The Other Side of the Night (34 page)

The second incident came when Fourth Officer Boxhall, who was working with Rowe in firing the distress rockets, took a long look at the strange ship to the north, certain now that she was a “four-mast steamer.” It was then that he noticed two details: the first was her green sidelight, the second was a shift in her masthead lights. It appeared to Boxhall that she was turning “very, very slowly,” as if her bows were swinging around toward the
Titanic
.

At 1:15 a.m., Apprentice Officer Gibson joined Second Officer Stone on the bridge of the
Californian
. Stone immediately told Gibson about the ship to the south and the rockets she was firing, five having gone up so far. While Stone was speaking, Gibson noticed that the
Californian
’s bow was slowly swinging southward. She was still displaying a green sidelight, but to any observer on the other ship, the
Californian
’s masthead lights would have been visibly shifting. While Stone and Gibson were talking, two more rockets went up over the strange ship, making a total of seven. By pure luck, Gibson had his glasses to his eyes as one of the rockets was fired, and he could clearly see the flash of the detonator on her deck. It would prove to be a crucial detail, for it would prove that the other ship was well short of the horizon, unquestionably less than eleven miles from the
Californian
. Gibson would never forget those rockets, always recalling how each of them “burst into white stars.”

Back aboard the
Titanic
, Boxhall and Rowe have fired off seven rockets between them. The shortage of qualified seamen on the Boat Deck meant that both men were harried, working at multiple tasks. Boxhall would tell Senator Smith that during this time he was “manning them [the lifeboats]…firing off distress rockets, and trying to signal a steamer that was almost ahead of us.” Rowe was doing much the same. Once more peering to the north, Boxhall now noticed a distinct change in the other ship’s lights. She seemed to continue her slow turn toward the sinking liner, and for the first time, in addition to her green light, Boxhall could see her red light. The other ship was now squarely bows-on to the
Titanic
— she must be coming toward her.

Up on the bridge of the
Californian
, Gibson took note that the slow swing of the ship on the current had brought her bow around to where it was pointing directly at the stranger to the south, so that the
Californian
would be showing both her red and green lights. Stone apparently sensed something wrong about the stranger, for he suddenly blurted out, “Look at her now Gibson, her lights look queer.” Gibson agreed; raising his glasses to his eyes once again, he took a long look at the other ship, then remarked, “She seems to have a big side out of the water.”

The fourth incident came just moments later. Standing on the
Titanic
’s starboard bridge wing, Boxhall watched as the other ship’s green light disappeared; only the red light was visible now. Boxhall would remember that. “I thought maybe she had got stuck in the ice and so had turned around.” He fired off his last rocket, the eighth, and then on orders from Captain Smith, took command of Lifeboat No. 2. The time was approximately 1:30 a.m.

Stone and Gibson, meanwhile, watched as the stranger fired an eighth rocket, the last one they would see from her. Stone was convinced that the rockets came from the ship, while Gibson, who clearly saw the detonator flash of at least one of the rockets, was certain of it. At the same time, Gibson noticed that the
Californian
continued to swing with the current: her bow now pointed to the west, the ship having swung through nearly 180 degrees. Only her red sidelight would have been visible to the other ship; the only sidelight ever seen on the stranger was her own red light. The time, according to the clock on the
Californian
’s bridge, was 1:30 a.m.

Both Senator Smith and Lord Mersey would notice the strange congruence of rockets, lights, ship movements, and times in these four incidents, and quickly recognized the truth: the only explanation which reconciled what was seen from each ship and the circumstances was that the two ships could only have been the
Titanic
and the
Californian
. It was this conclusion which led Senator Smith to declare in his address to Congress, “The failure of Captain Lord to arouse the wireless operator on his ship…places a tremendous responsibility upon this officer from which it will be very difficult to escape.” It led Lord Mersey to announce, without qualification, that “These circumstances convince me that the ship seen by the
Californian
was the
Titanic
.”

Stanley Lord would stand condemned by American and British inquiries, a condemnation which has stood for nearly a century, despite determined efforts then and since by Lord’s defenders to prove it wrong. To the end of his life, Stanley Lord would steadfastly maintain that the rockets seen by the officers of the
Californian
were not from the
Titanic
, but some other ship. In the months and years immediately following the disaster, it could readily be believed that those people who rallied to Lord’s cause felt—as did Lord himself, of course—that he had been unjustly accused, then tried and convicted in a court of public opinion. Now, however, more than nine decades later, those who still seek to exonerate Stanley Lord give off a distinct aroma of having more of an interest in making a name for themselves than any genuine desire to see justice done. Exculpating Lord has practically become a cottage industry for some of them, especially in the “now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t” world of publication on the internet.

What is disturbing is how those who choose to defend Stanley Lord will demand the most exacting execution of duty from people aboard the
Titanic
, who were working under conditions of fear and strain that few of them had ever encountered, yet those same critics will allow Lord, who was under no duress whatsoever, the most astonishing leeway in fulfilling his responsibilities. One critic, writing no doubt from the safety of his armchair, has gone so far as to condemn for ineptitude the crewmen of the
Titanic
for not firing off the distress rockets in precisely the prescribed manner outlined in the Board of Trade regulations, yet offers no word of criticism for Lord’s refusal to make even the simplest effort to follow the injunction of those same regulations to investigate unusual or ambiguous signals, particularly rockets. Some have gone so far as to commend Lord for his prudence in refusing to steam southward toward the unknown steamer, as doing so might have exposed the
Californian
to damage by the floating ice around her, and at the same time condemn Arthur Rostron for recklessness in driving the
Carpathia
at high speed toward the icefield which sank the
Titanic
.

