THE LOSS OF THE S S. TITANIC ITS STORY AND ITS LESSONS BY LAWRENCE BEESLEY B. A. (Can ta b.

)
Scholar of Gon ville an d Caius Colle ge ONE OF THE SURVIVORS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOU GHTON
MIFFLIN COMPANY (dtbc minerfi me 1m m Qt am bt ibge 1912 PREFACE The c ircum stan c e s in which
this book came to be written ar e as follows. Some five weeks after the survivors from the Titanic landed
in New York, I was the guest at luncheon of Hon . Samuel J. Elder and Hon . Charles T. Gallagher, both
well-known lawyers in Bos ton . After luncheon I was asked to relate to those present the experiences of
the sur vivors in leaving the Titanic and reaching the Carpathia. When I had done so, Mr. Robert Lincoln
O’Brie n , the editor of the Boston Herald , urged me as a matter of public interest to write a correc t
history of the Titanic disas ter, his reason being that he knew, several publications were in preparation
by people who had not been present at the disaster, but from newspaper accounts were piecing ( V )
PREFACE together a description of it. He said that these publications would probably be erron c ous, full
of highly coloured details, and ge n e rally calculate d to disturb public thought on the matte r. He was
supported in his reque st by all present, and under this ge neral pressure I accompanied him to Me ssrs.
Houghton Mitflin Company, where we discussed the que stion of publication. Messrs . Houghton Miffl in
Company took at that time exactly the same view that I did, that it was probably not advisable to put on
record the incidents connected with the Tit a n ic ’ s sinking : it seeme d be tter to forget ' details as
rapidly as possible. However, we de cided to take a few days to think about it. At our ne xt me e ting we
found ourselves in agre ement again, but this tim e on the common ground that it would probably b e a
wise thing to write a history of the Titanic disaster as correctly as possible. I ( vi ) PREFACE was
supported in this decision by the fact that a short account, which I wrote at inte r vals on board the
Carpathia, in the hope that it would calm public opinion by stating the truth of what happened as nearly
as I could recolle ct it, appeared in all the American, English, and Colonial papers and had exactly the e
ffect it was intended to have. This eu courages me to hope that the effect of this work will be the same.
Another matter aided me in coming to a decision, the duty that we, as survivors of the disaster, owe to
those who went down with the ship; to see that the reforms so urgently needed are n ot allowed to be
for gotten. Whoever reads the account of the cries that came to us afloat on the sea from those sink ing
in the ice-cold water must remember that they were addressed to him just as much as to those who
heard them, and that the duty of ( vii ) PREFACE seeing that reforms are carried out devolves on e ve ry
on e who knows that such crie s we re he ard in utter helplessn ess the night the Titanic sank. CONTENTS
I. CONSTRUCTION AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRS T VOYAGE FROM SOUTHAMPTON To THE NIGHT
OF THE COLLISION THE COLLISION AND EMBARKATION IN LIFEB OATS IV. THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC,
SEEN FROM A LIFEBOAT THE RESCUE THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC, SEEN FROM HER DECK THE
CARPATHIA’ S RETURN TO NEW VIII. THE LES SONS TAUGHT BY THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC I' . SOME
IMPRESS IONS ILLUSTRATIONS THE TITANIC Fron tispie c e I‘h'om a photograph take n in Be lfast
Harbour . Copyright e d by Un de rwood an d Un de rwood, New VIEW OF FOUR DECKS OF THE
OLYMPIC, S ISTER SHIP OF THE TITANIC From a photograph pub lished in the Sphe re , May 4, 1912.
TRANSVERSE (am idship) SECTION THROUGH THE TITANIC Aft e r a drawin g furn ishe d by the Whit e
Star Lin e . LONGITUDINAL SECTIONS AND DECK PLAN OF THE TITANIC Afte r plan s pub lishe d in the
Shipbuilde r . THE CARPATHIA From a photograph furn ished by the Cun ard St eam LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC CHAPTER I CONSTRUCTION AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST VOYAGE THE history of the
R.M.S. Titanic, of the White Star Line, is one of the most tragically short it is possible to conceive. The
world had waited expectantly for its launching and again for its sailing ; had read accounts of its
tremendous size and its unexampled complete n ess and luxury ; had felt it a matter of the greatest
satisfaction that such a comfortable, and above all such a safe boat had been de and then in a moment
to hear that it had gone to the bottom as if it had been the veriest ( 1 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
tramp steamer of a few hundred tons ; and with it fifteen hundred passengers, some of them known the
world over ' The improba b ility of such a thing ever happening was what staggered humanity. If its
history had to be written in a single paragraph it would be somewhat as follows : The R.M.S. Titanic was
built by Messrs . Harland Wolff at their well-known ship building works a t Queen’s Island, Belfast, side
by side with her sister ship the Olympic. The twin vesse ls marke d such an increase in size that specially
laid-out joiner and boiler shops we re prepared to aid in their construe tion, and the space usually taken
up by thre e building Slips was given up to them. The kee l of the Titanic was laid on March 31 , 1909,
and she was launched on May 31 , 1 91 1 ; she passe d her trials before the Board of Trade Officials on
March 31 , 1 912, at Belfast, arrived at Southampton on April 4, and sailed the follow. 9 PREPARATIONS
FOR, FIRST VOYAGE ing We dne sday, April 10, with 2208 passen gers and cre w, on her maiden voyage
to New York. She called at Cherbourg the same day, Queenstown Thursday, and left for New York in the
afternoon, expecting to arrive the following Wednesday morning. But the voy age was never completed.
She collide d with an iceberg on Sunday at P.M. in Lat. 41 ° 46' N. and Long. 50° 14’ W. , an d sank two
hours and a half later ; 815 of her passengers and 688 of her crew were drowned and 705 rescued by
the Carpathia. ' Such is the record of the Titanic, the largest ship the world had ever seen she was three
inches longer than the Olympic and on e thou sand tons more in gross tonnage and her end was the
greatest maritime disaster known . The whole civilized world was stirred to its depths when the full
extent of loss of life was learn ed, and it has not yet recovered from the Shock. An d that is without
doubt a good thing. ( 3 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC It should not recover from it until the possi b ility
of such a disaster occurring again has been utterly removed from human society, whether by separate
legislation in differe nt countries or by international agreement. NO living person should seek to dwell in
thought for one moment on such a disaster except in the endeavour to glean from it knowledge that will
be of profit to the whole world in the fu ture. When such knowledge is practically ap plied in the
construction, equipment, and navigation of passenger steamers — and not until then will be the time to
cease to think of the Titanic disaster and of the hundreds of men and women so needlessly sacrificed. A
few words on the ship’s construction and equipment will be necessary in order to make clear many
points that arise in the course of this book. A few figures have been added which it is hoped will help t
he reader to follow events more closely than he otherwise could. ( 4 ) PREPARATIONS FOR FIRST
VOYAGE The considerations that inspired the build ers to design the Titanic on the lines on which she
was constructed were those of speed, w weight of displacement, passenge r and cargo accommodation.
High speed Is very expensive, ause t e m It Ial cost of the necessary ower u machinery is enormous, the
runn ing ex penses entailed very heavy, and passenger and cargo accommodation have to be fined down
t o make the resistance through the water as little as possible and to keep the weight down. An increase
in size brings a builder at once into conflict with the question of dock and harbour accommodation at
the ports she will touch : if her total displacement is very great while the lines are kept slender for
speed, the draught limit may be exceeded. The Titanic, therefore, was built on broader lines than the
ocean racers, increasing the total displace ment ; but because Of the broader build, she was able to keep
Within the draught limit at ( 5 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC each port she visited. At the same time she
was able to accommodate more passengers and cargo, and thereby increase largely her earning
capacity. A comparison between the Mauretania and the Titanic illustrates the difference in these
respects Displacem en t Horse powe r Spe ed in knots Maur e tan ia 26 Titan ic 21 The vessel when
completed was 883 feet long, 992i feet broad ; her height from keel to bridge was 104 feet. She had 8
steel decks, a cellular double bottom, 5} feet through (the inner and outer “skins ' SO-called) , and with
bilge keels projecting 2 feet for 300 feet of her length amidships . These latter were intended t o lessen
the tendency to roll in a sea ; they no doubt did so very well, but, as it happened, they proved to be a
weakness, for this was the first portion of the ship touched by the iceberg and it has been suggested
that the keels were ( 6 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC type. These davits are specially designed for
dealing with two, and, where necessary, thre e, sets of lifeboats, i .e . , 48 altoge the r r m ore N than
She was ided into 1 6 compartments by 15 trans verse watertight bulkheads reaching from the double
bottom to the upper deck in the for ward end and to the saloon deck in the aft er end (Fig . in both cases
well above the water line. Communication between the e n gine rooms and boiler rooms was through
watertight doors, which could all be closed instantly from the captain’s bridge : a single switch,
controlling powerful electro-magnets, Operated them. They could also be closed by hand with a lever,
and in case the floor below them was floode d by accident, a float unde r W ing shut them automatically.
These compartments were so designed that if the two largest were flooded with water a PREPARATIONS
FOR FIRST VOYAGE most unlikely contingency in the ordinary way the ship would still be quite safe. Of
course, more than two were flooded the night of the collision, but exactly how many is not yet
thoroughly established. Her crew had a complement of 860, made up of 475 stewards, cooks, etc. , 320
engineers, and 65 engaged in her navigation. The machinery and equipment of the Titanic was the finest
obtainable and r e pre sented the last word in marine construction. All her structure was of steel, of a
weight, size, and}thickness greater than that of any ship yet known : the girders, beams, bulkheads, and
floors all of exceptional strength. It would hardly seem necessary to mention this, were it not that there
is an impression among a portion Of the general public that the provis ion Oi Turkish baths, gymnasiums,
and other SO-called luxuries involved a sacrifice Of some more essential things, the absence Of which ( 9
) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC was responsible for the loss of so many lives . But this is quite an
erroneous impression. All these things were an additional provision for the comfort and convenience Of
passengers, and there is no more reason why the y should not be provided on these ships than in a large
hotel . There were places on the Titan ic ’ s deck where more boats and rafts c ould, .have been stored
without sacrificing these things. The fault i lay in n ot providing them, not in designin g the ship without
places to put them. On whom the responsibility must rest for their n ot being provide d is another
matter and must be le ft until later. When arranging a tour round the United State s, I had decided to
cross in the Titanic for several reasons on e , that it was rather a novelty to be on board the largest ship
ye t launched, and another that friends who had crosse d in the Olympic described her as a most
comfortable boat in ase away, and it was lg' PREPARATIONS FOR FIRST VOYAGE reported that the Titanic
had been still fur ther improved in this respect by having a thou sand tons more built in to steady her. I
went on board at Southampton at 10 AM . We dn e s day, April 10, after staying the night in the town. It
is pathetic to recall that as I sat that morning in the breakfast room of an hotel, from the windows of
which could be seen the four huge funnels of the Titanic towering over the roofs of the various shipping
oflic e s opposite, and the procession Of stokers and stewards wending their way to the ship, there sat
behind me three of the Tit an ic ’ s passengers discussing the coming voyage and estimating, among
other thin gs, the probabili ties oi an accident at sea to the ship. As I rose from breakfast, I glanced at the
group and recognized them later on board, but they were not among the number who answered to the
roll-call on the Carpathia on the followm g Monday morning. ( 1 1 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
Between the time of going on board and sailing, I inspe cted, in the company of two friends who had
come from Exeter to se e m e Ofl' , the various decks, dining-saloons and libra ries ; and so e xtensive
were the y that it is no exagge ration to say that it was quite easy to lose one’s way on such a ship. We
wandered casually into the gymnasium on the boat deck, and we re engage d in bicycle exercise when
the instructor came in with two photo graphe rs and insisted on our remaining the re while his friends as
we thought at the time made a record for him of his apparatus in use. It was only later that we discovere
d that they we re the photographers of on e Of the il lustrated London papers . More passenge rs came
in, and the instructor ran here and there, looking the very picture Of robust, rosy cheeke d health and
“fitness ' in his white flan n e ls, placing on e passe nge r on the e le ctric horse , ' another on the “camel,
while the 12 PREPARATIONS FOR FIRST VOYAGE laughing group of onlookers watched the in e x pe rie n
c e d riders vigorously shaken up and down as he controlled the little motor which made the machines
imitate so realistically horse and camel exercise. It is related that on the night of the disaster, right up to
the time Of the Titan ic ’ s sinking, while the band grouped outside the gymna sium doors played with
such supreme courage in face of the water which rose foot by foot before their eyes, the instructor was
on duty inside, with passengers on the bicycles and the rowing-machines, still assisting and e n c our
aging to the last. Along with the bandsmen it is fitting that his n ame, which I do not think has yet been
put on record it is McCawley should have a place in the honourable list of those who did the ir duty
faithfully to the ship and the line they served. CHAPTER II FROM SOU THAMPTON TO THE NIGHT OF THE
COLLIS ION SOON after noon the whistles ble w for friends to go ashore, the gangways were with drawn,
and the Titanic moved slowly down the dock, to the accompaniment of last mes sages and shouted
farewells of those on the quay. There was n o che ering or hooting Of ste amers’ whistle s from the flee t
Of ships that line d the dock, as might seem probable on the occasion of the largest ve ssel in the world
put ting to sea on her maiden voyage ; the whole sce ne was quiet and rather ordinary, with little of the
picturesque and interesting cere monial which imagination paints as usual in such circumstances . But if
this was lacking, two une xpe cte d dramatic incide nts supplie d a thrill Of exciteme nt and inte rest to
the depar 14 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC how the ir lives were probably saved by being too late to join
the Titanic. The second incide nt occurred soon after wards, and while it has no doubt be e n thor oughly
described at the time by those on shore, perhaps a view Of the occurrence from the deck of the Titanic
will n ot be without interest. As the Titanic moved majestically down the dock, the crowd Of friends
keeping pace with us along the quay, we came to gether level with the steamer New York ly ing moored
to the side Of the dock along with the Oceanic, the crowd waving “good-bye s to those on board as we ll
as they could for the intervening bulk of the two ships. But a s the bows of our ship came about le vel
with those Of the New York, there came a se ries of reports like those of a revolve r, and on the quay
side of the New York snaky coils of thick rope flung themselves high in the air and fell backwards among
the crowd, which r e 1 6 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION treated in alarm to escape the flying ropes .
We hoped that n o on e was struck by the ropes, but a sailor next to me was certain he saw a woman
carried away to receive atten tion. And then, to our amazement the New York crept towards us, slowly
and stealthily, as if drawn by some In vISIb le force which she was powerless to withstand. It reminded
me instantly of an experiment I had shown many times to a form Of boys learning the elements of
physics in a laboratory, in which a small magnet is made to float on a cork in a bowl of water and small
steel Objects placed on neigh b ourin g pieces of cork are drawn up to the floating magnet by magnetic
force. It re minded me, too, Of seeing in my little boy’s bath howa large ce lluloid floating duck would
draw towards itself, by what is called c apil lary attraction, smaller ducks, frogs, beetles, and other
animal folk, until the menagerie floated about as a unit, oblivious of their na ( 17 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC tural antipathies and reminding us of the “happy familie s on e sees in cages on the sea shore.
On the New York there was shouting Of orde rs, sailors running to and fro, paying out rope s and putting
mats over the side where it seemed like ly we should collide ; the tug which had a few moments before
cast Off from the bows Of the Titanic came up around our stern and passed to the quay side of the New
York’s stern, made fast to her and started to haul her back with all the force he r e ngines we re capable
Of ; but it did not se em that the tug made much impression on the NewYork. Apart from the serious
nature of the accident, it made an irresistibly comic pic ture to se e the huge vessel drifting down the
dock with a snorting tug at its heels, for all the world like a small boy dragging a dim inu tive puppy
down the road with its teeth locked on a pie ce of rope , its feet splayed out , its he ad and body shaking
from side to side in 18 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION the effort to get every oun ce Of its weight
used to the best advantage. At first all ap pe aran c e showed that the stem s of the two vessels would
collide; but from the stern bridge Of the Titanic an Officer directing op e rat ion s stopped us dead, the
suction ceased, and the New York with her tug trailing b e hind moved obliquely down the dock, her
stern gliding along the side of the Titanic some few yards away. It gave an e xt raordin ary impression of
the absolute helplessness of a big liner in the absence of any motive power to guide her. But all
excitement was not yet over : the New York turned her bows inward towards the quay, her stern
swinging just clear of and passing in front Of our bows, and moved slowly head on for the Teutonic lying
moored to the side; mats were quickly got out and so deadened the force of the col lision , which from
where we were seemed to be too slight to cause any damage. Another tug ( 19 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC came up and took hold of the New York by the bows ; and between the two Of them they
dragged her round the corner Of the quay which just here came to an end ont he side Of the river. We
now moved slowly ahead and passed the Teutonic at a creeping pace, but n otwith standing this, the
latter strained at her rOpe s so much that she hee le d over several d e grees in her efforts to follow the
Titanic : the crowd were shouted back, a group of gold-braided Offi cials, probably the harbour-maste r
and his staff , standin g on the se a side of the moored ropes, jumped back over them as they drew up
taut to a rigid line, and urged the crowd back still farther. But we were just clear, and as we slowly
turned the corner into the river I saw the Teutonic swing slowly back into her normal station, relieving
the tension alike of the rope s and of the minds of all who wit n e sse d the incident. 20 FOU R DECKS OF
OLYMPIC, S ISTER SHIP OF TITANIC THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC As we steamed down the river, the
scene we had just witnessed was the topic Of every conversation : the comparison with the Olympic-
Hawke collision was drawn In every little group of passengers, and it seemed to b e gene rally agreed
that this would confirm the suction theory which was so successfully advanced by the cruiser Hawke in
the law courts, but which many people scoffed at when the British Admiralty first suggested it as the
explanation of the cruiser ramming the Olympic. And since this is an attempt to chronicle facts as they
happened“ on board the Titanic, it must be recorded that there we re among the passengers and such of
the crew as were heard t o speak on the matter, the direst misgivings at the incident we had just
witnessed. Sailors are proverbially super st it ious ; far too many people are prone to follow the ir lead,
or , indeed, the lead Of any on e who asserts a statement with an air of 922 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE
COLLISION conviction and the opportunity of constant repetition ; the sense of mystery that shrouds a
prophetic utterance, particularly if it be an ominous on e (for so constituted apparently is the human
mind that it will receive the im press Oi an evil prophecy far more readily than it will that of a b e n e fi c
e n t on e , possibly through subservient fear t o the thing it dreads, possibly through the degraded, mor
bid attraction which the sense of evil has for the innate evil in the human mind) , leads many people to
pay a certain respect to super st it ious theories . Not that they wholly b e lieve in them or would wish
their dearest friends to know they ever gave them a second thought ; but the feeling that other people
do so and the half conviction that there “may be something in it, after all, sways them into tacit
Obedience to the most absurd and child ish theories . ~ I wish in a later chapter to dis cuss the subject Of
superstition in its refer 23 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC ence to our life on board the Titanic, but will a n
t ic Ipat e events he re a little by relating a second so-called “ bad omen which was hatche d at
Queenstown. As on e of the tend ers containing passengers and mails neared the Titanic, some of those
on board gazed up at the liner towering above them, and saw a stoker’s head, black from his work in the
stokehold below, peering out at them from the top of on e Of the enormous funnels a dummy on e for
ventilation that rose many fe e t above the highest deck. He had climbed up inside for a joke, but to
some of those who saw him there the sight was seed for the growth of an “omen, ' which bore fruit in
an unknown dread Of dangers to come. An Ame rican lady may she forgive m e if she reads these lines '
has related to m e with the dee pest conviction and earne stness of manner that She saw the man and
attribute s the sinking of the Titanic largely t o that. ( 24 ) SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION Arrant
foolishness, you may say ' Yes, in deed, but not to those who believe in it ; and it is well not to have such
prophetic thoughts Of danger passed round among passengers and crew: it would seem to have an
unhealthy influence. We dropped down Spithead, past the shores of the Isle ofWight looking superbly
beautiful in new spring foliage, exchanged salutes with a White Star tug lying-to in wait for on e of the ir
liners inward bound, and saw in the dis tance several warships with attendant black destroyers guarding
the entrance from the sea. In the calmest weather we made Cher bourg just as it grew dusk and left
again about afte r taking on board passengers and mails. We reached Que e nstown about 12 noon on
Thursday, after a most enjoyable passage across the Channel, although the wind was almost too cold t o
allow Of sitting out on de ck on Thursday morning. 25 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC The coast of Ireland
looked very beautiful as we approached Queenstown Harbour, the brilliant morning sun showing up the
gree n hillsides and picking out groups of dwellings dotted here and there above the rugged gre y c lifl' s
that fringed the coast. We took on board our pilot, ran slowly towards the har bour with the sounding-
line dropping all the time, and came to a stop well Out to se a , with our screws churning up the bottom
and turn ing the sea all brown with sand from below. It had seemed to me that the ship stopped rather
suddenly, and in my ignorance of the de pth of the harbour entrance, that perhaps the sounding-line
had reveale d a smalle r depth than was thought safe for the great size of the Titanic : this seemed to be
confirme d by the sight of sand churne d up from the bottom but this is mere supposition. Pas se n ge rs
and mails were put on board from two tenders, and nothing could have given us a 26 SOUTHAMPTON
TO THE COLLISION better idea Of the enormous length and bulk of the Titanic than to stand as far astern
as possible and look over the side from the top deck, forwards and downwards to where the tenders
rolled at her bows, the merest cockle shells beside the majestic vessel that rose deck after deck above
them. Truly she was a mag n ifi c e n t boat 'There was something so graceful in her movement as she
rode up and down on the slight swell in the harbour, a slow, stately dip and recover, only noticeable by
watching her bows in comparison with some landmark on the coast In the near distance ; the two little
tende rs tossing up and down like corks beside her illustrated vividly the advance made in comfort of
motion from the time Of the small steamer. Presently the work Of transfer was ende d, the tenders cast
Off, and at P.M. , with the screws churning up the sea bottom again, the Titanic turned slowly through a
quarter 27 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC circle until her nose pointed down along the Irish coast, and
then steamed rapidly away from Que enstown, the little house on the left of the town gleaming white
on the hillside for many miles astern. In our wake soared and scre ame d hundreds Of gulls, which had
quar re lle d and fought over the remnants of lunch pouring out Of the waste pipe s as we lay-t o in the
harbour e ntrance ; and n ow they followed us in the expectation of further spoil. I watched them for a
long time and wa s aston ishe d at the ease with which the y soared and kept up with the ship with
hardly a motion Of their wings : picking out a particular gull , I would keep him under Observation for
min utes at a time and see no motion of his wings downwards or upwards to aid his flight. He would tilt
all of a piece to on e side or another as the gusts of wind caught him: rigidly un be ndable, as an
aeroplane tilts sideways in a puff of wind. And yet with graceful c ase he 28 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC morning they were gone : perhaps they had seen in the night a steamer bound for the ir
Queenstown home and had escorted her back. All afternoon we steamed along the coast of Ireland,
with gre y c lifl’ s guarding the shore s, and hills rising be hind gaunt and barre n; as dusk fe ll, the coast
rounde d away from us to the northwest, and the last we saw of Europe was the Irish mountains dim
and faint in the dropping darkness . With the thought that we had seen the last of land until we se t foot
on the shores of America, I retired to the library to write le tters, little knowing that many things would
happen to us all many e xpe r i e n c e s, sudden, vivid and im pr e sswe to be encounte re d, many perils
to be face d, many good and true people for whom we should have to mourn be fore we saw land again.
