In addition to the sixteen regular lifeboats, there were four collapsible boats with canvas sides that could be raised. After the other lifeboats had left, two of these collapsible boats were placed in davits and left the ship heavily loaded at around 2:00 a.m. As the Titanic’s bow plunged under, passengers and crew struggled to free the two remaining collapsibles lashed to the roof of the officers’ quarters. One floated off upside down, the other left awash but right side up.
By 2:20 a.m. the Titanic’s stern was high in the air. Her lights blinked once and then went out forever. The ship then broke in two, between the third and fourth funnels. After the bow section disappeared, the severed stern fell back in the water before it, too, filled with water and sank. In the icy water over 1500 people floundered and cried out for rescue. But very few of the eighteen lifeboats came back to rescue swimmers. Twenty-eight men found refuge on the back of overturned Collapsible B and twelve survived after climbing into the half-submerged Collapsible A. When the Carpathia finally arrived just before dawn, it took aboard only 712 people from the 2209 who had been on board the Titanic.
As the Carpathia steamed toward New York, news of the Titanic’s sinking made headlines around the world. The White Star Line chartered a small steamer, the Mackay-Bennett, to sail from Halifax on April 17 to search for bodies. It recovered 306 corpses, of which 116 were buried at sea because they were so badly decomposed. Three additional ships were sent out, but only twenty-two more bodies were found. Fifty-nine victims would eventually be claimed by relatives and sent home for burial, while the remaining 150 were interred in three Halifax cemeteries.
On the night of April 18, a crowd of over thirty thousand people mobbed the Cunard pier in New York to greet the arriving Carpathia. Waiting to meet J. Bruce Ismay were two American senators, with a summons for him to appear the next day before a U.S. Senate inquiry into the disaster. Ismay had stepped into one of the last lifeboats and would become a target of much criticism. The Senate inquiry lasted until May 25 and questioned eighty-two witnesses. It concluded that the ship whose lights had been seen from the Titanic was the Californian, and that it could have come to the rescue in time. It also recommended that ships should carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, that regular lifeboat drills should be conducted and that the wireless equipment on ships should be in operation twenty-four hours a day.
Similar recommendations were made by a British inquiry that ran from May 2 to July 3 and questioned ninety-seven witnesses. The only passengers to testify were Lord and Lady Duff Gordon, who had been much criticized for escaping in a lifeboat that was less than one-third full. The British inquiry did not find fault with either the Duff Gordons or with Bruce Ismay, nor did it assign any blame to the White Star Line. It also found no evidence that third-class passengers had been treated unfairly, despite the fact that 536 of the 710 aboard were lost.
After the Titanic disaster, her sister ship Olympic was renovated to make her double hull truly watertight, and forty-eight additional lifeboats were added to her decks. The Olympic then had a long, successful career until 1935, when she was scrapped and her elegant furnishings were sold at auction. The third sister ship was completed in 1914 and named the Britannic, instead of the Gigantic. But she never carried any paying passengers. At the outbreak of World War I the Britannic was converted to a hospital ship and sunk by an enemy mine off Turkey on November 21, 1916. In August of 1995, Dr. Robert Ballard, the leader of the team that had discovered the Titanic ten years before, explored the wreck of the Britannic in a small nuclear submarine.
The Titanic’s wreck site has been visited many times since its discovery in 1985, and artifacts from it now appear in touring exhibitions. The last Titanic survivor, Millvina Dean, died in May 2009 at the age of ninety-seven.
GLOSSARY
A deck, B deck etc: The decks on the Titanic were numbered downward from A through G, with A deck being the first deck below the boat deck.
aft: toward the back or stern of a ship.
boat deck: the deck on a ship where the lifeboats are stored. On the Titanic this was the top deck.
boater: a stiff straw hat with a flat top and a ribbon.
bow: the front end of a ship.
bridge: a structure or area toward the front of a ship, from which it is navigated.
bunting: patriotic, festive or funeral decorations, usually made from cloth.
cabin: a room on a ship.
crow’s nest: a lookout platform high on a ship’s mast.
davits: crane-like arms used to raise and lower lifeboats.
forecastle: an area at the bow of a vessel; also called fo’c’sle.
forward: toward the front end of a ship.
funnel: a tall smokestack on a ship.
gangway: a ramp from a dock onto a ship.
gunwale: the upper edge of the side of a boat.
magnesium flares: an early form of flash photography.
