The Loss of the S. S. Titanic - Its Story and Its Lessons (10 page)

It is little wonder then that sailors become accustomed to place
little reliance on temperature conditions as a means of estimating the
probabilities of encountering ice in their track. An experienced
sailor has told me that nothing is more difficult to diagnose than the
presence of icebergs, and a strong confirmation of this is found in
the official sailing directions issued by the Hydrographic Department
of the British Admiralty. "No reliance can be placed on any warning
being conveyed to the mariner, by a fall in temperature, either of sea
or air, of approaching ice. Some decrease in temperature has
occasionally been recorded, but more often none has been observed."

But notification by Marconigram of the exact location of icebergs is a
vastly different matter. I remember with deep feeling the effect this
information had on us when it first became generally known on board
the Carpathia. Rumours of it went round on Wednesday morning, grew to
definite statements in the afternoon, and were confirmed when one of
the Titanic officers admitted the truth of it in reply to a direct
question. I shall never forget the overwhelming sense of hopelessness
that came over some of us as we obtained definite knowledge of the
warning messages. It was not then the unavoidable accident we had
hitherto supposed: the sudden plunging into a region crowded with
icebergs which no seaman, however skilled a navigator he might be,
could have avoided! The beautiful Titanic wounded too deeply to
recover, the cries of the drowning still ringing in our ears and the
thousands of homes that mourned all these calamities—none of all
these things need ever have been!

It is no exaggeration to say that men who went through all the
experiences of the collision and the rescue and the subsequent scenes
on the quay at New York with hardly a tremor, were quite overcome by
this knowledge and turned away, unable to speak; I for one, did so,
and I know others who told me they were similarly affected.

I think we all came to modify our opinions on this matter, however,
when we learnt more of the general conditions attending trans-Atlantic
steamship services. The discussion as to who was responsible for these
warnings being disregarded had perhaps better be postponed to a later
chapter. One of these warnings was handed to Mr. Ismay by Captain
Smith at 5 P.M. and returned at the latter's request at 7 P.M., that
it might be posted for the information of officers; as a result of the
messages they were instructed to keep a special lookout for ice. This,
Second Officer Lightoller did until he was relieved at 10 P.M. by
First Officer Murdock, to whom he handed on the instructions. During
Mr. Lightoller's watch, about 9 P.M., the captain had joined him on
the bridge and discussed "the time we should be getting up towards the
vicinity of the ice, and how we should recognize it if we should see
it, and refreshing our minds on the indications that ice gives when it
is in the vicinity." Apparently, too, the officers had discussed among
themselves the proximity of ice and Mr. Lightoller had remarked that
they would be approaching the position where ice had been reported
during his watch. The lookouts were cautioned similarly, but no ice
was sighted until a few minutes before the collision, when the lookout
man saw the iceberg and rang the bell three times, the usual signal
from the crow's nest when anything is seen dead-ahead.

By telephone he reported to the bridge the presence of an iceberg, but
Mr. Murdock had already ordered Quartermaster Hichens at the wheel to
starboard the helm, and the vessel began to swing away from the berg.
But it was far too late at the speed she was going to hope to steer
the huge Titanic, over a sixth of a mile long, out of reach of danger.
Even if the iceberg had been visible half a mile away it is doubtful
whether some portion of her tremendous length would not have been
touched, and it is in the highest degree unlikely that the lookout
could have seen the berg half a mile away in the conditions that
existed that night, even with glasses. The very smoothness of the
water made the presence of ice a more difficult matter to detect. In
ordinary conditions the dash of the waves against the foot of an
iceberg surrounds it with a circle of white foam visible for some
distance, long before the iceberg itself; but here was an oily sea
sweeping smoothly round the deadly monster and causing no indication
of its presence.

