The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons Part 4

It was a piece of work well and cleanly done, and his escape from the s.h.i.+p, one of the most wonderful of all, seems almost a reward for his devotion to duty.

Captain Smith, Officers Wilde and Murdock were similarly engaged in other parts of the s.h.i.+p, urging women to get in the boats, in some cases directing junior officers to go down in some of them,--Officers Pitman, Boxhall, and Lowe were sent in this way,--in others placing members of the crew in charge. As the boats were lowered, orders were shouted to them where to make for: some were told to stand by and wait for further instructions, others to row for the light of the disappearing steamer.

It is a pitiful thing to recall the effects of sending down the first boats half full. In some cases men in the company of their wives had actually taken seats in the boats--young men, married only a few weeks and on their wedding trip--and had done so only because no more women could then be found; but the strict interpretation by the particular officer in charge there of the rule of "Women and children only,"

compelled them to get out again. Some of these boats were lowered and reached the Carpathia with many vacant seats. The anguish of the young wives in such circ.u.mstances can only be imagined. In other parts of the s.h.i.+p, however, a different interpretation was placed on the rule, and men were allowed and even invited by officers to get in--not only to form part of the crew, but even as pa.s.sengers. This, of course, in the first boats and when no more women could be found.

The varied understanding of this rule was a frequent subject of discussion on the Carpathia--in fact, the rule itself was debated with much heart-searching. There were not wanting many who doubted the justice of its rigid enforcement, who could not think it well that a husband should be separated from his wife and family, leaving them penniless, or a young bridegroom from his wife of a few short weeks, while ladies with few relatives, with no one dependent upon them, and few responsibilities of any kind, were saved. It was mostly these ladies who pressed this view, and even men seemed to think there was a good deal to be said for it. Perhaps there is, theoretically, but it would be impossible, I think, in practice. To quote Mr. Lightoller again in his evidence before the United States Senate Committee,--when asked if it was a rule of the sea that women and children be saved first, he replied, "No, it is a rule of human nature." That is no doubt the real reason for its existence.

But the selective process of circ.u.mstances brought about results that were very bitter to some. It was heartrending for ladies who had lost all they held dearest in the world to hear that in one boat was a stoker picked up out of the sea so drunk that he stood up and brandished his arms about, and had to be thrown down by ladies and sat upon to keep him quiet. If comparisons can be drawn, it did seem better that an educated, refined man should be saved than one who had flown to drink as his refuge in time of danger.

These discussions turned sometimes to the old enquiry--"What is the purpose of all this? Why the disaster? Why this man saved and that man lost? Who has arranged that my husband should live a few short happy years in the world, and the happiest days in those years with me these last few weeks, and then be taken from me?" I heard no one attribute all this to a Divine Power who ordains and arranges the lives of men, and as part of a definite scheme sends such calamity and misery in order to purify, to teach, to spiritualize. I do not say there were not people who thought and said they saw Divine Wisdom in it all,--so inscrutable that we in our ignorance saw it not; but I did not hear it expressed, and this book is intended to be no more than a partial chronicle of the many different experiences and convictions.

There were those, on the other hand, who did not fail to say emphatically that indifference to the rights and feelings of others, blindness to duty towards our fellow men and women, was in the last a.n.a.lysis 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 s.h.i.+ft the responsibility on to a Power whom we first postulate as being All-wise and All-loving.

All the boats were lowered and sent away by about 2 A.M., and by this time the s.h.i.+p was very low in the water, the forecastle deck completely submerged, and the sea creeping steadily up to the bridge and probably only a few yards away.

