A Night to Remember

10. ‘Go Away—We Have Just Seen Our Husbands Drown’

‘Oh, Muddie, look at the beautiful North Pole with no Santa Claus on it,’ little Douglas Spedden said to his mother, Mrs Frederick O. Spedden, as boat 3 threaded its way through the loose ice towards the Carpathia.

In fact, the world did look like a picture from a child’s book about the Arctic. The sun was just edging over the horizon, and the ice sparkled in its first long rays. The bergs looked dazzling white, pink, mauve, deep blue, depending on how the rays hit them and how the shadows fell. The sea was now bright blue, and little chunks of ice, some no bigger than a man’s fist, bobbed in the choppy water. Overhead, the eastern sky was gold and blue, promising a lovely day. The shadows of night lingered in the west—Lawrence Beesley remembered watching the Morning Star shine long after the others had faded. Near the horizon a thin, pale crescent moon appeared.

‘A new moon! Turn your money over, boys! That is, if you have any!’ fireman Fred Barrett shouted cheerfully to the crew rowing No. 13. Whoops and yells of relief erupted from all the boats, as the men tried to outrow each other in reaching the Carpathia. Some began singing, ‘Pull for the Shore, Boys’. Some gave organized cheers. Some, however, remained silent—stunned by the sinking or overwhelmed by relief.

‘It’s all right, ladies, do not grieve. We are picked up.’ Lookout Hogg sought to encourage the women staring bleakly ahead in No. 7, but they kept very quiet.

There were no cheers on overturned collapsible B either. Lightoller, Gracie, Bride, Thayer and the others were too busy trying to stay afloat. Stirred by the morning breeze, the waves now washed over the hulk and rocked it back and forth. Every time it rolled, a little more air escaped, and the keel sank still lower into the water. With Lightoller shouting directions, the men still shifted their weight back and forth, but after an hour of this they were dead tired.

The sight of the Carpathia arriving with the dawn—so thrilling to everyone else—now meant little to these men. She had stopped four miles away, and they wondered how they could last until they were spotted. Suddenly, as the light spread over the sea, they saw new hope. About 800 yards off, boats 4, 10, 12 and D were still strung together in a line, just as Fifth Officer Lowe had ordered.

The men on collapsible B shouted, ‘Ship ahoy!’—but they were too far away to be heard. Then Lightoller fished an officer’s whistle out of his pocket and blew a shrill blast. The sound not only carried but told the crew manning the boats that an officer was calling.

In No. 12, seaman Frederick Clinch quickly looked up… thought he saw about twenty men in the distance standing on, of all things, a ship’s funnel. In No. 4, trimmer Samuel Hemming looked over too; and in the early morning light it seemed to him some men were standing on a slab of ice. Little matter, the two boats at once cast off and headed over. It was slow rowing, and as they crept within hailing distance, Lightoller urged them on: ‘Come over and take us off!’

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ somebody called back, and finally the two boats arrived. They were barely in time. By now collapsible B was so delicately balanced that the wash from No. 4 almost swept everybody off. It took all Quartermaster Perkis’s skill to manoeuvre the boat safely alongside. On B, Lightoller cautioned the men not to scramble. Even so, the boat gave a sickening roll as each man leaned forward to jump.

One by one they made it. Jack Thayer was so preoccupied with getting safely into No. 12 that he didn’t notice his mother right alongside in No. 4. And Mrs Thayer was so numbed by cold and misery that she didn’t notice her son. When Colonel Gracie’s turn came, he crawled hands first into No. 12, preferring pinched fingers to the risk of a jump. Baker Joughin, still treading water, didn’t worry at all. He simply let go Maynard’s hand and paddled over to No. 4, where they pulled him in, still thoroughly insulated by his whisky.

Lightoller was last to leave the overturned collapsible. When all the others were transferred, he lifted a lifeless body into No. 12, jumped in himself, and took charge of the boat. It was just about 6.30 when he finally shoved off from the empty keel and began rowing towards the Carpathia.

Meanwhile Fifth Officer Lowe gave up his search for swimmers among the wreckage. In an hour’s hard work No. 14 picked up only four men, and he knew he was too late to find any more. No man could last longer in the ice-cold water. Now day was breaking and rescue was at hand, Lowe decided to head back for the boats he had left tied together and shepherd them in to the Carpathia.

