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04 - Loss of the S. S. Titanic by Lawrence Beesley · Loss of the S. S. Titanic

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Speaker 1: Chapter four of the Loss of the Titanic by Lawrence Beasley.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by
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Speaker 1: Alison Hester, Chapter four, The Sinking of the Titanic seen
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Speaker 1: from a lifeboat, looking back now on the descent of
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Speaker 1: our boat down the ship's side. It is a matter
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Speaker 1: of surprise, I think, to all the occupants to remember
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Speaker 1: how little they thought of it at the time. It
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Speaker 1: was a great adventure. Certainly, it was exciting to feel
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Speaker 1: the boat sink by jerks, foot by foot, as the
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Speaker 1: ropes were paid out from above, and shrieked as they
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Speaker 1: passed through the pulley blocks, the new ropes and gear
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Speaker 1: creaking under the strain of a boat laden with people,
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Speaker 1: and the crew calling to the sailors above, as the
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Speaker 1: boat tilted slightly, now at one end, now at the other, lower, aft, lower, stern,
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Speaker 1: and lower together as she came level again. But I
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Speaker 1: do not think we felt much apprehension about reaching the
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Speaker 1: water safely. It was certainly thrilling to see the black
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Speaker 1: hull of the ship on one side and the sea
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Speaker 1: seventy feet below on the other, or to pass down
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Speaker 1: by cabins and saloons brilliantly lighted, but we knew nothing
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Speaker 1: of the apprehension felt in the minds of some of
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Speaker 1: the officers whether the boats and the lowering gear would
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Speaker 1: stand the strain of the weight of our sixty people.
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Speaker 1: The ropes, however, were new and strong, and the boat
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Speaker 1: did not buckle in the middle, as an older boat
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Speaker 1: might have done. Whether it was right or not to
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Speaker 1: lower boats full of people to the water, and it
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Speaker 1: seems likely it was not. I think there can be
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Speaker 1: nothing but the highest praise given to the officers and
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Speaker 1: crew above for the way in which they lowered the boats,
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Speaker 1: one after the other safely to the water. It may
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Speaker 1: seem a simple matter to read about such a thing,
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Speaker 1: but any sailor knows apparently that it is not so.
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Speaker 1: An experienced officer has told me that he has seen
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Speaker 1: a boat lowered in practice from a ship's deck with
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Speaker 1: a trained crew and no passengers in the boat, with
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Speaker 1: practiced sailors paying out the ropes in daylight, in calm weather,
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Speaker 1: with the ship lying in dock, and has seen the
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Speaker 1: boat tilt over and pitched the crew headlong into the sea.
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Speaker 1: Contrast these conditions with those obtaining that Monday morning at
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Speaker 1: twelve forty five am, and it is impossible not to
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Speaker 1: fill that. Whether the lowering crew were trained or not,
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Speaker 1: whether they had or had not drilled since coming on board,
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Speaker 1: they did their duty in a way that argues the
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Speaker 1: greatest efficiency. I cannot help feeling the deepest gratitude to
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Speaker 1: the two sailors who stood at the ropes above and
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Speaker 1: lowered us to the sea. I do not suppose they
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Speaker 1: were saved. Perhaps one explanation of our feeling little sense
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Speaker 1: of the unusual in leaving the Titanic in this way
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Speaker 1: was that it seemed the climax to a series of
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Speaker 1: extraordinary occurrences. The magnitude of the whole thing dwarfed events
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Speaker 1: that in the ordinary way would seem to be full
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Speaker 1: of imminent peril. It is easy to imagine it a
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Speaker 1: voyage of four days on a calm sea without a
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Speaker 1: single untoward incident, the presumption, perhaps already mentally half realized,
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Speaker 1: that we should be ashore in forty eight hours and
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Speaker 1: so complete a splendid voyage, And then to feel the
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Speaker 1: engine stop, to be summoned on deck with little time
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Speaker 1: to dress, to tie on a life belt, to see
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Speaker 1: rockets shooting aloft and call for help, to be told
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Speaker 1: to get into a lifeboat. After all these things, it
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Speaker 1: did not seemed much to fill the boat sinking down
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Speaker 1: to the sea. It was the natural sequence of previous events,
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Speaker 1: and we had learned in the last hour to take
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Speaker 1: things just as they came at the same time. If
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Speaker 1: anyone should wonder what the sensation is like, it is
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Speaker 1: quite easy to measure seventy five feet from the windows
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Speaker 1: of a tall house or a block of flats, look
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Speaker 1: down to the ground and fancy himself with some sixty
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Speaker 1: other people crowded into a boat so tightly that he
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Speaker 1: could not sit down or move about, And then picture
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Speaker 1: the boat sinking down in a continuous series of jerks
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Speaker 1: as the sailors pay out the ropes through the cleats above.
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Speaker 1: There are more pleasant sensations than this. How thankful we
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Speaker 1: were that the sea was calm and the Titanic lay
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Speaker 1: so steadily and quietly. As we dropped down her side.
