it went—eight fine musicians who knew just what to do. Tonight the beat was fast, the music loud and cheerful.

On the starboard side things moved a little faster. But not fast enough for President Ismay, who dashed to and fro, urging the men to hurry. “There’s no time to lose!” he urged Third Officer Pitman, who was working on Boat 5. Pitman shrugged him off—he didn’t know Ismay and he had no time for an officious stranger in carpet slippers. Ismay told him to load the boat with women and children. This was too much for Pitman: “I await the Commander’s orders,” he announced.

Suddenly it dawned on him who the stranger might be. He eased down the deck, gave his hunch to Captain Smith, and asked if he should do what Ismay wanted. Smith answered a crisp, “Carry on.” Returning to No. 5, Pitman jumped in and called, “Come along, ladies!”

Mrs. Catherine Crosby and her daughter Harriet were firmly propelled into the boat by her husband, Captain Edward Gifford Crosby, a Milwaukee shipping man and an old Great Lakes skipper. Captain Crosby had a way of knowing things—right after the crash he scolded his wife, “You’ll lie there and drown!” Later he told her, “This ship is badly damaged, but I think the watertight compartments will hold her up.” Now he was taking no chances.

Slowly others edged forward—Miss Helen Ostby … Mrs. F. M. Warren … Mrs. Washington Dodge and her five-year-old son … a young stewardess. When no more women would go alone, a few couples were allowed. Then a few single men. On the starboard side this was the rule all evening—women first, but men if there still was room.

Just aft, First Officer Murdoch, in charge of the starboard side, was having the same trouble filling No. 7. Serial movie star Dorothy Gibson jumped in, followed by her mother. Then they persuaded their bridge companions of the evening, William Sloper and Fred Seward, to join them. Others trickled in, until there were finally 19 or 20 in the boat. Murdoch felt he could wait no longer. At 12:45 he waved away No. 7—the first boat down.

Then he ordered Pitman to take charge of No. 5, told him to hang around the after gangway, shook hands and smiled, “Goodbye, good luck.”

As No. 5 creaked downward, Bruce Ismay was beside himself. “Lower away! Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!” he chanted, waving one arm in huge circles while hanging on to the davit with the other.

“If you’ll get the hell out of the way,” exploded Fifth Officer Lowe who was working the davits, “I’ll be able to do something! You want me to lower away quickly? You’ll have me drown the whole lot of them!”

Ismay was completely abashed. Without a word he turned and walked forward to No. 3.

Old-timers in the crew gasped. They felt Lowe’s outburst was the most dramatic thing that could happen tonight. A Fifth Officer doesn’t insult the President of the line and get away with it. When they reached New York, there would be a day of reckoning.

And nearly everyone still expected to reach New York. At worst, they would all be transferred to other ships.

“Peuchen,” said Charles M. Hays as the Major began helping with the boats, “this ship is good for eight hours yet. I have just been getting this from one of the best old seamen, Mr. Crosby of Milwaukee.”

Monsieur Gatti, Maître of the ship’s à la carte French restaurant, was equally unperturbed. Standing alone on the Boat Deck, he seemed the picture of dignity—his top hat firmly in place, grip in hand, and a shawl traveling blanket folded neatly over his arm.

Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Smith and Mr. and Mrs. Sleeper Harper sat quietly chatting in the gym just off the Boat Deck. The mechanical horses were riderless now—the Astors had moved off somewhere else. And for once there was no one on the stationary bicycles, which the passengers liked to ride, pedaling red and blue arrows around a big white clock. But the room with its bright, blocked linoleum floor and the comfortable wicker chairs was far more pleasant than the Boat Deck. Certainly it was warmer, and there seemed no hurry.

In the nearly empty smoking room on A Deck, four men sat calmly around a table—Archie Butt, Clarence Moore, Frank Millet, and Arthur Ryerson seemed deliberately trying to avoid the noisy confusion of the Boat Deck.

Far below, Greaser Thomas Ranger began turning off some 45 electric fans used in the engine room, and he thought about the ones he had to repair tomorrow. Electrician Alfred White, working on the dynamos, brewed some coffee at his post.

At the very stern of the Titanic, Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe still paced his lonely watch. He had seen no one, heard nothing since the iceberg glided by nearly an hour ago. Suddenly he was amazed to see a lifeboat floating near the starboard side. He phoned the bridge—did they know there was a boat afloat? An incredulous voice asked who he was. Rowe explained, and the bridge then realized he had been overlooked. They told him to come to the bridge right away and bring some rockets with him. Rowe dropped down to a locker one deck below, picked up a tin box with 12 rockets inside, and clambered forward—the last man to learn what was going on.

Others knew all too well by now. Old Dr. O’Loughlin whispered to Stewardess Mary Sloan, “Child, things are very bad.” Stewardess Annie Robinson stood near the mail room, watching the water rise on F Deck. As she puzzled over a man’s Gladstone bag lying abandoned in the corridor, Carpenter Hutchinson arrived with a lead line in his hand—he looked bewildered, distracted, wildly upset. A little later Miss Robinson bumped into Thomas Andrews on A Deck. Andrews greeted her like a cross parent:

“I thought I told you to put your life belt on!”

“Yes,” she replied, “but I thought it mean to wear it.”

“Never mind that. Put it on; walk about; let the passengers see you.”

“It looks rather mean.”

“No, put it on … Well, if you value your life, put it on.”

Andrews understood people very well. A charming, dynamic man, he was everywhere, helping everyone. And people naturally looked to him. He handled them differently, depending on what he thought of them. He told garrulous Steward Johnson that everything would be all right. He told Mr. and Mrs. Albert Dick, his casual dinner companions, “She is torn to bits below, but she will not sink if her after bulkheads hold.” He told competent Stewardess Mary Sloan, “It is very serious, but keep the bad news quiet, for fear of panic.” He told John B. Thayer, whom he trusted implicitly, that he didn’t give the ship “much over an hour to live.”

Some of the crew didn’t need to be told. About 12:45, Able Seaman John Poingdestre left the Boat Deck to get his rubber boots. He found them in the forecastle on E Deck forward, and was just starting up again when the wooden wall between his quarters and some Third Class space to starboard suddenly gave way. The sea surged in, and he fought his way out through water up to his waist.

Further aft, Dining Saloon Steward Ray went to his quarters on E Deck to get a warmer overcoat. Coming back up, he went forward on “Scotland Road” toward the main staircase. The jostling firemen and Third Class passengers were gone now. All was quiet along the broad working alleyway, except for water sloshing along the corridor from somewhere forward.

Still further aft, Assistant Second Steward Joseph Thomas Wheat dropped down to pick up some valuables from his room on F Deck, port side. It was right next to the Turkish bath, a gloriously garish set of rooms that formed a sort of bridge between the Victorian and Rudolph Valentino eras of interior decoration. The mosaic floor, the blue-green tiled walls, the gilded beams in the dull red ceiling, the stanchions encased in carved teak—all were still perfectly dry.

But when Wheat walked a few yards down the corridor and started back up the stairs, he saw a strange sight: a thin stream of water was flowing down the stairs from E Deck above. It was only a quarter-inch deep—just about covered the heel of his shoe—as he splashed up the stairs. When he reached E Deck, he saw it was coming from the starboard side forward.

He guessed what had happened: water forward on F Deck, blocked by the watertight compartment door, had risen to E Deck, where there was no door, and now was slopping over into the next compartment aft.

Boiler room No. 5 was the only place where everything seemed under control. After the fires were drawn, Lead Fireman Barrett sent most of the stokers up to their boat stations. He and a few others stayed behind to help Engineers Harvey and Shepherd with the pumps.

At Harvey’s orders he lifted the iron manhole cover off the floor plates on the starboard side, so Harvey could get at the valves to adjust the pumps.

The boiler room was now clouding up with steam from the water used to wet down the furnaces. In the dim light of their own private Turkish bath, the men worked on … vague shapes moving about through the mist.

Then Shepherd, hurrying across the room, fell into the manhole and broke his leg. Harvey, Barrett, and Fireman George Kemish rushed over. They lifted him up and carried him to the pump room, a closed-off space at one end of the boiler room.

No time to do more than make him comfortable … then back into the clouds of steam. Soon orders came down from the bridge for all hands to report to boat stations. As the men went up, Shepherd still lay in the pump room; Barrett and Harvey kept working with the valves. Another 15 minutes and both men were beginning to cheer up—the room was still dry, the rhythm of the pumps was fast and smooth.

Suddenly the sea came roaring through the space between the boilers at the forward end of the room. The whole bulkhead between Nos. 5 and 6 collapsed.

Harvey shouted to Barrett to make for the escape ladder. Barrett scrambled up, the foam surging around his feet. Harvey himself turned toward the pump room where Shepherd lay. He was still heading there when he disappeared under the torrent of rising water.

The silence in the Marconi shack was broken only by the rasping spark of the wireless, as Phillips rapped out his call for help and took down the answers that bounced back. Bride was still struggling into his clothes, between dashes to the bridge.

So far the news was encouraging. First to reply was the North German Lloyd steamer Frankfort. At 12:18 she sent a crisp “OK … Stand by”—but no position. In another minute acknowledgments were pouring in—the Canadian Pacific’s Mt. Temple …  the Allan liner Virginian … the Russian tramp Burma.

The night crackled with signals. Ships out of direct contact got the word from those within range … The news spread in ever-widening circles. Cape Race heard it directly and relayed it inland. On the roof of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, a young wireless operator named David Sarnoff caught a faint signal and also passed it on. The whole world was snapping to agonized attention.

Close at hand, the Cunarder Carpathia steamed southward in complete ignorance. Her single wireless operator, Harold Thomas Cottam, was on the bridge when Phillips sent his CQD. Now Cottam was back at his set and thought he’d be helpful. Did the Titanic know, he casually asked, that there were some private messages waiting for her from Cape Race?

It was 12:25 when Phillips tapped back an answer that brushed aside the Carpathia’s courteous gesture: “Come at once. We have struck a berg. It’s a CQD, old man. Position 41.46 N 50.14 W.”

A moment of appalled silence … then Cottam asked whether to tell his Captain. Phillips: “Yes, quick.” Another five minutes and welcome news—the Carpathia was only 58 miles away and “coming hard.”

At 12:34 it was the Frankfort again—she was 150 miles away. Phillips asked, “Are you coming to our assistance?” Frankfort: “What is the matter with you?” Phillips: “Tell your captain to come to our help. We are on the ice.”

Captain Smith now dropped into the shack for a firsthand picture. The Olympic, the Titanic’s huge sister ship, was just chiming in. She was 500 miles away; but her set was powerful, she could handle a major rescue job, and there was a strong bond between the two liners. Phillips kept in close touch, while urging on the ships that were nearer.

“What call are you sending?” Smith asked.

“CQD,” Phillips answered noncommittally.

Bride had a bright idea. While CQD was the traditional distress call, an international convention had just agreed to use instead the letters SOS—they were easy for the rankest amateur to pick up. So Bride suggested, “Send SOS; it’s the new call, and it may be your last chance to send it.”

Phillips laughed at the joke and switched the call. The clock in the wireless shack said 12:45 A.M. when the Titanic sent the first SOS call in history.

None of the ships contacted seemed as promising as the light that winked ten miles off” the Tìtanic’s port bow. Through his binoculars Fourth Officer Boxhall saw clearly that it was a steamer. Once, as he tried to get in touch with the Morse lamp, he felt he saw an answer. But he could make nothing of it and finally decided it must be her mast light flickering.

Stronger measures were necessary. As soon as Quartermaster Rowe reached the bridge, Captain Smith asked if he brought the rockets. Rowe produced them, and the Captain ordered, “Fire one, and fire one every five or six minutes.”

At 12:45 a blinding flash seared the night. The first rocket shot up from the starboard side of the bridge. Up … up it soared, far above the lacework of masts and rigging. Then with a distant, muffled report it burst, and a shower of bright white stars floated slowly down toward the sea. In the blue-white light Fifth Officer Lowe remembered catching a glimpse of Bruce Ismay’s startled face.

Ten miles away, Apprentice James Gibson stood on the bridge of the Californian. The strange ship that came up from the east had not moved for an hour, and Gibson studied her with interest. With glasses he could make out her side lights and a glare of lights on her afterdeck. At one point he thought she was trying to signal the Californian with her Morse lamp. He tried to answer with his own lamp, but soon gave up. He decided the stranger’s masthead light was merely flickering.

Second Officer Herbert Stone, pacing the Californian’s bridge, also kept his eye on this strange steamer. At 12:45 he saw a sudden flash of white light burst over her. Strange, he thought, that a ship would fire rockets at night.

CHAPTER 4

“You Go and I’ll Stay a While”

SECOND CLASS PASSENGER LAWRENCE Beesley considered himself the rankest landlubber, but even he knew what rockets meant. The Titanic needed help—needed it so badly she was calling on any ship near enough to see.

The others on the Boat Deck understood too. There was no more joking or lingering. In fact, there was hardly time to say good-bye.

“It’s all right, little girl,” called Dan Marvin to his new bride; “you go and I’ll stay a while.” He blew her a kiss as she entered the boat.

“I’ll see you later,” Adolf Dyker smiled as he helped Mrs. Dyker across the gunwale.

“Be brave; no matter what happens, be brave,” Dr. W. T. Minahan told Mrs. Minahan as he stepped back with the other men.

Mr. Turrell Cavendish said nothing to Mrs. Cavendish. Just a kiss … a long look …  another kiss … and he disappeared into the crowd.

Mark Fortune took his wife’s valuables, as he and his son Charles saw off Mrs. Fortune and their three daughters. “I’ll take care of them; we’re going in the next boat,” he explained. “Charles, take care of Father,” one of the girls called back to her brother.

“Walter, you must come with me,” begged Mrs. Walter D. Douglas.

“No,” Mr. Douglas replied, turning away, “I must be a gentleman.”

“Try and get off with Major Butt and Mr. Moore,” came a final bit of wifely advice. “They are big, strong fellows and will surely make it.”

Some of the wives still refused to go. Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Meyer of New York felt so self-conscious arguing about it in public that they went down to their cabin. There,  they decided to part on account of their baby.

Arthur Ryerson had to lay down the law to Mrs. Ryerson: “You must obey orders. When they say ‘Women and children to the boats,’ you must go when your turn comes. I’ll stay here with Jack Thayer. We’ll be all right.”

Alexander T. Compton, Jr., was just as firm when his mother announced she would stay rather than leave him behind: “Don’t be foolish, Mother. You and Sister go in the boat—I’ll look out for myself.”

Mr. and Mrs. Lucien Smith were having the same kind of argument. Seeing Captain Smith standing near with a megaphone, Mrs. Smith had an inspiration. She went up to him, explained she was all alone in the world, and asked if her husband could go along with her. The old Captain ignored her, lifted his megaphone and shouted, “Women and children first!”

At this point Mr. Smith broke in: “Never mind, Captain, about that; I’ll see she gets in the boat.” Turning to his wife, he spoke very slowly: “I never expected to ask you to obey, but this is one time you must. It is only a matter of form to have women and children first. The ship is thoroughly equipped and everyone on her will be saved.”

Mrs. Smith asked him if he was being completely truthful. Mr. Smith gave a firm, decisive, “Yes.” So they kissed good-bye, and as the boat dropped to the sea, he called from the deck, “Keep your hands in your pockets; it is very cold weather.”

Sometimes it took more than gentle deception. Mrs. Emil Taussig was clinging to her husband when No. 8 started down with her daughter. Mrs. Taussig turned and cried, “Ruth!” The brief distraction proved enough: two men tore her from Mr. Taussig and dropped her into the lowering boat.

A seaman yanked Mrs. Charlotte Collyer by the arm, another by her waist, and they dragged her from her husband Harvey. As she kicked to get free, she heard him call, “Go, Lottie! For God’s sake, be brave and go! I’ll get a seat in another boat!”

When Celiney Yasbeck saw she had to go alone, she began yelling and crying to rejoin Mr. Yasbeck, but the boat dropped to the sea while she tried in vain to get out.

No amount of persuasion or force could move Mrs. Hudson J. Allison of Montreal. A little apart from the rest, she huddled close to Mr. Allison, while their small daughter Lorraine tugged at her skirt.

Mrs. Isidor Straus also refused to go: “I’ve always stayed with my husband; so why should I leave him now?”

They had indeed come a long way together: the ashes of the Confederacy … the small china business in Philadelphia … building Macy’s into a national institution … Congress … and now the happy twilight that crowned successful life—advisory boards, charities, hobbies, travel. This winter they had been to Cap Martin, and the Titanic’s maiden voyage seemed a pleasant way to finish the trip.

Tonight the Strauses came on deck with the others, and at first Mrs. Straus seemed uncertain what to do. At one point she handed some small jewelry to her maid Ellen Bird, then took it back again. Later she crossed the Boat Deck and almost entered No. 8—then turned around and rejoined Mr. Straus. Now her mind was made up: “We have been living together for many years. Where you go, I go.”

Archibald Gracie, Hugh Woolner, other friends tried in vain to make her go. Then Woolner turned to Mr. Straus: “I’m sure nobody would object to an old gentleman like you getting in …”

“I will not go before the other men,” he said, and that was that. Then he and Mrs. Straus sat down together on a pair of deck chairs.

But most of the women entered the boats—wives escorted by their husbands, single ladies by the men who had volunteered to look out for them. This was the era when gentlemen formally offered their services to “unprotected ladies” at the start of an Atlantic voyage. Tonight the courtesy came in handy.

Mrs. William T. Graham, 19-year-old Margaret, and her governess Miss Shutes were helped into Boat 8 by Howard Case, London manager of Vacuum Oil, and young Washington Augustus Roebling, the steel heir who was striking out on his own as manager of the Mercer Automobile Works in Trenton, New Jersey. As No. 8 dropped to the sea, Mrs. Graham watched Case, leaning against the rail, light a cigarette and wave good-bye.

Mrs. E. D. Appleton, Mrs. R. C. Cornell, Mrs. J. Murray Brown and Miss Edith Evans, returning from a family funeral in Britain, were under Colonel Gracie’s wing, but somehow in the crowd he lost them, and it wasn’t until much later that he found them again.

Perhaps the Colonel was distracted by his simultaneous efforts to look after Mrs. Churchill Candee, his table companion in the dining saloon. Mrs. Candee was returning from Paris to see her son, who had suffered the novelty of an airplane accident, and she must have been attractive indeed. Just about everybody wanted to protect her.

When Edward A. Kent, another table companion, found her after the crash, she gave him an ivory miniature of her mother for safekeeping. Then Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom Steffanson arrived and helped her into Boat 6. Woolner waved good-bye, assuring her that they would help her on board again when the Titanic “steadied herself.” A little later Gracie and Clinch Smith dashed up, also in search of Mrs. Candee, but Woolner told them, perhaps a little smugly, that she had been cared for and was safely away.

It was just as well, for the slant in the deck was steeper, and even the carefree were growing uneasy. Some who left everything in their cabins now thought better of it and ventured below to get their valuables. They were in for unpleasant surprises. Celiney Yasbeck found her room was completely under water. Gus Cohen discovered the same thing. Victorine, the Ryersons’ French maid, had an even more disturbing experience. She found her cabin still dry, but as she rummaged about, she heard a key turn and suddenly realized the steward was locking the stateroom door to prevent looting. Her shriek was just in time to keep him from locking her in. Without stretching her luck any further, she dashed back on deck empty-handed.

Time was clearly running out. Thomas Andrews walked from boat to boat, urging the women to hurry: “Ladies, you must get in at once. There is not a moment to lose. You cannot pick and choose your boat. Don’t hesitate. Get in, get in!”

Andrews had good reason to be exasperated. Women were never more unpredictable. One girl waiting to climb into No. 8 suddenly cried out, “I’ve forgotten Jack’s photograph and must get it.” Everybody protested, but she darted below. In a moment she reappeared with the picture and was rushed into the boat.

It was all so urgent—and yet so calm—that Second Officer Lightoller felt he was wasting time when Chief Officer Wilde asked him to help find the firearms. Quickly he led the Captain, Wilde, and First Officer Murdoch to the locker where they were kept. Wilde shoved one of the guns into Lightoller’s hand, remarking, “You may need it.” Lightoller stuck it in his pocket and hurried back to the boat.

One after another they now dropped rapidly into the sea: No. 6 at 12:55 … No. 3 at 1:00 … No. 8 at 1:10. Watching them go, First Class passenger William Carter advised Harry Widener to try for a boat. Widener shook his head: “I think I’ll stick to the big ship, Billy, and take a chance.”

Some of the crew weren’t as optimistic. When Assistant Second Steward Wheat noticed Chief Steward Latimer wearing his life belt over his greatcoat, he urged the Chief to put it under the coat—this made swimming easier.

On the bridge, as Fourth Officer Boxhall and Quartermaster Rowe fired off more rockets, Boxhall still couldn’t believe what was happening. “Captain,” he asked, “is it really serious?”

“Mr. Andrews tells me,” Smith answered quietly, “that he gives her from an hour to an hour and a half.”

Lightoller had a more tangible yardstick—the steep narrow emergency staircase that ran from the Boat Deck all the way down to E Deck. The water was slowly crawling up the stairs, and from time to time Lightoller walked over to the entrance and checked the number of steps it had climbed. He could see very easily, for the lights still gleamed under the pale green water.

His gauge showed time was flying. The pace grew faster—and sloppier. A pretty French girl stumbled and fell as she tried to climb into No. 9. An older woman in a black dress missed No. 10 entirely. She fell between the bow and the side of the ship. But as the crowd gasped, someone miraculously caught her ankle. Others hauled her into the Promenade Deck below, and she climbed back to the Boat Deck for another try. This time she made it.

Some of them lost their nerve. An old lady made a big fuss at No. 9, finally shook off everybody, and ran away from the boat altogether. A hysterical woman thrashed about helplessly, trying to climb into No. 11. Steward Witter stood on the rail to help her, but she lost her footing anyway, and they tumbled into the boat together. A large fat woman stood crying near No. 13: “Don’t put me in the boat. I don’t want to go into the boat! I have never been in an open boat in my life!”

Steward Ray brushed aside her protests—”You’ve got to go, and you may as well keep quiet.”

A plan to fill some of the boats from the lower gangways went completely haywire. The doors that were to be used were never opened. The boats that were to stand by rowed off. The people who were to go were left stranded. When the Caldwells and several others went all the way down to a closed gangway on C Deck, somebody who didn’t know about the plan locked the door behind them. Later some men on the deck above discovered the group and lowered a ladder for them to crawl back up.

A shortage of trained seamen made the confusion worse. Some of the best men had been used to man the early boats. Other old hands were off on special jobs—rounding up lanterns, opening the A Deck windows, helping fire the rockets. Six seamen were lost when they went down to open one of the lower gangways; they never came back … probably trapped far below. Now Lightoller was rationing the hands he had left—only two crewmen to a lifeboat.

No. 6 was halfway down when a woman called up to the Boat Deck, “We’ve only one seaman in the boat!”

“Any seamen there?” Lightoller asked the people on deck.

“If you like, I will go,” called a voice from the crowd.

“Are you a seaman?”

“I am a yachtsman.”

“If you’re sailor enough to get out on that fall, you can go down.” Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen—vice commodore of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club—swung himself out on the forward fall and slid down into the boat. He was the only male passenger Lightoller allowed in a boat that night.

Men had it luckier on the starboard side. Murdoch continued to allow them in if there was room. The French aviator Pierre Maréchal and sculptor Paul Chevré climbed into No. 7. A couple of Gimbel’s buyers reached No. 5. When the time came to lower No. 3, Henry Sleeper Harper not only joined his wife, but he brought along his Pekingese Sun Yat-sen and an Egyptian dragoman named Hamad Hassah, whom he had picked up in Cairo as a sort of joke.

On the same side, Dr. Washington Dodge was standing uncertainly in the shadow of No. 13, when Dining Room Steward Ray noticed him. Ray asked whether the doctor’s wife and son were off, and Dodge said yes. Ray was relieved, because he took a personal interest in them. He had served the Dodges coming over on the Olympic. In fact, he had persuaded them to take the Titanic back. In a way, he was why the Dodges were on board … It was no time for philosophy—Ray called out, “You had better get in here,” and he pushed the doctor into the boat.

The scene was almost punctilious at No. 1. Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, his wife and her secretary Miss Francatelli—whom Lady Duff Gordon liked to call Miss Franks—asked Murdoch if they could enter.

“Oh, certainly do; I’ll be very pleased,” Murdoch replied, according to Sir Cosmo. (On the other hand, Lookout George Symons, standing near, thought Murdoch merely said, “Yes, jump in.”) The two Americans, Abraham Solomon and C. E. H. Stengel, came up and were invited in too. Stengel had trouble climbing over the rail; finally got on top of it and rolled into the boat. Murdoch, an agile terrier of a man, laughed pleasantly, “That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen tonight.”

Nobody else seemed to be around—all the nearby boats were gone and the crowd had moved aft. When the five passengers were safely loaded, Murdoch added six stokers, put Lookout Symons in charge and told him, “Stand off from the ship’s side and return when we call you.” Then he waved to the men at the davits, and they lowered No. 1—capacity 40 persons—with exactly 12 people.

As the boat creaked down, Greaser Walter Hurst watched it from the forward well deck. He remembers observing somewhat caustically, “If they are sending the boats away, they might just as well put some people in them.”

Down in Third Class there were those who didn’t even have the opportunity to miss going in No. 1. A swarm of men and women milled around the foot of the main steerage staircase, all the way aft on E Deck. They had been there ever since the stewards got them up. At first there were just women and married couples; but then the men arrived from forward, pouring back along “Scotland Road” with their luggage. Now they were all jammed together—noisy and restless, looking more like inmates than passengers amid the low ceilings, the naked lightbulbs, the scrubbed simplicity of the plain white walls.

Third Class Steward John Edward Hart struggled to get them into life jackets. He didn’t have much luck—partly because he was also assuring them there was no danger, partly because many of them didn’t understand English anyhow. Interpreter Muller did the best he could with the scores of Finns and Swedes, but it was slow going.

At 12:30 orders came down to send the women and children up to the Boat Deck. It was hopeless to expect them to find their way alone through the maze of passages normally sealed off from Third Class; so Hart decided to escort them up in little groups. This took time too, but at last a convoy was organized and started off.

It was a long trip—up the broad stairs to the Third Class lounge on C Deck … across the open well deck … by the Second Class library and into First Class quarters. Then down the long corridor by the surgeon’s office, the private saloon for the maids and valets of First Class passengers, finally up the grand stairway to the Boat Deck.

Hart led his group to Boat No. 8, but even then the job wasn’t over. As fast as he got them in, they would jump out and go inside where it was warm.

It was after one o’clock when Hart got back to E Deck to organize another trip. It was no easier. Many women still refused to go. On the other hand, some of the men now insisted on going. But that was out of the question, according to the orders he had.

Finally he was off again on the same long trek. It was 1:20 by the time he reached the Boat Deck and led the group to No. 15. No time to go back for more. Murdoch ordered him into the boat and off he went with his second batch at about 1:30.

There was no hard-and-fast policy. One way or another, many of the steerage passengers avoided the cul de sac on E Deck and got topside. There they stood waiting, nobody to guide or help them. A few of the barriers that marked off their quarters were down. Those who came across these openings wandered into other parts of the ship. Some eventually found their way to the Boat Deck.

But most of the barriers were not down, and the steerage passengers who sensed danger and aimed for the boats were strictly on their own resources.

Like a stream of ants, a thin line of them curled their way up a crane in the after well deck, crawled along the boom to the First Class quarters, then over the railing and on up to the Boat Deck.

Some slipped under a rope that had been stretched across the after well deck, penning them even further to the stern than the regular barrier. But once through, it was fairly easy to get to the Second Class stairway and on up to the boats.

Others somehow reached the Second Class promenade space on B Deck, then couldn’t find their way any further. In desperation they turned to an emergency ladder meant for the crew’s use. This ladder was near the brightly lit windows of the First Class à la carte restaurant, and as Anna Sjoblom prepared to climb up with another girl, they looked in. They marveled at the tables beautifully set with silver and china for the following day. The other girl had an impulse to kick the window out and go inside, but Anna persuaded her that the company might make them pay for the damage.

Many of the steerage men climbed another emergency ladder from the forward well deck, and then up the regular First Class companionway to the boats.

Others beat on the barriers, demanding to be let through. As Third Class passenger Daniel Buckley climbed some steps leading to a gate to First Class, the man ahead of him was chucked down by a seaman standing guard. Furious, the passenger jumped to his feet and raced up the steps again. The seaman took one look, locked the gate and fled. The passenger smashed the lock and dashed through, howling what he would do if he caught the sailor. With the gate down, Buckley and dozens of others swarmed into First Class.

At another barrier a seaman held back Kathy Gilnagh, Kate Mullins and Kate Murphy. (On the Titanic all Irish girls seemed to be named Katherine.) Suddenly steerage passenger Jim Farrell, a strapping Irishman from the girls’ home county, barged up. “Great God, man!” he roared. “Open the gate and let the girls through!” It was a superb demonstration of sheer voice power. To the girls’ astonishment the sailor meekly complied.

But for every steerage passenger who found a way up, hundreds milled aimlessly around the forward well deck … the after poop deck … or the foot of the E Deck staircase. Some holed up in their cabins—that’s where Mary Agatha Glynn and four discouraged roommates were found by young Martin Gallagher. He quickly escorted them to Boat 13 and stepped back on the deck again. Others turned to prayer. When steerage passenger Gus Cohen passed the Third Class dining saloon about an hour after the crash, he saw quite a number gathered there, many with rosaries in their hands.

The staff of the First Class à la carte restaurant were having the hardest time of all. They were neither fish nor fowl. Obviously they weren’t passengers, but technically they weren’t crew either. The restaurant was not run by the White Star Line but by Monsieur Gatti as a concession.

Thus, the employees had no status at all. And to make matters worse, they were French and Italian—objects of deep Anglo-Saxon suspicion at a time like this in 1912.

From the very start they never had a chance. Steward Johnson remembered seeing them herded together down by their quarters on E Deck aft. Manager Gatti, his Chef and the Chefs Assistant, Paul Maugé, were the only ones who made it to the Boat Deck. They got through because they happened to be in civilian clothes; the crew thought they were passengers.

Down in the engine room no one even thought of getting away. Men struggled desperately to keep the steam up … the lights lit … the pumps going. Chief Engineer Bell had all the watertight doors raised aft of Boiler Room No. 4—when the water reached here they could be lowered again; meanwhile it would be easier to move around.

Greaser Fred Scott worked to free a shipmate trapped in the after tunnel behind one of the doors. Greaser Thomas Ranger turned off the last of the 45 ventilating fans—they used too much electricity. Trimmer Thomas Patrick Dillon helped drag long sections of pipe from the aft compartments, to get more volume out of the suction pump in Boiler Room No. 4.

Here, Trimmer George Cavell was busy drawing the fires. This meant even less power, but there must be no explosion when the sea reached No. 4. It was about 1:20 and the job was almost done when he noticed the water seeping up through the metal floor plates. Cavell worked faster. When it reached his knees, he had enough. He was almost at the top of the escape ladder when he began to feel he had quit on his mates. Down again, only to find they were gone too. His conscience clear, he climbed back up, this time for good.

Most of the boats were now gone. One by one they rowed slowly away from the Titanic, oars bumping and splashing in the glass-smooth sea.

“I never had an oar in my hand before, but I think I can row,” a steward told Mrs. J. Stuart White, as No. 8 set out.

In every boat all eyes were glued on the Titanic. Her tall masts, the four big funnels stood out sharp and black in the clear blue night. The bright promenade decks, the long rows of portholes all blazed with light. From the boats they could see the people lining the rails; they could hear the ragtime in the still night air. It seemed impossible that anything could be wrong with this great ship: yet there they were out on the sea, and there she was, well down at the head. Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.

Clumsily the boats moved further away. Those told to stand by now lay on their oars. Others, told to make for the steamer whose lights shone in the distance, began their painful journey.

The steamer seemed agonizingly near. So near that Captain Smith told the people in Boat 8 to go over, land its passengers and come back for more. About the same time he asked Quartermaster Rowe at the rocket gun if he could Morse. Rowe replied he could a little, and the Captain said, “Call that ship up and when she replies, tell her, ‘We are the Titanic sinking, please have all your boats ready.’ ”

Boxhall had already tried to reach her, but Rowe was more than eager to try his own luck; so in between rocket firing he called her again and again. Still no answer. Then Rowe told Captain Smith he thought he saw another light on the starboard quarter. The old skipper squinted through his glasses, courteously told Rowe that it was a planet. But he liked the eagerness of his young Quartermaster, and he lent Rowe the glasses to see for himself.

Meanwhile Boxhall continued firing rockets. Sooner or later, somehow they would wake up the stranger.

On the bridge of the Californian, Second Officer Stone and Apprentice Gibson counted the rockets—five by 12:55. Gibson tried his Morse lamp again, and at one o’clock lifted his glasses for another look. He was just in time to see a sixth rocket.

At 1:10 Stone whistled down the speaking tube to the chart room and told Captain Lord. He called back, “Are they company signals?”

“I don’t know,” Stone answered, “but they appear to me to be white rockets.”

The Captain advised him to go on Morsing.

A little later Stone handed his glasses to Gibson, remarking: “Have a look at her now. She looks very queer out of the water—her lights look queer.”

Gibson studied the ship carefully. She seemed to be listing. She had, as he called it, “a big side out of the water.” And Stone, standing beside him, noticed that her red side light had disappeared.

CHAPTER 5

“I Believe She’s Gone, Hardy”

THE OTHER SHIPS JUST didn’t seem to understand. At 1:25 the Olympic asked, “Are you steering south to meet us?” Phillips patiently explained, “We are putting the women off in the boats.”

Then the Frankfort: “Are there any ships around you already?” Phillips ignored this one. Again the Frankfort, asking for more details. This was too much. He jumped up, almost screaming: “The damn fool! He says, ‘What’s up, old man?’ ” Then he angrily tapped back: “You fool, stand by and keep out.”

From time to time Captain Smith dropped in—once to warn that the power was fading … again to say she couldn’t last much longer … later to report that the water had reached the engine room. At 1:45, Phillips begged the Carpathia: “Come as quickly as possible, old man; engine room filled up to the boilers.”

Meanwhile Bride draped an overcoat over Phillips’ shoulders, then managed to strap a life belt on him. The problem of getting him into his boots was more complicated. Phillips asked whether any boats were left—maybe the boots wouldn’t be needed.

Once he turned the set over to Bride, he went out to see what was happening. He returned shaking his head: “Things look very queer.”

They looked queer indeed. The sea now slopped over the Titanic’s forward well deck … rippled around the cranes, the hatches, the foot of the mast … washed against the base of the white superstructure. The roar of steam had died, the nerve-racking rockets had stopped—but the slant of the deck was steeper and there was an ugly list to port.

About 1:40, Chief Officer Wilde shouted, “Everyone on the starboard side to straighten her up!” Passengers and crew trooped over, and the Titanic swung sluggishly back on an even keel. The work on the boats resumed.

As No. 2 prepared to cast off at 1:45, Steward Johnson, his pockets bulging with oranges, yelled up to the Boat Deck for a razor to cut the falls. Seaman McAuliffe dropped one down, calling, “Remember me at Southampton and give it to me back!” McAuliffe was probably the last man on the Titanic so sure of returning to Southampton.

First Officer Murdoch knew better. As he walked along the deck with Chief Steward Hardy of Second Class, he sighed, “I believe she’s gone, Hardy.”

There was no longer any difficulty persuading people to leave the ship. Paul Maugé, the Chef’s Assistant, jumped 10 feet into a dangling boat. Somebody on a lower deck tried to drag him out, but he squirmed free and was safe.

Third Class passenger Daniel Buckley—safely through the broken gate and onto the Boat Deck—took no more chances. With several other men he jumped into a boat and huddled there crying. Most of the men were hauled out, but somewhere he got a woman’s shawl. He said Mrs. Astor put it over him. In any case, the disguise worked.

Another young man—no more than a boy—wasn’t as lucky. Fifth Officer Lowe caught him under a seat in No. 14, begging that he wouldn’t take up much room. Lowe drew his gun, but the boy only pleaded harder. Then Lowe changed tactics, told him to be a man, and somehow got him out. By now Mrs. Charlotte Collyer and other women in the boat were sobbing, and her eight-year-old daughter Marjory joined the uproar, tugging at Lowe’s arm and crying, “Oh, Mr. Man, don’t shoot, please don’t shoot the poor man!”

Lowe paused long enough to smile and nod at her reassuringly. The boy was out now, anyhow, lying facedown near a coil of rope.

But No. 14’s troubles weren’t over. Another wave of men rushed the boat. Seaman Scarrott beat them back with the tiller. This time Lowe pulled his gun and shouted, “If anyone else tries that, this is what he’ll get!” He fired three times along the side of the ship as the boat dropped down to the sea.

Murdoch barely stopped a rush at No. 15. He yelled at the crowd, “Stand back! Stand back! It’s women first!”

All the way forward, there was more trouble at Collapsible C, which had been fitted into the davits used by No. 1. A big mob pushed and shoved, trying to climb aboard.

Two men dropped in. Purser Herbert McElroy fired twice into the air. Murdoch shouted, “Get out of this! Clear out of this!” Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom Steffanson—attracted by the pistol flashes—rushed over to help. Yanking the culprits by arms, legs, anything, they cleared the boat. The loading continued.

Jack Thayer stood off to one side with Milton Long, a young shipboard acquaintance from Springfield, Massachusetts. They had met for the first time this evening over after-dinner coffee. Following the crash, Long—who was traveling alone—attached himself to the Thayer family, but he and Jack lost the older Thayers in the crowd on A Deck. Now they were alone, debating what to do, supposing the rest of the family was already off in the boats. They finally decided to stay clear of Boat C. With all the uproar, it seemed bound to tip over.

But they were wrong. Things gradually straightened out, and finally Boat C was ready for lowering. Chief Officer Wilde shouted to know who was in command. Hearing him, Captain Smith turned to Quartermaster Rowe—still fiddling with the Morse lamp—and told him to take charge. Rowe jumped in and got ready to lower.

Close by, President Bruce Ismay stood, helping get the boat ready for lowering. He was calmer now than in those early moments when Lowe had bawled him out—in fact he seemed every inch an accepted member of the Titanic’s crew.

This was a frequent role for Ismay, but by no means his only one. Sometimes he preferred the role of passenger. So far during the voyage he had shifted back and forth several times.

At Queenstown he was a sort of super-Captain. He told Chief Engineer Bell the speed he wanted for various stages of the voyage. He also set the New York arrival time at Wednesday morning, instead of Tuesday night. He didn’t consult Captain Smith on this.

Later, at sea, Ismay was mostly a passenger, enjoying the fine cuisine of the à la carte restaurant … shuffleboard … bridge … tea and scones in his deck chair on the port side of A Deck.

This Sunday he was enough a member of the crew to see the ice message that arrived from another ship. In the bright, sunny Palm Court—just as the bugler sounded lunch—Captain Smith gave him a warning from the Baltic. During the afternoon Ismay (who liked to remind people who he was) fished it out of his pocket and waved it at Mrs. Ryerson and Mrs. Thayer. In the smoking room before dinner, while the twilight still glowed through the amber-stained windows, Captain Smith sought and got the message back. Then Ismay walked down to the restaurant, immaculate in his dinner jacket, very much a First Class passenger.

After the crash he went back to being in the crew—up with the Captain on the bridge … consulting with Chief Engineer Bell … and now, despite the tongue-lashing from Fifth Officer Lowe, shouting orders about the boats.

Then came another switch. At the very last moment, he suddenly climbed into Boat C. Down it dropped, with 42 people including Bruce Ismay—just another passenger.

Most of the passengers were different. William T. Stead, independent as ever, sat reading alone in the First Class smoking room. To Fireman Kemish passing by, he looked as though he planned to stay there whatever happened.

Reverend Robert J. Bateman of Jacksonville stood outside, watching his sister-in-law Mrs. Ada Balls enter a boat. “If I don’t meet you again in this world,” he called, “I will in the next.” Then as the boat jerked down, he took off his necktie and tossed it to her as a keepsake.

George Widener and John B. Thayer leaned against the Boat Deck rail, quietly talking things over. Contrary to young Jack’s guess, his father wasn’t safe in a boat and, in fact, didn’t have any idea of entering one. A little way off, Archie Butt, Clarence Moore, Arthur Ryerson and Walter Douglas stood silently together. Major Butt was very quiet, had no pistol, took no active part, despite the stories later told that he practically took charge.

Further aft, Jay Yates—described as a gambler hoping to make a maiden-voyage killing—stood alone and friendless. To a woman entering a boat, he handed a page torn from his appointment book. Signed with one of his aliases, the note read, “If saved, inform my sister Mrs. F. J. Adams of Findlay, Ohio. Lost. J. H. Rogers.”

Benjamin Guggenheim had a more detailed message: “If anything should happen to me, tell my wife I’ve done my best in doing my duty.”

Actually Guggenheim almost outdid himself. Gone was the sweater that Steward Etches made him wear. Also his life belt. Instead he and his valet now stood resplendent in evening clothes. “We’ve dressed in our best,” he explained, “and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”

There were a few couples too. The Allisons stood smiling on the Promenade Deck, Mrs. Allison grasping little Lorraine with one hand, her husband with the other. The Strauses leaned against the Boat Deck rail, their arms about each other’s waist. A young Western couple waited nearby; when Lightoller asked the girl if he could put her in a boat, she told him cheerfully, “Not on your life. We started together and, if need be, we’ll finish together.”

Archibald Gracie, Clinch Smith, a dozen other First Class men worked with the crew, loading the last boats. As they helped Miss Constance Willard of Duluth, Minnesota, they smiled and told her to be brave. She noticed great beads of sweat stood out on their foreheads.

Lightoller was sweating too. He peeled off his greatcoat. Even in sweater and pajamas, he was wringing wet from hard work. He looked so odd on this bitter-cold night that Assistant Surgeon Simpson, always a wag, called out, “Hello, Lights, are you warm?”

The Assistant Surgeon was with old Dr. O’Loughlin, Purser McElroy, and Assistant Purser Barker; Lightoller joined them for a moment. They all shook hands and said, “Good-bye.”

No time for more. A glance down the emergency stairway told Lightoller the water was now on C Deck … rising fast. But the lights were still bright … the music still ragtime … the beat still lively.

Only two more boats. One of them, No. 4, had been a headache all night. Over an hour ago Lightoller lowered it to A Deck, planning to fill it from there, but the windows were all closed. Then, someone noticed the Titanic’s sounding spar stuck out directly below the boat. Seaman Sam Parks and Storekeeper Jack Foley went down to chop it away, but they had trouble finding an ax. Time was wasting. Lightoller hurried on to the other boats—he’d load this one later.

Meanwhile the passengers waiting to go in No. 4 cooled their heels. And they were very prominent heels. The Astors, Wideners, Thayers, Carters and Ryersons were sticking pretty much together. When Lightoller first ordered the boat loaded, wives, children, maids, and nurses went down to the Promenade Deck to get in as a group. When they found they couldn’t they just stayed put.

Eventually most of the husbands turned up, and for over an hour the cream of New York and Philadelphia society just waited around while the windows were opened and the sounding spar chopped away. Once they were ordered back up to the Boat Deck, but then Second Steward Dodd sent them right down again. Exasperated, Mrs. Thayer exclaimed, “Just tell us where to go and we will follow! You ordered us up here and now you’re sending us back!”

It was 1:45 when Lightoller returned. Now he stood—one foot in No. 4, the other on an open windowsill. Somebody put deck chairs against the rail to serve as steps. The men stood by to pass the women and children through the windows.

John Jacob Astor helped Mrs. Astor across the frame, then asked if he could join her. She was, as he put it, “in delicate condition.”

“No, sir,” Lightoller replied. “No men are allowed in these boats until the women are loaded first.”

Astor asked which boat it was, and Lightoller said, “Number 4.” Colonel Gracie was sure Astor merely wanted to locate his wife later. Lightoller was sure he planned to make a complaint.

Then came the Ryersons’ turn. Arthur Ryerson noticed their French maid Victorine had no life belt. Quickly he stripped off his own and buckled it on her. When Mrs. Ryerson led her son Jack to the window, Lightoller called out, “That boy can’t go!”

Mr. Ryerson indignantly stepped forward: “Of course that boy goes with his mother—he is only thirteen.” So they let him pass, Lightoller grumbling, “No more boys.”

At 1:55, No. 4 dropped to the sea—just 15 feet below. Mrs. Ryerson was shocked to see how far the ship had sunk. She watched the water pour in the big square ports on C Deck, sweep around the period furniture of the deluxe suites. Then she looked up at the Promenade Deck. Mr. Ryerson was still standing by the rail with Mr. Widener, looking down at the boat. They seemed very quiet.

Only one boat left. Collapsible D had now been fitted into the davits used by No. 2 and was ready for loading. There was no time to spare. The lights were beginning to glow red. Chinaware was breaking somewhere below. Jack Thayer saw a man lurch by with a full bottle of Gordon’s gin. He put it to his mouth and drained it. “If I ever get out of this,” Thayer said to himself, “there is one man I’ll never see again,” (Actually, he was one of the first survivors Thayer met.)

Lightoller took no chances. Most of the passengers had moved aft, but still—one boat … 47 seats … 1,600 people. He had the crew lock arms in a wide ring around Boat D. Only the women could come through.

Two baby boys were brought by their father to the edge of the ring, handed through, and placed in the boat. The father stepped back into the crowd. He called himself “Mr. Hoffman” and told people he was taking the boys to visit relatives in America. His name really was Navatril and he was kidnapping the children from his estranged wife.

Henry B. Harris, the theatrical producer, escorted Mrs. Harris to the ring, was told he couldn’t go any further. He sighed, “Yes, I know. I will stay.”

Colonel Gracie rushed up with Mrs. John Murray Brown and Miss Edith Evans, two of the five “unprotected ladies” to whom he had offered his services on the trip. He was stopped by the line but saw the women through. They reached Boat D just as it was starting down the falls. Miss Evans turned to Mrs. Brown: “You go first. You have children waiting at home.”

Quickly she helped Mrs. Brown over the rail. Then someone yelled to lower away, and at 2:05 Collapsible D—the last boat of all—started down toward the sea—without Edith Evans.

Directly below, Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom Steffanson were standing alone by the rail. It had been a hard night—helping Mrs. Candee—trying to save the Strauses … dragging those cowards out of Boat C. Now they were on A Deck trying to find someone else to help, but the deck was absolutely deserted. The lights had a reddish glow.

“This is getting rather a tight corner,” Woolner remarked; “let’s go through the door at the end.” They walked forward to the open end of the Promenade Deck. As they came out, the sea poured onto the deck, over their evening pumps and up to their knees. They hopped on the railing. Nine feet away they saw Boat D sliding down the side of the ship. It was now or never.

“Let’s make a jump for it!” cried Woolner. “There’s plenty of room in her bow!” Steffanson hurled himself out at the boat, landing head over heels up front. The next second Woolner followed, falling half in, half out. In another instant Collapsible D hit the water and cast off. As it pulled away, Seaman William Lucas called up to Miss Evans still standing on deck, “There’s another boat going to be put down for you.”

CHAPTER 6

“That’s the Way of It at This Kind of Time”

WITH THE BOATS ALL gone, a curious calm came over the Titanic. The excitement and confusion were over, and the hundreds left behind stood quietly on the upper decks. They seemed to cluster inboard, trying to keep as far away from the rail as possible.

Jack Thayer stayed with Milton Long on the starboard side of the Boat Deck. They studied an empty davit, using it as a yardstick against the sky to gauge how fast she was sinking. They watched the hopeless efforts to clear two collapsibles lashed to the roof of the officers’ quarters. They exchanged messages for each other’s families. Sometimes they were just silent.

Thayer thought of all the good times he had had and of all the future pleasures he would never enjoy. He thought of his father and his mother, of his sisters and brother. He felt far away, as though he were looking on from some distant place. He felt very, very sorry for himself.

Colonel Gracie, standing a little way off, felt curiously breathless. Later he rather stuffily explained it was the feeling when “vox faucibus haesit, as frequently to the old Trojan hero of our schooldays.” At the time he merely said to himself, “Good-bye to all at home.”

In the wireless shack there was no time for either self-pity or vox faucibus haesit. Phillips was still working the set, but the power was very low. Bride stood by, watching people rummage the officers’ quarters and the gym, looking for extra life belts.

It was 2:05 when Captain Smith entered the shack for the last time: “Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it’s every man for himself.”

Phillips looked up for a second, then bent over the set once more. Captain Smith tried again, “You look out for yourselves. I release you.” A pause, then he added softly, “That’s the way of it at this kind of time ...”

Phillips went on working. Bride began to gather up their papers. Captain Smith returned to the Boat Deck, walked about speaking informally to men here and there. To Fireman James McGann, “Well, boys, it’s every man for himself.” Again, to Oiler Alfred White, “Well, boys, I guess it’s every man for himself.” To Steward Edward Brown, “Well, boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves.” To the men on the roof of the officers’ quarters, “You’ve done your duty, boys. Now, every man for himself.” Then he walked back on the bridge.

Some of the men took the Captain at his word and jumped overboard. Night Baker Walter Belford leaped as far out as he could, cannonballed into the water in a sitting position. He still shudders and sucks his breath sharply when he thinks of the stabbing cold. Greaser Fred Scott, just up from Boiler Room 4, tried to slide down an empty fall, missed, and took a bellyflopper into the sea. He was picked up by Boat 4, still standing by the ship but trying to row clear of the barrels and deck chairs that were now hurtling down. Steward Cunningham made a hefty leap and also managed to reach No. 4.

But most of the crew stuck to the ship. On top of the officers’ quarters, Lightoller noticed Trimmer Hemming at work on one of the tangled collapsibles … yet Hemming should have gone long ago as part of the crew in No. 6.

“Why haven’t you gone, Hemming?”

“Oh, plenty of time yet, sir.”

Not far away two young stewards idly watched Lightoller, Hemming and the others at work. In the fading light of the Boat Deck, their starched white jackets stood out as they leaned against the rail, debating how long the ship could last. Scattered around the Boat Deck, some 15 First Class bellboys were equally at ease—they seemed pleased that nobody cared any longer whether they smoked. Nearby, gymnasium instructor T. W. McCawley, a spry little man in white flannels, explained why he wouldn’t wear a life jacket—it kept you afloat but it slowed you down; he felt he could swim clear more quickly without it.

By the forward entrance to the grand staircase, between the first and second funnels, the band—now wearing life jackets on top of their overcoats—scraped lustily away at ragtime.

The passengers were just as calm, although they too had their jumpers. Frederick Hoyt saw his wife into Collapsible D, leaped and swam to where he thought the boat might pass. He guessed well. In a few minutes Boat D splashed by and hauled him in. For the rest of the night he sat soaked to the skin, rowing hard to keep from freezing.

But for the most part the passengers merely stood waiting or quietly paced the Boat Deck. New York and Philadelphia society continued to stick together—John B. Thayer, George and Harry Widener, Duane Williams formed a little knot … lesser luminaries like Clinch Smith and Colonel Gracie hovering nearby. Astor remained pretty much alone, and the Strauses sat down on a deck chair.

Jack Thayer and Milton Long debated whether to jump. The davit they were using as a gauge showed the Titanic was going much faster now. Thayer wanted to jump out; catch an empty lifeboat fall, slide down and swim out to the boats he could dimly see 500 to 600 yards away. He was a good swimmer. Long, not nearly as good, argued against it and persuaded Thayer not to try.

Further forward, Colonel Gracie lent his penknife to the men struggling with the collapsibles lashed to the officers’ quarters. They were having a hard time, and Gracie wondered why.

Some of the Third Class passengers had now worked their way up to the Boat Deck, and others were drifting toward the gradually rising stern. The after poop deck, normally Third Class space anyhow, was suddenly becoming attractive to all kinds of people.

Olaus Abelseth was one of those who reached the Boat Deck. Most of the evening he had been all the way aft with his cousin, his brother-in-law, and the two Norwegian girls. With other steerage men and women, they aimlessly waited for someone to tell them what to do.

Around 1:30 an officer opened the gate to First Class and ordered the women to the Boat Deck. At 2:00 the men were allowed up too. Many now preferred to stay where they were—this would clearly be the last point above water. But Abelseth, his cousin and brother-in-law went up on the chance there was still a boat left. The last one was pulling away.

So they just stood there, as worried about being in First Class as by the circumstances that brought them there. Abelseth watched the crew trying to free the collapsibles. Once an officer, searching for extra hands, called, “Are there any sailors here?”

Abelseth had spent 16 of his 27 years on the sea and felt he should speak up. But his cousin and brother-in-law pleaded, “No, let us just stay here together.”

So they did. They felt rather awkward and said very little. It was even more awkward when Mr. and Mrs. Straus drew near. “Please,” the old gentleman was saying, “get into a lifeboat and be saved.”

“No, let me stay with you,” she replied. Abelseth turned and looked the other way.

Within the ship the heavy silence of the deserted rooms had a drama of its own. The crystal chandeliers of the à la carte restaurant hung at a crazy angle, but they still burned brightly, lighting the fawn panels of French walnut and the rose-colored carpet. A few of the little table lights with their pink silk shades had fallen over, and someone was rummaging in the pantry, perhaps for something to fortify himself.

The Louis Quinze lounge with its big fireplace was silent and empty. The Palm Court was equally deserted—one passerby found it hard to believe that just four hours ago it was filled with exquisitely dressed ladies and gentlemen, sipping after-dinner coffee, listening to chamber music by the same men who now played gay songs on the Boat Deck above.

The smoking room was not completely empty. When a steward looked in at 2:10, he was surprised to see Thomas Andrews standing all alone in the room. Andrews’ life belt lay carelessly across the green cloth top of a card table. His arms were folded over his chest; his look was stunned; all his drive and energy were gone. A moment of awed silence, and the steward timidly broke in: “Aren’t you going to have a try for it, Mr. Andrews?”

There was no answer, not even a trace that he heard. The builder of the Titanic merely stared aft. On the mahogany-paneled wall facing him hung a large painting called The Approach of the New World.

Outside on the decks, the crowd still waited; the band still played. A few prayed with the Reverend Thomas R. Byles, a Second Class passenger. Others seemed lost in thought.

There was much to think about. For Captain Smith there were the five ice messages received during the day—the last told exactly where to expect the berg. And there was the thermometer that fell from 43 degrees at seven o’clock to 32 degrees at ten o’clock. And the temperature of the sea, which dropped to 31 degrees at 10:30 P.M.

Wireless Operator Jack Phillips could ponder over the sixth ice warning—when the Californian broke in at 11:00 P.M. and Phillips told her to shut up. That one never even reached the bridge.

George Q. Clifford of Boston had the rueful satisfaction of remembering that he took out 50,000 dollars’ extra life insurance just before the trip.

For Isidor Straus there was the irony of his will. A special paragraph urged Mrs. Straus to “be a little selfish; don’t always think only of others.” Through the years she had been so self-sacrificing that he especially wanted her to enjoy life after he was gone. Now the very qualities he admired so much meant he could never have his wish.

Little things too could return to haunt a person at a time like this. Edith Evans remembered a fortune-teller who once told her to “beware of the water.” William T. Stead was nagged by a dream about somebody throwing cats out a top-story window. Charles Hays had prophesied just a few hours earlier that the time would come for “the greatest and most appalling of all disasters at sea.”

Two men perhaps wondered why they were there at all. Archie Butt didn’t want to go abroad, but he needed a rest; and Frank Millet badgered President Taft into sending Butt with a message to the Pope—official business but spring in Rome, too. Chief Officer Wilde didn’t plan to be on board either. He was regularly on the Olympic, but the White Star Line transferred him at the last minute for this one voyage. They thought his experience would be useful in breaking in the new ship. Wilde had considered it a lucky break.

In the wireless shack Phillips struggled to keep the set going. At 2:10 he sounded two V’s—heard faintly by the Virginian—as he tried to adjust the spark for better results. Bride made a last inspection tour. He returned to find a fainting lady had been carried into the shack. Bride got her a chair and a glass of water, and she sat gasping while her husband fanned her. She came to, and the man took her away.

Bride went behind the curtain where he and Phillips slept. He gathered up all the loose money, took a last look at his rumpled bunk, pushed through the curtain again. Phillips still sat hunched over the set, completely absorbed. But a stoker was now in the room, gently unfastening Phillips’ Lifejacket.

Bride leaped at the stoker, Phillips jumped up, and the three men wrestled around the shack. Finally Bride wrapped his arms about the stoker’s waist, and Phillips swung again and again until the man slumped unconscious in Bride’s arms.

A minute later they heard the sea gurgling up the A Deck companionway and washing over the bridge. Phillips cried, “Come on, let’s clear out!” Bride dropped the stoker, and the two men ran out onto the Boat Deck. The stoker lay still where he fell.

Phillips disappeared aft. Bride walked forward and joined the men on the roof of the officers’ quarters who were trying to free Collapsibles A and B. It was a ridiculous place to stow boats—especially when there were only 20 for 2,207 people. With the deck slanting like this, it had been hard enough launching C and D, the two collapsibles stowed right beside the forward davits. It was impossible to do much with A and B.

But the crew weren’t discouraged. If the boats couldn’t be launched, they could perhaps be floated off. So they toiled on—Lightoller, Murdoch, Trimmer Hemming, Steward Brown, Greaser Hurst, a dozen others.

On the port side Hemming struggled with the block and tackle for Boat B. If he could only iron out a flutterfoot in the fall, he was sure it could still be launched. He finally got the lines working, passed the block up to Sixth Officer Moody on the roof, but Moody shouted back, “We don’t want the block; we’ll leave the boat on the deck.”

Hemming saw no chance of clearing Boat B this way; so he jumped and swam for it. Meanwhile the boat was pushed to the edge of the roof and slid down on some oars to the deck. It landed upside down.

On the starboard side they were having just as much trouble with Boat A. Somebody propped planks against the wall of the officers’ quarters, and they eased the boat down bow first. But they were still a long way from home, for the Titanic was now listing heavily to port, and they couldn’t push the boat “uphill” to the edge of the deck.

The men were tugging at both collapsibles when the bridge dipped under at 2:15 and the sea rolled aft along the Boat Deck. Colonel Gracie and Clinch Smith turned and headed for the stern. A few steps, and they were blocked by a sudden crowd of men and women pouring up from below. They all seemed to be steerage passengers.

At this moment Bandmaster Hartley tapped his violin. The ragtime ended, and the strains of the Episcopal hymn “Autumn” flowed across the deck and drifted in the still night far out over the water.

In the boats women listened with wonder. From a distance there was an agonizing stateliness about the moment. Close-up, it was different. Men could hear the music, but they paid little attention. Too much was happening.

“Oh, save me! Save me!” cried a woman to Peter Daly, Lima representative of the London firm Haes & Sons, as he watched the water roll onto the deck where he stood.

“Good lady,” he answered, “save yourself. Only God can save you now.”

But she begged him to help her make the jump, and on second thought he realized he couldn’t shed the problem so easily. Quickly he took her by the arm and helped her overboard. As he jumped himself, a big wave came sweeping along the Boat Deck, washing him clear of the ship.

The sea foamed and swirled around Steward Brown’s feet as he sweated to get Boat A to the edge of the deck. Then he realized he needn’t try any longer—the boat was floating off. He jumped in … cut the stern lines … yelled for someone to free the bow … and in the next instant was washed out by the same wave that swept off Peter Daly.

Down, down dipped the Titanic’s bow, and her stern swung slowly up. She seemed to be moving forward too. It was this motion which generated the wave that hit Daly, Brown, and dozens of others as it rolled aft.

Lightoller watched the wave from the roof of the officers’ quarters. He saw the crowds retreating up the deck ahead of it. He saw the nimbler ones keep clear, the slower ones overtaken and engulfed. He knew that this kind of retreat just prolonged the agony. He turned and, facing the bow, dived in. As he reached the surface, he saw just ahead of him the crow’s nest, now level with the water. Blind instinct seized him, and for a moment he swam toward it as a place of safety.

Then he snapped to and tried to swim clear of the ship. But the sea was pouring down the ventilators just in front of the forward funnel, and he was sucked back and held against the wire grating of an air shaft. He prayed it would hold. And he wondered how long he could last, pinned this way to the grating.

He never learned the answer. A blast of hot air from somewhere deep below came rushing up the ventilator and blew him to the surface. Gasping and sputtering, he finally paddled clear.

Harold Bride kept his head too. As the wave swept by, he grabbed an oarlock of Collapsible B, which was still lying upside down on the Boat Deck near the first funnel. The boat, Bride and a dozen others were washed off together. The collapsible was still upside down, and Bride found himself struggling underneath it.

Colonel Gracie was not as sea-wise. He stayed in the crowd and jumped with the wave—it was almost like Newport. Rising on the crest, he caught the bottom rung of the iron railing on the roof of the officers’ quarters. He hauled himself up and lay on his stomach right at the base of the second funnel.

Before he could rise, the roof too had dipped under. Gracie found himself spinning round and round in a whirlpool of water. He tried to cling to the railing, then realized this was pulling him down deeper. With a mighty kick he pushed himself free and swam clear of the ship, far below the surface.

Chef John Collins couldn’t do much of anything about the wave. He had a baby in his arms. For five minutes he and a deck steward had been trying to help a steerage woman with two children. First they heard there was a boat on the port side. They ran there and heard it was on the starboard side. When they got there, somebody said their best chance was to head for the stern. Bewildered, they were standing undecided—Collins holding one of the babies—when they were all swept overboard by the wave. He never saw the others again, and the child was washed out of his arms.

Jack Thayer and Milton Long saw the wave coming too. They were standing by the starboard rail opposite the second funnel, trying to keep clear of the crowds swarming toward the stern. Instead of making for a higher point, they felt the time had come to jump and swim for it. They shook hands and wished each other luck. Long put his legs over the rail, while Thayer straddled it and began unbuttoning his overcoat. Long, hanging over the side and holding the rail with his hands, looked up at Thayer and asked, “You’re coming, boy?”

“Go ahead, I’ll be right with you,” Thayer reassured him.

Long slid down, facing the ship. Ten seconds later Thayer swung his other leg over the rail and sat facing out. He was about ten feet above the water. Then with a push he jumped as far out as he could.

Of these two techniques for abandoning ship, Thayer’s was the one that worked.

The wave never reached Olaus Abelseth. Standing by the fourth funnel, he was too far back. Instead of plunging under, this part of the ship was swinging higher and higher.

As she swung up, Abelseth heard a popping and cracking … a series of muffled thuds … the crash of glassware … the clatter of deck chairs sliding down.

The slant of the deck grew so steep that people could no longer stand. So they fell, and Abelseth watched them slide down into the water right on the deck. Abelseth and his relatives hung on by clinging to a rope in one of the davits.

“We better jump or the suction will take us down,” his brother-in-law urged.

“No,” said Abelseth. “We won’t jump yet. We ain’t got much show anyhow, so we might as well stay as long as we can.”

“We must jump off!” the cry came again, but Abelseth held firm: “No, not yet.”

Minutes later, when the water was only five feet away, the three men finally jumped, holding one another’s hands. They came sputtering to the surface, Abelseth hopelessly snarled in some rope from somewhere. He had to free his hands to untangle the line, and his cousin and brother-in-law were washed away. Somehow he got loose, but he said to himself, “I’m a goner.”

In the maelstrom of ropes, deck chairs, planking, and wildly swirling water, nobody knew what happened to most of the people. From the boats they could be seen clinging like little swarms of bees to deck houses, winches and ventilators as the stern rose higher. Close in, it was hard to see what was happening, even though—incredibly—the lights still burned, casting a sort of murky glow.

In the stories told later, Archie Butt had a dozen different endings—all gallant, none verified. According to one newspaper, Miss Marie Young, music teacher to Teddy Roosevelt’s children, remembered him calling, “Good-bye, Miss Young, remember me to the folks back home.” Yet the papers also reported Miss Young as saying she saw the iceberg an hour before the crash.

In an interview attributed to Mrs. Henry B. Harris, Archie Butt was described as a pillar of strength, using his fists here—a big brother approach there—to handle the weaklings. Yet Lightoller, Gracie and the others working on the boats never saw him at all. When Mrs. Walter Douglas recalled him near Boat 2 around 1:45, he was standing quietly off to one side.

It was the same with John Jacob Astor. Barber August H. Weikman described last moments with the great millionaire. It was a conversation full of the kind of small talk that normally takes place only in the barber’s chair. And even more trite: “I asked him if he minded shaking hands with me. He said ‘With pleasure’ …” Yet, Barber Weikman also said he left the ship at 1:50, a good half hour earlier.

