I spoke to most of the guests before we went upstairs to dinner, but later, when the speeches began, when it became clear that this sumptuous occasion had been organised as a – well, as a vote of confidence following the Hawke debacle – that almost unmanned me again. The court decision had been such a public embarrassment I had been truly afraid that people would believe we’d acted unprofessionally – worse, that I was somehow unfit and incompetent. This dinner assured me that the opposite was true. With the aid of another steadying drink I was able to say a few words of thanks. The words were heartfelt and perhaps fewer than some might have wished, but in the circumstances they were all I could manage.
30
Two days after the dinner, JP Morgan joined us for the return journey across the Atlantic, on his way to Egypt for the winter. We met up in my quarters a couple of times, but the weather was poor and he was not a good sailor. Mostly he remained in his suite, and mostly I was on the bridge or sleeping. Between the weather rolling us along and the loss of an hour each day, it was not a very sociable crossing for anyone. I doubt the other passengers realized he was aboard.
Blown back across the Atlantic, at home to recover my sleep for three nights, I heard that Commander Blunt of HMS Hawke had been promoted to Post Captain.
I’d prophesied it, but the news left me feeling quite sick. No time to dwell on it, however; 9th January, we were at sea again.
It was relentless. Didn’t matter that we gained an hour each day on the westward crossing, we were punching storms all the way. Impossible to sleep except in snatches. Whether it was my earnest prayers that did it, I don’t know, but somehow we came through without serious damage. Late into New York, the tight schedule meant a late departure too. Could only hope we made it up on the way home. Almost, not quite. Then a delay with the mails off Plymouth – bad weather again. Two nights in Southampton, porters, dockers, cleaners working full-tilt – Murdoch, Wilde and myself left the ship at dawn, each of us grey with exhaustion.
I was so tired when I got home, I couldn’t eat. Ellie made tea, hot and strong, and toasted some muffins. I was dropping before I’d finished. Somehow she got me upstairs. All I remember for the next two days was being in bed, getting up for the bathroom, and falling back to sleep again. She made soup, I remember that – or was it beef tea? Something hot and savoury and comforting.
We barely spoke, but there again, she only had to look at me, her eyes dark with worry, her kind mouth drawn down, for me to know what she was thinking. How much longer could I carry on like this? It had been hard enough before, but this new schedule was a killer. And I was older now, not the hard young sailing-ship master I used to be.
Removing the dishes, Ellie came back to sit on the bed. She sighed as she reached for my hand. ‘I think it’s time, Ted, don’t you?’
‘To retire? Yes, I think it is.’
‘What about…?’ She hesitated. ‘This new ship – they’re expecting you to take it?’
‘Yes, but I’ll speak to them. Lord knows when – I hardly have time to breathe at the moment. But they’ll want some notice. I’ll get a message to Bruce – maybe he’ll come down to meet the ship next time we’re in.’
‘What will they do?’
‘Well, they’ll have to promote somebody, won’t they? There’s plenty waiting to step into my shoes. Henry Wilde, for a start. Of course, he’ll have to start on one of the old girls and work his way up.’
‘What about Captain Cod?’
I smiled at her nick-name for Herbert Haddock. ‘Old Codfish! If ever a man was destined for the sea…’ Suddenly I started to laugh, and knew I was feeling better. ‘He’s been snapping at my heels for years. He’ll be delighted to take over. And there’s Hayes, too. They’re not short, Ellie – they’ll manage.’
At sea, two days later, while writing up the log I remembered it was my birthday. The 27th of January, 1912. I was 62 years old.
~~~
Mild winters are always bad for storms, and that winter was one of the worst. If February was bad on the outward crossing, the return was a nightmare. Two days after leaving New York, we hit a hurricane off Nova Scotia, the whole ship cork-screwing in turbulent seas. We had to slow down, reduce the revs, while the hurricane blasted us across the Atlantic, the seas coming up from astern, smashing down on the weakest point as the bow rode up and out, only to smash into the next wave as the stern rose free. Every few minutes the propeller was racing, crashing, groaning. Olympic was such a long vessel, with every twisting turn, every slam as she hit the waves, I could feel the stresses and strains on her structure. I feared she might break in two.