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Speaker 1: We were spared the bumping and grinding against the side
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Speaker 1: which so often accompanies the launching of boats. I do
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Speaker 1: not remember that we even had to fend off our
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Speaker 1: boat while we were trying to get free. As we
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Speaker 1: went down, one of the crew shouted, we are just
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Speaker 1: over the condenser exhaust. We don't want to stay in
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Speaker 1: that long or we shall be swamped. Feel down on
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Speaker 1: the floor and be ready to pull up the pin
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Speaker 1: which lets the ropes free as soon as we are afloat.
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Speaker 1: I had often looked over the side and noticed this
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Speaker 1: stream of water coming out of the side of the Titanic,
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Speaker 1: just above the water line. In fact, so large was
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Speaker 1: the volume of water that, as we plowed along and
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Speaker 1: met the waves coming towards us, this stream would cause
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Speaker 1: a splash that scent spray flying. We felt as well
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Speaker 1: as we could in the crowd of people on the
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Speaker 1: floor along the sides, with no idea where the pin
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Speaker 1: could be found, and none of the crew knew where
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Speaker 1: it was, only of its existence somewhere. But we never
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Speaker 1: found it, and all the time we got closer to
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Speaker 1: the sea, and the exhaust roared nearer and nearer, until
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Speaker 1: finally we floated, with the ropes still holding us from above,
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Speaker 1: the exhaust washing us away, and the force of the
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Speaker 1: tide driving us back against the side. The latter not
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Speaker 1: of much account in influencing the direction. However, thinking over
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Speaker 1: what followed, I imagine we must have touched the water with
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Speaker 1: the condenser stream at our bows, and not in the middle,
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Speaker 1: as I thought at one time. At any rate, the
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Speaker 1: resultant of these three forces was that we were carried
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Speaker 1: parallel to the ship, directly under the place where bout
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Speaker 1: fifteen would drop from her davits into the sea. Looking up,
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Speaker 1: we saw her already coming down rapidly from b deck.
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Speaker 1: She must have felled almost immediately after ours. We shouted up,
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Speaker 1: stop lowering fourteen footnote. In an account which appeared in
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Speaker 1: the newspapers of April nineteenth, I have described this boat
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Speaker 1: as fourteen, not knowing they were numbered alternately end a footnote,
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Speaker 1: and the crew and passengers in the boat above, hearing
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Speaker 1: us shout, and seeing our position immediately below them, shouted
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Speaker 1: the same to the sailors on the boat deck. But
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Speaker 1: apparently they did not hear, for she dropped down foot
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Speaker 1: by foot twenty feet fifteen ten, and a stoker and
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Speaker 1: I in the bows reached up and touched her bottom,
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Speaker 1: swinging above our heads trying to push our boat from
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Speaker 1: under her. It seemed now as if nothing could prevent
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Speaker 1: her dropping on us. But at this moment another stoker
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Speaker 1: sprang with his knife to the ropes that still held us,
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Speaker 1: and I heard him shout one, two as he could
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Speaker 1: cut them through. The next moment, we had swung away
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Speaker 1: from underneath fifteen and were clear of her as she
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Speaker 1: dropped into the water in the space we had just
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Speaker 1: before occupied. I do not know how the bow ropes
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Speaker 1: were freed, but I imagine that they were cut in
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Speaker 1: the same way, for we were washed clear of the
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Speaker 1: Titanic at once by the force of the stream and
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Speaker 1: floated away as the oars were got out. I think
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Speaker 1: we all felt that that was quite the most exciting
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Speaker 1: thing we had yet been through, and a great sigh
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Speaker 1: of relief and gratitude went up as we swung away
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Speaker 1: from the boat above our heads. But I heard no
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Speaker 1: one cry aloud during the experience. Not a woman's voice
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Speaker 1: was raised in fear or hysteria. I think we all
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Speaker 1: learned many things that night about the bogey called fear,
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Speaker 1: and how the facing of it is much less than
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Speaker 1: the dread of it. The crew was made up of
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Speaker 1: cooks and stewards, mostly the former. I think their white
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Speaker 1: jackets showing up in the darkness as they pulled away
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Speaker 1: two to an oar. I do not think they can
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Speaker 1: have had any practice in rowing for all night long,
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Speaker 1: their oars crossed and clashed. If our safety had depended
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Speaker 1: on speed or accuracy in keeping time, it would have
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Speaker 1: gone hard with us. Shouting began from one end of
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Speaker 1: the boat to the other as to what we should do,
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Speaker 1: where we should go, and no one seemed to have
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Speaker 1: any knowledge how to act. At last we asked who's
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Speaker 1: in charge of this boat, but there was no reply.
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Speaker 1: We then agreed by general consent that the stoker, who
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Speaker 1: stood in the stern with the tiller, should act as captain,
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Speaker 1: and from that time he directed the course, shouting to
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Speaker 1: the other boats and keeping in touch with them. Not
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Speaker 1: that there was anywhere to go or anything we could do.
