A Night to Remember

Newspaper interviews reported that second-class passenger Emilio Portaluppi rode a cake of ice for hours … Miss Marie Young saw the iceberg an hour before the collision … seamen Jack Williams and William French watched six men shot down like dogs … Philadelphia banker Robert W. Daniel took over the Carpathia’s wireless during the trip back. All the evidence went against such stories, but the public was too excited to care.

The sky was the limit. The 19 April New York Sun had first-class passenger George Brayton saying:

‘The moon was shining and a number of us who were enjoying the crisp air were promenading about the deck. Captain Smith was on the bridge when the first cry from the lookout came that there was an iceberg ahead. It may have been 300 feet high when I saw it. It was probably 200 yards away and dead ahead. Captain Smith shouted some orders … a number of us promenaders rushed to the bow of the ship. When we saw we could not fail to hit it, we rushed to the stern. Then came a crash, and the passengers were panic-stricken … The accident happened at about 10.30 p.m … about midnight, I think, came the first boiler explosion. Then for the first time, I think, Captain Smith began to get worried …’

Carpathia seaman Jonas Briggs’s interview told the story of Rigel, a handsome black Newfoundland dog, who jumped from the deck of the sinking Titanic and escorted a lifeboat to the Carpathia, his joyous barks signalling Captain Rostron that he was coming.

Personal thoughts weighed heavily on the minds of some. Lookout Reginald Lee – it seemed a century since that dreadful moment when his mate Fleet sighted the berg – told of a haze on the horizon, remembered Fleet saying, ‘Well, if we can see through that, we’ll be lucky.’ Fleet never recalled the conversation.

An interview with one of the men in first class gave this careful explanation of his presence in No. 7, the first boat to leave:

‘On one point all the women were firm. They would not enter a lifeboat until all the men were in first. They feared to trust themselves to the seas in them. It required courage to step into the frail craft as they swung from the creaking davits. Few men were willing to take the chance. An officer rushed behind me and shouted, “You’re big enough to pull an oar. Jump into this boat or we’ll never get the women off.” I was forced to do so, though I admit the ship looked a great deal safer to me than any small boat.’

Gradually the full story emerged, but many of the engaging tales born these first few days have lingered ever since – the lady who refused to leave her Great Dane … the band playing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ … Captain Smith and First Officer Murdoch committing suicide … Mrs Brown running No. 6 with a revolver.

But legends are part of great events, and if they help keep alive the memory of gallant self-sacrifice, they serve their purpose. At the time, however, no legends were needed to drive home the story. People were overwhelmed by the tragedy. Flags everywhere flew half-mast. Macy’s and the Harris theatres were closed. The French line called off a reception on the new SS France. In Southampton, where so many of the crew lived, grief was staggering – twenty families in one street bereaved. Montreal called off a military review. King George and President Taft exchanged condolences – and the Kaiser got into the act. J. S. Bache & Co. cancelled its annual dinner. J. P. Morgan called off the inauguration of a new sanatorium he was building at Aix-les-Bains.

Even the Social Register was shaken. In those days the ship that people travelled on was an important yardstick in measuring their standing, and the Register dutifully kept track. The tragedy posed an unexpected problem. To say that listed families crossed on the Titanic gave them their social due, but it wasn’t true. To say they arrived on the plodding Carpathia was true, but socially misleading. How to handle this dilemma? In the case of those lost, the Register dodged the problem – after their names it simply noted the words, ‘died at sea, 15 April 1912’. In the case of the living, the Register carefully ran the phrase, ‘Arrived Titan-Carpath, 18 April 1912’. The hyphen represented history’s greatest sea disaster.

What troubled people especially was not just the tragedy – or even its needlessness – but the element of fate in it all. If the Titanic had heeded any of the six ice messages on Sunday … if ice conditions had been normal … if the night had been rough or moonlit … if she had seen the berg fifteen seconds sooner – or fifteen seconds later … if she had hit the ice any other way … if her watertight bulkheads had been one deck higher … if she had carried enough boats … if the Californian had only come. Had any one of these ‘if’s turned out right, every life might have been saved. But they all went against her – a classic Greek tragedy.