The Other Side of the Night (16 page)

At 4:00 a.m., Chief Officer George F. Stewart appeared on the bridge, relieving Stone. Stone described the night’s events—the strange ship to the southwest, the eight white rockets she fired, the ship slowly disappearing, and his informing Captain Lord of these events three different times.

As Stone was talking, Stewart raised his glasses and, peering southward, spotted a four-masted steamer with one funnel and “a lot of light amidships” as she hove into view. He asked Stone if this was the ship that had fired the rockets, and Stone replied that he had not seen this ship before, and that he was sure it was not the same one that had fired the first eight rockets. With that, Stone went below, leaving a somewhat bemused Chief Officer Stewart alone on the bridge.

Stewart had an uneasy feeling, a vague sense that “something had happened.” Knowing that rockets at sea sometimes meant distress, Stewart couldn’t help but think that may have been the case here. Even so it was not until 4:30 that he did anything, and that was to awaken Captain Lord at his accustomed hour. Knocking politely on the chartroom door, Stewart began recounting the night’s events as told to him by Stone. About halfway through this recitation Lord stopped him, saying, “Yes, I know. Stone’s been telling me.”

Once he had donned his greatcoat, scarf, and hat, Captain Lord went up to the bridge and began to describe to Stewart how he intended to work his way through the icefield that lay ahead of the
Californian
. Stewart asked him if he was going to first try to learn something about the ship that had been firing rockets off to the southwest. Lord raised his glasses and studied the four masted steamer off to the southeast and said, “No, she looks all right. She’s not making any signals now.” Inexplicably Stewart did not mention to his captain that the ship he was looking at was not the one Stewart was referring to and was not at all the ship that had fired the eight white rockets.

Over the course of the next hour, conversation on the bridge was desultory as the two men waited for the dawn. Finally the feeling that had been nagging at Stewart caused him to run down to the
Californian
’s wireless room and wake up Cyril Evans with the words “Sparks, there’s a ship been firing rockets in the night. Will you see if you can find out what is wrong—what is the matter?”

Evans jumped from his bunk, pulled on his trousers and a pair of slippers, and quickly settled in at his apparatus. Winding up the magnetic detector, starting the brush motor, he slipped on the headphones and tapped out a quick “CQ”: “Any station—come back.” Within seconds, the
Frankfurt
answered, stunning Evans: “Do you know the
Titanic
has sunk during the night, collided with an iceberg?”

Evans immediately asked for the
Titanic
’s position, which the
Frankfurt
readily provided—41 46’ N, 50 14’ W. No sooner had Evans thanked the German operator than the
Virginian
called, asking, “Do you know the
Titanic
had sunk?” Evans replied, “Yes, the
Frankfurt
has just told me.” A quick exchange of signals then followed, and Evans asked, “Please send me official message regarding
Titanic
, giving position.” Here Evans was being justifiably careful: asking that the communication take the form of an official message transformed its contents from simple idle exchange between operators into hard fact on which the captain of the
Californian
could act.

The position for the
Titanic
given by the
Frankfurt
and the
Virginian
were identical, and no sooner had Evans transcribed the
Virginian
’s signal than Chief Officer Stewart had it in his hand, and he and Evans were racing up the stairs to the bridge, shouting to Captain Lord that a ship had gone down.

Thrusting the message at Lord, Stewart stood by, anticipating that the captain would order the ship to get under way immediately. Instead, Lord took one look at the position, then shook his head in disbelief. “No, no, this can’t be right,” he said, handing the message slip back to Evans. “You must get me a better position than this.”

It was a cryptic remark, and one of frightening significance, for as soon as he uttered it, Stanley Lord began a journey down a dark and lonely road, which would only end fifty years later with his death as a disappointed, bitter man. For better or worse, Lord himself was never called upon to explain it, perhaps fortunately for himself, for there can only be one reason for his sudden exclamation, “You must get me a better position than this.” It had already been confirmed by two ships, the
Frankfurt
and the
Virginian
, and it would be absurd to suggest that Lord meant one that was more precise. Boxhall’s position of 41 46’ N, 50 14’ W. had proven to be more than adequate for the
Carpathia
, as well as the
Mount Temple,
another ship that had come racing from nearly a hundred miles to the southwest, in the hope of reaching the
Titanic
.

The
Carpathia
’s Captain Rostron had even taken a moment to congratulate Boxhall on what he called “a splendid position.” Captain James Moore of the
Mount Temple
had no trouble reaching the scene where the
Titanic
’s lifeboats were being recovered by the
Carpathia
based on that same position. Though later discoveries would find the error Boxhall had made in his calculations which put the
Titanic
’s estimated position roughly twelve miles west of where she actually was, for all practical purposes it was a small enough error to be inconsequential.

So was there a significance to Boxhall’s position that Lord immediately recognized, of which Evans, who knew nothing of navigation, would not have suspected? It’s a disturbing possibility, and given Lord’s subsequent actions, quite likely. Given that Lord was a skilled, if occasionally sloppy, navigator, and already knew the
Californian
’s actual position during the night, one glance at the figures given by Boxhall would have made it clear that the
Californian
was uncomfortably close to the spot where the
Titanic
sank—uncomfortable, that is, for the captain of a vessel whose officers had seen white rockets fired from a nearby ship during the night and done nothing to investigate them. The implication of the remark “You must get me a better position,” then, is chilling, for it demonstrates that at this precise moment Lord suddenly became aware of the colossal, tragic blunder he had made during the night by not responding to the nearby ship as her rockets went off. He was suddenly hoping that the “better position” for which he was asking would put the
Titanic
farther from the
Californian
— far enough to excuse Lord’s inactivity.

