A Night to Remember (19 page)

“T
HERE WILL NEVER BE
another like her,” says Baker Charles Burgess, who ought to know. In 43 years on the Atlantic run he has seen them all—
Olympic
…
Majestic
…
Mauretania
… and so on. Today, as carver in the kitchen of the
Queen Elizabeth,
Burgess is probably the last
Titanic
crewman on active service.

“Like the
Olympic,
yes, but so much more elaborate,” he reflects. “Take the dining saloon. The
Olympic
didn’t even have a carpet, but the
Titanic
—ah, you sank in it up to your knees. Then there’s the furniture: so heavy you could hardly lift it. And that paneling …

“They can make them bigger and faster, but it was the care and effort that went into her. She was a beautiful, wonderful ship.”

Burgess’ reflections are typical. The
Titanic
has cast a spell on all who built and sailed her. So much so that, as the years go by, she grows ever more fabulous. Many survivors now insist she was “twice as big as the
Olympic”
—actually they were sister ships, with the
Titanic
just 1,004 tons larger. Others recall golf courses, regulation tennis courts, a herd of dairy cows, and other little touches that exceeded even the White Star Line’s penchant for luxury.

The
Titanic
was impressive enough without embellishment.

Her weight—46,328 gross tons … 66,000 tons displacement. Her dimensions—882.5 feet long … 92.5 feet wide … 60.5 feet from waterline to Boat Deck, or 175 feet from keel to the top of her four huge funnels. She was, in short, 11 stories high and four city blocks long.

Triple screw, the
Titanic
had two sets of four-cylinder reciprocating engines, each driving a wing propeller, and a turbine driving the center propeller. This combination gave her 50,000 registered horsepower, but she could easily develop at least 55,000 horsepower. At full speed she could make 24 to 25 knots.

Perhaps her most arresting feature was her watertight construction. She had a double bottom and was divided into 16 watertight compartments. These were formed by 15 watertight bulkheads running clear across the ship. Curiously, they didn’t extend very far up. The first two and the last five went only as high as D Deck, while the middle eight were carried only up to E Deck. Nevertheless, she could float with any two compartments flooded, and since no one could imagine anything worse than a collision at the juncture of two compartments, she was labeled “unsinkable.”

APRIL 10,
1912. 7:00
P.M.

The “unsinkable”
Titanic
was launched at the Belfast shipyard of Harland & Wolff on May 31, 1911. The next ten months were spent in fitting her out. She completed her trials on April 1, 1912, and arrived in Southampton on April 3. A week later she sailed for New York. Here is a reconstructed log of the main events of her maiden voyage:

So much for the basic facts. Beyond these, much is a mystery. Probably nothing will ever equal the
Titanic
for the number of unanswered questions she left behind. For instance—

How many lives were lost?
Some sources say 1,635 … the American Inquiry, 1,517 … the British Board of Trade, 1,503 … the British Enquiry, 1,490. The British Board of Trade figure seems most convincing, less Fireman J. Coffy, who deserted at Queenstown.

How did various people leave the ship?
Nearly every woman survivor who was asked replied firmly, “In the last boat.” Obviously, all these women didn’t go in the same boat, yet to question the point is like questioning a lady’s age—one simply doesn’t do it. Careful sifting of the testimony at the British and American hearings shows pretty clearly how the ship was abandoned, but even here there’s conflicting evidence. At the British Enquiry each witness was asked how many people were lowered in his lifeboat. The
minimum
estimates were then added. The results show a good deal of wishful thinking:

In short, about 70 percent
more
men and 45 percent
fewer
women went in the boats than even the most conservative survivors estimated. Plus the fact that the boats pulled away with 25 percent fewer people than estimated.

What time did various incidents happen?
Everyone agrees that the
Titanic
hit the iceberg at 11:40
P.M.
and sank at 2:20
A.M.—
but there’s disagreement on nearly everything that happened in between. The times given in this book are the honest estimates of people intimately involved, but they are far from foolproof. There was simply too much pressure. Mrs. Louis M. Ogden, passenger on the
Carpathia
, offers a good example. At one point, while helping some survivors get settled, she paused long enough to ask her husband the time. Mr. Ogden’s watch had stopped, but he guessed it was 4:30
P.M.
Actually, it was only 9:30 in the morning. They were both so engrossed, they had lost all track of time.

