Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic

by Daniel Allen Butler

  The sounds of the ancient hymn still carried across the water, and those in the lifeboats felt a certain horrible dignity about the moment. Pierre Marechal, sitting in Boat 7, would later relate: “When three-quarters of a mile away we stopped, the spectacle before our eyes was in its own way magnificent. In a calm sea, beneath a sky moonless but sown with millions of stars, the enormous Titanic lay on the water, illuminated from the waterline to the Boat Deck. The bow was slowly sinking into the black water.”20

  Aboard the ship though, an almost hysterical air gripped those who remained: that lurch of the superstructure when the expansion joint collapsed acted as a signal for those still on the upper decks to begin a mad rush toward the stern. As the water rolled up the deck, Peter Daly, the Lima representative for Haas & Sons of London, found a woman he didn’t know clutching at him, crying, “Oh, save me! Save me!”

  “Good lady,” he replied, “only God can save you now.” But the woman persisted, and Daly consented to make the jump into the freezing water with her. Taking her by the arm he helped her to the Boat Deck railing, just as a big wave came sweeping up the deck, washing him clear and pulling the woman from his grasp. Daly didn’t see her among the survivors.

  Steward Brown was among those still struggling to launch Collapsible A when the sea surged up around his feet. Realizing that the boat would soon be floating off, he jumped in the stern and cut the lines there, yelling for someone to cut the forward falls as well. Somebody did and at that moment the wave washed Collapsible A from the deck 21

  Up on the roof of the officer’s quarters, Second Officer Lightoller saw First Officer Murdoch one deck below still working desperately to get Collapsible A’s falls attached to the davits. He watched as the water rolled up the Boat Deck, engulfing Murdoch, as the bow sank lower and the stern continued to rise. As the water advanced, the crowd retreated before it, struggling “uphill” against the ever-steepening tilt of the deck. As Lightoller looked on in horror, the slow, the aged, or the merely clumsy were one by one overtaken by the rising sea, while others rushed to the stern, gripped by the drive of self preservation, prolonging their lives for a few minutes more. After a moment, Lightoller turned his back on them, and dived into the surging water.

  Surfacing, he saw just ahead of him the crow’s nest, now level with the water. Some irrational instinct seized him, and for a few seconds he swam toward it, thinking it a place of safety. Quickly snapping out of it, Lightoller turned and began to swim clear of the ship, but she wasn’t ready to let him go. Tons of seawater pouring down the ventilator shafts in front of the forward funnel created an irresistible suction, which pulled him back and pinned him against a grating just below the surface of the water. “Now we’ll see if Christian Science really works,” he thought as he realized that he was trapped and would be taken down with the wreck. Almost idly he wondered how long he would last, or if the grating would break from the pressure before he drowned, dragging him inside the hull of the sinking ship.

  He never found out. From somewhere deep within the ship a burst of hot air surged up the ventilator shaft, forcing him to the surface. Sputtering, Lightoller barely had time to take a deep breath before he was sucked under again, held against another grating and spit back up, like some sort of latter day Jonah. Gasping, Lightoller struck out away from the ship toward the overturned Collapsible B.22

  The unfortunate boat was the object of a good deal of attention from those who had been standing on the forward end of the superstructure. Harold Bride had grabbed an oarlock as the boat was washed off, and suddenly found himself swept underneath it. A dozen other men quickly scrambled atop the overturned keel, unaware of Bride struggling in the air pocket beneath it. The collapsible seemed dubious safety at best as it bobbed close to the sinking liner. In a matter of seconds those huge funnels—large enough for two railway coaches to pass through side by side—would plunge under, swallowing huge gulps of seawater and anything floating in it.