All of Lord’s subsequent actions and statements for the next half-century are explicable, if not forgivable, only if he understood the significance of Boxhall’s position—its proximity to his own ship during those crucial hours when the
Titanic
was sinking. Indeed, almost every action Lord took that morning seemed to indicate exactly that: Stanley Lord knew the moment he read the position that the
Californian
was already so near it as to be within sight of the spot
— and that the ship his officers had watched fire off the white rockets during the night had been the doomed
Titanic.

Chagrined, Evans returned to the wireless office, only to return to the bridge minutes later with a second slip of paper, this one confirming the accuracy of the first position he had given Lord: 41 46’ N, 50 14’ W was the only position anyone had for the
Titanic
. This time Lord accepted it without comment, and proceeded to work out a course to bring the
Californian
to that spot. The steamer to the south-southeast was, apparently, forgotten, and Lord never bothered to ask Evans if he had any information about any other ships in the vicinity. Again, in retrospect, it was a significant lapse, for had he done so, Lord would have soon learned that the ship to the south-southeast was the
Carpathia
, and that she was picking up the lifeboats holding the
Titanic
’s survivors.

Saying nothing further to Evans, Lord immediately rang down to the engine room for “Slow Ahead” and began steaming toward the
Titanic
’s last reported position. For some inexplicable reason—about which he was never subsequently questioned and so never was compelled to make clear—Lord chose to steam
west
, taking the
Californian
into and through the icefield and out into the clear water beyond. In light of later developments it was a curious decision, to say the least, for the overnight position recorded in the log of the
Californian
placed her well to the north-northwest of the
Titanic
’s wireless position, and northwest of where the lost liner’s lifeboats were waiting. Steaming
into
the icefield then actually took the
Californian
farther away from the scene of the
Titanic
’s disaster, rather than bringing her closer. Even had the position in the
Californian
’s log been correct—and it would be subsequently shown to be patently false—there was nothing but open water to the south and southeast, where both the real and estimated positions for the
Titanic
lay.

It was slow going for the first four or five miles as Lord picked his way through the heavy field-ice that had drifted in during the night and which was frequently studded with bergs. He moved at what he deemed a maximum safe speed—four knots. The
Mount Temple,
a ship which had come racing up from the southwest, almost a hundred miles distant, in a valiant but vain effort to reach the
Titanic
before she went down, was still on the west side of the icefield when, at around 6:00 a.m., her captain saw the
Californian
moving through the icefield some six miles north of his ship. Sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m., the
Californian
reached clear water and carefully worked her way up to her top speed of fourteen knots, heading due south.

Intriguingly, it was Evans who would provide the first proof of just how close the
Californian
had been to the sinking
Titanic
during the night. At 6:10 a.m. the
Virginian
’s wireless operator contacted Evans at the request of her master, Captain G.J. Gambell, asking for details about conditions at the wreck site. According to Gambell, Evans “immediately” advised him that the
Carpathia
was in sight and could be seen picking up survivors from boats. This meant that even before 6:30 a.m. the
Californian
was already within seven miles—visual distance—of the wreck site, though she was by this time on the other side of the icefield because of Captain Lord’s inexplicable maneuvering. The irrefutable proof comes from Evans’ identification of the
Carpathia
, information which could have only come from the bridge, meaning Captain Lord himself.

What Evans didn’t say was that they were looking
across
the icefield to the
east
. This was a strange signal, to say the least, for it shows that Captain Lord and the
Californian
’s officers were already aware of the
Carpathia
’s identity and position, as well as what she was doing. Complying with Lord’s instruction to keep him informed, Evans had relayed to the bridge exchanges between the
Carpathia
and other ships, allowing Lord to identify the ship he had originally seen to the southeast as the
Carpathia
. This makes the
Californian
’s traverse of the icefield even more inexplicable if Lord’s real intention was to render whatever aid he could.

The whole crew of the
Californian
was roused by now. Additional lookouts were posted, and lifeboats were swung out. Lord would at one point claim that he went so far as to put a stoker in a coal basket, which was then hoisted up the foremast, where, at a height above the crows’ nest, he could act as an extra lookout, although later no one would remember this actually being done, and none of the
Californian
’s company ever came forward as that crewman. Third Officer Groves, remembering the big steamer he had seen stopped to the south of the
Californian
before midnight, went by Second Officer Stone’s cabin to ask if it were true about the
Titanic
. “Yes, old chap,” Stone assured him, “I saw rockets on my watch.”

Groves then returned to the bridge, and at 6:50 a.m. he noted that the
Carpathia
was directly east of the
Californian,
yet the Leyland liner was still steaming southward. Around half past seven, after having crossed at most some eight miles of open water, Captain Lord decided that he had arrived at the
Titanic’
s wireless position, but the ship was nowhere to be seen, nor were any lifeboats. There wasn’t even any wreckage. Only the
Mount Temple
was nearby; some six miles to the east of these two ships sat the Cunard liner
Carpathia
, clearly visible across the icefloe. Lord now decided to make for the rescue ship to see if he could be of any assistance.