A Night to Remember

The Titanic was now absolutely perpendicular. From the third funnel after, she stuck straight up in the air, her three dripping propellers glistening even in the darkness. To Lady Duff Gordon she seemed a black finger pointing at the sky. To Harold Bride she looked like a duck that goes down for a dive.

Out in the boats, they could hardly believe their eyes. For over two hours they had watched, hoping against hope, as the Titanic sank lower and lower. When the water reached her red and green running lights, they knew the end was near … but nobody dreamed it would be like this – the unearthly din, the black hull hanging at ninety degrees, the Christmas card backdrop of brilliant stars.

Some didn’t watch. In collapsible C, President Bruce Ismay bent low over his oar – he couldn’t bear to see her go down. In boat 1, C. E. Henry Stengel turned his back: ‘I cannot look any longer.’ In No. 4, Elizabeth Eustis buried her face.

Two minutes passed, the noise finally stopped, and the Titanic settled back slightly at the stern. Then slowly she began sliding under, moving at a steep slant. As she glided down, she seemed to pick up speed. When the sea closed over the flagstaff on her stern, she was moving fast enough to cause a slight gulp.

‘She’s gone; that’s the last of her,’ someone sighed to lookout Lee in boat 13. ‘It’s gone,’ Mrs Ada Clark vaguely heard somebody say in No. 4. But she was so cold she didn’t pay much attention. Most of the other women were the same – they just sat dazed, dumbfounded, without showing any emotion. In No. 5, Third Officer Pitman looked at his watch and announced, ‘It is 2.20.’

Ten miles away on the Californian, Second Officer Stone and apprentice Gibson watched the strange ship slowly disappear. She had fascinated them almost the whole watch – the way she kept firing rockets, the odd way she floated in the water. Gibson remarked that he certainly didn’t think the rockets were being sent up for fun. Stone agreed: ‘A ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing.’

By two o’clock the stranger’s light seemed very low on the horizon, and the two men felt she must be steaming away. ‘Call the captain,’ Stone ordered, ‘and tell him that the ship is disappearing in the south-west and that she has fired altogether eight rockets.’

Gibson marched into the chart room and gave the message. Captain Lord looked up sleepily from his couch: ‘Were they all white rockets?’

Gibson said yes, and Lord asked the time. Gibson replied it was 2.05 by the wheelhouse clock. Lord rolled over, and Gibson went back to the bridge.

At 2.20 Stone decided that the other ship was definitely gone, and at 2.40 he felt he ought to tell the captain himself. He called the news down the speaking tube and resumed studying the empty night.

7. ‘There is Your Beautiful Nightdress Gone’

As the sea closed over the Titanic, Lady Cosmo Duff Gordon in boat 1 remarked to her secretary Miss Francatelli, ‘There is your beautiful nightdress gone.’

A lot more than Miss Francatelli’s nightgown vanished that April night. Even more than the largest liner in the world, her cargo and the lives of 1,502 people.

Never again would men fling a ship into an ice field, heedless of warnings, putting their whole trust in a few thousand tons of steel and rivets. From now on Atlantic liners took ice messages seriously, steered clear, or slowed down. Nobody believed in the ‘unsinkable ship’.

Nor would icebergs any longer prowl the seas untended. After the Titanic sank, the American and British governments established the International Ice Patrol, and today Coast Guard cutters shepherd errant icebergs that drift towards the steamer lanes. The winter lane itself was shifted further south, as an extra precaution.

And there were no more liners with only part-time wireless. Henceforth every passenger ship had a twenty-four-hour radio watch. Never again could the world fall apart while a Cyril Evans lay sleeping off duty only ten miles away.

It was also the last time a liner put to sea without enough lifeboats. The 46,328-ton Titanic sailed under hopelessly outdated safety regulations. An absurd formula determined lifeboat requirements: all British vessels over 10,000 tons must carry sixteen lifeboats with a capacity of 5,500 cubic feet, plus enough rafts and floats for seventy-five per cent of the capacity of the lifeboats.

For the Titanic this worked out at 9,625 cubic feet. This meant she had to carry boats for only 962 people. Actually, there were boats for 1,178 – the White Star Line complained that nobody appreciated their thoughtfulness. Even so, this took care of only fifty-two per cent of the 2,207 people on board, and only thirty per cent of her total capacity. From now on the rules and formulas were simple indeed – lifeboats for everybody.