‘Hoist a sail forward,’ he ordered seaman F. O. Evans as the breeze quickened. In every other boat the crew regarded the mast as an extra encumbrance and the sail as just something that got in the way. In some cases they dumped out this equipment before leaving the Titanic; in others it stayed in, and the men cursed as they stumbled over useless spars in the dark. They didn’t know how to sail anyhow.

Lowe was different. As he later explained, few seamen were boatmen and few boatmen were seamen, but he was both. Years spent windjamming along the Gold Coast now paid off as he skilfully tacked back and forth. The bow slammed down on the waves, and the spray glittered in the early morning sun as No. 14 bowled along at four knots.

By the time he got back, his little fleet had scattered. Boats 4 and 12 were off picking up the men on B, and Nos. 10 and D were heading separately for the Carpathia. D looked in bad shape—low in the water and few oars at work. ‘Well,’ said Lowe to himself, ‘I will go down and pick her up and make sure of her.’

‘We have about all we want!’ Hugh Woolner shouted as No. 14 sailed up. Lowe tossed over a line and gave them a tow.

Then, about a mile and a half away, he spied collapsible A, completely swamped and making no headway at all. The people in A never did manage to get the sides up, and now the gunwales lay flush with the water. Of some thirty who originally swam to the boat, most had fallen overboard, numb with the cold. Only a dozen men and third-class passenger Mrs Rosa Abbott were left, standing in freezing water up to their knees.

Lowe arrived just in time… took them all aboard No. 14… then set sail again for the Carpathia, still towing D. Collapsible A was left behind—abandoned and empty, except for the bodies of three men (with lifebelts covering their faces), R. Norris Williams Jr’s fur coat and a ring belonging to third-class passenger Edvard P. Lindell of Helsingborg, Sweden, whom no one remembered seeing all night.

One by one the boats crept up to the Carpathia. It was 4.45 when No. 13 made fast, and Lawrence Beesley climbed a rope ladder to the C deck companionway. He felt overwhelmed with gratitude, relief and joy to feel a solid deck under his feet again. Close behind climbed Dr Washington Dodge, who remembered to bring along his lifebelt as a memento.

Mrs Dodge and five-year-old Washington Jr arrived at 5.10 in No. 7. The little boy was hauled up in a mail sack and plopped on to the deck. A steward rushed up with coffee, but Master Dodge announced he would rather have cocoa. The steward promptly dashed off and got some—British liners aren’t famous for their service for nothing.

Then came No. 3 at 6.00. Mr and Mrs Spedden climbed aboard immaculately dressed. Close behind came the Henry Sleeper Harpers, dragoman Hamad Hassah, and Pekingese Sun Yat-Sen. Mr Harper soon discovered Mr Ogden on deck, greeting him with classic detachment: ‘Louis, how do you keep yourself looking so young?’

Elizabeth Shutes, arriving in the same boat, didn’t try the ladder. She sat in a rope sling, felt herself swept aloft with a mighty jerk. From somewhere above a voice called, ‘Careful, fellows, she’s a lightweight.’

Bruce Ismay stumbled aboard around 6.30, mumbling ‘I’m Ismay… I’m Ismay.’ Trembling, he stood near the gangway, his back against a bulkhead. Dr McGhee gently approached him: ‘Will you not go into the saloon and get some soup or something to drink?’

‘No, I really don’t want anything at all.’

‘Do go and get something.’

‘If you will leave me alone, I’ll be much happier here,’ Ismay blurted, then changed his mind: ‘If you can get me in some room where I can be quiet, I wish you would.’

‘Please,’ the doctor softly persisted, ‘go to the saloon and get something hot.’

‘I would rather not.’

Dr McGhee gave up. He gently led Ismay to his own cabin. During the rest of the trip Ismay never left the room; he never ate anything solid; he never received a visitor (except Jack Thayer, once); he was kept to the end under the influence of opiates. It was the start of a self-imposed exile from active life. Within a year he retired from the White Star Line, purchased a large estate on the west coast of Ireland and remained a virtual recluse till he died in 1937.

