The watch that ends the.., p.21
The Watch That Ends the Night, page 21
There seemed no reason to linger. So I returned to the warmer world.
And of course, I figured, Why not stop by my room
for a quick, fortifying swig or two from the tumbler?
The stewards all said that the ship was in no danger.
The passengers would likely be back aboard by morning.
Once I had wet my whistle, I returned to check on my staff.
“Hold off, there,” I said. “Let’s leave a few behind for the morning.
The loaves we pass into the boats are bound to be ruined by breakfast.”
I didn’t want my entire stock crushed at the bottom of a wet lifeboat.
Just then Maynard (the human one) passed by and said,
“There may not be any morning, Charlie. The ship’s damaged bad.
If I were you, I’d take it all up top so when Titanic sinks,
you’ll be prepared. Your loaves still won’t be eatable, mind you.
But you could always lash them together to make a sturdy raft! Haw, h —”
SNAP!
As Maynard was braying at me like a jackass,
he stepped on one of the rat traps I’d set in the hall.
So what if we had struck an iceberg?
It hadn’t turned out to be such a bad night after all.
BRUCE ISMAY THE BUSINESSMAN
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!” I say.
And they lowered the boat from promenade deck A.
But the windows there were bolted shut, of course.
We had added the windows for the first-class comfort.
On Olympic, the ladies had complained of the spray.
A sailor went off in search of a wrench. A wrench?
This ship was going down. A wrench?
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!” I say.
I walked across the deck to the starboard side.
And at last, thank God, the cacophony of steam stopped.
In the silence, then, I heard the orchestra tuning up.
The orchestra? No, people. We are not here to dance. Please.
Get into the boats! And then I noted that on that side of the ship,
the officers were allowing a few male passengers in,
because no women on board would answer the call.
“Ladies, please. There are plenty of seats. We must lower away!
Are there any more women before this boat goes?”
They didn’t realize the urgency of the situation.
“Are there any more women before this boat goes?”
Already I was losing my voice. So many empty seats.
“Ah, you there. Come along, ladies. Please do jump in.”
One answered, “But we are only stewardesses. Members of the crew.”
“It doesn’t matter that you are a stewardess, miss.
You are all women and I wish you to get in.
Perhaps it will serve as an example to the other ladies.”
It was all we could do to convince them to don their life vests.
They hung back, huddling, or abandoned the deck altogether.
They loitered about in the gymnasium or the first-class entrance.
They made jokes about their racquet games being canceled.
For even with a slight list, Titanic seemed steady and safe.
But I knew the truth of it. After throwing on clothes,
I had arrived on the bridge as Thomas gave E.J. the bad news.
Finally, one lifeboat was lowered away!
Too many empty seats. “Ladies, please!”
Any one of these passengers could have simply stepped in.
My God. I could have stepped in myself! It pained me to see it.
I was as much a passenger as any one of that indolent lot.
I was no sailor. I had no idea how to prepare and launch a lifeboat.
But I could at least urge the passengers into them.
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!”
Not two hours ago, this night had come to such a wonderful end.
Now there I was out of my warm bed, standing on a tilting deck,
wearing coat and trousers over my pajamas, my feet shod in slippers.
“Women and children, please. Please!
Are there any more women to go in this boat?”
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!” I say.
The officers were letting the ropes out too slowly.
Only the second boat to go on this side of the ship.
Do they not feel the bow of the doomed ship tip?
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!” I say.
All my life I have striven for a strategic position.
How it pained me to see these opportunities missed.
Does this officer not know that this ship will soon founder?
This man, he moves as if he’s on holiday.
“LOWER AWAY! LOWER AWAY! LOWER AWAY!”
HAROLD LOWE THE JUNIOR OFFICER
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!”
The dandy in his robe and slippers was becoming hysterical.
He was circling his arms as if trying to fly! Ha.
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!”
I slept through the collision. I didn’t feel a tremor.
I didn’t feel the engines stop. I hadn’t felt a thing.
Nor did I hear the roar of the steam. Not a peep.
It was the voices and footsteps down the hall that roused me.
But I didn’t need any orders to tell me what to do.
I rose and dressed and loaded my Browning automatic.
(That’s right, my revolver, because one never knows.)
I joined Officer Murdoch and the men at boat number seven,
who had already begun to ready it for loading:
unlacing the canvas covers (no rats in this one, I see);
stocking the bread, the water, the blankets;
unbundling the oars; fitting the cranks into the davits;
hauling the falls in their pulleys tight;
coiling the long ends of the ropes onto the deck.
Finding passengers willing to get into the boat
proved more difficult than swinging it out.
Not that I can blame them. Descending in a boat is a dangerous thing,
and the likelihood of Titanic actually sinking —
well, the very idea was ridiculous to me at the time.
