by Senan Molony
This last question is bizarre, and smacks of desperation. However, Stone answered it, even though he had never knowingly seen a ship founder at night in all his years at sea. He said: ‘Not by any means’.
7961. [The Commissioner] Can you give me an idea of the speed at which she was steaming away when these lights gradually disappeared? — No, it would be very difficult to express an opinion.
7962. …I should say that at different times she was going at different speeds.
7964. She was in a sea covered with ice? — Yes.
7966. You thought she was steaming away? — Yes.
7967. In the same condition of water that you were lying in? — Yes.
7968. Did you really think so? — I did. The only confirmation I had of it was the bearings of the compass. Two ships remaining stationary could not possibly alter their bearings.
7969. You were swinging round? — We were slowly swinging.
7970. [Mr Butler Aspinall] When you saw her disappear, did you think something had happened to her? — No, nothing except that she was steaming away.
Very humdrum and prosaic. And now, Stone says, that vessel finally disappeared, and he decided to convey that fact to the captain. Here is a section of Stone’s original statement for the captain, 18 April 1912:
At 2.45 I again whistled down again and told you we had seen no more lights and that the steamer had steamed away to the SW and was now out of sight, also that the rockets were all white and had no colours whatever.
This would be the captain’s third notification. Lord had retired to the chart room at 12.15 a.m., where he rested, fully dressed (7352). He did not fall asleep before twenty minutes to one (7353). The call is supported by Stone’s colleague, Gibson, in his separate original written statement of the same vintage: ‘At about 2.45 he [Stone] whistled down to the Captain again, but I did not hear what was said’. Stone also described this communication in direct evidence:
7976. Twenty minutes later you reported to the Captain. How? — About 2.40 [five minute difference] by means of the whistle tube. I blew down again to, the Master; he came and answered it, and asked what it was. I told him the ship, from the direction of which we had seen the rockets coming, had disappeared; bearing SW to half W, the last I had seen of the light.
7977. In view of the fact that when you saw her stern light last you thought nothing had happened to her, why did you make this report to the Captain? — Simply because I had had the steamer under observation all the watch, and that I had made reports to the Captain concerning her, and I thought it my duty when the ship went away from us altogether to tell him.
7978. [The Commissioner] But why couldn’t you have told him in the morning? Why wake up the poor man? — Because it was my duty to do so, and it was his duty to listen to it.
7980. It was of no consequence if the steamer was steaming safely away? — He told me to try and get all the information I could from the steamer. I got none and I thought it my duty to give him all the information I could about the steamer.
7981. Were you anxious about her?— No.
7982. Was he anxious about her? — No, as far as I could judge from his answers and instructions.
It is sometimes contended that Stone must have realised what the rockets meant – but was simply reluctant to confront or challenge his master about what should be done. But look at that reply to question 7978; Stone says he woke up the captain with a call ‘because it was my duty to do so, and it was his duty to listen to it’. It hardly bespeaks an officer in dread of his superior!
The questions continue:
7998. [Mr Aspinall] I want now to take you to the later period, when you spoke to the Captain and told him that the steamer had disappeared? — Yes.
7999. Will you tell me whether the Captain made any reply to that, and if so, what? — He again asked me if I was certain there were no colours in those lights whatsoever. I again assured him that they were all white, just white rockets.
8000. Can you explain why it was that the Captain should again ask you if you were sure there were no colours in the lights? — No.
8001. Have you no idea? You are a sailor? —Yes.
8002. You had been taking part in this matter, so to speak? — Yes.
8003. You were an onlooker paying careful attention, keeping those lights under observation, and then this question again comes from the Master. What did you think he meant by such a question? — I did not know, except that he had the thought in his mind that they may have been company signals of some sort.
8004. But do you really mean that? — That thought may have been in his mind; I did not say it was in his mind.
8005. Was it in yours? — That they were company’s signals?
8006. Yes? — No, not that they were. They may possibly have been.
The above accounts of a conversation with Captain Lord at 2.40/2.45 a.m., when the steamer had finally disappeared in Stone’s view, may appear to clash with another part of Stone’s evidence which could lead one to think that the last he saw of the steamer was at 2 a.m., coinciding with Gibson’s evidence to that effect. This is Stone:
8100. For how long had you this vessel’s stern light under observation? — From just about 1 o’clock to the time I lost her, I should say. The last light I saw must have been her stern light. It may have been the light at the end of an alleyway, or some bright light on deck.
8101. About how long do you think she was showing her stern light? — About an hour.
Add one hour to 1 a.m. and you get 2 a.m. But Stone says the stern light, not all lights on the ship, showed for an hour. The stern light was only displayed when his strange ship turned, shutting in her red side light to display her stern light only. Stone’s original statement, written on the Californian, 18 April 1912, states:
Gibson and I observed three more [rockets] at intervals and kept calling them up on our Morse lamps but got no reply whatsoever. The other steamer meanwhile had shut in her red side light and showed us her stern light…
Stone makes mention of the stern light for the first time before noting a heading for the Californian at 1.50 a.m.