Butt and Astor’s endings were parlayed in a single story attributed to Washington Dodge, the San Francisco Assessor: “They went down standing on the bridge, side by side. I could not mistake them,” the papers had him saying. Yet Dr. Dodge was in Boat 13, a good half-mile away.

Nor did anyone really know what happened to Captain Smith. People later said he shot himself, but there’s not a shred of evidence. Just before the end Steward Edward Brown saw him walk onto the bridge, still holding his megaphone. A minute later Trimmer Hemming wandered on the bridge and found it empty. After the Titanic sank, Fireman Harry Senior saw him in the water holding a child. Pieced together, this picture, far more than suicide, fits the kind of fighter who once said: “In a way, a certain amount of wonder never leaves me, especially as I observe from the bridge a vessel plunging up and down in the trough of the sea, fighting her way through and over great waves. A man never outgrows that.”

Seen and unseen, the great and the unknown tumbled together in a writhing heap as the bow plunged deeper and the stern rose higher. The strains of “Autumn” were buried in a jumble of falling musicians and instruments. The lights went out, flashed on again, went out for good. A single kerosene lantern flickered high in the after mast.

The muffled thuds and tinkle of breaking glass grew louder. A steady roar thundered across the water as everything movable broke loose.

There has never been a mixture like it—29 boilers … the jeweled copy of the Rubáiyát … 800 cases of shelled walnuts … 15,000 bottles of ale and stout … huge anchor chains (each link weighed 175 pounds) … 30 cases of golf clubs and tennis rackets for Spalding … Eleanor Widener’s trousseau … tons of coal … Major Peuchen’s tin box … 30,000 fresh eggs … dozens of potted palms … 5 grand pianos … a little mantel clock in B-38 … the massive silver duck press.

And still it grew—tumbling trellises, ivy pots and wicker chairs in the Café Parisien … shuffleboard sticks … the 50-phone switchboard … two reciprocating engines and the revolutionary low-pressure turbine … 8 dozen tennis balls for R. F. Downey & Co., a cask of china for Tiffany’s, a case of gloves for Marshall Field … the remarkable ice-making machine on G Deck … Billy Carter’s new English automobile … the Ryersons’ 16 trunks, beautifully packed by Victorine.

As the tilt grew steeper, the forward funnel toppled over. It struck the water on the starboard side with a shower of sparks and a crash heard above the general uproar. Greaser Walter Hurst, struggling in the swirling sea, was half blinded by soot. He got off lucky—other swimmers were crushed under tons of steel. But the falling funnel was a blessing to Lightoller, Bride and others now clinging to overturned Collapsible B. It just missed the boat, washing it 30 yards clear of the plunging, twisting hull.

The Titanic was now absolutely perpendicular. From the third funnel aft, she stuck straight up in the air, her three dripping propellers glistening even in the darkness. To Lady Duff Gordon she seemed a black finger pointing at the sky. To Harold Bride she looked like a duck that goes down for a dive.

Out in the boats, they could hardly believe their eyes. For over two hours they had watched, hoping against hope, as the Titanic sank lower and lower. When the water reached her red and green running lights, they knew the end was near … but nobody dreamed it would be like this—the unearthly din, the black hull hanging at 90 degrees, the Christmas card backdrop of brilliant stars.

Some didn’t watch. In Collapsible C, President Bruce Ismay bent low over his oar—he couldn’t bear to see her go down. In Boat 1, C. E. Henry Stengel turned his back: “I cannot look any longer.” In No. 4, Elizabeth Eustis buried her face.

Two minutes passed, the noise finally stopped, and the Titanic settled back slightly at the stern. Then slowly she began sliding under, moving at a steep slant. As she glided down, she seemed to pick up speed. When the sea closed over the flagstaff on her stern, she was moving fast enough to cause a slight gulp.

“She’s gone; that’s the last of her,” someone sighed to Lookout Lee in Boat 13. “It’s gone,” Mrs. Ada Clark vaguely heard somebody say in No. 4. But she was so cold she didn’t pay much attention. Most of the other women were the same—they just sat dazed, dumbfounded, without showing any emotion. In No. 5, Third Officer Pitman looked at his watch and announced, “It is two twenty.”

Ten miles away on the Californian, Second Officer Stone and Apprentice Gibson watched the strange ship slowly disappear. She had fascinated them almost the whole watch—the way she kept firing rockets, the odd way she floated in the water. Gibson remarked that he certainly didn’t think the rockets were being sent up for fun. Stone agreed: “A ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing.”

By two o’clock the stranger’s lights seemed very low on the horizon, and the two men felt she must be steaming away. “Call the Captain,” Stone ordered, “and tell him that the ship is disappearing in the southwest and that she has fired altogether eight rockets.”

Gibson marched into the chart room and gave the message. Captain Lord looked up sleepily from his couch: “Were they all white rockets?”

Gibson said yes, and Lord asked the time. Gibson replied it was 2:05 by the wheelhouse clock. Lord rolled over, and Gibson went back to the bridge.

At 2:20 Stone decided that the other ship was definitely gone, and at 2:40 he felt he ought to tell the Captain himself. He called the news down the speaking tube and resumed studying the empty night.

CHAPTER 7

“There Is Your Beautiful Nightdress Gone”

AS THE SEA CLOSED over the Titanic, Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon in Boat 1 remarked to her secretary Miss Francatelli, “There is your beautiful nightdress gone.”

A lot more than Miss Francatelli’s nightgown vanished that April night. Even more than the largest liner in the world, her cargo, and the lives of 1,502 people.

Never again would men fling a ship into an ice field, heedless of warnings, putting their whole trust in a few thousand tons of steel and rivets. From then on Atlantic liners took ice messages seriously, steered clear, or slowed down. Nobody believed in the “unsinkable ship.”

Nor would icebergs any longer prowl the seas untended. After the Titanic sank, the American and British governments established the International Ice Patrol, and today Coast Guard cutters shepherd errant icebergs that drift toward the steamer lanes. The winter lane itself was shifted further south, as an extra precaution.

And there were no more liners with only part-time wireless. Henceforth every passenger ship had a 24-hour radio watch. Never again could the world fall apart while a Cyril Evans lay sleeping off-duty only ten miles away.

It was also the last time a liner put to sea without enough lifeboats. The 46,328-ton Titanic sailed under hopelessly outdated safety regulations. An absurd formula determined lifeboat requirements: all British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry 16 lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet, plus enough rafts and floats for 75 percent of the capacity of the lifeboats.

For the Titanic this worked out at 9,625 cubic feet. This meant she had to carry boats for only 962 people. Actually, there were boats for 1,178—the White Star Line complained that nobody appreciated their thoughtfulness. Even so, this took care of only 52 percent of the 2,207 people on board, and only 30 percent of her total capacity. From then on the rules and formulas were simple indeed—lifeboats for everybody.

And it was the end of class distinction in filling the boats. The White Star Line always denied anything of the kind—and the investigators backed them up—yet there’s overwhelming evidence that the steerage took a beating: Daniel Buckley kept from going into First Class … Olaus Abelseth released from the poop deck as the last boat pulled away … Steward Hart convoying two little groups of women topside, while hundreds were kept below … steerage passengers crawling along the crane from the well deck aft … others climbing vertical ladders to escape the well deck forward.

Then there were the people Colonel Gracie, Lightoller and others saw surging up from below, just before the end. Until this moment Gracie was sure the women were all off—they were so hard to find when the last boats were loading. Now, he was appalled to see dozens of them suddenly appear. The statistics suggest who they were—the Titanic’s casualty list included four of 143 First Class women (three by choice) ... 15 of 93 Second Class women … and 81 of 179 Third Class women.

Not to mention the children. Except for Lorraine Allison, all 29 First and Second Class children were saved, but only 23 out of 76 steerage children.

Neither the chance to be chivalrous nor the fruits of chivalry seemed to go with a Third Class passage.

It was better, but not perfect, in Second Class. Lawrence Beesley remembered an officer stopping two ladies as they started through the gate to First Class. “May we pass to the boats?” they asked.

“No, madam; your boats are down on your own deck.”

In fairness to the White Star Line, these distinctions grew not so much from set policy as from no policy at all. At some points the crew barred the way to the Boat Deck; at others they opened the gates but didn’t tell anyone; at a few points there were well-meaning efforts to guide the steerage up. But generally Third Class was left to shift for itself. A few of the more enterprising met the challenge, but most milled helplessly about their quarters—ignored, neglected, forgotten.

If the White Star Line was indifferent, so was everybody else. No one seemed to care about Third Class—neither the press, the official Inquiries, nor even the Third Class passengers themselves.

In covering the Titanic, few reporters bothered to ask the Third Class passengers anything. The New York Times was justly proud of the way it handled the disaster. Yet the famous issue covering the Carpathia’s arrival in New York contained only two interviews with Third Class passengers. This apparently was par for the course—of 43 survivor accounts in the New York Herald, two again were steerage experiences.

Certainly their experiences weren’t as good copy as Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon (one New York newspaper had her saying, “The last voice I heard was a man shouting, ‘My God, my God!’ ”). But there was indeed a story. The night was a magnificent confirmation of “women and children first,” yet somehow the loss rate was higher for Third Class children than First Class men. It was a contrast which would never get by the social consciousness (or news sense) of today’s press.

Nor did Congress care what happened to Third Class. Senator Smith’s Titanic investigation covered everything under the sun, including what an iceberg was made of (“Ice,” explained Fifth Officer Lowe), but the steerage received little attention. Only three of the witnesses were Third Class passengers. Two of these said they were kept from going to the Boat Deck, but the legislators didn’t follow up. Again, the testimony doesn’t suggest any deliberate hush-up—it was just that no one was interested.

The British Court of Enquiry was even more cavalier. Mr. W. D. Harbinson, who officially represented the Third Class interests, said he could find no trace of discrimination, and Lord Mersey’s report gave a clean bill of health—yet not a single Third Class passenger testified, and the only surviving steward stationed in steerage freely conceded that the men were kept below decks as late as 1:15 A.M.

Even the Third Class passengers weren’t bothered. They expected class distinction as part of the game. Olaus Abelseth, at least, regarded access to the Boat Deck as a privilege that went with First and Second Class passage … even when the ship was sinking. He was satisfied as long as they let him stay above decks.

A new age was dawning, and never since that night have Third Class passengers been so philosophical.

At the opposite extreme, it was also the last time the special position of First Class was accepted without question. When the White Star Liner Republic went down in 1908, Captain Sealby told the passengers entering the lifeboats, “Remember! Women and children go first; then the First Cabin, then the others!” There was no such rule on the Titanic, but the concept still existed in the public mind, and at first the press tended to forestall any criticism over what a First Class passenger might do. When the news broke that Ismay was saved, the New York Sun hastened to announce, “Ismay behaved with exceptional gallantry … no one knows how Mr. Ismay himself got into a boat; it is assumed he wished to make a presentation of the case to his company.”

Never again would First Class have it so good. In fact, almost immediately the pendulum swung the other way. Within days Ismay was pilloried; within a year a prominent survivor divorced her husband merely because, according to gossip, he happened to be saved. One of the more trying legacies left by those on the Titanic has been a new standard of conduct for measuring the behavior of prominent people under stress.

It was easier in the old days … for the Titanic was also the last stand of wealth and society in the center of public affection. In 1912 there were no movie, radio or television stars; sports figures were still beyond the pale; and café society was completely unknown. The public depended on socially prominent people for all the vicarious glamour that enriches drab lives.

This preoccupation was fully appreciated by the press. When the Titanic sailed, the New York Times listed the prominent passengers on the front page. After she sank, the New York American broke the news on April 16 with a lead devoted almost entirely to John Jacob Astor; at the end it mentioned that 1,800 others were also lost.

In the same mood, the April 18 New York Sun covered the insurance angle of the disaster. Most of the story concerned Mrs. Widener’s pearls.

Never again did established wealth occupy people’s minds so thoroughly. On the other hand, never again was wealth so spectacular. John Jacob Astor thought nothing of shelling out 800 dollars for a lace jacket some dealer displayed on deck when the Titanic stopped briefly at Queenstown. To the Ryersons there was nothing unusual about traveling with 16 trunks. The 190 families in First Class were attended by 23 handmaids, eight valets, and assorted nurses and governesses—entirely apart from hundreds of stewards and stewardesses. These personal servants had their own lounge on C Deck, so that no one need suffer the embarrassment of striking up a conversation with some handsome stranger, only to find he was Henry Sleeper Harper’s dragoman.

Or take the survivors’ arrival in New York. Mrs. Astor was met by two automobiles, carrying two doctors, a trained nurse, a secretary and Vincent Astor. Mrs. George Widener was met not by automobile but by a special train—consisting of a private Pullman, another car for ballast, and a locomotive. Mrs. Charles Hays was met by a special train too, including two private cars and two coaches.

It was a reception in keeping with people who could afford as much as 4,350 dollars—and these were 1912 dollars—for a deluxe suite. A suite like this had even a private promenade deck, which figured out at something like 40 dollars a front foot for six days.

This kind of life, of course, wasn’t open to everybody—in fact it would take Harold Bride, who made 20 dollars a month, 18 years to earn enough to cross in style—so those who enjoyed it gradually became part of a remarkably tightly knit little group, which also seemed to vanish with the Titanic.

There was a wonderful intimacy about this little world of the Edwardian rich. There was no flicker of surprise when they bumped into each other, whether at the Pyramids (a great favorite), the Cowes Regatta, or the springs at Baden-Baden. They seemed to get the same ideas at the same time, and one of these ideas was to make the maiden voyage of the largest ship in the world.

So the Titanic’s trip was more like a reunion than an ocean passage. It fascinated Mrs. Henry B. Harris, wife of the theatrical producer, who certainly wasn’t part of this world. Twenty years later she still recalled with awe, “There was a spirit of camaraderie unlike any I had experienced on previous trips. No one consulted the passenger list, to judge from the air of good fellowship that prevailed among the cabin passengers. They met on deck as one big party.”

This group knew the crew almost as well as each other. It was the custom to cross with certain captains rather than on particular ships, and Captain Smith had a personal following which made him invaluable to the White Star Line. The Captain repaid the patronage with little favors and privileges which kept them coming. On the last night John Jacob Astor got the bad news direct from Captain Smith before the general alarm, and others learned too.

But the other end of the bargain was to respect the privilege. Nobody took advantage of the Captain’s confidence—hardly a man in the group was saved.

The stewards and waiters were on equally close terms with the group. They had often looked after the same passengers. They knew just what they wanted and how they liked things done. Every evening Steward Cunningham would enter A-36 and lay out Thomas Andrews’ dress clothes just the way Mr. Andrews liked. Then at 6:45 Cunningham would enter and help Andrews dress. It happened all over the ship.

And when the Titanic was going down, it was with genuine affection that Steward Etches made Mr. Guggenheim wear his sweater … that Steward Crawford laced Mr. Stewart’s shoes … that Second Steward Dodd tipped off John B. Thayer that his wife was still on board, long after Thayer thought she had left. In the same spirit of devotion, Dining Room Steward Ray pushed Washington Dodge into Boat 13—he had persuaded the Dodges to take the Titanic and now he felt he had to see them through.

The group repaid this loyalty with an intimacy and affection they gave few of their less-known fellow passengers. In the Titanic’s last hours men like Ben Guggenheim and Martin Rothschild seemed to see more of their stewards than the other passengers.

The Titanic somehow lowered the curtain on this way of living. It never was the same again. First the war, then the income tax, made sure of that.

With this lost world went some of its prejudices—especially a firm and loudly voiced opinion of the superiority of Anglo-Saxon courage. To the survivors all stowaways in the lifeboats were “Chinese” or “Japanese”; all who jumped from the deck were “Armenians,” and “Frenchmen,” or “Italians.”

“There were various men passengers,” declared Steward Crowe at the U.S. Inquiry, “probably Italians, or some foreign nationality other than English or American, who attempted to rush the boats.” Steward Crowe, of course, never heard the culprits speak and had no way of knowing who they were. At the Inquiry things finally grew so bad that the Italian Ambassador demanded and got an apology from Fifth Officer Lowe for using “Italian” as a sort of synonym for “coward.”

In contrast, Anglo-Saxon blood could do no wrong. When Bride described the stoker’s attack on Phillips, some newspapers made the stoker a Negro for better effect. And in a story headlined, “Desirable Immigrants Lost,” the New York Sun pointed out that, along with the others, 78 Finns were lost who might do the country some good.

But along with the prejudices, some nobler instincts also were lost. Men would go on being brave, but never again would they be brave in quite the same way. These men on the Titanic had a touch—there was something about Ben Guggenheim changing to evening dress … about Howard Case flicking his cigarette as he waved to Mrs. Graham … or even about Colonel Gracie panting along the decks, gallantly if ineffectually searching for Mrs. Candee. Today nobody could carry off these little gestures of chivalry, but they did that night.

An air of noblesse oblige has vanished too. During the agonizing days of uncertainty in New York, the Astors, the Guggenheims and others like them were not content to sit by their phones or to send friends and retainers to the White Star Line offices. They went themselves. Not because it was the best way to get information, but because they felt they ought to be there in person.

Today families are as loyal as ever, but the phone would probably do. Few would insist on going themselves and braving the bedlam of the steamship office. Yet the others didn’t hesitate a minute. True, Vincent Astor did get better information than the rest—and some even spoke to General Manager Franklin himself—but the point is that these people didn’t merely keep in touch—they were there.

Overriding everything else, the Titanic also marked the end of a general feeling of confidence. Until then men felt they had found the answer to a steady, orderly, civilized life. For 100 years the Western world had been at peace. For 100 years technology had steadily improved. For 100 years the benefits of peace and industry seemed to be filtering satisfactorily through society. In retrospect, there may seem less grounds for confidence, but at the time most articulate people felt life was all right.

The Titanic woke them up. Never again would they be quite so sure of themselves. In technology especially, the disaster was a terrible blow. Here was the “unsinkable ship”—perhaps man’s greatest engineering achievement—going down the first time it sailed.

But it went beyond that. If this supreme achievement was so terribly fragile, what about everything else? If wealth meant so little on this cold April night, did it mean so much the rest of the year? Scores of ministers preached that the Titanic was a heaven-sent lesson to awaken people from their complacency, to punish them for top-heavy faith in material progress. If it was a lesson, it worked—people have never been sure of anything since.

The unending sequence of disillusionment that has followed can’t be blamed on the Titanic, but she was the first jar. Before the Titanic, all was quiet. Afterward all was tumult. That is why, to anybody who lived at the time, the Titanic more than any other single event marks the end of the old days, and the beginning of a new, uneasy era.

There was no time for such thoughts at 2:20 A.M., Monday, April 15, 1912. Over the Titanic’s grave hung a thin, smoky vapor, soiling the clear night. The glassy sea was littered with crates, deck chairs, planking, pilasters, and corklike rubbish that kept bobbing to the surface from somewhere now far below.

Hundreds of swimmers thrashed the water, clinging to the wreckage and each other. Steward Edward Brown, gasping for breath, dimly noticed a man tearing at his clothes. Third Class passenger Olaus Abelseth felt a man’s arm clamp around his neck. Somehow he wriggled loose, sputtering, “Let go!” But the man grabbed him again, and it took a vigorous kick to free himself for good.

If it wasn’t the people, it was the sea itself that broke a man’s resistance. The temperature of the water was 28 degrees—well below freezing. To Second Officer Lightoller it felt like “a thousand knives” driven into his body. In water like this, life belts did no good.

Yet a few managed to keep both their wits and their stamina. For these, two hopes of safety loomed in the littered water—Collapsibles A and B. Both had floated off the sinking Boat Deck, A swamped and B upside down. Then the falling funnel washed both boats further clear of the crowd. Now the strongest and luckiest swimmers converged upon them.

After about 20 minutes Olaus Abelseth splashed alongside A. Perhaps a dozen others already lay half-dead in the wallowing boat. They neither helped nor hindered him as he scrambled over the gunwale. They just mumbled, “Don’t capsize the boat.”

One by one others arrived, until some two dozen people slumped in the hulk. They were a weird assortment—tennis star R. Norris Williams, Jr., lying beside his waterlogged fur coat … a couple of Swedes … Fireman John Thompson with badly burned hands … a First Class passenger in BVDs … Steward Edward Brown … Third Class passenger Mrs. Rosa Abbott.

Gradually Boat A drifted further away; the swimmers arrived at less frequent intervals. Finally they stopped coming altogether, and the half-swamped boat drifted silent and alone in the empty night.

Meanwhile other swimmers were making for overturned Collapsible B. This boat was much closer to the scene. Many more people swarmed around its curved white keel, and they were much louder, much more active.

“Save one life! Save one life!” Walter Hurst heard the cry again and again as he joined the men trying to board the collapsible.

Wireless Operator Harold Bride was of course there from the start, but under the boat. Lightoller also arrived before the Titanic sank. He was treading water alongside when the forward funnel fell. The wave almost washed him away and at the same time pushed young Jack Thayer right up against the boat. By now Hurst and three or four others were crouching on the keel. Lightoller and Thayer scrambled aboard too. Bride was still under the boat, lying on his back, bumping his head against the seats, gulping for air in the stuffy darkness.

Then came A. H. Barkworth, a Yorkshire Justice of the Peace. He wore a great fur coat over his life belt, and this daring arrangement surprisingly helped buoy him up. Fur coat and all, he too clambered onto the upturned collapsible, like some bedraggled, shaggy animal.

Colonel Gracie arrived later. Dragged down with the Titanic, he tried first a plank, then a large wooden crate, before he spied the overturned collapsible. When he finally drew alongside, more than a dozen men were lying and kneeling on the bottom.

No one offered a helping hand. With each new man, the collapsible sagged lower into the sea; already the water slopped over the keel from time to time. But Gracie hadn’t come this far for nothing. He grabbed the arm of a man already lying on the boat, and hauled himself onto the keel. Next, Assistant Cook John Collins swam up and managed to get on too. Then Bride dived out from underneath and scrambled onto the stern.

By the time Steward Thomas Whiteley arrived, Collapsible B wallowed under the weight of 30 men. As he tried to climb aboard, someone swatted him with an oar, but he made it anyhow. Fireman Harry Senior was beaten off by an oar, but he swam around to the other side and finally persuaded them to let him on too.

All the time men straddling the stern and the bow flayed the water with loose boards, paddling to get away from the scene and steer clear of the swimmers.

“Hold on to what you have, old boy. One more would sink us all,” the men in the boat shouted to those in the water.

“That’s all right, boys; keep cool,” one of the swimmers replied when they asked him to stay clear. Then he swam off, calling back, “Good luck, God bless you.”

Another swimmer kept cheering them on: “Good boy! Good lads!” He had the voice of authority and never asked to climb aboard. Even though they were dangerously overcrowded, Walter Hurst couldn’t resist holding out an oar. But the man was too far gone. As the oar touched him, he spun about like a cork and was silent. To this day Hurst thinks it was Captain Smith.

As they moved off into the lonely night, away from the wreckage and the swimmers, one of the seamen lying on the keel hesitantly asked, “Don’t the rest of you think we ought to pray?”

Everybody agreed. A quick poll showed Catholics, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists all jumbled together; so they compromised on the Lord’s Prayer, calling it out in chorus with the man who suggested it as their leader.

It was not the only sound that drifted over the water. All the time while Collapsibles A and B were filling up and painfully struggling away from the scene, hundreds of swimmers were crying for help. Individual voices were lost in a steady, overwhelming clamor. To Fireman George Kemish, tugging at his oar in Boat 9, it sounded like a hundred thousand fans at a British football cup final. To Jack Thayer, lying on the keel of Boat B, it seemed like the high-pitched hum of locusts on a midsummer night in the woods back home in Pennsylvania.

CHAPTER 8

“It Reminds Me of a Bloomin’ Picnic”

THE CRIES IN THE night meant one thing to lively, impulsive Fifth Officer Lowe—row back and help.

He was in a good position to do something. After leaving the Titanic in No. 14, he had rounded up Boats 10, 12, 4 and D, and all five were tied together like a string of beads about 150 yards away.

“Consider yourselves under my command,” he ordered, and now he organized his flotilla for rescue work. It was suicide for all the boats to go—they were too undermanned to face the bedlam—but one boat with a handpicked crew might do some good. So Lowe divided his 55 passengers among the other four boats and picked volunteers from each to give No. 14 some expert oarsmen.

It was nerve-racking work, playing musical chairs with rowboats at 2:30 A.M. in the middle of the Atlantic—almost more than Lowe could stand. “Jump, God damn you, jump!” he shouted impatiently at Miss Daisy Minahan. On the other hand, an old lady in a shawl seemed much too agile. Lowe ripped it off and looked into the frightened face of a young man—eyes white with terror. This time nothing was said, but he pitched the man into Boat No. 10 as hard as he could.

It took time to make the transfer. Then more time while Lowe waited for the swimmers to thin out enough to make the expedition safe. Then still more time to get there. It was after three o’clock—nearly an hour since the sinking—when Boat 14 edged into the wreckage and the people.

There was little left—Steward John Stewart … First Class passenger W. F. Hoyt … a Japanese steerage passenger, who had lashed himself to a door. For nearly an hour Boat 14 played a hopeless blindman’s bluff, chasing after shouts and calls in the darkness, never quite able to reach who was shouting.

They got only four, and Mr. Hoyt died in an hour. Lowe had miscalculated how long it took to row to the scene … how long to locate a voice in the dark … most of all, how long a man could live in water 28 degrees. There was, he learned, no need to wait until the crowd “thinned out.” But at least Lowe went back.

Third Officer Pitman in No. 5 also heard the cries. He turned the boat around and shouted, “Now, men, we will pull toward the wreck!”

“Appeal to the officer not to go back,” a lady begged Steward Etches as he tugged at his oar. “Why should we all lose our lives in a useless attempt to save others from the ship?”

Other women protested too. Pitman was torn by the dilemma. Finally he reversed his orders and told his men to lay on their oars. For the next hour No. 5—40 people in a boat that held 65—heaved gently in the calm Atlantic swell, while its passengers listened to the swimmers 300 yards away.

In No. 2, Steward Johnson recalled Fourth Officer Boxhall asking the ladies, “Shall we go back?” They said no; so Boat 2—about 60 percent full—also drifted while her people listened.

The ladies in Boat 6 were different. Mrs. Lucien Smith, stung that she had fallen for the white lie her husband used to get her in the boat; Mrs. Churchill Candee, moved by the gallantry of her self-appointed protectors; Mrs. J. J. Brown, naturally brave and lusty for adventure—all begged Quartermaster Hitchens to return to the scene. Hitchens refused. He painted a vivid picture of swimmers grappling at the boat, of No. 6 swamping and capsizing. The women still pleaded, while the cries grew fainter. Boat No. 6—capacity 65; occupants 28—went no closer to the scene.

In No. 1, Fireman Charles Hendrickson sang out, “It’s up to us to go back and pick up anyone in the water.”

Nobody answered. Lookout George Symons, in charge of the boat, made no move. Then, when the suggestion came again, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon announced he didn’t think they should try; it would be dangerous; the boat would be swamped. With that, the subject was dropped. No. 1—12 people in a boat made for 40—rowed on aimlessly in the dark.

In boat after boat the story was the same: a timid suggestion, a stronger refusal, nothing done. Of 1,600 people who went down on the Titanic, only 13 were picked up by the 18 boats that hovered nearby. Boat D hauled in Mr. Hoyt because he planned it that way. Boat 4 rescued eight—not because it rowed back but because it was within reach. Only No. 14 returned to the scene. Why the others didn’t is part of the mystery of why trained men in the identical situation should react so differently.

As the cries died away the night became strangely peaceful. The Titanic, the agonizing suspense, was gone. The shock of what had happened, the confusion and excitement ahead, the realization that close friends were lost forever had not yet sunk in. A curiously tranquil feeling came over many of those in the boats.

With the feeling of calm came loneliness. Lawrence Beesley wondered why the Titanic, even when mortally wounded, gave everyone a feeling of companionship and security that no lifeboat could replace. In No. 3, Elizabeth Shutes watched the shooting stars and thought to herself how insignificant the Titanic’s rockets must have looked, competing against nature. She tried to bury her loneliness by pretending she was back in Japan. Twice she had left there at night too, lonely and afraid, but everything came out all right in the end.

In Boat 4, Miss Jean Gertrude Hippach also watched the shooting stars—she had never seen so many. She recalled a legend that every time there’s a shooting star, somebody dies.

Slowly—very slowly—life in the boats picked up again. Fourth Officer Boxhall started firing off green flares from Boat 2. Somehow this brought people out of their trance, cheered them up too. It was hard to judge distance, and some thought the green flares were being fired by rescue ships on the horizon.

Oars squealed and splashed in the water, voices sang out as the boats hailed one another in the dark. Nos. 5 and 7 tied up together; so did Nos. 6 and 16. Boat 6 borrowed a stoker for extra rowing power. Other boats were drifting apart. Over a radius of four or five miles, 18 little boats wandered about through the night or drifted together on a sea flat as a reservoir. A stoker in No. 13 thought of times he had spent on the Regent’s Park Lake and blurted, “It reminds me of a bloomin’ picnic!”

At times it did seem like a picnic—the small talk, the children underfoot. Lawrence Beesley tried to tuck a blanket under the toes of a crying baby, discovered that he and the lady holding the baby had close mutual friends in Clonmel, Ireland. Edith Russell amused another baby with her toy pig that played the Maxixe whenever its tail was twisted. Hugh Woolner found himself feeding cookies to four-year-old Louis Navatril. Mrs. John Jacob Astor lent a steerage woman a shawl to comfort her little daughter whimpering from the cold. The woman thanked Mrs. Astor in Swedish, wrapped the shawl around her little girl.

About this time Marguerite Frolicher was introduced to an important piece of picnic equipment. Still deathly seasick, she was noticed by a kindly gentleman sitting nearby. He pulled out a silver flask with a cup top and suggested a drink of brandy might help. She took the suggestion and was instantly cured. Perhaps it was the brandy, perhaps the novel experience—in all her 22 years, she had never seen a flask before, and she was fascinated.

But no picnic was ever so cold. Mrs. Crosby shivered so hard in No. 5 that Third Officer Pitman wrapped a sail around her. A stoker in No. 6 sat beside Mrs. Brown, his teeth chattering with the cold. Finally she wrapped her sable stole about his legs, tying the tails around his ankles. In No. 16 a man in white pajamas looked so cold he reminded the other passengers of a snowman. Mrs. Charlotte Collyer was so numb she toppled over in No. 14; her hair caught in an oarlock and a big tuft came out by the roots.

The crew did their best to make the women more comfortable. In No. 5 a sailor took off his stockings and gave them to Mrs. Washington Dodge. When she looked up in startled gratitude, he explained, “I assure you, ma’am, they are perfectly clean. I just put them on this morning.”

In No. 13, Fireman Beauchamp shivered in his thin jumpers, but he refused to take an extra coat offered him by an elderly lady, insisting it go to a young Irish girl instead. For the people in this boat there was additional relief from an unexpected quarter. When Steward Ray left his cabin for the last time, he picked up six handkerchiefs lying in his trunk. Now he gave them out, telling people to tie a knot in each corner and turn them into caps. As a result, he recalls with pride, “six heads were crowned.”

Besides the cold, the number of lady oarsmen dispelled the picnic illusion. In No. 4, Mrs. John B. Thayer rowed for five hours in water up to her shins. In No. 6 the irrepressible Mrs. Brown organized the women, two to an oar. One held the oar in place, while the second did the pulling. In this way Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Meyer, Mrs. Candee and others propelled the boat some three or four miles, in a hopeless effort to overtake the light that twinkled on the horizon most of the night.

Mrs. Walter Douglas handled the tiller of Boat 2. Boxhall, who was in charge, pulled an oar and helped fire the green flares. Mrs. J. Stuart White didn’t help row No. 8, but she appointed herself a sort of signalman. She had a cane with a built-in electric light, and during most of the night she waved it fiercely about, alternately helping and confusing everyone.

In No. 8, Marie Young, Gladys Cherry, Mrs. F. Joel Swift and others pulled at the oars. Mrs. William R. Bucknell noted with pride that as she rowed next to the Countess of Rothes, further down the boat her maid was rowing next to the Countess’ maid. Most of the night the Countess handled the tiller. Seaman Jones, in charge, later explained to The Sphere why he put her there: “There was a woman in my boat as was a woman … When I saw the way she was carrying herself and heard the quiet determined way she spoke to the others, I knew she was more of a man than any we had on board.” At the American investigation, perhaps lacking the guidance of the press, Jones phrased it a little less elegantly: “She had a lot to say, so I put her to steering the boat.”

But there was no doubt how he felt. After the rescue Jones removed the numeral “8” from the lifeboat, had it framed, and sent it to the Countess to show his admiration. For her part, she still writes him every Christmas.

As the night wore on, the early composure began to give way. In No. 3, Mrs. Charles Hays hailed the boats that came near, searching for her husband. “Charles Hays, are you there?” she would call over and over again. In No. 8, Signora de Satode Penasco screamed for her husband, Victor, until the Countess of Rothes couldn’t stand it any longer. Turning the tiller over to her cousin Gladys Cherry, she slipped down beside the Signora and spent the rest of the night rowing beside her, trying to cheer her up. In No. 6, Madame de Villiers constantly called for her son, who wasn’t even on the Titanic.

Gradually a good deal of squabbling broke out. The women in No. 3 bickered about trifles, while their husbands sat in embarrassed silence. Mrs. Washington Dodge—who wanted to row back against the wishes of nearly everyone else in No. 5—grew so bitter that when No. 7 came by, she switched boats in mid-ocean. Maud Slocombe, the Titanic’s irrepressible masseuse, helped bawl out a woman who kept setting off, of all things, an alarm clock in No. 11. Seaman Diamond, a tough ex-boxer in charge of No. 15, swore oaths that turned the night air even bluer.

Many of the arguments revolved around smoking. In 1912 tobacco was not yet the great American cure-all for easing strain and tension, and the women in the boats were shocked. Miss Elizabeth Shutes begged two men sitting near her in No. 3 to stop smoking, but they kept on. To Mrs. J. Stuart White it was a matter that still rankled at the investigation. When Senator Smith asked if she wished to mention anything bearing on the crew’s discipline, she exploded, “As we cut loose from the ship these stewards took out cigarettes and lighted them. On an occasion like that!”

In the more casual intimacy of Boat 1, smoking was no problem. When Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon gave Fireman Hendrickson a good cigar, neither of the women in the boat could very well object. Miss Francatelli was employed by Sir Cosmo’s wife, and Lady Duff Gordon was too sick to care. With her head down upon the oars and tackle, she vomited away the night.

But No. 1 had its squabbles too. Sir Cosmo and Mr. C. E. Henry Stengel of Newark, New Jersey, didn’t get along very well. This might not have mattered in a crowded boat, but with only 12 people it was rather grating. According to Sir Cosmo, Mr. Stengel kept shouting, “Boat ahoy!” He also gave Lookout Symons conflicting advice on where to steer. Nobody paid any attention, but he irritated Sir Cosmo so much that he finally asked Mr. Stengel to keep quiet. Sir Cosmo was doubly annoyed when Mr. Stengel later testified that “between Sir Cosmo and myself we decided which way to go.”

Meanwhile Fireman Pusey was smoldering over Lady Duff Gordon’s efforts to condole Miss Francatelli on the loss of her nightgown. At the time he told her, “Never mind, you have saved your lives; but we have lost our kit.”

Half an hour later, still smoldering, Pusey turned to Sir Cosmo. “I suppose you have lost everything?”

“Of course.”

“But you can get more?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we have lost our kit, and the company won’t give us any more. And what’s more, our pay stops from tonight.”

Sir Cosmo had enough: “Very well, I will give you a fiver each to start a new kit.”

He did, too, but lived to regret it. The Duff Gordons’ near-monopoly of Boat 1, its failure to row back, gave the gift the look of a payoff that Sir Cosmo had a hard time living down.

Nor did subsequent events help his case. When Lady Duff Gordon reassembled the men in life jackets for a group picture after the rescue, they looked more and more like the Duff Gordons’ personal crew. Still later, when it came out that Lookout Symons, nominally in charge of the boat, spent the day with Sir Cosmo’s lawyer just before he testified at the British inquiry, it looked as though Sir Cosmo even had his personal coxswain.

There’s no evidence that Sir Cosmo was guilty of more than extreme bad taste.

Drinking caused some trouble too. When No. 4 plucked a member of the crew out of the water, he had a bottle of brandy in his pocket. It was then thrown away because, as he explained it a few weeks later to the press, “it was feared that if any hysterical person in the boat touched it, the result might be bad.” Miss Eustis had a somewhat different version: “One man was drunk and had a bottle of brandy in his pocket, which the Quartermaster promptly threw overboard, and the drunken man was thrown into the bottom of the boat …”

There was a different kind of trouble in Boat 6. Friction erupted from the moment Major Peuchen slid down the line to fill out the crew. Peuchen, used to giving orders, couldn’t resist trying to take command. Quartermaster Hitchens had other ideas. As they rowed away from the Titanic, Peuchen was pulling an oar and Hitchens was at the tiller, but within ten minutes Peuchen asked Hitchens to let a lady steer and join him in rowing. The Quartermaster answered that he was in charge and Peuchen’s job was to row and keep quiet.

Painfully the boat struggled away, with just Peuchen and Lookout Fleet rowing. Under Mrs. Brown’s leadership, most of the women gradually joined in, but Hitchens remained glued to the tiller, shouting at them to row harder or all would be sucked under when the Titanic sank.

The women began shouting back, and as the boat splashed along in the dark, the night echoed with bitter repartee. Most of the time No. 6 was heading toward the elusive light on the horizon, and when it became clear they could never reach it, Hitchens announced that all was lost; they had neither water nor food nor compass nor charts; they were hundreds of miles from land and didn’t even know which way they were heading.

Major Peuchen had given up by now, but the women tore into him. Mrs. Candee grimly showed him the North Star. Mrs. Brown told him to shut up and row. Mrs. Meyer jeered at his courage.

Then they tied up with Boat 16, and Hitchens ordered them to drift. But the women couldn’t stand the cold and insisted on rowing to keep warm. Mrs. Brown took charge, gave an oar to a grimy stoker transferred from No. 16, and told everyone to row. Hitchens moved to stop her, and Mrs. Brown told him if he came any closer, she would throw him overboard.

He sank back under a blanket and began shouting insults. Mrs. Meyer answered back—accused him of taking all the blankets and drinking all the whisky. Hitchens swore at her. The transferred stoker, wondering what on earth he had run into, called out, “I say, don’t you know you’re talking to a lady.”

Hitchens yelled back, “I know whom I’m speaking to, and I’m commanding this boat!”

But the stoker’s rebuke worked. The Quartermaster lapsed into silence. Boat 6 rowed on through the night with Hitchens subdued, Peuchen out of the picture, and Mrs. Brown virtually in charge.

Even among the men clinging desperately to overturned Boat B, there was time for petty bickering. Colonel Gracie—his teeth chattering, his matted hair now frozen stiff—noticed the man beside him wore a dry outing cap. The colonel asked to borrow the cap to warm his head for a minute. “And what would I do?” the man shot back.

Nerves on Boat B were understandably frayed. The air was leaking out from under the hull, and every minute it sank a little lower in the water. The sea occasionally washed over the keel, and one impulsive move might pitch everybody into the sea. They needed cool leadership badly.

At this point Gracie was relieved to hear the deep, rich voice of Second Officer Lightoller, and even more relieved when a somewhat tipsy crewman on the boat called out, “We will all obey what the officer orders.”

Lightoller quickly responded. Feeling that only concerted organized action would keep the boat balanced, he had all 30 men stand up. He arranged them in a double column, facing the bow. Then as the boat lurched with the sea, he shouted, “Lean to the right” … “Stand upright” … “Lean to the left”—whatever was necessary to counteract the swell.

As they threw their weight this way and that, for a while they yelled, “Boat ahoy! Boat ahoy!” Lightoller finally stopped them, urging them to save their strength.

It grew still colder, and the colonel complained again about his head, this time to Lightoller. Another man offered them both a pull from his flask. They turned him down but pointed out Walter Hurst, shivering nearby. Hurst thought it was brandy and took a big swig. He almost choked—it was essence of peppermint.

They talked a surprising amount. Assistant Cook John Maynard told how Captain Smith swam alongside the boat just before the Titanic took her last plunge. They pulled him on, but he slipped off again. Later Fireman Harry Senior claimed the Captain let go on purpose, saying, “I will follow the ship!” It may have been true, but Hurst is sure the Captain never reached the boat. Besides, Senior was one of the last to arrive—probably too late to have seen the Captain himself.

Most of all they talked of getting rescued. Lightoller soon discovered Harold Bride, the junior wireless operator, at the stern of the boat, and from his position in the bow he asked what ships were on the way. Bride shouted back: the Baltic, the Olympic, the Carpathia. Lightoller figured the Carpathia should arrive at daybreak … passed the word around, to buck up sagging spirits.

From then on they scanned the horizon searching for any sign. From time to time they were cheered by the green flares lit by Boxhall in Boat 2. Even Lightoller thought they must come from another ship.

Slowly the night passed. Toward dawn a slight breeze sprang up. The air seemed more frigid. The sea grew choppy. Bitter-cold waves splashed over the feet, the shins, the knees of the men on Boat B. The spray stabbed their bodies and blinded their eyes. One man, then another, then another rolled off the stern and disappeared from sight. The rest fell silent, completely absorbed in the battle to stay alive.

The sea was silent too. No one saw a trace of life in the waves that rippled the smooth Atlantic as the first light of dawn streaked the sky.

But one man still lived—thanks to a remarkable combination of initiative, luck and alcohol. Four hours earlier, Chief Baker Charles Joughin was awakened, like so many on the Titanic, by that strange, grinding jar. And like many others he heard the call to general quarters a little after midnight.

But Joughin didn’t merely report to the Boat Deck. He reasoned that if boats were needed, provisions were needed too; so on his own initiative he mustered his staff of 13 bakers and ransacked the Titanic’s larder of all spare bread. The bakers then trooped topside, carrying four loaves apiece.

This done, Joughin retired to his cabin on E Deck, port side, for a nip of whisky.

About 12:30 he felt sufficiently fortified to reascend the stairs to his Boat, No. 10. At this stage it was still difficult to persuade the women to go; so Joughin resorted to stronger methods. He went down to the Promenade Deck and hauled some up by force. Then, to use his own word, he “threw” them into the boat. Rough but effective.

Joughin was assigned to No. 10 as skipper, but he thought there were enough men to handle the boat; so he jumped out and helped launch it instead. To go with it, he explained, “would have set a bad example.”

It was now 1:20. He scampered down the slanting stairs again to his cabin on E Deck and poured himself another drink. He sat down on his bunk and nursed it along—aware but not particularly caring that the water now rippled through the cabin doorway, swilled across the checkered linoleum, and rose to the top of his shoes.

About 1:45 he saw, of all people, gentle old Dr. O’Loughlin poking around. It never occurred to Joughin to wonder what the old gentleman was doing way down here, but the proximity of the pantry suggests that Joughin and the doctor were thinking along similar lines.

In any case, Joughin greeted him briefly, then went back up to the Boat Deck. None too soon, for the Titanic was listing heavily now, and the slant was much steeper. Any longer, and the stairs might have been impossible.

Though all the boats were gone, Joughin was anything but discouraged. He went down to B Deck and began throwing deck chairs through the windows of the enclosed promenade. Others watched him, but they didn’t help. Altogether he pitched about 50 chairs overboard.

It was tiring work; so after he lugged the last chair to the edge and squeezed it through the window (it was a little like threading a needle), Joughin retired to the pantry on the starboard side of A Deck. It was 2:10.

As he quenched his thirst—this time it was water—he heard a kind of crash, as though something had buckled. The pantry cups and saucers flew about him, the lights glowed red, and overhead he heard the pounding of feet running aft.

He bolted out of the pantry toward the stern end of A Deck, just behind a swarm of people, running the same way and clambering down from the Boat Deck above. He kept out of the crush as much as possible and ran along in the rear of the crowd. He vaulted down the steps to B Deck, then to the well deck. Just as he got there, the Titanic gave a sickening twist to port, throwing most of the people into a huge heap along the port rail.

Only Joughin kept his balance. Alert but relaxed, his equilibrium was marvelous, as the stern rose higher and corkscrewed to port. The deck was now listing too steeply to stand on, and Joughin slipped over the starboard rail and stood on the actual side of the ship. He worked his way up the side, still holding on to the rail—but from the outside—until he reached the white-painted steel plates of the poop deck. He now stood on the rounded stern end of the ship, which had swung high in the air some 150 feet above the water.

Joughin casually tightened his life belt. Then he glanced at his watch—it said 2:15. As an afterthought, he took it off and stuck it into his hip pocket. He was beginning to puzzle over his position when he felt the stern beginning to drop under his feet—it was like taking an elevator. As the sea closed over the stern, Joughin stepped off into the water. He didn’t even get his head wet.

He paddled off into the night, little bothered by the freezing water. It was four o’clock when he saw what he thought was wreckage in the first gray light of day. He swam over and discovered it was the upturned Collapsible B.

The keel was crowded and he couldn’t climb on, so he hung around for a while until he spied an old friend from the kitchen—entrée chef John Maynard. Blood proved thicker than water; Maynard held out his hand and Joughin hung on, treading water, still thoroughly insulated.

The others didn’t notice him … partly because they were too numb to care, partly because all eyes now scanned the southeast horizon. It was just after 3:30 when they saw it—a distant flash followed by a far-off boom. In Boat 6, Miss Norton cried, “There’s a flash of lightning!” while Hitchens growled, “It’s a falling star!” In No. 13 a stoker lying in the bottom, almost unconscious from the cold, bolted up, shouting, “That was a cannon!”

Soon a single light appeared from the same direction, then another, then row after row. A big steamer was pounding up, firing rockets to reassure the Titanic’s people that help was on the way. In No. 9, deckhand Paddy McGough suddenly thundered, “Let us all pray to God, for there is a ship on the horizon and it’s making for us!”

The men in Boat B let out a yelp of joy and started babbling again. Someone lit a newspaper in No. 3 and waved it wildly, then Mrs. Davidson’s straw hat—it would burn longer. In Mrs. A. S. Jerwan’s boat they dipped handkerchiefs in kerosene and lit them as signals. In No. 13 they twisted a paper torch out of letters. Boxhall burned a last green flare in Boat 2. In No. 8, Mrs. White swung her electric cane as never before.

Over the water floated cheers and yells of relief. Even nature seemed pleased, as the dreary night gave way to the mauve and coral of a beautiful dawn.

Not everyone saw it. In half-swamped Boat A, Olaus Abelseth tried to kindle the will to live in a half-frozen man lying beside him. As day broke, he took the man’s shoulder and raised him up, so that he was sitting on the floorboards. “Look!” pleaded Abelseth, “we can see a ship now; brace up!”

He took one of the man’s hands and raised it. Then he shook the man’s shoulder. But the man only said, “Who are you?” And a minute later, “Let me be … who are you?”

Abelseth held him up for a while; but it was such a strain, he finally had to use a board as a prop. Half an hour later the sky blazed with thrilling, warm shades of pink and gold, but now it was too late for the man to know.

CHAPTER 9

“We’re Going North Like Hell”

MRS. ANNE CRAIN PUZZLED over the cheerful smell of coffee brewing as she lay in her cabin on the Cunarder Carpathia, bound from New York to the Mediterranean. It was nearly 1:00 A.M. on the fourth night out, and by now Mrs. Crain knew the quiet little liner well enough to feel that any sign of activity after midnight was unusual, let alone coffee brewing.

Down the corridor Miss Ann Peterson lay awake in her bunk too. She wondered why the lights were turned on all over the ship—normally the poky Carpathia was shut down by now.

Mr. Howard M. Chapin was more worried than puzzled. He lay in the upper berth of his cabin on A Deck—his face just a few inches below the Boat Deck above. Sometime after midnight a strange sound suddenly woke him up. It was a man kneeling down on the deck directly over his head. The day before, he had noticed a lifeboat fall tied to a cleat just about there; now he felt sure the man was unfastening the boat and something was wrong.

Nearby, Mrs. Louis M. Ogden awoke to a cold cabin and a speeding ship. Hearing loud noises overhead, she too decided something must be wrong. She shook her sleeping husband. His diagnosis didn’t reassure her—the noise was the crew breaking out the chocks from the lifeboats overhead. He opened the stateroom door and saw a line of stewards carrying blankets and mattresses. Not very reassuring either.

Here and there all over the ship, the light sleepers listened restlessly to muffled commands, tramping feet, creaking davits. Some wondered about the engines—they were pounding so much harder, so much faster than usual. The mattresses jiggled wildly … the washstand tumblers rattled loudly in their brackets … the woodwork groaned with the strain. A turn of the faucet produced only cold water—a twist on the heater knob brought no results—the engines seemed to be feeding on every ounce of steam.

Strangest of all was the bitter cold. The Carpathia had left New York on April 11, bound for Gibraltar, Genoa, Naples, Trieste and Fiume. Her 150 First Class passengers were mostly elderly Americans following the sun in this pre-Florida era; her 575 steerage passengers were mostly Italians and Slavs returning to their sunny Mediterranean. All of them welcomed the balmy breeze of the Gulf Stream that Sunday afternoon. Toward five o’clock it grew so warm that Mr. Chapin shifted his deck chair to the shade. Now there was an amazing change—the frigid blast that swept through every crack and seam felt like the Arctic.

On the bridge, Captain Arthur H. Rostron wondered whether he had overlooked anything. He had been at sea for 27 years—with Cunard for 17—but this was only his second year as a Cunard skipper and only his third month on the Carpathia. The Titanic’s call for help was his first real test.

When the CQD arrived, Rostron had already turned in for the night. Harold Cottam, the Carpathia’s operator, rushed the message to First Officer Dean on the bridge. They both raced down the ladder, through the chart room, and burst into the Captain’s cabin. Rostron—a stickler for discipline even when half-asleep—wondered what the ship was coming to, with people dashing in this way. They were meant to knock. But before he could reprimand them, Dean blurted the news.

Rostron bolted out of bed, ordered the ship turned, and then—after the order was given—double-checked Cottam:

“Are you sure it is the Titanic and requires immediate assistance?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You are absolutely certain?”

“Quite certain.”

“All right, tell him we are coming along as fast as we can.”

Rostron then rushed into the chart room and worked out the Carpathia’s new course. As he figured and scribbled, he saw the boatswain’s mate pass by, leading a party to scrub down the decks. Rostron told him to forget the decks and prepare the boats for lowering. The mate gaped. Rostron reassured him, “It’s all right; we’re going to another vessel in distress.”

In a few moments the new course was set—North 52 West. The Carpathia was 58 miles away. At 14 knots she would take four hours to get there. Too long.

Rostron sent for Chief Engineer Johnstone, told him to pour it on—call out the off-duty watch … cut off the heat and hot water … pile every ounce of steam into the boilers.

Next, Rostron sent for First Officer Dean. He told him to knock off all routine work, organize the ship for rescue operations. Specifically, prepare and swing out all boats … rig electric clusters along the ship’s side … open all gangway doors … hook block and line rope in each gangway … rig chair slings for the sick and injured, canvas and bags for hauling up children at every gangway … drop pilot ladders and side ladders at gangways and along the sides … rig cargo nets to help people up … prepare forward derricks (with steam in the winches) to hoist mail and luggage aboard … and have oil handy to pour down the lavatories on both sides of the ship, in case the sea grew rough.

Then he called the ship’s surgeon, Dr. McGhee: collect all the restoratives and stimulants on the ship … set up first-aid stations in each dining saloon … put the Hungarian doctor in charge of Third Class … the Italian doctor in Second … McGhee himself in First.

Now it was Purser Brown’s turn: see that the Chief Steward, the Assistant Purser and himself each covered a different gangway—receive the Titanic’s, passengers … get their names … channel them to the proper dining saloon (depending on class) for medical check.

Finally, another barrage of orders for Chief Steward Harry Hughes: call out every man … prepare coffee for all hands … have soup, coffee, tea, brandy and whisky ready for survivors … pile blankets at every gangway … convert smoking room, lounge and library into dormitories for the rescued … group all the Carpathia’s steerage passengers together, use the space saved for the Titanic’s steerage.

As he gave his orders, Rostron urged them all to keep quiet. The job ahead was tough enough without having the Carpathia’s passengers underfoot. The longer they slept, the better. As an extra precaution, stewards were stationed in every corridor. They were to tell any prowling passengers that the Carpathia wasn’t in trouble, urge them to go back to their cabins.

Then he sent an inspector, the master-at-arms and a special detail of stewards to keep the steerage passengers under control. After all, no one knew how they’d react to being shuffled about.

The ship sprang to life. Down in the engine room it seemed as if everyone had found a shovel and was pouring on the coal. The extra watch tumbled out of their bunks and raced to lend a hand. Most didn’t even wait to dress. Faster and faster the old ship knifed ahead—14 … 14½ … 15 … 16½ … 17 knots. No one dreamed the Carpathia could drive so hard.

In the crew’s quarters a tug at his blanket woke up Steward Robert H. Vaughan. A voice told him to get up and dress. It was pitch-black, but Vaughan could hear his roommates already pulling on their clothes. He asked what was up, and the voice said the Carpathia had hit an iceberg.

Vaughan stumbled to the porthole and looked out. The ship was driving ahead, white waves rolling out from her side. Obviously there was nothing wrong with the Carpathia. Bewildered, he and his mates continued dressing—all the more confused because someone had swiped their only lightbulb and they had to get ready in the dark.

When they reached the deck, an officer put them to work collecting blankets. Then to the First Class dining saloon … now a beehive of men scurrying about, shifting chairs, resetting tables, moving the liquor from the bar to the buffet. Still Vaughan and his mates couldn’t imagine the reason. Elsewhere word spread that Captain Rostron wanted 3,000 blankets for “that many extra people.” But nobody knew why.

At 1:15 they learned. The stewards were all mustered into the main dining saloon and Chief Steward Hughes gave a little speech. He told them about the Titanic … explained their duties … paused … then delivered his ending: “Every man to his post and let him do his full duty like a true Englishman. If the situation calls for it, let us add another glorious page to British history.”

Then the stewards went back to work, most of them now shifting blankets from the bedding lockers to the gangways. These were the men Louis Ogden saw when he first looked out of his cabin. Now he decided to try again. He collared Dr. McGhee, who was passing by, but the surgeon only told him, “Please stay in your cabin—Captain’s orders.”

“Yes, but what is the matter?”

“An accident, but not to our ship. Stay inside.”

Mr. Ogden reported back to his wife. For some reason he was sure the Carpathia was on fire and the ship was speeding for help. He began dressing, slipped out on deck, found a quartermaster he knew. This time he got a straight answer: “There has been an accident to the Titanic.”

“You’ll have to give me something better than that!” said Ogden, almost triumphantly. “The Titanic is on the northern route and we are on the southern.”

“We’re going north like hell. Get back in your room.”

Mr. Ogden again reported back to Mrs. Ogden, who asked, “Do you believe it?”

“No. Get up and put on your warmest clothes.” There was no doubt in Mr. Ogdeh’s mind now: the Titanic was unsinkable, so the surgeon must be covering up. His story confirmed their worst fears—the Carpathia was in danger. They must escape. Somehow they managed to sneak out on deck.

Others made it too; and they compared notes together, furtive little groups hiding from their own crew. Gradually  they realized the Carpathia wasn’t in danger. But despite rumors about the Titanic, nobody was sure why they were on this wild dash through the night. And of course they couldn’t ask or they’d be sent below again. So they just stood there, huddling in the shadows, all eyes straining into the darkness, not even knowing what they were looking for.

In fact, nobody on the Carpathia now knew what to look for. In the little wireless shack over the Second. Class smoking room, Harold Cottam could no longer rouse the Titanic. But his set was so miserable—the range was only 150 miles at best—that he wasn’t sure what had happened. Perhaps the Titanic was still sending, but her signals were now too weak to catch.

On the other hand, the news so far had been all bad. At 1:06 Cottam heard her tell the Olympic, “Get your boats ready; going down fast at the head” … at 1:10, “Sinking head down” … at 1:35, “Engine room getting flooded.”

Once the Titanic asked Cottam how long he would take to arrive. “Say about four hours,” instructed Rostron—he didn’t yet realize what the Carpathia could do.

Then at 1:50 came a final plea, “Come as quickly as possible, old man; the engine room is filling up to the boilers.” After that, silence.

Now it was after 2:00, and Cottam still hunched tensely over the set. Once Miss Peterson peeked in at him, noticed that despite the biting cold, Cottam was still in his shirtsleeves. He had just started to undress when the first CQD arrived, and he hadn’t yet gotten around to putting on his coat again.

Up on the bridge, Rostron was wondering too. He had organized his men, done everything he could think of, and now came the hardest part of all—waiting. Near him stood Second Officer James Bisset, up forward extra lookouts. All strained for any sign of ice, any sign of the Titanic. But so far there was nothing—just the glassy sea, the blazing stars, the sharp, clear, empty horizon.

At 2:35 Dr. McGhee climbed the ladder to the bridge, told Rostron that everything was ready below. As he talked, Rostron suddenly saw the glow of a green flare on the horizon, about half a point off the port bow.

“There’s his light!” he shouted. “He must be still afloat!” It certainly looked that way. The flare was clearly a long way off. To see it at all, it must be high out of the water. It was only 2:40, and they were already in sight—perhaps the Carpathia would be in time after all.

Then at 2:45 Second Officer Bisset sighted a tiny shaft of light glistening two points off the port bow. It was the first iceberg—revealed by, of all things, the mirrored light of a star.

Then another berg, then another. Twisting and turning, the Carpathia now dodged icebergs on all sides, never slackening speed. On they surged, as the men breathlessly watched for the next berg and from time to time spotted more green flares in the distance.

Now that everything was ready, the stewards had a little free time. Robert Vaughan and his mates went to the afterdeck. Like boxers warming up for a fight, they danced about and playfully rough-housed to keep warm. Once a huge iceberg passed close to starboard, and a man cried, “Hey, fellows! Look at the polar bear scratching himself with a chunk of ice!”

A weak joke perhaps, but the men roared with laughter as the Carpathia lunged on.

She was firing rockets now. One every 15 minutes, with Cunard Roman candles in between. Word spread below that they were in sight. In the main dining room, the stewards took up their posts. In the engine room the stokers shoveled harder than ever. At the gangways and boat stations the men stood ready. Everyone was wild with excitement, and the Carpathia herself trembled all over. A sailor later remarked, “The old boat was as excited as any of us.”

But Rostron’s heart was sinking. By 3:35  they were drawing near the Titanic’s position, and still no sign of her. He decided the green flare couldn’t have been so high after all. It was just the sparkling-clear night that let him see it from so far off. At 3:50 he put the engines on “stand by”—they were almost at the spot. At 4:00 he stopped the ship—they were there.

Just then another green flare blazed up. It was directly ahead, low in the water. The flickering light showed the outline of a lifeboat perhaps 300 yards away. Rostron started up his engines, began to maneuver the Carpathia to starboard so as to pick up the lifeboat on his port side, which was leeward. An instant later he spotted a huge iceberg directly ahead and had to swing the other way to keep from hitting it.

The lifeboat was now to windward, and as he edged toward it, a breeze sprang up and the sea grew choppy. A voice from the dark hailed him, “We have only one seaman and can’t work very well.”

“All right,” Rostron shouted back. He gently nudged the Carpathia closer, until the voice called again, “Stop your engines!”

It was Fourth Officer Boxhall in Boat 2. Sitting beside him, Mrs. Walter Douglas of Minneapolis was near hysterics. “The Titanic” she cried, “has gone down with everyone on board!”

Boxhall told her to “shut up,” and his sharpness cut her off instantly. She quickly pulled herself together and afterward always agreed the rebuke was justified.

On the Carpathia no one heard her anyhow. All eyes were glued on the lifeboat bobbing toward the gangway. Mrs. Ogden noticed the White Star emblem painted on its side, the life belts that made everybody look dressed in white. Mrs. Crain wondered about the pale, strained faces looking up at the decks. The only sound was a wailing baby somewhere in the boat.

Lines were dropped, and now the boat was fast. A moment’s hesitation, then at 4:10 Miss Elizabeth Allen climbed slowly up the swinging ladder and tumbled into the arms of Purser Brown. He asked her where the Titanic was, and she replied it had gone down.

Up on the bridge Rostron knew without asking—yet he felt he had to go through with the formalities. He sent for Boxhall, and as the Fourth Officer stood shivering before him, he put it to him: “The Titanic has gone down?”

“Yes”—Boxhall’s voice broke as he said it—”she went down at about 2:30.”

It was half-day now, and the people on deck could make out other lifeboats on all sides. They were scattered over a four-mile area, and in the gray light of dawn they were hard to distinguish from scores of small icebergs that covered the sea. Mixed with the small bergs were three or four towering monsters, 150 to 200 feet high. To the north and west, about five miles away, stretched a flat, unbroken field of ice as far as the eye could see. The floe was studded here and there with other big bergs that rose against the horizon.

The sight was so astonishing, so incredible, that those who had slept through everything until now couldn’t grasp it at all. Mrs. Wallace Bradford of San Francisco looked out her porthole and blinked in disbelief—half a mile away loomed a huge, jagged peak like a rock offshore. It was not white, and she wondered, “How in the world can we be near a rock when we are four days out from New York in a southerly direction and in mid-ocean?”

Miss Sue Eva Rule of St. Louis was equally puzzled. When she first saw one of the lifeboats splashing through the early dawn, it looked like the gondola of an airship, and the huge gray mound behind it looked like a frame. She was sure they were picking up the crew of a fallen dirigible.

Another bewildered passenger hunted up his stewardess in the corridor. But she stopped him before he said a word. Pointing to some women tottering into the main dining saloon she sobbed, “From the Titanic. She’s at the bottom of the ocean.”

Ten miles away, with the coming of dawn, life was beginning to stir again on the Californian. At 4:00 Chief Officer Frederick Stewart climbed to the bridge and relieved Second Officer Stone.

Stone brought him up-to-date—told him about the strange ship, the rockets, the way the stranger disappeared. He added that around 3:40 he saw still another rocket, this time directly south and clearly not from the same ship that fired the first eight. Dead tired, Stone dropped down the ladder and turned in—from now on it was Stewart’s headache.

At 4:30 Stewart woke up Captain Lord and began to repeat Stone’s story.

“Yes, I know,” interrupted the Captain, “he’s been telling me.” Lord then pulled on some clothes and climbed up to the bridge. Hebegan discussing the best way to work out of the ice field and get on to Boston. Stewart broke in and asked if he wasn’t going to check on a ship that was now in sight directly to the south. Lord said, “No, I don’t think so; she’s not making any signals now.”

Stewart dropped the matter—he didn’t mention that Stone, on his way below, said he was sure the ship to the south couldn’t be the same one that fired the first eight rockets.

But he must have thought a good deal more about it, because at 5:40 he woke up Wireless Operator Evans, who recalled his saying, “There’s a ship been firing rockets. Will you see if you can find out if anything’s the matter?”

Evans fumbled in the half-light of day, found the headphones, and tuned in.

Two minutes later Stewart rocketed up the steps to the bridge, calling, “There’s a ship sunk!” Then he ran back down to the wireless shack … back up again … then to Captain Lord with the shattering news: “The Titanic has hit a berg and sunk!”

Captain Lord did just what a good skipper should do. He immediately started his engines and headed for the Titanic’s last position.

CHAPTER 10

“Go Away—We Have Just Seen Our Husbands Drown”

“OH, MUDDIE, LOOK AT the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it,” little Douglas Speddon said to his mother, Mrs. Frederick O. Speddon, as Boat 3 threaded its way through the loose ice toward the Carpathia.

In fact, the world did look like a picture from a child’s book about the Arctic. The sun was just edging over the horizon, and the ice sparkled in its first long rays. The bergs looked dazzling white, pink, mauve, deep blue, depending on how the rays hit them and how the shadows fell. The sea was now bright blue, and little chunks of ice, some no bigger than a man’s fist, bobbed in the choppy water. Overhead, the eastern sky was gold and blue, promising a lovely day. The shadows of night lingered in the west—Lawrence Beesley remembered watching the Morning Star shine long after the others had faded. Near the horizon a thin, pale crescent moon appeared.

“A new moon! Turn your money over, boys! That is, if you have any!” Fireman Fred Barrett shouted cheerfully to the crew rowing No. 13. Whoops and yells of relief erupted from all the boats, as the men tried to outrow each other in reaching the Carpathia. Some began singing, “Pull for the Shore, Boys.” Some gave organized cheers. Some, however, remained silent—stunned by the sinking or overwhelmed by relief.