Others have condemned Rostron, going so far as to call him “silly” and deride him as “a company man,” for his repeated requests for guidance from the Cunard office on how to handle the glare of publicity following the
Carpathia
’s rescue of the
Titanic
’s survivors. Yet the same carping voices offer no word of approbation to Stanley Lord and the representative of the Leyland Line for closeting themselves in Lord’s cabin as soon as the
Californian
docked in Boston, seeking to contain the damage that might be done should word leak out of the
Californian
’s proximity to the
Titanic
. Such a double-standard is beyond question a form of hypocrisy. Not surprisingly, C.H. Lightoller, onetime Second Officer of the
Titanic
, offered perhaps the most pungent observation on this despicable practice: in his book
Titanic and Other Ships
, he wrote with almost audible acidity, “The armchair complaint is a very common disease, and generally accepted as one of the necessary evils from which the seafarer is condemned to suffer.”

Beyond all other considerations, though, what is completely inexplicable is the callous selectiveness which the champions of Stanley Lord use in his defense. No matter what form their efforts take, in the end they center exclusively on proving that the ship seen by the
Californian
was not the
Titanic —
and vice versa—and that even if the rockets seen by Stone and Gibson were those fired by the
Titanic
, the
Californian
was in any case too far away to have been any help. Therefore, they reason, since their efforts “prove” that the
Californian
and the
Titanic
were never were in sight of each other, Stanley Lord can hardly be held responsible for failing to go to the assistance of the sinking White Star liner. Like Lord himself, they conclude that since he is innocent of this charge, he is then blameless on any account, and those who condemn him are guilty of falsely accusing an innocent man.

Yet there is a blindness to this stance. For the simple truth is that on the night of April 14–15, 1912, somewhere on the North Atlantic, within sight of the steamship
Californian
, someone was firing white rockets into the night sky, in a desperate hope that some ship—any ship—would respond in time. The crime of Stanley Lord was not that he may have ignored the
Titanic
’s signals, but that he unquestionably ignored
someone’s
cry for help. This is a cold, hard truth that, no matter how much the partisans of Stanley Lord might wish to deny it, they are unable to do so. Nothing can make those eight white rockets go away; nothing can make Lord’s frank acknowledgment—then and subsequently—that the signals
were
white rockets go away; and nothing can make Lord’s refusal to respond to them go away. The chilling reality is that Lord’s inaction probably cost those unfortunate people, whoever they were, their lives.

At this point comes the final denouement of the story of Stanley Lord and the
Californian
. What has remained unexplained for more than nine decades is
why
Lord would so callously choose to disregard such a cry for help. The answer to that question will not be found in any testimony or transcript, nor in any set of regulations or traditions of the sea; it is not an issue of navigation or seamanship, or any body of maritime law. The answer lies instead in the realm of medical science, for Stanley Lord was a man with a deep-seated flaw in his character, one which may never have revealed itself had the
Californian
not been in that particular expanse of the North Atlantic on the night of April 14–15, 1912. Instead, circumstances unconsciously conspired to reveal that Stanley Lord was a man without conscience: Stanley Lord was a sociopath.

A sociopath is defined as someone who displays a certain set of distinguishing characteristics, among them deceit, a tendency to be manipulative, a failure to plan ahead or anticipate consequences, aggressiveness, and—particularly relevant in the case of Stanley Lord—a reckless disregard for the safety of others, and a lack of remorse for any injury to others which might result from their actions or inactions. Surprisingly, such people can often be quite charming, but they will ruthlessly use that charm in order to achieve their ends. At the same time they seem to have an innate ability to find weaknesses in people, and are ready to exploit these weaknesses to their own ends through deceit, manipulation, or intimidation. While they can appear to establish conventional social relationships, even marriages, to them these exist in name only, and can be ended whenever their usefulness ceases. Ultimately sociopaths are interested only in their personal safety, needs, and desires, without concern for the effect of their behavior on others.

Fundamentally, sociopaths are people with defective consciences. They either lack one entirely, or it is in some way dysfunctional, or they have the ability to completely neutralize or compartmentalize any sense of moral or ethical responsibility. Bluntly, they are incapable of ever conceiving themselves to be wrong, let alone doing something wrong. They are their own moral compass, recognizing no ethical or moral standard other than whatever will advance their ends. Consequently, what sets a sociopath apart from the rest of humanity is that they lack the capacity for any true emotions, from love to shame to guilt.

The nature of Stanley Lord’s sociopathic behavior revealed itself in a number of subtle but distinct ways. The first clue was his reaction when Stone reported seeing white rockets being fired by the ship to the south. Captain Lord knew full well, as did any qualified master of the British merchant marine, the meaning of white rockets at sea, as well as the Board of Trade regulations requiring him to investigate in the event of an ambiguous signal. He also knew that Stone was a weak reed, hesitant and unsure of himself, lacking initiative, instead relying on his captain to make decisions. Yet rather than rouse himself, Lord’s response was to ask some fatuous questions, then go back to dozing in the chartroom. What was most remarkable, then as now, was his failure to even suggest that Cyril Evans, the wireless operator, be awakened to see if he could learn anything. If the wireless gave no news, nothing had been risked, nothing was lost, save an hour or two of sleep for Evans. However, should Evans have been awakened, he would have immediately learned of the
Titanic
’s plight, and Captain Lord would have been compelled to act.