The Night Lives On

by Walter Lord

  All gangway doors to be opened.

  Electric sprays in each gangway and over side.

  A block with line rove hooked in each gangway.

  A chair sling at each gangway, for getting up sick or wounded.

  Boatswains’ chairs. Pilot ladders and canvas ash bags to be at each gangway, the canvas ash bags for children.

  Cargo falls with both ends clear; bowlines in the ends, and bights secured along ship’s sides, for boat ropes or to help the people up.

  Heaving lines distributed along the ship’s side, and gaskets handy near gangways for lashing people in chairs, etc.

  Forward derricks; topped and rigged, and steam on winches; also told off officers for different stations and for certain eventualities.

  Ordered company’s rockets to be fired at 2:45 A.M. and every quarter of an hour after to reassure Titanic.

  As each official saw everything in readiness, he reported to me personally on the bridge that all my orders were carried out, enumerating the same, and that everything was in readiness.

  Yet all these measures didn’t cover the biggest problem Rostron had to face—ice. If the Titanic had hit a berg, so could the Carpathia. He was going full steam into the very same region. What could be done to minimize the risk to his own ship, to his own passengers and crew?

  Reducing speed was out of the question; time was everything. So Rostron took the only course left: he greatly strengthened his lookout. He added a man to the crow’s nest; he put two men on the bow; he stationed a man on each wing of the bridge—all chosen for their keen eyesight. Since he was always on the bridge himself, there were now seven pairs of eyes searching the sea ahead.

  Finally, one last measure, even more important than the lookout. As Second Officer James Bisset peered into the night from the starboard wing of the bridge, he suddenly became aware of Rostron standing nearby. In his familiar way, the Captain had raised his cap a couple of inches above his head, and his lips were moving in silent prayer.

  At 2:45A.M. Bisset spotted the first berg—about a mile ahead—revealed by, of all things, the reflected light of a star. The Carpathia steered around it and raced on. In the next hour and a quarter she dodged five more bergs, all sighted first by the bridge, suggesting that the crow’s nest was not the best place to be when searching for ice at night.

  At 4 A.M. the Carpathia reached the Titanic’s position, and Rostron cut his engines. He had made his run in 3½ hours—30 minutes better than his original estimate. For some time he had been watching an occasional green light ahead that would flare up briefly, then fade into the dark again. At first he thought it might be the Titanic herself, but now as the Carpathia glided to a stop, he saw it again, close and low in the water. It was a Lifeboat.

  Rostron eased the Carpathia toward the boat, trying to pick it up on his port side, which was to leeward; but as he turned he suddenly saw one more iceberg directly ahead and only 400 yards off. It forced him to turn back and take the boat instead on his starboard side. It was the only thing he did all night that didn’t work out exactly as he planned.

  The boat was No. 2, Fourth Officer Boxhall in charge. He had brought along the green flares with the hope that they might be useful in keeping the Titanic’s boats together and perhaps serve as a marker for some approaching rescue ship. Now that rescue ship was here, and Boxhall was quickly escorted to the bridge, where he confirmed what Rostron, with sinking heart, already sensed—the Titanic had sunk.

  By this time day was breaking, revealing the Titanic’s whole fleet of lifeboats scattered over a four-mile area. More than that, dawn also revealed a fantastic setting. Two or three miles to the west lay an enormous ice field, running generally northeast to southwest, as far as the eye could see. Here and there it was studded with individual bergs, some 200 feet high. To the east and south lay other bergs, scattered haphazardly along the course the Carpathia had just completed.

  Even with a sharp lookout few of these bergs had been sighted, and it seemed incredible that the ship had missed them all. Years later, Rostron told his friend, Captain Barr of the Cunarder Caronia, “When day broke, I saw the ice I had steamed through during the night, I shuddered, and could only think that some other Hand than mine was on that helm during the night.”

  Then he was “The Electric Spark” again. For the next four hours Rostron methodically picked up the Titanic’s boats one by one. The survivors came aboard by ladder, chair slings, canvas ash bags, and cargo falls with bowlines carefully knotted at the ends. All depended on how agile the person was.

