The Night Lives On (2 page)

Yet none of this is enough to explain the
Titanic’s
current grip on the public. Her unique attractions were always present in the story, but for over 40 years after the disaster, the ship lay more or less in limbo. From 1913 to 1955, not a single book was published on the subject. Then
A Night to Remember
appeared—it awakened some curiosity, but certainly not enough to account for the
Titanic’s
continuing appeal, which actually seems to be on the rise.

Partly, perhaps, the
Titanic
is the beneficiary of a new interest in all ocean liners. Now that they are gone, people have discovered them. A leisurely voyage seems so much more civilized than being sealed in a tube and shot across the sea.

But more important is the fact that America is currently on a “nostalgia binge.” The
Titanic
has come to stand for a world of tranquility and civility that we have somehow lost. Today life is hectic, prices are climbing, quality is falling, violence is everywhere. In contrast, 1912 looks awfully good—a happier world, where a shoulder of lamb cost 16 cents a pound.

In some ways we’re kidding ourselves. The shirt that cost only 23 cents in 1912 was often made by a child who got only $3.54 a week. Harold Bride, the Second Wireless Operator on the
Titanic,
made $20 a month. It would have taken all his pay for 18 years to cross the ocean in style.

And
those
days were violent, too. As we busily build barricades around the White House, it’s easy to forget that in 1912 former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot and wounded while running for a third term. TR was perhaps the most popular man in America, yet it didn’t save him from a would-be assassin.

There was social injustice then, too. To dramatize the
struggle for women’s suffrage, Emily Davison died by throwing herself in front of the King’s horse during the 1913 running of the Derby.

But in one respect this period really was different. People might argue over how to right the world’s wrongs, but they were still sure the wrongs could be righted. In 1912 people had confidence. Now nobody is sure of anything, and the more uncertain we become, the more we long for a happier era when we felt we knew the answers. The
Titanic
symbolizes that era, or more poignantly, the end of it. The worse things get today, the more we think of her, and all that went down with her.

Whatever the explanation, there seems no limit to the thirst for fresh information—or to the number of eager researchers who stand ready to supply it. Many have carved out for themselves special niches in the story. A man in Wisconsin thinks that the
Titanic
was “under-ruddered,” meaning that the area of her rudder was too small. He has interesting comparison figures with the
Mauretania
and other liners. A retired editor in Toronto has become an expert on the ship’s watertight and pumping arrangements. He points out that by far the best pumps were in the two engine rooms, where they were never needed—one more ironic twist to the story. A boy in North Carolina is painstakingly putting the passengers in their proper staterooms. A Dutch researcher is fascinated by Fifth Officer Lowe and has been a real Sherlock Holmes in tracking down Lowe’s family.

The personalities on the
Titanic
offer an especially fertile field for investigation. A recent biography explores the life of Second Officer Lightoller, whose
adventurous career included four shipwrecks and a heroic role at Dunkirk in 1940. A privately published labor of love traces the story of Lolo and Momon Navratil, the so-called “
Titanic
waifs.” Their father had kidnapped them from their mother, and was taking them to America under an assumed name to start a new life. He put them in the last lifeboat, stepped back, and went down with the ship. The children were too young to know who they were, and their identity remained a mystery for days.

The subjects range from premonitions before the disaster to the discovery of the
Titanic’s
grave 73 years later. Nothing is overlooked. One recent book even examines the catastrophe from the iceberg’s point of view.

One might think that would wind up the subject. Not at all. Scores of riddles remain; these pages explore a few of the most intriguing….

“I
NAME THIS SHIP
‘Titanic.’
May God bless her… and all who sail in her.” The words are uttered by a regal-looking lady, who then breaks a bottle of champagne against the bow of the great ship standing on the stocks. Slowly the vessel slides down the ways and into the sea, hailed by thousands of cheering spectators.

It is the opening scene of the film
A Night to Remember
, and it all seems so natural that one does not question its authenticity. We scarcely realize that the lady is never identified. Yet even the script is vague, referring to her merely as “A Lady.”