Slowing as much as we dared, it seemed I did little else that voyage but hang onto the bridge front and pray for the weather to abate. The Almighty must have been busy elsewhere, because suddenly Olympic’s nose came up, her stern slammed down and something went. A propeller blade. It snapped. We felt it go, the whole ship shuddering as the crankshaft juddered under its uneven load.
Everything had to be shut down for a while, which meant more discomfort for the passengers, complaints, frustrating delays, slow speed back to Southampton and – sickeningly – further repairs. Delivering her back to Harland and Wolff’s yard, I felt I never wanted to see Belfast Lough again.
‘Must have caught a submerged wreck,’ one of the shoreside wallahs said.
‘Not in mid-Atlantic,’ I snapped back. ‘Not with hundreds of fathoms beneath the keel!’ Sick of fancy theories, before the man could utter another word, I told him it was no stray growler either – we were too far east for ice.
‘Faulty casting,’ the Chief said, backing me up. ‘Force of water,’ said I. We both agreed that storm conditions would find out the weakness in anything new, even a bronze propeller. The shoreside wallah had the grace to look abashed.
But for all the fighting talk I was as close to despair as I have ever been. Tommy Andrews tried to cheer me by talking about the new ship, offering to show me round while the repairs to Olympic were under way. I shook my head, not wanting to even think about it. I just wanted to get home to my wife and daughter.
I had a few days in Southampton before returning to Belfast to collect the repaired liner. By then I was beginning to dread every effort. The journey to London, to Liverpool; the overnight ferry to Belfast; suddenly, I couldn’t face it.
As the breath left me, I whispered, ‘I can’t do this any more…’
Ellie, packing essentials into my bag, stopped what she was doing. As I covered my face with my hands, she came to me, drew my head against her bosom and rocked me like a child. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘You’ll be fine, Ted – it’ll pass.’
‘I can’t do it, Ellie – there’s nothing left.’ I felt her draw breath as her body stilled. Her arms were suddenly strong, her hands hard as she grasped my shoulders and bent to look in my eyes.
She went straight to the heart of the matter. ‘Yes there is. You’re still you. My husband – Mel’s father – our Pole Star. You haven’t altered, no matter what. The weather got that propeller, Ted – it wasn’t your fault. You’re dwelling too much on what those idiots up in London had to say.
‘Couldn’t let the Royal Navy look stupid, could they?’ she said fiercely. ‘So it had to be you – and George, poor man. You’ve paid the price, you know you have. You’ve carried on, refused to give in – no wonder you’re feeling mangled. You need some time off – and I don’t just mean a few days…’ She paused for breath, sat down beside me, was suddenly gentle as she stroked my hand.
I took a deep breath, wishing I could just stop. Grab the telegraph and ring down Finished with Engines.
~~~
The foul weather continued into March, a month renowned for its gales. Like a repeat performance of the last three voyages, the storm hit us when we were three days out from New York. That evening the saloons were deserted, most passengers battened down in their cabins; those who weren’t were clinging to the nearest bar, seeing how many cocktails they c
ould down before the drink slopped out of the glass.
I dined in my cabin, but didn’t eat much; Paintin remarked on it as he cleared away. Listening to the myriad creaks and groans of the ship as she rolled heavily, I nursed half a cup of coffee and tried to banish anxiety.
For it to happen twice in succession was taking coincidence too far; nevertheless, with another new propeller fresh from the yard, I dwelt on the possibility, interpreting every squeal and groan as a precursor to some major or minor disaster. They say some ships are jinxed, and I was starting to believe that Olympic had my number. First Hawke, then the propeller. I found myself dwelling on the 5,000 tons of coal we’d loaded as a special cargo in New York, hoping it wasn’t shifting in this storm and creating friction. Praying that fire in the hold wasn’t going to be the third misfortune.
