A Night to Remember

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