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Speaker 1: Our plan of action was simple to keep all the
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Speaker 1: boats together as far as possible and wait until we
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Speaker 1: were picked up by other liners. The crew had apparently
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Speaker 1: heard of the wireless communications before they left the Titanic,
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Speaker 1: but I never heard them say that we were in
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Speaker 1: touch with any boat but the Olympic. It was always
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Speaker 1: the Olympic that was coming to our rescue. They thought
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Speaker 1: they knew even her distance, and making a calculation, we
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Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that we ought to be picked
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Speaker 1: up by her. About two o'clock in the afternoon. But
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Speaker 1: this was not our only hope of rescue. We watched
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Speaker 1: all the time the darkness lasted for steamers lights, thinking
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Speaker 1: there might be a chance of other steamers coming near
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Speaker 1: enough to see the lights which some of our boats carried.
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Speaker 1: I am sure there was no feeling in the minds
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Speaker 1: of anyone that we should not be picked up next day.
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Speaker 1: We knew that wireless messages would go out from ship
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Speaker 1: to ship, and as one of the stokers said, the
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Speaker 1: sea be covered with ships tomorrow afternoon. They will race
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Speaker 1: up from all over the sea to find us. Some
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Speaker 1: even thought that fast torpedo boats might run up ahead
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Speaker 1: of the Olympic, And yet the Olympic was, after all
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Speaker 1: the farthest away of them all. Eight other ships lay
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Speaker 1: within three hundred miles of us. How thankful we should
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Speaker 1: have been to know how near help was, and how
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Speaker 1: many ships had heard our message and were running to
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Speaker 1: the Titanic's aid. I think nothing has surprised us more
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Speaker 1: than to learn so many ships were near enough to
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Speaker 1: rescue us in a few hours. Almost immediately after leaving
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Speaker 1: the Titanic, we saw what we all said was a
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Speaker 1: ship's lights down on the horizon on the Titanic's port side,
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Speaker 1: two lights, one above the other, and plainly not one
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Speaker 1: of our boats. We even rowed in that direction for
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Speaker 1: some time, but the lights drew away and disappear teared
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Speaker 1: below the horizon. But this is rather anticipating. We did
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Speaker 1: none of these things. First, we had no eyes for
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Speaker 1: anything but the ship we had just left. As the
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Speaker 1: oarsmen pulled slowly away, we all turned and took a
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Speaker 1: long look at the mighty vessel towering high above our
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Speaker 1: midget boat. And I know it must have been the
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Speaker 1: most extraordinary sight I shall ever be called upon to witness.
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Speaker 1: I realize now how totally inadequate language is to convey
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Speaker 1: to some other person who was not there, any real
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Speaker 1: impression of what we saw. But the task must be attempted.
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Speaker 1: The whole picture is so intensely dramatic that while it
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Speaker 1: is not possible to place on paper for eyes to
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Speaker 1: see the actual likeness of the ship as she lay there,
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Speaker 1: some sketch of the scene will be possible. First of all,
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Speaker 1: the climatic conditions were extraordinary. The night was one of
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Speaker 1: the most beautiful I have ever seen, the sky without
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Speaker 1: a single cloud to mar the perfect brilliance of the
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Speaker 1: stars clustered so thickly together that in places there seemed
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Speaker 1: almost more dazzling points of light set in the black
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Speaker 1: sky than background of sky itself. And each star seemed,
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Speaker 1: in the keen atmosphere, free from any haze, to have
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Speaker 1: increased its brilliance tenfold, and to twinkle and glitter with
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Speaker 1: a staccato flash that made the sky seem nothing but
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Speaker 1: a setting made for them in which to display their wonder.
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Speaker 1: They seemed so near, and their light so much more
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Speaker 1: intense than ever before, that fancies suggested they saw this
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Speaker 1: beautiful ship in dire distress below, and all their energies
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Speaker 1: had awakened to flash messages across the black dome of
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Speaker 1: the sky to each other, telling and warning of the
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Speaker 1: calamity happening in the world beneath. Later, when the Titanic
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Speaker 1: had gone down, and we lay still on the sea
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Speaker 1: waiting for the day to dawn or a ship to come,
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Speaker 1: I remember looking up at the perfect sky and realizing
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Speaker 1: why Shakespeare wrote the beautiful words he puts in the
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Speaker 1: mouth of Lorenzo Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
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Speaker 1: is thick inlaid with peateens of bright gold. There's not
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Speaker 1: the smallest orb which thou beholdest, But in his motion
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Speaker 1: like an angel, sings still quiring to the young eyed cherubims.
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Speaker 1: Such harmony is an immortal souls. But whilst this muddy
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Speaker 1: vesture of decay doth grossly close it in, we cannot
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Speaker 1: hear it. But it seemed almost as if we could.