Marconi room: a cabin on the boat deck where the two wireless (radio) operators worked.
militia: a volunteer military force.
Morse code: a system of dots and dashes representing letters and numbers, thus allowing messages to be transmitted by radio or flashing lamp.
port: the left side of a ship when facing the bow.
promenade: an upper deck that is sometimes enclosed, where passengers can walk.
starboard: the right-hand side of a ship when facing forward.
stern: the rear end of a ship.
tender: an auxiliary ship that ferries passengers or provisions to a larger ship.
well deck: a space on the deck of a ship lying at a lower level; on the Titanic there was one below the forecastle deck near the bow and below the rear deck at the stern.
windlass: a cylindrical device used for raising or hauling objects, around which a cable, rope or chain winds.
wireless: an early name for radio.
IMAGES AND DOCUMENTS
Image 1: Two Winchester College boys in their straw hats that were called “strats.”
Image 2: Millionaire John Jacob Astor takes a walk with his young wife Madeleine and their Airedale terrier, Kitty.
Image 3: The Titanic had three giant bronze propellers. Each of the two side propellers was 7 metres across and weighed 34 tonnes. The centre propeller was slightly smaller.
Image 4: The Titanic leaves Belfast for her sea trials on April 2, 1912. The testing of the new ship took only six hours. That evening, she left for Southampton to prepare for her maiden voyage.
Image 5: Jack Thayer and twenty-seven others huddled on an overturned lifeboat until they were rescued.
Image 6: Charles Fortune died in the icy water; his body was never recovered.
Image 7: The crew of a ship that was sent from Halifax to search for bodies tried to recover the overturned lifeboat, but eventually set it adrift.
Image 8: One of the Titanic’s victims is prepared for burial. Of the 328 bodies recovered, 119 were buried at sea.
Images 9 and 10: The bodies were given numbers in the order that they were found; their personal effects were saved and listed. John Jacob Astor was Number 124. Ramon Artagaveytia, a businessman from Uruguay, was Number 22.
Image 11: Sketches drawn by Lewis Skidmore from a description by Jack Thayer correctly show that the Titanic broke up while sinking, though many of the details are inaccurate.
Image 12: The Titanic’s route from Southampton to where she sank in the north Atlantic south of Newfoundland.
IMAGE CREDITS
Every effort has been made to trace ownership of visual and written material used in this book. Errors and omissions will be corrected in subsequent updates or editions.
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following.
Cover cameo: (detail) Sons of George Cartwright, Calgary, Alberta, Glenbow Archives, NA-1447-29.
Cover background (detail): Mono Print © 1999 topham Picturepoint.
Image 1: Winchester boys in boaters, court
esy of John Loewen.
Image 2: Madeleine and John Jacob Astor, Brown Brothers, PIX 676.
Image 3: Port propeller and centre propeller of Olympic with posed workers and caisson from dock floor, April 1911, © National Museums Northern Ireland 2011, Collection Harland & Wolff, Ulster Folk & Transport Museum HOYFM.HW.H.1512.
Image 4: Titanic, Brown Brothers, PIX 428.
Image 5: Jack Thayer with 1915 rowing team, University of Pennsylvania Archives, 20050914019.
Image 6: Charles Fortune, courtesy of Bishop’s College School Archives.
Image 7: © The Titanic Historical Society.
Image 8: Body of R.M.S. Titanic victim aboard rescue vessel Minia being made ready for make-shift coffin, 1912; Reference no.: NSARM Photograph Collection: Transportation & Communication: Ships & Shipping: R.M.S. Titanic #2.
Image 10: Description, clothing and effects of Body No. 22, first class passenger Ramon Artagaveytia; Medical Examiner, City of Halifax and Town of Dartmouth NSARM RG 41, Vol. 75, no. 22.
Image 11: Sketches by Lewis Skidmore.
Image 12: Map by Paul Heersink/Paperglyphs.
The publisher wishes to thank Barbara Hehner for checking additional factual details.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In this novel, Jamie Laidlaw, his family and Rosalie are fictional characters. All the other people who appear in the story are real and I’ve attempted to describe them and their experiences as accurately as possible. John Ryerson, for example, was indeed travelling home on the Titanic with his family because of the death of his older brother in a motoring accident. His adventures on the ship with Jamie and the pet rat, however, are the products of my imagination. For many years after the disaster, John Ryerson refused to speak about the Titanic. He died in January 1986.