There is very little to re late from the time Of leaving Queenstown on Thursday to Sun day morning. The
se a was calm, so calm, 30 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION indeed, that very few were absent from
meals the wind westerly and southwesterly, “fresh ' as the daily chart described it, but often rather cold,
generally too cold to sit out on deck to read or write, so that many of us spent a good part of the time in
the li b rary, reading and writing. I wrote a large number of letters and posted them day by day in the b
ox outside the library door : pos sib ly they are there yet. Each morning the sun rose behind us in a sky of
circular clouds, stretching round the horizon in long, narrow streaks and rising tier upon tier above the
sky-line, red and pink and fadingfrom pinktowhite, as the sun rosehigher in the sky. It was a beautiful
sight to on e who had n ot crossed the ocean before (or indeed been out of sight of the shores of
England) to stand on the top deck and watch the swell of the sea extending outwards from the ship in an
unbroken circle until it met the sky-line with 31 THE LOSS OF THE 88. TITANIC it s hint of infinity : behind,
the wake of the ves se lwhite with foam where, fancy suggeste d, the prope lle r blades had cut up the
long Atlantic rollers and with them made a le ve l white road bounde d on e ithe r side by banks of gree
n, blue , and blue -green wave s that would pre se n t ly sweep away the white road, though as yet it
stretched backto the horizon and dippe d over the edge of the world back to Ire land and the gulls, while
along it the morning sun glittere d and sparkled. And each night the sun sank right in our e yes along the
se a , mak ing an undulating glitteringpathway, a golden track char te d on the surface of the oceanwhich
our ship followe d unswe rvingly until the sun dippe d be low the edge of the horizon, and the pathway
ran ahe ad of us faste r than we could steam and slippe d over the e dge of the sky line, as if the sun had
be e n a golde n ball and had wound up its thre ad of gold t oo quickly for us to follow. 393
SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION From 12 noon Thursday to 1 2 noon Friday we ran 386 miles, Friday
to Saturday 51 9 miles, Saturday to Sunday 546 miles . The second day’s run of 51 9 miles was, the
purser told us, a disappointment, and we should not dock until Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday
night, as we had expected; however, on Sunday we were glad to see a longer run had been made, and it
was thought we should make New York, after all, on Tuesday night. The purser remarked : “The y are
not pushing her this trip and don’t intend to make any fast running : I don’t suppose we shall do more
than 546 now; it is not a bad day’s run for the first trip. ' This was at lunch, and I remember the
conversation then turned to the spe ed and build of Atlantic liners as factors in their comfort of motion :
all those who had crossed many times were unanimous in saying the Titanic was the most comfortable
boat they had been on , and they preferred the speed we 33 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC were making
to that of the faste r boats, from the point of vie w of le sse ned vibration as we ll as because the faste r
boats would bore through the waves with a twiste d, screw-like motion instead of the straight up-and-
down swing of the Titanic. I then called the atte ntion of our table to the way the Titanic listed to port (I
had notice d this before) , an d we all watche d the sky-line through the portholes as we sat at the purse
r’s table in the saloon : it was plain she did so, for the sky-line and se a on the port side were visible most
of the time and on the starboard only sky. The purser remarke d that probably coal had been used
mostly from the starboard side . It is no doubt a common occurrence for all vesse ls to list to some de
gre e ; but in view of the fact that the Titanic was cut open on the starboard side and be fore she sank
listed so much to port that there was quite a chasm betwe en he r and the swinging life boats, across
which ladies had to b e thrown 34 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION or to cross on chairs laid flat, the
previous listing t o port may be of interest. Returning for a moment to the motion of the Titanic, it was
interesting to sta nd on the boat-deck, as I frequently did, in the angle between life boats 13 and 15 on
the starboard side (two boats I have every reason to remem ber, for the first carried me in safety to the
Carpathia, and it seemed likely at on e time that the other would come down on our heads as we sat in
13 trying to get away from the ship’s side) , and watch the general motion of the ship through the waves
resolve itself into two motions on e to be Observed by c on t rast in g the docking-bridge, from which the
log-line trailed away behind in the foaming wake, with the horizon, and observing the long, slow heave
as we rode up and down. I timed the average period occupied in on e up-and-down vibration, but do n
ot n ow r e member the figures. The second motion was a ( 35 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC side-to-
side roll, and could b e calculated by watching the port rail and contrasting it with the horizon as before.
It se ems like ly that this double motion is due to the angle at which our dire c tion to New York cuts the
ge neral set of the Gulf Stream swe eping from the Gulf of Mexico across to Europe; but the almost
clock-like regulari ty of the two vibra tory movements was what attracted my at tention : it was whi le
watching the side roll that I first became aware of the list to port. Looking down astern from the boat-de
ck or from B deck to the stee rage quarters, I ofte n noticed how the third-class passenge rs we re
enjoying every minute of the time : a most uproarious skipping game of the mixed-double type was the
great favourite, while “ in and out and roundabout ' went a Scotchman with his bagpipes playing
something that Gilbe rt says “faintly resembled an air. Standing aloof from all of them, generally on the
36 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the second-class deck, and if he were, the chances of seeing his wife in
the darkness and the crowd would be very small, indeed. Of all those playing so happily on the ste erage
deck I did not recognize many afterwards on the Carpathia. Coming now to Sunday, the day on which
the Titanic struck the‘ iceberg, it will b e in t e r e st in g , pe rhaps, to give the day’s events in some de
tail, to appreciate the ge ne ral attitude of passe nge rs t o their surroundings just b e fore the collision.
Service was he ld in the saloon by the purser in the morning, and going on deck after lunch we found
such a change in temperature that not many cared t o remain to face the bitte r wind an artificial wind
create d mainly, if n ot entirely, by the ship’s rapid motion through the chilly atmosphere. I should judge
the re was n o wind blowing at the time, for I had noticed about the same force of wind approaching
Queenstown, to 38 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION find that it died away as soon as we stopped,
only to rise again as we steamed away from the harbour. Returning to the library, I stopped for a
moment to read again the day’s run and Observe our position on the chart ; the Rev. Mr. Carter, a
clergyman of the Church of En g land, was similarly engaged, and we renewed a conversation we had
enjoyed for some days : it had commenced with a discus sion of the r e lative merits of his university
Oxford with mine Cambridge as world-wide e du c at ion al agencie s, the opportunities at each for the
formation of character apart from me re education as such, and had led on to the lack of sufficiently
qualified men to take up the work of the Church of England (a matter ap par e n t ly on which he fe lt
very dee ply) and from that to his own work In England as a prie st. He told me some of his parish
problems and spoke of the impossibility of doing half his work in 39 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC his
Church without the help his wife gave. I knew her only slightly at that time, but meet ing her later in the
day, I realized something of what hemeant in attributing a large part of what success he had as a vicar to
her. My only excuse for m e n t ion m g these details about the Carters now and later in the day is that,
while they have perhaps not much in t e re st for the average reader, they will no doub t s b e some
comfort to the parish over which he presided and where I am sure he was loved. He next mentioned the
abse nce of a service in the evening and asked if I knew the purser well enough to request the use of the
saloon in the evening where he would like to have a “hymn sing-song the purser gave his consent at
once, and Mr. Carter made pre parat ion s during the afternoon by asking all he knew and many he did
not to come to the saloon at P.M. The library was crowded that afternoon, 40 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE
COLLISION owing to the cold on deck : but through the windows we could see the clear sky with brilliant
sunlight that seemed to augur a fine night and a clear day to-morrow, and the pro spect of landing in
two days, with calmweather all the way to New York; was a matter of general satisfaction among us all .
I can look back and see every detail of the library that afternoon the beautifully furnished room, with
lounges, armchairs, and small writing or card-tables scattered about, writing-bureaus round the walls of
the room, and the library in glass-cased shelves flanking one side, the whole finished in mahogany
relieved with white fluted wooden columns that sup ported the deck above. Through the windows there
is the covered corridor, reserved by general consent as the children’s playground, and here are playing
the two Navat r il child ren with their father, devoted to them, never absent from them. Who would
have 41 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC thought of the dramatic history of the happy group at play in the
corridor that afternoon ' the abduc tion of the children in Nice , the assume d name, the se paration of
fathe r and children in a few hours, his death and their sub sequent union with their mother after a
period of doubt as to their parentage ' How many more similar secrets the Titanic reveale d in the
privacy of family life , or carried down with her untold, we shall never know. In the same corridor IS a
man and his wife with two childre n, and on e Of them he is gene r ally carrying : they are a ll young and
happy he is dressed always in a grey knickerbocker suit — with a camera slung over his shoulder. I have
n ot seen any of them since that after noon. Close beside me so near that I cannot avoid hearing scraps
of their conversation are two American ladie s, both dresse d in white, young, probably friends only : on
e has 49 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION been to India and is returning by way of En g land, the other
is a school—teacher in America, a graceful girl with a distinguished air height ened by a pair of pin c e -n
ez. Engaged in con versation with them is a gentleman whom I subsequently identified from a
photograph as a well-known resident of Cambridge, ‘Massa chuse t t s, genial, polished, and with a
courtly air towards the two ladies , whom he has known but a few hours ; from time to time as they talk,
a child acquaintance breaks in on their conversation and insists on their taking notice of a large doll
clasped in her arms ; I have seen none of this group since then. In the opposite corner are the young
American kin e m at o graph photographer and his young wife, evi de n t ly French, very fond of playing
patience, which she is doing now, while he sits back in his chair watching the game and interposing from
time to time with suggestions. I did not see them again. In the middle of the room 43 THE LOSS OF THE
SS. TITANIC are two Catholic priests, one quietly reading, either English or Irish, and probably the latter,
the other, dark, bearded, with broad brimmed hat, talking earnestly to a friend in German and evidently
explaining some verse in the open Bible before him; near them a young fire e n gin e e r 'on his way to
Mexico, and of the same religion as the rest of the group. None of them were saved. It may be noted he
re that the percentage of men saved in the second-class is the lowest of any othe r division only e ight
pe r cent . Many other face s recur to thought, but it is impossible to describe them all in the space of a
short book : of all those in the library that Sunday afte rnoon, I can remember only two or three persons
who found their way t o the Carpathia. Looking over this room, with his back to the library shelves, is the
library steward, thin, stooping, sad-faced, and gener ally with nothing t o d o but serve out books ; ( 44 )
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC in all probability it is not, as will be see n prese ntly. Afte r dinner, Mr.
Carter invite d all who wished to the saloon, and with the assistance at the piano of a gentleman who sat
at the purser’s table opposite me (a young Scotch engineer going out t o join his brothe r fruit farming at
the foot of the Rockie s) , he started some hundred passengers sin gin gihym n s.They were aske d t o
chose whichever hymn they wished, and with so many to choose , it was impossible for him t o d o more
than have the the greate st favourites sung. As he announced each hymn, it was e vident that he wa s
thor oughly ve rse d in their history : n o hymn was sung but that he gave a short Sketch of it s aut hor
and in some cases a de scription of the circumstances in which it was compose d. I think all we re
impressed with his knowledge of hymns and with his e agerne ss t o tell us all he knew of them. It was
curious to se e how ( 46 ) SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION many chose hymns dealing with dangers at
sea. I noticed the hushed tone with which all sang the hymn, “ For those in peril on the The singing must
have gone on until after ten O’clock, when, seeing the stewards standing about waiting to serve biscuits
and c ofl’ e e b e fore going off duty, Mr. Carter brought the evening to a close by a few words of thanks
to the purser for the use of the saloon, a short sketch of the happiness and safety of the voy age
hitherto, the great confidence all felt on board this great liner with her steadiness and her size, and the
happy outlook of landing in a few hours in New York at the close of a de lightful voyage ; and all the time
he spoke, a few miles ahe ad of us lay the “peril on the sea ' that was to sink this same great liner with
many of those on board who listened with gratitude to his Simple , heartfe lt words . SO much for the
frailty of human hopes and 47 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC for the confidence re posed in mate rial
human designs . Think of the shame of it, that a mass of ice of no use to any one or anything should have
the power fatally to injure the be autiful Ti tanie ' That an insensible block should b e able to threaten,
even in the smalle st de gree , the lives of many good men and women whothink and plan and hope and
love and not onlyto threaten, but t o end the ir lives . It is unbear able ' Are we never to educate
ourselves to foresee such dangers and t o pre vent them b e fore they happen' All the evidence of
history shows that laws unknown and unsuspected are being discovered day by day : as this knowledge
accumulates for the use of man, is it not ce rtain that the ability to see and d e stroy before hand the
threat of danger will be on e of the privile ges the whole world will util ize ' May that day come soon.
Until it does, no precaution too rigorous can be taken, n o 48 SOUTHAMPTON TO THE COLLISION safety
appliance, however costly, must be omitte d from a ship’s equipme nt. After the meeting had broken up,
I talked with the Carters over a cup of coffee, said good-night to them, and retired to my cabin at about
quarte r to eleven. They were good people and this world is much poorer by their loss . It may be a
matter of pleasure to many people to know that their friends were perhaps among that gathering of
people in the saloon, and that at the last the sound of the hymns still echoed in their c ars as they stood
on the deck so quietly and courageously. Who can tell how much it had to do with the demean our of
some of them and the example this would set t o others ' CHAPTER III THE COLLIS ION AND
EMBARKATION IN LIFEB OATS I HAD been fortunate enough to secure a two-berth cabin to myself, D 56,
quite close to the saloon and most convenient in every way for getting about the ship; and ona big ship
like the Titanic it was quite a con side ration to be on D deck, only three de cks below the top or boat-
deck. Be low D again were cabins on E and F decks, and to walk from a cabin on F up to the top deck,
climbing five flights of stairs on the way, was certainly a considerable task for those not able to take
much exercise. The Titanic management has be e n criticised, among other things, for sup plying the
boat with lifts : it has been said they we re an expe nsive luxury and the room they took up might have
been utilized in some way TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS for more life-saving appliances . Whatever else
may have been superfluous , lifts certainly were not : Old ladles, for example, in cabins on F deck, would
hardly have got to the top de ck during the whole voyage had they not bee n able to ring for the lift-boy.
Perhaps nothing gave on e a greater impression of the size of the ship than to take the lift from the top
and drop slowly down past the different floors, dis charging and taking in passengers just as in a large
hotel . I wonder where the lift-boy was that night. I would have been glad to find him in our boat, or on
the Carpathia when we took count of the saved. He was quite young, not more than sixteen, I think, a
bright e yed, handsome boy, with a love for the sea and the games on deck and the view over the oce an
and he did not get any of them. On e day, as he put me out of his lift and saw through the vestibule wm
dows a game of deck quoits in progress, he said, in a wistful tone, ( 51 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC M
‘3’ y 'I wish I could go out there sometimes I wished he could,too, and made a je sting offe r to take
charge of his lift for an hour while he went out to watch the game ; but he smil in gly shook his head and
dropped down in answer to an imperative ring from below. I think he was n ot on duty with his lift after
the collision, but if he we re, he would smile at his passengers all the time as he took them up to the
boats waiting t o leave the sinking ship. After undre ssing and climbing into the top berth, I read
fromabout quarte r-past eleven to the time we struck, about quarter to twelve. During this time I
noticed particularly the in cre ased vibration Of the ship, and I assumed that we were going at a higher
speed than at any other time since we sailed from Queens town. Now I am aware that this is an impor
tant point, and bears strongly on the question of responsibility for the effects of the Collis ion ; but the
impression of increased vibration 52 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC am sure we were going faster that
night at the time we struck the iceberg than we had done before, i.e . , during the hours I was awake and
able to take note of anything. And then, as I read in the quie tness of the night, broken only by the
muffled sound that came to me through the ventilators of stew ards talking and moving along the
corridors, when ne arly all the passenge rs were in their cabins, some asleep in bed, others undressing,
and others only j ust down from the smoking room and still discussin g many things, there came what se
emed to me nothing more than an extra he ave of the engines and a more than usually Obvious dancing
motion of the mat tress on which I sat. Nothing more than that no sound of a crash or of anything else :
no sense of shock, no jar that felt like one heavy body meeting another. And pre sently the same thing
repeate d with about the same in tensity. The thought came to me that they 54 TAKING TO THE
LIFEBOATS must have still further increased the speed. And all this time the Titanic was being cut open
by the iceberg and water was pouring in her side, and yet no evidence that would indi cate such a
disaster had been presented to us . It fills me with astonishme nt now to think of it. Conside r the
question of list alone. Here was this enormous vessel running starboard side on to an iceberg, and a
passenger sitting quietly in bed, reading, felt no motion or list to the opposite or port side, and this must
have been felt had it been more than the usual roll of the ship never very much in the calm weather we
had all the way. Again, my bunk was fixed to the wall on the starboard side, and any list to port would
have tended t o fling me out on the floor : I am sure I should have noted i t had there been any. And yet
the explanation is simple enough : the Titanic struck the berg with a force Of impact of over a million
foot tons ; her plates were le ss than an inch thick, 55 l THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and they must have
been cut through as a knife cuts paper : the re would be n o need to list ; it would have been better if
she had listed and thrown us out on the floor, for it would have been an indication that our plates were
strong enough to offer, at any rate, some re sist an c e to the blow, and we might all have been safe to-
day. And so, with no thought of anything serious having happened to the ship, I continued my reading ;
and still the murmur from the stew ards and from adjoining cabins, and no other sound : no cry in the
night ; no alarm given; no on e afraid there was then nothing which could cause fear to the most timid
person. But in a few moments I felt the engines slow and stop ; the dancing motion and the vibration ce
ased suddenly after being part of our very e xistence for four days, and that was the first hint that
anything out of the ordinary had happened. We have all “heard ' a loud-tick 56 TAKING TO THE
LIFEBOATS ing clock stop suddenly in a qui et room, and then have noticed the clock and the ticking
noise, of which we seemed until then quite unconscious . So in the same way the fact was suddenly
brought home to all in the ship that the engines that part of the ship that drove us through the sea had
stopped dead. But the stopping of the engines gave us n o inform ation : we had to make our own
calculations as to why we had stopped. Like a flash it came to me : We have dropped a propeller blade :
when this happens the engines always race away until they are controlled, and this accounts for the
extra heave they gave not a very logical conclusion when considered now, for the engines should have
continued to heave all the time until we stopped, but it was at the time a sufficiently tenable hypothesis
to hold. Acting on it, I jumped out of bed, slipped on a dressing-gown over pyjamas, put on shoes, and
went out of my cabin into the hall near the 57 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC saloon. Here was a steward
leaning against the staircase, probably waiting until those in the smoke-room above had gone to bed
and he could put out the lights. I said, “Why have we stopped'' “I don’t know, sir, ' he replied, “but I
don’t suppose it is anything much. ' “We ll, ' I said, “I am going on deck to see what it is, and started
towards the stairs . He smile d indulge ntly at me as ' I passed him, and said, “All right, SIr , but it is
mighty cold up there . I am sure at that time he thought I was rather fool ish to go up with so little
reason, and I must confess I fe lt rathe r absurd for n ot remaining in the cabin : it seeme d like making a
needless fuss to walk about the ship in a dressing-gown . But it was my first trip across the se a ; I had e
njoye d every minute of it and was kee nly alive t o note every new e xperience ; and certainly t o stop in
the m iddle of the sea with a pro /p eller dropped seemed sufficient reason for going on 58 TAKING TO
THE LIFEBOATS deck. And yet the steward, with his fatherly sm ile, and the fact that no one else was
about the passages or going upstairs to reconnoitre, made me feel guilty in an undefined way of
breaking some code of a ship’s ré gime an Englishman’s fear of being thought un usual, ' perhaps ' I
climbed the three flights of stairs, opened the vestibule door leading to the top de ck, and stepped out
into an atmosphere that cut me, clad as I was, like a knife. Walking to the starboard side, I peered over
and saw the sea many feet be low, calm and black; forward, the deserted deck stretching away to the fi
rst Class quarters and the captain’s bridge ; and behind, the steerage quarters and the stern bridge ;
nothing more : no iceberg on either side or astern as far as we could see in the darkness . There were
two or three men on deck, and with on e the Scotch engineer who played hymns in the saloon I compar
ed 59 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC notes of our e xperience s . He had just begun to undress whe n the
engines stopped and had come up at once, so that he was fairly well clad ; none of us could see
anything, and all being quiet and still, the Scotchman and I went down to the next deck. Through the
windows of the smoking-room we saw a game of cards going on , with several onlookers, and went in to
enquire if they knew more than we did. They had apparently felt rather more of the heaving motion, but
so far as I remem ber, none of them had gone out on deck to make any enquiries, even when on e of
them had seen through the windows an iceberg go by towering above the decks . He had called their
attention to it, and they all watched it disappe ar, but had then at once resumed the game. We asked
them the height of the berg and some said on e hundred feet, others, sixty feet ; on e of the onlookers a
motor engineer travelling to America with a model 60 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC to an onlooker,
said, “ Just run along the deck and see if any ice has come aboard : I would like some for this. ' Amid the
general laughter at what we thought was his imagination, only too realistic, alas 'for when he spoke the
forward deck was covered with ice that had tumbled over, and seeing that nomore in for mation was
forthcoming, I left the smoking room and went down to my cabin, where I Sat for some time reading
again. I am filled with sorrow to think I never saw any of the oc cu pants of that smoking-room again :
nearly all young men full of hope for their prospects in a new world ; ' mostly unmarried ; keen, alert,
with the makings of good citizens . Presently, he aring people walking about the corridors, I looked out
and saw several standing in the hall talking to a steward most of them ladies in dressing-gowns ; other
people were going upstairs, and I decide d to go on deck again, but as it was t oo cold to do so in a 62
TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS dressing-gown, I dressed in a Norfolk jacket and trousers and walked up.
