Call Me Ismay (14 page)

“Is that true?”

“Yes, sir.”

Senator Fletcher, representing Florida, but a native of Georgia, frowned for a moment as he looked down at his notes. He eventually continued, measured and deliberate. “What... became of that telegram?”

“I- I handed it back to Captain Smith, I should think... about 10 minutes past seven on Sunday evening,” Ismay replied, the transaction coming back to him as if through a thick fog. “I- I was sitting in the smoking room- yes, it was the smoking room, and I had just dined with Dr. O'Loughlin, the ship's surgeon- or I
was
about to dine with him, I should say.” Ismay nodded nervously, seeming to be reassuring himself of his memory. “When- when Captain Smith happened to come in the room, yes, yes, for some reason-” Ismay, unfortunately, laughed ingratiatingly, “what it was I do not know, and on his way back, he happened to see me sitting there and came up and said, 'By the way, sir, have you got that telegram which I gave you this afternoon?' I... I said, 'Yes.' I put my hand in my pocket and said, 'Here it is.' He said, 'I want it to put up in the officers' chart room.' That- that is the only conversation I had with Captain Smith in regard to the telegram. When he- when he first handed it to me earlier that afternoon, he made no remark at all.”

“Can you tell what
time
he handed it to you and what its contents were?” Fletcher asked, a somewhat stern inflection in his voice.

“It is- it is very difficult to place the time. I- I do not know whether it was in the afternoon or immediately before lunch, I am not certain.” He pulled his chapped hands together, clasping them so tightly that his fingers slowly turned purple. Flashes of white edges danced in his memory as he struggled with his words. “I- I did not pay any particular attention to the Marconi message... I...” Ismay lowered his head, gingerly, his neck and shoulders locked tightly in tenseness. He paused for several uncomfortable seconds. His memories of that Sunday afternoon seemed so uneventful. Was it the simply contrast between order and warmth and solitude the ship had offered that day to the jumbled horror of the nighttime that was so disconcerting? Or was there some action on his part that he could not account for?

Ismay slowly resumed, trying to be helpful. “It was sent from the captain of the
Baltic,
and it gave the position of some ice...” A sudden flash of remembrance caused him to rush his next sentence. “It-it-it also gave the position of some s-s-steamer which was short of coal and wanted to be towed into New York, and I- I think it ended up by wishing success to the
Titanic
.” Ismay smiled wanly, his ability to speak and his choice of words failing him.

Senator Fletcher did not smile back, but nevertheless seemed to be enjoying this game of hunter/hunted. “Did you see any other Marconigrams that afternoon?”

“N-no, sir.”

“Did you see the ship after you left her in the collapsible boat?”

“I saw her once...” Ismay replied, his voice trailing off.

“What was her position then?”

Ismay's voice continued to lower. “She was very much down by the head, her starboard light was just about level with the water.”

“Did she break in two, so far as you could see?”

“I never looked around again.” Ismay felt dizzy, but managed to remain calm despite a persistent self-doubt. He at least
thought
he had never looked back.

Senator Fletcher seemed to strike a stately pose for effect, then called out his next question. “Were there any
women
and
children
in the vicinity of the collapsible boat when you got in?”

“None, sir.” Ismay responded, a pained look on his face that was quickly replaced by a forced dignity. He had already answered this extremely difficult question before, and although the thought of having to respond to it yet again was deeply offensive, he chose wisely not to become impertinent.

Senator Fletcher continued. “How far did you have to lower the collapsible boat from the boat deck to the water?”

“It was very difficult to judge, because we had considerable difficulty in getting our boat down at all.”

“You did not have enough men?”

Ismay flinched ever so slightly, as images of a mortally wounded ship rushed through his mind with a renewed intensity: those shrieking rockets exploding high overhead in the night sky in vain, with no ships close enough to sail to the rescue. He managed, however, to maintain a description mostly void of any emotion. “The ship had quite a list to-” Ismay had to give it some thought- “to port. Consequently this canvas boat, this collapsible boat, was getting hung up on the outside of the ship, and she had to rub right along her, and we had to try to shove her out, and we had to get the women to help shove her clear of the ship. The ship had listed over that way, to port.”

Senator Fletcher stared at him intently. “Did you help handle the oars?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You did not have any more men than you needed to take care of the boat?”

“No.”

Senator Fletcher cast his eyes down upon his notes, taking a moment to glance at both sides of a sheet of paper before resuming in state of bemusement. “Were you... actually under the care of a physician and under treatment after arriving on the
Carpathia
?”

Bruce Ismay- who, with the one exception of snapping at Smith-  had endured the potential surfacing of many emotions throughout his testimony and had managed to restrain most of them. However, this was the first time that a sense of embarrassment seized and threatened to completely overtake him. To relive the spectacle of himself, the head of the White Star Line, being reduced to the weakness of having to accept the administration of opiates was too much to bear. Ismay kept his response succinct. “I was, more or less, yes. He took care of me. The captain sent down and offered me the use of his room on board the
Carpathia
.”