  The terror of being sucked down into the ship never materialized for Collapsible B, though. As the tilt grew steeper, the strain became unbearable for the remaining eight stays supporting the forward funnel. With a series of pistol-shot cracks, the stays parted, and accompanied by the groan of twisting steel, the funnel collapsed, falling over the starboard side of the ship amid a shower of sparks. For Lightoller and the men clinging to Collapsible B it was a blessing, for when it hit the water, the falling funnel kicked up a wave that washed them thirty yards clear of the ship. Others were less fortunate, for when it fell the funnel landed on a knot of swimmers struggling in the sea beside the wreck.23

  Now the sea was sweeping over the forward skylight and around the base of the second funnel. Colonel Gracie, nearing exhaustion, lay at the foot of the second funnel and suddenly found himself caught up in a swirling maelstrom of seawater, which threatened to pull him under like it had done with Lightoller. Terrified of being swallowed by one of the funnels, Gracie gave a mighty kick and broke free of the ship, surfacing some twenty yards from the Titanic.24

  Jack Thayer and Milton Long, a shipboard acquaintance who had spent most of the evening in the company of young Jack, were still standing by the starboard rail just aft of the second funnel. Earlier they had watched the uproar at Collapsible C, and both were convinced that particular boat didn’t stand a chance. So they decided to wait a little longer before abandoning the Titanic. Now as they stepped out of the way of the frantically retreating crowd, they watched the advancing water close in on them. The time had come, they agreed, to jump. They shook hands, wished each other luck, then straddled the railing together. Long looked at Thayer, who was pulling off his overcoat, and asked, “You are coming, boy?”

  “Go ahead, I’ll be right with you,” Thayer replied. Long slid down the side of the ship, and a few seconds later Thayer stood up on the railing and jumped out as far as he could. When Thayer came to the surface Long was nowhere to be seen. He had been dragged under by the sinking ship. 25

  The slant of the decks had become so steep that people began to lose their footing. Chef John Collins had been trying to help a woman from steerage who had two children with her, rushing from one side of the Boat Deck to the other, trying to find a lifeboat. Collins, carrying one of the children, heard someone call out that their best chance was in the stern. Turning he began to struggle “uphill” along with the woman and the other child, finding it nearly impossible to stand upright. All four of them were caught by the rising water, and the child was swept from Collin’s grasp. He never saw mother or children again.26

  Back by the fourth funnel, Olaus Abelseth braced himself for the on-rushing wave, but it never reached him. Huddled together on the raised roof over the First Class Smoking Room, Abelseth, his cousin, and brother-in-law were all clinging to a rope slung from one of the davits as a lifeline. The Titanic continued to pivot just forward of where the three men were standing, and they found themselves watching in dismay as one by one the passengers and crew remaining on the Boat Deck slid down into the water just a few feet below where they were standing. Despite the repeated urgings of his brother-in-law, Abelseth had postponed jumping off the ship until the last possible moment. Now with the sea only feet away, the three men joined hands and jumped in. Abelseth’s legs were snarled by a rope, and to free himself he had to let go of the other’s hands. They were swept away while Abelseth fought to get loose, all the time thinking “I’m a goner.” At last, his lungs near bursting, he kicked free of the last tangle of line and struggled to the surface. The other two men were never found 27

  The Titanic’s lights were glowing a dull red now, and it was difficult for those in the lifeboats to see what was happening aboard the ship. There was a growing knot of kneeling supplicants, most of them Third Class, at the very stern, gathered around Father Byles, their voices murmuring in prayer as the good Father, faithful to the last, offered absolution.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace—”

  The stern rose higher yet, and the mass of huma
nity still on board, some 1,500 souls, pressed together toward the tip, clinging to deckhouses, ventilators, cargo cranes, hatchcovers.

  “The Lord is with thee—”

  The ship herself shrieked with agony, her hull subjected to stresses it was never designed to withstand.

  “Pray for us sinners—”

  Suddenly every distinction between class and country, passenger and crew, vanished in those last terrible moments.