The opening of the stern light seems to have happened just prior to the vessel firing the last rocket that they saw. Stone says this happened at 1.40. If he saw the stern light for the first time at 1.35 and sees it for about an hour thereafter, then he is again seeing the light of his mystery steamer long after the Titanic is no longer showing any. But elsewhere Captain Lord suggests that Stone told him that he had seen the last of the steamer at 2 a.m.:
7064. [The Commissioner] When did you lose sight, and how, of the ship the lights of which you had seen? — The Second Officer reported to me he last saw her at 2 o’clock, and it was then bearing SW one half W by compass. [Does he mean the hull, rather than the light?]
7065. Is that the last so far as you know that was seen of that vessel from your ship? — As far as I know it was, my Lord.
7067. How many miles [away]? — I think eight.
This refers to a conversation between Stone and Lord subsequent to the night’s events. It may not be important. Yet Californian’s chief officer, George Stewart, also testified to being told of a 2 a.m. disappearance by Stone:
8638. He [Stone] told me the steamer that had fired rockets had steamed away to the south-west, and he last saw her about two o’clock, just faintly with glasses. She steamed away from him.
Meanwhile Gibson, in evidence, ascribes a wrong time of 3.40 (surely it should be 2.40?) when he recalls Stone’s final call to the captain:
7574. What was it? — About 3.40 the, Second Officer whistled down to the Captain again.
7575. Twenty minutes to four? — Yes.
7576. Did you see him doing it? —Yes.
7577. Did you hear what he said? — No.
But Gibson admitted he was ‘not exactly’ sure about the time. In any case, errors, slips of the tongue and minor contradictions are common to all oral evidence. Of much more importance is the fa
ct that Captain Lord testifies that he simply has no recollection at all of this third conversation:
THE THIRD NOTIFICATION – LORD’S VERSION
7295. I must ask you something more. Do you remember Mr Stone reporting at twenty minutes to three to you that morning through the tube? — I do not.
7296. Is there a tube? — There is a tube.
7297. What is the tube? — A speaking-tube.
7298. To your chart room? —To my own room. [Captain’s room]
7299. Were you in your own room? — No, I was in the chart room. [The chart room and Captain’s room adjoined one another below deck]
7300. Would you hear if he reported through the tube to you? — At a quarter past one?
7301. He reported through the tube then? — At a quarter past one.
7302. Listen to this – he reported to you at twenty minutes to three through the tube and told you that the steamer had disappeared bearing southwest half west. Do you remember that? — I do not remember it. He has told me that since.
7303. Have you any reason to doubt it? — I do not know anything at all about it.
7304. Have you any reason to doubt that Mr Stone, the Officer, is speaking the truth? — I do not see why he should not tell me the truth.
7305. [The Commissioner] Is he a reliable, trustworthy man? — As far as I know of him he is.
7306. [The Attorney General] Is he still with you? — He is still with me.
7307. Listen to this: ‘The Captain again asked me if I was sure there were no colours in the lights that had been seen’. Do you remember that? — I do not.
7308. And that he – Mr Stone – ‘assured you that they were white lights’? — He has told me all about this since, but I have not the slightest recollection that anything happened that way.
7309. He has told you of this – what he reported to you that night? — Yes.
7310. And you have no reason to doubt it? — If he is telling the truth I have not.
7311. Do you doubt it at all? — I do not know.
7312. This is what he says: ‘I assured him that they were white lights and he’ – that is you – ‘said “All right”. Have you no recollection of that conversation? — I have no recollection of any conversation between half-past one and half-past four that I had with the Second Officer.
If Lord spoke to Stone as Stone says, but cannot remember it, then the captain has a case of somniloquy. He was talking in his sleep. Or else his subsequent sleep has blotted out his entire recollection of a conscious conversation. It seems rather akin to what he said when describing why he could not recall anything said by Gibson, who had called down to his room thirty-five minutes before Stone’s tube-call of 2.40:
7287. [Have you] any reason to doubt [Gibson was telling the truth]? — No, I was asleep.
7288. Then do you mean you said this in your sleep to him, that he was to report? — I very likely was half awake. I have no recollection of this apprentice saying anything to me at all that morning.
The speaking tube was to Captain Lord’s own room (7298) whereas Gibson had found him in the next-door chartroom, Lord with his eyes closed, thirty-five minutes earlier. Lord would have had to get up to answer the call. If he indeed answered the call. Stone remembers a complete conversation and says that Lord ‘came and answered it’ (question 7976), implying movement from the chartroom to the captain’s own room. Lord has no recollection of walking or talking, whereas Gibson saw a call being made but heard no conversation.
The idea of Lord sleepwalking to the speaking tube – and back again – is obviously open to high ridicule by his modern critics. Yet it is quite common for some people to appear to function normally in this way and then have no recollection of it in the morning. Lord’s lack of recollection must have been perceived by the Inquiry as perilously close to evasiveness or denial. He could have used his location in his own defence, like so: ‘I ought to remember, because it would have involved me getting up, walking to the tube, walking back again, and going back to sleep’. Lord did not directly pit himself against Stone in that way, even though his evidence at one level seemed to imply a contradiction of the second officer.
