The Other Side of the Night (11 page)

“Good morning, old man [GM OM]. Do you know there are messages for you at Cape Race?”

What Cottam heard next made his blood run cold. Instead of the expected jaunty reply came the dreaded “CQD…CQD…SOS…SOS…CQD…MGY. Come at once. We have struck a berg. It’s a CQD, old man [CQD OM]. Position 41.46 N, 50.14 W.”

Stunned, Cottam did nothing for a moment, then asked Phillips if he should tell his captain. The reply was immediate: “Yes, quick.” Cottam raced to the bridge and breathlessly told First Officer Dean. Dean didn’t hesitate—he bolted down the ladder, through the chartroom and into the captain’s cabin, Cottam hard on his heels.

For Captain Rostron, such indecorous behavior was a bit much. People were expected to at least knock before barging in on the captain, especially when he was asleep. But the reprimand died on his lips when a clearly anxious Dean told him about the
Titanic
. Rostron swung his legs out of bed and then seemed lost in thought for a few seconds as he digested the news.

“Mr. Dean, turn the ship around—steer northwest. I’ll work out the course for you in a minute.” As Dean sped back to the bridge, Rostron turned his attention to Cottam. “Are you sure it’s the
Titanic
and she requires immediate assistance?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You are absolutely certain?”

“Quite certain, sir.”

“All right, tell him we are coming along as fast as we can.” Cottam dashed back to his wireless set, and quickly began tapping out a message to the
Titanic
.

At 12:25 Phillips got his first piece of good news. While Cottam had missed the
Titanic
’s first CQD, he reacted quickly when Phillips brushed aside his question about the traffic waiting for the
Titanic
at Cape Race with a staccato “Come at once. We have struck a berg…” After a few moment’s pause as the
Carpathia
’s operator rushed up to the bridge to inform his captain, he was back at his key with the welcome news that the
Carpathia
was only fifty-eight miles away and “coming hard.” Phillips sent Bride to find Captain Smith and relay the news to him.

As soon as Cottam and Dean left his cabin, Arthur Rostron began donning his uniform, and as he dressed his mind was racing. This would be his first real test as a captain, as he had never faced this sort of emergency before. It isn’t difficult to imagine his thoughts in those moments: exactly
how
should he prepare his ship for a rescue? And did the
Carpathia
even have room for as many as possibly three thousand extra people? The routine of putting on his uniform gave Rostron a valuable few minutes to organize his thoughts for the potentially daunting task ahead, and as he made his way to the
Carpathia
’s bridge, his mind was clear. There was no hesitation, no second guessing. Perhaps without even realizing it, he had gone into action the moment he heard the news from First Officer Dean. The first words out of his mouth had been the order to turn the ship around
— then
he had asked Cottam for confirmation. There had been no prevarication on Rostron’s part, no instructions to Cottam to find out if there were any ships closer to the
Titanic
or better suited than the
Carpathia
to handle such an emergency. To Rostron, the
Titanic
’s CQD was a clear call to duty—he had no choice but to answer.

As he straightened his tie and set his cap square on his head, Rostron settled the last few details in his mind. Standing over the chart table before him, he began working out the
Carpathia
’s new course. Then he stepped out of the chartroom, climbed the ladder to the bridge, and strode over to the quartermaster. It seemed as though he gained confidence from each step he took, each act he performed. He gave the helmsman the new course—North 52 West—then called down to the engine room to order “Full Speed Ahead.” At the
Carpathia
’s top speed of 14 knots she would cover the distance between herself and the
Titanic
in four hours, which was not good enough for Rostron. Now he really swung into action.

Returning to the chartroom he called for Chief Engineer Johnston, and explained the situation to the dour Scot. Speed, he told Johnston. He wanted more speed than the old
Carpathia
had ever mustered. Call out the off-duty watch to the engine room, he said, and get every available stoker roused to feed the furnaces. Cut off the heat and hot water to passenger and crew accommodations, and put every ounce of steam the boilers made into the engines.

