The door to the cooks’ quarters whacked open against the iron cot of assistant baker Charles Burgess. He woke up with a start and stared at second steward George Dodd standing in the doorway. Normally a rotund, jolly man, Dodd looked serious as he called, ‘Get up, lads, we’re sinking!’
Dodd moved forward to the waiters’ quarters, where saloon steward William Moss was trying to rouse the men. Most of them were laughing and joking, when Dodd burst in, shouting, ‘Get every man up! Don’t let a man stay here!’
He moved on with Moss towards the stewards’ quarters. Just outside, smoking-room steward Witter was already getting some disturbing news from carpenter Hutchinson: ‘The bloody mail room is full.’ Moss came up and added, ‘It’s really serious, Jim.’
The wisecracks that greeted the first warnings faded, and the crew tumbled out of their berths. Still half-asleep, baker Burgess pulled on pants, a shirt, no lifebelt. Walter Belford wore his white baker’s coat, pants, didn’t stop to put on his underdrawers. Steward Ray took more time; he wasn’t worried—nevertheless he found himself putting on his shore suit. Steward Witter, already dressed, opened his trunk and filled his pockets with cigarettes… picked up the caul from his first child, which he always carried with him… then joined the crowd of men now swarming out into the working alleyway and up towards the boat stations.
Far forward, away from the uproar, trimmer Samuel Hemming climbed back into his bunk, satisfied that the hissing sound in the forepeak didn’t mean very much. He was just drifting off to sleep when the ship’s joiner leaned in, saying, ‘If I were you, I’d turn out. She’s making water one-two-three, and the racket court is getting filled up.’ An instant later the boatswain appeared: ‘Turn out, you fellows. You haven’t half an hour to live. That is from Mr Andrews. Keep it to yourselves and let no one know.’
Certainly no one knew in the first-class smoking-room. The bridge game was going full blast again. Lieutenant Steffanson was still sipping his hot lemonade, and another hand was being dealt, when a ship’s officer suddenly appeared at the door: ‘Men, get on your lifebelts; there’s trouble ahead.’
In her A deck stateroom, Mrs Washington Dodge lay in bed, waiting for Dr Dodge, Assessor for San Francisco, to dig up some news. The door opened and the doctor came in quietly: ‘Ruth, the accident is rather a serious one; you had better come on deck at once.’
Two decks below, Mrs Lucien Smith—tired of waiting for Mr Smith to finish exploring—had gone back to sleep. Suddenly the lights snapped on, and she saw her husband standing by the bed, smiling down at her. Leisurely he explained, ‘We are in the north and have struck an iceberg. It does not amount to anything but will probably delay us a day getting into New York. However, as a matter of form, the captain has ordered all ladies on deck.’
And so it went. No bells or sirens. No general alarm. But all over the Titanic, in one way or another, the word was passed.
It was very bewildering to eight-year-old Marshall Drew. When his aunt Mrs James Drew woke him and said she had to take him on deck, he sleepily protested he didn’t want to get up. But Mrs Drew paid no attention.
It was no less bewildering to Major Arthur Peuchen, despite his sightseeing expedition to look at the ice. He heard the news on the grand staircase and could hardly believe it. Completely stunned, he stumbled to his cabin to change from evening dress into something warm.
For many, first word came from their stewards. John Hardy, second-class chief steward, personally roused twenty to twenty-four cabins. Each time he threw the door open wide, shouting, ‘Everybody on deck with lifebelts on, at once!’
In first class it was more polite to knock. These were the days when a steward on a crack liner didn’t have more than eight or nine cabins, and he was like a mother hen to all the passengers he served.
Steward Alfred Crawford was typical. He had spent thirty-one years handling difficult passengers, and now he knew just how to coax old Mr Albert Stewart into a life jacket. Then he stopped and tied the old gentleman’s shoes.
In C-89, steward Andrew Cunningham helped William T. Stead into his lifebelt, while the great editor mildly complained that it was all a lot of nonsense. In B-84, steward Henry Samuel Etches worked like a solicitous tailor, fitting Benjamin Guggenheim for his lifebelt.
