The Loss of the S. S. Titanic - Its Story and Its Lessons (4 page)

Many other faces recur to thought, but it is impossible to describe
them all in the space of a short book: of all those in the library
that Sunday afternoon, I can remember only two or three persons who
found their way to the Carpathia. Looking over this room, with his
back to the library shelves, is the library steward, thin, stooping,
sad-faced, and generally with nothing to do but serve out books; but
this afternoon he is busier than I have ever seen him, serving out
baggage declaration-forms for passengers to fill in. Mine is before me
as I write: "Form for nonresidents in the United States. Steamship
Titanic: No. 31444, D," etc. I had filled it in that afternoon and
slipped it in my pocket-book instead of returning it to the steward.
Before me, too, is a small cardboard square: "White Star Line. R.M.S.
Titanic. 208. This label must be given up when the article is
returned. The property will be deposited in the Purser's safe. The
Company will not be liable to passengers for the loss of money,
jewels, or ornaments, by theft or otherwise, not so deposited." The
"property deposited" in my case was money, placed in an envelope,
sealed, with my name written across the flap, and handed to the
purser; the "label" is my receipt. Along with other similar envelopes
it may be still intact in the safe at the bottom of the sea, but in
all probability it is not, as will be seen presently.

After dinner, Mr. Carter invited all who wished to the saloon, and
with the assistance at the piano of a gentleman who sat at the
purser's table opposite me (a young Scotch engineer going out to join
his brother fruit-farming at the foot of the Rockies), he started some
hundred passengers singing hymns. They were asked to choose whichever
hymn they wished, and with so many to choose, it was impossible for
him to do more than have the greatest favourites sung. As he announced
each hymn, it was evident that he was thoroughly versed in their
history: no hymn was sung but that he gave a short sketch of its
author and in some cases a description of the circumstances in which
it was composed. I think all were impressed with his knowledge of
hymns and with his eagerness to tell us all he knew of them. It was
curious to see how many chose hymns dealing with dangers at sea. I
noticed the hushed tone with which all sang the hymn, "For those in
peril on the Sea."

The singing must have gone on until after ten o'clock, when, seeing
the stewards standing about waiting to serve biscuits and coffee
before going off duty, Mr. Carter brought the evening to a close by a
few words of thanks to the purser for the use of the saloon, a short
sketch of the happiness and safety of the voyage hitherto, the great
confidence all felt on board this great liner with her steadiness and
her size, and the happy outlook of landing in a few hours in New York
at the close of a delightful voyage; and all the time he spoke, a few
miles ahead of us lay the "peril on the sea" that was to sink this
same great liner with many of those on board who listened with
gratitude to his simple, heartfelt words. So much for the frailty of
human hopes and for the confidence reposed in material human designs.

Think of the shame of it, that a mass of ice of no use to any one or
anything should have the power fatally to injure the beautiful
Titanic! That an insensible block should be able to threaten, even in
the smallest degree, the lives of many good men and women who think
and plan and hope and love—and not only to threaten, but to end their
lives. It is unbearable! Are we never to educate ourselves to foresee
such dangers and to prevent them before they happen? All the evidence
of history shows that laws unknown and unsuspected are being
discovered day by day: as this knowledge accumulates for the use of
man, is it not certain that the ability to see and destroy beforehand
the threat of danger will be one of the privileges the whole world
will utilize? May that day come soon. Until it does, no precaution too
rigorous can be taken, no safety appliance, however costly, must be
omitted from a ship's equipment.

After the meeting had broken up, I talked with the Carters over a cup
of coffee, said good-night to them, and retired to my cabin at about
quarter to eleven. They were good people and this world is much poorer
by their loss.

It may be a matter of pleasure to many people to know that their
friends were perhaps among that gathering of people in the saloon, and
that at the last the sound of the hymns still echoed in their ears as
they stood on the deck so quietly and courageously. Who can tell how
much it had to do with the demeanour of some of them and the example
this would set to others?

