IX

We must now visit in imagination some other parts of the ship, parts

isolated from the bridge and the spacious temple of luxury amidships,

and try to understand how the events of this half hour appeared to the

denizens of the lower quarters of the ship. The impact that had been

scarcely noticed in the first-class quarters had had much more effect

down below, and especially forward, where some of the third-class

passengers and some of the crew were berthed. A ripping, grinding crash

startled all but the heaviest sleepers here into wakefulness; but it was

over so soon and was succeeded by so peaceful a silence that no doubt

any momentary panic it might have caused was soon allayed. One of the

firemen describing it said: "I was awakened by a noise, and between

sleeping and waking I thought I was dreaming that I was on a train that

had run off the lines, and that I was being jolted about." He jumped out

and went on deck, where he saw the scattered ice lying about. "Oh, we

have struck an iceberg," he said, "that's nothing; I shall go back and

turn in," and he actually went back to bed and slept for half an hour,

until he was turned out to take his station at the boats.

The steerage passengers, who were berthed right aft, heard nothing and

knew nothing until the news that an accident had happened began slowly

to filter down to them. But there was no one in authority to give them

any official news, and for a time they were left to wonder and speculate

as they chose. Forward, however, it became almost immediately apparent

to certain people that there was something grievously wrong; firemen on

their way through the passage along the ship's bottom leading between

their quarters and No. 1 stokehold found water coming in, and rapidly

turned back. They were met on their way up the staircase by an officer

who asked them what they were doing. They told him. "There's water

coming into our place, Sir," they said; and as he thought they were off

duty he did not turn them back.

Mr. Andrews, a partner in Harland and Wolff's, and one of the

_Titanic's_ designers, had gone quietly down by himself to investigate

the damage, and, great as was his belief in the giant he had helped to

create, it must have been shaken when he found the water pouring into

her at the rate of hundreds of tons a minute. Even his confidence in

those mighty steel walls that stretched one behind the other in

succession along the whole length of the ship could not have been proof

against the knowledge that three or four of them had been pierced by the

long rip of the ice-tooth. There was just a chance that she would hold

up long enough to allow of relief to arrive in time; but it is certain

that from that moment Mr. Andrews devoted himself to warning people, and

helping to get them away, so far as he could do so without creating a

panic.

Most of the passengers, remember, were still asleep during this half

hour. One of the most terrible things possible at sea is a panic, and

Captain Smith was particularly anxious that no alarm should be given

before or unless it was absolutely necessary. He heard what Mr. Andrews

had to say, and consulted with the engineer, and soon found that the

whole of the ship's bottom was being flooded. There were other

circumstances calculated to make the most sanguine ship-master uneasy.

Already, within half an hour, the _Titanic_ was perceptibly down by the

head. She would remain stationary for five minutes and then drop six

inches or a foot; remain stationary again, and drop another foot--a

circumstance ominous to experienced minds, suggesting that some of the

smaller compartments forward were one by one being flooded, and letting

the water farther and farther into her hull.

Therefore at about twenty-five minutes past midnight the Captain gave

orders for the passengers to be called and mustered on the boat deck.

All the ship's crew had by this time been summoned to their various

stations; and now through all the carpeted corridors, through the

companion-ways and up and down staircases, leading to the steerage

cabins, an army of three hundred stewards was hurrying, knocking loudly

on doors, and shouting up and down the passages, "All passengers on

deck with life-belts on!" The summons came to many in their sleep; and

to some in the curtained firelight luxury of their deck state-rooms it

seemed an order so absurd that they scorned it, and actually went back

to bed again. These, however, were rare exceptions; for most people

there was no mistaking the urgency of the command, even though they were

slow to understand the necessity for it. And hurry is a thing easily

communicated; seeing some passengers hastening out with nothing over

their night clothes but a blanket or a wrapper, others caught the

infection, and hurried too; and struggling with life-belts, clumsily

attempting to adjust them over and under a curious assortment of

garments, the passengers of the _Titanic_ came crowding up on deck, for

the first time fully alarmed.