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Speaker 1: That night, the stars seemed really to be alive and
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Speaker 1: to talk. The complete ab sense of haze produced a
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Speaker 1: phenomenon I have never seen before. Where the sky met
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Speaker 1: the sea, the line was as clear and definite as
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Speaker 1: the edge of a knife, so that the water and
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Speaker 1: the air never merged gradually into each other and blended
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Speaker 1: to a softened, rounded horizon. But each element was so
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Speaker 1: exclusively separate that where a star came low down in
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Speaker 1: the sky near the clear cut edge of the water line,
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Speaker 1: it still lost none of its brilliance. As the earth
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Speaker 1: revolved and the water edge came up and covered partially
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Speaker 1: the star as it were, it simply cut the star
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Speaker 1: in two, the upper half continuing to sparkle as long
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Speaker 1: as it was not entirely hidden, and throwing a long
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Speaker 1: beam of light along the sea to us. In the
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Speaker 1: evidence before the United States Senate Committee. The captain of
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Speaker 1: one of the ships near us that night said the
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Speaker 1: stars were so extraordinarily bright near the horizon that he
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Speaker 1: was deceived into thinking that they were ship's lights. He
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Speaker 1: did not remember seeing such a night before. Those who
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Speaker 1: were afloat will all agree with that statement. We were
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Speaker 1: often deceived into thinking they were lights of a ship.
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Speaker 1: And next, the cold air, here again was something quite
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Speaker 1: new to us. There was not a breath of wind
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Speaker 1: to blow keenly round us as we stood in the boat,
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Speaker 1: and because of its continued persistence to make us feel cold.
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Speaker 1: It was just a keen, bitter, icy, motionless cold that
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Speaker 1: came from nowhere. And yet was there all the time.
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Speaker 1: The stillness of it, if one can imagine cold, being
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Speaker 1: motionless and still, was what seemed new and strange. And
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Speaker 1: these the sky and the air were overhead, and below
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Speaker 1: was the sea, here again something uncommon. The surface was
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Speaker 1: like a lake of oil, heaving gently up and down,
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Speaker 1: with a quiet motion that rocked our boat dreamily to
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Speaker 1: and fro. We did not need to keep her head
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Speaker 1: to the swell. Often I watched her lying broadside on
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Speaker 1: to the tide, and with a boat loaded as we were.
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Speaker 1: This would have been impossible with anything like a swell.
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Speaker 1: The sea slipped away smoothly under the boat, and I
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Speaker 1: think we never heard it lapping on the sides. So
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Speaker 1: oily an appearance was the water. So when one of
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Speaker 1: the stokers said he had been to sea for twenty
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Speaker 1: six years and never yet seen such a calm night,
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Speaker 1: we accepted it as true without comment. Just as expressive
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Speaker 1: was the remark of another it reminds me of a
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Speaker 1: blooming picnic. It was quite true, it did a picnic
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Speaker 1: on a lake, or a quiet inland river like the
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Speaker 1: cam or a backwater on the Thames. And so in
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Speaker 1: these conditions of sky and air and sea we gazed
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Speaker 1: broadside on the Titanic from a short distance she was
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Speaker 1: absolutely still. Indeed, from the first it seemed as if
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Speaker 1: the blow from the iceberg had taken all the courage
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Speaker 1: out of her, and she had just come quietly to rest,
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Speaker 1: and was settling down without an effort to save herself,
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Speaker 1: without a murmur of protest against such a foul blow,
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Speaker 1: For the sea could not rock her. The wind was
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Speaker 1: not there to howl noisily around her decks and make
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Speaker 1: the ropes hum from the first, what must have impressed
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Speaker 1: all as they watched was the sense of stillness about her,
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Speaker 1: and the slow, insensible way she sank lower and lower
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Speaker 1: in the sea, like a stricken animal. The mere bulk
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Speaker 1: alone of the ship viewed from the sea below, was
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Speaker 1: an awe inspired ring sight. Imagine a ship nearly a
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Speaker 1: sixth of a mile long, seventy five feet high to
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Speaker 1: the top decks, with four enormous funnels above the decks,
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Speaker 1: and masts again high above the funnels, with her hundreds
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Speaker 1: of portholes, all her saloons and other rooms brilliant with light,
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Speaker 1: and all round her little boats, filled with those who
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Speaker 1: until a few hours before had trod her decks and
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Speaker 1: read in her libraries and listened to the music of
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Speaker 1: her band in happy content, and who were now looking
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Speaker 1: up in amazement at the enormous mass above them, and
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Speaker 1: rowing away from her because she was sinking. I had
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Speaker 1: often wanted to see her from some distance away, and
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Speaker 1: only a few hours before, in conversation at lunch with
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Speaker 1: a fellow passenger, had registered a vow to get a
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Speaker 1: proper view of her lines and dimensions when we landed
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Speaker 1: at New York, to stand some distance away and taken
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Speaker 1: a full view of her beautiful proportions, which the narrow
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Speaker 1: approach to the dock at Southampton made impossible. Little did
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Speaker 1: I think that the opportunity was to be found so
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Speaker 1: quickly and so dramatically. The background, too, was a different
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Speaker 1: one from what I had planned for her. The black
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Speaker 1: outline of her profile against the sky was bordered all
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Speaker 1: round by stars studded in the sky, and her funnels
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Speaker 1: and masts were picked out in the same way. Her
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Speaker 1: bulk was seen where the stars were blotted out. And
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Speaker 1: one other thing was different from expectation, the thing that
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Speaker 1: ripped away from us instantly as we saw it. All
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Speaker 1: sense of the beauty of the night, the beauty of
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Speaker 1: the ship's lines, and the beauty of her lights, and
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Speaker 1: all these taken in themselves, were intensely beautiful. That thing
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Speaker 1: was the awful angle made by the level of the sea,
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Speaker 1: with the rows of porthole lights along her side, and
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Speaker 1: dotted lines row above row. The sea level and the
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Speaker 1: rows of lights should have been parallel, should never have met,
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Speaker 1: and now they met at an angle inside the black
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Speaker 1: hull of the ship. There was nothing else to indicate
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Speaker 1: she was injured, Nothing but this apparent violation of a
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Speaker 1: simple geometrical law that parallel lines should never meet, even
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Speaker 1: if produced ever so far both ways. But it meant
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Speaker 1: that Titanic had sunk by the head until the lowest
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Speaker 1: portholes in the bowls were under the sea, and the
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Speaker 1: portholes in the stern were lifted above the normal height.
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Speaker 1: We rode away from her in the quietness of the night,
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Speaker 1: hoping and praying with all our hearts that she would
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Speaker 1: sink no more, and the day would bind her still
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Speaker 1: in the same position as she was then. The crew, however,
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Speaker 1: did not think so. It has been said frequently that
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Speaker 1: officers and crew felt assured that she would remain afloat,
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Speaker 1: even after they knew the extent of the damage. Some
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Speaker 1: of them may have done so, and perhaps from their
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Speaker 1: scientific knowledge of her construction, with more reason at the
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Speaker 1: time than those who said she would sink. But at
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Speaker 1: any rate, the stokers in our boat had no such illusion.
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Speaker 1: One of them, I think he was the same man
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Speaker 1: that cut us free from the pulley ropes, told us
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Speaker 1: how he was at work in the stoke hole, and
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Speaker 1: in anticipation of going off duty in a quarter of
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Speaker 1: an hour, thus confirming the time of the collision, as
22:40
Speaker 1: eleven forty five had near him a pan of soup
22:43
Speaker 1: keeping hot on some part of the machinery. Suddenly the
22:47
Speaker 1: whole side of the compartment came in, and the water
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Speaker 1: rushed him off his feet. Picking himself up, he sprang
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Speaker 1: for the compartment doorway, and was just through the aperture
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Speaker 1: when the watertight door came down behind him like a knife.
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Speaker 1: As he said, they worked them from the bridge. He
23:07
Speaker 1: had gone up on deck, but was ordered down again
23:10
Speaker 1: at once, and with others was told to draw the
23:13
Speaker 1: fires from under the boiler, which they did, and were
23:16
Speaker 1: then at liberty to come on deck again. It seems
23:20
Speaker 1: that this particular knot of stokers must have known almost
23:23
Speaker 1: as soon as anyone the extent of injury. He added, mournfully,
23:28
Speaker 1: I could do with that hot soup now, and indeed
23:32
Speaker 1: he could. He was clad at the time of collision,
23:36
Speaker 1: he said, and trousers and singlet, both very thin on
23:40
Speaker 1: account of the intense heat in the stoke hole, and
23:44
Speaker 1: although he had added a short jacket later, his teeth
23:47
Speaker 1: were chattering with the cold. He found a place to
23:51
Speaker 1: lie down underneath the tiller on the little platform where
23:54
Speaker 1: our captain stood, and there he lay all night with
23:57
Speaker 1: a coat belonging to another stoker thrown over him, and
24:01
Speaker 1: I think he must have been almost unconscious. A lady
24:05
Speaker 1: next to him, who was warmly clad with several coats,
24:09
Speaker 1: tried to insist on his having one of hers, a
24:12
Speaker 1: fur lined one, thrown over him, but he absolutely refused.
24:17
Speaker 1: While some of the women were insufficiently clad, and so
24:21
Speaker 1: the coat was given to an Irish girl with pretty
24:24
Speaker 1: auburn hair, standing near leaning against the gunwale with an
24:28
Speaker 1: outside berth, and so more exposed to the cold air.
24:33
Speaker 1: This same lady was able to distribute more of her
24:36
Speaker 1: wraps to the passengers, a rug to one, a fur
24:40
Speaker 1: boa to another. And she has related with amusement that,
24:44
Speaker 1: at the moment of climbing up the carpathias side, those
24:48
Speaker 1: to whom these articles had been lent offered them all
24:51
Speaker 1: back to her, but as like the rest of us,
24:54
Speaker 1: she was encumbered with a life belt, she had to
24:57
Speaker 1: say she would receive them back at the end of
24:59
Speaker 1: the I had not seen my dressing gown since I
25:03
Speaker 1: dropped into the boat, but sometime in the night a
25:06
Speaker 1: steerage passenger found it on the floor and put it
25:09
Speaker 1: on it is not easy at this time to call
25:13
Speaker 1: to mind who were in the boat, because in the
25:16
Speaker 1: night it was not possible to see more than a
25:18
Speaker 1: few feet away, and when dawn came we had eyes
25:22
Speaker 1: only for the rescue ship and the icebergs. But so
25:26
Speaker 1: far as my memory serves, the list was as follows.
