Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic (26 page)

Another rocket shot up into the sky. Quartermaster Rowe had fired off a half-dozen already, going to the Morse lamp occasionally, still vainly trying to get the attention of that ship on the horizon. Like Rowe, Captain Smith was convinced that she couldn’t be more than ten or twelve miles away, and he muttered something to Rowe about wanting a six-inch naval gun to “wake that fellow up.” Rowe didn’t catch all of the captain’s remark, but he silently agreed with the gist of it. Rowe’s frustration, like Phillips’s, was beginning to build, but like the wireless operator, he kept at his work, hoping for a miracle.
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About 1:20 in the morning of April 15, 1912, a dozing copy boy was jolted awake when the basket came crashing down the shaft of the dumbwaiter that connected the wireless station on the roof with the editorial offices of the New York Times. The startled copy boy snatched up the sheet of paper in the basket, read it, then took off for the office of the managing editor, Carr Van Anda. Van Anda read the message, frowned in disbelief, then read it again. From Cape Race in Newfoundland, the bulletin read:

Van Anda quickly called the New York office of the White Star Line, then contacted Times correspondents in Montreal and Halifax in an effort to learn more. At the moment the facts were sparse: about a half hour before midnight (New York time), the Allen Line had received a transmission from their steamer, the
Virginian,
which had picked up one of the
Titanic’s
early distress calls and had altered course to rush to the stricken liner’s aid. The White Star ships Olympic and Baltic were also putting about, as were the Birma, the Mount Temple, and the
Carpathia.
Cape Race was monitoring the wireless transmissions between these ships as well as keeping a close watch on the messages coming from the Titanic. Cape Race had heard nothing from the sinking liner since 12:27 A.M., when a blurred and abruptly cut off SOS was heard.

Van Anda had a good head for news, and quickly began reshaping the morning mail edition of the Times. The political feud between President Taft and Theodore Roosevelt, which had dominated the news for the three past months and had originally been given preeminence on the front page, was instantly relegated to the inside pages, and taking its place would be the accident to the Titanic. Van Anda sensed that a tremendous story was breaking and at the same time, a terrible dread was looming in the editor’s mind. The Titanic hadn’t been heard from in nearly an hour—as more reports came in, he learned that the women and children were being put into the lifeboats and that the ship’s engine room was flooding. What Van Anda began to suspect was the worst—the “unsinkable ship” had sunk.

There was no confirmation yet, so the story Van Anda prepared for the early edition was cautious. He simply presented the facts as they were known at that early hour, as well as whatever information was available about the ship and her passengers. But the four-line headline itself shouted:

That would do for the morning editions, but now Van Anda decided to play his hunch: when the city edition went to press, it announced that the Titanic had sunk. It would be several hours before he would know for sure, but if he was right, .then the New York Times would have “scooped” every other paper in the country—quite an accomplishment for a newspaper that in 1912 was just another New York daily. Although he didn’t know it at the time, Van Anda was about to secure claim to a position of preeminence for the New York Times among American newspapers that it would never relinquish.
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Fifth Officer Lowe would have traded every newspaper in America for a few more lifeboats. After seeing Boat 13 safely into the water at around 1:30, he crossed to the port side of the Boat Deck with Sixth Officer Moody, stopping at Boats 14 and 16. “I’ve just sent five boats away without a single officer in any of them,” he told Moody, “so there had best be an officer in one of these two.”

“You go,” Moody replied. “I’ll find another boat.”

By the time Lowe began loading Boat 14, the situation on board the Titanic was clear. Clearly the Titanic was doomed, and there was no longer the time to ask or cajole the women into the boats. Two seamen grasped Charlotte Collyer, one by the arm and the other by the waist and pulled her toward Boat 14. As she struggled to get free, her husband Harvey cried out, “Go, Lottie! For God’s sake, be brave and go! I’ll get a seat in another boat!”

A young man, barely more than a boy, climbed over the rail into Boat 14 and tried to hide beneath the seats among the women already in the boat. Furious, Lowe drew his revolver, dragged the young man out of his hiding place, and ordered him back onto the ship. The boy pleaded with Lowe, saying that he wouldn’t take up much room, but Lowe thrust the gun in his face and said, “I’ll give you just ten seconds to get back onto that ship before I blow your brains out!” Sobbing, the boy only pleaded harder, and Lowe suddenly changed tactics, saying, “For God’s sake, be a man. We’ve got women and children to save.”

By now the women in the boat, already thoroughly frightened, began crying. Eight-year old Marjory Collyer anxiously tugged at Lowe’s arm, whimpering, “Oh, Mr. Man, don’t shoot, please don’t shoot the poor man!” Lowe smiled at her and shook his head. Somehow Lowe’s mixture of threat and appeal worked, for now the young man had crawled out of the boat and was lying face down on the deck. (In all the excitement, the fifth officer failed to notice eighteen-year-old Daniel Buckley, who was sitting among the women in Boat 14 with a woman’s shawl over his head.)

