Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic (25 page)

As he straightened his tie and set his cap square on his head, Rostron settled the last few details in his mind. Striding out into the chartroom he began working out the details of the
Carpathia’s
new course. After a few minutes he made a quick trip up to the bridge to give 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 fourteen knots she would cover the distance between herself and the Titanic in four hours, which was not good enough for Rostron. Now he swung into action.

Returning to the chartroom he called for Chief Engineer Johnstone. Speed, he told Johnstone, he wanted more speed than the old
Carpathia
had ever mustered. Call out the off-duty watch to the engine room, get every available stoker roused to feed the furnaces. Cut off the heat and hot water to passenger and crew accommodations, 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 knocked off; the ship prepared for a rescue operation; swing out the ship’s boats; 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 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 to be set up in each dining saloon.

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 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 the
Carpathia’s
passengers 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 how they would react to being herded about in the wee hours of the morning.
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His instructions issued, Rostron quickly reviewed everything he had ordered, trying to think of what he had overlooked. 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
was not about to 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 did not overlook. Second Officer Bisset noticed it first; then so did the others on the bridge—the captain standing toward the back of the bridge holding his cap an inch or two off his head, eyes closed, lips moving in silent prayer.
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Down in the boiler room the extra hands were put to work shoveling coal into the furnaces of the boilers. First the safety valves were closed off, then the engineers began to systematically shut off steam to the rest of the ship, ducting it instead into the reciprocating engines. Up, down, up, down, up, down, the pistons pounded, as the chief engineer watched the revolutions steadily increasing. Faster and faster the ship drove ahead—14 knots ... 14½ ... 15 ... 16 ... 16½ ... 17 knots. The old
Carpathia
had never gone so fast.

The deck crew was soon roused by First Officer Dean and put to work collecting extra blankets, shifting furniture in the dining saloons, and rigging the extra equipment ordered by Captain Rostron. It all seemed utterly bewildering to the crew since no explanation had been given for this flurry of activity, but Dean felt explanations could wait.

Chief Steward Hughes thought his men could do a better job if they had an idea of what was happening, so at 1:15 A.M. he gathered all his stewards in the main dining saloon. Quickly, quietly, he told about the Titanic, explained how the rescue was up to the
Carpathia,
then pausing dramatically and eyeing each man directly, solemnly intoned: “Every man to his post and let him do his duty like a true Englishman. If the situation calls for it, let us add another glorious page to British history.” The stewards immediately set to work, determined that when they arrived at the
Titanic’s
side, they would be ready for anything.
⁷

Phillips was still bent over the wireless key, mechanically tapping out his call and hoping that by some miracle a closer ship would suddenly respond. Even if the
Frankfort,
the Olympic, or any of the other ships didn’t realize it—though thankfully Cottam on the
Carpathia
seemed to understand how serious the situation was—Phillips knew that the ship was doomed.

The news was spreading. Ships within range of the Titanic passed the word on to other ships that weren’t, and the station at Cape Race was able to pick up Phillips’s signals directly. Soon the operator there relayed the
Titanic’s
messages inland, where they were picked up by the wireless station atop the New York Times Building in New York City. In Philadelphia, Wannamaker’s department store had recently installed a wireless office, capitalizing on the public’s interest in the new technology. The office had actually been set up in one of the store’s front windows, and this was where a young wireless operator named David Sarnoff caught the signals from Cape Race. He in turn quickly passed the word on to other stations farther inland; slowly the New World was awakening to the unfolding tragedy in the North Atlantic.
⁸

The Titanic had slowly begun listing to port, and now there was a yawning gap nearly three feet wide between the deck and the sides of the lifeboats on the port side of the ship. A young French woman tried to jump across into Boat 10 but missed. Desperately she clutched at the gunnels of the lifeboat while her feet caught the railing of the deck below. She was quickly pulled back aboard, and she tried again, this time successfully. Meanwhile children were being rushed into Boat 10, Seaman Evans later recalled that some were just “chucked in,” one baby being caught by a woman passenger who snatched at the child’s dressing gown. Shortly Boat 10 was ready to be lowered, and as the boat began its descent, a man rushed to the rail. To Fifth Officer Lowe, who tried to stop him, he looked like a “crazed Italian”—although to Lowe, anyone who tried to rush a lifeboat was either a “Dago” or an “Italian.” In this case Lowe couldn’t stop the man, who jumped into the boat just as it was dropping below the level of the deck.

