PREPARATIONS FOR THE VOYAGE--SCENES OF GAYETY--THE BOAT SAILS--INCIDENTS
OF THE VOYAGE---A COLLISION NARROWLY AVERTED--THE BOAT ON FIRE--WARNED
OF ICEBERGS.
EVER was ill-starred voyage more auspiciously begun than when the
Titanic, newly crowned empress of the seas, steamed majestically out of
the port of Southampton at noon on Wednesday, April 10th, bound for New
York.
Elaborate preparations had been made for the maiden voyage. Crowds
of eager watchers gathered to witness the departure, all the more
interested because of the notable people who were to travel aboard her.
Friends and relatives of many of the passengers were at the dock to bid
Godspeed to their departing loved ones. The passengers themselves were
unusually gay and happy.
Majestic and beautiful the ship rested on the water, marvel of
shipbuilding, worthy of any sea. As this new queen of the ocean moved
slowly from her dock, no one questioned her construction: she was fitted
with an elaborate system of
{illust. caption = STEAMER "TITANIC" COMPARED WITH THE LARGEST
STRUCTURES IN THE WORLD 1. Bunker Hill Monument. Boston, 221 feet high.
2. Public
{illust. caption = J. BRUCE ISMAY
Managing director of the International Mercantile Marine, and managing
director of the White....}
{illust. caption = CHARLES M. HAYS
President of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railways, numbered among the heroic
men....}
water-tight compartments, calculated to make her unsinkable; she had
been pronounced the safest as well as the most sumptuous Atlantic liner
afloat.
There was silence just before the boat pulled out--the silence that
usually precedes the leave-taking. The heavy whistles sounded and the
splendid Titanic, her flags flying and her band playing, churned the
water and plowed heavily away.
Then the Titanic, with the people on board waving handkerchiefs and
shouting good-byes that could be heard only as a buzzing murmur on
shore, rode away on the ocean, proudly, majestically, her head up and,
so it seemed, her shoulders thrown back. If ever a vessel seemed to
throb with proud life, if ever a monster of the sea seemed to "feel its
oats" and strain at the leash, if ever a ship seemed to have breeding
and blue blood that would keep it going until its heart broke, that ship
was the Titanic.
And so it was only her due that as the Titanic steamed out of the harbor
bound on her maiden voyage a thousand "God-speeds" were wafted after
her, while every other vessel that she passed, the greatest of them
dwarfed by her colossal proportions, paid homage to the new queen
regnant with the blasts of their whistles and the shrieking of steam
sirens.
THE SHIP'S CAPTAIN
In command of the Titanic was Captain E. J. Smith, a veteran of the
seas, and admiral of the White Star Line fleet. The next six officers,
in the order of their rank, were Murdock, Lightollder,{sic} Pitman,
Boxhall, Lowe and Moody. Dan Phillips was chief wireless operator, with
Harold Bride as assistant.
From the forward bridge, fully ninety feet above the sea, peered out the
benign face of the ship's master, cool of aspect, deliberate of action,
impressive in that quality of confidence that is bred only of long
experience in command.
From far below the bridge sounded the strains of the ship's orchestra,
playing blithely a favorite air from "The Chocolate Soldier." All went
as merry as a wedding bell. Indeed, among that gay ship's company were
two score or more at least for whom the wedding bells had sounded in
truth not many days before. Some were on their honeymoon tours, others
were returning to their motherland after having passed the weeks of the
honeymoon, like Colonel John Jacob Astor and his young bride, amid the
diversions of Egypt or other Old World countries.
What daring flight of imagination would have ventured the prediction
that within the span of six days that stately ship, humbled, shattered
and torn asunder, would lie two thousand fathoms deep at the bottom of
the Atlantic, that the benign face that peered from the bridge would
be set in the rigor of death and that the happy bevy of voyaging brides
would be sorrowing widows?
ALMOST IN A COLLISION
The big vessel had, however, a touch of evil fortune before she cleared
the harbor of Southampton. As she passed down stream her immense
bulk--she displaced 66,000 tons--drew the waters after her with an
irresistible suction that tore the American liner New York from her
moorings; seven steel hawsers were snapped like twine. The New York
floated toward the White Star ship, and would have rammed the new ship
had not the tugs Vulcan and Neptune stopped her and towed her back to
the quay.
When the mammoth ship touched at Cherbourg and later at Queenstown
she was again the object of a port ovation, the smaller craft doing
obeisance while thousands gazed in wonder at her stupendous proportions.
After taking aboard some additional passengers at each port, the Titanic
headed her towering bow toward the open sea and the race for a record on
her maiden voyage was begun.
NEW BURST OF SPEED EACH DAY
The Titanic made 484 miles as her first day's run, her powerful new
engines turning over at the rate of seventy revolutions. On the second
day out the speed was hit up to seventy-three revolutions and the run
for the day was bulletined as 519 miles. Still further increasing the
speed, the rate of revolution of the engines was raised to seventy-five
and the day's run was 549 miles, the best yet scheduled.
But the ship had not yet been speeded to her capacity she was capable of
turning over about seventy-eight revolutions. Had the weather conditions
been propitious, it was intended to press the great racer to the full
limit of her speed on Monday. But for the Titanic Monday never came.
FIRE IN THE COAL BUNKERS
Unknown to the passengers, the Titanic was on fire from the day she
sailed from Southampton. Her officers and crew knew it, for they had
fought the fire for days.
This story, told for the first time by the survivors of the crew, was
only one of the many thrilling tales of the fateful first voyage.
"The Titanic sailed from Southampton on Wednesday, April 10th, at noon,"
said J. Dilley, fireman on the Titanic.
"I was assigned to the Titanic from the Oceanic, where I had served as
a fireman. From the day we sailed the Titanic was on fire, and my sole
duty, together with eleven other men, had been to fight that fire. We
had made no headway against it."
PASSENGERS IN IGNORANCE
"Of course," he went on, "the passengers knew nothing of the fire. Do
you think we'd have let them know about it? No, sir.
"The fire started in bunker No. 6. There were hundreds of tons of coal
stored there. The coal on top of the bunker was wet, as all the coal
should have been, but down at the bottom of the bunker the coal had been
permitted to get dry.
"The dry coal at the bottom of the pile took fire, and smoldered for
days. The wet coal on top kept the flames from coming through, but down
in the bottom of the bunkers the flames were raging.
"Two men from each watch of stokers were tolled off, to fight that fire.
The stokers worked four hours at a time, so twelve of us were fighting
flames from the day we put out of Southampton until we hit the iceberg.
"No, we didn't get that fire out, and among the stokers there was
talk that we'd have to empty the big coal bunkers after we'd put our
passengers off in New York, and then call on the fire-boats there to
help us put out the fire.
"The stokers were alarmed over it, but the officers told us to keep our
mouths shut--they didn't want to alarm the passengers."
USUAL DIVERSION
Until Sunday, April 14th, then, the voyage had apparently been a
delightful but uneventful one. The passengers had passed the time in the
usual diversions of ocean travelers, amusing themselves in the luxurious
saloons, promenading on the boat deck, lolling at their ease in steamer
chairs and making pools on the daily runs of the steamship. The smoking
rooms and card rooms had been as well patronized as usual, and a party
of several notorious professional gamblers had begun reaping their usual
easy harvest.
As early as Sunday afternoon the officers of the Titanic must have known
that they were approaching dangerous ice fields of the kind that are
a perennial menace to the safety of steamships following the regular
transatlantic lanes off the Great Banks of Newfoundland.
AN UNHEEDED WARNING
On Sunday afternoon the Titanic's wireless operator forwarded to the
Hydrographic office in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and elsewhere
the following dispatch:
"April 14.--The German steamship Amerika (Hamburg-American Line)
reports by radio-telegraph passing two large icebergs in latitude 41.27,
longitude 50.08.--Titanic, Br. S. S."
Despite this warning, the Titanic forged ahead Sunday night at her usual
speed--from twenty-one to twenty-five knots.