There were now more people looking over the side and walking about, questioning each other as to why
we had stopped, but without obtaining any definite information. I stayed on deck some minutes,
walking about vi gorously to keep warm and occasionally looking downwards t o the sea as if ‘ som e
thin g there would indicate the reason for delay. The ship had now r e sumed her course, moving very
slowly through the water with a little white line of foam on each side. I think we were all glad to see
this : it seemed better than standing still . I soon decided t o go down again, and as I crossed from the
starboard to the port side t o go down by the vestibule door, I saw an officer climb on the last lifeboat
on the port side number 1 6 and begin to throw off the cover, but I do not remember that any on e paid
any particular attention to him. Certainly no one 63 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC thought they were
preparing t o man the life boats and embark from the ship. All this time there was no apprehension of
any dange r in the minds of passengers, and no on e was in any condition of panic or hysteria ; after all,
it would have been strange if they had been, without any definite evidence of dange r . As I passed to
the door to go down, I looked forward again and saw to my surprise , “ an un doubted tilt downwards
from the stern t o the bows : only a slight slope, which I don’t think any on e had noticed, at any rate,
they had not remarked on it. As I went down stairs a confirmation of this tilting forward came in
something unusual about the stairs, a curious sense of something out of balance and of not being able
to put one’s feet down in the right place : naturally, being tilted for ward, the stairs would Slope
downwards at an angle and tend to throw one forward. I could not see any visible slope of the stairway :
it 64 TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS was perceptible only by the sense of balance at this time. On D deck
were three ladies I think they were all saved, and it is a good thing at least to be able to chronicle
meeting some on e who was saved after so much record of those who were n ot standing in the passage
near the cabin. “Oh ' why have we stopped'' they said. We did stop, ' I replied, but we are now going on
again. ' “Oh, no, ' on e replied ; “I cannot feel the engines as I usually do, or hear them. Listen '' We
listened, and there was no throb audible. Having noticed that the vibration of the engines is most
noticeable lying in a bath, where the throb comes straight from the floor through its metal sides too
much so ordinarily for on e t o put one’s head back with comfort on the bath, I took them along the
corridor to a bathroom and made them put their hands on the side of the bath : they were much
reassured to feel the 65 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC engines throbbing down below and to know we
were making some headway. I left them and on the way to my cabin passed some stewards standing
unconcernedly against the walls of the saloon : on e of them, the library steward again, was leaning over
a t able, writing. It is no exaggeration to say that they had neither any knowledge of the accident nor any
feeling of alarm that we had stoppe d and had not yet gone on again full speed : their whole attitude
expressed perfect confid e nce in the ship and offi ce rs . Turning into my gangway (my cabin being the
first in the gangway) , I saw a man stand ing at the other end of it fastening his tie. “Anything fresh'' he
said. “Not much, ' I replied ; “we are going ahead slowly and she is down a little at the bows, but I don’t
think it is anything serious . “Come in and look at this man, ' he laughed ; “he won’t get up. ' I looked in,
an d in the t op bunk lay a man with 66 TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS his back to me, closely wrapped in his
bed clothes and only the back of his head visible. “Why won’t he get up ' Is he asleep'' I said. No, '
laughed the man dressing, he says But before he could finish the sen tence the man above grunted :
“Youdon’t catch me leaving a warm bed t o go up on that cold deck at midnight. I know better than that.
We both told him laughingly why he had better get up, but he was certain he was just as safe there and
all this dressing was quite unnecessary ; so I left them and went again to my cabin. I put on some under
clothing, sat on the sofa, and read for some ten minutes, when I heard through the Open door, above,
the noise of people passing up and down, and a loud shout from above : All passengers on deck with
lifebelts on . ' I placed the two books I was reading in the side pockets of my Norfolk jacket, picked up
my lifebelt (curiously enough, I had taken 67 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC it down for the first time that
night from the wardrobe when I first retired to my cabin) and my dressing-gown, and walked up stairs
tying on the life belt. As I came out of my cabin, I remember seeing the purser’s assist ant, with his foot
on the stairs about t o climb them, whisper to a steward and jerk his head significantly behind him; not
that I thought anything of it at the time, but I have no doubt he was telling him what had happened up
in the bows, and was glvm g him orders to call all passengers. Going upstairs with other passengers, n o
on e ran a step or seemed alarmed, we met two ladies coming down : on e seized me by the arm and
said, “Oh ' I have no lifebelt ; will you come down to my cabin and help me to find it'' I returned with
them to F de ck, the lady who had addressed me hold ing my arm all the time in a vise-like grip, much to
my amuseme nt, and we found a 68 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC were called or heard the summons to
equip themselve s with lifebelts not in much con dition to face the cold of that night. Portu n at e ly
there was n o wind to beat the cold air through our clothing : even the breeze caused by the ship’s
motion had died entirely away, for the engines had stopped again and the Titanic lay peacefully on the
surface of the sea motionless, quiet, not even rocking to the roll of the sea ; indeed, as we were to dis
cover presently, the sea was as calm as an inland lake save for the gentle swell which could impart n o
motion to a ship the size of the Titanic. To stand on the deck many feet above the water lapping idly
against her sides, and looking much farther off than it really was because of the darkness, gave on e a
sense of wonderful security : to feel her so steady and still was like standing on a large rock i n the
middle of the ocean. But there were now more eviden ce s of the coming catastrophe to 70 TAKING TO
THE LIFEBOATS the Observer than had been apparent when on deck last : on e was the Tom and hiss of
escaping steam from the boilers, issuing out of a large steam pipe reaching high up on e of the funnels :
a harsh, deafening boom that made c onversation difficult and n o doubt increased the apprehension of
some people merely because of the volume of noise : if on e imagines twenty locomotives blowing off
steam in a low key it would give some idea of the unpleasant sound that met us as we climbed out on
the top deck. But after all it was the kind of phenomenon we ought to expe ct : engines blow off steam
when standing in a station, and why should not a ship’s boilers do the same when the ship is not moving'
I never heard any on e connect this noise with the danger of boiler explosion, in the event of the ship
sinking with her boilers under a high pressure of steam, which was no doubt the true explana ( 71 ) THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC tion of this precaution. But this is pe rhaps speculation ; some people may have
known it quite we ll, for from the time we came on deck until boat 13 got away, I heard very little
conversation of any kind among the passen gers. It is not the slightest exaggeration to say that no signs
of alarm were exhibited by any on e : there was n o indication of panic or hysteria ; no cries of fear, and
no running to and fro to discover what was the matter, why we had been summoned on deck with life
be lts, and what was to be done with us now we were there. We stood there quietly look ing on at the
work of the crew as they manned the life boats, and no on e ventured to inter fere with them or offered
to help them. It was plain we should be of no use ; and the crowd of men and women stood quietly on
the deck or paced slowly up and down wait ing for orders from the officers . Now, before we conside r
any further the ( 793 ) TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS events that followed, the state of mind of passengers
at this juncture, and the motives which led each on e to act as he or she did in the circumstances, it is
important to keep in thought the amount of information at our dis posal . Men and women act
according to judgment based on knowledge of the condi tions around them, and the best way to under
stand some apparently inconceivable things that happened is for any on e to imagine him self or herself
standing on deck that night. It seems a mystery to some people that women refused to leave the ship,
that some persons retired to their cabins, and so on ; but it is a matter of judgment, after all . So that if
the reader will come and stand with the crowd on deck, he must first rid himself entirely of the
knowledge that the Titanic has sunk an important necessity, for he cannot see conditions as they existed
there through the mental haze arising from 73 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC knowledge of the greatest
maritime tragedy the world has known : he must get rid of any foreknowledge of disaster to appreciate
why people acted as they did. Secondly, he had better get rid of any picture In thought painted either by
his own imagination or by some artist, whether pictorial or verbal, “from in formation supplied. ' Some
are most in ac cu rate (these, mostly word-pictures) , and where they err, they err on the highly dramatic
side . They need not have done so : the whole con d it ion s were dramatic enough in all their bare
simplicity, without the addition of any high colouring. Having made these mental erasures, he Wl ll find
himself as one of the crowd faced with the following conditions : a perfectly still atmos phe re ; a
brilliantly beautiful starlight night, but no moon, and so with little light that was of any use ; a ship that
had come quietly to rest without any indication of disaster - no 74 TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS iceberg
visible, no hole in the ship’s side through which water was pouring in, nothing broken or out of place, n
o sound of alarm, no panic, no movement of any on e except at a walking pace ; the absence of any
knowledge of the nature of the accident, of the extent Of damage, Of the danger of the ship sinking in a
few hours, of the numbers of boats, rafts, and other lifesaving appliances available, their capacity, what
other ships were near or com ing to help in fact, an almost complete absence of any positive knowledge
on any point. I think this was the result of deliberate judgment on the part of the officers , and per haps,
it was the best thing that could be done. In particular, he must remember that the ship was a sixth of a
mile long, with passen gers on three decks open to the sea, and port and starboard sides to each deck :
he will then get some idea Of the difficulty presented to the officers of keeping control over such a large
75 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC area, and the impossibility of any on e know ing what was happening
except in his own im mediate vicinity. Perhaps the whole thing can be summed up best by saying that,
after we had embarked in the life boats and rowed away from the Titanic, it would not have sur prised
us to hear that all passengers would be saved : the crie s of drowning people after the Titanic gave the
final plunge were a thunder bolt to us. I am aware that the experiences of many of those saved differed
in some respects from the above : some had knowledge of cer tain things, some were experienced
travellers and sailors, and therefore deduced more rap idly what was likely to happen ; but I think the
above gives a fairly accurate representation of the state of mind of most of those on deck that night. All
this time people were pouring up from the stairs and adding to the crowd : I remem ber at that moment
thinking it would b e well ( 76 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC men stand back from the boats. ' He had
apparently been off duty when the ship struck, and was lightly dressed, with a white muffler t wisted
hastily round his neck. The men fell back and the women re tired be low to get into the boats from the
next deck. Two women refused at first to leave their husbands, but partly by persuasion and partly by
force they were separated from them and sent down to the next deck. I think that by this time the work
on the lifeboats and the separation of men and women impressed on us Slowly the presence of
imminent danger, but it made no difference in the attitude of the crowd : they we r e just as prepared t
o Obey orders and to d o what came next as when they first came on deck. I do n ot mean that they
actually reas oue d it out : they were the average Teutonic crowd, with an inborn respect for law and
order and for traditions beque athed to them by generations of ancestors : the re asons that ( 78 )
TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS made them act as they did were impersonal , instinctive, hereditary. But if
there were any on e who had not by now realized that the ship was in danger, all doubt on this point
was to be set at rest in a dramatic manner. Suddenly a rush of light from the forward deck, a hissing roar
that made us all turn from watching the boats, and a rocket leapt upwards to where the stars blinked
and twinkled above us . Up it went, higher and higher, with a sea of faces upturned to watch it, and then
an explosion that seemed to split the silent night in two, and a shower of stars sank slowly down and
went out on e by on e . And with a gasping sigh on e word escaped the lips of the crowd : “Rockets ''
Anybody knows what rockets at sea mean. And presently another, and then a third. It is no use denying
the dramatic intensity of the scene : separate it if youcan from all the ter rible events that followed, and
picture the 79 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC calmness of the night, the sudden light on the decks
crowded with people in different stages of dress and undress , the background of huge funnels and
tapering masts revealed by the soaring rocket, whose flash illumined at the sam e time the faces and
minds of the obedient crowd, the on e with mere physical light, the other with a sudden revelation of
what its message was . Eve ry on e kne w without being told that we were calling for help from any on e
who was near enough to se e . The crew were n ow in the boats, the sailors standing by the pulley ropes
let them slip through the cleats in j e rks, and down the boats went till level with B deck ; women and
children climbed over the rail into the boats and filled them; when full, they were lowered on e by on e ,
beginning with number 9, the first on the second-class deck, and working back' wards towards 15. All
this we could see by peering over the edge of the boat-deck, 80 TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS which was
now quite open to the sea, the four boats which formed a natural barrier being lowered from the deck
and leaving it exposed. About this time, while walking the deck, I saw two ladies come over from the
port side and walk towards the rail separating the second-class from the fi rst -class deck. There stood an
officer barring the way. “ May we pass to the boats '' they said. “No, madam, ' he replied politely, “your
boats are down on your own deck, ' pointing to where they swung below. The ladies tur ned and went
towards the stairway, and no doubt were able to enter on e of the boats : they had ample time. I
mention this t o Show that there was, at any rate, some arrangement whether ofli c ia l or not for
separating the classes in embarking in boats ; how far it was carried out , I do not know, but if the
second-class ladies were not expected to enter a boat from the fi rst -class deck, while steerage
passengers were ( 81 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC allowed access to the second-class deck, it would
seem to press rather hardly on the second-class men, and this is rather supported bylthe lowpercentage
saved. Almost immediately after this incident, a report went round among men on the top deck the
starboard side that men were to be taken off on the port side ; how it originated, I am qui te unable to
say, but can only sup pose that as the port boats , numbers 10 to 1 6, were not lowered from the top
deck quite so soon as the starboard boats (they could still be seen on deck) , it might be assumed that
women were being taken off on on e side and men on the other ; but in whatever way the report
started, it was acted on at once by almost all the men, who crowded across to the port side and
watched the preparation for lowering the boats, leaving the starboard side almost deserted. Two or
three men remained, however : not for any reason that we were 82 TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS
consciously aware of ; I can personally think of no decision arising from reasoned thought that induced
me to remain rather than to cross over. But while there was n o process of conscious reason at work, I
am convin ced that what was my salvation was a r e c ogn i tion of the necessity of being quiet and wait
ing in patience for some opportunity of safety to present itself. Soon after the men had left the
starboard side, I saw a bandsman — the ’cellist — come round the vestibule corner from the staircase
entrance and run down the n owdeserted star board deck, his ’cello trailing behind him, the spike
dragging along the floor. This must have been about A.M. I suppose the band must have begun to pla
soon after this and gone on until after 2 A. y brave things were done that night, but none more brave
than by those few men playing minute after m inute as the ship settled quietly lower and ( 83 ) THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC lower in the sea and the sea rose higher and higher to where they stood' the music
they played serving alike as them own immortal requiem and their right to be recorded on the rolls of
undying fame. ) Looking forward and downward, we could see several of the boats now in the wate r,
moving slowly on e by on e from the side, without confusion or noise, and st ealing away in the d
arkness which swallowed them in turn as the crew bent to the oars . An officer I think First Officer
Murdock came strid ing along the deck, clad in a long coat, from his manner and face evidently in great
agi t at ion , but determined and resolute ; he looked over the side and shouted to the boats being
lowered : “Lower away, and when afloat, row around to the gangway and wait for orders. ' “Aye, aye,
sir, was the reply; and the officer passed by and went across the ship to the port side. 84 THE LOSS OF
THE SS. TITANIC lower in the sea and the sea rose higher and higher to where they stood ; the music
they played serving alike as the ir own immortal requiem and the ir right t o be recorded on the rolls Of
undying fame. ) Looking forward and downward, we could se e several of the boats now in the wate r,
moving slowly one by on e from the side, without confusion or noise, and stealing away in the darkness
which swallowed them in turn as the crew bent to the oars. An ofl‘i c e r I think First Officer Murdock
came strid ing along the deck, clad in a long coat, from his manner and face evidently in great agi t at ion
, but determined and resolute ; he looked over the side and shouted to the boats being lowered :
“Lower away, and when afloat, row around to the gangway and wait for orders . ' “Aye, aye, sir, was the
reply; and the officer passed by and went across the ship to the port side. 84 TAKING TO THE LIFEBOATS
Almost immediately after this, I heard a cry from below of, “Any more ladies ' and look ing over the edge
of the deck, saw boat 13 swinging level with the rail of B deck, with the crew, some stokers, a few men
passengers and the rest ladies, the latter being about half the total number ; the boat was almost full
and just about to be lowered. The call for ladies was repeated twice again, but appar ently there were
none to be found. Just then on e of the crew looked up and saw me looking over. “Any ladies on your
deck'' he said. “NO, I replied. “ Then youhad better jump. I sat on the edge of the deck with my feet
over, threw the dressing-gown (which I had carried on my arm all of the time) into the boat, dropped,
and fell in the boat near the stern. As I picked myself up, I heard a shout Wait a moment, here are two
more ladie s , and they were pushed hurriedly over the side 85 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and
tumbled into the boat, on e into the middle and on e next to me in the stern. They told me afterwards
that they had been assembled on a lower deck ‘with other ladies, and had come up to B deck not by the
usual stairway inside, but by on e of the vertically upright iron ladders that connect each deck with the
on e below it, meant for the use of sailors passing about the ship. Other ladies had been in front of them
and got up quickly, but these two were delayed a long time by the fact that on e of them the on e that
was helped first over the side into boat 13 near the middle was not at all active : it seemed almost im
possible for her to climb up a vertical ladder. We saw her trying to climb the swinging rope ladder up the
Carpathia’s side a few hours later, and she had the same difficulty. AS they tumbled in, the “ crew
shouted, Lower away ' ; but before the order was obeyed, a man with his wife and a baby came ( 86 )
CHAPTER IV THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC SEEN FROM A LIFEB OAT LOOKING back now on the descent
of our boat down the Ship’s side, it is a matter of surprise, I think, to all the occupants to r e member
how little they thought of it at the time. It was a great adventure, certainly : it was exciting to feel the
boat sink by jerks, foot by foot, as the TOpe s were paid out from above and shrieked as they passed
through the pulley blocks, the new ropes and gear creak ing under the strain of a boat laden with
people, and the crew calling to the sailors above as the boat tilt ed slightly, now at on e end, n ow at the
other, “Lower aft '' “ Lower stern '' and “Lower together '' as she came level again - but I do not think we
felt much appre hension about re aching the water safely. ( 88 ) THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT It
certainly was thrilling to see the black hull of the ship on on e side and the se a, seventy feet below, on
the other, or t o pass down by cabins and saloons brilliantly lighted ; but we knew nothing of the
apprehension felt in the minds of some of the officers whether the boats and lowering-gear would stand
the strain of the weight of our sixty people. The ropes, however, were new and strong, and the boat did
not buckle in the middle as an Older boat might have done. Whether it was right or not to lower boats
full of people to the water, and it seems likely it was not, I think there can be nothing but the highest
praise given to the officers and crew above for the way in which they lowered the boats on e after the
other safely to the water ; it may seem a simple matter, to read about such a thing, but any sailor knows,
apparently, that it is not so. An experienced officer has told me that he has seen a boat lowered in
practice from a 89 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC ship’s deck, with a trained crew and n o pas se n ge rs in
the boat, with practised sailors paying out the ropes, in daylight, in calm weather, with the ship lying in
dock and has seen the boat tilt over and pitch the crew headlong into the sea. Contrast these con d it ion
s with those obtaining that Monday morning at A.M. , and it is impossible not to feel that, whether the
lowering crew were trained or not, whether they had or had not drilled since coming on board, they did
their duty in a way that argues the greatest e ffi c ie n cy. I cannot help feeling the deepest gratitude to
the two sailors who stood at the ropes above and lowered us to the sea : I do not suppose they were
saved. Perhaps on e explanation of our feeling little sense of the unusual in le avm g the Titanic in this
way was that it seemed the climax to a series of extraordinary o ccurrences : the magnitude of the
whole thing dwarfed events 90 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC into a boat so tightly that he could not sit
down or move about, and then picture the boat sinking down in a continuous series of jerks, as the
sailors pay out the ropes through cleats above. There are more pleasant sensations than this ' How
thankful we were that the sea was calm and the Titanic lay so steadily and quietly as we dropped down
her side. We were spare d the bumping and grinding again st i the side which so often accompanies the
launching of boats : I do not remember that we even had to fend Off our b oat while we were trying to
get free. As we went down, on e of the crew shouted, We are just over the conde nser exhaust : we don’
t want to sta y in that long or we shall be swamped; feel down on the floor and be ready to pull up the
pin which lets the ropes free as soon as we are a float. I had often looke d over the side and noticed this
stream of wate r coming out of the side of the Titanic just 92 THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT above the
water-line : in fact so large was the volume of water that as we ploughed along and met the waves
coming towards us, this stream would cause a splash that sent spray flying. We felt, as well as we could
in the crowd of people, on the floor, along the sides, with n o idea where the pin could be found, and
none of the crew knew where it was, only of its existence somewhere, but we never found it. And all the
time we got closer to the se a and the exhaust roared nearer and nearer until finally we floated with the
rope s still holding us from above, the exhaust washin g us away and the force of the tide driving us back
against the side, the latter not of much account in influencing the direction, however. Thinking over
what followed, I imagine we must have touched the water with the condenser stream at our bows, and
n ot in the middle as I thought at on e time : at any rate, the resultant of these three forces was 93 THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC that we we re carrie d paralle l to the ship, di r e c t ly unde r the place whe re
boat 15 would drop from her davits into the sea. Looking up we saw her already coming down rapidly
from B deck : she must have filled almost im me diately afte r ours . We shoute d up, “Stop lowering 14,
1 and the crew and passengers in the boat above, hearing us shout and see ing our position immediately
below them, shoute d the same to the sailors on the boat de ck; but apparently they did not hear, for
she dropped down foot by foot, - twenty feet, fifteen, ten, and a stoke r and I in the bows reached up
and touched her bottom swinging above our he ads, trying to push away our boat from under her. It se
eme d n owas if nothing could prevent her dropping on us, but at this mo ment another stoke r sprang
with his knife to 1 In an ac c oun t which appe are d in the n ewspape rs of Apr il 19 I have de sc r ibe d
this boat as 14, n ot kn owin g they we re num be re d alte rn at e ly. ( 94 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
The crew was made up of cooks and stew ards, mostly the former, I think; their white jackets showing
up in the darkness as they pulled away, two to an oar : I do not think the y can have had any practice in
rowing, for all night long their oars crossed and clashed; if our safe ty had depended on speed or
accuracy in keeping time it would have gone hard with us . Shouting began from ' on e end of the boat
to the other as to what we should do, where we should go, and no on e se emed to have any knowledge
how to act. At last we asked, “ Who is in charge of this boat'' but there was no reply. We then agree d by
ge neral consent that the stoker who stood in the stem with the tiller should act as captain, and from
that time he directed the course, shouting to other boats and keeping in touch with them. Not that
there was any where to go or anything we could do. Our plan of action was simple : to keep all the boats
( 96 ) THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT together as far as possible and wait until we were picked up by
other liners . The crew had apparently heard of the wireless c om m un ic a tions before they left the
Titanic, but I ne ver heard them say that we were in touch with any boat but the Olympic : it was always
the Olympic that was coming to our rescue. They thought they knew even her distance, and making a
calculation, we came to the conclu sion that we ought to be picked up by her about two o’clock in the
afternoon. But this was not our only hope of rescue : we watched all the time the darkness lasted for
steamers’ lights, thinking there might be a chance of other steamers coming near enough to see the
lights which some of our boats carried. I am sure there was no feeling in the minds of any on e that we
should not be picked up next day : we knew that wireless messages would go out from ship to ship, and
as on e of the stokers said : “The sea will be covere d with ships to ( 97 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
morrow afternoon : they will race up from all over the sea to find us. Some even thought that fast
torpedo boats might run up ahea d of ' the Olympic. And yet the Olympic was, after all, the farthest
away of them all ; eight other ships lay within three hundred miles of us. How thankful we should have
been to know hownear help was, and how many ships had heard our me ssage and were rushing to the
Tit an ic ’ s aid. I think nothing has surprised us more than 'to learn so many ships were near enough to
rescue us in a few hours. Almost immediately a fter leaving the Titanic we saw what we all said was a
ship’s lights down on the horizon on the Titan ic ’ s port side : two lights, on e above the other, and
plainly not on e of our boats ; we even rowed in that direction for some time, but the lights drew away
and disappeared below the horizon. 98 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC in places there seeme d almost
more dazzling points of light set in the black sky than back ground of sky itself; and each star seemed, in
the keen atmosphere, free from any haze , to have increased its brilliance tenfold and to twinkle and
glitte r with a staccato flash that made the sky seem nothing but a setting made for them in which to
display their won d e r . They seemed so near, and their light so much more inte nse than ever before,
that fancy suggested the y saw this beautiful ship in dire distress below and all their energies had
awakened to flash messages across the black dome of the sky to each other ; telling and warning of the
calamity happening in the world beneath. Later, when the Titanic had gone down and we lay still on the
sea waiting for the day to dawn or a ship to come, I r e member looking up at the perfect sky and re
alizing why Shake spe are wrote the be autiful words he puts in the mouth of Lorenzo 1 00 THE SINKING
FROM A LIFEBOAT 'e ssic a , look how the floor of he ave n Is thick in laid with pat in e s Of b right gold.