Who was this lady? Who did christen the
Titanic?
The answer is: no one. Amazingly enough, the White Star Line did not go in for the fancy christening ceremony that usually accompanies the launching of a great liner. “They just builds ’er and shoves ’er in,” explained a shipyard worker to an inquiring visitor at the time.

Well, not quite. While the ritual of the beribboned champagne bottle was missing, May 31, 1911, was anything but an ordinary day at Harland & Wolff, the sprawling Belfast shipyard where the
Titanic
was being built. The crowds began forming as early as 7:30
A.M.,
when the cross-channel steamer
Duke of Argyll
arrived from England, loaded with newspapermen and Distinguished Guests. It was, for once, a glorious day—not a cloud in the sky—and the men’s straw hats and the bright print dresses of the ladies made the occasion seem all the more festive.

By 11:00 special trams were rolling down Corporation Street toward the waterfront, packed with local spectators. The Harbour Commissioners had enclosed a section of the Albert Quay for those who cared to pay a few shillings for a good vantage point, and the enclosure was soon black with people. At 11:15 the railway steamer
Slieve Bearnagh
left the Queen’s Bridge jetty with another load of paying customers, to join the spectator fleet already gathering in the River Lagan.

But the men who actually built the
Titanic
—the 14,000 workers of Harland & Wolff—were more inclined to head for Spencer Basin. Here the grandstands were only stacks of coal and timber, but the view was good and the cost was nothing—an important consideration for a workforce that was paid £2 for a 49-hour week. And while today was indeed a holiday, it certainly wasn’t a paid holiday, any more than Christmas.

Nobody thought about that just now. Pride was everything. “A Masterpiece of Irish Brains and Industry,” proclaimed the
Irish News and Belfast Morning News
the following day. At the moment all eyes were turned on Slip No. 3, where the
Titanic
stood poised, her hull glistening under a fresh coat of black paint. Above the huge gantry encasing the vessel flew the British Red Ensign, the American Stars and Stripes, and a set of signal flags spelling out “Good Luck.”

Just before noon Lord Pirrie, the elderly Chairman of
Harland & Wolff, began receiving his Distinguished Guests at the shipyard’s main offices on Queen’s Road. The owners’ party was led, of course, by Joseph Bruce Ismay, Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line. His father, Thomas Ismay, had been a towering figure—the man who built White Star from scratch—which might help explain why the son struck some people as autocratic and overly assertive.

Numerically, the Ismay family dominated the owner’s party, but only numerically. The truly dominating figure in the group was the great American financier J. Pierpont Morgan, whose fierce, piercing glance could wither any target. In 1902 Morgan had formed the International Mercantile Marine, a huge shipping trust which now controlled the White Star Line. The
Titanic
flew the British flag, but her ownership was about as British as U.S. Steel, another Morgan trust.

Promptly at noon Lord Pirrie led his guests from the offices to the observation stands a few yards away. These had been hastily hammered together and draped with bunting for the occasion. The owner’s party filed into a small stand alongside the
Titanic’s
port bow. Other guests joined the press, now 90 strong, in the main stand directly in front of the liner’s bow.

His guests seated, Pirrie headed off for a final inspection of the launching gear. He sported a jaunty yachting cap, a fittingly festive touch for the occasion. Today marked not only the launching of the largest ship in the world; it was also his and Lady Pirrie’s birthday.

At 12:05
P.M
. a red signal flag was hoisted on the
Titanic’s
sternpost, warning the tugs and spectator fleet to stand clear. At 12:10 a rocket was fired, announcing five minutes to go. The pounding of hammers on a
dozen last-minute chores ceased. The buzz of conversation in the stands tapered off. The great crowds in the Albert Quay enclosure, at Spencer Basin, in the harbor craft, and on the wharfs and quays all fell silent, as the final minutes ticked away.

