The Night Lives On (15 page)

Now, as she paused off Ambrose to pick up a pilot, the
Carpathia
was met by a swarm of tugs, ferries, yachts, and assorted harbor craft. Some carried huge placards bearing the names of missing friends or relatives; others were filled with reporters shouting questions through megaphones. Rostron allowed none aboard, feeling that the survivors were still in no shape to be interviewed. When one newsman did manage to jump on the ship off Quarantine, he was promptly collared and put under “house arrest” on the bridge.

The uproar continued as the
Carpathia
crept up the harbor, and when she again paused, this time to deliver to the White Star Line 13 of the
Titanic’s
lifeboats, photographers added to the din. Night photography was in its infancy, and to catch the scene it was necessary to set off great blasts of magnesium powder.

To cap the tumult, a cannonade of thunder and lightning rolled across the smoky sky, adding an almost apocalyptic touch to the night. Slowly the
Carpathia
was warped into Pier 54; the survivors began tottering ashore; and at last the world could learn the full story.

Even before he set foot on land, Captain Rostron found himself an instant hero. His calm self-assurance, his acceptance of risks, his faith in God, his enormous accomplishment were all immediately apparent. The paraphernalia of heroism would follow soon enough—scrolls, testimonial dinners, loving cups, a medal from Congress especially struck in his honor. “The Electric
Spark” was well on its way to a splendid career that would ultimately see him knighted and named Commodore of the whole Cunard fleet.

N
INE HOURS AFTER THE
Carpathia’s
turbulent arrival in New York, the Leyland Liner
Californian
crept without fanfare into Boston Harbor early on the morning of April 19. No tugs swarmed around her, no press boats jockeyed for position; no photographers set off blasts of magnesium powder.

The
Californian
was a 6,223-ton cargo liner sailing without passengers on the unglamorous Liverpool-Boston run. She had been the second rescue ship to reach the
Titanic’s
position, but it was now known that she carried no survivors. There was only a baseless rumor that she had picked up some bodies…which accounted for the small knot of ship’s reporters waiting silently on her Clyde Street pier.

At 7
A.M.
the gangplank was lowered, and the local agent of the Leyland Line strode aboard. He went at once to the Captain’s quarters, where he was closeted for some minutes with the ship’s master, Captain Stanley Lord. Then the reporters were allowed on board too, and Captain Lord held what today would be called a press conference. He explained that on the evening of April 14-15 the
Californian
had been stopped by a
great ice field; that the wireless was shut down for the night; and that she received her first news of the
Titanic
at 5:30
A.M.
on the 15th from the Allan Liner
Virginian.

Although 30 miles away, Captain Lord told the Boston
Evening Globe,
the
Californian
started for the scene as quickly as possible. “At best, however, it was slow going. At times, nervous and anxious as we were, we hardly seemed to be moving. We had to dodge the big bergs, skirt the massed field ice, and plow through the line of least resistance. For three full hours we turned, twisted, doubled on our course—in short, manoeuvred one way or another—through the winding channels of the ice.”

Most of the reporters were suitably impressed. The
Globe
observed, “It took some mighty good seamanship to pilot the freighter through the narrow winding channels of ice, and although her officers used every effort to keep her going as fast as possible, there were times when circumstances made it necessary for her to proceed at snail’s pace.”

Only the
Evening Transcript
sensed that all was not quite right. Its man noted that when the reporters asked questions regarding latitude and longitude, Captain Lord said that they were requesting “state secrets,” and that information would have to come from the company’s office. “Ordinarily,” the
Transcript’s
reporter dryly observed, “figures giving exact position in latitude and longitude have always been obtainable from the ship’s officers.”

The reporter was also unable to get anything out of the
Californian’s
wireless operator, Cyril Evans, and caustically remarked, “So far as was apparent, his vocal organs were not impaired.” Finally, the paper wondered
about the private meeting between Captain Lord and the company agent just before the newsmen were allowed on board. “Possibly nothing transpired beyond regular routine business….”

“Possibly.” But far more likely, the reporter’s skepticism was sound, for the
Californian’s
voyage had been anything but routine. The complications began on the evening of April 14 during Third Officer Charles V. Groves’s 8:00 to 12:00 watch. At 10:21 Groves suddenly sighted several white patches in the water ahead, which he took to be a school of porpoises crossing the bows.

