Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic (10 page)

Quick thinking on the part of Captain Gale of the tug Vulcan and prompt action on the
Titanic’s
bridge by Captain Smith averted an accident. The
Vulcan
quickly passed a line to the stern of the New York, and, throwing its engines full astern, managed to slow the wayward liner and drag her away from the Titanic. At the same time, Captain Smith ordered “Half Astern” on the engines, the sudden wash thrown up along the
Titanic’s
side by the huge propellers providing the extra thrust needed to push the New York away. As soon as she was clear Smith brought the
Titanic’s
engines to a halt. The danger wasn’t over yet, for the New York, still without power, was now drifting down the narrow space between the motionless Titanic and the Oceanic. Other tugs rushed to aid the struggling Vulcan, and in a little less than forty-five minutes the New York was being nudged safely back alongside the Oceanic. (Later, a barge that had sunk in that same channel was found to have been dragged neary a half mile underwater by the suction of the
Titanic’s
wake.)

None of the three ships was damaged, but during the time it took to get the New York securely moored, and before the Titanic resumed her passage down the channel, Captain Smith ordered a quick inspection of the ship. Some of the passengers were disturbed by the incident. Renee Harris, wife of the American theatrical producer, suddenly found a stranger standing at her side, asking, “Do you love life?”

“Yes, I love it.”

“That was a bad omen. Get off this ship at Cherbourg, if we get that far. That’s what I’m going to do.”

Mrs. Harris just laughed, believing, like so many others, in the unsinkability of the Titanic, but later she would recall that she never saw the man on board again.
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Finally the Titanic was clear of the docks and steaming down the Southampton Water at half speed. Soon she came up to Calshot Spit, where she slowed to make the difficult turn to starboard into the Thorn Channel. A few minutes later came the sharp right-angled turn to port around the West Bramble buoy, leading into the deep-water channel that flowed past the Cowes Roads, Spithead, and the Nab. As the Titanic passed the Royal Yacht Squadron at West Cowes, passengers and crew noticed crowds lining the promenade to catch a glimpse of the beautiful new White Star liner, while sitting out in the Solent roads in a small open boat, a local pharmacist and amateur maritime photographer named Frank Beken waited patiently for the great ship to pass. Camera at the ready, he was to take some of the most memorable photographs of the Titanic ever made. Captain Smith.recognized the young man from previous encounters in the Solent Roads, and he knew Beken’s work, so with a smile gave four blasts on the
Titanic’s
whistle in a salute. It was a moment that Beken would never forget.
²⁴

Sweeping past Spithead, the Titanic dipped her colors to the squadron of destroyers anchored there, then steamed past Ryde, past the Lloyd’s lightship, past Selsey Bill, and on to the Nab lightship. At the lightship the Titanic stopped to drop Pilot Bowyer, then turned toward the English Channel and the open sea.
²⁵

—Isaiah 43:2

 

 

 

THE SHIP’S ORCHESTRA WAS PLAYING IN THE FIRST CLASS DINING SALOON AS the ship’s bugler sounded the call for luncheon. The fresh April winds had kicked up a mild chop in the Channel, but the Titanic never felt it. Already the passengers were commenting on how smooth the ship’s engines were—scarcely any vibration could be felt, a tribute to the care and attention to detail the Harland and Wolff engineers had lavished on them. Off to starboard lay the Isle of Wight, its landmarks easily visible in the bright sunshine. In short order Culver Cliff, Sandown Bay, Shanklin Cline, and eventually St. Catherine’s Bay and its high chalk cliffs were left behind as the Titanic ran down the Channel, making for her first port of call, Cherbourg.