I had been fortunate enough to secure a two-berth cabin to myself,—D
56,—quite close to the saloon and most convenient in every way for
getting about the ship; and on a big ship like the Titanic it was
quite a consideration to be on D deck, only three decks below the top
or boat-deck. Below D again were cabins on E and F decks, and to walk
from a cabin on F up to the top deck, climbing five flights of stairs
on the way, was certainly a considerable task for those not able to
take much exercise. The Titanic management has been criticised, among
other things, for supplying the boat with lifts: it has been said they
were an expensive luxury and the room they took up might have been
utilized in some way for more life-saving appliances. Whatever else
may have been superfluous, lifts certainly were not: old ladies, for
example, in cabins on F deck, would hardly have got to the top deck
during the whole voyage had they not been able to ring for the
lift-boy. Perhaps nothing gave one a greater impression of the size of
the ship than to take the lift from the top and drop slowly down past
the different floors, discharging and taking in passengers just as in
a large hotel. I wonder where the lift-boy was that night. I would
have been glad to find him in our boat, or on the Carpathia when we
took count of the saved. He was quite young,—not more than sixteen, I
think,—a bright-eyed, handsome boy, with a love for the sea and the
games on deck and the view over the ocean—and he did not get any of
them. One day, as he put me out of his lift and saw through the
vestibule windows a game of deck quoits in progress, he said, in a
wistful tone, "My! I wish I could go out there sometimes!" I wished he
could, too, and made a jesting offer to take charge of his lift for an
hour while he went out to watch the game; but he smilingly shook his
head and dropped down in answer to an imperative ring from below. I
think he was not on duty with his lift after the collision, but if he
were, he would smile at his passengers all the time as he took them up
to the boats waiting to leave the sinking ship.

After undressing and climbing into the top berth, I read from about
quarter-past eleven to the time we struck, about quarter to twelve.
During this time I noticed particularly the increased vibration of the
ship, and I assumed that we were going at a higher speed than at any
other time since we sailed from Queenstown. Now I am aware that this
is an important point, and bears strongly on the question of
responsibility for the effects of the collision; but the impression of
increased vibration is fixed in my memory so strongly that it seems
important to record it. Two things led me to this conclusion—first,
that as I sat on the sofa undressing, with bare feet on the floor, the
jar of the vibration came up from the engines below very noticeably;
and second, that as I sat up in the berth reading, the spring mattress
supporting me was vibrating more rapidly than usual: this cradle-like
motion was always noticeable as one lay in bed, but that night there
was certainly a marked increase in the motion. Referring to the plan,
^[1]
it will be seen that the vibration
must have come almost directly up from below, when it is mentioned
that the saloon was immediately above the engines as shown in the
plan, and my cabin next to the saloon. From these two data, on the
assumption that greater vibration is an indication of higher
speed,—and I suppose it must be,—then I am sure we were going faster
that night at the time we struck the iceberg than we had done before,
i.e., during the hours I was awake and able to take note of anything.

And then, as I read in the quietness of the night, broken only by the
muffled sound that came to me through the ventilators of stewards
talking and moving along the corridors, when nearly all the passengers
were in their cabins, some asleep in bed, others undressing, and
others only just down from the smoking-room and still discussing many
things, there came what seemed to me nothing more than an extra heave
of the engines and a more than usually obvious dancing motion of the
mattress on which I sat. Nothing more than that—no sound of a crash
or of anything else: no sense of shock, no jar that felt like one
heavy body meeting another. And presently the same thing repeated with
about the same intensity. The thought came to me that they must have
still further increased the speed. And all this time the Titanic was
being cut open by the iceberg and water was pouring in her side, and
yet no evidence that would indicate such a disaster had been presented
to us. It fills me with astonishment now to think of it. Consider the
question of list alone. Here was this enormous vessel running
starboard-side on to an iceberg, and a passenger sitting quietly in
bed, reading, felt no motion or list to the opposite or port side, and
this must have been felt had it been more than the usual roll of the
ship—never very much in the calm weather we had all the way. Again,
my bunk was fixed to the wall on the starboard side, and any list to
port would have tended to fling me out on the floor: I am sure I
should have noted it had there been any. And yet the explanation is
simple enough: the Titanic struck the berg with a force of impact of
over a million foot-tons; her plates were less than an inch thick, and
they must have been cut through as a knife cuts paper: there would be
no need to list; it would have been better if she had listed and
thrown us out on the floor, for it would have been an indication that
our plates were strong enough to offer, at any rate, some resistance
to the blow, and we might all have been safe to-day.

