A Night to Remember (16 page)

In fact, nobody on the
Carpathia
now knew what to look for. In the little wireless shack over the Second. Class smoking room, Harold Cottam could no longer rouse the
Titanic
. But his set was so miserable—the range was only 150 miles at best—that he wasn’t sure what had happened. Perhaps the
Titanic
was still sending, but her signals were now too weak to catch.

On the other hand, the news so far had been all bad. At 1:06 Cottam heard her tell the
Olympic,
“Get your boats ready; going down fast at the head” … at 1:10, “Sinking head down” … at 1:35, “Engine room getting flooded.”

Once the
Titanic
asked Cottam how long he would take to arrive. “Say about four hours,” instructed Rostron—he didn’t yet realize what the
Carpathia
could do.

Then at 1:50 came a final plea, “Come as quickly as possible, old man; the engine room is filling up to the boilers.” After that, silence.

Now it was after 2:00, and Cottam still hunched tensely over the set. Once Miss Peterson peeked in at him, noticed that despite the biting cold, Cottam was still in his shirtsleeves. He had just started to undress when the first CQD arrived, and he hadn’t yet gotten around to putting on his coat again.

Up on the bridge, Rostron was wondering too. He had organized his men, done everything he could think of, and now came the hardest part of all—waiting. Near him stood Second Officer James Bisset, up forward extra lookouts. All strained for any sign of ice, any sign of the
Titanic
. But so far there was nothing—just the glassy sea, the blazing stars, the sharp, clear, empty horizon.

At 2:35 Dr. McGhee climbed the ladder to the bridge, told Rostron that everything was ready below. As he talked, Rostron suddenly saw the glow of a green flare on the horizon, about half a point off the port bow.

“There’s his light!” he shouted. “He must be still afloat!” It certainly looked that way. The flare was clearly a long way off. To see it at all, it must be high out of the water. It was only 2:40, and they were already in sight—perhaps the
Carpathia
would be in time after all.

Then at 2:45 Second Officer Bisset sighted a tiny shaft of light glistening two points off the port bow. It was the first iceberg—revealed by, of all things, the mirrored light of a star.

Then another berg, then another. Twisting and turning, the
Carpathia
now dodged icebergs on all sides, never slackening speed. On they surged, as the men breathlessly watched for the next berg and from time to time spotted more green flares in the distance.

Now that everything was ready, the stewards had a little free time. Robert Vaughan and his mates went to the afterdeck. Like boxers warming up for a fight, they danced about and playfully rough-housed to keep warm. Once a huge iceberg passed close to starboard, and a man cried, “Hey, fellows! Look at the polar bear scratching himself with a chunk of ice!”

A weak joke perhaps, but the men roared with laughter as the
Carpathia
lunged on.

She was firing rockets now. One every 15 minutes, with Cunard Roman candles in between. Word spread below that they were in sight. In the main dining room, the stewards took up their posts. In the engine room the stokers shoveled harder than ever. At the gangways and boat stations the men stood ready. Everyone was wild with excitement, and the
Carpathia
herself trembled all over. A sailor later remarked, “The old boat was as excited as any of us.”

But Rostron’s heart was sinking. By 3:35  they were drawing near the
Titanic
’s position, and still no sign of her. He decided the green flare couldn’t have been so high after all. It was just the sparkling-clear night that let him see it from so far off. At 3:50 he put the engines on “stand by”—they were almost at the spot. At 4:00 he stopped the ship—they were there.

Just then another green flare blazed up. It was directly ahead, low in the water. The flickering light showed the outline of a lifeboat perhaps 300 yards away. Rostron started up his engines, began to maneuver the
Carpathia
to starboard so as to pick up the lifeboat on his port side, which was leeward. An instant later he spotted a huge iceberg directly ahead and had to swing the other way to keep from hitting it.

The lifeboat was now to windward, and as he edged toward it, a breeze sprang up and the sea grew choppy. A voice from the dark hailed him, “We have only one seaman and can’t work very well.”

“All right,” Rostron shouted back. He gently nudged the
Carpathia
closer, until the voice called again, “Stop your engines!”

It was Fourth Officer Boxhall in Boat 2. Sitting beside him, Mrs. Walter Douglas of Minneapolis was near hysterics. “The
Titanic”
she cried, “has gone down with everyone on board!”

