NEGLECT CAUSED DISASTER.
Tardy Answer to Telephone Call--Lookout’s Signals Not Answered--Ship
Could Have Been Saved--Three Fatal Minutes--Ismay Accused--Women Help
With Oars--Ship Broken in Two--Band Played Till Last.
The trifle of a telephone call hardly answered sent the Titanic to the
bottom of the Atlantic, occasioned the greatest marine disaster in
history and shocked all civilized nations.
This, at least, is the tale told by sailors of the ill-starred Titanic,
brawny seamen who only lived to tell it because it happened in the line
of their duty to help man the boats into which some of the Titanic’s
passengers were loaded.
But the telephone call that went unanswered for probably two or
three minutes, none can tell the exact time, was sent by the lookout
stationed forward to the first officer of the watch on the bridge of
the great liner on the maiden voyage.
The lookout saw a towering “blue berg” looming up in the sea path of
the Titanic, the latest and proudest product of marine architecture,
and called the bridge on the ship’s telephone.
When after the passing of those two or three fateful minutes an officer
on the bridge of the Titanic lifted the telephone receiver from its
hook to answer the lookout it was too late. The speeding liner,
cleaving a calm sea under a star-studded sky, had reached the floating
mountain of ice, which the theoretically “unsinkable” ship struck a
crashing, if glancing, blow with her starboard bow.
Had the officer on the bridge, who was William T. Murdock, according to
the account of the tragedy given by two of the Titanic’s seamen, known
how imperative was that call from the lookout man, whose name was given
as Fleet, the man at the wheel of the world’s newest and greatest
transatlantic liner might have swerved the great ship sufficiently to
avoid the berg altogether or at the worst would have probably struck
the mass of ice with her stern and at much reduced speed.
For obvious reasons the identity of the sailormen who described the
foundering of the Titanic cannot be divulged. As for the officer, who
was alleged to have been a laggard in answering the lookout’s telephone
call, harsh criticism may be omitted.
Murdock, if the tale of the Titanic sailor be true, expiated his
negligence, if negligence it was, by shooting himself within sight of
all alleged victims huddled in lifeboats or struggling in the icy seas.
THE “UNWRITTEN LAW” OF THE SEA.
The revolver which the sailors say snuffed out Murdock’s life was
not the only weapon that rang out above the shrieks of the drowning.
Officers of the Titanic, upon whom devolved the duty of seeing that the
“unwritten law” of the sea--“women and children first”--was enforced,
were, according to the recital of the members of the great liner’s
crew, forced to shoot frenzied male passengers, who, impelled by the
fear of death, attempted to get into the lifeboats swinging from their
davits.
The sailors’ account of the terrific impact of the Titanic against the
berg that crossed the path was as follows:
“It was 11.40 P. M. Sunday, April 14. Struck an iceberg. The berg was
very dark and about 250 feet in height.
“The Titanic struck the berg a glancing blow on the starboard bow. The
ship, which was traveling between twenty and twenty-three knots an
hour, crashed into the berg at a point about forty feet back of the
stem.
“The Titanic’s bottom was torn away to about fore bridge. The tear was
fully fifty feet in length and was below the water line.”
Regarding the state of the sea and the character of the night the
sailors declared:
“It was a perfect night, clear and starlight. The sea was smooth. The
temperature had dropped to freezing Sunday morning. We knew or believed
that the cold was due to the nearness of bergs, but we had not even run
against cake ice up to the time the ice mountain loomed up. The Titanic
raced through a calm sea in which there was no ice into the berg which
sank her.”
Continuing, their joint account the two men of the Titanic’s crew
further said:
“The first officer of the watch was Murdock. He was on the bridge.
Captain Smith may have been near at hand, but he was not visible to us
who were about to wash down the decks. Hitchens, quartermaster, was at
the wheel. Fleet was the outlook.”
It is characteristic of sailors that they make no effort to learn the
baptismal names of a ship’s officers.
“Fleet reported the berg, but the telephone was not answered on the
bridge at once. A few minutes afterwards the telephone call was
answered, but it was too late.
THE SHIP HAD STRUCK.
“The ship had struck. Murdock, after the ship struck the berg, gave
orders to put helm to starboard, afterwards he ordered the helm hard to
port and the ship struck the berg again.
“Afterwards Murdock gave an order for the carpenter to sound the wells
to learn how much water the ship was taking in. The carpenter came up
and told Murdock the Titanic had seven feet of water in her in less
than seven minutes.”
