Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 2

Majestic and beautiful the ship rested on the water, marvel of shipbuilding, worthy of any sea. As this new queen of the ocean moved slowly from her dock, no one questioned her construction: she was fitted with an elaborate system of

{ill.u.s.t. caption = STEAMER "t.i.tANIC" COMPARED WITH THE LARGEST STRUCTURES IN THE WORLD 1. Bunker Hill Monument. Boston, 221 feet high.

2. Public

{ill.u.s.t. caption = J. BRUCE ISMAY

Managing director of the International Mercantile Marine, and managing director of the White....}

{ill.u.s.t. caption = CHARLES M. HAYS

President of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railways, numbered among the heroic men....}

water-tight compartments, calculated to make her unsinkable; she had been p.r.o.nounced the safest as well as the most sumptuous Atlantic liner afloat.

There was silence just before the boat pulled out--the silence that usually precedes the leave-taking. The heavy whistles sounded and the splendid t.i.tanic, her flags flying and her band playing, churned the water and plowed heavily away.

Then the t.i.tanic, with the people on board waving handkerchiefs and shouting good-byes that could be heard only as a buzzing murmur on sh.o.r.e, rode away on the ocean, proudly, majestically, her head up and, so it seemed, her shoulders thrown back. If ever a vessel seemed to throb with proud life, if ever a monster of the sea seemed to "feel its oats" and strain at the leash, if ever a ship seemed to have breeding and blue blood that would keep it going until its heart broke, that ship was the t.i.tanic.

And so it was only her due that as the t.i.tanic steamed out of the harbor bound on her maiden voyage a thousand "G.o.d-speeds" were wafted after her, while every other vessel that she pa.s.sed, the greatest of them dwarfed by her colossal proportions, paid homage to the new queen regnant with the blasts of their whistles and the shrieking of steam sirens.

THE SHIP'S CAPTAIN

In command of the t.i.tanic was Captain E. J. Smith, a veteran of the seas, and admiral of the White Star Line fleet. The next six officers, in the order of their rank, were Murdock, Lightollder,{sic} Pitman, Boxhall, Lowe and Moody. Dan Phillips was chief wireless operator, with Harold Bride as a.s.sistant.

From the forward bridge, fully ninety feet above the sea, peered out the benign face of the ship's master, cool of aspect, deliberate of action, impressive in that quality of confidence that is bred only of long experience in command.

From far below the bridge sounded the strains of the ship's orchestra, playing blithely a favorite air from "The Chocolate Soldier." All went as merry as a wedding bell. Indeed, among that gay ship's company were two score or more at least for whom the wedding bells had sounded in truth not many days before. Some were on their honeymoon tours, others were returning to their motherland after having pa.s.sed the weeks of the honeymoon, like Colonel John Jacob Astor and his young bride, amid the diversions of Egypt or other Old World countries.

What daring flight of imagination would have ventured the prediction that within the span of six days that stately ship, humbled, shattered and torn asunder, would lie two thousand fathoms deep at the bottom of the Atlantic, that the benign face that peered from the bridge would be set in the rigor of death and that the happy bevy of voyaging brides would be sorrowing widows?

ALMOST IN A COLLISION

The big vessel had, however, a touch of evil fortune before she cleared the harbor of Southampton. As she pa.s.sed down stream her immense bulk--she displaced 66,000 tons--drew the waters after her with an irresistible suction that tore the American liner New York from her moorings; seven steel hawsers were snapped like twine. The New York floated toward the White Star ship, and would have rammed the new ship had not the tugs Vulcan and Neptune stopped her and towed her back to the quay.

When the mammoth ship touched at Cherbourg and later at Queenstown she was again the object of a port ovation, the smaller craft doing obeisance while thousands gazed in wonder at her stupendous proportions.

After taking aboard some additional pa.s.sengers at each port, the t.i.tanic headed her towering bow toward the open sea and the race for a record on her maiden voyage was begun.

NEW BURST OF SPEED EACH DAY

The t.i.tanic made 484 miles as her first day's run, her powerful new engines turning over at the rate of seventy revolutions. On the second day out the speed was. .h.i.t up to seventy-three revolutions and the run for the day was bulletined as 519 miles. Still further increasing the speed, the rate of revolution of the engines was raised to seventy-five and the day's run was 549 miles, the best yet scheduled.

