The Loss of the S. S. Titanic - Its Story and Its Lessons (6 page)

But if there were any one who had not by now realized that the ship
was in danger, all doubt on this point was to be set at rest in a
dramatic manner. Suddenly a rush of light from the forward deck, a
hissing roar that made us all turn from watching the boats, and a
rocket leapt upwards to where the stars blinked and twinkled above us.
Up it went, higher and higher, with a sea of faces upturned to watch
it, and then an explosion that seemed to split the silent night in
two, and a shower of stars sank slowly down and went out one by one.
And with a gasping sigh one word escaped the lips of the crowd:
"Rockets!" Anybody knows what rockets at sea mean. And presently
another, and then a third. It is no use denying the dramatic intensity
of the scene: separate it if you can from all the terrible events that
followed, and picture the calmness of the night, the sudden light on
the decks crowded with people in different stages of dress and
undress, the background of huge funnels and tapering masts revealed by
the soaring rocket, whose flash illumined at the same time the faces
and minds of the obedient crowd, the one with mere physical light, the
other with a sudden revelation of what its message was. Every one knew
without being told that we were calling for help from any one who was
near enough to see.

The crew were now in the boats, the sailors standing by the pulley
ropes let them slip through the cleats in jerks, and down the boats
went till level with B deck; women and children climbed over the rail
into the boats and filled them; when full, they were lowered one by
one, beginning with number 9, the first on the second-class deck, and
working backwards towards 15. All this we could see by peering over
the edge of the boat-deck, which was now quite open to the sea, the
four boats which formed a natural barrier being lowered from the deck
and leaving it exposed.

About this time, while walking the deck, I saw two ladies come over
from the port side and walk towards the rail separating the
second-class from the first-class deck. There stood an officer barring
the way. "May we pass to the boats?" they said. "No, madam," he
replied politely, "your boats are down on your own deck," pointing to
where they swung below. The ladies turned and went towards the
stairway, and no doubt were able to enter one of the boats: they had
ample time. I mention this to show that there was, at any rate, some
arrangement—whether official or not—for separating the classes in
embarking in boats; how far it was carried out, I do not know, but if
the second-class ladies were not expected to enter a boat from the
first-class deck, while steerage passengers were allowed access to the
second-class deck, it would seem to press rather hardly on the
second-class men, and this is rather supported by the low percentage
saved.

Almost immediately after this incident, a report went round among men
on the top deck—the starboard side—that men were to be taken off on
the port side; how it originated, I am quite unable to say, but can
only suppose that as the port boats, numbers 10 to 16, were not
lowered from the top deck quite so soon as the starboard boats (they
could still be seen on deck), it might be assumed that women were
being taken off on one side and men on the other; but in whatever way
the report started, it was acted on at once by almost all the men, who
crowded across to the port side and watched the preparation for
lowering the boats, leaving the starboard side almost deserted. Two or
three men remained, However: not for any reason that we were
consciously aware of; I can personally think of no decision arising
from reasoned thought that induced me to remain rather than to cross
over. But while there was no process of conscious reason at work, I am
convinced that what was my salvation was a recognition of the
necessity of being quiet and waiting in patience for some opportunity
of safety to present itself.

Soon after the men had left the starboard side, I saw a bandsman—the
'cellist—come round the vestibule corner from the staircase entrance
and run down the now deserted starboard deck, his 'cello trailing
behind him, the spike dragging along the floor. This must have been
about 12.40 A.M. I suppose the band must have begun to play soon after
this and gone on until after 2 A.M. Many brave things were done that
night, but none more brave than by those few men playing minute after
minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea and the
sea rose higher and higher to where they stood; the music they played
serving alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be
recorded on the rolls of undying fame.