The re ’ s n ot the smalle st orb which thoub ehold ’ st But in his mot ion like an an ge l sin gs, St ill quirin
g to the youn g-e ye d che rub ims; Such harmon y is in immortal souls ; But whilst this mud dy ve sture
of de c ay Doth grossly c lose it in , we c an n ot he ar it . But it seemed almost as if we could that night
{the stars seemed really to be alive and to talk. The complete absence of haze produced a phenomenon
I had never seen before : where the sky met the sea the line was as cle ar and definite as the edge of a
knife, so that the water and the air never merged gradually into each other and blended to a softened
rounded horizon, but each element was so exclusively separate that where a star came lowdown in the
sky near the clear-cut edge of the water line, it still lost none of its brilliance. As the earth revolved and
the water edge came up and covered partially the star, as it were, it 101 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
simply cut the star in two, the upper half con tinn ing to sparkle as long as it was not entirely hidden, and
throwing a long beam of light along the sea to us. In the evide nce before the United States Senate
Committee the captain of on e of the ships near us that night said the stars were so extraordinarily
bright near the hori zon that he was deceived into thinking that they were ships’ lights : he did not
remember seeing such a night before. Those who we re afloat will all agree with that statement : we
were often deceived into thinking they were lights of a ship. And next the cold air ' Here again was
something quite new to us : there was not a breath of wind to blow keenly round us as we stood in the
boat, and because of its con tinued persistence to make us feel cold; it was just a keen, bitter, icy,
motionless cold that came from nowhere an d yet was there all the 102 THE LOSS ' OF THE SS. TITANIC
quite true; it did : a picnic on a lake, or a quiet inland rive r like the Cam, or a backwater on the Thames .
And so in these conditions of sky and air and sea, we gazed broadside on the Titanic from a short
distance. She was absolutely still indeed from the first it seemed as if the blow from the iceberg had
taken all the courage out of her and she had just come quietly to re st and was settling down without an
effort to save herself, without a murmur of prote st against such a foul blow. For the sea could not rock
her : the wind was not there to howl noisily round the decks, and make the ropes hum; from the first
what must have impre sse d all as they watched was the sense of stillness about her and the slow,
insensible way she sank lower and lower in the sea, like a stricken animal . The mere bulk alone of the
ship viewed from the se a be low was an awe-inspiring sight. 1 04 THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT
Imagine a ship nearly a sixth of a mile long, 75 feet high to the top decks, with four enor mous funnels
above the decks, an d masts again high above the funnels ; with her hundreds of portholes, all her
saloons and other rooms brilliant with light, and all round her, little boats filled with those who until a
few hours before had trod her decks and read in her libraries and listened to the music of her band in
happy content ; and who were now looking up in amazement at the enormous mass above them and
rowing away from her because she was sinking. I had often wanted to see her from some distance away,
and only a few hours before, in conversation at lunch with a fellow-passenge r, had registered a vow to
get a proper view of her lines and dimensions when we landed at New York : to stand some distance
away to take in a full view of her beautiful proportions, which the narrow approach to the dock at 105
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC Southampton made Impossible . Little did I think that the opportunity was
to be found so quickly and so dramatically. The back ground, too, was a different one from what I had
planned for her : the black outline of her profile against the sky was borde re d all round by stars studde
d in the sky, and all her funne ls and masts were picked out in the same way : her bulk was seen where
the stars were blotted out . And one other thing was different from expectation : the thing that ripped
away from us instantly, as we saw it, all sense of the beauty of the night, the beauty of the ship’s lines,
and the beauty of her lights, —and all these taken in themselves were intense ly beautiful, that thing
was the awful angle made by the level of the sea with the rows of porthole lights along her side in dotte
d lines, row above row. The sea le vel and the rows of lights should have been paralle l should never
have met and now they ( 106 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC than those who saId she would sink but at
any rate the stokers in our boat had no such illusion. On e of them I think he was the same man that cut
us free from the pulley ropes told us how he was at work in the stoke-hole, and in anticipation of going
off duty in quarte r of an hour, thus confirming the time of the collision as had near him a pan of soup
keeping hot on some part of the machinery; suddenly the whole side of the compartment came in, and
the water rushed him off his feet. Picking himself up, he sprang for the compartment doorway and was
just through the aperture when the watertight door came down behind him, “like a knife , ' as he said;
“they work them from the bridge. ' He had gone up on deck but was ordered down again at once and
with others was told to draw the fires from under the boiler, which they d id, and were then at libe rty
to come on deck again. It seems that this particular knot of 108 THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT stoke rs
must have known almost as soon as any one of the extent of injury. He added mournfully, “I could do
with that hot soup now' and indeed he could : he was clad at the time of the collision, he said, in
trousers and singlet, both very thin on account of the intense heat in the stoke-hole ; and although he
had added a short jacke t later, his teeth were chattering with the cold. He found a place to lie down
underneath the tiller on the little platform where our captain stood, and there he lay all night with a
coat belonging to another stoker thrown over him and I think he must have been almost unconscious. A
lady next to him, who was warmly clad with se veral coats, tried to insist on his having on e of hers a fur-
lined one thrown over him, but he absolutely refused while some of the women were insufficiently clad;
and so the coat was given to an Irish girl with pretty auburn hair standing near, leaning against the 109
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC gunwale with an “outside berth ' and so more exposed to the cold air. This
same lady was able to distribute more of her wraps to the passenge rs, a rug to on e , a fur boa to
another ; and she has related with amusement that at the moment of climbing up the Carpathia’s side,
those to whom the se articles had bee n le nt Offered them all back to her ; but as, like the rest of us, she
was e ncumbered with a life belt: she had to say she would receive them back at the e n d of the climb. I
had not se e n my dressing-gown Since I dropped into the boat, but some time in the night a steer age
passenger found it on the floor and put it on . It is not easy at this time to call to mind who were in the
boat, be cause in the night it was not possible to se e more than a few feet away, and when dawn came
we had eyes only for the rescue ship and the icebe rgs ; but so far as my memory serves the list was as
follows : 1 1 0 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC blanke t ' I don’t kn ow much about babies but I think the ir
fe e t must be kept warm. ' Wriggling down as well as I could, I found its toes exposed to the air and
wrapped them we ll up, when it ceased crying at once : It was evi d e n t ly a successful diagnosis '
Having re cog n ize d the lady by her voice , it was much too dark to see faces, as on e of my vis-a-vis at
the purser’s table, I said, Surely youar e Miss P' Yes, ' she re plied, and you must be Mr. Beesle y; how
curious we should find ourse lves in the same boat '' Remember ing that she had joined the boat at
Queens town, I said, “Do you know Clonme l ' a letter from a great friend of mine who is staying there at
'giving the address' came aboard at Queenstown. ' “Yes, it is my home : and I was dining at just before I
came away. ' It seemed that she knew my friend, too ; and we agre ed that of all places in the world to
recognize mutual friends, a crowded ( 1 12 ) THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT lifeboat afloat in mid-ocean
at 2 AM . twelve hundred miles from our de stination was on e of the most unexpected. And all the time,
as we watched, the Ti ic sank lower and lower by the head and the angle became wider and wider as the
stern porthole lights lifted and the b owlights sank, and it was evident she was not to stay afloat much
longer. The captain-stoker now told the oarsmen to row away as hard as they could. Two reasons
seemed to make this a wise decision : on e that as she sank she would create such a wave of suction that
boats, if not sucked unde r by being too near, would be in danger of being swamped by the wave her
sinking would create and we all knew our boat was in n o condition to ride big waves, crowded as it was
and manned with untrained oarsmen. The second was that an explosion might result from the water
getting to the boilers, and dé bris might fall within a wide ( 1 13 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC radius .
And yet, as it turned out , neither of these things happene d. At about AM . I think we were any dis tance
from a mile to two mile s away. It is diflficult for a landsman to calculate distance at sea but we had be
en afloat an hour and a half, the boat was he avily loaded, the oars men unskille d, and our course e
rratic : follow ing now on e light and now another, some time s a star and some times a light from a port
lifeboat which had turned away from the Titanic in the opposite direction and lay al most on our
horizon; and so we could not have gone very far away. About this time, the water had crept up almost to
her sidelight and the captain’s bridge , and it seemed a question only of min utes before she sank. The
oarsme n lay on their oars, and all in the lifeboat were motion less as we watched her in absolute silence
save some who would not look and buried ( 1 14 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC compartme nts,
smashing everything in their way. It was partly a roar, partly a groan, partly a rattle, and partly a smash,
and it was n ot a sudden roar as an explosion would b e : it went on successively for some seconds, pos
sib ly fifteen to twenty, as the heavy machin ery dropped down to the bottom (now the bows) of the
ship : I suppose it fell through the end and sank first, before the ship. But it was a noise no on e had
heard before, and no on e wishes to hear again : it was stupefying, stu pendon s, as it came to us along
the water. It was as if all the heavy things on e could think of had been thrown downstairs from the top
of a house, smashing each other and the stairs and everything in the way. Several apparently authentic
accounts have been given, in which definite stories of ex plosions have been related in some case s IP
broken in two ; but I think such accounts will ( 1 1 6 ) t THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT not stand close
analysis . In the first place the fires had be en withdrawn and the steam allowed to escape some time
before she sank, and the possibility of explosion from this cause seems very remote. Then, as just r e
late d, the noise was not sudden and definite, but prolonged more like the roll and crash of thunder. The
probability Of the noise be ing caused by engines falling down will be seen by referring to Figure 2, page
1 1 6, where the engines are placed in compartments 3, 4, and 5. As the Titanic tilte d up they would
almost Certainly fall loose from their bed and plunge down through the other compartments . NO
phenomenon like that picture d in some ' CL American and English papers occurred tha té‘ o e of the
ship breaking in two, and the two ends lo be ing raised above the surface. I saw the se v drawings in
preparation on board the Car (0 pathia , and said at the time that they bore no re semblance to what
actually happe ned. 1 17 ( 'i THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC When the noise was over the Titanic was still
upright like a column : we could see her now only as the stern and some 150 feet of her stood outlined
against the star-specked sky, looming black in the darkness, and In this position she continued for some
minutes I think as much ‘ as five minute s, but it may have been le ss. Then, first sinking back a little at
the stern, I thought, she slid slowly forwards through the water and dived slant in gly down ; the sea
closed over her and we had seen the last of the beautiful ship on which we had embarked four days
before at Southampton. 6 ) And in place of the ship on which all our interest had been concentrated for
so long and towards which we looked most of the time because it was still the only object on the se a
which was a fixed point to us in place of the Titanic, we had the le vel sea n ow stretching in an
unbroken expanse to the 1 18 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC cries of many hundreds of our fellow-
passen gers struggling in the ice-cold water. I would willingly omit any further mention of this part of the
disaster from this book, but for two reasons it is not possible first , that as a matter of history it should
be put on record; and secondly, that these cries were not only an appeal for he lp in the awful condi
tions of dange r in which the drowning found themselves, an appeal that could never be answered, but
an appeal to the whole world to make such conditions of danger and hope le ssness impossible ever
again ; a cry that called to the heavens for the very injustice of its own existence ; a cry that clamoured
for its own destruction. We were utterly surprised to hear this cry go up as the waves closed over the
Titanic : we had heard no sound of any kind from her since we le ft he r side; and, as me ntioned b e
fore, we did not know how many boats she 1 20 THE SINKING FROM A LIFEBOAT had or how many rafts .
The crew may have known, but they probably did not, and if they did, they never told the passengers ;
we should not have been surprised to know all were safe on some life-saving device . So that
unprepared as we were for such a thing, the cries of the drowning floating across the quiet sea filled us
with stupefaction : we longed to return and rescue at least some of the drown In g, but we knew it was
impossible. The boat was filled to standing-room, and to return would mean the swamping of us all, and
so the captain-stoker told his crew to row away from the cries . We tried to sing to keep all from thinking
of them; but there was n o heart for singing in the boat at that time. The cries, which were loud and
numerous at first, died away gradually one by one, but the night was clear, frosty and still, the wate r
smooth, and the sounds must have carried on 121 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC its level surface free
from any Obstruction for miles, certainly much farther from the ship than we were situated. I think the
last of them must have been heard nearly forty minutes after the Titanic sank. Life belts would keep the
survivors afloat for hours ; but the cold water was what stoppe d the cries. There must have come to all
those safe in the lifeboats, scattered round the drowning at various distances, a deep resolve that, if
anything could be done by them in the future to prevent the repetition of such sounds, the y would do it
at whatever cost of time or other things. And not only to them are those cries an imperative call, but to
every man and woman who has known Of them. It is not possible that ever again can such conditions
exist; but it is a duty imperative on one and all to see that they do not. M jThin k of it ' a few more boats,
afew more planks of wood nailed toge ther in a particular way at 122 CHAPTER V THE RESCU E ALL
accounts agre e that the Titanic sunk about A.M. : a watch in our boat gave the time as A.M. shortly afte
rwards. We were the n in touch with three other boats : on e was 15, on our starboard quarter, and the
othe rs I have always supposed were 9 and 1 1 , but I do not know definitely. We ne ve r got into close
touch with e ach othe r, but calle d occasionally across the darkness and saw them looming near and the
n drawing away again ; we calle d to ask if any officer were aboard the other three, but did not fi rfi one.
So in the absence of any plan of action, we rowe d slowly forward or what we thought was forward, for
it was in the direction the Ti t an ic ’ s bows we re pointing before She sank. I se e now that we must
have be e n pointing 124 THE RESCUE northwest, for we presently saw the Northern Lights on the
starboard, and again, when the Carpathia came up from the south, we saw her from behind us on the
southeast, and turned our boat around to get to her. I imagine the boats must have spread them selves
over the ocean fanwise as they e s caped from the Titanic : those on the star board and port sides ‘
forward being almost dead ahead of he r and the ste rn boats be ing broadside from her ; this explains
why the port boats were so much longer in reaching the Carpathia as late as A.M. — while some of the
starboard boats came up as early as AM . Some of the port boats had to row across the place where the
Titanic sank to get to the Carpathia, through the dé bris of chairs and wreckage of all kinds' . None of the
other three boats near us had a light and we missed lights badly : we could n ot see each othe r in the
darkness ; we could ( 125 ) THE' LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC not Signal to ships which might be rushing up
full speed from any quarter to the Tit an ic ’ s rescue; and now we had been through so much it would
seem hard to have to encounter the additional dange r of being in the line of a rescuing ship. We fe lt
again for the lantern beneath our feet, along the sides, and Imanaged this time t o get down to the
locker below the tiller platform and Open it in front by r e m ov ing a board, to find nothing but the zinc
air tank which renders the boat unsinkable when upset. I do not think there was a light in the boat. We
felt also for food and water, and found none, and came to the c on c lusIOn that none had been put in;
but here we were mis taken. I have a letter from Second Officer Lightoller in which he assures me that
he and Fourth Officer Pitman examined every life boat from the Titanic as the y lay on the Car pathia ’ s
deck afterwards and found biscuits and water in each. Not that we wanted an y 126 THE LOSS OF THE
SS. TITANIC, about the same intensity in England some ye ars ago and kne w them again. A sigh of
disappointment we nt through the boat as we realized that the day was not yet ; but had we known it,
something more comforting even than the day was in store for us. All night long we had watched the
horizon with eager e ye s for Signs of a ste amer’s lights ; we he ard from the captain-stoke r that the
first appe ar ance would be a single light on the horizon, the masthead light, followe d shortly by a
second on e , lowe r down, on the de ck; if the se two remaine d in vertical alignme nt and the distance
be tween them increase d as the lights dre w ne are r, we might b e certain it was a ste ame r. But what
a night t o see that first light on the horizon ' We saw it many time s as the earth revolved, and some
stars rose on the cle ar horizon and others sank down t o it : there we re “lights ' on e ve ry quarter.
Some we watche d and followe d until we saw the ( 128 ) THE RESCUE deception and grew wise r ; some
we re lights from those of our boat s that were fortunate enough to have lanterns, but these were gen e
r ally easily detected, as they rose and fe ll in the near distance. Once they raised our hopes, only to sink
them to zero again. Near what se emed to be the horizon on the port quarte r we saw two lights close
togethe r, and thought this must b e our double light ; but as we gazed across the miles t hat separate d
us, the lights slowly drew apart and we re alized that the y were two boats’ lanterns at different
distances from us, in line, on e behind the other. They were probably the forward port boats that had to
return so many miles next morning across the Tit an ic ’ s graveyard. But notwithstanding these hopes
and dis appointments, the absence of lights, food and water (as we thought) , and the bitter cold, it
would n ot b e corre ct to say we were unhappy in those e arly morning hours : the cold that 129 THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC se ttled down on us like a garment that wraps close around was the only real
discomfort, and that we could keep at bay by not thinking too much about it as well as by vigorous fric
tion and gentle stamping on the floor (it made too much noise to stamp hard I never heard that any on e
in boat B had any after effe cts from the cold even the stoker who was so thinly clad came through
without harm . After all, there were many things to b e thank ful for : so many that they made
insignificant the temporary inconvenience of the cold, the crowded boat, the darkness and the hundred
and one things that in the ordinary way we might regard as unpleasant. The quiet sea, the beautiful
night (how different from two nights later when flashes of lightning and peals of thunder broke the sleep
of many on board the and above all the fact of being in a boat at all when so many of our fe llow -
passenge rs and cre w whose cries 130 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC racing up to our he lp and
signalling to us a pre liminary message to chee r our hearts until she arrived. With e ve ry se nse ale rt,
eyes gazing in t e n t ly at the horizon and ears Open for the le ast sound, we waited in absolute silence
in the quiet night. And then, creeping ove r the edge of the sea where the flash had be en, we saw a
single light, and presently a second below it, and in a few minutes they were we ll above the horizon and
the y remained in line ' But we had been de ceive d before, and we waited a little longer 'before we
allowed our se lves to say we were safe. The lights came up rapidly : so rapidly it seemed only a few
minute s (though it must have be en longe r) be twe e n first see ing them and finding them we ll above
the horizon and bearing down rapidly on us. We did not know what sort of a vessel was coming, but we
kne w she was coming quickly, and we se arched for paper, 132 THE RESCUE rags, an ything that would
burn (we were quite pre pared to burn our coats if necessary) . A hasty pape r torch was twisted out of
le tters found in some one’s pocket, lighted, and held aloft by the stoker s tanding on the tiller platform.
The little light shone in flickers on the faces of the occupants of the boat, ran in broken lines for a few
yards along the black Oily sea (whe re for the first time I saw the pre sence of that awful thing which had
caused the whole terrible disaster ice in little chunks the size of one ’s fist, bobbing harm lessly up and
down) , and spluttered away to blackness again as the stoker threw the burn ing remnants of paper ove
rboard. But had we known it , the dange r of being run down was already over, one reason being that
the Car pathia had already seen the lifeboat which all night long had shown a gre en light, the first
indication the Carpathia had of our position. But the real re ason is to be found 133 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC in the Carpathia’s log : - “Went full speed ahead during the night ; stopped at 4 A.M. with an
icebe rg dead ahead. ' It was a good re ason. With our t orch burnt and in darkne ss again we saw the
headlights stop, and realized that the re scue r had hove to. A Sigh Of re lie f went up when we thought
no hurried scramble had to be made to get out of her way, with a chance of just being missed by her,
and having to me et the wash of her screws as she tore by us. We waited and she slowly swung round
and revealed herself to us as a large ste amer with all her porthole s alight. I think the way those lights
came slowly into view was one of the most wonderful things we shall ever se e . It meant deliverance at
once : that was the amazing thing to us all. We had thought of the afte rnoon as our time of rescue , and
he re only a few hours afte r the Titanic sank, before it was ye t light, we were to b e 134. THE LOSS OF
THE SS. TITANIC liverance, on e name was me ntione d with the deepest feeling of gratitude : that of
Marconi . I wish that he had be en the re to he ar the chorus Of gratitude that we nt out to him for the
wonde rful invention that spared us many hours, and perhaps many days, of wande ring about the sea in
hunger and storm and cold. Perhaps our gratitude was sufficie ntly in tense and vivid to “ Marconi '
some of it to him that night. All around we saw boats making for the Carpathia and heard their shouts
and che ers. Our crew rowed hard in frie ndly rivalry with other boats to be among the first home , but
we must have been eighth or ninth at the side. We had a he avy load aboard, and had to row round a
huge ice be rg on the way. And the n, as if to make e ve rything com ple t e for our happiness, came the
dawn. First a be autiful , quie t shimmer away in the east, the n a soft golden glow that cre pt up ste alth
136 THE RESCUE ily from behind the sky-line as if it were try ing not to be noticed as it stole over the sea
and spread itself quietly in every direction so quietly, as if to make us believe it had been there all the
time and we had n ot observed it. Then the sky turn e d faintly pink and in the distance the thinnest, fle
e c ie st clouds stretched in thin bands across the horizon and close down to it, becoming every moment
more and more pink. And next the stars died, slowly, save on e which remained long afte r the others
just above the horizon ; and near by, with the crescent turned to the north, and the lower horn just
touching the horizon, the thin ne st, palest of moons. And with the dawn came a faint bre eze from the
west, the first bre ath of wind we had fe lt since the Titanic stopped he r engines. Anti c ipat in g a few
hours, as the day drew on to 8 A.M. , the time the last boats came up, —this breeze increased to a fresh
wind which whipped 137 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC up the sea, so that the last boat laden with
people had an anxious time in the choppy waves be fore they reached the Carpathia. An ofli c e r
remarked that on e of the boats could n ot have stayed afloat another hour : the wind had held off just
long enough. The captain shouted along our boat to the crew, as they strained at the oars, two pulling
and an extra on e facing them and pushing to try to keep pace with the other boats, “A new m‘oon '
Turn your mone y ove r, boys ' That is, if you have any '' We laughed at him for the quaint superstition at
such a time , and it was good t o laugh again, but he showed his disbelie f in another super st it ion whe
n he added, “Well, I shall neve r say again that 13 is an unlucky number. Boat 13 is the be st friend we
ever had. ' If there had been among us and it is almost certain that there were , so fast does superstition
cling those who feared events 138 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the Carpathia stop and were waiting to
see if she wanted help of any kind. But in a few minutes more the light shone on them and they stood
revealed as huge Icebergs, peaked in a way that readily suggested a ship. When the sun rose higher, it
turned them pink, and sinister as they looked towering like rugged white peaks of rock out of the sea,
and terrible as was the disaster on e of them had caused, there was an awful beauty about them which
could not be overlooked. Later, when the sun came above the horizon, the y sparkle d and glittered in its
rays ; de adly white, like frozen snow rather than transluce nt ice. As the dawn crept towards us the re
lay an othe r almost dire ctly in the line be tween our boat and the Carpathia, and a few minute s later,
another on her port quarter, and more again on the southern and we stern horizons, as far as the e ye
could reach : all diffe ring in shape and size and tone s of colour according 140 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC the way he r lights climbed up over the hori zon in the darkness, the way she swung and
showed her lighted portholes, and the moment when we read her name on her side will all come back in
a flash ; we shall live again the scene of rescue, and fee l the same thrill of gratitude for all she brought
us that night. We rowed up to her about and shelter ing on the port side from the swell, held (on by two
ropes at the stern and bow. Women went up the side first, climbing rope ladders with a noose round
their Shoulde rs to help their ascent ; men passengers scrambled ne xt, and the crew last of all . The
baby we nt up in a bag with the ope ning tied up : it had been quite well all the time, and never suffered
any ill e ffects from its cold journey in the night. We set foot on deck with very thankful hearts, grate ful
beyond the possibility of ade quate expression to feel a solid ship beneath us once more. CHAPTER VI
THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC SEEN FROM HER DECK THE two preceding chapters have been to a large
extent the narrative of a single eye witness and an account of the escape of on e boat only from the
Titan ic ’ s side. It will be well n ow to return to the Titanic and recon struct a more general and complete
account from the experiences of many people in dif fe r e n t parts of the ship. A considerable part of
these expe rie nce s was related to the writer first hand by survivors, both on board the Carpathia and at
othe r times, but some are derived from other sources which are prob ably as accurate as fi rst -hand
information. Other reports, which se emed at first sight to have bee n founded on the te stimony of e ye
witnesses, have been found on e xamination to ( 143 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC have passed
through several hands, and have therefore be en reje cted. The testimony even of eye-witnesses has in
some cases been ex cluded when it seemed n ot to agree with direct e vidence of a number of othe r
witnesses or with what reasoned judgment considered probable in the circumstances. In this cate gory
are the reports of e xplosions before the Titanic sank, the breaking of the ship in' two parts, the suicide
of officers. It would be well to notice here that the Titanic was in her c or feet course, the southerly on
e , and in the position which prude nce dictates as a safe on e under the ordinary conditions at that time
of the year : to b e strictly accurate she was sixte en miles south of the re gular summer route which all
com panie s follow from Jan uary to August. Perhaps the re al history of the disaster should comme nce
with the afte rnoon of Sun day, when Marconigrams were received by ( 144 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC cold winds blow from Gre enland and Labra dor and not always from ice bergs and ice fi e lds.