“It’s all right, ladies, do not grieve. We are picked up.” Lookout Hogg sought to encourage the women staring bleakly ahead in No. 7, but they kept very quiet.

There were no cheers on overturned Collapsible B either. Lightoller, Gracie, Bride, Thayer and the others were too busy trying to stay afloat. Stirred by the morning breeze, the waves now washed over the hulk and rocked it back and forth. Every time it rolled, a little more air escaped, and the keel sank still lower into the water. With Lightoller shouting directions, the men shifted their weight back and forth, but after an hour of this they were dead tired.

The sight of the Carpathia arriving with the dawn—so thrilling to everyone else—now meant little to these men. She had stopped four miles away, and they wondered how they could last until they were spotted. Suddenly, as the light spread over the sea, they saw new hope. About 800 yards off, Boats 4, 10, 12 and D were still strung together in a line just as Fifth Officer Lowe had ordered.

The men on Collapsible B shouted, “Ship ahoy!”—but they were too far away to be heard. Then Lightoller fished an officer’s whistle out of his pocket and blew a shrill blast. The sound not only carried but told the crew manning the boats that an officer was calling.

In No. 12, Seaman Frederick Clinch quickly looked up … thought he saw about 20 men in the distance standing on, of all things, a ship’s funnel. In No. 4, Trimmer Samuel Hemming looked over too; and in the early-morning light it seemed to him some men were standing on a slab of ice. Little matter, the two boats at once cast off and headed over. It was slow rowing, and as they crept within hailing distance, Lightoller urged them on: “Come over and take us off!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” somebody called back, and finally the two boats arrived. They were barely in time. By now Boat B was so delicately balanced that the wash from No. 4 almost swept everybody off. It took all Quartermaster Perkis’ skill to maneuver the boat safely alongside. On B, Lightoller cautioned the men not to scramble. Even so, the boat gave a sickening roll as each man leaned forward to jump.

One by one they made it. Jack Thayer was so preoccupied at getting safely into No. 12 that he didn’t notice his mother right alongside in No. 4. Mrs. Thayer was so numbed by cold and misery that she didn’t notice her son. When Colonel Gracie’s turn came, he crawled hands first into No. 12, preferring pinched fingers to the risk of a jump. Baker Joughin, still treading water, didn’t worry at all. He simply let go of Maynard’s hand and paddled over to No. 4, where they pulled him in, still thoroughly insulated by his whisky.

Lightoller was last to leave the overturned collapsible. When all the others were transferred, he lifted a lifeless body into No. 12, jumped in himself, and took charge of the boat. It was just about 6:30 when he finally shoved off from the empty keel and began rowing toward the Carpathia.

Meanwhile Fifth Officer Lowe gave up his search for swimmers among the wreckage. In an hour’s hard work No. 14 picked up only four men, and he knew he was too late to find any more. No man could last longer in the ice-cold water. Now day was breaking and rescue was at hand. Lowe decided to head back for the boats he had left tied together and shepherd them in to the Carpathia.

“Hoist a sail forward,” he ordered Seaman F. O. Evans as the breeze quickened. In every other boat the crew regarded the mast as an extra encumbrance, and the sail just something that got in the way. In some cases they dumped out this equipment before leaving the Titanic; in others it stayed in, and the men cursed as they stumbled over useless spars in the dark. They didn’t know how to sail anyhow.

Lowe was different. As he later explained, few seamen were boatmen and few boatmen were seamen, but he was both. Years spent windjamming along the Gold Coast now paid off as he skillfully tacked back and forth. The bow slammed down on the waves, and the spray glittered in the early-morning sun as No. 14 bowled along at four knots.

By the time he got back, his little fleet had scattered. Boats 4 and 12 were off picking up the men on B, and Nos. 10 and D were heading separately for the Carpathia. D looked in bad shape—low in the water and few oars at work. “Well,” said Lowe to himself. “I will go down and pick her up and make sure of her.”

“We have about all we want!” Hugh Woolner shouted as No. 14 sailed up. Lowe tossed over a line and gave them a tow.

Then, about a mile and a half away he spied Collapsible A, completely swamped and making no headway at all. The people in A never did manage to get the sides up, and now the gunwales lay flush with the water. Of some 30 who originally swam to the boat, most had fallen overboard numb with the cold. Only a dozen men and Third Class passenger Mrs. Rosa Abbott were left, standing in freezing water up to their knees.

Lowe arrived just in time … took them all aboard No. 14 … then set sail again for the Carpathia, still towing D. Collapsible A was left behind—abandoned and empty, except for the bodies of three men (with life belts covering their faces), R. Norris Williams, Jr.’s fur coat and a ring belonging to Third Class passenger Edward P. Lindell of Helsingborg, Sweden, whom no one remembered seeing all night.

One by one the boats crept up to the Carpathia. It was 4:45 when No. 13 made fast, and Lawrence Beesley climbed a rope ladder to the C Deck companionway. He felt overwhelmed with gratitude, relief and joy to feel a solid deck under his feet again. Close behind climbed Dr. Washington Dodge, who remembered to bring along his life belt as a memento.

Mrs. Dodge and five-year-old Washington, Jr., arrived at 5:10 in No. 7. The little boy was hauled up in a mail sack and plopped onto the deck. A steward rushed up with coffee, but Master Dodge announced he would rather have cocoa. The steward promptly dashed off and got some—British liners aren’t famous for their service for nothing.

Then came No. 3 at 6:00. Mr. and Mrs. Speddon climbed aboard immaculately dressed. Close behind came the Henry Sleeper Harpers, dragoman Hamad Hassah, and Pekingese Sun Yat-sen. Mr. Harper soon discovered Mr. Ogden on deck, greeted him with classic detachment: “Louis, how do you keep yourself looking so young?”

Elizabeth Shutes, arriving in the same boat, didn’t try the ladder. She sat in a rope sling, felt herself swept aloft with a mighty jerk. From somewhere above a voice called, “Careful, fellows, she’s a lightweight.”

Bruce Ismay stumbled aboard around 6:30, mumbling, “I’m Ismay … I’m Ismay.” Trembling, he stood near the gangway, his back against a bulkhead. Dr. McGhee gently approached him, “Will you not go into the saloon and get some soup or something to drink?”

“No, I really don’t want anything at all.”

“Do go and get something.”

“If you will leave me alone, I’ll be much happier here,” Ismay blurted, then changed his mind: “If you can get me in some room where I can be quiet, I wish you would.”

“Please,” the doctor softly persisted, “go to the saloon and get something hot.”

“I would rather not.”

Dr. McGhee gave up. He gently led Ismay to his own cabin. During the rest of the trip Ismay never left the room; he never ate anything solid; he never received a visitor (except Jack Thayer, once); he was kept to the end under the influence of opiates. It was the start of a self-imposed exile from active life. Within a year he retired from the White Star Line, purchased a large estate on the west coast of Ireland, remained a virtual recluse till he died in 1937.

Olaus Abelseth reached the deck about 7:00. A hot blanket was thrown over his soaked, shivering shoulders and he was rushed to the dining saloon for brandy and coffee. Mrs. Charlotte Collyer and the others in No. 14 tagged along, while Fifth Officer Lowe remained behind, shipping the mast and stowing the sail. He liked a tidy boat.

And so they came, one boatload after another. As each drew alongside, the survivors already aboard peered down from the Promenade Deck, searching for familiar faces. Billy Carter stood next to the Ogdens, frantically watching for his wife and children. When the rest of the family finally came alongside in No. 4, Mr. Carter leaned far over the rail: “Where’s my son? Where’s my son?”

A small boy in the boat lifted a girl’s big hat and called, “Here I am, Father.” Legend has it that John Jacob Astor himself placed the hat on the 10-year-old’s head, saying in answer to objections, “Now he’s a girl and he can go.”

Washington Dodge was another man who had an agonizing wait for his family—thanks largely to a mischievous streak in five-year-old Washington, Jr. Dr. Dodge didn’t see his wife and son come aboard—nor did Mrs. Dodge see her husband on deck, but young Washington did. And he decided it would be great fun to keep it to himself. So he didn’t tell his mother and effectively hid from his father. Finally, the Dodges’ ever-faithful Dining Saloon Steward Ray spoiled everything by bringing about a reunion.

The crowds along the rail grew steadily as the Carpathia’s own passengers poured from their cabins. Some of them learned in curious ways. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Marshall were awakened by the steward knocking on their stateroom door.

“What is it?” called Mr. Marshall.

“Your niece wants to see you, sir,” came the answer.

Mr. Marshall was nonplussed. All three of his nieces were, he knew, making the Titanic’s maiden voyage. They even sent him a wireless last night. How could one of them be on board the Carpathia? The steward explained. Minutes later the Marshalls were holding a family reunion with Mrs. E. D. Appleton (the other nieces arrived later), and their daughter Evelyn dashed on deck to see the sight.

A strange sight it was. The endless plain of packed ice to the north and west—the big bergs and smaller growlers that floated like scouts in advance of the main floe—gave the sea a curiously busy look. The boats that rowed in from all directions seemed incredibly out of place here in mid-Atlantic.

And the people that straggled from them couldn’t have looked more peculiar—Miss Sue Eva Rule noticed one woman wearing only a Turkish towel around her waist and a magnificent fur evening cape over her shoulders. The costumes were a grab bag of lace-trimmed evening dresses … kimonos … fur coats … plain woolen shawls … pajamas … rubber boots … white satin slippers. But it was still an age of formality—a surprising number of the women wore hats and the men snap-brim tweed caps.

Strangest of all was the silence. Hardly a word was spoken. Everyone noticed it; everyone had a different explanation. The Reverend P. M. A. Hoques, a passenger on the Carpathia, thought people were too horror-stricken to speak. Captain Rostron thought everybody was just too busy. Lawrence Beesley felt they were neither too stunned nor too busy—they were simply in the presence of something too big to grasp.

Occasionally there was a minor commotion. Miss Peterson noticed a little girl named Emily sitting on the Promenade Deck, sobbing, “Oh, Mama, Mama, I’m sick. Oh, Mama, Mama!”

While No. 3 was unloading its passengers, a woman clad only in nightgown and kimono suddenly sat up in the bottom of the boat. Pointing at another lady being hoisted up in a boatswain’s chair, she cried: “Look at that horrible woman! Horrible! She stepped on my stomach. Horrible creature!”

And in the Third Class dining saloon an Italian woman went completely to pieces—sobbing, screaming, banging her fists on the table. Over and over and over she cried, “Bambino!” An Italian steward coaxed out the information that both her babies were missing. One was soon located, but she held up two fingers and the hysterics started again. Finally the other was found too—in the pantry on the hot press, where it had been left to thaw out.

By 8:15 all the boats were in except No. 12. It barely moved, still several hundred yards away. The breeze grew stiff, and the sea grew rougher. The crowded gunwales were almost level with the waves—nearly 75 people were jammed in. The crowd at the Carpathia’s rail watched breathlessly as Lightoller nursed it along.

Inside the boat the people huddled … trying to keep dry, praying they might make it. At a time like this a man notices little trivial things. As Colonel Gracie worked in vain to revive a lifeless body lying beside him, he wondered why the person wore long, gray woolen stockings.

Now 8:20, and they were only 200 yards off. Rostron, trying to help, turned the Carpathia’s bow to within 100 yards. As Lightoller struggled to cross the bow and get in her lee, a sudden squall whipped up the sea. First one wave, then another crashed into the boat. A third just missed. Next instant he was there—safe in the shelter of the big ship.

At 8:30 No. 12—the last boat to arrive—made fast and began to unload. Colonel Gracie felt like falling down on his knees and kissing the deck as he stepped into the gangway. Harold Bride felt a pair of strong hands reach out to him; then he passed out. Jack Thayer saw his mother waiting and rushed to her arms. Mrs. Thayer stammered, “Where’s Daddy?”

“I don’t know, Mother,” he answered quietly.

Meanwhile Rostron wondered where to take his 705 unexpected guests. Halifax was nearest, but there was ice along the way, and he thought the Titanic’s passengers had seen enough. The Azores were best for the Carpathia’s schedule, but he didn’t have the linen and provisions to last that far. New York was best for the survivors but most costly to the Cunard Line. He dropped down to the Surgeon’s cabin where Dr. McGhee was examining Bruce Ismay. The man was shattered—anything Rostron wanted was all right with him. So Rostron decided on New York.

Then the Olympic broke in: Why not transfer the Titanic’s survivors to her? Rostron thought this was an appalling idea—he couldn’t see subjecting these people to another transfer at sea. Besides, the Olympic was the Titanic’s sister ship and the sight alone would be like a hideous ghost. To be on the safe side, he trotted back to Dr. McGhee’s cabin, checked again with Ismay. The White Star President shuddered at the thought.

So New York it was, and the sooner the better. By now the Californian was standing by, Captain Lord uneasily examining the Carpathia’s house flag flying at half-mast. Rostron arranged for her to search the scene while he made for New York. Then he hauled aboard as many of the Titanic’s lifeboats as possible—six on the forward deck, seven in the Carpathia’s own davits. The rest were set adrift.

Before heading back, Rostron couldn’t resist one last look around. He was a thorough man; he didn’t want to overlook the smallest chance. Let the Californian go through the motions, but if there was any real hope of picking anybody else up, Rostron wanted the Carpathia to do it.

As he cruised, it occurred to him that a brief service might be appropriate. He dropped down and asked if Ismay had any objections. It was always the same—anything Rostron wanted was all right with him.

So Rostron sent for the Reverend Father Anderson, an Episcopal clergyman aboard, and the people from the Titanic and Carpathia assembled together in the main lounge. There they gave thanks for the living and paid their respects to the lost.

While they murmured their prayers, the Carpathia steamed slowly over the Titanic’s grave. There were few traces of the great ship—patches of reddish-yellow cork … some steamer chairs … several white pilasters … cushions … rugs … life belts … the abandoned boats … just one body.

At 8:50 Rostron was satisfied. There couldn’t possibly be another human being alive. He rang “full speed ahead” and turned his ship for New York.

Already the city was wildly excited. When the first word arrived at 1:20 A.M., nobody knew what to think. The AP flash was certainly cryptic—just a message from Cape Race that at 10:25 local time the Titanic called CQD, reported striking an iceberg, and asked for help immediately. Then another message that the liner was down at the head and putting the women off in boats. Then silence.

The news was in time for the first morning editions—but barely. No leeway for double-checking; only time to decide how to handle it. The story seemed fantastic. Yet there it was. The editors nibbled gingerly; the Herald’s headline was typical:

THE NEW TITANIC STRIKES ICEBERG AND CALLS FOR AID

VESSELS RUSH TO HER SIDE

Only the Times went out on a limb. The long silence after the first few messages convinced Managing Editor Carr Van Anda that she was gone. So he took a flyer—early editions reported the Titanic sinking and the women off in lifeboats; the last edition said she had sunk.

By 8:00 A.M. newsmen were storming the White Star Line offices at 9 Broadway; Vice President Philip A. S. Franklin made light of the reports: even if the Titanic had hit ice, she could float indefinitely. “We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe that the boat is unsinkable.”

But at the same time he was frantically wiring Captain Smith: “Anxiously await information and probable disposition of passengers.”

By mid-morning friends and relatives of the Titanic’s passengers were pouring in: Mrs. Benjamin Guggenheim and her brother De Witt Seligman … Mrs. Astor’s father W. H. Force … J. P. Morgan, Jr. … hundreds of people nobody recognized. Rich and poor, they all got the same reassuring smiles—no need to worry … the Titanic was unsinkable; well, anyhow, she could float two or three days … certainly there were enough boats for everybody.

And the press joined in. The Evening Sun ran a banner headline:

ALL SAVED FROM TITANIC AFTER COLLISION

The story reported all passengers transferred to the Parisian and the Carpathia, with the Titanic being towed by the Virginian to Halifax.

Even business seemed confident. At first the news reinsurance rate on the Titanic’s cargo soared to 50 percent, then to 60 percent. But as optimism grew, London rates dropped back to 50 percent, then to 45 … 30 … and finally 25 percent.

Meanwhile Marconi stock skyrocketed. In two days it soared 55 points to 225. Not bad for a stock that brought only two dollars just a year ago. And IMM—the great combine that controlled the White Star Line—was now recovering after a shaky start in the morning.

Yet rumors were beginning to spread. No official word, but wireless men listening in on the Atlantic traffic picked up disturbing messages not meant for their ears, and relayed the contents anyhow. During the afternoon a Cunard official heard from a friend downtown that the Titanic was definitely gone. A New York businessman wired a friend in Montreal the same thing. Franklin heard too, but the source seemed unreliable so he decided to keep quiet.

At 6:15 the roof fell in. Word finally arrived from the Olympic: the Titanic went down at 2:20 A.M.; the Carpathia picked up all the boats and was returning to New York with the 675 survivors. The message had been delayed in transit several hours. Nobody knows why, but there has never been any evidence supporting the World’s suggestion that it was the work of Wall Street bears and shippers reinsuring their cargoes.

Franklin was still steeling himself to tell the public when the clock in the White Star office struck seven. An alert reporter smelled the gloom in the air, took a chance, and barged into the manager’s private office. Others followed. “Gentlemen,” Mr. Franklin stammered, “I regret to say that the Titanic sank at 2:20 this morning.”

At first that was all he would say, but bit by bit the reporters chipped out admissions. At 8:00 the Olympic’s message “neglected to say that all the crew had been saved.” At 8:15: “Probably a number of lives had been lost.” At 8:45: “We very much fear there has been a great loss of life.” By 9:00 he couldn’t keep up the front any longer: it was a “horrible loss of life” … they could replace the ship but “never the human lives.”

At 10:30 Vincent Astor arrived and disappeared into Franklin’s office. In a little while he left weeping. On a hunch a reporter phoned Mrs. John Jacob Astor’s father, W. H. Force. “Oh, my God,” cried the old gentleman, “don’t tell me that! Where did you get that report from? It isn’t true! It can’t be true!”

No one could reach the Strauses’ daughter, Mrs. Alfred Hess. Early that afternoon she had taken the special train chartered by the White Star Line to meet the supposedly crippled Titanic at Halifax. By 8:00 the train was lumbering through the Maine countryside, as Mrs. Hess sat in the diner chatting with reporters. She was the only woman on board, and it was rather fun.

She was just starting some grapefruit when the train slowed, stopped, and then began moving backward. It never stopped until Boston. There she learned, “Plans have changed; the Titanic’s people are going straight to New York.” So she took the sleeper back and was met at the gate by her brother early the next morning: “Things look pretty bad.”

By now the first survivor list was up, and crowds again stormed the White Star office. Mrs. Frank Farquharson and Mrs. W. H. Marvin came together to learn about their children, who were coming back from their honeymoon. The bride’s mother, Mrs. Farquharson, gave a happy little yelp when she spied the name “Mrs. Daniel Marvin”; then managed to stifle it when she saw no “Mr.” listed beside it.

Mrs. Ben Guggenheim clung to the hope that some lifeboat was missing. “He may be drifting about!” she sobbed.

And he might have been, for all anyone knew. Nobody could get any information out of the Carpathia—Rostron was saving his wireless for official traffic and private messages from the survivors—so the newspapers made up their stories. The Evening World told of a fog, the Titanic’s booming siren, a crash like an earthquake. The Herald described how the ship was torn asunder, plunged into darkness, almost capsized at the moment of impact.

When imagination ran low, the papers took it out on the silent rescue ship. The Evening Mail thundered:

WATCHERS ANGERED BY CARPATHIA’S SILENCE

The World pouted:

CARPATHIA LETS NO SECRETS OF THE TITANIC’S LOSS ESCAPE BY WIRELESS

So Tuesday turned to Wednesday … and Wednesday to Thursday … and still there was no news. The weeklies were caught now. Harper’s Weekly described the prominent people aboard, featuring Henry Sleeper Harper, a member of the family who owned the magazine. It conjured a fog and a frightful shock; then remarked a little lamely, “As to what happened, all is still surmise.” But Harper’s assured its readers that the rule was women and children first, “the order long enforced among all decent men who use the sea.” Next issue, the magazine turned a possible embarrassment into a journalistic scoop when Henry Sleeper Harper turned up complete with Pekingese and personal Egyptian dragoman. Harper’s happily announced an exclusive interview.

Thursday night the wait ended. As the Carpathia steamed by the Statue of Liberty, 10,000 watched from the Battery. As she edged toward Pier 54, 30,000 more stood in the waterfront rain. To the end Rostron had no truck with newsmen. He wouldn’t let them on the ship at Quarantine, and as the Carpathia steamed up the North River, tugs chugged beside her, full of reporters shouting questions through megaphones.

At 8:37 she reached the pier and began unloading the Titanic’s lifeboats so she could be warped in. They were rowed off to the White Star pier, where souvenir hunters picked them clean during the night. (The next day men were put to work in each boat, sandpapering off the name Titanic.)

At 9:35 the Carpathia was moored, the gangplank lowered, and the first survivors tumbled off. Later a brown canvas carryall, its two-by-three-inch sides bulging, was taken off and placed under Customs letter G. Customs officials said it was the only luggage saved from the Titanic. Owner Samuel Goldenberg denied such foresight. He claimed he bought it on board the Carpathia. He said it contained only the clothes he wore off the Titanic and a few accessories purchased on the rescue ship—pajamas, coat, trousers, dressing gown, raincoat, slippers, two rugs, shirt, collars, toilet goods, and shoes for his wife and himself.

The Carpathia’s arrival made clear who survived, but it didn’t unravel what had happened. The survivors added their own myths and fables to the fiction conjured up on shore. For some the heartbreaking trip back was too much. Others were simply carried away by the excitement. The more expansive found themselves making a good story even better. The more laconic had their experiences improved by reporters. Some were too shocked, some too ashamed.

Newspaper interviews reported that Second Class passenger Emilio Portaluppi rode a cake of ice for hours … Miss Marie Young saw the iceberg an hour before the collision … Seaman Jack Williams and William French watched six men shot down like dogs … Philadelphia banker Robert W. Daniel took over the Carpathia’s wireless during the trip back. All the evidence went against such stories, but the public was too excited to care.

The sky was the limit. The April 19vNew York Sun had First Class passenger George Brayton saying:

“The moon was shining and a number of us who were enjoying the crisp air were promenading about the deck. Captain Smith was on the bridge when the first cry from the lookout came that there was an iceberg ahead. It may have been 300 feet high when I saw it. It was probably 200 yards away and dead ahead. Captain Smith shouted some orders … a number of us promenaders rushed to the bow of the ship. When we saw we could not fail to hit it, we rushed to the stern. Then came a crash, and the passengers were panic-stricken … The accident happened at about 10:30 P.M. … about midnight, I think, came the first boiler explosion. Then, for the first time, I think, Captain Smith began to get worried …”

Carpathia Seaman Jonas Briggs’ interview told the story of Rigel, a handsome black Newfoundland dog, who jumped from the deck of the sinking Titanic and escorted a lifeboat to the Carpathia, his joyous barks signaling Captain Rostron that he was coming.

Personal thoughts weighed heavily on the minds of some. Lookout Reginald Lee—it seemed a century since that dreadful moment when his mate Fleet sighted the berg—told of a haze on the horizon, remembered Fleet saying, “Well, if we can see through that, we’ll be lucky.” Fleet never recalled the conversation.

An interview with one of the men in First Class gave this careful explanation of his presence in No. 7, the first boat to leave:

“On one point all the women were firm. They would not enter a lifeboat until all the men were in it first. They feared to trust themselves to the seas in them. It required courage to step into the frail craft as they swung from the creaking davits. Few men were willing to take the chance. An officer rushed behind me and shouted, ‘You’re big enough to pull an oar. Jump into this boat or we’ll never get the women off.’ I was forced to do so, though I admit the ship looked a great deal safer to me than any small boat.”

Gradually the full story emerged, but many of the engaging tales born these first few days have lingered ever since—the lady who refused to leave her Great Dane … the band playing, “Nearer My God to Thee” … Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch committing suicide … Mrs. Brown running No. 6 with a revolver.

But legends are part of great events, and if they help keep alive the memory of gallant self-sacrifice, they serve their purpose. At the time, however, no legends were needed to drive home the story. People were overwhelmed by the tragedy. Flags everywhere flew half-mast. Macy’s and the Harris theaters were closed. The French line called off a reception on the new SS France. In Southampton, where so many of the crew lived, grief was staggering—20 families on one street bereaved. Montreal called off a military review. King George and President Taft exchanged condolences—and the Kaiser got into the act. J. S. Bache & Co. canceled its annual dinner. J. P. Morgan called off the inauguration of a new sanitarium he was building at Aix-les-Bains.

Even the Social Register was shaken. In these days the ship that people traveled on was an important yardstick in measuring their standing, and the Register dutifully kept track. The tragedy posed an unexpected problem. To say that listed families crossed on the Titanic gave them their social due, but it wasn’t true. To say they arrived on the plodding Carpathia was true, but socially misleading. How to handle this dilemma? In the case of those lost, the Register dodged the problem—after their names it simply noted the words, “died at sea, April 15, 1912.” In the case of the living, the Register carefully ran the phrase, “Arrived Titan-Carpath, April 18, 1912.” The hyphen represented history’s greatest sea disaster.

What troubled people especially was not just the tragedy—or even its needlessness—but the element of fate in it all. If the Titanic had heeded any of the six ice messages on Sunday … if ice conditions had been normal … if the night had been rough or moonlit … if she had seen the berg 15 seconds sooner—or 15 seconds later … if she had hit the ice any other way … if her watertight bulkheads had been one deck higher … if she had carried enough boats … if the Californian had only come. Had any one of these “ifs” turned out right, every life might have been saved. But they all went against her—a classic Greek tragedy.

These thoughts were yet to come to the Carpathia turned toward New York in the bright morning sunshine of April 15. At this point the survivors still slumped exhausted in deck chairs or sipped coffee in the dining saloon or absently wondered what they would wear.

The Carpathia’s passengers pitched in gallantly—digging out extra toothbrushes, lending clothes, sewing smocks for the children out of steamer blankets brought along in the lifeboats. A Macy’s wine buyer bound for Portugal became a sort of guardian angel for the three rescued Gimbel’s buyers. Mrs. Louis Ogden took cups of coffee to two women in gay coats and scarfs sitting alone in a corner. “Go away,” they said, “we have just seen our husbands drown.”

For some of the survivors life began again—Lawrence Beesley busily scribbled off a wireless message that he was safe. For others it took longer. Colonel Gracie lay under a pile of blankets on a sofa in the dining saloon while his clothes dried in the bake oven. Bruce Ismay sat trembling in the Surgeon’s cabin, shot full of opiates. Harold Bride came to, lying in somebody’s stateroom; a woman was bending over him, and he felt her hand brushing back his hair and rubbing his face.

Jack Thayer was in another cabin nearby. A kindly man had lent him pajamas and a bunk. Now Thayer was getting into bed, just as he had started to do ten hours before. He climbed between the cool sheets, and it occurred to him that a cup of brandy he just swallowed was his first drink of hard liquor. He must indeed be growing up.

Far below, the Carpathia’s engines hummed with a swift, soothing rhythm. Far above, the wind whistled through the rigging. Ahead lay New York, and home in Philadelphia. Behind, the sun caught the bright red-and-white stripes of the pole from the Titanic’s barber shop, as it bobbed in the empty sea. But Jack Thayer no longer knew or cared. The brandy had done its work. He was fast asleep.

Facts About the Titanic

“THERE WILL NEVER BE another like her,” says Baker Charles Burgess, who ought to know. In 43 years on the Atlantic run he has seen them all—Olympic … Majestic … Mauretania … and so on. Today, as carver in the kitchen of the Queen Elizabeth, Burgess is probably the last Titanic crewman on active service.

“Like the Olympic, yes, but so much more elaborate,” he reflects. “Take the dining saloon. The Olympic didn’t even have a carpet, but the Titanic—ah, you sank in it up to your knees. Then there’s the furniture: so heavy you could hardly lift it. And that paneling …

“They can make them bigger and faster, but it was the care and effort that went into her. She was a beautiful, wonderful ship.”

Burgess’ reflections are typical. The Titanic has cast a spell on all who built and sailed her. So much so that, as the years go by, she grows ever more fabulous. Many survivors now insist she was “twice as big as the Olympic”—actually they were sister ships, with the Titanic just 1,004 tons larger. Others recall golf courses, regulation tennis courts, a herd of dairy cows, and other little touches that exceeded even the White Star Line’s penchant for luxury.

The Titanic was impressive enough without embellishment.

Her weight—46,328 gross tons … 66,000 tons displacement. Her dimensions—882.5 feet long … 92.5 feet wide … 60.5 feet from waterline to Boat Deck, or 175 feet from keel to the top of her four huge funnels. She was, in short, 11 stories high and four city blocks long.

Triple screw, the Titanic had two sets of four-cylinder reciprocating engines, each driving a wing propeller, and a turbine driving the center propeller. This combination gave her 50,000 registered horsepower, but she could easily develop at least 55,000 horsepower. At full speed she could make 24 to 25 knots.

Perhaps her most arresting feature was her watertight construction. She had a double bottom and was divided into 16 watertight compartments. These were formed by 15 watertight bulkheads running clear across the ship. Curiously, they didn’t extend very far up. The first two and the last five went only as high as D Deck, while the middle eight were carried only up to E Deck. Nevertheless, she could float with any two compartments flooded, and since no one could imagine anything worse than a collision at the juncture of two compartments, she was labeled “unsinkable.”

APRIL 10, 1912. 7:00 P.M.

The “unsinkable” Titanic was launched at the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff on May 31, 1911. The next ten months were spent in fitting her out. She completed her trials on April 1, 1912, and arrived in Southampton on April 3. A week later she sailed for New York. Here is a reconstructed log of the main events of her maiden voyage:

APRIL 10, 1912

12 NOON. LEAVES SOUTHAMPTON DOCK; NARROWLY ESCAPES COLLISION WITH AMERICAN LINER  NEW YORK

7:00 P.M

STOPS AT CHERBOURG FOR PASSENGERS

9:00 P.M.

LEAVES CHERBOURG FOR QUEENSTOWN.

APRIL 11, 1912.

12:30 P.M. STOPS AT QUEENSTOWN FOR PASSENGERS AND MAIL. ONE CREWMAN DESERTS.

2:00 P.M.

LEAVES QUEENSTOWN FOR NEW YORK, CARRYING 1,316 PASSENGERS AND 891 CREW.

APRIL 14, 1912.

9:00 A.M.  CARONIA REPORTS ICE LATITUDE 42° N FROM LONGITUDE 49° TO 51° W.

1:42 P.M.

BALTIC REPORTS ICE LATITUDE 40° 51’ N, LONGITUDE 49° 52’ W.

1:45 P.M.

AMERIKA REPORTS ICE LATITUDE 41° 27’ N, LONGITUDE 50° 8’ W.

7:00 P.M.

TEMPERATURE 43°.

7:30 P.M.

TEMPERATURE 39°.

7:30 P.M.

CALIFORNIAN REPORTS ICE LATITUDE 42° 3’ N, LONGITUDE 49° 9’ W

9:00 P.M.

TEMPERATURE 33°.

9:30 P.M.

SECOND OFFICER LIGHTOLLER WARNS CARPENTER AND ENGINE ROOM TO WATCH FRESH WATER SUPPLY—MAY FREEZE UP; WARNS CROW’S NEST TO WATCH FOR ICE.

9:40 P.M.

MESABA REPORTS ICE LATITUDE 42° N TO 41° 25’ N, LONGITUDE 49° TO 50° 30’W.

10:00 P.M.

TEMPERATURE 32°.

10:30 P.M.

TEMPERATURE OF SEA DOWN TO 31°.

11:00 P.M.

CALIFORNIAN WARNS OF ICE, BUT CUT OFF BEFORE SHE GIVES LOCATION.

11:40 P.M.

COLLIDES WITH ICEBERG LATITUDE 41° 46’ N, LONGITUDE 50° 14’ W.

APRIL 15, 1912.

12:05 A.M. ORDERS GIVEN TO UNCOVER THE BOATS, MUSTER THE CREW AND PASSENGERS.

12:15 A.M.

FIRST WIRELESS CALL FOR HELP.

12:45 A.M.

FIRST ROCKET FIRED.

12:45 A.M.

FIRST BOAT, NO. 7, LOWERED.

1:40 A.M.

LAST ROCKET FIRED.

2:05 A.M.

LAST BOAT, COLLAPSIBLE D, LOWERED.

2:10 A.M.

LAST WIRELESS SIGNALS SENT.

2:L8 A.M.

LIGHTS FAIL.

2:20 A.M.

SHIP FOUNDERS.

3:30 A.M.

CARPATHIA’S ROCKETS SIGHTED BY BOATS

4:10 A.M.

FIRST BOAT, NO. 2, PICKED UP BY  CARPATHIA

8:30 A.M.

LAST BOAT, NO. 12, PICKED UP.

8:50 A.M.

CARPATHIA HEADS FOR NEW YORK WITH 705 SURVIVORS.

So much for the basic facts. Beyond these, much is a mystery. Probably nothing will ever equal the Titanic for the number of unanswered questions she left behind. For instance—

How many lives were lost? Some sources say 1,635 … the American Inquiry, 1,517 … the British Board of Trade, 1,503 … the British Enquiry, 1,490. The British Board of Trade figure seems most convincing, less Fireman J. Coffy, who deserted at Queenstown.

How did various people leave the ship? Nearly every woman survivor who was asked replied firmly, “In the last boat.” Obviously, all these women didn’t go in the same boat, yet to question the point is like questioning a lady’s age—one simply doesn’t do it. Careful sifting of the testimony at the British and American hearings shows pretty clearly how the ship was abandoned, but even here there’s conflicting evidence. At the British Enquiry each witness was asked how many people were lowered in his lifeboat. The minimum estimates were then added. The results show a good deal of wishful thinking:

Lowered in the boats according to minimum estimates of survivors

Lowered in the boats according to actual figures on those saved

Crew

107

139

Men passengers

43

119

Women and children

704

393

TOTAL

854

651

In short, about 70 percent more men and 45 percent fewer women went in the boats than even the most conservative survivors estimated. Plus the fact that the boats pulled away with 25 percent fewer people than estimated.

What time did various incidents happen? Everyone agrees that the Titanic hit the iceberg at 11:40 P.M. and sank at 2:20 A.M.—but there’s disagreement on nearly everything that happened in between. The times given in this book are the honest estimates of people intimately involved, but they are far from foolproof. There was simply too much pressure. Mrs. Louis M. Ogden, passenger on the Carpathia, offers a good example. At one point, while helping some survivors get settled, she paused long enough to ask her husband the time. Mr. Ogden’s watch had stopped, but he guessed it was 4:30 P.M. Actually, it was only 9:30 in the morning. They were both so engrossed, they had lost all track of time.

What did different people say? There are no reconstructed conversations in this book. The words quoted are given exactly as people remembered them being spoken. Yet there is margin for error. The same conversations are often reported with slight variations. For instance, there are at least four versions of the exchange between Captain Rostron and Fourth Officer Boxhall as Boat 2 edged alongside the Carpathia. The gist is always the same, but the words vary slightly.

What did the band play? The legend is, of course, that the band went down playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” Many survivors still insist this was so, and there’s no reason to doubt their sincerity. Others maintain the band played only ragtime. One man says he clearly remembers the band in its last moments, and they were not playing at all. In this maze of conflicting evidence, Junior Wireless Operator Harold Bride’s story somehow stands out. He was a trained observer, meticulously accurate, and on board to the last. He clearly recalled that, as the Boat Deck dipped under, the band was playing the Episcopal hymn “Autumn.”

Did a man get off dressed as a woman? While material was being gathered for this book, four First Class passengers were specifically named as the famous man who escaped in woman’s clothes. There is not one shred of evidence that any of these men were guilty, and considerable evidence to the contrary. For instance, investigation suggests that one was the target of a vindictive reporter shoved aside while trying for an interview. Another, prominent in local politics, was the victim of opposition mudslinging. Another was the victim of society gossip; he did happen to leave the Titanic before his wife. In the search for bigger game, no one bothered about Third Class passenger Daniel Buckley, who freely acknowledged that he wore a woman’s shawl over his head. He was only a poor, frightened Irish lad, and nobody was interested.

The answer to all these Titanic riddles will never be known for certain. The best that can be done is to weigh the evidence carefully and give an honest opinion. Some will still disagree, and they may be right. It is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on all that happened the incredible night the Titanic went down.

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK IS REALLY about the last night of a small town. The Titanic was that big and carried that many people. To tell everything that happened is impossible; to piece even part of the picture together has required the help of literally hundreds of people.

Many of them were there. Some 63 survivors were located, and most of these came through handsomely. They are a stimulating mixture of rich and poor, passengers and crew. But all seem to have two qualities in common. First, they look marvelous. It is almost as though, having come through this supreme ordeal, they easily surmounted everything else and are now growing old with calm, tranquil grace. Second, they are wonderfully thoughtful. It seems almost as if, having witnessed man at his most generous, they scorn any trace of selfishness themselves.

Nothing seems to be too much trouble. Many of the survivors have contributed far beyond the scope of the book, just to help me get a better feeling of what it all was like.

For instance, Mrs. Noel MacFie (then the Countess of Rothes) tells how—while dining out with friends a year after the disaster—she suddenly experienced the awful feeling of cold and intense horror she always associated with the Titanic. For an instant she couldn’t imagine why. Then she realized the orchestra was playing “The Tales of Hoffmann,” the last piece of after-dinner music played that fateful Sunday night.

Mrs. George Darby, then Elizabeth Nye, similarly contributes an appealing extra touch when she tells how—as it grew bitterly cold early Sunday evening—she and some other Second Class passengers gathered in the dining room for a hymn-sing, ending with “For Those in Peril on the Sea.”

And Mrs. Katherine Manning—then Kathy Gilnagh—vividly conveys the carefree spirit of the young people in Third Class when she talks about the gay party in steerage that same last night. At one point a rat scurried across the room; the boys gave chase; and the girls squealed with excitement. Then the party was on again. Mrs. Manning’s lovely eyes still glow as she recalls the bagpipes, the laughter, the fun of being a pretty colleen setting out for America.

Most of the survivors, in fact, gave glimpses of shipboard life that have an almost haunting quality. You feel it when Mrs. G. J. Mecherle (then Mrs. Albert Caldwell) recalls the bustle of departing from Southampton … when Victorine Perkins (then Chansdowson) tells of the Ryersons’ 16 trunks … when Mr. Spencer Silverthorne remembers his pleasant dinner with the other buyers Sunday night … when Marguerite Schwarzenbach (then Frolicher) describes a quieter supper in her parents’ stateroom—she had been seasick and this was her first gingerly attempt to eat again.

The crew’s recollections have this haunting quality too. You feel it when Fireman George Kemish describes the gruff camaraderie of the boiler rooms … and when Masseuse Maud Slocombe tells of her desperate efforts to get the Turkish bath in apple-pie order. Apparently there was a half-eaten sandwich or empty beer bottle in every nook and corner. “The builders were Belfast men,” she explains cheerfully.

The atmosphere conveyed by these people somehow contributes as much as the facts and incidents they describe. I appreciate their help enormously.

Other survivors deserve all my thanks for the way they painstakingly reconstructed their thoughts and feelings as the ship was going down. Jack Ryerson searched his mind to recall how he felt as he stood to one side, while his father argued to get him into Boat 4. Did he realize his life was hanging in the balance? No, he didn’t think very much about it. He was an authentic 13-year-old boy.

Washington Dodge, Jr.’s chief impression was the ear-splitting roar of steam escaping from the Titanic’s huge funnels. He was an authentic five-year-old.

Third Class passengers Anna Kincaid (then Sjoblom), Celiney Decker (then Yasbeck), and Gus Cohen have also contributed far more than interesting narratives. They have been especially helpful in re-creating the atmosphere that prevailed in steerage—a long-neglected side of the story.

The crew too have provided much more than accounts of their experiences. The deep feeling in Baker Charles Burgess’ voice, whenever he discusses the Titanic, reveals the intense pride of the men who sailed her. The gracious courtesy of Stewards James Witter, F. Dent Ray, and Leo James Hyland points up the matchless service enjoyed by the passengers. And the thoroughness of men like Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe, Seaman A. Pugh, Baker Walter Belford, and Greaser Walter Hurst confirms Fireman Kemish’s boast that the crew were “the pick of Southampton.”

To these and many other Titanic survivors—like Mrs. Jacques Futrelle, Mrs. A. C. Williams, Harry Giles, and Herbert J. Pitman—go my heartfelt thanks, not just for the facts they supplied, but for their time and trouble.

The relatives of people on the Titanic have been equally cooperative. One letter recently made available by the descendant of a survivor illustrates how far they’ve gone. It is a letter written to the survivor himself, shortly after the accident. I have left out all names, but the act of making this data available shows a courage and honesty that effectively rebut the charge made in the letter:

Dear—: I have before me information stating that you attempted to force your way into one of the lifeboats … and that when ordered back by Major Butt, you slipped from the crowd, disappeared, and after a few moments were seen coming from your stateroom dressed in women’s clothing which was recognized as garments worn by your wife enroute.

I can’t understand how you can hold your head up and call yourself a man among men, knowing that every breath you draw is a lie. If your conscience continues to bother you after reading this, you had better come forward. There is no truer saying than the old one, “Confession is good for the soul.”

Yours truly,—.

Besides making letters available, many of the relatives have supplied fascinating information themselves. Especially, I want to thank Captain Smith’s daughter, Mrs. M. R. Cooke, for the charming recollection of her gallant father … Mrs. Sylvia Lightoller for her kindness in writing me about her late husband, Commander Charles Lightoller, who distinguished himself as recently as 1940 by taking his own boat over to Dunkirk … Mrs. Alfred Hess for making available the family papers of Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus … Mrs. Cynthia Fletcher for a copy of the letter written by her father, Hugh Woolner, on board the Carpathia … Mr. Fred G. Crosby and his son John for help in obtaining information on Captain Edward Gifford Crosby … and Mrs. Victor I. Minahan, for the interesting details about Dr. and Mrs. William Minahan and their daughter Daisy.

Where survivors and relatives couldn’t be found, I have relied on published material. The official transcripts of the Senate’s investigation and the British Court of Enquiry of course provide several thousand pages of fascinating testimony. Jack Thayer’s privately published reminiscences are an engagingly frank account. Dr. Washington Dodge’s privately printed speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco is equally interesting. Lawrence Beesley’s book, The Loss of the SS Titanic (Houghton Mifflin, 1912), contains a classic description worth anybody’s time. Archibald Gracie’s The Truth About the Titanic (Mitchell Kennerley, 1913) is invaluable for chasing down who went in what boat—Colonel Gracie was an indefatigable detective. Commander Lightoller’s Titanic and other Ships (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1935) mirrors his fine mixture of humor and bravery. Shan Bullock’s A “Titanic” Hero: Thomas Andrews, Shipbuilder (Norman-Remington, 1913) is a labor of love, piecing together the last hours of this wonderful man.

Good accounts by some survivors have also appeared from time to time in magazines and newspapers—the anniversary is apparently a godsend to the city desk. Typical—Jack Thayer’s story in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on April 14, 1932 … Fireman Louis Michelsen’s interview in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on May 15, 1955 … the engaging and lively account by Mrs. René Harris in the April 13, 1932, issue of Liberty magazine.

The contemporary press is less satisfactory. The New York Times of course did a brilliant job, but most of the New York papers were extremely unreliable. Better work was done by newspapers in towns where local citizens were involved—for instance the Milwaukee papers on the Crosbys and Minahans … the San Francisco papers on the Dodges … the Cedar Rapids Gazette on the Douglases. Abroad, the London Times was thorough if dull. Most fascinating, perhaps, were the papers in Belfast, where the Titanic was built, and those in Southampton, where so many of the crew lived. These were seafaring towns, and the coverage had to be good.

The contemporary popular magazines—Harper’s, Sphere, Illustrated London News—are mostly a rehash of press stories, but an occasional gem pops up like Henry Sleeper Harper’s description in the April 27, 1912, Harper’s, or Mrs. Charlotte Collyer’s fine account in the May 26, 1912, Semi-Monthly Magazine. The technical journals of the time offer better pickings—the 1911 special edition of the British magazine Shipbuilder, giving complete data on the Titanic’s construction; and similar material in the May 26, 1911, issue of Engineering and the July 1, 1911, issue of Scientific American.

The other actors in the drama—the people on the rescue ship Carpathia—have been as generous and cooperative as those on the Titanic. Mr. Robert H. Vaughan has been invaluable in helping piece together the details of that wild dash through the night. Mr. R. Purvis has been especially helpful in recalling the names of various Carpathia officers. Mrs. Louis M. Ogden has supplied a treasury of anecdotes—all the more valuable because she was one of the first on deck. Mrs. Diego Suarez (then Miss Evelyn Marshall) contributed a vivid picture of the scene as the Titanic’s boats edged alongside.

There is not much published material about the Carpathia, but Captain Sir Arthur H. Rostron’s book, Home from the Sea (Macmillan, 1931), contains an excellent account. His testimony at the United States and British hearings is also valuable, and the same goes for the testimony of Wireless Operator Harold Thomas Cottam.

In addition to the people on the Titanic and Carpathia, certain others contributed valuable help in preparing this book. Captain Charles Victor Groves has aided me greatly in piecing together the story of the Californian, on which he served as Third Officer. Charles Dienz, who at the time was maître of the Ritz Carlton on the Amerika, has given valuable information on how these oceangoing à la carte restaurants operated—data especially useful since only one of the Titanic’s restaurant staff was saved. Harland & Wolff has supplied marvelous photographs of the ship’s interior, Lloyd’s the Titanic’s last menu, and the Marconi Company extremely interesting information on wireless installations of the time. Helen Hernandez of Twentieth Century-Fox has been a gold mine of useful leads.

Finally, people much closer to me personally deserve a special word of thanks. Mr. Ralph Whitney has suggested many useful sources. Mr. Harold Daw has contributed important research. Miss Virginia Martin has deciphered and typed reams of scribbled foolscap. My mother has done the kind of painful indexing and cross-checking that only a mother would be willing to do.

Passenger List

HERE IS THE WHITE Star Line’s final list of lost and saved, dated May 9, 1912. Those saved are in italics.

FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS

Allen, Miss Elizabeth Walton

Allison, Mr. H. J.

Allison, Mrs. H. J. and Maid

Allison, Miss L.

Allison, Master T. and Nurse

Anderson, Mr. Harry

Andrews, Miss Cornelia I.

Andrews, Mr. Thomas

Appleton, Mrs. E. D.

Artagaveytia, Mr. Ramon

Astor, Colonel J. J. and Manservant

Astor, Mrs. J. J. and Maid

Aubert, Mrs. N. and Maid

Barkworth, Mr. A. H.

Baumann, Mr. J.

Baxter, Mrs. James

Baxter, Mr. Quigg

Beattie, Mr. T.

Beckwith, Mr. R. L.

Beckwith, Mrs. R. L.

Behr, Mr. K. H.

Bishop, Mr. D. H.

Bishop, Mrs. D. H.

Bjornstrom, Mr. H.

Blackwell, Mr. Stephen Weart

Blank, Mr. Henry

Bonnell, Miss Caroline

Bunnell, Miss Lily

Borebank, Mr. J. J.

Bowen, Miss

Bowerman, Miss Elsie

Brady, Mr. John B.

Brandeis, Mr. E.

Brayton, Mr. George

Brewe, Dr. Arthur Jackson

Brown, Mrs. J. J.

Brown, Mrs. J. M.

Bucknell, Mrs. W. and Maid

Butt, Major Archibald W.

Calderhead, Mr. E. P.

Candee, Mrs. Churchill

Cardoza, Mrs. J. W. M. and Maid

Cardoza, Mr. T. D. M. and Manservant

Carlson, Mr. Frank

Carran, Mr. F. M.

Carran, Mr. J. P.

Carter, Mr. William E.

Carter, Mrs. William E. and Maid

Carter, Miss Lucile

Carter, Master William T. and Manservant

Case, Mr. Howard B.

Cassebeer, Mrs. H. A.

Cavendish, Mr. T. W.

Cavendish, Mrs. T. W. and Maid

Chaffee, Mr. Herbert F.

Chaffee, Mrs. Herbert F.

Chambers, Mr. N. C.

Chambers, Mrs. N. C.

Cherry, Miss Gladys

Chevré, Mr. Paul

Chibnall, Mrs. E. M. Bowerman

Chisholm, Mr. Robert

Clark, Mr. Walter M.

Clark, Mrs. Walter M.

Clifford, Mr. George Quincy

Colley, Mr. E. P.

Compton, Mrs. A. T.

Compton, Miss S. P.

Compton, Mr. A. T., Jr.

Cornell, Mrs. R. G.

Crafton, Mr. John B.

Crosby, Mr. Edward G.

Crosby, Mrs. Edward G.

Crosby, Miss Harriet

Cummings, Mr. John Bradley

Cummings, Mrs. John Bradley

Daly, Mr. P. D.

Daniel, Mr. Robert W.

Davidson, Mr. Thornton

Davidson, Mrs. Thornton

de Villiers, Mrs. B.

Dick, Mr. A. A.

Dick, Mrs. A. A.

Dodge, Dr. Washington

Dodge, Mrs. Washington

Dodge, Master Washington

Douglas, Mrs. F C.

Douglas, Mr. W. D.

Douglas, Mrs. W. D. and Maid

Dulles, Mr. William C.

Earnshew, Mrs. Boulton

Endres, Miss Caroline

Eustis, Miss E. M.

Evans, Miss E.

Flegenheim, Mrs. A.

Flynn, Mr. J. I.

Foreman, Mr. B. L.

Fortune, Mr. Mark.

Fortune, Mrs. Mark

Fortune, Miss Ethel

Fortune, Miss Alice

Fortune, Miss Mabel

Fortune, Mr. Charles

Franklin, Mr. T. P.

Frauenthal, Mr. T. G.

Frauenthal, Dr. Henry W.

Frauenthal, Mrs. Henry W.

Frolicher, Miss Marguerite

Futrelle, Mr. J.

Futrelle, Mrs. J.

Gee, Mr. Arthur

Gibson, Mrs. L.

Gibson, Miss D.

Giglio, Mr. Victor

Goldenberg, Mr. S. L.

Goldenberg, Mrs. S. L.

Goldschmidt, Mrs. George B.

Gordon, Sir Cosmo Duff

Gordon, Lady Duff and Maid

Gracie, Colonel Archibald

Graham, Mr.

Graham, Mrs. William G.

Graham, Miss Margaret

Greenfield, Mrs. L. D.

Greenfield, Mrs. W. B.

Guggenheim, Mr. Benjamin

Harder, Mr. George A.

Harder, Mrs. George A.

Harper, Mr. Henry Sleeper and Manservant

Harper, Mrs. Henry Sleeper

Harris, Mr. Henry B.

Harris, Mrs. Henry B.

Harrison, Mr. W. H.

Haven, Mr. H.

Hawksford, Mr. W. J.

Hays, Mr. Charles M.

Hays, Mrs. Charles M. and Maid

Hays, Miss Margaret

Head, Mr. Christopher

Hilliard, Mr. Herbert Henry

Hipkins, Mr. W. E.

Hippach, Mrs. Ida S.

Hippach, Miss Jean

Hogeboom, Mrs. John C.

Holverson, Mr. A. O.

Holverson, Mrs. A. O.

Hoyt, Mr. Frederick M.

Hoyt, Mrs. Frederick M.

Holt, Mr. W. F.

Isham, Miss A. E.

Ismay, Mr. J. Bruce and Manservant

Jakob, Mr. Birnbaum

Jones, Mr. C. C.

Julian, Mr. H. F.

Kent, Mr. Edward A.

Kenyon, Mr. F. R.

Kenyon, Mr. F. R.

Kimball, Mr. E. N.

Kimball, Mrs. E. M.

Klaber, Mr. Herman

Lambert-Williams, Mr. Fletcher Fellows

Leader, Mrs. F. A.

Lewy, Mr. E. G.

Lindstroem, Mrs. J.

Lines, Mrs. Ernest H.

Lines, Miss Mary C.

Lingrey, Mr. Edward

Long, Mr. Milton C.

Longley, Miss Gretchen F.

Loring, Mr. J. H.

Madill, Miss Georgette Alexandra

Maguire, Mr. J. E.

Maréchal, Mr. Pierre

Marvin, Mr. D. W.

Marvin, Mrs. D. W.

McCaffry, Mr. T.

McCarthy, Mr. Timothy J.

McGough, Mr. J. R.

Meyer, Mr. Edgar J.

Meyer, Mrs. Edgar J.

Millet, Mr. Frank D.

Minahan, Dr. W. E.

Minahan, Mrs. W. E.

Minahan, Miss Daisy

Moch, Mr. Philip E.

Molsom, Mr. H. Markland

Moore, Mr. Clarence and Manservant

Natsch, Mr. Charles

Newell, Mr. A. W.

Newell, Miss Alice

Newell, Miss Madeline

Newsom, Miss Helen

Nicholson, Mr. A. S.

Omont, Mr, F.

Ostby, Mr. E. C.

Ostby, Miss Helen R.

Ovies, Mr. S.

Parr, Mr. M. H. W.

Partner, Mr. Austin

Payne, Mr. V.

Pears, Mr. Thomas

Pears, Mrs. Thomas

Penasco, Mr. Victor

Penasco, Mrs. Victor and Maid

Peuchen, Major Arthur

Porter, Mr. Walter Chamberlain

Potter, Mrs. Thomas, Jr.

Reuchlin, Mr. Jonkheer, J. G.

Rheims, Mr. George

Robert, Mrs. Edward S. and Maid

Roebling, Mr. Washington A., 2nd

Rolmane, Mr. C.

Rood, Mr. Hugh R.

Rosenbaum, Miss

Ross, Mr. J. Hugo

Rothes, the Countess of and Maid

Rothschild, Mr. M.

Rothschild, Mrs. M.

Rowe, Mr. Alfred

Ryerşon, Mr. Arthur

Ryerson, Mrs. Arthur and Maid

Ryerson, Miss Emily

Ryerson, Miss Susan

Ryerson, Master Jack

Saalfeld, Mr. Adolphe

Schabert, Mrs. Paul

Seward, Mr. Frederick K.

Shutes, Miss E. W.

Silverthorne, Mr. S. V.

Silvey, Mr. William B.

Silvey, Mrs. William B.

Simonius, Mr. Oberst Alfons

Sloper, Mr. William T.

Smart, Mr. John M.

Smith, Mr. J. Clinch

Smith, Mr. R. W.

Smith, Mr. L. P.

Smith, Mrs. L. P.

Snyder, Mr. John

Snyder, Mrs. John

Soloman, Mr. A. L.

Spedden, Mr. Frederick O.

Spedden, Mrs. Frederick O. and Maid

Spedden, Master R. Douglas and Nurse

Spencer, Mr. W. A.

Spencer, Mrs. W. A. and Maid

Stahelin, Dr. Max

Stead, Mr. W. T.

Steffanson, B. B.

Stejfanson, H. B.

Stehli, Mr. Max Frolicher

Stehli, Mrs. Max Frolicher

Stengel, Mr. C. E. H.

Stengel, Mrs. C. E. H.

Stewart, Mr. A. A.

Stone, Mrs. George M. and Maid

Straus, Mr. Isidor and Manservant

Straus, Mrs. Isidor and Maid

Sutton, Mr. Frederick

Swift, Mrs. Frederick Joel

Taussig, Mr. Emil

Taussig, Mrs. Emil

Taussig, Miss Ruth

Taylor, Mr. E. Z.

Taylor, Mrs. E. Z.

Thayer, Mr. J. B.

Thayer, Mrs. J. B. and Maid

Thayer, Mr. J. B., Jr.

Thome, Mr. G.

Thorite, Mrs. G.

Tucker, Mr. G. M., Jr.

Uruchurtu, Mr. M. R.

Van der Hoef, Mr.

Wyckoff Walker, Mr. W. Anderson

Warren, Mr. F. M.

Warren, Mrs. F. M.

Weir, Mr. J.

White, Mr. Percival W.

White, Mr. Richard F.

White, Mrs. J. Stuart and Maid and Manservant

Wick, Mr. George D.

Wick, Mrs. George D.

Wick, Miss Mary

Widener, Mr. George D. and Manservant

Widener, Mrs. George D. and Maid

Widener, Mr. Harry

Willard, Miss Constance

Williams, Mr. Duane

Williams, Mr. R. M., Jr.

Woolner, Mr. Hugh

Wright, Mr. George

Young, Miss Marie

SECOND CLASS PASSENGERS

Abelson, Mr. Samson

Abelson, Mrs. Hanna

Aldworth, Mr. C.

Andrew, Mr. Edgar

Andrew, Mr. Frank

Angle, Mr. William

Angle, Mrs.

Ashby, Mr. John

Baily, Mr. Percy

Baimbrigge, Mr. Chas. R.

Balls, Mrs. Ada E.

Banfield, Mr. Frederick J.

Bateman, Mr. Robert J.

Beane, Mr. Edward

Beane, Mrs. Ethel

Beauchamp, Mr. H. J.

Becker, Mrs. A. O. and three children

Beesley, Mr. Lawrence

Bentham, Miss Lilian W.

Berriman, Mr. William

Botsford, Mr. W. Hull

Bowenur, Mr. Solomon

Bracken, Mr. Jas. H.

Brito, Mr. Jose de

Brown, Miss Mildred

Brown, Mr. S.

Brown, Mrs.

Brown, Miss E.

Bryhl, Mr. Curt

Bryhl, Miss Dagmar

Buss, Miss Kate

Butler, Mr. Reginald

Byles, Rev. Thomas R. D.

Bystrom, Miss Karolina

Caldwell, Mr. Albert F.

Caldwell, Mrs. Sylvia

Caldwell, Master Alden G.

Cameron, Miss Clear

Carbines, Mr. William

Carter, Rev. Ernest C.

Carter, Mrs. Lillian

Chapman, Mr. John H.

Chapman, Mrs. Elizabeth

Chapman, Mr. Charles

Christy, Mrs. Alice

Christy, Miss Juli

Clarke, Mr. Charles V.

Clarke, Mrs. Ada Maria

Coleridge, Mr. R. C.

Collander, Mr. Erik

Collett, Mr. Stuart

Collyer, Mr. Harvey

Collyer, Mrs. Charlotte

Collyer, Miss Marjorie

Corbett, Mrs. Irene

Corey, Mrs. C. P.

Cotterill, Mr. Harry

Davies, Mr. Charles

Davis, Mrs. Agnes

Davis, Master John M.

Davis, Miss Mary

Deacon, Mr. Percy

del Carlo, Mr. Sebastian

del Carlo, Mrs.

Denbou, Mr. Herbert

Dibden, Mr. William

Doling, Mrs. Ada

Doling, Miss Elsie

Downton, Mr. William J.

Drachstedt, Baron von

Drew, Mr. James V.

Drew, Mrs. Lulu

Drew, Master Marshall

Duran, Miss Florentina

Duran, Miss Asimcion

Eitemiller, Mr. G. F.

Enander, Mr. Ingvar

Fahlstrom, Mr. Arne J.

Faunthrope, Mr. Harry

Faunthorpe, Mrs. Lizzie

Fillbrook, Mr. Charles

Fox, Mr. Stanley H.

Funk, Miss Annie

Fynney, Mr. Jos.

Gale, Mr. Harry

Gale, Mr. Shadrach

Garside, Miss Ethel

Gaskell, Mr. Alfred

Gavey, Mr. Lawrence

Gilbert, Mr. William

Giles, Mr. Edgar

Giles, Mr. Fred

Giles, Mr. Ralph

Gill, Mr. John

Gillespie, Mr. William

Givard, Mr. Hans K.

Greenberg, Mr. Samuel

Hale, Mr. Reginald

Hamalainer, Mrs. Anna and Infant

Harbeck, Mr. Wm. H.

Harper, Mr. John

Harper, Miss Nina

Harris, Mr. George

Harris, Mr. Walter

Hart, Mr. Benjamin

Hart, Mrs. Esther

Hart, Miss Eva

Herman, Miss Alice

Herman, Mrs. Jane

Herman, Miss Kate

Herman, Mr. Samuel

Hewlett, Mrs. Mary D.

Hickman, Mr. Leonard

Hickman, Mr. Lewis

Hickman, Mr. Stanley

Hiltunen, Miss Martha

Hocking, Mr. George

Hocking, Mrs. Elizabeth

Hocking, Miss Nellie

Hocking, Mr. Samuel J.

Hodges, Mr. Henry P.

Hoffman, Mr. and two children (Lolo and Louis)

Hold, Mrs. Annie

Hold, Mr. Stephen

Hood, Mr. Ambrose

Hosono, Mr. Masabumi

Howard, Mr. Benjamin

Howard, Mrs. Ellen T.

Hunt, Mr. George

Ilett, Miss Bertha

Jacobsohn, Mrs. Amy F.

Jacobsohn, Mr. Sidney S.

Jarvis, Mr. John D.

Jefferys, Mr. Clifford

Jefferys, Mr. Ernest

Jenkin, Mr. Stephen

Jervan, Mrs. A. T.

Kantor, Mrs. Miriam

Kantor, Mr. Sehua

Karnes, Mrs. J. F.

Keane, Mr. Daniel

Keane, Miss Nora A.

Kelly, Mrs. F.

Kirkland, Rev. Charles L.

Kvillner, Mr. John Henrik

Lahtinen, Mrs. Anna

Lahtinen, Mr. William

Lamb, Mr. J. J.

Lamore, Mrs. Amelia

Laroche, Mr. Joseph

Laroche, Mrs. Juliet

Laroche, Miss Louise

Laroche, Miss Simonne

Lehman, Miss Bertha

Leitch, Miss Jessie

Levy, Mr. R. J.

Leyson, Mr. Robert W. N.

Lingan, Mr. John

Louch, Mr. Charles

Louch, Mrs. Alice Adela

Mack, Mrs. Mary

Malachard, Mr. Noel

Mallet, Mr. A.

Mallet, Mrs.

Mallet, Master A.

Mangiavacchi, Mr. Emilio

Mantvila, Mr. Joseph

Marshall, Mr.

Marshall, Mrs. Kate

Matthews, Mr. W. J.

Maybery, Mr. Frank H.

McCrae, Mr. Arthur G.

McCrie, Mr. James

McKane, Mr. Peter D.

Mellers, Mr. William

Mellinger, Mrs. Elizabeth and Child

Meyer, Mr. August

Milling, Mr. Jacob C.

Mitchell, Mr. Henry

Morawick, Dr. Ernest

Mudd, Mr. Thomas C.

Myles, Mr. Thomas F.

Nasser, Mr. Nicholas

Nasser, Mrs.

Nesson, Mr. Israel

Nicholls, Mr. Joseph C.

Norman, Mr. Robert D.

Nye, Mrs. Elizabeth

Otter, Mr. Richard

Oxenham, Mr. P. Thomas

Padro, Mr. Julian

Pain, Dr. Alfred

Pallas, Mr. Emilio

Parker, Mr. Clifford R.

Parrish, Mrs. L. Davis

Pengelly, Mr. Frederick

Pernot, Mr. Rene

Peruschitz, Rev. Jos. M.

Phillips, Mr. Robert

Phillips, Miss Alice

Pinsky, Miss Rosa

Ponesell, Mr. Martin

Portaluppi, Mr. Emilio

Pulbaun, Mr. Frank

Quick, Mrs. Jane

Quick, Miss Vera W.

Quick, Miss Phyllis

Reeves, Mr. David

Renouf, Mr. Peter H.

Renouf, Miss Lillie

Reynolds, Miss E.

Richard, Mr. Emile

Richards, Mrs. Emily

Richards, Master William

Richards, Master George

Ridsdale, Miss Lucy

Rogers, Mr. Harry

Rogers, Miss Selina

Rugg, Miss Emily

Sedgwick, Mr. C. F. W.

Sharp, Mr. Percival

Shelley, Mrs. Imanita

Silven, Miss Lyyli

Sincook, Miss Maude

Sinkkenen, Miss Anna

Sjostedt, Mr. Ernest À.

Slayter, Miss H. M.

Slemen, Mr. Richard J.

Smith, Mr. Augustus

Smith, Miss Marion

Sobey, Mr. Hayden

Stanton, Mr. S. Ward

Stokes, Mr. Phillip J.

Swane, Mr. George

Sweet, Mr. George

Toomey, Miss Ellen

Trant, Miss Jessie

Tronpiansky, Mr. Moses A.

