A Night to Remember (6 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It looks rather mean.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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