The watch that ends the.., p.16
The Watch That Ends the Night, page 16
Now, of course, none of us figured we’d ever put Krins’s question to the test.
And unlike the superstitious deckhands and crew,
we didn’t think we’d be conjuring any curses by talking
as glibly as we did, about music, and death, and ships going down.
Many of us had been aboard Olympic when she collided with the Hawke.
The Hawke was a naval vessel, fitted with a battering ram no less.
And even with a huge gaping hole in her side,
Olympic still didn’t sink. She barely developed a list.
No.
That Sunday afternoon as we talked about death,
we felt as safe as if we were playing a minuet
in a simple easy key
for the London Ladies’ Garden Club
charity concert tea.
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
.. / .- -- / - .... . / .. -.-. .
Another one.
“Now, here’s one needs to go to the bridge.
This one’s addressed directly to the captain,” said Phillips.
This one was from another White Star ship: the Baltic.
I handed it to Captain Smith myself.
More congratulations. More good wishes.
More ice.
.. / .- -- / - .... . / .. -.-. .
The MARCONI INTERNATIONAL
MARINE COMMUNICATION COMPANY, Ltd.
Marconi-gram
From: RMS Baltic
To: Capt. Smith, Titanic
Date: 14 April 1912
Time: 1:42 P.M.
Captain Smith, Titanic. Have had moderate, variable winds and clear, fine weather since leaving. Greek steamer Athenai reports passing icebergs and large quantities of field ice today in lat. 41°51' N, long. 49°52'W. Last night we spoke German oiltank steamer Deutschland, Stettin to Philadelphia, not under control, short of coal lat. 40°42' N, long. 55°11'W. Wishes to be reported to New York and other steamers. Wish you and Titanic all success. Commander
E.J. SMITH THE CAPTAIN
BRUCE ISMAY THE BUSINESSMAN
THE CAPTAIN THE BUSINESSMAN
I used to be the commander of the Baltic myself.
The Baltic is one of my ships.
I lent the telegram to Ismay.
Smith gave the telegram to me.
I wanted to show him that
we were traveling
into the vicinity of ice.
He wanted to let me know
the Baltic wished u
a successful voyage.
Oh, and the part about
Baltic’s wishes for success.
Oh, and the part about
icebergs and field ice.
I wanted to warn him
I hope this doesn’t mean
that we may
be forced
to slow down. that we may
be forced
to slow down.
The MARCONI INTERNATIONAL MARINE COMMUNICATION COMPANY, Ltd.
Marconi-gram
From: Knuth, Amerika
To: Steamer Titanic. MSG. via Cape Race to the United States Hydrographic Office, Washington
Date: 14 April 1912
Time: 1:45 P.M.
DS Amerika passed two large icebergs in 41°27' N, 50°8'W on April 14.
Signed, Knuth
E. J. SMITH THE CAPTAIN
Did I say that I was captain of the straight line?
Actually, the business of navigation
(much like the business of life) is not so simple.
The earth, as you know, is not flat — but spherical.
If you were to sail a straight course, you would begin to spiral
up or down along the globe until you eventually reached one of the poles.
Since our guests would rather not disembark in Antarctica,
we have to adjust the direction a little bit here and there as we go.
In sailor talk, we call this the Great Circle track,
the route we took the minute we left Ireland behind.
Around dinnertime, Titanic finally arrived at the corner,
a specified coordinate in the middle of the ocean.
Every pilot on the North Atlantic run knows it.
During the spring, when ice is a potential threat,
the corner is set pretty far south, at 42˚ North, 47˚ West.
Once we reached the corner, we “turned it”
by changing our southwesterly course to due west.
But that particular Sunday evening, it seemed as if Titanic
wasn’t the only thing turning the corner.
I knew that my sailing days were coming to a close.
Already I’d passed the age of mandatory retirement.
Maybe it was just the melancholy nature of an old man,
or maybe it was the saltwater pumping through my heart,
but it seemed to me that every move Titanic made —
when I put on more boilers, when I adjusted the course,
when I blew the whistles, rang down to the engines,
or simply watched forward across the big ship’s bow —
I felt as if I was the ship and the ship was me.
So that when Titanic turned the corner at 42˚N, 47˚W,
Captain Edward John Smith, the old man, turned the corner, too.
THOMAS ANDREWS THE SHIPBUILDER
Even though Titanic had turned the corner, as they call it,
it still looked to me and everyone else on board
as if we were just simply in the middle of nowhere,
swallowed up by water and sky. The mighty Titanic,
as large as a city block and ten stories high,
may as well have been a single tiny honeybee.
And I was a tiny speck of pollen on the honeybee’s thigh.
