Strange & Supernatural

by Barbara Whitby

  Her pleas finally began to irritate her husband. He picked up his young daughter Eva in his arms, and strode decisively onto the gangplank. Over his shoulder, he demanded of his lagging wife if she believed the ship was going to sink. When she muttered that she did not know for sure, he grew even more upset, and suggested that she should leave and go back home to her mother. He would go on ahead by himself and would send for her later, after she could see that he had arrived safely. She could then, if she overcame her ridiculous fears, book a passage on a different ship and join him. Feeling berated and defensive Esther caught up with him. All three of them boarded the Titanic together, and were shown to their comfortable second-class cabin.

  Esther’s fears did not diminish once they were settled in. She was convinced that whatever was going to happen would occur during the night. In order to be fully awake when the disaster that she dreaded took place, she decided to keep vigil all night and sleep during most of the day. Benjamin was left to explore shipboard life with his young daughter Eva. Each day Esther would get up in time to take Eva to the English-style early high tea provided for children, put her to bed, and then proceed to the formal second-class dining room with Benjamin. After they had eaten, she would return to their cabin, change into comfortable clothes, and settle down for her long night’s vigil with a book or knitting, always on the alert.

  Meanwhile, what was happening below decks would have given even Benjamin pause for thought, if he had been aware of it. The ability of rats to smell danger is legendary, and those travelling aboard the Titanic were no exception. On the morning of April 13, some firemen were chatting below decks when they were surprised to see a number of rats racing aft as if they were running away from the bows. “How extraordinary,” the men commented as they kicked out at the scampering animals. “If we did not know the ship is unsinkable we might think they were deserting the sinking ship.” They gave no more thought to the incident and went back to their work.

  Another little animal now also showed signs of agitation. The ship’s cat, Jenny, surprised some of the crew by moving her newborn kittens, one by one, from the crew’s quarters in the hold to a seemingly safe hideaway on an upper deck.

  Not far away, Rigel, one of the dozen or so dogs aboard, was playing with his master, the first officer, in their cabin. The officer noticed that the dog seemed distracted, almost as if he was listening to something his master could not hear. The officer dismissed it as stress from being cooped up, but he was puzzled. The dog had been to sea many times, and was quite familiar with the routine. And apart from the increased speed, the movement of the ship was scarcely noticeable.

  Below decks, the Titanic housed a variety of animals during the fatal voyage. Among them was a flock of rare French poultry that belonged to Miss Marie Young, who had taught music to President Roosevelt’s children. She became friendly with the ship’s carpenter, Hutchinson, who kept an eye open for the birds’ welfare. Impressed with the care he had shown them, Miss Young pressed some gold coins into his palm as she thanked him warmly. Hutchinson was extremely pleased. “Thank you, Miss,” he beamed, “that will bring me great good luck … to get gold on a maiden voyage.” And he went whistling on his way.

  At the same time a couple of passengers, Isidor Strauss and his wife Ida, were enjoying an evening nightcap in the luxurious first-class lounge. They were returning from a holiday in Europe and were looking forward to getting home. They wondered how their favourite horse, a six-year-old mare, was doing. She was a magnificent animal, in perfect health, and she deserved any pampering they could provide. They had boarded her on a farm before leaving the United States, thinking how much she would enjoy the freedom and the luscious grass.

  On that same night, their third night out, Esther was alarmed to hear a faint, out-of-the-ordinary grinding noise. She woke Benjamin, and he went up on deck with ill grace to track down the sound she had heard. When he returned he flopped testily back into bed. “There is nothing to worry about,” he said, “the ship is moving through extremely frigid waters, and the grinding noise is simply from the small ice floes that are nudging the hull.” Esther continued her all-night vigil.

  The next day was a Sunday, so instead of resting Esther attended the church service and the family lunch. One of the ship’s officers, who had heard of her fears, came over to their dining table to tease her about them. He wanted to know if she was still running the ship, and hoped that by this time she would be able to sleep on a normal schedule. “No,” she replied, “I will be up throughout this coming night, on watch as usual.” The officer, nonplussed by her tone, said no more.

