A Night to Remember

2. ‘There’s Talk of an Iceberg, Ma’am’

Almost as if nothing had happened, lookout Fleet resumed his watch, Mrs Astor lay back in her bed, and Lieutenant Steffanson returned to his hot lemonade.

At the request of several passengers second-class smoking-room steward James Witter went off to investigate the jar. But two tables of card players hardly looked up. Normally the White Star Line allowed no card playing on Sunday, and tonight the passengers wanted to take full advantage of the chief steward’s unexpected largesse.

There was no one in the second-class lounge to send the librarian looking, so he continued sitting at his table, quietly counting the day’s loan slips.

Through the long white corridors that led to the staterooms came only the murmurs of people chatting in their cabins… the distant slam of some deck-pantry door… occasionally the click of unhurried high heels—all the usual sounds of a liner at night.

Everything seemed perfectly normal—yet not quite. In his cabin on B deck, seventeen-year-old Jack Thayer had just called good night to his father and mother, Mr and Mrs John B. Thayer of Philadelphia. The Thayers had connecting staterooms, an arrangement compatible with Mr Thayer’s position as Second Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Now, as young Jack stood buttoning his pyjama jacket, the steady hum of the breeze through his half-opened porthole suddenly stopped.

One deck below, Mr and Mrs Henry B. Harris sat in their cabin playing double canfield. Mr Harris, a Broadway producer, was dog-tired, and Mrs Harris had just broken her arm. There was little conversation as Mrs Harris idly watched her dresses sway on their hangers from the ship’s vibration. Suddenly she noticed they had stopped jiggling.

Another deck below, Lawrence Beesley, a young science master at Dulwich College, lay in his second-class bunk reading, pleasantly lulled by the dancing motion of the mattress. Suddenly the mattress was still.

The creaking woodwork, the distant rhythm of the engines, the steady rattle of the glass dome over the A deck foyer—all the familiar shipboard sounds vanished as the Titanic glided to a stop. Far more than any jolt, silence stirred the passengers.

Steward bells began ringing, but it was hard to learn anything. ‘Why have we stopped?’ Lawrence Beesley asked a passing steward. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ came a typical answer, ‘but I don’t suppose it’s much.’

Mrs Arthur Ryerson, of the steel family, had somewhat better results. ‘There’s talk of an iceberg, ma’am,’ exclaimed steward Bishop. ‘And they have stopped, not to run over it.’ While her French maid Victorine hovered in the background, Mrs Ryerson pondered what to do. Mr Ryerson was having his first good sleep since the start of the trip, and she hated to wake him. She walked over to the square, heavy glass window that opened directly on to the sea. Outside, she saw only a calm, beautiful night. She decided to let him sleep.

Others refused to let well enough alone. With the restless curiosity that afflicts everyone on board ship, some of the Titanic’s passengers began exploring for an answer.

In C-51 Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur military historian by way of West Point and an independent income, methodically donned underwear, long stockings, shoes, trousers, a Norfolk jacket, and then puffed up to the boat deck. Jack Thayer simply threw an overcoat over his pyjamas and took off, calling to his parents that he was ‘going out to see the fun’.

On deck there was little fun to be seen; nor was there any sign of danger. For the most part the explorers wandered aimlessly about or stood by the rail, staring into the empty night for some clue to the trouble. The Titanic lay dead in the water, three of her four huge funnels blowing off steam with a roar that shattered the quiet, starlit night. Otherwise everything was normal. Towards the stern of the boat deck an elderly couple strolled arm in arm, oblivious of the roaring steam and the little knots of passengers roving about.

It was so bitterly cold, and there was so little to be seen, that most of the people came inside again. Entering the magnificent foyer on A deck, they found others who had risen but preferred to stay inside where it was warm.

Mingling together, they made a curious picture. Their dress was an odd mixture of bathrobes, evening clothes, fur coats, turtle-neck sweaters. The setting was equally incongruous—the huge glass dome overhead… the dignified oak panelling… the magnificent balustrades with their wrought-iron scrollwork… and, looking down on them all, an incredible wall clock adorned with two bronze nymphs, somehow symbolizing Honour and Glory crowning Time.

‘Oh, it’ll be a few hours and we’ll be on the way again,’ a steward vaguely explained to first-class passenger George Harder.

