THE CARPATHIA'S RETURN TO NEW YORK
The journey of the Carpathia from the time she caught the "C.Q.D."
from the Titanic at about 12.30 A.M. on Monday morning and turned
swiftly about to her rescue, until she arrived at New York on the
following Thursday at 8.30 P.M. was one that demanded of the captain,
officers and crew of the vessel the most exact knowledge of
navigation, the utmost vigilance in every department both before and
after the rescue, and a capacity for organization that must sometimes
have been taxed to the breaking point.
The extent to which all these qualities were found present and the
manner in which they were exercised stands to the everlasting credit
of the Cunard Line and those of its servants who were in charge of the
Carpathia. Captain Rostron's part in all this is a great one, and
wrapped up though his action is in a modesty that is conspicuous in
its nobility, it stands out even in his own account as a piece of work
well and courageously done.
As soon as the Titanic called for help and gave her position, the
Carpathia was turned and headed north: all hands were called on duty,
a new watch of stokers was put on, and the highest speed of which she
was capable was demanded of the engineers, with the result that the
distance of fifty-eight miles between the two ships was covered in
three and a half hours, a speed well beyond her normal capacity. The
three doctors on board each took charge of a saloon, in readiness to
render help to any who needed their services, the stewards and
catering staff were hard at work preparing hot drinks and meals, and
the purser's staff ready with blankets and berths for the shipwrecked
passengers as soon as they got on board. On deck the sailors got ready
lifeboats, swung them out on the davits, and stood by, prepared to
lower away their crews if necessary; fixed rope-ladders,
cradle-chairs, nooses, and bags for the children at the hatches, to
haul the rescued up the side. On the bridge was the captain with his
officers, peering into the darkness eagerly to catch the first signs
of the crippled Titanic, hoping, in spite of her last despairing
message of "Sinking by the head," to find her still afloat when her
position was reached. A double watch of lookout men was set, for there
were other things as well as the Titanic to look for that night, and
soon they found them. As Captain Rostron said in his evidence, they
saw icebergs on either side of them between 2.45 and 4 A.M., passing
twenty large ones, one hundred to two hundred feet high, and many
smaller ones, and "frequently had to manoeuvre the ship to avoid
them." It was a time when every faculty was called upon for the
highest use of which it was capable. With the knowledge before them
that the enormous Titanic, the supposedly unsinkable ship, had struck
ice and was sinking rapidly; with the lookout constantly calling to
the bridge, as he must have done, "Icebergs on the starboard,"
"Icebergs on the port," it required courage and judgment beyond the
ordinary to drive the ship ahead through that lane of icebergs and
"manoeuvre round them." As he himself said, he "took the risk of full
speed in his desire to save life, and probably some people might blame
him for taking such a risk." But the Senate Committee assured him that
they, at any rate, would not, and we of the lifeboats have certainly
no desire to do so.
The ship was finally stopped at 4 A.M., with an iceberg reported dead
ahead (the same no doubt we had to row around in boat 13 as we
approached the Carpathia), and about the same time the first lifeboat
was sighted. Again she had to be manoeuvred round the iceberg to pick
up the boat, which was the one in charge of Mr. Boxhall. From him the
captain learned that the Titanic had gone down, and that he was too
late to save any one but those in lifeboats, which he could now see
drawing up from every part of the horizon. Meanwhile, the passengers
of the Carpathia, some of them aroused by the unusual vibration of the
screw, some by sailors tramping overhead as they swung away the
lifeboats and got ropes and lowering tackle ready, were beginning to
come on deck just as day broke; and here an extraordinary sight met
their eyes. As far as the eye could reach to the north and west lay an
unbroken stretch of field ice, with icebergs still attached to the
floe and rearing aloft their mass as a hill might suddenly rise from a
level plain. Ahead and to the south and east huge floating monsters
were showing up through the waning darkness, their number added to
moment by moment as the dawn broke and flushed the horizon pink. It is
remarkable how "busy" all those icebergs made the sea look: to have
gone to bed with nothing but sea and sky and to come on deck to find
so many objects in sight made quite a change in the character of the
sea: it looked quite crowded; and a lifeboat alongside and people
clambering aboard, mostly women, in nightdresses and dressing-gowns,
in cloaks and shawls, in anything but ordinary clothes! Out ahead and
on all sides little torches glittered faintly for a few moments and
then guttered out--and shouts and cheers floated across the quiet sea.