No one on the s.h.i.+p can have had any doubt now as to her ultimate fate, and yet the fifteen hundred pa.s.sengers and crew on board made no demonstration, and not a sound came from them as they stood quietly on the decks or went about their duties below. It seems incredible, and yet if it was a continuation of the same feeling that existed on deck before the boats left,--and I have no doubt it was,--the explanation is straightforward and reasonable in its simplicity. An attempt is made in the last chapter to show why the att.i.tude of the crowd was so quietly courageous. There are accounts which picture excited crowds running about the deck in terror, fighting and struggling, but two of the most accurate observers, Colonel Gracie and Mr. Lightoller, affirm that this was not so, that absolute order and quietness prevailed. The band still played to cheer the hearts of all near; the engineers and their crew--I have never heard any one speak of a single engineer being seen on deck--still worked at the electric light engines, far away below, keeping them going until no human being could do so a second longer, right until the s.h.i.+p tilted on end and the engines broke loose and fell down. The light failed then only because the engines were no longer there to produce light, not because the men who worked them were not standing by them to do their duty. To be down in the bowels of the s.h.i.+p, far away from the deck where at any rate there was a chance of a dive and a swim and a possible rescue; to know that when the s.h.i.+p went--as they knew it must soon--there could be no possible hope of climbing up in time to reach the sea; to know all these things and yet to keep the engines going that the decks might be lighted to the last moment, required sublime courage.

But this courage is required of every engineer and it is not called by that name: it is called "duty." To stand by his engines to the last possible moment is his duty. There could be no better example of the supremest courage being but duty well done than to remember the engineers of the t.i.tanic still at work as she heeled over and flung them with their engines down the length of the s.h.i.+p. The simple statement that the lights kept on to the last is really their epitaph, but Lowell's words would seem to apply to them with peculiar force--

"The longer on this earth we live And weigh the various qualities of men-- The more we feel the high, stern-featured beauty Of plain devotedness to duty.

Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise, But finding amplest recompense For life's ungarlanded expense In work done squarely and unwasted days."

For some time before she sank, the t.i.tanic had a considerable list to port, so much so that one boat at any rate swung so far away from the side that difficulty was experienced in getting pa.s.sengers in. This list was increased towards the end, and Colonel Gracie relates that Mr. Lightoller, who has a deep, powerful voice, ordered all pa.s.sengers to the starboard side. This was close before the end. They crossed over, and as they did so a crowd of steerage pa.s.sengers rushed up and filled the decks so full that there was barely room to move. Soon afterwards the great vessel swung slowly, stern in the air, the lights went out, and while some were flung into the water and others dived off, the great majority still clung to the rails, to the sides and roofs of deck-structures, lying p.r.o.ne on the deck. And in this position they were when, a few minutes later, the enormous vessel dived obliquely downwards. As she went, no doubt many still clung to the rails, but most would do their best to get away from her and jump as she slid forwards and downwards. Whatever they did, there can be little question that most of them would be taken down by suction, to come up again a few moments later and to fill the air with those heartrending cries which fell on the ears of those in the lifeboats with such amazement. Another survivor, on the other hand, relates that he had dived from the stern before she heeled over, and swam round under her enormous triple screws lifted by now high out of the water as she stood on end. Fascinated by the extraordinary sight, he watched them up above his head, but presently realizing the necessity of getting away as quickly as possible, he started to swim from the s.h.i.+p, but as he did she dived forward, the screws pa.s.sing near his head. His experience is that not only was no suction present, but even a wave was created which washed him away from the place where she had gone down.

Of all those fifteen hundred people, flung into the sea as the t.i.tanic went down, innocent victims of thoughtlessness and apathy of those responsible for their safety, only a very few found their way to the Carpathia. It will serve no good purpose to dwell any longer on the scene of helpless men and women struggling in the water. The heart of everyone who has read of their helplessness has gone out to them in deepest love and sympathy; and the knowledge that their struggle in the water was in most cases short and not physically painful because of the low temperature--the evidence seems to show that few lost their lives by drowning--is some consolation.

If everyone sees to it that his sympathy with them is so practical as to force him to follow up the question of reforms personally, not leaving it to experts alone, then he will have at any rate done something to atone for the loss of so many valuable lives.

