A Night to Remember

Bruce Ismay stumbled aboard around 6.30, mumbling ‘I’m Ismay … I’m Ismay.’ Trembling, he stood near the gangway, his back against a bulkhead. Dr McGhee gently approached him: ‘Will you not go into the saloon and get some soup or something to drink?’

‘No, I really don’t want anything at all.’

‘Do go and get something.’

‘If you will leave me alone, I’ll be much happier here,’ Ismay blurted, then changed his mind: ‘If you can get me in some room where I can be quiet, I wish you would.’

‘Please,’ the doctor softly persisted, ‘go to the saloon and get something hot.’

‘I would rather not.’

Dr McGhee gave up. He gently led Ismay to his own cabin. During the rest of the trip Ismay never left the room; he never ate anything solid; he never received a visitor (except Jack Thayer, once); he was kept to the end under the influence of opiates. It was the start of a self-imposed exile from active life. Within a year he retired from the White Star Line, purchased a large estate on the west coast of Ireland and remained a virtual recluse till he died in 1937.

Olaus Abelseth reached the deck about 7.00. A hot blanket was thrown over his soaked, shivering shoulders and he was rushed to the dining-saloon for brandy and coffee. Mrs Charlotte Collyer and the others in No. 14 tagged along, while Fifth Officer Lowe remained behind, unshipping the mast and stowing the sail. He liked a tidy boat.

And so they came, one boatload after another. As each drew alongside, the survivors already aboard peered down from the promenade deck, searching for familiar faces. Billy Carter stood next to the Ogdens, frantically watching for his wife and children. When the rest of the family finally came alongside in No. 4, Mr Carter leaned far over the rail: ‘Where’s my son? Where’s my son?’

A small boy in the boat lifted a girl’s big hat and called ‘Here I am, Father.’ Legend has it that John Jacob Astor himself placed the hat on the ten-year-old’s head, saying in answer to objections, ‘Now he’s a girl and he can go.’

Washington Dodge was another man who had an agonizing wait for his family – thanks largely to a mischievous streak in five-year-old Washington Jr. Dr Dodge didn’t see his wife and son come aboard – nor did Mrs Dodge see her husband on deck, but young Washington did. And he decided it would be great fun to keep it to himself. So he didn’t tell his mother and effectively hid from his father. Finally, the Dodges’ ever-faithful dining-saloon steward Ray spoiled everything by bringing about a reunion.

The crowds along the rail grew steadily as the Carpathia’s own passengers poured from their cabins. Some of them learned in curious ways. Mr and Mrs Charles Marshall were awakened by the steward knocking on their stateroom door.

‘What is it?’ called Mr Marshall.

‘Your niece wants to see you, sir,’ came the answer.

Mr Marshall was nonplussed. All three of his nieces were, he knew, making the Titanic’s maiden voyage. They even sent him a wireless last night. How could one of them be on board the Carpathia? The steward explained. Minutes later the Marshalls were holding a family reunion with Mrs E. D. Appleton (the other nieces arrived later), and their daughter Evelyn dashed on deck to see the sight.

A strange sight it was. The endless plain of packed ice to the north and west – the big bergs and smaller growlers that floated like scouts in advance of the main floe – gave the sea a curiously busy look. The boats that rowed in from all directions seemed incredibly out of place here in mid-Atlantic.

And the people that straggled from them couldn’t have looked more peculiar – Miss Sue Eva Rule noticed one woman wearing only a Turkish towel around her waist and a magnificent fur evening cape over her shoulders. The costumes were a rag-bag of lace-trimmed evening dresses … kimonos … fur coats … plain woollen shawls … pyjamas … rubber boots … white satin slippers. But it was still an age of formality – a surprising number of the women wore hats and the men snap-brim tweed caps.

Strangest of all was the silence. Hardly a word was spoken. Everyone noticed it; everyone had a different explanation. The Reverend P. M. A. Hoques, a passenger on the Carpathia, thought people were too horror-stricken to speak. Captain Rostron thought everybody was just too busy. Lawrence Beesley felt they were neither too stunned nor too busy – they were simply in the presence of something too big to grasp.

Occasionally there was a minor commotion. Miss Peterson noticed a little girl named Emily sitting on the promenade deck, sobbing, ‘Oh, Mama, Mama, I’m sick. Oh, Mama, Mama!’

While No. 3 was unloading its passengers, a woman clad only in a nightgown and kimono suddenly sat up in the bottom of the boat. Pointing at another lady being hoisted up in a boatswain’s chair, she cried: ‘Look at that horrible woman! Horrible! She stepped on my stomach. Horrible creature!’