Keeping on with their narrative the sailors, whose nerves had not been
broken by their experiences declared:
“Then Captain Smith, who had put in an appearance, gave orders to get
the boats ready.
“There was less than ten minutes between the time the Titanic first
struck the berg and the second crash, both of which brought big pieces
of ice showering down on the ship.
“Orders came to the crew to stand by the boats. The boats were got out.
There were twenty-two boats all told.”
At this juncture the sailors described without apparent prejudice or
bitterness how J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the Board of Directors of
the White Star Line, was the first to leave the Titanic.
“Ismay,” the sailors asserted, “with his two daughters and a
millionaire, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, and the latter’s family, got into
the first accident or emergency boats, which are about twenty-eight
feet long, and were always ready for lowering under the bridge. The
boat in which Ismay and Sir Cosmo left was manned by seven seamen.
There were seventeen persons in the boat.
“This boat pulled away from the ship a half hour before any of the
lifeboats were put into the water.
“There were thirteen first-class passengers and five sailors in the
emergency boat. Both boats were away from the ship within ten or
fifteen minutes of the ship’s crashing into the berg.”
FIRST BOATS TO GET AWAY.
Asked to explain how it was possible for two boats to be put over the
ship’s side into the water without being subjected to a rush on the
part of the great ship’s passengers, the Titanic seamen said: “Ismay
and those who left in the two emergency boats occupied cabins de luxe.
The two boats were swinging from davits ready for lowering. We have no
idea who notified Mr. Ismay and his friends to make ready to leave the
ship, but we do know that the boats in which they were got away first.”
The sailors’ seemingly unvarnished tale then went on as follows:
“It was perhaps a half hour before the first of the lifeboats was
ready for lowering. Not a man was allowed in one of the lifeboats
so far as we could see, only women and children. The boats were all
thirty-six feet long and carried about sixty passengers. There were
about thirty-five or forty passengers to a boat when they were lowered,
but two sailors went in each boat. Besides the sixteen lifeboats and
the two emergency boats, four collapsible boats, each with a carrying
capacity of forty passengers, were put over the sides of the Titanic,
every boat on the ship was put into the water.
“One of the collapsible boats filled with water. The women and children
in the boat were mostly third-class passengers. The boat turned keel
and nearly two score persons clung to it. Many of these were rescued by
the lifeboats.”
The spokesman for the sailors here asserted: “We want to make it plain
that the officers and crew of the Titanic did their duty. Not a male
passenger got into the lifeboats. During the early excitement men tried
to force their way into the boats, but the officers shot them down with
revolvers. I saw probably a half dozen men shot down as the lifeboat to
which I was assigned was being filled. The men shot were left to die
and sink on the upper deck of the Titanic.”
The Titanic’s sailors described how frail women, steeled by a desperate
emergency, seized oars and labored with the seamen to get the lifeboats
at a safe distance from the great liner, sinking deep and deeper under
the weight of water.
WOMEN HELP WITH THE OARS.
“There were ten oars to each lifeboat,” the sailors said. “The women
seized the sweeps and helped us to get the boats clear of the ship. We
got away about 100 yards from the ship and waited to see what would
happen. The liner was sinking fast, but the lights continued to shine
through the black night.
“The end came at 2.30 on Monday morning. The lights on the ship did
not go out until ten minutes before the liner sank. The inrushing seas
reaching the after fires produced an explosion, which sundered the big
liner. The forward half of the Titanic dived gently down. The after
part of the ship stood on end and then disappeared.
“The force of the explosion blew, it seemed to us watching from the
lifeboats, scores of passengers and sailors into the air.”
That there were stout hearts on the Titanic, even in the last moments
of an unprecedented catastrophe, that refused to quail was proven by
the rough seamen’s further testimony.
“The band on the promenade deck,” they declared, “played ‘Abide With
Me’ and ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save,’ and other hymns as the ship
sank.”
The Titanic sank at 2.30, almost at the spot where she collided with
the mountain of ice.
It was an hour later when the Carpathia was sighted by the thinly-clad
occupants of the lifeboats and it was 4.30 before the first of the
Titanic’s passengers set foot on the deck of the Cunarder. It was 8
o’clock on Monday morning, April 15, before the last of the half-clad
suffering passengers of the Titanic were taken aboard the Carpathia, a
not difficult feat, as the sea continued smooth.
