Deadly Voyage

by Hugh Brewster

  “I have reserved rooms there for us already,” he said briskly. From his manner it seemed clear that he saw himself as the man in charge. I looked at Rosalie and saw her raise her eyebrows in a sympathetic glance.

  “It’s a mob scene out there,” said Arthur as we walked toward the front door of the terminal. He was right. When we stepped onto the street, we were almost blinded by the photographers’ flares. Hundreds of policemen had linked arms to hold back a crowd that I later learned was more than thirty thousand people.

  “Are you the boy that dressed as a girl?” a reporter yelled, shoving his face so close to me that I could smell his breath.

  “I’ll pay you for your story, son!” someone else called out.

  Arthur turned and pulled me by the hand, although I was managing perfectly well on my own. We made our way to a taxi and all four of us got in, with Rosalie sitting up front beside the driver. The taxi driver kept honking his horn as we slowly made our way through the rainy, crowded streets.

  “I don’t understand,” my mother said with a quaver in her voice. “Surely all these people can’t have had relatives on the Titanic?”

  “Oh, no, certainly not!” replied Arthur. “They’re just curiosity seekers. The newspapers have been full of nothing but the Titanic all week. The unsinkable ship … all the millionaires who died — they can’t seem to get enough of it.”

  “They’re callin’ it ‘the story of the century,’” said the driver.

  “How splendid that my husband’s death is providing so much … entertainment … ” my mother said before dissolving in tears.

  “Oh, ma’am, I’m real sorry,” the driver said. “I didn’t know — ”

  “They’ve sent a ship out from Halifax to look for bodies,” said Arthur, putting his arm around her. “I’m just praying we can bring him home for a proper burial.”

  Arthur was saying this to be comforting, but at the words “burial” and “bodies” my mother began to sob.

  Oh, well done, Arthur, I thought. Only half an hour ago she was hoping to see Father standing on the pier.

  Mother quickly forced herself to stop crying — embarrassed, I think, at making a scene in front of the driver. “So … there’s no chance … at all … that he was rescued by another ship?” she asked.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” Arthur replied sadly.

  “Poor … dear … Henry,” was all she could say.

  We sat in silence until we pulled up beside a huge red sandstone building with impressive arched doors.

  “Welcome to the Waldorf-Astoria,” said a uniformed doorman as he opened the taxi door next to me. “May I assist you with the luggage?”

  “No luggage,” I said with a shrug as he glanced at my grubby sweater.

  “We’ve already registered,” said Arthur.

  The hotel’s lobby was even grander than I’d imagined, with tall marble pillars, and an elaborate gilded ceiling. Arthur had reserved two suites, so we took my mother and Rosalie to theirs first and got them settled. Arthur’s suite had a bedroom with a double bed, as well as a small room with a single bed designed for a maid or valet.

  “I’ll take the servant’s room,” I said to Arthur.

  “There’s no need — ” he began.

  “No, don’t worry,” I said. “It’s a lot better than the floor I’ve been sleeping on.”

  The thought of a hot bath was very inviting, but I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. I stripped off my clothes, dived between the fresh sheets and fell into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  I ran myself a hot, soapy bath the next morning and was revelling in a good soak when Arthur walked in.

  “We’ll have to get you some new clothes,” he said. “I can lend you a shirt and a jacket for the dining room this morning.”

  His clothes were a little big on me so I felt slightly odd as we went down to breakfast in the elevator. Arthur told me that my mother and Rosalie were having breakfast in their room. I noticed the black mourning band he was wearing around his arm and I thought I should probably get one too.

  The lobby of the hotel was so full of people we had to wait for a table in the dining room.

  “Very busy this morning, sir,” said the waiter when we were finally seated. “We have senators here from Washington. They’re holding an inquiry into the Titanic disaster in the East Room.”

  “Yes. I lost my father on the Titanic,” replied Arthur.

  I stared at him. I couldn’t believe he’d said my father, not our father.

  “Very sorry to hear that, sir,” replied the waiter.