As my duties aboard Titanic became less harried,
I found myself missing my family more and more.
It was as if the farther I traveled away from Helen and Elizabeth,
the more clear in my mind their faces became. Funny —
I am such a stickler for details, why is it that I can notice
that a coat hook has one screw too many,
but I can’t see the fine details of my wife’s cheekbones,
or the miracle of my daughter’s tiny fingernails —
at least not until now, when I’m a thousand miles away?
In everything aboard Titanic, I had begun to see my family —
not only in the many passengers but also in the ship herself.
Belowdecks I watched Titanic’s two massive
reciprocating engines, four stories tall, fierce iron giants,
their pistons and shafts driving the ship’s huge propellers.
To me they looked as if they were mother and father
to the smaller low-pressure turbine engine that drives
the ship’s third small center propeller. Just as mother and father
give life to their child, the steam exhausting from the big engines
is diverted into the turbine, steam that would otherwise
be dispersed and lost. The parents give life to their child,
while the child gives meaning to its parents’ lives.
It’s silly, really, that a machine might instruct a man
in the finer points of the human heart.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR THE MILLIONAIRE
As you know, I’m something of an inventor myself.
I’ve invented a type of bicycle hand brake.
I’ve invented a useful pneumatic road improver.
A rain inducer. Even a marine turbine engine
like the one Titanic uses. How ingenious
to channel the exhaust from the reciprocating engines
into the third turbine engine! The ship’s closed loop system
can transform steam into electricity for lights, refrigeration,
food storage, and heat to warm my Madeleine’s bathwater.
If only that energy could be recycled indefinitely.
For now, the laws of physics won’t allow it.
But just think, once we do figure out the secret
(and I have no doubt we will),
we might be able to apply it toward the human body.
Whoever can discover the secret to perpetual motion
could ultimately hold the key to eternal life.
I’m told Titanic has turned the corner toward New York.
I hope my unborn child might live to see humanity turn its own corner.
Why, I ask, must everything wind down?
Why must everything come to an end?
It’s times such as these,
when I am overwrought with melancholy,
that I remember with delight how terribly rich I am.
If my time on earth is destined to be short,
at least I can live it with my Maddie at my side,
in first class.
(Hem, hem.)
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
Word came from the bridge down the hall
that Titanic had finally turned the corner.
The news meant that the passengers and crew
could breathe easy awhile for the straight stretch home.
But to Phillips and me it meant the opposite.
To us it meant that we were finally within range of Cape Race,
the tip of land off the Grand Banks that was home
to one of the largest wireless receiving stations in the world.
Now we could begin chipping away at
our stack of backed-up messages. We had begun
the day with some two hundred and fifty.
Business before brass; customers for cash.
The money wouldn’t come in unless the words went out.
I went up to dinner, leaving Phillips at the key.
I would be sure to mention to the sea-post chaps
that Jack Phillips, first wireless operator aboard
the RMS Titanic, was successfully delivering a dozen
messages all over the world without leaving his seat,
all before they had eaten half of their baked haddock.
.-.. --- ...- .
From: MGY, RMS Titanic
Sunday, 14 April
6:45 P.M.
Via Cape Race
Hardly wait get back.
Cable made me awfully happy.
Love, Mutzie.
-- ..- - --.. .. .
THE SHIP RAT
CHARLES JOUGHIN THE BAKER
All day I went without seeing the rat with the crooked tail.
I knew it would have to show itself eventually.
I had dusted flour all around the bakery floor,
hoping to catch a trail of footprints that could tell me
where “Maynard” was hiding. It had to be living somewhere.
Whether or not I discovered any telltale footprints,
I planned on setting traps in the bakery later that night.
But dinnertime had arrived and I knew that no rodent
would come anywhere near the chaos of the cooks and stewards,
clanging, yelling, and stomping about, getting the orders out.
So I put aside my rat-hunting mission (at least for a while)
and set about preparing for the three-ring circus we called dinner.
Like everything else on Titanic, it was a circus divided by class.
ISAAC MAYNARD THE ENTRéE COOK
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
welcome to the RMS Titanic’s three-ring circus
of glamorous gluttony and gustatory good times!
In the center ring:
the first-class eaters fill their plates with hors d’oeuvres —
oysters and consommé Olga — followed by a main course
of salmon in mousseline sauce, roast duck, or filet mignon Lili.
Side dishes of Parmentier and boiled new potatoes, roast squab and cress,
cold asparagus vinaigrette, or pâté de foie gras and celery.
Watch them finish up with Waldorf pudding, French ice cream,
peaches in chartreuse jelly, or (from the bakery) chocolate éclairs.
Everything piled high on plates of fine bone china edged in 22-karat gold.
