The Other Side of the Night (37 page)

Retirement eventually came Arthur Rostron’s way in May 1931. His was not sedentary, however, for he was an enthusiastic member of the Southampton Master Mariner’s Club, at one point serving as its Captain. He was also active in the British Legion. In his closing years he wrote his autobiography,
Home from the Sea
, which today is eagerly sought by
Titanic
enthusiasts. When the Second World War erupted in 1939, Rostron was seventy years of age and his health allowed him to take no part in the war effort. He developed pneumonia in the autumn of 1940, and died in Chippenham on November 4 of that year. He is buried at the West End Church in Southampton. There he lies next to his wife, Ethel Minnie Rostron, who died three years later.

Although International Mercantile Marine would survive as a corporate entity well into the 1940s, it would ultimately prove a gargantuan failure. Far from dominating the passenger and shipping trade on the Atlantic, the combine never secured more than 40 percent of the business on that route—a far cry from the monopoly that J.P. Morgan had envisaged when he spawned the concept. In his eagerness to acquire as many of the transatlantic lines as possible, and at the same time overestimating the potential profits of such a monopoly, Morgan had overreached himself, dramatically overpaying for much of the stock he acquired, and when a proposed subsidy was turned down by the U.S. Congress, the company began to flounder in its search for profitability. In fact it was rarely a money maker, and more than once the combine went into technical bankruptcy, while reorganizations of its component shipping lines, disguised as “rationalizations” of their fleets, as well as their rates and schedules, left many of the companies in disarray.

The
Baltimore Sun
was simply stating the obvious when it wrote in late 1918 that “the great results originally looked for in this merger did not materialize,” and that “IMM was one of the few financial mistakes that the older Morgan made, and one of the very few ventures in which he engaged that did not turn out successfully.” The blunt truth was that Morgan got himself too deeply involved in a business which was complex beyond his comprehension, and the shareholders paid the price for his ambition. IMM never paid stock dividends, and by the early 1930s the corporate deficit had soared to $27,000,000. A series of liquidations followed until by the end of the decade International Mercantile Marine existed in name only. Before the Second World War ended, the company would be dissolved.

Probably because of its obscurity outside the shipping world, the Leyland Line did not suffer adversely from the
Californian
’s sudden notoriety, but remained one of the few bright stars in the IMM constellation. After the Great War, Leyland went through one of Morgan’s “rationalizations,” when IMM purchased all of the Line’s outstanding common shares of stock. The Red Star and Dominion Lines were folded into Leyland, although for purposes of prestige their names were retained. The 1920s proved to be profitable for the new company, but only marginally so, and when the economic collapse of 1929 hit, Leyland found itself in the same position as White Star—its ships were aging and wearing out, while there was no money for new construction. The result was inevitable: by 1935 the last of Leyland’s assets were sold off, and the company’s house flag was hauled down for the last time.

The
Californian
was not part of that decline, however. She continued to ply her trade between New Orleans, Boston, and Liverpool, returning to obscurity. She remained on her transatlantic run when the Great War erupted in the autumn of 1914, finally being transferred to the Mediterranean in the summer of 1915, where she carried supplies to the Aegean Sea in support of the Allied landings at Gallipoli.

About 7:45 a.m. on November 9, 1915, the
Californian
was steaming off Cape Matapan, near the Greek coast, on her way from Saloniki and Marseilles. Serving at this time as a troopship carrying British soldiers to Gallipoli, there was no way for her officers or crew to know that she was being stalked by a German U-boat. Luckily, there were no troops aboard her this particular morning. Without any warning a torpedo struck her starboard side, but the damage seemed manageable, and a French torpedo boat that had been escorting the
Californian
took her in tow. The U-boat was not to be denied, however, and continued to shadow the
Californian
. When, after a few hours, the tow line parted, and while the two crews were working to make fast a second line, another torpedo hit the ship. This time she began taking on water fast, and the crew was forced to abandon ship, which then quickly sank. Two stokers were scalded by escaping steam, the only injuries suffered in the attack. Her wreck has never been found, and given that it lies in more than 5,000 feet of water, it most likely never will be.