Captain Lord knew better. The
Californian
had been warned of ice ahead, and here it was. Lord yanked the engine room telegraph to FULL SPEED ASTERN. As the ship lost her way, the white patches turned into flat pieces of field ice, which soon surrounded the vessel completely. There was no telling how far it stretched or how thick it was, but Captain Lord had never been in field ice before, and he was taking no chances. He decided to stick here for the night.

Leaving instructions to be called if anything was sighted, he stopped the ship, put the engines on standby, and went below. “Absolute peace and quietness now prevailed,” Groves later recalled, “save for brief snatches of ‘Annie Laurie’ from an Irish voice, which floated up through a stokehold ventilator.”

Around 11:00 Groves noticed the lights of a distant steamer coming up from the southeast. As it drew closer, he decided it was a large passenger ship. The stranger stopped about 11:40, and seemed to put out many of its lights. Groves remembered serving on a liner where the lights were turned down at midnight to
encourage the passengers to go to bed; and decided that was the case here. It did not occur to him at the time that perhaps the lights only seemed to go out, that actually the ship had made a hard turn to port.

Captain Lord was watching the ship too, from the deck below, but she didn’t look like a passenger liner to him: “She was something like ourselves—a medium-sized steamer.” He asked Wireless Operator Cyril Evans what ships were nearby and Evans said, “Only the
Titanic.
” Lord then told him to warn her that the
Californian
was stopped and surrounded by ice. Evans tried, but received his famous brush-off from Jack Phillips: “Shut up, shut up. I’m busy. I’m working Cape Race.”

At 11:45 Captain Lord joined Groves on the upper bridge, and they briefly conferred about the stranger. It was all very inconclusive. The Third Officer still believed she was a passenger ship; Lord still felt she was a freighter. Groves thought she was a big ship maybe ten miles away; the Captain thought she was a small ship maybe five miles away. On Lord’s instructions, Groves had tried calling her up on the Morse lamp, but could get no answer. Then the Captain went below again, while Groves continued with his “morsing.”

At 12:00 Groves handed over the watch to Second Officer Herbert Stone. As Stone passed the wheelhouse on his way to the upper bridge, he met Captain Lord, who pointed out the strange ship and told Stone to let him know at once if she came any closer.

On the bridge, Groves also pointed out the ship to Stone and said he had tried calling her up on the Morse lamp without any luck. At 12:15 Groves went below, stopping by the wireless room, where he liked to tinker with the set. But Evans was now off-duty and ready to
sleep, and Groves didn’t know how to make the receiver work. He twiddled with the dials for a moment, then gave up and went to bed—thus missing not only a little practice but a chance to catch the
Titanic’s
first call for help.

On the bridge, Stone was now joined by a 20-year-old apprentice named James Gibson, who took over the fruitless task of trying to contact the strange ship. Both men later said she looked like a tramp steamer, although Gibson also noted that there was a glare of lights on her afterdeck—a feature not at all characteristic of a tramp steamer in mid-Atlantic.

In a little while Gibson went below on routine duty; he was gone for most of the next half-hour. Stone remained on the upper bridge, handling the watch alone. At 12:40 Captain Lord called up on the speaking tube from his cabin, asking whether the other ship was any closer. No, replied Stone, all the same as before. Satisfied, Lord said he was going to the chart room and “lie down a bit” on the settee. Stone resumed his monotonous study of the night.

At 12:45 he was startled by the sudden flash of a rocket bursting over the stranger. He wasn’t sure at first, but then came another, and he was certain now—white rockets bursting in the sky, sending down a shower of white stars. After several minutes he saw another…and another…and yet another.

Five rockets altogether—enough to stir anyone to action. Stone whistled down the speaking tube, and Captain Lord was soon on the other end. Stone told him about the rockets, and Lord asked if they were private signals. “I don’t know,” Stone replied, “but they were all white.”

The Captain then told him to try the Morse lamp again. “When you get an answer,” he added, “let me know by Gibson.” Lord then returned to the chart room settee and lay down once more. Later he claimed that Stone told him of only one rocket, but said that he had been sleeping soundly and had no reason to doubt Stone’s version of the exchange.