X

When the people came on deck it was half-past twelve. The first-class

passengers came pouring up the two main staircases and out on to the

boat deck--some of them indignant, many of them curious, some few of them

alarmed. They found there everything as usual except that the long deck

was not quite level; it tilted downwards a little towards the bow, and

there was a slight list towards the starboard side. The stars were

shining in the sky and the sea was perfectly smooth, although dotted

about it here and there were lumps of dark-coloured ice, almost

invisible against the background of smooth water. A long line of

stewards was forming up beside the boats on either side--those solid

white boats, stretching far aft in two long lines, that became suddenly

invested with practical interest. Officers were shouting orders, seamen

were busy clearing up the coils of rope attached to the davit tackles,

fitting the iron handles to the winches by which the davits themselves

were canted over from the inward position over the deck to the outward

position over the ship's side. Almost at the same time a rush of people

began from the steerage quarters, swarming up stairways and ladders to

reach this high deck hitherto sacred to the first-class passengers. At

first they were held back by a cordon of stewards, but some broke

through and others were allowed through, so that presently a large

proportion of the ship's company was crowding about the boat deck and

the one immediately below it.

Then the business of clearing, filling, and lowering the boats was

begun--a business quickly described, but occupying a good deal of time in

the transaction. Mr. Murdoch, the Chief Officer, ordered the crews to

the boats; and with some confusion different parties of stewards and

sailors disentangled themselves from the throng and stood in their

positions by each of the sixteen boats. Every member of the crew, when

he signs on for a voyage in a big passenger ship, is given a number

denoting which boat's crew he belongs to. If there has been boat drill,

every man knows and remembers his number; if, as in the case of the

_Titanic_, there has been no boat drill, some of the men remember their

numbers and some do not, the result being a certain amount of confusion.

But at last a certain number of men were allotted to each boat, and

began the business of hoisting them out.

First of all the covers had to be taken off and the heavy masts and

sails lifted out of them. Ship's boats appear very small things when one

sees a line of them swinging high up on deck; but, as a matter of fact,

they are extremely heavy, each of them the size of a small sailing

yacht. Everything on the _Titanic_ having been newly painted, everything

was stiff and difficult to move. The lashings of the heavy canvas covers

were like wire, and the covers themselves like great boards; the new

ropes ran stiffly in the new gear. At last a boat was cleared and the

order given, "Women and children first." The officers had revolvers in

their hands ready to prevent a rush; but there was no rush. There was a

certain amount of laughter. No one wanted to be the first to get into

the boat and leave the ship. "Come on," cried the officers. There was a

pause, followed by the brief command, "Put them in."

The crew seized the nearest women and pushed or lifted them over the

rail into the first boat, which was now hanging over the side level with

the deck. But they were very unwilling to go. The boat, which looked big

and solid on the deck, now hung dizzily seventy-five feet over the dark

water; it seemed a far from attractive prospect to get into it and go

out on to the cold sea, especially as everyone was convinced that it was

a merely formal precaution which was being taken, and that the people in

the boats would merely be rowed off a little way and kept shivering on

the cold sea for a time and then brought back to the ship when it was

found that the danger was past. For, walking about the deck, people

remembered all the things that they had been thinking and saying since

first they had seen the _Titanic_; and what was the use of travelling by

an unsinkable ship if, at the first alarm of danger, one had to leave

her and row out on the icy water? Obviously it was only the old habit of

the sea asserting itself, and Captain Smith, who had hitherto been such

a favourite, was beginning to be regarded as something of a nuisance

with his ridiculous precautions.

The boats swung and swayed in the davits; even the calm sea, now that

they looked at it more closely, was seen to be not absolutely like a

millpond, but to have a certain movement on its surface which, although

utterly helpless to move the huge bulk of the _Titanic_, against whose

sides it lapped, as ineffectually as against the walls of a dock, was

enough to impart a swinging movement to the small boats. But at last,

what with coercion and persuasion, a boat was half filled with women.

