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saw one open or any boat standing near on the starboard side; but then,
boats 9 to 15 went down full, and on reaching the sea rowed away at once.
There is good evidence, then, that Captain Smith fully intended to load the
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boats full in this way. The failure to carry out the intention is one of the
things the whole world regrets, but consider again the great size of the ship
and the short time to make decisions, and the omission is more easily
understood. The fact is that such a contingency as lowering away boats was
not even considered beforehand, and there is much cause for gratitude that
as many as seven hundred and five people were rescued. The whole
question of a captain's duties seems to require revision. It was totally
impossible for any one man to attempt to control the ship that night, and the
weather conditions could not well have been more favourable for doing so.
One of the reforms that seem inevitable is that one man shall be responsible
for the boats, their manning, loading and lowering, leaving the captain free
to be on the bridge to the last moment.
But to return for a time to the means taken to attract the notice of other
ships. The wireless operators were now in touch with several ships, and
calling to them to come quickly for the water was pouring in and the
Titanic beginning to go down by the head. Bride testified that the first reply
received was from a German boat, the Frankfurt, which was: "All right:
stand by," but not giving her position. From comparison of the strength of
signals received from the Frankfurt and from other boats, the operators
estimated the Frankfurt was the nearest; but subsequent events proved that
this was not so. She was, in fact, one hundred and forty miles away and
arrived at 10.50 A.M. next morning, when the Carpathia had left with the
rescued. The next reply was from the Carpathia, fifty-eight miles away on
the outbound route to the Mediterranean, and it was a prompt and welcome
one--"Coming hard," followed by the position. Then followed the Olympic,
and with her they talked for some time, but she was five hundred and sixty
miles away on the southern route, too far to be of any immediate help. At
the speed of 23 knots she would expect to be up about 1 P.M. next day, and
this was about the time that those in boat 13 had calculated. We had always
assumed in the boat that the stokers who gave this information had it from
one of the officers before they left; but in the absence of any knowledge of
the much nearer ship, the Carpathia, it is more probable that they knew in a
general way where the sister ship, the Olympic, should be, and had made a
rough calculation.
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Other ships in touch by wireless were the Mount Temple, fifty miles; the
Birma, one hundred miles; the Parisian, one hundred and fifty miles; the
Virginian, one hundred and fifty miles; and the Baltic, three hundred miles.
But closer than any of these--closer even than the Carpathia--were two
ships: the Californian, less than twenty miles away, with the wireless
operator off duty and unable to catch the "C.Q.D." signal which was now
making the air for many miles around quiver in its appeal for
help--immediate, urgent help--for the hundreds of people who stood on the
Titanic's deck.
The second vessel was a small steamer some few miles ahead on the port
side, without any wireless apparatus, her name and destination still
unknown; and yet the evidence for her presence that night seems too strong
to be disregarded. Mr. Boxhall states that he and Captain Smith saw her
quite plainly some five miles away, and could distinguish the mast-head
lights and a red port light. They at once hailed her with rockets and Morse
electric signals, to which Boxhall saw no reply, but Captain Smith and
stewards affirmed they did. The second and third officers saw the signals
sent and her lights, the latter from the lifeboat of which he was in charge.
Seaman Hopkins testified that he was told by the captain to row for the
light; and we in boat 13 certainly saw it in the same position and rowed
towards it for some time. But notwithstanding all the efforts made to attract
its attention, it drew slowly away and the lights sank below the horizon.
The pity of it! So near, and so many people waiting for the shelter its decks
could have given so easily. It seems impossible to think that this ship ever
replied to the signals: those who said so must have been mistaken. The
United State Senate Committee in its report does not hesitate to say that this
unknown steamer and the Californian are identical, and that the failure on
the part of the latter to come to the help of the Titanic is culpable
negligence. There is undoubted evidence that some of the crew on the
Californian saw our rockets; but it seems impossible to believe that the
captain and officers knew of our distress and deliberately ignored it.
Judgment on the matter had better be suspended until further information is
forthcoming. An engineer who has served in the trans-Atlantic service tells
me that it is a common practice for small boats to leave the fishing smacks
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to which they belong and row away for miles; sometimes even being lost
and wandering about among icebergs, and even not being found again. In
these circumstances, rockets are part of a fishing smack's equipment, and
are sent up to indicate to the small boats how to return. Is it conceivable
that the Californian thought our rockets were such signals, and therefore
paid no attention to them?
Incidentally, this engineer did not hesitate to add that it is doubtful if a big
liner would stop to help a small fishing-boat sending off distress signals, or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]