Just seconds later another male passenger tried to rush aboard Boat 14, but was caught and thrown back by Lowe. It was this malefactor’s misfortune to land among several Second Class men, who began to beat him senseless. Another wave of Lowe’s “Italians” tried to force their way into the boat. Lowe yelled, “Look out!” to Seaman Scarrott, who drove them back using the tiller bar like a club. Lowe drew his gun again, and shouted, “If anyone else tries that this is what he’ll get!” and fired three times along the side of the ship. The crowd fell back, Lowe stepped into the stern of Boat 14, and the boat was quickly lowered.
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At Boat 15, Steward Hart had just finished loading the last women from the second group he had brought up from steerage. Although he was prepared to go back again, First Officer Murdoch told him to stay with the boat. It was a wise decision, for just then a half-dozen men rushed the boat. Murdoch and Hart struggled to hold them back, Murdoch shouting at the men, “Get back! Get back! It’s women first!” Breathlessly the first officer gave the order to lower away.
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August Wennerstrom had escorted two Swedish girls to Boat 15, then crossed over to the port side of the Boat Deck, and stood near the fourth funnel, puffing away on a cigar and watching Boat 16 being loaded. Of all the boats put down, Boat 16 was probably the one loaded and launched with the least amount of fuss. Wennerstrom noticed that almost all the people getting into the boat were Second and Third Class women and children. Once Boat 16 was gone, Wennerstrom began to make his way forward. Up at the forward end of the superstructure there were a few boats left. It was nearly 1:45 A.M.
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Through it all, the sounds of ragtime, familiar dance tunes, and popular waltzes continued. Bandmaster Hartley and his musicians, all wearing their lifebelts now, were playing by the forward entrance to the Grand Staircase. They had been playing for close to an hour now, but if Hartley ever had any thought of stopping, he gave no sign of it. This was exactly what Wallace Hartley had always conceived of his duty as orchestra leader to be: years before, when a friend had asked him what he would do if he found himself standing on the deck of a sinking ship, he replied, “I would gather the band together and begin playing.” No one is certain, of course; if Hartley or anyone else in the band knew that there were too few boats and their chances of getting away very slim, but not one of them stopped playing.
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In spite of the desperation beginning to wash over the Boat Deck, some individuals on board persisted in displaying a remarkable calm. A diehard foursome in the First Class Smoking Room—Major Butt, Arthur Ryerson, Clarence Moore, and Frank Millet—seemed completely imperturbable: despite the alarmingly tilting deck, their bridge game went on uninterrupted. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism, a denial of a reality that they did not want to face. At any rate the bidding, tricks, ruffs, and finesses continued.

Nearby, William Stead sat ensconced in a leather armchair, completely absorbed in his book. The ongoing commotion outside on the Boat Deck disturbed him not one whit; he never made any attempt to put on a lifebelt nor even expressed the slightest curiosity about the state of the ship. Doubtless he recalled that in the course of an after-dinner conversation Friday night he had defied superstition by telling a tale about a cursed Egyptian mummy, deliberately drawing the tale out until he was able to conclude it after midnight, then gleefully drawing his audience’s attention that it was now the thirteenth of April when he finished. It was equally probable that he was well aware he would soon be experiencing firsthand the spiritual world in which he so ardently believed.

Charles Hays, standing off to one side on the Boat Deck, was probably recalling an after-dinner conversation he’d had with Colonel Gracie a few hours earlier. Just before Gracie retired for the night, Hays had remarked, “The White Star, Cunard, and the Hamburg-Amerika are now devoting their attention to a struggle for supremacy in obtaining the most luxurious appointments for their ships. But the time will soon come when the greatest and most appalling of all disasters at sea will be the result.” Whatever his thoughts, Hays seemed singularly resigned to remaining on board to the end: after seeing his wife into Boat 3, he never went near any of the lifeboats.

Jay Yates, the professional gambler who had been on board hoping to make a maiden-voyage killing, would be remembered by many survivors as working as hard as any man on board to get as many women and children as he could into the lifeboats. Certainly he had no illusions about his fate: quickly tearing a page from his appointment book, he scribbled a hasty note, then thrust it at a woman climbing into one of the boats. Signed with an alias, it read, “If saved, please inform my sister Mrs. F. J. Adams of Findlay, Ohio. Lost. J. H. Rogers.” (The note eventually would find its way to Yates’s mother, who broke down when she received it. “Thank God I know where he is now,” she sobbed. “I had not heard from him in two years. The last news I had from him he was in London.”)
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Benjamin Guggenheim outdid them all, though. Sometime between 12:30 and 1:00, he disappeared from the Boat Deck, only to reappear about 1:30. He no longer wore the warm sweaters that Steward Etches had insisted on earlier. Missing too was his lifebelt. Instead he and his secretary had donned white tie and tails. And now, standing calm and dignified on the Boat Deck, he gave Steward Johnson a message for his wife:

When pressed as to why he had laid aside his lifebelt and changed into evening clothes, he said simply, “We’ve dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”
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