‘This will hurt,’ protested the mining and smelting king. Etches finally took the belt off altogether, made some adjustments, put it on again. Next, Guggenheim wanted to go on deck as he was, but Etches was adamant—it was much too cold. Ultimately Guggenheim submitted; Etches pulled a heavy sweater over him and sent him packing off topside.
Some of the passengers were even more difficult. At C-78, Etches found the door locked. When he knocked loudly with both hands, a man inside asked suspiciously, ‘What is it?’ and a woman added, ‘Tell us what the trouble is.’ Etches explained and again tried to get them to open the door. He had no luck, and after a few minutes’ pleading he finally passed on to the next cabin.
In another part of the ship a locked door raised a different problem. It was jammed, and some passengers broke it down to release a man inside. At this point a steward arrived, threatening to have everybody arrested for damaging company property when the Titanic reached New York.
At 12.15 it was hard to know whether to joke or be serious—whether to chop down a door and be a hero, or chop it down and get arrested. No two people seemed to have the same reaction.
Mrs Arthur Ryerson felt there wasn’t a moment to lose. She had long since abandoned the idea of letting Mr Ryerson sleep; now she scurried about trying to keep her family together. There were six to get ready—her husband, three children, governess and maid—and the children seemed so slow. Finally she gave up on her youngest daughter; just threw a fur coat over her nightgown and told her to come on.
There seemed all the time in the world to Mrs Lucien Smith. Slowly and with great care she dressed for whatever the night might bring—a heavy woollen dress, high shoes, two coats and a warm knitted hood. All the while Mr Smith chatted away about landing in New York, taking the train south, never mentioning the iceberg. As they started for the deck, Mrs Smith decided to go back for some jewellery. Here Mr Smith drew the line. He suggested it might be wiser not to bother with ‘trifles’. As a compromise Mrs Smith picked up two favourite rings. Closing the door carefully behind them, the young couple headed up towards the boat deck.
Close behind came the Countess of Rothes and her cousin Gladys Cherry. They had difficulty putting on their lifebelts, and a passing gentleman paused to help them. He topped off the courtesy by handing them some raisins to eat.
The things people took with them showed how they felt. Adolf Dyker handed his wife a small satchel containing two gold watches, two diamond rings, a sapphire necklace and 200 Swedish crowns. Miss Edith Russell carried a musical toy pig (it played the ‘Maxixe’). Stuart Collett, a young theological student travelling second class, took the Bible he promised his brother he’d always carry until they met again. Lawrence Beesley stuffed the pockets of his Norfolk jacket with the books he had been reading in bed. Norman Campbell Chambers pocketed a revolver and compass. Steward Johnson, by now anticipating far more than ‘another Belfast trip’, stuck four oranges under his blouse. Mrs Dickinson Bishop left behind 11,000 dollars in jewellery, then sent her husband back for her muff.
Major Arthur Peuchen looked at the tin box on the table in C-104. Inside were 200,000 dollars in bonds, 100,000 dollars in preferred stock. He thought a good deal about it as he took off his dinner jacket, put on two suits of long underwear and some heavy clothes.
Then he took a last look around the little cabin—the real brass bed… the green mesh net along the wall for valuables at night… the marble washstand… the wicker armchair… the horsehair sofa… the fan in the ceiling… the bells and electrical fixtures that on a liner always look as if they were installed as an afterthought.
Now his mind was made up. He slammed the door, leaving behind the tin box on the table. In another minute he was back. Quickly he picked up a good-luck pin and three oranges. As he left for the last time, the tin box was still on the table.
Out in the C deck foyer, Purser Herbert McElroy was urging everyone to stop standing around. As the Countess of Rothes passed, he called, ‘Hurry, little lady, there is not much time. I’m glad you didn’t ask me for your jewels as some ladies have.’
