Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic (17 page)

More than any shudder or jolt, the stopping of the
Titanic’s
engines attracted the passengers’ attention. Bells jangled as passengers rang for their stewards, inquiring as to why the ship had stopped. Mrs. Arthur Ryerson flagged down Steward Bishop in the hallway, who explained, “There’s talk of an iceberg, ma’am, and we’ve stopped so as not to run over it.” After hearing this Mrs. Ryerson debated with herself for some minutes as to whether or not she should wake her husband—he was not a good sailor and tonight he was getting his first good sleep since leaving Southampton. Finally she decided that in the absence of any further alarm she wouldn’t disturb him.

Lawrence Beesley’s steward was deliberately vague, or else simply didn’t know what was going on. Beesley asked him, “Why have we stopped?” to which the steward replied, “I don’t know, sir, but I don’t suppose it’s much.” Not at all satisfied, Beesley threw on his coat and began to work his way up to the Boat Deck to have a look around.

A similar curiosity infected other passengers. Jack Thayer, having told his parents that he was “going out to see the fun,” pulled on an overcoat, still wearing pajamas underneath. Colonel Gracie, more methodical, as befitted a military man, carefully dressed for the cold—including long underwear and woolen stockings—then trotted up to the Boat Deck.
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Once on deck all Jack Thayer found was a night that was bitterly cold, stars that were incredibly bright, a sea that was amazingly calm. The Titanic lay motionless in the water, brilliantly lit from bow to stern, the three functional funnels blowing off huge clouds of steam with a roar. Other passengers, like Thayer, who had come out to see what had caused the ship to stop, simply milled about, some wandering over to the railings to stare into the empty night. After a while most of them gave in to the cold and sought the warmth of the A Deck Foyer.

There they made quite a contrast to the magnificent surroundings. The elaborate white-enameled wrought iron scrollwork of the skylight, the delicate woodworking of the columns and banisters of the Grand Staircase, the wall clock with its two bronze nymphs representing Honor and Glory crowning Time all presented an odd setting for the knot of passengers variously attired in sweaters, dressing gowns, fur coats, evening clothes, or like Jack Thayer, pajamas and slippers hurriedly covered with overcoats. As they stood exchanging odd snippets of information, Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews passed through, returning from their inspection. Try as the passengers might to read something from the two men’s expressions, they learned nothing as Smith and Andrews politely but firmly edged past. Few had any real sense of danger: rather, most were concerned about how long the ship would remain stopped and if it might significantly delay their arrival in New York. When pressed on this point, a steward told George Harder, “Oh, it’ll be a few hours then we’ll be on our way again.”
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Some passengers thought they had the answer. Thinking along the same lines as Steward Johnson, Howard Case, London manager of Vacuum Oil, remarked to Fred Seward, “Looks like we’ve lost a propeller blade, but it’ll give us more time for bridge.” Harvey Collyer knew exactly what was going on: he explained to his wife Charlotte, “We’ve struck an iceberg—a big one—but there’s no danger. An officer told me so.” The Collyer family (they had an eight-year-old daughter, Marjory, who was asleep in the room next door) was making its first trip across the Atlantic—Mr. Collyer had just purchased a fruit farm in Fayette, Idaho—so every experience was exciting for the three of them. Tonight, though, the novelty had worn a little thin for Mrs. Collyer: dinner in the Second Class Dining Room had been too rich for her, and her stomach was still queasy. When her husband reassured her that no one sounded at all frightened, she lay back down on her bunk, trying to quell the upset stomach and get some rest.
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“What do they say is the trouble?” asked William Stead. He had been taking a late-night stroll on the portside promenade at the time of the collision, and had gone below to his cabin without realizing anything had happened. Only when the ship stopped and began blowing off steam did Stead reappear on deck.

“Icebergs,” was Frank Millet’s laconic reply.

“Well, I guess it’s nothing serious. I’m going back to my cabin to read.”