Next he spoke to First Officer Dean and gave him a list of things to be done: all routine work was to cease as the ship prepared for a rescue operation; swing out the ship’s lifeboats, to have them ready if needed; have clusters of electric lights rigged along the ship’s sides; all gangway doors to be opened, with block and tackle slung at each gangway; slings ready for hoisting injured aboard, and canvas bags for lifting small children; ladders prepared for dropping at each gangway, along with cargo nets; forward derricks to be rigged and topped, with steam in the winches, for bringing luggage and cargo aboard; oil bags readied in the lavatories to pour on rough seas if needed.

Dean set to immediately and Rostron turned to the ship’s surgeon, Dr. McGhee. The three surgeons aboard, McGhee, an Italian physician, and one who was Hungarian, were to be assigned to specific stations—McGhee himself in First Class, the Italian doctor in Second, and the Hungarian doctor in Third. All three were to be supplied with stimulants and restoratives, and first aid stations were to be set up in each dining saloon.

He said to Purser Brown: see that the Chief Steward, the Assistant Purser and the Purser himself each covered a different gangway to receive the
Titanic
’s passengers and crew; get their names and classes, and see to it that each one went to the correct dining saloon for a medical check.

Chief Steward Henry Hughes received an additional set of instructions: every crewman was to be called out; coffee was to be available for all hands. Also, soup, coffee, tea, brandy, and whiskey should be ready for those rescued; the smoking room, lounge, and library were to be converted into dormitories for survivors. All the
Carpathia’
s steerage passengers were to be grouped together; the extra space would be given over to the
Titanic
’s steerage passengers.

Finally, Rostron urged everyone to keep quiet. The last thing they needed was for the
Carpathia
’s passengers to be lurking about while there was work to be done. To help keep the passengers where they belonged, stewards were stationed along every corridor to shepherd the curious back into their cabins. An inspector, a master-at-arms, and several stewards were sent down to keep the steerage passengers in order—no one was sure if they would take too kindly to being herded about in the wee hours of the morning.

His instructions issued, Rostron quickly reviewed everything he had ordered, trying to think of what he had overlooked in his preparations. There didn’t seem to be anything, so he quickly strode to the bridge and began posting extra lookouts. He was determined that the
Carpathia
would not meet the same fate as the ship she was rushing to aid. Rostron had an extra man posted in the crow’s nest, two lookouts in the bow, extra hands posted on both bridge wings, and Second Officer James Bisset, who had especially keen eyesight, posted on the starboard bridge wing.

Now having done all he could do, Rostron faced the toughest task—waiting. But there was one last detail Rostron attended to. Second Officer Bisset noticed it first, then so did the others on the bridge—the Captain was standing toward the back of the bridge holding his cap an inch or two off his head, eyes closed, lips moving in silent prayer.

The order to uncover and swing out the
Titanic
’s lifeboats had been given by Captain Smith just after midnight. It was probably one of the most agonizing decisions of his career, for it brought him face-to-face with an awful truth only he and a handful of others aboard the sinking liner knew: the
Titanic
had lifeboats for barely half the people aboard her that night. The Board of Trade, which regulated such matters, had concocted a complicated formula for determining the lifeboat requirements of British-registered vessels. Specifically this stated that any ship over 10,000 tons must carry sixteen lifeboats with space for 550 people, plus enough rafts and floats to equal 75 percent of the capacity of the lifeboats. For the
Titanic
this worked out to a requirement for lifeboats for 962 persons.

Actually, her lifeboat capacity exceeded the Board of Trade requirements, since the White Star Line had added four Englehardt collapsibles, wooden keels with folding canvas sides, to the ship’s complement of boats. Together with the required sixteen boats they gave the
Titanic
a capacity of 11,780 cubic feet, or room for 1,178 people. The nightmare that was about to confront Captain Smith was the fact that
Titanic
was carrying 2,207 passengers and crew. If help did not arrive in time, the collision with the iceberg was a death sentence for almost half the people aboard.