  “Now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  No one ever knew how well or how poorly John Jacob Astor met his end. It would be nice perhaps to say that, like the Thane of Cawdor, “nothing in his life so became him as the leaving of it,” but little is certain. Legend has it that Astor placed a girl’s big hat on the head of ten-year-old William Carter, saying “Now he’s a girl, and he can go.” Surprisingly enough it may be true: Astor had already watched Lightoller bar another boy from entering Boat 4, and such a gesture would not be out of place for the eccentric but not entirely unlikable millionaire. Dr. Washington Dodge later stated that Astor and Major Butt went down together, saying, “They went down standing on the bridge, side by side. I could not mistake them.” Even though Dr. Dodge was in Boat 13, a good half mile away at the time the bridge went under, there is an element of truth in his statement: if Astor was standing on the bridge when it went under that would explain how he came to be in the water on the starboard side of the ship. When his body was later recovered, it was crushed and covered with soot: Astor had been one of those hapless swimmers caught under the forward funnel as it collapsed.28

  Likewise the fate of Captain Smith remains a mystery. Later rumors would spring up claiming that he shot himself, but never with any proof. At around 2:10 A.M. Steward Brown saw the captain walk onto the bridge, still clutching his megaphone, but just minutes later Trimmer Hemming found the bridge empty. The most likely situation is that Captain Smith was washed overboard when the forward superstructure went under, for Fireman Harry Senior saw him in the water, holding a child in his arms, just moments before the Titanic began her final plunge. Still later, a swimmer approached Collapsible B, encouraging the men struggling atop the overturned lifeboat. “Good boys! Good lads!” he called out over and over again, in a voice tinged with authority, never once asking to be taken aboard. Greaser Walter Hurst tried, holding out an oar for the man to grasp onto, but the rapidly rising swell carried the man away before Hurst could reach him. To his dying day Hurst believed the man was Captain Smith.29

  There is the nagging possibility that Chief Officer Wilde did indeed take his own life. Eugene Daly and George Rheims would later write to their families, each unknown to the other, describing how each man had watched a senior ship’s officer (exactly who they did not identify) put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. Wilde was one of the great mysteries of that night: unlike Captain Smith, First Officer Murdoch, or Sixth Officer Moody, all of whom were also lost, Wilde was almost totally missing in survivors’ recollections. No one remembered watching Wilde overseeing the loading of any lifeboats, shepherding any passengers to the Boat Deck, or organizing any crew; instead Wilde seems to have remained near the bridge all night, occasionally giving vague or contradictory orders to some of the other officers. Carl Jansen, a survivor from steerage, did recall later how he “glanced toward the bridge and saw the chief officer place a revolver in his mouth and shoot himself. His body toppled overboard.” The mystery is a small tragedy within a greater one, for even if he did.not commit suicide, Wilde’s apparent inactivity seems to indicate that he alone among the Titanic’s officers lost his nerve that night.30

  Though Archie Butt was later said to have met his fate heroically, the last anyone definitely saw of him was shortly before 2:00 A.M., standing quietly to one side on the Boat Deck, having finally abandoned his card game but taking no part in loading or launching the lifeboats. Though perhaps lacking in superficial glamour, there is a certain dignity about a man quietly accepting his fate, without fuss—but then, he was a soldier.31

  The rush to the stern had become a stampede as the ship rose higher into the sky. The strains of “Nearer, My God, to Thee” abruptly ceased as the deck beneath the musicians’ feet slipped away, and that gallant band—already passing into legend—was pitched into the sea. In seconds the noise became an ear-splitting din as bulkheads, frames, and hull plates began to sheer and break under the strain, while everything movable inside the ship broke loose and plunged toward the bow. Walter Lord, in A Night to Remember, described it best:There has never been a mixture like it—29 boilers ... the jewelled copy of the Rubaiyat ... 800 cases of shelled walnuts ... 15,000 bottles of ale and stout ... huge anchor chains (each link weighing 175 pounds) ... 30 cases of golf clubs and tennis rackets for Spalding ... Eleanor Widener’s trousseau ... tons of coal ... Major Peuchen’s tin box ... 30,000 fresh eggs ... dozens of potted palms ... 5 grand pianos ... a little mantle clock in B-38 ... the massive silver duck press.

