Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 35

Amba.s.sador Leishman and other members of the American Emba.s.sy were particularly interested in hearing about Major "Archie" b.u.t.t, who pa.s.sed through Berlin, less than a month before the disaster, en route from Russia and the Far East. Vice-president John B. Thayer and family, of Philadelphia, were also in Berlin a fortnight ago and were guests of the American Consul General and Mrs. Thackara. A score of other lesser known pa.s.sengers had recently stayed in Berlin hotels, and it was local friends or kinsmen of theirs who were in a state of distressing unrest over their fate.

Their anxiety was aggravated by the old-fogey methods of the German newspapers, which are invariably twelve or fifteen hours later than journals elsewhere in Europe on world news events. Although New York, London and Paris had the cruel truth with their morning papers on Tuesday, it was not until the middle of the forenoon that "extras" made the facts public in Berlin.

William T. Stead was well and favorably known in Germany, and his fate was keenly and particularly mourned. Germans have also noted that many Americans of direct Teutonic ancestry or origin were among the s.h.i.+ning marks in the death list. Colonel John Jacob Astor is claimed as of German, extraction, as well as Isidor Straus, Benjamin Guggenheim, Was.h.i.+ngton Roebling and Henry B. Harris. All of them had been in Germany frequently and had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances.

Only one well-known resident of Berlin was aboard the t.i.tanic, Frau Antoinette Flegenheim, whose name appears among the rescued.

CHAPTER XX. BRAVERY OF THE OFFICERS AND CREW

ILl.u.s.tRIOUS CAREER OF CAPTAIN E. J. SMITH--BRAVE TO THE LAST--MAINTENANCE OF ORDER AND DISCIPLINE--ACTS OF HEROISM--ENGINEERS DIED AT POSTS--n.o.bLE-HEARTED BAND

IN the anxious hours of uncertainty, when the air cracked and flashed with the story of disaster, there was never doubt in the minds of men ash.o.r.e about the master of the t.i.tanic. Captain Smith would bring his s.h.i.+p into port if human power could mend the damage the sea had wrought, or if human power could not stay the disaster he would never come to port. There is something Calvinistic about such men of the old-sea breed. They go down with their s.h.i.+ps, of their own choice.

Into the last life-boat that was launched from the s.h.i.+p Captain Smith with his own hand lifted a small child into a seat beside its mother.

As the gallant, officer performed his simple act of humanity several who were already in the boat tried to force the captain to join them, but he turned away resolutely toward the bridge.

That act was significant. Courteous, kindly, of quiet demeanor and soft words, he was known and loved by thousands of travelers.

When the English firm, A. Gibson & Co.9 of Liverpool, purchased the American clipper, Senator Weber, in 1869, Captain Smith, then a boy, sailed on her. For seven years he was an apprentice on the Senator Weber, leaving that vessel to go to the Lizzie Fennell, a square rigger, as fourth officer. From there he went to the old Celtic of the White Star Line as fourth officer and in 1887 he became captain of that vessel. For a time he was in command of the freighters Cufic and Runic; then he became skipper of the old Adriatic. Subsequently he a.s.sumed command of the Celtic, Britannic, Coptic (which was in the Australian trade), Germanic, Baltic, Majestic, Olympic and t.i.tanic, an ill.u.s.trious list of vessels for one man to have commanded during his career.

It was not easy to get Captain Smith to talk of his experiences. He had grown up in the service, was his comment, and it meant little to him that he had been transferred from a small vessel to a big s.h.i.+p and then to a bigger s.h.i.+p and finally to the biggest of them all.

"One might think that a captain taken from a small s.h.i.+p and put on a big one might feel the transition," he once said. "Not at all. The skippers of the big vessels have grown up to them, year after year, through all these years. First there was the sailing vessel and then what we would now call small s.h.i.+ps--they were big in the days gone by--and finally the giants to-day."

{ill.u.s.t. caption = VESSEL WITH BOTTOM OF HULL RIPPED OPEN

A view of the torpedo destroyer Tiger, taken in drydock after her collision with the Portland Breakwater last September; the damage to the Tiger, which is plainly shown in the photograph, is of the same character, though on a smaller scale, as that which was done to the t.i.tanic.}

{ill.u.s.t. caption = A VIEW OF THE OLYMPIC

The sister-s.h.i.+p of the t.i.tanic, showing the damage done to her hull in the collision with British war vessel, Hawke, in the British Channel.}

DISASTER TO OLYMPIC

Only once during all his long years of service was he in trouble, when the Olympic, of which he was in command, was rammed by the British cruiser Hawke in the Solent on September 20, 1911. The Hawke came steaming out of Portsmouth and drew alongside the giantess. According to some of the pa.s.sengers on the Olympic the Hawke swerved in the direction of the big liner and a moment later the bow of the Hawke was crunching steel plates in the starboard quarter of the Olympic, making a thirty-foot hole in her. She was several months in dry dock.

The result of a naval court inquiry was to put all the blame for the collision on the Olympic. Captain Smith, in his testimony before the naval court, said that he was on the bridge when he saw the Hawke overhauling him. The Olympic began to draw ahead later or the Hawke drop astern, the captain did not know which. Then the cruiser turned very swiftly and struck the Olympic at right angles on the quarter. The pilot gave the signal for the Olympic to port, which was to minimize the force of the collision. The Olympic's engines had been stopped by order of the pilot.

Up to the moment the Hawke swerved, Captain Smith said, he had no anxiety. The pilot, Bowyer, corroborated the testimony of Captain Smith. That the line did not believe Captain Smith was at fault, notwithstanding the verdict of the board of naval inquiry, was shown by his retention as the admiral of the White Star fleet and by his being given the command of the t.i.tanic.