I admit that the first lifeboat, number seven, was only half full,
but what was I to do, pull out my pistol and force people in?
And besides that, a boat’s lowering capacity is typically less
than its floating capacity. With a rope at the bow
and a rope at the stern, a lifeboat is apt to buckle amidships.
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!”
Why did Murdoch not tell this damn prat to shut up?
The situation did not improve as Third Officer Pitman and I
next lowered lifeboat number five. That boat could have held
maybe twenty more, but mind you, it was First Officer Murdoch
who determined when to stop the loading. One rather large
gentleman rolled into the boat on top of Mrs. Stengel,
who was knocked unconscious from the looks of it!
You see, to overfill these boats was not so safe.
Nor was it safe to descend too quickly. So when Murdoch
ordered us to lower away boat number five, we did it slowly.
“Lower away. Lower away. Lower away!”
My God. The plonker sounded like a nervous parrot.
And he looked like a nervous parrot, too.
The ropes attached to bow and stern must be released at the same rate
or else you’ll dump the people out on the way down —
or someone could be struck by a loose oar, anything.
It takes patience and time to lower a boat safely
down a fifty-foot drop. That’s how far it was to the water.
And try as I might to remain coolheaded,
the agitated parrot with mustache and pajamas,
with all of his bouncing about and shouting,
had finally tapped my last drop of patience.
“Lower away! Lower away! Lower away!”
So I turned on him and said,
“IF YOU’LL GET THE HELL OUT FROM UNDER,
I’LL BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING!
YOU WANT ME TO LOWER AWAY QUICKLY?
YOU’LL HAVE ME DROWN THE WHOLE LOT OF THEM!”
OLAUS ABELSETH THE IMMIGRANT
Dear Marie,
I thought that they would tell us what to do. I thought that they would tell us where to go. My cousin Peter and brother-in-law Sigurd spoke no English, of course, so they looked to me. What do we do? What did that officer say? When will we be called to the boats?
Us fellows were all in cabins at the bow on the side where the iceberg struck. It was a terrible noise, I’ll tell you. It was a prolonged grinding, like pebbles worked between millstones.
My roommate, Adolf, and I woke instantly. I put on some clothes and walked up the stairs and out onto the open deck at the bow.
I met two stokers there, who told me it was nothing and to go back to bed. But behind the stokers lay a mound of ice. It spread across the front deck there, and that made me suspicious. We who are born of the fjords know what ice is capable of.
As I walked down the stairs to return to my room, I kept missing every other step as if I were drunk. It was hardly noticeable really, but I could tell that the ship was not on level. Adolf had gone back to sleep, so I woke him up. Then I woke Peter and Sigurd, just around the corner. And together we walked to the stern to get the girls.
After the girls dressed, we all went up onto the third-class deck at the stern. A group of men from the lower decks carried luggage and clothing. They said their cabins were knee-deep in water!
But Titanic seemed steady. Our little group stood over by a drinking fountain. We waited. What else were we to do?
A moment later, stewards went among us, yelling, “Everyone put on your life belts.” Nothing to worry about, they said. Just a precaution. With Peter’s help, I went back below and returned with life belts for all six of us.
So we put on our life belts, and we waited some more.
I thought someone would tell us where to go. I thought someone would tell us what to do. I thought so many things. But none of it was true.
From: RMS Titanic
To: All Ships at Sea
Date: 15 April 1912
Time: 12:50 A.M.
MGY. CQD. MGY. CQD.
MGY. CQD. MGY. CQD.
We are sinking fast.
Passengers being put into boats.
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
MPA. Have put on all boilers.
Coming toward you at all speed.
It was my mate Harold Cottam on Carpathia.
A rescue ship was on the way!
I ran with the news out onto the deck.
I had to muscle my way through crowds
of crew and passengers. Officers were shouting out orders.
A distress rocket rushed up into the sky
and burst with a pop into a million white stars.
When I found Captain Smith and told him the news,
he grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me
all the way back to the Marconi room.
The captain wore a tight, forced smile.
“What are Carpathia’s coordinates?” he asked.
Phillips wrote them down on a slip of paper.
“What other ships are you in communication with?”
“A few. The Frankfurt. The Caronia. The Olympic.
Olympic is about five hundred miles from us.
Carpathia is the closest so far. She’s on the way.”
“What are you sending?” Smith asked.
“CQD,” said Phillips. I said, “Why not send out SOS?
It’s the new call. And it may be your last chance to send it.”
We all laughed. It was, perhaps, a morbid quip,
but it felt good to laugh, anyway.
The captain left the room. I stopped laughing.
Phillips stopped laughing and commenced tapping.