Troutt, Miss E. Celia

Turpin, Mrs. Dorothy

Turpin, Mr. William J.

Veale, Mr. James

Walcroft, Miss Nellie

Ware, Mrs. Florence L.

Ware, Mr. John James

Ware, Mr. William J.

Watt, Miss Bertha

Watt, Mrs. Bessie

Webber, Miss Susie

Weisz, Mr. Leopold

Weisz, Mrs. Matilda

Wells, Mrs. Addie

Wells, Miss J.

Wells, Master Ralph

West, Mr. E. Arthur

West, Mrs. Ada

West, Miss Barbara

West, Miss Constance

Wheadon, Mr. Edward

Wheeler, Mr. Edwin

Wilhelms, Mr. Charles

Williams, Mr. C.

Wright, Miss Marion

Yrois, Miss H.

THIRD CLASS PASSENGERS

BRITISH SUBJECTS EMBARKED AT SOUTHAMPTON

Abbott, Eugene

Abbott, Rosa

Abbott, Rossmore

Abbing, Anthony

Adams, J.

Aks, Filly

Aks, Leah

Alexander, William

Allen, William

Allum, Owen G.

Badman, Emily

Barton, David

Beavan, W. T.

Billiard, A. van

Billiard, James (child)

Billiard, Walter (child)

Bing, Lee

Bowen, David

Braund, Lewis

Braund, Owen

Brocklebank, William

Cann, Ernest

Carver, A.

Celotti, Francesco

Chip, Chang

Christmann, Emil

Cohen, Gurshon

Cook, Jacob

Corn, Harry

Coutts, Winnie

Coutts, William (child)

Coutts, Leslie (child)

Coxon, Daniel

Crease, Ernest James

Cribb, John Hatfield

Cribb, Alice

Dahl, Charles

Davies, Evan

Davies, Alfred

Davies, John

Davis, Joseph

Davison, Thomas H.

Davison, Mary

Dean, Mr. Bertram F.

Dean, Mrs. Hetty

Dean, Bertram (child)

Dean, Vera (infant)

Dennis, Samuel

Dennis, William

Derkings, Edward

Dowdell, Elizabeth

Drapkin, Jenie

Dugemin, Joseph

Elsbury, James

Emanuel, Ethel (child)

Everett, Thomas J.

Foo, Choong

Ford, Arthur

Ford, Margaret

Ford, Miss D. M.

Ford, Mr. E. W.

Ford, M. W. T. N.

Ford, Maggie (child)

Franklin, Charles

Garfirth, John

Gilinski, Leslie

Godwin, Frederick

Goldsmith, Frank J.

Goldsmith, Emily A.

Goldsmith, Frank J. W.

Goodwin, Augusta

Goodwin, Lillian A.

Goodwin, Charles E.

Goodwin, William F. (child)

Goodwin, Jessie (child)

Goodwin, Harold (child)

Goodwin, Sidney (child)

Green, George

Guest, Robert

Harknett, Alice

Harmer, Abraham

Hee, Ling

Howard, May

Hyman, Abraham

Johnston, A. G.

Johnston, Mrs.

Johnston, William (child)

Johnston, Miss C. H. (child)

Johnson, Mr. A.

Johnson, Mr. W.

Keefe, Arthur

Kelly, James

Lam, Ali

Lam, Len

Lang, Fang

Leonard, Mr. L.

Lester, James

Ling, Lee

Lithman, Simon

Lobb, Cordelia

Lobb, William A.

Lockyer, Edward

Lovell, John

MacKay, George W.

Maisner, Simon

McNamee, Eileen

McNamee, Neal

Meanwell, Marian O.

Meek, Annie L.

Meo, Alfonso

Miles, Frank

Moor, Beile

Moor, Meier

Moore, Leonard C.

Morley, William

Moutal, Rahamin

Murdlin, Joseph

Nancarrow, W. H.

Niklasen, Sander

Nosworthy, Richard C.

Peacock, Alfred (infant)

Peacock, Treasteall

Peacock, Treasteall (child)

Pearce, Ernest

Peduzzi, Joseph

Perkin, John Henry

Peterson, Marius

Potchett, George

Rath, Sarah

Reed, James George

Reynolds, Harold

Risien, Emma

Risien, Samuel

Robins, Alexander

Robins, Charity

Rogers, William John

Rouse, Richard H.

Rush, Alfred George J.

Sadowitz, Harry

Sage, John

Sage, Annie

Sage, Stella

Sage, George

Sage, Douglas

Sage, Frederick

Sage, Dorothy

Sage, William (child)

Sage, Ada (child)

Sage, Constance (child)

Sage, Thomas (child)

Sather, Simon

Saundercock, W. H.

Sawyer, Frederick

Scrota, Maurice

Shellard, Frederick

Shorney, Charles

Simmons, John

Slocovski, Selman

Somerton, Francis W.

Spector, Woolf

Spinner, Henry

Stanley, Amy

Stanley, E. R. Mr.

Storey, T. Mr.

Sunderland, Victor

Sutehall, Henry

Theobald, Thomas

Thomson, Alex

Thorneycroft, Florence

Thorneycroft, Percival

Tomlin, Ernest P.

Torber, Ernest

Trembisky, Berk

Tunquist, W.

Ware, Frederick

Warren, Charles W.

Webber, James

Wilkes, Ellen

Willey, Edward

Williams, Harry

Williams, Leslie

Windelov, Einar

Wiseman, Philip

NON-BRITISH, EMBARKED AT SOUTHAMPTON

Abelseth, Karen

Abeiseth, Olaus

Abramson, August

Adahl, Mauritz

Adolf, Humblin

Ahlin, Johanna

Ahmed, Ali

Alhomaki, Ilmari

Ali, William

Anderson, Alfreda

Anderson, Erna

Anderson, Albert

Anderson, Anders

Anderson, Samuel

Anderson, Sigrid (child)

Anderson, Thor

Anderson, Carlo

Anderson, Ingeborg (child)

Anderson, Ebba (child)

Anderson, Sigvard (child)

Anderson, Ellis

Andersson, Ida Augusta

Andreason, Paul Edvin

Angheloff, Minko

Asplund, Carl (child)

Asplund, Charles

Asplund, Felix (child)

Asplund, Gustaf (child)

Asplund, Johan

Asplund, Lillian (child)

Asplund, Oscar (child)

Asplund, Selma

Arnold, Joseph

Arnold, Josephine

Aronsson, Ernest

Asim, Adola

Assam, Ali

Augustsan, Albert

Backstrom, Karl

Backstrom, Marie

Balkic, Cerin

Benson, John Viktor

Berglund, Ivar

Berkeland, Hans

Bjorklund, Ernst

Bostandyeff, Guentcho

Braf, Elin Ester

Brobek, Carl R.

Cacic, Grego

Cacic, Luka

Cacic, Maria

Cacic, Manda

Calie, Peter

Carlson, Carl R.

Carlson, Julius

Carlsson, August Sigfrid

Coelho, Domingos Fernardeo

Coleff, Fotio

Coleff, Peyo

Cor, Bartol

Cor, Ivan

Cor, Ludovik

Dahl, Mauritz

Dahlberg, Gerda

Dakic, Branko

Danbom, Ernest

Danbom, Gillber (infant)

Danbom, Sigrid

Danoff, Yoto

Dantchoff, Khristo

Delalic, Regyo

Denkoff, Mito

Dimic, Jovan

Dintcheff, Valtcho

Dyker, Adolf

Dyker, Elizabeth

Ecimovic, Joso

Edwardsson, Ģustaf

Eklunz, Hans

Ekstrom, Johan

Finote, Luigi

Fischer, Eberhard

Goldsmith, Nathan

Goncalves, Manoel E.

Gronnestad, Daniel D.

Gustafson, Alfred

Gustafson, Anders

Gustafson, Johan

Gustafsson, Gideon

Haas, Aloisia

Hadman, Oscar

Hagland, Ingvald O.

Hagland, Konrad R.

Hakkurainen, Pekko

Hakkurainen, Elin

Hampe, Leon

Hankonen, Eluna

Hansen, Claus

Hansen, Janny

Hansen, Henry Damgavd

Heininen, Wendla

Hendekovic, Ignaz

Henriksson, Jenny

Hervonen, Helga

Hervonen, Hildwe (child)

Hickkinen, Laina

Hillstrom, Hilda

Holm, John F. A.

Holten, Johan

Humblin, Adolf

Ilieff, Ylio

Ilmakangas, Ida

Ilmakangas, Pista

Ivanoff, Konio

Jansen, Carl

Jardin, Jose Netto

Jensen, Carl

Jensen, Hans Peter

Jensen, Svenst L.

Jensen, Nilho R.

Johannessen, Brent

Johannessen, Elias

Johansen, Nils

Johanson, Oscar

Johanson, Oscal L.

Johansson, Erik

Johansson, Gustaf

Johnson, Jakob A.

Johnson, Alice

Johnson, Harold

Johnson, Eleanora (infant)

Johnsson, Carl

Johnsson, Malkolm

Jonkoff, Lazor

Jonsson, Nielo H.

Jusila, Katrina

Jusila, Mari

Jusila, Erik

Jutel, Henrik Hansen

Kallio, Nikolai

Kalvig, Johannes H.

Karajic, Milan

Karlson, Einar

Karlson, Nils August

Kekic, Tido

Kink, Anton

Kink, Louise

Kink, Louise (child)

Kink, Maria

Kink, Vincenz

Klasen, Klas A.

Klasen, Hilda

Klasen, Gertrud (child)

Laitinen, Sofia

Laleff, Kristo

Landegren, Aurora

Larson, Viktor

Larsson, Bengt Edvin

Larsson, Edvard

Lefebre, Frances

Lefebre, Henry (child)

Lefebre, Ida (child)

Lefebre, Jeannie (child)

Lefebre, Mathilde (child)

Leinonen, Antti

Lindablom, August

Lindell, Edvard B.

Lindell, Elin

LindahJ, Agda

Lindqvist, Einar

Lulic, Nicola

Lundahl, John

Lundin, Olga

Lundstrom, Jan

Madsen, Fridjof

Maenpaa, Matti

Makinen, Kalle

Mampe, Leon

Marinko, Dmitri

Markoff, Marin

Melkebuk, Philemon

Messemacker, Guillaume

Messemacker, Emma

Midtsjo, Carl

Mikanen, John

Mineff, Ivan

Minkoff, Lazar

Mirko, Dika

Mitkoff, Mito

Moen, Sigurd H.

Moss, Albert

Mulder, Theo

Myhrman, Oliver

Naidenoff, Penko

Nankoff, Minko

Nedeco, Petroff

Nenkoff, Christo

Nieminen, Manta

Nilsson, August F.

Nilson, Berta

Nilson, Helmina

Nirva, Isak

Nyoven, Johan

Nyston, Anna

Odahl, Martin

Orman, Velin

Olsen, Arthur

Olsen, Carl

Olsen, Henry

Olsen, Ole M.

Olson, Elon

Olsson, John

Olsson, Elída

Oreskovic, Luka

Oreskovic, Maria

Oreskovic, Jeko

Osman, Mara

Pacruic, Mate

Pacruic, Tome

Panula, Eino

Panula, Ernesti

Panula, Juho

Panula, Maria

Panula, Sanni

Panula, Urhu (child)

Panula, William (infant)

Pasic, Jakob

Pentcho, Petroff

Paulsson, Alma C.

Paulsson, Gosta (child)

Paulsson, Paul (child)

Paulsson, Stina (child)

Paulsson, Torborg (child)

Pavlovic, Stefo

Pekonemi, E.

Pelsmaker, Alfons de

Peltomaki, Nikolai

Person, Ernest

Peterson, Johan

Petersson, Ellen

Petranec, Matilda

Petterson, Olaf

Plotcharsky, Vasil

Radeff, Alexandre

Rintamaki, Matti

Rosblom, Helene

Rosblom, Salli (child)

Rosblom, Viktor

Rummstvedt, Kristian

Salander, Carl

Saljilsvik, Anna

Salonen, Werner

Sandman, Johan

Sandstrom, Agnes

Sandstrom, Beatrice (child)

Sandstrom, Margretha (child)

Sdycoff, Todor

Sheerlinck, Jean

Sihvola, Antti

Sivic, Husen

Sjoblom, Anna

Skoog, Anna

Skoog, Carl (child)

Skoog, Harald (child)

Skoog, Mabel (child)

Skoog, Margret (child)

Skoog, William

Slabenoff, Petco

Smiljanic, Mile

Sohole, Peter

Solvang, Lena Jacobsen

Sop, Jules

Staneff, Ivan

Stoytcho, Mihoff

Stoyehoff, Ilia

Strandberg, Ida

Stranden, Jules

Strilic, Ivan

Strom, Selma (child)

Svensen, Olaf

Svensson, Johan

Svensson, Coverin

Syntakoff, Stanko

Tikkanen, Juho

Todoroff, Lalio

Tonglin, Gunner

Turcin, Stefan

Turgo, Anna

Twekula, Hedwig

Uzelas, Jovo

Waelens, Achille

Van Impe, Catharine (child)

Van Impe, Jacob

Van Impe, Rosalie

Van der Planke, Augusta

Vander

Van der Planke, Emilie Vander

Van der Planke, Jules Vander

Van der Planke, Leon Vander

Van der Steen, Leo

Van de Velde, Joseph

Van de Walle, Nestor

Vereruysse, Victor

Vestrom, Huld A. A.

Vook, Janko

Wende, Olof Edvin

Wennerstrom, August

Wenzel, Zinhart

Widegrin, Charles

Wiklund, Karl F.

Wiklund, Jacob A.

Wirz, Albert

Wittenrongel, Camille

Zievens, Rene

Zimmermann, Leo

EMBARKED AT CHERBOURG

Assaf, Marian

Attala, Malake

Baclini, Latifa

Baclini, Maria

Baclini, Eugene

Baclini, Helene

Badt, Mohamed

Banoura, Ayout

Barbara, Catherine

Barbara, Saude

Betros, Tannous

Boulos, Hanna

Boulos, Sultani

Boulos, Nourelain

Boulos, Akar (child)

Banous, Elias

Caram, Joseph

Caram, Maria

Chabini, Georges

Chehab, Emir Farres

Chronopoulos, Apostolos

Chronopoulos, Demetrios

Dibo, Elias

Drazenovie, Josip

Elias, Joseph

Elias, Joseph

Fabini, Leeni

Fat-ma, Muslmani

Gerios, Assaf

Gerios, Youssef

Gerios, Youssef

Gheorgheff, Stanio

Hanna, Mansour

Jean Nassr, Saade

Johann, Markim

Joseph, Mary

Karun, Franz

Karun, Anna (child)

Kassan, M. Housseing

Kassem, Fared

Kassein, Hassef

Khalil, Betros

Khalil, Zahie

Kraeff, Thodor

Lemberopoulos, Peter

Malinoff, Nicola

Meme, Hanna

Monbarek, Hanna

Moncarek, Omine

Moncarek, Gonios (child)

Moncarek, Halim (child)

Moussa, Mantoura

Naked, Said

Naked, Waika

Naked, Maria

Nasr, Mustafa

Nichan, Krikorian

Nicola, Jamila

Nicola, Elias (child)

Novel, Mansouer

Orsen, Sirayanian

Ortin, Zakarian

Peter, Catherine Joseph

Peter, Mike

Peter, Anna

Rafoul, Baccos

Raibid, Razi

Saad, Amin

Saad, Khalil

Samaan, Hanna

Samaan, Elias

Samaan, Youssef

Sarkis, Mardirosian

Sarkis, Lahowd

Seman, Betros (child)

Shedid, Daher

Sleiman, Attalla

Stankovic, Jovan

Tannous, Thomas

Tannous, Daler

Thomas, Charles

Thomas, Tamin

Thomas, Assad (infant)

Thomas, John

Tonfik, Nahli

Torfa, Assad

Useher, Paulner

Vagil, Adele Jane

Vartunian, David

Vassilios, Catavelas

Wazli, Yousif

Weller, Abi

Yalsevae, Ivan

Yazbeck, Antoni

Yazbeck, Salini

Youssef, Brahim

Youssef, Hanne

Youssef, Maria (child)

Youssef, Georges (child)

Zabour, Tamini

Zabour, Hileni

Zakarian, Maprieder

EMBARKED AT QUEENSTOWN

Barry, Julia

Bourke, Catherine

Bourke, John

Bradley, Bridget

Buckley, Daniel

Buckley, Katherine

Burke, Jeremiah

Burke, Mary

Burns, Mary

Canavan, Mary

Carr, Ellen

Car, Jeannie

Chartens, David

Cannavan, Pat

Colbert, Patrick

Conlin, Thos. H.

Connaghton, Michel

Connors, Pat

Conolly, Kate

Conolly, Kate

Daly, Marcella

Daly, Eugene

Devanoy, Margaret

Dewan, Frank

Dooley, Patrick

Doyle, Elin

Driscoll, Bridget

Emmeth, Thomas

Farrell, James

Foley, Joseph

Foley, William

Flynn, James

Flynn, John

Fox, Patrick

Gallagher, Martin

Gilnagh, Katie

Glynn, Mary

Hagardon, Kate

Hagarty, Nora

Hart, Henry

Healy, Nora

Horgan, John

Hemming, Norah

Henery, Delia

Jenymin, Annie

Kelly, James

Kelly, Annie K.

Kelly, Mary

Kerane, Andy

Kennedy, John

Kilgannon, Thomas

Kiernan, John

Kiernan, Phillip

Lane, Patrick

Lemon, Denis

Lemon, Mary

Linehan, Michel

Madigan, Maggie

Mahon, Delia

Mannion, Margareth

Mangan, Mary

McCarthy, Katie

McCoy, Agnes

McCoy, Alice

McCoy, Bernard

McCormack, Thomas

McDermott, Delia

McElroy, Michel

McGovern, Mary

McGowan, Katherine

McGowan, Annie

McMahon, Martin

Mechan, John

Meeklave, Elite

Moran, James

Moran, Bertha

Morgan, Daniel J.

Morrow, Thomas

Mullens, Katie

Mulvihill, Bertha

Murphy, Norah

Murphy, Mary

Murphy, Kate

Naughton, Hannah

Nemagh, Robert

O’Brien, Denis

O’Brien, Thomas

O’Brien, Hannah

O’Connell, Pat D.

O’Connor, Maurice

O’Connor, Pat

O’Donaghue, Bert

O’Dwyer, Nellie

O’Keefe, Pat

O’Leary, Norah

O’Neill, Bridget

O’Sullivan, Bridget

Peters, Katie

Rice, Margaret

Rice, Albert (child)

Rice, George (child)

Rice, Eric (child)

Rice, Arthur (child)

Rice, Eugene (child)

Riordan, Hannah

Ryan, Patrick

Ryan, Edw.

Sadlier, Matt

Scanlan, James

Shaughnesay, Pat

Shine, Ellen

Smyth, Julian

Tobin, Roger

The Night Lives On

Walter Lord

For

J. Frank Supplee IV

CONTENTS

I. Unsinkable Subject

II. What’s in a Name?

III. Legendary from the Start

IV. Had Ships Gotten Too Big for Captain Smith?

V. “Our Coterie”

VI. “Everything Was Against Us”

VII. The Gash

VIII. “I Was Very Soft the Day I Signed That”

IX. What Happened to the Goodwins?

X. Shots in the Dark

XI. The Sound of Music

XII. “She’s Gone”

XIII. “The Electric Spark”

XIV. “A Certain Amount of Slackness”

XV. Second-guessing

XVI. Why Was Craganour Disqualified?

XVII. Unlocking the Ocean’s Secret

Gleanings from the Testimony

Acknowledgments and Selected Sources

Index

CHAPTER I

Unsinkable Subject

JUST 20 MINUTES SHORT of midnight, April 14, 1912, the great new White Star Liner Titanic, making her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, had a rendezvous with ice in the calm, dark waters of the North Atlantic. She brushed the berg so gently that many on board didn’t notice it, but so lethally that she was instantly doomed.

By midnight Captain Edward J. Smith knew the worst, and ordered the lifeboats filled and lowered. There were distressingly few of these, enough for only a third of the ship’s company. The rule was, of course, “Women and children first.” At 12:15 A.M. the Titanic sent her first distress call. At 12:45 she began firing rockets, for there was a light on the horizon, tantalizingly near. The light remained motionless.

On the Titanic, the ship’s bellboys—lads of 14 or 15—brought up loaves of bread for the lifeboats, now dropping one after another into the sea. Far below, the engineers kept the lights burning; topside, the band played cheerful music on the Boat Deck. The ship was noticeably down at the bow.

At 1:10, as Boat 1 pulled away, the water lapped the portholes just under the ship’s name. Thirty minutes later, as Collapsible C rowed off, the name had vanished into the sea, and the forward well deck was awash. The lights still burned, and the band still played.

By 2:05 the last boat had been launched, leaving 1,600 people stranded on the sloping decks. Richard N. Williams II, a 19-year-old First Class passenger, wandered into the main companionway on A Deck and idly watched the water creeping up the grand staircase. On the paneled wall nearby hung a handsomely framed chart, pins still in place, marking the Titanic’s daily progress across the Atlantic. The lights still burned, now with a reddish glow. The band probably played on, but no one is sure.

At 2:17 the Titanic slowly, almost majestically, stood on end. The lights blinked once and went out forever. Then came a thundering roar, as everything movable within the ship broke loose and plunged downward. The great hull itself sagged as though finally defeated. At 2:20 she settled back slightly and slipped beneath the sea. Over 1,500 people were lost in this, the greatest maritime disaster in history.

Understandably, the sinking of the Titanic was a sensation at the time. The morning after the rescue ship Carpathia reached New York with her pitiful load of 705 survivors, The New York Times devoted its first 12 pages to the story. But a single letter in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress gives a more vivid picture of the universal shock and grief than any number of newspaper pages. The letter is from a young naval officer, Alexander Macomb, to his mother. It is dated April 16, 1912, and describes what happened as he emerged from a pleasant evening at the theater….

The terrible news about the Titanic reached New York about 11 o’clock last night, and the scene on Broadway was awful. Crowds of people were coming out of the theaters, cafes were going full tilt, when the newsboys began to cry, “Extra! Extra! Titanic sunk with 1800 aboard!” You can’t imagine the effect of those words on the crowd. Nobody could realize what had happened, and when they did begin to understand, the excitement was almost enough to cause a panic in the theaters. Women began to faint and weep, and scores of people in evening clothes jumped into cabs and taxis and rushed to the offices of the White Star Line, where they remained all night waiting for news.

Understandable then, but there have been massive changes in the world since 1912. We don’t even cross the ocean the same way now, and two great wars have numbed us to casualty lists. Compared to the implications of a nuclear confrontation, the figures of “souls lost” in a shipwreck—any shipwreck—seem almost quaint. Given the world today, one might suppose that people would no longer be gripped by the Titanic. Not so. She has never been more with us than now.

The discovery of her hulk in September 1985 created a wave of excitement that seemed in sharp contrast to the silent gray ghost resting so peacefully on the ocean floor. My own connection with the Titanic is peripheral at best—and with the expedition that found her, it is nil—yet no less than 32 requests for interviews poured in from radio, television, and the press over the next ten days.

There seems no limit to the public’s fascination. In America every survivor now rates an obituary in The New York Times. Typical was the case of 90-year-old Ethel Beane, who died in Rochester, New York, in 1983. She had lived a blameless but utterly uneventful life. She hadn’t even told her Titanic experiences for 71 years. But she was nevertheless newsworthy—simply by being a survivor.

No story is too farfetched, as long as it bears the magic label “Titanic.” In London The Times recently reported that a Los Angeles businessman planned to build three replicas of the Titanic for $1.5 billion. Each would accommodate 600 passengers at $1,000 a day. Preposterous? Nevertheless, The Times featured the story on the front page. The editor knew that the Titanic is always news.

Over the years the ship has become an enduring favorite on stage and screen. She has been the locale for five major motion pictures and played an important part in many others. In 1976 she was the subject of an opera jointly produced by the Berlin Opera and the UCLA Fine Arts Productions. In 1983 she was “raised” from the Thames in an extravaganza at the London International Festival of Theatre.

Meanwhile on television she played a crucial role in Upstairs, Downstairs, the memorable series about the Bellamy family. Going down with the ship, “Lady Marjorie Bellamy” joined “Edward” and “Edith” of Noel Coward’s Cavalcade as probably the most famous of all the fictional victims of the disaster.

Gradually the Titanic has ceased to be merely a shipwreck; she has become a symbol. In Hitler’s Germany, Joseph Goebbels used her to portray English decadence and cowardice. In postwar Germany, the message was different, but the Titanic was still a symbol. This time the producers were drawing a parallel between the disaster and the decision to deploy Pershing missiles on German soil. Both were seen as examples of technology out of control. A single miscalculation—a momentary lapse in judgment—could bring appalling destruction.

Not surprisingly, the Titanic has also become a great favorite with political cartoonists. She is completely nonpartisan: since 1976 she has been used to depict the troubles of Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. In British cartoons both the ship and the iceberg have represented Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The lost liner, poised for her final plunge, even graced the cover of Punch in April 1975 as “England’s Glory.”

This continuing fascination has seen a boom in the price of Titanic memorabilia. Contemporary books and pamphlets costing less than a dollar in the 1950’s now routinely go for $45-$50. Recently a 1912 printed list of the Titanic’s passengers—with handwritten notations on where they lived and what happened to them—was sold at auction for $5,000, although no one seemed to know who drew up the list or why.

With the supply of original items running low, a lively industry has sprung up turning out new artifacts. Novelty stores do a brisk business selling “Titanic” belt buckles, key chains, and T-shirts. A prominent New York charity has been using replicas of the ship’s stationery as a direct-mail eye-catcher. There are even “Titanic” bumper stickers, put out by the Titanic Historical Society, which does a far greater service by reprinting rare publications that are of immense value to the serious student.

What is the hold of this long-lost liner? Why are people still so fascinated by her? First of all, the Titanic must surely be the greatest news story of modern times: the biggest ship in the world, proclaimed unsinkable, hits an iceberg on her maiden voyage and goes down, taking with her many of the best-known celebrities of the day.

Add to that glamour all those “if only’s”—if only she had paid more attention to the warnings she received…if only the last warning had even reached the bridge…if only the wireless operator hadn’t cut off one final attempt to reach her…if only she had sighted the ice a few seconds sooner, or a few seconds later…if only there had been enough lifeboats…if only the watertight bulkheads had gone one deck higher…if only that ship on the horizon had come…if only, if only.

The story has something for everyone. For nautical enthusiasts, it is the ultimate shipwreck. For moralists, there are all those sermons on overconfidence and self-sacrifice. For mystics, the omens are irresistible, from Morgan Robertson’s prophetic novel Futility of 1898 to presidential aide Archie Butt’s strangely foreboding letter assuring his sister-in-law, “If the old ship goes down, you’ll find my affairs in shipshape condition.”

The Titanic is also a trivia lover’s dream. What was the name of John Jacob Astor’s dog? (Kitty) Who led the band? (Wallace Hartley) Which smokestack was the dummy? (The fourth)

Above all, the Titanic entrances the social historian. She is such an exquisite microcosm of the Edwardian world, illuminating so perfectly the class distinctions that prevailed at the time. These distinctions remained sacred even as the ship was going down. One prominent passenger later complained that more First Class men might have been saved, if only steerage passengers hadn’t taken up so much room in what he called “the First Class boats.” It never occurred to him that the lifeboats, wherever located, might have been for everyone.

There were all too few boats anyhow, leading to a clash between two basic Edwardian rules of conduct. Should normal Class Precedence prevail, or the rule of “Women and children first”? The latter won out officially, but there were cases of both that night.

After the disaster there was a good deal of pondering about all this. Finally, the prestigious Nautical Magazine came up with the daring proposition that there should be boats for all, whatever their class. The same applied to wireless, even on ships engaged in the emigrant and coolie trades. “Even coolies are human,” the editors explained, “and as such are burdened with souls, also family ties, etc.”

The Titanic also gives a fascinating picture of post-Edwardian life at its more rarefied level. The damage claim filed by Mrs. Charlotte Cardeza of Philadelphia lists 14 trunks, 4 suitcases, 3 crates, and a medicine chest. Among other things, they contained 70 dresses, 10 fur coats, 38 large feather pieces, 22 hatpins to keep them in place, 91 pairs of gloves, and innumerable trifles to amuse her, like a Swiss music box in the shape of a bird.

The gentleman traveler was similarly burdened. Billy Carter, another fashionable Philadelphian, lost not only his 35-hp Renault motorcar, but 60 shirts, 15 pairs of shoes, two sets of tails, and 24 polo sticks. Even men of moderate means had a surfeit of luggage. Archie Butt, President Taft’s military aide, was on a trip of less than six weeks, yet he still needed seven trunks to carry his wardrobe.

Yet none of this is enough to explain the Titanic’s current grip on the public. Her unique attractions were always present in the story, but for over 40 years after the disaster, the ship lay more or less in limbo. From 1913 to 1955, not a single book was published on the subject. Then A Night to Remember appeared—it awakened some curiosity, but certainly not enough to account for the Titanic’s continuing appeal, which actually seems to be on the rise.

Partly, perhaps, the Titanic is the beneficiary of a new interest in all ocean liners. Now that they are gone, people have discovered them. A leisurely voyage seems so much more civilized than being sealed in a tube and shot across the sea.

But more important is the fact that America is currently on a “nostalgia binge.” The Titanic has come to stand for a world of tranquility and civility that we have somehow lost. Today life is hectic, prices are climbing, quality is falling, violence is everywhere. In contrast, 1912 looks awfully good—a happier world, where a shoulder of lamb cost 16 cents a pound.

In some ways we’re kidding ourselves. The shirt that cost only 23 cents in 1912 was often made by a child who got only $3.54 a week. Harold Bride, the Second Wireless Operator on the Titanic, made $20 a month. It would have taken all his pay for 18 years to cross the ocean in style.

And those days were violent, too. As we busily build barricades around the White House, it’s easy to forget that in 1912 former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot and wounded while running for a third term. TR was perhaps the most popular man in America, yet it didn’t save him from a would-be assassin.

There was social injustice then, too. To dramatize the struggle for women’s suffrage, Emily Davison died by throwing herself in front of the King’s horse during the 1913 running of the Derby.

But in one respect this period really was different. People might argue over how to right the world’s wrongs, but they were still sure the wrongs could be righted. In 1912 people had confidence. Now nobody is sure of anything, and the more uncertain we become, the more we long for a happier era when we felt we knew the answers. The Titanic symbolizes that era, or more poignantly, the end of it. The worse things get today, the more we think of her, and all that went down with her.

Whatever the explanation, there seems no limit to the thirst for fresh information—or to the number of eager researchers who stand ready to supply it. Many have carved out for themselves special niches in the story. A man in Wisconsin thinks that the Titanic was “under-ruddered,” meaning that the area of her rudder was too small. He has interesting comparison figures with the Mauretania and other liners. A retired editor in Toronto has become an expert on the ship’s watertight and pumping arrangements. He points out that by far the best pumps were in the two engine rooms, where they were never needed—one more ironic twist to the story. A boy in North Carolina is painstakingly putting the passengers in their proper staterooms. A Dutch researcher is fascinated by Fifth Officer Lowe and has been a real Sherlock Holmes in tracking down Lowe’s family.

The personalities on the Titanic offer an especially fertile field for investigation. A recent biography explores the life of Second Officer Lightoller, whose adventurous career included four shipwrecks and a heroic role at Dunkirk in 1940. A privately published labor of love traces the story of Lolo and Momon Navratil, the so-called “Titanic waifs.” Their father had kidnapped them from their mother, and was taking them to America under an assumed name to start a new life. He put them in the last lifeboat, stepped back, and went down with the ship. The children were too young to know who they were, and their identity remained a mystery for days.

The subjects range from premonitions before the disaster to the discovery of the Titanic’s grave 73 years later. Nothing is overlooked. One recent book even examines the catastrophe from the iceberg’s point of view.

One might think that would wind up the subject. Not at all. Scores of riddles remain; these pages explore a few of the most intriguing….

CHAPTER II

What’s in a Name?

“I NAME THIS SHIP ‘Titanic.’ May God bless her… and all who sail in her.” The words are uttered by a regal-looking lady, who then breaks a bottle of champagne against the bow of the great ship standing on the stocks. Slowly the vessel slides down the ways and into the sea, hailed by thousands of cheering spectators.

It is the opening scene of the film A Night to Remember, and it all seems so natural that one does not question its authenticity. We scarcely realize that the lady is never identified. Yet even the script is vague, referring to her merely as “A Lady.”

Who was this lady? Who did christen the Titanic? The answer is: no one. Amazingly enough, the White Star Line did not go in for the fancy christening ceremony that usually accompanies the launching of a great liner. “They just builds ’er and shoves ’er in,” explained a shipyard worker to an inquiring visitor at the time.

Well, not quite. While the ritual of the beribboned champagne bottle was missing, May 31, 1911, was anything but an ordinary day at Harland & Wolff, the sprawling Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was being built. The crowds began forming as early as 7:30 A.M., when the cross-channel steamer Duke of Argyll arrived from England, loaded with newspapermen and Distinguished Guests. It was, for once, a glorious day—not a cloud in the sky—and the men’s straw hats and the bright print dresses of the ladies made the occasion seem all the more festive.

By 11:00 special trams were rolling down Corporation Street toward the waterfront, packed with local spectators. The Harbour Commissioners had enclosed a section of the Albert Quay for those who cared to pay a few shillings for a good vantage point, and the enclosure was soon black with people. At 11:15 the railway steamer Slieve Bearnagh left the Queen’s Bridge jetty with another load of paying customers, to join the spectator fleet already gathering in the River Lagan.

But the men who actually built the Titanic—the 14,000 workers of Harland & Wolff—were more inclined to head for Spencer Basin. Here the grandstands were only stacks of coal and timber, but the view was good and the cost was nothing—an important consideration for a workforce that was paid £2 for a 49-hour week. And while today was indeed a holiday, it certainly wasn’t a paid holiday, any more than Christmas.

Nobody thought about that just now. Pride was everything. “A Masterpiece of Irish Brains and Industry,” proclaimed the Irish News and Belfast Morning News the following day. At the moment all eyes were turned on Slip No. 3, where the Titanic stood poised, her hull glistening under a fresh coat of black paint. Above the huge gantry encasing the vessel flew the British Red Ensign, the American Stars and Stripes, and a set of signal flags spelling out “Good Luck.”

Just before noon Lord Pirrie, the elderly Chairman of Harland & Wolff, began receiving his Distinguished Guests at the shipyard’s main offices on Queen’s Road. The owners’ party was led, of course, by Joseph Bruce Ismay, Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line. His father, Thomas Ismay, had been a towering figure—the man who built White Star from scratch—which might help explain why the son struck some people as autocratic and overly assertive.

Numerically, the Ismay family dominated the owner’s party, but only numerically. The truly dominating figure in the group was the great American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, whose fierce, piercing glance could wither any target. In 1902 Morgan had formed the International Mercantile Marine, a huge shipping trust which now controlled the White Star Line. The Titanic flew the British flag, but her ownership was about as British as U.S. Steel, another Morgan trust.

Promptly at noon Lord Pirrie led his guests from the offices to the observation stands a few yards away. These had been hastily hammered together and draped with bunting for the occasion. The owner’s party filed into a small stand alongside the Titanic’s port bow. Other guests joined the press, now 90 strong, in the main stand directly in front of the liner’s bow.

His guests seated, Pirrie headed off for a final inspection of the launching gear. He sported a jaunty yachting cap, a fittingly festive touch for the occasion. Today marked not only the launching of the largest ship in the world; it was also his and Lady Pirrie’s birthday.

At 12:05 P.M. a red signal flag was hoisted on the Titanic’s sternpost, warning the tugs and spectator fleet to stand clear. At 12:10 a rocket was fired, announcing five minutes to go. The pounding of hammers on a dozen last-minute chores ceased. The buzz of conversation in the stands tapered off. The great crowds in the Albert Quay enclosure, at Spencer Basin, in the harbor craft, and on the wharfs and quays all fell silent, as the final minutes ticked away.

At 12:14 another rocket was fired, but for long seconds the Titanic still seemed to stand motionless on the stocks. The workers on deck were the first to sense a trace of movement, and they began to cheer. Those on shore took it up, as they too could now see the ship coming to life. A bedlam of whistles added to the din, along with the crack of bracing timbers and the jangle of anchor chains, meant to slow the vessel down once she was afloat. Slowly gathering momentum, she glided smoothly down the ways, lubricated with 3 tons of soft soap, 15 tons of tallow, and 5 tons of tallow mixed with train oil. At 12:15:02—just 62 seconds after she began to move—the Titanic was proudly afloat.

While a fleet of tugs nudged her toward the fittingout berth, Lord Pirrie hosted an intimate luncheon at the shipyard for the Ismay party and Mr. Morgan. Their day was capped by a special treat: at 2:30 they were whisked to the Titanic’s sister ship Olympic, which had just completed her trials and was lying in Belfast Lough. She would take the Distinguished Guests back to England, giving them a preview of life on the great new vessel they had just seen launched—except that the Titanic would be even more magnificent.

Meanwhile most of the dignitaries present at the launching enjoyed a gala luncheon at Belfast’s Grand Central Hotel. Besides port officials and visiting firemen, this group included the engineers, naval architects, and technical experts whose expertise enabled the great Edwardian Captains of Industry to put together their grand schemes and designs. These technicians were both underpaid and overworked, and it was a positive bargain if Harland & Wolff could keep them happy with an occasional luncheon of filet de boeuf washed down with Chateâu Larose 1888, as was the case today.

Finally, there was the press. They, too, were given a special luncheon at the Grand Central Hotel, this one hosted by the White Star Line. Speaking for the line, Mr. J. Shelley thanked the journalists for their support, and pointed out that shipbuilding was doing more good for the Anglo-Saxon race than all the chancelleries of Europe combined.

“Hear! Hear!” cried the newsmen, and in a flowery response, the well-known maritime writer Frank T. Bullen praised the modesty of Harland & Wolff in eschewing ceremonial frills like bands and flag-waving. That was “the British way,” he noted approvingly.

The proceedings concluded with the entire press corps sending a telegram to Lord Pirrie on the Olympic, wishing him and Lady Pirrie a happy birthday, and congratulating them both on the successful trials of the Olympic and launch of the Titanic.

There was only one sour note. The editor of the Irish News and Belfast Morning News—evidently a mythologist—couldn’t understand why the ship was named Titanic. The Titans, he pointed out in an editorial the following morning, were a mythological race who waged war against Zeus himself to their ultimate ruin. “He smote the strong and daring Titans with thunderbolts; and their final abiding place was in some limbo beneath the lowest depths of the Tartarus.” It seemed strange to name this great new ship after a race that “symbolized the vain efforts of mere strength to resist the ordinances of the more ‘civilized’ order established by Zeus, their triumphant enemy.”

The paper finally decided, a little lamely, that the Titanic had been apparently named in the spirit of contradiction, that she represented the ultimate triumph of order and modern civilization, and that her builders and owners really stood for a later race of mythological giants who were wiser than their Titanic fathers. In other words, the builders and owners knew best, and they must have had some good reason for this seemingly inappropriate name.

CHAPTER III

Legendary from the Start

THE BUILDING OF THE Titanic has created almost as many legends as her sinking. Not long after A Night to Remember was published, several letters arrived from Ireland explaining the “real” reason why the ship sank. The trouble could be traced, these letters said, to the official number—3909 04—given the Titanic by those Ulstermen who built her. Held up to a mirror, these figures spell NO POPE. True enough, provided one fudges the “4” a little.

But a quick check of the records destroys the theory. The yard number assigned to the Titanic by Harland &Wolff was “401,” and her Board of Trade official number was “131,428.” Viewed in a mirror, neither of these numbers says anything at all.

Then there is the legend that the Titanic was advertised as “unsinkable.” The press, captivated by the ironical implications, has faithfully repeated the story through the years. Actually, the White Star ads never made such a claim about either the Titanic or her sister ship Olympic. All promotion almost invariably used the simple slogan “Largest and finest steamers in the world.”

This bit of debunking has now led the inevitable band of Titanic revisionists to go much further. “I can find no contemporary evidence that the Titanic was regarded as virtually unsinkable until after she had sunk,” wrote journalist Philip Howard in the London Times in 1981. “With hindsight we have created the myth because it makes a more dramatic metaphor.”

He should have looked a little harder. On June 1, 1911, along with its account of the Titanic’s launch, the Irish News and Belfast Morning News ran a follow-up story headlined TITANIC DESCRIBED. This included a detailed account of the ship’s 16 watertight compartments and the electrically controlled doors that connected them. “In the event of an accident, or at any time when it may be considered advisable, the captain can, by simply moving an electric switch, instantly close the doors throughout, practically making the vessel unsinkable.”

Later that June the prestigious magazine Shipbuilder also described these miracle doors, explaining how they could be closed by merely flicking a switch on the bridge, making the ship “practically unsinkable.”

Captain Smith himself believed it. As he explained when he brought over the much smaller Adriatic in 1906:

I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.

So the “unsinkability” of the Titanic was not the product of some slick advertising copywriter, nor was it a myth later invented to improve the story. It was the considered opinion of the experts at the time, and it worked its greatest mischief neither before nor after the event, but during the hours of agonizing uncertainty while the tragedy was still unfolding.

“We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe that the boat is unsinkable,” declared Philip A. S. Franklin, Vice-President of the White Star Line in New York, as the first alarming reports began to drift in around 8 A.M. on April 15.

The Titanic could certainly float two or three days, he elaborated around noon. Other experts seemed to agree. Captain Johnson of the American Liner St. Paul declared that it was practically impossible for the Titanic to sink, because her 15 bulkheads would keep her afloat indefinitely. Actually, the Titanic had by now been at the bottom of the sea a good 12 hours.

“I want to say this,” Franklin later testified at the U.S. Senate investigation. “During the entire day we considered the ship unsinkable, and it never entered our minds that there had been anything like a serious loss of life.”

How close to “unsinkable” really was the Titanic? Did she embody the latest engineering techniques? Was she as staunch as man could make her? Did she at least represent what we have now come to call “the state of the art”?

The answer is “No.” Far from being a triumph of safe construction, or the best that could be done with the technology available, the Titanic was the product of a trend the other way, a trend that for 50 years had seen one safety feature after another sacrificed for competitive reasons.

In 1858 a ship had been built that really did come close to being unsinkable. This was the Great Eastern, a mammoth liner of 19,000 tons and nearly 700 feet in length. She proved a commercial disaster—unwieldy, under-powered, uneconomical, and unlucky—but in one respect she was superb. She brilliantly incorporated every safety feature that could be devised.

The Great Eastern was really two ships in one. Two feet, 10 inches, inside her outer hull was a wholly separate inner hull, the two joined together by a network of braces. Like the Titanic, she was divided into 16 watertight compartments by 15 transverse bulkheads, but on the Great Eastern, the bulkheads ran higher and had no doors. To get from one compartment to another, it was necessary to climb to the bulkhead deck, cross over, and go down the other side. The bulkhead deck was also watertight, with a minimum of hatches and companion-ways. Finally, the Great Eastern had two longitudinal bulkheads extending the whole length of her boiler and engine rooms. This honeycomb of walls and decks gave her a total of some 40-50 separate watertight compartments.

The acid test came on the night of August 27, 1862, two years after she began her trans-Atlantic service. Steaming for New York with 820 passengers, the Great Eastern was off Montauk Point, Long Island, when she scraped an uncharted rock, ripped a gash in her outer skin 83 feet long and 9 feet wide. Considering her size, the hole was comparable to the damage that sank the Titanic.

But the Great Eastern did not go down. She sagged to starboard, but the inner skin held and the engine rooms remained dry. Next morning she limped into New York Harbor under her own steam.

Her survival was a tribute to the engineering genius of her builder, Isambard Kingdom Brunel—and to the mood of the times. The mechanical engineer was the western world’s new hero—and no wonder. Twenty years before the building of the Great Eastern, the only way to cross the Atlantic was by sailing packet. Slow, cramped, and unpredictable, the trip could take a month. Then, almost overnight it seemed, came these absurd-looking floating “teakettles.” Their pistons hissing and clanking, their tall chimneys belching smoke and sparks, their paddle wheels thrashing the waves, they quickly cut the trip to less than ten days. The men who wrought this miracle—the engineers who made steam do their bidding—were deferred to on every question involving the design and construction of these new contraptions. If Brunel wanted his “leviathan” to be the best in every way—size, speed, strength, and safety—that was the way it would be, regardless of cost.

But the engineers did not have the last word for very long. The speed and reliability of the new steamships meant a great surge in trans-Atlantic travel, with profits further fattened by the growing emigrant trade and generous mail contracts. The stakes were high, and by 1873 eleven major lines were fighting for their share. Entrepreneurs and promoters moved in, and the perfect ship was no longer the vessel that best expressed the art of the shipbuilder. It was the ship that made the most money.

Passengers demanded attention; stewards could serve them more easily if doors were cut in the watertight bulkheads. A grand staircase required a spacious opening at every level, making a watertight deck impossible. The sweep of a magnificent dining saloon left no room for bulkheads that might spoil the effect. Stokers could work more efficiently if longitudinal bulkheads were omitted and the bunkers carried clear across the ship. A double hull ate up valuable passenger and cargo space; a double bottom would be enough.

One by one the safety precautions that marked the Great Eastern were chipped away in the interests of a more competitive ship. There were exceptions of course—the Mauretania and Lusitania had to meet Admiralty specifications—but the Olympic and Titanic were more typical. When the “unsinkable” Titanic was completed in 1912, she matched the Great Eastern in only one respect: she, too, had 15 transverse watertight bulkheads.

But even this was misleading. The Great Eastern’s bulkheads were carried 30 feet above the waterline; the Titanic’s bulkheads, only 10 feet. Even her vaunted system of watertight doors that could be closed from the bridge “by simply moving a switch” fell short of its promise. Only 12 doors at the very bottom of the ship could be closed this way. The rest (some 20 or 30) had to be closed by hand. On the night of the collision some were; some weren’t. Some were even closed, then opened again to make it easier to rig the pumps.

Why, then, was such a vulnerable ship considered by the owners themselves to be virtually unsinkable? Partly, it was because the Titanic would indeed float with any two compartments flooded, and the White Star Line couldn’t imagine anything worse than a collision at the juncture of two compartments. But there was another reason, too, why the owners were lulled into complacency. This was because the ship looked so safe. Her huge bulk, her tiers of decks rising one atop the other, her 29 boilers, her luxurious fittings—all seemed to spell “permanence.” The appearance of safety was mistaken for safety itself.

The Titanic was indeed a magnificent sight as she left Belfast on April 2, 1912, and headed for Southampton, where she would begin her service on the North Atlantic run. At 46,328 tons, she was the largest ship in the world—only a trifle bigger than her sister ship Olympic, but 50% larger than any other liner afloat. With ships increasing in size so dramatically, her vast bulk inevitably led to still more legends: that she had a golf course…that she carried a small herd of dairy cows to supply fresh milk…that she was a half-mile long. The Titanic boasted none of these features; in fact, she was quite similar to the Olympic, which had already been in service for a year. White Star’s problem was how to give the new ship a little extra glamour when both vessels had basically the same structure.

The company solved this problem brilliantly with two new amenities that required a minimum of structural change. First, a set of 28 splendid staterooms were installed on B Deck, more lavish than any on the Olympic and complete with large windows (not portholes) that looked out directly on the sea. Most of these rooms were interconnecting and could be turned into suites of any size. Each was painstakingly decorated in a different period style—Louis XVI, Early Dutch, Regency, and so on. Two suites even had private promenade decks done in half-timbered Tudor.

The second innovation was even more arresting. A section of the Second Class Promenade Deck was appropriated for a dazzling new First Class attraction: a genuine French “sidewalk” café, complete with genuine French waiters. By now the veteran Atlantic traveler was bored by mere paneled magnificence—one more ornate lounge would have made no impression—but the addition of this bright, airy café with its Continental chic (especially on a staid British ship) was sensational.

As a final touch, the forward half of the Promenade Deck was glassed in, giving the First Class passengers extra shelter in bad weather and, incidentally, marking the Titanic as a step ahead of her sister ship Olympic.

Both the Café Parisien and the new “special staterooms” stirred great attention as the Titanic prepared to sail on her maiden voyage, April 10. They stamped her as the most luxurious ship on the Atlantic—at least until next year, when an immense new German liner, already taking shape at Hamburg, would enter the unending struggle for maritime supremacy.

CHAPTER IV

Had Ships Gotten Too Big for Captain Smith?

AS I RECALL, ON the day it sailed, all England was merry in the celebration of a holiday for the occasion. Flags flying in the breeze in every city and hamlet. There was the inevitable speech-making. That gloriously martial air, “Britannia Rules the Waves,” was the mighty theme-song of the day….

So the Reverend Wilfred G. Hurley described the Titanic’s maiden sailing, April 10, 1912, in a little pamphlet published 37 years later by the Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle. It is a familiar picture, handed down by countless writers through the years.

Actually, the White Star Line made very little of the Titanic’s departure. There were no bands, no speeches, no flag-waving. The only touch out of the ordinary was an immense crowd. Southampton was a seafaring town, and it seemed that the whole city wanted to watch the greatest ship in the world start off on her maiden voyage. But it was a knowledgeable crowd, almost professionally observant, and not at all given to singing or cheering.

Yet, the departure did have its excitement. While the Titanic was casting off, promptly at 12 noon, seven members of the “black gang,” as the stokers and firemen were called, came racing down the dock hoping to scramble aboard. They had gone ashore for a last pint and somehow lingered too long. Now they stood by an open ship’s gangway, arguing with the officer on duty there. He clearly wanted no part of them—they were too late, and that was that. Frustrated, the little group melted into the crowd, cursing this rotten turn in their luck.

Imperceptibly, the gulf widened between the Titanic and the dock; she was under way at last. Assisted by six tugs, she slowly crept out of the slip and into the channel of the River Test. Here her enormous bulk was maneuvered to the left, toward open water and ultimately the sea.

As she moved down the channel, now under her own power, the Titanic came abreast of two smaller liners moored to the quay on the left. These were the White Star’s Oceanic and the American Line’s New York, idled by a coal strike that had paralyzed most of British shipping for weeks. Warped side by side, with the New York on the outside, they made the narrow channel even more narrow.

The Titanic glided on, steaming at about six knots. As she drew opposite the New York, there was a sudden series of sharp cracks, like pistol shots. One after another, all six of the lines tying the New York to the Oceanic snapped. Drawn by some inexorable force, the American Liner began drifting toward the huge Titanic. For a moment a collision seemed certain, as the stern of the New York swung to within three or four feet of the port quarter of the Titanic.

Quick thinking saved the day. The tug Vulcan, one of the small fleet escorting the Titanic, darted to the danger spot. Her skipper, Captain Gale, passed a line to the New York’s stern, and with much puffing and straining, the Vulcan managed to slow the vessel’s drift. At the same time Captain Smith on the Titanic’s bridge nudged his port engine forward, creating a wash that helped push the New York clear. There was still plenty of danger, for the American Liner was completely adrift without any steam up, and she slid at an angle down the narrow corridor of water between the Titanic and the Oceanic with only inches to spare. Miraculously there was no contact, and finally the errant New York was corralled and towed to another berth, safely out of the way. The channel was clear at last, and the Titanic headed for open water.

Covering the incident, the Southampton Times and Hampshire Gazette didn’t know why it had happened. The paper merely explained that the passing of the Titanic had caused the New York to break away “by some means or other.” But of one thing the editors were sure: the near-collision was not a case of bad shiphandling by Captain Smith of the Titanic: “From the moment she began to move from her berth she was under absolute control, and she passed out of the dock not only majestically, but also smoothly and calmly. If anything, she was proceeding more slowly than the Olympic usually does, and she turned her nose toward the sea with the greatest ease.”

It was only natural to rush to Captain Smith’s support. He was at the pinnacle of a brilliant career. Going to sea as an apprentice on a clipper ship in 1869, he gradually worked his way up the ladder, joining White Star in 1880 as fourth officer on the old Celtic. By 1887 he was captain of the Republic, and since then he had commanded no fewer than 17 White Star vessels.

All the time he honed the qualities that made the trans-Atlantic captain such a unique breed. He was a superb seaman. He was a firm disciplinarian, but fair and popular with his crews. He was a splendid innkeeper, gradually building up a loyal clientele of devoted passengers. Here a personal note is perhaps revealing. Around the turn of the century my mother, torn by affairs of the heart, was urged by her father to take a trip abroad to “sort things out.” He didn’t care where she went, how long she stayed, or what ship she took—as long as she sailed with Captain Smith. On occasional business trips he himself had sailed with Smith and swore by the man.

Mother accordingly set off on the Baltic, which was Captain Smith’s ship at the time. She solved her problems before they were out of sight of Ambrose Lightship; so it was simply a trip across the ocean and back—still on the Baltic; still sailing with Captain Smith.

He was a big man, gray-bearded, barrel-chested, and with the autocratic look of an officer who might thunder orders from the bridge. Actually, he was extremely soft-spoken, rarely raised his voice, and smiled easily. His whole appeal was low-key. Bringing the Adriatic over on her maiden voyage in 1907, he told the New York press:

When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experiences of nearly 40 years at sea, I merely say “uneventful.” I have never been in an accident of any sort worth speaking about. I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.

“Uneventful” paid off. Captain Smith was the obvious choice to command the great new Olympic when she entered service in 1911. She was nearly twice as big as any ship he had handled before, but it seemed only coincidence when an odd mishap occurred almost right away.

Arriving in New York, June 21, on her maiden voyage, the Olympic received the traditional welcome of whistle blasts and flag-dips as she moved up the North River to Pier 59, especially lengthened to receive her. Here 12 tugs took over, nursing her into her slip, with an occasional assist from the Olympic’s engines. The tug O. L. Hallenbeck was standing by near the liner’s stern, when a sudden reverse burst of the Olympic’s starboard propeller sucked it against the ship, cutting off the Hallenbeck’s stern frame, rudder, and wheel shaft.

Who gave the order to reverse the starboard engine? The Olympic was under the pilot’s control, but the captain is always responsible for his ship, and Captain Smith was no exception. Information is scanty. The press tended to treat the affair as good clean fun—the Times called the crash a “playful touch”—and only the tug’s owner seemed really annoyed. He sued White Star for $10,000, a significant sum in those days. White Star responded with a countersuit, and ultimately both cases were dismissed for lack of evidence. Nobody saw the incident for what it really was: a disturbing lesson in the difficulty of managing a steamer of the Olympic’s unprecedented size. It turned even the most experienced seaman into an inexperienced novice.

Another incident drove home the point three months later. Shortly after noon, September 20, as the Olympic began her fifth voyage to New York, she fell in with the Royal Navy cruiser Hawke in the narrow channel of a tricky body of water called Spithead, off the Isle of Wight. The Olympic had seven times the tonnage of the Hawke, and was nearly three times as long.

The two vessels were going in roughly the same direction on courses that were at first converging, then parallel, with the Hawke off the Olympic’s starboard side. They were soon only 200 yards apart. Both were going at about 15 knots, with the Hawke at first overhauling the Olympic, then beginning to drop behind as the liner opened up her speed.

Suddenly, without warning, the Hawke veered hard to port and headed straight for the Olympic’s starboard quarter. It took only a few seconds. At 12:46 P.M. there was a crash like a thunderclap as the cruiser rammed the liner’s hull. Luckily no one was killed, but the Hawke’s bow was badly crumpled, and the Olympic received a double gash toward the stern, flooding two compartments and damaging her starboard propeller. Her passengers were taken off by tender, and the liner limped back to Southampton and men to Belfast for six weeks of repairs.

The obvious villain was the Hawke. The Olympic’s passengers, interviewed by the press, were almost unanimous in declaring that the cruiser suddenly and for no apparent reason turned and rammed their ship. The Hawke’s captain, some said, must have been “crazy.” As for Captain Smith, all agreed that he was “the best on the Atlantic.”

The case eventually went to court, where the Admiralty came up with a startling defense that went beyond such standard questions as who had the right of way, and whether the ships were on “parallel” or “converging” courses. Bolstered by experts who had experimented with small models in tanks, the Admiralty argued that far from being the transgressor, the Hawke was the innocent victim. She had been helplessly drawn into the side of the Olympic by hydrodynamic forces over which she had no control. When a ship’s hull is moving forward, the experts explained, it pushes out on either side a large amount of water. This displaced water then surges back toward the stern and into the vessel’s wake. In doing so, it draws or sucks in any smaller object that happens to be afloat nearby. The pull increases with the size, speed, and proximity of the larger moving hull. Here, the pull was irresistible. The 45,000-ton Olympic was much too close, considering the speed she was making as she began drawing ahead of the 7,500-ton Hawke.

The Court listened and was convinced. The Hawke was cleared, and the Olympic held to blame for the collision.

“Thoroughly unsatisfactory” was the reaction of Nautical Magazine, the accepted spokesman for officers of the British merchant service. The editors were especially indignant about the experts’ use of models to prove the hydrodynamic forces at work. How could the movement of “light toys” floating in a tank prove anything about two vessels “weighing thousands of tons” in the actual sea? “When all is said, the practical seaman will dismiss these model experiments as useless and only fit for the consideration of the Admiralty lawyers.”

The White Star Line evidently agreed. Arguably Captain Smith was off the hook anyhow, since the Olympic was under pilot at the time, but a captain is always responsible for his ship, and there were plenty of ways that the owners could have shown their displeasure, if they were unhappy about his performance.

Instead, they promoted him. Early in 1912, Captain Smith was named to command the new and even bigger Titanic, flagship of the fleet. He would take her over and back on her maiden voyage, and then retire. He was now 59, and this would be a way of thanking him for his years of loyal service.

Sailing day, and the Titanic’s near-collision with the New York showed that Captain Smith, too, had rejected the Court’s reasoning in the Olympic-Hawke case. After all, the two incidents were almost identical: the same captain, the same pilot, the same interaction of hulls, the same result. If Captain Smith had believed there was anything to the suction theory, he would hardly have let it happen twice.

This second episode convinced the whole shipping world that the suction theory was valid after all. Clearly those scientists experimenting with models weren’t just playing with bathtub toys “in pleasant remembrance of younger days,” as Nautical Magazine unkindly put it. Presumably Captain Smith got the message, too, but a nagging question remains: how much else was there to learn about these huge new liners mat were so different from the ships he was used to?

Until 1911, Captain Smith’s largest ship had only half the tonnage of the Olympic and Titanic. For most of his career, his ships had been less than 500 feet long; the Olympic and Titanic were nearly 900 feet. Did he fully appreciate the difference? Did he realize how much longer it would take to stop a 46,000-ton ship going 22 knots? Or how many more seconds it would take one of these new giants to answer the helm? Or how much wider her turning circle would be?

Certainly the Titanic’s trials could not have been very helpful. They took up only half a day in Belfast Lough. During this time she never went at full speed. First, she spent several hours making twists and turns, then four more hours on a straight run down the Lough and back. She made only one test to see how fast she could stop. At 18 knots, with both engines in reverse, the time was 3 minutes, 15 seconds; the distance, 3,000 feet. She would have nothing like that 12 days later.

Returning to Belfast at dusk, the Titanic put all the Harland & Wolff technicians ashore, except for a lucky eight, who would be making the maiden voyage to help break the ship in. She now headed for Southampton to begin her regular service. The trials seem amazingly perfunctory when compared, for instance, to the trials of the liner United States, which lasted six weeks.

Captain Smith, too, seems to have felt that something more was needed. He did a surprising thing as the Titanic, after a brief stop at Cherbourg, steamed toward Queenstown early on the morning of April 11. In a little while there would be the hurly-burly of taking on hundreds of Irish emigrants, then the pressures of keeping schedule across the Atlantic. Now he had a free moment to tie up a few loose ends. There were the compasses, for instance; they needed testing and adjustment. The Titanic began a series of lazy “S” turns, as Captain Smith continued to educate himself on the ways of his immense new command.

CHAPTER V

“Our Coterie”

AS THE TITANIC HEADED out to sea, and the green hills of Ireland faded into the dusk astern, her First Class passengers busied themselves with the ritual that invariably opened every Atlantic voyage; they studied the Passenger List, looking for old friends or familiar names that might be worth cultivating. The list was neatly printed in booklet form and slipped under the stateroom door by the steward or “Buttons,” as the bellboys were called.

It makes as fascinating reading today as it did the first night out. Like stars in a Broadway production, the big names are all there: the Astors, of course, along with the Wideners, Thayers, and others prominent in Society. They would be enough to adorn any important occasion in 1912, but what made the Titanic special was the presence of leaders in so many different fields: the artist Frank Millet; the editor W. T. Stead; the writer Jacques Futrelle; the theatrical producer Henry B. Harris; President Taft’s military aide Archie Butt; the elderly philanthropist Isidor Straus and his wife, Ida. Also noted (but not named) were 31 personal maids and valets, just in case the ship’s army of stewards and stewardesses weren’t enough to satisfy every need.

What makes the list even more intriguing today are certain inaccuracies and omissions. It included, for instance, the name of at least one man who wasn’t on board at all. Frank Carlson was an American visiting France who hoped to catch the Titanic home. Driving to Cherbourg in his own car, he had the misfortune to break down, and by the time repairs were made, he had missed the boat. But his name remained on the Passenger List, and later on the casualty list, when he failed to answer the roll call of survivors. Sixty years afterward his family was still trying to correct the error.

Others were not on the Passenger List, but definitely on the Titanic. Mrs. Henry B. Cassebeer boarded the liner as a Second Class passenger. She was an impecunious young widow, but a very experienced traveler. Knowing that expensive cabins often went begging in the off-season, she visited the Purser’s Office. At the cost of a few pounds under the counter, she upgraded herself from Second Class to one of the best First Class staterooms on the ship.

Flushed with success, she ran into Chief Purser McElroy a little later and playfully suggested that she be seated at the captain’s table. “I’ll do better than that,” McElroy gallantly replied. “I’ll have you seated at my table!”

Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon were two other names missing from the Passenger List but definitely on the Titanic. For some reason they were traveling as “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan”—an odd decision, since Lady Duff Gordon was one of Society’s most important couturières and lived by publicity.

More understandable was the decision of George Rosenshine and Maybelle Thorne to be listed as “Mr. and Mrs. G. Thorne.” They were not married but traveling together, and in the Edwardian era, appearances were often more important than reality. Appearances also played a part in the case of “Miss E. Rosenbaum.” She was a fashion stylist, and it simply seemed better business to anglicize her name. So although listed correctly, she was generally known as Edith Russell, and that is the way she has come down to us in most survivor accounts.

Three other passengers found it absolutely essential to travel incognito. They were professional cardsharps, hoping to make a maiden voyage killing. Obviously it was safer to use an assumed name; so George (Boy) Bradley was listed as “George Brayton”; C. H. Romaine as “C. Rolmane”; and Harry (Kid) Homer as “E. Haven.” There’s evidence that the well-known gambler Jay Yates was also on board, using the alias “J. H. Rogers.” Neither name appears on the Passenger List, but a farewell note signed by Rogers was later handed to a survivor on the sloping Boat Deck.

One shady figure definitely not on the ship was Alvin Clarence Thomas, a con man later known as “Titanic Thompson,” who achieved a certain notoriety as a witness to the slaying of the gambler Arnold Rothstein in 1929. It was generally assumed that the alias came from Thompson’s having plied his trade on the Titanic, but this is not so—he was only nine at the time. Actually, the name was an appropriate reference to several disastrous plunges taken when the stakes were high.

While the presence of this or that particular individual could be argued, there’s no doubt that a number of cardsharps were indeed on the Titanic, and in fact on almost every express liner plying the Atlantic at the time. The combination of rich, bored passengers, easily made shipboard friendships, and the ambience of the smoking room provided the perfect climate for “sportsmen,” as the gamblers were politely called.

The wonder is that the lines didn’t do more to protect their ordinary passengers. The veteran gamblers were familiar figures to most of the pursers and smoking room stewards: were they being bribed to keep quiet? Undoubtedly there were occasional payoffs, but the real source of trouble seems to have been the steamship companies themselves. They didn’t want to take any step that implied they might be responsible for their patrons’ losses. Nor were all high-stake games dishonest; there was always the legal danger of a false charge. It was safer not to get involved.

On the Titanic there was only one low-keyed warning. This was a mild little insert, planted opposite the first page of the Passenger List:

SPECIAL NOTICE

The attention of the Managers has been called to the fact that certain persons, believed to be Professional Gamblers, are in the habit of traveling to and fro in Atlantic Steamships.