25:30
Speaker 1: No first class passengers, three women, one baby, two men
25:35
Speaker 1: from the second cabin, and the other passengers steerage, mostly women,
25:40
Speaker 1: a total of about thirty five passengers. The rest about
25:44
Speaker 1: twenty five and possibly more were crew and stokers. Near
25:49
Speaker 1: to me all night was a group of three sweetish girls,
25:53
Speaker 1: warmly clad, standing close together to keep warm, and very silent. Indeed,
25:59
Speaker 1: there was very little talking at any time. One conversation
26:04
Speaker 1: took place. That is, I think worth repeating one more
26:09
Speaker 1: proof that the world, after all, is a small place.
26:13
Speaker 1: The ten months old baby, which was handed down at
26:16
Speaker 1: the last moment, was received by a lady next to
26:19
Speaker 1: me the same who shared her wraps and coats. The
26:23
Speaker 1: mother had found a place in the middle and was
26:25
Speaker 1: too tightly packed to come through to the child, and
26:29
Speaker 1: so it slept contentedly for about an hour in a
26:32
Speaker 1: stranger's arms. It then began to cry, and the temporary
26:36
Speaker 1: nurse said, will you feel down and see if the
26:40
Speaker 1: baby's feet are out of the blanket. I don't know
26:43
Speaker 1: much about babies, but I think their feet must be
26:46
Speaker 1: kept warm. Wriggling down as well as I could, I
26:50
Speaker 1: found its toes exposed to the air and wrapped them
26:54
Speaker 1: well up. When it ceased crying at once, it was
26:57
Speaker 1: evidently a successful diagnose. Having recognized the lady by her voice,
27:04
Speaker 1: it was much too dark to see faces. As one
27:07
Speaker 1: of my vsa V at the purser's table, I said,
27:11
Speaker 1: surely you are miss Blank. Yes, she replied, and you
27:16
Speaker 1: must be mister Beesley. How curious we should find ourselves
27:20
Speaker 1: in the same boat. Remembering that she had joined the
27:24
Speaker 1: boat at Queenstown, I said, do you know Clonmel? A
27:29
Speaker 1: letter from a great friend of mine who was staying
27:32
Speaker 1: there at Blank, giving the address came aboard at Queenstown. Yes,
27:39
Speaker 1: it is my home, and I was dining at Blank
27:43
Speaker 1: just before I came away. It seemed that she knew
27:46
Speaker 1: my friend too, and we agreed that of all places
27:49
Speaker 1: in the world to recognize mutual friends. A crowded lifeboat
27:54
Speaker 1: afloat in mid ocean at two a m. Twelve hundred
27:57
Speaker 1: miles from our destination was one of the most unexpected
28:01
Speaker 1: and all the time as we watched, the Titanic sank
28:05
Speaker 1: lower and lower by the head, and the angle became
28:09
Speaker 1: wider and wider as the stern porthole lights lifted and
28:13
Speaker 1: the bow lights sank, and it was evident she was
28:16
Speaker 1: not to stay afloat much longer. The captain Stoker now
28:21
Speaker 1: told the oarsmen to row away as hard as they could.
28:25
Speaker 1: Two reasons seemed to make this a wise decision. One
28:29
Speaker 1: that as she sank, she would create such a wave
28:32
Speaker 1: of suction that boats, if not sucked under by being
28:36
Speaker 1: too near, would be in danger of being swamped by
28:39
Speaker 1: the wave her sinking would create. And we all knew
28:42
Speaker 1: our boat was in no condition to ride big waves,
28:46
Speaker 1: crowded as it was and manned with untrained oarsmen. The
28:50
Speaker 1: second was that an explosion might result from the water
28:53
Speaker 1: getting to the boilers, and debris might fall within a
28:57
Speaker 1: wide radius. And yet, as it turned out, neither of
29:00
Speaker 1: these things happened. At about two fifteen a m. I
29:05
Speaker 1: think we were any distance from a mile to two
29:07
Speaker 1: miles away. It is difficult for a landsman to calculate
29:12
Speaker 1: distance at sea, but we had been afloat an hour
29:15
Speaker 1: and a half, and the boat was heavily loaded, the
29:18
Speaker 1: oarsmen unskilled, and our course erratic, following now one light
29:23
Speaker 1: and now another, sometimes a star, and sometimes a light
29:27
Speaker 1: from a port lifeboat which had turned away from the
29:30
Speaker 1: Titanic in the opposite direction and lay almost on our horizon,
29:35
Speaker 1: and so we could not have gone very far away.
