The Master's Tale--A Novel of the Titanic

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  Whatever happens? I never said that – I was still seaman enough and superstitious enough not to tempt fate with such a statement. Re-reading the piece, I wanted to grab the idiot who’d written it and give him a good talking-to.

  ‘It’ll be wrapping tomorrow’s hot dogs,’ McElroy said easily, ‘don’t let it bother you, sir. They write what they please and call it news.’

  ‘But folk believe it,’ I retorted. ‘How often have you heard a man utter complete nonsense, before telling you it must be true, he read it in the paper!’

  But newspaper coverage was good for business, as Bruce Ismay was never slow to point out. Americans had evidently taken to this new ship. Our passengers for the return journey were almost twice the number we’d had coming out, and when it came time to leave we were given a marvellous send-off. Thousands lined the sidewalks along the Hudson, and Battery Park saw thousands more, waving flags, handkerchiefs, scarves. It was a tremendous sight, giving a great boost of pride and confidence and satisfaction.

  I hoped enough of the crew could see it: after all their trials on the way out, they deserved this accolade.

  ~~~

  Back home it was a different story. By the time we arrived in Southampton, the Shipping Federation had caved in and acquiesced to the seamen’s demands, but then the dockers went on strike, followed by the railwaymen, making travel impossible. That hot summer of 1911 was a nightmare of discontent. According to the newspapers, revolution was in the air. It was easy to believe. In Liverpool in August men took to the streets again, the Riot Act was read, police were armed and troops called out. It was all rather ugly, a minor war in fact, with several strikers brutally attacked and killed.

  Ellie’s sympathy was rekindled. She knew how poor these families were, even with a man in work – without work, their situation was unthinkable. I had been used to taking a tougher attitude, my argument being that I’d come from nothing and pulled myself up by my bootstraps – so why couldn’t the rest of mankind? But Ellie insisted that the value of what people earned had gone down, while the cost of living had gone up.

  ‘Even I can see the difference in what we spend, and we’re not poor.’

  ‘No wonder costs have risen,’ I retorted, ‘when the dockers won’t lift a finger and food is rotting on the quays. If that’s not a sin, I don’t know what is. Do you know we’re having to load food at Cherbourg? There isn’t enough in Southampton to complete a stores list. Of any quality, that is.’

  That stopped the debate. ‘Really, Ted? But that’s terrible.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Worrying. Time the government got it sorted out.’

  The government was battling it out, but no sooner was peace achieved in one part of the country, than disputes and rioting broke out elsewhere. Everyone remarked on the use of guns; even our American visitors were unsettled by the belligerent atmosphere in the country as a whole.

  Come September, two trips later, in the midst of worrying about strikes and stores and diminishing passenger numbers, something happened which blew all else to the distant horizon. Just as we made that difficult turn by the Bramble, out of the haze off Cowes appeared a warship, HMS Hawke. And that was where my career, largely uneventful, began to take on a different hue.

  28

  The 20th of September, 1911. The date was etched on my memory. In that collision with HMS Hawke, Olympic suffered grievous damage. It took two weeks to patch her up enough to get to Belfast and dry-dock, and another six weeks to do the repairs. Worse, in a difficult year, was the expense to the company in time and revenue and reputation. What I failed to grasp at the time was the personal cost.

  For weeks while Olympic was under repair I felt as though there had been a death in the family. Eleanor tried her best, but not even she could fully understand my grief and remorse. I felt I’d let myself and every shipmate down.

  ‘The biggest ship in the world and a Royal Navy cruiser – a collision on our own front doorstep!’ My bitter exclamations must have driven Ellie mad. ‘Laughable if it weren’t so bloody serious!’

  ‘You mustn’t worry,’ she kept saying. ‘They can’t blame you – it wasn’t your fault.’ Logically, she was right – it wasn’t. Nor George Bowyer’s either. But that was beside the point. It had happened.

  Dumbfounded, I kept going over it. Why hadn’t Hawke crossed astern of us when she had the chance? George, Wilde, Murdoch, all said the same. It was what we would have done in similar circumstances. What each and all of us had done on innumerable occasions in the past. It was not just safe practice, it was common sense. You see a big ship in a tight manoeuvre, you give her a bit of space. She’s bigger than you, she can’t just stop in a seaway with all that force behind her. With years of experience you just know the sensible thing to do. Keep clear. Do the safe thing. Give her a bit of leeway.

  And her commander wouldn’t even have had to slow down. That was the crazy thing. He could have altered to port, passed astern, and continued directly to Portsmouth.

  Why hadn’t he? What in hell was he trying to prove? That His Majesty’s Navy had right of way, no matter what?

  A strict interpretation of the Rules might suggest that we should have slowed to let him past. Fair enough, two small ships in that situation could have obeyed the relevant rule to the letter – but we were not a small cruiser. Olympic was huge, and the navigable channel was narrow.

  Trying to stop – or even slow – in a sharp turn can be dangerous. You need speed to get round – to push water under the keel and over the propellers. Without it, any ship is difficult to manoeuvre. In those circumstances, slowing down could have put us up on the Bramble Bank. Or aground off Egypt Point.

  A professional seaman would have understood that.

  ~~~

  The official enquiry began on 17th November and went on for a week. I’d imagined it would be in Portsmouth, but the Admiralty tries its cases in the Royal Courts of Justice, a huge Gothic building on the Strand. George Bowyer, with Wilde, Murdoch, the Chief Engineer and myself, had been up to London previously to consult with the solicitors acting for White Star, so we were prepared in one sense. But on the day, faced with a cathedral almost, I think we were all quaking.

  The case was heard before the Right Honourable Sir Samuel Evans, Solicitor General and President of the court, sitting with Captains Thomson and Crawford, both Elder Brethren of Trinity House. The ancient guild had evolved to become the country’s pilotage authority and maintainer of lights around our coasts. Trinity House also happened to be George’s employer.

  The Oceanic Steam Navigation Company Limited – White Star’s company name – was the plaintiff, suing for damages from Commander Blunt, RN, for faulty navigation. The Admiralty was the elephant behind the mouse, of course. Blunt could hardly have afforded to pay the fees of the man they bagged for the defence: Sir Rufus Isaacs, Attorney-General.

  Nor did it help me that the leading King’s Counsel for White Star was a Mr Laing. Not the same spelling as Dorothea’s name, but whenever he was referred to I could not help but make some unsettling associations.

  The bare facts of the case were indisputable. Blunt had inexplicably turned his ship to port and rammed Olympic in her starboard quarter. What was at issue was how and why the collision had occurred. It depended on an interpretation of the Rules and Regulations for the Prevention of Collision at Sea. In essence, which of us was the overtaking vessel, and thus bound to keep out of the other’s way. To my mind that was Hawke. But the defence claimed that Blunt was not attempting to overtake, that we were steaming too close and that Olympic’s size and speed had caused Hawke to be sucked in by the wash.

  White Star’s case rested on when and where Hawke was first sighted, and how we were navigating the confines of the deep-water channel leading from Southampton Water, around the Bramble Bank, and into the eastern Solent. These facts had been presented to the court earlier, backed up by log books and charts illustrating the relative positions.

  I was the first witness. Called
from the ante-room I felt the queasiness of nerves. Like taking my Master’s Certificate over again, I thought. Until I went in.

  If the outside of that imposing building was like a cathedral, the court put me in mind of a Puritan chapel: wood panelling and box-like pews, the bench itself a high, broad pulpit from which sinners could more effectively be damned. Climbing up to the witness box, preparing to give evidence before the red-robed President and uniformed Elder Brethren, was daunting. Being questioned was doubly so, even by a bewigged Mr Laing, the man on our side.

  Two months had passed since that fateful day, and I prayed that memory would not let me down. Allowing for nervousness, Mr Laing took me through the events outlined in our plea, enabling me to present the situation as clearly as I could recall.

  Having taken me easily through various points and positions, Mr Laing moved on to the question of time-keeping. I confirmed that both bridge and engine room worked with electric clocks, synchronised from the ship’s master clock. ‘And do they record seconds, or do they jump?’

  ‘They jump once every minute.’

  That turned out to be an important point in the assessment of speed. Speed was a question that his opponent, the Attorney General, was to return to, over and over again. As was the following question:

  ‘Where was the cruiser when you first saw her?’

  I could see Hawke in my mind’s eye: a slim grey shape cutting the foam as she came up from the west. We had rounded Calshot Spit and were on the straight between the North Thorn buoy and Thorn Knoll, slowing for our turn around the West Bramble. It was 12:40. Hawke was almost directly ahead of us.

  ‘Three to four miles away,’ I said. ‘From half a point to a point, I should think, on our port bow.’ I noticed the Elder Brethren glance at each other, as if to say Hawke’s commander should have allowed us a bit of sea-room in such a situation. The red-robed President was making notes.

  ‘Was she coming up the Solent Channel?’ I confirmed that she was. ‘And your steamers come out by which channel?’

  ‘By the east channel,’ I said.

  Mr Laing had the facts to hand, enabling me to give simple affirmatives to his short, clear questions. Yes, we rounded the West Bramble Buoy to get onto our course; and yes, we were keeping to the deep-dredged channel. I said that we gave two short blasts on the hooter, the regulation signal for a turn to port.

  ‘Can you give me the time you steadied on your course?’

  ‘About 12:43.’

  ‘Are you able to tell me from your personal observation where the Hawke was at 12:43?’

  We had completed our turn. Hawke was now astern of us and coming up fast. The last I’d seen of Hawke, I said, just as we steadied on our course, she was about 2½ points on our starboard quarter, about half a mile away.

  Again, I caught a glance between the Trinity House men. No doubt their thoughts echoed mine: that was the point where Hawke could have altered her course slightly to port and passed safely astern of us. Safely on her way to Portsmouth.

  ‘Had you any anxiety at that time?’

  ‘Not at all.’ I hadn’t, not then. I went on under questioning to say that Hawke had continued to overhaul us until she was almost abreast of our bridge, running a parallel course. She had continued for some appreciable time to keep up. Then, either our speed increased or she dropped astern…

  ‘Which was it?’ the President interjected, but I couldn’t say.

  ‘Either way,’ I said, ‘we gained on her, and immediately afterwards her bow came to port, she turned very quickly, and struck us on the stern.’

  ‘And had you heard any signals from Hawke?’ the President asked. ‘Did she sound her whistle to signify that she was turning?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  As to our speed and position when she struck, I said about 15 or 16 knots, and we were abreast of East Cowes at the time. I said I could not fix our position by the Prince Consort Buoy, because Hawke obscured my view of it.

  Having elicited my opinion, that there was plenty of room for Hawke to have passed on either side of us, Mr Laing sat down. I felt myself relax, confident that I had presented the situation clearly and honestly. It was then the turn of the Attorney-General, and the whole situation had to be gone over again.

  Sir Rufus Isaacs was tall and thin-faced with penetrating eyes. Pleasant enough to begin with, but despite that smooth manner he was a man with a rapier mind. And like a swordsman he switched back and forth between aspects of the case with the intention to trip and confuse. He went back and back – and back again – over the smallest point. The clever way he twisted the estimates appalled me.

  ‘Let me understand what you say was your maximum speed – is it 22-23 knots?’ As I said 22½, he went on, ‘You were going full speed, of course, with all your engines?’

  I had already stated to the court that we were on reduced stream, making easy way, but he made it sound as though we were ripping along at full ocean speed, when in fact we had just rounded the Bramble on something like half. But I had to remember not to argue. We had been warned beforehand to answer the questions directly without protest.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  After a raft of questions about the various buoys we were negotiating, he said, ‘I just want to know, generally, how long does it take, if you are making a speed of 11 or 12 knots, and then give the order for full speed ahead – how long will it be before you reach your full speed?’

  ‘Well,’ I replied, wondering where this was heading, ‘we’ve never had any experiments of that kind, but I should think probably three or four minutes.’

  Checking his papers, he asked pleasantly, ‘According to the statement in the Pleadings, Olympic was going 16 knots at the time of the collision, do you agree that?’ I agreed. ‘At the time of the collision you were drawing ahead of the Hawke?’ Yes.‘Of course you were a very much larger vessel?’ Yes.‘Did you observe her carefully?’

  There’d been no reason to. We had been in Hawke’s view for several minutes. I expected she would keep clear. ‘No,’ I said. ‘After we steadied on our course and she was on our quarter I turned round and looked forward.’ To see we were steering true, I might have added, but he was already asking the next question.

  ‘How long before the collision was it that you observed her again?’

  ‘Some little time.’ Unable to give it exactly, I said, ‘Probably a minute or so.’

  ‘So how fast were you going, when she was coming up very quickly on you?’

  I caught a glance from one of the Elder Brethren. ‘It’s very hard to say. Our speed was increasing all the time.’

  He pursued it, but the questions were too vague – precisely when, where and at what moment did he mean? Even the judge, wearing a frown, intervened to make the question clear. So I gave an estimate of maybe 14 knots when we steadied on our course – but then, hard on that, Sir Rufus Isaacs wanted to know what speed I thought the Hawke was doing. Pressed, I said maybe a knot and a half faster.

  Next he handed me a chart, asking me to mark where I thought Hawke was at that moment. I hesitated then marked it to half a mile distant from what I’d given – two months ago – as our position at the time. That opened a convoluted back-and-forth series of questions about the Bramble Bank. Exactly when did I consider Olympic to have been abeam of the West Bramble Buoy?

  I felt the sympathy of the Trinity House men at that impossible question. I hoped they’d explain to the judge that ships do not follow a set of wheels, they move crabwise in a turn, and what would be a circle for a cart is more of an ellipse for a ship – elastic too, being subject to the effects of wind and tide. Every passage is different – they knew that. But the Attorney General wanted it exactly. He had me demonstrate with ship models on the chart where I thought we were. Then, having pinned me down to his satisfaction, he turned to the question of time, managing to prove – apparently – that I was mistaken in my estimate of a half mile distance between Olympic and Hawke. With only nine minutes to play with
, he claimed she must have been closer than I thought.

  A lifetime’s experience of judging distances at sea was not enough. Log books were consulted afresh, charts were studied and marked and studied again. While the President – a landsman, after all – peered at the evidence and strived to follow the point, I lost count of the times the Attorney General repeated, ‘I just want to get clear…’ while proceeding to confuse everyone.

  This issue of time and speed, position and distance, went on interminably. I bit my lip so hard and so often it’s a wonder I didn’t spit blood. Complex questions were fired, one after the other, as if absolutes were possible. The exact time of the first sighting; our precise speed at that precise moment; were we gaining or losing speed during the manoeuvre? Question after question, warping around the facts of seamanship.

  I wanted to ask if he knew of any ship with a facility for measuring speed under way? It was all very well for him to introduce mathematical possibilities, but you can only assess a ship’s passage through the water by measuring the distance between two fixed points and dividing it by time. Taking into account the forces of wind and tide as we came first around Calshot Spit, and then the West Bramble, it was at best a flexible sum. I had a very good idea of our speed at the time of the collision, and said so. About 16 knots, I estimated, and stuck to it.

  Well, he pursued that to its nth degree – trying to prove that we were proceeding with reckless disregard. I repeated forcibly that we were getting up to our speed in that area. Which was something rather less than the 20 knots he implied.

  Before I could congratulate myself on making that point, the Attorney-General switched without warning to the question of headings, suggesting that if we were on the course S59°E when we steadied, and Hawke was on S74°E, we would be crossing vessels, according to the Rules.

  What? I felt my wits were starting to flag. I couldn’t see how that was possible. As the two Elder Brethren exchanged a glance, I did a hasty calculation. Hawke’s heading did not make sense to me, but I had to agree that we would indeed have been crossing vessels, had that been the case. With that claim, he was introducing a whole new argument.