In bringing this to the knowledge of Travelers the Managers, while not wishing in the slightest degree to interfere with the freedom of action of Patrons of the White Star Line, desire to invite their assistance in discouraging Games of Chance, as being likely to afford these individuals special opportunities for taking unfair advantage of others.

Along with the deceptions, the Titanic’s Passenger List had its share of printer’s errors—unintended, but no less misleading to browsers then and now. “H. Bjornstrom,” for instance, was really H. Bjornstrom Steffanson, a wealthy young Swedish businessman, whose father seemed to own all the wood pulp in Sweden. Steffanson was a lieutenant in the Swedish Army Reserve, but his eyes were set on Wall Street. This was his third trip to New York in two years, and already he was well on his way to making a small fortune of his own.

Also on the list as Mrs. Churchill “Cardell”—whose last name should have been spelled “Candee.” In an era when genteel ladies were regarded as helpless creatures to be protected by solicitous males, Helen Churchill Candee had already jumped the traces with a book called How Women May Earn a Living. Published in 1900, it was full of crisp, breezy advice. Mrs. Candee had something to say about almost any subject, and other books soon followed: a western called An Oklahoma Romance; a cultural guide called Decorative Styles and Periods; and a history of tapestry, just finished and due to be published in the fall.

But it was not her literary career that put Helen Candee on the Titanic; it was a personal emergency. Her son had been hurt in an aeroplane accident—a novelty in 1912 that vicariously added to her own glamour— and she was hurrying to his bedside.

Meanwhile she must make the best of things. It was the off-season, and some 87 unattached men were in First Class. It did not take long for several of them to notice the handsome woman traveling alone, who could usually be found reading in her deck chair on the Promenade Deck, forward. For her part, Mrs. Candee always took two chairs—“one for myself and the other for callers, or for self-protection.” No less than six shipboard swains were soon vying for that extra chair.

Of them all, she knew only Colonel Archibald Gracie, slightly. An amateur military historian, he had just finished a detailed Civil War battle history, The Truth about Chickamauga. Now he was crossing the ocean and back, to get it out of his system. Two others of the group had been recommended to her by mutual friends: Hugh Woolner, son of a noted English sculptor; and Edward A. Kent, a well-connected Buffalo architect. The rest were complete strangers, to be fixed in her mind the way one does with shipboard acquaintances. Clinch Smith was the Long Island socialite who kept polo ponies and lived mostly in Paris; Bjornstrom Steffanson was the dashing Swedish reserve officer; E. P. Colley was the roly-poly Irishman who laughed a lot but said little.

They were all dazzled by Mrs. Candee, and she in turn “felt divinely flattered to be in such company.” Coming on deck one day after lunch, she found them already waiting by her chairs. “We are here to amuse you,” one of them gushed. “All of us have the same thought, which is that you must never be alone.” Together, they formed one of those groups that sometimes happen on an Atlantic crossing, where the chemistry is just right and the members are inseparable…at least until last night out. To Colonel Gracie, they were “our coterie.”

The days glided by, one blending into another to form a seamless whole. The weather was always sunny, the ocean calm. In past crossings Colonel Gracie had made a point of keeping in shape, but this time he found “our coterie” so enjoyable that he forgot about exercise.

Sunday, April 14, Gracie decided that he must get back on some sort of regimen. He bounced out of bed for a pre-breakfast warm-up with Fred Wright, the ship’s squash pro. Then a plunge in the swimming pool, and up for a big breakfast. Later he attended divine service, conducted by Captain Smith, and joined the rest of those present in the “Prayer for Those at Sea.”

Early afternoon, the weather suddenly turned cold. Most of the passengers stayed inside, writing letters and catching up on their reading. Gracie finished Mary Johnson’s Old Dominion and returned it to the ship’s library. Later he cornered Isidor Straus, on whom he had foisted a copy of The Truth about Chickamauga. The book strikes one reader as 462 pages of labored minutiae, but Mr. Straus was famous for his tact; he assured the Colonel that he had read it with “intense interest.”

Despite the cold, Mrs. Candee and Hugh Woolner decided to explore the ship. A door on the starboard side of the Boat Deck was open, and hearing some clicking sounds, they looked in. “Come in, come right in and try your strength,” called a cheery English voice. It was T. W. McCawley, the gym instructor, a bouncy little man in white flannels, eager to show off his domain. For the next hour they raced the stationary bicycles, rode the mechanical horses, and even took a turn on the “camel,” which McCawley said was good for the liver.

But it was getting colder all the time, and they decided to go down to the lounge for tea. They settled into a green velvet settee before a glowing grate, and it reminded Helen Candee of coming back home to a fireplace after a frosty afternoon ride over the fields. Stewards arrived with steaming pots of tea and plates piled high with buttered toast, and she sensed a general feeling of total well-being and contentment—rare indeed since her son’s accident.

The spell was broken by the bugle to dress for dinner. For the next hour, First Class seemed almost empty, as “our coterie” and the others struggled behind closed stateroom doors with hundreds of shirt studs and thousands of hairpins. Every steward and stewardess—every personal maid and valet—was mobilized to help.

Dinner was the social high point of the day. The elite dined in the À la Carte Restaurant, but the main dining saloon on D Deck had glitter enough. The scene might have been the Ritz in London or Sherry’s in New York, with the men in white tie (except for a few daring souls in tuxedo), and the ladies shining in pale satin and clinging gauze. Tonight even the impoverished Mrs. Cassebeer looked superb, resplendent in the only snappy evening gown she had.

There’s no record of what Mrs. Candee was wearing, but it’s a safe guess that she looked irresistible to her six devoted swains. After a dinner of filet mignon Lili, they took a table together in the adjoining Reception Room for coffee and the nightly concert by the Titanic’s band.

The band has become so hallowed in memory that it seems almost blasphemous to say anything critical about its music. Nevertheless, there were those in “our coterie” who did feel that it was poor on its Wagner, while others said that the violin was weak. True or not, Wallace Hartley and his men were immensely popular with the passengers, and always willing to play any request. Tonight they played some Puccini for Mrs. Candee and a little Dvorak for Hugh Woolner.

Colonel Gracie, who never recognized any number the band played now or later, used the concert as an opportunity to circulate among the crowded little tables that filled the room. He was an indefatigable celebrity collector, and liked to mention his Union Club membership and St. Paul’s School background. One can imagine people wincing at his approach but putting up with him anyhow, for he was kind, courtly, and certainly meant well.

Tonight the Colonel had fewer targets than usual, for the truly big names were dining in the À la Carte Restaurant up on B Deck, where the Wideners were giving a small dinner for Captain Smith. Yet there were still plenty of attractive tables, and Gracie felt that the ladies never looked lovelier. Around 9:30 he decided to break off the evening and retire. It was still early, but it had been a long day—all that squash, swimming, and exercises in the gym—and he had reserved the squash court for another session early the following morning.

By 11:00 the rest of the crowd in the Reception Room was breaking up too, and the band finished the evening with the “Tales of Hoffmann.” Soon the big Jacobean room was completely empty, except for one remaining table. Mrs. Candee and “our coterie” were going as strong as ever. But even they felt the emptiness of the room and decided to look for some place cozier.

Somebody suggested the Café Parisien, all the way aft on B Deck. It was the showpiece of the ship, stylish but intimate. Certainly there ought to be some life there. But all they found was one other party, presided over by Archie Butt, President Taft’s military aide.

And it was so cold. Mrs. Candee drew her scarf close, but it made little difference. They ordered hot drinks, and a waiter appeared with a tray of grog, steaming Scotch and lemon, and (for Bjornstrom Steffanson) a hot lemonade. Even these emergency measures didn’t help, and around 11:20 Mrs. Candee reluctantly went below, where there was at least an electric heater in her stateroom.

Colley also drifted off and the four remaining members of “our coterie” now went up to the smoking room, just above on A Deck. This was a male sanctuary where the ship’s night owls customarily gathered and which was bound to be warm. Someone produced a pack of cards, and the foursome began to play a rather lighthearted game of bridge. There were other tables of bridge nearby, including one carefully organized by George Brayton and two of his sporting cronies. The fourth at this table was Howard Case, London Manager of the Vacuum Oil Company. Case had been selected as the sharp’s next pigeon.

Several other groups sat around simply talking, and one lone traveler—Spencer Silverthorne of St. Louis— buried himself in a big leather chair, idly reading Owen Wister’s The Virginian. It was now nearly 11:40 P.M., and the hum of conversation blended with the steady throb of the engines far below.

Suddenly an interruption. As Hugh Woolner recalled it a few days later in a letter to a friend, “There came a heavy grinding sort of a shock, beginning far ahead of us in the bows and rapidly passing along the ship and away under our feet.”

It was not severe, but enough to spill gambler Harry Romaine’s drink. Everyone sprang up, and several of the more curious—including Woolner and Steffanson—darted through the swinging doors aft and onto the open Promenade Deck. Steffanson’s eyes couldn’t adjust to the sudden darkness fast enough, but he heard one of the others call out, “We hit an iceberg—there it is!”

CHAPTER VI

“Everything Was Against Us”

THE BRIDGE WAS AS surprised as the gentlemen in the smoking room. How could the Titanic have collided with an iceberg so suddenly, so unexpectedly? Second Officer Lightoller wasn’t on the bridge at the time, but he was senior surviving officer, and at the British Inquiry (technically the Wreck Commissioner’s Court) he had an almost mystical explanation:

Of course, we know now the extraordinary combination of circumstances that existed at that time which you would not meet again in 100 years; that they should all have existed just on that particular night shows, of course, that everything was against us.

Pressed to particularize, Lightoller pointed out that there was no moon, no wind, no swell. The Court did not seem overly impressed, but the notion has persisted that the accident was of the one-in-a-million variety, that it couldn’t have been foreseen, and that the lost liner was, in fact, a helpless victim of fate.

Was she really? To find the answer, we must start back on the afternoon of April 12 as the Titanic—one day out of Queenstown—steamed westward across a calm, sunny sea. Around sunset a wireless message arrived from the French Liner La Touraine warning of ice ahead. Captain Smith gave the position to Fourth Officer Boxhall, and Boxhall noted it on the map in the chart room, but it was over a thousand miles away and far to the north of the Titanic’s track—no need to worry.

The wireless was quiet on the 13th, but late that night the Titanic met the Furness Withy Liner Rappahannock, eastbound from Halifax to London. She had recently encountered heavy pack ice, twisting her rudder and denting her bow. Now, as the two ships passed within signaling distance, the Rappahannock warned the Titanic by blinker of the danger ahead. The great White Star Liner, decks blazing with light, flashed back a brief acknowledgement and hurried on into the night.

Sunday, April 14, and the wireless brought a spate of fresh warnings. At 9 A.M. (Titanic time) the Cunard Liner Caronia reported “bergs, growlers, and field ice in 42°N, from 49° to 51°W.” At 11:40 the Dutch liner Noordam also reported “much ice” in roughly the same position, and at 1:42 P.M. the White Star Liner Baltic reported “icebergs and large quantity of field ice in 41°51’N, 49°9’W”—about 250 miles ahead.

At 1:45 P.M. still another ice message arrived—the fourth of the day. The German liner Amerika reported passing two large icebergs at 41’27’N, 50°8’W. The Amerika’s message was addressed to the U.S. Hydro-graphic Office in Washington, but this was beyond her own range; so, in the custom of the times, she asked the Titanic to relay it. This the Titanic did, thus adding her own voice to the chorus of warnings.

Nothing more till 7:30 P.M.; then a fifth message, this one from the Leyland Liner Californian, position 42°3’N, 49°9’W: “Three large bergs five miles to southward of us.” The ice was now only 50 miles ahead.

Finally, at 9:40 P.M., the Atlantic Transport Liner Mesaba: “Lat. 42°N to 41°25’N, Longitude 40°W to 50°30’W, saw much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs, also field ice.” The Titanic was already in the rectangle blocked out by this warning.

Put together, the six messages indicated an enormous belt of ice stretching some 78 miles directly across the big ship’s path.

But the messages were not “put together.” If the recollections of the four surviving officers are any guide, most of the warnings went unnoticed on the bridge. Fourth Officer Boxhall, who was always Captain Smith’s choice for marking the ship’s chart, could only remember pricking off the La Touraine’s sighting on April 12.

Of the six ice messages received on the 14th, the day of the collision, there is firm information about only the first two. The Caronia’s sighting, received at 9 A.M., appears to have been noted by Boxhall. Third Officer Pitman distinctly remembered seeing him jot the single word “ice” on a slip of paper, with the Caronia’s sighting underneath, and then tuck the slip into a frame above the chart room table. Other officers recalled seeing the same sighting pricked off on the chart—also Boxhall’s work. And around 12:45 Captain Smith showed the complete Caronia message to Second Officer Lightoller, senior officer on the bridge at the time.

About an hour later Captain Smith had the Baltic’s warning, too, but there’s no evidence that he showed it to anybody on the bridge. Instead, he took it with him as he started down for lunch about 1:30. On the Promenade Deck he ran into Bruce Ismay, who was taking a pre-lunch constitutional. They exchanged greetings, and the Captain handed the Managing Director the Baltic’s message as a matter of interest. Ismay glanced at it, stuffed it in his pocket, and went on down to lunch.

He still had it late in the afternoon when he ran into Mrs. Thayer and Mrs. Ryerson, two of the most socially prominent ladies aboard. Ismay, who liked to remind people who he was, lost no time producing the Baltic message and reading them the titillating news about icebergs ahead.

Coming out of the smoking room that evening just before dinner, he again met Captain Smith. The Captain asked if Ismay still had the message, explaining that he wanted to post it for his officers to read. Ismay fished it out of his pocket and returned it without any further conversation. Then the two men continued down to the Á la Carte Restaurant—Ismay to dine alone with the ship’s surgeon, old Dr. O’Laughlin; Smith to join the small party the Wideners were giving in his honor. There’s no evidence that the Baltic’s information was ever noted on the bridge before the whole affair became academic.

As for the four other ice messages received on the 14th—those from the Noordam, Amerika, Californian, and Mesaba—none of them were remembered by any of the surviving officers. The Noordam’s warning was acknowledged by Captain Smith, but what he did with it nobody knows. The Californian’s message was received by Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride, who testified that he took it to the bridge but didn’t know whom he gave it to. The Amerika and Mesaba warnings were received by First Wireless Operator John Phillips, but what happened to them remains a mystery.

Almost any student of the Titanic knows by heart the famous scene where a weary Jack Phillips tucks the Mesaba’s warning under a paperweight and goes on working off his backlog of commercial traffic. Yet there’s very little evidence to support the story. Lightoller said Phillips told him so while they were clinging to an upturned collapsible boat after the sinking, but nobody else on the collapsible remembered such a conversation. Even Lightoller never mentioned it at the hearings, although it was vitally important and would have helped White Star, which he was trying to do. Nor did Lightoller mention the incident to Fourth Officer Boxhall, while they were on the Carpathia going over together every detail of the disaster. Boxhall never heard of the Mesaba until he reached New York. The story first emerged in Lightoller’s memoirs, 25 years later, where it should be accorded the latitude normally granted an old sea dog reminiscing.

The Mesaba message remains a mystery. Perhaps it did end up under the paperweight, but it seems equally possible that sometime after Lightoller went off duty Phillips passed it on to the bridge, where it received the same attention given the warnings from the Noordam, Amerika, and Californian—which was none at all.

What went wrong? To begin with, there seems to have been little coordination between the radio room and the bridge. The procedure for handling incoming messages was fuzzy at best. Any message affecting the navigation of the ship was meant to go straight to the bridge, but Phillips and Bride were no navigators; the jumble of longitudes and latitudes meant nothing to them. Their method of handling a message really depended on how it was addressed, rather than what it was about.

If the message was addressed to Captain Smith, one of the operators would take it directly to the Captain and hand it to him personally. If addressed simply to the ship, it might be delivered by a messenger, and to anyone on duty on the bridge. If sent just to be relayed on, like the Amerika’s alert to the Hydrographic Office in Washington, there seems to have been no standard practice at all.

Some messages were even picked up by eavesdropping, and their handling was left to the operator’s discretion. The Californian’s warning, for instance, was addressed to the liner Antillian. Bride just happened to catch it, jotted it down, and took it to the bridge himself—but never knew whom he gave it to.

Nor does there seem to have been any clear-cut procedure for handling the messages once they reached the bridge. According to Third Officer Pitman, every captain had his own system, but it’s hard to explain the system on the Titanic. Of the three messages addressed to Captain Smith personally, the Caronia’s was posted, the Noordam’s can’t be traced, and the Baltic’s spent the day in Bruce Ismay’s pocket. Of the rest, there’s no record that they were ever seen by any officer on the bridge.

As a result, some important information was missed altogether. The Titanic’s surviving officers all thought the ice lay to the north of the track, but the Amerika and Mesaba warnings clearly placed it to the south as well. Nor did the officers appear to understand the nature of the danger. Third Officer Pitman thought there was only a berg or two; Lightoller also worried about “small ice and growlers.” Nobody on the bridge visualized the great berg-studded floe drifting slowly across the ship’s path. The missed messages told a lot.

Above all, the cumulative effect of the messages—warning after warning, the whole day long—was lost completely. The result was a complacency, an almost arrogant casualness, that permeated the bridge.

This complacency is perhaps the most exasperating feature of the whole affair. Fourth Officer Boxhall did not even read the one message he saw. Third Officer Pitman saw the chit marked “ice” above the chart room table, but it failed to stir his interest—“I only looked at it casually.” Fifth Officer Lowe also looked at the chit “casually,” but once he saw the ship wouldn’t reach the position during his watch, he put it out of his mind. Second Officer Lightoller never even saw the chit when he came on duty that last Sunday night, “because I did not look.”

Strangest of all was an exchange between Lightoller and Sixth Officer Moody, who shared the watch from 8:00 to 10:00 P.M. Early on, Lightoller asked Moody when the ship would be up to the ice. Moody said about 11:00. Working it out for himself, Lightoller decided the time would really be closer to 9:30. But he never told Moody. Instead, he merely made a mental note of the Sixth Officer’s lapse, as though Moody were an errant schoolboy who had made some minor mistake in math, not worth fussing over.

Later Lightoller said he thought that Moody’s calculations might have been based on some other ice message that Lightoller himself hadn’t seen, but this still doesn’t explain his silence. Nor does it help that the collision did not occur until 11:40—well after the time even Moody expected ice. The incident remains a striking illustration of the complacency that seems to have affected the whole bridge.

Yet there was still ample opportunity to avoid disaster. Every officer on the bridge, from Captain Smith to the very junior Moody, knew that sometime before midnight the Titanic might encounter ice. It was with this thought in mind that the Captain left the Wideners’ party shortly before 9:00 and joined Lightoller on the bridge.

The conversation was oddly laconic. As they peered into a black cloudless night, Smith remarked it was cold. Lightoller “Yes, it is very cold, sir. In fact, it is only one degree above freezing.” He described the precautions he was taking: a warning to the carpenter to watch his fresh water supply…another to the engine room to keep an eye on the steam winches.

Smith got back to the weather: “There is not much wind.”

“No, it is a flat calm, as a matter of fact.”

“A flat calm. Yes, quite flat.”

Then, to the ice. Lightoller remarked that it was rather a pity the breeze didn’t keep up while they were going through the danger area. Icebergs were so much easier to spot at night, if the wind stirred up some surf. But they decided that even if the berg “showed a blue side,” they would have enough warning. At 9:25 the subject was exhausted and the Captain turned in: “If it becomes at all doubtful, let me know at once. I’ll be just inside.”

Not one word about slowing down. Why was this most obvious of all precautions not even mentioned? The usual answer is that Captain Smith thought the Titanic was unsinkable. But even if the ship were unsinkable, the Captain surely didn’t want to hit an iceberg.

Actually, he didn’t slow down because he was sure that on this brilliantly clear night any iceberg could be spotted in time to avoid it. In reaching that decision, Smith did not feel he was doing anything rash. He was following the practice of all captains on the Atlantic run, except for a few slowpokes like James Clayton Barr of the Cunarder Caronia, whose legendary caution at the slightest sign of haze had earned him the derisive nickname “Foggy.”

Knuckling under the competitive pressure of keeping schedule, most captains ran at full steam, despite strong evidence that ice was not as easily sighted as generally claimed. Especially noteworthy was the harrowing ordeal of the Guion Liner Arizona in November 1879. Like the Titanic, she was the largest liner of her day. Eastbound off the Banks of Newfoundland, she raced through a night that was cloudy, but with good visibility. Taking advantage of the calm seas, the passengers gathered in the lounge for a concert.

Suddenly there was a fearful crash, sending everybody sprawling among the palms and violins. The Arizona had smashed head on into a giant iceberg, shattering 30 feet of her bow. But the forward bulkhead held; there were no casualties; and two days later she limped into St. John’s. In a curious twist of logic, the accident was hailed as an example of the safety of ships, rather than the dangers of ice.

There were other close calls too. In 1907 the North German Lloyd Liner Kronprinz Wilhelm dented her bow and scarred her starboard side, brushing a berg in the pre-dawn darkness. In 1909 the immigrant Ship Volturno barely escaped damage, running through a huge ice field. In 1911 the Anchor Liner Columbia struck a berg off Cape Race, driving her bow plates back ten feet. The jar injured several crewmen and broke one passenger’s ankle. It was foggy at the time; so perhaps the accident was discounted.

Such incidents were ignored; most captains continued to run at full speed. Always dangerous, the practice became even more so with the vast leap in the size of ships at the turn of the century. It was one thing to dodge an iceberg in the 10,000-ton Majestic, Captain Smith’s command in 1902, but quite a different matter only ten years later in the 46,000-ton Titanic. The momentum of such a huge ship was enormous, and she just couldn’t stop suddenly or turn on a dime.

The Titanic tested making an emergency stop only once during those brief trials in Belfast Lough, and that at the very moderate speed of 18 knots. Her turning tests seem almost as minimal: she apparently made two complete circles at 18-20 knots and then carried out three other turns at 11, 19½, and 21¼ knots. Her performance at maximum speed remains a mystery. Once again the question arises: how much did Captain Smith really know about the great vessel under his feet?

Arguably, the practice of maintaining speed might have been a practical necessity in the days before wireless, for who knew where the ice really was? The sightings came from vessels reaching port several days later, and by that time the information was too stale to pinpoint the danger. But Signor Marconi’s genius changed everything. The reports reaching the Titanic told exactly where the ice could be found, only hours away.

Why couldn’t Captain Smith and his officers see the difference? Certainly they knew the importance of wireless in an emergency. The help summoned by the sinking liner Republic in 1909 proved that. But no one on the Titanic’s bridge seemed to appreciate the value of wireless as a constant, continuous navigational aid. Basically, they still thought of it as a novelty—something that lay outside the normal running of the ship. It was a mindset tellingly illustrated by the way the wireless operators were carried on the roster of the crew. Phillips and Bride were not listed with the Deck Department; they came under the Victualling Department—like stewards and pastry chefs.

So the Titanic raced on through the starlit night of April 14. At 10 P.M. First Officer Murdoch arrived on the bridge to take over Second Officer Lightoller’s watch. His first words: “It’s pretty cold.”

“Yes, it’s freezing,” answered Lightoller, and he added that the ship might be up around the ice any time now. The temperature was down to 32°, the water an even colder 31°. A warm bunk was clearly the place to be, and Lightoller quickly passed on what else the new watch needed to know: the carpenter and engine room had been told to watch their water, keep it from freezing…the crow’s nest had been warned to keep a sharp lookout for ice, “especially small ice and growlers”…the Captain had left word to be called “if it becomes at all doubtful.”

Lightoller later denied that the sudden cold had any significance. He pointed out that on the North Atlantic the temperature often took a nose dive without any icebergs in the area. Indeed this was true. The sharp drop in temperature did not necessarily mean ice, but it was also true that it could mean ice. It was, in short, one more signal calling for caution. After all, that was the whole point of taking the temperature of the water every two hours.

There’s no evidence that either Lightoller or Murdoch saw it that way. The bitter cold and the reported ice remained two separate problems. Lightoller had passed on all the information he could; so now he went off on his final rounds, while Murdoch pondered the empty night.

A few yards aft along the Boat Deck, First Wireless Operator Phillips dug in to a stack of outgoing messages. His set had a range of only 400 miles during daylight, and the American traffic had piled up. Now at last he was in touch with Cape Race and was working off the backlog. Some were passenger messages for New York—arrival times, requests for hotel reservations, instructions to business associates. Others were being relayed for ships no longer in direct touch with the land.

At 11 P.M. the steamer Californian suddenly broke in: “I say, old man, we’re stopped and surrounded by ice.” She was so close that her signal almost blasted Phillips’s ears off.

“Shut up, shut up,” he shot back, “I’m busy. I’m working Cape Race.” Then he went back to the outgoing pile—messages like this one relayed to a Los Angeles address from a passenger on the Amerika:

NO SEASICKNESS. ALL WELL. NOTIFY ALL INTERESTED. POKER BUSINESS GOOD. AL.

In the crow’s nest Lookouts Fleet and Lee peered into the dark. There was little conversation; they were keeping an extra-sharp lookout. At 11:40 Fleet suddenly spotted something even blacker than the night. He banged the crow’s-nest bell three times and lifted the phone to the bridge. Three words were enough to explain the trouble: “Iceberg right ahead.”

Now it was Murdoch’s problem. He put his helm hard astarboard, hoping to “port around” the ice, and at the same time pulled the engine room telegraph to STOP, and then REVERSE ENGINES. But it was too late: 37 seconds later the Titanic brushed by the berg with that faint, grinding jar that every student of the disaster knows so well.

The 37 seconds—based on tests later made with the Olympic—are significant only for what they reveal about human miscalculations. At 22½ knots the Titanic was moving at a rate of 38 feet a second…meaning that the berg had been sighted less than 500 yards away. But all the experts agreed that on a clear night like this the ice should have been seen much farther off. Lightoller thought at least a mile or so, and this undoubtedly reflected Captain Smith’s opinion, for they both had gone over this very point on the bridge shortly after 9:00. The search immediately began for some extenuating circumstance that could explain the difference.

Suspicion focused first on the lookouts. How good were their eyes? Fleet’s had not been tested in five years, and Lee’s not since the Boer War. Yet tests after the collision showed both men had sound vision. Nor were they inexperienced. Unlike most lines, White Star used trained, full-time lookouts, who received extra pay for their work.

Next it was the lookouts’ turn to complain. They charged that there were no binoculars in the crow’s nest. A pair had been supplied during the trip from Belfast to Southampton, but during a last-minute shake-up of personnel they had been removed and never replaced. After hearing numerous experts on the subject, the British Inquiry decided that it really didn’t matter. Binoculars were useful in identifying objects, but not in initially sighting them. That was better done by the naked eye. Here, there was no problem of identification; Fleet knew all too well what he had seen.

Then Lookout Lee came up with a “haze” over the water. He described dramatically how Fleet had said to him, “Well, if we can see through that, we will be lucky.” Fleet denied the conversation and said the haze was “nothing to talk about.” Lightoller, Boxhall, and Quartermaster Hitchens, who had been at the wheel, all described the night as perfectly clear. In the end, the British Inquiry wrote off Lee’s “haze” as an understandable bit of wishful thinking.

Lightoller himself contributed what became known as the “blue berg” theory. He argued that the iceberg had recently capsized and was showing only the dark side that had previously been under water, making it almost invisible. But this theory did not seem to fit the recollections of the few survivors who actually saw the berg. It was anything but invisible to Quartermaster Rowe, standing on the after bridge. He estimated that it was about 100 feet high, and he initially mistook it for a windjammer gliding along the side of the ship with all sails set.

The only explanation left was “fate.” As Lightoller put it, the Titanic was the victim of an extraordinary set of circumstances that could only happen once in a hundred years. Normally there would have been no problem, but on this particularly freakish night “everything was against us.”

But this explanation implies that Captain Smith didn’t know—and couldn’t be expected to know—the nature of the night he was up against. But he did know. He fully realized that the sea was flat calm, that there was no moon, no wind, no swell. He understood all this and took it into account in deciding not to reduce speed. Under these circumstances the collision quickly loses its supernatural quality and becomes simply a case of miscalculation.

Given the competitive pressures of the North Atlantic run, the chances taken, the lack of experience with ships of such immense size, the haphazard procedures of the wireless room, the casualness of the bridge, and the misassessment of what speed was safe, it’s remarkable that the Titanic steamed for two hours and ten minutes through ice-infested waters without coming to grief any sooner.

“Everything was against us”? The wonder is that she lasted as long as she did.

CHAPTER VII

The Gash

WHAT DID THE ICEBERG really do to the Titanic, and could anything have been done to save her? The report of the official British Inquiry found that “the damage extended over a length of about 300 feet,” and this is generally taken to mean a continuous gash running from the bow for 300 feet along the starboard side of the ship. Countless illustrators have depicted it in books and magazines—a single, jagged slash, ugly and lethal-looking.

Actually, such a gash would have sunk the Titanic in less than an hour. The true nature of the damage may be partly revealed as exploration of the wreck continues over the coming years, but it will often be hard to tell what was done by the iceberg and what was caused by the impact as she struck the ocean floor. The bow ploughed into a plateau of mud and sand some 13,000 feet down, at a speed of possibly 30-40 miles per hour. The forward end of the ship is buried to a depth of 50 feet, well hidden from the lens of any camera. Even the most sophisticated equipment will probably tell us less than a little-known witness at the British Inquiry, who was nowhere near the Titanic that night, but who knew her far better than any survivor or future investigator.

Edward Wilding was a naval architect at Harland & Wolff. His primary concern had been the design of the Titanic, and he seemed to have at his fingertips every conceivable dimension of the ship. He knew, for instance, the exact length of each watertight compartment. Using these figures, he estimated that any continuous gash along the starboard side had to run some 249 feet—the length of the first five compartments plus the first two feet of the sixth.

Estimating the width of such a gash was more complicated, but he found some clues in the testimony of various witnesses who had been on the spot. Ten minutes after the crash, Leading Fireman Fred Barrett saw eight feet of water in Boiler Room 6, which was five feet above the keel of the ship. Ten minutes later, Third Officer Pitman watched bags of registered letters floating around the mail room, 24 feet above the keel. Another five minutes and the squash court was awash, 32 feet above the keel. Fifteen minutes more, and the sea was flooding into the seamen’s quarters on E Deck forward, 48 feet above the keel. Putting the evidence together, Edward Wilding estimated that 16,000 cubic feet of water had entered the shattered hull in the first 40 minutes.

What size hole would produce this result? Here Wilding’s educated guess had to be built on certain basic assumptions. First, he assumed that the witnesses were accurate in their estimates of time and the depth of the water at their particular vantage point. He also assumed that the draft of the Titanic would be the same as that of the Olympic at the same stage in the voyage. All this granted, he then calculated that the area of damage had to be 12 square feet. Anything else would not fit his timetable.

But this posed a new problem. If the damage was really a continuous gash 249 feet long, then it could only have averaged ¾ of an inch high. Nothing else would work out at 12 square feet. Since this was most unlikely, it followed that the gash was not continuous, but rather a series of random pokes and stabs as the berg bumped along the side of the Titanic. Occasionally, bits of the berg broke off, making the pattern of holes still more irregular.

Based on photographs recently taken of the wreck, it appears that there were fewer of these pokes and stabs than Wilding thought. The berg seems to have struck the Titanic a heavy glancing blow, now hidden by the mud, springing plates and popping rivets along the starboard side forward. It was through these opened seams that the water cascaded in, dooming the ship.

Whatever the nature of the wound, there was no doubt that it was fatal. It completely flooded the first five compartments, pulling the bow down so far that the water in the fifth compartment eventually slopped over the top of the after bulkhead into the sixth, which in turn overflowed into the seventh, and so on until the ship had to sink.

Later, much was made of the fact that the watertight bulkhead between the fifth and sixth compartments went only as high as E Deck. If this bulkhead had been carried one deck higher, to D Deck, the Titanic would not have sunk. This is true, assuming that the only damage to the sixth compartment came from the two-foot gash in Boiler Room 5. This was easily controlled by the pumps.

But this was not the only damage to the sixth compartment. As Edward Wilding pointed out, the gash that ran from Boiler Room 6 into Boiler Room 5 couldn’t help but hurt the bulkhead that stood in between. Unlike the gash, this wound was not readily visible to the firemen and engineers, but it was there all the same, and about an hour after the collision the whole bulkhead seems to have given way. From somewhere forward, a great rush of water surged into Boiler Room 5, driving out the men still on duty there.

Nor was that all. There’s important, often-overlooked evidence that the next compartment aft, Boiler Room 4, suffered damage entirely independent of the gash. Initially, there was no sign of damage here, but an hour and 40 minutes after the crash, water began seeping over the floor plates from somewhere below. The flow was gradual, but more than the pumps could handle. For a while the firemen toiled on, still shutting down the boilers. The water was up to their knees when the welcome word finally came from the engine room, releasing them from duty. They quickly scrambled up the escape ladders to the temporary safety of the Boat Deck.

It must be emphasized that this water came from below, not above. The flooding of Boiler Room 4 was not part of the process of the forward compartments filling and overflowing into the next compartment aft. Rather, it came from a separate injury to the ship, probably to the double bottom, entirely apart from the familiar gash along the starboard side. In short, the ice did even more mischief than generally thought.

The water in this compartment should also end all theorizing about what might have happened if the bulk-heads had been carried one deck higher. With Boiler Room 4 gone, the ship was doomed no matter how high the bulkheads might have been carried. At best, the sinking might have been delayed—perhaps until help came—but the ultimate loss of the Titanic was certain.

There’s no evidence of damage any farther aft than Boiler Room 4, and this poses an intriguing mystery. If, as the British Inquiry said, the Titanic’s bow was just beginning to swing to port when the collision occurred, then the stern would have tended to slue to starboard—toward the ice, rather than away from it. This should have led to some sort of contact with the berg along the whole length of the hull.

What caused the opposite to happen and the stern apparently to swing clear of the berg? One explanation might lie in the exchange between Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch, when the Captain rushed from his quarters onto the bridge immediately after the impact.

“What have we struck?” asked Smith.

“An iceberg, sir,” replied Murdoch, “I hard-astarboarded and reversed the engines, and I was going to hard-aport around it, but she was too close. I could not do any more.”

Murdoch’s explanation has confused many an armchair navigator. It may help to point out that in 1912 a ship’s wheel was rigged so that the helmsman turned it to starboard in order to go to port—a holdover from the days when ships were steered by tillers. In 1924 the wheel was re-rigged to cater to the instincts of a generation raised on the automobile, but everyone on the Titanic’s bridge would have been used to the old way.

At least two survivors gave testimony indicating that Murdoch did indeed try to “port around” the berg. Quartermaster Alfred Olliver, coming on the bridge right after the collision, said he definitely heard orders to put the helm hard aport. About the same time Able Seaman Joseph Scarrott, alarmed by the jar, rushed out of the forecastle onto the forward well deck in time to see the berg still passing alongside the ship. The Titanic at that moment seemed to be under port helm, her stern gliding away from the ice.

Scarrott undoubtedly reported what he thought he saw, but his account seems highly implausible. It would have been impossible for a ship the size of the Titanic to have responded to a change in helm so quickly. A motorboat yes; a 46,000-ton liner, no. Moreover, there’s strong evidence that Murdoch never did actually try to carry out his plan. He intended to “port around” the berg, but abandoned the idea when he saw “she was too close.” Quartermaster Hitchens, at the helm, testified that the last order he received was “hard-astarboard.” Fourth Officer Boxhall, approaching the bridge just before the crash, heard only the same order, followed by the ringing of engine room telegraph bells. Reaching the bridge seconds later, he noted that the telegraph was set at FULL SPEED ASTERN—which made no sense if Murdoch still intended to dodge the ice.

Then why did the afterpart of the Titanic escape damage? Perhaps the answer lies with the other protagonist in the drama. Much has been said about what the iceberg did to the Titanic, but very little about what the Titanic did to the iceberg. It is generally pictured as a great natural force, impervious to the assault of mere man, yet we do know that the jar sent chunks of ice tumbling down onto the forward well deck of the ship. Edward Wilding, for one, thought that the same process was going on beneath the surface of the sea as the berg brushed by. If so, it seems reasonable that a large enough chunk may have broken off to end all further contact with the hull.

The first moments after the collision are among the most difficult to sort out. A series of rapidly changing orders jangled from the bridge to the engine room, but none of the surviving witnesses agreed on the exact sequence, the timing, or even the purpose. Greaser Fred Scott testified that immediately after the collision, the engine room telegraph bells rang STOP ENGINES…then, 10 or 15 minutes later, SLOW AHEAD…another 10 minutes and again, STOP ENGINES…another 10 minutes and SLOW ASTERN…5 more minutes and once again, STOP ENGINES. This time they stopped for good.

Trimmer Patrick Dillon, the only other survivor from the engine room, thought that the signal STOP ENGINES came immediately before the crash, that SLOW ASTERN came before SLOW AHEAD, and that the time intervals were much shorter—for instance, the ship went SLOW AHEAD for only two minutes, not ten. Neither man remembered the engines being set at FULL SPEED ASTERN, as recalled so clearly by Fourth Officer Boxhall on the bridge.

It is fruitless to turn to the bridge for clarification. Captain Smith, First Officer Murdoch, and Sixth Officer Moody were all lost; Fourth Officer Boxhall was off making a quick inspection; Quartermaster Hitchens was in the wheelhouse unable to see anything; Quartermaster Olliver was running errands most of the time. Olliver does remember the Captain telegraphing HALF SPEED AHEAD sometime during the interval when the Titanic lay almost dead in the water.

Many passengers, too, recall the ship starting ahead again, mostly because it seemed so comforting. Second Class passenger Lawrence Beesley, for instance, took a couple of jittery ladies into a bathroom on D Deck and had them touch the tub, where the vibration of the engines was always noticeable. Reassured, the ladies went back to their cabin.

Why the Titanic started ahead again, how long and how fast she went, and which direction she took are all intriguing mysteries, important in fixing her correct position when she began calling for help. It has been suggested that Captain Smith was making for the light of another ship on the horizon, but this seems unlikely for two reasons. First, there’s no evidence that such a light had yet been sighted; and second, Captain Smith had no reason yet to suspect that his ship had been seriously injured. In fact, Fourth Officer Boxhall’s first, quick inspection (as far down and forward in the passengers’ quarters as he could go) brought the good news that he could find no damage at all.

The bad news came soon enough—from the carpenter, from Holds 1, 2, and 3, from the firemen’s quarters, from the mail room, from Boiler Rooms 5 and 6. If Smith still had any hope, it was dispelled by the arrival of Thomas Andrews on the bridge. As Managing Director of Harland & Wolff, Andrews knew the ship more intimately than anyone else on board. He gave the Titanic “from an hour to an hour and a half.”

Could anything have been done to save her? It’s a favorite subject for letter-writers, and over the years suggestions have ranged from stuffing the gash with bedding to a headlong run for the light that glimmered most of the night on the horizon.

No amount of bedding could have stemmed the torrent pouring into the Titanic, but the possibility of using collisions mats was at least considered by the British Inquiry. After a brief discussion, Edward Wilding rejected the idea on two grounds: first, it was impossible to fix the exact location of the various holes to be plugged; and second, 50 to 60 men would have been needed to rig collision mats, and they couldn’t possibly be organized and deployed before it was too late to do any good.

Steaming for the light can be ruled out too, because it was not sighted soon enough. The light was first seen a few minutes after midnight, and by that time the funnels were blowing off great clouds of steam—a sure sign that the boilers had shut down for good. Even if the light had been sighted sooner, it’s highly doubtful that the Titanic’s shattered hull could have stood the strain of the dash.

Others contend that the watertight doors should have been reopened once the extent of the damage was known. This would have allowed the water to spread gradually throughout the hull, and the ship would have settled on an even keel. This way, the Titanic would have taken longer to sink than she actually took going down by the head. The British Inquiry agreed, but did not press the point. The damage was so overwhelming, it made little difference whether the doors were left open or shut.

Actually, there seemed to be only one moment when the Titanic really might have been saved, and that came at the very start of the crisis, when Lookout Fleet reported the iceberg to the bridge. If First Officer Murdoch had steamed right at the berg instead of trying to miss it, he might have saved the ship. There would have been a fearful crash—passengers and crew in the first 100 feet would have been killed by the impact—but the Titanic would have remained afloat.

It would have been like the Arizona, 33 years earlier. Tumbling out on deck, her passengers found her crumpled bow pressed against the ice. Fearing the end, they clung to each other in tears. Yet it was not the end, and when they finally realized that the Arizona’s collision bulkhead would hold, they joined in a prayer of thanks and sang the hymn “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow.”

The Titanic was not the Arizona. She hit the berg a glancing blow, not head on; but Murdoch could not be blamed for trying to miss it. He did what he had been trained to do—what any prudent officer would do—in the same circumstances. His great misfortune was that, in his own succinct words, “she was too close.”

Now that it had happened, there was only one course left open for Captain Smith. It was almost exactly midnight—the 12:00 to 4:00 watch was just coming on deck in a last display of normal shipboard routine—when he gave the order to take to the boats.

CHAPTER VIII

“I Was Very Soft the Day I Signed That”

THE DECISION TO TAKE to the boats brought Captain Smith face-to-face with a painful mathematical fact: there were lifeboats enough for only 1,178 of the 2,201 people on board the Titanic. Even if every boat got away filled to capacity, 1,023 individuals would be left behind with no chance of escape.

It could have been worse. The Titanic was certified to carry 3,547 passengers and crew, but due to the slack season and uncertainties of travel during the coal strike, she was only two-thirds full. Also, the Board of Trade regulations required her to carry boats for only 962 persons, but the White Star Line liked little flourishes and threw in space for an extra 216. In a “worst case” situation the Titanic might lawfully have gone to sea with lifeboats for only 27% of her passengers and crew.

Responsibility for this state of affairs went back to a regulatory body called the Board of Trade, which set the safety standards for British ships. The Titanic came under the Board’s regulations governing vessels of “10,000 tons and upwards,” the maximum category at the time the rules were issued in 1894. Since then the size and capacity of ships had increased dramatically—the Titanic was nearly four times as large as any vessel of the 90’s—but the lifeboat requirements remained the same.

At the time of the disaster it was generally felt that the lag was due to a somnolent Board of Trade, full of sleepy figureheads and bureaucrats who failed to keep up to date. Actually, the problem was more complicated than that. The Board’s requirements were inadequate not only for the new breed of giants like the Titanic, but for ordinary vessels of the type they were written for. Of 39 British liners over 10,000 tons, 33 did not provide lifeboats for everybody, yet fully complied with the law. Some, like the Megantic, Zeeland, and Saxonia—all under 20,000 tons—had boats for less than 50% of those who might be aboard. The Cunarder Carmania could take care of only 29%.

Nor was the problem limited to vessels coming under Britain’s Board of Trade. The ships of other nations, too, rarely carried enough boats for all on board. The German liner Amerika could accommodate only 55%; the American liner St. Louis, 54%. Based on a random sampling of ships on the North Atlantic run, only the French liner La Provence came anywhere near providing boats for all. She could provide space for 82% of her passengers and crew.

In brief, ships of all nationalities—and all sizes—fell short, yet sailed the North Atlantic with official blessing. Surely, all the regulators everywhere couldn’t have been asleep. There had to be a better explanation.

There was. The problem was not somnolence; it was subservience. The members of the Board of Trade itself knew little about ships or safety at sea. They were mostly decorative luminaries like the Archbishop of Canterbury. On nautical matters they deferred to the professional staff of the Board’s Marine Department. But these men were bureaucrats—better at carrying out policy than making it. When it came to such questions as whether ships should provide lifeboats for all on board, these men deferred to the Department’s Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee. This group was dominated by the ship-owners themselves, and they were only too happy to make policy. They knew exactly where they stood, and they did not want boats for all.

In the luxury trade, “boats for all” meant less room on the upper decks for the suites, the games and sports, the verandahs and palm courts, and the glass-enclosed observation lounges that lured the wealthy travelers from the competition. On the Titanic, for instance, it would sacrifice that vast play area amidships and instead clutter the Boat Deck with (of all things) boats.

In steerage, the other place where there was big money to be made, “boats for all” would be even more costly. In calculating the number of lifeboats needed, the Board of Trade used a simple rule of thumb: each person took up ten cubic feet of space. Hence 1,134 steerage passengers—the number the Titanic was certified to carry—would require 11,340 cubic feet of space. This translated into 19 lifeboats required for steerage alone…or nearly 60 boats, counting everybody. Almost any owner would prefer to use most of this space in some revenue-producing way—if he could persuade himself that the boats weren’t really necessary.

This proved easy to do. The new superliners could easily ride out the storms and heavy seas that sometimes engulfed steamers of the past. Increased compartmentalization seemed safer, since no one could imagine anything worse than being rammed at the point where two compartments joined. The development of wireless should end the days when ships simply disappeared. In the future, lifeboats would only be used to ferry passengers and crew to the gathering fleet of rescue ships, and nobody needed “boats for all” to do that.

It didn’t take long for the owners to convince themselves that the concept was positively dangerous. Piling all that gear on the upper decks would make a vessel top-heavy, or “tender,” as nautical men put it. Also, the top decks would be so congested that the crew would have no room to work, if it did indeed become necessary to abandon ship.

Finally, there was the weather. The stormy Atlantic was no place to float the 50 to 60 lifeboats required for a ship the size of the Titanic, if “boats for all” was the rule. Nineteen times out of 20, estimated White Star’s general manager Harold Sanderson, the boats could not be lowered safely. Once afloat, passengers would be subject to additional dangers as they bobbed around waiting for rescue. “They could avoid all this by drowning at once,” dryly observed the magazine Fairplay, when Sanderson persisted in his views even after the disaster.

The utter speciousness of the owners’ arguments became clear within days of the sinking. All the obstacles to “boats for all” suddenly vanished. “The lifeboat capacity of these steamers will be ample to provide for every person aboard,” the Hamburg-American Line assured the public. Despite Mr. Sanderson’s views, White Star fell in step with the rest. When the Olympic sailed from New York, April 25, the line’s announcement emphasized that she would have “boat and life raft capacity for every person on board, including both passengers and crew.”

But that came later. Until the Titanic, the public seemed perfectly willing to accept the owners’ arguments. Like air travelers today, a liner’s passengers understood that if the ship went down, they might well go with it. As White Star’s Sanderson put it, “There are certain risks connected with going to sea which it is impossible to eliminate.”

One man saw through this nonsense—and was in a perfect position to do something about it. The Right Honourable Alexander M. Carlisle was Managing Director of Harland & Wolff in 1909, while the Olympic and Titanic were on the stocks. A big, hulking man, he ran the shipyard with tyrannical discipline, and was accustomed to getting his way. Nor did it hurt that he was the brother-in-law of Lord Pirrie, Harland & Wolff’s Chairman.

For some time Carlisle had been uneasy about the small number of lifeboats to be carried by the two new giants. There were only 16, which met the 1894 regulations, but seemed too few for the size of the ships. Since the contract with White Star clearly left such matters to Harland & Wolff, he asked the Welin Davit Company in Sweden to design for him new davits that would hold up to 64 boats, although he felt that 48 would be enough.

Later, much would be made of Carlisle’s unsuccessful efforts to achieve his goal. First intimations came three days after the disaster, when the newspaper Daily Mail carried an interview with him on April 18, 1912. Asked whether he felt the Board of Trade requirement on lifeboats was sufficient, Carlisle replied, “No, I do not think it is sufficient for big ships, and I never did. As ships grew bigger, I was always in favor of increasing the lifeboat accommodation.” He went on to explain that, feeling as he did, he had fitted the Olympic and Titanic with davits that could handle “over 40 boats,” but he didn’t say why the boats themselves were never included.

The closest he came was a curious observation later in the interview: “If any ships had been fitted with the full number of boats I proposed, it would no doubt have set up an invidious situation with respect to the steamers of all lines now trading in the North Atlantic. It would have drawn attention.” In other words, enough lifeboats on one or two liners might start people worrying about the lack of boats on all the others. This ostrichlike approach was overlooked in the general applause that greeted at least one man in the shipping business who appreciated lifeboats.

Seventy-one years later Carlisle again became the hero who had fought in vain for more boats. In 1983 a British television documentary, “The Titanic—A Question of Murder,” described how Carlisle “conducted a lengthy campaign to increase by two or even three times the number of lifeboats carried by the great liner.” According to the script, he “argued” and “recommended” in vain, opposed by an intransigent Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line.

Such a dramatic conflict is the stuff that great TV shows are made of, but in real life this clash never happened. Carlisle did indeed think the Titanic should have had more lifeboats—he wanted 48 altogether—but he never told Bruce Ismay so. He merely proposed special davits that could carry additional boats, pointing out that this would save money if the Board of Trade later tightened its regulations. His point was economy, not safety.

When the British Inquiry asked why he didn’t recommend more boats as well as the special davits, Carlisle replied that there were limits to what he could, with all propriety, propose to White Star. It was not his position to make such an expensive recommendation.

When asked why Harland & Wolff’s cost-plus contract with White Star didn’t allow the yard to act on its own, Carlisle patiently explained that there were limits here too. True, White Star boasted that the agreement gave the builders free rein to turn out the best-equipped ship regardless of expense, yet it wasn’t quite that simple. Whatever the contract said, there was a tacit understanding that Harland & Wolff mustn’t go too far. If they loaded the Olympic and Titanic with lifeboats, that would leave White Star in an embarrassing position with the rest of its fleet. They might be expected to give those ships enough boats too—and that could get very expensive.

Feeling unable either to recommend or act on his own, Carlisle merely showed the plans of the ship to Bruce Ismay, leaving Ismay to discover for himself that the Boat Deck provided for 48 boats, if White Star thought that desirable. It was almost like a valentine being slipped under the door by a faint-hearted suitor.

Not surprisingly, Ismay never approved the idea. In fact, he later claimed that he never even saw the plan for the lifeboat arrangements. Since the subject of boats took up only five or ten minutes in each of two all-day conferences, he may have been telling the truth.

Certainly, Carlisle didn’t push the point. The roaring lion—so accustomed to getting his own way at the shipyard—turned into a pussycat when it came to dealing with the client.

Yet “Big Alec” still had a chance. If he was reluctant to press his views on a client, he had another opportunity under entirely different circumstances in May 1911. The occasion was a meeting of the Board of Trade’s Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee, called to reconsider the whole question of lifeboats. By now Carlisle had retired from Harland & Wolff, but was added to the Committee because of his special expertise on the subject.

Behind closed doors, he argued strongly for more boats on the great new liners. Not surprisingly, the Committee—dominated as always by the owners—turned a deaf ear to his advice. Then the unexpected twist: Carlisle not only remained silent at the rebuff, but signed a set of recommendations that actually reduced the number of lifeboats required on a ship like the Titanic.

“Was that your view?” an incredulous Lord Mersey later asked at the Inquiry.

“It was not,” replied Carlisle.

“Why on earth did you sign it?”

“I don’t know why I did. I am not generally soft.”

“Well, I should not have thought so,” broke in the Attorney General, apparently trying to ease the strain.

“But I must say,” continued Carlisle, “I was very soft the day I signed that.”

So much for the hero. By the time the Titanic sailed, April 10 the following year, Carlisle was no longer directly concerned. He said he didn’t even know how many boats she was carrying.

Captain Smith knew. At midnight, April 14-15, he was all too well aware that his ship had only 16 wooden boats in the davits—the same number originally planned before Alexander Carlisle played his hesitant role. In addition, there were four “Englehardt collapsibles,” semirafts with wooden bottoms and canvas sides. They were not in davits, but stowed flat on deck, upside down with the sides folded in. If they were ever needed, the idea was to assemble them and fit them into the davits of boats already lowered. This must have been considered a remote possibility, for two of them were stowed on the roof of the officers’ quarters, with no way to get them down to the Boat Deck.

Now it was up to Captain Smith to make the best of this small fleet, with an untried crew, uninformed passengers, and a ship that had never held a proper boat drill.

CHAPTER IX

What Happened to the Goodwins?

AT MIDNIGHT, APRIL 14-15, the shortage of lifeboats on the Titanic was academic; the question was, who would get to use them. The White Star Line always claimed that the only rule was, “Women and children first”; there was absolutely no distinction, the line insisted, between First, Second, and Third Class passengers.

Both the American and British investigations agreed, and Mr. W. D. Harbinson, who officially represented Third Class at the British Inquiry, emphatically concurred:

I wish to say distinctly that no evidence has been given in the course of this case that would substantiate a charge that any attempt was made to keep back the third class passengers. There is not an atom or a tittle of evidence upon which any such allegation could be based….

Yet there remained those uncomfortable statistics: 53% of First and Second Class passengers saved, but only 25% of Third Class…94% of First and Second Class women and children saved, but only 42% of those in Third Class. In First Class just one child was lost—little Lorraine Allison, whose family decided to stick together—while in Third Class, 52 out of 79 children were lost—about the same percentage as First Class men.

The White Star Line was full of explanations: the Third Class passengers were more reluctant to leave the ship…They didn’t want to part with their luggage…It was hard to get them up from their quarters. At the British Inquiry one member of the crew after another assured the Court that there was no discrimination whatsoever—but not a single Third Class passenger was called as a witness.

The Court accepted all of White Star’s explanations, and seemed especially impressed by the point that many of the steerage passengers were foreign and couldn’t understand the crew’s instructions.

How, then, to explain the loss of the entire Goodwin family—father, mother, and six children? There was no “language barrier” here; they were from London. Nor is there any reason to suppose they were unwilling to leave the ship, or especially reluctant to part with their luggage.

Frederick Goodwin was no ordinary, uneducated emigrant. He was a 40-year-old electrical engineer who lived with his wife, Augusta, and their six children in a small but neat row house in Fulham. As the family grew, Mr. Goodwin began looking around for new opportunities. His brother Thomas had already left the old country and settled in Niagara Falls, New York; so when Thomas wrote of an opening at the big power station there, Frederick jumped at the chance.

He got rid of the house in Fulham, paused briefly at Marcham, and booked passage for himself and family on one of the more modest steamers operating out of Southampton. These were the days before new employers paid relocation costs, and since the Goodwins had little in the way of savings, they would be traveling Third Class.

Then came the lucky break. Due to the coal strike, their sailing was canceled, and they were transferred to the new, glamorous Titanic. They were still in Third Class, but on the Titanic that was as good as First Class on most of the older, smaller liners. The Goodwins probably occupied two of the four-berth cabins at the very stern of the ship, which White Star reserved for single women and families traveling together. Single men were quartered in the bow, but during the day all Third Class passengers mingled on deck and in the various public rooms. They could go anywhere they liked, as long as they didn’t cross the various barriers and gates that barred access to Second and First Class space.

On White Star ships, Third Class was encouraged to retire by 10 P.M., and the Goodwins were undoubtedly in bed when that faint, grinding jar shook the Titanic at 11:40 on the night of April 14. Whether they were awakened by the jar no one knows, but they were certainly up shortly after midnight, when the Third Class bedroom stewards went through the long white corridors, banging on doors and telling everybody to put on their life belts.

Pouring into the hallways, the passengers tended to congregate at the foot of the main Third Class stairway on E Deck. Here they waited for instructions from above, while the bedroom stewards adjusted the life belt straps and assured them that there was no need to worry. It’s easy to imagine the Goodwins, nervous but faintly amused by the odd sight of each other in their bulky life belts: Frederick, with arms folded as in the family photograph…Augusta, with her old-fashioned upswept hairdo…Lillie, 16, her dark hair hanging casually over her shoulders…Charles, 14, alert, erect, every inch the oldest brother…then William, Jessie, Harold, and Sydney, all under 12, good soldiers but uncomprehending.

Word gradually spread that the Titanic had hit an iceberg, but the first truly alarming development came when the single men, driven from the bow by the rising water, swarmed aft and joined the crowd milling around the stairs. Many of these men carried satchels and bundles, sopping wet from the seawater that had swirled into their quarters.

And so the crowd waited—restless, complaining, but certainly not rebellious. Their only clue to the condition of the ship was the definite forward tilt of the linoleum beneath their feet. The lights still burned brightly, and buried as they were on E Deck, they couldn’t see that the Titanic’s lifeboats were now dropping to the sea and rowing off into the night.

Shortly before 1 A.M., the long-awaited instructions came: “Pass the women and children up to the Boat Deck.” The order was by no means easy to carry out. Here and there, wives refused to leave their husbands, children clung to their fathers, and some of the women still refused to believe there was any serious danger. A few even went back to their bunks.

Somehow Steward John E. Hart managed to collect a group of 30, and leading the way, he escorted them up the stairway to C Deck, across the open well deck, by the Second Class library, and into First Class space. Then on forward to the C Deck foyer, and finally up the grand staircase to the Boat Deck. The route seems to have been set in advance, for all the barriers were down, and here and there other stewards were posted to nudge them along.

It was now 1:10, and Boat 8 was about to leave. Hart handed over his charges to the men at the falls and headed back to steerage for another group.

By the time he reached the Third Class stairs again, matters had taken an ugly turn. The male passengers were now demanding to go up to the Boat Deck too, and it was all the stewards could do to hold them back. Finally, another convoy was organized, and Hart again set out. This time he had about 25 in tow and reached the Boat Deck around 1:35. As far as he could see, there were no boats left except No. 15, still in the davits but ready to be lowered.

Not a moment to lose. He bundled his people into the boat and made a lightning assessment: the Titanic was finished…no time to go back for one more group. With a nod from the officer standing by the davits, Hart too jumped into the boat.

In all, he had brought up some 55 women and children—nearly half the total number saved—but the Goodwins weren’t among them. Possibly the family refused to be parted. Possibly they remained below, waiting in vain for one more party to be escorted topside. Possibly they tired of the long wait, struck off on their own, but never made it to the Boat Deck until too late.

It’s difficult even to speculate, not because of any set policy to hold back Third Class, but because there was no policy at all. Some gates were open; some were closed. Some passengers were assisted; others were stopped; others were left to shift for themselves.

Berk Pickard, a 32-year-old leather worker from London, found a door to Second Class wide open, easily made his way to an early boat. Kathy Gilnagh, a 15-year-old colleen had no such luck. When she and two friends tried to pass through the gate to Second Class from the after well deck, they found it closed and guarded. It took some powerful persuasion by Jim Farrell, a strapping lad from Kathy’s home county, to persuade the guard to open it long enough for the girls to slip through.

All the way forward, Daniel Buckley, another young Irishman, joined a group trying to force their way up the ladder leading from the well deck to First Class. Here, too, the gate was closed and guarded, and after a brief scuffle, the seaman on duty locked it as well. Undaunted, the leader of Buckley’s group stormed up the ladder again and smashed the gate open—lock and all—as the seaman fled.

Olaus Abelseth and four friends, all from Norway, waited for what seemed an eternity in the after well deck. The barriers leading to Second Class were closed, and they whiled away the time watching the more agile steerage passengers climb up a crane, crawl out on the boom, and drop safely into First Class, the ultimate goal of everyone. At last an officer opened the barrier and called for the women and children to go to the Boat Deck. A little later he called for “Everybody.” Abelseth and the rest of the men surged up, only to find that all the boats were gone.

And so it went: no set policy, but incident piled on incident, all combining to make a mockery of Mr. Harbinson’s assurances that there was “not an atom or a tittle of evidence” to substantiate a charge that any attempt was made to keep back the Third Class passengers. Even Steward Hart’s testimony, heavily relied on by the White Star Line, showed clearly that the men in steerage were held back and that the women had what amounted to an hour’s handicap in the race for the boats.

Oddly enough, while the Third Class passengers were having such a hard time, many of the lifeboats were leaving the Titanic only half-filled. Considering that at best there was room for only half those on board the ship, it seems incredible that the space available—good for 1,178 people—was occupied by only 705. There was room for another 473—far more than enough for all the women and children lost. Why wasn’t it used?

At the bottom of the trouble was the lack of organization that characterized the whole night. The Titanic had never held a boat drill, and few of the crew had any experience in handling the davits. They had boat assignments, but these had only been posted the day after leaving Queenstown. Few had bothered to look up their stations. The manning of the boats was hopelessly haphazard: No. 6 had a crew of only two; No. 3 had 15.

The passengers had no boat assignments at all. They simply milled around the decks waiting for someone to tell them what to do, but there were no clear lines of authority. Later it was said that First Officer Murdoch was in charge on the starboard side, Second Officer Lightoller on the port. But Lightoller never got aft of the first four boats, nor had anything to do with the first boat, No. 2. The junior officers didn’t seem to have any assignments, and nobody even remembered to wake up Fifth-Officer Lowe. Finally aroused by some unusual noise on the Boat Deck, he looked out and saw passengers standing around in life belts.

There was no consistency in loading the boats. To Lightoller, “Women and children first” meant women and children only, even if that meant not filling a boat. Murdoch, on the other hand, put in men when there were no women. On the Titanic, a man’s life could depend on which side of the Boat Deck he happened to step out on.

Then there was the recurring problem of class distinction. At least some of the crew, and passengers too, believed that the boats were reserved for the class where they were located. When two Second Class ladies asked an officer if they could pass to the forward boats in First Class space, passenger Lawrence Beesley heard the officer reply, “No, madam, your boats are down on your deck.”

This basic lack of organization was especially apparent in the actual loading of the boats. No. 4 was the first one ready, and Captain Smith ordered Lightoller to fill it from the Promenade Deck, feeling that it would be easier and safer than the exposed Boat Deck for the women and children. The order was passed on to the passengers already waiting on the Boat Deck, and they obediently trooped below. Watching the scene, First Class passenger Hugh Woolner seems to have been the first person to realize that this wasn’t such a good idea. “Haven’t you forgotten, sir,” he politely asked Smith, “that all those glass windows are closed?”

“By God, you are right!” exclaimed the old captain. “Call those people back.” He had apparently forgotten that the forward end of the Titanic’s Promenade Deck was enclosed, confusing her with her sister ship the Olympic, where the deck was open for its full length.

So everyone was ordered up again, and the women and children quietly climbed back to the Boat Deck. But by this time Boat 4 had been lowered to the Promenade Deck as originally ordered, and Lightoller decided it would be easier to open the windows than to haul the boat back up. A couple of seamen were sent to do this, and the women and children were ordered back down. “Tell us where to go and we will follow,” exclaimed an exasperated Mrs. Thayer. “You ordered us up here and now you are taking us back.”

No firm procedure was ever followed. In the end, some of the boats were loaded from the Boat Deck, others from the Promenade Deck—meaning that the passengers were often not where the boats were.

Mrs. Thayer’s outburst was prompted by irritation, not fear. For the first hour, few of the Titanic’s passengers took the collision very seriously—which is another reason why the early boats, at least, didn’t contain more people. They far preferred the warmth and comfort of the brightly lit ship to the prospect of spending a dark, cold night bobbing about the Atlantic in a rowboat. When the first boat to be loaded, No. 7, was swung out and First Officer Murdoch called for passengers, only a trickle responded. He finally lowered the boat at 12:45 with just 28 persons aboard.

Murdoch now moved on to No. 5, the next boat aft, and again called for passengers. Hovering nearby was a small party of six, traveling together: Mr. and Mrs. Richard Beckwith, Mr. and Mrs. E. N. Kimball, Miss Helen Newsom, and Karl H. Behr. They were reluctant to go, even after Bruce Ismay urged them to get into the boat. Finally, Mrs. Beckwith edged forward and asked Ismay if her whole party, men and women, could go together. “Of course, madam,” Ismay replied, “every one of you.”

So they all climbed in, and at 12:55, No. 5 was lowered with just 41 people…meaning there was still room for another 24. As the boat jerked down toward the sea 70 feet below, Karl Behr wondered whether this precaution he was taking was worth the risk. Any idea that the Titanic might sink was “preposterous.”

Not everyone was that confident. There was, for instance, “our coterie” in the smoking-room. Interrupted by the jar, they soon resumed their bridge game, but it wasn’t as jolly as before. After a hand or two, Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom Steffanson excused themselves and went below to check on Mrs. Candee. They found her standing outside her stateroom door wondering what had happened, puzzled but all right. Steffanson apparently went back to the smoking room, but by now the ship had stopped, and Woolner invited Mrs. Candee for a walk “to see how things are going.”

They had spent an enchanting afternoon together exploring the vessel, and now they were doing it all over again—only this time things were different. The Boat Deck was dark and bitter cold; the funnels were blowing off steam with a deafening roar; the Titanic had a pronounced list to starboard. They nervously cracked a few jokes; touched on their personal troubles, and even talked of life and death. They drifted into the lounge, where they had enjoyed such a cozy tea that afternoon. Now it was empty, but a cheerful young man suddenly appeared and handed Mrs. Candee a small chunk of ice. It was so cold she dropped it, and Woolner found himself at first chafing and then caressing her hand.