That’d be ironic. Carrying tons of coal to beat the miners’ strike, just so the new ship could meet her sailing day – not much use if it should destroy us all in the process.
Aware that my thoughts were becoming morbid, I roused myself and went through to the bridge. In the chart room’s half-light I checked the course and barometer readings, donning oilskins before stepping outside. As my eyes adjusted I made out the shape of the ship by the breaking bow wave, seeing the nose dive into the swell, throwing up heavy water and vast clouds of spray across the foredeck. The weather was coming hard from the north-west, and inevitably the ship was trying to turn. On the wheel, the quartermasters were having a hard time keeping her steady.
It was wild out on the bridge wing, huge seas running close, a howling gale tearing spray from the tops like snow from Alpine peaks. Every so often a rising Matterhorn made my heart lurch. Looking aft along deserted decks, I watched the boats dipping down towards spume-flecked walls of water, surely closer with every roll. Thankfully no one was attempting to take the air; those daft enough to venture out in the afternoon had been corralled, as our Americans would say, inside the accommodation.
Torn between respect for the ship, concern for every soul aboard, and a driving need to keep to time, I knew there was little leeway in which to reach Southampton. Nor was it a question of satisfying passenger needs and company policy; this time when we docked, I had a deadline to meet.
~~~
Normally, I would have conducted a thorough handover in person to the new Master – old Codfish in this case – but he was in Belfast with Joe Bell, standing by Titanic while she was completing her fitting out. Ideally, I should have been the one in Belfast, but Bruce had wanted me to stay aboard Olympic while the weather was so bad.
Bad enough, I thought, to make even writing hard work. Grimly, I completed my handover notes, details of Olympic’s habits and idiosyncrasies under various conditions; not least the power of her wash when the revs were increasing. I read through and appended my signature. Haddock would have to make the best of it.
Overnight, coming up the busy Channel, I was on the bridge, alert as ever for sailing vessels. Their navigation lights could be feeble, but the real problem was that Olympic’s bridge was so high, we were invariably looking down on them, their side lights and mast lights often obscured by the extent of sail. Nantucket to New York might be a busy stretch of water, boasting everything from fishing boats to ocean liners, but it was nothing compared to what we in Britain had on our front doorstep. With craft from the North Sea and Scandinavia meeting ships from the Baltic, Germany, Holland and France, the Channel was a bottleneck with the flow going in both directions. And with fishing boats and ferries crossing at various points, four officers on the bridge and two look-outs up aloft were barely enough.
We reached Southampton with the early morning tide on the 30th of March, docked at 7:00, and, with rare swiftness, I disembarked in time to catch the boat train up to London. Usually I went straight home once Customs and Immigration formalities were complete, but not today, there wasn’t time.
Ellie, bless her, had promised to meet me and was waiting on the quay, her lovely face marked by anxiety. Feeling the warmth of her embrace, for a moment I was overcome, could hardly speak for thankfulness.
As Paintin stowed my bags in a First Class compartment, Ellie and I climbed aboard. When he’d gone, I hugged her fiercely. She gave a breathless little laugh, but as we parted her grey eyes viewed me with concern.
‘You look tired,’ she said gently. ‘Was it very bad?’
I nodded, reluctant to let her know just how dire things had seemed such a short while ago, how weak with relief I was to be safely ashore. An over-reaction to the pressures of the last few months, no doubt, but I was heartily pleased to be free of Olympic.
‘One more round trip,’ I promised, forcing a smile, ‘and you’ll have me home for the summer, pottering in the garden and no doubt getting under your feet. Then you’ll be regretting it, and pushing me off to sea again…’
‘Don’t say that, Ted, I can’t wait to have you home. If only it could be now.’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘Typical Bruce, insisting you do this one trip…’
I shook my head against the memory. ‘Please, Ellie – don’t go over it again.’
She squeezed my hand. ‘Sorry.’
We travelled to Eastleigh, just up the line, with hands clasped and eyes only for each other, the exchange of trivial news – our daughter’s doings, events at home – masking deeper emotion. Desperate for time together, we even promised ourselves a relaxing few days on my return from Belfast. And we both knew that was unlikely.