Just about this time, Apprentice Gibson rejoined Stone on the upper bridge. Stone told him about the five rockets, and for a few minutes they watched the other ship together. Gibson then went back to the Morse lamp and signaled continuously for three minutes. He then focused his binoculars on her, hoping for an answer. Instead, he saw a sixth rocket. Thanks to the glasses, he had an almost perfect view: a white detonating flash…a faint streak upward into the sky…then a burst of white stars.

Stone saw the rocket too, but without the details caught by Gibson’s binoculars. Then, a few minutes later both men saw a seventh, and at 1:40, an eighth and final rocket. All burst over the other ship, and even with the naked eye both men could see the white stars floating down.

Through it all—and for another 20 minutes—Stone and Gibson talked, puzzled, pondered, and sometimes differed over what they were watching. Judging by the fragments that have survived, the two men had surely one of the most remarkable conversations in the history of the North Atlantic.

“A ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing,” Stone observed, as the two men studied the other vessel. Gibson agreed. Stone added, Gibson later recalled, that there must be something the matter with her.
The young apprentice again agreed. In fact, he thought it was a case of “some sort of distress.”

“Have a look at her now, Gibson,” Stone broke in as they continued to watch the stranger, still firing her rockets. “She seems to look queer now.”

Gibson raised his glasses and replied, “She looks rather to have a big side out of the water.” She seemed to be listing to starboard, and that glare of lights on her afterdeck looked higher than before.

Stone agreed.

Completing the picture, the stranger was now disappearing. Stone said she had begun to steam away to the southwest about the time she fired her first rocket; he noted that she was now changing her bearings. Gibson never noticed any change in the bearings—he left such calculations to Stone—but he, too, noted that she was gradually disappearing. For a long while she continued to show her red light, but never her green, as might have been expected of a ship streaming off to the southwest.

By 2
A.M.
she was almost gone. Stone now told Gibson to wake up the Captain, tell him that the ship they were watching was steaming away to the southwest— that the
Californian
herself was heading west-southwest—and that the stranger had fired eight white rockets altogether.

Gibson went below, entered the chart room, and gave the message to Captain Lord. “All right,” the Captain said. “Are you sure there were no colors in them?”

“No, they were all white.”

Lord then asked the time. Gibson replied that it was 2:05 “by the wheelhouse clock.”

The Captain later said that he had been sleeping
heavily and didn’t remember any of this conversation— just a vague recollection of Gibson opening the door, saying something, and then leaving. Gibson was certain that Lord was awake the whole time.

On the bridge again, Stone and Gibson resumed studying the night. Later, there was some dispute as to exactly when the stranger disappeared. Gibson felt she was already gone by 2:05, when he reported to the Captain; Stone said she was still faintly in sight until 2:20; then her lights faded away completely.

Around 2:40 he again whistled down the speaking tube. Once more Captain Lord got up from the chart room settee, crossed to his own room, and answered the call. Stone told him that there were no more rockets, that the other ship had disappeared into the southwest and was completely out of sight. One final time, Lord asked if Stone was sure there were no colors in the rockets; one final time, the Second Officer said they were all white, “just white rockets.”

At the British Inquiry the question arose as to what Stone really meant when he instructed Gibson to tell the Captain that the strange ship had “disappeared.” Did he mean “gone to the bottom” or “steamed away”? Stone maintained that he meant “steamed away,” but Gibson wouldn’t say how
he
interpreted it. Pressed for an answer, he remained silent.

In any case, the stranger was gone. Stone and Gibson resumed their watch, and nothing happened for the next 40 minutes—just the stars, the flat, icy sea, the empty night. Then at 3:30
A.M.
Gibson suddenly saw a new rocket—more to the south and much farther away than the earlier ones. He reported it to Stone, and the two men watched as a second, and then a third rocket burst
in the sky. The ship firing them was out of sight, below the horizon, but it’s worth noting that at this time the
Carpathia
was racing up from the south firing rockets, trying to reassure the
Titanic
that help was coming. Strangely, Stone did not report these new rockets to Captain Lord at all.