The Carpathia’s run from the Newfoundland banks to New York was
uneventful except for the burial at sea of five persons. Four of the
five, according to the sailors, were consigned to the deep at about 4
P. M. on Monday, April 15. One of the four was a sailor, one a fireman
and two male passengers of the third class.
TELEPHONE CALL DOUBTED.
The alleged negligence of Murdock, the first officer of the watch, who
is blamed, as stated above, by some of the sailors for the wreck in
not responding immediately to a telephone call from the lookout giving
warning of the iceberg ahead, is doubted by a naval man who has had a
long experience on transatlantic liners.
“I cannot help doubting, in fact, absolutely disbelieving, that an
officer of the watch could be negligent in either responding to a call
from the crow’s-nest or even failing to discover anything in the course
of his vessel as soon as the lookout. Especially considering the fact
that the vessel had been warned of ice several times.
“The position of the senior officer of the watch is on the windward
side of the bridge. He does not depend on the lookout, that man is
only a check upon him. Usually any object in the course of the vessel
is discovered by both at the same time. The lookout’s signal was not a
telephone call when I was on the seas, but a horn blast. Three blasts,
object dead ahead; one blast, object on port bow; two blasts, object on
starboard bow.
“That Murdock did not see the berg as soon as his lookout, seems
improbable; that he did not see it immediately after his lookout,
seems impossible; that he did not answer any signal from the lookout
immediately is impossible, unless he was dead. Murdock knew his
responsibility, and he wasn’t shirking. He wouldn’t have been on the
watch, or on the Titanic, if he ever shirked.
“Could a vessel the size of the Titanic change its course sufficiently
to avoid the berg within three minutes supposed to have elapsed during
which Murdock didn’t answer his lookout’s call? It could. I never
sailed a vessel the size of the Titanic, but I unhesitatingly say that
the Titanic’s course could be changed in considerably less than a mile.
Why, by putting the wheel hard-a-port and stopping the engines on that
side the vessel could be turned so quickly that it would list fifteen
degrees in swinging around. I have steered a transatlantic liner in and
out among fishing smacks and they are easier to hit than an iceberg.”
QUESTIONED ABOUT CONDITIONS ON MOONLESS NIGHT.
Two other seafaring men of long experience, who have many nights sat in
the crow’s-nest of a liner and watched the course, were asked how far
an iceberg the size of the one that the Titanic struck could be seen on
a clear night without a moon, a condition on which all of the survivors
seem to agree was present the night the Titanic was sunk.
One of these men said at least one mile, the other at least two miles.
So the fact remains that Murdock was supposed to be on the bridge
keeping a strict lookout and not depending on the crow’s-nest; that
he could have seen the iceberg when it was at least a mile from the
vessel, and that the Titanic could have been easily turned sufficiently
in her course to avoid the berg within a mile.
The surviving passengers are unanimous that the “unbelievable”
happened. The voyage had been pleasant and uneventful, except for the
fact that it was being made on the largest and most magnificent vessel
that ever sailed and for the keen interest which the passengers took in
the daily bulletins of the speed.
The Titanic had been making good time and all accounts agree that
on the night of the disaster she was apparently going at her usual
rate--of from 21 to 25 knots an hour.
J. H. Moody, the quartermaster, who was at the helm, said that the ship
was making twenty-one and that the officers were under orders at the
time to keep up speed in the hope of making a record passage.
These orders were being carried out in face of knowledge that the
steamer was in the vicinity of great icebergs sweeping down from the
north. That very afternoon, according to the record of the hyrographic
officer, the Titanic had relayed to shore a wireless warning from the
steamer Amerika that an unusual field of pack ice and bergs menaced
navigation off the Banks.
OFFICERS CONFIDENT EVEN IN THE FACE OF DANGER.
But it was a “clear and starlight night,” as all the survivors
described the weather, and the great ship sped through the quiet seas
with officers confident that even though an iceberg should be seen the
vessel could be controlled in ample time, and the passengers rested in
full confidence that their temporary quarters in the largest and most
magnificent vessel ever constructed were as safe as their own homes.
This confidence is emphasized in the tales of nearly all the survivors
that when the crash came there was almost no excitement. Many who felt
anxious enough to go on deck to inquire what had happened were little
perturbed when they learned that the ship had “only struck an iceberg.”
It appeared to be a glancing blow and at first there was no indication
of a serious accident.