  As they came aboard, the survivors were processed in almost assembly-line fashion. First, names and class were taken by a purser stationed at each gangway…next, they were handed to the doctors for a quick medical check…then on down the line for brandy, coffee, breakfast, blankets, and a bunk. The Carpathia’s own First Class passengers gave up their cabins to those who seemed in the greatest need; the ship’s public rooms were turned into dormitories for the rest. Not surprisingly, Mrs. Astor, Mrs. Widener, and Mrs. Thayer—Rostron’s three most prominent guests—were assigned to his own quarters.

  By 8:30 A.M. the last boat had been gathered in. The Leyland Liner Californian was alongside now, and Rostron asked her to search the area for anyone he might have missed. Then he turned the Carpathia for New York.

  But before leaving the scene, Rostron added one last characteristic touch. As the Carpathia passed over the grave of the Titanic, rescuers and rescued alike assembled in the First Class dining saloon for a brief service in memory of those who were lost and in thanksgiving for those who were saved.

  By the time the Carpathia reached New York on the evening of April 18, the city was frantic with anxiety. It was abundantly clear that a dreadful disaster had happened—some 1,500 lives lost—but no one knew much beyond that. The rescue ship’s primitive wireless had a range of only 250 miles, and her lone operator, Harold Cottam, was exhausted. With Harold Bride’s help, he managed to tap out a list of those saved, but not much else. Incoming queries were simply ignored, even a message from President Taft inquiring about his military aide, Archie Butt.

  Now, as she paused off Ambrose to pick up a pilot, the Carpathia was met by a swarm of tugs, ferries, yachts, and assorted harbor craft. Some carried huge placards bearing the names of missing friends or relatives; others were filled with reporters shouting questions through megaphones. Rostron allowed none aboard, feeling that the survivors were still in no shape to be interviewed. When one newsman did manage to jump on the ship off Quarantine, he was promptly collared and put under “house arrest” on the bridge.

  The uproar continued as the Carpathia crept up the harbor, and when she again paused, this time to deliver to the White Star Line 13 of the Titanic’s lifeboats, photographers added to the din. Night photography was in its infancy, and to catch the scene it was necessary to set off great blasts of magnesium powder.

  To cap the tumult, a cannonade of thunder and lightning rolled across the smoky sky, adding an almost apocalyptic touch to the night. Slowly the Carpathia was warped into Pier 54; the survivors began tottering ashore; and at last the world could learn the full story.

  Even before he set foot on land, Captain Rostron found himself an instant hero. His calm self-assurance, his acceptance of risks, his faith in God, his enormous accomplishment were all immediately apparent. The paraphernalia of heroism would follow soon enough—scrolls, testimonial dinners, loving cups, a medal from Congress especially struck in his honor. “The Electric Spark” was well on its way to a splendid career that would ultimately see him knighted and named Commodore of the whole Cunard fleet.

  CHAPTER XIV

  “A Certain Amount of Slackness”

  NINE HOURS AFTER THE Carpathia’s turbulent arrival in New York, the Leyland Liner Californian crept without fanfare into Boston Harbor early on the morning of April 19. No tugs swarmed around her, no press boats jockeyed for position; no photographers set off blasts of magnesium powder.


  The Californian was a 6,223-ton cargo liner sailing without passengers on the unglamorous Liverpool-Boston run. She had been the second rescue ship to reach the Titanic’s position, but it was now known that she carried no survivors. There was only a baseless rumor that she had picked up some bodies…which accounted for the small knot of ship’s reporters waiting silently on her Clyde Street pier.

  At 7 A.M. the gangplank was lowered, and the local agent of the Leyland Line strode aboard. He went at once to the Captain’s quarters, where he was closeted for some minutes with the ship’s master, Captain Stanley Lord. Then the reporters were allowed on board too, and Captain Lord held what today would be called a press conference. He explained that on the evening of April 14-15 the Californian had been stopped by a great ice field; that the wireless was shut down for the night; and that she received her first news of the Titanic at 5:30 A.M. on the 15th from the Allan Liner Virginian.