SO that falls in tempe rature of sea and air are not prima facie evidence of the close proximity of
icebergs. On the other hand, a single iceberg se parated by many miles from its fellows might sink a ship,
but certainly would not cause a drop in temperature eithe r of the air or water. Then, as the Labrador
current meets the warm Gulf Stream flowing from the Gulf of Mexico across to Europe, they do not
necessarily intermingle, nor do they always run side by side or one on top of the other, but often
interlaced, like the fingers of two hands. As a ship sails across this region the the rmometer will record
within a few mile s temperatures of and so on. It is little wonder then that sailors become accustomed to
place little re liance on temper ature conditions as a me ans of estimating 146 THE SINKING FROM THE
DECK the probabilities of encountering ice in their tr ack. An experienced sailor has told me that nothing
is more difficult to diagnose than the presence of icebergs, and a strong c on fi rm a tion of this is found
in the ofli c ial sailing dirc e tions issued by the Hydrographic Department of the British Admiralty. “No
reliance can be placed on any warning being conveyed to the mariner, by a fall in temperature, either of
sea or air, of approaching ice. Some decrease in temperature has occasionally been r e corded, but more
often none has been ob served. ' But notification by Marconigram of the exact location of icebergs is a
vastly different matter. I remember with deep feeling the e fi e c t this information had on us when it
first became generally known on board the Car pathia . Rumours of it went round onWe dn e s day
morning, grew to definite statements in the afte rnoon, and were confirmed when on e 147 THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC Of the Titanic office rs admitte d the truth of it in re ply to a dire ct que stion. I shall
ne ve r forget the ove rwhe lming se nse of hope le ss ne ss that came ove r some of us as we obtaine d
de finite knowledge of the warning me ssage s. It was n ot then the unavoidable accide nt we had hithe
rto suppose d : the sudde n plunging into a re gion crowde d with ice be rgs which n o seaman, howe ve
r skille d a navigator he might b e , could have avoide d ' The be autiful Ti t a n ic wounde d t oo de e ply t
o r e cove r , the cries of the drowning still ringing in our e ars and the thousands of home s that mourne
d all the se calamitie s none of all the se things nee d e ve r have be e n ' It is no e xagge ration t o say
that men who we nt through all the e xpe r ie nce s of the col lision and the re scue and the subse que nt
scene s on the quay at NewYork with hardly a tremor , we r e quite ove rcome by this know le dge and
turned away, unable to speak 148 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC of the ice, and how we should re
cognize it if we should se e it, and refreshing our minds on the indications that ice gives when it is in the
vicinity. ' Apparently, too, the officers had discus sed among themselves the proximity of ice andMr .
Lightoller had remarked that they would be approaching the position where ice had been reported
during his watch. The lookouts were cautioned similarly, but no ice was sighted until a few minutes
before the collision, when the lookout man saw the ice berg and rang the bell three times, the usual
signal from the crow’s nest when anything is seen dead-ahead. By tele phone he reported to the bridge
the pre se nce of an ice berg, but Mr. Murdock had alre ady orde re d Quartermaster Hichens at the whe
e l t o starboard the helm, and the ves sel be gan to swing away from the berg. But it was far t oo late at
the speed she was going to hope t o ste er the huge Titanic, over a sixth 15 0 THE SINKING - FROM THE
DECK of a mile long, out of reach of danger. Even if the iceberg had been visible half a mile away it is
doubtful whether some portion of her tre mendon s length would not have been touched, and it is in the
highest degree unlikely that the lookout could have seen the berg half a mile away in the conditions that
existed that night, even with glasses . The very smooth ness of the water made the presence of ice a
more difficult matter to detect. In ordinary conditions the dash of the waves against the foot of an
iceberg surrounds it with a circle of white foam visible for some distance, long before the iceberg itself ;
but here was an oily sea sweeping smoothly round the deadly monster and causing no indication of its
presence. There is little doubt, moreover, that the c row’s nest is not a good place from which t o d etect
icebergs . It is proverbial that they adopt to a large extent the colour of their 151 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC surroundings ; and seen from above at a high angle, with the black, foam-free sea behind, the
iceberg must have been almost invisible until the Titanic was close upon it. I was much struck by a
remark of Sir Ernest Shack leton on his method of detecting icebergs to place a lookout man as low
down near the water-line as he could get him. Remembering how we had watched the Titanic with all
her lights out, standing upright like “an enormous black finger, ' as on e observer stated, and had only
seen her thus because she loomed black against the Sky behind her, I saw at once how much better the
sky was than the black sea to show up an iceberg’s bulk. And so in a few moments the Titanic had run
obliquely on the berg, and with a shock that was astonishingly slight so slight that many passenge rs
never notice d it the sub merged portion of the berg had cut her Open on the starboard S ide in the most
vulnerable 1 52 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC Feeling the shock, Captain Smith rushed out of his cabin
to the bridge, and in reply to his anxious enquiry was told by Murdock that ice had been struck and the
emergency doors instantly closed. The officers roused by the collision went on deck : some to the
bridge ; others, while hearing nothing of the ext ent of the damage, saw n o necessity for doing so.
Captain Smith at once sent the carpenter b e low to sound the ship, and Fourth Offi cer Box hall to the
steerage to report damage. The latter found there a very dangerous condition of things and reported to
Captain Smith, who then sent himto themail-room; and here again, it was easy to see, matters looked
very serious. Mail-bags were floating about and the water rising rapidly. All this was reported to the
captain, who ordered the lifeboats to be got ready at once. Mr. Boxhall went to the chart room to work
out the ship’s position, which he then handed to the Marconi operators for 154 THE SINKING FROM THE
DECK transmission to any ship near enough to help in the work of rescue. Reports of the damage done
were by this time coming to the captain from many quar ters, from the chief engineer, from the de
signer, Mr. Andrews, and in a dramatic way from the sudden appearance on deck of a swarm of stokers
who had rushed up from b e lowas the water poured into the boiler-rooms and coal-bunkers : they were
immediately or dered down below to duty again. Realizing the urgent heed of help, he went personally
to the Marconi room and gave orders to the opera tors to get into touch with all the ships they could
and to tell them to come quickly. The assistant operator Bride had been asleep, and knew of the damage
only when Phillips, in charge of the Marconi room, told him ice had been encountered They started to
send out the well-known message, — which interpreted means : C.Q . “all stations at ( 155 ) THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC tend, ' and D, distress, the position of the vessel in latitude and longitude following.
Later, they sent out an arbitrary message agreed upon as an international code signal. Soon after the
vessel struck, Mr . Ismay had learnt of the nature of the accident from the captain and chie f enginee r,
an d after d ressing and going on deck had spoke n to some of the Officers not yet thoroughly
acquainted with the grave injury done to the vessel . By this time all those in any way connected with
the management and navigationmust haveknown the importance of making use of all the ways of safety
known to them and that without any delay. That they thought at first that the Titanic would sink as soon
as She did , is doubt ful ; but probably a s the re ports came in they kne w that he r ultimate loss in a few
hours was a like ly contingency. On the othe r hand, there is evidence that some of the officers in charge
153 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC into the boats . The officers spread themselves about the decks,
superintending the work of lowering and loading the boats, and in three cases were ordered by their
superior officers to take charge of them. At this stage great diflEi culty was experienced in getting
women to leave the ship, especially where the order was so rigorously enforced, “Women and child ren
only. ' Women in many cases refused to leave their husbands, and were actually for c ib ly lifted up and
dropped in the boats. The y argued with the officers, dem anding reasons, and in some cases even when
induced to get in were disposed to think the whole thing a joke, or a precaution which it seemed to
them rather foolish to take. In this they were e n c ourage d by the men left behind, who, in the same
condition of ignorance, said good-bye to their friends as they went down, adding that they would see
them again at bre akfast-time. To illustrate further howlittle danger was ap ( 1 58 ) THE SINKING FROM
THE DECK prehended — when it was discovered on the fi rst -class deck that the forward lower deckwas
covered with small ice, snowballing matches were arranged for the following morning, and some
passengers even went down to the deck and brought back small pieces of ice which we re handed
round. Below decks too was additional evidence that no on e thought of immediate danger. Two ladies
walking along on e of the corridors came across a group of people gathered round a door which they
were trying vainly to Open, and on the other side of which a man was de manding in loud terms to be let
out . Either his door was locke d and the key not to be found, or the collision had jammed the lock and
prevented the key from turning. The ladies thought he must be afflicted in some way t o make such a
noise, but on e of the men was assuring him that in no circumstances should he be left, and that his (the
bystander’s) son 159 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC would be along soon and would smash down his door
if it was n ot opened in the mean time. He has a stronger arm than I have, ' he added. The son arrived
presently and pro c e e de d to make short work of the door : it was smashed in and the inmate released,
to his great satisfaction and with many e xpre ssIon s of gratitude to his rescuer. But on e of the head
stewards who came up at this juncture was so incensed at the damage done to the property of his
company, and so little aware of the infinite ly greater damage done the ship, that he warned the man
who had release d the prisoner that he would be arrested on arrival in New York. It must be borne in
mind that no general warm n g had bee n issued t o passengers : here and there were experienced
travellers to whom collision with an iceberg was sufficient to cause them to make every preparation for
leaving the ship, but the great majority were 1 60 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC e ither in New York or
by transfe r in mid ocean from steamer to steamer. Many pas se n ge rs re late that they were told by
offi ce rs that the ship was a lifeboat and could not go down; on e lady afl‘i rm s that the captain told he r
the Titanic could not sink for two or three days ; n o doubt this was immediately after the collision. It is
not any wonder, then, that many elected to remain, deliberately choosing the deck of the Titanic to a
place in a lifeboat. And yet the boats had t o go down, and so at first they went half-full : this is the real
explanation of why they were not as fully loaded as the later ones. It is important then to consider the
question how far the captain was justified in withholding all the know ledge he had from every
passenger. From one point of vie w he should have said to them, This ship will sink in a few hours : there
are the boats, and only wome n and children can ( 1 62 ) THE SINKING —FROM THE DECK go to them. '
But had he the authority to enforce such an order' There are such things as panics and rushes which get
beyond the control of a handful of officers, even if armed, and where even the bravest of men get swept
ofl' their feet mentally as well as physically. On the other hand, if he decided t o with hold all definite
knowledge of danger from all passengers and at the same time persuade and if it was not sufficient,
compel women and children to take to the boats, it might result in their all being saved. rHe “COUld not
there is ample evidence that he left the bridge when the ship had come to rest and went among
passengers urging them to get into the boat and rigorously excludin g all but women and children. Some
would n ot go. Officer Lowe testified that he shouted, Who ’s next for the boat ' and could get no
replies . The boats even were sent away half-loaded, 1 63 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC although the
fear of their buckling in the middle was responsible as well for this, but the captain with the few boats at
his disposal could hardly do more than persuade and advise in the terrible circumstances inwh ich he
was placed. How appalling to think that with a few more boats and the ship was provided with that
particular kind of davit that would launch more boats the re would have been no decision of that kind to
make ' It could have been stated plainly : “This ship will sink in a few hours : there is room in the boats
for all passengers, beginning with women and children. ' Poor Captain Smith ' I care n ot whether the
responsibility for such spee d in iceberg regions will - rest on his shoulders or not : no man ever had t o
make such a choice as he had that night, and it seems difficult to see how he can be blamed for
withholding from passen 1 64 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC to send the boats down half full, ,with such
women as would go, and to tell the boats to stand by to pick up more passengers passed down from the
cargo ports. There is good evidence that this was part of the plan : I heard an Officer give the order t o
four boats and a lady in number 4 boat on the port side tells me the sailors were so long looking for the
port where the captain personally had told the m to wait, that they were in danger of being sucked
under b y, the vesse l . How far any systematic attempt was made to stand by the ports, I do not know: I
never saw one open or any boat standing near on the starboard side ; but then, boats 9 to 15 went
down full, and on reaching the sea rowed away at once. The re is good evidence, then, that Captain
Smith fully inte nded to load the boats full in this way. The failure to carry out the intention is on e of the
things the whole world regrets, but consider again the great 1 66 THE SINKING FROM THE DECK size of
the ship and the short time to make decisions, and the omission is more easily understood. The fact is
that such a contin genoy as lowe ring away boats was not even considered beforehand, and there is
much cause for gratitude that as many as seven hundred and five people were rescued. The whole
question of a captain’s duties seems to require revision. It was totally Impossible for any on e man to
attempt to control the ship that night, and the weather conditions could not well have been more
favourable for doing so. On e of the reforms that seem in evitable is that on e man shall be responsible
for the boats, their manning, loading and lowering, leaving the captain free to be on the bridge to the
last moment. But to return for a time t o the means taken t o attract the notice of other ships . The wire
le ss operators were now in touch with several ships, and calling to them to come quickly for ( 1 67 ) THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the water was pouring in and the Titanic b e ginning to go down by the head.
Bride testi fi e d that the first reply received was from a German boat, the Frankfurt, which was : “All
right : stand by, ' but not giving her position. From comparison of the strength of signals received from
the Frankfurt and from other boats, the operators estimated the Frankfurt was the nearest ; but
subsequent events proved that this was not so. She was, in fact, on e hundred and forty miles away an d
arrived at A.M. next morning, when the Carpathia had left with the rescued. The next reply wa s from
the C arpathia, fi fty e ight miles away on the outbound route to the Mediterranean, and it was a prompt
and we lcome one “Coming hard, ' followed by the position. Then followed the Olympic, and with her
they talked for some time, but she wa s five hundre d and sixty miles away on the southern route , too
far to be of any immediate 168 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC making the air for many miles around
quiver in its appeal for help immediate, urgent help for the hundreds of people who stood on the Tit an
ic ’ s deck. The second vessel was a small st e am e r i som e few miles ahead on the port side, without
any wireless apparatus, her name and destination still unknown ; and yet the evidence for her presence
that night seems too strong tobe disregarded. Mr. Boxhall states that he and Captain Smith saw her
quite plainly some five miles away, and could distinguish the mast head lights and a red port light. They
at once haile d her with rockets and Morse electric signals, to which Boxhall saw no reply, but Captain
Smith and stewards affirmed they did. The se cond and third officers saw the signals sent and her lights,
the latter from the lifeboat of which he was in charge. Seaman Hopkins testified that he was told by the
captain to row for the light ; and we in boat 170 THE SINKING — FROM THE DECK 13 certainly saw it in
the same position and rowed towards it for some time. But n otwith standing all the efforts made to
attract its attention, it drew slowly away and the lights sank below the horizon. The pity of it ' So near,
and so many people waiting for the shelter its decks could have given so easily. It seems impossible to
think that this ship ever replied to the signals : those who said so must have be en mistaken. The United
State Senate Committee in its r e port does not hesitate to say that this nu known steamer and the
Californian are iden tical , and that the failure on the part Of the latter to come to the help of the Titanic
is culpable negligence. There is undoubted evidence that some of the crew on the Cali for n ian saw our
rockets ; but it seems im pos sible to believe that the captain and officers knew of our distress and
deliberately ignored it. Judgment on the matter had better be 171 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
suspended until further information is forth coming. An engineer who has served in the trans-Atlantic
service tells me that it is a common practice for small boats to leave the fishing smacks to which they
belong and row away for miles ; sometimes even being lost and wandering about among icebergs, and
even not being found again. In these circum stances, rockets are part of a fishing smack’s equipment,
and are sent up to indicate to the small boats how to return. IS it conceivable that the Californian
thought our rockets were such signals, and therefore paid no attention to them' Incidentally, this engine
e r did n ot hesitate to add that it is doubtful if a big liner would stop to he lp a small fi shin g-boat
sending off distre ss sign als, or eve n would turn about to help one which she he rse lf had cut down as
it lay in her path without a light. He was strong in his affirmation that such things were commonly ( 172 )
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and to this task the other Officers were in the meantime devoting all their
endeavours. Mr. Lightoller sent away boat after boat in on e he had put twenty-four women and childre
n, in another thirty, in another thirty five ; and then, running short of seamen to man the boats he sent
Major Peuchen, an expert yachtsman, in the next, to help with its navi gat ion . By the time these had
been filled, he had difficulty in finding women for the fifth and sixth boats for the reasons already stated.
All this time the passengers r e mained to use his own expression as quie t as if in church. ' To man and
supervise the loading of six boats must have taken him nearly up to the time of the Tit an ic ’ s sinking,
taking an average of some twenty minutes to a boat. Still at work to the end, he remained on the ship till
she sank and went down with her. His evidence before the United States Com m it t e e was as follows :
“Did y ouleave the 174 THE SINKING FROM THE DECK ship'' “No, sir. ' “Did the ship leave you' “ Yes, sir. It
was a piece of work well and clean ly done, and his escape from the ship, on e of the most wonderful of
all, seems almost a reward for his devotion to duty. Captain Smith, OfficersWilde and Murdock were
similarly engaged in other parts of the ship, urgin g women to get in the boats, in some cases directing
junior officers to go down in some of them, Officers Pitman, Boxhall, and Lowe were sent In this way, in
others placing members of the crew in charge. As the boats were lowered, orders were shouted to them
where to make for : some were told to stand by and wait for further instructions, others to rowfor the
light of the disappearin g steamer . It is a pitiful thing to recall the effects of sending down the first boats
half full . In some cases men in the company of their wives had 175 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
actually taken seats in the boats young men, married only a few weeks and on their wedding trip and
had done so only because n o more women could then be found; but the strict interpretation by the
particular officer in charge there of the rule of “Women and children only, ' compelled them to get out
again. Some of these boats were lowered and reached the Carpathia with many vacant seats. The
anguish of the young wives in such circumstances can only be imagined. In other parts of the ship, howe
ver, a difl' e re n t inter pr e t at ion was placed on the rule, and men were allowed and even invited by
officers to get in not only to form part of the crew, ‘but even as passengers. This, of cour se, in the first
boats and when no more women could be found. The varied understanding of thi s rule was a fre quent
subje ct of discussion on the Car pathia in fac t, the rule itself was debated with much heart-searching.
There were not 176 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC some. It was heartrending for ladies who had lost all
they held dearest in the world to hear that in on e boat was a stoker picked up out of the sea so drunk
that he stood up and bran dished his arms about, and had to be thrown down by ladies and sat upon to
keep himquiet. If comparisons can be drawn, it did seem better that an educated, refine d man should
be saved than on e who had flown to drink as his refuge in time of danger. These discussions turned
sometimes to the old enquiry “ What is the purpose of all this ' Why the disaste r' Why this man saved
and that man lost' Who has arranged that my husband should live a few short happy years in the world,
and the happiest days in those years with me these last few weeks, and then be taken from m e '' I
heard no on e attribute all this to a Divine Power who or dains and arranges the live s of men, and as
part of a definite scheme sends such calamity 178 THE SINKING — FROM THE DECK and misery in order
to purify, to teach, to spiritualize. I do not say there were not people who thought and said they
sawDivineWisdom In it all, so inscrutable that we in our ig m orance saw it n ot ; but I did not hear it ex
pressed, and this book is intended to be n o more than a partial chronicle of the many d ifl' e r e n t
experiences and convictions. There were those, on the other hand, who did n ot fail to say emphatically
that in dif ference to the rights and fe e lings of others, blindness to duty towards our fellow men and
women, was in the last analysis the cause of most of the human misery in the world. And it should
undoubtedly appeal more to our sense of justice to attribute these things to our own lack of
consideration for others than to shift the responsibility on to a Power whom we first postulate as being
All-wise and All loving. All the boats were lowere d and sent away by 1 79 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
about 2 A.M. , and by this time the ship was very low in the wate r, the forecastle deck com ple t e ly
subme rge d, and the sea cre e ping stead ily up to the bridge and probably only a few yards away. N0
one on the ship can have had any doubt n owas to her ultimate fate , and ye t the fifte e n hundred
passengers and crew on board made no demonstration, and not a sound came from them as they stood
quie tly on the decks or went about their duties below. It seems in credible, and yet if it was a
continuation of the same feeling that existed on de ck before the boats left, and I have no doubt it was,
the explanation is straightforward and rea sonable in its simplicity. An attempt is made in the last
chapter to show why the attitude of the crowd was so quietly courageous . There are accounts which
picture excited crowds running about the de ck in terror, fighting and struggling , but two of the most
accurate 180 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the sea ; to know all these things and yet to kee p the
engines going that the decks might be lighted to the last moment, required sub lime courage. But this
courage is r e quIre d of every engi neer and it is not called by that name : it is called “ duty. ' To stand by
his engines to the last possible moment is his duty. There could be no better example of the supremest
courage being but duty well done than to remember the engineers of the Titanic still at work as she
heeled over and flung them with their engine s down the length of the ship. The simple statement that
the lights ke pt on to the last is really their epitaph, but Lowell’s words would seem to apply to them
with peculiar force The lon ge r on this e arth we live An d we igh the var ious qua lit ie s of m e n The
more we fe e l the high, st e rn -fe ature d b e auty Of plain de vot e dn e ss to duty. ( 182 ) THE SINKING
FROM THE DECK St e adfast an d still, n or paid with mortal praise , But fi n din g ample st r e c ompe n se
For life ’ s un garlan de d e xpe n se In work don e squa re ly an d un waste d days. For some time before
she sank, the Titanic had a considerable list to port, so much so that on e boat at any rate swung so far
away from the side that difficulty was experienced in getting passengers in. This list was increased
towards the end, and Colonel Gracie relates that Mr. Lightoller, who has a deep, power ful voice,
ordered all passengers to the sta r board side. This was close before the end. They crossed over, and as
they did so a crowd of steerage passengers rushed up and filled the decks so full that there was barely
room to move. Soon afterwards the great vessel swung slowly, stern in the air, the lights went out , and
while some were flung into the water and others dive d ofl’ , the gre at majority still clung to the rails, to
the sides and roofs of 1 83 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC deck-structures, lying prone on the deck. And in
this position the y were when, a fewminutes later, the e normous ve ssel dived oblique ly downwards.