At 12:14 another rocket was fired, but for long seconds the
Titanic
still seemed to stand motionless on the stocks. The workers on deck were the first to sense a trace of movement, and they began to cheer. Those on shore took it up, as they too could now see the ship coming to life. A bedlam of whistles added to the din, along with the crack of bracing timbers and the jangle of anchor chains, meant to slow the vessel down once she was afloat. Slowly gathering momentum, she glided smoothly down the ways, lubricated with 3 tons of soft soap, 15 tons of tallow, and 5 tons of tallow mixed with train oil. At 12:15:02—just 62 seconds after she began to move—the
Titanic
was proudly afloat.

While a fleet of tugs nudged her toward the fittingout berth, Lord Pirrie hosted an intimate luncheon at the shipyard for the Ismay party and Mr. Morgan. Their day was capped by a special treat: at 2:30 they were whisked to the
Titanic’s
sister ship
Olympic
, which had just completed her trials and was lying in Belfast Lough. She would take the Distinguished Guests back to England, giving them a preview of life on the great new vessel they had just seen launched—except that the
Titanic
would be even more magnificent.

Meanwhile most of the dignitaries present at the launching enjoyed a gala luncheon at Belfast’s Grand Central Hotel. Besides port officials and visiting firemen, this group included the engineers, naval architects, and technical experts whose expertise enabled the
great Edwardian Captains of Industry to put together their grand schemes and designs. These technicians were both underpaid and overworked, and it was a positive bargain if Harland & Wolff could keep them happy with an occasional luncheon of filet de boeuf washed down with Chateâu Larose 1888, as was the case today.

Finally, there was the press. They, too, were given a special luncheon at the Grand Central Hotel, this one hosted by the White Star Line. Speaking for the line, Mr. J. Shelley thanked the journalists for their support, and pointed out that shipbuilding was doing more good for the Anglo-Saxon race than all the chancelleries of Europe combined.

“Hear! Hear!” cried the newsmen, and in a flowery response, the well-known maritime writer Frank T. Bullen praised the modesty of Harland & Wolff in eschewing ceremonial frills like bands and flag-waving. That was “the British way,” he noted approvingly.

The proceedings concluded with the entire press corps sending a telegram to Lord Pirrie on the
Olympic
, wishing him and Lady Pirrie a happy birthday, and congratulating them both on the successful trials of the
Olympic
and launch of the
Titanic.

There was only one sour note. The editor of the
Irish News and Belfast Morning News
—evidently a mythologist—couldn’t understand why the ship was named
Titanic.
The Titans, he pointed out in an editorial the following morning, were a mythological race who waged war against Zeus himself to their ultimate ruin. “He smote the strong and daring Titans with thunderbolts; and their final abiding place was in some limbo beneath the lowest depths of the Tartarus.” It seemed strange to name this great new ship after a race that
“symbolized the vain efforts of mere strength to resist the ordinances of the more ‘civilized’ order established by Zeus, their triumphant enemy.”

The paper finally decided, a little lamely, that the
Titanic
had been apparently named in the spirit of contradiction, that she represented the ultimate triumph of order and modern civilization, and that her builders and owners really stood for a later race of mythological giants who were wiser than their Titanic fathers. In other words, the builders and owners knew best, and they must have had some good reason for this seemingly inappropriate name.

T
HE BUILDING OF THE
Titanic
has created almost as many legends as her sinking. Not long after
A Night to Remember
was published, several letters arrived from Ireland explaining the “real” reason why the ship sank. The trouble could be traced, these letters said, to the official number—3909 04—given the
Titanic
by those Ulstermen who built her. Held up to a mirror, these figures spell NO POPE. True enough, provided one fudges the “4” a little.

But a quick check of the records destroys the theory. The yard number assigned to the
Titanic
by Harland &Wolff was “401,” and her Board of Trade official number was “131,428.” Viewed in a mirror, neither of these numbers says anything at all.

Then there is the legend that the
Titanic
was advertised as “unsinkable.” The press, captivated by the ironical implications, has faithfully repeated the story through the years. Actually, the White Star ads never made such a claim about either the
Titanic
or her sister ship
Olympic.
All promotion almost invariably used the simple slogan “Largest and finest steamers in the world.”