  Meanwhile, the wireless operators received seven ice warnings during the day, but they were so overworked that they did not pass most of them on to Captain Smith, who was on the bridge. The day passed peacefully enough, and in the evening the ship, at the urging of Bruce Ismay, put on an extra burst of speed in spite of the ice fields, in an attempt to beat existing records.

  This was the night that would prove Esther’s intuition valid, the night of April 14, 1912. Only a few hours were left before the ship would go down with such an enormous loss of life. But, as yet, Esther did not know precisely what it was she most feared.

  At 11:40 p.m. Esther felt a faint shudder go through the ship, followed by a strange quivering. Years later Eva, thinking back to that night, remembered that she and her father were asleep, but that her mother was up doing some needlework. When Esther felt the jolt, which she later likened to a train drawing into a station, she knew immediately that this was what she had been waiting for. She quickly woke up Benjamin and urged him to find out what had happened. Recalling how cold his previous night’s trip to the deck had been — and all for nothing — he refused outright to indulge what he saw as her fancies. However, Esther could not rest. Eventually, tired of her endless entreaties, Benjamin left the cabin in a defiant mood.

  When he came back down to them his expression was sombre. Esther did not need to ask him what had happened. She had guessed when she saw members of the crew hurrying down the corridor, talking in rapid undertones. She had already roused Eva while Benjamin was away and made sure the child was warmly dressed. Benjamin quickly swept Eva up into his arms, wrapped in a blanket, and the three of them took the elevator up to the boat deck. They went immediately to Lifeboat 14, and Benjamin told his wife and daughter to stay by it at all costs. His last words to Eva were to hold Mummy’s hand and be a good girl. He then stepped back into the chaotic, frightened crowd around them. That was the last time they saw him.

  Eva later remembered that they had been two of the first people to be settled into Lifeboat 14, and credited her mother’s premonition for their survival. She always believed that they were saved because they were right on the spot.

  The chaos and fear on board grew worse. At first people milled around in groups, many of them supremely confident that the vessel would not go down. Some firmly believed that taking to the lifeboats would be more dangerous than staying aboard. The lifeboats had to be winched down to the water from 75 feet in the air, and in some cases could not be lowered properly because the ropes did not run smoothly. Some lifeboats, crowded with survivors, dangled at an angle high in mid-air, threatening to capsize. Contrary orders were barked from all sides, and no one seemed to be in charge.

  Lifeboat Number 14 soon became dangerously overcrowded. Fifth Officer Lowe fired a warning shot above the heads of the throng to prevent anyone else from pushing aboard it. A hysterical Eva thought he was going to shoot the passengers. Instead, he reorganized the load. In the shuffle, the desperate and frightened child was accidentally separated from her mother and thrust into a different lifeboat. Sobbing, terrified and alone among strangers, Eva did not see Esther again during the long night’s agonizing wait for rescue. She would not know for hours whether her mother was still alive.

  Souvenir postcard of the Titanic

  Cringing, and
missing her mother acutely, Eva witnessed the sharp rise of Titanic’s stern and the way the passengers who were still on deck were plummeted into the ice-filled ocean. Isidor and Ida Strauss and the kindly ship’s carpenter, Hutchinson, as well as her father were amongst them. Eva could never again, throughout her long life, bear to look at photographs or pictures of the scene.

  John Thayer, a survivor who clung for hours with 30 other people to a half-submerged raft, described the scene: “We could see groups of the almost 1,500 people still aboard, clinging in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees; only to fall in masses, pairs, or singly, as the great after-part of the ship, 250 feet of it, rose into the sky, till it reached a 65- or 70-degree angle. It seemed an age to those who witnessed it before the liner finally sank.”

