Titanic (7 page)

(Preceding image)
The
Titanic
’s first class reading and writing room looked much like this one on the
Olympic
.

On board RMS
Titanic
, Sunday afternoon

My dear ones all,

As you see it is Sunday afternoon & we are reading in the Library after luncheon . . . Well the sailors say we have had a wonderful passage up to now. . . . . This mighty expanse of water, no land in sight & the ship rolling from side to side is very wonderful tho they say this ship does not roll on account of its size. Any how it rolls enough for me . . . it is nice weather but awfully windy & cold. . . . .

From your loving Esther

Jack Thayer was a smart and sophisticated young American. He might have been too old for climbing cables like young Frankie Goldsmith, but as he said later, “being seventeen years old, I was all over the ship.”

Jack was traveling first class with his father, John B. Thayer, vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and his mother, Marian, who’d just been shopping in Paris. His mother’s maid, Margaret Fleming, completed the party.

Young Jack had a bright future ahead of him. He planned to graduate from high school in the spring, enter Princeton University, and embark on a career in banking. “It was planned. It was a certainty,” he wrote later.

But as Jack learned that night, nothing in life is truly certain.

Jack spent most of Sunday walking the promenade decks with his parents and chatting with friends and acquaintances. As the afternoon went on, he realized the weather was getting colder. So it wasn’t a surprise when he heard that the ship had received ice warnings and might be entering ice fields later on that night. J. Bruce Ismay, who had been given one of these warnings by the captain, was sharing it with passengers.

“I remember Mr. Ismay showing us a wire regarding the presence of ice and remarking that we would not reach that position until around nine p.m.,” Jack said.

That evening, Jack’s parents were invited to a dinner honoring Captain Smith, so Jack ate alone at their regular table. Over after-dinner coffee, he met a young man named Milton Long. In a letter to Milton’s parents after the disaster, Jack told them about how he got acquainted with their only son.

“I was sitting in the room outside the main dining saloon, waiting for the music to begin. I had dined alone and was sitting alone, my father and mother having been invited out to dine in the restaurant . . . Your son was sitting in front and to one side of us, with his back toward me. He took out a cigarette and having no matches, came up to my table and asked if he might take a match . . .

“He looked lonely, sitting all alone, and I was lonely, so I pulled my chair up to his table and asked if I might join him. He smiled and said, ‘Yes, certainly.’ . . . We talked about cricket and baseball . . . He told me of his trip around the world and of getting shipwrecked in Alaska . . . We talked for about two hours and a half together. Then I saw mother and father come downstairs, so I said goodnight to your son.”

Having agreed to meet Milton again the next day, Jack got ready to turn in for the night. But first, he put on his overcoat and took one more stroll on deck to gaze at the stars. The memory of that beautiful night stayed with him.

“It had become very much colder. It was a brilliant, starry night,” he said. “There was no moon and I have never seen the stars shine brighter; they appeared to stand right out of the sky, sparkling like cut diamonds.”

By Sunday morning, first class passenger Colonel Archibald Gracie figured he had slacked off his usual exercise routines long enough. He prided himself on being a fit fifty-three. But since the
Titanic
sailed, he had spent his time playing cards, eating fine food, and chatting with acquaintances such as his old friend James Clinch Smith, a popular member of New York society, who’d been living in Paris with his wife, Bertha. Clinch Smith returned to America once each year, and Gracie was glad to have this time to catch up.

Still, now it was time for some discipline, so Gracie headed for the gymnasium. “I was up early before breakfast and met the professional racquet player in a half hour’s warming up,” he said. Then he headed to F Deck, to the
Titanic
’s pool, for “a swim in the six-foot deep tank of salt water, heated to a refreshing temperature.”

Passengers on cruise ships today expect features such as swimming pools, but when the
Titanic
was built, this was a new luxury. In fact, the
Titanic
and the
Olympic
were two of the first ships to offer a swimming pool, called the “swimming bath,” which was reserved for first class passengers. First class men could use the swimming bath for free from six until nine each morning, after which there was a small fee of twenty-five cents. Ladies had use of the bath from ten a.m. until one p.m.

(Preceding image)
The
Titanic
’s swimming pool.

The swimming bath itself was thirty-three feet long and fourteen feet wide. It was about seven feet six inches deep at the forward end and eight feet four inches deep at the aft end, although the water was apparently never filled all the way. There weren’t any diving boards either. Although the
Olympic
had been fitted with springboards, these turned out to be too dangerous at sea. People could slip and lose their balance easily, and besides, the water sloshed around a lot even if the ship was pitching only slightly.

Near the pool was a row of thirteen dressing cubicles with mahogany doors. There were also separate showers decorated with ceramic tiles. The room itself was covered in blue and white ceramic tiles and was located near another popular onboard attraction, the Turkish Baths.

All that exercise made Colonel Gracie hungry. After a hearty breakfast, he attended church service and spent a pleasant day reading and chatting with fellow passengers. He had dinner with several friends, including James Clinch Smith. He and Clinch Smith enjoyed their coffee while listening to the
Titanic
’s band. But Gracie decided not to stay up too late talking or playing cards. He wanted to be up in the morning to exercise again.

Colonel Gracie went to bed early. He would be very glad that he did.

Frankie Goldsmith went to church service that Sunday with his mother. Afterward, they noticed that their traveling companion, Alfred Rush, nicknamed “Alfie,” was wanted in the purser’s office. (On board ships, the purser was a little like a hotel manager or clerk, who handled money and supplies and kept the passengers’ accounts.)

Alfie found them again a short time later. With a wide grin, he held up a six-penny piece. It was an unexpected refund: He’d paid more than needed for his baggage.

“‘Look, Mrs. Goldsmith! I’ve got a birthday present!’” he cried excitedly. “‘Frankie, I am sixteen-years old today. Look, I am wearing my long trousers.’”

To Alfie, it was a milestone birthday: Wearing long trousers was a symbol of being a man.

Meanwhile, science teacher Lawrence Beesley spent a peaceful Sunday afternoon in the second class library. It was a clear day, and people were excited about landing in New York on Wednesday, with calm weather all the way.

After dinner, Lawrence and about a hundred other passengers gathered around a piano in the second class dining saloon to sing hymns. Reverend Ernest Carter, who organized the gathering, closed the evening by saying that this was “the first time that there have been hymns sung on this boat on a Sunday evening, but we trust and pray it won’t be the last.” It was after ten o’clock when they stopped to enjoy some biscuits and coffee. Then Lawrence headed to his cabin on D Deck (D56), to read in his bunk before going to sleep.

On Sunday night the sky was bright with stars, and the first class dining saloon glittered too. May Futrelle was traveling with her husband, Jacques, a writer. She never forgot Sunday night’s dinner in the elegant saloon, when many women wore the fine dresses they’d just purchased in Paris.