Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage

by Hugh Brewster

  At around twelve-twenty-five William Sloper saw Andrews racing up the staircase with a deeply worried look on his face. As the ship’s designer passed by Dorothy Gibson, she put her hand on his arm and asked him what had happened. Andrews simply brushed past the prettiest girl and continued upward three stairs at a time. He had just discovered that two more watertight compartments had been breached. Andrews knew how serious this was. The bulkhead between the fifth and sixth compartments extended only as high as E deck. As the ship was pulled down at the bow, the water would spill over it into the next compartment, and then the next, until the ship inevitably sank. In all his planning at Harland and Wolff, he had never imagined a scenario such as this. Andrews informed the captain that the ship had only an hour left to live—an hour and a half at best. Smith immediately told Fourth Officer Boxhall to calculate the liner’s position and take it to the Marconi Room so the call for assistance could be sent out. He also gave orders to muster the passengers and crew.

  Only moments after Andrews had rushed by him and Dorothy Gibson, William Sloper heard a steward announce, “The captain says that all passengers will dress themselves warmly, bring their life preservers and go up to the top deck.” He arranged to meet Dorothy and her mother shortly and returned to his cabin. Having pulled down his lifebelt from an overhead rack, he then went back into the hallway, and there a voice from a nearby cabin called out, “What has happened?” It was the sickly Hugo Ross, one of the trio of Canadian bachelors that Sloper had dubbed “the Three Musketeers” on the Franconia. He went into Ross’s room and tried to reassure him by saying he didn’t think the ship was in serious difficulties. Ross had already been told about the iceberg by Major Peuchen, who had visited him shortly after the collision.

  At eleven-forty Peuchen had been preparing for bed when he felt the ship quiver from what he thought was a heavy wave. After going up to A deck and spying ice lying along the railing in the well deck, he had decided to inform Hugo Ross, who reportedly said to him, “It will take more than an iceberg to get me out of my bed.” The major then knocked on Harry Molson’s door but found him out. Peuchen soon saw another Canadian acquaintance, Charles Hays, walking with his son-in-law on C deck and asked him if he had seen the ice. Hays replied that he had not, so Peuchen took the two men up to the A-deck promenade to show it to them. There he noticed a change from his last visit. “Why, she is listing,” he said to Hays. “She should not do that, the water is perfectly calm and the boat has stopped.” The railroad president was dismissive. “You can’t sink this boat,” he replied. “No matter what we’ve struck, she is good for eight or ten hours.”

  Archibald Gracie was also on the promenade deck at around this time but did not sense any listing. He had awakened after the collision to the sound of steam being vented and had decided to investigate. Gracie went up first to the boat deck, which he found deserted, and then down to A deck, where he peered over the rail and saw nothing unusual. On returning to the staircase, he spotted Bruce Ismay hurrying upward with a crewman. Ismay was by then wearing a business suit, and Gracie thought he looked preoccupied but not alarmed. Gracie then ran into his friend James Clinch Smith and a few other passengers by the staircase landing on B deck. Smith opened his hand to reveal a piece of ice that was flat and slightly rounded, like a pocket watch, and wryly suggested that Gracie might want to take it home as a souvenir. He also told Gracie what he knew about the collision and reported that someone who had rushed out from the smoking room to see the berg claimed that it had towered above A deck. Gracie also heard about the postal clerks dragging mailbags out of the storage room. Soon there was a noticeable list in the floor of the staircase landing, and Gracie and Smith decided to go back to their staterooms and meet later.

  Major Peuchen was standing near the A-deck staircase foyer at approximately twelve-twenty-five, when a group of grim-faced people came down from the boat deck, Thomson Beattie of “the Musketeers” among them. “The order is for lifebelts and boats,” Beattie reported. Peuchen was taken aback. “Will you tell Hugo Ross?” he asked. Beattie replied that he would. Peuchen then returned to his cabin on C deck and began to change out of his evening clothes. After donning heavy underwear, two pairs of socks, and a warm sweater, he put on his overcoat and a life preserver. As he left his small cabin, he glanced at a tin box that contained some jewelry and $217,000 worth of stocks and bonds. This was no time to bother with valuables, he decided, and stepped outside. The corridor was filled with passengers in lifejackets, and a few of the women were weeping. Some wore only dressing gowns or kimonos and were advised to go and dress more warmly. Peuchen, too, turned around and went back into his room. He retrieved his favorite pearl tiepin, pocketed three oranges, and returned to the staircase.