Up to the time of the collision with the Hawke Captain Smith when asked by interviewers to describe his experiences at sea would say one word, "uneventful." Then he would add with a smile and a twinkle of his eyes:

"Of course there have been winter gales and storms and fog and the like in the forty years I have been on the seas, but I have never been in an accident worth speaking of. In all my years at sea (he made this comment a few years ago) I have seen but one vessel in distress. That was a brig the crew of which was taken off in a boat by my third officer. I never saw a wreck. I never have been wrecked. I have never been in a predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."

THE CAPTAIN'S LOVE OF THE SEA

Once the interviewer stopped asking personal questions, Captain Smith would talk of the sea, of his love for it, how its appeal to him as a boy had never died.

"The love of the ocean that took me to sea as a boy has never died." he once said. "When I see a vessel plunging up and down in the trough of the sea, fighting her way through and over great waves, and keeping her keel and going on and on--the wonder of the thing fills me, how she can keep afloat and get safely to port. I have never outgrown the wild grandeur of the sea."

When he was in command of the Adriatic, which was built before the Olympic, Captain Smith said he did not believe a disaster with loss of life could happen to the Adriatic.

"I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to the Adriatic," he said. "Modern s.h.i.+pbuilding has gone beyond that. There will be bigger boats. The depth of harbors seems to be the great drawback at present. I cannot say, of course, just what the limit will be, but the larger boat will surely come. But speed will not develop with size, so far as merchantmen are concerned.

"The traveling public prefers the large comfortable boat of average speed, and anyway that is the boat that pays. High speed eats up money mile by mile, and extreme high speed is suicidal. There will be high speed boats for use as transports and a wise government will a.s.sist steams.h.i.+p companies in paying for them, as the English Government is now doing in the cases of the Lusitania and Mauretania, twenty-five knot boats; but no steams.h.i.+p company will put them out merely as a commercial venture."

Captain Smith believed the t.i.tanic to be unsinkable.

BRAVE TO THE LAST

And though the s.h.i.+p turned out to be sinkable, the captain, by many acts of bravery in the face of death, proved that his courage was equal to any test.

Captain Inman Sealby, commander of the steamer Republic, which was the first vessel to use the wireless telegraph to save her pa.s.sengers in a collision, spoke highly of the commander of the wrecked t.i.tanic, calling him one of the ablest seamen in the world.

"I am sure that Captain Smith did everything in his power to save his pa.s.sengers. The disaster is one about which he could have had no warning. Things may happen at sea that give no warning to s.h.i.+ps' crews and commanders until the harm comes. I believe from what I read that the t.i.tanic hit an iceberg and glanced off, but that the berg struck her from the bottom and tore a great hole."

Many survivors have mentioned the captain's name and narrated some incident to bring out his courage and helpfulness in the emergency; but it was left to a fireman on board the t.i.tanic to tell the story of his death and to record his last message. This man had gone down with the White Star giantess and was clinging to a piece of wreckage for about half an hour before he finally joined several members of the t.i.tanic's company on the bottom of a boat which was floating about among other wreckage near the t.i.tanic.

Harry Senior, the fireman, with his eight or nine companions in distress, had just managed to get a firm hold in the upturned boat when they saw the t.i.tanic rearing preparatory to her final plunge. At that moment, according to the fireman's story, Captain Smith jumped into the sea from the promenade deck of the t.i.tanic with a little girl clutched in his arms. It took only a few strokes to bring him to the upturned boat, where a dozen hands were stretched out to take the little child from his arms and drag him to a point of safety.

"Captain Smith was dragged onto the upturned boat," said the fireman.

"He had a life-buoy and a life-preserver. He clung there for a moment and then he slid off again. For a second time he was dragged from the icy water. Then he took off his life-preserver, tossed the life-buoy on the inky waters, and slipped into the water again with the words: "I will follow the s.h.i.+p."

OTHER FAITHFUL MEN

Nor was the captain the only faithful man on the s.h.i.+p. Of the many stories told by survivors all seem to agree that both officers and crew behaved with the utmost gallantry and that they stuck by the s.h.i.+p n.o.bly to the last.

"Immediately after the t.i.tanic struck the iceberg," said one of the survivors, "the officers were all over the s.h.i.+p rea.s.suring the pa.s.sengers and calming the more excitable. They said there was no cause for alarm. When everything was quieted they told us we might go back to bed, as the s.h.i.+p was safe. There was no confusion and many returned to their beds.

"We did not know that the s.h.i.+p was in danger until a comparatively short time before she sank. Then we were called on deck and the life-boats were filled and lowered.

"The behavior of the s.h.i.+p's officers at this time was wonderful. There was no panic, no scramble for places in the boats."

Later there was confusion, and according to most of the pa.s.sengers'

narratives, there were more than fifty shots fired upon the deck by officers or others in the effort to maintain the discipline.

FIFTH OFFICER LOWE

A young English woman who requested that her name be omitted told a thrilling story of her experience in one of the collapsible boats which had been manned by eight of the crew from the t.i.tanic. The boat was in command of the fifth officer, H. Lowe, whose actions she described as saving the lives of many people. Before the life-boat was launched he pa.s.sed along the port deck of the steamer, commanding the people not to jump in the boats, and otherwise restraining them from swamping the craft. When the collapsible was launched Officer Lowe succeeded in putting up a mast and a small sail. He collected the other boats together, in some cases the boats were short of adequate crews, and he directed an exchange by which each was adequately manned. He threw lines connecting the boats together, two by two, and thus all moved together.