It would be difficult to imagine a more unexpected sight than this
that lay before the Carpathia's passengers as they lined the sides
that morning in the early dawn.
No novelist would dare to picture such an array of beautiful climatic
conditions,--the rosy dawn, the morning star, the moon on the horizon,
the sea stretching in level beauty to the sky-line,--and on this sea
to place an ice-field like the Arctic regions and icebergs in numbers
everywhere,--white and turning pink and deadly cold,--and near them,
rowing round the icebergs to avoid them, little boats coming suddenly
out of mid-ocean, with passengers rescued from the most wonderful ship
the world has known. No artist would have conceived such a picture: it
would have seemed so highly dramatic as to border on the impossible,
and would not have been attempted. Such a combination of events would
pass the limit permitted the imagination of both author and artist.
The passengers crowded the rails and looked down at us as we rowed up
in the early morning; stood quietly aside while the crew at the
gangways below took us aboard, and watched us as if the ship had been
in dock and we had rowed up to join her in a somewhat unusual way.
Some of them have related that we were very quiet as we came aboard:
it is quite true, we were; but so were they. There was very little
excitement on either side: just the quiet demeanour of people who are
in the presence of something too big as yet to lie within their mental
grasp, and which they cannot yet discuss. And so they asked us
politely to have hot coffee, which we did; and food, which we
generally declined,--we were not hungry,--and they said very little at
first about the lost Titanic and our adventures in the night.
Much that is exaggerated and false has been written about the mental
condition of passengers as they came aboard: we have been described as
being too dazed to understand what was happening, as being too
overwhelmed to speak, and as looking before us with "set, staring
gaze," "dazed with the shadow of the dread event." That is, no doubt,
what most people would expect in the circumstances, but I know it does
not give a faithful record of how we did arrive: in fact it is simply
not true. As remarked before, the one thing that matters in describing
an event of this kind is the exact truth, as near as the fallible
human mind can state it; and my own impression of our mental condition
is that of supreme gratitude and relief at treading the firm decks of
a ship again. I am aware that experiences differed considerably
according to the boats occupied; that those who were uncertain of the
fate of their relatives and friends had much to make them anxious and
troubled; and that it is not possible to look into another person's
consciousness and say what is written there; but dealing with mental
conditions as far as they are delineated by facial and bodily
expressions, I think joy, relief, gratitude were the dominant emotions
written on the faces of those who climbed the rope-ladders and were
hauled up in cradles.
It must not be forgotten that no one in any one boat knew who were
saved in other boats: few knew even how many boats there were and how
many passengers could be saved. It was at the time probable that
friends would follow them to the Carpathia, or be found on other
steamers, or even on the pier at which we landed. The hysterical
scenes that have been described are imaginative; true, one woman did
fill the saloon with hysterical cries immediately after coming aboard,
but she could not have known for a certainty that any of her friends
were lost: probably the sense of relief after some hours of journeying
about the sea was too much for her for a time.
