The wireless operator of RMS Carpathia, Harold Thomas Cottam, was on the bridge of his ship when Jack sent out the first distress call. After Cottam returned to the wireless shack, he casually cabled the Titanic. “Do you know,” his message read, “that Cape Cod is sending a batch of messages for you?”
The message Jack sent back was shocking and stark: “Come at once. We have struck a berg. It’s a CQD, old man. Position 41.46 N 50.14 W.”
Cottam reread the message several times to be sure he had read it right. Then he ran to inform his captain. Moments later he cabled Jack, giving the Carpathia’s latitude and longitude and adding that she was fifty-eight miles away and steaming toward the Titanic as fast as possible. Jack wrote down the message and handed it to Harold Bride, who raced it to the wheelhouse, where Captain Smith was waiting.
The steward knocked again on Roberta’s cabin door, waking her from a sound sleep. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her, “but dress quickly, put on your life belt, and go on deck.”
Roberta grabbed the first clothes she saw and put on her life belt, but the chunks of cork within its canvas exterior made it cumbersome, and she could not get it tied. She rang for the steward, and as he secured the belt she joked about what an awkward contraption it was. The steward did not respond. Instead he smiled sadly and shook his head. Roberta fell silent. For the first time it struck her that something serious might have happened.