north, longitude 49.52 west. Last night we spoke German oil tank Deutschland, Stettin to Philadelphia not under control short of coal latitude 40.42 north, longitude 55.11, wishes to be reported to New York and other steamers. Wish you and Titanic all success.
The suggestion that Captain Smith and Ismay had known about the ship’s proximity to ice was shocking. ‘I remember with deep feeling,’ wrote Lawrence Beesley,
the effect this information had on us when it first become generally known on the Carpathia. Rumours of it went round on the Wednesday morning, grew to definite statements in the afternoon, and were confirmed when one of the Titanic officers admitted the truth of it in reply to a direct question… It was not then the unavoidable accident we had hitherto supposed: the sudden plunging into a region crowded with icebergs which no seaman, however skilled a navigator he might be, could have avoided… It is no exaggeration to say that men who went through all the experiences of the collision and the rescue and the subsequent scenes on the quay at New York with hardly a tremor, were quite overcome by this knowledge and turned away, unable to speak.37
A committee of twenty-five surviving passengers prepared a statement to be issued to the press once they reached New York. ‘In addition to the insufficiency of lifeboats, rafts &c, there was a lack of trained seamen to hand the same — stokers, stewards &c are not efficient boat handlers. There were not enough officers to carry out the emergency orders on the bridge and to superintend the launching and control of the lifeboats, and there was an absence of searchlights… We suggest that an international conference should be called [and] we urge the United States Government to take the initiative as soon as possible.’38
The Carpathia, wrote Lawrence Beesley, ‘returned to New York in almost every kind of climatic condition: icebergs, ice fields and bitter cold to commence with; brilliant warm sun, thunder and lightning in the middle of one night (and so closely did the peal follow the flash that women in the saloon leaped up in alarm saying rockets were being sent up again); cold winds most of the time; fogs every morning and during a good part of one day, with the foghorn blowing constantly; rain, choppy sea with the spray blowing overboard and coming in through the saloon windows’.39 It was in drizzle that she steamed past the Statue of Liberty on the evening of Thursday 18 April. The newspaper boats clustered around the ship, shouting up questions through their megaphones. Through his own loudspeaker, Rostron announced that anyone trying to come on board would be ‘shot down’. At New York harbour’s Pier 54, a silent crowd of 30,000 waited as the ship crept up the river. The only lights visible were the Carpathia’s portholes and the bursts coming from photographer’s lamps. The business of docking, always slow, seemed interminable as the tugs worked away to get the ship warped in. At 9.30 p.m., the Titanic’s survivors, seventy of whom were widows, began to descend and the crowd divided into two long, cordoned-off lines through which they could pass. ‘Every figure, every face seemed remarkable,’ a journalist wrote. Senator Smith described the appearance of ‘the almost lifeless survivors in their garments of woe — joy and sorrow so intermingled that it was difficult to discern light from shadow’.40 First to appear on the gangway were the richest passengers; last off were those in steerage including the Lebanese immigrants who had shared Ismay’s boat. Finally, six orphaned babies were carried out in the arms of the Carpathia crew. The Titanic survivors, many of whom were finding speech difficult, were not expecting such a reception. It was the tolling of bells and the booming of cannon which brought home that they ‘had passed through a history-making disaster’.41 Ambulances were waiting for the injured, and the Women’s Relief Committee were ready to distribute clothes and shoes among the steerage passengers. Boarding houses were thrown open for those hundreds who had nowhere to stay, while the White Star Line had arranged for passengers who were now destitute to reach their final destination.
When everyone else had left the ship, Philip Franklin, Senator Smith and Senator Newlands showed their passes and slipped quietly on board. The two senators waited impatiently outside Dr McGhee’s cabin while Franklin went in to see Ismay with a new suit of clothes, the pair of shoes he had asked for and a fashionable scotch cap. Ismay dressed himself while Franklin explained that he would not be returning home on the Cedric and took him through the draft of an official statement he had prepared for Ismay to give to the press. After some minutes, Senators Smith and Newlands demanded to see Ismay, and Franklin replied that he was too ill to be interviewed. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Senator Smith, ‘but I will have to see that for myself’, and pushing open the door with his umbrella, informed Ismay that he would be appearing the next morning at the US Senate official investigation into the wreck of the Titanic. William Alden Smith had secured his star witness.
Flanked by detectives, Ismay left the Carpathia at 11.15 p.m. and went to the rear of the dock to the Cunard offices where an assortment of selected pressmen waited to finally get their story. Franklin’s statement was read out by one of the White Star Line officers:
In the presence and under the shadow of a catastrophe so overwhelming, my feelings are too deep for expression in words. I have only to say that the White Star Line, its officers, and employees, will do everything possible to alleviate the suffering and sorrows of the survivors and the relatives and friends of those who have perished. The Titanic was the last word in shipbuilding. Every regulation prescribed by the British Board of Trade had been complied with. The master, officers, and crew were the most experienced and skilled in the British service. I am informed that a committee of the United States Senate has been appointed to investigate the circumstances of the accident. I heartily welcome the most complete and exhaustive inquiry, and any aid that I or my associates or our builders or navigators can render is at the service of the public and the governments of both the United States and Great Britain. Under these circumstances, I must respectfully defer making a further statement at this time.
Boasts about the Titanic’s superiority as a ship were of no interest to the press, who had already decided that their story was to be a stirring narrative of chivalry and cowardice. ‘On what boat did you leave the Titanic? one journalist asked. ‘What do you mean?’ Ismay replied, unaware that this was an issue. ‘I don’t know what you mean. I left on a boat leaving from the centre.’ What was the number of the boat on which you left, in their order of departure? ‘I left from the starboard forward collapsible, the last boat to leave.’ Do you want to answer the charge that it is the custom, on the maiden voyage of a new liner, to make as fast a passage as possible in order to secure the good advertising which would follow? ‘That statement is absolutely false,’ Ismay replied ‘with more animation’, the New York Times reporter noted, ‘than he showed at any time during the interview’. ‘I can speak for the White Star Line that such a proceeding is not the case, and that the Titanic at no time during her voyage had been at full speed.’ He was asked how long it took the ship to sink (‘two hours and twenty-five minutes since the collision’), whether it was ‘true that she remained afloat long enough to save all had there been enough boats’ (‘I decline to answer’). He explained that he had been asleep at the time of the accident, that he had then come on deck, that he did all he could; he answered questions about the bulkheads and the length of time the lights remained on after the collision. When asked how he happened to be one of the ‘mostly women and children’ in the lifeboats, he spoke only of the magnificent behaviour of the crew. He said he did not see the ship go down, that he could offer no suggestions as to why the vital wireless message he sent to Franklin from the Carpathia had been delayed. When he was asked again how he came to be among the survivors, Franklin intervened to say that the question was unfair. The interview came to an end, and, flanked by bodyguards, Ismay was driven to the Ritz Carlton Hotel for the night.
Amongst those in New York who had booked their passage to Southampton on the Titanic’s return journey was the English writer John Galsworthy, who had been rehearsing his new play, The Pigeon. Caught up in the moment, Galsworthy decided not to go home immediately, but to attend the Titanic inquiry instead.