  And still it grew—tumbling trellises, ivy pots, and wicker chairs in the Cafe Parisien ... shuffleboard sticks ... the 50-phone switchboard ... two reciprocating engines and the revolutionary low-pressure turbine ... 8 dozen tennis balls for R. F. Downey & Co., a cask of china for Tiffany’s, a case of gloves for Marshall Field ... the remarkable ice-making machine on G Deck ... Billy Carter’s new English automobile ... the Ryerson’s sixteen trunks, beautifully packed by Victorine.32

  With a long moan of tortured metal, the Titanic stopped moving. The lights, which had been glowing a dark red suddenly went out completely, snapped on again with a searing flash, then went out again forever. From the fourth funnel aft, the Titanic stood almost perpendicular, a huge black shape silhouetted against the impossibly bright stars, suspended between the sea and the sky.

  It was at this moment that the reckoning came—the culmination of all the terrible “ifs”: if the Titanic’s maiden voyage hadn’t been postponed by three weeks; if her departure from Southampton hadn’t been delayed by an hour—an hour she never made up; if any of the six ice warnings had been heeded—or if Phillips hadn’t cut off the Californian in the middle of the seventh ; if she’d been moving a knot faster or a knot slower; if there had been moonlight or a choppy sea to illuminate the berg; if the iceberg hadn’t been “blue”; if Fleet or Lee had seen the ice ten seconds sooner—or ten seconds later; then there would have never been that dreadful “convergence of the twain,” as Thomas Hardy called it, of ice and steel.

  And yet—

  If the Titanic had hit the ice any other way; if she’d been built with a double hull as well as a double bottom; if her watertight bulkheads had carried only one deck higher—she would still have been afloat, crippled, but not dying.

  If the White Star Line had listened to Alexander Carlisle; if the Board of Trade’s regulations hadn’t been so hopelessly outdated; if the ship on the horizon had only come—then 1,500 helpless souls wouldn’t be only moments away from eternity.

  But all such thoughts were pointless now. The noise died away and a pall settled over the scene. The Titanic slowly twisted as if, in Jack Thayer’s words, “She turned her deck away from us, as if to hide from us the awful spectacle.” Then the weight of the water-filled forward half of the ship began to drag the liner down. She seemed to sag for a moment, as the stern settled back somewhat toward the sea: the overstrained hull finally gave way and began to break apart, causing some of those watching in the boats to imagine that somehow she would miraculously right herself, leading others to believe that she had broken completely in two. The Titanic began to slip under, gathering speed as she went, as if to hurry and bring an end to this final indignity.

  In Collapsible C Bruce Ismay turned his back and hunched over his oar—he couldn’t bear to watch. In Boat 1, C. E. Stengel cried out, “I cannot look any longer!” In Boat 14 Esther Hart held seven-year-old Eva tightly, burying her daughter’s face in her chest, so Eva wouldn’t see her father die. In Collapsible D Mrs. Goldsmith did the same to her son Franky. S
tanding on Collapsible B, less than fifty yards from the Titanic, Second Officer Lightoller heard a sound that would haunt him for the rest of his life: as the ship began her final plunge, he could hear people—husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and children—crying out to one another, “I love you.”

  Little more than twenty seconds after the liner began moving, the waters of the North Atlantic closed over the Blue Ensign at the Titanic’s stern. An eerie silence settled over the sea for some seconds, as if everyone, passengers and crew, those in the boats and those in the water, were momentarily unable to accept that the ship had vanished. Finally someone in Boat 13 sighed, “She’s gone, that’s the last of her.” In Boat 4 Ada Clark overheard someone murmur, “It’s gone.” In Number 5, Third Officer Pitman glanced at his watch and quietly announced, “It is 2:20 A.M.”33

  CHAPTER 9

  The Lonely Sea

  There is sorrow on the sea: it cannot be quiet.

  —Jeremiah 49:23

  THE STARS SHONE DOWN ON A SCENE OF ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE HORROR. The sea around the spot where the Titanic had disappeared was covered with a mass of tangled wreckage, and struggling in the midst of it were hundreds of helpless passengers and crew, swept off the ship as she took her final. plunge. Over everything a gray mist hung just a few feet above the water. To Colonel Gracie it recalled the waters of Lithe in the Aeneid.