Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World (40 page)

And what of the most famous
Titanic
legend of all—that the band played “Nearer My God to Thee” as the ship neared its end? It’s often claimed that this was a myth that took hold among survivors on the
Carpathia
and captivated the public in the aftermath of the disaster. None of the musicians survived to confirm or deny the story, but Harold Bride noted that the last tune he heard being played as he left the wireless cabin was “Autumn.” For a time this was believed to be a hymn tune by that name, but Walter Lord proposed in
The Night Lives On
that Bride must have been referring to
“Songe d’Automne,”
a popular waltz by Archibald Joyce that is listed in White Star music booklets of the period. Historian George Behe, however, has carefully studied the survivor accounts regarding the music that was heard during the sinking and has found credible evidence that “Nearer My God to Thee” and perhaps other hymns were played toward the end. Behe also recounts that the orchestra’s leader, Wallace Hartley, was once asked by a friend what he would do if he ever found himself on a sinking ship. Hartley replied, “
I don’t think I could do better than play ‘O God, Our Help in Ages Past’ or ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ ” The legendary hymn may not have been the very last tune played on the
Titanic
but it seems possible that it was heard on the sloping deck that night.

Margaret Brown had little time for swapping
Titanic
stories since she was devoting most of each day to helping steerage passengers in need. Gladys Cherry wrote that she and Noëlle Rothes also “helped in seeing after these poor distressed souls, and it has helped us so much.” Daisy Spedden, too, worked tirelessly with “the people,” as she called them, cutting up blankets to make clothes for children who had escaped only in nightclothes. In a letter, Daisy wrote, “
The number of widows is pitiful to say nothing of the motherless and fatherless children.” More pointedly she noted, “We spend our time sitting on people who are cruel enough to say that no steerage should have been saved, as if they weren’t human beings!” Margaret Brown, too, found that not everyone supported her altruism. Two of the women on her committee were approached by Dr. McGee as they made their way down to the third-class decks one morning. “
Madam, we have the situation under perfect control,” he said to one of them regarding the steerage passengers, adding that “cutting up blankets would not soothe their tortured minds.” Since the doctor had just emerged from the room of Bruce Ismay, the committee-women suspected that he was taking orders from the “secluded plutocrat,” as Margaret Brown had dubbed him, and this simply increased their resolve to do more. A sign was posted in the third-class dining saloon stating that the members of the committee would be available to give aid at regular hours each day. Many survivors came forward and, in Margaret Brown’s words, “unburdened their sorrows that lay like a weight upon their breasts.”

To Mrs. Brown, the attitude of the men who had been rescued was “pathetic,” and she recalled that they all tried to explain how they were saved “as if it were a blot on their manhood.” René Harris remembered that when Dr. Frauenthal came to examine her bandaged arm he began explaining how he had been rescued, and she assured him that he need not apologize for saving his life. René was less understanding when she learned that the
Titanic
’s three professional gamblers had survived. The cardsharp who had been pointed out to her on Sunday approached her not long after she came on board and said, “
Do not grieve. It is God’s will.” René gave him such a scalding reply that whenever the gambler caught sight of her on the ship, “he would run away from me as if from a fury.”

A group of women on the
Carpathia
sew blankets into clothes for children. Hard at work among them is Noëlle, Countess of Rothes (see arrow).
(photo credit 1.59)

The resentment of the widowed women toward the male survivors caused Arthur Peuchen to ask Lightoller for a note confirming that he had been ordered into a lifeboat. The second officer obliged and wrote that Major Peuchen had “
proved himself a brave man.” Unbeknownst to the major, the question of how he had survived was already preoccupying his home city of Toronto. By Tuesday morning the sinking of the
Titanic
was headline news everywhere, and in the Toronto papers Major Peuchen was conspicuous as the only male in the “Saved” column. Based solely on the information that the survivors were mainly women and children, the disaster was already being hailed as a triumph for chivalry and Anglo-Saxon male fortitude. But this placed any man who had survived under immediate suspicion of cowardice. An editorial in the
Toronto Star
observed that Peuchen’s escape was “
a subject of universal discussion in Toronto” and that “the dispute is hotly waged and participated in by everybody young and old.”