  After breakfast, Arthur suggested we walk over to Macy’s to buy me some new clothes. “It’s only a few blocks away,” he said.

  In the hotel lobby a group of reporters surrounded Major Peuchen. His wife and son and daughter were with him. He was wearing a new set of clothes, which his family must have brought down from Toronto for him. “I have never uttered an unkind word about Captain Smith,” I heard the Major saying. Then someone called my name. It was the Major, waving me over. I reluctantly turned toward him.

  “This young man stood all night on an overturned boat,” the Major said, pointing toward me.

  I blushed as the reporters began firing questions at me. Arthur was standing back so I gestured to him for help. He quickly put his arm around my shoulders and we moved away from the huddle of reporters, but at the hotel doorway we had to fight our way through another pack of press people. “We’re waiting for Ismay,” I heard one of them say. “He’s on the hot seat this morning!”

  Arthur had told me at breakfast that J. Bruce Ismay was being savaged by the newspapers for having stepped into one of the last lifeboats.

  “They need someone to blame,” said Arthur, “and as the president of the White Star Line, I suppose he’s it.”

  I’d replied that we hadn’t seen Ismay at all on the Carpathia, and rumour had it that he was a nervous wreck.

  As we walked along 34th Street, Arthur remarked, “Major Peuchen seems a fine man. I’m sure he was helpful to you and Mother.”

  “Yes, I suppose,” I replied. “He should learn not to talk so much, though.”

  “And you, Jamie, should learn to be more respectful,” Arthur said.

  “And you shouldn’t talk to me like I’m a child,” I shot back.

  We walked in silence until we reached Macy’s. It was the biggest store I’d ever seen, and seemed to cover a whole city block. The front windows were draped in black bunting. Inside one was a framed photograph of an elderly couple with a sign that read, Isidor and Ida Straus. Their lives were Beautiful and their deaths Glorious. Sadly mourned by all their employees.

  “Straus was an owner of Macy’s,” said Arthur. “They both died on the Titanic.”

  “I know,” I said, suddenly remembering the elderly woman who had stepped out of the lifeboat to stay with her husband. “I saw them together at the end.”

  But Arthur just looked at me skeptically, as if I was making it up.

  * * *

  I had never been much of a newspaper reader, but over the next two days I devoured every paper I could get my hands on. The Titanic story seemed to fill most of their pages and I couldn’t believe how much of the information was completely false. The papers said that William Sloper had dressed in women’s clothes to get into a lifeboat, which I knew was untrue. J. Bruce Ismay was also taking a pounding for the evasive answers he’d given at the Senate Inquiry on Friday. One newspaper showed a photo of him surrounded by pictures of Titanic widows with the caption J. BRUTE Ismay.

  For the train trip home to Montreal, Arthur had bought a stack of newspapers. I took them to a seat far away from Mother, since I knew they would upset her. We had stayed in New York until Sunday because she had spent most of Friday and Saturday in bed, exhausted and grieving. In one newspaper was a picture of the Marconi operator Harold Bride being carried off the Carpathia with bandaged feet. I read about his testimony before the Senate Inquiry on Saturday, descr
ibing the last hours in the Marconi room.

  Every paper seemed to have a picture of two French toddlers who were dubbed “the Titanic orphans.” I recognized them as the little boys that the man who called himself Mr. Hoffman had put into the last lifeboat.

  When I turned to the Sunday newspapers, I found something that surprised me more than anything. Beside a photograph of Jack Thayer was a series of six drawings headlined How the Titanic Went Down. The information was credited to Jack Thayer and the drawings to Lewis Skidmore.

  “Oh no!” I said, so loudly that people on the train turned to look at me. Had Jack even seen these? I wondered. If I had looked at them I would certainly have made some corrections. The first drawing showed the Titanic running up onto a giant mountain of ice. The fourth showed it breaking in two in the middle with the bow and stern both popping upwards. Although I’ve never been much of an artist, I immediately took out my pen and began correcting them. Maybe I could get a newspaper in Montreal to print more accurate versions of the drawings.

  After a few more hours, the train slowed as we approached the Canadian border. There, we all had to get out and walk through a customs shed. When the customs agent saw the black arm bands Arthur and I were wearing, and my mother and Rosalie dressed in black, he waved us through with a sympathetic look.

  Several hours later, I looked out the window and saw that we were arriving on the outskirts of Montreal. The city looked familiar as the train pulled into the station. And our house in Westmount seemed unchanged when the taxi pulled up in front of it.

  But I knew that for me, nothing would ever be the same again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A JOURNEY TO HALIFAX

  May 1, 1912

  “They’ve found Father’s body,” my mother said, with a tremble in her voice. “Arthur is going to Halifax to bring him home.”

  “I’m going, too,” I replied.

  “Oh, Jamie, no, it might be rather upsetting — ” she began.

  “Worse than surviving the Titanic?” I asked. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m not sure Arthur will want to take you — ”

  “I don’t need to be taken, Mother. I’m not a child,” I said.

  Suddenly Arthur came thundering down the staircase from the top floor. “There’s absolutely no need for two of us to go to Halifax!” he called out from over the banister. “I’m perfectly capable of handling it!”

  “I’m sure you are — ” my mother said.

  “But you weren’t there, Arthur,” I insisted. “I was with him at the end,” I added, my voice breaking a little, “and I want to bring him home.”

  There was a brief silence, broken only by the sound of my mother weeping softly into her handkerchief.

  “Please, Arthur,” she said through her tears. “Please … just … take him with you.”

  Arthur let out a long sigh and then stormed down the rest of the stairs and out the front door, slamming it behind him.

  Mother went into the parlour and closed the sliding doors — she didn’t like the servants to see her weeping.

  When he came home after work that evening, Arthur stuck his head into my bedroom, where I was lying reading on the bed. “The train leaves at eight forty-five tomorrow morning,” he announced coolly. “We’ll spend a night on the train and a night in Halifax, so pack a bag.”

  He was still sulking at dinner, so it was a gloomy meal for just the two of us, since Mother was having a tray sent up to her room. My brother was taking his new role as head of the household just a little too seriously for my liking. And although I didn’t dare say so, it seemed to me that he was almost enjoying the attention and sympathy he was receiving for having lost a father on the Titanic. The day after we returned from New York he had attended a memorial service for the Allisons, even though he barely knew them.

  “I went to represent the family,” he told me when I asked him about it. “Father knew Hudson Allison through the bank. He would have wished me to attend.”

  The Montreal newspapers had been full of stories about the Allisons, since Hudson Allison, a successful local businessman, had perished on the Titanic along with his wife and three-year-old daughter. Only their infant son Trevor had survived. When I saw a newspaper photo of a nursemaid holding Trevor, I immediately recognized her as the woman who had disembarked with a baby from the Carpathia beside Major Peuchen. One exaggerated headline claimed With Orphaned Babe In Arms Major Arthur Peuchen Steps Ashore.

  Many of the newspapers ran a photograph of Hudson Allison with his wife, Bess, and daughter, Loraine. I remembered seeing this quiet young family sitting with Major Peuchen and Mr. Molson in the dining saloon on the last night. The newspapers were saying that the nursemaid had taken Trevor into a lifeboat without telling Mrs. Allison. She had reportedly searched frantically for her baby, and by the time she discovered that Trevor had already gone with his nurse, all the boats had left. As I stared at the Allison family photograph, I thought of little Loraine clinging to her mother as that giant wave washed up the slanting deck. It made me shudder.

  Major Peuchen’s name had been in the newspapers almost every day since our arrival in New York. Major Peuchen Blames Captain Who Went Down With His Ship was the headline to one article that quoted him saying that Captain Smith was guilty of “criminal carelessness.” Then the next week, the Major had made headlines again after he told his story before the U.S. Senate Inquiry. At the end of his testimony he had read out a statement claiming that he had never said “any personal or unkind thing about Captain Smith.” During his questioning, Major Peuchen had also claimed that he saw the Titanic sink in one piece, supporting what now seemed to be the “official” view.

  Appearing just before Major Peuchen at the inquiry was Frederick Fleet, the lookout who had spotted the iceberg from the crow’s nest. He testified that the binoculars for the lookouts had gone missing the day the ship left Southampton. With binoculars in the crow’s nest, he said, they might have seen the iceberg “soon enough to get out of the way.” I added the missing binoculars to my mental list of all the Titanic “if onlys.” If only they had paid attention to the iceberg warnings and slowed down. If only there had been enough lifeboats for everyone on board. If only that ship whose lights we had seen on the horizon had come to the rescue.

  It now seemed clear to me that this “mystery” vessel was most likely the Californian, the ship that had shown up beside the Carpathia on the morning we were rescued. Three days after Major Peuchen appeared at the inquiry, Captain Lord of the Californian had been summoned for some intense questioning by the American senators. He stated that on the night of April 14 he had seen the ice field ahead of him and had stopped his ship’s engines at 10:21 p.m. He decided to wait there until dawn. Just before 11:00 p.m. the men on watch had seen the lights of a large steamer approaching. Later they had seen eight white distress rockets being fired. They had tried signalling the ship in the distance with a Morse lamp but had received no reply. To make matters worse, their Marconi operator had gone to bed and no one had thought to wake him up. If someone had, he would have heard the Titanic’s distress calls and the Californian could have come to the rescue. If only that had happened, I thought, I wouldn’t be heading to Halifax to collect my father’s body.

  As we waited for our train to arrive early the next morning at Bonaventure Station, Arthur went over to a newsstand and bought every paper on sale. He returned with his arms full and gave half of the stack to me. I knew that he was reading everything he could about the Titanic disaster. Yet never once had he asked me about my experiences on the ship or my last hours with Father.

  Arthur and I had never been very close, because he was so much older and had been away at boarding school most of the time I was growing up. Now that he considered himself “the head of the family” he didn’t seem to know what to do with me. I wondered if he thought I was just a child and too young to understand what had happened. Did he resent the fact that I had survived and that Father had not? Did
he blame me for Father’s death? All kinds of conflicting thoughts ran through my mind.

  After we boarded the train, Arthur and I sat on either side of the aisle, silently immersed in our newspapers. As the train went along beside the St. Lawrence River, I looked out at the trees with their new green leaves and thought of the train journey from London to Southampton. Could it only have been three weeks ago?

  When the conductor came by to check our tickets, he glanced down at the headlines of the newspaper on my lap. “A very sad business, the Titanic,” he commented. “Last week every Grand Trunk train came to a stop for five minutes in honour of Mr. Hays, our president.”

  “Yes, I met Mr. Hays — ” I started to say, but Arthur cut me off.

  “Our father knew Charles Hays well,” he said. “But he, too, died on the Titanic.”

  “Very sorry, sir,” the conductor said, glancing at Arthur’s black arm band. “Very sorry for your loss.”

  “No need to tell everyone our business, Jamie,” Arthur muttered from behind his newspaper after the conductor had left.

  “It wasn’t me who told him anything,” I snapped, picking up another newspaper and rustling it angrily in front of my face.

  At lunch in the dining car, Arthur was still not being very friendly. He told me that he had arranged for Father’s funeral service to be held next Friday at Christ Church Cathedral and that he would then be interred in the family plot in Mount Royal Cemetery.

  After lunch I returned to my newspapers and read about J. Bruce Ismay’s second appearance at the U.S. Inquiry on April 30. The senators had grilled Ismay as to whether he had encouraged Captain Smith to increase the Titanic’s speed. Johnnie Ryerson’s mother had been quoted in a newspaper as saying that Ismay had showed her an ice warning message and told her that they were speeding up to get through the ice field. Ismay denied saying this. Reading about Mrs. Ryerson made me think of Johnnie. I decided to write him a letter as soon as I got back home.