As she went, no doubt many still clung to the rails, butmost would do the ir best to ge t away from her
and jump as she slid forwards and downwards . Whatever the y did, there can be little question that
most of them would be taken down by suction, to come up again a few mome nts later and to fill the air
with those heartre nding crie s which fe ll on the ears of those in the lifeboats with such amazement.
Another survivor, on the othe r hand, relates that he had dive d from the stern before she he e led over,
and swam round under he r e normous triple screws lifted by now high out of the water as she stood on
e n d . Fas c in at e d by the e xtraordinary sight, he watched them up above his head, but pre sently r e a
liz ing the ne cessity of ge tting away as quickly as possible, he started to swim from the ship, 1 84 THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC them is so practical as to force him to follow up the question of reforms
personally, n ot leaving it to experts alone , then he will have at any rate done something to atone for
the loss of so many valuable lives. We had now be tte r follow the adventures of those who we re re
scue d from the final eve n t in the disaste r. Two accounts those of Colonel Gracie and Mr . Lightolle r
agre e very closely. The forme r we nt down clinging to a rail, the latter dive d be fore the ship went right
unde r, but was sucked down and he ld against on e of the blowers . They were both car ried down for
what seeme d a long distance, but Mr . Lightolle r was finally blown up again by a “terr ific gust ' that
came up the blower and forced him cle ar. Colonel Gracie came to the surface afte r holding his breath
for what seeme d an e te rnity, and they both swam about holding on to any wreckage they could find.
Finally the y saw an upturned 1 86 THE SINKING — FROM THE DECK collapsible boat and climbed on i t
in company with twenty other men, among them Bride the Mar coni operator. After remaining thus for
some hour s, with the sea washing them to the waist, they stood up as day broke, in two rows, back to
back, balancing themselves as well as they could, and afraid to turn lest the boat should roll over Fin ally
a lifeboat saw them and took them Off, an operation attended with the greatest difficulty, and the y
reached the Carpathla In the early dawn. Not many people have gone through such an experience as
those men did, lying all night on an overturned, ill- ‘b alanced boat, and praying together, as they did all
the time, for the day and a ship to take them off. Some account must now be attempted of the journey
of the fleet of boats t o the Car pathia , but it must necessarily be very brief. Experiences differed
considerably : some had no encounters at all with icebergs, no lack of ( 187 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC m e n t o row, discovered lights and food and water, were picked up after only a few hours’
exposure, and suffered very little discomfort ; others seemed to see icebergs round them all night long
and to b e always rowing round them; others had so fewmen aboard In some cases only two or three
that ladies had to row and in on e case to steer, found no lights, food or water, and were adrift many
hours, in some cases nearly eight. The first boat to be picked up by the Car pathia was one in charge of
Mr. Boxhall. There was only one other man rowing and la dies worked at the oars . A green light burning
in this boat all night was the greatest comfort to the rest of us who had nothing to steer by : although it
meant little in the way of safety in itself, it was a point to which we could look. The green light was the
first intimation Cap tain Rostron had of our position, and he steered for it and picked up its passengers
first. ( 188 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC from the lowering tackle, and had to be cut away after
reaching the sea. Mr. Lowe took in charge four other boats, tied them together with lines, found some
of them not full, and transferred all his passengers to these, distributing them in the darkness as well as
he could. Then returning t o the place where the Titanic had sunk, he picked up some of those
swimming in the water and went back to the four boats . On the way to the Car pathia he encountered
on e of the collapsible boats, and took aboard all those in her, as she seemed to be sinking. Boat 12 was
on e of the four tied together, and the seaman in charge testified that he tried to row to the drownin g,
but with forty women and children and only one other man t o row, it was not possible to pull such a
heavy boat to the scene of the wreck. Boat 2 was a small ship’s boat and had four or fiv e passengers
and seven of the crew. 1 90 THE SINKING — FROM THE DECK Boat 4 was on e of the last to leave on the
port side, and by this time there was such a list that deck chairs had to bridge the gap between the boat
and the deck. When low ered, it remained for some time still attached to the ropes, and as the Titanic
was rapidly sinking it seemed she would be pulled under. The boat was full of women, who besought the
sailors to leave the ship, but in obedience to orders from the captain to stand by the cargo port, they
remained near ; so near, in fact, that they heard china fallin g and smash ing as the ship went down by
the head, and were nearly hit by wreckage thrown over board by some of the officers and crew and in
tended to serve as rafts . They got clear finally, and were only a short distance away when the ship sank,
so that they were able to pull some men aboard as they came to the surface. This boat had an
unpleasant experience in 1 91 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the night with icebergs ; many were seen
and avoide d with difficulty. QuartermasterHicke n swas in charge Of boat 6, and in the absence of
sailors Major Peuchen was sent to help to man her. They were told to make for the light of the steamer
seen on the port side, and followed it until it disappeared. There were forty women and children here.
Boat 8 had only one seaman, and as Captain Smith had enforced the rule of “Women and children only, '
ladies had to row. Later in the night, whe n little progress had been made, the seaman took an oar and
put a lady in charge of the tiller. This boat again was in the midst of icebergs . Of the four collapsible
boats although collapsible is not really the correct term, for only a small portion collapses, the canvas
edge ; “surf boats ' is really their name on e was launche d at the last moment by being pushed over as
the sea rose to the edge of the ( 192 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the passengers . How they got there
no on e knew or indeed how they happened to be on the Tit an Ic , for by the immigration laws of the
United States they are n ot allowed to enter her ports . It must be said, in conclusion, that there is the
greatest cause for gratitude that all the boats launched carried their passengers safely to the rescue
ship. It would not be right to accept this fact without calling attention to it : it would be easy to
enumerate many things which might have been present as elements of danger. CHAPTER VII THE
CARPATHIA ’ S RETU RN To NEw YORK THE journey of the Carpathia from the time she caught the from
the Ti tanio at about AM . on Monday morning and turned swiftly about to her rescue, until she arrived
at New York on the following Thursday at P.M. was one that demanded of the captain, officers and crew
of the vessel the most exact knowledge of navigation, the utmost vigilance in every department both
before and after the rescue, and a capacity for organization that must sometimes have been taxed to
the breaking point. The extent to which all these qualities were found present and the manner in which
they were exercised stands to the everlasting credit of the Cunard Line and those of its servants who
were in charge of the Carpathia. Captain 1 95 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC Rost ron ’ s part in all this is a
great one, and wrappe d up though his action is in a modesty that is conspicuous in its nobility, it stands
out even in his own account as a piece of work well and courageously done. As soon as the Titanic called
for he lp and gave her position, the Carpathia was turne d and heade d north : all hands we re called on
duty, a new watch of stokers wa s put on , an d the highest spe ed of which she was capable was
demande d of the engineers, with the r e s'ult that the distance of fi fty-eight miles b e tween the two
ships wa s covered in three and a half hours, a spe e d we ll be yond her normal capacity. The three
doctors on board each took charge of a saloon, in readiness to rende r he lp to any who needed their se
rvice s, the stewards and catering staff were hard at work pre paring hot drinks and meals, and the purse
r’s staff ready with blan kets and berths for the shipwrecked passengers as soon as they 1 96 THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC every faculty was called upon for the highest use of which it was capable. With the
know ledge before them that the enormous Titanic, the supposedly unsinkable ship, had struck ice and
was sinking rapidly; with the lookout constantly calling to the bridge, as he must have done, Icebergs on
the starboard, ' Ic e bergs on the port, ' it re quired courage and judgment beyond the ordinary to drive
the ship ahead through that lane of ice bergs and “manoeuvre round them. ' As he himself said, he “
took the risk of full speed in his desire to save life, and probably some people might blame him for
taking such a risk. ' But the Senate Committee assured him that they, at any rate, would not, and we of
the life boats have certainly no desire to do so The ship was finally stopped at 4 A.M. , with an iceberg
reported dead ahe ad (the same n o doubt we had to row around in boat 13 as we approached the
Carpathia) , and about the 1 98 THE CARPATHIA’S RETURN same time the first lifeboat was sighted.
Again she had to be manoeuvred round the ice berg to pick up the boat, which was the on e in charge of
Mr. Boxhall. From him the ca ptain learned that the Titanic had gone down, and that he was too late to
save any on e but those in lifeboats , which he could n ow see drawing up from every part of the
horizon. Mean while, the passengers Of the Carpathia, some of them aroused by the unusual vibration
of the screw, some by sailors tramping overhead as the y swung away the lifeboats and got ropes and
lowering tackle ready, were beginning to come on deck just as day broke; and here an extraordinary
sight met their eyes. As far as the eye could reach to the north and west lay an unbroke n stretch of field
ice, with ice bergs still attached to the floe and rea ring aloft the ir mass as a hill might sudde nly rise
from a level plain. Ahead and to the south and east huge floating monsters were Showing up through
199 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the waning darkness, their number added to moment by moment as
the dawn broke and flushed the horizon pink. It is remarkable how “busy ' all those icebergs made the
sea look : to have gone to bed with n othing but sea and sky and to come on deck to find so many
objects in sight made quite a change in the character of the sea : it looked quite crowded ; and a lifeboat
alongside an d peo ple clambering aboard, mostly women, in nightdresses and dressing-gowns, in cloaks
and shawls, in anything but ordinary clothes ' Out ahead and on all sides little torches glit t e re d faintly
for a few moments and then guttered out and shouts and cheers floated across the quiet sea. It would
be difficult to imagine a more unexpected sight than this that lay before the Carpathia’s passe nge rs as
they lined the sides t hat morning in the e arly dawn. No novelist would dare to picture such an ( 200 )
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC watched us as if the ship had been in dock and we had rowed up to join
her in a somewhat unusual way. Some of them have related that we were very quiet as we came aboard
: it Is quite true, we were ; but so were they. There was very little excitement on either side : just the
quiet demeanour of people who are In the presence .of something too big as yet to lie within their
mental grasp, and which they cannot yet discuss. And so they asked us po lit e ly to have hot c ofl' e e ,
which we did; and food, which we generally de clined, we were not hungry, and they said very little at
first about the lost Titanic and our adve n tures in the night. Much that is exaggerated and false has
been written about the mental condition of passen gers as they came aboard : we have been de scribed
as being too dazed to understand what was happe ning, as being too overwhelmed to speak, and as
looking before us with “ set, 202 THE CARPATHIA’S RETURN staring gaze, ' “ dazed with the shadow of
the dread event. That is, no doubt, what most people would expect in the circumstances, but I know it
does not give a faithful re cord of how we did arrive : in fact it is simply n ot true. As remarked before,
the on e thing that matters in describin g an event of this kind is the exact truth, as near as the fallible
human mind can state it ; and my own im pression of our mental condition is that of supreme gratitude
and relief at treading the firm decks of a ship again. I am aware that experiences differed considerably
according to the boats occupied; that those who were un certain of the fate of their relatives and friends
had much to make them anxious and troubled; and that it is not possible to look into another person’s
consciousness and say what is written there ; but dealing with mental conditions as far as they are
delineated by facial and bodily expressions, I think joy, 203 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC relief, gratitud
e were the dominant emotions wr itten on the faces of those who climbed the rope-ladders and were
hauled up in crad les. It must n ot be forgotten that no one in any on e boat knew who were saved in
other boats : few knew even how many boats there were and how many passengers could be save d. It
was at the time probable that friends would follow them to the Carpathia, or be foun d on other
steamers, or even on the pier at which we landed. The hysterical scenes that have been described are
imaginative ; true, on e woman did fill the saloon with hysterical cries im mediately after coming aboard,
but she could not have known for a certainty that an y of her friends were lost : probably the sense of re
lie f after some hours of journeying about the sea was too much for he r for a time. On e of the first
things we did was to crowd round a steward with a bundle of tele graph forms. He was the be are r of
the welcome news 204 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC relief, gratitude were the dominant emotions
written on the faces of those who climbed the rope-ladders and were hauled up in crad les. It must not
be forgotten that no one in any on e boat knew who were saved in other boats : few knew even how
many boats there were and how many passengers could be saved. It was at the time probable that
friends would follow them to the Carpathia, or be found on other steamers, or even on the pier at which
we landed. The hysterical scenes that have been described are imaginative ; true, on e woman did fill
the saloon with hysterical cries immediately after coming aboard, but she could not have known for a
certainty that an y of her friends were lost : probably the sense of re lief after some hours of journeying
about the se a was too much for he r for a time. On e of the first things we did was to crowd round a ste
ward with a bundle of tele graph forms. He was the be arer of the welcome news 204 THE CARPATHIA’S
RETURN that passengers might send Marconigrams to their relatives free of charge, and soon he bore
away the first sheaf of hastily scribbled mes sages to the operator ; by the time the last boatload was
aboard, the pile must have risen high in the Marconi cabin. We learned after wards that many of these
never reached their destination ; and this is not a matter for sur prise. There was only on e operator Cot
tam on board, and although he was assisted to some extent later, when Bride from the Titanic had
recovered from his injuries suffi c ie n tly to work the apparatus, he had so much to do that he fell asleep
over this work on Tuesday night after three days’ continuous duty without rest. But we did n ot know
the messages were held back, and imagined our friends were aware of our safety ; then, too, a roll-call
of the rescued was held in the Car pathia ’ s saloon on the Monday, and this was Marconied to land in
advance of all messages. 205 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC It seemed c e r t al n , then, that friends at
home would have all anxiety removed, but there were mistake s in the official list first tele graphed. The
experience of my own friends illustrates this : the Marconigram I wrote never got through to England; n
or was my name ever mentioned in any list of the saved (even a week after landing in New York, I saw it
in a black-edged “final list of the missing) , and it seemed certain that I had never reached the
Carpathia ; so much so that, as I write, there are before me obituary notice s from the English papers
giving a short s ketch of my life in England. After landing in New York and realizing from the lists of the
saved which a reporter showed me that my fr ie nds had no news since the Titanic sank on Monday
morn ing until that night (Thursday 9 I c a ble d to England at once (as I had but two shillings re scue d
from the Titanic, the White Star Line paid for the cables) , but the message s 206 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC his son journeyed to New York to meet him, r e 10 1c 1n g at his deliverance, and never found
him there. When I met his fam ily some days later and was able to give them some details of his life
aboard ship, it seemed almost cruel to tell them of the opposite ex pe rie n c e that had befallen my
friends at home. Returning to the journey of the Carpathia the last boatload of passengers was taken
aboard at A.M. , the lifeboats were hauled on deck while the c ollapsib le s were aban doue d, and the
Carpathia proceeded to steam round the scene of the wreck in the hope of picking up anyone floating
on wreckage. Before doing so the captain arranged in the saloon a service over the spot where the Ti t
an ic sank, as nearly as could be calculated, a service, as he said, of respect to those who were lost and
of gratitude for those who were saved. She cruised round and round the scene, but 208 THE
CARPATHIA’S RETURN found nothing to indicate there was any hope of picking up more passengers ;
and as the Californian had now arrived, followed shortly afterwards by the Birma, a Russian tramp
steamer, Captain Rostron decided to leave any further search to them and to make all speed with the
rescued to land. As we moved round, there was surprisingly little wreckage to be seen : wooden deck-
chairs and small pieces of other wood, but nothing of any size. But covering the sea in huge patches was
a mass of reddish-yellow “ seaweed, ' as we called it for want of a name. It was said to be cork, but I
never heard defin itely its correct description. The problem of where to land us had next to be decided.
The Carpathia was bound for Gibraltar, and the captain might continue his journey there, landing us at
the Azores on the way; but he would require more linen and provisions, the passengers were mostly
women 209 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and children, ill-clad, dishevelled, and in need of many
attentions he could not give them. Then, too, he would soon be out of the range of wireless
communication, with the weak apparatus his ship had, and he soon decided against that course. Halifax
was the nearest in point of distance, but this meant steaming north through the ice, and he thought his
passengers did not want to see more ice. ' He heade d back therefore to New York, which he had left the
pre vious Thursday, working all afternoon along the edge of the ice-fi e ld which stretched away north as
far as the unaided eye could reach. I have wondered since if we could possibly have landed our
passengers on this ic e -floe from the lifeboats and gon e back to pick up those swimming, had we
known it was the re ; I should think it quite feasible to have done so. It was certainly an e xtraor di nary
sight to stand on deck and see the sea covered with solid ice, white and dazzling in ( 210 ) THE LOSS OF
THE SS. TITANIC not the extent of these conditions, but he knew somewhat of their existence. Alas, that
he heeded not their warning ' During the day, the bodies of eight of the crew were committed to the
deep : four of them had been taken out of the boats dead and four died during the day. The engines
were stopped and all passengers on deck bared their heads while a short service was read ; when it was
over the ship steamed on again to carry the living back to land. The passengers on the Carpathia were by
n owhard at work finding clothing for the sur vivors : the barbe r’s shop was raided for ties, collars, hair-
pins, combs, etc. , of which it hap pe ned there was a large stock in hand ; one good Samaritan went
round the ship with a box of tooth-brushes offering them in disc r im in at e ly to all . In some cases,
clothing could not be found for the ladies and they spent the rest of the time on board in their dressing
212 THE CARPATHIA’S RETURN gowns and cloaks in which they came away from the Titanic. They even
slept in them, for, in the absence of berths, women had to sleep on the floor of the saloons and in the lib
rary each night on straw paillasse s, and here it was not possible to undress properly. The men were
given the smoking-room floor and a supply of blankets, but the room was small, and some elected to
sleep out on deck. I found a pile of towels on the bathroom floor ready for next morning’s baths , and
made up a very comfortable bed on these. Later I was waked in the middle of the night by a man
offering me a berth in his four-berth cabin : another occupant was unable to leave his berth for physical
reasons, and so the cabin could not be given up t o ladies . On Tuesday the survivors met in the saloon
and formed a committee among themselves to collect subscriptions for a general fund, out of which it
was re solved by vote to provide ( 213 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC as far as possible for the destitute
among the steerage passengers, to present a loving cup to Captain Rostron and medals to the officers
and crew of the Carpathia, and to divide any surplus among the crew of the Titanic. The work of this
committee is not yet (June l st ) at an end, but all the resolutions except the last on e have been acte d
upon, and that is n ow receiving the atte ntion of the committee. The pre sentations to the captain and
crew were made the day the Carpathia returned to New York from herMe dite rranean trip, and it is a
pleasure to all the survivors to know that the Un ited States Senate has recognized the service re ndered
to humanity by the Carpa thia and has voted Captain Rostron a gold medal commemorative of the
rescue. On the afternoon of Tuesday, I visited the steerage in company with a fellow-passenger, to take
down the names of all who were saved. We grouped them into nationalities, —English, 214 THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC was on e girl of really remarkable beauty, black hair and deep violet eyes with long
lashes, and perfectly shaped features , and quite young, not more than eightee n or twenty ; I think she
lost no relatives on the Titanic. The following letter to the London Times is reproduced here to show
something of what our feeling was on board the Carpathia towards the loss of the Titanic. It was written
soon after we had the definite information on the Wednesday that ice warnings had been sent to the
Titanic, and when we all felt that something must be done to awaken public Opinion to safe guard ocean
travel in the future. We were not aware, ' of course, how much the outside world knew, and it seeme d
we ll to do something to inform the English public of what had happened at as e arly an opportunity as
possible . I have not had oc casion to change any of the Opinions expre ssed in this letter. 216 THE
CARPATHIA’S RETURN As on e of few surviving Englishm en from the ste am ship Titan ic , which sank in
m id-Atlan tic on Mon d ay m orn in g last, I am askin g youto lay b e fore your r e ade rs a fewfac ts c on
c e rn in g the disas t e r , in the hope that som e thing m ay b e don e in the near fut ure to e n sure the
safe ty Of that portion of the trave lling pub lic whouse the Atlantic highway for busine ss or ple asure . I
wish to dissoc iate m yse lf entire ly from any re port that woul d se e k to fi x the r e sponsibility on an y
pe rson or pe rsons or body of pe ople , an d by sim ply c allin g atte n tion to m atte rs of fact the authe
n tic ity of which is, I thin k, beyon d que stion a n d c an b e e stablishe d in any Court of In qui ry, to a
llow your r e ade rs to draw the ir own c onc lusions as to the r e spon sibility for the c ollision. First, that
it was kn own to those in charge of the Titan ic that we we re in the ic e be rg r e gion; that the atm
osphe ric a n d te m pe rature c on d ition s sug ge ste d the ne ar pr e senc e of ic e be rgs; that a wire le
ss m e s sage was re c e ive d from a ship ahe ad of us wa rn ing us that they had be e n se e n in the loc
ality of which latitude an d lon g itud e we re given. ( 217 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC Se c on d , that
at the tim e of the c ollision the Ti tan ie was run n in g at a high rate of spe e d . Third , that the ac c om
m od ation for savin g pas se n ge rs an d c r ew wa s totally in ade quate , be in g suffi c ie n t on ly for a
tota l of about 950. This gave , with the highe st possible c om ple m e n t of 3400, a le ss than on e In
thre e chan c e Of be in g save d in the c a se of ac c ide n t. Four th, that the num be r lan de d in the Car
pathia , approxim ate ly 700, is a high pe rc e n tage of the possible 950, an d be ars e xc e lle n t te stim
on y to the c ourage , r e sour c e , an d devotion to duty of the Offi c e rs an d c rew of the ve sse l ; m an
y in sta n c e s of the ir n obility an d pe rson al se lf-sac rifi c e ar e within our posse ssion , an d we kn
owthat they did all they c oul d do with the m e an s at the ir d isposal. Fifth, that the pr ac tic e Of run n
in g m ail an d pas se n ge r ve sse ls throug h fog an d ic e be rg r e gion s at a high spe e d is a c om m on
on e ; they are tim e d to run alm ost as an e xpr e ss train is run , an d they c an n ot, the re for e , slow
down m ore than a few kn ots in tim e of possible d an ge r . I have n e ithe r kn owle dge n or e xpe r ie n
c e to say what re m e d ie s I c on sid e r shoul d b e applie d ; but , ( 21 8 ) THE LOSS OF THE 88. TITANIC
which someAme rican reporte rs are in the habit of preparing on occasions of this kind. The first impre
ssion is ofte n themost permanent, and in a disaster of this magnitude, where exact and accurate
information is so necessary, prepara tion of a report was essential . It was written in odd corn ers of the
deck and saloon of the Carpathia, and fe ll, it seemed very happily, into the hands of the one reporter
who c oiIld best deal with it, the Associated Press . I under stand it was the first re port that came
through and had a good deal of the effect intended. The Carpathia returned to New York in almost every
kind of climatic conditions : ice be rgs, ic e - fi e lds and bitter cold to commence with ; brilliant warm
sun, thunder and light ning in the middle of on e night (and so close ly did the peal follow the flash that
women in the saloon leaped up in alarm saying rockets we re be ing sent up again) ; cold winds most of
the time ; fogs e very morning and during a 220 THE CARPATHIA’S RETURN good part of one day, with
the foghorn blow ing constantly; rain ; choppy sea with the spray blowing overboard and coming in
through the saloon windows ; we said we had almost every thing but hot 'we athe r and stormy seas . So
that when we were told that Nantucket Light ship had been sighted ouThursday morning from the
bridge, a great sigh of relief went round to think New York an d land would be reache d before next
morning. There is n o doubt that a good many felt the waiting period of those four days very trying : the
ship crowded far beyond its limits of com fort, the want of necessities of clothing and toilet, and above
all the anticipation of meet ing with relatives on the pier, with, in many cases, the knowledge that other
friends were left behind and would not return home again. A few looked forward to meeting on the pier
their friends to whom they had said aurevoir on the Tit an ic ’ s deck, brought there by a 221 THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC faster boat, they said, or at any rate to he ar that the y were following behind us in