Into the halls they poured, gently prodded along by the crew. One room steward caught the eye of Miss Marguerite Frolicher as she came down the corridor. Four days before, she had playfully teased him for putting a lifebelt in her stateroom, if the ship was meant to be so unsinkable. At the time he had laughed and assured her it was just a formality… she would never have to wear it. Remembering the exchange, he now smiled and reassured her, ‘Don’t be scared; it’s all right.’
‘I’m not scared,’ she replied, ‘I’m just seasick.’
Up the stairs they trooped—a hushed crowd in jumbled array. Under his overcoat Jack Thayer now sported a greenish tweed suit and vest, with another mohair vest underneath. Mr Robert Daniel, the Philadelphia banker, had on only woollen pyjamas. Mrs Turrell Cavendish wore a wrapper and Mr Cavendish’s overcoat… Mrs John C. Hogeboom a fur coat over her nightgown… Mrs Ada Clark just a nightgown. Mrs Washington Dodge didn’t bother to put on stockings under her high-button shoes, which flopped open because she didn’t stop to button them. Mrs Astor looked right out of a bandbox in an attractive light dress, Mrs James J. Brown—a colourful Denver millionairess—equally stylish in a black velvet two-piece suit with black and white silk lapels.
Automobiling, as practised in 1912, affected the attire of many ladies—Mrs C. E. Henry Stengal wore a veil tightly pinned down over her floral hat, Madame de Villiers a long woollen motoring coat over her nightgown and evening slippers.
Young Alfred von Drachstedt, a twenty-year-old youth from Cologne, settled on a sweater and a pair of trousers, leaving behind a brand-new 2,133-dollar wardrobe that included walking sticks and a fountain pen, which he somehow felt was a special badge of distinction.
Second class was somewhat less elegantly disarrayed. Mr and Mrs Albert Caldwell—returning from Siam, where they taught at the Bangkok Christian College—had bought new clothes in London, but tonight they dressed in the oldest clothes they owned. Their baby Alden was wrapped in a blanket. Miss Elizabeth Nye wore a simple skirt, coat and slippers. Mrs Charlotte Collyer didn’t bother to put up her hair, just tied it back with a ribbon. Her eight-year-old daughter Marjory had a steamer rug around her shoulders. Mr Collyer took little trouble dressing, because he expected to be back soon—he even left his watch lying on his pillow.
The scene in third class was particularly confusing because the White Star Line primly quartered the single men and single women at opposite ends of the Titanic. Now many of the men—who slept towards the bow—hurried aft to join the girls.
Katherine Gilnagh, a pert colleen not quite sixteen, heard a knock on the door. It was the young man who had caught her eye earlier that day playing the bagpipes on deck. He told her to get up—something was wrong with the ship. Anna Sjoblom, an eighteen-year-old Finnish girl bound for the Pacific Northwest, woke up when a young Danish swain came in to rouse her room-mate. He also gave Anna a lifebelt and urged her to come along. But she was too seasick to care. Eventually there was so much commotion that she went up after all, even though she still felt awful. She was quickly helped into a lifebelt by Alfred Wicklund, a schoolfriend from home.
Among these young men, Olaus Abelseth was especially worried. He was a twenty-six-year-old Norwegian heading for a South Dakota homestead, and an old family friend had put a sixteen-year-old daughter in his care until they reached Minneapolis. As he pushed his way aft along the E deck working alleyway, Minneapolis seemed a long way off.
Abelseth found the girl in the main steerage hallway on E deck. Then, along with his brother-in-law, a cousin and another girl, he climbed the broad, steep third-class stairs to the poop deck at the very stern of the ship.
Into the bitter night the whole crowd milled, each class automatically keeping to its own decks—first class in the centre of the ship, second a little aft, third at the very stern or in the well deck near the bow. Quietly they stood around waiting for the next orders… reasonably confident yet vaguely worried. With uneasy amusement they eyed how one another looked in lifebelts. There were a few half-hearted jokes.
‘Well,’ said Clinch Smith as a girl walked by carrying a Pomeranian, ‘I suppose we ought to put a life preserver on the little doggie too.’
‘Try this on,’ a man told Mrs Vera Dick as he fastened on her life jacket. ‘They are the very latest thing this season. Everybody is wearing them now.’