  Eva later described her own overwhelming fear as the lifeboats pulled away from the mother ship. Their tiny boat seemed very frail and vulnerable in the open sea and — until it disappeared — the great ship looked like the only safe place. Many people still believed almost to the end that the passengers would reboard once the crisis in the hull was dealt with.

  As the rowers — including women passengers — bent to their oars in the darkness, survivors in the lifeboats were ordered to search under the seats for supplies. A feeling of hopelessness pervaded. There were no lanterns, nor was there any food or water — not even a ship’s biscuit to keep them alive. The tiny lifeboats were soon separated from each other and scattered over a four-mile radius.

  For more than an hour after the ship sank those in the lifeboats listened to heart-rending screams and cries for help, as hundreds of those still in the water begged to be rescued. Even though most of the lifeboats were not loaded to capacity, many already in the boats thought it too dangerous to pull thrashing people aboard over the side.

  Finally the clamour gave way to a quiet that was even more disturbing. When Eva was interviewed in 1993, towards the end of her life, she at first said that her worst memories were of the screams. Then she hesitated, and went on to recall that even worse was the silence that followed. “It seemed as if once everybody had gone, drowned, finished,” she said, “the whole world was standing still. There was nothing, just this deathly, terrible silence in the dark night with the stars above.”

  The subdued hush was suddenly broken by the sound of frantic barking. A huge black Newfoundland dog, Rigel, was searching the icy waters, desperate for a sign of his master, the first officer. He rooted endlessly among the debris and bodies, ever confident that he would find him. Never giving up hope, the great dog eventually took upon himself the task of shepherding Lifeboat No. 4, guarding it and swimming slightly ahead to guide it.

  Rescue at Last

  Just after the first rays of the rising sun coloured the night clouds, a full two hours after the Titanic finally sank, the SS Carpathia arrived upon the scene. When the rescue ship neared the lifeboats, the passengers panicked, petrified that the great ship might mow them down. But one by one Carpathia spotted them all — except for Lifeboat Number 4, which drifted too close to starboard to be noticed. The frantic screams of its occupants were blown away by the wind. But Rigel’s vigilance saved them, as he bobbed ahead of his boat, still swimming with a desperate energy. His relentless barking was so extraordinary amidst that scene of chaos that it attracted the attention of the watch. Some sailors ran to the bows and located the lifeboat. They were just in time. A moment more and the tiny boat might have been smashed by the heaving ship. The dog was pulled from the water at the same time as the passengers were rescued. Rigel continued barking from the ship’s rail until a seaman took him below to be warmed and fed. There, he was comforted and fussed over and was celebrated as a hero.

  Eva’s lifeboat was the last to be picked up. The scared but feisty little seven-year-old girl wearily tilted back her stiff neck. The deck of the rescue ship loomed unbelievably high against the dark clouds above, jutting at mad angles as the waves surged against both vessels. She could not utter a sound to ask for help — her lips were caked with sea salt and her mouth was too dry to moisten them. In any case, the freezing dawn wind carried away all voices. No one could either hear or give instructions. Each survivor crouched as if alone in his or her misery.

  The survivors could see that, high above the reach of the waves, a hatch had been opened in the side of the liner. Soon a rope ladder was swung down towards the lifeboat, then several sailors scurried to help.

  The adults went first, clinging desperately to the wet rope ladder as the high winds whipped it in all directions. Their numbed bodies were continuously drenched by the dangerous storm-tossed waves. The women especially were hampered by sodden clothes, dragged down by the sheer weight of the full-length dresses of the time. Each survivor was forced to face the dreadful possibility of falling at the last minute, either to drown or to capsize the lifeboat below. In spite of the very real dangers involved in the terrible climb, every one of them made it to the hatch. And each was drawn inside to safety by eagerly reaching hands. Far below, the shocked faces of the children craned towards the last adult figure climbing higher and higher towards escape.