A sort of quiet, controlled frenzy swept over the
Carpathia
as her speed increased and her bow swung around to the northwest. Seaman Robert Vaughn was awakened by a sharp tug at the blanket he’d wrapped about himself when he’d settled into his bunk for the night, and an unseen voice told him to get up and get dressed. All about him his bunkmates were already pulling their clothes on—or so it seemed. The crew’s quarters were pitch black, the lights either not working properly or else had gone missing, and Vaughn wondered aloud what was up. He was told the
Carpathia
had struck an iceberg.

It only took a quick glance out the porthole to put that rumor to rest—the ship was clearly driving hard through a slowly rising Atlantic swell. Once dressed, Vaughn and his shipmates quickly made their way to the upper deck, where First Officer Dean set them to work with a will. The first order of business was to swing out the lifeboats and have them readied for lowering. If the
Titanic
’s boats should prove to be insufficient for the number of people aboard her, the
Carpathia
’s would have to ready to assist them. The time spent clearing and swinging a boat out might be the difference between life and death for some poor souls struggling in the freezing water. So the crew swarmed across the
Carpathia
’s sixteen lifeboats, rolling up the canvas covers, undoing the lines lashing them to their deck cradles, checking the oars and oarlocks, making certain the drainplugs were in place and secure. With a series of creaks and groans from the block-and-tackle sets suspending the boats from the davit arms, each lifeboat was lifted free of its cradles, the blocks holding it in place knocked free, and then in a carefully orchestrated series of movements, first the bow then the stern of each boat was swung over the side, and snubbing chains attached to keep them from swinging back and forth.

It was 12:34 by the clock in the
Titanic
’s wireless room when the German liner
Frankfurt
responded, giving her position: 150 miles away. Phillips asked, “Are you coming to our assistance?” The German liner asked, “What is the matter with you?” Patiently, Phillips tapped back: “Tell your captain to come to our help. We are on the ice.”

At this moment
Olympic
barged in. She was five hundred miles away, but her powerful wireless easily put her in touch with her stricken sister. Phillips asked her to stand by. Captain Smith had just come in the cabin to get a firsthand report of the situation. Phillips reminded him about the
Carpathia
.

“What call are you sending?” Smith asked.

“CQD,” Phillips replied.

The exchange jogged Bride’s memory. Recently an international convention had introduced a new distress call to supersede the traditional CQD. It had chosen the letters SOS—not because they stood for anything in particular, but because they were simple enough for even amateurs to send and receive. Bride suggested to Phillips, “Send SOS; it’s the new call, and besides this may be your last chance to send it!”

Phillips, Smith, and Bride all laughed together, and at 12:45 a.m. the
Titanic
sent out her first SOS. Phillips would continue to send the new signal, interspersed with the traditional CQD call, as long as the power lasted.

Down in the boiler room of the
Carpathia
, as word of the
Carpathia
’s mission spread, it soon seemed as if the entire “black gang” had been infused with Rostron’s energy. The extra hands began shoveling coal into the furnaces of the boilers like they had never shoveled coal before. First the safety valves were closed off, then under Chief Engineer Johnston’s careful guidance, the engineers began to systematically shut off steam to the rest of the ship, ducting it instead into the reciprocating engines. It was a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno, the sweating, grimy stokers, some wearing little more than their unionsuits and boots, shoveling coal into the glowing maws of the fireboxes, their faces and hands gleaming copper and bronze in the light of the fires. Wisps of smoke drifted through the gloom, while trimmers lugged their wheelbarrows back and forth between the bunkers and the fireboxes, determined that the stokers would never lack for coal.

Back in the engine room, the massive engines whirled, spun, and stroked as the
Carpathia
accelerated. The reciprocating steam engine at work was a spectacle of power the like of which has never been seen before or since, an intricate yet awesome ballet of power as the engines moved ever faster. It was Rudyard Kipling in his poem
McAndrews’ Hymn
who most unforgettably captured the majesty of such engines: