A Night to Remember

by Walter Lord

  All the firemen had to do was keep the furnaces full. No need to work the fires with slice bars, pricker bars and rakes. So on this Sunday night the men were taking it easy – sitting around on buckets and the trimmers’ iron wheelbarrows, gossiping, waiting for the twelve-to-four watch to come on.

  Then came that thud … the grinding, tearing sound … the telegraphs ringing wildly … the watertight doors crashing down. Most of the men couldn’t imagine what it was – the story spread that the Titanic had gone aground just off the Banks of Newfoundland. Many of them still thought so, even after a trimmer came running down from above shouting, ‘Blimey! We’ve struck an iceberg!’

  About ten miles away Third Officer Charles Victor Groves stood on the bridge of the Leyland liner Californian, bound from London to Boston. A plodding 6,000-tonner, she had room for forty-seven passengers, but none were being carried just now. On this Sunday night she had been stopped since 10.30 p.m., completely blocked by drifting ice.

  At about 11.10 Groves noticed the lights of another ship, racing up from the east on the starboard side. As the newcomer rapidly overhauled the motionless Californian, a blaze of deck lights showed she was a large passenger liner. Around 11.30 he knocked on the Venetian door of the chart room and told Captain Stanley Lord about it. Lord suggested contacting the new arrival by Morse lamp, and Groves prepared to do this.

  Then, at about 11.40, he saw the big ship suddenly stop and put out most of her lights. This didn’t surprise Groves very much. He had spent some time in the Far East trade, where they usually put deck lights out at midnight to encourage the passengers to turn in. It never occurred to him that perhaps the lights were still on … that they only seemed to go out because she was no longer broadside but had veered sharply to port.

  2. ‘There’s Talk of an Iceberg, Ma’am’

  Almost as if nothing had happened, lookout Fleet resumed his watch, Mrs Astor lay back in her bed, and Lieutenant Steffanson returned to his hot lemonade.

  At the request of several passengers second-class smoking-room steward James Witter went off to investigate the jar. But two tables of card players hardly looked up. Normally the White Star Line allowed no card playing on Sunday, and tonight the passengers wanted to take full advantage of the chief steward’s unexpected largesse.

  There was no one in the second-class lounge to send the librarian looking, so he continued sitting at his table, quietly counting the day’s loan slips.

  Through the long white corridors that led to the staterooms came only the murmurs of people chatting in their cabins … the distant slam of some deck-pantry door … occasionally the click of unhurried high heels – all the usual sounds of a liner at night.

  Everything seemed perfectly normal – yet not quite. In his cabin on B deck, seventeen-year-old Jack Thayer had just called good night to his father and mother, Mr and Mrs John B. Thayer of Philadelphia. The Thayers had connecting staterooms, an arrangement compatible with Mr Thayer’s position as Second Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Now, as young Jack stood buttoning his pyjama jacket, the steady hum of the breeze through his half-opened porthole suddenly stopped.

  One deck below, Mr and Mrs Henry B. Harris sat in their cabin playing double canfield. Mr Harris, a Broadway producer, was dog-tired, and Mrs Harris had just broken her arm. There was little conversation as Mrs Harris idly watched her dresses sway on their hangers from the ship’s vibration. Suddenly she noticed they had stopped jiggling.

  Another deck below, Lawrence Beesley, a young science master at Dulwich College, lay in his second-class bunk reading, pleasantly lulled by the dancing motion of the mattress. Suddenly the mattress was still.

  The creaking woodwork, the distant rhythm of the engines, the steady rattle of the glass dome over the A deck foyer – all the familiar shipboard sounds vanished as the Titanic glided to a stop. Far more than any jolt, silence stirred the passengers.

  Steward bells began ringing, but it was hard to learn anything. ‘Why have we stopped?’ Lawrence Beesley asked a passing steward. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ came a typical answer, ‘but I don’t suppose it’s much.’

  Mrs Arthur Ryerson, of the steel family, had somewhat better results. ‘There’s talk of an iceberg, ma’am,’ exclaimed steward Bishop. ‘And they have stopped, not to run over it.’ While her French maid Victorine hovered in the background, Mrs Ryerson pondered what to do. Mr Ryerson was having his first good sleep since the start of the trip, and she hated to wake him. She walked over to the square, heavy glass window that opened directly on to the sea. Outside, she saw only a calm, beautiful night. She decided to let him sleep.

  Others refused to let well enough alone. With the restless curiosity that afflicts everyone on board ship, some of the Titanic’s passengers began exploring for an answer.

  In C-51 Colonel Archibald Gracie, an amateur military historian by way of West Point and an independent income, methodically donned underwear, long stockings, shoes, trousers, a Norfolk jacket, and then puffed up to the boat deck. Jack Thayer simply threw an overcoat over his pyjamas and took off, calling to his parents that he was ‘going out to see the fun’.

  On deck there was little fun to be seen; nor was there any sign of danger. For the most part the explorers wandered aimlessly about or stood by the rail, staring into the empty night for some clue to the trouble. The Titanic lay dead in the water, three of her four huge funnels blowing off steam with a roar that shattered the quiet, starlit night. Otherwise everything was normal. Towards the stern of the boat deck an elderly couple strolled arm in arm, oblivious of the roaring steam and the little knots of passengers roving about.

  It was so bitterly cold, and there was so little to be seen, that most of the people came inside again. Entering the magnificent foyer on A deck, they found others who had risen but preferred to stay inside where it was warm.

  Mingling together, they made a curious picture. Their dress was an odd mixture of bathrobes, evening clothes, fur coats, turtle-neck sweaters. The setting was equally incongruous – the huge glass dome overhead … the dignified oak panelling … the magnificent balustrades with their wrought-iron scrollwork … and, looking down on them all, an incredible wall clock adorned with two bronze nymphs, somehow symbolizing Honour and Glory crowning Time.

  ‘Oh, it’ll be a few hours and we’ll be on the way again,’ a steward vaguely explained to first-class passenger George Harder.

  ‘Looks like we’ve lost a propeller, but it’ll give us more time for bridge,’ called Howard Case, the London manager of Vacuum Oil, to Fred Seward, a New York lawyer. Perhaps Mr Case got his theory from steward Johnson, still contemplating a sojourn in Belfast. In any event, most of the passengers had better information by this time.

  ‘What do you think?’ exclaimed Harvey Collyer to his wife, as he returned to their cabin from a tour around the deck. ‘We’ve struck an iceberg – a big one – but there’s no danger. An officer told me so!’ The Collyers were travelling second class, on their way from Britain to a fruit farm just purchased in Fayette Valley, Idaho. They were novices on the Atlantic, and perhaps the news would have roused Mrs Collyer, but the dinner that night had been too rich. So she just asked her husband if anybody seemed frightened, and when he said no, she lay back again in her bunk.

  John Jacob Astor seemed equally unperturbed. Returning to his suite after going up to investigate, he explained to Mrs Astor that the ship had struck ice, but it didn’t look serious. He was very calm and Mrs Astor wasn’t a bit alarmed.

  ‘What do they say is the trouble?’ asked William T. Stead, a leading British spiritualist, reformer, evangelist, and editor, all rolled into one. A professional individualist, he seemed almost to have planned his arrival on deck later than the others.

  ‘Icebergs,’ briefly explained Frank Millet, the distinguished American painter.

  ‘Well,’ Stead shrugged, ‘I guess it’s nothing serious; I’m going back to my cabin to read.’
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  Mr and Mrs Dickinson Bishop of Dowagiac, Michigan, had the same reaction. When a deck steward assured them, ‘We have only struck a little piece of ice and passed it,’ the Bishops returned to their stateroom and undressed again. Mr Bishop picked up a book and started to read, but soon he was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mr Albert A. Stewart, an ebullient old gentleman who had a large interest in the Barnum and Bailey Circus: ‘Come on out and amuse yourself!’

  Others had the same idea. First-class passenger Peter Daly heard one young lady tell another, ‘Oh, come and let’s see the berg – we have never seen one before.’

  And in the second-class smoking-room somebody facetiously asked whether he could get some ice from the berg for his highball.

