Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic (11 page)

After Lightoller joined the White Star Line, an incident in Sydney Harbor during the Boer War in which he had contrived to fire a salute to the colors at Fort Dennison while simultaneously hoisting the Boer flag led to his transfer to the North Atlantic run. He had served under Captain Smith several times before and had been first officer of the Majestic and later the Oceanic before being assigned to the Titanic. Now , he was more than a little miffed at being bumped out of the first officer’s slot to allow room for Chief Officer Wilde: in the narrowly confined world of a steamship line, the first officer’s position was usually a guarantee of a command in the not-too-distant future, so Lightoller regarded his supersession as a sort of demotion.

Oddly enough, Lightoller had a distinctly uneasy feeling about the Titanic; he wasn’t sure why, but he felt that she was not destined to be a happy ship. Perhaps he was simply upset about being moved down to second officer, but years later he would recall how sailors develop a “sense” about their ships:

The man who had replaced Lightoller, after being bumped himself from chief officer to first, was William Murdoch. A short, wiry man with a pleasantly plain face and a ready smile that heralded boundless good humor, Murdoch was a Scot from Dalbeattie in Galloway, the son of a seafaring family. Like Lightoller, he had done his apprenticeship in sail, earned all his certificates, then joined the White Star Line, serving first in the Australian trade, then moving to the passenger liners of the North Atlantic. He had served on an impressive succession of distinguished ships, the Arabic, the Adriatic under Captain Smith, then the Oceanic. Most recently he had been Captain Smith’s first officer for two months on the Olympic, so he felt far more at ease with the Titanic than did Lightoller. Like Lightoller, though, he was less than happy about being replaced at the last minute. But Murdoch was a conscientious officer, and as he had amply demonstrated over the years, he was an excellent seaman, with nearly faultless judgement and iron nerves. Captain Smith was certain to be glad Murdoch was on board.
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Captain Smith, of course, was Capt. Edward J. Smith. Solidly built, slightly above medium height, he was handsome in a patriarchal sort of way. His neatly trimmed white beard, coupled with his clear eyes, gave him a somewhat stern countenance, an impression immediately dispelled by his gentle speaking voice and urbane manners. Respectfully and affectionately known as “E. J.” by passengers and crew alike, he was a natural leader, radiating a reassuring combination of authority, confidence, and good humor.

Captain Smith had, like most of his officers and most skippers on the North Atlantic, gone to sea as an apprentice at the age of twelve, signing on as a cabin boy on a square-rigged ship. After getting his certificates he signed on with the White Star Line at the age of twenty-seven, and his career had been an uninterrupted series of successes ever since. The captain of a passenger vessel on the North Atlantic run was expected to mingle socially with the First Class passengers, and Smith’s dignified manner and warm personality made him instantly popular on White Star ships. Some passengers thought so much of him that they booked crossings only on ships he commanded. White Star rewarded him for generating such a loyal following by giving him command of most of their new ships, so that a maiden voyage with Captain Smith in command became something of a tradition for the line.

He also was much admired among professional circles for his seamanship. “It was an education,” Lightoller would later recall, “to see him con his own ship up the intricate channels entering New York at full speed. One particularly bad corner, known as the Southwest Spit, used to make us fairly flush with pride as he swung her round, judging his distances to a nicety; she was heeling over to the helm with only a matter of feet to spare between each end of the ship and the banks.” Despite such spectacular ship handling, Smith’s career was remarkable for its near-total absence of any accidents or incidents—its contrast to Lightoller’s catalogue of experiences, for example, was remarkable. In 1907 after he brought the brand new Adriatic to New York on her maiden voyage, he granted a request by New York papers for an interview. When asked about his career at sea, he responded:

Smith was asked about the safety of the ships he commanded. He gave his answer with absolute assurance: “I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”
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Only one blemish marked Captain Smith’s otherwise spotless record: in February 1912 he had been in command of the Olympic when she was involved in a controversial collision with the Royal Navy’s cruiser HMS Hawke. Although an Admiralty inquiry found that the 46,000-ton Olympic had pulled the 7,000-ton Hawke into the liner’s wake, forcing the cruiser into the liner’s stern quarter, the White Star Line rejected the inquiry’s finding as self-serving and rewarded Smith with the command of the new Titanic. He was now fifty-nine years old, commodore of the White Star Line, and he had decided it was enough. After forty-five years at sea, thirty-two of them with the White Star Line, once he took the Titanic to New York and brought her back he would retire. It seemed to be, by anybody’s reckoning, a fitting climax to a brilliant career, commanding the largest, safest, most opulent ship afloat.
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As the Titanic pulled away from Cherbourg, the more experienced passengers soon settled in, while those new to transatlantic travel wandered about the ship, taking in all the marvels of this wonderful new vessel. As the First Class passengers were sipping their after-dinner liqueurs or coffee, the ship’s orchestra began playing on A Deck, the first of what was to be a nightly occurrence, the after-dinner concert.

As with everything else aboard the Titanic, the White Star Line spared neither effort nor expense to assemble what was regarded as the finest ship’s orchestra afloat. This was the day of Fritz Lehar and his great operettas, The Merry Widow, The Count of Luxemburg, and Gypsy Love; when Oscar Strauss continued to write waltzes in the great Viennese tradition; English musicals such as The Country Girl, Our Miss Brooks, and Miss Hook of Holland provided melodies everyone knew; and the new American rage, ragtime, was in constant demand by the huge numbers of Americans crisscrossing the Atlantic. The strains of light melodies accompanying lunch and dinner and providing a backdrop for the day’s shipboard activities were always one of the most enduring memories for transatlantic travelers.