Over in ring number two:
baked haddock, curried chicken with rice, spring lamb in mint sauce,
roast turkey and roasted potatoes, plum pudding, and ice cream.
Oh, and cheese biscuits straight from the bakery.
All on attractive blue-and-white delftware china
that most second-class travelers could only aspire to at home.
Just two decks down, in ring number three:
watch as the third-class masses eat better aboard Titanic
than they ever have before or ever will again.
Ragout of beef, potatoes, pickles, and apricots,
fresh bread and butter, currant buns and tea.
All of it on simple and durable earthenware, with no design,
as plain and blank as their unknown futures.
Now watch all passengers in every ring turn over their menu cards
to place their autographs on the backs
as a record to their loved ones of what they’ve just eaten.
As if tonight’s meal will be their very last.
JAMILA NICOLA-YARRED THE REFUGEE
I could not taste the food.
I had hidden in my cabin all through lunch,
too embarrassed to show my face.
Finally the older women demanded that I come to dinner.
But try as I might, I could not taste the food.
Everything was too foreign.
I longed for the succulent lamb kibbeh back home.
The lentils, chickpeas, tahini, and tabouleh.
The grape leaves stuffed with rice and spiced beef.
The Syrians and Lebanese keep mostly to one section
of the big dining room, so luckily I did not have to face the boy.
“Alf-Frid. Al-Frid. Al-Frid.”
I had met the boy.
I had learned the boy’s name.
And he had learned mine.
And did I say marhaba — hello?
No. I slapped him in his face.
And did I say as-salam alaykum — peace be with you?
No. I slapped him in his face.
And did I say shukran — thank you, for finding Father’s money?
No. I slapped him in his face.
And this was only Sunday evening.
I still had to avoid the boy for three more days.
BRUCE ISMAY THE BUSINESSMAN
The dinner was superb.
More talk of the future.
More talk of success.
And, yes, we talked a bit of ice.
On my way to the dining saloon,
Captain Smith had asked for the Baltic telegram.
To post it, he said, for the officers to see.
“Will you slow down?” asked Mrs. Ryerson.
“No,” I said. “We’ll put on more speed
to take us quickly around any danger.”
I am no sailor, of course.
My ship was in the best hands possible.
I know nothing of ice.
I’d never seen an iceberg in all my life.
The only ice I knew of
was in the gin and tonic that I lifted
as the good old doctor made yet one more toast.
No matter that he did the same last night;
when dining with Dr. O’Laughlin,
you must expect to lift your glass more than once.
“Let us assign last night’s toast to Titanic’s stern,” he said.
“She’s too big a ship to be contained in just one tribute,
so tonight, let us celebrate the bow.”
Here, here. Glasses lifted all around.
Ice cubes tinkling like fairy bells.
“Here’s to the bow of the mighty Titanic!”
E. J. SMITH THE CAPTAIN
“Here’s to Captain E.J. Smith, Admiral of the White Star Line!”
The Wideners, George and Eleanor, had arranged it:
a dinner in my honor in the à la carte restaurant.
Just four months earlier in New York, I had attended another,
at the upscale Metropolitan Club, with some of my most prominent
American passengers, including J. P. Morgan himself.
In that toast they called me the “Old Man of the Sea.”
These Americans are, if nothing else, zealous in their gratitude.
I must admit I was proud. And I suppose I’ve earned it.
But, as an “old man of the sea,” I know it’s unlucky to say so.
On hand that Sunday evening were the Thayers,
John and Marian (of the Pennsylvania Railroad Thayers)
and their boy (a man, now, really) Jack.
Major Archibald Butt, military aide to President Taft.
Even the theatrical director Henry Harris was there
with his wife, Renée, who had broken her elbow.
She said, “I fell and broke it as I was climbing aboard.
But don’t worry — I don’t blame you! Ha, ha.”
It was a merry night. The food was good. The drink flowed.
(Though, of course, I did not partake. Not even a glass of wine.)
One fellow from the orchestra played a lively fiddle.
The company was to my liking. And what’s more,
I had the luxury of not one but two good cigars.
Finally, I made my excuses and left the revelers behind.
As I made my way to the bridge along the starboard boat deck,
I placed a toothpick between my teeth and buttoned my collar.
The temperature must have suddenly dropped by ten degrees or more.
Typical spring on the North Atlantic. Nothing to worry over.
JOCK HUME THE SECOND VIOLIN
The private party was not as merry as I would have liked.
I mean to say the drinking, and the tips, were kept to a minimum.
But what did I expect? First class. Dinner. Mixed company.
All the Americans doing their best to “be British”
in the company of the “Old Man of the Sea.”
After Captain Smith took his leave, the party began to disperse.