Boxhall told her to “shut up,” and his sharpness cut her off instantly. She quickly pulled herself together and afterward always agreed the rebuke was justified.

On the
Carpathia
no one heard her anyhow. All eyes were glued on the lifeboat bobbing toward the gangway. Mrs. Ogden noticed the White Star emblem painted on its side, the life belts that made everybody look dressed in white. Mrs. Crain wondered about the pale, strained faces looking up at the decks. The only sound was a wailing baby somewhere in the boat.

Lines were dropped, and now the boat was fast. A moment’s hesitation, then at 4:10 Miss Elizabeth Allen climbed slowly up the swinging ladder and tumbled into the arms of Purser Brown. He asked her where the
Titanic
was, and she replied it had gone down.

Up on the bridge Rostron knew without asking—yet he felt he had to go through with the formalities. He sent for Boxhall, and as the Fourth Officer stood shivering before him, he put it to him: “The
Titanic
has gone down?”

“Yes”—Boxhall’s voice broke as he said it—”she went down at about 2:30.”

It was half-day now, and the people on deck could make out other lifeboats on all sides. They were scattered over a four-mile area, and in the gray light of dawn they were hard to distinguish from scores of small icebergs that covered the sea. Mixed with the small bergs were three or four towering monsters, 150 to 200 feet high. To the north and west, about five miles away, stretched a flat, unbroken field of ice as far as the eye could see. The floe was studded here and there with other big bergs that rose against the horizon.

The sight was so astonishing, so incredible, that those who had slept through everything until now couldn’t grasp it at all. Mrs. Wallace Bradford of San Francisco looked out her porthole and blinked in disbelief—half a mile away loomed a huge, jagged peak like a rock offshore. It was not white, and she wondered, “How in the world can we be near a rock when we are four days out from New York in a southerly direction and in mid-ocean?”

Miss Sue Eva Rule of St. Louis was equally puzzled. When she first saw one of the lifeboats splashing through the early dawn, it looked like the gondola of an airship, and the huge gray mound behind it looked like a frame. She was sure they were picking up the crew of a fallen dirigible.

Another bewildered passenger hunted up his stewardess in the corridor. But she stopped him before he said a word. Pointing to some women tottering into the main dining saloon she sobbed, “From the
Titanic
. She’s at the bottom of the ocean.”

Ten miles away, with the coming of dawn, life was beginning to stir again on the
Californian.
At 4:00 Chief Officer Frederick Stewart climbed to the bridge and relieved Second Officer Stone.

Stone brought him up-to-date—told him about the strange ship, the rockets, the way the stranger disappeared. He added that around 3:40 he saw still another rocket, this time directly south and clearly not from the same ship that fired the first eight. Dead tired, Stone dropped down the ladder and turned in—from now on it was Stewart’s headache.

At 4:30 Stewart woke up Captain Lord and began to repeat Stone’s story.

“Yes, I know,” interrupted the Captain, “he’s been telling me.” Lord then pulled on some clothes and climbed up to the bridge. Hebegan discussing the best way to work out of the ice field and get on to Boston. Stewart broke in and asked if he wasn’t going to check on a ship that was now in sight directly to the south. Lord said, “No, I don’t think so; she’s not making any signals now.”

Stewart dropped the matter—he didn’t mention that Stone, on his way below, said he was sure the ship to the south couldn’t be the same one that fired the first eight rockets.

But he must have thought a good deal more about it, because at 5:40 he woke up Wireless Operator Evans, who recalled his saying, “There’s a ship been firing rockets. Will you see if you can find out if anything’s the matter?”

Evans fumbled in the half-light of day, found the headphones, and tuned in.

Two minutes later Stewart rocketed up the steps to the bridge, calling, “There’s a ship sunk!” Then he ran back down to the wireless shack … back up again … then to Captain Lord with the shattering news: “The
Titanic
has hit a berg and sunk!”

Captain Lord did just what a good skipper should do. He immediately started his engines and headed for the
Titanic
’s last position.

“O
H,
M
UDDIE, LOOK AT
the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it,” little Douglas Speddon said to his mother, Mrs. Frederick O. Speddon, as Boat 3 threaded its way through the loose ice toward the
Carpathia.