‘They will keep you warm if you don’t have to use them,’ Captain Smith cheerfully explained to Mrs Alexander T. Compton of New Orleans.
At about 12.30 Colonel Gracie bumped into Fred Wright, the Titanic’s squash pro. Remembering he had reserved the court for 7.30 in the morning, Gracie tried a little joke of his own: ‘Hadn’t we better cancel that appointment?’
‘Yes,’ replied Wright. His voice was flat and without enthusiasm, but the wonder is he played along at all. He knew the water was now up to the squash-court ceiling.
In the brightly lit gym, just off the boat deck, Mr and Mrs Astor sat side by side on a pair of motionless mechanical horses. They wore their lifebelts, and Mr Astor had an extra one in his lap. He was slicing it open with his penknife, whiling away the time by showing his wife what was inside.
While the passengers joked and talked and waited, the crew moved swiftly to their stations. The boat teemed with seamen, stewards, firemen, chefs, ordered up from below.
A curiously late arrival was Fifth Officer Harold Godfrey Lowe. A tempestuous young Welshman, Lowe was hard to suppress. When he was fourteen, his father tried to apprentice him to a Liverpool businessman, but Lowe said he ‘wouldn’t work for nobody for nothing’. So he ran away to sea and a life after his own heart—schooners… square-riggers… five years steaming along the West African coast.
Now, at twenty-eight, he was making his first trip across the Atlantic. This Sunday night he was off duty and slept through the collision. Voices outside his cabin on the boat deck finally woke him up. When he looked out of the porthole and saw everybody in lifebelts, he catapulted out of bed, into his clothes, and rushed on deck to help. Not exactly an auspicious start, but then, as Lowe later explained to US senator Smith, ‘You must remember that we do not have any too much sleep, and therefore when we sleep we die.’
Second Officer Charles Herbert Lightoller was late too, but for an entirely different reason. Like Lowe, he was off duty in his bunk when the Titanic hit, but he woke up instantly and, in his bare feet, ran out on the boat deck to see what was up. Nothing could be seen on either side of the ship, except on the starboard wing of the bridge, where he dimly made out Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch. They too were peering out into the night.
Lightoller returned to his cabin and thought it over. Something undoubtedly was wrong with the ship—first that jar, now the silent engines. But he was off duty and, until called, it was no business of his. When they needed him, they would send for him. When this happened, he should be where they’d expect to find him. Lightoller got back into bed and lay awake waiting …
Five, fifteen, thirty minutes went by. He could now hear the roar of the funnels blowing off steam, the rising sound of voices, the clanking of gears. But still, his duty was to be where they’d expect to find him.
At 12.10 Fourth Officer Boxhall finally came bursting in: ‘You know we have struck an iceberg.’
‘I know we have struck something,’ Lightoller replied, getting up and starting to dress.
‘The water is up to F deck in the mail room,’ continued Boxhall, by way of a little prodding. But no urging was needed. Lightoller was already well on the way. Cool, diligent, cautious, he knew his duty to the letter. He was the perfect Second Officer.
On the boat deck men began to clear the sixteen wooden lifeboats. There were eight on each side—a cluster of four towards the bow, then an open space of 190 feet, then another four towards the stern. Port boats had even numbers, starboard odd. They were numbered in sequence, starting from the bow. In addition, four canvas collapsible lifeboats—known as Englehardts—were stowed on deck. These could be fitted into the empty davits after the two forward boats were lowered. The collapsibles were lettered A, B, C and D.
All the boats together could carry 1,178 people. On this Sunday night there were 2,207 people on board the Titanic.
This mathematical discrepancy was known by none of the passengers and few of the crew, but most of them wouldn’t have cared anyhow. The Titanic was unsinkable. Everybody said so. When Mrs Albert Caldwell was watching the deck hands carry up luggage at Southampton, she had asked one of them, ‘Is this ship really non-sinkable?’
‘Yes, lady,’ he answered. ‘God Himself could not sink this ship.’
