The Other Side of the Night (30 page)

A widely held opinion among professional seaman in Great Britain was that a whitewash brush would be liberally wielded, the “more satisfactory manner” of a British investigation notwithstanding. This suspicion grew out of the fact that the Inquiry was being carried out by the Board of Trade, which was viewed in some circles to be in part responsible, if not for the
Titanic
disaster itself, then certainly for the lack of sufficient lifeboats aboard the liner. Not unexpectedly or unrealistically perhaps, the idea of the Board of Trade conducting an investigation of itself created consternation in quite a number of people.

The
Titanic
’s Second Officer Lightoller homed in on the inconsistency with unerring accuracy: “The B.O.T. had passed that ship [the
Titanic
] as in all respects fit for sea, in every sense of the word, with sufficient margin of safety for everyone on board. Now the B.O.T. was holding an inquiry into the loss of that ship—hence the whitewash brush.”

What was to surprise many observers, but not those who knew Lord Mersey well, was the surprising objectivity that the Court was to display during the next five weeks. Despite the anticipation of many that the findings would be a whitewash, when the Inquiry was completed, the Board of Trade would not escape Mersey’s keen eye or sharp tongue. Some observers would later suggest that the findings of the U. S. Senate investigation exerted an unexpected influence on how Lord Mersey conducted the Court of Inquiry, but save for one specific subject, on close examination that doesn’t seem likely. The Court began hearing testimony two weeks before Senator Smith released his committee’s findings; furthermore, the emphasis of the two investigations were quite different, though strikingly complementary. The Senate subcommittee had emphasized asking
how
the disaster happened, while the Mersey Commission asked
why
. Some twenty-one passengers were called to testify before the Senate investigation; Lord Mersey would call only three. The majority of witnesses appearing before the Court would be officers and crewmen from the
Titanic
,
Carpathia
, and
Californian;
various experts in the field of ship construction; and representatives of Harland and Wolff and the White Star Line. In fact, of the three passengers who would testify, none of them would be as “material” witnesses.

The Court sat for a total of thirty-six days over a span of eight weeks, from May 2 to July 3, 1912, called ninety-six witnesses, and asked more than 25,600 questions, the longest and most detailed Court of Inquiry ever held in Great Britain up to that time. The transcript ran to over a thousand pages, supplemented by exhibits and depositions, and the Report of the Commissioner added another forty-five pages. The entire cost of the Inquiry came to nearly £20,000.

Just as everyone expected, the first great sensation of the Inquiry was the question of the
Californian
. The one area of the British Inquiry which
was
unquestionably influenced by the American investigation was the issue of the
Californian
’s inactivity on that fateful night. Had the story not been broken by the American press and pursued with such determination by Senator Smith, it is entirely possible that it would have never come to light in the Board of Trade Inquiry.

That this might have been so was due to the rather curious nature of a British Court of Inquiry. Included in the Royal Warrant that granted the Court its authority was a list of questions to which the Court was charged with finding answers. In the case of the
Titanic
inquiry, these included questions about the design and construction of the ship, her compliance with existing safety regulations, her handling and navigation, the nature of the collision and the damage done, etc. None of the questions of the original Royal Warrant were pertinent to the presence of another ship in the vicinity of the
Titanic
as she sank; consequently it would have been a legal impossibility to introduce the issue under those circumstances. Instead, the questions raised in the Senate investigation would lead Lord Mersey to seek a modification to the Warrant’s original list of questions. He would then preside over some of the most intense cross-examinations ever to take place in a British board of inquiry, as Captain Lord and the officers of the
Californian
would all be called upon to testify about the events of April 14 and 15.

The process began on the seventh day of the Inquiry, May 14, when Captain Lord, Apprentice Officer Gibson, and Second Officer Stone gave testimony to the Inquiry. Chief Officer Stewart and Third Officer Groves would appear the next day. The most devastating exchange of the day took place, predictably, between Lord and the Attorney-General, as more than seven hundred questions were put to him variously by Lord Mersey and Sir Rufus, as well as Butler Aspinall, KC, for the Solicitor General.