Olaus Abelseth reached the deck about 7.00. A hot blanket was thrown over his soaked, shivering shoulders and he was rushed to the dining-saloon for brandy and coffee. Mrs Charlotte Collyer and the others in No. 14 tagged along, while Fifth Officer Lowe remained behind, unshipping the mast and stowing the sail. He liked a tidy boat.

And so they came, one boatload after another. As each drew alongside, the survivors already aboard peered down from the promenade deck, searching for familiar faces. Billy Carter stood next to the Ogdens, frantically watching for his wife and children. When the rest of the family finally came alongside in No. 4, Mr Carter leaned far over the rail: ‘Where’s my son? Where’s my son?’

A small boy in the boat lifted a girl’s big hat and called ‘Here I am, Father.’ Legend has it that John Jacob Astor himself placed the hat on the ten-year-old’s head, saying in answer to objections, ‘Now he’s a girl and he can go.’

Washington Dodge was another man who had an agonizing wait for his family—thanks largely to a mischievous streak in five-year-old Washington Jr. Dr Dodge didn’t see his wife and son come aboard—nor did Mrs Dodge see her husband on deck, but young Washington did. And he decided it would be great fun to keep it to himself. So he didn’t tell his mother and effectively hid from his father. Finally, the Dodges’ ever-faithful dining-saloon steward Ray spoiled everything by bringing about a reunion.

The crowds along the rail grew steadily as the Carpathia’s own passengers poured from their cabins. Some of them learned in curious ways. Mr and Mrs Charles Marshall were awakened by the steward knocking on their stateroom door.

‘What is it?’ called Mr Marshall.

‘Your niece wants to see you, sir,’ came the answer.

Mr Marshall was nonplussed. All three of his nieces were, he knew, making the Titanic’s maiden voyage. They even sent him a wireless last night. How could one of them be on board the Carpathia? The steward explained. Minutes later the Marshalls were holding a family reunion with Mrs E. D. Appleton (the other nieces arrived later), and their daughter Evelyn dashed on deck to see the sight.

A strange sight it was. The endless plain of packed ice to the north and west—the big bergs and smaller growlers that floated like scouts in advance of the main floe—gave the sea a curiously busy look. The boats that rowed in from all directions seemed incredibly out of place here in mid-Atlantic.

And the people that straggled from them couldn’t have looked more peculiar—Miss Sue Eva Rule noticed one woman wearing only a Turkish towel around her waist and a magnificent fur evening cape over her shoulders. The costumes were a rag-bag of lace-trimmed evening dresses… kimonos… fur coats… plain woollen shawls… pyjamas… rubber boots… white satin slippers. But it was still an age of formality—a surprising number of the women wore hats and the men snap-brim tweed caps.

Strangest of all was the silence. Hardly a word was spoken. Everyone noticed it; everyone had a different explanation. The Reverend P. M. A. Hoques, a passenger on the Carpathia, thought people were too horror-stricken to speak. Captain Rostron thought everybody was just too busy. Lawrence Beesley felt they were neither too stunned nor too busy—they were simply in the presence of something too big to grasp.

Occasionally there was a minor commotion. Miss Peterson noticed a little girl named Emily sitting on the promenade deck, sobbing, ‘Oh, Mama, Mama, I’m sick. Oh, Mama, Mama!’

While No. 3 was unloading its passengers, a woman clad only in a nightgown and kimono suddenly sat up in the bottom of the boat. Pointing at another lady being hoisted up in a boatswain’s chair, she cried: ‘Look at that horrible woman! Horrible! She stepped on my stomach. Horrible creature!’

And in the third-class dining-saloon an Italian woman went completely to pieces—sobbing, screaming, banging her fists on the table. Over and over and over she cried, ‘Bambino!’ An Italian steward coaxed out the information that both her babies were missing. One was soon located, but she held up two fingers and the hysterics started again. Finally the other was found too—in the pantry on the hot press, where it had been left to thaw out.

By 8.15 all the boats were in except No. 12. It barely moved, still several hundred yards away. The breeze grew stiff, and the sea grew rougher. The crowded gunwales were almost level with the waves—nearly seventy-five people were jammed in. The crowd at the Carpathia’s rail watched breathlessly as Lightoller nursed it along.