Fifteen minutes, no more, and the train was drawing into the station, doors flying open as several people disembarked. Ellie and I said our farewells as I handed her down to the platform, but at the last moment she turned to clasp me again. ‘Come home safe,’ she said with pleading in her voice.
Doors crashed shut as the guard blew his whistle. Forced to regain my compartment I watched till I could see her no more, feeling bereft, hating this moment which seemed to have drawn all such moments into itself. For us greetings were always emotional, partings deliberately otherwise, and to have both thrust together was almost unbearable. For a few scalding seconds I think I even wished Ellie hadn’t come, bringing with her the scent of home and then, with a swirl of her skirts as she left the train, whisking it away again. Like nothing else, her presence emphasised what I’d known for months. I should have been going home with her now, not girding myself afresh for another voyage, another new ship to break in for White Star.
I tried to turn it down. In fact when Bruce came to Southampton in answer to my letter, I said it would be better if he gave the new ship to someone else. I told him the new three week schedule was too much – it was knocking the stuffing out of the crew – and giving me no time at home with my wife and daughter. In short, I was ready to retire.
‘But you’re the senior Master, EJ – the VIPs like you, they trust you to get them across the Atlantic safely and on time…’ Leaning back in his swivel chair he went on at length in similar vein. ‘Do the new one,’ he pleaded, ‘just the maiden voyage, and give Haddock a chance to get used to Olympic. It’s a fair jump in size from Adriatic – although I must say you did brilliantly from the off, EJ, it’s just that Haddock doesn’t have quite your talent or your confidence…’
He finished with, ‘And personally, I see it as a very public opportunity for White Star to prove its confidence in you. I know you took the judgement badly, but this should enable you to rise above the Hawke incident once and for all…’
And so, by a mix of flattery and cajolery and an unerring instinct for applying pressure in the right place, Bruce persuaded me to do the job. But all the way to Liverpool I knew I should have held out, stuck to my guns.
I’d squeezed one important concession out of him: told him in no uncertain terms, if I were to take this new ship, I wanted both Wilde and Murdoch with me. He didn’t give in easily – it meant changes to those standing by in Belfast – but at last he agreed. That way, I hoped I’d be able to sleep at night.
Crossing Lond
on, I caught the one o’clock train from Euston with only minutes to spare, arriving at Liverpool’s Lime Street just after dusk. It was raining, and as I waited for a cab I watched people hurrying by with umbrellas, all concerned with their own lives, their own priorities. What was I doing? How had I reached this point, this mad, rushing point, when all I wanted to do was go home and enjoy life with my family?
The cab driver dropped me by Pier Head. I stood for a moment looking back at the waterfront. The Sailors Church was still there, its lantern tower still showing a leading light for the pilots bringing ships in from the Mersey. But the old familiar view had changed, marred by the overhead railway running along between town and docks. The smells had changed too. More soot and sulphur in the atmosphere, less wood and tar and canvas. Would I want to go to sea now, if I was starting over?
I thought of Joe, and my first trip on the Senator Weber. The evening before we sailed he’d taken me into the old church to pray. I had the strongest urge to do that now – something I hadn’t done for years, not since giving thanks for the gift of my lovely daughter. I even looked at my watch and back at the ferry. But there wasn’t time. Time, again, rushing me on.
With regret I turned my back and made my way down onto the Landing Stage, place of so many arrivals, so many leave-takings. As the ferry moved into the channel and passed the Bell Light, I looked out towards Waterloo and my old home, feeling deeply sad for some reason. Fatigue, probably. With a sigh I went below to find my cabin. Time to grab some sleep before the onslaught of tomorrow.
Winds across the Irish Sea set the ferry moving noticeably, and my concerns running with it over the next day’s engine trials. I slept only fitfully in the narrow bunk, mind churning like one of the propellers, anticipating meetings with the builders; then, providing all went well, the handover. I hoped there’d be no problems. I’d had no time to get to know this new ship.
The Master's Tale--A Novel of the Titanic Page 30