The Attorney-General, Sir Rufus Isaacs, was particularly relentless in his questioning of Lord, pressing over and over again on points in his testimony that Isaacs found unsatisfactory. From the outset Sir Rufus seemed to harbor some suspicion about Stanley Lord that went beyond the simple issue of whether or not the
Californian
had been near to the
Titanic
when the White Star liner went down. It was as if he sensed that there was something fundamentally wrong about the relationship between Lord and his officers. The first indication came early in the questioning, when Lord’s version of the events of the night was being established.

“Did you know that she [the other ship] had fired a number of rockets?” Isaacs asked.

“I did not.”

“According to you, did she fire only one rocket?”

“Only one rocket.”

“Have you never heard from the other officers that she fired a number of rockets?”

“Since.”

“When did you hear that?”

“The next day.”

“Who told you?”

“The second officer first.”

“What did he say?”

“He said she had fired several rockets in his watch—no, the chief officer told me, about 5 o’clock, that she had fired several rockets.”

Abruptly Sir Rufus broke off his questioning and turned toward the Commissioner, Lord Mersey, saying, “My lord, I think it very desirable that the other witnesses from the
Californian
should be out of court while this witness is giving evidence.” Mersey agreed, and Chief Officer Stewart, Second Officer Stone, Third Officer Groves, Apprentice Officer Gibson, and Cyril Evans, the wireless operator, were all ushered from the hall. Apparently something in Lord’s tone of voice, his general demeanor, had caused the Attorney-General to suspect that the captain of the
Californian
was, by the way he delivered his testimony, attempting to tell his officers what story they should repeat once they were in the witness box. Whether the rumors about Lord’s overbearing, intimidating nature had reached—and influenced—Sir Rufus remains unknown; it is interesting to note, however, that Lord Mersey did not require Sir Rufus to offer any explanation for his request.

From that point on in his questioning, Stanley Lord was very much on the defensive, even more so than would be expected of a man who was the master of a vessel some believed had refused to answer a distress call. It was if he sensed that because he could no longer exert an influence over what his officers might say to the court, he would choose to say as little as possible himself, determined to offer up only the minimum of information. Gone was the glib Stanley Lord who had faced William Alden Smith, certain he could outwit the rube American Senator. Gone were the elaborate, loquacious answers, the smug self-confidence. Lord was suddenly reduced to answering most of the questions with monosyllables, while those few times when he did expand his answers, he was almost visibly squirming in an effort to shift responsibility onto his subordinates.

At first Lord tried to convince the court that the ship to the south was nothing more than a small tramp steamer, hardly larger than the
Californian
herself, that he had only been told of a single rocket being fired, and that he had only the vaguest recollection of the night of April 14–15 as he had been asleep in the chartroom at the time. This satisfied neither Sir Rufus nor Lord Mersey, especially when later that day and the next, Lord’s officers independently contradicted him on nearly every important point in their testimony, most significantly about the number of times Lord had been told about the rockets and how many there were. Mersey drew particular attention to discrepancies in Captain Lord’s defense, notably the suspicious lack of any entries about rockets in the
Californian
’s log and the disappearance of the relevant pages of the scrap log.

The most damning moments for Lord came in the middle of his testimony. Sir Rufus opened his line of questioning innocently enough by asking, “Did you remain in the chart room when you were told that a vessel was firing a rocket?”

“I remained in the chart room when he [Stone] told me that this vessel had fired a rocket,” Lord parroted.

“I do not understand you. You knew, of course, that there was danger in this field of ice to steamers?”

“To a steamer steaming, yes.”

“You knew there was danger?”

“Yes.”

“That is why you stopped?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew also that it was desirable, at any rate, to communicate with the
Titanic
to tell that ice was there?”

“Yes.”

“You had done that?”

“I had done that.”

“And you knew that this vessel, whatever it was, that you say had stopped…”

“Had stopped, yes.”