We had now better follow the adventures of those who were rescued from the final event in the disaster. Two accounts--those of Colonel Gracie and Mr. Lightoller--agree very closely. The former went down clinging to a rail, the latter dived before the s.h.i.+p went right under, but was sucked down and held against one of the blowers. They were both carried down for what seemed a long distance, but Mr. Lightoller was finally blown up again by a "terrific gust" that came up the blower and forced him clear. Colonel Gracie came to the surface after holding his breath for what seemed an eternity, and they both swam about holding on to any wreckage they could find. Finally they saw an upturned collapsible boat and climbed on it in company with twenty other men, among them Bride the Marconi operator. After remaining thus for some hours, with the sea was.h.i.+ng them to the waist, they stood up as day broke, in two rows, back to back, balancing themselves as well as they could, and afraid to turn lest the boat should roll over.

Finally a lifeboat saw them and took them off, an operation attended with the greatest difficulty, and they reached the Carpathia in the early dawn. Not many people have gone through such an experience as those men did, lying all night on an overturned, ill-balanced boat, and praying together, as they did all the time, for the day and a s.h.i.+p to take them off.

Some account must now be attempted of the journey of the fleet of boats to the Carpathia, but it must necessarily be very brief.

Experiences differed considerably: some had no encounters at all with icebergs, no lack of men to row, discovered lights and food and water, were picked up after only a few hours' exposure, and suffered very little discomfort; others seemed to see icebergs round them all night long and to be always rowing round them; others had so few men aboard--in some cases only two or three--that ladies had to row and in one case to steer, found no lights, food or water, and were adrift many hours, in some cases nearly eight.

The first boat to be picked up by the Carpathia was one in charge of Mr. Boxhall. There was only one other man rowing and ladies worked at the oars. A green light burning in this boat all night was the greatest comfort to the rest of us who had nothing to steer by: although it meant little in the way of safety in itself, it was a point to which we could look. The green light was the first intimation Captain Rostron had of our position, and he steered for it and picked up its pa.s.sengers first.

Mr. Pitman was sent by First Officer Murdock in charge of boat 5, with forty pa.s.sengers and five of the crew. It would have held more, but no women could be found at the time it was lowered. Mr. Pitman says that after leaving the s.h.i.+p he felt confident she would float and they would all return. A pa.s.senger in this boat relates that men could not be induced to embark when she went down, and made appointments for the next morning with him. Tied to boat 5 was boat 7, one of those that contained few people: a few were transferred from number 5, but it would have held many more.

Fifth Officer Lowe was in charge of boat 14, with fifty-five women and children, and some of the crew. So full was the boat that as she went down Mr. Lowe had to fire his revolver along the s.h.i.+p's side to prevent any more climbing in and causing her to buckle. This boat, like boat 13, was difficult to release from the lowering tackle, and had to be cut away after reaching the sea. Mr. Lowe took in charge four other boats, tied them together with lines, found some of them not full, and transferred all his pa.s.sengers to these, distributing them in the darkness as well as he could. Then returning to the place where the t.i.tanic had sunk, he picked up some of those swimming in the water and went back to the four boats. On the way to the Carpathia he encountered one of the collapsible boats, and took aboard all those in her, as she seemed to be sinking.

Boat 12 was one of the four tied together, and the seaman in charge testified that he tried to row to the drowning, but with forty women and children and only one other man to row, it was not possible to pull such a heavy boat to the scene of the wreck.

Boat 2 was a small s.h.i.+p's boat and had four or five pa.s.sengers and seven of the crew. Boat 4 was one of the last to leave on the port side, and by this time there was such a list that deck chairs had to bridge the gap between the boat and the deck. When lowered, it remained for some time still attached to the ropes, and as the t.i.tanic was rapidly sinking it seemed she would be pulled under. The boat was full of women, who besought the sailors to leave the s.h.i.+p, but in obedience to orders from the captain to stand by the cargo port, they remained near; so near, in fact, that they heard china falling and smas.h.i.+ng as the s.h.i.+p went down by the head, and were nearly hit by wreckage thrown overboard by some of the officers and crew and intended to serve as rafts. They got clear finally, and were only a short distance away when the s.h.i.+p sank, so that they were able to pull some men aboard as they came to the surface.

This boat had an unpleasant experience in the night with icebergs; many were seen and avoided with difficulty.

Quartermaster Hickens was in charge of boat 6, and in the absence of sailors Major Peuchen was sent to help to man her. They were told to make for the light of the steamer seen on the port side, and followed it until it disappeared. There were forty women and children here.

Boat 8 had only one seaman, and as Captain Smith had enforced the rule of "Women and children only," ladies had to row. Later in the night, when little progress had been made, the seaman took an oar and put a lady in charge of the tiller. This boat again was in the midst of icebergs.

Of the four collapsible boats--although collapsible is not really the correct term, for only a small portion collapses, the canvas edge; "surf boats" is really their name--one was launched at the last moment by being pushed over as the sea rose to the edge of the deck, and was never righted. This is the one twenty men climbed on. Another was caught up by Mr. Lowe and the pa.s.sengers transferred, with the exception of three men who had perished from the effects of immersion.

The boat was allowed to drift away and was found more than a month later by the Celtic in just the same condition. It is interesting to note how long this boat had remained afloat after she was supposed to be no longer seaworthy. A curious coincidence arose from the fact that one of my brothers happened to be travelling on the Celtic, and looking over the side, saw adrift on the sea a boat belonging to the t.i.tanic in which I had been wrecked.

The two other collapsible boats came to the Carpathia carrying full loads of pa.s.sengers: in one, the forward starboard boat and one of the last to leave, was Mr. Ismay. Here four Chinamen were concealed under the feet of the pa.s.sengers. How they got there no one knew--or indeed how they happened to be on the t.i.tanic, for by the immigration laws of the United States they are not allowed to enter her ports.

It must be said, in conclusion, that there is the greatest cause for grat.i.tude that all the boats launched carried their pa.s.sengers safely to the rescue s.h.i.+p. It would not be right to accept this fact without calling attention to it: it would be easy to enumerate many things which might have been present as elements of danger.

CHAPTER VII

THE CARPATHIA'S RETURN TO NEW YORK

The journey of the Carpathia from the time she caught the "C.Q.D."

from the t.i.tanic at about 12.30 A.M. on Monday morning and turned swiftly about to her rescue, until she arrived at New York on the following Thursday at 8.30 P.M. was one that demanded of the captain, officers and crew of the vessel the most exact knowledge of navigation, the utmost vigilance in every department both before and after the rescue, and a capacity for organization that must sometimes have been taxed to the breaking point.

The extent to which all these qualities were found present and the manner in which they were exercised stands to the everlasting credit of the Cunard Line and those of its servants who were in charge of the Carpathia. Captain Rostron's part in all this is a great one, and wrapped up though his action is in a modesty that is conspicuous in its n.o.bility, it stands out even in his own account as a piece of work well and courageously done.

As soon as the t.i.tanic called for help and gave her position, the Carpathia was turned and headed north: all hands were called on duty, a new watch of stokers was put on, and the highest speed of which she was capable was demanded of the engineers, with the result that the distance of fifty-eight miles between the two s.h.i.+ps was covered in three and a half hours, a speed well beyond her normal capacity. The three doctors on board each took charge of a saloon, in readiness to render help to any who needed their services, the stewards and catering staff were hard at work preparing hot drinks and meals, and the purser's staff ready with blankets and berths for the s.h.i.+pwrecked pa.s.sengers as soon as they got on board. On deck the sailors got ready lifeboats, swung them out on the davits, and stood by, prepared to lower away their crews if necessary; fixed rope-ladders, cradle-chairs, nooses, and bags for the children at the hatches, to haul the rescued up the side. On the bridge was the captain with his officers, peering into the darkness eagerly to catch the first signs of the crippled t.i.tanic, hoping, in spite of her last despairing message of "Sinking by the head," to find her still afloat when her position was reached. A double watch of lookout men was set, for there were other things as well as the t.i.tanic to look for that night, and soon they found them. As Captain Rostron said in his evidence, they saw icebergs on either side of them between 2.45 and 4 A.M., pa.s.sing twenty large ones, one hundred to two hundred feet high, and many smaller ones, and "frequently had to manoeuvre the s.h.i.+p to avoid them." It was a time when every faculty was called upon for the highest use of which it was capable. With the knowledge before them that the enormous t.i.tanic, the supposedly unsinkable s.h.i.+p, had struck ice and was sinking rapidly; with the lookout constantly calling to the bridge, as he must have done, "Icebergs on the starboard,"

"Icebergs on the port," it required courage and judgment beyond the ordinary to drive the s.h.i.+p ahead through that lane of icebergs and "manoeuvre round them." As he himself said, he "took the risk of full speed in his desire to save life, and probably some people might blame him for taking such a risk." But the Senate Committee a.s.sured him that they, at any rate, would not, and we of the lifeboats have certainly no desire to do so.