One of the first things we did was to crowd round a steward with a
bundle of telegraph forms. He was the bearer of the welcome news that
passengers might send Marconigrams to their relatives free of charge,
and soon he bore away the first sheaf of hastily scribbled messages to
the operator; by the time the last boatload was aboard, the pile must
have risen high in the Marconi cabin. We learned afterwards that many
of these never reached their destination; and this is not a matter for
surprise. There was only one operator--Cottam--on board, and although
he was assisted to some extent later, when Bride from the Titanic had
recovered from his injuries sufficiently to work the apparatus, he had
so much to do that he fell asleep over this work on Tuesday night
after three days' continuous duty without rest. But we did not know
the messages were held back, and imagined our friends were aware of
our safety; then, too, a roll-call of the rescued was held in the
Carpathia's saloon on the Monday, and this was Marconied to land in
advance of all messages. It seemed certain, then, that friends at home
would have all anxiety removed, but there were mistakes in the
official list first telegraphed. The experience of my own friends
illustrates this: the Marconigram I wrote never got through to
England; nor was my name ever mentioned in any list of the saved (even
a week after landing in New York, I saw it in a black-edged "final"
list of the missing), and it seemed certain that I had never reached
the Carpathia; so much so that, as I write, there are before me
obituary notices from the English papers giving a short sketch of my
life in England. After landing in New York and realizing from the
lists of the saved which a reporter showed me that my friends had no
news since the Titanic sank on Monday morning until that night
(Thursday 9 P.M.), I cabled to England at once (as I had but two
shillings rescued from the Titanic, the White Star Line paid for the
cables), but the messages were not delivered until 8.20 A.M. next
morning. At 9 A.M. my friends read in the papers a short account of
the disaster which I had supplied to the press, so that they knew of
my safety and experiences in the wreck almost at the same time. I am
grateful to remember that many of my friends in London refused to
count me among the missing during the three days when I was so
reported.
There is another side to this record of how the news came through, and
a sad one, indeed. Again I wish it were not necessary to tell such
things, but since they all bear on the equipment of the trans-Atlantic
lines--powerful Marconi apparatus, relays of operators, etc.,--it is
best they should be told. The name of an American gentleman--the same
who sat near me in the library on Sunday afternoon and whom I
identified later from a photograph--was consistently reported in the
lists as saved and aboard the Carpathia: his son journeyed to New York
to meet him, rejoicing at his deliverance, and never found him there.
When I met his family some days later and was able to give them some
details of his life aboard ship, it seemed almost cruel to tell them
of the opposite experience that had befallen my friends at home.
Returning to the journey of the Carpathia--the last boatload of
passengers was taken aboard at 8.30 A.M., the lifeboats were hauled on
deck while the collapsibles were abandoned, and the Carpathia
proceeded to steam round the scene of the wreck in the hope of picking
up anyone floating on wreckage. Before doing so the captain arranged
in the saloon a service over the spot where the Titanic sank, as
nearly as could be calculated,--a service, as he said, of respect to
those who were lost and of gratitude for those who were saved.
She cruised round and round the scene, but found nothing to indicate
there was any hope of picking up more passengers; and as the
Californian had now arrived, followed shortly afterwards by the Birma,
a Russian tramp steamer, Captain Rostron decided to leave any further
search to them and to make all speed with the rescued to land. As we
moved round, there was surprisingly little wreckage to be seen: wooden
deck-chairs and small pieces of other wood, but nothing of any size.
But covering the sea in huge patches was a mass of reddish-yellow
"seaweed," as we called it for want of a name. It was said to be cork,
but I never heard definitely its correct description.
The problem of where to land us had next to be decided. The Carpathia
was bound for Gibraltar, and the captain might continue his journey
there, landing us at the Azores on the way; but he would require more
linen and provisions, the passengers were mostly women and children,
ill-clad, dishevelled, and in need of many attentions he could not
give them. Then, too, he would soon be out of the range of wireless
communication, with the weak apparatus his ship had, and he soon
decided against that course. Halifax was the nearest in point of
distance, but this meant steaming north through the ice, and he
thought his passengers did not want to see more ice. He headed back
therefore to New York, which he had left the previous Thursday,
working all afternoon along the edge of the ice-field which stretched
away north as far as the unaided eye could reach. I have wondered
since if we could possibly have landed our passengers on this ice-floe
from the lifeboats and gone back to pick up those swimming, had we
known it was there; I should think it quite feasible to have done so.