At this point, it’s almost possible to see Sir Rufus frowning in feigned bewilderment, just as he was preparing to strike home. “I do not understand you, it may be my fault. Shall I explain it to you?
What do you think this vessel is firing a rocket for?
”

“I asked the Second Officer. I said, ‘Is that a company’s signal?’ and he said he did not know.”

“That did not satisfy you?”

“No, it did not.”

“I mean, whatever it was, it did not satisfy you that it was a company’s signal?”

“It did not, but I had no reason to think it was anything else.”

At this point Lord Mersey stepped in. Clearly there was something wrong here: Lord’s answers were making no logical sense, he was contradicting himself. How could he be saying that he didn’t believe the rockets sighted by Stone were company signals yet didn’t believe them to be anything else?

“That seems odd,” Mersey said. “You knew that the vessel that was sending up this rocket was in a position of danger?”

“No, my Lord, I did not.”

“Well, danger if she moved.” The annoyance in Mersey’s voice is almost audible in the transcript.

“If she moved, yes.”

“What do you think the rocket was sent up for?”

“Well, we had been trying to communicate with this steamer by Morse lamp from half past 11, and he would not reply.” Now Lord was attempting to evade directly answering Mersey’s questions.

“This was a quarter past one?”

“Yes, we had tried at intervals from half past eleven.”

Again Mersey put the question: “What do you think he was sending up a rocket for?”

“I thought it was acknowledging our signals, our Morse lamp. A good many steamers do not use the Morse lamp.”

“Have you ever said that before?”

“That has been my story right through—my impression right along.” It is entirely possible, almost certain in fact, that at this point both Lord Mersey and Sir Rufus knew that Captain Lord was an accomplished liar. In Boston he had repeatedly told the tale that the officers of the
Californian
“had sighted no rockets,” that “no signals of distress or anything else had been seen.” Later he told Senator Smith that he had received only one report of a white rocket being seen to the south of the
Californian
. This was the first time anyone had heard the idea put forward that the rockets were being fired as some sort of acknowledgment of the
Californian
’s signals by Morse lamp.

The Attorney-General now tried a slightly different tack, gradually pressing Lord harder and harder: “Just let me put this to you. When you asked him whether it was a company’s signal he said he did not know. That would not satisfy you?”

“No.”

“Was it then you told him to Morse her and find out what ship it was?”

“Yes.”

“After the white rocket had been sent up?”

“After the white rocket had been sent up.” Here Lord was contradicting himself again, saying that he’d instructed Stone to try using the Morse lamp
after
the first rocket went up, when just moments earlier he had tried to suggest that the rockets were being fired to acknowledge the Morse lamp signal. What is also intriguing about these exchanges is that at no time does Lord ever dispute that the signals his officers saw and reported were
white rockets
. Later generations of revisionists would conveniently refer to them as “lights” or “flares” in an effort to reduce their significance, yet Lord repeatedly affirmed that the signals were “white rockets.”

“If it was not a company’s signal, must it not have been a distress signal?”

“If it had been a distress signal, the officer on watch would have told me.” This blatant attempt by Lord to shift the responsibility onto Stone was so jarring that the Attorney-General felt compelled to repeat the question, blurting out, “I say, if it was not a company’s signal, must it not have been a distress signal?”

“Well, I do not know of any other signal but distress signals that are used at sea.” It’s unfortunate that the official transcript makes no allowance for recording the reactions of the Board members, for their consternation at this point must have been considerable. First, here was the master of a vessel in the British Merchant Marine admitting that neither he nor the officer of the watch had any idea of the meaning of signals sighted by that officer, yet the captain declares that it is the sole responsibility of his subordinate to decide if the signal is of any importance! It was almost as if Lord had completely forgotten—or never read—the Board of Trade regulations. Now Sir Rufus, exasperated, pressed Lord hard; Lord, in turn, did his best to avoid giving the Attorney-General the direct answer he was seeking. In the end, though, Lord would find himself cornered.