another boat : a very few, indeed, for the thought of the icy water and the many hours’ immersion se
emed to weigh against such a possibility ; but we encourage d them to hope the Ca lifor nian and the
Birma had picked some up ; stranger things have happened, and we had all been through strange
experiences. But in the midst of this rather tense feeling, on e fact stands out as remarkable no on e was
ill. Captain Rostron te stified that on Tue sday the doctor reported a clean bill of health, e x cept for
frost-bites and shaken nerves. There we re none of the illnesses supposed to follow from exposure for
hours in the cold night and, it must be remembered, a conside rable number swam about for some time
when the Titanic sank, and then either sat for hours in their wet things or lay flat on an upturned boat
with the sea water washing partly over ( 222 ) THE LOSS OF THE 88. TITANIC of doom, ' and to have
become eight weeks instead. So many dramatic incidents had been crowded into the last few days that
the first four peaceful, uneventful days, marked by nothing that seared the memory, had faded almost
out of recollection. It needed an e ffort to return to Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown, as
though returning to some e vent of last year. I think we all realized that time may be measured more by
events than by seconds and minutes : what the astronome r would call A M. April 15th, the survivors
called the sinking of the Titanic' the “hours ' that followed were designate d “being adrift in an open sea,
' and A M. was “being rescued by the Carpathia. The clock was a mental one, and the hours, min utes
and seconds marked deeply on its face were emotions, strong and silent. Surrounded by tugs of every
kind, from which (as well as from every available build ( 224 ) THE CARPATHIA’S RETURN ing near the
river) magnesium bombs were shot off by photographers, while reporters shouted for news of the
disaster and photo graphs of passengers, the Carpathia drew slowly to her station at the Cunard pier,
the gangways were pushed across , and we set foot at last on American soil, very thankful, grate ful
people. The mental and physical condition of the rescued as they came ashore has, here again, been
greatly exaggerated on e description says we were “half-fainting, half-hysterical, bordering on
hallucination, only now begin ning to realize the horror. ' It is unfortunate such pictures should be
presented to the world. There were some painful scenes of meeting between relatives of those who
were lost, but once again women showed their self-control and went through the ordeal in most cases
with extraordinary calm. It is well to record that the same account added : “A few, 225 THE LOSS OF THE
SS. TITANIC strangely enough, are calm and lucid ' ; if for “few' we read a large majority, ' it will be much
nearer the true description of the land ing on the Cunard pier in New York. There seems to be no
adequate reason why a report of such a scene should depict mainly the sor row and grief, should seek
for every detail to satisfy the horrible and the morbid in the human mind. The first questions the excited
crowds of reporters aske d as they crowded round were whether it was true that officers shot passenge
rs, and then themselves ; whethe r passe ngers shot each other ; whether any sce nes of horror had
been noticed, and what they were. It would have been well to have noticed t he wonderful state of h
ealth of most of the res cue d, their gratitude for their deliverance, the thousand and on e things that
gave cause for re joicing. In the midst of so much d e scription of the hyste rical side of the scene , ( 226 )
CHAPTER VIII THE LES SONS TAU GHT BY THE LOSS OF THE TITANIC ONE of the most pitiful things in the
rela tions of human beings to each other the action and reaction of events that is called concretely “
human life is that every now and then some of them should be called upon to lay down their lives from
no sense of im pe rat ive , calculated duty such as inspires the soldier or the sailor, but suddenly, without
any previous knowledge or warning of danger, without any opportunity of escape, and with out any
desire to risk such conditions of dan ger of their own free will . It is a blot on our civilization that these
things are necessary from time to time, t o arouse those responsible for the safety of human life from
the leth selfishness which has governed them. 228 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER {Titan ic ’ s two thousand
odd passengers went aboard thinking they were on an absolutely safe ship, and all the time there were
many people designers, builders, experts, govern ment Officials who knew there were in suffi cient boats
on board, that the Titanic had n o right to go fast in iceberg regions, who knew these things and took no
steps and enacted n o laws to prevent their happening; Not that they omitted to do these things
deliberately, but were lulled into a state of selfish inaction from which it ded such a tragedy as this to
arouse them. was a cruel necessity which demanded th a few shoul d d ie to arouse many millions to a
sense of their own insecurity, to the fact that for years the possibility of such a disaster has been immi
nent. Passengers have known none of these things , and while no good end would have been served by
relating to them needless tales of danger on the high seas, one thing is certain 229 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC that, had they known them, many would not have travelled in such conditions and thereby
safeguards would soon have been forced on the builders, the companies, and the Govern ment. But
there were people who knew and did not fail to call attention to the dangers : in the House of Commons
the matter has been frequently brought up privately, and an American naval officer, Captain E. K. Roden,
in an article that has since bee n widely repro duc e d , calle d attention to the de fects of this very ship,
the Titanic taking her as an ex ample oi all other liners and pointed out that she was not unsinkable and
had not proper boat accommodation. The question, then, of responsibility for the loss of the Titanic
must be conside red : n ot from any idea that blame should be laid here or there and a scapegoat
provided that is a waste of time. But if a fixing of re sponsibility leads to quick and efficient remedy,
( 230 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC increases his responsibility enormously. Even supposing theWhite
Star Line and Mr. Ismay had urged him before sailing to make a record, again an assumption, they
cannot be held directly responsible for the collision : he was in charge of the lives of everyone on board
and no on e but he was supposed to estimate the risk of travelling at the speed he did, when ic e was
reported ahead of him. His action Can not b e justifie d on the ground of prudent sea manship. But the
question of indirect responsibility raise s at once many issues and, I think, re moves from Captain Smith
a good deal of personal responsibility for the loss of his ship. Some of these issues it will be well to con
sider. In the first place, disabusing our minds again of the knowledge that the Titanic struck an iceberg
and sank, let us estimate the probabilitie s of such a thing happening. An ice be rg is small and occupies
little room by 232 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER comparison with the broad ocean on which it floats ; and
the chances of another small object like a ship colliding with it and being sunk are very small : the
chances are, as a matter of fact, one in a million. This is not a figure of speech : that is the actual risk for
total loss by c ollision with an iceberg as accepted by insurance companies . The on e -in -a-mil lion
accident was what sunk the Titanic. Even so, had Captain Smith been alone in taking that risk, he would
have had to bear all the blame for the resulting disaster. But it seems he is not alone : the same risk has
been taken over and over again by fast mail-pas senger liners, in fog and in iceberg regions . Their
captains have taken the long very long chance many times and won every time ; he took it as he had
done many times before, and lost. Of course, the chances that night of striking an iceberg were much
gre ater than on e in a million : they had been enor 233 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC m ously increased
by the extreme southerly position of ice bergs and field ice and by the unusual number of the former.
Thinking over the scene that met our eyes from the deck of the Carpathia after we boarded her, the
great number of icebergs wherever the eye could reach, the chances of n ot hitting on e in the darkness
of the night seemed small. Indeed, the more on e thinks about the Car pathia coming at full speed t
hrough all those icebergs in the darkness, the more in e xplic able does it se em. True, the captain had an
extra lookout watch and every sense of eve ry man on the bridge alert t o detect the le ast Sign of dange
r, and again he was n ot going so fast as the Titanic and would have his ship unde r more control ; but
granted all that, he appe ars to have taken a great risk as he dogged and twisted round the awful two-
hun dre d-foot monsters in the dark night. Doe s it mean that the risk is n ot so great as we who 234
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC who has run full speed through fog and ice berg regions is t o blame for
the disaster as much as he is : they got through and he did not. Other liners can go faster than the Ti
tanie could possibly do ; had they struck ice they would have been injured even more deeply than she
was, for it must not b e for gotten that the force of impact varies as the squar e of the velocity i .e . , it is
four tim es as much at sixteen knots as at e ight knots, nine times as much at twenty-four, and so on .
And with not much margin of tim e le ft for these fast boats , they must go full speed ahead nearly all the
time. Remember how they advertise to “Leave New York We dn e s day, din e in London the following
Monday, ' and it is done regularly, much as an express train is run to time. Their ofli c e rs, t oo, would
have been less able t o avoid a c ollism n than Murdock of the Titanicwa s, for at the greater speed, they
would b e on the ice berg in shorter 236 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER time. Many passengers can tell of
crossing with fog a good deal of the way, sometimes almost all the way, and they have been only a few
hours late at the end of the jour ney. So that it is the custom that is at fault, not on e particular captain.
Custom is established large ly by demand, and supply too is the an swer to demand. What the public
demande d the White Star Line supplied, and so both the public and the Line are concerned with the
question of indirect responsibility. The public has demanded, more and more every year, greater speed
as well as greater comfort, and by ceasing to patronize the low Speed boats has gradually forced the
pace to what it is at present. Not that speed in itself is a dangerous thing, it is sometimes much safer to
go quickly than slowly, —but that, give n the facilities for speed and the stimulus exerted by the
constant public de mand for it, occasions arise when the judg ( 237 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC ment
of those in command of a ship becomes swayed largely unconsciously, no doubt in favour of taking risks
which the smaller liners would never take. The demand on the skipper of a boat like the Californian, for
example, which lay hove-to nine teen miles away with her engines stopped, is in fi n it e si mal compared
with that on Captain Smith. An old traveller told me on the Carpathia that he has often grumbled to the
Officers for what he called absurd pre cautions in lying to and wasting his time, which he regarded a s
very valuable ; but after hearing of the Ti t an ic ’ s 10 88 he re cognize d that he was to some e xtent
responsible for the speed at which she had travelled, and would never be so again. He had bee n on e of
the trave lling public who had constantly demanded to b e taken to his journey’s end in the Shortest
possible time, and had “made a row' about it if he was like ly t o be late . There are some business 238
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC sion of such a desire and the discontent with so-called slow tr avel are the
seed sown in the minds of men, to bear fruit presently in an insistence on greater speed. We may not
have done so directly, but we may perhaps have talked about it and thought about it, and we know no
action begins without thought. The White Star Line has received very rough handling from some of the
press, but the greater part of this criticism seems to be unwarranted and to arise from the desire to find
a scapegoat. After all they had made bet ter provision for the passengers the Titanic carried than any
other line has done, for they had built what they believed to be a huge lifeboat, unsinkable in all
ordinary conditions. Those who embarked in her were almost c e r t ain ly in the safest ship (along with
the Olym pic) afloat : she was probably quite immune from the ordinary e fl' e c t s of wind, waves and
collisions at sea, and neede d t o fear nothing 240 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER but runnin g on a rock or,
what was worse, a floating ice berg ; for the e fle c ts of collision were, so far as damage was concerned,
the same as if it had been a rock, and the danger greater, for one is charted and the other is n ot . Then,
too, While the theory of the un sinkable boat has been destroyed at the same time as the boat itself, we
should not forget that it served a useful purpose on deck that night it eliminated largely the possibility of
panic, and those rushes for the boats which might have swamped some of them. I do not wish for a
moment to suggest that such things would have happened, because the more in formation that comes
to hand of the conduct of the people on board, the more wonderful seems the complete self-control of
all, even when the last boats had gone and nothing but the rising waters met their eyes only that the
generally e n t e r tam e d theory rendered such things less probable. The theory, in deed, was 241 THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANI C really a safeguard, though built on a false premise. There is no evidence that
the White Star Line instructed the captain to push the boat or to make any records : the probabilities are
that no such attempt would be made on the first trip. The general instructions to the ir commanders
bear quite the other in t e rpr e t at ion : it will be we ll to quote them in full a s issued t o the press
during the sittings of the Unite d States Se nate Committee. In struc tion s to com m an de rs Com m an
de rs m ust d istin c tly un de rstan d that the issue of r e gul ation s doe s n ot in a n y way r e lieve the m
from r e spon sibility for the safe an d e ffi c ie n t n avigation Of the ir re spe c tive ve sse ls, an d they ar
e a lso e n join e d to r e m e m be r that they m ust run n o r isks whic h m ight by an y possibility r e sul t
in a c c i de n t to the ir ships. It is to b e hope d that the y will eve r be ar In m In d that the safe ty of the
live s an d prope rty e n truste d to the ir care IS the rul in g 242 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC nuisance.
The Board of Trade employs the best experts, and knows the dangers that at tend ocean travel an d the
precautions that should be taken by every commander. If these precautions are n ot taken, it will be ne
cessaryto legislate until the y are. No motor ist is allowed to career at full speed along a public highway
in dangerous conditions, and it should be an ofl' e n c e for a captain to do the same on the high seas
with a ship full of un suspecting passengers. The y have entrusted their lives to the governme nt of their
country through its regulations and they are entitled to the same protec tion in mid-At lantic as they are
in Oxford Street or Br oad way. The open sea should no longer be r e garde d as a neutral zone where no
country’s police laws are Operative. Of course there are difficulties in the way of drafting international
regulations : many gov e rn m e n t s would have to be consulted and 244 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER
many difficulties that seem in superable over come ; but that is the purpose for which gov e r n m e n ts
are employed, that is why experts and ministers of governments ar e appointed and paid to overcome
difficulties for the people who appoint them and who expect them, among other thin gs, ‘to protect
their lives. The American Government must share the same responsibility : it is useless to attempt to fix
it on the British Board of Trade for the rea son that the boats were built in England and inspected there
by British ofli c ials. They car ried American citizens largely, and entered American ports. It would have
been the simplest matter for the United States Gov e rn m e n t to veto the entry of any ship which did
not conform to its laws of regulating speed in conditions of fog and icebergs —had they provided such
laws . The fact is that the Amer ican nation has practically no mercantile ma rine, and in time of a
disaster such as this it 245 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC forgets, perhaps, that it has exactly the same
right and therefore the same responsibility as the British Government to inspect, and to legislate : the
right that is easily enforced by re fusal to allow entry. The regulation of speed in dangerous re gions
could well be un de r t ake n by some fleet of international police patrol vessels, with power to stop if
necessary any boat found guilty of reckle ss racing. The additional duty of warning ships of the exact
locality of icebergs could be performed by these boats. It would n ot of course be pos sible or advisable
to fix a speed limit, ' b e cause the re gion of icebergs varies in position as the icebergs float south, varies
in point of danger as they melt and disappear, and the whole question has to be left largely to the
judgment of the captain on the spot ; but it would be possible to make it an offe nce against the law t o
go be yond a certain spee d in known conditions of danger. ( 246 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC greed
and dividend-hunting that have charac t e r ize d the policy of t he steamship companies in their failure
to provide safe ty appliances : these things In themselves are {not expensive. They have vied with each
other in making the ir lines attractive In point of speed, size and comfort, and they have been quite
justified in doing so : such things are the product of ordinary competition between commercial houses.
Where they have all failed morally is to extend to their passengers the consideration that places their
lives as of more interest to them than any other conceivable thing. They are not alone in this : thousands
of other people have done the same thing and would do it to day in factories, in workshops, in mines,
did not the gove rnment intervene and insist on safety pre cautions. The thing is a de fect in human life
of to-day thoughtlessness for the well-being of our fe llow-men ; and we are 248 LESSONS OF THE
DISASTER all guilty of it in some degree. It is folly for the pUb lic to rise up n ow and condemn the
steamship companies : their failing is the com mon failing of the immorality of indii ference . The remedy
is the law, and it is the only remedy at present that will really accomplish anything. The British law on
the subject dates from 1894, and requires only twenty boats for a ship the size of the Titanic : the
owners and builders have obeyed this law and fulfilled their legal responsibility. In crease this
responsibility and they will fulfil it again and the matter is ended so far as appliances are concerned. It
shoul d perhaps be mentioned that in a period of ten years only nine passengers were lost on British
ships : the law seemed to be sufficient in fact. The position of the American Government, however, is
worse than that of the British Government. Its regulations require more 249 THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC than double the boat accommodation which the British re gulations do, and yet it has al lowed
hundreds of thousands of its subjects to enter its ports on boats that defied its own laws. Had their
government n ot been guilty of the same in difl e r e n c e , passengers would not have been allowed
aboard any British ship lacking in boat-ac commodation the simple expe dient again of re fusing entry.
The reply of the British Government to the Sen ate Committee, accusing the Board of Trade of “insufficie
nt re quirements and lax in spe c tion, ' might well be “ Ye have a law: see to it yourse lves '' It will be we
ll now to consider briefly the various appliance s that have been sugge sted to e nsure the safety of
passe ngers and cre w, and in doing so it may be remembe red that the average m an and woman has
the same right as the expert to conside r and discuss these things : the y are not so technical as to 250
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and no othe r damage, have le ft again for their home port without
troubling to d ise m bark passenge rs and e ff e ct re pairs . The de sign of the Tit an ic ’ s bulkheads calls
for some attention. The “ Scientific Ameri can, ' in an exce llent article on the compara tive safety of the
Tit an ic ’ s and other types of water-tight compartments, draws attention to the following weaknesses
in the former with an icebe rg. She had no longitudinal bulk heads, which would subdivide her into
smalle r compartments and prevent the water filling of a la t. Prob ably, t a large compartme nt was in
any case too greatW t . The Mauretania, on the other hand, in addition to transverse bulkheads, is fitte d
with longitudinal torpedo bulkheads, and the space between them and the side of the ship is utilised as
a coal bunker. Then, too, in the 252 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER Mauretania all bulkheads are carried up
to the top deck, whereas in the case of theTitanic they reache d in some parts only to the saloon deck
and in others to a lower deck still, the weakness of this being that, when the water reached to the top of
a bulkhead as the ship sank by the head, it flowed over and filled the next compartment. The British
Admiralty, which subsidizes the Mauretania and Lusit ania as fast cruisers in time of war, insisted on this
type of construction, and it is considered vastly better than that used in the Titanic. The writer of the
article thinks it possible that these ships might not have sunk as the result of a similar collision. But the
ideal ship from the point of bulkhead construc tion, he conside rs to have been the Great Eastern,
constructed many years ago by the famous engineer Brunel . So thorough was her sys tem of
compartments divided and subdivided by many transverse and longitudinal bulk 253 THE LOSS OF THE
SS. TITANIC heads that when she tore a hole eighty feet long in her side by striking a rock, she reached
port in safe ty. Unfortunately the weight and cost of this method was so great that his plan was
subsequently abandoned. But it would n ot be just to say that the con struction of the Titanic was a se
rious mistake on the part of the White Star Line or he r builders, on the ground that he r bulkheads were
not so well constructe d a s those of the Lusitania and Mauretania, which we re built to fulfil British
Admiralty regulations for time of war an e xtraordinary risk which no builde r of a passe nge r ste amer
as such would be expecte d to take into consideration whe n de signing the vesse l . It should b e con st
an t ly borne in mind that the Titanic met e xtraordinary conditions on the night of the collision : she was
probably tW afloat in all ordinary conditions . Collision with an ice berg is nota n t /ordin ary risk; but
THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC weathe r. The ship itself must always be the “safety appliance that is re
ally trustworthy, and nothingmust be left undone to ensure this. Wir e less apparatus an d ope rators
The range of the apparatus might we ll be extended, but the principal defect is the lack of an operator
for night duty on some ships. miles away, able to save every soul on board, an d could not catch the
messa e b e caug the W e lt om fl ' upon. Even on the Carpathia, the operator the point of retiring when
the message arrived, and we should have been much longer afloat and some boats possibly swamped ot
caught the message when he did. It has been suggested that officers should have a working kn owle dge
° of wireless telegraphy, and this is no doubt a wise provision. It would enable them to supervise the
work of 9256 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER . the operators more closely and from all the evidence, this
seems a necessity. The ex change of vitally importa nt messages b e tween a sinking ship and those
rushing to her rescue should be under the control of an ex pe rie n c e d officer. To t ake ' but on e
example Bride testified that after giving the Birma the message and the position (inci dentally Signor
Marconi has stated that this has been abandoned in favour of and getting a reply, they got into touch
with the Carpathia, and while talking with her were interrupted by the Birma asking what was the
matter. No doubt it was the duty of the Birma to come at once without asking any questions, but the
reply from the Titanic, telling the Birma’s operator n ot to be a “fool ' by interrupting, seems to have
been a need less waste of precious moments : to reply, “We a r e sinking would have taken n o longer, e
specially when in the ir own estimation of 257 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the strength of the signals
they thought the Birma was the neare r ship. It is Well to notice that some large liners have already a
staff of three operators. Subm arin e sign allin g apparatus There are occasions whe n Wireless appara
tus is useless as a means of saving life at sea promptly. On e of itsWeakn esses is that when the ships’
engine s are stopped, me ssages can no longe r be sent out , that is, with the system at pre M adopted. It
will b e remembere d that the Tit an ic ’ s messages got gradually fainte r and then ceased altogether as
she came to re st with her en gine s shut down. Again, in fogs, and most accidents oc cur in fogs, while
wireless informs of the accide nt, it doe s not enable on e ship to locate another close ly enough t o take
off he r pas se n ge rs at once. The re is as ye t no m ethod 258 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC might lie .
In a rough sea it is doubtful whe ther the Republic would have remained afloat long enough for the
Baltic to find her and take off all her passengers. Now on these two occasions whe n wire le ss
telegraphy was found to be unreliable , the us efulne ss of the submarine bell at once b e comes appare
nt. The Baltic could have gone une rringly to the Re public in the dense fog had the latter been fitted
with a submarine emergency bell . It will perhaps be well to spend a little time describing the submarine
signalling apparatus to see how this re sult could have been obtained : twelve anxious hours in a dense
fog on a ship which was in jured so badly that she subse quently foun dered, is an experience which
every appliance known to human invention should be e nlisted to pre ve nt. Submarine signalling has ne
ver re ce ive d that public notice which wire less te le graphy 260 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER has, for the
reason that it does not appeal so re adily to the popular mind. That it is an absolute necessity to e very
ship carrying passengers or carrying anything, for that matter is beyond question. It is an addi t ion al
safeguard that no ship can afford to be without. There ar e many occasions when the atmo sphere fails
lamentably as a medium for carry ing messages. When fog falls down, as it does some times in a
moment, on the hundreds of ships coasting down the traffic ways round our shores ways which are
define d so e asily in clear weathe r and with such difficulty in fogs — the hundreds of lighthouses and
light ships which serve as warning be acons, and on which many millions of money have been spe nt, ar
e for all practical purposes as use less to the navigator as if they had never been built : he is just as he
lpless as if he were back in the years before 1 514, when Trinity House 261 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC
was granted a charter by Henry VI II for the relief of the shipping of this re alm of England, and began a
system of lights on the shores, of which the present chain of light house s and lightships is the outcome.