It was certainly an extraordinary sight to stand on deck and see the
sea covered with solid ice, white and dazzling in the sun and dotted
here and there with icebergs. We ran close up, only two or three
hundred yards away, and steamed parallel to the floe, until it ended
towards night and we saw to our infinite satisfaction the last of the
icebergs and the field fading away astern. Many of the rescued have no
wish ever to see an iceberg again. We learnt afterwards the field was
nearly seventy miles long and twelve miles wide, and had lain between
us and the Birma on her way to the rescue. Mr. Boxhall testified that
he had crossed the Grand Banks many times, but had never seen
field-ice before. The testimony of the captains and officers of other
steamers in the neighbourhood is of the same kind: they had "never
seen so many icebergs this time of the year," or "never seen such
dangerous ice floes and threatening bergs." Undoubtedly the Titanic
was faced that night with unusual and unexpected conditions of ice:
the captain knew not the extent of these conditions, but he knew
somewhat of their existence. Alas, that he heeded not their warning!
During the day, the bodies of eight of the crew were committed to the
deep: four of them had been taken out of the boats dead and four died
during the day. The engines were stopped and all passengers on deck
bared their heads while a short service was read; when it was over the
ship steamed on again to carry the living back to land.
The passengers on the Carpathia were by now hard at work finding
clothing for the survivors: the barber's shop was raided for ties,
collars, hair-pins, combs, etc., of which it happened there was a
large stock in hand; one good Samaritan went round the ship with a box
of tooth-brushes offering them indiscriminately to all. In some cases,
clothing could not be found for the ladies and they spent the rest of
the time on board in their dressing-gowns and cloaks in which they
came away from the Titanic. They even slept in them, for, in the
absence of berths, women had to sleep on the floor of the saloons and
in the library each night on straw _paillasses_, and here it was
not possible to undress properly. The men were given the smoking-room
floor and a supply of blankets, but the room was small, and some
elected to sleep out on deck. I found a pile of towels on the bathroom
floor ready for next morning's baths, and made up a very comfortable
bed on these. Later I was waked in the middle of the night by a man
offering me a berth in his four-berth cabin: another occupant was
unable to leave his berth for physical reasons, and so the cabin could
not be given up to ladies.
On Tuesday the survivors met in the saloon and formed a committee
among themselves to collect subscriptions for a general fund, out of
which it was resolved by vote to provide as far as possible for the
destitute among the steerage passengers, to present a loving cup to
Captain Rostron and medals to the officers and crew of the Carpathia,
and to divide any surplus among the crew of the Titanic. The work of
this committee is not yet (June 1st) at an end, but all the
resolutions except the last one have been acted upon, and that is now
receiving the attention of the committee. The presentations to the
captain and crew were made the day the Carpathia returned to New York
from her Mediterranean trip, and it is a pleasure to all the survivors
to know that the United States Senate has recognized the service
rendered to humanity by the Carpathia and has voted Captain Rostron a
gold medal commemorative of the rescue. On the afternoon of Tuesday, I
visited the steerage in company with a fellow-passenger, to take
down the names of all who were saved. We grouped them into
nationalities,--English Irish, and Swedish mostly,--and learnt from
them their names and homes, the amount of money they possessed, and
whether they had friends in America. The Irish girls almost
universally had no money rescued from the wreck, and were going to
friends in New York or places near, while the Swedish passengers,
among whom were a considerable number of men, had saved the greater
part of their money and in addition had railway tickets through to
their destinations inland. The saving of their money marked a curious
racial difference, for which I can offer no explanation: no doubt the
Irish girls never had very much but they must have had the necessary
amount fixed by the immigration laws. There were some pitiful cases of
women with children and the husband lost; some with one or two
children saved and the others lost; in one case, a whole family was
missing, and only a friend left to tell of them. Among the Irish group
was one girl of really remarkable beauty, black hair and deep violet
eyes with long lashes, and perfectly shaped features, and quite young,
not more than eighteen or twenty; I think she lost no relatives on the
Titanic.
The following letter to the London "Times" is reproduced here to show
something of what our feeling was on board the Carpathia towards the
loss of the Titanic. It was written soon after we had the definite
information on the Wednesday that ice warnings had been sent to the
Titanic, and when we all felt that something must be done to awaken
public opinion to safeguard ocean travel in the future. We were not
aware, of course, how much the outside world knew, and it seemed well
to do something to inform the English public of what had happened at
as early an opportunity as possible. I have not had occasion to change
any of the opinions expressed in this letter.