They moved to the Promenade Deck and heard the sailors above beginning to swing out the boats. Wandering by the entrance to the grand staircase, they saw passengers streaming up, all wearing life belts. “Is this orders?” Woolner asked a man by the door. “Orders,” the man briefly replied.

Back down to Mrs. Candee’s stateroom; Woolner found her life belt and tied it on her. Then he hurried off to get his own, promising to meet her in a few minutes topside.

As she started up the stairs, Edward A. Kent—another charter member of the coterie—dashed up. On impulse, she handed him a small ivory miniature of her mother, asking him to keep it for her. He had doubts about his own safety, but slipped it into his pocket. It was still there when his body was picked up a week later.

Woolner and Steffanson reappeared, and together they hurried Mrs. Candee into Boat 6, the first lifeboat lowered on the port side. Of the coterie, Colonel Gracie seems to have been the busiest. He had already offered his services to four other “unprotected ladies,” and now he was doing his best to see them all into the boats. It was after 1:00 before he began searching for Mrs. Candee. He finally ran into Kent, who assured him that she was safely off the ship.

By now there was no lack of people willing to leave the Titanic, but a new problem arose. The officers in charge of launching the boats were afraid to put too many passengers in them for fear they might buckle and pitch everyone into the sea. Actually, there was no danger of this. Harland & Wolff had designed all the boats on the Olympic and Titanic to be lowered with their full complement of people. In a test on May 9, 1911, the shipyard even loaded one of the Olympic’s boats with weights corresponding to 65 persons, then raised and lowered it six times without any sign of strain.

Neither Captain Smith nor his officers seem to have been aware of the test. Harland & Wolff never told them that the boats could be lowered fully loaded; the builders simply assumed they knew this as “a matter of general knowledge.” If they ever knew, nobody remembered it that night. Boat 6 rowed off with a maximum of 28 people; Boat 8 with 39; Boat 2 with 26.

Acting on his own, Lightoller decided he might get more people into the boats by utilizing the portside lower deck gangway. He sent six seamen down to open the doors, and ordered the boats, once afloat, to row down to the opening and receive additional passengers. It didn’t work. The doors were never opened; the men sent down were never seen again. They were probably trapped by some sudden inflow of water before they could get the job done.

There was apparently a similar plan for boats on the starboard side. Lawrence Beesley recalled hearing an officer—Murdoch, he thought—calling down to the crew of No. 13, “Lower away, and when afloat, row around to the gangway and wait for further orders.” Captain Smith was also calling on the boats to stay within hailing distance.

Some did…for a while. But the sight of that great hulk, lights ablaze, sagging into the ocean proved too frightening. She was clearly doomed now, and there was talk of suction and a huge wave that would swamp any boats that remained too close. One by one they crept away into the night.

On the Titanic herself, the mood had changed to desperation. By 1:15 the water was lapping at the letters of her name on the bow. Drunkenly, she staggered from a slight list to starboard to a heavy list to port. The downward tilt of the deck grew steeper.

Time was running out. The officers in charge of loading the boats no longer hesitated to fill them: No. 11 went off with 70; No. 14 with 63; No. 15 with 70.

But haste could also be costly. It probably explains the worst case of the night of a boat leaving the Titanic with too few people. Technically, No. 1 was called an “emergency boat”—smaller than a regular lifeboat, manned by a specially trained crew, and ready for instant launching in such untoward situations as a man overboard. It was the first boat on the starboard side, just aft of the bridge.

Since No. 1 was always kept swung out, the crew did not bother with it when they first came on deck to clear the boats. Instead, they started with No. 3 and worked their way aft. The crowd on the Boat Deck followed along, and by the time First Officer Murdoch turned his attention to No. 1, the only passengers in the vicinity were a rather haughty English couple, Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, and Miss L. M. Francatelli, who was Lady Duff Gordon’s secretary. There seems no clear reason why they didn’t go aft with the mob; perhaps it just wasn’t their way of doing things.

When the boat was ready for launching, Murdoch called for women and children, but none appeared. Lady Duff Gordon had already made up her mind that she would never leave her husband, and Miss Francatelli wouldn’t go alone. Finally, Sir Cosmo stepped up and asked if all three couldn’t enter the boat. Murdoch replied, “Yes, I wish you would.” They climbed in, as he again called for women and children. This time two American businessmen came up, and Murdoch put them in too.

Hundreds of women must have been still on the Boat Deck, but Murdoch apparently felt there was no time to search for them. His one idea seems to have been to get the boat away. The ship was sinking fast, and he needed the empty davits for the two starboard collapsibles. He plucked two seamen and five stokers from members of the crew standing by, put Lookout George Symons in charge, and told him to lay off 200 yards, ready to come back when summoned. At 1:10, Boat 1, capacity 40 persons, dropped down to the sea with just 12 people aboard, only 5 of them passengers.

There would have been less need to hurry, if the Titanic’s crew had been better trained in loading and lowering the lifeboats. Two hours should have been enough to do the job properly. But Captain Smith’s casual approach to the whole matter of boat drill now took its toll. His custom on the Olympic—carried over to the Titanic—was merely to test two lifeboats once a voyage, always while the ship was tied up at dock. A picked crew of experienced seamen—usually the same team every time—would lower the boats to the water, then raise them up again. The stewards participated only occasionally, and the firemen not at all. As a result, there were not enough trained hands, and on the night of April 14, the boats could not be lowered simultaneously, but had to be launched one at a time.

Boat 4 offers a prime example of what could happen. This was the boat that Second Officer Lightoller had been unable to load from the Promenade Deck because all the windows were closed. They were soon opened, but by that time Lightoller and his team of “old hands” had moved on to Boat 6…then to Boat 8…and finally to Collapsible D, which was still lashed to the Boat Deck. More than an hour passed before he got a chance to break off and finish launching No. 4. Meanwhile the women waiting to enter the boat simply cooled their heels.

By now it was nearly 2:00, and the water was only ten feet below the Promenade Deck. The women were hurriedly rounded up and passed through the windows into the boat. The pace was so frantic that Lightoller was bathed in sweat, despite the 32° temperature. Colonel Gracie and some of the other First Class men pitched in to help—experience no longer mattered. In the rush to get the boat off, 20 places were left unfilled.

Even the last boat lowered, Collapsible D, was launched with plenty of room in the bow. As it dropped by the open end of the Promenade Deck, Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom Steffanson were standing there and noticed the empty space. They decided to jump for it as the water washed onto the deck and over their evening slippers. This was a dangerous thing to do, for boats hanging in davits are notoriously tippy, but they got away with it, and Collapsible D pulled away with 44 of its 47 places filled.

There remained Collapsibles A and B, stowed on the roof of the officers’ quarters on either side of the forward funnel. These boats, too, were never fully utilized, but here the explanation was not haste or complacency. It was a case of poor design. It’s hard to imagine what Harland & Wolff had in mind when they put two boats in such an inaccessible spot. There was absolutely no mechanism for getting them down to the Boat Deck, where they then had to be fitted into the empty davits used by the two emergency boats.

Nevertheless, the crew did their best. Murdoch led a small group trying to free Collapsible A on the starboard side, while Lightoller’s men struggled with Collapsible B on the port side. With enormous effort the two boats were wrestled to the edge of the roof, and oars were placed against the wall of the officers’ quarters to slide them down to the Boat Deck. A handful of passengers quietly looked on, trying to calculate their chances. Should they wait here on the slim hope of a place in these two boats, or should they head aft toward the momentary safety of the poop deck?

Colonel Gracie and Clinch Smith decided to head aft, but suddenly their way was blocked by a great mass of steerage passengers—hundreds of them—surging up the companionway and deck ladders from somewhere below. Who they were, or where they had been until now, remains a mystery. Had they been restrained until this last desperate moment? Had they been waiting to be escorted to the Boat Deck, when time simply ran out? No one will ever know, for all were soon engulfed by the water now sweeping up the deck.

There were women as well as men in this crowd, and it offers our best clue to what happened to the Goodwin family. Sticking together, they probably reached the Boat Deck too late for a chance at the boats. Now, somewhere in this nameless, faceless mass of human beings, Frederick and Augusta Goodwin stood with their six children, quietly prepared to meet the end.

CHAPTER X

Shots in the Dark

AT LEAST THE TITANIC was spared the horror of a panic. The crew did not battle the passengers for the lifeboats, as they did when the French liner La Bourgogne went down in 1898. No officer “stole” a boat, as happened when the Collins Liner Arctic sank in 1854.

With few exceptions, the passengers behaved admirably, and the crew did their duty—often at a fearful price. The statistics tell the story: the Captain, Chief Officer, and First Officer—all lost; the engineers—all lost; the pursers and officers of the Victualling Department—all lost; the eight bandsmen—all lost; the five bellboys—all lost.

Fearing there might be trouble, the officers loading the boats were armed with pistols, but in more than 2,000 pages of testimony at the hearings, there is only one thoroughly documented case in which a gun was fired. As Boat 14 was being lowered, a group of steerage passengers tried to jump in, and Fifth Officer Lowe fired several shots along the side of the ship to keep them out.

There also seems to have been some gunfire during the loading of Collapsible C—the last boat lowered on the starboard side forward—which takes on added interest since it was the boat that took off Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line. Ismay never mentioned any disorder at the hearings, nor did Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe or Pantryman Albert Pearcey, the only other persons in the boat to testify. Yet Hugh Woolner was quite specific on the point, both in a letter written on the Carpathia and later in his testimony at the Senate investigation.

According to Woolner, he and Steffanson had just finished helping Lightoller load Collapsible D, all the way forward on the port side, when they heard a commotion across the deck on the starboard side. They crossed over just in time to see First Officer Murdoch fire his pistol twice in the air, trying to stop a rush on “a collapsible”—which could only have been Collapsible C. Woolner and Steffanson helped restore order, then saw the boat safely away.

In an account privately published for his family and friends in 1940, First Class passenger Jack Thayer partially corroborated Woolner’s story….

There was some disturbance in loading the last two forward starboard boats. A large crowd of men was pressing to get into them. No women were around as far as I could see. I saw Ismay, who had been assisting in the loading of the last boat, push his way into it. It was really every man for himself….Purser H. W. McElroy, as brave and as fine a man as ever lived, was standing up in the next to last boat, loading it. Two men, I think they were dining room stewards, dropped into the boat from the deck above. As they jumped, he fired twice in the air. I do not believe they were hit, but they were quickly thrown out.

There are, of course, nagging discrepancies between Woolner’s and Thayer’s accounts. Woolner thought First Officer Murdoch fired the shots; Thayer thought Purser McElroy did. Woolner thought it was the last boat; Thayer thought it was the next-to-last. But survivors often saw things differently in the dimly lit confusion of the Titanic’s Boat Deck; and overriding any discrepancies, it seems to me, is the basic similarity: both Woolner and Thayer, responsible witnesses, independently recalled an officer firing twice into the air to stop a rush on one of the last boats on the starboard side forward.

In both Woolner’s and Thayer’s accounts it should be emphasized that the shots were fired into the air, not at anybody. Through the years there have also been stories of actual shootings, but serious students have largely written them off as the concoctions of a sensationalist press that stopped at nothing for dramatic effect. I have always gone along with this reasoning.

It was, then, quite a surprise some years ago to run across a personal letter from a survivor—not just another wild newspaper story—describing an actual shooting in the last minutes on the Boat Deck. The letter was from Third Class passenger Eugene Daly to his sister in Ireland. It is undated, but was clearly written right after the disaster, since it appeared in the London Daily Telegraph on May 4, 1912. Describing the scene, Daly wrote:

At the first cabin [deck] when a boat was being lowered an officer pointed a revolver and said if any man tried to get in, he would shoot him on the spot. I saw the officer shoot two men dead because they tried to get in the boat. Afterwards there was another shot, and I saw the officer himself lying on the deck. They told me he shot himself, but I did not see him. I was up to my knees in the water at the time. Every one was rushing around, and there were no more boats. I then dived overboard.

Daly ended up among the survivors who reached one of the collapsibles that floated off the ship; so he was at least in a position to see. Still, it was only one letter. To be taken seriously, it needed some sort of confirmation.

That came in 1981 with the publishing of The Titanic, the Psychic and the Sea by Rustie Brown. In the course of her research, Mrs. Brown ran across an unpublished letter from First Class passenger George Rheims to his wife in France. It is dated April 19, 1912, the day after the Carpathia reached New York with the Titanic’s survivors. Rheims was one of the few who jumped near the end and ultimately reached Collapsible A; he, too, was in a position to see. Originally written in French, here is a translation of the pertinent part of his letter

While the last boat was leaving, I saw an officer with a revolver fire a shot and kill a man who was trying to climb into it. As there remained nothing more for him to do, the officer told us, “Gentlemen, each man for himself, Good-bye.” He gave a military salute and then fired a bullet into his head. That’s what I call a man!!!

These strikingly similar accounts come from completely independent sources. There’s no reason to suppose that Eugene Daly and George Rheims were ever in touch. Both were writing a private letter to an intimate member of the family, not an account for the press. Both were writing immediately after the event, not years later when fantasy might have taken over. They had absolutely no reason to fabricate, but every reason to be telling the truth as far as they saw it.

Supposing such an incident really happened, what boat was involved? The guiding clue is in Daly’s letter, where he writes that he had no chance to see the officer’s suicide because “I was up to my knees in the water at the time.” This means that by now the bridge must have dipped under, and the sea was swirling along the Boat Deck. All the boats had been launched except Collapsibles A and B, which had been dropped down to the Boat Deck from the roof of the officers’ quarters. On the port side, Collapsible B landed upside down and could only be floated off as a raft. Only Collapsible A on the starboard side could still be launched properly, and members of the crew were desperately trying to hook it up to the davits when the sea came rolling along the deck. One of these men was Steward Edward Brown, whose testimony is our best source on Collapsible A. His account fits well with Daly’s letter—he even describes the water washing around his legs. He does not mention any shooting, but concedes there was a great “scramble” to get into the boat. All in all, it seems most likely that Daly was writing about Collapsible A.

Who was the officer involved? Could it have been Purser McElroy? Jack Thayer recalled McElroy firing two shots to stop a rush on one of the forward starboard boats, but Thayer did not think it was the last boat. Apart from that, the officers of the Victualling Department were basically “housekeepers.” They were not likely to be in charge of loading and lowering lifeboats, nor would they have the authority to declare “Each man for himself,” as Rheims noted. Lightoller in his memoirs recalled saying good-bye to the pursers and doctors, who were standing off to one side of the Boat Deck. He specifically praised their quiet courage for staying out of the way while the deck force launched the last boats.

A far more likely candidate would be one of the three lost officers of the Deck Department. Sixth Officer Moody was on the scene; he was in charge of the party on the roof of the officers’ quarters that cut Collapsible A free. On the other hand, once back on the Boat Deck, he would have come under First Officer Murdoch, who was trying to attach the collapsible to the falls. He then wouldn’t have had the authority to give the order “Each man for himself.”

First Officer Murdoch was in exactly the right spot, working on the collapsible. Moreover, he had been in charge of the bridge at the time of the crash and had given the orders that failed to save the ship. If his thoughts turned to suicide, it was at least understandable. Yet Lightoller and those who knew Murdoch felt he was the last person to take his own life. When last seen, just as Lightoller dove into the sea, Murdoch was still working on the falls.

That leaves Chief Officer Wilde, who is the enigma of the night. None of the survivors had much to say about him. He was new to the ship, and Lightoller’s feathers were clearly ruffled at being bumped down a notch to make room for Wilde as “Chief.” But silence and our lack of knowledge are not evidence; so in the end there’s no more reason to suppose Wilde was the officer seen by Daly and Rheims than anyone else.

The whole incident can’t be verified, yet can’t be dismissed. It was not just one more lurid tale appearing in the yellow press; it was witnessed and independently described by two separate firsthand sources. It must be taken seriously, but beyond that, it remains a mystery.

CHAPTER XI

The Sound of Music

THE LAST MOMENTS OF the Titanic are full of mysteries—none more intriguing than those surrounding the ship’s band. We know they played, but little else. Where they played, how long they played, and what they played remain matters for speculation.

All eight musicians were lost; so there are no firsthand accounts. We can only piece the story together from bits of evidence. The search is made more difficult by a host of legends that have cropped up, and by the fact that few of the Titanic’s survivors seem to have been blessed with a very good musical ear.

The whole problem is further complicated by the fact that there were two distinct musical units on the Titanic, not just a single eight-piece orchestra, as is generally assumed. First, there was a quintet led by violinist Wallace Hartley and used for routine ship’s business—tea-time and after-dinner concerts, Sunday service and the like. There was no brass or drums. Vernon and Irene Castle had introduced the foxtrot, but it hadn’t reached the White Star Line yet.

In addition to this basic orchestra, the Titanic had something very special: a trio of violin, cello, and piano that played exclusively in the Reception Room outside the À la Carte Restaurant and Café Parisien. This was all part of White Star’s effort to plant a little corner of Paris in the heart of a great British liner, and appropriately the trio included a French cellist and a Belgian violinist to add to the Continental flavoring.

These two orchestras had completely separate musical libraries. They had their own arrangements, and they did not normally mix. It is likely (but not certain) that on the night of the collision they played together for the first time. Hence whatever they played had to be relatively simple and easy to handle without sheet music— the current hits and old numbers that the men knew by heart.

Where did they play? Apparently they initially took their stand in the First Class lounge on A Deck around 12:15 A.M. Dressed in their regular uniforms with the green facings, they looked as though it was a perfectly normal occasion. Jack Thayer remembered them playing to a restless crowd milling in and out of the room, not paying much attention.

Later, the band moved up to the Boat Deck level of the grand staircase. Here they were in the mainstream of the passengers heading from their staterooms to the boats. There was a small piano on the port side of the foyer, and it was put to good use.

Near the end, they moved out onto the Boat Deck itself, but still remained near the entrance to the grand staircase. By now the interior of the ship was nearly deserted and if their music was to do any good, they had to be where people could hear them.

How long did they play? Legend has them carrying on with the water practically up to their knees, but by then the slant of the deck would have been so steep, no one could have stood. At the other extreme, Colonel Gracie, on board to the last, said that the band stopped playing about half an hour before the ship sank. He added that he himself saw the musicians lay down their instruments. Curiously, Gracie did not mention this in his authoritative study The Truth about the Titanic, but he went into some detail in a talk he gave at the University Club in Washington on November 23, 1912. This was less than two weeks before he died; so it is presumably his last word on the subject.

Gracie’s recollection seems confirmed by First Class passenger A. H. Barkworth, also there to the end, who recalled: “I do not wish to detract from the bravery of anybody, but I might mention that when I first came on deck the band was playing a waltz. The next time I passed where the band had been stationed, the members had thrown down their instruments, and were not to be seen.”

Barkworth was a stolid Yorkshireman, not given to fantasy. He and Gracie undoubtedly told what they saw, but nothing varies more wildly than estimates of time the night the Titanic went down. Other witnesses, equally reliable, remember the band playing almost to the final plunge.

Harold Bride recalls their music while he was on the roof of the officers’ quarters struggling to free Collapsible B. Greaser Thomas Ranger heard them when he came up from turning off 45 fans to find all the boats gone. But perhaps the musicians’ best epitaph comes from the testimony of Steward Edward Brown at the British Inquiry. When asked how long he heard the band play, Brown replied, “I do not remember hearing them stop.”

What were they playing? All agree that the band featured light, cheerful music—ragtime, waltzes, and the comic songs that were then so popular in the London music halls. Survivors specifically recalled Irving Berlin’s “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and a pretty English melody called “In the Shadows,” the big London hit of 1911. Colonel Gracie couldn’t remember the name of any tune, but he was sure the beat was lively to the end. Nevertheless, the Carpathia had no sooner reached New York than the story spread that the band went down playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” The idea was so appealing that it instantly became part of the Titanic saga—as imperishable as the enduring love of the Strauses and the courage of the engineers who kept the lights burning to the final plunge.

Yet doubts persist. In the first place, the whole point of the band playing was to keep the passengers’ spirits up, and light music seems best suited to that. As Colonel Gracie observed, “If ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’ was one of the selections, I assuredly would have noticed it and regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death, and more likely to create a panic that our special efforts were directed towards avoiding….”

Moreover, no one up close remembered it. For instance, Mrs. A. A. Dick of Calgary, Alberta, vividly recalled seeing the musicians lined up on deck playing “Nearer, My God, to Thee”…yet she was in Boat 3, at least a quarter-mile away. On the other hand, passengers Peter Daly and Dick Williams—both on board to the last—agreed with Colonel Gracie: the band played only light, cheerful music.

Finally, we must face the hymnologists. They point out that both British and American survivors recalled “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” but ordinarily the hymn is played to entirely different music on the two sides of the Atlantic. In America the setting is normally Lowell Mason’s haunting tune “Bethany”; but in Britain the standard Episcopal setting is J. B. Dykes’s “Horbury,” while the Methodists prefer Sir Arthur Sullivan’s “Propior Deo.” Unless the band played all three versions (an absurdity), more than half of those who remembered the hymn must have been mistaken.

Sunday service on British liners of the period was normally Church of England, which suggests that Dykes’s “Horbury” was used, but to balance that, Bandmaster Hartley had a strong Methodist background. In his hometown, Colne, his father served as choirmaster at the local Methodist church for 30 years and invariably used Sullivan’s “Propior Deo.” Hartley himself favored this setting, according to a fellow musician who had played with him on another ship. His friends and relatives firmly believed that this was the version played on the Titanic, and in fact, the opening bars are carved on the monument over his grave.

The controversy over “Nearer, My God, to Thee” had barely begun when The New York Times introduced a brand-new candidate for the band’s final number. Based on an exclusive interview with Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride appearing April 19, the morning after the Carpathia reached New York, the paper announced on April 21 that the musicians went down playing the Episcopal hymn “Autumn.”

The story included an illustration reproducing several lines of the music, and also quoted three stanzas. The first line ran “God of mercy and compassion, look with pity on my pain,” and even more appropriate were two lines in the third stanza:

Hold me up in mighty waters;

Keep my eyes on things above.

The hymn completely fitted the occasion, and Bride was the perfect authority. He was no distant observer; he was on the Boat Deck to the last. As a wireless operator, he was trained to be meticulously accurate. So “Autumn” it was, both in A Night to Remember and in accounts by other writers attempting to get below the surface and discover what really happened.

Then once again, the hymnologists. This time they pointed out that “Autumn” is the name of a hymn tune, and that in both Britain and America hymns are customarily known by their first line, not by the name of the music that provides the setting. Hence we refer to “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” not its tune, “Saint Gertrude,” and a choir sings “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” not its tune, “Saint Ann.” The same goes for “Autumn.” If Harold Bride meant a hymn, he would have referred to it by the opening line of some hymn that used this piece of music as a setting.

Even then it would not have been “God of Mercy and Compassion,” for there is no Episcopal hymn that begins that way. “Autumn” was an alternate setting for the Episcopal hymn “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah,” but it seems to have been rarely used and was dropped from the hymnal after 1916.

The hymnologists’ case against “Autumn” came through in driblets, and it wasn’t until research began on this book that it became clear how convincing it was. The arguments are neatly summarized by Jessica M. Kerr in her article “A Hymn to Remember,” appearing in the January 1976 issue of the magazine The Hymn.

What, then, was Bride referring to when he mentioned “Autumn”? The most likely answer is contained in a series of letters written to me in 1957 by Fred G. Vallance of Detroit, Michigan. Mr. Vallance was bandleader of the Cunard Liner Laconia at the time of the Titanic and was writing from the point of view of a shipboard musician. He pointed out that whatever the band played, it had to be something they all knew by heart—something that could be played in the dark, on a sloping deck, and without the benefit of sheet music. The hymn tune “Autumn” did not remotely meet these requirements, but a currently popular waltz, “Songe d’Automne,” did.

“Songe d’Automne,” moreover, was generally known simply as “Autumn.” Composed by Archibald Joyce, it was never very popular in America, but was a major hit in London in 1912. Played at roller-skating rinks, cafés, and the like, Harold Bride would probably have known it, and he might well have assumed that his American interviewers understood what he meant.

Certainly Bride never referred to “Autumn” as a hymn in his original interview of April 19. He specifically mentioned the tune three different times, but always casually, like a popular song that needed no further explanation. For instance:

From aft came the tunes of the band. It was a ragtime tune, I don’t know what. Then there was “Autumn.” Phillips ran aft, and that was the last I ever saw of him….

Nor did The New York Times ever check back with Bride on its article two days later, unveiling “Autumn” as the hymn the band played at the end. The story was clearly based on the original interview, without further amplification.

It’s interesting to note that the British press never accepted the idea that the band went down playing any hymn called “Autumn.” The Daily Telegraph carried the April 19 interview with Bride, but identified “Autumn” as a “ragtime air.” This it certainly was not, but the description does indicate that the editors never thought Bride meant a hymn.

Nor did seafaring people think so at the time. According to Vallance, the general opinion among ship musicians was that the Titanic’s band played “Songe d’Automne” at least part of the time, and he himself was told this by more than one survivor. Once when he was playing it, a ship’s steward (apparently from the Titanic) came up and admonished him that it was “unlucky.”

Fred Vallance presented his case in 1957, but its true significance wasn’t appreciated until research began on this book. The hymnologists had to demolish “Autumn” first. With that out of the way, his theory becomes the most plausible explanation of what really happened.

But it is not carved in stone. There is always the possibility of some totally unexpected twist to the story. For instance, it is conceivable (though not at all likely) that the Café Parisien trio never joined forces with Wallace Hartley’s quintet, but continued to play as a separate group, ending with some hymn in another part of the ship. Then there is the question of what pianists Percy Taylor and Theodore Brailey were doing at the end, for it seems most unlikely, that anyone dragged a piano out onto the Boat Deck.

Whatever they played, they achieved immortality. The bravery of these men, trying to bring hope and comfort to others without a thought to their own safety, captured the public’s imagination all over the world. Editorials, speeches, sermons, and reams of worshipful poetry celebrated the deed, and letters of condolence poured into the homes of the bereaved.

Tucked in with the tributes received by the family of violinist Jock Hume, was a letter to his father that sounded a strangely jarring note. Dated April 30, 1912—just two weeks after the tragedy—it contained no words of sympathy, just a short, crisp reminder:

Dear Sir:

We shall be obliged if you will remit to us the sum of 5s. 4d., which is owing to us as per enclosed statement. We shall also be obliged if you will settle the enclosed uniform account.

Yours faithfully,

C. W & F. N. Black

The “enclosed uniform account” included such items as a lyre lapel insignia (2 shillings) and sewing White Star buttons on a tunic (1 shilling). Altogether, Hume’s account added up to a grand total of 14s. 7d.—or about $3.50 in American money.

C. W. and F. N. Black, who so diligently pursued their $3.50, were Jock Hume’s agents, and any entertainer or writer today who complains about his agent would do well to ponder the situation in 1912. He might find things are not so bad after all.

Until 1912 the various steamship lines dealt directly with their musicians, signing them up as members of the crew like stewards, firemen, and ordinary seamen. The pay was union scale, which worked out at £6 10s. a month, plus a monthly uniform allowance of 10s.

Then the Blacks entered the picture. An enterprising talent agency based in Liverpool, they promised the steamship companies a simpler and cheaper way to good music. One after another the companies signed contracts, giving the Blacks the exclusive right to supply bands to their vessels. The musicians still signed the ship’s articles for a token shilling a month (putting them clearly under the captain’s authority), but they were now really working for the Blacks, and could get no jobs except through the Blacks.

Since the musicians worked for the Blacks or not at all, they had to take what the Blacks were willing to pay them—which turned out to be a sharp cut in salary. Instead of a basic pay of £6 10s., they now got only £4. Instead of a uniform allowance of 10s. a month, they now got nothing at all. The terms of employment were also hard: if the steamship company objected to any musician, the Blacks had the right to remove the man without any investigation or explanation.

The Amalgamated Musicians Union protested without success. Only some of the bandsmen belonged, and in any case, these were not the times for strong union action.

Finally, early in March 1912, a delegation from the union waited upon Bruce Ismay. As Managing Director of the White Star Line, Ismay was a mover and shaker in the British shipping industry, and maybe he could be persuaded to do something. The great Olympic was about to sail from Southampton, and the delegation pointed out that her five-man band was being paid at less than union scale, supplemented only by the monthly shilling that White Star paid to make them officially members of the crew.

If the delegation expected to melt Ismay’s heart, they didn’t know their man. He replied that if the union objected to White Star carrying its bandsmen as members of the crew at a shilling a month, the company would carry them as passengers.

Sure enough, when the Olympic reached New York on March 20, her five musicians were listed as Second Class passengers. All had regular tickets, and all had to appear before the immigration officials in the usual way. As a crowning irony in view of the reason for this masquerade, all had to produce $50 in cash to show that they were not destitute.

The masquerade continued when the Titanic sailed. She, of course, had not only the standard five-man band, but the special trio added for the Café Parisien. Hence there were now eight extra names on the Second Class passenger list. Otherwise nothing had changed: the musicians still had the cramped quarters on E Deck (next to the potato washer), and certainly none of the “perks” of passengers. When they played the last night, they played as disciplined members of the ship’s crew, not as a group of talented passenger-volunteers.

It was natural, then, for the musicians’ families to turn first to the White Star Line for financial benefits under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Sorry, said White Star, the bandsmen were Second Class passengers and not covered by the Act. The Line suggested that the families contact C. W. and F. N. Black, the real employers.

Sorry, said the Blacks. The problem wasn’t their responsibility. They carried insurance to cover such matters, and any claims should be laid at the insurer’s door.

Sorry, said the insurance company, the bandsmen were not workmen as covered by the policy. They were independent contractors, using the Blacks as a booking agency, and the insurance company was under no liability.

Months passed while White Star, the Blacks, and the insurer tossed this hot potato back and forth. Finally, in exasperation the families took the Blacks to court. The judge was sympathetic, but that was all. The bandsmen, he decided, were not the employees of anybody. They were passengers in the case of the White Star Line, and independent contractors in the case of the Blacks and the insurers.

With the legalities settled, the musicians’ union made a final appeal to White Star’s sense of moral responsibility: “Three families lost their only sons—three young men ranging from 21 to 24 years of age, cut off in the prime of their life while performing an act of heroism that stirred the whole world to its depths. Surely there is something for the White Star Company to consider over and above the mere terms of an Act of Parliament.” It did no good.

In the end, the day was saved by the “Titanic Relief Fund,” an umbrella organization that was set up to manage the charitable contributions that poured in from all over the world. On January 2, 1913 the Fund announced that it would treat the musicians as though they were members of the crew. This opened the door at last to adequate benefits. Welcome news, but no thanks to the White Star Line. To the end it maintained, as far as I can determine, that the musicians were no more than Second Class passengers.

While this shabby little business was unfolding behind the scenes, front-stage the drama of the band’s heroism continued. On May 18 there occurred one of those great public funerals, dripping with melancholy pageantry, that the Victorians and Edwardians did so well. Bandmaster Wallace Hartley’s body had been retrieved from the ice-strewn waters off Newfoundland, and now he was coming home to his final rest.

Seven bands played as his rosewood casket, borne shoulder-high, was carried through the winding streets of Colne, Hartley’s birthplace in the hills of Lancashire. Aldermen, councillors, ambulance men, police, boys’ brigades, and musicians from all over England fell in behind—the procession was a half-mile long. Thousands lined the route; most wore black or white, but occasionally there were mill girls in their drab shawls and miners in their blue overalls. All business had stopped for the day. At the steep hillside cemetery, as the casket was lowered into the grave, a dozen Boy Scouts raised their bugles and sounded “The Last Post.” The notes echoed off the neighboring hills, drowning out the squabbling and petty maneuvers for that day at least.

CHAPTER XII

“She’s Gone”

THE CLIMACTIC MOMENT OF the night came just before 2:20 A.M..The Titanic’s stern rose high into the air; the lights went out; and she stood nearly perpendicular to the water, silhouetted against the star-filled sky. She hung there at least a minute, while everything movable broke loose and thundered down through the hull. Then, leaning back slightly, she slid beneath the sea. It was almost like a benediction, Second Officer Lightoller recalled, as the men clinging to the overturned Collapsible B breathed the two words, “She’s gone.”

Lightoller was sure that the Titanic went down intact. So was Third Officer Pitman, who watched from Boat 5. Colonel Gracie and Lawrence Beesley, the two survivors who wrote the most authoritative contemporary accounts, both agreed. All in all, a formidable array of experts, and through the years their view became accepted gospel. To question it amounted to heresy.

So it was all the more surprising to find, when the Titanic was located 73 years later, that her bow and stern lay in two separate clumps of wreckage about 2,000 feet apart. Moreover, the pattern of debris indicated that the ship had split in two at or near the surface, rather than upon hitting the bottom.

The discovery shows once again the danger of relying too much on experts. They are not always right. Here, moreover, there was good reason to question their opinion from the start. After all, Beesley was a mile away in Boat 13; Pitman was at least 400 yards off in Boat 5; and Gracie didn’t see the final plunge at all—he was under water fighting for his life. Lightoller did have a swimmer’s-eye view, but much of the time he, too, was under water or trying to climb onto overturned Collapsible B. From the collapsible, 250 feet of the Titanic’s hull towering over him could easily have looked like an unbroken wall stretching up to infinity.

In contrast, there were other survivors—often with a far better vantage point—who saw things quite differently. In fact, of the 20 witnesses who described the final plunge at the American and British investigations, 16 firmly declared that the Titanic either split in two or at least was breaking up as she went under. There is, moreover, a remarkable similarity about what they saw….

- Quartermaster Bright, in Collapsible D, last boat to leave the ship and 100-150 yards away. Ship broke in two; after part briefly righted itself, men plunged down.

- Greaser Thomas Ranger in Boat 4, last regular lifeboat to leave, and 50-100 yards away. Forward end seemed to break off; after part came back on an even keel, then turned up and went down steadily.

- Mrs. Arthur Ryerson, also in Boat 4: Titanic suddenly began sinking rapidly. Took a plunge toward the bow; then two forward funnels seemed to lean; then she seemed to break in half as if cut with a knife, and as bow went under, the lights went out. Stern stood up for several minutes, then that too plunged down.

- Able Seaman F. O. Evans, Boat 10, about 150 yards away. Ship broke in two between third and fourth funnel. Stern section fell back horizontal, then tipped and plunged.

And so it went, account after account, all describing the same sequence: a break or fracture of the hull…the forward part disappearing from view…the afterpart righting itself briefly, then tilting up on end and plunging down too. A similar story was told by two young First Class passengers who did not testify at the hearings but left detailed accounts of their experiences. Jack Thayer and Dick Williams jumped near the end and witnessed the sinking from the water. Their recollections are subject to the same caveats as Lightoller’s, but deserve no less attention. Both felt the Titanic was buckling or breaking up just before she sank. Thayer’s view is erroneously depicted by a drawing that has been attributed to him, but was really sketched by L. D. Skidmore, a passenger on the Carpathia.

Colonel Gracie suggested that all these eye-witnesses were misled by the toppling of the first funnel, which fell over as the final plunge began. Crashing into the sea in a shower of sparks, the Colonel contended, it made the whole ship appear to be breaking up. But this explanation is highly unlikely. The accounts came from thirteen different vantage points—every possible angle—and included details which couldn’t reasonably be attributed to a collapsing smokestack.

But the falling funnel does lead to one more argument supporting the theory that the Titanic was breaking up at the end. There is a great deal of evidence about the first funnel—it barely missed Lightoller, Bride, and the other survivors on Collapsible B. Far less known is the evidence that the other three funnels, too, were collapsing at this harrowing moment. Jack Thayer later recalled that the second funnel “seemed to be lifted off.” Trimmer Patrick Dillon, standing on the poop as it swung slowly up, watched the fourth funnel “cant up and fall aft toward the well deck.” Mrs. Ryerson, sitting in Boat 4, felt that the first two stacks were “leaning.” At the time, the experts labeled such accounts as illusions, but when the Titanic was closely examined in 1986, sure enough, all four funnels were missing.

No experts were needed to evaluate what happened next. The sorriest chapter of the night was the failure of the ship’s half-empty lifeboats to heed the cries that rose from the sea. The only excuse is that sheer terror overwhelmed every other instinct.

Take the case of No. 8, one of the portside boats launched by Second Officer Lightoller. After he loaded it with all the women and children he could see, there were still about 30 empty places. The wives began begging Captain Smith, who was standing nearby, to let in some of the husbands to row. But the old Captain backed Lightoller to the hilt—the rule was “Women and children only.” So the boat was lowered and rowed away half-full, with the women still pleading for their men.

Yet after the sinking, many of these very same wives joined the great cry of protest that went up when Seaman Thomas Jones, in charge, proposed to row back and help people struggling in the water. Hardly anyone wanted to go, and finally the three men at the oars flatly refused to row. Miss Gladys Cherry, an English passenger handling the tiller, was one of the few willing to try, and she later wrote Jones a letter describing her anguish:

The dreadful regret I shall always have, and I know you share with me, is that we ought to have gone back to see whom we could pick up. But if you remember, there was only an American lady, my cousin, self, and you who wanted to return. I could not hear the discussion very clearly, as I was at the tiller, but every one forward and the three men refused. But I shall always remember your words, “Ladies, if any of us are saved, remember I wanted to go back. I would rather drown with them than leave them.”

Miss Cherry tended to see the dispute in terms of nationality, proudly pointing out that of the four who wanted to go back, three were English, but that was a little unfair. The most glaring case of the night involved Boat 1—only 12 people in space that could hold 40—and by far the dominant person in that boat was Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, an Englishman to the core. Yet No. 1 did nothing, prompting Lord Mersey to give Sir Cosmo a mild rebuke in the final report of the British Inquiry.

As the cries in the water died away, Boat 8 resumed rowing toward a light that hovered all night on the northern horizon. It never seemed to get nearer, nor did it ever seem to go away—a tantalizing lute, always just out of reach. Finally, about 3:30 A.M., somebody spotted the flash of a rocket far to the southeast followed by the lights of a new ship rapidly approaching. With relief, No. 8 stopped chasing the will-o’-the-wisp to the north, swung around, and headed for this fresh and more promising beacon of hope.

CHAPTER XIII

“The Electric Spark”

THE ROCKETS AND LIGHTS to the southeast signaled the entrance of a brand-new character on the stage—a man often overlooked in recent accounts of the disaster, yet one who in many ways symbolized the robust virtues of the period.

Captain Arthur H. Rostron, commanding the Cunard Liner Carpathia, brought to the job a driving spirit that was woefully lacking in the Titanic crewmen who lay on their oars, listening to the cries of the swimmers. Born in 1869, Rostron went to sea at 13, spent ten years in sail, joined Cunard, and then rose steady up the company ladder. Now, at 42, he was an experienced, respected shipmaster, known for his quick decisions and for his ability to transmit his own boundless energy into those serving under him. Not surprisingly, his Cunard shipmates nicknamed him “The Electric Spark.”

His other most notable quality was piety. Rostron did not smoke or drink, never used profanity, and frequently turned to prayer. When he did so, he would lift his uniform cap slightly, and his lips would move in silent supplication.

In January 1912 he became Captain of the 13,564-ton Carpathia—less than a third the size of the huge Titanic, but his most important command to date. On the night of April 14-15, she was three days out of New York on a Mediterranean cruise, and so far there had been little occasion for either prayers or quick decisions.

All that ended at 12:35 A.M., when Harold Cottam, the Carpathia’s wireless operator, burst into the Captain’s quarters to report that the Titanic had struck a berg and urgently needed help. Rostron’s reaction was completely in character. He immediately ordered the Carpathia turned around then asked Cottam if he was sure. Nine out of ten captains would have done it the other way around.

The Titanic was 58 miles to the northwest; the Carpathia’s maximum speed was 14 knots—meaning she could get there in four hours. That time must not be wasted. Calling his department heads to the bridge, Rostron rattled off a stream of orders. Later he wrote them up for the U.S. Senate investigation. Although prepared when he was no longer under pressure, the resulting document gives such a remarkable picture of his quick mind at work—thinking of everything—that it seems worth quoting in full:

English doctor, with assistants, to remain in first-class dining room.

Italian doctor, with assistants, to remain in second-class dining room.

Hungarian doctor, with assistants, to remain in third-class dining room.

Each doctor to have supplies of restoratives, stimulants, and everything to hand for immediate needs of probable wounded or sick.

Purser, with assistant purser and chief steward, to receive the passengers, etc., at different gangways, controlling our own stewards in assisting Titanic passengers to the dining rooms, etc.; also to get Christian and surnames of all survivors as soon as possible to send by wireless.

Inspector, steerage stewards, and master at arms to control our own steerage passengers and keep them out of the third-class dining hall, and also to keep them out of the way and off the deck to prevent confusion.

Chief steward: That all hands would be called and to have coffee, etc., ready to serve out to all our crew.

Have coffee, tea, soup, etc., in each saloon, blankets in saloons, at the gangways, and some for the boats.

To see all rescued cared for and immediate wants attended to.

My cabin and all officers’ cabins to be given up. Smoke rooms, library, etc., dining rooms, would be utilized to accommodate the survivors.

All spare berths in steerage to be utilized for Titanic’s passengers, and get all our own steerage passengers grouped together.

Stewards to be placed in each alleyway to reassure our own passengers, should they inquire about noise in getting our boats out, etc, or the working of engines.

To all I strictly enjoined the necessity for order, discipline, and quietness and to avoid all confusion.

Chief and first officers: All the hands to be called; get coffee, etc. Prepare and swing out all boats.

All gangway doors to be opened.

Electric sprays in each gangway and over side.

A block with line rove hooked in each gangway.

A chair sling at each gangway, for getting up sick or wounded.

Boatswains’ chairs. Pilot ladders and canvas ash bags to be at each gangway, the canvas ash bags for children.

Cargo falls with both ends clear; bowlines in the ends, and bights secured along ship’s sides, for boat ropes or to help the people up.

Heaving lines distributed along the ship’s side, and gaskets handy near gangways for lashing people in chairs, etc.

Forward derricks; topped and rigged, and steam on winches; also told off officers for different stations and for certain eventualities.

Ordered company’s rockets to be fired at 2:45 A.M. and every quarter of an hour after to reassure Titanic.

As each official saw everything in readiness, he reported to me personally on the bridge that all my orders were carried out, enumerating the same, and that everything was in readiness.

Yet all these measures didn’t cover the biggest problem Rostron had to face—ice. If the Titanic had hit a berg, so could the Carpathia. He was going full steam into the very same region. What could be done to minimize the risk to his own ship, to his own passengers and crew?

Reducing speed was out of the question; time was everything. So Rostron took the only course left: he greatly strengthened his lookout. He added a man to the crow’s nest; he put two men on the bow; he stationed a man on each wing of the bridge—all chosen for their keen eyesight. Since he was always on the bridge himself, there were now seven pairs of eyes searching the sea ahead.

Finally, one last measure, even more important than the lookout. As Second Officer James Bisset peered into the night from the starboard wing of the bridge, he suddenly became aware of Rostron standing nearby. In his familiar way, the Captain had raised his cap a couple of inches above his head, and his lips were moving in silent prayer.

At 2:45A.M. Bisset spotted the first berg—about a mile ahead—revealed by, of all things, the reflected light of a star. The Carpathia steered around it and raced on. In the next hour and a quarter she dodged five more bergs, all sighted first by the bridge, suggesting that the crow’s nest was not the best place to be when searching for ice at night.

At 4 A.M. the Carpathia reached the Titanic’s position, and Rostron cut his engines. He had made his run in 3½ hours—30 minutes better than his original estimate. For some time he had been watching an occasional green light ahead that would flare up briefly, then fade into the dark again. At first he thought it might be the Titanic herself, but now as the Carpathia glided to a stop, he saw it again, close and low in the water. It was a Lifeboat.

Rostron eased the Carpathia toward the boat, trying to pick it up on his port side, which was to leeward; but as he turned he suddenly saw one more iceberg directly ahead and only 400 yards off. It forced him to turn back and take the boat instead on his starboard side. It was the only thing he did all night that didn’t work out exactly as he planned.

The boat was No. 2, Fourth Officer Boxhall in charge. He had brought along the green flares with the hope that they might be useful in keeping the Titanic’s boats together and perhaps serve as a marker for some approaching rescue ship. Now that rescue ship was here, and Boxhall was quickly escorted to the bridge, where he confirmed what Rostron, with sinking heart, already sensed—the Titanic had sunk.

By this time day was breaking, revealing the Titanic’s whole fleet of lifeboats scattered over a four-mile area. More than that, dawn also revealed a fantastic setting. Two or three miles to the west lay an enormous ice field, running generally northeast to southwest, as far as the eye could see. Here and there it was studded with individual bergs, some 200 feet high. To the east and south lay other bergs, scattered haphazardly along the course the Carpathia had just completed.

Even with a sharp lookout few of these bergs had been sighted, and it seemed incredible that the ship had missed them all. Years later, Rostron told his friend, Captain Barr of the Cunarder Caronia, “When day broke, I saw the ice I had steamed through during the night, I shuddered, and could only think that some other Hand than mine was on that helm during the night.”

Then he was “The Electric Spark” again. For the next four hours Rostron methodically picked up the Titanic’s boats one by one. The survivors came aboard by ladder, chair slings, canvas ash bags, and cargo falls with bowlines carefully knotted at the ends. All depended on how agile the person was.

As they came aboard, the survivors were processed in almost assembly-line fashion. First, names and class were taken by a purser stationed at each gangway…next, they were handed to the doctors for a quick medical check…then on down the line for brandy, coffee, breakfast, blankets, and a bunk. The Carpathia’s own First Class passengers gave up their cabins to those who seemed in the greatest need; the ship’s public rooms were turned into dormitories for the rest. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Astor, Mrs. Widener, and Mrs. Thayer—Rostron’s three most prominent guests—were assigned to his own quarters.

By 8:30 A.M. the last boat had been gathered in. The Leyland Liner Californian was alongside now, and Rostron asked her to search the area for anyone he might have missed. Then he turned the Carpathia for New York.

But before leaving the scene, Rostron added one last characteristic touch. As the Carpathia passed over the grave of the Titanic, rescuers and rescued alike assembled in the First Class dining saloon for a brief service in memory of those who were lost and in thanksgiving for those who were saved.

By the time the Carpathia reached New York on the evening of April 18, the city was frantic with anxiety. It was abundantly clear that a dreadful disaster had happened—some 1,500 lives lost—but no one knew much beyond that. The rescue ship’s primitive wireless had a range of only 250 miles, and her lone operator, Harold Cottam, was exhausted. With Harold Bride’s help, he managed to tap out a list of those saved, but not much else. Incoming queries were simply ignored, even a message from President Taft inquiring about his military aide, Archie Butt.

Now, as she paused off Ambrose to pick up a pilot, the Carpathia was met by a swarm of tugs, ferries, yachts, and assorted harbor craft. Some carried huge placards bearing the names of missing friends or relatives; others were filled with reporters shouting questions through megaphones. Rostron allowed none aboard, feeling that the survivors were still in no shape to be interviewed. When one newsman did manage to jump on the ship off Quarantine, he was promptly collared and put under “house arrest” on the bridge.

The uproar continued as the Carpathia crept up the harbor, and when she again paused, this time to deliver to the White Star Line 13 of the Titanic’s lifeboats, photographers added to the din. Night photography was in its infancy, and to catch the scene it was necessary to set off great blasts of magnesium powder.

To cap the tumult, a cannonade of thunder and lightning rolled across the smoky sky, adding an almost apocalyptic touch to the night. Slowly the Carpathia was warped into Pier 54; the survivors began tottering ashore; and at last the world could learn the full story.

Even before he set foot on land, Captain Rostron found himself an instant hero. His calm self-assurance, his acceptance of risks, his faith in God, his enormous accomplishment were all immediately apparent. The paraphernalia of heroism would follow soon enough—scrolls, testimonial dinners, loving cups, a medal from Congress especially struck in his honor. “The Electric Spark” was well on its way to a splendid career that would ultimately see him knighted and named Commodore of the whole Cunard fleet.

CHAPTER XIV

“A Certain Amount of Slackness”

NINE HOURS AFTER THE Carpathia’s turbulent arrival in New York, the Leyland Liner Californian crept without fanfare into Boston Harbor early on the morning of April 19. No tugs swarmed around her, no press boats jockeyed for position; no photographers set off blasts of magnesium powder.

The Californian was a 6,223-ton cargo liner sailing without passengers on the unglamorous Liverpool-Boston run. She had been the second rescue ship to reach the Titanic’s position, but it was now known that she carried no survivors. There was only a baseless rumor that she had picked up some bodies…which accounted for the small knot of ship’s reporters waiting silently on her Clyde Street pier.

At 7 A.M. the gangplank was lowered, and the local agent of the Leyland Line strode aboard. He went at once to the Captain’s quarters, where he was closeted for some minutes with the ship’s master, Captain Stanley Lord. Then the reporters were allowed on board too, and Captain Lord held what today would be called a press conference. He explained that on the evening of April 14-15 the Californian had been stopped by a great ice field; that the wireless was shut down for the night; and that she received her first news of the Titanic at 5:30 A.M. on the 15th from the Allan Liner Virginian.

Although 30 miles away, Captain Lord told the Boston Evening Globe, the Californian started for the scene as quickly as possible. “At best, however, it was slow going. At times, nervous and anxious as we were, we hardly seemed to be moving. We had to dodge the big bergs, skirt the massed field ice, and plow through the line of least resistance. For three full hours we turned, twisted, doubled on our course—in short, manoeuvred one way or another—through the winding channels of the ice.”

Most of the reporters were suitably impressed. The Globe observed, “It took some mighty good seamanship to pilot the freighter through the narrow winding channels of ice, and although her officers used every effort to keep her going as fast as possible, there were times when circumstances made it necessary for her to proceed at snail’s pace.”

Only the Evening Transcript sensed that all was not quite right. Its man noted that when the reporters asked questions regarding latitude and longitude, Captain Lord said that they were requesting “state secrets,” and that information would have to come from the company’s office. “Ordinarily,” the Transcript’s reporter dryly observed, “figures giving exact position in latitude and longitude have always been obtainable from the ship’s officers.”

The reporter was also unable to get anything out of the Californian’s wireless operator, Cyril Evans, and caustically remarked, “So far as was apparent, his vocal organs were not impaired.” Finally, the paper wondered about the private meeting between Captain Lord and the company agent just before the newsmen were allowed on board. “Possibly nothing transpired beyond regular routine business….”

“Possibly.” But far more likely, the reporter’s skepticism was sound, for the Californian’s voyage had been anything but routine. The complications began on the evening of April 14 during Third Officer Charles V. Groves’s 8:00 to 12:00 watch. At 10:21 Groves suddenly sighted several white patches in the water ahead, which he took to be a school of porpoises crossing the bows.

Captain Lord knew better. The Californian had been warned of ice ahead, and here it was. Lord yanked the engine room telegraph to FULL SPEED ASTERN. As the ship lost her way, the white patches turned into flat pieces of field ice, which soon surrounded the vessel completely. There was no telling how far it stretched or how thick it was, but Captain Lord had never been in field ice before, and he was taking no chances. He decided to stick here for the night.

Leaving instructions to be called if anything was sighted, he stopped the ship, put the engines on standby, and went below. “Absolute peace and quietness now prevailed,” Groves later recalled, “save for brief snatches of ‘Annie Laurie’ from an Irish voice, which floated up through a stokehold ventilator.”

Around 11:00 Groves noticed the lights of a distant steamer coming up from the southeast. As it drew closer, he decided it was a large passenger ship. The stranger stopped about 11:40, and seemed to put out many of its lights. Groves remembered serving on a liner where the lights were turned down at midnight to encourage the passengers to go to bed; and decided that was the case here. It did not occur to him at the time that perhaps the lights only seemed to go out, that actually the ship had made a hard turn to port.

Captain Lord was watching the ship too, from the deck below, but she didn’t look like a passenger liner to him: “She was something like ourselves—a medium-sized steamer.” He asked Wireless Operator Cyril Evans what ships were nearby and Evans said, “Only the Titanic.” Lord then told him to warn her that the Californian was stopped and surrounded by ice. Evans tried, but received his famous brush-off from Jack Phillips: “Shut up, shut up. I’m busy. I’m working Cape Race.”

At 11:45 Captain Lord joined Groves on the upper bridge, and they briefly conferred about the stranger. It was all very inconclusive. The Third Officer still believed she was a passenger ship; Lord still felt she was a freighter. Groves thought she was a big ship maybe ten miles away; the Captain thought she was a small ship maybe five miles away. On Lord’s instructions, Groves had tried calling her up on the Morse lamp, but could get no answer. Then the Captain went below again, while Groves continued with his “morsing.”

At 12:00 Groves handed over the watch to Second Officer Herbert Stone. As Stone passed the wheelhouse on his way to the upper bridge, he met Captain Lord, who pointed out the strange ship and told Stone to let him know at once if she came any closer.

On the bridge, Groves also pointed out the ship to Stone and said he had tried calling her up on the Morse lamp without any luck. At 12:15 Groves went below, stopping by the wireless room, where he liked to tinker with the set. But Evans was now off-duty and ready to sleep, and Groves didn’t know how to make the receiver work. He twiddled with the dials for a moment, then gave up and went to bed—thus missing not only a little practice but a chance to catch the Titanic’s first call for help.

On the bridge, Stone was now joined by a 20-year-old apprentice named James Gibson, who took over the fruitless task of trying to contact the strange ship. Both men later said she looked like a tramp steamer, although Gibson also noted that there was a glare of lights on her afterdeck—a feature not at all characteristic of a tramp steamer in mid-Atlantic.

In a little while Gibson went below on routine duty; he was gone for most of the next half-hour. Stone remained on the upper bridge, handling the watch alone. At 12:40 Captain Lord called up on the speaking tube from his cabin, asking whether the other ship was any closer. No, replied Stone, all the same as before. Satisfied, Lord said he was going to the chart room and “lie down a bit” on the settee. Stone resumed his monotonous study of the night.

At 12:45 he was startled by the sudden flash of a rocket bursting over the stranger. He wasn’t sure at first, but then came another, and he was certain now—white rockets bursting in the sky, sending down a shower of white stars. After several minutes he saw another…and another…and yet another.

Five rockets altogether—enough to stir anyone to action. Stone whistled down the speaking tube, and Captain Lord was soon on the other end. Stone told him about the rockets, and Lord asked if they were private signals. “I don’t know,” Stone replied, “but they were all white.”

The Captain then told him to try the Morse lamp again. “When you get an answer,” he added, “let me know by Gibson.” Lord then returned to the chart room settee and lay down once more. Later he claimed that Stone told him of only one rocket, but said that he had been sleeping soundly and had no reason to doubt Stone’s version of the exchange.

Just about this time, Apprentice Gibson rejoined Stone on the upper bridge. Stone told him about the five rockets, and for a few minutes they watched the other ship together. Gibson then went back to the Morse lamp and signaled continuously for three minutes. He then focused his binoculars on her, hoping for an answer. Instead, he saw a sixth rocket. Thanks to the glasses, he had an almost perfect view: a white detonating flash…a faint streak upward into the sky…then a burst of white stars.

Stone saw the rocket too, but without the details caught by Gibson’s binoculars. Then, a few minutes later both men saw a seventh, and at 1:40, an eighth and final rocket. All burst over the other ship, and even with the naked eye both men could see the white stars floating down.

Through it all—and for another 20 minutes—Stone and Gibson talked, puzzled, pondered, and sometimes differed over what they were watching. Judging by the fragments that have survived, the two men had surely one of the most remarkable conversations in the history of the North Atlantic.

“A ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing,” Stone observed, as the two men studied the other vessel. Gibson agreed. Stone added, Gibson later recalled, that there must be something the matter with her. The young apprentice again agreed. In fact, he thought it was a case of “some sort of distress.”

“Have a look at her now, Gibson,” Stone broke in as they continued to watch the stranger, still firing her rockets. “She seems to look queer now.”

Gibson raised his glasses and replied, “She looks rather to have a big side out of the water.” She seemed to be listing to starboard, and that glare of lights on her afterdeck looked higher than before.

Stone agreed.

Completing the picture, the stranger was now disappearing. Stone said she had begun to steam away to the southwest about the time she fired her first rocket; he noted that she was now changing her bearings. Gibson never noticed any change in the bearings—he left such calculations to Stone—but he, too, noted that she was gradually disappearing. For a long while she continued to show her red light, but never her green, as might have been expected of a ship streaming off to the southwest.

By 2 A.M. she was almost gone. Stone now told Gibson to wake up the Captain, tell him that the ship they were watching was steaming away to the southwest— that the Californian herself was heading west-southwest—and that the stranger had fired eight white rockets altogether.

Gibson went below, entered the chart room, and gave the message to Captain Lord. “All right,” the Captain said. “Are you sure there were no colors in them?”

“No, they were all white.”

Lord then asked the time. Gibson replied that it was 2:05 “by the wheelhouse clock.”

The Captain later said that he had been sleeping heavily and didn’t remember any of this conversation— just a vague recollection of Gibson opening the door, saying something, and then leaving. Gibson was certain that Lord was awake the whole time.

On the bridge again, Stone and Gibson resumed studying the night. Later, there was some dispute as to exactly when the stranger disappeared. Gibson felt she was already gone by 2:05, when he reported to the Captain; Stone said she was still faintly in sight until 2:20; then her lights faded away completely.

Around 2:40 he again whistled down the speaking tube. Once more Captain Lord got up from the chart room settee, crossed to his own room, and answered the call. Stone told him that there were no more rockets, that the other ship had disappeared into the southwest and was completely out of sight. One final time, Lord asked if Stone was sure there were no colors in the rockets; one final time, the Second Officer said they were all white, “just white rockets.”

At the British Inquiry the question arose as to what Stone really meant when he instructed Gibson to tell the Captain that the strange ship had “disappeared.” Did he mean “gone to the bottom” or “steamed away”? Stone maintained that he meant “steamed away,” but Gibson wouldn’t say how he interpreted it. Pressed for an answer, he remained silent.

In any case, the stranger was gone. Stone and Gibson resumed their watch, and nothing happened for the next 40 minutes—just the stars, the flat, icy sea, the empty night. Then at 3:30 A.M. Gibson suddenly saw a new rocket—more to the south and much farther away than the earlier ones. He reported it to Stone, and the two men watched as a second, and then a third rocket burst in the sky. The ship firing them was out of sight, below the horizon, but it’s worth noting that at this time the Carpathia was racing up from the south firing rockets, trying to reassure the Titanic that help was coming. Strangely, Stone did not report these new rockets to Captain Lord at all.

At 4 A.M. Chief Officer George F. Stewart arrived on the upper bridge to take over the watch. Stone filled him in on the original eight rockets…described how the ship firing them began to steam away after the first rocket went up…pointed out that he had informed Captain Lord three different times.

Stewart raised his binoculars and spotted to the south a four-masted steamer with one funnel and “a lot of lights amidship.” He asked Stone if that was the vessel that had been firing the rockets. No, said Stone, adding that this was a brand-new steamer he hadn’t seen before.

Stone now went below, leaving the Chief Officer to sort things out. To every sailor, rockets at sea normally mean distress, and Stewart was no exception. He had an uneasy feeling that “something had happened.” Yet he did nothing until 4:30 A.M., when Captain Lord had asked to be awakened. Stewart did this personally, and standing by the chart room door, he remarked that Stone had seen rockets during his watch.

“Yes, I know; he’s been telling me,” replied Lord.

The Captain now went on the bridge and began explaining his plans for getting through the ice and proceeding on to Boston. Stewart asked if he wasn’t going to go south first and try to learn something about the ship that had been firing rockets. Lord raised his binoculars and looked at the four-masted steamer. “No,” he said, “she looks all right; she’s not making any signals now.”

But this, of course, was not the ship that Stone had watched. This was the newcomer that he hadn’t even seen, until pointed out by Stewart. Her condition— good or bad—was irrelevant. Nevertheless, Stewart did not tell the Captain that he was looking at the wrong ship. Asked at the British Inquiry why he failed to do so, he said he didn’t know.

Little is known of Stewart’s and Lord’s conversation over the next 50 minutes. At the Inquiry, Stewart said nothing about it; Lord said only that he learned for the first time that there was more than one rocket—something impossible to reconcile with the accounts of Stone, Gibson, and Stewart himself.

In any event, at 5:20 life on the Californian suddenly took on a much faster pace. Stewart burst into the radio room and shook awake the operator, Cyril Evans: “Wireless, there’s a ship been firing rockets in the night. Will you see if you can find out what is wrong—what is the matter?”

Evans needed no further prodding. Normally he arose at 7:00, but now he bolted out of bed and flicked on the set. One after another, the Mount Temple, the Frankfurt, and the Virginian told him about the Titanic, and at 5:45 he had an official message from the Virginian, giving him the Titanic’s position, 41°46’ N, 50°14’W. The Californian’s position was 42°5’N, 50°7’W—about 19 miles away.

By 6:00-6:15 Captain Lord had the Californian under way, but at the start it was very slow going. For the first three or four miles she crept westward and southward through heavy field ice, often studded with bergs. By 7:00 she was in open water again and steaming south at 13 knots, her full speed. Around 7:30 Captain Lord calculated he was at the Titanic’s position, but found only the Mount Temple. She, too, had found nothing, but both ships could see the Carpathia stopped five or six miles to the east.

Wireless traffic indicated that the Carpathia was picking up the Titanic’s boats; so Captain Lord headed for her. There was too much ice to steer a direct course; therefore, the Californian continued south until she found a channel in the ice, then wriggled through it, and finally approached the Carpathia from the southwest or almost the opposite direction from the way she had started out. When he first noticed her, Captain Rostron estimated that the Californian was five or six miles to the west-southwest.

By now everyone on the Californian had been alerted. Extra lookouts were posted at the bow and in a coal basket hoisted above the crow’s nest. Seamen were swinging her boats out for rescue work. Awakened by Chief Officer Stewart, Third Officer Groves paused long enough to ask Second Officer Stone if it was really true about the Titanic. “Yes, old chap,” Stone replied, “I saw rockets in my watch.”

By 8:30 the Californian was alongside the Carpathia, just in time to watch Rostron pick up Boat 12, the last of the Titanic’s lifeboats. The two ships exchanged signals by wigwag, with the Californian agreeing to continue the search, while the Carpathia headed back for New York.

It was a disheartening search—no more survivors, not even any victims in sight, just seven abandoned lifeboats, some planks, deck chairs, a few pilasters, and a number of green cushions floating around.

The Californian finally gave up the search and once more headed for Boston. Like everything else on this most disputatious of voyages, there was disagreement over when she resumed her journey. Captain Lord thought it was at 11:20 A.M., after a thorough check of the whole area; Third Officer Groves thought it was around 10:40, after the most cursory of investigations. The log backed up Captain Lord, but it was hardly a reliable document. It contained not one word about any of the rockets seen during the night.

Yet that seemed to be the party line when the Californian arrived in Boston on the morning of April 19. No one had seen anything—no rockets, no lights, nothing unusual on the night of the 14th-15th.

And for a while the strategy worked. The Boston press virtually ignored the Californian on April 21, 22, and 23. She lay quietly at her Clyde Street pier, discharging and taking on cargo without the benefit of reporters or other nosy people.

Yet behind the scenes the waterfront seethed with excitement. It turned out that besides Stone and Gibson, at least one other member of the crew had seen those rockets. In particular, Ernest Gill, assistant on one of the ship’s “donkey engines,” had watched them go up while out on deck taking a midnight smoke. Then Evans, Stone, and Gibson, though silent now, had talked a lot during the days just before the ship reached Boston. Secondhand versions of their experiences spread through the dockside bars.

On April 21 the ship’s carpenter, W. F. McGregor, visited his cousin John H. G. Frazer in Clinton, Massachusetts, and could contain himself no longer. A reporter from the Clinton Daily Item was present, and on the 23rd the paper broke the story. It told how the watch on the Californian saw the rockets sent up by the Titanic….

The officer on watch, it is said, reported this to the captain of the boat, but he failed to pay any attention to the signals, excepting to tell the watch to keep his eye on the boat. At this time the two boats were about ten miles apart. It being in the night, the wireless operator on the Californian was asleep at the time.

It is said that those on board the Californian could see the lights of the Titanic very plainly, and it is also reported that those on the Titanic saw the Californian. Finally the first mate on the Californian, who with several of the officers had been watching the Titanic, decided that he would take a hand in the situation and so roused the wireless operator, and an attempt was made to communicate with the Titanic. It was then too late….