In Washington, friends of Archie Butt, Frank Millet, and Clarence Moore were proclaiming that without a doubt they would have been the last men to leave the ship. “ ‘
Poor Butt’ was the universal comment,” reported the
Washington Times
. “And perhaps the greatest compliment those who had known the military aide were able to bestow,” the newspaper continued, “found expression in the inevitable afterthought, ‘I’ll bet he died like a man.’ ” Another newspaper reported that “
the employees of the White House were in a nervous condition which unfitted them for work during the days of uncertainty concerning Archie’s fate.” President Taft, too, was preoccupied by the fate of his aide and frustrated by his inability to receive word of whether Archie might be on board the rescue ship. On Tuesday, Taft instructed the secretary of the navy to send out two scout cruisers, the
Salem
and the
Chester
, to establish radio contact with the
Carpathia
.

In New York, the city was in the grip of
Titanic
fever. Flags flew at half-staff, the Henry Harris theaters were dark, and even Macy’s department store had closed out of respect for Isidor and Ida Straus. Police had been called in to control the crowds in front of the White Star office at 9 Broadway. Alex Macomb, a sailor in the U.S. Navy on leave in the city, sent his mother a description:

The scene in front of the steamship office was a tragedy in itself. As the list of those known to have been saved was printed on a large bulletin board, you could hear cries of joy and relief from various parts of the throng massed in front of the office. When they started the list of those who had not been heard of, cries of “Oh! Oh God!” could be heard everywhere, and the hysterical women seemed to fill the whole city with their screams. I have never seen anything so heart rending in my life.

In London similar scenes played out as names were posted at Oceanic House, White Star’s London office, near Trafalgar Square. Southampton was the hardest-hit city of all since that was where most of the crew and victualing staff lived—of whom only 212 out of 885 had survived. “
In the humbler homes of Southampton,” the
Daily Mail
reported, “there is scarcely a family that has not lost a relative or friend. Children returning from school appreciated something of the tragedy, and woeful little faces were turned to the darkened, fatherless homes.”

In their fog-shrouded limbo on board the
Carpathia
, the
Titanic
’s survivors had little idea of the impact the news of the disaster was having ashore. On Thursday morning, Daisy Spedden noted that “the people,” who had been fairly calm over the last two days, were becoming excited and nervous, and she had to admit that the prospect of landing made even her weak in the knees. By late afternoon crowds had begun gathering in Battery Park and at the liner piers in lower Manhattan.

Sailor Alex Macomb had noted in his letter to his mother that the
Carpathia
was due to arrive on Thursday night, “
and you can imagine the scene when the vessel gets in. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

Crowds waited at Pier 54 after the
Carpathia
entered New York harbor.
(photo credit 1.48)

M
ary Adelaide Snider was in a jam. She had spent most of the day trying to get a press pass to Pier 54, where the
Carpathia
was due to dock that evening—but there were none to be had. The city authorities had decided that access to the pier would be restricted to six news services, ten New York newspapers, and two London dailies. Special pleading that she had come all the way from Canada to cover the story for the
Toronto Evening Telegram
hadn’t helped her in the slightest. There were hundreds of newsmen—and they
were
all men, she noticed—trying to get onto the pier as well. The lucky ones had already tucked their pier passes into their hatbands. Others had hired tugboats and were out in the harbor waiting to meet the
Carpathia
.

But Mary was not about to let this most plum of all assignments defeat her. She hadn’t become the
Telegram
’s first female reporter and worked her way out of the women’s pages for nothing. That afternoon she had hired the boyfriend of her hotel chambermaid, an out-of-work bartender named George, to help her navigate the waterfront. George had managed to get her through the police lines across West Street, but after two blocks their way was blocked by a dense crowd; by evening there would be more than thirty thousand people clogging the streets around Pier 54. Through the drizzling rain, Mary noticed an ambulance turning into the pier gates ahead and told George to flag down the next ambulance he saw. A minute later he spotted one slowing down to show its credentials to the police, and Mary raced into the street toward it.

“
Please take me on the pier, Doctor,” she said breathlessly through the window, to a young intern who pointed her to the doctor in charge. “I’ve been at the Customs House all day. I cannot get a pass,” Mary explained, turning toward the doctor. She added hurriedly that she had come down from Canada, and if she failed to make the assignment, her paper would think it was on account of her sex.