‘Looks like we’ve lost a propeller, but it’ll give us more time for bridge,’ called Howard Case, the London manager of Vacuum Oil, to Fred Seward, a New York lawyer. Perhaps Mr Case got his theory from steward Johnson, still contemplating a sojourn in Belfast. In any event, most of the passengers had better information by this time.

‘What do you think?’ exclaimed Harvey Collyer to his wife, as he returned to their cabin from a tour around the deck. ‘We’ve struck an iceberg—a big one—but there’s no danger. An officer told me so!’ The Collyers were travelling second class, on their way from Britain to a fruit farm just purchased in Fayette Valley, Idaho. They were novices on the Atlantic, and perhaps the news would have roused Mrs Collyer, but the dinner that night had been too rich. So she just asked her husband if anybody seemed frightened, and when he said no, she lay back again in her bunk.

John Jacob Astor seemed equally unperturbed. Returning to his suite after going up to investigate, he explained to Mrs Astor that the ship had struck ice, but it didn’t look serious. He was very calm and Mrs Astor wasn’t a bit alarmed.

‘What do they say is the trouble?’ asked William T. Stead, a leading British spiritualist, reformer, evangelist, and editor, all rolled into one. A professional individualist, he seemed almost to have planned his arrival on deck later than the others.

‘Icebergs,’ briefly explained Frank Millet, the distinguished American painter.

‘Well,’ Stead shrugged, ‘I guess it’s nothing serious; I’m going back to my cabin to read.’

Mr and Mrs Dickinson Bishop of Dowagiac, Michigan, had the same reaction. When a deck steward assured them, ‘We have only struck a little piece of ice and passed it,’ the Bishops returned to their stateroom and undressed again. Mr Bishop picked up a book and started to read, but soon he was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mr Albert A. Stewart, an ebullient old gentleman who had a large interest in the Barnum and Bailey Circus: ‘Come on out and amuse yourself!’

Others had the same idea. First-class passenger Peter Daly heard one young lady tell another, ‘Oh, come and let’s see the berg—we have never seen one before.’

And in the second-class smoking-room somebody facetiously asked whether he could get some ice from the berg for his highball.

He could indeed. When the Titanic brushed by, several tons of ice crumbled off the berg and landed on the starboard well deck, just opposite the foremast. This was third-class recreation space, and the ice was soon discovered by steerage passengers coming up to investigate. From her cabin window on B deck, Mrs Natalie Wick watched them playfully throwing chunks at each other.

The ice soon became quite a tourist attraction. Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a middle-aged manufacturing chemist from Toronto, used the opportunity to descend on a more distinguished compatriot, Charles M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railroad. ‘Mr Hays!’ he cried, ‘Have you seen the ice?’

When Mr Hays said he hadn’t Peuchen followed through—‘If you care to see it, I will take you up on deck and show it to you.’ And so they went all the way forward on A deck and looked down at the mild horseplay below.

Possession of the ice didn’t remain a third-class monopoly for long. As Colonel Gracie stood in the A deck foyer, he was tapped on the shoulder by Clinch Smith, a New York society figure whose experiences already included sitting at Stanford White’s table the night White was shot by Harry K. Thaw. ‘Would you like,’ asked Smith, ‘a souvenir to take back to New York?’ And he opened his hand to show a small piece of ice, flat like a pocket watch.

The same collector’s instinct gripped others. Able seaman John Poingdestre picked up a sliver and showed it around the crew’s mess room. A steerage passenger presented Fourth Officer Boxhall with a chunk about the size of a small basin. As greaser Walter Hurst lay half awake, his father-in-law—who shared the same quarters—came in and tossed a lump of ice into Hurst’s bunk. A man entered the stewards’ quarters, displaying a piece about as big as a teacup, and told steward F. Dent Ray, ‘There are tons of ice forward!’

‘Ah, well,’ Ray yawned, ‘that will not hurt.’ And he prepared to go back to sleep.

A little more curious, first-class steward Henry Samuel Etches—off duty at the time of the crash—walked forward along the alleyway on E deck to investigate, and ran into a third-class passenger walking the other way. Before Etches could say anything, the passenger—as though confronting Etches with irrefutable evidence about something in dispute—threw a block of ice on to the deck and shouted, ‘Will you believe it now?’

