A Night to Remember

Others somehow reached the second-class promenade space on B deck, then couldn’t find their way any further. In desperation they turned to an emergency ladder meant for the crew’s use. This ladder was near the brightly lit windows of the first-class à la carte restaurant, and as Anna Sjoblom prepared to climb up with another girl, they looked in. They marvelled at the tables beautifully set with silver and china for the following day. The other girl had an impulse to kick the window out and go inside, but Anna persuaded her that the company might make them pay for the damage.

Many of the steerage men climbed another emergency ladder from the forward well deck, and then up the regular first-class companionway to the boats.

Others beat on the barriers, demanding to be let through. As third-class passenger Daniel Buckley climbed some steps leading to a gate to first class, the man ahead of him was chucked down by a seaman standing guard. Furious, the passenger jumped to his feet and raced up the steps again. The seaman took one look, locked the gate and fled. The passenger smashed the lock and dashed through, howling what he would do if he caught the sailor. With the gate down, Buckley and dozens of others swarmed into first class. At another barrier a seaman held back Kathy Gilnagh, Kate Mullins and Kate Murphy. (On the Titanic all Irish girls seemed to be named Katherine.) Suddenly steerage passenger Jim Farrell, a strapping Irishman from the girls’ home country, barged up. ‘Great God, man!’ he roared. ‘Open the gate and let the girls through!’ It was a superb demonstration of sheer voice-power. To the girls’ astonishment the sailor meekly complied.

Even then, Kathy Gilnagh’s troubles weren’t over. She took a wrong turn … lost her friends … found herself alone on the second-class promenade, with no idea how to reach the boats. The deck was deserted, except for a single man leaning against the rail, staring moodily into the night. He let her stand on his shoulders, and she managed to climb to the next deck up. When she finally reached the boat deck, No. 16 was just starting down. A man warned her off – there was no more room.

‘But I want to go with my sister!’ Kathy cried. She had no sister, but it seemed a good way to move the man. And it worked. ‘All right, get in,’ he sighed, and she slipped into the boat as it dropped to the sea – another third-class passenger safely away.

But for every steerage passenger who found an escape, hundreds milled aimlessly around the forward well deck … the after poop deck … or the foot of the E deck staircase. Some stayed in their cabins – that’s where Mary Agatha Glynn and four discouraged room-mates were found by young Martin Gallagher. He quickly escorted them to boat 13 and stepped back on the deck again. Others turned to prayer. When steerage passenger Gus Cohen passed the third-class dining-saloon about an hour after the crash, he saw quite a number gathered there, many with rosaries in their hands.

The staff of the first-class à la carte restaurant were having the hardest time of all. They were neither fish nor fowl. Obviously they weren’t passengers, but technically they weren’t crew either. The restaurant was not run by the White Star but by Monsieur Gatti as a concession.

Thus, the employees had no status at all. And to make matters worse, they were French and Italian – objects of deep Anglo-Saxon suspicion at a time like this in 1912.

From the very start they never had a chance. Steward Johnson remembered seeing them herded together down by their quarters on E deck aft. Manager Gatti, his chef and the chef’s assistant, Paul Maugé, were the only ones who made it to the boat deck. They got through because they happened to be in civilian clothes; the crew thought they were passengers.

Down in the engine room no one even thought of getting away. Men struggled desperately to keep the steam up … the lights lit … the pumps going. Chief engineer Bell had all the watertight doors raised aft of boiler room No. 4 – when the water reached here they could be lowered again; meanwhile it would be easier to move around.

Greaser Fred Scott worked to free a shipmate trapped in the after tunnel behind one of the doors. Greaser Thomas Ranger turned off the last of the forty-five ventilating fans – they used too much electricity. Trimmer Thomas Patrick Dillon helped to drag long sections of pipe from the aft compartments, to get more volume out of the suction pump in boiler room No. 4.