So now the passengers stood calmly on the boat deck—unworried but very confused. There had been no boat drill. The passengers had no boat assignments. The crew had assignments, but hardly anybody bothered to look at the list. Now they were playing it strictly by ear—yet somehow the crew seemed to sense where they were needed and how to be useful. The years of discipline were paying off.
Little knots of men swarmed over each boat, taking off the canvas covers, clearing the masts and useless paraphernalia, putting in lanterns and tins of biscuits. Other men stood at the davits, fitting in cranks and uncoiling the lines. One by one the cranks were turned. The davits creaked, the pulleys squealed and the boats slowly swung out free of the ship. Next, a few feet of line were paid out, so that each boat would lie flush with the boat deck… or, in some cases, flush with promenade deck A directly below.
But the going was slow. Second Officer Lightoller, in charge of the port side, believed in channels, and Chief Officer Wilde’s side seemed quite a bottleneck. When Lightoller asked permission to swing out, Wilde said, ‘No, wait.’ Lightoller finally went to the bridge and got orders direct from Captain Smith. Now Lightoller asked Wilde if he could load up. Again Wilde said no; again Lightoller went to the bridge; again Captain Smith gave him the nod: ‘Yes, put the women and children in and lower away.’
Lightoller then lowered boat 4 level with A deck and ordered the women and children down to be loaded from there. It seemed safer that way—less chance of falling overboard, less distance to the water, and it helped clear the boat deck for hard work ahead. Too late he remembered the promenade deck was closed here and the windows were shut. While someone was sent to get the windows open, he hastily recalled everybody and moved aft to boat 6.
With one foot in No. 6 and one on deck, Lightoller now called for women and children. The response was anything but enthusiastic. Why trade the bright decks of the Titanic for a few dark hours in a rowboat? Even John Jacob Astor ridiculed the idea: ‘We are safer here than in that little boat.’
As Mrs J. Stuart White climbed into No. 8, a friend called, ‘When you get back you’ll need a pass. You can’t get back on tomorrow morning without a pass!’
When Mrs Constance Willard flatly refused to enter the boat, an exasperated officer finally shrugged: ‘Don’t waste time—let her go if she won’t get in!’
And there was music to lull them too. Bandmaster Wallace Henry Hartley had assembled his men, and the band was playing ragtime. Just now they stood in the first-class lounge, where many of the passengers waited before orders came to lower the boats. Later they moved to the boat deck forward, near the entrance to the grand staircase. They looked a little nondescript—some in blue uniform coats, some in white jackets—but there was nothing wrong with their music.
Everything had been done to give the Titanic the best band on the Atlantic. The White Star Line had even raided the Cunarder Mauretania for bandmaster Hartley. Pianist Theodore Brailey and cellist Roger Bricoux were easily wooed from the Carpathia. ‘Well, steward,’ they happily told Robert Vaughan who served them on the little Cunarder, ‘we will soon be on a decent ship with decent grub.’ Bass player Fred Clark had never shipped before, but he was well known on the Scottish concert circuit, and the line brought him away too. First violinist Jock Hume hadn’t yet played in any concerts, but his fiddle had a gay note the passengers seemed to love. And so it went—eight fine musicians who knew just what to do. Tonight the beat was fast, the music loud and cheerful.
On the starboard side things moved a little faster. But not fast enough for President Ismay, who dashed to and fro, urging the men to hurry. ‘There’s no time to lose!’ he urged Third Officer Pitman, who was working on boat 5. Pitman shrugged him off—he didn’t know Ismay and he had no time for an officious stranger in carpet slippers. Ismay told him to load the boat with women and children. This was too much for Pitman: ‘I await the commander’s orders,’ he announced.
Suddenly it dawned on him who the stranger might be. He eased down the deck, gave his hunch to Captain Smith and asked if he should do what Ismay wanted. Smith answered a crisp, ‘Carry on.’ Returning to No. 5, Pitman jumped in and called, ‘Come along, ladies!’