Soon there was far more disturbing evidence that all was not as it should be. By 11.50—ten minutes after the collision—strange things could be seen and heard in the first six of the Titanic’s sixteen watertight compartments.

Lamp trimmer Samuel Hemming, lying off duty in his bunk, heard a curious hissing sound coming from the fore-peak, the compartment closest to the bow. He jumped up, went as far forward as he could, and discovered that it was air escaping from the forepeak locker where the anchor chains were stowed. Far below, water was pouring in so fast that air rushed out under tremendous pressure.

In the next compartment aft, containing the firemen’s quarters and cargo hatch No. 1, leading fireman Charles Hendrickson was also roused by a curious sound. But here it was not air—it was water. When he looked down the spiral staircase that led to the passageway connecting the firemen’s quarters with the stokeholds, he saw green sea-water swirling around the foot of the grated, cast-iron steps.

Steerage passenger Carl Johnson had an even more disturbing experience in the third compartment aft. This contained the cheapest passenger accommodation—lowest in the ship and closest to the bow. As Johnson got up to see what was causing a mild commotion outside his cabin, water seeped in under the door and around his feet. He decided to dress, and by the time his clothes were on, the water was over his shoes. With a detached, almost clinical interest, he noticed that it seemed to be of very even depth all over the floor. Nearby, steerage passenger Daniel Buckley was a little slower to react, and when he finally jumped out of his bunk, he splashed into water up to his ankles.

Five postal clerks working in the fourth compartment were much wetter. The Titanic’s post office took up two deck levels—the mail was stacked, along with first-class luggage, on the orlop deck and was sorted just above on G deck. The two levels were connected by a wide iron companionway, which continued up to F deck and the rest of the ship. Within five minutes water was sloshing around the knees of the postal clerks, as they dragged 200 sacks of registered mail up the companionway to the drier sorting room.

They might have spared themselves the trouble—in another five minutes the water reached the top of the steps and was lapping on to G deck. The clerks now abandoned the mail room altogether, retreating further up the companionway to F deck.

At the top of the stairs they found a married couple peering down at them. Mr and Mrs Norman Campbell Chambers of New York had been attracted by the noise while returning to their cabin after a fruitless trip to the promenade deck. Now, the Chamberses and the postal clerks watched the scene together, joking about the soaked baggage and wondering what might be in the letters they could see floating around the abandoned mail room.

Others joined them briefly from time to time—Fourth Officer Boxhall… assistant second steward Wheat… once even Captain Smith. But at no point could the Chamberses bring themselves to believe that anything they saw was really dangerous.

The fifth watertight compartment from the bow contained boiler room No. 6. This was where fireman Barrett and second engineer Hesketh jumped through the watertight door as it slammed down after the collision. Others didn’t make it and scrambled up the escape ladders that laced their way topside. A few hung on, and after a moment some of the others came down again.

Shouts of ‘Shut the dampers!’ and then ‘Draw the fires!’ came from somewhere. Fireman George Beauchamp worked at fever pitch as the sea flooded in from the bunker door and up through the floor plates. In five minutes it was waist deep—black and slick with grease from the machinery. The air was heavy with steam. Fireman Beauchamp never did see who shouted the welcome words, ‘That will do!’ He was too relieved to care as he scurried up the ladder for the last time.

Just to the stern, second engineer Hesketh, now on the dry side of the watertight door, struggled to get boiler room No. 5 back to normal. The sea still spouted through a two-foot gash near the closed door, but assistant engineers Harvey and Wilson had a pump going, and it was keeping ahead of the water.

For a few moments the stokers stood by, aimlessly watching the engineers rig the pumps; then the engine room phoned to send them to the boat deck. They trooped up the escape ladder, but the bridge ordered them down again, and for a while they milled around the working alleyway on E deck—halfway up, halfway down—caught in the bureaucracy of a huge ship and wondering what to do next.

Meanwhile the lights went out in boiler room No. 5. Engineer Harvey ordered fireman Barrett, who had stayed behind, to go aft to the engine room for lanterns. The connecting doors were all shut; so Barrett had to climb to the top of the escape ladder, cross over, and go down the other side. By the time he retraced his steps, the engineers had the lights on again and the lanterns weren’t needed.

