Call Me Ismay (45 page)
Authors: Sean McDevitt
He shuffled about four steps onto the deck, settling his back onto the cold steel of the bulkhead of the deckhouse, repeatedly uttering something to himself. A steward took note of his fragile appearance and stepped up to him.
“Sir, what is it? What do you need, sir?”
Ismay's throat was dry, and he could barely part his lips in the freezing air. He stammered, staring blankly ahead, unable to support his voice.
“Wh- white... star... white star.”
“I beg your pardon sir?” the steward asked solicitously.
“White... star...” the words just barely came out in a hoarse whisper.
“I'm starved? I'm starved, is that it? Yes sir, I can understand. Allow me to take you to the dining room, we've some hot soup waiting for all of the passengers.”
Ismay, empty, devoid of all meaning, could not correct him. The steward took him gently by his lapel and lead him away.
Two female First Class survivors, swaddled in blankets, pale-faced and shivering, could hardly believe what they had just witnessed.
“That was the President of the White Star Line, wasn't it?” said one of them, sipping brandy.
“Yes, I believe that it was, yes,” replied the other, having trouble holding onto her hot coffee. “What did he say- 'I'm starved?
I'm starved?'
We have just watched our men drown and he says that he's
starved
?”
She turned to a member of the
Carpathia's
crew. “Sir, did you hear that horrible, despicable man? That was Bruce Ismay. He's actually complaining that he's starved!”
The steward gave a polite but sad shrug of his shoulders. “Mr. Ismay is still an immensely powerful man, even if he doesn't own the Cunard line. I suppose if he wants to have hot soup, he will have some.”
Ismay, in short order, would be taken from the dining room after it became obvious that he could barely hold a spoon, much less eat. Dr. McGhee, one of three doctors onboard the ship, would take Ismay to one of his own private cabins. After a quick evaluation of his shattered condition, the doctor put him on heavy opiates, judiciously keeping Ismay away from embittered
Titanic
survivors; by doing so he was in essence sealing off Ismay from himself.
There was one important visitor to his room. “The Electric Spark,” as Captain Rostron was called by his colleagues, was alarmed upon hearing that Ismay was holed up in his room, and not communicating what could be vital information of great importance to the families of
Titanic's
victims and survivors. With remarkable presence of mind, Rostron had prepared the
Carpathia
as it lunged for the
Titanic's
final reported position. He set up first aid stations in all of the dining rooms. He ordered blankets and pillows to be collected from every available space on the ship. He appointed certain members of the crew to collect the surnames of all of the survivors as soon as possible, so they could be transmitted immediately to Halifax by wireless. As he prepared to talk with Ismay, he sought a moment of privacy and engaged in a long prayer. Rostron, very devout, was one of few seamen known to openly reply on prayer in times of peril on the sea.
He knocked politely on Ismay's door before entering, his captain's hat tucked politely under his arm. What he saw inside the suite shocked and disturbed him. Here sat the man who had willed the
Titanic
into being, oversaw every element of her creation- and then watched it founder. He looked as though he had spent the night lying on a cold sidewalk. Ismay, his eyes red, his face pale, also bore what for a man of his station was unthinkable: early morning stubble that roughened and aged him.
“Mr. Ismay,” Rostron said, clearing his throat, “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, although I must say that I regret that it is under absolutely the most terrible of circumstances...”
Ismay could say nothing in reply.
After an uncomfortable pause, Rostron continued. “Don't you think, sir, you had better send a message to New York, telling them about this accident?”
“Yes,” Ismay hoarsely replied. With a faltering hand, Ismay reached for a pencil and stationery that rested on a nearby desk. As he squinted severely and shakily scribbled down a few words, Rostron spoke quietly.
“I should like, sir, to hold a service, a short prayer of thankfulness for those rescued and a short burial service for those who were lost. Will you allow me to seek a clergyman on board, sir, and do so?”