Cyril Evans would rise far above the humble station he held as a wireless operator on April 15, 1912. His somewhat erratic behavior during that morning—which can be excused in no small part by his youth and inexperience—would give way to a mature, conscientious operator in the years to come. His professional status and the recognition of his skills were rightly unaffected by the events of that morning. He spent his entire working life with the Marconi Company, with the exception of his military service in
both
World Wars, eventually becoming one of the firm’s Managing Engineers. He died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack in June 1959 at age 67.

Apprentice James Gibson eventually left the Leyland line to join Cunard, serving aboard the
Carmania
and the
Scythia
. He ultimately earned his Master’s Certificate, and reached the rank of Second Mate with the Holt Line, sailing along the West African coast. A veteran of the Second World War, Gibson died in 1963.

Third Officer Charles Groves had a varied and colorful career after his stint on the
Californian
. Coming through the British Inquiry untainted by association with Stanley Lord, he went on to earn his Master’s and Extra Master’s tickets. Always an adventurous soul, Groves volunteered for the Royal Navy’s submarine service during the First World War. After the Armistice he joined the Sheaf Line, and eventually became their Marine Superintendent, based at Newcastle upon Tyne.

In 1925, thirteen years after the
Titanic
disaster, Groves had an extraordinary encounter. A captain himself by this time, master of the SS
Mount Sheaf
, Groves came face to face with Stanley Lord in Rose Bay, Australia. Lord, who was with the firm Lawther Latta at the time, had just brought in his ship, and hailed the harbor launch which was already carrying Groves. Apparently, as Groves told the story (Lord never made mention of it), neither man immediately recognized the other, and it wasn’t until the next day that Groves realized who he had encountered. While walking through the town with a friend, Groves happened upon Lord again, and when Groves’ companion remarked, “Are you Lord, of the
Californian
?” Lord snapped back, “Well, what of it?” In the awkward silence that inevitably ensued, the three men parted ways and no further mention was made of the incident. After the Second World War, Groves frequently served as an assessor on Board of Trade Inquiries, much like the one he had sat before in 1912. He became noted for his fairness and objectivity; among the twenty-five cases he oversaw, his most famous case was the inquiry into the loss of the
Princess Victoria
in 1953. He died in September 1961.

The second-greatest personal enigma of the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, Second Officer Herbert Stone all but vanished into obscurity after the Board of Trade inquiry. He never attained a command of his own, as far as is known, and poor health forced him to retire from the sea in 1933. He took a position as a storeman in Liverpool, where he continued to work for the remainder of his life. While it’s said that he never mentioned the “
Californian
incident” to his son, his widow would later say he once confided to her that he was sure that what he had seen that night in 1912 were distress rockets, but that he was too fearful of Captain Lord to press the issue with him. There would be no happy ending for Herbert Stone, as he died of a brain hemorrhage in September 1959 on his way to work. Apparently there was some foundation for the insecurity he felt during the Board of Trade investigation; managing money was never his strong point, and he left his wife and son penniless.

Not the enigma Stone was, Chief Officer George Stewart achieved some professional success at sea following the events of 1912. Remaining with Leyland, he was promoted to captain and given ships of his own to command after the First World War. He retired when the line was dissolved in 1935. When war again came to Great Britain in the autumn of 1940, the shortage of qualified officers and men for the merchant marine was critical, and Stewart answered a call to return to service. In March, 1940, at the age of 62, he was the Third Officer on the cargo steamer
Barnhill
. On March 20, just off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel, the
Barnhill
was caught up in a swift and skillful attack by the German Luftwaffe. Within minutes the Nazi fighters and bombers had left the ship a flaming wreck, yet only five of the
Barnhill
’s crew were killed. Among them, though, was George Frederick Stewart; his body was never found.