Next, Harvey told Barrett to shut down the boilers—the pressure, built up while the ship was at full steam, now lifted the safety valves and was blowing joints. Barrett scrambled back up the ladder and drafted fifteen or twenty of the stokers wandering around E deck. They all clattered down and began wetting the fires. It was backbreaking work, boxing up the boilers and putting on dampers to stop the steam from rising. Fireman Kemish still remembers it with feeling: ‘We certainly had one hell of a time putting those fires out …’

Clouds of steam gushed through the boiler room as the men sweated away. But gradually order returned. The lights burned bright, the place was clear of water, and, in No. 5 at any rate, everything seemed under control. There was an air of cheerful confidence by the time word spread that the men on the twelve-to-four watch were dragging their beds to the recreation deck because their rooms were flooded. The men on the eight-to-twelve watch paused in their work, thought this was a huge joke, and had a good laugh.

Up on the bridge, Captain Smith tried to piece the picture together. No one was better equipped to do it. After thirty-eight years’ service with White Star, he was more than just senior captain of the line; he was a bearded patriarch, worshipped by crew and passengers alike. They loved everything about him—especially his wonderful combination of firmness and urbanity. It was strikingly evident in the matter of cigars. ‘Cigars,’ says his daughter, ‘were his pleasure. And one was allowed to be in the room only if one was absolutely still, so that the blue cloud over his head never moved.’

Captain Smith was a natural leader, and on reaching the wheelhouse after the crash, he paused only long enough to visit the starboard wing of the bridge to see if the iceberg was still in sight. First Officer Murdoch and Fourth Officer Boxhall trailed along, and for a moment the three officers merely stood peering into the darkness. Boxhall thought he saw a dark shape astern, but he wasn’t sure.

From then on all was business. Captain Smith sent Boxhall on a fast inspection of the ship. In a few minutes he was back: he had been as far forward in the steerage as he could go, and there was no sign of damage. This was the last good news Captain Smith heard that night.

Still worried, Smith now told Boxhall, ‘Go down and find the carpenter and get him to sound the ship.’ Boxhall wasn’t even down the bridge ladder when he bumped into carpenter J. Hutchinson rushing up. As Hutchinson elbowed his way by, he gasped, ‘She’s making water fast!’

Hard on the carpenter’s heels came mail clerk Iago Smith. He too pushed on towards the bridge, blurting out as he passed, ‘The mail hold is filling rapidly!’

Next to arrive was Bruce Ismay. He had pulled a suit over his pyjamas, put on his carpet slippers, and climbed to the bridge to find out whether anything was happening that the president of the line should know. Captain Smith broke the news about the iceberg. Ismay then asked, ‘Do you think the ship is seriously damaged?’ A pause, and the captain slowly answered, ‘I’m afraid she is.’

They would know soon enough. A call had been sent for Thomas Andrews, managing director of Harland & Wolff shipyard. As the Titanic’s builder, Andrews was making the maiden voyage to iron out any kinks in the ship. If anybody could figure out the situation, here was the man.

He was indeed a remarkable figure. As builder, he of course knew every detail about the Titanic. But there was so much more to him than that. Nothing was too great or too small for his attention. He even seemed able to anticipate how the ship would react to any situation. He understood ships the way some men are supposed to understand horses.

And he understood equally well the people who run ships. They all came to Andrews with their problems. One night it might be First Officer Murdoch, worried because he had been superseded by Chief Officer Wilde. The next night it might be a couple of quarrelling stewardesses who looked to Andrews as a sort of supreme court. This very evening chief baker Charles Joughin had made him a special loaf of bread.

So far, Andrews’ trip had been what might be expected. All day long he roamed the ship, taking volumes of notes. At 6.45 every evening he dressed for dinner, dining usually with old Dr O’Loughlin, the ship’s surgeon, who also had a way with the stewardesses. And then back to his stateroom A-36, piled high with plans and charts and blueprints. There he would assemble his notes and work out his recommendations.

Tonight the problems were typical—trouble with the restaurant galley hot press… the colouring of the pebble dashing on the private promenade decks was too dark… too many screws on all the stateroom hat hooks. There was also the plan to change part of the writing room into two more staterooms. The writing room had originally been planned partly as a place where the ladies could retire after dinner. But this was the twentieth century, and the ladies just wouldn’t retire. Clearly, a smaller room would do.