In fact, the world did look like a picture from a child’s book about the Arctic. The sun was just edging over the horizon, and the ice sparkled in its first long rays. The bergs looked dazzling white, pink, mauve, deep blue, depending on how the rays hit them and how the shadows fell. The sea was now bright blue, and little chunks of ice, some no bigger than a man’s fist, bobbed in the choppy water. Overhead, the eastern sky was gold and blue, promising a lovely day. The shadows of night lingered in the west—Lawrence Beesley remembered watching the Morning Star shine long after the others had faded. Near the horizon a thin, pale crescent moon appeared.

“A new moon! Turn your money over, boys! That is, if you have any!” Fireman Fred Barrett shouted cheerfully to the crew rowing No. 13. Whoops and yells of relief erupted from all the boats, as the men tried to outrow each other in reaching the
Carpathia.
Some began singing, “Pull for the Shore, Boys.” Some gave organized cheers. Some, however, remained silent—stunned by the sinking or overwhelmed by relief.

“It’s all right, ladies, do not grieve. We are picked up.” Lookout Hogg sought to encourage the women staring bleakly ahead in No. 7, but they kept very quiet.

There were no cheers on overturned Collapsible B either. Lightoller, Gracie, Bride, Thayer and the others were too busy trying to stay afloat. Stirred by the morning breeze, the waves now washed over the hulk and rocked it back and forth. Every time it rolled, a little more air escaped, and the keel sank still lower into the water. With Lightoller shouting directions, the men shifted their weight back and forth, but after an hour of this they were dead tired.

The sight of the
Carpathia
arriving with the dawn—so thrilling to everyone else—now meant little to these men. She had stopped four miles away, and they wondered how they could last until they were spotted. Suddenly, as the light spread over the sea, they saw new hope. About 800 yards off, Boats 4, 10, 12 and D were still strung together in a line just as Fifth Officer Lowe had ordered.

The men on Collapsible B shouted, “Ship ahoy!”—but they were too far away to be heard. Then Lightoller fished an officer’s whistle out of his pocket and blew a shrill blast. The sound not only carried but told the crew manning the boats that an officer was calling.

In No. 12, Seaman Frederick Clinch quickly looked up … thought he saw about 20 men in the distance standing on, of all things, a ship’s funnel. In No. 4, Trimmer Samuel Hemming looked over too; and in the early-morning light it seemed to him some men were standing on a slab of ice. Little matter, the two boats at once cast off and headed over. It was slow rowing, and as they crept within hailing distance, Lightoller urged them on: “Come over and take us off!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” somebody called back, and finally the two boats arrived. They were barely in time. By now Boat B was so delicately balanced that the wash from No. 4 almost swept everybody off. It took all Quartermaster Perkis’ skill to maneuver the boat safely alongside. On B, Lightoller cautioned the men not to scramble. Even so, the boat gave a sickening roll as each man leaned forward to jump.

One by one they made it. Jack Thayer was so preoccupied at getting safely into No. 12 that he didn’t notice his mother right alongside in No. 4. Mrs. Thayer was so numbed by cold and misery that she didn’t notice her son. When Colonel Gracie’s turn came, he crawled hands first into No. 12, preferring pinched fingers to the risk of a jump. Baker Joughin, still treading water, didn’t worry at all. He simply let go of Maynard’s hand and paddled over to No. 4, where they pulled him in, still thoroughly insulated by his whisky.

Lightoller was last to leave the overturned collapsible. When all the others were transferred, he lifted a lifeless body into No. 12, jumped in himself, and took charge of the boat. It was just about 6:30 when he finally shoved off from the empty keel and began rowing toward the
Carpathia.

Meanwhile Fifth Officer Lowe gave up his search for swimmers among the wreckage. In an hour’s hard work No. 14 picked up only four men, and he knew he was too late to find any more. No man could last longer in the ice-cold water. Now day was breaking and rescue was at hand. Lowe decided to head back for the boats he had left tied together and shepherd them in to the
Carpathia.

“Hoist a sail forward,” he ordered Seaman F. O. Evans as the breeze quickened. In every other boat the crew regarded the mast as an extra encumbrance, and the sail just something that got in the way. In some cases they dumped out this equipment before leaving the
Titanic;
in others it stayed in, and the men cursed as they stumbled over useless spars in the dark. They didn’t know how to sail anyhow.