29:38
Speaker 1: About this time the water had crept up almost to
29:42
Speaker 1: her side light and the captain's bridge, and it seemed
29:45
Speaker 1: a question only of minutes before she sank. The oarsmen
29:50
Speaker 1: lay on their oars, and all in the lifeboat were
29:53
Speaker 1: motionless as we watched her in absolute silence, save some
29:57
Speaker 1: who would not look and buried their heads on each
29:59
Speaker 1: other shoulders. The lights still shone with the same brilliance,
30:04
Speaker 1: but not so many of them. Many were now below
30:07
Speaker 1: the surface. I have often wondered since whether they continued
30:12
Speaker 1: to light up the cabins when the portholes were under water.
30:16
Speaker 1: They may have done so. And then as we gazed
30:20
Speaker 1: all struck, she tilted slowly up, revolving apparently about a
30:25
Speaker 1: center of gravity just astern of amidships, until she attained
30:30
Speaker 1: a vertically upright position, and there she remained motionless as
30:37
Speaker 1: she swung up her lights, which had shone without a
30:40
Speaker 1: flicker all night, went out, suddenly came on again for
30:45
Speaker 1: a single flash, and then went out all together. And
30:49
Speaker 1: as they did so, there came a noise which many people, wrongly,
30:54
Speaker 1: I think, have described as an explosion. It has always
30:58
Speaker 1: seemed to me that there was nothing but the engines
31:01
Speaker 1: and machinery coming loose from their bolts and bearings and
31:04
Speaker 1: falling through the compartments, smashing everything in their way. It
31:09
Speaker 1: was partly a roar, partly a groan, partly a rattle,
31:14
Speaker 1: and partly a smash, and it was not a sudden
31:17
Speaker 1: roar as an explosion would be. It went on successively
31:21
Speaker 1: for some seconds, possibly fifteen to twenty, as the heavy
31:25
Speaker 1: machinery dropped down to the bottom, now the bows of
31:29
Speaker 1: the ship. I suppose it fell through the end and
31:33
Speaker 1: sank first before the ship. But it was a noise
31:36
Speaker 1: no one had heard before, and no one wishes to
31:39
Speaker 1: hear again. It was stupefying, stupendous. As it came to
31:45
Speaker 1: us along the water, it was as if all the
31:48
Speaker 1: heavy things one could think of had been thrown downstairs
31:52
Speaker 1: from the top of a house, smashing each other and
31:55
Speaker 1: the stairs and everything in the way. Several, apparently all
31:59
Speaker 1: thought accounts have been given in which definite stories of
32:03
Speaker 1: explosions have been related, in some cases even with wreckage
32:08
Speaker 1: blown up and the ship broken in two. But I
32:11
Speaker 1: think such accounts will not stand close analysis. In the
32:16
Speaker 1: first place, the fires had been withdrawn and the steam
32:20
Speaker 1: allowed to escape some time before she sank, and the
32:23
Speaker 1: possibility of explosion from this cause seems very remote. Then,
32:29
Speaker 1: as just related, the noise was not sudden and definite,
32:33
Speaker 1: but prolonged, more like the roll and crash of thunder.
32:38
Speaker 1: The probability of the noise being caused by engines falling
32:41
Speaker 1: down will be seen by referring to figure two, page
32:45
Speaker 1: one hundred sixteen, where the engines are placed in compartments three,
32:49
Speaker 1: four and five. As the Titanic tilted up, they would
32:53
Speaker 1: almost certainly fall loose from their bed and plunge down
32:57
Speaker 1: through the other compartments. No phenomena like that pictured in
33:02
Speaker 1: some American and English papers occurred, that of the ship
33:06
Speaker 1: breaking in two and the two ends being raised above
33:10
Speaker 1: the surface. I saw these drawings in preparation on board
33:14
Speaker 1: the Carpathia, and said at the time that they bore
33:17
Speaker 1: no resemblance to what actually happened. When the noise was over,
33:21
Speaker 1: the Titanic was still upright like a column. We could
33:25
Speaker 1: see her now only as the stern, and some one
33:28
Speaker 1: hundred fifty feet of her stood outlined against the starspecked sky,
33:33
Speaker 1: looming black in the darkness. And in this position she
33:37
Speaker 1: continued for some minutes I think as much as five minutes,
33:41
Speaker 1: but it may have been less. Then, first sinking back
33:45
Speaker 1: a little at the stern, I thought, she slid slowly
33:49
Speaker 1: forwards through the water and dived slantingly down. The sea
33:54
Speaker 1: closed over her, and we had seen the last of
33:57
Speaker 1: the beautiful ship on which we had embarked four days
34:01
Speaker 1: before at Southampton. And in place of the ship on
34:06
Speaker 1: which all our interest had been concentrated for so long,
34:10
Speaker 1: and towards which we looked most of the time, because
34:13
Speaker 1: it was still the only object on the sea which
34:15
Speaker 1: was a fixed point to us, in place of the Titanic,
34:19
Speaker 1: we had the level sea, now stretching in an unbroken
34:23
Speaker 1: expanse to the horizon, heaving gently just as before, with
34:28
Speaker 1: no indication on the surface that the waves had just
34:31
Speaker 1: closed over the most wonderful vessel ever built by man's hand.