Though he was almost an hour behind schedule as a result of the incident with the New York, Captain Smith decided that it might be a good time to familiarize himself a little better with how the new ship handled. Whether he had always planned on this, or if it was a response to the near-accident in Southampton will never be known, but that afternoon Smith had the Titanic put through several S-turns and other maneuvers to get a feel for her. After an hour or so of these exercises he ordered the ship back on her course for Cherbourg, expecting to arrive there in the early evening.
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While the passengers were settling in, Thomas Andrews and his assistants were moving about the ship, beginning the slow process of locating the inevitable problems, faults, and breakdowns that always plague new ships. In the case of the Titanic it appeared that these would be far fewer than usual—the experience gained with the Olympic and incorporated into the Titanic had been invaluable. There were a few niggling details that most men wouldn’t have noticed or bothered with, but Andrews was a perfectionist. Before long he decided that the color of the pebble dashing on the private promenade decks was too dark; he thought the coathooks in the staterooms used too many screws; and he discovered trouble with the hot press in the First Class galley. Aside from such details, the Titanic promised to be, as Bruce Ismay had said about the Olympic, “a marvel.”
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Likewise the crew were going about the business of establishing a shipboard routine. Down on D Deck the masseuse, Maud Slocombe, was busy collecting the odd beer bottle or half-eaten sandwich left behind in the Turkish Bath by the shipyard workers. George Symons, one of the ship’s lookouts, approached Second Officer Charles Lightoller, with a more serious concern.

“Yes, Symons, what is it?”

“Sir, we have no lookout glasses in the crow’s nest.”

“All right, I’ll look into it directly.” Lightoller quickly made inquiries as to the whereabouts of the missing binoculars, but was unable to bring Symons good news. The glasses could not be found. When Symons told this to his fellow lookouts, there was considerable consternation: the White Star Line hired men specifically for the post of lookout, rather than simply rotating deck hands to lookout positions, and to these men binoculars were necessary for their job. Several of the
Titanic’s
lookouts had sailed on the Olympic, where the glasses were stored in a special locker in the crow’s nest, and the omission on the new ship didn’t sit well with them.

Actually, the binoculars were aboard, but nobody knew it at the time. There had been a last-minute reshuffling of the officers aboard the Titanic, and the officer responsible for the glasses was no longer on board. What had happened was this: William M. Murdoch had been assigned as chief officer, but his limited experience with big ships concerned Captain Smith, who asked for Henry Wilde, his chief officer aboard the Olympic. Murdoch was bumped down to first officer, which meant that Lightoller, originally the first officer was moved down to second officer. The man Lightoller replaced, David Blair, was left behind in Southampton. For some reason, Blair had ordered the binoculars removed from the crow’s nest and shut up in a locker in his cabin. The shuffling about of the senior officers’ assignments was done at almost the last minute, Wilde arriving just hours before sailing time, and in the confusion Blair either forgot to tell anyone where the glasses were, or else whoever he told forgot about them. In any case the binoculars were not where they were supposed to be, and nobody had any idea where they were.
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The sun sank low on the horizon, bathing the approaching chalk cliffs of the French coast in a reddish glow. Soon a lighthouse perched at the end of a long breakwater appeared, marking the entrance to Cherbourg Roads. Dropping anchor in the Roads, just off the Cap de la Hogue, the Titanic was met by the tenders Nomadic and Traffic. A late-afternoon squall sprang up, kicking up a swell strong enough to cause the two tenders to bounce rather alarmingly up and down as they the drew alongside the Titanic, striking the side of the ship occasionally. Edith Russell, who was boarding the ship at Cherbourg, wondered with more than just idle curiosity if the passengers and their luggage would be transferred safely. Nevertheless, the passengers, baggage, and mail were taken aboard without incident, and by 9:00 P.M. the Titanic had turned around and left Cherbourg behind, shaping a course for Queenstown.