Ismay did not reply directly; he turned and handed the message to Rostron, his expression a dull void. “Captain, do you- do you think that is all I can tell them?”
Rostron gave the slip of paper a thoughtful glance. “Yes, sir. I shall have this delivered to our wireless operator immediately.”
“I am very much obliged to you, Captain.” Ismay would not,
could
not make eye contact with him.
“Sir,” Captain Rostron respectfully nodded. As he headed out the door, he once more carefully reviewed the message that Ismay had written. After a short beat, he turned back to face him.
“Sir, just a quick clarification, if I may ask- did you
mean
to close with 'YAMSI' at the end of this message? 'YAMSI?' Is that a cipher?”
“A what?” Ismay asked, his voice weak and hollow.
“A cipher, sir, a message in code.”
“Yes, I... I suppose. That is my personal signature for private messages, it's my surname spelled backwards.” Rostron nodded his head once more, indicating he understood.
Ismay, his chapped hands folded tightly in his lap, his hair dampened and dull from hours of exposure, his eyes resembling shattered mirrors, managed to choke out a small, sad chuckle. “I... I suppose a 'cipher' also refers to something that has no weight, no worth. That is somehow appropriate on this dark day.”
Rostron, deeply saddened and grim, left without forcing a broken Bruce Ismay to talk any further.
On the deck of the
Carpathia,
which rocked gently in the sea, surrounded by a necklace of luminous icebergs, a very slow and sad roll call began before any memorial service was held. As passengers' identities were called out by members of the ship's crew, there were long, horrifying silences as name after name after name did not receive a response from those huddled on the deck.
“Robert D. Norman?... Frederick Charles Sawyer?... Jenny Lovisa Henricksson?... Kerry T. Langston?”
EPILOGUE
J. Bruce Ismay was born in 1862. He died in 1937. However, some say he suffered a form of death in 1912, when his beloved
Titanic
foundered in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.
A pampered, seemingly unfairly blessed man about town became a pariah overnight, when word came that he, the chairman of the White Star Line, had somehow managed to save his own hide while more than fifteen hundred souls slipped into their watery graves. He did not do much to improve the public's perception of him as his testimony during official inquiries into the disaster seemed to depict a clueless, unfeeling caricature of a man who seen, heard, and done virtually nothing while an unthinkable tragedy unfolded around him.
“I have no idea, sir. Not that I remember. That I could not tell you, sir.” Surely those words had a hint of humanity to them when he actually uttered them, but in the stark print of newspapers the world over, he came across as evasive, unconcerned. “That I could not say.”
Almost every quote attributed to him seemed to reflect the selfish, the craven: “I'm starved.” Those words were said to have come from him as he set foot on the
Carpathia
, demanding himself a meal regardless of the cost.
I'm starved.
Those words were absorbed by the public and sealed his reputation as a man who saw himself as grievously inconvenienced by a horrid turn of events that had just happened to consume the lives of hundreds upon hundreds, including women and children.
“As to that I have no knowledge, sir.”
“The lifeboat was there, so I got in.”
“I could not answer that.”
For four days, as the
Carpathia
made its way to New York, the ship's stewards remarked amongst themselves on those curious occasions when it was thought that the sound of soft sobbing could be heard coming from the doctor's sealed cabin. The soft, dull roar from the ship's engines as it sailed across a deep and timeless sea made it impossible to say with certainty.
With deep gratitude, and grateful acknowledgment, to the Titanic Inquiry Project.
Special acknowledgement to Titanic enthusiast Diane Dennis.
Heartfelt thanks to Theresa Mirci-Smith, Feath Pym, and Susanne Stephenson for keeping me honest, and forcing me to write a better book. Also very special thanks to Alan Mulcahy of the Winkleigh Society in Devon, England.
Cover design by Kate Kersten.
Visit
www.facebook.com/CallMeIsmay
Also by Sean McDevitt
YESTERDAY'S RIVER (novel)
THE WIZARD MURDERS (crime novella)