Mrs Catherine Crosby and her daughter Harriet were firmly propelled into the boat by her husband, Captain Edward Gifford Crosby, a Milwaukee shipping man and an old Great Lakes skipper. Captain Crosby had a way of knowing things—right after the crash he scolded his wife, ‘You’ll lie there and drown!’ Later he told her, ‘This ship is badly damaged, but I think the watertight compartments will hold her up.’ Now he was taking no chances.
Slowly others edged forward—Miss Helen Ostby… Mrs F. M. Warren… Mrs Washington Dodge and her five-year-old son… a young stewardess. When no more women would go alone, a few couples were allowed. Then a few single men. On the starboard side this was the rule all evening—women first, but men if there was still room.
Just aft, First Officer Murdoch, in charge of the starboard side, was having the same trouble filling No. 7. Serial movie star Dorothy Gibson jumped in, followed by her mother. Then they persuaded their bridge companions of the evening, William Sloper and Fred Seward, to join them. Others trickled in, until there were finally nineteen or twenty in the boat. Murdoch felt he could wait no longer. At 12.45 he waved away No. 7—the first boat down.
Then he ordered Pitman to take charge of No. 5, told him to hang around the after gangway, shook hands and smiled: ‘Good-bye, good luck.’
As No. 5 creaked downward, Bruce Ismay was beside himself. ‘Lower away! Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!’ he chanted, waving one arm in huge circles while hanging on to the davit with the other.
‘If you’ll get the hell out of the way,’ exploded Fifth Officer Lowe, who was working the davits, ‘I’ll be able to do something! You want me to lower away quickly? You’ll have me drown the whole lot of them!’
Ismay was completely abashed. Without a word he turned and walked forward to No. 3.
Old-timers in the crew gasped. They felt Lowe’s outburst was the most dramatic thing that could happen tonight. A Fifth Officer doesn’t insult the president of the line and get away with it. When they reached New York, there would be a day of reckoning.
And nearly everyone still expected to reach New York. At worst, they would all be transferred to other ships.
‘Peuchen,’ said Charles M. Hays as the major began helping with the boats, ‘this ship is good for eight hours yet. I have just been getting this from one of the best old seamen, Mr Crosby of Milwaukee.’
Monsieur Gatti, maître of the ship’s à la carte French restaurant, was equally unperturbed. Standing alone on the boat deck, he seemed the picture of dignity—his top hat firmly in place, grip in hand and a shawl travelling-blanket folded neatly over his arm.
Mr and Mrs Lucien Smith and Mr and Mrs Sleeper Harper sat quietly chatting in the gym just off the boat deck. The mechanical horses were riderless now—the Astors had moved off somewhere else. And for once there was no one on the stationary bicycles, which the passengers liked to ride, pedalling red and blue arrows round a big white clock. But the room with its bright, blocked linoleum floor and the comfortable wicker chairs was far more pleasant than the boat deck. Certainly it was warmer, and there seemed no hurry.
In the nearly empty smoking-room on A deck, four men sat calmly around a table—Archie Butt, Clarence Moore, Frank Millet, and Arthur Ryerson seemed deliberately trying to avoid the noisy confusion of the boat deck.
Far below, greaser Thomas Ranger began turning off some forty-five electric fans used in the engine room, and he thought about the ones he had to repair tomorrow. Electrician Alfred White, working on the dynamos, brewed some coffee at his post.
At the very stern of the Titanic, Quartermaster George Thomas Rowe still paced his lonely watch. He had seen no one, heard nothing since the iceberg glided by nearly an hour ago. Suddenly he was amazed to see a lifeboat floating near the starboard side. He phoned the bridge—did they know there was a boat afloat? An incredulous voice asked who he was. Rowe explained, and the bridge then realized he had been overlooked. They told him to come to the bridge right away and bring some rockets with him. Rowe dropped down to a locker one deck below, picked up a tin box with twelve rockets inside, and clambered forward—the last man to learn what was going on.