Edith Russell (her real last name was Rosenbaum, but she had Anglicized it for business reasons) was a fashion correspondent for
Women’s
Wear, and already an experienced Atlantic traveler. Originally she had intended to return to the United States on the
George
Washington, which had been scheduled to sail from Cherbourg on April 7, but when she found out that she could book passage on the Titanic, which didn’t sail until April 10, she was overjoyed. The extra three days would allow her to cover the Easter Races in Paris and still arrive in New York the same day the
George Washington
would have. Alarmed by the squall at Cherbourg, she told Nicholas Martin, the Cherbourg agent for the White Star Line that she’d decided to take another ship, regardless of when it would arrive. Martin told her that it would be possible, but since her luggage was already on board the Titanic, she would have to sail without it. Miss Russell took a rather dim view of the prospect since her luggage contained not only her wardrobe but also $3,000 worth of business orders.

Furthermore, her mascot was in her luggage. A few years earlier her mother had given her a little toy pig, made of porcelain covered with white fur. It had a tail that was attached to a music box inside the pig, which, when the tail was turned, played the song “Maxixe.” Edith’s mother had given it to her after Edith had been in a near-fatal automobile accident, which, along with several other life-threatening incidents, convinced her that Edith was accident prone. “Carry it with you always,” her mother had said, since the pig was a symbol of good luck in France, and Edith appeared to need all the luck she could muster. When Nicholas Martin informed her that she would have to leave her luggage aboard the Titanic, her first thought was to ask about additional insurance on it. Martin was nearly incredulous. “Ridiculous,” he said, “this boat’s unsinkable.”

Miss Russell laughed and said, “My luggage is worth more to me than I am, so I had better stay with it.” With that, she made her way aboard the Titanic, feeling somewhat better since she and her mascot wouldn’t have to part company.
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Also boarding the ship at Cherbourg was one couple who had booked passage under assumed names—with good reason. It would have been inadvisable for “Mr. and Mrs. G. Thorne” to admit that they were not married. They were George Rosenshine and Maybelle Thorne, traveling together in First Class, who were posing as man and wife.

Boarding at the same time were Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon. Sir Cosmo was a member of a moderately distinguished branch of the Scottish nobility, imbued with a sense of obligation to uphold the rights and privileges of the aristocracy against the repeated and growing infringements of the common masses. Sir Cosmo went through life oblivious to anything going on around him that did not relate to him personally or affect his prerogatives as a British peer. Lady Duff Gordon was known throughout European and American society as Madame Lucile, owner of “Lucile’s,” one of the most expensive and exclusive women’s fashion salons. Her original shop in London now boasted branches in Paris and New York, and Lady Duff Gordon’s clientele included some of the best-known names on both sides of the Atlantic, making her one of the most sought-after designers. Her creations were tasteful, elaborate, and prohibitively expensive (one of her designs used thirty yards of silk at the hem), but everybody who was anybody knew who Madame Lucile was and coveted her dresses. Strangely enough, Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon were trying to travel incognito, registering under the name of “Mr. and Mrs. Morgan”—strange because Lady Duff Gordon was so well known among the passengers they would be joining.
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By evening the ship had begun to settle down into a working routine. Watches were set, work crews were detailed, and stewards busied themselves laying out the First Class passengers’ clothes for dinner or directing Second and Third Class passengers to appropriate dining rooms. Second Officer Lightoller was just beginning to feel confident, after almost two weeks on board, that he could finally make his way from one point in the ship to another by the most direct route.

Charles Herbert Lightoller was very much the popular image of a steamship officer. Tall, sun-bronzed, handsome, and with a deep, pleasant speaking voice, Lightoller was a good officer and an outstanding seaman. He had gone to sea as a boy on a clipper on the Australian run under the legendary Old Jock Sutherland, one of the most notorious “crackers-on” Liverpool had ever produced. (A “cracker-on” was a hard-driving master who would push his ship through a full gale without ever reducing sail.) Lightoller had experienced fire at sea, been a castaway, stood as second officer on a three-skysail clipper, and passed for a Master’s certificate, all by the age of twenty-three, and later had been involved in the Yukon Gold Rush.