SIR:--
As one of few surviving Englishmen from the steamship Titanic, which
sank in mid-Atlantic on Monday morning last, I am asking you to lay
before your readers a few facts concerning the disaster, in the hope
that something may be done in the near future to ensure the safety of
that portion of the travelling public who use the Atlantic highway for
business or pleasure.
I wish to dissociate myself entirely from any report that would seek
to fix the responsibility on any person or persons or body of people,
and by simply calling attention to matters of fact the authenticity of
which is, I think, beyond question and can be established in any Court
of Inquiry, to allow your readers to draw their own conclusions as to
the responsibility for the collision.
First, that it was known to those in charge of the Titanic that we
were in the iceberg region; that the atmospheric and temperature
conditions suggested the near presence of icebergs; that a wireless
message was received from a ship ahead of us warning us that they had
been seen in the locality of which latitude and longitude were given.
Second, that at the time of the collision the Titanic was running at a
high rate of speed.
Third, that the accommodation for saving passengers and crew was
totally inadequate, being sufficient only for a total of about 950.
This gave, with the highest possible complement of 3400, a less than
one in three chance of being saved in the case of accident.
Fourth, that the number landed in the Carpathia, approximately 700, is
a high percentage of the possible 950, and bears excellent testimony
to the courage, resource, and devotion to duty of the officers and
crew of the vessel; many instances of their nobility and personal
self-sacrifice are within our possession, and we know that they did
all they could do with the means at their disposal.
Fifth, that the practice of running mail and passenger vessels through
fog and iceberg regions at a high speed is a common one; they are
timed to run almost as an express train is run, and they cannot,
therefore, slow down more than a few knots in time of possible danger.
I have neither knowledge nor experience to say what remedies I
consider should be applied; but, perhaps, the following suggestions
may serve as a help:--
First, that no vessel should be allowed to leave a British port
without sufficient boat and other accommodation to allow each
passenger and member of the crew a seat; and that at the time of
booking this fact should be pointed out to a passenger, and the number
of the seat in the particular boat allotted to him then.
Second, that as soon as is practicable after sailing each passenger
should go through boat drill in company with the crew assigned to his
boat.
Third, that each passenger boat engaged in the Transatlantic service
should be instructed to slow down to a few knots when in the iceberg
region, and should be fitted with an efficient searchlight.
Yours faithfully,
LAWRENCE BEESLEY.
It seemed well, too, while on the Carpathia to prepare as accurate an
account as possible of the disaster and to have this ready for the
press, in order to calm public opinion and to forestall the incorrect
and hysterical accounts which some American reporters are in the habit
of preparing on occasions of this kind. The first impression is often
the most permanent, and in a disaster of this magnitude, where exact
and accurate information is so necessary, preparation of a report was
essential. It was written in odd corners of the deck and saloon of the
Carpathia, and fell, it seemed very happily, into the hands of the one
reporter who could best deal with it, the Associated Press. I
understand it was the first report that came through and had a good
deal of the effect intended.
The Carpathia returned to New York in almost every kind of climatic
conditions: icebergs, ice-fields and bitter cold to commence with;
brilliant warm sun, thunder and lightning in the middle of one night
(and so closely did the peal follow the flash that women in the saloon
leaped up in alarm saying rockets were being sent up again); cold
winds most of the time; fogs every morning and during a good part of
one day, with the foghorn blowing constantly; rain; choppy sea with
the spray blowing overboard and coming in through the saloon windows;
we said we had almost everything but hot weather and stormy seas. So
that when we were told that Nantucket Lightship had been sighted on
Thursday morning from the bridge, a great sigh of relief went round to
think New York and land would be reached before next morning.