A group of men at cards in the smoking room sent one of their number to
look out of the window, and when he came back with the announcement
that the boat had grazed an iceberg, the party went on with the game.
It was never finished.
The stoppage of the engines was noticed more than the collision, the
effect being, as one survivor put it, like the stopping of a loud
ticking clock.
The over-confident passengers were not brought to the slightest
realization that the collision might mean serious danger until the call
ran through the ship, “All passengers on deck with life-belts on.”
Captain Smith, it is said, was not on the bridge when the collision
occurred, but when hurriedly summoned by his first officer, he took
charge of what seemed a hopeless situation in a manner which the
passengers praise as calm, resolute and efficient to the highest degree.
One of the most stirring narratives of action and description of
scenes that followed the collision was told by L. Beasley, a Cambridge
University man, who was one of the surviving second cabin passengers.
THE CREWS ALLOTTED TO THE BOATS.
“The steamer lay just as if she were awaiting the order to go on again,
when some trifling matter had been adjusted,” he said. “But in a few
minutes we saw the covers lifted from the boats, and the crews allotted
to them standing by ready to lower them to the water.
“Presently we heard the order, ‘All men stand back and all ladies
retire to the next deck below’--the smoking room deck or ‘B’ deck. The
men stood away and remained in absolute silence, leaning against the
end railing or pacing slowly up and down.
“The boats were swung out and lowered from A deck. When they were to
the level of B deck, where all the ladies were collected, the ladies
got in quietly with the exception of some, who refused to leave their
husbands. In some cases they were torn from them and pushed into the
boats.
“All this time there was no trace of any disorder; no panic or rush
for the boats, and no scenes of women sobbing hysterically. Everyone
seemed to realize so slowly that there was imminent danger. When it
was realized that we would be presently in the sea with nothing but our
life-belts to support us until we were picked up by passing steamers,
it was extraordinary how calm everyone was and how complete the
self-control.
“One by one the boats were filled with women and children.
“Presently we heard the order, ‘All men stand back,’ and all lowered
and rowed away into the night. Presently the word went around among the
men, ‘The men are to be put in boats on the starboard side.’ I was on
the port side and most of the men walked across the deck to see if this
was so. Presently I heard the call, ‘Any more ladies?’
“Looking over the side of the ship I saw boat No. 13 swinging level
with B deck, half full of women. I saw no more come, and one of the
crew said then: ‘You’d better jump.’ I dropped in and fell in the
bottom as they cried ‘lower away.’”
Beasely said that the lifeboat was nearly two miles away from the
Titanic less than two hours later, when they made out that the great
liner was sinking.
SHIP APPARENTLY BREAKS IN TWO.
Other survivors who were nearer to the sinking liner told of hearing
the strains of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” played as the liner sank, and
some of those in the lifeboats blended their voices in the melody.
Suddenly there was a mighty roar and the ship, already half submerged,
was seen to buckle and apparently break in two by the force of an
explosion caused when the water reached the hot boilers.
The bow sank first and for fully five minutes the stern was poised
almost vertically in the air, when suddenly it plunged out of sight.
With the last hope gone of seeing their loved ones alive, many women
in the lifeboats seemed to be indifferent whether they were saved or
not. They were nearly 1000 miles from land and had no knowledge that a
ship of succor was speeding to them. Without provisions or water, there
seemed little hope of surviving long in the bitter cold.
There were sixteen boats in the forlorn procession which entered upon
the terrible hours of suspense.
The confidence that the big ship, on which they had started across
the sea, was sure to bring them safely here was now turned to utter
helplessness. But the shock of learning that their lives were in peril
was hardly greater than the relief when, at dawn, a large steamer’s
stacks were seen on the horizon, and eager eyes soon made out that the
vessel was making for the scene.
The rescue ship proved to be the Carpathia, which had received the
Titanic’s distress signals by wireless.
By 7 o’clock in the morning all the Titanic’s sixteen boats had been
picked up and their chilled and hungry occupants welcomed over the
Carpathia’s side. The Carpathia’s passengers, who were bound for a
Mediterranean cruise, showed every consideration for the stricken,
and many gave up their cabins that the shipwrecked might be made
comfortable.
The rescued were in all conditions of dress and undress, and the women
on the Carpathia vied with one another in supplying missing garments.
On the four days’ cruise back to New York many, who had realized that
their experiences would be waited by an anxious world, put their
narratives to paper while their nerves were still at a tension from the
excitement of the disaster they had barely escaped.