Lord thus inhabited the worst of all possible worlds – somewhere between sleep and wakefulness and the two conscious certainties of acceptance or outright denial. He just could not remember. And there is evidence that exactly the same blank forgetfulness happened on the Titanic that very night – and with one of her officers! Fifth Officer Harold Lowe actually slept through a man entering his room and telling him that his ship had struck an iceberg! This is much more dramatic news than the matters reported to Captain Lord! Here is Lowe at the US Inquiry (p.388):
Senator Smith: You were not aroused from your slumber by anyone?
Lowe: No, sir. Mr Boxhall, the Fourth Officer, told me that he told me that we had struck an iceberg, but I do not remember it.
Senator Smith: You do not remember his telling you that?
Lowe: I do not remember his telling me that.
Sen. Smith: That is, while you were [asleep]?
Lowe: It must have been while I was asleep. You must remember that we do not have any too much sleep and therefore when we sleep we die.
Officer Lowe slept on, only roused by shouting voices outside his cabin. He was then amazed to see large numbers of passengers roaming the decks in lifebelts! Though Lowe’s strange but matter-of-fact story was accepted by the US Inquiry, no such sympathetic treatment was offered to Captain Lord when he offered a similar tale at the British Inquiry.
‘When we sleep we die’: Captain Lord had been on duty for seventeen consecutive hours that day.
7346. When did you go on duty on the Sunday morning [April 14]? — I got up the usual time, 7 o’clock in the morning.
7347. And were you on duty the whole of that day? — I was on deck practically the whole of that day. [Retiring at fifteen minutes past midnight]
Lord would then have had a very short period of rest that night, remaining asleep only until 4.30 a.m. when he was summoned by his chief officer (question 7370). Crucially, we also know that his slumber, such as it was, became interrupted more than once. The corroborated evidence from Gibson suggests that Stone’s 2.40 call – the third notification of the night – was at least initiated. If Stone is correct in saying that his call was answered and that this led to a conversation, then Lord has forgotten movement to the tube in another room, and back again, as well as what was actually said. He does not remember any of it, just as he has no recollection of the message Gibson intended to give him earlier. The evidence suggests the tube was in proximity to Captain Lord throughout. He may not have been actually ‘sleepwalking’ in order to talk to Stone, but it hardly matters whether he was or not. The simple fact of him attempting to hold fast to his own uncertainty left the captain at the mercy of the Inquiry. The perplexing reality is that Captain Lord had no possible motive to lie about this third notification. A defence-minded man would have freely admitted to a full recall of the conversation. After all, the steamer has disappeared, and Stone, at 2.40 a.m., by his own evidence, is telling the captain almost exactly what Gibson had been sent down to tell him more than half an hour earlier, at 2.05. The steamer has steamed away in Stone’s estimation, and there is nothing in his new communication that would require a master intent on evading all blame to ‘forget’ his receiving of it. It was open to Lord to cheerfully admit receiving both Gibson and Stone’s messages and thinking no more about the strange ship, other than what he has been told – that she has by now steamed away. If she is steaming away, then she is not in distress. Yet Lord, by stating frankly that he remembers neither episode in the course of what would be only a four hour sleep, is voluntarily putting his head in the noose. Why would he do that, if it were not the truth?
Meanwhile, the White Star liner Titanic has long since sunk with catastrophic loss of life.
MORE ROCKETS!
Lord Mersey, in his final report, wrote that the Californian saw
eight rockets. She actually saw eleven! It is granted that the first eight seen were from the Titanic. But the last three of the eleven were almost certainly those fired by the Cunard Line’s Carpathia, racing to the SOS position, which Lord estimated to be 19½ to 20 miles from his own stop position. Nonetheless, it is interesting that Lord Mersey should discard three rockets seen by the Californian to arrive at a final figure of eight, in order to agree with what we have seen was a spurious conclusion that the Titanic must have fired eight. The Titanic must have fired many more than eight. Here is what the Californian observers said about the further rockets they saw late in their watch, long after the Titanic had sunk, taken from their original statements, composed while Californian was still at sea. This is Gibson on the issue:
At about 3.20 looking over the weather-cloth, I observed a rocket about two points before the beam [port], which I reported to the Second Officer. About three minutes later I saw another rocket right abeam which was followed later by another one about two points before the beam. I saw nothing else and when one bell went [signalling half an hour to change of watch], I went below to get the log gear ready for the Second Officer at eight bells [4 a.m.].
And here is Stone:
We saw nothing further until about 3.20 when we thought we observed two faint lights in the sky about SSW and a little distance apart. At 3.40 I sent Gibson down to see all was ready for me to prepare the new log at eight bells.
The two men later gave evidence about these ‘rockets’ or ‘lights,’ which must have made an unusual night weirder still. This is Gibson’s evidence:
7586. [The Commissioner] Now, am I to understand you to say that at twenty minutes to four you saw three more rockets? — Yes, Sir. [Gibson and Stone said 3.20, not 3.40, in their original statements, prepared on the Californian]