  The kindly sailors held back Eva and the other children until the adult passengers were safely aboard the Carpathia. It was too dangerous to attempt to rescue the children by the same method, their little bodies were too light, and they did not have the strength to hold on. The plan was to collect them in a big cargo net, which was lowered from the same hatch. A sailor clambered down to the lifeboat, clutching a load of sacks, and each child was snuggled into one. Crying with fear of the awful ascent, all the children were finally hauled up together in the cargo net, and unloaded through the hatch.

  Even though she was now safely onboard the rescue ship, Eva could not relax. She was sick in every way. Not only was she retching with seasickness from the motion of the tiny lifeboat, but her body was also battered and bruised. Most of all, Eva was sick with fear when she was not able to spot her mother. The graphic image of her father’s fall from the Titanic’s deck was still vivid in her imagination. She searched the ship for what seemed hours, but no one could help her. Too many people were too busy trying to help too many others who were in trouble.

  At last, when both daughter and mother had almost given up hope, they found each other in the crush. When each saw the other’s face, they were completely overwhelmed. Throughout their long night’s separation, neither of them had any idea whether the other was still alive. Esther and Eva clung together for every instant of the return to safe harbour. They would be haunted for the rest of their lives by the dismal hoot of the Carpathia’s foghorn that sounded day and night as they steamed towards New York in thick fog. It was like a continuous funeral dirge, and it heightened their grief for Benjamin, who was lost to them when he went down with the ship.

  Eva would never forget her father’s last words to her: “Be a good girl and stay close to your mother.” She felt deeply guilty when they became separated almost straightaway. She felt as if she had betrayed his trust, but in fact she was being unfair to herself. The separation had been no one’s fault. Together, mother and daughter talked of their love for Benjamin and of how deeply they would miss him.

  Even when the Carpathia steamed into New York the facts of the sinking remained shrouded in mystery. Phillip Franklin, the vice president of International Mercantile Marine (the White Star’s controlling company) wept openly as he spoke to the press. “I thought her unsinkable,” he said, “and I based my opinion on the best expert advice. I do not understand it.” Franklin had voiced what thousands of others have felt: that this tragedy was truly difficult to comprehend in its enormity.

  Benjamin’s sister met Eva and her mother at New York, but they did not stay with her for long. Eva and Esther soon returned to England on the SS Celtic, in spite of their great fear of sailing again.

  After the Disaster

  Weird happenings prolonged the Titanic
story even after her sinking.

  A 30-foot model of the RMS Titanic, which was on its way to New England to be displayed at an exhibition, was discovered to be mysteriously damaged when it was uncrated. The damage to the model was uncannily similar to that of the real ship. And the model, like the ship, carried too few lifeboats.

  Isidor Strauss and his wife refused to be separated, and drowned together. Inexplicably, their favourite horse Bess — the one they had boarded on a farm to await their return — also died the same night Titanic went down. She was locked in the stable as usual by the groom on the night of April 14 but the next morning she was discovered dead in her stall. The young horse had been in excellent health. Her death was never satisfactorily explained.

  The ship’s cat, Jenny, who had desperately tried to move her newborn kittens to a higher deck, perished with her whole brood in spite of her natural instinct. So did a dozen or so dogs, most of whom were locked in their owners’ cabins, where they slowly drowned.

  Recalling the incident of the panicked rats, the firemen realized that they must have been running away from the bows, the area where the ship would be so badly damaged before another day had elapsed.

  When the SS Montmagny was searching the area for wreckage on May 9, 1912, as she passed over the site where the Titanic sank, her bell began to toll weirdly at regular intervals, as if sounding a dirge. Once she had left the site of the accident the uncanny tolling ceased.

  Bruce Ismay retired from public life shortly after the disaster. He left a large walnut wardrobe, which he had used for many years, behind in his office. A framed oval mirror hung inside it. An official of White Star, Frank Bustard, acquired this wardrobe for his own use. He removed the mirror and hung it in his office, where it remained without incident. Then on Sunday, October 17, 1937, Bruce Ismay died. When Frank Bustard came into his office on the Monday morning he found the mirror smashed to pieces.