  No one had to tell Margaret Brown to dress warmly. After hearing about the order for lifebelts, she had pulled on several pairs of woolen stockings under a black velvet suit with white silk lapels, placed a silk cap on her head, and wrapped herself in sable furs. She found two lifebelts in her cabin and decided to carry both. Before leaving her stateroom, she retrieved the small turquoise tomb figure she had bought in Egypt for good luck and tucked it into her pocket. When she reached the staircase foyer on A deck, her traveling companion Emma Bucknell came toward her. “Didn’t I tell you something was going to happen?” she whispered nervously, recalling their conversation on the Nomadic.

  Edith Rosenbaum, who had had similar premonitions on the tender, was now surprisingly calm. She had gone up to the boat deck before midnight and seen the ice fragments in the well deck but when told that there was nothing to worry about, had returned to her cabin. As she was about to get back into bed, a crewman knocked on her door and announced that all passengers were required to put on lifebelts.

  “What for?” Edith asked.

  “That is an order,” he replied and moved on.

  Edith packed up her clothes and jewelry and tidied her room to leave it looking presentable. She locked all her trunks, closed the curtains, put on a warm fur coat, and left the cabin without taking her lifebelt. On meeting her room steward, Robert Wareham, she asked him if he thought there was really any danger or if the order for lifebelts was just following regulations. The steward replied that the orders were for lifebelts and lifeboats but that he expected the ship would be towed to Halifax. Edith pulled out the keys to her trunks and gave them to Wareham, asking him to clear them at customs there for her.

  “Well, if I were you, I would kiss those trunks good-bye,” he replied.

  “Do you think the boat is going to sink?” Edith asked, slightly startled.

  “No one thinks anything, we hope,” the steward responded more circumspectly.

  On her way to the lounge, Edith passed the open cabin door of a shipboard acquaintance named Robert Daniel, a young banker from an old Virginia family. Daniel had purchased a French bulldog in England named Gamin de Pycombe and Edith found it whimpering in the stateroom. She tucked the dog under the bedcovers, patted its head, and left.

  Norris Williams and his father had also decided to go up on deck after being awakened by the collision, and they, too, had observed the ship slowly gliding forward at half speed. After returning to their room to don their fur coats and lifebelts, they found a steward trying to open a jammed cabin door on C deck. Over objections from the steward, Norris put his shoulder to the door and broke it open—to the relief of the man inside. As he walked away, Norris heard the steward call out, “I will be forced to report you for having damaged company property!”

  Sometime after twelve-thirty, steerage passenger Daniel Buckley watched as a man kicked at a locked iron gate at the top of a forward stairway. The gate had been unlocked earlier when Buckley had gone through it up to B deck. There he’d seen first-class passengers tying on their lifebelts and decided he’d better return for his. Pushing his way down through a stream of third-class passengers surging upward, Buckley arrived at the corridor to his cabin only to find it under water. As he climbed back up th
e stairway to B deck Buckley heard a commotion as a crewman pushed a man from steerage back down the stairs and locked the gate, barring the way to the first-class deck. The furious steerage passenger picked himself up, smashed through the locked gate, and raced off in pursuit of the crewman. He later told Buckley he would have thrown the sailor into the ocean if he had caught him.

  Edith Rosenbaum (photo credit 1.77)

  Thomas Andrews, meanwhile, circulated along the first-class hallways making sure that the stewards were getting passengers out of their staterooms. He saw stewardess May Sloan, whom he knew from Belfast, knocking on doors and told her to make sure that all passengers put on their lifebelts, adding that she should find one for herself and get up on deck soon. His face, she thought, “had a look as though he were heart broken.”