But the ship had not yet been speeded to her capacity she was capable of turning over about seventy-eight revolutions. Had the weather conditions been propitious, it was intended to press the great racer to the full limit of her speed on Monday. But for the t.i.tanic Monday never came.

FIRE IN THE COAL BUNKERS

Unknown to the pa.s.sengers, the t.i.tanic was on fire from the day she sailed from Southampton. Her officers and crew knew it, for they had fought the fire for days.

This story, told for the first time by the survivors of the crew, was only one of the many thrilling tales of the fateful first voyage.

"The t.i.tanic sailed from Southampton on Wednesday, April 10th, at noon,"

said J. Dilley, fireman on the t.i.tanic.

"I was a.s.signed to the t.i.tanic from the Oceanic, where I had served as a fireman. From the day we sailed the t.i.tanic was on fire, and my sole duty, together with eleven other men, had been to fight that fire. We had made no headway against it."

Pa.s.sENGERS IN IGNORANCE

"Of course," he went on, "the pa.s.sengers knew nothing of the fire. Do you think we'd have let them know about it? No, sir.

"The fire started in bunker No. 6. There were hundreds of tons of coal stored there. The coal on top of the bunker was wet, as all the coal should have been, but down at the bottom of the bunker the coal had been permitted to get dry.

"The dry coal at the bottom of the pile took fire, and smoldered for days. The wet coal on top kept the flames from coming through, but down in the bottom of the bunkers the flames were raging.

"Two men from each watch of stokers were tolled off, to fight that fire.

The stokers worked four hours at a time, so twelve of us were fighting flames from the day we put out of Southampton until we hit the iceberg.

"No, we didn't get that fire out, and among the stokers there was talk that we'd have to empty the big coal bunkers after we'd put our pa.s.sengers off in New York, and then call on the fire-boats there to help us put out the fire.

"The stokers were alarmed over it, but the officers told us to keep our mouths shut--they didn't want to alarm the pa.s.sengers."

USUAL DIVERSION

Until Sunday, April 14th, then, the voyage had apparently been a delightful but uneventful one. The pa.s.sengers had pa.s.sed the time in the usual diversions of ocean travelers, amusing themselves in the luxurious saloons, promenading on the boat deck, lolling at their ease in steamer chairs and making pools on the daily runs of the steamship. The smoking rooms and card rooms had been as well patronized as usual, and a party of several notorious professional gamblers had begun reaping their usual easy harvest.

As early as Sunday afternoon the officers of the t.i.tanic must have known that they were approaching dangerous ice fields of the kind that are a perennial menace to the safety of steamships following the regular transatlantic lanes off the Great Banks of Newfoundland.

AN UNHEEDED WARNING

On Sunday afternoon the t.i.tanic's wireless operator forwarded to the Hydrographic office in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and elsewhere the following dispatch:

"April 14.--The German steamship Amerika (Hamburg-American Line) reports by radio-telegraph pa.s.sing two large icebergs in lat.i.tude 41.27, longitude 50.08.--t.i.tanic, Br. S. S."

Despite this warning, the t.i.tanic forged ahead Sunday night at her usual speed--from twenty-one to twenty-five knots.

CHAPTER IV. SOME OF THE NOTABLE Pa.s.sENGERS

SKETCHES OF PROMINENT MEN AND WOMEN ON BOARD, INCLUDING MAJOR ARCHIBALD b.u.t.t, JOHN JACOB ASTOR, BENJAMIN GUGGENHEIM, ISIDOR STRAWS, J. BRUCE ISMAY, GEORGE D. WIDENER, COLONEL WASHINGTON ROEBLING, 2D, CHARLES M.

HAYS, W. T. STEAD AND OTHERS

THE ship's company was of a character befitting the greatest of all vessels and worthy of the occasion of her maiden voyage. Though the major part of her pa.s.sengers were Americans returning from abroad, there were enrolled upon her cabin lists some of the most distinguished names of England, as well as of the younger nation. Many of these had purposely delayed sailing, or had hastened their departure, that they might be among the first pa.s.sengers on the great vessel.