Completely absorbed, Andrews scarcely noticed the jar and stirred from his blueprints only when he got Captain Smith’s message that he was needed on the bridge.

In a few minutes Andrews and the captain were making their own tour—down the crew’s stairway to attract less attention… along the labyrinth of corridors far below… by the water surging into the mail room… past the squash court, where the sea now lapped against the foul line on the backboard.

Threading their way back to the bridge, they passed through the A deck foyer, still thronged with passengers standing around. Everybody studied the two men’s faces for some sign of good news or bad; nobody could detect any clue.

Some of the crew weren’t so guarded. In D-60, when Mrs Henry Sleeper Harper asked Dr O’Loughlin to persuade her sick husband to stay in bed, the old doctor exclaimed, ‘They tell me the trunks are floating around in the hold; you may as well go on deck.’

In C-91 a young governess named Elizabeth Shutes sat with her charge, nineteen-year-old Margaret Graham. Seeing an officer pass the cabin door, Miss Shutes asked him if there was any danger. He cheerfully said no, but then she overheard him further down the hall say, ‘We can keep the water out for a while.’

Miss Shutes glanced at Margaret, who was uneasily nibbling at a chicken sandwich. Her hand shook so badly the chicken kept falling out of the bread.

No one was asking questions along the working alleyway on E deck. This broad corridor was the quickest way from one end of the ship to the other—the officers called it ‘Park Lane’, the crew ‘Scotland Road’. Now it was crowded with pushing, shoving people. Some were stokers forced out of boiler room No. 6, but most were steerage passengers, slowly working their way aft, carrying boxes, bags and even trunks.

These people didn’t need to be told there was trouble. To those berthed far below on the starboard side, the crash was no ‘faint grinding jar’. It was a ‘tremendous noise’ that sent them tumbling out of bed.

Mrs Celiney Yasbeck—a bride of fifty days—ran out into the corridor with her husband. Instead of making the long hike to the deck, it was easier to look below for trouble. In their night clothes they walked along to a door leading down to the boiler rooms and peeked through. Engineers were struggling to make repairs and get the pumps going. The Yasbecks needed no second glance—they rushed back to their cabin to dress.

Far above on A deck, second-class passenger Lawrence Beesley noticed a curious thing. As he started below to check his cabin, he felt certain the stairs ‘weren’t quite right’. They seemed level, and yet his feet didn’t fall where they should. Somehow they strayed forward off balance… as though the steps were tilted down towards the bow.

Major Peuchen noticed it too. As he stood with Mr Hays at the forward end of A deck, looking down at the steerage passengers playing soccer with the loose ice, he sensed a very slight tilt in the deck. ‘Why, she is listing!’ he cried to Hays. ‘She should not do that! The water is perfectly calm and the boat has stopped.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Mr Hays replied placidly, ‘you cannot sink this boat.’

Others also felt the downward slant, but it seemed tactless to mention the matter. In boiler room No. 5, fireman Barrett decided to say nothing to the engineers working on the pumps. Far above in the A deck foyer, Colonel Gracie and Clinch Smith had the same reaction. On the bridge the commutator showed the Titanic slightly down at the head and listing five degrees to starboard.

Nearby, Andrews and Captain Smith did some fast figuring. Water in the fore-peak… No. 1 hold… No. 2 hold… mail room… boiler room No. 6… boiler room No. 5. Water fourteen feet above keel level in the first ten minutes, everywhere except boiler room No. 5. Put together, the facts showed a 300-foot gash, with the first five compartments hopelessly flooded.

What did this mean? Andrews quietly explained. The Titanic could float with any two of her sixteen watertight compartments flooded. She could float with any three of her first five compartments flooded. She could even float with all of her first four compartments gone. But no matter how they sliced it, she could not float with all of her first five compartments full.

The bulkhead between the fifth and sixth compartments went only as high as E deck. If the first five compartments were flooded, the bow would sink so low that water in the fifth compartment must overflow into the sixth. When this was full, it would overflow into the seventh, and so on. It was a mathematical certainty, pure and simple. There was no way out.

But it was still a shock. After all, the Titanic was considered unsinkable. And not just in the travel brochures. The highly technical magazine Shipbuilder described her compartment system in a special edition in 1911, pointing out, ‘The captain may, by simply moving an electric switch, instantly close the doors throughout and make the vessel practically unsinkable.’