There is no doubt that a good many felt the waiting period of those
four days very trying: the ship crowded far beyond its limits of
comfort, the want of necessities of clothing and toilet, and above all
the anticipation of meeting with relatives on the pier, with, in many
cases, the knowledge that other friends were left behind and would not
return home again. A few looked forward to meeting on the pier their
friends to whom they had said au revoir on the Titanic's deck, brought
there by a faster boat, they said, or at any rate to hear that they
were following behind us in another boat: a very few, indeed, for the
thought of the icy water and the many hours' immersion seemed to weigh
against such a possibility; but we encouraged them to hope the
Californian and the Birma had picked some up; stranger things have
happened, and we had all been through strange experiences. But in the
midst of this rather tense feeling, one fact stands out as
remarkable--no one was ill. Captain Rostron testified that on Tuesday
the doctor reported a clean bill of health, except for frost-bites and
shaken nerves. There were none of the illnesses supposed to follow
from exposure for hours in the cold night--and, it must be remembered,
a considerable number swam about for some time when the Titanic sank,
and then either sat for hours in their wet things or lay flat on an
upturned boat with the sea water washing partly over them until they
were taken off in a lifeboat; no scenes of women weeping and brooding
over their losses hour by hour until they were driven mad with
grief--yet all this has been reported to the press by people on board
the Carpathia. These women met their sorrow with the sublimest
courage, came on deck and talked with their fellow-men and women face
to face, and in the midst of their loss did not forget to rejoice with
those who had joined their friends on the Carpathia's deck or come
with them in a boat. There was no need for those ashore to call the
Carpathia a "death-ship," or to send coroners and coffins to the pier
to meet her: her passengers were generally in good health and they did
not pretend they were not.
Presently land came in sight, and very good it was to see it again: it
was eight days since we left Southampton, but the time seemed to have
"stretched out to the crack of doom," and to have become eight weeks
instead. So many dramatic incidents had been crowded into the last few
days that the first four peaceful, uneventful days, marked by nothing
that seared the memory, had faded almost out of recollection. It
needed an effort to return to Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown,
as though returning to some event of last year. I think we all
realized that time may be measured more by events than by seconds and
minutes: what the astronomer would call "2.20 A.M. April 15th, 1912,"
the survivors called "the sinking of the Titanic"; the "hours" that
followed were designated "being adrift in an open sea," and "4.30
A.M." was "being rescued by the Carpathia." The clock was a mental
one, and the hours, minutes and seconds marked deeply on its face were
emotions, strong and silent.
Surrounded by tugs of every kind, from which (as well as from every
available building near the river) magnesium bombs were shot off by
photographers, while reporters shouted for news of the disaster and
photographs of passengers, the Carpathia drew slowly to her station at
the Cunard pier, the gangways were pushed across, and we set foot at
last on American soil, very thankful, grateful people.
The mental and physical condition of the rescued as they came ashore
has, here again, been greatly exaggerated--one description says we
were "half-fainting, half-hysterical, bordering on hallucination, only
now beginning to realize the horror." It is unfortunate such pictures
should be presented to the world. There were some painful scenes of
meeting between relatives of those who were lost, but once again women
showed their self-control and went through the ordeal in most cases
with extraordinary calm. It is well to record that the same account
added: "A few, strangely enough, are calm and lucid"; if for "few" we
read "a large majority," it will be much nearer the true description
of the landing on the Cunard pier in New York. There seems to be no
adequate reason why a report of such a scene should depict mainly the
sorrow and grief, should seek for every detail to satisfy the horrible
and the morbid in the human mind. The first questions the excited
crowds of reporters asked as they crowded round were whether it was
true that officers shot passengers, and then themselves; whether
passengers shot each other; whether any scenes of horror had been
noticed, and what they were.
It would have been well to have noticed the wonderful state of health
of most of the rescued, their gratitude for their deliverance, the
thousand and one things that gave cause for rejoicing. In the midst of
so much description of the hysterical side of the scene, place should
be found for the normal--and I venture to think the normal was the
dominant feature in the landing that night. In the last chapter I
shall try to record the persistence of the normal all through the
disaster. Nothing has been a greater surprise than to find people that
do not act in conditions of danger and grief as they would be
generally supposed to act--and, I must add, as they are generally
described as acting.
And so, with her work of rescue well done, the good ship Carpathia
returned to New York. Everyone who came in her, everyone on the dock,
and everyone who heard of her journey will agree with Captain Rostron
when he says: "I thank God that I was within wireless hailing
distance, and that I got there in time to pick up the survivors of the
wreck."