And so, with no thought of anything serious having happened to the
ship, I continued my reading; and still the murmur from the stewards
and from adjoining cabins, and no other sound: no cry in the night; no
alarm given; no one afraid—there was then nothing which could cause
fear to the most timid person. But in a few moments I felt the engines
slow and stop; the dancing motion and the vibration ceased suddenly
after being part of our very existence for four days, and that was the
first hint that anything out of the ordinary had happened. We have all
"heard" a loud-ticking clock stop suddenly in a quiet room, and then
have noticed the clock and the ticking noise, of which we seemed until
then quite unconscious. So in the same way the fact was suddenly
brought home to all in the ship that the engines—that part of the
ship that drove us through the sea—had stopped dead. But the stopping
of the engines gave us no information: we had to make our own
calculations as to why we had stopped. Like a flash it came to me: "We
have dropped a propeller blade: when this happens the engines always
race away until they are controlled, and this accounts for the extra
heave they gave"; not a very logical conclusion when considered now,
for the engines should have continued to heave all the time until we
stopped, but it was at the time a sufficiently tenable hypothesis to
hold. Acting on it, I jumped out of bed, slipped on a dressing-gown
over pyjamas, put on shoes, and went out of my cabin into the hall
near the saloon. Here was a steward leaning against the staircase,
probably waiting until those in the smoke-room above had gone to bed
and he could put out the lights. I said, "Why have we stopped?" "I
don't know, sir," he replied, "but I don't suppose it is anything
much." "Well," I said, "I am going on deck to see what it is," and
started towards the stairs. He smiled indulgently at me as I passed
him, and said, "All right, sir, but it is mighty cold up there." I am
sure at that time he thought I was rather foolish to go up with so
little reason, and I must confess I felt rather absurd for not
remaining in the cabin: it seemed like making a needless fuss to walk
about the ship in a dressing-gown. But it was my first trip across the
sea; I had enjoyed every minute of it and was keenly alive to note
every new experience; and certainly to stop in the middle of the sea
with a propeller dropped seemed sufficient reason for going on deck.
And yet the steward, with his fatherly smile, and the fact that no one
else was about the passages or going upstairs to reconnoitre, made me
feel guilty in an undefined way of breaking some code of a ship's
régime—an Englishman's fear of being thought "unusual," perhaps!

I climbed the three flights of stairs, opened the vestibule door
leading to the top deck, and stepped out into an atmosphere that cut
me, clad as I was, like a knife. Walking to the starboard side, I
peered over and saw the sea many feet below, calm and black; forward,
the deserted deck stretching away to the first-class quarters and the
captain's bridge; and behind, the steerage quarters and the stern
bridge; nothing more: no iceberg on either side or astern as far as we
could see in the darkness. There were two or three men on deck, and
with one—the Scotch engineer who played hymns in the saloon—I
compared notes of our experiences. He had just begun to undress when
the engines stopped and had come up at once, so that he was fairly
well-clad; none of us could see anything, and all being quiet and
still, the Scotchman and I went down to the next deck. Through the
windows of the smoking-room we saw a game of cards going on, with
several onlookers, and went in to enquire if they knew more than we
did. They had apparently felt rather more of the heaving motion, but
so far as I remember, none of them had gone out on deck to make any
enquiries, even when one of them had seen through the windows an
iceberg go by towering above the decks. He had called their attention
to it, and they all watched it disappear, but had then at once resumed
the game. We asked them the height of the berg and some said one
hundred feet, others, sixty feet; one of the onlookers—a motor
engineer travelling to America with a model carburetter (he had filled
in his declaration form near me in the afternoon and had questioned
the library steward how he should declare his patent)—said, "Well, I
am accustomed to estimating distances and I put it at between eighty
and ninety feet." We accepted his estimate and made guesses as to what
had happened to the Titanic: the general impression was that we had
just scraped the iceberg with a glancing blow on the starboard side,
and they had stopped as a wise precaution, to examine her thoroughly
all over. "I expect the iceberg has scratched off some of her new
paint," said one, "and the captain doesn't like to go on until she is
painted up again." We laughed at his estimate of the captain's care
for the ship. Poor Captain Smith!—he knew by this time only too well
what had happened.