34:36
Speaker 1: The stars looked down just the same, and the air
34:40
Speaker 1: was just as bitterly cold. There seemed a great sense
34:44
Speaker 1: of loneliness when we were left on the sea in
34:47
Speaker 1: a small boat without the Titanic. Not that we were
34:51
Speaker 1: uncomfortable except for the cold, nor in danger. We did
34:56
Speaker 1: not think we were either. But the Titanic was no
34:59
Speaker 1: longer there. We waited head on for the wave which
35:03
Speaker 1: we thought might come, the wave we had heard so
35:07
Speaker 1: much of from the crew, and which they said had
35:09
Speaker 1: been known to travel for miles. And it never came.
35:13
Speaker 1: But although the Titanic left us no such legacy of
35:17
Speaker 1: a wave, as she went to the bottom, she left
35:20
Speaker 1: us something we would willingly forget forever, something which it
35:24
Speaker 1: is well not to let the imagination dwell on, the
35:28
Speaker 1: cries of many hundreds of our fellow passengers struggling in
35:33
Speaker 1: the ice cold water. I would willingly omit any further
35:37
Speaker 1: mention of this part of the disaster from this book,
35:40
Speaker 1: But for two reasons it is not possible. First that
35:44
Speaker 1: as a matter of history it should be put on record,
35:48
Speaker 1: and secondly, that these cries were not only an appeal
35:51
Speaker 1: for help in the awful conditions of danger in which
35:54
Speaker 1: the drowning found themselves, an appeal that could never be answered,
35:59
Speaker 1: but an appear to the whole world to make such
36:02
Speaker 1: conditions of danger and hopelessness and possible ever again. A
36:07
Speaker 1: cry that called to the heavens for the very injustice
36:10
Speaker 1: of its own existence, a cry that clamored for its
36:14
Speaker 1: own destruction. We were utterly surprised to hear this cry
36:19
Speaker 1: go up as the waves closed over the Titanic. We
36:23
Speaker 1: had heard no sound of any kind from her since
36:26
Speaker 1: we left her side, and as mentioned before, we did
36:29
Speaker 1: not know how many lifeboats she had, or how many rafts.
36:34
Speaker 1: The crew may have known, but they probably did not,
36:37
Speaker 1: and if they did, they never told the passengers. We
36:41
Speaker 1: should not have been surprised to know all were safe
36:44
Speaker 1: on some life saving device, so that, unprepared as we
36:48
Speaker 1: were for such a thing, the cries of the drowning
36:51
Speaker 1: floated across the quiet sea filled us with stupefaction. We
36:56
Speaker 1: longed to return and rescue at least some of the drowning,
37:00
Speaker 1: but we knew it was impossible. The boat was filled
37:04
Speaker 1: to standing room, and to return would mean the swamping
37:08
Speaker 1: of us all, and so the captain Stoker told his
37:11
Speaker 1: crew to row away from the cries. We tried to
37:15
Speaker 1: sing to keep all from thinking of them, but there
37:19
Speaker 1: was no heart for singing in the boat at that time.
37:23
Speaker 1: The cries, which were loud and numerous at first, died
37:27
Speaker 1: away gradually one by one. But the night was clear, frosty,
37:32
Speaker 1: and still, the water smooth, and the sounds must have
37:36
Speaker 1: carried on its level surface, free from any obstruction, for miles,
37:40
Speaker 1: certainly much farther from the ship than we were situated.
37:45
Speaker 1: I think the last of them must have been heard
37:47
Speaker 1: nearly forty minutes after the Titanic sank. Life belts would
37:52
Speaker 1: keep the survivors afloat for hours, but the cold water
37:56
Speaker 1: was what stopped the cries. There must have to all
38:01
Speaker 1: those safe in the lifeboats scattered round the drowning at
38:04
Speaker 1: various distances, a deep resolve that if anything could be
38:09
Speaker 1: done by them in the future to prevent the repetition
38:12
Speaker 1: of such sounds, they would do it at whatever cost
38:16
Speaker 1: of time or other things. And not only to them
38:20
Speaker 1: are those cries and imperative call, but to every man
38:24
Speaker 1: and woman who has known of them. It is not
38:27
Speaker 1: possible that ever again can such conditions exist. But it
38:32
Speaker 1: is a duty imperative on one and all to see
38:36
Speaker 1: that they do not think of it. A few more boats,
38:40
Speaker 1: a few more planks of wood nailed together in a
38:43
Speaker 1: particular way, at a trifling cost, and all those men
38:48
Speaker 1: and women whom the world can so ill afford to
38:51
Speaker 1: lose would be with us today. There would be no
38:54
Speaker 1: mourning in thousands of homes which are now desolate. And
38:58
Speaker 1: these words need not have been written. End of Chapter
39:04
Speaker 1: four