What did different people say?
There are no reconstructed conversations in this book. The words quoted are given exactly as people remembered them being spoken. Yet there is margin for error. The same conversations are often reported with slight variations. For instance, there are at least four versions of the exchange between Captain Rostron and Fourth Officer Boxhall as Boat 2 edged alongside the
Carpathia.
The gist is always the same, but the words vary slightly.

What did the band play?
The legend is, of course, that the band went down playing “Nearer My God to Thee.” Many survivors still insist this was so, and there’s no reason to doubt their sincerity. Others maintain the band played only ragtime. One man says he clearly remembers the band in its last moments, and they were not playing at all. In this maze of conflicting evidence, Junior Wireless Operator Harold Bride’s story somehow stands out. He was a trained observer, meticulously accurate, and on board to the last. He clearly recalled that, as the Boat Deck dipped under, the band was playing the Episcopal hymn “Autumn.”

Did a man get off dressed as a woman?
While material was being gathered for this book, four First Class passengers were specifically named as the famous man who escaped in woman’s clothes. There is not one shred of evidence that any of these men were guilty, and considerable evidence to the contrary. For instance, investigation suggests that one was the target of a vindictive reporter shoved aside while trying for an interview. Another, prominent in local politics, was the victim of opposition mudslinging. Another was the victim of society gossip; he did happen to leave the
Titanic
before his wife. In the search for bigger game, no one bothered about Third Class passenger Daniel Buckley, who freely acknowledged that he wore a woman’s shawl over his head. He was only a poor, frightened Irish lad, and nobody was interested.

The answer to all these
Titanic
riddles will never be known for certain. The best that can be done is to weigh the evidence carefully and give an honest opinion. Some will still disagree, and they may be right. It is a rash man indeed who would set himself up as final arbiter on all that happened the incredible night the
Titanic
went down.

T
HIS BOOK IS REALLY
about the last night of a small town. The
Titanic
was that big and carried that many people. To tell everything that happened is impossible; to piece even part of the picture together has required the help of literally hundreds of people.

Many of them were there. Some 63 survivors were located, and most of these came through handsomely. They are a stimulating mixture of rich and poor, passengers and crew. But all seem to have two qualities in common. First, they look marvelous. It is almost as though, having come through this supreme ordeal, they easily surmounted everything else and are now growing old with calm, tranquil grace. Second, they are wonderfully thoughtful. It seems almost as if, having witnessed man at his most generous, they scorn any trace of selfishness themselves.

Nothing seems to be too much trouble. Many of the survivors have contributed far beyond the scope of the book, just to help me get a better feeling of what it all was like.

For instance, Mrs. Noel MacFie (then the Countess of Rothes) tells how—while dining out with friends a year after the disaster—she suddenly experienced the awful feeling of cold and intense horror she always associated with the
Titanic.
For an instant she couldn’t imagine why. Then she realized the orchestra was playing “The Tales of Hoffmann,” the last piece of after-dinner music played that fateful Sunday night.

Mrs. George Darby, then Elizabeth Nye, similarly contributes an appealing extra touch when she tells how—as it grew bitterly cold early Sunday evening—she and some other Second Class passengers gathered in the dining room for a hymn-sing, ending with “For Those in Peril on the Sea.”

And Mrs. Katherine Manning—then Kathy Gilnagh—vividly conveys the carefree spirit of the young people in Third Class when she talks about the gay party in steerage that same last night. At one point a rat scurried across the room; the boys gave chase; and the girls squealed with excitement. Then the party was on again. Mrs. Manning’s lovely eyes still glow as she recalls the bagpipes, the laughter, the fun of being a pretty colleen setting out for America.

Most of the survivors, in fact, gave glimpses of shipboard life that have an almost haunting quality. You feel it when Mrs. G. J. Mecherle (then Mrs. Albert Caldwell) recalls the bustle of departing from Southampton … when Victorine Perkins (then Chansdowson) tells of the Ryersons’ 16 trunks … when Mr. Spencer Silverthorne remembers his pleasant dinner with the other buyers Sunday night … when Marguerite Schwarzenbach (then Frolicher) describes a quieter supper in her parents’ stateroom—she had been seasick and this was her first gingerly attempt to eat again.