  At around twelve-thirty-five, William Sloper rejoined his bridge companions, Dorothy Gibson, her mother, and Frederic Seward, on the A-deck staircase foyer. The foursome walked up to the boat deck past the elegant wall clock set into a carved relief of Honor and Glory crowning Time. On the chilly boat deck they were greeted by the deafening roar of steam being vented through pipes that ran up the sides of the three forward funnels. The noise made conversation impossible—it even made it difficult for operator Jack Phillips in the Marconi Room to hear replies to his calls for assistance.

  Shortly after the collision, Captain Smith had walked to the wireless room and told operator Jack Phillips that the ship had struck an iceberg and to stand by in case the call for assistance was required. Seemingly unperturbed, Phillips continued sending his messages to Cape Race and casually told Harold Bride when he came on duty at midnight that the ship might have to go back to Belfast for repairs. When the captain returned at approximately twelve-twenty-five, Phillips came out of the sleeping quarters.

  “You had better get assistance,” Smith announced grimly.

  “Do you want me to use a distress call?” Phillips asked.

  “Yes, at once,” the captain replied and left.

  Phillips took the piece of paper with the Titanic’s position that Fourth Officer Boxhall had brought in earlier and began tapping out the distress signal CQD, repeating it six times followed by MGY, the Titanic’s call letters. Then he sent: Have struck an iceberg. We are badly damaged, Titanic. Position 41°44′N, 50°24′W.

  About five minutes later the captain came back to the Marconi Room.

  “What are you sending?” he asked.

  “CQD,” Phillips replied.

  “Send SOS,” Harold Bride interjected. “It’s the new call, and it may be your last chance to send it.” All three men laughed, and Phillips later began tapping out both SOS and CQD. Though SOS was indeed a new call, it was not, as is often claimed, the first time it had been used by a ship in distress.

  While Phillips listened for replies, the first lifeboats on the starboard side were swung out. When Lifeboat 7 was flush with the deck, First Officer Murdoch and Fifth Officer Lowe called out for ladies to step forward. But very few complied. William Sloper and his bridge companions stood in a group of passengers who were huddled for warmth against the wall near the entrance door. As the crowd moved toward the lifeboat, most people balked and turned away. Murdoch called out that it was perfectly safe as the sea was quite calm. He added that once the damage had been assessed they would be brought on board again. Yet not many wanted to leave the warmth and security of the ship for a freezing excursion in a small open boat.

  But Dorothy Gibson was not one of them. She was certain the Titanic was going to sink and kept repeating hysterically, “I’ll never ride in my little gray car again!” William Sloper tried to calm the prettiest girl and helped her into the bow of Lifeboat 7, while Frederic Seward placed Dorothy’s mother in a seat nearby. Dorothy clung to Sloper’s hand and insisted that he come, too. After a nod from Murdoch, both Sloper and Seward stepped into the boat. Sloper later wrote that they then sat for ten minutes looking up at the uncertain faces of passengers standing on the deck.

  Helen Bishop, the young newlywed from Dowagiac, Michigan, claimed that she and her husband, Dickinson, were pushed into Boat 7 after an officer took her arm and told her to be very quiet and to get in immediately. Helen had earlier left her lapdog Frou Frou in their room, even though the little dog had tugged at the hem of her dress while she was putting on her life preserver. Thinking it would be inappropriate to take her pet, Helen had closed the stateroom door to the sound of her tiny dog’s high-pitched barks. But another young woman was not going anywhere without her Pomeranian. Twenty-four-year-old Margaret Hays of New York had taken her little dog along on a European tour she had just completed with a school friend and her mother. When the three women decided to dress and go up to the boat deck, Margaret wrapped her pet in a blanket and took it with her. Near the staircase on C deck they were greeted by Gilbert Tucker, a young magazine editor and writer from Albany, New York, who had developed a crush on Margaret. Tucker was holding three lifebelts which he proceeded to help Margaret and the two others to put on. When Jim Smith passed by and saw this, he quipped, “Oh, I suppose we ought to put a life preserver on the little doggie, too!” Tucker and the three women then proceeded to the boat deck, where all four, along with the little doggie, were permitted to enter Lifeboat 7.

  “Any more ladies?” Murdoch called out through his megaphone. When none were forthcoming, the sculptor Paul Chevré and two of his French card-playing companions came forward and were allowed to get in. Lifeboat 7 now held over thirty people, roughly half of its capacity of sixty-five. At twelve-forty Murdoch instructed the crewmen to let out the ropes around the iron bitts on the deck and lower the first of the Titanic’s lifeboats down the side.