There is little doubt, moreover, that the crow's nest is not a good
place from which to detect icebergs. It is proverbial that they adopt
to a large extent the colour of their surroundings; and seen from
above at a high angle, with the black, foam-free sea behind, the
iceberg must have been almost invisible until the Titanic was close
upon it. I was much struck by a remark of Sir Ernest Shackleton on his
method of detecting icebergs—to place a lookout man as low down near
the water-line as he could get him. Remembering how we had watched the
Titanic with all her lights out, standing upright like "an enormous
black finger," as one observer stated, and had only seen her thus
because she loomed black against the sky behind her, I saw at once how
much better the sky was than the black sea to show up an iceberg's
bulk. And so in a few moments the Titanic had run obliquely on the
berg, and with a shock that was astonishingly slight—so slight that
many passengers never noticed it—the submerged portion of the berg
had cut her open on the starboard side in the most vulnerable portion
of her anatomy—the bilge. The most
authentic accounts say that the wound began at about the location of
the foremast and extended far back to the stern, the brunt of the blow
being taken by the forward plates, which were either punctured through
both bottoms directly by the blow, or through one skin only, and as
this was torn away it ripped out some of the inner plates. The fact
that she went down by the head shows that probably only the forward
plates were doubly punctured, the stern ones being cut open through
the outer skin only. After the collision, Murdock had at once reversed
the engines and brought the ship to a standstill, but the iceberg had
floated away astern. The shock, though little felt by the enormous
mass of the ship, was sufficient to dislodge a large quantity of ice
from the berg: the forecastle deck was found to be covered with pieces
of ice.

Feeling the shock, Captain Smith rushed out of his cabin to the
bridge, and in reply to his anxious enquiry was told by Murdock that
ice had been struck and the emergency doors instantly closed. The
officers roused by the collision went on deck: some to the bridge;
others, while hearing nothing of the extent of the damage, saw no
necessity for doing so. Captain Smith at once sent the carpenter below
to sound the ship, and Fourth Officer Boxhall to the steerage to
report damage. The latter found there a very dangerous condition of
things and reported to Captain Smith, who then sent him to the
mail-room; and here again, it was easy to see, matters looked very
serious. Mail-bags were floating about and the water rising rapidly.
All this was reported to the captain, who ordered the lifeboats to be
got ready at once. Mr. Boxhall went to the chartroom to work out the
ship's position, which he then handed to the Marconi operators for
transmission to any ship near enough to help in the work of rescue.

Reports of the damage done were by this time coming to the captain
from many quarters, from the chief engineer, from the designer,—Mr.
Andrews,—and in a dramatic way from the sudden appearance on deck of
a swarm of stokers who had rushed up from below as the water poured
into the boiler-rooms and coal-bunkers: they were immediately ordered
down below to duty again. Realizing the urgent heed of help, he went
personally to the Marconi room and gave orders to the operators to get
into touch with all the ships they could and to tell them to come
quickly. The assistant operator Bride had been asleep, and knew of the
damage only when Phillips, in charge of the Marconi room, told him ice
had been encountered. They started to send out the well-known "C.Q.D."
message,—which interpreted means: C.Q. "all stations attend," and D,
"distress," the position of the vessel in latitude and longitude
following. Later, they sent out "S.O.S.," an arbitrary message agreed
upon as an international code-signal.

Soon after the vessel struck, Mr. Ismay had learnt of the nature of
the accident from the captain and chief engineer, and after dressing
and going on deck had spoken to some of the officers not yet
thoroughly acquainted with the grave injury done to the vessel. By
this time all those in any way connected with the management and
navigation must have known the importance of making use of all the
ways of safety known to them—and that without any delay. That they
thought at first that the Titanic would sink as soon as she did is
doubtful; but probably as the reports came in they knew that her
ultimate loss in a few hours was a likely contingency. On the other
hand, there is evidence that some of the officers in charge of boats
quite expected the embarkation was a precautionary measure and they
would all return after daylight. Certainly the first information that
ice had been struck conveyed to those in charge no sense of the
gravity of the circumstances: one officer even retired to his cabin
and another advised a steward to go back to his berth as there was no
danger.