  Although 30 miles away, Captain Lord told the Boston Evening Globe, the Californian started for the scene as quickly as possible. “At best, however, it was slow going. At times, nervous and anxious as we were, we hardly seemed to be moving. We had to dodge the big bergs, skirt the massed field ice, and plow through the line of least resistance. For three full hours we turned, twisted, doubled on our course—in short, manoeuvred one way or another—through the winding channels of the ice.”

  Most of the reporters were suitably impressed. The Globe observed, “It took some mighty good seamanship to pilot the freighter through the narrow winding channels of ice, and although her officers used every effort to keep her going as fast as possible, there were times when circumstances made it necessary for her to proceed at snail’s pace.”

  Only the Evening Transcript sensed that all was not quite right. Its man noted that when the reporters asked questions regarding latitude and longitude, Captain Lord said that they were requesting “state secrets,” and that information would have to come from the company’s office. “Ordinarily,” the Transcript’s reporter dryly observed, “figures giving exact position in latitude and longitude have always been obtainable from the ship’s officers.”

  The reporter was also unable to get anything out of the Californian’s wireless operator, Cyril Evans, and caustically remarked, “So far as was apparent, his vocal organs were not impaired.” Finally, the paper wondered about the private meeting between Captain Lord and the company agent just before the newsmen were allowed on board. “Possibly nothing transpired beyond regular routine business….”

  “Possibly.” But far more likely, the reporter’s skepticism was sound, for the Californian’s voyage had been anything but routine. The complications began on the evening of April 14 during Third Officer Charles V. Groves’s 8:00 to 12:00 watch. At 10:21 Groves suddenly sighted several white patches in the water ahead, which he took to be a school of porpoises crossing the bows.

  Captain Lord knew better. The Californian had been warned of ice ahead, and here it was. Lord yanked the engine room telegraph to FULL SPEED ASTERN. As the ship lost her way, the white patches turned into flat pieces of field ice, which soon surrounded the vessel completely. There was no telling how far it stretched or how thick it was, but Captain Lord had never been in field ice before, and he was taking no chances. He decided to stick here for the night.

  Leaving instructions to be called if anything was sighted, he stopped the ship, put the engines on standby, and went below. “Absolute peace and quietness now prevailed,” Groves later recalled, “save for brief snatches of ‘Annie Laurie’ from an Irish voice, which floated up through a stokehold ventilator.”

  Around 11:00 Groves noticed the lights of a distant steamer coming up from the southeast. As it drew closer, he decided it was a large passenger ship. The stranger stopped about 11:40, and seemed to put out many of its lights. Groves remembered serving on a liner where the lights were turned down at midnight to encourage the passengers to go to bed; and decided that was the case here. It did not occur to him at the time that perhaps the lights only seemed to go out, that actually the ship had made a hard turn to port.

  Captain Lord was watching the ship too, from the deck below, but she didn’t look like a passenger liner to him: “She was something like ourselves—a medium-sized steamer.” He asked Wireless Operator Cyril Evans what ships were nearby and Evans said, “Only the Titanic.” Lord then told him to warn her that the Californian was stopped and surrounded by ice. Evans tried, but received his famous brush-off from Jack Phillips: “Shut up, shut up. I’m busy. I’m working Cape Race.”

  At 11:45 Captain Lord joined Groves on the upper bridge, and they briefly conferred about the stranger. It was all very inconclusive. The Third Officer still believed she was a passenger ship; Lord still felt she was a freighter. Groves thought she was a big ship maybe ten miles away; the Captain thought she was a small ship maybe five miles away. On Lord’s instructions, Groves had tried calling her up on the Morse lamp, but could get no answer. Then the Captain went below again, while Groves continued with his “morsing.”

  At 12:00 Groves handed over the watch to Second Officer Herbert Stone. As Stone passed the wheelhouse on his way to the upper bridge, he met Captain Lord, who pointed out the strange ship and told Stone to let him know at once if she came any closer.

