Part 1 (1/2)
The Loss of the SS. t.i.tanic.
by Lawrence Beesley.
PREFACE
The circ.u.mstances in which this book came to be written are as follows. Some five weeks after the survivors from the t.i.tanic landed in New York, I was the guest at luncheon of Hon. Samuel J. Elder and Hon. Charles T. Gallagher, both well-known lawyers in Boston. After luncheon I was asked to relate to those present the experiences of the survivors in leaving the t.i.tanic and reaching the Carpathia.
When I had done so, Mr. Robert Lincoln O'Brien, the editor of the _Boston Herald_, urged me as a matter of public interest to write a correct history of the t.i.tanic disaster, his reason being that he knew several publications were in preparation by people who had not been present at the disaster, but from newspaper accounts were piecing together a description of it. He said that these publications would probably be erroneous, full of highly coloured details, and generally calculated to disturb public thought on the matter. He was supported in his request by all present, and under this general pressure I accompanied him to Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company, where we discussed the question of publication.
Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company took at that time exactly the same view that I did, that it was probably not advisable to put on record the incidents connected with the t.i.tanic's sinking: it seemed better to forget details as rapidly as possible.
However, we decided to take a few days to think about it. At our next meeting we found ourselves in agreement again,--but this time on the common ground that it would probably be a wise thing to write a history of the t.i.tanic disaster as correctly as possible. I was supported in this decision by the fact that a short account, which I wrote at intervals on board the Carpathia, in the hope that it would calm public opinion by stating the truth of what happened as nearly as I could recollect it, appeared in all the American, English, and Colonial papers and had exactly the effect it was intended to have.
This encourages me to hope that the effect of this work will be the same.
Another matter aided me in coming to a decision,--the duty that we, as survivors of the disaster, owe to those who went down with the s.h.i.+p, to see that the reforms so urgently needed are not allowed to be forgotten.
Whoever reads the account of the cries that came to us afloat on the sea from those sinking in the ice-cold water must remember that they were addressed to him just as much as to those who heard them, and that the duty, of seeing that reforms are carried out devolves on every one who knows that such cries were heard in utter helplessness the night the t.i.tanic sank.
CHAPTER I
CONSTRUCTION AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE FIRST VOYAGE
The history of the R.M.S. t.i.tanic, of the White Star Line, is one of the most tragically short it is possible to conceive. The world had waited expectantly for its launching and again for its sailing; had read accounts of its tremendous size and its unexampled completeness and luxury; had felt it a matter of the greatest satisfaction that such a comfortable, and above all such a safe boat had been designed and built--the ”unsinkable lifeboat”;--and then in a moment to hear that it had gone to the bottom as if it had been the veriest tramp steamer of a few hundred tons; and with it fifteen hundred pa.s.sengers, some of them known the world over! The improbability of such a thing ever happening was what staggered humanity.
If its history had to be written in a single paragraph it would be somewhat as follows:--
”The R.M.S. t.i.tanic was built by Messrs. Harland & Wolff at their well-known s.h.i.+p-building works at Queen's Island, Belfast, side by side with her sister s.h.i.+p the Olympic. The twin vessels marked such an increase in size that specially laid-out joiner and boiler shops were prepared to aid in their construction, and the s.p.a.ce usually taken up by three building slips was given up to them. The keel of the t.i.tanic was laid on March 31, 1909, and she was launched on May 31, 1911; she pa.s.sed her trials before the Board of Trade officials on March 31, 1912, at Belfast, arrived at Southampton on April 4, and sailed the following Wednesday, April 10, with 2208 pa.s.sengers and crew, on her maiden voyage to New York. She called at Cherbourg the same day, Queenstown Thursday, and left for New York in the afternoon, expecting to arrive the following Wednesday morning. But the voyage was never completed. She collided with an iceberg on Sunday at 11.45 P.M. in Lat. 41 46' N. and Long. 50 14' W., and sank two hours and a half later; 815 of her pa.s.sengers and 688 of her crew were drowned and 705 rescued by the Carpathia.”
Such is the record of the t.i.tanic, the largest s.h.i.+p the world had ever seen--she was three inches longer than the Olympic and one thousand tons more in gross tonnage--and her end was the greatest maritime disaster known. The whole civilized world was stirred to its depths when the full extent of loss of life was learned, and it has not yet recovered from the shock. And that is without doubt a good thing. It should not recover from it until the possibility of such a disaster occurring again has been utterly removed from human society, whether by separate legislation in different countries or by international agreement. No living person should seek to dwell in thought for one moment on such a disaster except in the endeavour to glean from it knowledge that will be of profit to the whole world in the future.