One of the things they liked least was leaving their husbands; they felt

that they were being sacrificed needlessly to over-elaborate

precautions, and it was hard to leave the men standing comfortably on

the firm deck, sheltered and in a flood of warm yellow light, and in the

safety of the great solid ship that lay as still as a rock, while they

had to go out, half-clad and shivering, on the icy waters.

But the inexorable movements of the crew continued. The pulleys squealed

in the sheaves, the new ropes were paid out; and jerking downwards, a

foot or two at a time, the first boat dropped down towards the water,

past storey after storey of the great structure, past rows and rows of

lighted portholes, until at last, by strange unknown regions of the

ship's side, where cataracts and waterfalls were rushing into the sea,

it rested on the waves. The blocks were unhooked, the heavy ash oars

were shipped, and the boat headed away into the darkness. And then, and

not till then, those in the boat realized that something was seriously

wrong with the _Titanic_. Instead of the trim level appearance which she

presented on the picture postcards or photographs, she had an ungraceful

slant downwards to the bows--a heavy helpless appearance like some

wounded monster that is being overcome by the waters. And even while

they looked, they could see that the bow was sinking lower.

After the first boat had got away, there was less difficulty about the

others. The order, "Women and children first," was rigidly enforced by

the officers; but it was necessary to have men in the boats to handle

them, and a number of stewards, and many grimy figures of stokers who

had mysteriously appeared from below were put into them to man them.

Once the tide of people began to set into the boats and away from the

ship, there came a certain anxiety to join them and not to be left

behind. Here and there indeed there was over-anxiety, which had to be

roughly checked. One band of Italians from the steerage, who had good

reason to know that something was wrong, tried to rush one of the boats,

and had to be kept back by force, an officer firing a couple of shots

with his pistol; they desisted, and were hauled back ignominiously by

the legs. In their place some of the crew and the passengers who were

helping lifted in a number of Italian women limp with fright.

And still everyone was walking about and saying that the ship was

unsinkable. There was a certain subdued excitement, natural to those who

feel that they are taking part in a rather thrilling adventure which

will give them importance in the eyes of people at home when they relate

it. There was as yet no call for heroism, because, among the

first-class passengers certainly, the majority believed that the safest

as well as the most comfortable place was the ship. But it was painful

for husbands and wives to be separated, and the wives sent out to brave

the discomforts of the open boats while the husbands remained on the dry

and comfortable ship.

The steerage people knew better and feared more. Life had not taught

them, as it had taught some of those first-class passengers, that the

world was an organization specially designed for their comfort and

security; they had not come to believe that the crude and ugly and

elementary catastrophes of fate would not attack them. On the contrary,

most of them knew destiny as a thing to fear, and made haste to flee

from it. Many of them, moreover, had been sleeping low down in the

forward part of the ship; they had heard strange noises, had seen water

washing about where no water should be, and they were frightened. There

was, however, no discrimination between classes in putting the women

into the boats. The woman with a tattered shawl over her head, the woman

with a sable coat over her nightdress, the woman clasping a baby, and

the woman clutching a packet of trinkets had all an equal chance; side

by side they were handed on to the harsh and uncomfortable thwarts of

the lifeboats; the wife of the millionaire sat cheek by jowl with a

dusty stoker and a Russian emigrant, and the spoiled woman of the world

found some poor foreigner's baby thrown into her lap as the boat was

lowered.

By this time the women and children had all been mustered on the second

or A deck; the men were supposed to remain up on the boat deck while the

boats were being lowered to the level of the women, where sections of

the rail had been cleared away for them to embark more easily; but this

rule, like all the other rules, was not rigidly observed. The crew was

not trained enough to discipline and coerce the passengers. How could

they be? They were trained to serve them, to be obsequious and obliging;

it would have been too much to expect that they should suddenly take

command and order them about.

There were many minor adventures and even accidents. One woman had both

her legs broken in getting into the boat. The mere business of being

lowered in a boat through seventy feet of darkness was in itself

productive of more than one exciting incident. The falls of the first

boat jammed when she was four feet from the water, and she had to be

dropped into it with a splash. And there was one very curious incident

which happened to the boat in which Mr. Beezley, the English

schoolmaster already referred to, had been allotted a place as a helper.

