The Loss of the S. S. Titanic - Its Story and Its Lessons (2 page)

Between the time of going on board and sailing, I inspected, in the
company of two friends who had come from Exeter to see me off, the
various decks, dining-saloons and libraries; and so extensive were
they that it is no exaggeration to say that it was quite easy to lose
one's way on such a ship. We wandered casually into the gymnasium on
the boatdeck, and were engaged in bicycle exercise when the instructor
came in with two photographers and insisted on our remaining there
while his friends—as we thought at the time—made a record for him of
his apparatus in use. It was only later that we discovered that they
were the photographers of one of the illustrated London papers. More
passengers came in, and the instructor ran here and there, looking the
very picture of robust, rosy-cheeked health and "fitness" in his white
flannels, placing one passenger on the electric "horse," another on
the "camel," while the laughing group of onlookers watched the
inexperienced riders vigorously shaken up and down as he controlled
the little motor which made the machines imitate so realistically
horse and camel exercise.

It is related that on the night of the disaster, right up to the time
of the Titanic's sinking, while the band grouped outside the gymnasium
doors played with such supreme courage in face of the water which rose
foot by foot before their eyes, the instructor was on duty inside,
with passengers on the bicycles and the rowing-machines, still
assisting and encouraging to the last. Along with the bandsmen it is
fitting that his name, which I do not think has yet been put on
record—it is McCawley—should have a place in the honourable list of
those who did their duty faithfully to the ship and the line they
served.

Soon after noon the whistles blew for friends to go ashore, the
gangways were withdrawn, and the Titanic moved slowly down the dock,
to the accompaniment of last messages and shouted farewells of those
on the quay. There was no cheering or hooting of steamers' whistles
from the fleet of ships that lined the dock, as might seem probable on
the occasion of the largest vessel in the world putting to sea on her
maiden voyage; the whole scene was quiet and rather ordinary, with
little of the picturesque and interesting ceremonial which imagination
paints as usual in such circumstances. But if this was lacking, two
unexpected dramatic incidents supplied a thrill of excitement and
interest to the departure from dock. The first of these occurred just
before the last gangway was withdrawn:—a knot of stokers ran along
the quay, with their kit slung over their shoulders in bundles, and
made for the gangway with the evident intention of joining the ship.
But a petty officer guarding the shore end of the gangway firmly
refused to allow them on board; they argued, gesticulated, apparently
attempting to explain the reasons why they were late, but he remained
obdurate and waved them back with a determined hand, the gangway was
dragged back amid their protests, putting a summary ending to their
determined efforts to join the Titanic. Those stokers must be thankful
men to-day that some circumstance, whether their own lack of
punctuality or some unforeseen delay over which they had no control,
prevented their being in time to run up that last gangway! They will
have told—and will no doubt tell for years—the story of how their
lives were probably saved by being too late to join the Titanic.

The second incident occurred soon afterwards, and while it has no
doubt been thoroughly described at the time by those on shore, perhaps
a view of the occurrence from the deck of the Titanic will not be
without interest. As the Titanic moved majestically down the dock, the
crowd of friends keeping pace with us along the quay, we came together
level with the steamer New York lying moored to the side of the dock
along with the Oceanic, the crowd waving "good-byes" to those on board
as well as they could for the intervening bulk of the two ships. But
as the bows of our ship came about level with those of the New York,
there came a series of reports like those of a revolver, and on the
quay side of the New York snaky coils of thick rope flung themselves
high in the air and fell backwards among the crowd, which retreated in
alarm to escape the flying ropes. We hoped that no one was struck by
the ropes, but a sailor next to me was certain he saw a woman carried
away to receive attention. And then, to our amazement the New York
crept towards us, slowly and stealthily, as if drawn by some invisible
force which she was powerless to withstand. It reminded me instantly
of an experiment I had shown many times to a form of boys learning the
elements of physics in a laboratory, in which a small magnet is made
to float on a cork in a bowl of water and small steel objects placed
on neighbouring pieces of cork are drawn up to the floating magnet by
magnetic force. It reminded me, too, of seeing in my little boy's bath
how a large celluloid floating duck would draw towards itself, by what
is called capillary attraction, smaller ducks, frogs, beetles, and
other animal folk, until the menagerie floated about as a unit,
oblivious of their natural antipathies and reminding us of the "happy
families" one sees in cages on the seashore. On the New York there was
shouting of orders, sailors running to and fro, paying out ropes and
putting mats over the side where it seemed likely we should collide;
the tug which had a few moments before cast off from the bows of the
Titanic came up around our stern and passed to the quay side of the
New York's stern, made fast to her and started to haul her back with
all the force her engines were capable of; but it did not seem that
the tug made much impression on the New York. Apart from the serious
nature of the accident, it made an irresistibly comic picture to see
the huge vessel drifting down the dock with a snorting tug at its
heels, for all the world like a small boy dragging a diminutive puppy
down the road with its teeth locked on a piece of rope, its feet
splayed out, its head and body shaking from side to side in the effort
to get every ounce of its weight used to the best advantage. At first
all appearance showed that the sterns of the two vessels would
collide; but from the stern bridge of the Titanic an officer directing
operations stopped us dead, the suction ceased, and the New York with
her tug trailing behind moved obliquely down the dock, her stern
gliding along the side of the Titanic some few yards away. It gave an
extraordinary impression of the absolute helplessness of a big liner
in the absence of any motive power to guide her. But all excitement
was not yet over: the New York turned her bows inward towards the
quay, her stern swinging just clear of and passing in front of our
bows, and moved slowly head on for the Teutonic lying moored to the
side; mats were quickly got out and so deadened the force of the
collision, which from where we were seemed to be too slight to cause
any damage. Another tug came up and took hold of the New York by the
bows; and between the two of them they dragged her round the corner of
the quay which just here came to an end on the side of the river.