Others knew all too well by now. Old Dr O’Loughlin whispered to stewardess Mary Sloan, ‘Child, things are very bad.’ Stewardess Annie Robinson stood near the mail room, watching the water rise on F deck. As she puzzled over a man’s Gladstone bag lying abandoned in the corridor, carpenter Hutchinson arrived with a lead line in his hand—he looked bewildered, distracted, wildly upset. A little later Miss Robinson bumped into Thomas Andrews on A deck. Andrews greeted her like a cross parent:
‘I thought I told you to put your lifebelt on!’
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘but I thought it mean to wear it.’
‘Never mind that. Put it on; walk about; let the passengers see you.’
‘It looks rather mean.’
‘No, put it on… Well, if you value your life, put it on.’
Andrews understood people very well. A charming, dynamic man, he was everywhere, helping everyone. And people looked to him. He handled them differently, depending on what he thought of them. He told garrulous steward Johnson that everything would be all right. He told Mr and Mrs Albert Dick, his casual dinner companions, ‘She is torn to bits below, but she will not sink if her after bulkheads hold.’ He told competent stewardess Mary Sloan, ‘It is very serious, but keep the bad news quiet, for fear of panic.’ He told John B. Thayer, whom he trusted implicitly, that he didn’t give the ship ‘much over an hour to live’.
Some of the crew didn’t need to be told. About 12.45, able seaman John Poingdestre left the boat deck to get his rubber boots. He found them in the forecastle on E deck forward, and was just starting up again when the wooden wall between his quarters and some third-class space to starboard suddenly gave way. The sea surged in, and he fought his way out through water up to his waist.
Further aft, dining-saloon steward Ray went to his quarters on E deck to get a warmer overcoat. Coming back up, he went forward on ‘Scotland Road’ towards the main staircase. The jostling firemen and third-class passengers were gone now. All was quiet along the broad working alleyway, except for water sloshing along the corridor from somewhere forward.
Still further aft, assistant second steward Joseph Thomas Wheat dropped down to pick up some valuables from his room on F deck, port side. It was right next to the Turkish bath, a gloriously garish set of rooms that formed a sort of bridge between the Victorian and Rudolph Valentino eras of interior decoration. The mosaic floor, the blue-green tiled walls, the gilded beams in the dull red ceiling, the stanchions encased in carved teak—all were still perfectly dry.
But when Wheat walked a few yards down the corridor and started back up the stairs, he saw a strange sight: a thin stream of water was flowing down the stairs from E deck above. It was only a quarter-inch deep—just about covered the heel of his shoe—as he splashed up the steps. When he reached E deck, he saw it was coming from the starboard side forward.
He guessed what had happened: water forward on F deck, blocked by the watertight compartment door, had risen to E deck, where there was no door, and now was slopping over into the next compartment aft.
Boiler room No. 5 was the only place where everything seemed under control. After the fires were drawn, leading fireman Barrett sent most of the stokers up to their boat stations. He and a few others stayed behind to help engineers Harvey and Shepherd with the pumps.
At Harvey’s orders he lifted the iron manhole cover off the floor plates on the starboard side, so Harvey could get at the valves to adjust the pumps.
The boiler room was now clouding up with steam from the water used to wet down the furnaces. In the dim light of their own private Turkish bath, the men worked on… vague shapes moving about through the mist.
Then Shepherd, hurrying across the room, fell into the manhole and broke his leg. Harvey, Barrett and fireman George Kemish rushed over. They lifted him up and carried him to the pump room, a closed-off space at one end of the boiler room.
No time to do more than make him comfortable… then back into the clouds of steam. Soon orders came down from the bridge for all hands to report to boat stations. As the men went up, Shepherd still lay in the pump room; Barrett and Harvey kept working with the valves. Another fifteen minutes and both men were beginning to cheer up—the room was still dry, the rhythm of the pumps was fast and smooth.
Suddenly the sea came roaring through the space between the boilers at the forward end of the room. The whole bulkhead between No. 5 and No. 6 collapsed.
Harvey shouted to Barrett to make for the escape ladder. Barrett scrambled up, the foam surging around his feet. Harvey himself turned towards the pump room where Shepherd lay. He was still heading there when he disappeared under the torrent of rising water.