Wallace Hartley, the bandmaster, most recently had been bandmaster on the Cunard line’s
Mauretania,
but in early 1912 White Star wooed him away to the Titanic. Hartley’s violin was well known for its rich, warm sound by many First Class travelers. Equally accomplished was his second violinist, Jock Hume, who had been part of the band on the Olympic. (Jock’s mother had urged him not to go back to sea, but the pay on the new ship was good, especially for a young man who was soon to be wed.)

Pianist Theodore Brailey and cellist Roger Bricoux had come over from the
Carpathia,
another Cunard ship, while the bass-viol player, Fred Clark, had never been to sea before. The ensemble was completed by George Krins, who played the viola, J. W Woodward, another cellist, and P. C. Taylor, a pianist.

Usually, the band played as two separate ensembles: a quintet under Wallace Hartley’s direction that played at teatime, after dinner, and at Sunday services; and a trio, consisting of piano, violin, and cello, that played in the Reception Room outside the Cafe Parisien and the
à fa carte
Restaurant on B Deck.

The band’s position was a curious one, for the members were not part of the
Titanic’s
crew. Technically they were employed by the Liverpool firm of C. W and F. N. Black, who the White Star Line paid for the musicians’ services, while the Blacks actually paid their salaries. As a result they were berthed as Second Class passengers and dined in the Second Class dining saloon. They were still required to sign the ship’s articles, however, which subjected them to the authority of the ship’s officers like any other crew member. (In a similar “neither fish nor fowl” situation were the French and Italian employees of the
à la carte
Restaurant on B Deck. The restaurant was not operated by the White Star Line, but by Monsieur Gatti, who ran it as a concession.)
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By 11:00 P.M. the concert had run its course, and the passengers began to drift off, some to retire for the night, others to relax with friends in one of the smoking rooms or lounges, while others set out for further exploration. Even as jaded a palate as William Stead’s was impressed. In a letter posted at Queenstown the next day, he wrote in frank admiration, “This ship is a monstrous floating Babylon.”
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In the late morning of April 11 the Titanic steamed within sight of the Irish coast as the grey mountains of Cork slowly rose over the horizon. It was a cold morning, and few passengers were inclined to brave the brisk wind to sun themselves on the open decks, preferring to watch the approaching shore from one of the enclosed promenades or public rooms. The south coast of Ireland is one of the loveliest landfalls in Europe, with its high granite cliffs, often topped by a lonely, ruined castle or signal tower standing like a sentinel over innumerable coves and beaches and the impossibly green fields and pastures stretching out behind them. Soon the Old Head of Kinsale hove into view, a familiar sight to any transatlantic traveler, with its rocky promontory topped by a tall lighthouse, often used by the skippers of passenger liners as a landfall and navigational fix. Just around the headland lay Cork Harbor.

As the Titanic approached the Daunt Lightship, a few miles south of Queenstown, she slowed to take on the pilot, then proceeded majestically toward the harbor. The passengers could now see the twin forts guarding the entrance to the harbor, as well as the crowds of people lining the shore who had come out to watch the new ship being guided into Queenstown.

They had started gathering hours before, some coming from as far away as Cork City, by land a twenty-mile trek around Cork Harbor. This was a seafaring crowd, every bit as knowledgeable as the one that had seen the Titanic off at Southampton the day before, and it watched with admiration as the new ship glided in past the Heads, slowly rounded Roche Point, and dropped anchor two miles off shore
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The twin tenders Ireland and America drew alongside the Titanic and began transferring passengers and mail. There were about 130 new passengers taken on, young Irish men and women who for the most part had never been farther than one or two days’ journey away from their homes, as well as almost 1,400 sacks of mail. The handful of passengers that had only booked passage as far as Queenstown left the ship, including Mrs. Lillie Odell, who had made the short voyage with her two brothers, her sister-in-law Kate, and a nephew, along with an invited guest, Francis M. Browne. Browne, thirty-two years old, a schoolteacher and a candidate for the Jesuit priesthood, was what a later generation would call “a shutterbug.” He had brought his camera with him on the trip to Queenstown and had taken a remarkable series of photographs of shipboard life on the Titanic, including some amazing pictures of the near-collision with the New York.

A small flotilla of bumboats followed in the wakes of the two tenders, filled with vendors of various sorts hawking their wares. Several of the more respectable looking people were allowed on board, and for an hour or so the after Promenade Deck was transformed into an impromptu open-air market for Irish laces, linen, ceramics, and porcelains. John Jacob Astor was so taken by a lace jacket that he paid $800 for it on the spot.
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Winnie Troutt (her real name was Edwina, but nobody ever called her that), a schoolteacher from Bath, was far more interested in lunch than in tenders or bumboats. Not that the food, which was uniformly excellent, was the attraction, but she was interested in the company at her table. Assigned to a table seating eight, Miss Troutt had, much to her delight, discovered that her dining companions were friendly, intelligent, and articulate, and so had quickly formed a new circle of friends. She had become particularly fond of Jacob Milling, an industrialist from Copenhagen who manufactured locomotives. He was traveling to America to learn as much as possible about how Americans built locomotives so he could apply their expertise to his enterprise. He confessed to Winnie that although he had only known her for a day, he felt so comfortable in her company that he felt he had known her all of his life. Of course, the forty-eight-year-old businessman’s intentions were entirely honorable, for he was careful to point out to Winnie that he had even written to his wife telling her about his new friend. He had just posted the letter on the tender here at Queenstown.
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