He was nearly frozen—his uniform soaked and stiff. Around his shoulders he wore a cape with a monk’s hood, donated by Mrs Elizabeth Mellenger. At his feet, Mrs Mellenger’s thirteen-year-old daughter Madeleine gazed up in admiration. She has cherished that cape and hood ever since.

The people in the boat huddled tightly together… trying to keep dry, praying they might make it. At a time like this a man notices little trivial things. As Colonel Gracie worked in vain to revive a lifeless body lying beside him, he wondered why the person wore long, grey woollen stockings.

Now 8.20, and they were only 200 yards off. Rostron, trying to help, turned the Carpathia’s bow to within 100 yards. As Lightoller struggled to cross the bow and get in her lee, a sudden squall whipped up the sea. First one wave, then another crashed into the boat. A third just missed. Next instant he was there—safe in the shelter of the big ship.

At 8.30, No. 12—the last boat to arrive—made fast and began to unload. Colonel Gracie felt like falling down on his knees and kissing the deck as he stepped into the gangway. Harold Bride felt a pair of strong hands reach out to him; then he passed out. Jack Thayer saw his mother waiting and rushed to her arms. Mrs Thayer stammered, ‘Where’s Daddy?’

‘I don’t know, Mother,’ he answered quietly.

Meanwhile Rostron wondered where to take his 705 unexpected guests. Halifax was nearest, but there was ice along the way, and he thought the Titanic’s passengers had seen enough. The Azores were best for the Carpathia’s schedule, but he didn’t have the linen and provisions to last that far. New York was best for the survivors but most costly to the Cunard Line. He dropped down to the surgeon’s cabin where Dr McGhee was examining Bruce Ismay. The man was shattered—anything Rostron wanted was all right with him. So Rostron decided on New York.

Then the Olympic broke in: Why not transfer the Titanic’s survivors to her? Rostron thought this was an appalling idea—he couldn’t see subjecting these people to another transfer at sea. Besides, the Olympic was the Titanic’s sister ship and the sight alone would be like a hideous ghost. To be on the safe side, he trotted back to Dr McGhee’s cabin, checked again with Ismay. The White Star president shuddered at the thought.

So New York it was, and the sooner the better. By now the Californian was standing by, and Rostron arranged for her to search the scene while he made for port with the survivors. Then he hauled aboard as many of the Titanic’s lifeboats as possible—six on the forward deck, seven in the Carpathia’s own davits. The rest were set adrift.

Before heading back, Rostron couldn’t resist one last look around. He was a thorough man; he didn’t want to overlook the smallest chance. Let the Californian go through the motions, but if there was any real hope of picking anybody else up, Rostron wanted the Carpathia to do it.

As he cruised, it occurred to him that a brief service might be appropriate. He dropped down and asked if Ismay had any objection. It was always the same—anything Rostron wanted to do was all right with him.

So Rostron sent for the Reverend Father Anderson, an Episcopal clergyman aboard, and the people from the Titanic and Carpathia assembled together in the main lounge. There they gave thanks for the living and paid their respects to the lost.

While they murmured their prayers, the Carpathia steamed slowly over the Titanic’s grave. There were few traces of the great ship—patches of reddish-yellow cork… some steamer chairs… several white pilasters… cushions… rugs… lifebelts… the abandoned boats… just one body.

At 8.50 Rostron was satisfied. There couldn’t possibly be another human being alive. He rang ‘full speed ahead’ and turned his ship for New York.

Already the city was wildly excited. When the first word arrived at 1.20 a.m., nobody knew what to think. The AP flash was certainly cryptic—just a message from Cape Race that at 10.25 local time the Titanic called CQD, reported striking an iceberg, and asked for help immediately. Then another message that the liner was down at the head and putting the women off in boats. Then silence.

The news was in time for the first morning editions—but barely. No leeway for double-checking: only time to decide how to handle it. The story seemed fantastic. Yet there it was. The editors nibbled gingerly; the Herald’s headline was typical:

Only The Times went out on a limb. The long silence after the first few messages convinced managing editor Carr Van Anda that she was gone. So he took a flyer—early editions reported the Titanic sinking and the women off in lifeboats; the last edition said she had sunk.

By 8.00 a.m. newsmen were storming the White Star Line offices at 9 Broadway. Vice-President Philip A. S. Franklin made light of the reports: even if the Titanic had hit ice, she could float indefinitely. ‘We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe that the boat is unsinkable.’