Curiously, two days passed before the Boston papers picked up the Daily Item’s scoop, but rumors continued to spread. On the 24th the Post finally caught a whiff, and published an interview with Captain Lord, who denied that the Californian had seen anything unusual. She was only 20 miles away, he said, but sighted “no rockets or other signals of distress.”

On the 25th the Morning Globe carried Carpenter McGregor’s account, as it had appeared in the Daily Item. This brought another rash of denials from the embattled Californian. “The story is perfectly absurd,” declared J. H. Thomas, agent of the Leyland Line in Boston. Captain Lord and his officers stuck to their guns: “None of the crew yesterday would say they had seen any signals of distress or any lights on the night of Sunday, April 14. One of them said he did not believe anyone else did.”

Later that morning the Boston American exploded a bombshell that went far beyond mere gossip. The paper carried a sworn affidavit, signed by the assistant donkeyman, Ernest Gill, relating what he had seen on the night of April 14-15. Boiled down, Gill’s affidavit declared that shortly before midnight he had noticed the lights of a very large steamer about ten miles away going along at full steam. He then went below but couldn’t get to sleep. Coming back on deck for a smoke, he saw no sign of the big steamer, but on the horizon in the same general direction he watched two white rockets burst in the sky. He did not report this to the bridge because “they could not have helped but see them.”

Once again the press descended on Captain Lord. What did he have to say now?

“A lie.”… “Bosh.”…“Poppycock,” the Captain told various interviewers, noting that Gill had been paid $500 for his account. Chief Officer Stewart, Second Officer Stone, and an unnamed quartermaster all backed the skipper up. Questioned by the Herald’s man, “Stone emphatically denied that he had notified Captain Lord of any rockets, as he had seen none, nor had any been reported to him.”

But by now nobody was really listening—the show had moved to Washington. On the 25th, Captain Lord, Wireless Operator Evans, and Gill himself were all summoned to testify at the Senate hearings. Queried before he caught the train, Lord assured the Boston Journal, “If I go to Washington, it will not be because of this story in the paper, but to tell the Committee why my ship was drifting without power, while the Titanic was rushing under full speed. It will take about ten minutes to do this.”

It would take far longer than ten minutes—and more than a gratuitous slap at Captain Smith—to get the Californian off the hook. On the afternoon of April 26, the Senate Committee heard in turn Gill, Lord, and Evans…and ultimately rejected the Captain’s version of events. Putting all the evidence together, the Committee found that the Californian was less than 19 miles away, saw the Titanic’s rockets, and “failed to respond to them in accordance with the dictates of humanity, international usage, and the requirements of law.”

Meanwhile, the Californian’s conscience-stricken carpenter, McGregor, had not been idle. It was his interview in the Daily Item—not Gill’s affidavit, as generally supposed—that raised the first serious charges against Captain Lord and his officers. Now he added fuel to the fire with a letter to a friend in England making pretty much the same points. The letter soon came to the attention of a London civil engineer named Gerard Jensen, who decided it was his “public duty” to pass on the contents at once to the Board of Trade. In this way McGregor’s charges also became the basis for the British Inquiry’s interest in the Californian.

Ultimately the Court heard not only the now-familiar stories of Captain Lord, Donkeyman Gill, and Wireless Operator Evans, but the accounts of the other characters in the drama as well: Third Officer Groves, who first saw the strange ship; Stone and Gibson, who watched the rockets go up; and Chief Officer Stewart, who was the prime mover in finally waking up Evans.

“There are inconsistencies and contradictions in the story as told by the different witnesses,” concluded Lord Mersey, “but the truth of the matter is plain….When she first saw the rockets, the Californian could have pushed through the ice to the open water without any serious risk and so have come to the assistance of the Titanic. Had she done so, she might have saved many if not all of the lives that were lost.”

To the end of his days Captain Lord insisted that the Californian wasn’t “there.” From time to time he asked that the case be reopened, but the Board of Trade failed to find new grounds for any appeal, and there the matter stood. Gradually Lord came to be regarded by many as a sort of gallant loner fighting a huge bureaucracy— “Under the Wheels of the Juggernaut” was the title of one series of articles defending him.

Actually, Captain Lord’s battle was far from lonely. He enjoyed the support of the Mercantile Marine Services Association, which looked after the interests of British ship officers; he had well-placed sympathizers in Parliament; he could count on highly professional access to the press; he was backed by a small but articulate band of marine writers.

They come across as energetic, resourceful—and highly selective in presenting their evidence. They play up the testimony that the ship seen from the Californian looked like a freighter, but brush off Third Officer Groves, who always thought she was a passenger liner. Since the Californian was stopped for the night, they parade the witnesses who said the light seen from the Titanic was moving, but ignore the witnesses who always thought the light was stationary. As for the devastating conversation between Stone and Gibson while the rockets were going up, it is seldom mentioned.

Arguing that the Titanic gave the wrong position—that she was really much farther away—the Californian’s defenders offer a map, full of authoritative-looking squiggles, showing that the position given by the Titanic lay on the far side of an impenetrable ice field. They rarely mention another map with a much better pedigree. Plotted at the time by the U.S. Navy’s Hydrographic Office, it is based on the ice reports of nine different ships, including the Californian herself. It depicts the ice field as lying more from the northeast to the southwest, hence putting the Titanic’s reported position on the near side of the field, where of course she belongs. The exact lay of the ice field is, in fact, a subject for endless speculation.

In support of the “wrong-position” theory, the Californian’s defenders produce endless mathematical calculations, but her own reported position is always accepted as gospel. The finders of the Titanic have not seen fit to reveal her exact location, but they stress that she was definitely on course. As for the Californian, we will never know for certain her position that night.

Estimates of distances at sea, the timing of incidents, the position and bearings of ships to one another are by their very nature imprecise—and never more so than the night the Titanic went down. There wasn’t even a clock on the upper bridge of the Californian, and the startling clarity of the atmosphere made it, as Captain Lord himself later said, “a very deceiving night.” Arguments about such variables can go on endlessly, reducing the search for the truth to a sort of Titanic version of “Trivial Pursuit.”

The one element that lifts the night of April 14-15 out of the realm of the imponderable is the hard, incontrovertible fact of the rockets—what they were like, what they meant, and what people did about them. And it is here, I think, where the arguments of the Californian’s defenders really break down. They can say what they like, but they can’t get away from those rockets.

Distress signals at night, as defined by regulations at the time, were “rockets or shells, throwing stars of any color or description, fired one at a time, at short intervals.” The Californian saw eight such rockets at approximately the same time the Titanic was firing a similar number. Over the years the Californian’s defenders have often sought to defuse these rockets by calling them “flares.” But nobody called them flares that night. They were called “rockets”—projectiles that shot up into the sky, and burst, sending down a shower of white stars. Once, when Gibson happened to raise his binoculars at the right moment, he even saw the thin trail of the rocket as it soared upward.

Every officer on the Californian, including Captain Lord, agreed that these rockets—as seen or as described—resembled distress signals. Later it was generously suggested that the watch thought they might be company signals of some sort, but nobody thought so that night.

The two men on the bridge both suspected something was wrong. Second Officer Stone conceded he said, “A ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing.” Apprentice Gibson said both he and Stone felt the ship was in “trouble of some sort”; and again, “There must be something the matter with her.” Gibson himself decided it was a case of “some kind of distress.”

Chief Officer Stewart thought the rockets “might be distress signals” when he relieved Stone at 4 A.M. and Stone told him what he had seen. At the British Inquiry, Stewart admitted he thought “something had happened.”

The Californian saw and ignored still more rockets fired from yet another ship that night. These rockets were seen at the very time the Carpathia was firing rockets as she neared the scene, and also came from her direction.

Both Stone and Gibson immediately connected the rockets with the Titanic while the Californian was en route to the scene the following morning—before there was any time for second-guessing or wishful thinking.

Captain Lord was informed. Later he said he was told of only one rocket, but he is contradicted by all three of the other men on the bridge that night.

Feeling as he did, the Captain claimed there was no need to worry. But he and Stewart were worried enough to wake up the wireless operator at 5:20 A.M. and ask him then to check. The tragedy is that this wasn’t done sooner.

Some apologists argue that it would have made no difference anyhow: the Californian was, they say, too far away to help. They point out that neither Stone nor Gibson heard the rockets, which (we are assured) went off with a tremendous bang, easily audible for upward of ten miles. Actually, nobody knows how far the Titanic’s rockets could be heard. A professional ballistics expert I have consulted says maybe two or three miles. In any case, the signals were seen and ignored.

In the face of all this, the Californian’s defenders offer two distinct theories. The first is that there were two separate pairs of ships out there: the Titanic and an unknown stranger, and the Californian and an unknown stranger. Neither pair was in sight of the other. In each pair, one of the ships came up from the east, stopped some time between 11:30 and midnight, and later began firing rockets. In each pair, about eight rockets were fired. In each pair, the rocket-firing ship gradually disappeared, finally vanishing about 2½ hours after she first stopped. In the case of each pair, another hour passed, and then a third ship appeared firing rockets on the southern horizon. Even on this incredible night, such a string of coincidences seems too far-fetched to accept.

The second theory concedes that the rockets probably came from the Titanic, but contends that there was a third, unknown ship lying between the sinking liner and the Californian. This was the ship Stone and Gibson were watching, the theory runs, and they mistakenly believed the rockets were coming from her. Since she looked all right, they had no need to worry.

But the ship they were watching did not look all right, and both Stone and Gibson were very worried indeed. Whatever was said later, that night both men suspected that she was in trouble. “We were talking about it all the time,” Gibson testified.

Moreover, the “ship in between” theory collides head on with Stone’s explanation of why the stranger’s lights “disappeared.” Stone said they disappeared not because the ship he was watching sank, but because she steamed away. If that was the case, the British Court asked, why didn’t the mysterious ship steam out from in front of the rockets, revealing where they were really coming from? Stone had no answer to that.

Nor has the “ship in between” ever been found. A perennial candidate is the Norwegian sealer Samson, based on the typescript of a journal supposedly kept by one of her crew. According to the typescript (the original has vanished) the Samson lay near the Titanic, saw the rockets, but was engaged in illegal sealing operations and was afraid to show herself.

Unfortunately, the same document puts the Samson south of Cape Hatteras the previous afternoon. Not even the Mauretania’s mighty turbines could have propelled her to the icy waters off Newfoundland in time for the big show.

Further doubt is cast on the Samson by some remarkable research undertaken by Leslie Reade, a little-known British Titanic scholar who enjoys almost guru status among students of the disaster. Mr. Reade has developed information from official sources in Iceland placing the Samson in the fishing port of Isafjördhur on April 6 and again on April 20. This meant that the Samson had just 14 days to make the 3,000-mile journey down to the Titanic and back—absolutely impossible for a six-knot ship.

In any event, what difference does it make even if there was a third ship lying between the Californian and the Titanic? Rockets are rockets. These clearly resembled distress signals, and both Stone and Gibson suspected some ship was in trouble.

As an ameliorating factor, it has been suggested that they mistook the rockets for company signals—or signals between fishermen operating off the Banks of Newfoundland. Ships did occasionally use night signals to identify themselves in those days, but they were usually some combination of colored flares and Roman candles. They did not remotely resemble the white rockets seen by Stone and Gibson…or the white rockets being fired at about that time by the Titanic. It didn’t occur to either man that the ship they were watching was merely trying to identify herself. Again, they suspected that she was trying to get help.

Finally, it has been suggested that the two men on the bridge thought the rockets were just a celebration of some sort. This theory grew out of a caustic remark made at the British Inquiry by Butler Aspinall, counsel for the Board of Trade, while he was examining Stone on the meaning of the rockets. Stone proved so evasive that finally, in exasperation, Aspinall remarked, “You knew they were not being sent up for fun?” Somehow this got twisted around in the retelling and has come down to us as an explanation by Stone, rather than a bit of sarcasm by Aspinall.

It’s a waste of time to linger any longer over the question of what Stone and Gibson thought the rockets meant. The real question is why, when they were reported to Captain Lord, he did nothing about them.

Certainly the Captain was not drunk—he was a teetotaler.

Nor does it seem likely that he was too deeply asleep to grasp the reports sent down to him. He was not tucked away in bed; he was resting fully clothed on the chart room settee. His rest was interrupted three different times between 12:40 and 2:40. Twice he had to get up and go to his own quarters to talk with Stone on the speaking tube; the other time he was visited by Gibson in person. All three times he seemed awake and perfectly rational. It had not been an especially difficult day; there was no reason to be exhausted.

In the end it’s hard not to be impressed by the reasoning of Sir Rufus Isaacs, the Attorney General at the British Inquiry:

… I am unable to find any possible explanation of what happened, except it may be the Captain of the vessel was in ice for the first time, and would not take the risk of going to the rescue of another vessel which might have got into trouble, as he thought, from proceeding through the ice when he himself had stopped.

It must always be remembered that the Titanic hadn’t happened yet. When he made up his mind to stay put, Captain Lord had no inkling that the world’s most famous sea disaster was about to occur. He only knew there was a lot of ice out there, and the safe thing to do was to stop for the night. This was the right decision—provided nothing happened. But something did happen, and Captain Lord’s failure was his inability or unwillingness to adjust to an entirely new situation. True, be had his own ship and crew to think about, but that was no excuse for doing nothing. He didn’t even wake up his wireless operator, only a few feet away, while the rockets were going up. What was good seamanship before the rockets became a woeful lack of enterprise afterward.

Even when summoned to Washington, Captain Lord seemed to feel that the real issue was his prudence, rather than his failure to answer the rockets. Hence his curious remark that his purpose was “to tell the Committee why my ship was drifting without power, while the Titanic was rushing under full speed.”

Given that mind-set, it required a forceful man to be on watch that night—an officer not afraid to take on a reluctant captain. There’s some question as to whether Herbert Stone was the ideal person to be in this position. While there was always a gulf between the master and his officers in those days, it seems to have been especially deep between Captain Lord and Second Officer Stone. Lord was an austere autocrat; Stone was an easygoing type. Later he reportedly told friends that he and Gibson did indeed think that the rockets were distress signals, but they “couldn’t get the old man out of the chart room.”

How hard did they try? While Stone twice reported the rockets to the Captain, carefully describing them each time, he never mentioned his and Gibson’s misgivings about them, or ventured any opinion as to what they might mean. “I just took them as white rockets,” he later told the British Inquiry, “and informed the master, and let him judge.”

Chief Officer Stewart, who took over the watch at 4 A.M., was a bit of an improvement. When Captain Lord came on the bridge at 4:30 and began talking about proceeding to Boston, Stewart at least asked him if he was going to steam south first and check on the ship that had been firing rockets during the night. “No, I do not think so,” Captain Lord replied, studying the ship that had recently appeared to the south. “She looks all right; she is not making any signals now.”

He was, of course, looking at the wrong ship, the new arrival that Stone had specifically said was not the one firing the rockets. Stewart knew this but did not correct the Captain. Why, is anybody’s guess. Was he, too, cowed by the remote presence of the shipmaster? Was he so concerned about the rockets that he was willing to let the new arrival be a stand-in for the real ship, so that at least some action might be taken? We’ll never know. Even when pressed he never gave the Court any explanation at all.

So, at 4:30 A.M. the situation remained essentially as it had been all night. The rockets were still ignored, and now Captain Lord was thinking only of getting on to Boston. Yet 50 minutes later, at 5:20, Stewart was shaking the wireless operator awake: “There’s a ship been firing rockets. Will you see if you can find out if anything is the matter?”

What happened that turned everything around during those 50 minutes? Sometimes I wish that some magical time machine could transport me back and let me spend an hour any place I wanted on the night of April 14-15, 1912. I would not spend that hour on the Titanic. I’d spend it on the bridge of the Californian, from 4:30 to 5:30 A.M., sharing the watch with Captain Lord and Chief Officer Stewart. What was said? What ideas were exchanged? What advice was politely rendered? What suggestions were made? What thoughts were passed—or not passed—between them?

We have very little to go on. As shown by their performance in Boston, the officers of the Californian were anything but candid about that night. Stewart even maintained that his purpose in waking up the wireless operator was simply to check the identity of the ship to the south—an explanation emphatically rejected by the British Inquiry.

In both his interview with the Clinton Daily Item and his letter to London, Carpenter McGregor declared that Stewart was so exasperated at the Californian’s inaction that he finally woke up Evans on his own, apparently without any clearance from the Captain. This seems going too far; Captain Lord must have given at least tacit approval.

What changed his mind? My hunch is that it was not Stewart’s logic or eloquence, but a complete change of circumstances. An entirely new and reassuring element had entered the picture: daylight.

By 5:20 the night was rapidly fading, and the coral tint of dawn was spreading over the sea, showing the great ice field in all its detail—the bergs, the growlers, the loose, flat cakes of the floe. It was now possible to see the channels that wound through the ice…and the densely packed areas where it was too thick to go. It was at last safe for a prudent man to act.

It did not have to be that way. Captain Rostron, “The Electric Spark,” proved that. But the Californian was different—a plodding cargo liner presided over by a cautious captain and an uninspired watch. Six months later, before attitudes had hopelessly hardened, Captain Lord wrote a letter to his “M.P.” In it he admitted there was “a certain amount of ‘slackness’ aboard the Californian the night in question.” He was probably thinking of Stone, but it’s a word that could well serve as an epitaph for the performance of the whole ship that night—including her captain.

CHAPTER XV

Second-guessing

THE BRONZED MEN OF the sea were soon gone from the stage, their place taken by a pallid cast of lawyers, bureaucrats, technical experts, and (eventually) historians. Even before the Carpathia reached New York, voices were rising in Washington, demanding to know how such a catastrophe could happen.

The chorus was led by Senator William Alden Smith, a man whose constituency had nothing to do with the sea; he was from Grand Rapids, Michigan, 720 miles from the Atlantic Coast. Nor was he an expert on nautical matters; he was a railroad lawyer. But Senator Smith knew a hot political issue when he saw one, and here was an event that couldn’t help but give him instant national exposure.

Nominally a Republican, Smith was at heart a maverick, fitting into neither the stand-pat nor progressive wings of the party. He did have populist leanings—liked to battle the trusts—and this penchant may have influenced him now. After all, the White Star Line was an integral part of Pierpont Morgan’s shipping combine. Smith also liked playing the role of a rough, unpolished country boy taking on the city slickers, and White Star’s combination of British merchants and Wall Street financiers may have been too good a target to resist.

First step was to check the White House and the congressional leadership, but they had no plans of their own. Satisfied, Smith now rammed through the Senate a resolution directing the Committee on Commerce to name a subcommittee to investigate the disaster. Then a quick meeting with Senator Knute Nelson, chairman of the Commerce Committee, and by noon on April 17th the subcommittee was in existence. To no one’s surprise, Smith headed it up.

Characteristically, he saw to it that the six other members of the subcommittee were chosen without regard to any nautical knowledge. All he wanted was political balance. Hence there were three Republicans and three Democrats, with each party supplying a conservative, a liberal, and a moderate.

The most daring feature was the subpoena powers granted the subcommittee. After all, many of the key witnesses would be British. No one was sure whether the subcommittee’s subpoena powers extended to foreigners or not, and assuming they did, no one knew how the proud, sensitive British seafaring men would respond.

Smith took his chances, for there was no time to lose. The Carpathia might not answer President Taft’s queries, but there was evidence that her wireless room was doing more than the forlorn business of tapping out the list of survivors. On April 17 the U.S. cruiser Chester intercepted an interesting message from the little Cunarder to the White Star offices in New York:

Most desirable Titanic crew should be returned home earliest moment possible. Suggest you hold Cedric, sailing her daylight Friday….Propose returning in her myself, (signed) YAMSI

It did not take a team of crack cryptanalysts to figure out that “YAMSI” was Ismay spelled backward. Apparently the White Star chairman was planning to get himself and the lost liner’s crew out of U.S. jurisdiction before any investigation could be started.

Smith and the subcommittee members immediately headed for New York with a small army of marshals. They arrived on the evening of April 18—just as the Carpathia reached Quarantine. They hurried by taxi to the Cunard pier, arriving as the rescue ship crept in amid the blaze of photo-flash explosions. As the gangplank fell in place—before even the first survivors could step ashore—the Senator and his marshals rushed aboard.

They found Ismay in the Chief Surgeon’s cabin, where he had been secluded ever since his rescue Monday morning. The ship’s rumor factory had him out of his mind with grief and shock, but the figure that awaited them was thoroughly composed.

No, said “YAMSI,” he wouldn’t dream of skipping any American inquiry. He wanted to cooperate in every way. He would certainly appear at 10 A.M. tomorrow in the Waldorf-Astoria’s East Room, which had been converted into a hearing room for the subcommittee in New York.

True to his word, Ismay was already seated at the conference table when Senator Smith and his party entered the East Room the following morning. At 10:30 Smith opened the proceedings, calling on Ismay as the first witness. Would he kindly give the Committee any information he thought might be helpful, telling the story “as succinctly as possible.”

Ismay quickly showed how succinct he could be. After giving the Titanic’s engine revolutions for each day of the voyage—and the day’s run that resulted—he came to Sunday night. “I was in bed myself, asleep, when the accident happened,” he explained. “The ship sank, I am told, at two-twenty. That, sir, I think is all I can tell you.”

Unfazed, Smith asked what Ismay did after the impact, and perhaps for the first time the White Star Chairman realized that he was in for a grilling that would eventually add up to 58 pages of testimony.

Across the Atlantic, the British viewed the Senate investigation first with disbelief, and then with dismay. What were those cheeky Americans doing investigating a British family matter anyhow? As Joseph Conrad put it in the May 1912 issue of the English Review:

…Why an officer of the British merchant service should answer the questions of any king, emperor, autocrat, or senator of any foreign power (as to an event in which a British ship alone was concerned, and which did not even take place in the territorial waters of that power) passes my understanding.

The fact that the Titanic was, after all, serving American ports and soliciting American passengers seemed to make little difference and the fact that, after piercing the corporate veil, the White Star Line was basically an American-owned company was never even mentioned. All in all, Conrad sniffed, the Senate’s intrusion was a “very provincial display of authority.”

Nor did Senator Smith help his cause as the investigation unfolded. He showed almost total ignorance of ships and the sea, once asking a witness, “Did the Titanic go down by the head or the bow?”

His most famous gaffe occurred when he asked Fifth Officer Lowe, “Do you know what an iceberg is composed of?”

“Ice, I suppose, sir,” replied Lowe, going in for the kill.

Yet Smith’s question was not all that bad, considering the general lack of knowledge on both sides of the Atlantic about icebergs and what they could do. It was hard to believe that a mere piece of ice, however big, could rip apart a steel hull. Smith was wondering whether icebergs might also contain more familiar lethal material like rocks and stones. Earlier he had put the same question to Fourth Officer Boxhall, and got a straight answer: “Some people tell me that they have seen sand and gravel and rocks and things of that kind in them.” That time nobody laughed. It took Lowe to see the opening and drive home the thrust.

“A born fool,” concluded the London press, and contempt was added to chauvinism in the continued attack on the Senate’s investigation. There was a general feeling that things would be different when the British launched their own inquiry into the tragedy. As the Daily Telegraph politely explained:

The inquiry which has been in progress in America has effectively illustrated the inability of the lay mind to grasp the problem of marine navigation. It is a matter of congratulation that British custom provides a more satisfactory method of investigating the circumstances attending a wreck.

The “more satisfactory method” was a special court, convened by the Board of Trade, headed by Lord Mersey, a prominent jurist appointed by the Lord Chancellor at the Board of Trade’s request. Assisting him were five “assessors,” but they were in no sense associate judges; they were strictly technical experts, there to help Lord Mersey, if and when called upon. As Commissioner of Wrecks, he had the final say on everything—the matters to be investigated, the witnesses to be called, the interests that would be represented, and ultimately the findings of the Court itself.

The Daily Telegraph called Lord Mersey “one of the country’s leading authorities on nautical affairs,” but actually he was far from that. Although an experienced judge, his field was commercial law, and he had served as president of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court for only a year. Yet he was shrewd, witty, and possessed the kind of legal mind that could readily assimilate the facts of a complicated case.

The Inquiry opened May 2 at the London Scottish Drill Hall, a great barn of a building with dreadful acoustics, but the only available place big enough to hold all who had reason to come. For 36 days the story of the Titanic unfolded once again, as a steady parade of witnesses were examined by counsel representing such varied interests as the White Star Line, the National Sailors and Firemen’s Union, the Third Class passengers, the owners and officers of the Californian, and the Board of Trade itself. Over 50 lawyers were present altogether, constantly jockeying to protect or promote their clients’ interests.

Through it all, Lord Mersey remained in firm command. Usually he was content to let the testimony unfold, but if he thought that it was getting nowhere, he would break in with an irritated, “This is not helping me at all.” Evasive witnesses especially annoyed him. At one point in the questioning of the unfortunate Herbert Stone, Second Officer of the Californian, Mersey suddenly declared, “You know, you do not make a good impression upon me at present.”

Above all, he did not tolerate fools gladly. During the testimony of Alexander Carlisle, designer of the Titanic, Carlisle described a meeting at which he and Harold Sanderson of the White Star Line were present but did not say anything. “Mr. Sanderson and I were more or less dummies,” Carlisle explained.

“That has a certain verisimilitude,” Lord Mersey observed.

Apart from the Commissioner’s urbanity—along with an unruffled atmosphere where opposing counsel politely called one another “my good friend”—the British Inquiry differed in a less noticeable but more important way from the rough-and-tumble of the Senate’s investigation. It put much more emphasis on the technical side of the disaster: the faulty design of the Titanic; the Board of Trade’s outdated lifeboat regulations; the Board’s casual acceptance of inadequate boat drill; the reckless navigation practiced by shipmasters in the competitive struggle on the North Atlantic run.

Unconsciously, through the testimony of witnesses, the Inquiry also brought out the laxity of the Board of Trade in administering its own regulations. Captain Maurice Henry Clarke, the inspector who cleared the Titanic for sailing, approved a “boat drill” that consisted of lowering only two lifeboats, manned by a handpicked crew, while the ship was tied up at dock. While he conceded that he had tightened his requirements since the disaster, Lord Mersey broke in:

“Then you do not think your system before the Titanic disaster was very satisfactory?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you think it satisfactory before the Titanic disaster?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because it was the custom.”

“Do you follow a custom because it is bad?”

“Well, I am a civil servant, sir, and custom guides us a good bit.”

Even more depressing was the testimony of Sir Alfred Chalmers, who had been Nautical Advisor to the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, 1896-1911. It was felt that he would know better than anybody else why the Board’s lifeboat regulations had not been updated to reflect the enormous increase in the size of vessels since 1896. Sir Alfred, it turned out, had no interest in updating regulations; he thought there were too many already. He preferred, as far as possible, to do away with all regulations, leaving such matters as lifeboats to the “voluntary action of shipowners.” He was, in short, an owner’s dream: a regulator who didn’t believe in regulations.

As for the Titanic, Chalmers declared, no lives were lost because the required number of boats had not been increased since 1896. Her problem was not too few, but too many boats. He pointed out that many of the boats had left half-filled. This was often due to complacency. If there had been fewer boats, the passengers would have been less complacent. The boats would then have left with more people in them, and ultimately more would have been saved.

While the British Inquiry explored even the murkiest minds on the technical aspects of the disaster, Lord Mersey seemed to show relatively little interest in the passengers’ ordeal. Of 102 witnesses, the only passengers to testify were Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon. Along with Lady Duff Gordon’s secretary, Miss Francatelli, they were among the 12 persons who left the Titanic in Boat 1, which was supposed to hold 40. Ugly rumors were spreading that Sir Cosmo had bribed the boat crew to row away, and now he was trying to clear himself.

On May 17 the Duff Gordons arrived at the hearings flanked by their lawyers. Attracted by the whiff of possible scandal in high places, the gallery was filled with prominent spectators, including the Earl of Clarendon, the Russian Ambassador, Prince Leopold of Battenberg, and Mrs. Asquith, wife of the Prime Minister. If they were hoping for some sensational revelation, they were in for a disappointment. Sir Cosmo convinced the Court that he had not ordered Boat 1 to row away, and that the £5 payment he later made to each member of the boat crew was simply a gift to help them buy a new kit. He had done nothing improper, and Lord Mersey’s only criticism was that he might have exercised a little positive leadership at a time when the boat was drifting, largely empty, within easy reach of the hundreds struggling in the water. The Duff Gordons cleared, the Inquiry went back to its diligent probing of the causes of the wreck.

In contrast, the Senate investigation concentrated much more heavily on what might be called the human side of the disaster. Not counting Bruce Ismay, some 20 passengers from all three classes gave testimony, throwing a great deal of light on such pertinent points as the way the alarm was spread after the collision, the amount of warning given, the mustering for the boats, the different procedures followed on the port and starboard sides, the varying treatment accorded each of the three classes.

In the end, both the American and the British approaches proved useful in getting at the truth. Neither showed the “right” or the “wrong” way to conduct an investigation. Nor were they in any sense redundant. Rather, they complemented each other, together throwing a great deal of light on the disaster, and incidentally providing future students with 2,111 pages of firsthand information that would be sifted and sifted forever more.

Despite different approaches, it was not too surprising, then, that the two inquiries reached similar conclusions. Both decided that the Titanic was going too fast; that a good and proper lookout was not kept; that there was poor organization in loading and lowering the lifeboats; that the Californian was in sight, saw the rockets, and could have come; that there was no discrimination against Third Class.

Both inquiries recommended that passenger vessels should carry lifeboats for all on board; that there should be better and more frequent boat drills; that wireless operators should be on duty 24 hours a day; that steps should be taken to improve the watertight integrity of the ever-greater liners that were now sailing the seas.

In both investigations the findings on Third Class were curious. It is perhaps understandable that Lord Mersey saw no discrimination. Mr. Harbinson, officially representing Third Class interests, did not call on a single steerage survivor to testify, and he personally assured the Court that there was “not an atom or a tittle of evidence” that anyone in Third Class was held back.

Less understandable were the findings of the Senate investigation. Of the three Third Class witnesses examined, two clearly stated that members of the crew tried to keep them below. Yet, it must be conceded, they also said they did not believe they had been discriminated against. One can only conclude that steerage aspirations were low: in 1912 it was enough to be given a life belt.

There were differences, too, between the two reports. Lord Mersey’s findings were definitely more cautious. Considering his cutting comments during the testimony, one might have expected some of that bite in his report, but this was not the case. “It carries reticence to the severest extreme,” complained the Daily Mail. Even more disappointed was Nautical Magazine, the merchant service officer’s professional journal:

Lord Mersey’s judgement in the Titanic inquiry leaves us very much where we were before. It is colourless, timid, and cautious. We had expected more backbone in Lord Mersey….

On the question of lifeboats, for instance, Senator Smith flatly demanded that in the future there should be boats for all, passengers and crew. Lord Mersey, on the other hand, was content to say that “the accommodation should be sufficient for all persons on board, with, however, the qualification that in special cases where, in the opinion of the Board of Trade, such provision is impracticable, the requirements may be modified as the Board may think right.”

The qualification created a loophole big enough for any shipowner to slip through, and left the recommendation virtually meaningless.

But the biggest difference between the two reports was on the question of Captain Smith’s blame. He was so beloved—and faced his end so bravely—that it seemed almost brutal to criticize him at all. More in sorrow than in anger, Senator Smith finally blamed the Captain as gently as he could:

Captain Smith knew the sea, and his clear eye and steady hand had often guided his ship through dangerous paths….His indifference to danger was one of the direct and contributing causes to this unnecessary tragedy…. Overconfidence seems to have dulled the faculties usually so alert.

Lord Mersey came to the opposite conclusion. The White Star Line had paraded 11 sea captains before the Court, all of whom testified that when there was ice ahead and the weather was good, they always went full speed until the ice was actually sighted. Captain Smith had simply done what everybody else did, and the fact that in his case the ice wasn’t sighted until the ship was almost on top of it made no difference:

I am not able to blame Captain Smith….He was doing only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position….He made a mistake, a very grievous mistake, but one in which, in face of the practice and of past experience negligence cannot be said to have had any part; and in the absence of negligence it is, in my opinion, impossible to fix Captain Smith with blame.

The whole question of blame was becoming more and more important, for the damage claims were now piling up. Ultimately they totaled some $16 million—which works out at about $176 million in terms of today’s dollars. It was a staggering sum in 1912, an innocent era when litigants were more easily satisfied than now.

The claims for loss of life were especially revealing. The highest was for $1,000,000, filed by the widow of Henry B. Harris, the Broadway theater owner and producer. His magic touch was a unique gift that Mrs. Harris felt she couldn’t possibly carry on.

At the opposite extreme, some of the wealthiest and most socially prominent families sought nothing at all. In 1912 it seemed somehow demeaning to put a price tag on a gentleman’s life, and the Astors, Wideners, Guggenheims, and Strauses filed no claims whatsoever. The Thayers did file a claim for the luggage of John B. Thayer, but nothing for the loss of his life.

As the claims poured in, the White Star Line’s New York attorney, Charles C. Burlingham faced the avalanche with the sangfroid a good Wall Street lawyer can always muster in a tight corner. He had, after all, guided the imperious Bruce Ismay safely through the Senate hearings, and nothing could be much harder than that. Besides, he now had a powerful defensive weapon at his disposal—the doctrine of limited liability.

Both American and British law had long given special protection to shipowners whose vessels, through negligent handling, caused damage to others. The risks of sending ships to sea were so great that some special incentive was needed, if maritime nations were to grow and prosper. Moreover, on land the factory owner could at least theoretically oversee the acts of his employees, but the shipowner had no such control over his captain and crew. By the very nature of the business he was usually out of touch, and it seemed unfair to hold him to the same degree of responsibility when something went wrong. Therefore, as long as he did not have “privity or knowledge” of the negligence, his liability would be limited.

Limited to what? A valid question, for the two nations applied completely different formulas in computing the amount of money the White Star Line would have to divvy up to settle the claims. In England the formula was £8 ($40) per registered ton for loss of property, and £15 ($75) per registered ton for injury or loss of life. For the 46,000-ton Titanic, this meant a pool of about £690,000 ($3,450,000) altogether.

In America the formula was completely different. It was the total value of everything salvaged from the ship plus the money paid in by shippers and passengers who were never carried to their destinations. But the only salvage from the Titanic was the cluster of 13 lifeboats picked up by the Carpathia and brought back to New York; and the money paid by the passengers and shippers added up to less than $40,000—meaning the pool to pay off the claims would amount to just $97,772.12.

On October 8, 1912, the White Star Line formally petitioned the Federal District Court in New York for limited liability as spelled out under the American law. The claimants, whose lawyers had by now formed a loose coalition, opposed the petition, arguing that the far more generous English law should apply. Even though the forum was an American court, the argument ran, the accident occurred on the high seas where nobody had jurisdiction, and in such cases the governing law should be the law of the country where the ship was registered.

The District Court found for the White Star Line, but was reversed on appeal, and ultimately the Supreme Court itself made the final decision. It ruled that an American court could only apply American law, and therefore the White Star Line was correct in seeking limited liability under the American formula. Whether the line was justified in seeking limited liability was another matter, which would have to be decided separately.

Meanwhile there were legal battles in England too. An Irish farmer named Thomas Ryan sued in the High Court of Justice, King’s Bench Division, for the loss of his son, and his lawyer argued that the doctrine of limited liability didn’t even apply, because the White Star Line itself was negligent, as well as the crew of the ship. Lord Mersey had seen no negligence anywhere, but a jury of 12 independent-minded citizens found that the White Star Line was at least partly to blame for the Titanic’s excessive speed. Farmer Ryan was awarded £125 in damages, and the verdict was upheld on appeal.

Not surprisingly, this decision started a small rush of American claimants to the British courts, where it looked as if they might have a better chance of winning. The American courts took a benign view of this exodus—it was up to the British courts to keep order in their own house.

Most of the American claimants, however, stayed put, and on June 22, 1915, the case finally came to trial. Speaking as the White Star’s chief attorney, C. C. Burlingham took the position that there was no negligence at all, but if there was, it was not the owners who were to blame; their liability should be limited to the $97,772.12 prescribed under American law.

The claimants fought back, arguing that there was indeed negligence in the handling of the ship, and the owners had a share in it through the presence of Bruce Ismay on board. He was described as virtually a super-captain, giving orders for speed trials and the lighting of extra boilers.

Once again the picture was conjured up of the famous meeting before lunch on that fatal Sunday when Captain Smith handed Ismay the Baltic’s ice warning, and Ismay stuffed it into his pocket. Surely, the claimants contended, that constituted “privity or knowledge” of negligence, removing the owners from the protection of limited liability. Final arguments were heard July 27-29, and Judge Julius M. Mayer began his consideration of the case. On the surface, life settled down to a long period of silent waiting.

Beneath the surface, all was activity. It seems that C. C. Burlingham was not as confident as he sounded. His presentation was flawless, but the country was in a progressive mood, and to many people $97,772 seemed a scandalously low price for the owners of the Titanic to pay. Nor were the claimants free from doubt. Claims now totaled over $16 million, and some seemed extravagant or even frivolous. Certainly it didn’t strengthen the credibility of the figure to have Edith Rosenbaum include $2.00 for a hot water bottle and $20 for perfume, powder, and rouge. Nor did it help to have Mary McGovern add $20 to her claim for time spent listening to highly technical arguments in court.

Who initiated the step is uncertain, but lawyers for both sides began quietly conferring in an effort to find some acceptable compromise. The claimants gradually scaled down their demands from the original $16 million to less man $3 million, while White Star began inching up the $97,772 it owed under limited liability.

On December 17, 1915, Burlingham suddenly announced that the parties were near settlement. White Star agreed to pay $664,000, to be apportioned among the claimants according to their scaled-down schedule. In return the claimants agreed to drop all suits both in America and in England, and agreed that the White Star Line had no “privity or knowledge” of any negligence on the Titanic. This last constituted an acknowledgment that the ship’s owners were indeed protected by limited liability and presumably barred any suits in the future. The lawyers for nearly all the claimants went along with the deal. Only a few loose ends remained to be cleared up.

The loose ends, it turned out, took another six months. Much of the time was spent trying to divide up equitably the $664,000. The maximum allowed, for instance, would be $50,000 for loss of life under certain conditions—which meant that Renée Harris had to come down quite a bit from the $1,000,000 she originally claimed. On the other hand, the cut was far less severe for loss of life in steerage. The average claim had been $1,500; the average award would be $1,000.

On July 28, 1916, the settlement was formally signed and sealed. In the end, White Star paid six times as much as it argued that it owed under limited liability…but only 22% of the scaled-down claims and less than 4% of the $16 million originally demanded. All in all, C. C. Burlingham had not done badly by his clients. After four years, three months, one week, and six days, the litigation over the Titanic was at last a closed book.

CHAPTER XVI

Why Was Craganour Disqualified?

THE DAMAGE CLAIMS WERE now a closed book, but not the story of the human beings who survived the Titanic. Many would find their lives permanently intertwined with the disaster.

Bruce Ismay would never live it down. As Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line, he was ultimately responsible for the shortage of lifeboats, yet he went off in a boat, leaving hundreds stranded on the sloping decks. Captain Smith, people felt, at least had the good grace to go down with the ship. In Chicago a young newspaperman named Ben Hecht put the contrast into verse:

The Captain stood where a captain should For the law of the sea is grim.

The owner romped ere his ship was swamped

And no law bothered him.

The Captain stood where the captain should

When a captain’s boat goes down.

But the owner led when the women fled For an owner must not drown.

The Captain sank as a man of rank

While his owner turned away.

The Captain’s grave was his bridge, and brave

He earned his seaman’s pay.

To hold your place in the ghastly face

Of death on the sea at night

Is a seaman’s job, but to flee with the mob Is an owner’s noble right.

Even the revered naval authority Rear Admiral A. T. Mahan fired a scholarly broadside. Conceding that Ismay was in no sense responsible for the collision, Mahan argued that once the accident had occurred, Ismay was confronted with a whole new condition, for which he (and not the Captain) was responsible—namely, the shortage of lifeboats….

Did no obligation as to particularity of conduct rest upon him under such a condition? I hold that under that condition, so long as there was a soul that could be saved, the obligation lay upon Mr. Ismay that that one person and not he should have been in the boat.

The storm of criticism continued. Perhaps the ultimate indignity came when the citizens of Ismay, a new town in Jackson County, Texas, decided to change the name of their community to something—anything—less ignominious. Faced with the same problem, the people of Ismay, Montana, decided to hang on: “None of us,” declared the Ismay Journal, “need be ashamed to register from Ismay, one of the prettiest, cleanest, and most substantial little towns on the entire Puget Sound Road, merely because someone of similar name has not lived up to the high standard of ethics established by some self-appointed critics.” The editor even wondered whether Bruce Ismay had received a fair deal.

He was in the minority. Far more typical was the yellow press, which began referring to “J. BRUTE Ismay.”

Across the Atlantic, On April 21 a rumor spread in Liverpool that Ismay, unable to stand the strain any longer, had committed suicide in New York. Shocked at the thought, a local citizen named Charles W. Jones dashed off a bitter protest to the Foreign Office: “…That a British subject and an English gentleman should be put to such indignities is causing much indignation in Liverpool, and I now must humbly beg of you to make some representation to the United States government on his behalf.”

Actually, Ismay had his troubles with British critics too. In a feisty open letter appearing in the journal John Bull, editor Horace Bottomley asked him, “How is it that you, above all people, were in one of the life boats?…Your place was at the captain’s side till every man, woman and child was safely off the ship.” Most of the criticism, however, was in a lower key. “It is not given to everyone to be a hero,” remarked Nautical Magazine, bible of the merchant service.

In the end the British Inquiry exonerated him. Lord Mersey found that Ismay was under no moral obligation to stick with the ship. The lifeboat was actually being lowered; no one else was at hand; there was room; so he jumped. “Had he not jumped in, he would have merely added one more life, namely his own, to the number of those lost.” All very well, but many people found it hard to believe there weren’t other passengers nearby. Ismay remained under a cloud.

For a while he fought back as best he could. Long before the Titanic, Ismay had planned to retire as Chairman of the White Star Line and other affiliated companies. Now that looked too much like a retreat, and he tried to stay on at least as head of White Star. The American owners would have none of it: The most they would give him was a chance to save face a little. “The decision they have reached,” wrote his friend and fellow director Harold Sanderson, “is to be attributed to a considered and settled policy, and not to any personal feeling toward yourself.”

On June 30, 1913, Bruce Ismay retired as Chairman of the White Star Line and began an ever-widening withdrawal from public life. He remained on a number of boards, but they were mostly honorific, and he spent much of his time at a secluded estate in a remote corner of Northern Ireland. Many writers have called him a “recluse.” His affectionate and devoted biographer, Wilton J. Oldham, takes exception to the term, but it is really a matter of semantics.

After the Titanic Ismay never participated in public functions. He never attended Mrs. Ismay’s frequent bridge parties and dances. He never traveled to America again. He amused himself sitting on a park bench, chatting anonymously with down-and-outers. He liked to watch passing parades, looking at them alone and lost in the crowd. He died of a stroke at his home in London, October 17, 1937.

Legends about him lived on. In November 1955, shortly after A Night to Remember was published, a letter arrived from a racing fan in Britain describing the remarkable finish of the 1913 Derby at Epsom Downs. Craganour, the favorite, crossed the line first and was escorted to the winner’s circle. Then, without a protest from the owner or jockey of any other horse in the race, he was suddenly disqualified by the stewards, acting on their own. They awarded the race instead to second-place Aboyeur, a 100-to-l shot, which they claimed had been bumped by Craganour, in the home stretch. Most of the crowd saw no such bumping, and a photograph of the finish shows Aboyeur leaning on Craganour, rather than the other way around. Craganour, my correspondent pointed out, was owned by Bruce Ismay, and the inference was clear: the English racing establishment would never let a horse owned by Ismay win the hallowed Derby.

This was a story worth checking. Everything turned out to be exactly as related, except for one important detail. Craganour was not owned by Bruce Ismay. The owner was Bower Ismay, Bruce’s younger brother. Unless the supposed stigma was so great that it affected the whole family, there seems no reason to suppose that Craganour’s disqualification had anything to do with the Titanic.

In fact, there were other more plausible reasons which might have accounted for the stewards’ unprecedented act. Craganour’s English jockey had been replaced at the last minute by Johnny Reiff, an American rider imported from France. It was an immensely unpopular switch, and when the stewards interviewed some of the other jockeys in the race before announcing their decision, it was an ideal opportunity to discredit Reiff. But the story will not die; letters still drift in, inseparably linking Craganour and Bruce Ismay together. lsmay’s most vocal American defender was First Class passenger Billy Carter of Philadelphia, but this proved a mixed blessing. Carter turned out to be the only other male passenger in Collapsible C.

There were raised eyebrows about him too, and speculation increased when Mrs. Carter sued for divorce in January 1914. Every effort was made to keep the details secret, but it was rumored that the Titanic played a part in the case.

Then, on January 21, 1915, somebody—no one is sure who—released Mrs. Carter’s testimony. The grounds for her suit were “cruel and barbarous treatment and indignities to the person,” and one passage in particular caught the public’s eye:

When the Titanic struck, my husband came to our stateroom and said, “Get up and dress yourself and the children.” I never saw him again until I arrived at the Carpathia at 8 o’clock the next morning, when I saw him leaning on the rail. All he said was that he had had a jolly good breakfast, and that he never thought I would make it.

Carter denied all charges, stressing that he had had his wife and children placed in one of the boats before he and Ismay jumped into Collapsible C to help with the rowing. A shadow of doubt hovers over this version, since the British Inquiry established that Collapsible C left the Titanic some 15 minutes before Mrs. Carter and the children went in Boat 4.

After the divorce, Mrs. Carter married George Brooke, and lived a happily uneventful life until she died in 1934. Billy Carter, vaguely described at the time of the disaster as a polo player and clubman, continued playing polo and going to his clubs, ultimately dying in Palm Beach in 1940.

William T. Sloper of New Britain, Connecticut, was another First Class survivor who had some explaining to do. On April 19, the day after the Carpathia reached port, the New York Journal identified Sloper as that instant Titanic celebrity, “the man who got off dressed as a woman.”

Actually, there’s no supporting evidence whatsoever. Sloper left the Titanic in No. 7, the first boat lowered. At that time few thought the danger was serious, and First Officer Murdoch had difficulty filling the boat at all. Sloper later recalled Murdoch saying, “Any passengers who would like to do so may get into this lifeboat.” While it’s hard to believe he went that far—“women and children first” was clearly the rule—certainly he let in couples and parties of gentlemen and ladies traveling together. Sloper entered the boat with his companions at bridge that evening: Fred Seward, screen actress Dorothy Gibson, and her mother. Even then, the boat was lowered with only 28 persons—less than half its capacity. For a man to go in Boat 7, there was no reason to dress as a woman.

What, then, was the source of the story? The explanation does not lie in anything that happened on the decks of the Titanic; rather, it can be traced to an incident that happened in the corridors of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel the night the Carpathia got back to New York.

Sloper was met at the pier by his brother Harold and his father, Andrew Jackson Sloper. They whisked him by taxi to the Waldorf-Astoria, where he was the first survivor to register. Word quickly spread, and soon the corridor outside his room was packed with reporters clamoring for a story. Sloper didn’t want to see them, mainly because he had already scribbled an “exclusive” for his friend Jack Vance, editor of his hometown paper, the New Britain Herald. When Harold Sloper tried to get rid of the reporters, they made a rush at the door, which Harold repelled perhaps a little too forcefully. In any event, the Journal’s man decided the time had come to teach the Slopers a little respect for the press: his story put William Sloper in women’s clothing.

For a while Sloper debated whether to sue for libel. His father counseled against it, arguing that a good lawyer would cost more than any damages he could collect. Besides, all his real friends knew what had actually happened, and if anyone else preferred to believe some vindictive reporter, there was nothing anybody could do about it.

It didn’t quite work out that way. William Sloper spent many an hour in the years ahead explaining how he really escaped from the Titanic. But at least he faced the matter squarely. Others, too, have been positively identified as “the man who got off dressed as a woman.” All are in the clear, but none fought back, and a cloud hovers over them even today.

Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon also lived in the shadow of the Titanic for the rest of their days. They had left the ship in Boat 1, capacity 40, which pulled away with only 12 people, then failed to heed the cries that went up from the water after the ship sank. It was rumored that Sir Cosmo had bribed the boat crew not to row back.

Lord Mersey exonerated him completely, but did observe that Sir Cosmo might have shown a little more initiative. Instead of doing nothing, he could have led an effort to rescue some of the swimmers.

He just wasn’t the type. Naturally reticent, the last thing Sir Cosmo wanted was to be conspicuous. An old Eton boy, he never went to a university, but settled into a quiet life of comfort and privilege. He seemed totally oblivious of the ordinary people around him. It never occurred to him that somebody might misinterpret the £5 gift he presented to each member of his boat crew. (When servants do a good job, you tip them.) Nor did he remotely understand that it might frighten the already jittery survivors when, during the trip back to New York, the boat crew was reassembled in their life jackets for a “team picture.” Nor did he have any inkling that it might be in bad taste to have a festive champagne supper at the Ritz after the Carpathia landed.

Still, one must carry on. Sir Cosmo became no recluse; he lived the life he had always led—proud, aloof, aware that he was the target of much scorn but never condescending to lower himself to the point of arguing about it. He did not talk much about the Titanic, but his wife felt that the storm of censure and ridicule that swirled around him “well-nigh broke his heart.” He died in April 1931.

Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon, was a very different case. A high-priced dress designer, she had scrapped her way to the peak of the intensely competitive fashion industry. On top of that she had landed Sir Cosmo, and now she wasn’t about to give up any of the ground gained. She met her critics with bravado, almost defiance. What about the £5 that Sir Cosmo gave each member of the boat crew? Her answer was easy: the other Titanic passengers should have been as generous.

She remained peppery to the end. By 1934 her business had fallen apart, and she was a faded old lady confined to a tiny house on Hampstead Heath. But when a New York correspondent, seeking an anniversary story, asked her if she had any regrets about the Titanic, she shot back: “Regrets? I have no regrets. The Titanic disaster made me and my fortune. Look at the tremendous amount of publicity it gave me…. When I opened my dress establishments in New York and Chicago, people mobbed the places. I made thousands and thousands of dollars.”

She did indeed make a lot of money, but it had nothing to do with the Titanic. World War I had closed the great couturier houses of Paris, and wartime austerity had overtaken London. The only people left with spendable money were the rich Americans, and they had no place to spend it. Lady Duff Gordon had the good sense to see this, and opened up new outlets in New York and Chicago. She prospered greatly for a while, but by the end of the war nobody had the kind of money her designs required (one of her dresses used 30 yards of silk at the hem), and the slim, boyish look of the 20’s spelled bankruptcy. Broke, but still defiant on the subject of the Titanic, she died in April 1935.

For Mrs. Henry B. Harris, the disaster led to a whole new life. “Henry B.,” as she always called her lost husband, had been one of Broadway’s most successful producers. But the money was current income, not the settled wealth of the Astors or Wideners. When he died, the dollars stopped. Hence her $1,000,000 claim for the loss of his “services.” When this was whittled down to $50,000, her prospects looked bleak, since it was generally understood that women had no place in the business end of the theater.

But why not? Henry B. had often depended on her quick, intuitive mind. Moreover, she already had a theater—the choice Hudson on West 43rd Street. So she blazed a trail and became Broadway’s first woman producer.

She did very well at it too, backing good plays while developing such stars as Ina Claire and Charles Coburn. She also discovered the playwright Moss Hart and produced his first play, The Beloved Bandit. In his autobiography Act One, Hart painted a memorable picture of Renée Harris as an unquenchable optimist in the face of first-night disaster.

In World War I she turned her energies to the cause, and did yeoman service staging entertainments for the doughboys in France. General Pershing sent her a personal note of thanks, and she delightedly put it on her wall, where it hung incongruously with the more gushy tributes of other theater people.

The 20’s were all velvet. As the money rolled in, she picked up an apartment overlooking Central Park…a house in Florida…a camp in Maine… a yacht…and four more husbands. The latter were all just dalliances, she always insisted. Henry B. remained the only man who meant anything, and, in fact, she used the surname “Harris” for the rest of her life.

In 1929 she set off on a leisurely trip around the world…and then the roof fell in. The stock market crashed in October, and Renée Harris’s fortune vanished even faster than it had materialized. She hurried home, but it was too late. Everything, including the Hudson Theater, was gone. The last of her collection of antiques were auctioned off in 1931.

By 1940 she was reduced to a single room in a welfare hotel. There was nothing left except her sunny disposition. But this never failed her, and was her most striking characteristic when I interviewed her at the time of A Night to Remember.

Seeking to find some happy reminder of the old days, I once brought her a little jar of caviar. After one taste she gently pushed it aside. I took this as a challenge and from time to time tried again. Always her response was the same: “You call that caviar?” she would ask with cheerful incredulity.

She liked to talk about the Titanic, and her shrewd theatrical eye caught all sorts of nuances. Poor as a church mouse but radiantly blissful, she died quietly in September 1969 at the age of 93.

Helen Churchill Candee was another Titanic survivor who managed to cope with adversity. “Our coterie,” as Colonel Gracie called her little circle of shipboard swains, was forever shattered: Colley, Kent, and Clinch Smith drowned; Gracie died from the after effects within nine months; only Hugh Woolner and Bjornstrom Steffanson survived. As far as can be determined, she was never again in touch with either of them.

Putting the past behind her, Mrs. Candee turned to the galleys of her new book on tapestry. Titled simply The Tapestry Book, it was published in 1913, receiving a fine review in the Times. During the 20’s she carved out a whole new career as a travel lecturer on exotic places. China and Southeast Asia were her specialties, and her book Angkor, the Magnificent earned her decorations from both the French government and the King of Cambodia. Nor did she just stick to sightseeing. As early as 1927 she was warning her listeners of the rising tide of anticolonialism in the area.

Through it all, she continued to charm everyone she met. She remained active until just before her death at the age of 90 in her summer home at York Harbor, Maine.

Many of the Titanic widows soon married again— another sign that the Victorian Age was over, with its interminable years of mourning and dripping black veils. Besides Renée Harris, the list included prominent names like Mrs. Astor, Mrs. Widener, and (a little later) Mrs. Ryerson. Among this group Mrs. Lucien P. Smith deserves special note. Her new husband was Robert Daniel, a fellow survivor whom she met on the Carpathia. The tennis player Karl Behr also married a survivor, but in his case it was no chance meeting. He had pursued Helen Newsom across the Atlantic and back.

Most survivors picked up pretty much where they left off, and one was back in business even before he reached dry land. Cardsharp and confidence man George Brayton had been in the Titanic’s smoking room stalking a prospective victim when the ship struck. He escaped in one of the starboard boats, and by the time the Carpathia docked in New York, he had already met and picked out a new pigeon.

Henry C. E. Stengel was a Newark, New Jersey, leather manufacturer, one of the two other passengers who had been in Boat 1 with the Duff Gordon party. Strolling the Carpathia’s deck on the second day after rescue, he noticed a man looking downcast, and politely inquired what was the matter. The man, who turned out to be George Brayton, explained that he had to get to Los Angeles but had lost all his money. Stengel advised him to ask the White Star Line to advance him his fare.

Nothing more was said at the moment, but shortly after the Carpathia landed, Stengel received a phone call from Brayton reporting that White Star had come through, that he would be leaving soon for Los Angeles, and that he just wanted to thank Stengel for his interest. Pleased, Stengel asked Brayton to dinner at his home in Newark that night.

During the evening Brayton mentioned a big deal pending in New York, which would come to a head as soon as his brother-in-law, an executive with Western Union, got back from a trip to Mexico. Several weeks later Stengel received another phone call from Brayton, reporting that the brother-in-law was back and in a position to make some money. He’d like to cut Stengel in on the deal.

Stengel hurried to New York, where he, Brayton, and the brother-in-law ended up in a room at the Hotel Seville. Here the brother-in-law explained that he was in charge of the “RD” Department at Western Union. This was the department responsible for flashing the results of horse races, and he was in a position to withhold the results for at least eight minutes—allowing a wonderful opportunity to bet on a sure thing. It would cost Stengel just $1,000 to get in on the scheme.

Stengel later said that at this point he sailed into the brother-in-law, and when Brayton pleaded with him not to “squeal,” Stengel began punching him too. Finally, the scuffle ended, but by the time the police were called, the con men had slipped away.

George Brayton fades from the Titanic story at this point. With his collection of aliases, his deft moves, and his instinct for survival, it seems safe to assume that under some other name he continued plying his trade on the North Atlantic run.

Finally, what about the Titanic’s surviving officers? In view of their splendid discipline that last night—and their loyalty to White Star on the witness stand—one might suppose they enjoyed steady promotion, crowned by a command as their just reward.

It didn’t work out that way. No officer from the Titanic ever achieved his own command, no matter how brave or loyal he may have been. The White Star Line was determined to take no step that might remind the traveling public of its darkest hour.

Fifth Officer Lowe was appointed Third Officer on the Medic, a minor vessel on the Australian run—obviously a dead end. He served in the Royal Navy during the First World War, then retired to his native Wales. Fourth Officer Boxhall hung on through the merger of White Star and Cunard, but advancement in the 30’s was painfully slow. He finally retired as Chief Officer of the small Cunarder Ausonia. Third Officer Pitman decided his eyes weren’t good enough for a deck officer, shifted to the Purser’s Section, and spent the rest of his seagoing days shuffling paper.

Second Officer Lightoller also served in the Royal Navy during the first war. He returned to White Star after the Armistice and was made Chief Officer of the lumbering Celtic. For a while he had hopes of a transfer to the crack Olympic, but was passed over. He retired from the sea in the early 20’s and tried his hand (not too successfully) at everything from writing columns to raising chickens.

But the sea still ran in his blood. He designed and sailed his own yacht Sundowner and had a final taste of peril in 1940. He took Sundowner over to Dunkirk with the great fleet of “little ships,” and rescued 131 British soldiers. At his best in the midst of disaster, he cheerfully wrote his brother-in-law several days later, “We’ve got our tails well up and are going to win no matter when or how.”

CHAPTER XVII

Unlocking the Ocean’s Secret

“SHE’S GONE; THAT’S THE last of her,” someone sighed in Boat 13 as the sea closed over the flagstaff on the Titanic’s stern. Actually, it was anything but the last of her. Figuratively, she would always be afloat, gripping the world’s imagination for years to come. Literally, she would be seen again 73 years later, thanks to the miracle of modern technology.

Men began dreaming up ways to find and raise the Titanic right from the start. In March 1914—less than two years after the disaster—a Denver architect named Charles Smith published a plan based on the use of electromagnets. These would be attached to a specially designed submarine, which would dive down from the Titanic’s radioed position, 41°46’N, 50°14’W. The steel hull of the liner would immediately attract the magnets, drawing the sub to the sunken vessel’s side. With the exact location of the ship now fixed, more electromagnets would be sent down and attached directly to her hull. Cables would run from these magnets to winches on a fleet of barges stationed above the wreck. At a given signal, the winches would all be wound up, pulling the Titanic to the surface.

Mr. Smith’s plan had a precise quality that was quite enticing. Surely, any inventor must have done his homework who said he would need exactly 162 men—no more, no less. But Smith also said he would need $1.5 million, and it was here that his scheme met a fate that would become all too familiar: nobody would put up the money.

Electromagnetism had much popular appeal in these primitive days before “high tech.” Another plan, which apparently never got farther than the Sunday-supplement pages, called for magnets to be fastened to the sunken Titanic and attached by cable to empty pontoons, rising above the hulk like a cluster of circus balloons. When enough pontoons had been added, presumably the ship would come popping up.

Two world wars, the carefree 20’s, and the depression 30’s put a temporary end to such schemes. No one had the time or inclination to dive on the Titanic. Not enough years had passed for legends to sprout about the supposed great treasure aboard the ship (some said diamonds, others gold), and perhaps most important, the “fascination factor” was low. Finding the Titanic would ultimately become a challenge like scaling Mount Everest—because it is there—but not yet.

The 50’s saw the first flicker of renewed interest. In July 1953 the British salvage vessel Help, on charter from the Admiralty to the salvage firm Risdon Beazley Ltd., slipped quietly out of Southampton Harbor and headed for the Titanic’s position. Here the Help began underwater blasting with heavy explosives. No one would say what she was up to, but she was equipped with deep-set telephoto cameras and remotely controlled retrieval gear. It seems likely that the operators hoped to blow open the Titanic’s hull and search for some of the treasure rumored to be inside.

Nothing was found—not even a trace of the ship— but the Help was back next summer for another try. Again, nothing turned up, and this time Risdon Beazley Ltd. had enough. They vanish from the story.

The 60’s brought a dramatic surge of activity. It was a time of great technological advances. Men conquered space—even went to the moon—and there was a parallel, if less spectacular, leap forward in oceanography and our ability to explore the world beneath the sea. At the same time, the triumph of the jet plane as the norm in trans-Atlantic travel focused attention on that suddenly “endangered species,” the ocean liner…and this of course included the Titanic. Even the political and social climates seemed to contribute. It was a time of questioning values, and what could be more fascinating than peering closely at the symbols of a period when everyone seemed to know their place? The Titanic became an intriguing artifact of the smug little Edwardian world.

None of this was especially surprising. What was surprising was the particular individual who led the parade. Douglas Woolley knew nothing about oceanography. He was an English workman who dyed nylon stockings in a hosiery factory. He had no scientific training, no experience in salvage, no college degree, no financial resources; but he did have an obsession about the Titanic. Sitting in his cluttered one-room flat in the small English town of Baldock, he whiled away the hours dreaming of finding and raising the lost liner. He also had a remarkable knack for getting his plans into the newspapers. Apparently, through some intuitive understanding of an editor’s mind, he could regularly get coverage that would be the envy of a highly paid public relations consultant.

Starting in 1966, Woolley announced his plans for raising the Titanic almost annually, and every time the press would pick up his release and give it fresh treatment, as though it had never happened before. At first he made only the local papers, but by 1968 he was appearing in even the august Times.

As reported in the press, Woolley originally planned to find the Titanic by means of a “bathyscaphe,” and then raise her by means of nylon balloons attached to her hull. These would be pumped full of air, letting the ship “gently rise to the surface.” How the balloons would be inflated 13,000 feet down wasn’t clear.

For a while it seemed as if something might actually come of Woolley’s dreams. Two Hungarian inventors turned up with a plan that looked, on paper at least, impressively scientific. An admittedly shadowy group of West German investors (some said three; others, ten) promised the necessary capital. A London accountant incorporated the project as the Titanic Salvage Company. And finally, even a boat was obtained, which Woolley thought could be turned into a practical salvage vessel.

Then all began to unravel. The Hungarians’ plan called for plastic bags to be filled with hydrogen produced by electrolysis of the seawater, and only a week had been allowed to generate the 85,000 cubic yards of hydrogen that would theoretically be needed to move the Titanic. A scholarly paper by an American chemistry professor showed that it might take not a week, but ten years. The West German investors never materialized; the Titanic Salvage Company remained little more than a name; and even the boat turned out to be a dud. Lying at Newlyn in Cornwall, it was so old and rusty that local fishermen predicted it would never get out of the harbor. Gradually the whole project evaporated.

But Douglas Woolley did achieve one thing. He started a lot more people thinking about finding the Titanic. During the 1970’s at least eight different groups planned to explore the ship. Some wanted only to locate and film her; others hoped to raise her, and there was no limit to their ingenuity. One plan called for 180,000 tons of molten wax to be pumped into the vessel. When hardened, the wax would become buoyant and lift the Titanic to the surface. Another plan would work the same way, but with Vaseline.

Still another plan would achieve buoyancy by injecting thousands of Ping-Pong balls into the hull. Another would employ gigantic winches to crank the ship up. Yet another would encase the liner in ice. Then, like an ordinary cube in a drink, the ice would rise to the surface, bringing the Titanic with it.

Whatever the practicality, all the plans suffered from a common fault: they cost too much. One scheme, for instance, contemplated the use of benthos glass floats…but it turned out that the necessary number would cost $238,214,265.

Just mounting the expedition would require more than most people were willing to risk. A truly suitable vessel—and there were very few—would eat up $10,000 a day. Add to this the cost of the equipment needed, which looked like a list drawn up on another planet: a deep-tow wide-screen sonar sled, a three-axis magnetometer, a sub-bottom profiler, a depressor, and a number of acoustic transponders…plus a payroll that covered every requirement from a top oceanographer to a decent cook. Altogether, the total outlay could easily run over a million dollars.