“What was the name of the surgeon of the
Carpathia
?”

Ismay's shame deepened as he realized his memory had yet again abandoned him. He could not recall the physician's name, even though he had been under his care for four days. “I really forget his name. I wrote to him before I left the ship. I- I forget what his name was. McKee, was it?” Ismay tried not to sound too jocular.

Senator Theodore Bourne of Ohio, who had up until now been silent, startled his colleagues and Ismay by suddenly interjecting a forceful question. “Mr. Ismay, do you think the demonstration has been made that it is impossible to construct a nonsinkable ship?”

There was a risible stir in the Conference Room, which Senator Smith interrupted with two sharp taps of his gavel. “Silence, please, ladies and gentlemen!” he scolded.

Ismay, wounded once more, drew in a few breaths before speaking as Senator Fletcher retook his seat. “I would not like to say that, sir, because I have not sufficient knowledge to make any statement with regard to that.”

Senator Bourne shared a look of disgust with his colleagues at Ismay's response. “That is all.”

Senator Smith, perhaps eager to placate the unsteady mood, drew the hearing to a close. “That
is
all, Mr. Ismay, and I want to thank you for your courtesy to the committee and for the information which you have given us. So far as the committee is concerned, you are no longer under its restraint, and I only ask you to respond to any further efforts upon our part to acquire information regarding the causes leading to this catastrophe.”

Ismay clutched his aching hands to the handle of his walking stick once more. “I will be glad to give you any information I possibly can, any time you call upon me for it.” Smith gave his gavel a final tap, and Ismay the witness rose from his chair, exhausted. As he gathered his belongings, he felt no measure of comfort due to the clearly angry Americans who gawked at him and whispered venomous observations to each other as he left the room under guard. In stark contrast, the inquiry would turn its attention later that day to Captain Arthur Rostron of the
Carpathia
, who was hailed as a hero for guiding his vessel through a field of ice in a daring attempt to rescue as many survivors of the sinking as possible. A few of the Senators wept openly during Rostron's humble testimony, and he would become the first non-American citizen to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Within hours, Ismay was on a train to New York, eager to leave the States on board the
Adriatic
. Although the ship was the first ocean liner to have an indoor swimming pool and a Turkish bath, at least when she was constructed in 1906, he would avail himself of neither luxury, nor was he to be seen by any of the other
Titanic
survivors on board. When he arrived in Liverpool, he was politely greeted by a gathering of supporters, but it was a recognition he neither wanted or felt he deserved.

The miniscule amount of satisfaction he gained from his warm reception was short-lived. Upon his return to England, Ismay learned that the
Chicago Daily Journal
had run a story depicting him as bleating to crew members upon boarding the
Carpathia
the morning after the disaster, “For God's sake, get me something to eat. I'm starved. I don't care what it is or how much it costs.”
I'm starved!
Ismay was horrified beyond description, and vowed with steely determination that he would vigorously defend himself when the British Board of Trade questioned him about it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

February 7th, 1912

The Public Library on West Hill in the Wandsworth Borough of London was a more than familiar sight to Kerry Langston. During many a spring, he had visited its grounds just for the sight of its bright display of orchids and other flowers. On this cold and cloudy day, however, there were no flowers for a wayfarer such as Langston to enjoy. The winter had rendered the library's garden lifeless, and the stucco building, which at one time held the distinction of being London's second public library, was framed by a column of trees without leaves.

Langston dragged on yet another self-made cigarette, walking the grounds in a timid semi-circle. His nerves were frayed once more and his tweed coat and cloth cap were providing little comfort from the biting cold. Silently, he berated himself for not dressing appropriately for the cold weather, but that morning had proven to be a shaky distracted mess for him when it came to any sort of clear-headed preparation. It had been precisely one week and a day since he had received the latest letter from his no-longer anonymous source: someone named Lillith.

Since then, however, Langston had received yet
another
communication from Lillith and for the first time, it was not in the form of a letter. In the late morning of yet another busy day at the
Chronicle
, one of the staffers (not Stanley Johns) had approached him at his desk, stating there had been a young lady named Lily waiting outside who wished to speak with him, and that if he hurried he still might be able to catch her. A stunned Langston had made the staffer repeat what he had said- quickly surmising that Lily must have been a mispronunciation on the part of the staffer. He then dashed outside, pushing through a crowd of pedestrians gathered around the chalkboards on the sidewalk. They all had been hoping to secure some cheerful news, perhaps, from the London Stock Exchange.

There wasn't a woman in sight. An agitated Langston shoved his way back into the office, seeking out the staffer who had alerted him. The clerk, when confronted, insisted that the woman had been out there, asking for Langston specifically, and had said something about the 'West Hill Library on Wednesday.' Langston desperately pressed the clerk for more information- a physical description, how old was she, was she alone- but the nervous man could only offer up that she appeared young, not unattractive, and perhaps a bit frightened.