Jack Thayer wrote a letter to Milton Long’s parents describing the last evening he spent with their son on the Titanic. I have used his recollections and added Jamie Laidlaw to their company. Arthur Peuchen’s experiences are also recreated from how he described them. Until his death in 1929, Peuchen had to endure accusations of cowardice for having lived when so many had died.
Francis M. Browne was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1915. He served as a chaplain during World War I and was awarded a medal for valour. Browne remained a keen photographer and, after his death in 1960, albums containing over forty-two thousand of his photographs were discovered. His Titanic companion, Jack Dudley Odell, lived until 1995.
The official opening of the Château Laurier Hotel in Ottawa was postponed due to the death of Charles Hays. Sculptor Paul Chevré’s bust of Wilfrid Laurier was installed in the lobby, though Chevré himself would die less than two years later, having never recovered from the shock of the sinking. By contrast, R. Norris Williams recuperated well and soon won several national singles and doubles tennis championships. He died in 1968.
Ethel Fortune, the eldest of the three Fortune sisters, was haunted for years by a vision of her brother Charles flailing in the icy water.
The two French toddlers who were dubbed “the Titanic orphans” were reunited with their mother after she saw a photograph of them in a newspaper. Their father, whose real name was Michel Navratil, had been taking them to America without her knowledge.
Captain Arthur Rostron was awarded several medals for his heroism on the Carpathia and later became the commodore of the entire Cunard Line. Charles Lightoller was never made a captain of any White Star ship. He did become a navy commander in World War I, and during World War II used his own yacht to rescue soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk. He died in 1952.
* * *
I’ve been lucky enough to write and edit a number of books about the Titanic. In 1986 I worked with explorer Dr. Robert Ballard on his bestselling book, The Discovery of the Titanic. Part of my job was helping to identify the artifacts Dr. Ballard had seen on the ocean floor.
In 1988 I also helped to create Robert Ballard’s first book for young readers, Exploring the Titanic. In working on both those books I met a remarkable Titanic artist named Ken Marschall and with him and Titanic historian Don Lynch, compiled a lavish volume entitled Titanic: An Illustrated History. This book helped inspire James Cameron to make his epic movie, Titanic. In 1993 I oversaw the creation of the popular children’s picture book, Polar the Titanic Bear; a few years later I wrote two books about the lost liner: Inside the Titanic and 882½ Amazing Answers to All Your Questions About the Titanic.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the debt I owe to my Titanic mentors: Robert Ballard, Walter Lord, Ken Marschall and Don Lynch. In addition to consulting all the books I worked on with these people, I also found excellent information in Alan Hustak’s Titanic: The Canadian Story. The ever-useful website Encyclopedia Titanica was also a very handy online reference tool. John and Charles Loewen provided excellent information from their days at Winchester College, as did Suzanne Foster, the college’s archivist. Thanks also to Merrylou Smith at Bishop’s College school. And special thanks go to Titanic author and historian George Behe for his expert read of the text, and to my long-time colleague and editor, Sandra Bogart Johnston.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hugh Brewster is the award-winning author of twelve books for young readers, including Prisoner of Dieppe in the I Am Canada series. It was named a Best Book for 2010 by Quill & Quire and The Globe and Mail, and was nominated for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award. Deadly Voyage has been nominated for the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award, Resource Links Best of the Year, shortlisted for the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Award, named an OLA Best Bet for 2010 and a Starred Selection by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. His other awards include the Children’s Literature Round-tables of Canada Information Book Award for On Juno Beach and an Honour Book designation for Dieppe: Canada’s Darkest Day of WWII; the Norma Fleck Award for At Vimy Ridge; a Governor General’s Award nomination for Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose; a Silver Birch Award nomination for Dieppe; and Silver Birch and Red Cedar Awards for Anastasia’s Album.
Other books in the
series
Prisoner of Dieppe
World War II
Hugh Brewster
Blood and Iron
Building the Railway
Paul Yee
Shot at Dawn
World War I
John Wilson
Behind Enemy Lines
World War II
Carol Matas
For more information please see the I AM CANADA
website: www.scholastic.ca/iamcanada
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Jamie Laidlaw is a fictional character created by the author, and his journal is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2011 by Hugh Brewster. All rights reserved.
A Dear Canada Book. Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd. SCHOLASTIC and I AM CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Scholastic Canada Ltd., 604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada.
ISBN: 978-1-4431-1927-6
First eBook edition: January, 2012
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