Nor was it a sure thing even then. The exact position of the Titanic remained uncertain, and the search required a calm sea in one of the roughest areas of ocean in the world. No wonder the odds-makers put the chances of finding the ship at less than 50% to 60%.

These odds were good enough for Jack Grimm, a wealthy Texas wildcat oilman, who appeared on the scene in 1980. He had already sponsored expeditions in search of Noah’s ark, the Loch Ness monster, and the legendary Big Foot. Now, when a professional expedition leader named Mike Harris suggested the Titanic as a new project, Grimm quickly agreed. After all, he had drilled 25 straight dry holes before he finally hit his first gusher. Compared to striking oil, the chances of finding the Titanic seemed almost promising. Moreover, there were the dividends: fame, publicity, adventure.

Jack Grimm gave it his best shot. He talked up the project at the Petroleum Club in his hometown, Abilene, got some of his poker-playing buddies to take a piece of the action. He hired the William Morris Agency to handle TV, movie, and serialization rights. He arranged for a book. He persuaded Orson Welles to narrate a documentary.

Above all, he won respectability. In a deal with Columbia University, Grimm gave $330,000 to the Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory for a wide-sweep sonar rig, and in return got five years’ exclusive use of the equipment plus the services of the technical personnel needed to run it. Lured by the prospects, two distinguished oceanographers also signed on: Dr. William Ryan of Columbia and Dr. Fred Spiess of the Scripps Institution in California.

July 17, 1980, the expedition set out from Port Everglades, Florida, in the research vessel H.J.W. Fay. They reached the search area on the 29th, and for the next three weeks plodded back and forth with no really promising results. Finally, they ran out of time and went back home.

June 29, 1981, they headed out again, this time on the research vessel Gyre. Reaching the search area, they spent nine days checking out possibilities suggested by their sonar the previous summer, and scanning other less likely areas. Again nothing definite, although Grimm felt sure they had located a propeller.

July 1983, they returned for one more try, now on the research vessel Robert Conrad. This time the cameras didn’t function properly, and they were further handicapped by high seas. After two weeks they again returned home empty-handed. An optimist in the ship’s company felt that the sonar had picked up a profile characteristic of the Titanic, but the world remained unconvinced. One skeptic thought that it looked more like “a computer code on a can of green beans.”

Aware of these fruitless efforts, the press paid little attention when still another group set out to find the Titanic in the summer of 1985. This time the sponsor was the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; the ship was the Institution’s 245-foot research vessel Knorr; and the leader was Dr. Robert D. Ballard, a personable 42-year-old geologist, who headed up the Institution’s Deep Submergence Laboratory. To the casual observer, the expedition appeared to be like all the others—an ungainly-looking boat loaded with mysterious hardware.

First, a stop at the Azores. Here Bob Ballard and most of his team joined the ship. There was now a total of 49 people aboard—24 scientists and 25 in the crew. Leaving Ponta Delgada on August 15, they headed not northwest for the Titanic, but southeast for the position of the U.S. nuclear submarine Scorpion, mysteriously lost with all hands in 1968. They spent the 17th taking pictures of the sunken sub, and if these photographs throw any new light on what happened to her, this could well be the most important accomplishment of the entire expedition. At the time, it went virtually unnoticed.

Then on to the search area, a 150-square mile block of sea based on the Titanic’s last given position. Some 80% of this area had been combed earlier in the summer by the French government’s research vessel, Le Suroit. She had not found anything, but her presence pointed up the fact that the expedition was a joint Franco-American venture, manned by scientists from both countries. The main American contribution was a unique video camera system built into a deep-towed vehicle called Argo; while the French contributed a revolutionary side-scanning sonar named SAR, which could examine the ocean floor in swaths three fifths of a mile wide—far beyond the limits of anything previously invented.

In keeping with the partnership concept, Bob Ballard had been on Le Suroit during July, working with her team of scientists. They had spent six weeks “mowing the lawn” (as the oceanographers put it) until Le Suroit finally ran out of time and had to go home. Now Jean Jarry, director of the French effort, was serving on the Knorr with two of his group.

Arriving on the scene August 22, the Knorr took over where Le Suroit left off. Behind her, and nearly 13,000 feet down, she towed Argo. Roughly the size of an automobile, it earned the newly devised video system. No less than five television cameras (pointing ahead, downward, and sideways) were packed into the unit, along with sonar, sensors, computerized timing equipment, and banks of powerful strobe lights. Overall, the contraption was virtually a robot, managed by scientists over two miles above, sitting in the relative comfort of the Knorr’s control room.

But even Argo didn’t seem able to conjure up the Titanic. Day after day slipped by, and the men monitoring the screens in the control room saw only the same empty seabed. Occasionally a rat-tailed fish might swim briefly into view, but for the most part it was just mile after mile of mud and sand dunes.

The night of August 31-September 1 began like all the others. The Knorr crept slowly along the path of the search pattern, deep-towing Argo as usual. In the control room a seven-man watch under Bob Ballard dutifully monitored the video screens, but there was nothing interesting to look at—just more miles of mud. At midnight Ballard’s group was relieved by the 12:00 to 4:00 watch under Jean-Louis Michel, leader of the French scientists. Ballard went below for a shower and some rest.

Shortly before 1:00, small chunks of metal debris suddenly began showing up on the screens. They were unidentifiable, but definitely not part of the natural seascape.

“You’d better go and get Bob,” Michel ordered, but the group in the control room seemed riveted to the spot, fascinated by the fast-growing trail of debris. Finally, someone persuaded the cook to go, and he brought back Ballard in time to see a large metal cylinder appear on the video tube at 1:05.

It was clearly a boiler. Better than that, it was unmistakably a boiler from the Titanic. Nothing else could have that particular arrangement of three stoking doors at one end, or that particular configuration of rivets. Ballard’s team had studied pictures of those boilers for months—knew them by heart—and now they had found one.

It was only the beginning. The scientists estimated that the debris trail ran for nearly 600 yards, with a huge, shadowy, solid object at the end. But they would not find out what it was tonight. Twenty minutes had passed since the filming of the debris began, and it was now so thick that Ballard feared Argo might become entangled in some piece of rigging and be damaged or lost. Playing it safe, he ordered the unit to be hauled up until the bottom could be more thoroughly checked by sonar.

At 1:40 someone observed that it was close to the time of night when the Titanic made her final plunge. The remark gave Ballard an idea. He had always been deeply aware of the immense tragedy that lay behind this expedition; now he invited the group to join him on the fantail for a brief memorial service.

Next morning the sonar check indicated that it was safe for Argo to go back to work, and it soon became clear that the huge shadowy object at the end of the debris trail was the forepart of the Titanic herself. From what was visible, she looked in astonishingly good shape. When last seen that April night in 1912, the ship was plunging headfirst almost straight down, but now she sat upright, with just a slight list to port. The forecastle was not crumpled, and even the anchor chains were neatly aligned, as though ready for one of Captain Smith’s Sunday inspections.

The foremast leaned against the bridge, but the crow’s nest was intact, looking exactly the way it did when Lookout Fleet phoned his famous warning, “Iceberg right ahead.” Aft of the bridge, the early camera work did not reveal very much. Two gaping holes showed where the forward funnel and the glass dome over the grand staircase had been. Beyond this point the light was too dim.

Most amazing of all was the Titanic’s pristine appearance. There was little of the marine growth that usually sprouts all over a sunken vessel. At 13,000 feet it was too dark and too cold for much to grow. Only a thin film of silt covered the ship—so thin that it was easy to count every rivet and trace the lines of every plank in her decks.

The clarity was so great that dozens of objects could be identified amid the debris alongside the ship: lumps of coal…luggage…beds…bottles of wine miraculously unbroken…a silver platter…a chamberpot. The sharpness of detail gave the disaster an immediacy that sobered even the excitement of discovery.

For the next five days the Knorr cruised back and forth over the Titanic’s grave, deep-towing Argo behind her. Argo videotaped the wreck, and later another deep-towed robot named Angus made a series of passes using cameras loaded with 35-mm colorfilm. Coverage was somewhat limited: close-ups endangered the equipment, and truly long-range shots were beyond available light. Still, they covered most of the forward end of the ship, and far enough aft to learn that the stern was missing. Pictures taken by Angus on the fifth day caught debris from the missing section hundreds of feet aft of the rest of the wreck. The first and last runnels were gone too, and Argo had a narrow escape when it brushed against some pieces of wreckage while making a turn.

Perhaps Ballard felt at this point that he had stretched his luck enough. The rest could wait until next year, when he planned to return. In any case, September 5 was the last day of filming. The Knorr turned for Woods Hole and a noisy welcome of Klaxons and air horns.

July 9, 1986, Bob Ballard headed out again. This time the French were gone—no money—and the Woods Hole crowd had the Titanic to themselves. The Knorr was also gone, replaced by Atlantis II, which could house and service a remarkable three-man submersible named Alvin. Built for the U.S. Navy in 1964, Alvin was originally designed to operate at a maximum depth of 8,000 feet but had been strengthened for 13,000 feet. This brought it within reach of the Titanic. Ballard no longer had to depend on robots and video; he could go down and see for himself.

Even more remarkable, Alvin carried its own robot, Jason Jr. About the size of a power lawn mower, “J. J.” was controlled by an operator inside Alvin. Linked to the submersible by a 200-foot tether, Jason Jr. could prowl the bottom, squirming into places too small or too dangerous for Alvin itself.

This curious armada reached the Titanic’s position on the evening of July 12, where it was joined by USS Ortolan, a Navy submarine rescue vessel. In case of accident, Ortolan’s services might prove vital; meanwhile she could play a useful role in fending off unwelcome visitors. Ballard was as determined as ever to keep the exact location of the Titanic a secret.

About 8:30 A.M., July 13, he squeezed into Alvin along with Ralph Hollis and Dudley Foster, his two most experienced submersible pilots. Casting off, they began the long descent to the bottom. To save power, they let gravity do the work, and the free-fall took two and a half hours; later, the trip back up would consume a similar amount of time. These daily “commutes” gradually became routine—tapes of classical music going down; soft rock coming up—but not this first morning. The sonar wasn’t working, and the batteries began to leak. When the threesome finally groped their way to the Titanic, it was time to return to the surface. Ballard did catch a brief glimpse of a towering wall of steel, making him the first human being actually to see the lost liner in 74 years.

For the next eleven days Ballard and his team continued their dives, selecting targets on the basis of thousands of photographs taken the previous summer. July 14, they made a five-hour inspection of the forepart of the ship…and immediately discovered that the wreck was in far worse shape than they had thought. The medium-range pictures taken by Argo and Angus in 1985 suggested a bow in pristine condition. Now, close-up, they saw that the steel hull was covered by rivulets of rust and that wood-boring mollusks had eaten almost every scrap of woodwork on the ship. What appeared to be deck planking in the pictures taken by the two robots was, on close inspection, just the caulking, which the mollusks had found unappetizing.

July 15, Ballard sent Jason Jr. down the grand staircase, hoping that the interior of the vessel, at least, had escaped the mollusks. No—they had been here too. Not a trace of the magnificent paneling or of the ornate wall clock symbolizing Honor and Glory crowning Time.

But nature wasn’t always hostile. The same strong current that spread the mollusks throughout the hull actually burnished the nonferrous metal fittings of the ship. The brass porthole rims, copper pots from the kitchen, the bronze pedestal for the ship’s wheel—all gleamed as brightly as the day they were installed.

A new target was picked every day, as Alvin continued its probe: July 16, the bow (alas, no trace of the ship’s name)….July 17, the “tear area,” where the forepart of the Titanic broke off near the base of the third funnel….July 18, the debris held aft of the split—a mass of wreckage roughly the size of a city block.

On July 20, the stern was at last discovered—a separate, 250-foot section of the vessel lying about 2,000 feet south of the bow. It was twisted 180°, so that it now faced in the opposite direction from the rest of the vessel.

Next day, Ballard made a close inspection of this new find. In contrast to the bow, the stern was hideously smashed. It had slammed down on the ocean floor so hard that all the decks were pancaked together. The debris looked like a surrealistic garage sale: deck machinery, the head of a china doll, a spittoon, electric heaters, bottles of champagne, hardware from the wooden benches that once graced the poop deck, a patent leather evening shoe.

July 22, back to the bow to look for the famous 300-foot gash said to have been caused by the iceberg. The search was fruitless, confirming the suspicions of several shore-bound observers. What the iceberg really did to the Titanic probably can never be known. Too much of the bow and the bottom are now buried in the mud. But it appears that seams opened in the steel plating by the initial blow did as much damage as any other holes caused by the berg itself.

The grand finale came on July 24, and for Ballard—ever the perfectionist—it was the best dive of all. Alvin was again on familiar territory, mostly around the bridge, and Jason Jr. performed flawlessly. “J. J.” hadn’t behaved all that well during the middle dives, and it was especially gratifying to see the little robot rise to the occasion. For his part, Ballard was willing to take risks on this last dive that he wouldn’t have taken earlier. He even sent “J. J.” through one of the windows on the forward Promenade Deck for a look inside the ship. Nothing of interest turned up, but technically the feat was a masterpiece.

Curiously, Ballard did not appear especially elated. Normally jaunty—even gung-ho—he seemed rather subdued. Perhaps he was simply tired from having participated in 8 out of 11 successful dives; a three-man submersible is no place for a rangy six-footer. More likely, his two companions in Alvin were right when they decided he was feeling the letdown that naturally came from knowing that his great adventure was over.

That evening the crew retrieved the transponders, stowed away their gear, and headed for home. Early on the morning of July 28 they arrived at Woods Hole, greeted by another salute of horns and Klaxons. They had done it again.

Some mysteries remain. Where are the funnels? All are missing. The first things to go and of comparatively light metal, they probably shied off on their own and have settled separately near the wreck. Where are the boilers? Only 5 or 6 have been found in the debris. I think the other 23 or 24 also broke loose during the final plunge and now lie in the mud, possibly under the forepart of the ship. Where are the bodies? Happily, no trace of them has been found. Best explanation: the chemical content of salt water at this great depth has, over the years, consumed them completely. Despite the question marks, the whole effort remains one of the era’s great scientific achievements.

Why did this effort succeed when all the others failed? First of all, there was the equipment. It was not that the other expeditions cut corners; technology was simply moving so fast that Ballard enjoyed an extra edge. Argo’s side-scanning sonar, for instance, could cover as much ground in 20 days as previously took 12 years.

Money was another factor. Even a wealthy Texan couldn’t match the combined resources of the French government, the U.S. Navy, the National Science Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. The Office of Naval Research sank $2.8 million into Argo alone. It took $20,000 a day just to support Atlantis II. Altogether, it’s estimated that each expedition cost $6 million, with a possible total of $15 million if certain projected equipment were added.

Another advantage was Ballard’s team of assistants. Most were “old pros.” On the first trip Emory Kristof, a staff photographer with the National Geographic, had worked with Ballard for years. On the second, men like Ralph Hollis and Dudley Foster had long years of experience with Alvin.

Finally there was Ballard himself. He not only had a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics plus a fistful of scientific awards; he was also a diver with much practical experience in deep-sea submersibles. And he had been hooked on the Titanic for years. As early as 1978, according to an article appearing that year in The Washington Post, he was president of Seaonics International Ltd., “a firm formed with the express purpose of finding the Titanic.” His almost passionate interest makes odd reading of the accounts in The New York Times and elsewhere, stating that the Titanic was a “surprise yield” of sea trials conducted to test new underwater research equipment.

Add to these assets charm, brashness, showmanship, and the intuition that seems to guide successful inventors and explorers. As one colleague put it: “Bob has an extraordinary ability to find interesting things on the bottom.”

But his most striking quality was a sensitivity that verged on piety. It was there the night the Titanic was found and he held that brief service on the Knorr’s fantail. It was there in his frequent references to the lost “souls” below. And it was there at the press conference in Washington after the Knorr’s return. Even the hardest cases were moved by the closing lines of his formal statement:

The Titanic itself lies in 13,000 feet of water on a gently sloping alpine-like countryside overlooking a small canyon below.

Its bow faces north and the ship sits upright on the bottom. Its mighty stacks pointing upward.

There is no light at this great depth and little life can be found.

It is quiet and peaceful and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies to rest.

May it forever remain that way and may God bless these found souls.

True, the reference to “mighty stacks” was a bit of hyperbole. They were all gone. But Ballard’s reverence for the ship and what she stood for was very real indeed. His feelings emerged in a little incident that took place during the second expedition. Angus, used for still photography when Alvin rested, surfaced from one dive trailing a length of entangled steel cable. Clearly a part of the Titanic herself! Sliced into small pieces and sold to collectors, it would be worth a fortune. Onlookers crowded the rails, but Ballard stopped any gold rush. The Titanic must remain an unsullied memorial forever. He threw the cable back into the ocean.

A noble thought, but “forever” is a long, long while. Pompeii was once the scene of an enormous human tragedy, but now it is a fascinating dig. King Tutankhamen’s tomb was a sacred grave, but today it’s a tourist attraction. The same sort of fate must ultimately overtake the Titanic, and meanwhile who is to police the site? A resolution passed by the House of Representatives urges that the wreck be designated a maritime memorial, protected by international treaty, but the sea belongs to no one, and there are few funds for guarding a patch of ocean.

The danger lies not in man’s greed but in his curiosity. By now nearly everyone knows that no great treasure is tucked away somewhere in the Titanic. There is no evidence of a fortune in diamonds or gold. Her cargo manifest lists ordinary goods worth less than $500,000; the passengers’ jewelry was impressive but not spectacular. Mrs. Widener’s fabulous pearls were saved. Nor is there any practical chance of raising the Titanic for commercial purposes.

But the lure of the ship remains, if only because “it is there.” Again, she is like Mount Everest. As new technology makes the Titanic ever more accessible, all that is left to protect her is a human sense of propriety. A congressional resolution designating the wreck as a “maritime memorial” is not enough.

Maybe it doesn’t really matter. Those who fall under the spell of that famous night will always have their own favorite vignette as a special memorial—perhaps the band, or the Strauses, or the eight Goodwins clinging together. And there will always be the memory of that last glimpse of the Titanic as she stood in 1912—stern high; her black silhouette pointing like an accusing finger at the stars; then gliding slowly out of sight, leaving her handful of lifeboats alone in the empty sea.

Gleanings from the Testimony

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO be very knowledgeable about the Titanic without studying the official records of the American and British investigations. This is no easy task. There are 181 witnesses and 2,111 pages of testimony. Some of it is ambiguous, inconsistent, and even contradictory.

Here is an attempt to sift the opinions of various witnesses on several of the more controversial points. After each witness’s name, source is indicated by page number in the Senate hearings and by question number in the British proceedings. These gleanings may prove useful, if only because they show how hard it is to corner that elusive quarry, the truth….

Weather at time of collision

“Perfectly clear…you could almost see the stars set.” (Boxhall, US 224, 231, 256) “Perfectly clear” (Boxhall, Br 15338-15340).

Very clear…“we could see the stars setting.” (Lightoller, US 68). Perfectly clear and fine (Lightoller, Br 13523, 13528, 14194, 14196)

Fine night (Rowe, Br 17602)

“There was a haze right ahead…a haze on the water.” (Lee, Br 2401-2408)

Haze “nothing to talk about” (Fleet, Br 17253, 17266-17268, 17271, 17253, 17390, 17393)

Clear, starlit (Hitchens, Br 1191)

“We could not have wished for better weather.” (Lucas, Br 1405)

“Grand” (Poingdestre, Br 2780)

Haze (Shivers, Br 4700)

“A very clear night” (Symons, Br 11984)

“A beautiful night…a dark night, but starlight” (Peuchen, US 350)

The iceberg

Round and had one big point sticking up on one side of it, about 100’ high. (Osman, US 539)

When first sighted, berg looked about as large as two tables put together, but kept getting larger as ship approached. When alongside, a little higher than forecastle head, which is about 50’ above water (Fleet, US 320)….Just a little bit higher than the forecastle head, but not as high as the crow’s nest (Fleet, Br 17277, 17304-14)

Berg roughly 100’ high (Rowe, US 521)

Looked like Rock of Gibraltar from Europe Point, “only much smaller.” (Scarrott, Br 361-362)

Looked like a large black object, “much higher” than B Deck. (Crawford, US 842-843)

Berg about the height of the Boat Deck; if anything just a little higher. Top was pointed. (Olliver, US 527)

Higher than the forecastle (Lee, Br 2439)

Movements of ship after collision

—In engine room. Immediately after collision engine room telegraph signaled “STOP…10-15 minutes, then “slow ahead”…10 minutes, then “STOP”…4-5 minutes, then “slow astern”…5 minutes, then “STOP.” “I do not think the telegraph went after that.” (Scott, Br 5609-5626, 5807-5809, 5836)

—Coming on bridge right after collision, heard orders given to put helm hard aport. By this time iceberg astern. Shortly afterward Captain telegraphed half-speed ahead. Doesn’t know whether engines were stopped or astern at time, but ship “almost stopped” when he did it. (Olliver, US 527-528, 531-532)

—On bridge. Murdoch to Smith immediately after collision: “I put hard astarboard and ran the engines full astern, but it was too close; she hit it…I intended to port around it, but she hit before I could do any more.” On reaching bridge right after impact, notices engine room telegraphs indicate “Full speed astern.” (Boxhall, US 229-230; Br 15346-15355, 15505)

—On deck immediately after collision. Berg abaft the starboard beam, less than ship’s length away. Ship seemed to be under port helm, stern slewing off berg, now going to starboard around it. (Scarrott, Br 351-356)

—In Boiler Room 6. Immediately after crash, telegraph went to “STOP.” Orders passed, “Shut the dampers.” Then watertight doors dropped. Doors closed “less than 5 minutes” after bridge signaled to stop engines. (Beauchamp, Br 664-668A)

—On bridge. Just before ship struck, ordered to put helm “hard astarboard.” Turned wheel and ship had swung about two points when she struck. At same time order hard astarboard given, Murdoch signals engine room, presumably “Stop. Full speed astern.” Ship never under port helm. (Hitchens, Br 948-993, 1314-1316) Ordered to put the helm “hard astarboard.” Does so immediately, with crash coming almost at same time. Only order given before collision (Hitchens, US 450, 456)

—First Class stateroom. Impact. Then engines stop. Two or 3 minutes, and then they start again, but very slightly. (Stengel, US 974-975)

—In electric workshop, E Deck. Feels slight jar…2 minutes later looks around and sees turbine engine has stopped. (Ranger, Br 3997-4002)

—In Boiler Room 6. Signal light flashed red, meaning stop. Calls to shut the dampers. Then crash, before all dampers shut (Barrett, Br 1860-1867)

—In engine room. Telegraph rang shortly before crash—maybe 2 seconds—then crash and about a minute and a half later engines stopped. Another half-minute and engines go slow astern. Go slow astern about 2 minutes, then stop again. Then ahead for about 2 minutes, then stop for good. Watertight doors closed about 3 minutes after collision. (Dillon, Br 3715-3729, 3736)

—Steward’s quarters. Awakened by stopping of engines. Felt no shock before that. Then felt engines going full speed astern and at same time heard warning bells for watertight doors. (Rule, Br 9752-9760)

Light seen from the Titanic

Nothing sighted from crow’s nest before collision. (Lee, Br 2419-2420; Fleet, US 328, 358)

Moving. First sighted shortly after collision, just as men beginning to turn out the boats. Went to bridge and took a look before going to wireless room with position. Saw “a four-masted steamer” almost dead ahead, 5 or 6 miles. Seemed to be approaching; saw mast lights, then red side light. Later seemed to turn around “very, very slowly” and head away. (Boxhall, US 235-236, 909-910; Br 15385-15409)

First sighted “when we were turning out the boats.” (Buley, US 612)

Saw only one light, that while getting the boats out, two points off the port bow. (Lightoller, US 448-449)

Lay to north and Titanic pointed east at the time Boat 6 was lowered. (Peuchen US 346)

A single light, off the port bow while boats were being loaded. Thinks it may have been 6 miles. (Gracie, US 990)

To the north (Hart, Br 10268)

Apparently to north. Titanic’s stern was swinging south, making bow face north, and light was half a point on port bow, about 5 miles away. (Rowe, Br 17669-17674)

Apparently to north, judging from Boat 3’s experiences with ice (Moore, US 564)

Apparently to the north—No. 8 had to “turn around” to go to Carpathia. (Crawford, US 827; Br 18002, 18087; Jones, US 570)…So did No. 11 (Wheelton, US 544)…So did No. 16 (Archer, US 648)…So did Collapsible C (Rowe, US 520)

Two masthead lights bearing north on starboard bow (Hart, Br 10264-74)

Saw faint red side light and steaming light abeam starboard side of ship—8 or 9 miles off, “right on horizon.” But did not see it until after Collapsible D was launched. “Light went farther away every time we looked at it.” (Lucas, Br 1566-1585, 1800-1806)

Stationary (Rowe, US 524; Pitman, US 295, 307; Crawford, US 827, 828; Buley, US 611, 612; Fleet, US 358-359; Lightoller, Br 14149)

There all night. As seen from Boat 3 (Moore, US565)….From Boat 6 (Fleet, US 359)….From Boat 8 (Jones, US 570; Crawford, US 114, 827, 828; Br 17854, 17856, 17867-69, 17997, 18001-03, 18010, 18017, 18069)….From Boat 11 (Wheelton, US 544)….From Boat 16 (Archer, US 648)….From Collapsible C (Rowe, US 520, 524; Ismay, Br 18577-98)

Suggests light he saw may not have been same light others saw off port bow. (Ismay, Br 18577-98)

Always seemed about the same distance away. (Rowe, Br 17666)

No. 11 rows for light “about two hours” (Mackay, Br 10809)…pulled for light till daybreak. (Wheelton, US 544)

Collapsible C. Pulled for light till wind sprang up “toward daylight.” (Rowe, US 524)

No. 3.“Kept pulling for it until daylight.” (Moore, US 565)

Saw it for 20 minutes off the port bow, 8-10 miles away. (Johnson, Br 3482-3486)

Moving. While loading No. 6, saw light 2 points on port bow about 5 miles away. “Surmised it to be a steamboat.” Ordered to steer for it, but could get no closer. “Light was moving, gradually disappearing.” (Hitchens, Br 1161-1184, 1338-1339) At U.S. Inquiry, said he thought it was a fishing schooner. (Hitchins, Br 1338)

Saw white light on port bow about time No. 6 was being lowered. Definitely a ship, but could not tell whether sail or steamer. (Fleet, Br 17428-35, 17453-56)

Moving. Boat 2 saw light for about an hour. Thought it was a Cape Codder that sailed away. (Osman, US 538)

Looked like a sailing ship. (Bright, US 536)

Single white light point and a half on port bow, 5-10 miles away—couldn’t tell what it was—just a vessel— later thought it was a cod-bankman or fishing vessel. (Symons, Br 11468-78)

While readying No. 1, hears a ship has been sighted on port bow, glances over, sees 2 mastheads and red light of a steamer. (Lowe, Br 15825-26)

Before No. 1 lowered, saw bright light “5 or 6 miles ahead of us.” Didn’t see it after boat lowered. (Hendrickson, Br 11072-11076)

No. 9. Saw red light, then red and white, then red disappears, leaving just white. Thinks it’s port light of a steamer 7-8 miles away. Both lights disappear, but 10-15 minutes later sees a white light again, same direction. (Wynn, Br. 13336-51)

Rockets

—Rockets, in general: “Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea,” Article 31, No. 3, defines distress signals at night: “Rockets or shells, throwing stars of any color or description….” (Hitchens, Br 1199)

—Description of Titanic’s rockets (Wilding, Br 20575-20577; Boxhall, Br 15394-15400; Lightoller, Br 14150-14155; 14168-14172)

—Unmistakably signals of distress; not like company signals at all (Lightoller, Br 14150-14155; 14168-14172)

—Discussion of sound (Pitman, US 294; Lightoller, Br 14155)

—About 12:25 Rowe and Bright ordered to bring detonators to bridge for firing distress signals. (Rowe, US 519; Bright, US 832)

—Assisted in firing of rockets from 12:45 to about 1:25 (Rowe, Br 17684)

—Helped fire rockets till about 1:25, then ordered by Captain Smith to stop and help man Collapsible C. (Rowe, US 519)

—Boats 7 and 5 launched before first rockets. (Pitman, US 289, 293, 307)

—First went off between loading of Boats 5 and 3. (Lowe, US 401)

—Rockets began going up as No. 3 lowered (Duff

Gordon, Br 12496)….First rocket went off while loading No. 3. (Lowe, US 401)

—Watched them from No. 5. (Pitman, Br 15066; Crosby, US 1145)

—Going off before No. 6 left, and continued half an hour after boat left ship. (Hitchens, Br 1195-1197, 1201, 1207)

—Still going up after Boat 6 launched. (Fleet, US 328)

—Watched from Boat 6. (Hitchens, Br 1195-1208)

—Going up after No. 8 pulled away, also Morse lamp. (Crawford, Br 17972)

—Going off while No. 1 cleared and prepared for lowering. (Hendrickson, Br 4997, 5006; Boxhall, US 239)

—Still going up as No. 1 loaded and lowered. Fired one after No. 1 lowered. (Boxhall, US 239)

—While loading No. 1: “Incessantly going off… nearly deafening me.” (Lowe, US 401)

—Going up before Boat 13 lowered and watched from Boat 13 after afloat. (Lee, Br 2582-2583, 2680)

—Going up as No. 15 left. (Hart, Br 10103)

—Watched from Boat 12. (Poingdestre, Br 3099-3100)

—Continued firing until ordered into Boat 2. (Boxhall, US 237)

—Thinks they were seen by Californian. (Ismay, Br 18943-18946)

—Did not hear and did not think he was near enough to hear Carpathia’s rockets when he saw them from Collapsible B. (Lightoller, Br 14856)

State of the ship

As Boat 5 pulled away, noticed ship was 15-20 feet down at the bows. (Olliver, US 533)

As No. 1 pulled away, ports under her name just awash. (Symons, Br 11490-11493)

When No. 10 left, water about 10 feet from port “bow light” (Evans, US 753) Port bow light under water when No. 10 lowered. (Buley, US 606)

When No. 13 lowered, forecastle head not under water. (Barrett, Br 2140-2142; Lee, Br 2541-2542)

When No. 2 pulled away, down “by the bridge.” (Johnson, Br 3556)

At 1:50 forecastle head close to water. (Jewell, Br 167)

When Collapsible C left, well deck awash but forecastle head not yet submerged. (Rowe, Br 17687-17688)

When No. 4 lowered, A Deck “only 20 feet from the sea.” Could see water washing into open portholes. (Mrs. Ryerson, US 1107)

When “D” lowered, forecastle head just going under water—“that would be about 20 feet lower than the bridge.” (Bright, US 839)

When Collapsible D lowered, water right up to bridge. (Lucas, Br 1518, 1528, 1534, 1548)

When “D” lowered, Boat Deck only 10 feet from sea. Water at A Deck. (Lightoller, Br 1420, 14023)

As Boat D lowered, water washes onto A Deck, port side all the way forward. (Woolner, US 887)

Final plunge

As seen from Boat 1. She took a heavy cant, bow down, stern well out of the water. Then, as she went down, her poop righted itself, and he thought, “The poop is going to float.” But 2 or 3 minutes later, poop went up “as straight as anything,” then “a sound like thunder and soon she disappeared from view.”…“Stern righted itself without the bow; in my estimation she must have broken in half…about abeam of the after funnel.” (Symons, Br 11512-11525, 11722)

Boat 2. “After she got to a certain angle she exploded, broke in halves, and it seemed to me as if all her engines and everything that was in the after part slid out into the forward part, and the after part came up right again, and as soon as it came up, right down it went again.” (Osman, US 541)

Boat 3. Saw the forward part go down, then looked as if she broke in half, and then the after part went. (Moore, US 563)

Boat 4. Forward end seemed to break off, after part came back on an even keel, then turned up and went down steadily. (Ranger, Br 4094-4102, 4114, 4166, 4174)

Boat 4. Started breaking up…stern went up in air. After part briefly rights self. (Scott, Br 5673-5681)

Boat 4. “Very near.” Suddenly sees Titanic sinking rapidly. Takes a plunge toward the bow, then two forward funnels seem to lean, then she seems to break in half as if cut with a knife, and as bow goes under, the lights go out. Stern stands up for several minutes, and then that, too, plunges down. (Ryerson, US 1108)

Boat 5. “She broke forward, and the after part righted itself and made another plunge and went right down.” (Olliver, US 530-531)

Boat 5. No breaking up—went straight down. (Pitman, US 280; Br 15078-81)

Boat 5. Ship rises as though about to take a violent dive, then settles back; then stern rises, and down she goes. (Etches, US818)

Boat 6. Went down intact, did not break up. (Peuchen, US 339)

Boat 10. Broke in two between third and fourth funnel. Stern section falls back horizontal, then tips and plunges. (Evans, US 753)

Boat 10. “She went down as far as the after funnel, and then there was a little roar, as though the engines had rushed forward, and she snapped in two, and the bow part went down and the after part came up and stayed up five minutes before it went down.” (Buley, US 609-610)

Boat 12. Broke at first funnel. After part then righted itself after first part disappeared. (Poingdestre, Br 3108, 3111, 3117)

Boat 14. She almost stood up perpendicular…and presently she broke clean in two, probably two-thirds the length of the ship. After third—beyond after funnel—settled back, still floating. Then an explosion, and the after part turned on end and sank. (Crowe, US 620)

Collapsible A. Seemed as if the bow had broken off. (Brown, Br 10553, 10557)

Collapsible B. Bow was in the water, stern up. Then she exploded, throwing stern up out of the water. Stern floats for at least a minute, lights out. Then, “she turned over again and down she went.” (Collins, US 630-631)

Collapsible B. Ship did not break in two. (Lightoller, Br 14075; US 69)

Collapsible B. Near perpendicular, then simply glided away. (Joughin, Br 6251-6266)

Collapsible D. Broke in two, after part briefly righted itself, then down. (Bright, US 839, 841)

Standing on poop. Gave a plunge and righted herself again. Then, as starts down again, after funnel seems to cant up and fall aft toward well deck. (Dillon, Br 3858-3869, 3883-3885)

Acknowledgments and Selected Sources

THEY ARE NEARLY ALL gone now. Of the 60-plus Titanic survivors who contributed so much to A Night to Remember, only a handful remain. Happily, Eva Hart still serves the best tea in Chadwell Heath; while across the Atlantic, Frank Aks is as chipper as ever in Norfolk, Virginia.

Gone, too, are most of the survivors I was never lucky enough to find 30 years ago, but who have since been such a pleasure to meet—for instance, Ruth Blanchard of Santa Barbara, California, and Marshall Drew of Westerly, Rhode Island.

Despite the erosions of time, there is still no lack of helpful people with fresh information on the Titanic. In some cases the families of survivors have come forward with letters and accounts retrieved from long-forgotten files. R. de Roussy de Sales has made available a fascinating letter from his uncle George Rheims that throws much light on the final minutes of the lost ship. Mary C. Barker has supplied a richly detailed manuscript by her vivacious grandmother, Helen Churchill Candee. Sally Behr Pettit has made available two accounts by her father, Karl Behr. Robert Maguire was no relative of Laura Mabel Francatelli, but he kindly sent me from his collection a typescript of a 19-page letter written by Miss Francatelli shortly after the Carpathia’s arrival in New York. Austin M. Fox has generously shared his extensive knowledge of Edward A Kent, the Buffalo architect who went down with the ship.

Some of my most fruitful sources had no direct connection with the Titanic at all, but through the years have accumulated a great deal of information which they have placed at my disposal. A special salute goes to Rustie Brown, Edward de Groot, Roland Hauser, Ken Marschall, Alasdair McCrimmon, Patrick Stenson, and Tim Trower.

The dedicated officers of the Titanic Historical Society rate a paragraph of their own: Charlie Haas, President; Ed Kamuda, Secretary; and Jack Eaton, the Society’s Historian. Even the lowliest stoker seems to have a welcome place in Mr. Eaton’s archives.

Other persons have been helpful on specific aspects of the story. Their specialized knowledge, together with the written material I’ve been able to gather, form the backbone of my own research. The late David Watson, for instance, provided a penciled journal that gives a vivid picture of Harland & Wolff at the time the Titanic was built. He clearly felt the ship’s plating was too thin. But for flaws in the Titanic’s design, I depended most of all on J. Bernard Walker’s An Unsinkable Titanic (Dodd, Mead, 1912). The actual building of the ship is covered in the “Special Number” of the magazine Shipbuilder, midsummer 1911 (reprint, Patrick Stephens, Ltd., 1983). The launching is described in the contemporary Belfast press and in “The Story of Harland & Wolff” by George Lavery and Alan Hedgley in the Fall 1980 issue of the Titanic Commutator, the lively quarterly of the Titanic Historical Society.

On Captain Smith’s qualifications, I’ve benefited greatly from long discussions with marine historian John Maxtone-Graham, especially with regard to the Olympic-Hawke collision and the Titanic’s near-collision with the liner New York. For details on the Olympic’s encounter with the tug O. L. Hallenbeck, I’m indebted to Thomas Thacher, who retrieved the court record from some long-buried file in Hoboken, New Jersey. The superficial nature of the Titanic’s trials is clear from testimony at the British Inquiry. Jack Eaton of the Titanic Historical Society has also provided helpful material on the trials.

For details on the Titanic’s maiden voyage up to the moment of collision, I’m grateful to various relatives and friends of survivors already mentioned. On the activities of “our coterie,” I have also depended on Mrs. Candee’s haunting account in the May 4, 1912, issue of Collier’s magazine. The gamblers on board formed a world of their own, and it’s fitting that they have an affectionate chronicler who has devoted himself to the subject. See George M. Behe’s two-part article, “Fate Deals a Hand,” in the Commutator, Fall and Winter, 1982.

There is no one left to interview on how the bridge handled the various wireless warnings of ice, but the testimony at the hearings gives a depressing picture of extreme casualness. Some mystery has surrounded the warning allegedly flashed by signal lamp from the steamer Rappahannock that last night. No one on the Titanic ever mentioned such an incident. The mystery is apparently cleared up by a story in the The New York Times on April 27, 1912. It all happened on the 13th, not the 14th of April.

On the actual collision and First Officer Murdoch’s last-second attempt to avoid it, I benefited greatly from a discussion with Fred M. Walker, Curator of Naval Architecture and Shipbuilding at the National Maritime Museum in England. On the damage suffered by the Titanic and the subsequent flooding of the vessel, I’m especially grateful to Alasdair McCrimmon of Toronto, Canada. I’m convinced that no member of the Titanic’s “black gang” knew his way around the bowels of the ship better than Mr. McCrimmon does today.

The shortage of lifeboats was an integral part of the tragedy. Recently it served as a basis for a major television documentary, Titanic—a Question of Murder, produced by Peter Williams. While I feel that the evidence does not support Mr. Williams’s conclusions, I have the highest admiration for his generosity in putting me in touch with his sources, letting me draw my own conclusions. He has set a perfect example of professional courtesy.

In this connection, a special word of thanks to Dr. Alan Scarth of the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool for the sharp reproduction of a plan uncovered by Mr. Williams proposing 16 additional life boats. Unfortunately, the plan is not dated, nor is there any clue as to how hard the idea was pushed.

In piecing together the story of the Frederick Goodwin family, I received generous assistance from the Reverend David Shacklock of Fulham, London. Additional information came from the contemporary press of Niagara Falls, New York. There’s some confusion over the exact names and ages of various members of me family. I’ve depended on the Board of Trade files at the Public Record Office in London.

The Titanic’s band continues to intrigue students of the disaster, and I’m especially grateful to the hymnologists who I feel have set me straight on at least one part of the story. They include Roland Hind, Jessica M. Kerr, Merrill Knapp, and David Shaddock. The most helpful information of all came from a series of letters I received from Fred G. Vallance in 1957. Mr. Vallance was leader of the band on the Cunarder Laconia at the time of the disaster. He knew several of the Titanic’s musicians personally and, more than anyone else, he knew what they were likely to play under the circumstances. Colonel Gracie’s remarks on how long the band played were contained in a lecture he gave at the University Club in Washington. Strangely, he left this information out of his well-known The Truth About the Titanic.

The troubles suffered by the bandsmen’s families after the disaster run through the magazine Musicians’ Report and Journal for much of 1912. I’m grateful to the Musicians’ Union for the use of their file of this magazine. Finally, I’m indebted to Patrick Stenson for tapping some memories regarding the agents who represented the ships’ musicians during this period.

On the Californian, I’ve benefited greatly from an interview and correspondence with the late Captain Charles Victor Groves, then Third Officer of that ship; from correspondence with Sir Ivan Thompson, former Commodore of the Cunard Line, who personally knew several of those involved; from interviews with Jac Weller, a recognized expert witness on ballistics; and from a long, interesting letter from A. Brian Mainwaring, who served as a navigating officer with the White Star Line during the 1920’s, and who also knew some of the individuals involved. I have also learned much from an engrossing manuscript written by Leslie Reade, who has devoted years to researching the Californian. If an unpublished book can be a tour de force, this is it.

The letter from Gerard J. G. Jensen to the President of the Board of Trade, which really opened up the Californian affair, can be found in the six boxes of Board of Trade material on the disaster at the Public Record Office in London (see MT 9/920, Item No. M12148). For Captain Lord’s letter conceding “a certain amount of slackness” on the ship, see same file, Item No. M31921.

But as valuable as all these sources are, the most important evidence of all is readily accessible to anybody: It is the testimony given at the British Inquiry by the five men on the Californian’s bridge that night.

The defenders of the Californian are entitled to their say, too. They have written bushels on the subject. A sampling of their work might include Peter Padfield’s The Titanic and the Californian (Hodder and Stoughton, 1965); John C. Carrother’s “Lord of the Californian,” United States Naval Institute Proceedings, March 1968; Leslie Harrison’s “The Californian Incident,” Merchant Navy Journal, March 1962; petitions to the Board of Trade filed by the Mercantile Marine Service Association in February 1965 and in March 1968; and finally, almost any article on the ship in the Titanic Commutator.

Not surprisingly, the legal joustings over the Titanic went on for years. I’m grateful to the present Lord Mersey for giving me the opportunity to spend a day at Bignor Park examining his great-grandfather’s Titanic file. For background on the U.S. Senate’s investigation, I depended mainly on Wyn Craig Wade’s fine book The Titanic: the End of a Dream (Rawson Wade, 1979). The claims of passengers were well covered by The New York Times throughout 1912-1913; and the legal decisions, as the case wound its way through the courts, are all summarized by the Supreme Court in Oceanic Steam Navigation Company v. Mellor, 233 US 718. The parallel British case is Ryan v. Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, 3 K.B. 731, affirmed by the Court of Appeals, February 9, 1914. For guiding me through the whole labyrinth of “limited liability,” I’m indebted to Eliot Lumbard, who is not only a member of the bar but a former third mate of the liner Oriente.

Details on the later years of various Titanic survivors come from a variety of sources, including personal friendships. Bruce Ismay’s troubled life is described in numerous obituaries and in Wilton J. Oldham’s The Ismay Line (Journal of Commerce, 1961). The Ben Hecht poem originally appeared in the Chicago Daily Journal, April 17, 1912. Craganour’s disqualification is thoroughly explored in Sidney Galtrey’s Memoirs of a Racing Journalist (Hutchinson, 1934). The Carter divorce was fully aired in the Philadelphia press. William T. Sloper’s ordeal is covered in Sloper’s privately published biography of his father, reprinted in the Spring1984 issue of Ship to Shore, the magazine of the Oceanic Navigation Research Society.

The Duff Gordons are covered by a good roundup that appeared in the New York Sunday News, April 15, 1934. Details on confidence man George Brayton’s return to business-as-usual were provided by survivor Edith Russell, who was falsely accused of complicity. The White Star Line’s treatment of the Titanic’s surviving officers is touched on in Geoffrey Marcus’s Maiden Voyage, paperback edition (Woodhill Press, 1977); and Commander Lightoller’s heroism at Dunkirk is described in Patrick Stenson’s The Odyssey of C. H. Lightoller (Norton, 1984). The letter quoted was made available through the courtesy of Sharon Rutman and Sylvia Sue Steell.

The discovery of the Titanic was one of the major news stories of 1985. I’m grateful to Cathy Offinger (then Scheer), who was a navigator on the expedition, for clarifying many points that have puzzled me. I have also benefited from informal conversations with Bob Ballard, who led the expedition. For written accounts of the discovery, I’ve depended mainly on National Geographic, December 1985; Oceanus magazine, Winter 1985; and the Titanic Commutator, Fall 1985. The Knorr’s brief side trip to photograph the submarine Scorpion is related in the September 23, 1985, issue of the Navy Times.

For information on Ballard’s expedition in 1986, I have depended mainly on subsequent articles in National Geographic, Oceanus, and Titanic Commutator. I am also grateful to Charles Pellegrino for unpublished interviews dealing with this expedition.

Throughout my research, the librarians, as always, stood ready to help. A special bow to the Earl W. Brydges Public Library of Niagara Falls, New York; the New York Society Library; the Newberry Library of Chicago; the Southhampton Public Libraries; and the Temple University Library.

In studying the Titanic, there’s so much to explore that it sometimes seems there is no time left to write about it. Happily, I’ve had help from a small band of faithful researchers, including Preston Brooks, Evelyn Guss, Tom Longstreth, and (in London) Caroline Larken. Other helpful people pitched in on spot assignments: Elizabeth Hawn, Bob Meech, Steve Randolph, and Evan Thomas III come especially to mind.

Still others have added their professional expertise. Paul Pugliese provided the excellent map and chart. Colin Dawkins helped pull together the illustration section. Dr. Gerry Tidy photographed Mrs. Candee’s miniature of her mother. I’m grateful to them all.

Finally, special thanks go to two pillars of strength who have been with the project from the start: my editor, Howard Cady, and the ever-patient Dorothy Hefferline, who prepared the manuscript and handled all correspondence. Unlike the Titanic, they really are unsinkable.

All the people mentioned in these Acknowledgments get much of the credit for any new light this book may throw on the Titanic; while the mistakes and shortcomings are all mine. As I pointed out 31 years ago in A Night to Remember, it is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on everything that happened the incredible night the Titanic went down.

Index

A  |  B  |  C  |  D  |  E

F  |  G  |  H  |  I  |  J

K  |  L  |  M  |  N  |  O

P  |  R  |  S  |  T

U  |  V  |  W  |  Y

Abelseth, Olaus, 87

À la Carte Restaurant, 43, 44, 107

“Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” 109

Allison, Lorraine, 83

Alvin, 205

Amalgamated Musicians Union, 115

Amerika, 48, 50, 51, 52, 73

Andrews, Thomas, 69

Angus, 204-05

Argo, 201-05, 209

Arizona, 55, 71

Aspinall, Butler, 155

Astor, John Jacob, 6, 35

Mrs. Astor, 35, 131, 190 family, 172

“Autumn” (hymn), 110-13

Ballard, Dr. Robert D., 200-10

Baltic, 28, 48, 50, 52, 175

Band, ship’s

during sinking, 106-14

employment arrangements, 114-18

selections played by, 106-07, 109-13 see also Hartley

Barkworth, A. H., 108

Barrett, Leading Fireman Fred, 63

Barriers by class, 84, 86-88

Beane, Ethel, 4

Beckwith, Mr. and Mrs. Richard, 90-91

Beesley, Lawrence, 89, 93, 119-20

Behr, Karl H., 91, 190 Bisset, James, Second Officer of Carpathia, 129

Black, C W. and F. N., 114-15, 116-17

Board of Trade, 72-73, 76-79, 148, 149, 155, 165, 171

Boiler Room No. 4, 65, 66

Boiler Room No. 5, 64, 65, 69

Boiler Room No. 6, 63, 65, 69

Boxhall, Fourth Officer Joseph G., 48, 49, 51, 53, 60, 67, 68, 69, 130, 164, 192

Bradley, George (“Boy”), see Brayton

Brailey, Theodore, 113

Brayton, George A., 38, 45, 190-91

Bride, Second Wireless Operator Harold S, 8, 50, 51-52, 57, 108, 111-13, 122, 132

Bridge, ship’s

conversation between Lightoller and Captain Smith, 54, 59

scene immediately after collision, 59, 66-69

Bright, Quartermaster A. J., 120

British Inquiry, 47, 62, 66, 70, 78-79, 81-83, 123, 141, 143, 148, 153, 155-56, 158, 165-72, 180

Brooke, George, 183-84

Brown, Steward Edward, 103, 108

Brunei, Isambard Kingdom, 21

Buckley, Daniel, 87

Burlingham, Charles C, 172-77

Butt, Archie, 6, 7, 35, 44, 132

Café Parisien, 24, 44, 107, 113, 116; see also Luxuries of Titanic

Californian, Leyland Liner

warnings by, 49, 50, 51, 52,

stopped by ice, 58, 136, 156

watching strange ship, 136-40, 148-49, 153, 157

watching rockets, 138-39, 141-42, 145, 149, 169

awakening wireless operator, 143, 146, 149

trip to disaster scene, 135, 143-44, 159

searching the area, 131, 144

arrival at Boston, 134-35

dealings with the press, 134-35, 145, 146-48, 158-59

charges by McGregor, 146, 148, 158-59

affidavit by Gill, 147

statements by captain, 135, 147

findings of Senate investigation, 148, 169-70

findings of British Inquiry, 148-49, 169

defenders of, 149-56

Candee, Mrs. Helen Churchill, 40-45, 91-92, 189-90

Cardeza, Mrs. Charlotte Drake Martinez, 7

Cargo, value of, 211

Carlisle, The Right Honourable Alexander M., 76-79, 166

Carlson, Frank, 36

Caronia, 48, 49, 52, 55

Carpathia, Cunard Liner

arrival in New York, 132-33, 162

picking up survivors, 130-31

rescue preparations, 126-28

trip to rescue, 128-29, 142

wireless contact with, 131-32, 161

Carter, William E., 7, 183-84

Mrs. Carter, 183-84

Case, Howard, 45

Cassebeer, Mrs. Henry B., 36, 43

Casualties, analyzed, 81-83, 88, 99, 106; see also class discrimination

Cedric, 162

Celtic, 28, 192

Chalmers, Sir Alfred, 167-68

Cherry, Miss Gladys, 123 Chester, 161

Clarke, Captain Maurice Henry, 167

Class discrimination while lowering boats, 6-7, 81-83, 87-88, 89, 169, 170; see also Casualties

Coal strike, effect on Titanic, 72, 84

Collapsibles, see Lifeboats

Colley, E. P., 41, 45, 189

Controversial behavior inabandoning ship,

see Carter, Duff Gordon, Ismay, Sloper

Cottam, Harold, Wireless Operator of Carpathia, 126, 131-32

Craganour (horse), 182-83

Crew discipline, 80, 106-09, 116, 118, 192

after disaster, 192-93

Crow’s nest, 59-60

Daly, Eugene, 101-02, 103, 105

Daly, Peter, 109

Damage caused by collision, 62-66, 69-70

Damages, claims filed, 116-17, 172-77

Daniel, Robert, 190 Dick, Mrs. A. A., 109

Dillon, Trimmer Patrick Thomas, 68, 122

Disorder while lowering boats, 97, 99-105

Distress signals, see Flares, Rockets, Wireless

Duff Gordon, Sir Cosmo, 36, 94-95, 123, 168-69, 185-86

Lady Duff Gordon, 36, 94-95, 168-69, 185-87

Duke of Argyll, 12

“Each man for himself,” 102-03

Englehardt collapsibles, see Lifeboats, specific

Evans, Cyril, Wireless Operator of Californian, 135, 137, 143, 145, 147-48, 149

Evans, Seaman E O., 121

Farrell, Jim, 87

Final plunge, Titanic’s, 62, 119-22

Firearms, use of by crew, 99-105

Flares, seen by Carpathia, 129, 130

Fleet, Lookout Frederick, 59, 60, 70

Francatelli, Miss L. M., 94-95, 168

Frankfurt, 143 Franklin, Philip A. S., 19

Futrelle, Jacques, 35

Gale, Captain, of the Vulcan, 27

Gamblers, see Bradley, Homer, Romaine, Yates Gibson, Dorothy, 184

Gibson, James, Apprentice of Californian, 138-41, 145, 149, 151, 152-57

Gill, Ernest, Assistant Donkeyman of Californian, 145, 147, 148

Gilnagh, Kathy, 87

Goodwin, Frederick, 83-84, 85, 86, 97-98, 212

family, 83, 85, 97-98, 212

Gracie, Colonel Archibald, 88, 41, 42, 44, 92, 96, 97, 108, 109, 119, 120, 121, 189

Great Eastern, 20-22

Grimm, Jack, 199 Groves, Charles V., Third Officer of Californian, 136-38, 144, 148, 149

Guggenheim family, 172

Guns, see Firearms

Gyre, 200

Harbinson.W.D., 81, 170

Harland & Wolff (builders of Titanic), 11-15, 63, 69, 76, 78-79, 93

Harris, Henry B., 35, 172

Mrs. Harris, 172, 176, 187-89

Hart, Steward John E., 85-86

Hartley, Wallace, 6, 43, 106, 110, 113, 118

Haven, H., see Homer Hawke, 30-32

Hecht. Ben, 178-79

Help, 195-96

Hitchens, Quartermaster Robert, 60, 67, 68

H. J. W. Fay, 200

Homer, Henry Haven (“Kid”), 38

Hume, Jock, 114

Hurley, Reverend Wilfred G., 25

Ice

struck by Titanic, 46, 47, 66-67, 71

conditions in the area, 130, 171

sighted by Carpathia, 129

warnings, 48-53, 175

Ice field faced by Californian, 143-44, 149, 150, 159

Insurance, 117

“In the Shadows” (popular song), 109

Investigations comparison between British and U.S., 169-72 see also British Inquiry and United States Senate investigations

Isaacs, Sir Rufus, 156

Isafjördhur, Iceland, 154

Ismay, J. Bruce, 77-78, 100, 115-16, 162-63, 169, 172, 178-83

at launching, 13

handling Baltic ice warning, 50, 175

Bower (brother), 182

Jarry, Jean, 201

Jensen, Gerard, 148

Jones, Seaman Thomas, 123

Kent, Edward A, 41, 92, 189

Kerr, Jessica M., 111

Kimball, Mr. and Mrs. E. N., 91

Knorr, 201-05, 210

Kristof, Emory, 209

La Touraine, 48

Launching of Titanic, 11-14

Lee, Lookout Reginald, 59, 60

Le Suroit, 201

Lifeboats, in general

Board of Trade regulations, 72-73, 79

practice of shipping companies, 74-76

capacity on Titanic, 1, 72, 76, 77-78, 79

accessibility on Titanic, 80, 85, 86, 96-97, 103

drills, 80, 88, 95

lack of organization, 87, 88-90, 94-96, 169

failure to utilize fully, 88, 90-91, 93, 94

failure to row back after sinking, 123-24, 168-69

Lifeboats, specific, on Titanic

No. 1, 1, 94-95, 123, 168, 190

No. 2, 89, 93, 130

No. 3, 88, 94, 109

No. 4, 89-90, 96, 120, 121, 183

No. 5, 90, 119, 120

No. 6, 88, 92, 93, 96

No. 7, 90, 184

No. 8, 86, 93, 96, 122, 123, 124

No. 10, 121

No. 11, 94

No. 12, 144

No. 13, 120, 194

No. 14, 94, 99

No. 15, 86, 94

Collapsible A. 102, 103, 104

Collapsible B, 103, 108, 119, 120, 122

Collapsible C, 2, 99, 183

Collapsible D, 96, 100, 120

Lightoller, Second Officer Charles Herbert, 9-10, 47, 49, 53-54, 57-58, 59, 60, 88-89, 96, 97, 104, 119, 120, 121, 122, 192-93

Lights, ship’s failure of, 119

seen from Californian, 136-38, 146, 149-50, 153

seen from lifeboats, 123

seen from Titanic, 1, 70

Limited liability, 173-74

Litigation, 174-75

damages, 116-17, 172-77

settlements, 117, 173-77

Lord, Captain Stanley, of Californian, 134-35, 136, 138, 140-45, 146-47, 148, 149, 151-52, 155-59

Loss of life, see Casualties

Lowe, Fifth Officer Harold G., 9, 33, 53, 89, 99, 164, 192

Luxuries of Titanic, 23-24

McCawley, T. W., gym instructor, 42

McElroy, Chief Purser Herbert W, 36, 100, 101, 103

McGovern, Mary, 176

McGregor, W. F., carpenter of Californian, 145, 146, 148, 158

Macomb, Alexander, 2-3

Mahan, Rear Admiral A. T., 179

Maneuverability of Titanic

incidents demonstrating lack of, 26-28

trials, 33-34, 56

effort to avoid the iceberg, 59, 66-68

Mayer, Judge Julius M., 175

Mercantile Marine Service Association, 149

Mersey, Lord, 79, 123, 149, 165-72, 174, 180

Mesaba, 49, 50, 51, 52

Michael, Jean-Louis, 202

Millet, Frank, 35

Moody, Sixth Officer James P., 53-54, 68, 104

Morgan, Mr. and Mrs., see Duff Gordon

Morgan, J. Pierpont, 13, 14, 160

Morse lamp, used by Californian, 137-39

Mount Temple, 143, 144

Movements of Titanic after collision, 66-69

Murdoch, First Officer William M., 57-59, 66-67, 68, 71, 88-89, 90, 93, 97, 100-01, 104, 184

Nautical Magazine, 7, 31, 32, 170, 180

Navratil, Lolo and Momon, 10

“Nearer My God to Thee” (hymn), 109-10

Nelson, Senator Knute, 161

News coverage

first news, 2, 131

efforts to communicate with Carpathia, 132, 162

arrival of Carpathia, 2, 132, 162

interviews with crew members, 134-35, 145, 146-47, 158-59

Newsom, Helen, 91, 190

New York, 26-27

New York, NY.

reactions to sinking, 3, 131

arrival of Carpathia, 132, 160

Noordam, 48, 50, 52

Nostalgia and the Titanic, 7-9, 196

Oceanic, 26-27

O’Laughlin, Dr. W. F, 50

O. L. Hallenbeck, 29

Olliver, Quartermaster Alfred, 67, 68

Olympic, 14, 15, 23, 24, 29-33, 75, 76, 77, 78, 90, 95, 115-16, 192

Passenger list, discrepancies in, 36-38, 40

Pearcey, Pantryman Albert, 100

Phillips, Senior Wireless Operator John George, 51, 57, 58, 112, 137

Pickard, Berk, 87

Pirrie, Lord, 12-13, 14, 15, 76

Lady Pirrie, 13, 15

Pitman, Third Officer Herbert John, 49, 52, 53, 63, 119, 120, 192

Port side, procedure in filling lifeboats, 88-89, 122, 169

Preventive measures taken since disaster, 75-76, 167, 169-70

Raising Titanic, plans for, 194-99

Ranger, Greaser Thomas, 108, 120

Rappahannock, 48

Reade, Leslie, 154

Rheims, George, 102-03, 104, 105

Risdon Beazley Ltd., 195-96

Robert Conrad, 200

Rockets

fired by Titanic, 1, 152-53

fired by Carpathia, 124, 128, 142, 152

seen by Californian, 138-41, 142, 144-53

Rogers, J. H., see Yates

Rolmane, C, see Romaine

Romaine, C. H., 38, 45

Rosenbaum, Edith, 38, 176

Rosenshine, George, 36

Rostron, Captain Arthur H., of Carpathia, 125-33, 144, 159

Rowe, Quartermaster George Thomas, 60, 100

Rushing the lifeboats, see Disorder while lowering

Russell, Edith, see Rosenbaum Ryan, Thomas, 174

Ryan, Dr. William, 200

Ryerson, Mrs. Arthur, 50, 121, 190

Salvage efforts, 194-99

Samson, 154

Sanderson, Harold, 75-76, 166

Scarrott, Seaman Joseph, 67

Scott, Greaser Fred, 68

Seward, Fred, 184

Shelley, J., 15

Shipbuilding in the 19th century, 19-21

Signal lamp, see Morse lamp

Silverthorne, Spencer, 45

Size of Titanic, 23, 33, 56, 61

Skidmore, L. D., 121 Slieve Bearnagh, 12

Sloper, William T., 184-85

Andrew (father), 184-85

Harold (brother), 184-85

Smith, Charles, 194-95 Smith, Captain Edward J., 42, 44

early career, 28-29

inexperience with big ships, 27, 29-34

handling of ice warnings, 48, 49, 50, 52, 54-55, 59, 61

after collision, 1, 66, 68, 69, 71, 72, 79-80, 89-90, 93, 122

possible negligence discussed, 93, 95, 148, 171-72, 175, 178

Smith, James Clinch, 41, 97, 189

Smith, Mrs. Lucien P., 190

Smith, Senator William Alden, 160-64, 170-71

“Songe d’Automne” (popular song), 112, 113

Speed

of Californian, 135, 143-44, 148

of Carpathia, 128-29

of Titanic, 54-57, 59, 61, 156, 168, 171, 174

Spiess, Dr. Fred, 200

Starboard side, procedure in filling lifeboats, 88-89, 95, 169, 184

Stead, W.T., 35

Steerage, 74, 83, 88, 99, 170

Steffanson, H. Bjornstrom, 40, 41, 45, 46, 91-92, 96, 100, 189

Stengel, Henry C. E., 190-91

Stewart, George R, Chief Officer of Californian, 142-44, 147, 149, 152, 157-59

Stone, Herbert, Second Officer of Californian, 137-42, 145, 147, 149, 150, 151-52, 153, 157, 159, 166

Straus, Isidor, 35, 42, 109, 212

Mrs. Ida Straus (wife), 35, 109, 212

family, 172

Suicide, reports of, 102-05

Survivors, 81-83, 178-93

notifying relatives, 131-32, 161

identifying children, 10

difficulties with press and society, 178-88

Symons, Lookout George, 95

Taft, President William H., 7, 35, 132, 161

Taylor, Percy, 113

Temperature

of air, 54, 57, 58

of water, 57

Thayer, John B., 35, 100-01, 103-04, 107, 172

Jack (son), 35, 100-01, 103-04, 121

Mrs. Thayer, 35, 50, 131

family, 172 Thomas, Alvin Clarence, 38

Thomas, J. H., 147

Thorne, Mr. and Mrs. G., see Thorne and Rosenshine

Thorne, Maybell, 36

“Titanic—A Question of Murder” (TV show), 77

Titanic Relief Fund, 117

Titanic Salvage Company, 197-98

Titanic’s name, discussion of, 15-16

“Titanic Thompson,’’ see Thomas, Alvin Clarence

Trials, sea, of Titanic, 33-34, 56

Truth About Chickamauga, The, 41, 42

Truth About the Titanic, The, 108

United States Senate investigation, 19, 81, 100, 126, 147-48, 156, 160-65, 169-71

“Unsinkable,” 17-19, 22, 55

Vallance, Fred G., 112-13

Vance, Jack, 185

Virginian, 135, 143

Vulcan, 27

Warning of ice ahead, 48-52, 137; see also Amerika, Baltic, Californian, Caronia. La Touraine, Mesaba, Noordam, Rappahannock

Watertight compartment system, 18, 22, 64, 70, 170

Weather (including sea conditions), 47, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61

Welin Davit Company, 76

White Star Line, 11, 17, 25, 32, 39, 75, 81-83, 88, 171-77

relations with:

Harland & Wolff, 78

ship’s band, 116-17

surviving Titanic officers, 192

Widener, George, 35, 44, 50, 54

Harry (son), 35, 44, 50, 54

Mrs. Widener, 35, 44, 50, 54, 131, 190, 212

family, 172

Wilde, Chief Officer H. E, 104-05

Wilding, Edward, 63-65, 68, 70

Williams, Richard N., 2, 109, 121

Wireless

calling for help, 1, 126, 143, 194

procedures, 51-53, 61

scenes in wireless shack, 58

24-hour watch, 7, 169-70

see also Warning of ice ahead

“Women and children first,” 81, 85, 89

interpretation port side, 88-89, 122, 169

interpretation starboard side, 88-89, 95, 169, 184

Woolley, Douglas, 196-98

Woolner, Hugh, 41, 42, 44, 46, 89, 91-92, 96, 100, 189

Workmen’s Compensation Act, 116

Wright, Fred, 42

Yates, Jay, 38

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

A Night to Remember copyright © 1955, 1983 by Walter Lord

The Night Lives On copyright © 1986, 1987 by Walter Lord

Early plan of Titanic adapted from The Shipbuilder, midsummer, 1911.

Map in chapter V and chart in chapter IX (The Night Lives On) by Paul J. Pugliese.

978-1-4804-1058-9

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