Nor is the foghorn much better : the pr e se nce of diffe re nt layers of fog and air, and theirvarying
densitie s, which c ause both r e fle c tion and refraction of sound, prevent the air from being a reliable
me dium for carrying it. Now, submarine signalling has none of the se de fe cts, for the medium is water,
subject to no such variable conditions as the air. Its density is practically non variable, and sound trave ls
through it at the rate of 4400 fe et per second, without deviation or refle ction. The apparatus consists
of a bell designe d to ring either pneumatically from a lightship, e le ctr ically fromthe shore (the be ll
itse lf being a tripod at the bottom of the sea) , automatic ally from a floating bell-buoy, or by hand from
( 262 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and one on the starboard side, near the bows, and as far down
below the water level as is possible. The direction of sounds coming to the microphones hanging in
these tanks can be estimate d by switching alte rnately to the port and starboard tanks. If the sound is of
greater inte nsity on the port side, then the be ll signalling is off the port bows ; and simil arly on the
starboard side. The ship is turned towards the sound until the same volume of sound is he ar d from
both receivers, when the bell is known to be de ad ahead. So accurate is this in practice that a trained
ope rator ca n ste e r his ship in the dens est fog directly to a lightship or any other point where a
submarine be ll is sending its warning beneath the sea. It must be re pe ated that the medium in which
these signals are transmitted is a constant on e , not subject to any of the limitations and variations
imposed on the atmosphere and the ether as media ( 264 ) LESSONS OF THE DISASTER for the
transmission of light, blasts of a fog horn, and wireless vibrations. At present the chief use of submarine
signalling is from the shore or a lightship to ships at sea, and not from ship to ship or from ship to the
shore : in other words ships carry only receiving appara tus, and lighthouses and lightships use only
signalling apparatus. Some of the lighthouses and lightships on our coasts alre ady have these
submarine bells in addition to the ir lights, and in bad we ather the bells send out their messages to
warn ships of their proximity to a dange r point. This invention e nable s ships to pick up the sound of
bell after be ll on a coast and run along it in the de nse st fog almost as well as in daylight ; passenger
steamers coming into port do not have to wander about in the fog, groping their way blindly into
harbour. By having a code of rings, and judging by the intensity of the sound, it is possible to te ll almost
exactly whe re a ship is in relation to ( 265 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC the coast or to some lightship.
The British Admiralty report in 1 906 said : If the light ships round the coast were fitted with sub marine
bells, it would be possible for ships fitted with receiving apparatus to navigate in fog with almost as
great certainty as in cle ar weather. ' And the following remark of a captain engaged in coast service is
instruct ive. He had been asked to cut down expenses by omitting the submarine signalling appara tus,
but replied : “I would rather take out the wireless. That only enables me to tell other people wh ere I
am. The submarine signal e nables me to find out where I am myself. ' The range of the apparatus is not
so wide as that of wire le ss telegraphy, varying from 1 0 to 15 miles for a large ship (although in stances
of 20 to 30 are on record) , and from 3 to 8 mile s for a small ship. At present the receiving apparatus is
fixed 266 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC both heard the bell of Nantucke t Lightship. Again, if the Titanic
had been provided with a be ll and the Californian with receiving ap paratus, neither of them was, the
oflfic e r on the bridge could have heard the signals from the telephones ne ar. A smalle r size for use in
lifeboats is pro vide d , and would be heard by receiving appa ratus for approximately five mile s. If we
had hung one of these bells over the side of the life boats afloat that night we should have be en free
from the anxie ty of being run down as we lay across the Carpathia’s path, without a light. Or if we had
gone adrift in a de nse fog and wandered miles apart from each othe r on the sea (as we ine vitably
should have done) , the Carpathia could still have picke d up e ach boat individually by means of the be ll
signal . In those ships fitte d with re ce iving appa ratus, at least on e officer is oblige d to unde r stand
the working of the apparatus : a ve ry 268 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER wise precaution, and, as suggested
above, on e that should be taken with respect to wire less apparatus also. It was a ve ry great pleasure
to me to see all this apparatus in manufacture and in use at on e of the principal submarine signalling
works in America and to hea r some of the r e markable stories of its value in actual practice. I was
struck by the aptness of the motto adopted by them “De profundis clamavi ' in re lation to the Titan ic ’ s
end and the calls of our passe ngers from the sea when she sank Out of the deep have I calle d unto
Thee is indeed a suitable motto for those who are doing all the y can to prevent such calls arising from
their fellow men and women “ out of the dee p. Fixin g of ste am ship routes The lane s along which the
liners trave l are fixed by agreement among the steamship 269 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC companies
in consultation with the Hydro graphic departments of the different coun tries. These routes are
arranged so that east-bound steamers are always a number of miles away from those going west, and
thus the danger of collision between east and west-bound vessels is entirely e liminated. The “lan es '
can be moved farther south if ice bergs threaten, and north again when the danger, is removed. Of
course the farthe r south they are placed, the longer the journey to be made, and the longer the time
spent on board, w1th consequent grumbling by some passengers. For example , the lane s since the
disaster to the Titan l c have been moved one hundre d mile s farther south, which means one hundred
and eighty miles longer journey, take ing e ight hours . The only re al precaution against colliding with
icebergs is to go south of the place where they are likely to be : there is no other way. ( 270 ) THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC sections as soon as possible after sailing, and should be conducted in a thorough
manner. Children in school are called upon suddenly to go through fi r e -drill, and the re is no re ason
why passengers on board ship should n ot be similarly trained. So much depends on order and readine
ss in time of danger. Un doubtedly, the whole subje ct of manning, provisioning, loading and lowe ring of
( life boats should be in the hands of an expert offi ce r, who should have n o othe r duties. The modern
line r has become far too big to permit the captain to e xercise control ove r the whole ship, and all
vitally important sub divisions should b e controlled by a se parate authority. It seems a piece of bitter
irony to remember that on the Titanic a spe cial che f was e ngaged at a large salary, large r per haps
than that of any officer, — and n o boat master (or some such officer) was considered ne ce ssary. The
general system again not ( 272 ) LESSONS OF THE DISASTER criminal neglect, as some hasty criticisms
would say, but lack of consideration for our fellow-man, the placing of luxurious at t rac tions above that
kindly forethought that allows no precaution to be neglected for even the humblest passenger. But it
must not be overlooked that the provision of sufficient lifeboats on deck is not evidence they will all be
launched easily or all the passengers taken off safely. It must be remembered that ideal conditions
prevailed that night for launching boats from the decks of the Titanic : there was no list that prevente d
the boats getting away, the y could be launched on both sides, and when they were lowered the sea was
so calm that they pulled away without any of the smashing against the side that is possible in rough seas
. Sometimes it would mean that only those boats on the side sheltered from a heavy sea could ever get
away, and this would at once halve the boat accommodation. ( 273 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC And
when launched, there would be the danger of swampin g in such a heavy sea. All things considered,
lifeboats might be the poorest sort of safeguard in certain conditions . Life-rafts are said to be much
inferior to life boats in a rough sea, and collapsible boats made of canvas and thin wood soon decay
under exposure to weather and are danger traps at a critical moment. Some of the lifeboats should be
provided with motors, to keep the boats together and to tow if necessary. The launching is an im
portant matter : the Tit an ic ’ s davits worked exce llently and no doubt were largely r e spon sible for all
the boats getting away safely they were far superior to those on most liners. Pon toon s After the sinking
of the Bourgogne, when two Americans lost their lives, a prize of £4000 was offered by their heirs for
the best ( 274 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC and in addition probably more fit physically than a
steward to row for hours on the Open sea. And if a steward cannot row, he has no right to be at an oar ;
so that, under the un written rule that passengers take precedence of the crew when there is not suffi
cient ac com m odat ion for all (a situation that should never be allowed to arise again, for a member of
the crew should have an equal opportunity wi th a passenger to save his life) , the majority of stewards
and cooks should have stayed b e hind and passengers have come instead : they could not have been of
less use, and theymight have been of more. It will be remembered that the proportion of crew saved to
passen gers was 210 to 495, a high proportion. Another point arises out of these figures deduct 21
members of the crew who were stewardesses, and 189 men of the crew are left as against the 495
passengers . Of these some got on the overturned collapsible boat after 276 LESSONS OF THE DISASTER
the Titanic sank, and a few were picked up by the lifeboats, but these were n ot many in all . Now with
the 17 boats brought t o the Carpathia and an average of six of the crew to man each boat, probably a
higher average than was realized, we ge t a total of 1 02 who should have been saved as against 1 89
who actually were. There were, as is known, stokers and stewards l n the boats who were not members
of the lifeboats’ crews. It may seem heartless to analyze figures in this way, and suggest that some of
the crew who got to the Carpathia never should have done so ; but, after all , passengers took their
passage under certain rules, writte n and unwritten, and on e is that in times of danger the servants of
the company in whose boats they sail shall first of all see to the safety of the passengers be fore thinking
of their own . There were only 126 men passengers saved as against 1 89 of the crew, and 661 men lost
as against 686 of the ( 277 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC crew, so that actually the crew had a greater
pe rcentage saved than the men passengers 22 per cent against 1 6. But steamship companies are faced
with real difficulties in this matter. The crews are ne ver the same for two voyages together : the y sign
on for the one trip, then perhaps take a berth on shore as waiters, stokers in hotel furnace-rooms, etc. ,
to resume ( life on board any other ship that is handy when the desire comes to go to sea again. They
can in no sense be regarded as part of a homo ge n e ous crew, subject t o re gular discipline and
educated to appreciate the morale of a particular liner, as a man of war’s crew is. Se ar chligkts These
seem an absolute necessity, and the wonde r is that they have not been fitted before to all ocean liners .
Not only ar e they of use in lighting up the sea a long distance ahead, but ( 278 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS.
TITANIC While writing of the lookout, much has been made of the omission to provide the look out c m
the Titanic with glasses . The gene ral opinion of officers seems to be that it is better n ot to provide
them, but to rely on good eye sight and wide-awake men. After all, in a question of actual practice, the
Opinion of officers should be accepted as final, eve n if it seems to the landsman the better thing to
provide glasses . Cruisin g lightships On e or two in t e rn at ioqa lly owned and con trolle d lightships,
fitted with every known de vice for signalling and communication, would rob those regions of most of
their t e r rors. They could watch and chart the icebergs, report their exact position, the amount and
direction of daily drift in the changing cur rents that ar e found there. To them, t oo, might be entrusted
the duty of police patrol. CHAPTER I' SOME IMPRESSIONS No on e can pass through an event like the
wreck of the Titanic without recording men tally many impressions, dee p and Vivid, of what has been se
e n and felt. In so far as such impressions are of benefit t o mankind they should not be allowed to pass
unnoticed, and this chapter is an attempt to picture how pe o ple thought and felt from the time they
first heard of the disaste r to the landing in New York, when there was opportunity t o judge of eve nts
some what from a distance. While it 1s to some extent a personal record, the men tal impressions of
other survivors have been compared and found t o b e in many case s closely in agreement. Naturally it
is -very imperfect, and pretends to be n o more than a ske tch of the way pe ople act unde r the in flu
( 281 ) THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC ence of strong emotions produced by immi ne nt dange r. In the
first place, the principal fact that stands out is the almost entire absence of any expressions of fear or
alarm on the part of passengers, and the conformity to the normal on the part of almost everyone. I
think it is n o exaggeration to say that those who read of the disaster quietly at home, and pictured to
themselves the sce ne as the Titanic was sink ing, had more of the sense of horror than those who stood
on the deck and watched her go down inch by inch. The fact is that the sense of fe ar came to the
passengers very slowly a result of the absence of any signs of danger and the pe ace ful night and as it
became evident gradually that the re was serious dam age to the ship, the fe ar that came with the
knowle dge was large ly destroye d as it came. There was n o sudde n ove rwhe lming sense of dange r
that passed through thought so quickly 282 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC one ’s own power to control,
that, quite un consciously realizing the absolute necessity of keeping cool, every on e for his own safety
put away the thought of danger as far as was possible. Then, too, the curious sense of the whole thing
being a dream was very promi nent : that all were looking on at the scene from a near-b y vantage point
in a position of pe rfect safety, and that those who walked the decks or tied one another’s lifebelts on
were the actors in a scene of which we were but spectators : that the dream would end soon and we
should wake up to find the scene had van ishe d . Many people have had a similar e xpe rie n c e in times
of danger, but it was very noticeable standing on the Tit a n ic ’ s deck. I remember observing it part
icularly while tying on a lifebe lt for a man on the deck. It is fortunate that it should be so : to be able to
survey such a scene dispassionately is a wonderful aid in the de struction of the fears 284 SOME
IMPRESSIONS that go with it. On e thing that helped con side rab ly to establish this orderly condition of
affairs was the quietness of the surround ings . It may seem weariness to refer again to this, but I am
convinced it had much to do with keeping everyone calm. The ship was motionless ; there was not a
breath of wind; the sky was clear ; the sea like a mill-pond the general “ atmosphere was peaceful, and
all on board responded unconsciously to it. But what controlled the situation principally was the quality
of obedience and respect for authority which is a dominant characteristic of the Teutonic race.
Passengers did as they we re told by the officers in charge : women went to the decks below, men
remaine d where they were told and waited in sile nce for the next order, knowing instinctively that this
was the only way to bring'about the best result for all on board. The officers, in their turn, ca rrie d out
the work assigned to 285 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC them by their supe rior officers as quickly and
orderly as circumstances permitted, the se nior ones being in control of the manning, filling and lowering
of the life boats , while the jum or office rs were lowere d in individual boats to take command of the
fleet adrift on the sea. Similarly, the engineers below, the band, the gymnasium instructor, were all
performing their tasks as they came along orderly, quietly, without que stion or stopping to consider
what was their chance of safe ty. This correlation on the part of passe ngers, officers and crew was
simply obedience to duty, and it was innate rather than the pro duct of re asoned judgment. I hope it
will not seem to detract in any way from the heroism of those who faced the last plunge of the Titan l c
so courageously whe n all the boats had gone, if it does, it is the difficulty of expressing an ide a in a de
quate words, to say that their quiet hero 286 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC false reports as that of
Major Butt holding at bay with a revolver a crowd of passengers and shooting them down as they tried
to rush the boats, or of Captain Smith shouting, “ Be British, ' through a megaphone, and sub se quently
committing suicide along with First Officer Murdock. It is only a morbid se nse of things that would
describe such incidents as he roic. Everyone knows that Major Butt was a brave man, but his record of
he roism would not be enhanced if he, a traine d army offi cer, were compelled under orde rs from the
captain to shoot down unarmed passengers . It might in other conditions have been n e c essary, but it
would not be heroic. Similarly there could be nothing he roic in Captain Smith or Murdock putting an
end to the ir lives. It is conceivable men might be so ove r whe lmed by the sense of disaster that the y
kne w not how they we re acting; but to be really heroic would have bee n to stop with ( 288 ) SOME
IMPRESSIONS the ship — as of course they did — with the hope of being picked up along with
passengers an d crew and returning to face an enquiry and to give evidence that would be of supreme
value to the whole world for the prevention of similar disasters . It was not possible ; but if heroism
consists in doing the greatest good to the greatest number, it Would have been heroic for both officers
to expe c t to be saved. We do not know what they thought, but I, for one, like to imagine that they did
so. Se cond Officer Lightoller worke d steadily at the boats until the last possible moment, went down
with the ship, was saved in what seemed a miraculous manner, and returned to give valuable evidence
before the commissions of two countries. The second thing that stands out promi n e n t ly in the
emotions produced by the dis aste r is that in moments of urgent need men and women turn for help to
something e n 289 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC t ir e ly outside themselve s . I remember read ing some
years ago a story of an atheist who was the guest at dinner of a re gimental mess in India. The colonel
listened to his remarks on atheism in silence , and invited him for a drive the following morning. He took
his gue st up a rough mountain road in a light carriage drawn by two ponie s, and when some distance
from the plain be low, turned the carriage round and allowe d the ponies to run away as it seemed
downhill . In the terror of approaching disaste r, the atheist was lifted out of his reasoned convictions
and praye d aloud for help, whe n the colonel reined in his ponies, and with the remark that the whole
drive had been planne d with the in t e n tion of proving to his guest that there was a powe r outside his
own reason, descended quietly to level ground. The story may or may not be true, and in any case is not
introduce d as an attack on 290 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC gaged in prayer, and later, as some of
them lay on the ove rturned collapsible boat, the y r e pe ate d together over and over again the Lord’s
Prayer irrespective of religious belie fs, some, perhaps, without religious beliefs, united in a com mon
appeal for deliverance from the ir surroundings. And this was n ot because it was a habit, because they
had learned this prayer at their mother’s knee' m e n do not do such things through habit. It must have
be e n because each on e saw removed the thousand and on e ways in which he had relied on human,
material things to help him in cluding even depe ndence on the overturned boat with its bubble of air
inside, which any moment a rising swell might remove as it tilted the boat too far sideways, and sink the
boat be low the surface saw laid bare his utter dependence on something that had made him and given
him powe r to think whether he named it God or Divine Power or 292 SOME IMPRESSIONS First Cause or
Creator, or named it n ot at all but recognized it unconsciously saw these things and expressed them in
the form of words he was best acquainted with in c om m on with his fellow-men. He did so, not through
a sense of duty to his particular r e ligion , not because he had learned the words, but because he
recognized that it was the most practical thing to do the thing best fitted to help him. Men do practical
things in tim es like that : they would n ot waste a moment on mere words if those words were not an
expres sion of the most intensely real conviction of which they were capable. Again, like the feel ing of
heroism, this appeal is innate and in tuitive, and it certainly has its foundation on a knowledge largely
concealed, n o doubt of immortality. I think this must be oh vious : there could be n o other explanation
of such a general sinking of all the emotions of the human mind expressed in a thousand 293 THE LOSS
OF THE SS. TITANIC different ways by a thousand different people in favour of this single appeal . The
behaviour of people during the hours in the lifeboats, the landing on the Carpathia, the life there and
the landing in New York, can all be summarized by sayin g that people did not act at all as they were
expected to act or rather as most people expected they would act, and in some cases have erroneously
said they did act. Events were there t o be faced, and not to crush pe ople down. Situa tions arose which
demanded courage, resource , and in the cases of those who had lost friends most dear to them,
enormous self-control ; but very wonderfully they responded. There was the same quiet demeanour and
poise , the same inborn dominion over circumstances, the same conformity to a normal standard which
characte rize d the crowd of passenge rs on the de ck of the Titanic and for the same reasons . 294 THE
LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC Stunned by the terrific impact, the dazed passengers rushed from their
staterooms into the main saloon amid the crash of splinter ing steel, rending of plates and shattering of
girders, while the boom of falling pinnacles of ice upon the broken deck of the great vessel added to the
horror. In a wild un gov~ e rn ab le mob they poured out of the saloons to witness on e of the most
appalling scenes possible to conceive. For a hundred fe e t the bow was a shapeless mass of bent,
broken and splintered steel and iron. ' And so on, horror piled on hor ror, and not a word of it true, or
remotely approaching the truth. This paper was selling in the streets of New York while the Carpathia
was coming into dock, while relatives of those on board were at the docks to meet them and anxiously
buym g any paper that might contain news. N0 one on the Carpathia could have supplied 296 SOME
IMPRESSIONS such information ; there was no one else in the world at that moment who knew any
details of the Titanic disaster, and the only possible conclusion is that the whole thing was a de lib crate
fabrication to sell the paper. This is a repetition of the same defect in human nature noticed in the
provision of safety appliances on board ship the lack of consideration for the other man. The remedy is
the same the law: it should be a criminal offence for anyone to disseminate deliberate falsehoods that
cause fear and grief. The moral responsibility of the press is ve ry great, and its duty of supplying the
public with only clean , correct news is correspondingly heavy. If the general public is not yet prepared
to go so far as to stop the publication of such news by refusing to buy those papers that publish it, then
the law should be enlarged to include such cases. Libel is an offence, and this is very much worse than
any libel could ever be. 297 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC It is only right to add that the majority of the
New York papers were careful only to report such news as had been obtained le git i mately from
survivors or from Carpathia passengers. It was sometimes exaggerated and sometimes not true at all,
but from the point of reporting what was heard, most of it was quite correct. On e more thing must be
referred to the prevalence of superstitious beliefs conce rning, the Titanic. I suppose no ship ever left
port with so much miserable nonsense showered on her. In the first place, there is no doubt many
people refused to sail on her because it was her maiden voyage, and this apparently is a common
superstition : even the cle rk of the White Star Offi ce where I purchased my ticket admitted it was a
reason that prevented people from sailing. A number of people have written to the press to say they had
thought of sailing on her, or had decided to sail on her, 298 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANIC The incident
with the New York at South ampton, the appearance of the stoker at Que e nstown in the funnel,
combine with all this t o make a mass of nonsense in which ap pa r e n t ly se n sib le ‘ pe Ople believe, or
which at any rate they discuss . Correspondence is pub lishe d with an official of the White Star Line from
some on e imploring them not to name the new ship Gigantic, ' because it seems like “tempting fate '
whe n the Titan l c has be en sunk. It would seem almost as if we were back in the Middle Ages when
witches were burned because they kept black cats . There seems no more reason why a black stoker
should be an ill omen for the Titanic than a black cat should be for an old woman. The only reason for
referring to these fool ish details is that a surprisingly large number of people think there may be
something in it. The effect is this : that if a ship’s com pany and a number of passe ngers get imbued 300
SOME IMPRESSIONS with that undefined dread of the 'un kn own the relics no doubt of the savage’s fear
of what he does not understand it has an unpleasant effect on the harmonious working of the ship : the
officers and crew feel the depressing in flue n c e , and it may even spread so far as to pre vent them
being as alert and keen as they otherwise would ; may even result in some duty not being as Well done
as usual . Just as the unconscious demand for spe ed and haste to get across the Atlantic may have
tempted cap tains to take a risk they might otherwise n ot have done, so these gloomy forebodings may
have more effect sometimes than we imagine. Only a little thing is required sometimes to weigh down
the balance for and against a certain course of action. At the end of this chapter of mental im pressions
it must be recorded that on e im pression remains constant with us all to-day that of the deepe st
gratitude that we came 301 THE LOSS OF THE SS. TITANI C safe ly through the wreck of the Titanic ; and
its corollary that our legacy from the wreck, our debt to those who were lost with her, is to see, as far as
in us lies, that such things are impossible eve r again. Me anwhile we can say of them, as Shelley, himself
the victim of a similar disaster, says of his friend Keats in Adonais “ Pe ac e , pe ac e 'he is n ot de ad, he
doth n ot sle e p He hath awake n e d from the dr e am of life He live s, he wake s ’T is De ath is de ad, n
ot he ; Mourn n ot for Adon ais. ' THE END