  On the bridge, Groves also pointed out the ship to Stone and said he had tried calling her up on the Morse lamp without any luck. At 12:15 Groves went below, stopping by the wireless room, where he liked to tinker with the set. But Evans was now off-duty and ready to sleep, and Groves didn’t know how to make the receiver work. He twiddled with the dials for a moment, then gave up and went to bed—thus missing not only a little practice but a chance to catch the Titanic’s first call for help.

  On the bridge, Stone was now joined by a 20-year-old apprentice named James Gibson, who took over the fruitless task of trying to contact the strange ship. Both men later said she looked like a tramp steamer, although Gibson also noted that there was a glare of lights on her afterdeck—a feature not at all characteristic of a tramp steamer in mid-Atlantic.

  In a little while Gibson went below on routine duty; he was gone for most of the next half-hour. Stone remained on the upper bridge, handling the watch alone. At 12:40 Captain Lord called up on the speaking tube from his cabin, asking whether the other ship was any closer. No, replied Stone, all the same as before. Satisfied, Lord said he was going to the chart room and “lie down a bit” on the settee. Stone resumed his monotonous study of the night.

  At 12:45 he was startled by the sudden flash of a rocket bursting over the stranger. He wasn’t sure at first, but then came another, and he was certain now—white rockets bursting in the sky, sending down a shower of white stars. After several minutes he saw another…and another…and yet another.

  Five rockets altogether—enough to stir anyone to action. Stone whistled down the speaking tube, and Captain Lord was soon on the other end. Stone told him about the rockets, and Lord asked if they were private signals. “I don’t know,” Stone replied, “but they were all white.”

  The Captain then told him to try the Morse lamp again. “When you get an answer,” he added, “let me know by Gibson.” Lord then returned to the chart room settee and lay down once more. Later he claimed that Stone told him of only one rocket, but said that he had been sleeping soundly and had no reason to doubt Stone’s version of the exchange.

  Just about this time, Apprentice Gibson rejoined Stone on the upper bridge. Stone told him about the five rockets, and for a few minutes they watched the other ship together. Gibson then went back to the Morse lamp and signaled continuously for three minutes. He then focused his binoculars on her, hoping for an answer. Instead, he saw a sixth rocket. Thanks to the glasses, he had an almost perfect view: a white detonating flash…a faint streak upward into the sky…then a burst of white stars.

  Stone saw the rocket too, but without the details caught by Gibson’s binoculars. Then, a few minutes later both men saw a seventh, and at 1
:40, an eighth and final rocket. All burst over the other ship, and even with the naked eye both men could see the white stars floating down.

  Through it all—and for another 20 minutes—Stone and Gibson talked, puzzled, pondered, and sometimes differed over what they were watching. Judging by the fragments that have survived, the two men had surely one of the most remarkable conversations in the history of the North Atlantic.

  “A ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing,” Stone observed, as the two men studied the other vessel. Gibson agreed. Stone added, Gibson later recalled, that there must be something the matter with her. The young apprentice again agreed. In fact, he thought it was a case of “some sort of distress.”

  “Have a look at her now, Gibson,” Stone broke in as they continued to watch the stranger, still firing her rockets. “She seems to look queer now.”

  Gibson raised his glasses and replied, “She looks rather to have a big side out of the water.” She seemed to be listing to starboard, and that glare of lights on her afterdeck looked higher than before.

  Stone agreed.

  Completing the picture, the stranger was now disappearing. Stone said she had begun to steam away to the southwest about the time she fired her first rocket; he noted that she was now changing her bearings. Gibson never noticed any change in the bearings—he left such calculations to Stone—but he, too, noted that she was gradually disappearing. For a long while she continued to show her red light, but never her green, as might have been expected of a ship streaming off to the southwest.

  By 2 A.M. she was almost gone. Stone now told Gibson to wake up the Captain, tell him that the ship they were watching was steaming away to the southwest— that the Californian herself was heading west-southwest—and that the stranger had fired eight white rockets altogether.

  Gibson went below, entered the chart room, and gave the message to Captain Lord. “All right,” the Captain said. “Are you sure there were no colors in them?”