We now moved slowly ahead and passed the Teutonic at a creeping pace,
but notwithstanding this, the latter strained at her ropes so much
that she heeled over several degrees in her efforts to follow the
Titanic: the crowd were shouted back, a group of gold-braided
officials, probably the harbour-master and his staff, standing on the
sea side of the moored ropes, jumped back over them as they drew up
taut to a rigid line, and urged the crowd back still farther. But we
were just clear, and as we slowly turned the corner into the river I
saw the Teutonic swing slowly back into her normal station, relieving
the tension alike of the ropes and of the minds of all who witnessed
the incident.

Unpleasant as this incident was, it was interesting to all the
passengers leaning over the rails to see the means adopted by the
officers and crew of the various vessels to avoid collision, to see on
the Titanic's docking-bridge (at the stern) an officer and seamen
telephoning and ringing bells, hauling up and down little red and
white flags, as danger of collision alternately threatened and
diminished. No one was more interested than a young American
kinematograph photographer, who, with his wife, followed the whole
scene with eager eyes, turning the handle of his camera with the most
evident pleasure as he recorded the unexpected incident on his films.
It was obviously quite a windfall for him to have been on board at
such a time. But neither the film nor those who exposed it reached the
other side, and the record of the accident from the Titanic's deck has
never been thrown on the screen.

As we steamed down the river, the scene we had just witnessed was the
topic of every conversation: the comparison with the Olympic-Hawke
collision was drawn in every little group of passengers, and it seemed
to be generally agreed that this would confirm the suction theory
which was so successfully advanced by the cruiser Hawke in the law
courts, but which many people scoffed at when the British Admiralty
first suggested it as the explanation of the cruiser ramming the
Olympic. And since this is an attempt to chronicle facts as they
happened on board the Titanic, it must be recorded that there were
among the passengers and such of the crew as were heard to speak on
the matter, the direst misgivings at the incident we had just
witnessed. Sailors are proverbially superstitious; far too many people
are prone to follow their lead, or, indeed, the lead of any one who
asserts a statement with an air of conviction and the opportunity of
constant repetition; the sense of mystery that shrouds a prophetic
utterance, particularly if it be an ominous one (for so constituted
apparently is the human mind that it will receive the impress of an
evil prophecy far more readily than it will that of a beneficent one,
possibly through subservient fear to the thing it dreads, possibly
through the degraded, morbid attraction which the sense of evil has
for the innate evil in the human mind), leads many people to pay a
certain respect to superstitious theories. Not that they wholly
believe in them or would wish their dearest friends to know they ever
gave them a second thought; but the feeling that other people do so
and the half conviction that there "may be something in it, after
all," sways them into tacit obedience to the most absurd and childish
theories. I wish in a later chapter to discuss the subject of
superstition in its reference to our life on board the Titanic, but
will anticipate events here a little by relating a second so-called
"bad omen" which was hatched at Queenstown. As one of the tenders
containing passengers and mails neared the Titanic, some of those on
board gazed up at the liner towering above them, and saw a stoker's
head, black from his work in the stokehold below, peering out at them
from the top of one of the enormous funnels—a dummy one for
ventilation—that rose many feet above the highest deck. He had
climbed up inside for a joke, but to some of those who saw him there
the sight was seed for the growth of an "omen," which bore fruit in an
unknown dread of dangers to come. An American lady—may she forgive me
if she reads these lines!—has related to me with the deepest
conviction and earnestness of manner that she saw the man and
attributes the sinking of the Titanic largely to that. Arrant
foolishness, you may say! Yes, indeed, but not to those who believe in
it; and it is well not to have such prophetic thoughts of danger
passed round among passengers and crew: it would seem to have an
unhealthy influence.

We dropped down Spithead, past the shores of the Isle of Wight looking
superbly beautiful in new spring foliage, exchanged salutes with a
White Star tug lying-to in wait for one of their liners inward bound,
and saw in the distance several warships with attendant black
destroyers guarding the entrance from the sea. In the calmest weather
we made Cherbourg just as it grew dusk and left again about 8.30,
after taking on board passengers and mails. We reached Queenstown
about 12 noon on Thursday, after a most enjoyable passage across the
Channel, although the wind was almost too cold to allow of sitting out
on deck on Thursday morning.

The coast of Ireland looked very beautiful as we approached Queenstown
Harbour, the brilliant morning sun showing up the green hillsides and
picking out groups of dwellings dotted here and there above the rugged
grey cliffs that fringed the coast. We took on board our pilot, ran
slowly towards the harbour with the sounding-line dropping all the
time, and came to a stop well out to sea, with our screws churning up
the bottom and turning the sea all brown with sand from below. It had
seemed to me that the ship stopped rather suddenly, and in my
ignorance of the depth of the harbour entrance, that perhaps the
sounding-line had revealed a smaller depth than was thought safe for
the great size of the Titanic: this seemed to be confirmed by the
sight of sand churned up from the bottom—but this is mere
supposition. Passengers and mails were put on board from two tenders,
and nothing could have given us a better idea of the enormous length
and bulk of the Titanic than to stand as far astern as possible and
look over the side from the top deck, forwards and downwards to where
the tenders rolled at her bows, the merest cockleshells beside the
majestic vessel that rose deck after deck above them. Truly she was a
magnificent boat! There was something so graceful in her movement as
she rode up and down on the slight swell in the harbour, a slow,
stately dip and recover, only noticeable by watching her bows in
comparison with some landmark on the coast in the near distance; the
two little tenders tossing up and down like corks beside her
illustrated vividly the advance made in comfort of motion from the
time of the small steamer.