A Night to Remember

All this Sunday the messages had piled up. It was enough to fray the nerves of any man working a fourteen-hour day at thirty dollars a month, and Phillips was no exception. Evening came, and still the bottomless in-basket, still the petty interferences. Only an hour ago – just when he was at last in good contact with Cape Race – the Californian barged in with some message about icebergs. She was so close she almost blew his ears off. No wonder he had snapped back, ‘Shut up, shut up! I am busy; I am working Cape Race!’

It was such a hard day that second operator Bride decided to relieve Phillips at midnight, even though he wasn’t due until 2.00 a.m. He woke up at about 11.55, brushed by the green curtain separating the sleeping quarters from the ‘office’, and asked Phillips how he was getting along. Phillips said he had just finished the Cape Race traffic. Bride padded back to his berth and took off his pyjamas. Phillips called after him that he thought the ship had been damaged somehow and they’d have to go back to Belfast.

In a couple of minutes Bride was dressed and took over the headphones. Phillips was hardly behind the green curtain when Captain Smith appeared: ‘We’ve struck an iceberg and I’m having an inspection made to see what it has done to us. You’d better get ready to send out a call for assistance, but don’t send it until I tell you.’

Then he left but returned again in a few minutes. This time he merely stuck his head in the doorway:

‘Send the call for assistance.’

By now Phillips was back in the room. He asked the captain whether to use the regulation distress call. Smith replied, ‘Yes, at once!’

He handed Phillips a slip of paper with the Titanic’s position. Phillips took the headphones from Bride, and at 12.15 a.m. began tapping out the letters ‘CQD’ – at that time the usual international call of distress – followed by ‘MGY’, the call letters of the Titanic. Again and again, six times over, the signal rasped out into the cold, blue Atlantic night.

Ten miles away, Third Officer Groves of the Californian sat on the bunk of wireless operator Cyril F. Evans. Groves was young, alert and always interested in what was going on in the world. After work he liked to drop by Evans’ wireless shack and pick up the latest news. He even liked to fool with the set.

This was all right with Evans. There weren’t many officers on third-rate liners interested in the outside world, much less the wireless telegraphy. In fact, there weren’t any others on the Californian. So he used to welcome Groves’ visits.

But not tonight. It had been a hard day, and there was no operator to relieve him. Besides, he had been pretty roughly handled around 11.00 when he tried to break in on the Titanic and tell her about the ice blocking the Californian. So he lost no time tonight closing down his set at 11.30, his scheduled hour for going off duty. Now – dead tired – he was in no mood for chatting with anybody. Groves made a brave try: ‘What ships have you got, Sparks?’

‘Only the Titanic.’ Evans scarcely bothered to glance up from his magazine.

Undeterred, Groves took the headphones and put them on. He was really getting quite good, if the message was simple enough. But he didn’t know too much about the equipment. The Californian’s set had a magnetic detector that ran by clockwork. Groves didn’t wind it up, and so he heard nothing.

Giving up, he put the phones back on the table, and went below to find livelier company. It was just a little after 12.15 a.m.

3. ‘God Himself Could Not Sink This Ship’

The door to the cooks’ quarters whacked open against the iron cot of assistant baker Charles Burgess. He woke up with a start and stared at second steward George Dodd standing in the doorway. Normally a rotund, jolly man, Dodd looked serious as he called, ‘Get up, lads, we’re sinking!’

Dodd moved forward to the waiters’ quarters, where saloon steward William Moss was trying to rouse the men. Most of them were laughing and joking, when Dodd burst in, shouting, ‘Get every man up! Don’t let a man stay here!’

He moved on with Moss towards the stewards’ quarters. Just outside, smoking-room steward Witter was already getting some disturbing news from carpenter Hutchinson: ‘The bloody mail room is full.’ Moss came up and added, ‘It’s really serious, Jim.’

The wisecracks that greeted the first warnings faded, and the crew tumbled out of their berths. Still half-asleep, baker Burgess pulled on pants, a shirt, no lifebelt. Walter Belford wore his white baker’s coat, pants, didn’t stop to put on his underdrawers. Steward Ray took more time; he wasn’t worried – nevertheless he found himself putting on his shore suit. Steward Witter, already dressed, opened his trunk and filled his pockets with cigarettes … picked up the caul from his first child, which he always carried with him … then joined the crowd of men now swarming out into the working alleyway and up towards the boat stations.