When such knowledge is practically applied in the construction, equipment, and navigation of pa.s.senger steamers--and not until then--will be the time to cease to think of the t.i.tanic disaster and of the hundreds of men and women so needlessly sacrificed.
A few words on the s.h.i.+p's construction and equipment will be necessary in order to make clear many points that arise in the course of this book. A few figures have been added which it is hoped will help the reader to follow events more closely than he otherwise could.
The considerations that inspired the builders to design the t.i.tanic on the lines on which she was constructed were those of speed, weight of displacement, pa.s.senger and cargo accommodation. High speed is very expensive, because the initial cost of the necessary powerful machinery is enormous, the running expenses entailed very heavy, and pa.s.senger and cargo accommodation have to be fined down to make the resistance through the water as little as possible and to keep the weight down. An increase in size brings a builder at once into conflict with the question of dock and harbour accommodation at the ports she will touch: if her total displacement is very great while the lines are kept slender for speed, the draught limit may be exceeded. The t.i.tanic, therefore, was built on broader lines than the ocean racers, increasing the total displacement; but because of the broader build, she was able to keep within the draught limit at each port she visited. At the same time she was able to accommodate more pa.s.sengers and cargo, and thereby increase largely her earning capacity. A comparison between the Mauretania and the t.i.tanic ill.u.s.trates the difference in these respects:--
Displacement Horse power Speed in knots Mauretania 44,640 70,000 26 t.i.tanic 60,000 46,000 21
The vessel when completed was 883 feet long, 92 1/2 feet broad; her height from keel to bridge was 104 feet. She had 8 steel decks, a cellular double bottom, 5 1/4 feet through (the inner and outer ”skins” so-called), and with bilge keels projecting 2 feet for 300 feet of her length amids.h.i.+ps. These latter were intended to lessen the tendency to roll in a sea; they no doubt did so very well, but, as it happened, they proved to be a weakness, for this was the first portion of the s.h.i.+p touched by the iceberg and it has been suggested that the keels were forced inwards by the collision and made the work of smas.h.i.+ng in the two ”skins” a more simple matter. Not that the final result would have been any different.
Her machinery was an expression of the latest progress in marine engineering, being a combination of reciprocating engines with Parsons's low-pressure turbine engine,--a combination which gives increased power with the same steam consumption, an advance on the use of reciprocating engines alone. The reciprocating engines drove the wing-propellers and the turbine a mid-propeller, making her a triple-screw vessel. To drive these engines she had 29 enormous boilers and 159 furnaces. Three elliptical funnels, 24 feet 6 inches in the widest diameter, took away smoke and water gases; the fourth one was a dummy for ventilation.
She was fitted with 16 lifeboats 30 feet long, swung on davits of the Welin double-acting type. These davits are specially designed for dealing with two, and, where necessary, three, sets of lifeboats,--i.e., 48 altogether; more than enough to have saved every soul on board on the night of the collision. She was divided into 16 compartments by 15 transverse watertight bulkheads reaching from the double bottom to the upper deck in the forward end and to the saloon deck in the after end (Fig. 2), in both cases well above the water line.
Communication between the engine rooms and boiler rooms was through watertight doors, which could all be closed instantly from the captain's bridge: a single switch, controlling powerful electro-magnets, operated them. They could also be closed by hand with a lever, and in case the floor below them was flooded by accident, a float underneath the flooring shut them automatically. These compartments were so designed that if the two largest were flooded with water--a most unlikely contingency in the ordinary way--the s.h.i.+p would still be quite safe. Of course, more than two were flooded the night of the collision, but exactly how many is not yet thoroughly established.
Her crew had a complement of 860, made up of 475 stewards, cooks, etc., 320 engineers, and 65 engaged in her navigation. The machinery and equipment of the t.i.tanic was the finest obtainable and represented the last word in marine construction. All her structure was of steel, of a weight, size, and thickness greater than that of any s.h.i.+p yet known: the girders, beams, bulkheads, and floors all of exceptional strength. It would hardly seem necessary to mention this, were it not that there is an impression among a portion of the general public that the provision of Turkish baths, gymnasiums, and other so-called luxuries involved a sacrifice of some more essential things, the absence of which was responsible for the loss of so many lives. But this is quite an erroneous impression. All these things were an additional provision for the comfort and convenience of pa.s.sengers, and there is no more reason why they should not be provided on these s.h.i.+ps than in a large hotel. There were places on the t.i.tanic's deck where more boats and rafts could have been stored without sacrificing these things. The fault lay in not providing them, not in designing the s.h.i.+p without places to put them. On whom the responsibility must rest for their not being provided is another matter and must be left until later.