And so the order was sent round, "All passengers on deck with
lifebelts on"; and in obedience to this a crowd of hastily dressed or
partially dressed people began to assemble on the decks belonging to
their respective classes (except the steerage passengers who were
allowed access to other decks), tying on lifebelts over their
clothing. In some parts of the ship women were separated from the men
and assembled together near the boats, in others men and women mingled
freely together, husbands helping their own wives and families and
then other women and children into the boats. The officers spread
themselves about the decks, superintending the work of lowering and
loading the boats, and in three cases were ordered by their superior
officers to take charge of them. At this stage great difficulty was
experienced in getting women to leave the ship, especially where the
order was so rigorously enforced, "Women and children only." Women in
many cases refused to leave their husbands, and were actually forcibly
lifted up and dropped in the boats. They argued with the officers,
demanding reasons, and in some cases even when induced to get in were
disposed to think the whole thing a joke, or a precaution which it
seemed to them rather foolish to take. In this they were encouraged by
the men left behind, who, in the same condition of ignorance, said
good-bye to their friends as they went down, adding that they would
see them again at breakfast-time. To illustrate further how little
danger was apprehended—when it was discovered on the first-class deck
that the forward lower deck was covered with small ice, snowballing
matches were arranged for the following morning, and some passengers
even went down to the deck and brought back small pieces of ice which
were handed round.

Below decks too was additional evidence that no one thought of
immediate danger. Two ladies walking along one of the corridors came
across a group of people gathered round a door which they were trying
vainly to open, and on the other side of which a man was demanding in
loud terms to be let out. Either his door was locked and the key not
to be found, or the collision had jammed the lock and prevented the
key from turning. The ladies thought he must be afflicted in some way
to make such a noise, but one of the men was assuring him that in no
circumstances should he be left, and that his (the bystander's) son
would be along soon and would smash down his door if it was not opened
in the mean time. "He has a stronger arm than I have," he added. The
son arrived presently and proceeded to make short work of the door: it
was smashed in and the inmate released, to his great satisfaction and
with many expressions of gratitude to his rescuer. But one of the head
stewards who came up at this juncture was so incensed at the damage
done to the property of his company, and so little aware of the
infinitely greater damage done the ship, that he warned the man who
had released the prisoner that he would be arrested on arrival in New
York.

It must be borne in mind that no general warning had been issued to
passengers: here and there were experienced travellers to whom
collision with an iceberg was sufficient to cause them to make every
preparation for leaving the ship, but the great majority were never
enlightened as to the amount of damage done, or even as to what had
happened. We knew in a vague way that we had collided with an iceberg,
but there our knowledge ended, and most of us drew no deductions from
that fact alone. Another factor that prevented some from taking to the
boats was the drop to the water below and the journey into the unknown
sea: certainly it looked a tremendous way down in the darkness, the
sea and the night both seemed very cold and lonely; and here was the
ship, so firm and well lighted and warm.

But perhaps what made so many people declare their decision to remain
was their strong belief in the theory of the Titanic's unsinkable
construction. Again and again was it repeated, "This ship cannot sink;
it is only a question of waiting until another ship comes up and takes
us off." Husbands expected to follow their wives and join them either
in New York or by transfer in mid-ocean from steamer to steamer. Many
passengers relate that they were told by officers that the ship was a
lifeboat and could not go down; one lady affirms that the captain told
her the Titanic could not sink for two or three days; no doubt this
was immediately after the collision.

It is not any wonder, then, that many elected to remain, deliberately
choosing the deck of the Titanic to a place in a lifeboat. And yet the
boats had to go down, and so at first they went half-full: this is the
real explanation of why they were not as fully loaded as the later
ones. It is important then to consider the question how far the
captain was justified in withholding all the knowledge he had from
every passenger. From one point of view he should have said to them,
"This ship will sink in a few hours: there are the boats, and only
women and children can go to them." But had he the authority to
enforce such an order? There are such things as panics and rushes
which get beyond the control of a handful of officers, even if armed,
and where even the bravest of men get swept off their feet—mentally
as well as physically.