But at the same time he was frantically wiring Captain Smith: ‘Anxiously await information and probable disposition of passengers.’

By mid-morning friends and relatives of the Titanic’s passengers were pouring in: Mrs Benjamin Guggenheim and her brother De Witt Seligman… Mrs Astor’s father W. H. Force… J. P. Morgan Jr… hundreds of people nobody recognized. Rich and poor, they all got the same reassuring smiles—no need to worry… the Titanic was unsinkable; well, anyhow, she could float two or three days… certainly there were enough boats for everybody.

And the Press joined in. The Evening Sun ran a banner headline:

The story reported all passengers transferred to the Parisian and the Carpathia, with the Titanic being towed by the Virginian to Halifax.

Even business seemed confident. At the first news the reinsurance rate on the Titanic’s cargo soared to fifty per cent, then to sixty per cent. But as optimism grew, London rates dropped back to fifty per cent, then to forty-five… thirty… and finally twenty-five per cent.

Meanwhile Marconi stock skyrocketed. In two days it soared fifty-five points to 225. Not bad for a stock that brought only two dollars just a year ago. And IMM—the great combine that controlled the White Star Line—was now recovering after a shaky start in the morning.

Yet rumours were beginning to spread. No official word, but wireless men listening in on the Atlantic traffic picked up disturbing messages not meant for their ears, and relayed the contents anyhow. During the afternoon a Cunard official heard from a friend downtown that the Titanic was definitely gone. A New York businessman wired a friend in Montreal the same thing. Franklin heard too, but the source seemed unreliable; so he decided to keep quiet.

At 6.15 the roof fell in. Word finally arrived from the Olympic: the Titanic went down at 2.20 a.m.; the Carpathia picked up all the boats and was returning to New York with the 675 survivors. The message had been delayed in transit several hours. Nobody knows why, but there has never been any evidence supporting the World’s suggestion that it was the work of Wall Street bears and shippers reinsuring their cargoes.

Franklin was still steeling himself to tell the public when the clock in the White Star office struck seven. An alert reporter smelled the gloom in the air, took a chance, and barged into the manager’s office. Others followed. ‘Gentlemen,’ Mr Franklin stammered, ‘I regret to say that the Titanic sank at 2.20 this morning.’

At first that was all he would say, but bit by bit the reporters chipped out admissions. At 8.00: the Olympic’s message ‘neglected to say that all the crew had been saved’. At 8.15: ‘Probably a number of lives had been lost.’ At 8.45: ‘We very much fear there has been a great loss of life.’ By 9.00 he couldn’t keep up the front any longer: it was a ‘horrible loss of life’… they could replace the ship but ‘never the human lives’.

At 10.30 Vincent Astor arrived and disappeared into Franklin’s office. In a little while he left weeping. On a hunch a reporter phoned Mrs John Jacob Astor’s father, W. H. Force. ‘Oh, my God,’ cried the old gentleman, ‘don’t tell me that! Where did you get that report from? It isn’t true! It can’t be true!’

No one could reach the Strauses’ daughter, Mrs Alfred Hess. Early that afternoon she had taken the special train chartered by the White Star Line to meet the supposedly crippled Titanic at Halifax. By 8.00 the train was lumbering through the Maine countryside, as Mrs Hess sat in the diner chatting with reporters. She was the only woman on board, and it was rather fun.

She was just starting some grapefruit when the train slowed, stopped, and then began moving backwards. It never stopped until Boston. There she learned, ‘Plans have changed; the Titanic’s people are going straight to New York.’ So she took the sleeper back and was met at the gate by her brother early the next morning: ‘Things look pretty bad.’

By now the first survivor list was up, and crowds again stormed the White Star office. Mrs Frank Farquharson and Mrs W. H. Marvin came together to learn about their children, who were coming back from their honeymoon. The bride’s mother, Mrs Farquharson, gave a happy little yelp when she spied the name ‘Mrs Daniel Marvin’; then managed to stifle it when she saw no ‘Mr’ beside it.

Mrs Ben Guggenheim clung to the hope that some lifeboat was missing. ‘He may be drifting about!’ she sobbed.