Lowe crossed to the opposite side of the ship, where a knot of Second and Third Class women passengers were waiting on A Deck to get into Boat 11, and immediately began helping the women get aboard. Edith Russell came rushing up, clutching her toy pig, which she had wrapped in a blanket. A steward took her pig, and thinking it was a baby, tossed it to one of the women in the boat, then helped Edith climb over the rail and into the boat.
⁹

Mrs. Allen Becker had just put her two youngest children into the boat when it suddenly began to lurch downward. “Please let me go with my children
^!
” she cried. She was quickly rushed up and into the boat. At the last second she realized that her eldest daughter Ruth was still waiting on the deck. Mrs. Becker called out to the girl, “Get into the next boat!” as Boat 11 descended. As the boat reached the water, someone up on deck called down, “Is there a seaman in the boat?” When there was no reply, Seaman Brice slid down the after fall and cast off from the ship.
¹⁰

Kate Buss couldn’t bear to watch as the boats were being lowered: it was such an emotionally wrenching sight to her that she deliberately averted her eyes from the boats. Standing on the starboard side of the Boat Deck, once again joined by Marion Wright and Douglas Norman, Kate pondered her chances of being rescued along with her friends. Shortly the trio was joined by another shipboard acquaintance, Dr. Alfred Pain. When the cry came up from Boat 9 of “Any more ladies there?” the two men hustled Marion and Kate forward to the waiting boat. Miss Wright stepped across and into the boat without a word, and as Miss Buss was climbing aboard, she noticed a number of men already seated in the boat. She beckoned to Norman and Pain to follow, but crewmen barred the two men from joining her, and the boat was quickly lowered.

Aghast, Kate rounded on Seaman Haines, who was in charge of the boat, and demanded to know why her friends had been kept from joining her. Haines replied, “The officer gave the order to lower away, and if I didn’t do so he might shoot me, and simply put someone else in charge, and your friends would still not be allowed to come.” Horrified at the apparent callousness, Kate was speechless. She never saw Douglas Norman or Dr. Pain again.
¹¹

Now a rising hysteria began to creep along the Boat Deck as Boat 13 was being loaded. A fat woman shrieked, “Don’t put me in that boat! I don’t want to go in that boat! I’ve never been in an open boat in my life!” Steward Ray, who had just bundled Dr. Dodge rather unceremoniously into Boat 13, turned to her and said sharply, “You have got to go and you may as well keep quiet.” Someone tossed an infant to Ray, who was standing in the stern of the boat. Turning to the women in Boat 13, he called out, “Who’ll take this babby?” A young woman volunteered and the “babby” (it was ten-month-old Alden Caldwell) was passed forward.

Following her mother’s instructions, Ruth Becker came up to Boat 13 and asked if she could get in. Fifth Officer Lowe said, “Sure,” and helped her over the rail, then turned to the deck and called for any more women. None came forward so Lowe ordered the boat put down. Just as the boat began to drop, some Second Class male passengers, among them Lawrence Beesley, the young schoolteacher, stepped forward and jumped into the boat.

About halfway down the
Titanic’s
side someone looked over the side of the boat and saw that the boat was being lowered directly into the condenser exhaust pouring out from the side of the ship. Ordinarily this three-footthick jet of water was created by the spent steam being discharged by the center turbine’s condenser, but this flow came from the pumps in the boiler rooms, fighting their losing battle to stay ahead of the rising water. It would have swamped Boat 13 in seconds, capsizing the boat and tossing everyone aboard into the sea. Desperately the crewmen and the male passengers grabbed at oars and spars, pushing the boat clear. Seconds later she hit the water, and everyone aboard her breathed a sigh of relief.

Boat 13’s troubles weren’t over yet, though. The wash from the condenser exhaust pushed the boat aft, and now she found herself underneath Boat 15, which was rapidly descending. Frantically calling up to the deck to stop lowering, the crewmen in Boat 13 rushed to clear the falls. The men on deck heard the cries coming up from below, and halted Boat 15 with only a few feet to spare, while the men in Boat 13 were finally able to get the falls released. Seconds later Boat 13 rowed away into the night as Boat 15 gently splashed into the water.
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