The s.h.i.+p was finally stopped at 4 A.M., with an iceberg reported dead ahead (the same no doubt we had to row around in boat 13 as we approached the Carpathia), and about the same time the first lifeboat was sighted. Again she had to be manoeuvred round the iceberg to pick up the boat, which was the one in charge of Mr. Boxhall. From him the captain learned that the t.i.tanic had gone down, and that he was too late to save any one but those in lifeboats, which he could now see drawing up from every part of the horizon. Meanwhile, the pa.s.sengers of the Carpathia, some of them aroused by the unusual vibration of the screw, some by sailors tramping overhead as they swung away the lifeboats and got ropes and lowering tackle ready, were beginning to come on deck just as day broke; and here an extraordinary sight met their eyes. As far as the eye could reach to the north and west lay an unbroken stretch of field ice, with icebergs still attached to the floe and rearing aloft their ma.s.s as a hill might suddenly rise from a level plain. Ahead and to the south and east huge floating monsters were showing up through the waning darkness, their number added to moment by moment as the dawn broke and flushed the horizon pink. It is remarkable how "busy" all those icebergs made the sea look: to have gone to bed with nothing but sea and sky and to come on deck to find so many objects in sight made quite a change in the character of the sea: it looked quite crowded; and a lifeboat alongside and people clambering aboard, mostly women, in nightdresses and dressing-gowns, in cloaks and shawls, in anything but ordinary clothes! Out ahead and on all sides little torches glittered faintly for a few moments and then guttered out--and shouts and cheers floated across the quiet sea.

It would be difficult to imagine a more unexpected sight than this that lay before the Carpathia's pa.s.sengers as they lined the sides that morning in the early dawn.

No novelist would dare to picture such an array of beautiful climatic conditions,--the rosy dawn, the morning star, the moon on the horizon, the sea stretching in level beauty to the sky-line,--and on this sea to place an ice-field like the Arctic regions and icebergs in numbers everywhere,--white and turning pink and deadly cold,--and near them, rowing round the icebergs to avoid them, little boats coming suddenly out of mid-ocean, with pa.s.sengers rescued from the most wonderful s.h.i.+p the world has known. No artist would have conceived such a picture: it would have seemed so highly dramatic as to border on the impossible, and would not have been attempted. Such a combination of events would pa.s.s the limit permitted the imagination of both author and artist.

The pa.s.sengers crowded the rails and looked down at us as we rowed up in the early morning; stood quietly aside while the crew at the gangways below took us aboard, and watched us as if the s.h.i.+p had been in dock and we had rowed up to join her in a somewhat unusual way.

Some of them have related that we were very quiet as we came aboard: it is quite true, we were; but so were they. There was very little excitement on either side: just the quiet demeanour of people who are in the presence of something too big as yet to lie within their mental grasp, and which they cannot yet discuss. And so they asked us politely to have hot coffee, which we did; and food, which we generally declined,--we were not hungry,--and they said very little at first about the lost t.i.tanic and our adventures in the night.

Much that is exaggerated and false has been written about the mental condition of pa.s.sengers as they came aboard: we have been described as being too dazed to understand what was happening, as being too overwhelmed to speak, and as looking before us with "set, staring gaze," "dazed with the shadow of the dread event." That is, no doubt, what most people would expect in the circ.u.mstances, but I know it does not give a faithful record of how we did arrive: in fact it is simply not true. As remarked before, the one thing that matters in describing an event of this kind is the exact truth, as near as the fallible human mind can state it; and my own impression of our mental condition is that of supreme grat.i.tude and relief at treading the firm decks of a s.h.i.+p again. I am aware that experiences differed considerably according to the boats occupied; that those who were uncertain of the fate of their relatives and friends had much to make them anxious and troubled; and that it is not possible to look into another person's consciousness and say what is written there; but dealing with mental conditions as far as they are delineated by facial and bodily expressions, I think joy, relief, grat.i.tude were the dominant emotions written on the faces of those who climbed the rope-ladders and were hauled up in cradles.