Now all the switches were pulled, and Andrews said it made no difference.

It was hard to face, and especially hard for Captain Smith. Over fifty-nine years old, he was retiring after this trip. Might even have done it sooner, but he traditionally took the White Star ships on their maiden voyages. Only six years before, when he brought over the brand-new Adriatic, he remarked: ‘I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.’ Now he stood on the bridge of a liner twice as big—twice as safe—and the builder told him it couldn’t float.

At 12.05 a.m.—twenty-five minutes after that bumping, grinding jar—Captain Smith ordered Chief Officer Wilde to uncover the boats… First Officer Murdoch to muster the passengers… Sixth Officer Moody to get out the list of boat assignments… Fourth Officer Boxhall to wake up Second Officer Lightoller and Third Officer Pitman. The captain himself then walked about twenty yards down the port side of the boat deck to the wireless shack.

Inside, first operator John George Phillips and second operator Harold Bride showed no sign that they realized what was happening. It had been a tough day. In 1912 wireless was still an erratic novelty; range was short, operators were inexperienced, and signals were hard to catch. There was a lot of relaying, a lot of repeats, and a lot of frivolous private traffic. Passengers were fascinated by the new miracle, couldn’t resist the temptation of sending messages to friends back home or on other ships.

All this Sunday the messages had piled up. It was enough to fray the nerves of any man working a fourteen-hour day at thirty dollars a month, and Phillips was no exception. Evening came, and still the bottomless in-basket, still the petty interferences. Only an hour ago—just when he was at last in good contact with Cape Race—the Californian barged in with some message about icebergs. She was so close she almost blew his ears off. No wonder he had snapped back, ‘Shut up, shut up! I am busy; I am working Cape Race!’

It was such a hard day that second operator Bride decided to relieve Phillips at midnight, even though he wasn’t due until 2.00 a.m. He woke up at about 11.55, brushed by the green curtain separating the sleeping quarters from the ‘office’, and asked Phillips how he was getting along. Phillips said he had just finished the Cape Race traffic. Bride padded back to his berth and took off his pyjamas. Phillips called after him that he thought the ship had been damaged somehow and they’d have to go back to Belfast.

In a couple of minutes Bride was dressed and took over the headphones. Phillips was hardly behind the green curtain when Captain Smith appeared: ‘We’ve struck an iceberg and I’m having an inspection made to see what it has done to us. You’d better get ready to send out a call for assistance, but don’t send it until I tell you.’

Then he left but returned again in a few minutes. This time he merely stuck his head in the doorway:

‘Send the call for assistance.’

By now Phillips was back in the room. He asked the captain whether to use the regulation distress call. Smith replied, ‘Yes, at once!’

He handed Phillips a slip of paper with the Titanic’s position. Phillips took the headphones from Bride, and at 12.15 a.m. began tapping out the letters ‘CQD’—at that time the usual international call of distress—followed by ‘MGY’, the call letters of the Titanic. Again and again, six times over, the signal rasped out into the cold, blue Atlantic night.

Ten miles away, Third Officer Groves of the Californian sat on the bunk of wireless operator Cyril F. Evans. Groves was young, alert and always interested in what was going on in the world. After work he liked to drop by Evans’ wireless shack and pick up the latest news. He even liked to fool with the set.

This was all right with Evans. There weren’t many officers on third-rate liners interested in the outside world, much less the wireless telegraphy. In fact, there weren’t any others on the Californian. So he used to welcome Groves’ visits.

But not tonight. It had been a hard day, and there was no operator to relieve him. Besides, he had been pretty roughly handled around 11.00 when he tried to break in on the Titanic and tell her about the ice blocking the Californian. So he lost no time tonight closing down his set at 11.30, his scheduled hour for going off duty. Now—dead tired—he was in no mood for chatting with anybody. Groves made a brave try: ‘What ships have you got, Sparks?’

‘Only the Titanic.’ Evans scarcely bothered to glance up from his magazine.

Undeterred, Groves took the headphones and put them on. He was really getting quite good, if the message was simple enough. But he didn’t know too much about the equipment. The Californian’s set had a magnetic detector that ran by clockwork. Groves didn’t wind it up, and so he heard nothing.

Giving up, he put the phones back on the table, and went below to find livelier company. It was just a little after 12.15 a.m.