"As the boat began to descend," he said, "two ladies were pushed

hurriedly through the crowd on B deck, and a baby ten months old was

passed down after them. Then down we went, the crew shouting out

directions to those lowering us. 'Level,' 'Aft,' 'Stern,' 'Both

together!' until we were some ten feet from the water. Here occurred the

only anxious moment we had during the whole of our experience from the

time of our leaving the deck to our reaching the _Carpathia_.

"Immediately below our boat was the exhaust of the condensers, and a

huge stream of water was pouring all the time from the ship's side just

above the water-line. It was plain that we ought to be smart away from

it if we were to escape swamping when we touched the water. We had no

officers on board, and no petty officer or member of the crew to take

charge, so one of the stokers shouted, 'Some one find the pin which

releases the boat from the ropes and pull it up!' No one knew where it

was. We felt as well as we could on the floor, and along the sides, but

found nothing. It was difficult to move among so many people. We had

sixty or seventy on board. Down we went, and presently we floated with

our ropes still holding us, and the stream of water from the exhaust

washing us away from the side of the vessel, while the swell of the sea

urged us back against the side again.

"The result of all these forces was that we were carried parallel to the

ship's side, and directly under boat No. 14, which had filled rapidly

with men, and was coming down on us in a way that threatened to submerge

our boat.

"'Stop lowering 14,' our crew shouted, and the crew of No. 14, now only

20 feet above, cried out the same. The distance to the top, however, was

some 70 feet, and the creaking of the pulleys must have deadened all

sound to those above, for down she came, 15 feet, 10 feet, 5 feet, and a

stoker and I reached up and touched the bottom of the swinging boat

above our heads. The next drop would have brought her on our heads. Just

before she dropped another stoker sprang to the ropes with his knife

open in his hand. 'One,' I heard him say, and then 'Two,' as the knife

cut through the pulley rope.

"'The next moment the exhaust stream carried us clear, while boat No. 14

dropped into the water, taking the space we had occupied a moment

before. Our gunwales were almost touching. We drifted away easily, and

when our oars were got out, we headed directly away from the ship.'"

But although there was no sense of danger, there were some painful

partings on the deck where the women were embarked; for you must think

of this scene as going on for at least an hour amid a confusion of

people pressing about, trying to find their friends, asking for

information, listening to some new rumour, trying to decide whether they

should or should not go in the boats, to a constant accompaniment of

shouted orders, the roar of escaping steam, the squeal and whine of the

ropes and pulleys, and the gay music of the band, which Captain Smith

had ordered to play during the embarkation. Every now and then a woman

would be forced away from her husband; every now and then a husband,

having got into a boat with his wife, would be made to get out of it

again. If it was hard for the wives to go, it was harder for the

husbands to see them go to such certain discomfort and in such strange

company. Colonel Astor, whose young wife was in a delicate state of

health, had got into the boat with her to look after her; and no wonder.

But he was ordered out again and came at once, no doubt feeling

bitterly, poor soul, that he would have given many of his millions to be

able to go honourably with her. But he stepped back without a word of

remonstrance and gave her good-bye with a cheery message, promising to

meet her in New York. And if that happened to him, we may be sure it was

happening over and over again in other boats. There were women who

flatly refused to leave their husbands and chose to stay with them and

risk whatever fate might be in store for them, although at that time

most of the people did not really believe that there was much danger.

Yet here and there there were incidents both touching and heroic. When

it came to the turn of Mrs. Isidore Straus, the wife of a Jewish

millionaire, she took her seat but got back out of the boat when she

found her husband was not coming. They were both old people, and on two

separate occasions an Englishman who knew her tried to persuade her to

get into a boat, but she would not leave her husband. The second time

the boat was not full and he went to Mr. Straus and said: "Do go with

your wife. Nobody can object to an old gentleman like you going. There

is plenty of room in the boat." The old gentleman thanked him calmly and

said: "I won't go before the other men." And Mrs. Straus got out and,

going up to him, said: "We have been together for forty years and we

will not separate now." And she remained by his side until that happened

to them which happened to the rest.