Father Thomas Byles was standing nearby, breviary in hand, reading his office—it was the one for Low Sunday—and overheard the exchange between Stead and Millet. Like Stead, Father Byles decided the incident was minor and returned to his meditation.
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John Jacob Astor had heard about the iceberg and gone up to take a quick look around the Boat Deck. Unimpressed, he returned to his suite, where he explained to his wife, Madeline, that the ship had struck some ice, but it didn’t seem serious. Hearing this, Mrs. Astor wasn’t alarmed either.
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Word of the iceberg spread rapidly, though with little if any sense of alarm. The exchange Peter Daly overheard in the corridor just down from his cabin was typical. One young woman in First Class was excitedly urging another: “Oh, come and let’s see the berg—we’ve never seen one!”

After a short expedition of their own, the Bishops returned to their stateroom. Mrs. Bishop began undressing for bed, while Mr. Bishop started to read, but they were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Mr. Albert Stewart, part owner of the Barnum and Bailey Circus. He invited Mr. Bishop to “Come out and amuse yourself.”

They couldn’t see the berg—it had long since drifted off into the darkness—but they could still see plenty of ice: tons of broken, splintered ice had been jarred loose from the berg as it brushed by the ship and fallen into the forward well deck. A surrealistic winter wonderland, the piles of ice soon became a source of amusement for the Third Class passengers who, like their counterparts in First and Second Class, had come on deck to find out what was wrong. Unlike the other classes, the Third Class passengers who were berthed forward hadn’t felt a grinding jar or faint shudder. Instead there had been a series of thuds, bangs, and screeches as the berg scraped along the side of the ship. Now up on deck they discovered the ice, and curiosity turned into rambunctiousness as they playfully threw chunks of ice and slush at each other.
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Soon the forward railing of A Deck was lined with First Class passengers watching the steerage passengers at play. Major Arthur Peuchen, a wealthy but not socially distinguished chemical manufacturer from Toronto, Ontario, spotted Charles Hays, the president of the Grand Trunk Railway, coming out of his stateroom and called out, “Mr. Hays, have you seen the ice?” Hays replied that he hadn’t, so Peuchen replied, “If you care to, I will take you up on deck and show it to you.” The major, seizing the opportunity to be seen in such prominent company, decorously escorted Hays forward.
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Ice collecting quickly became a widespread if short-lived fad. A steerage passenger presented a bemused Fourth Officer Boxhall with a chunk of ice the size of a small basin. (It’s easy to imagine Boxhall wondering “What am I supposed to do with it?”) Greaser Walter Hurst lay in his bunk, half awake, when his father-in-law, whom he shared quarters with, mischievously tossed a lump of ice into his lap. In the crew’s mess Able Seaman John Poingdestre produced a shard of ice and passed it around, while in the stewards’ quarters someone brought in a fist-sized fragment with the comment, “There are tons of it forward!”

Steward F. Dent Ray, unimpressed, rolled over in his bunk, muttering, “Well, that will not hurt anything.”

As Colonel Gracie stood in the A Deck Foyer a voice behind him said, “Would you like a souvenir to take back to New York?” Gracie turned and there stood his friend Clinch Smith, holding out his hand. In it lay a small piece of ice, smooth and “flat like my watch,” as the Colonel would later remember.

The most bizarre experience, though, belonged to First Class Steward Henry Etches. Making his way forward along an E Deck passageway, he encountered a Third Class passenger headed aft, carrying a block of ice. Before Etches could murmur “Excuse me” as he passed, the passenger threw the ice to the deck, and, as if demanding an answer, shouted “Will you believe it now?”
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Whatever it was that Etches was supposed to believe, there were several individuals who already had indisputable proof that something was definitely wrong with the Titanic. Antoni Yasbeck and his wife Celiney, married less than two months, were abruptly awakened by a loud crash twenty minutes before midnight. Traveling in Third Class, the Yasbeck’s cabin was in the bow, down near the waterline. Frightened by the noise and suspecting trouble with the ship, the Yasbecks decided it would be easier to find out what was wrong by going down below than by making the long climb to the upper decks. Creeping along a corridor until they came to a doorway leading down to the engineering spaces, the newlyweds peered down into Boiler Room No. 6. They decided after one glance that they had seen enough, and hurried back to their cabin to dress. The sight of the boiler-room crew and the engineers struggling against the incoming water convinced the couple that the ship was in danger.