  He could indeed. When the Titanic brushed by, several tons of ice crumbled off the berg and landed on the starboard well deck, just opposite the foremast. This was third-class recreation space, and the ice was soon discovered by steerage passengers coming up to investigate. From her cabin window on B deck, Mrs Natalie Wick watched them playfully throwing chunks at each other.

  The ice soon became quite a tourist attraction. Major Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, a middle-aged manufacturing chemist from Toronto, used the opportunity to descend on a more distinguished compatriot, Charles M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railroad. ‘Mr Hays!’ he cried, ‘Have you seen the ice?’

  When Mr Hays said he hadn’t Peuchen followed through – ‘If you care to see it, I will take you up on deck and show it to you.’ And so they went all the way forward on A deck and looked down at the mild horseplay below.

  Possession of the ice didn’t remain a third-class monopoly for long. As Colonel Gracie stood in the A deck foyer, he was tapped on the shoulder by Clinch Smith, a New York society figure whose experiences already included sitting at Stanford White’s table the night White was shot by Harry K. Thaw. ‘Would you like,’ asked Smith, ‘a souvenir to take back to New York?’ And he opened his hand to show a small piece of ice, flat like a pocket watch.

  The same collector’s instinct gripped others. Able seaman John Poingdestre picked up a sliver and showed it around the crew’s mess room. A steerage passenger presented Fourth Officer Boxhall with a chunk about the size of a small basin. As greaser Walter Hurst lay half awake, his father-in-law – who shared the same quarters – came in and tossed a lump of ice into Hurst’s bunk. A man entered the stewards’ quarters, displaying a piece about as big as a teacup, and told steward F. Dent Ray, ‘There are tons of ice forward!’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Ray yawned, ‘that will not hurt.’ And he prepared to go back to sleep.

  A little more curious, first-class steward Henry Samuel Etches – off duty at the time of the crash – walked forward along the alleyway on E deck to investigate, and ran into a third-class passenger walking the other way. Before Etches could say anything, the passenger – as though confronting Etches with irrefutable evidence about something in dispute – threw a block of ice on to the deck and shouted, ‘Will you believe it now?’

  Soon there was far more disturbing evidence that all was not as it should be. By 11.50 – ten minutes after the collision – strange things could be seen and heard in the first six of the Titanic’s sixteen watertight compartments.

  Lamp trimmer Samuel Hemming, lying off duty in his bunk, heard a curious hissing sound coming from the fore-peak, the compartment closest to the bow. He jumped up, went as far forward as he could, and discovered that it was air escaping from the forepeak locker where the anchor chains were stowed. Far below, water was pouring in so fast that air rushed out under tremendous pressure.

  In the next compartment aft, containing the firemen’s quarters and cargo hatch No. 1, leading fireman Charles Hendrickson was also roused by a curious sound. But here it was not air – it was water. When he looked down the spiral staircase that led to the passageway connecting the firemen’s quarters with the stokeholds, he saw green sea-water swirling around the foot of the grated, cast-iron steps.

  Steerage passenger Carl Johnson had an even more disturbing experience in the third compartment aft. This contained the cheapest passenger accommodation – lowest in the ship and closest to the bow. As Johnson got up to see what was causing a mild commotion outside his cabin, water seeped in under the door and around his feet. He decided to dress, and by the time his clothes were on, the water was over his shoes. With a detached, almost clinical interest, he noticed that it seemed to be of very even depth all over the floor. Nearby, steerage passenger Daniel Buckley was a little slower to react, and when he finally jumped out of his bunk, he splashed into water up to his ankles.

  Five postal clerks working in the fourth compartment were much wetter. The Titanic’s post office took up two deck levels – the mail was stacked, along with first-class luggage, on the orlop deck and was sorted just above on G deck. The two levels were connected by a wide iron companionway, which continued up to F deck and the rest of the ship. Within five minutes water was sloshing around the knees of the postal clerks, as they dragged 200 sacks of registered mail up the companionway to the drier sorting room.

  They might have spared themselves the trouble – in another five minutes the water reached the top of the steps and was lapping on to G deck. The clerks now abandoned the mail room altogether, retreating further up the companionway to F deck.