It must not be forgotten that no one in any one boat knew who were saved in other boats: few knew even how many boats there were and how many pa.s.sengers could be saved. It was at the time probable that friends would follow them to the Carpathia, or be found on other steamers, or even on the pier at which we landed. The hysterical scenes that have been described are imaginative; true, one woman did fill the saloon with hysterical cries immediately after coming aboard, but she could not have known for a certainty that any of her friends were lost: probably the sense of relief after some hours of journeying about the sea was too much for her for a time.

One of the first things we did was to crowd round a steward with a bundle of telegraph forms. He was the bearer of the welcome news that pa.s.sengers might send Marconigrams to their relatives free of charge, and soon he bore away the first sheaf of hastily scribbled messages to the operator; by the time the last boatload was aboard, the pile must have risen high in the Marconi cabin. We learned afterwards that many of these never reached their destination; and this is not a matter for surprise. There was only one operator--Cottam--on board, and although he was a.s.sisted to some extent later, when Bride from the t.i.tanic had recovered from his injuries sufficiently to work the apparatus, he had so much to do that he fell asleep over this work on Tuesday night after three days' continuous duty without rest. But we did not know the messages were held back, and imagined our friends were aware of our safety; then, too, a roll-call of the rescued was held in the Carpathia's saloon on the Monday, and this was Marconied to land in advance of all messages. It seemed certain, then, that friends at home would have all anxiety removed, but there were mistakes in the official list first telegraphed. The experience of my own friends ill.u.s.trates this: the Marconigram I wrote never got through to England; nor was my name ever mentioned in any list of the saved (even a week after landing in New York, I saw it in a black-edged "final"

list of the missing), and it seemed certain that I had never reached the Carpathia; so much so that, as I write, there are before me obituary notices from the English papers giving a short sketch of my life in England. After landing in New York and realizing from the lists of the saved which a reporter showed me that my friends had no news since the t.i.tanic sank on Monday morning until that night (Thursday 9 P.M.), I cabled to England at once (as I had but two s.h.i.+llings rescued from the t.i.tanic, the White Star Line paid for the cables), but the messages were not delivered until 8.20 A.M. next morning. At 9 A.M. my friends read in the papers a short account of the disaster which I had supplied to the press, so that they knew of my safety and experiences in the wreck almost at the same time. I am grateful to remember that many of my friends in London refused to count me among the missing during the three days when I was so reported.

There is another side to this record of how the news came through, and a sad one, indeed. Again I wish it were not necessary to tell such things, but since they all bear on the equipment of the trans-Atlantic lines--powerful Marconi apparatus, relays of operators, etc.,--it is best they should be told. The name of an American gentleman--the same who sat near me in the library on Sunday afternoon and whom I identified later from a photograph--was consistently reported in the lists as saved and aboard the Carpathia: his son journeyed to New York to meet him, rejoicing at his deliverance, and never found him there.

When I met his family some days later and was able to give them some details of his life aboard s.h.i.+p, it seemed almost cruel to tell them of the opposite experience that had befallen my friends at home.

Returning to the journey of the Carpathia--the last boatload of pa.s.sengers was taken aboard at 8.30 A.M., the lifeboats were hauled on deck while the collapsibles were abandoned, and the Carpathia proceeded to steam round the scene of the wreck in the hope of picking up anyone floating on wreckage. Before doing so the captain arranged in the saloon a service over the spot where the t.i.tanic sank, as nearly as could be calculated,--a service, as he said, of respect to those who were lost and of grat.i.tude for those who were saved.

She cruised round and round the scene, but found nothing to indicate there was any hope of picking up more pa.s.sengers; 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 ma.s.s of reddish-yellow "seaweed," as we called it for want of a name. It was said to be cork, but I never heard definitely its correct description.