Looking forward and downward, we could see several of the boats now in
the water, moving slowly one by one from the side, without confusion
or noise, and stealing away in the darkness which swallowed them in
turn as the crew bent to the oars. An officer—I think First Officer
Murdock—came striding along the deck, clad in a long coat, from his
manner and face evidently in great agitation, but determined and
resolute; he looked over the side and shouted to the boats being
lowered: "Lower away, and when afloat, row around to the gangway and
wait for orders." "Aye, aye, sir," was the reply; and the officer
passed by and went across the ship to the port side.

Almost immediately after this, I heard a cry from below of, "Any more
ladies?" and looking over the edge of the deck, saw boat 13 swinging
level with the rail of B deck, with the crew, some stokers, a few men
passengers and the rest ladies,—the latter being about half the total
number; the boat was almost full and just about to be lowered. The
call for ladies was repeated twice again, but apparently there were
none to be found. Just then one of the crew looked up and saw me
looking over. "Any ladies on your deck?" he said. "No," I replied.
"Then you had better jump." I sat on the edge of the deck with my feet
over, threw the dressing-gown (which I had carried on my arm all of
the time) into the boat, dropped, and fell in the boat near the stern.

As I picked myself up, I heard a shout: "Wait a moment, here are two
more ladies," and they were pushed hurriedly over the side and tumbled
into the boat, one into the middle and one next to me in the stern.
They told me afterwards that they had been assembled on a lower deck
with other ladies, and had come up to B deck not by the usual stairway
inside, but by one of the vertically upright iron ladders that connect
each deck with the one below it, meant for the use of sailors passing
about the ship. Other ladies had been in front of them and got up
quickly, but these two were delayed a long time by the fact that one
of them—the one that was helped first over the side into boat 13 near
the middle—was not at all active: it seemed almost impossible for her
to climb up a vertical ladder. We saw her trying to climb the swinging
rope ladder up the Carpathia's side a few hours later, and she had the
same difficulty.

As they tumbled in, the crew shouted, "Lower away"; but before the
order was obeyed, a man with his wife and a baby came quickly to the
side: the baby was handed to the lady in the stern, the mother got in
near the middle and the father at the last moment dropped in as the
boat began its journey down to the sea many feet below.

Looking back now on the descent of our boat down the ship's side, it
is a matter of surprise, I think, to all the occupants to remember how
little they thought of it at the time. It was a great adventure,
certainly: it was exciting to feel the boat sink by jerks, foot by
foot, as the ropes were paid out from above and shrieked as they
passed through the pulley blocks, the new ropes and gear creaking
under the strain of a boat laden with people, and the crew calling to
the sailors above as the boat tilted slightly, now at one end, now at
the other, "Lower aft!" "Lower stern!" and "Lower together!" as she
came level again—but I do not think we felt much apprehension about
reaching the water safely. It certainly was thrilling to see the black
hull of the ship on one side and the sea, seventy feet below, on the
other, or to pass down by cabins and saloons brilliantly lighted; but
we knew nothing of the apprehension felt in the minds of some of the
officers whether the boats and lowering-gear would stand the strain of
the weight of our sixty people. The ropes, however, were new and
strong, and the boat did not buckle in the middle as an older boat
might have done. Whether it was right or not to lower boats full of
people to the water,—and it seems likely it was not,—I think there
can be nothing but the highest praise given to the officers and crew
above for the way in which they lowered the boats one after the other
safely to the water; it may seem a simple matter, to read about such a
thing, but any sailor knows, apparently, that it is not so. An
experienced officer has told me that he has seen a boat lowered in
practice from a ship's deck, with a trained crew and no passengers in
the boat, with practised sailors paying out the ropes, in daylight, in
calm weather, with the ship lying in dock—and has seen the boat tilt
over and pitch the crew headlong into the sea. Contrast these
conditions with those obtaining that Monday morning at 12.45 A.M., and
it is impossible not to feel that, whether the lowering crew were
trained or not, whether they had or had not drilled since coming on
board, they did their duty in a way that argues the greatest
efficiency. I cannot help feeling the deepest gratitude to the two
sailors who stood at the ropes above and lowered us to the sea: I do
not suppose they were saved.