... --- ... / ... --- ... / ... --- ...
dit-dit-dit dash-dash-dash dit-dit-dit
SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS
From: RMS Titanic
To: All Ships at Sea
Date: 15 April 1912
Time: 12 :55 A.M.
SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS
MGY MGY MGY MGY MGY
Placing women into boats.
Request immediate assistance.
Struck by iceberg in
41°46' N, 50°14'W.
Ready your boats.
Come at once. Distress.
SOS MGY SOS MGY SOS
SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS
OLAUS ABELSETH THE IMMIGRANT
A few minutes before one A.M., we saw rockets shooting up into the sky from the front of the ship. That cannot be good, said Sigurd. And of course he was right. Then we saw a lifeboat full of passengers down in the water. Rowing away from the ship. That cannot be good either, said Sigurd.
A few of the male passengers began climbing up the arms of the cargo cranes onto the upper decks. Shall we climb up as well? asked Peter. Again I said no. I knew that when our time came, we would be instructed where to go to find the third-class lifeboats.
There was a steep stairway that led from this deck up to the second-class area. With a low gate shut just at the top. Remember, this was the same place where Nils and Olga, the young newlyweds, would have their trysts. Many passengers were lined up on these stairs, awaiting permission to climb up to the boat decks.
More rockets were fired. More lifeboats floated by. We could all spy a ship’s light in the darkness. I could see clearly the lantern of a ship’s mast. And word went round that it was a transfer ship that had come to take us all off. More rockets. More boats. Still we waited.
We waited for someone to show us to our boats.
E. J. SMITH THE CAPTAIN
Just wait! There’s a light. I’m sure of it.
A ship that I can see off the port bow.
I’ve ordered Boxhall to hail it with the Morse lamp
between the intervals of his rocket firing.
“Tell him to come at once,” I said.
“Tell him that we are sinking.”
So far there is no response. How odd.
The damned fool ship is so close.
It cannot be more than ten miles away,
much closer than the Carpathia, unfortunately.
From the coordinates the Marconi boys gave me,
I calculate she is fifty-eight long miles away.
Even if she were as fast as Titanic (and she is not),
she could not go that distance in under three hours.
So even if Titanic stays afloat for two of those hours,
there is the problem, of course, of the third.
I used to excel at mathematics at the Etruria School in my youth.
Now I am captain of the straight-and-narrow White Star Line.
One, two, three. A, B, C. It all should be so simple.
Even if Carpathia steams in the straightest possible line
from starting point A, she can never hope to reach point B.
Because by then point B will have vanished
beneath the surface of the sea. Ha. A, B, Sea.
My God. My God. The irony.
And my God! Boxhall, try once again to signal that ship.
Does he not see the lamp? Does he not see the rockets?
Why won’t the damn fool give us some sort of sign?
THOMAS HART THE STOKER
I guess the Devil didn’t want me, after all.
At least not just yet, ’e didn’t.
Else maybe I gots me an angel in heaven lookin’ after me.
After the watertight door came down,
I clambered up an emergency ladder
and down the other side to safety.
The Devil had swallowed me up
only to spit me back out again.
Once we’d gathered our wits about us, we got word
that the water wasn’t rising as quickly as we’d thought,
which allowed a few of us stokers to return along the ladders
back to boiler room six so that we might draw the fires for good.
For unless we snuffed the fires, the big boilers were liable to blow.
And if even one o’ them bigguns were to blow — well —
let’s just say that the Devil would have to work a double shift.
We had just finished makin’ that row o’ boilers safe
when the water rose up high enough to chase us out o’ there.
But we were able to keep boiler room five mostly clear
by way of the pumps. With so many workmen
rushing about, things got a bit argy-bargy, and one of the engineers
broke ’is leg steppin’ into an open manhole in the tank-top floor.
He wasn’t hurt bad, but he couldn’t walk at all,
so me and a few others carried the poor sod to the pump room
at the back of the boilers, out of the way of the hubbub.
As I propped the bloke again’ the pump-room wall,
I says, “There you are, mate.” And he says back,
“Thank you, Sean.”
Now, didn’t that make me heart stop like a spanner in the spokes.
From: RMS Titanic
To: All Ships at Sea
Date: 15 April 1912
Time: 1:10 A.M.
MGY MGY MGY SOS CQD
MGY MGY MGY SOS CQD
We are in collision with iceberg.
Sinking head down.
Come as soon as possible.
Get your boats ready. MGY.
FREDERICK FLEET THE LOOKOUT
The bow of the ship was dipping forward,
which made the deck slant just enough
to make me lose my balance from time to time
as I helped Officer Lightoller load one of the port-side boats.
From the other side of the ship, I heard Captain Smith calling out,
“Women and children first!” through a megaphone.
Next thing I know, the captain is right beside me
and he’s advisin’ a lady to put on her life vest.