The silence in the Marconi shack was broken only by the rasping spark of the wireless, as Phillips rapped out his call for help and took down the answers that bounced back. Bride was still struggling into his clothes, between dashes to the bridge.
So far the news was encouraging. First to reply was the North German Lloyd steamer Frankfort. At 12.18 she sent a crisp ‘OK… Stand by’—but no position. In another minute acknowledgements were pouring in—the Canadian Pacific’s Mt Temple… the Allan liner Virginian… the Russian tramp Birma.
The night crackled with signals. Ships out of direct contact got the word from those within range… The news spread in ever-widening circles. Cape Race heard it directly and relayed it inland. On the roof of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, a young wireless operator named David Sarnoff caught a faint signal and also passed it on. The whole world was snapping to agonized attention.
Close at hand, the Cunarder Carpathia steamed southward in complete ignorance. Her single wireless operator, Harold Thomas Cottam, was on the bridge when Phillips sent his CQD. Now Cottam was back at his set and thought he’d be helpful. Did the Titanic know, he casually asked, that there were some private messages waiting for her from Cape Race?
It was 12.25 when Phillips tapped back an answer that brushed aside the Carpathia’s courteous gesture: ‘Come at once. We have struck a berg. It’s a CQD, old man. Position 41.46N 50.14W.’
A moment of appalled silence… then Cottam asked whether to tell his captain. Phillips: ‘Yes, quick.’ Another five minutes and welcome news—the Carpathia was only fifty-eight miles away and ‘coming hard’.
At 12.34 it was the Frankfort again—she was 150 miles away. Phillips asked, ‘Are you coming to our assistance?’ Frankfort: ‘What is the matter with you?’ Phillips: ‘Tell your captain to come to our help. We are on the ice.’
Captain Smith now dropped into the shack for a first-hand picture. The Olympic, the Titanic’s huge sister ship, was just chiming in. She was 500 miles away; but her set was powerful, she could handle a major rescue job and there was a strong bond between the two liners. Phillips kept in close touch, while urging on the ships that were nearer.
‘What call are you sending?’ Smith asked.
‘CQD,’ Phillips answered noncommitally.
Bride had a bright idea. While CQD was the traditional distress call, an international convention had just agreed to use instead the letters SOS—they were easy for the rankest amateur to pick up. So Bride suggested: ‘Send SOS; it’s the new call, and it may be your last chance to send it.’
Phillips laughed at the joke and switched the call. The clock in the wireless shack said 12.45 a.m. when the Titanic sent the first SOS ever flashed by an ocean liner.
None of the ships contacted seemed as promising as the light that winked ten miles off the Titanic’s port bow. Through his binoculars Fourth Officer Boxhall saw clearly that it was a steamer. Once, as he tried to get in touch with the Morse lamp, he felt he saw an answer. But he could make nothing of it and finally decided it must be her mast light flickering.
Stronger measures were necessary. As soon as Quartermaster Rowe reached the bridge, Captain Smith asked if he had brought the rockets. Rowe produced them, and the Captain ordered, ‘Fire one, and fire one every five or six minutes.’
At 12.45 a blinding flash seared the night. The first rocket shot up from the starboard side of the bridge. Up… up it soared, far above the lacework of masts and rigging. Then with a distant, muffled report it burst, and a shower of bright white stars floated down towards the sea. In the blue-white light Fifth Officer Lowe remembered catching a glimpse of Bruce Ismay’s startled face.
Ten miles away, apprentice James Gibson stood on the bridge of the Californian. The strange ship that came up from the east had not moved for an hour, and Gibson studied her with interest. With glasses he could make out her side lights and a glare of lights on her afterdeck. At one point he thought she was trying to signal the Californian with her Morse lamp. He tried to answer with his own lamp, but soon gave up. He decided the stranger’s masthead light was merely flickering.
Second Officer Herbert Stone, pacing the Californian’s bridge, also kept his eye on this strange steamer. At 12.45 he saw a sudden flash of white light burst over her. Strange, he thought, that a ship would fire rockets at night.