Captain Stanley Lord had his appointment as master of the
Californian
suspended by the Leyland Line within days of his appearance before the Board of Trade Inquiry. On August 13, 1912, he received a letter from Leyland’s board of directors, informing him that he would not be given another ship from Leyland. A second letter a few days later informed him that his services were no longer required in any capacity by the Leyland Line. Within the formal and somewhat stylized language of the day, he had been sacked.

Nearly a year would pass before Lord would find another berth as master; it can readily be imagined how awkward the applications and interviews must have been. In the summer of 1913, Lord was taken on as captain by the shipping firm of Lawther Latta, which specialized in supplying nitrates to fertilizer and munitions manufacturers. He remained with them until his retirement in 1927 at the age of 50. Though Lord’s supporters would make much of his long tenure with Lawther, hailing it as proof of his competence and an implicit endorsement of his innocence of any wrongdoing the night of April 14–15, 1912, the truth is a good deal more prosaic. “Nitrates” is a polite euphemism for the reality of the cargoes carried by Lawther Latta vessels. Stanley Lord spent the last fifteen years of his career commanding ships hauling cargoes of nitrogen-rich bird droppings collected on the islands off the coast of Chile to various ports in the British Empire. It was honest, honorable, and even necessary work, to be sure; nevertheless, in terms of professional prestige, it was the very bottom of the ladder, a far, sad comedown for a man who had once aspired to the most prestigious commands on the North Atlantic.

Not much is known about Lord’s experiences during those years, aside from his awkward encounter with Groves in 1925. Certainly he never again did anything to come to the attention of the British or American public. He made a few half-hearted attempts during his retirement to have his case reopened, but they came to nothing. It wasn’t until four years before his death that his protests of innocence finally received some attention. In 1955, an American author named Walter Lord (no relation to Stanley Lord) published a book called
A Night to Remember,
which introduced a whole new generation to the
Titanic
disaster, and in it portrayed Captain Lord as being deliberately detached and uncaring when told by his officers about the ship nearby firing white rockets.

When the book was made into a movie of the same name in 1957, Stanley Lord concluded that he was being publicly maligned, and decided once more to attempt to clear his name. So it was that one morning in early 1958 he walked into the offices of the Mercantile Marine Service Association in Liverpool and thunderously announced, “I am Lord of the
Californian
and I have come to clear my name!” Not surprisingly perhaps, no one in the office knew who he was or had the least idea of what he meant, but eventually the association’s general secretary, Leslie Harrison, took up the case, more for political reasons than for any genuine belief that the Board of Trade’s forty-five year old report would be overturned.

Harrison petitioned the Board of Trade on Lord’s behalf, asking that the case be reopened, but more than seven years would go by before the Board responded, rejecting his petition. In 1965, Peter Padfield, a professional maritime historian of enviable reputation, published a book defending Lord,
The Titanic and the Californian
. While it seemed to demonstrate that the two ships had been as much as thirty miles apart on April 15, 1912, Padfield’s work suffered from two handicaps: he apparently never realized that Stanley Lord had altered the
Californian
’s logbook, and so accepted everything in it, as well as everything Lord himself said in his defense, as truthful; and he lacked the mass of information which would gradually come to light over the next three decades.

In the meantime, Leslie Harrison had taken a personal affront to the Board of Trade’s rejection of his petition, and filed another, which was likewise rejected in 1968. Believing that his own credibility was at stake, Harrison then became even more determined to clear Lord’s name. The daughter of one
Titanic
survivor once described him as “a fanatical person” for the way he pressured her father to recant his account of the sinking in 1912, which contained recollections damaging to Lord. In 1986, Harrison published
A Titanic Myth: The Californian Incident
, in which he attempted to show that the whole controversy had been manufactured by the Board of Trade to hide its own culpability for the loss of life on the
Titanic
, and trotted out all of the old arguments which supposedly exonerated Stanley Lord. Unfortunately for his work and his reputation (Harrison himself died in 1996), he found it necessary to resort to fabricating certain “facts” while selectively suppressing other, contradictory evidence, in order to make his case.