A Night to Remember

No one could reach the Strauses’ daughter, Mrs Alfred Hess. Early that afternoon she had taken the special train chartered by the White Star Line to meet the supposedly crippled Titanic at Halifax. By 8.00 the train was lumbering through the Maine countryside, as Mrs Hess sat in the diner chatting with reporters. She was the only woman on board, and it was rather fun.

She was just starting some grapefruit when the train slowed, stopped, and then began moving backwards. It never stopped until Boston. There she learned, ‘Plans have changed; the Titanic’s people are going straight to New York.’ So she took the sleeper back and was met at the gate by her brother early the next morning: ‘Things look pretty bad.’

By now the first survivor list was up, and crowds again stormed the White Star office. Mrs Frank Farquharson and Mrs W. H. Marvin came together to learn about their children, who were coming back from their honeymoon. The bride’s mother, Mrs Farquharson, gave a happy little yelp when she spied the name ‘Mrs Daniel Marvin’; then managed to stifle it when she saw no ‘Mr’ beside it.

Mrs Ben Guggenheim clung to the hope that some lifeboat was missing. ‘He may be drifting about!’ she sobbed.

And he might have been, for all anyone knew. Nobody could get any information out of the Carpathia – Rostron was saving his wireless for official traffic and private messages from the survivors – so the newspapers made up their stories. The Evening World told of a fog, the Titanic’s booming siren, a crash like an earthquake. The Herald described how the ship was torn asunder, plunged into darkness, almost capsized at the moment of impact.

When imagination ran low, the papers took it out on the silent rescue ship. The Evening Mail thundered:WATCHERS ANGERED BYCARPATHIA’S SILENCE

The World pouted:CARPATHIA LETS NO SECRETS OF THE TITANIC’S LOSS ESCAPE BY WIRELESS

So Tuesday turned to Wednesday … and Wednesday to Thursday … and still there was no news. The weeklies were caught now. Harper’s Weekly described the prominent people aboard, featuring Henry Sleeper Harper, a member of the family who owned the magazine. It conjured a fog and a frightful shock; then remarked a little lamely, ‘As to what happened, all is still surmise.’ But Harper’s assured its readers that the rule was women and children first, ‘the order long enforced among all decent men who use the sea’. Next issue, the magazine turned a possible embarrassment into a journalistic scoop when Henry Sleeper Harper turned up complete with Pekingese and personal Egyptian dragoman. Harper’s happily announced an exclusive interview.

Thursday night the wait ended. As the Carpathia steamed by the Statue of Liberty, 10,000 people watched from the Battery. As she edged towards pier 54, 30,000 more stood in the waterfront rain. To the end Rostron had no truck with newsmen. He wouldn’t let them on the ship at quarantine, and as the Carpathia steamed up the North River, tugs chugged beside her, full of reporters shouting questions through megaphones.

At 8.37 she reached the pier and began unloading the Titanic’s lifeboats so she could be warped in. They were rowed off to the White Star pier, where souvenir hunters picked them clean during the night. (The next day men were put to work removing the Titanic’s nameplate from each boat.)

At 9.35 the Carpathia was moored, the gangplank lowered, and the first survivors tumbled off. Later a brown canvas carry-all, its two-by-three-inch sides bulging, was taken off and placed under Customs letter G. Customs officials said it was the only luggage saved from the Titanic. Owner Samuel Goldenberg denied such foresight. He claimed he bought it on board the Carpathia. He said it contained only the clothes he wore off the Titanic and a few accessories purchased on the rescue ship – pyjamas, coat, trousers, dressing gown, raincoat, slippers, two rugs, shirt, collars, toilet goods, and shoes for his wife and himself.

The Carpathia’s arrival made clear who survived, but it didn’t unravel what had happened. The survivors added their own myths and fables to the fiction conjured up on shore. For some the heartbreaking trip back was too much. Others were simply carried away by the excitement. The more expansive found themselves making a good story even better. The more laconic had their experiences improved by reporters. Some were too shocked, some too ashamed.