  At the top of the stairs they found a married couple peering down at them. Mr and Mrs Norman Campbell Chambers of New York had been attracted by the noise while returning to their cabin after a fruitless trip to the promenade deck. Now, the Chamberses and the postal clerks watched the scene together, joking about the soaked baggage and wondering what might be in the letters they could see floating around the abandoned mail room.

  Others joined them briefly from time to time – Fourth Officer Boxhall … assistant second steward Wheat … once even Captain Smith. But at no point could the Chamberses bring themselves to believe that anything they saw was really dangerous.

  The fifth watertight compartment from the bow contained boiler room No. 6. This was where fireman Barrett and second engineer Hesketh jumped through the watertight door as it slammed down after the collision. Others didn’t make it and scrambled up the escape ladders that laced their way topside. A few hung on, and after a moment some of the others came down again.

  Shouts of ‘Shut the dampers!’ and then ‘Draw the fires!’ came from somewhere. Fireman George Beauchamp worked at fever pitch as the sea flooded in from the bunker door and up through the floor plates. In five minutes it was waist deep – black and slick with grease from the machinery. The air was heavy with steam. Fireman Beauchamp never did see who shouted the welcome words, ‘That will do!’ He was too relieved to care as he scurried up the ladder for the last time.

  Just to the stern, second engineer Hesketh, now on the dry side of the watertight door, struggled to get boiler room No. 5 back to normal. The sea still spouted through a two-foot gash near the closed door, but assistant engineers Harvey and Wilson had a pump going, and it was keeping ahead of the water.

  For a few moments the stokers stood by, aimlessly watching the engineers rig the pumps; then the engine room phoned to send them to the boat deck. They trooped up the escape ladder, but the bridge ordered them down again, and for a while they milled around the working alleyway on E deck – halfway up, halfway down – caught in the bureaucracy of a huge ship and wondering what to do next.

  Meanwhile the lights went out in boiler room No. 5. Engineer Harvey ordered fireman Barrett, who had stayed behind, to go aft to the engine room for lanterns. The connecting doors were all shut; so Barrett had to climb to the top of the escape ladder, cross over, and go down the other side. By the time he retraced his steps, the engineers had the lights on again and the lanterns weren’t needed.

  Next, Harvey told Barrett to shut down the boilers – the pressure, built up while the ship was at full steam, now lifted the safety valves and was blowing joi
nts. Barrett scrambled back up the ladder and drafted fifteen or twenty of the stokers wandering around E deck. They all clattered down and began wetting the fires. It was backbreaking work, boxing up the boilers and putting on dampers to stop the steam from rising. Fireman Kemish still remembers it with feeling: ‘We certainly had one hell of a time putting those fires out …’

  Clouds of steam gushed through the boiler room as the men sweated away. But gradually order returned. The lights burned bright, the place was clear of water, and, in No. 5 at any rate, everything seemed under control. There was an air of cheerful confidence by the time word spread that the men on the twelve-to-four watch were dragging their beds to the recreation deck because their rooms were flooded. The men on the eight-to-twelve watch paused in their work, thought this was a huge joke, and had a good laugh.

  Up on the bridge, Captain Smith tried to piece the picture together. No one was better equipped to do it. After thirty-eight years’ service with White Star, he was more than just senior captain of the line; he was a bearded patriarch, worshipped by crew and passengers alike. They loved everything about him – especially his wonderful combination of firmness and urbanity. It was strikingly evident in the matter of cigars. ‘Cigars,’ says his daughter, ‘were his pleasure. And one was allowed to be in the room only if one was absolutely still, so that the blue cloud over his head never moved.’

  Captain Smith was a natural leader, and on reaching the wheelhouse after the crash, he paused only long enough to visit the starboard wing of the bridge to see if the iceberg was still in sight. First Officer Murdoch and Fourth Officer Boxhall trailed along, and for a moment the three officers merely stood peering into the darkness. Boxhall thought he saw a dark shape astern, but he wasn’t sure.

  From then on all was business. Captain Smith sent Boxhall on a fast inspection of the ship. In a few minutes he was back: he had been as far forward in the steerage as he could go, and there was no sign of damage. This was the last good news Captain Smith heard that night.