  When the next boat forward, Lifeboat 5, was being swung out, Third Officer Herbert Pitman noted how easily the davits worked compared to the older ones he had used on other ships. Thirty-four-year-old “Bert” Pitman, a farmer’s son from Somerset, had been working on ships since he was eighteen. The Titanic’s new Welin davits were indeed state-of-the-art and were actually equipped to carry more than the one boat each held. But outdated British Board of Trade regulations required a ship the size of the Titanic, which could accommodate 3,511 people, to have only sixteen lifeboats, for a maximum of 962 passengers. White Star had actually exceeded the regulations by including four Engelhardt boats with collapsible canvas sides, making room for a total of 1,178. Yet even if all of the Titanic’s boats had been filled to capacity, there would only have been places for slightly more than half of the 2,209 on board. No one had imagined a situation where such a watertight ship would need to be wholly evacuated before help could arrive.

  Pitman thought that lowering the lifeboats was mainly a precaution. He had therefore been surprised when a tall, mustached man had come up to him while he was uncovering Lifeboat 5 and announced ominously, “There is no time to waste.” When the boat was ready for boarding, the tall man returned and told Pitman he should load it immediately with women and children. Pitman replied tartly that his orders came from the captain. After the man walked away, it dawned on the third officer that he might have just rebuffed J. Bruce Ismay. He scurried forward to the bridge and told Captain Smith that a man he suspected was Bruce Ismay had told him to get his boat away.

  “Go ahead, carry on,” Smith replied calmly.

  “Come along, ladies,” Pitman called out after returning to Lifeboat 5 and stepping into it. A number of men and women walked forward and climbed in. Bruce Ismay approached Karl Behr, who was standing nearby with Helen Newsom and her mother and stepfather and urged them to get in as well.

  “Can the men come too?” asked Helen’s mother, Sallie Beckwith.

  “Of course Madam, every one of you,” Ismay replied. Karl Behr then assisted the Beckwiths and Helen Newsom into the boat along with their friends, the Kimballs of Boston, before getting in himself. Henry and Annie Stengel, a middle-aged couple from Newark, New Jersey, also came forward. Henry put his wife into the boat but stood aside when Pitm
an said the boat was full. Dr. Henry Frauenthal, the New York orthopedist who had treated René Harris’s arm earlier that evening, brought his wife Clara and put her in the lifeboat while he and his brother Isaac remained on the deck. Isaac had been Henry’s best man at his wedding to Clara in Nice only two weeks before.

  When Lifeboat 5 had nearly forty people in it, First Officer Murdoch approached and said to Pitman, “You go ahead in this boat and hang around the after gangway.” Murdoch shook his hand and wished him good luck. When Pitman called out, “Lower away,” Bruce Ismay picked up the order and began chanting, “Lower, away! Lower, away! Lower, away!” while waving one arm in circles.

  “If you will get to hell out of that I shall be able to do something!” shouted Fifth Officer Lowe in indignant, Welsh-accented tones. “Do you want me to lower away quickly? You will have me drown the whole lot of them!” Like Pitman earlier, Lowe had no idea who this meddling person was.

  As a chastened Ismay walked away, the lifeboat began its descent. Just then, Henry Frauenthal jumped down into it, followed quickly by his brother, Isaac. According to Annie Stengel, the large “Hebrew doctor” landed on her, knocking her unconscious and dislocating two of her ribs. As Boat 5 continued its descent, the first distress flare rocketed into the sky and burst above the forward funnel in a shower of stars accompanied by a loud bang. The noise alarmed many of the passengers standing on the boat deck.

  “They wouldn’t send those rockets unless it was the last,” remarked Emily Ryerson to her husband. “Don’t you hear the band playing?” he replied, trying to calm her. The ship’s orchestra, which had begun playing earlier in the lounge, had now moved to the boat deck foyer and cheerful ragtime tunes drifted across the deck. The music was reassuring, and so was the sight of another ship’s mast lights off the port side, making it seem as if rescue was at hand.