And he might have been, for all anyone knew. Nobody could get any information out of the Carpathia—Rostron was saving his wireless for official traffic and private messages from the survivors—so the newspapers made up their stories. The Evening World told of a fog, the Titanic’s booming siren, a crash like an earthquake. The Herald described how the ship was torn asunder, plunged into darkness, almost capsized at the moment of impact.

When imagination ran low, the papers took it out on the silent rescue ship. The Evening Mail thundered:

The World pouted:

So Tuesday turned to Wednesday… and Wednesday to Thursday… and still there was no news. The weeklies were caught now. Harper’s Weekly described the prominent people aboard, featuring Henry Sleeper Harper, a member of the family who owned the magazine. It conjured a fog and a frightful shock; then remarked a little lamely, ‘As to what happened, all is still surmise.’ But Harper’s assured its readers that the rule was women and children first, ‘the order long enforced among all decent men who use the sea’. Next issue, the magazine turned a possible embarrassment into a journalistic scoop when Henry Sleeper Harper turned up complete with Pekingese and personal Egyptian dragoman. Harper’s happily announced an exclusive interview.

Thursday night the wait ended. As the Carpathia steamed by the Statue of Liberty, 10,000 people watched from the Battery. As she edged towards pier 54, 30,000 more stood in the waterfront rain. To the end Rostron had no truck with newsmen. He wouldn’t let them on the ship at quarantine, and as the Carpathia steamed up the North River, tugs chugged beside her, full of reporters shouting questions through megaphones.

At 8.37 she reached the pier and began unloading the Titanic’s lifeboats so she could be warped in. They were rowed off to the White Star pier, where souvenir hunters picked them clean during the night. (The next day men were put to work removing the Titanic’s nameplate from each boat.)

At 9.35 the Carpathia was moored, the gangplank lowered, and the first survivors tumbled off. Later a brown canvas carry-all, its two-by-three-inch sides bulging, was taken off and placed under Customs letter G. Customs officials said it was the only luggage saved from the Titanic. Owner Samuel Goldenberg denied such foresight. He claimed he bought it on board the Carpathia. He said it contained only the clothes he wore off the Titanic and a few accessories purchased on the rescue ship—pyjamas, coat, trousers, dressing gown, raincoat, slippers, two rugs, shirt, collars, toilet goods, and shoes for his wife and himself.

The Carpathia’s arrival made clear who survived, but it didn’t unravel what had happened. The survivors added their own myths and fables to the fiction conjured up on shore. For some the heartbreaking trip back was too much. Others were simply carried away by the excitement. The more expansive found themselves making a good story even better. The more laconic had their experiences improved by reporters. Some were too shocked, some too ashamed.

Newspaper interviews reported that second-class passenger Emilio Portaluppi rode a cake of ice for hours… Miss Marie Young saw the iceberg an hour before the collision… seamen Jack Williams and William French watched six men shot down like dogs… Philadelphia banker Robert W. Daniel took over the Carpathia’s wireless during the trip back. All the evidence went against such stories, but the public was too excited to care.

The sky was the limit. The 19 April New York Sun had first-class passenger George Brayton saying:

‘The moon was shining and a number of us who were enjoying the crisp air were promenading about the deck. Captain Smith was on the bridge when the first cry from the lookout came that there was an iceberg ahead. It may have been 300 feet high when I saw it. It was probably 200 yards away and dead ahead. Captain Smith shouted some orders… a number of us promenaders rushed to the bow of the ship. When we saw we could not fail to hit it, we rushed to the stern. Then came a crash, and the passengers were panic-stricken… The accident happened at about 10.30 p.m… about midnight, I think, came the first boiler explosion. Then for the first time, I think, Captain Smith began to get worried …’

Carpathia seaman Jonas Briggs’s interview told the story of Rigel, a handsome black Newfoundland dog, who jumped from the deck of the sinking Titanic and escorted a lifeboat to the Carpathia, his joyous barks signalling Captain Rostron that he was coming.

Personal thoughts weighed heavily on the minds of some. Lookout Reginald Lee—it seemed a century since that dreadful moment when his mate Fleet sighted the berg—told of a haze on the horizon, remembered Fleet saying, ‘Well, if we can see through that, we’ll be lucky.’ Fleet never recalled the conversation.