Perhaps one explanation of our feeling little sense of the unusual in
leaving the Titanic in this way was that it seemed the climax to a
series of extraordinary occurrences: the magnitude of the whole thing
dwarfed events that in the ordinary way would seem to be full of
imminent peril. It is easy to imagine it,—a voyage of four days on a
calm sea, without a single untoward incident; the presumption, perhaps
already mentally half realized, that we should be ashore in
forty-eight hours and so complete a splendid voyage,—and then to feel
the engine stop, to be summoned on deck with little time to dress, to
tie on a lifebelt, to see rockets shooting aloft in call for help, to
be told to get into a lifeboat,—after all these things, it did not
seem much to feel the boat sinking down to the sea: it was the natural
sequence of previous events, and we had learned in the last hour to
take things just as they came. At the same time, if any one should
wonder what the sensation is like, it is quite easy to measure
seventy-five feet from the windows of a tall house or a block of
flats, look down to the ground and fancy himself with some sixty other
people crowded into a boat so tightly that he could not sit down or
move about, and then picture the boat sinking down in a continuous
series of jerks, as the sailors pay out the ropes through cleats
above. There are more pleasant sensations than this! How thankful we
were that the sea was calm and the Titanic lay so steadily and quietly
as we dropped down her side. We were spared the bumping and grinding
against the side which so often accompanies the launching of boats: I
do not remember that we even had to fend off our boat while we were
trying to get free.

As we went down, one of the crew shouted, "We are just over the
condenser exhaust: we don't want to stay in that long or we shall be
swamped; feel down on the floor and be ready to pull up the pin which
lets the ropes free as soon as we are afloat." I had often looked over
the side and noticed this stream of water coming out of the side of
the Titanic just above the water-line: in fact so large was the volume
of water that as we ploughed along and met the waves coming towards
us, this stream would cause a splash that sent spray flying. We felt,
as well as we could in the crowd of people, on the floor, along the
sides, with no idea where the pin could be found,—and none of the
crew knew where it was, only of its existence somewhere,—but we never
found it. And all the time we got closer to the sea and the exhaust
roared nearer and nearer—until finally we floated with the ropes
still holding us from above, the exhaust washing us away and the force
of the tide driving us back against the side,—the latter not of much
account in influencing the direction, however. Thinking over what
followed, I imagine we must have touched the water with the condenser
stream at our bows, and not in the middle as I thought at one time: at
any rate, the resultant of these three forces was that we were carried
parallel to the ship, directly under the place where boat 15 would
drop from her davits into the sea. Looking up we saw her already
coming down rapidly from B deck: she must have filled almost
immediately after ours. We shouted up, "Stop lowering 14,"
^[2]
and the crew and passengers in the boat above, hearing
us shout and seeing our position immediately below them, shouted the
same to the sailors on the boat deck; but apparently they did not
hear, for she dropped down foot by foot,—twenty feet, fifteen,
ten,—and a stoker and I in the bows reached up and touched her bottom
swinging above our heads, trying to push away our boat from under her.
It seemed now as if nothing could prevent her dropping on us, but at
this moment another stoker sprang with his knife to the ropes that
still held us and I heard him shout, "One! Two!" as he cut them
through. The next moment we had swung away from underneath 15, and
were clear of her as she dropped into the water in the space we had
just before occupied. I do not know how the bow ropes were freed, but
imagine that they were cut in the same way, for we were washed clear
of the Titanic at once by the force of the stream and floated away as
the oars were got out.

I think we all felt that that was quite the most exciting thing we had
yet been through, and a great sigh of relief and gratitude went up as
we swung away from the boat above our heads; but I heard no one cry
aloud during the experience—not a woman's voice was raised in fear or
hysteria. I think we all learnt many things that night about the bogey
called "fear," and how the facing of it is much less than the dread of
it.