Carl Jonnson, also a Third Class passenger with a berth in the bow, was awakened by the same loud noise that had roused the Yasbecks. Almost as soon as he got out of bed, water began seeping into his cabin from under the door. Jonnson began to dress, and by the time he had finished, the water had risen high enough to cover his shoes. He wasted no more time, but quickly began to make his way topside. Daniel Buckley, a young Irishman who had boarded the Titanic at Queenstown, had an even more disturbing experience. He had been awakened, like most of the Third Class passengers berthed in the forward accommodation, by the noise of the collision. Instead of getting up immediately, he lay in his bunk until he heard the murmur of voices in the corridor outside his cabin. When he jumped out of his bunk he landed in water up to his ankles.
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Far aft, in one of the Second Class sections near the stern of the ship on F Deck, Mrs. Allen Becker and her three children were awakened by, of all things, dead silence. The engines had stopped, something they hadn’t done since the Titanic had left Queenstown. Worried, Mrs. Becker inquired of her steward what had happened. “Nothing is the matter,” he told her. “We will be on our way in a few minutes.” Reassured, Mrs. Becker went back to her bunk and lay down. But sleep eluded her, and the longer she lay there the more concerned she became, since the engines hadn’t started up again. Getting up again, she found another steward, who told her “Put your lifebelts on immediately and go up to the Boat Deck.”

“Do we have time to dress?”

“No, madam, you have time for nothing.”
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Like Nellie Becker, Sarah Daniels awoke when the engines stopped. For some reason this disturbed her, and she went to knock at the door of her employer, Hudson Allison. When she voiced her concern to him, Allison, who had been asleep himself, simply told her, “Sarah, you’re nervous—go back to bed. This ship is unsinkable.” Still worried despite Mr. Allison’s assurances, Sarah began dressing as soon as she returned to her cabin.

Mr. and Mrs. Norman Chambers, who had left their First Class cabin on E Deck, now stood at the top of the stairs in an F Deck companionway and watched the five postal clerks struggling to save 200 sacks of mail—some 400,000 letters altogether—from the rising sea water. The
Titanic’s
post office occupied two deck levels: stowage for the mail was on the Orlop Deck and sorting was done just above on G Deck. Within minutes of the impact the postal clerks were working in water up to their knees as they dragged the mail bags up the stairs to G Deck—where less than five minutes later water began lapping over the sill of the companionway, onto the floor of the G Deck mailroom. Temporarily giving up the unequal struggle, the clerks climbed up the stairs to F Deck, and stood by Mr. and Mrs. Chambers, watching the water continue to rise in the mail room. From their vantage point they could also see trunks beginning to float about in the First Class baggage room.

While they watched, Fourth Officer Boxhall came by, peered over their shoulders into the flooding mailroom, then hurried on his way Boxhall was followed a few minutes later by Assistant Second Steward Wheat, then later on by Captain Smith. Meanwhile the postal clerks climbed down again and went back to trying to save the mail.
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Just aft and below where the Chambers and the postal clerks were standing was Boiler Room No. 6. When the alarm had sounded most of the men didn’t have time to duck through the rapidly dropping watertight door into Boiler Room No. 5. Instead they had to scramble up the ladders of the escape trunks to the deck above. They were only about halfway there when a voice shouted out, “Shut the dampers! Draw the fires!” and the men returned to their positions. Frantically racing against the rising water, the stokers, trimmers, and firemen worked to shut down the boilers. Thick clouds of steam filled the air, and in just a few minutes the water was waist deep. But the excess steam had been vented and the fires drawn, so when the sea reached the boilers there would be no explosions. Finally the same unseen voice that had called the men back now sang out, “That’ll do!” and the men fled Boiler Room No. 6 for the last times
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Boiler Room No. 5 had its own share of problems. Assistant Engineers Hesketh, Harvey, and Wilson were feverishly working to get the pumps going. A fat jet of seawater was shooting from the two-foot gash that extended from the bulkhead along the starboard side. Eventually the three engineers got the pumps working and were able to stay ahead of the incoming water. A few minutes later the lights went out in Boiler Room No. 5, and Engineer Harvey told Fireman Barrett to go aft to No. 4 for emergency lanterns. Since the watertight doors had to remain shut, this meant Barrett had to climb up the escape ladder, cross the deck above, and climb down into Boiler Room No. 4. Once he had the lanterns, Barrett then repeated the performance in reverse, only to find as he climbed back down into No. 5 that the lights had come back on.