An interview with one of the men in first class gave this careful explanation of his presence in No. 7, the first boat to leave:

‘On one point all the women were firm. They would not enter a lifeboat until all the men were in first. They feared to trust themselves to the seas in them. It required courage to step into the frail craft as they swung from the creaking davits. Few men were willing to take the chance. An officer rushed behind me and shouted, “You’re big enough to pull an oar. Jump into this boat or we’ll never get the women off.” I was forced to do so, though I admit the ship looked a great deal safer to me than any small boat.’

Gradually the full story emerged, but many of the engaging tales born these first few days have lingered ever since—the lady who refused to leave her Great Dane… the band playing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’… Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch committing suicide… Mrs Brown running No. 6 with a revolver.

But legends are part of great events, and if they help keep alive the memory of gallant self-sacrifice, they serve their purpose. At the time, however, no legends were needed to drive home the story. People were overwhelmed by the tragedy. Flags everywhere flew half-mast. Macy’s and the Harris theatres were closed. The French line called off a reception on the new SS France. In Southampton, where so many of the crew lived, grief was staggering—twenty families in one street bereaved. Montreal called off a military review. King George and President Taft exchanged condolences—and the Kaiser got into the act. J. S. Bache & Co. cancelled its annual dinner. J. P. Morgan called off the inauguration of a new sanatorium he was building at Aix-les-Bains.

Even the Social Register was shaken. In those days the ship that people travelled on was an important yardstick in measuring their standing, and the Register dutifully kept track. The tragedy posed an unexpected problem. To say that listed families crossed on the Titanic gave them their social due, but it wasn’t true. To say they arrived on the plodding Carpathia was true, but socially misleading. How to handle this dilemma? In the case of those lost, the Register dodged the problem—after their names it simply noted the words, ‘died at sea, 15 April 1912’. In the case of the living, the Register carefully ran the phrase, ‘Arrived Titan-Carpath, 18 April 1912’. The hyphen represented history’s greatest sea disaster.

What troubled people especially was not just the tragedy—or even its needlessness—but the element of fate in it all. If the Titanic had heeded any of the six ice messages on Sunday… if ice conditions had been normal… if the night had been rough or moonlit… if she had seen the berg fifteen seconds sooner—or fifteen seconds later… if she had hit the ice any other way… if her watertight bulkheads had been one deck higher… if she had carried enough boats… if the Californian had only come. Had any one of these ‘if’s turned out right, every life might have been saved. But they all went against her—a classic Greek tragedy.

These thoughts were yet to come, as the Carpathia turned towards New York in the bright morning sunshine of 15 April. At this point the survivors still slumped exhausted in deck chairs or sipped coffee in the dining-saloon or absently wondered what they would wear.

The Carpathia’s passengers pitched in gallantly—digging out extra toothbrushes, lending clothes, sewing smocks for the children out of steamer blankets brought along in the lifeboats. A Macy’s wine buyer bound for Portugal became a sort of guardian angel for the three rescued Gimbels buyers. Mrs Louis Ogden took cups of coffee to two women in gay coats and scarves sitting alone in a corner. ‘Go away,’ they said, ‘we have just seen our husbands drown.’

For some of the survivors life began again—Lawrence Beesley busily scribbled off a wireless message that he was safe. For others it took longer. Colonel Gracie lay under a pile of blankets on a sofa in the dining-saloon while his clothes dried in the bake oven. Bruce Ismay sat trembling in the surgeon’s cabin, shot full of opiates. Harold Bride came to lying in somebody’s stateroom; a woman was bending over him, and he felt her hand brushing back his hair and rubbing his face.

Jack Thayer was in another cabin nearby. A kindly man had lent him pyjamas and a bunk. Now Thayer was getting into bed, just as he had started to do ten hours before. He climbed between the cool sheets, and it occurred to him that a cup of brandy he just swallowed was his first drink of hard liquor. He must indeed be growing up.

Far below, the Carpathia’s engines hummed with a swift, soothing rhythm. Far above, the wind whistled through the rigging. Ahead lay New York, and home in Philadelphia. Behind, the sun caught the bright red-and-white stripes of the pole from the Titanic’s barber shop, as it bobbed in the empty sea. But Jack Thayer no longer knew or cared. The brandy had done its work. He was fast asleep.