Titanic Read online

  No news yet of Cornelia, Nellie, and William. The maid has brought us a tray of sandwiches. Jenny, Bridget, and I have tried to eat, but Gard can’t. He just drinks coffee and stares out the window. I’ve brought some of my schoolbooks in an attempt to distract myself. Inside my geography book, I find the clipping I cut from the paper the day Titanic set sail: April 10. Reading again about the magnificent ship steaming out of Southampton, England, makes me think about when we set sail on Queen Caroline. We launched at midnight, and I begged Grandmary to let me stay up to watch our departure. The ship was lit with a million white light bulbs, and everybody crowded to the rails and threw flowers in the water and waved to the people on shore.

  The newspaper clipping says that Titanic set sail at noon. The ship’s band played on the deck, and the giant steam whistle blew three times. The tugboats guided the ship out of the harbor while people on the dock cheered and passengers waved from the railings. A lump rises in my throat as I think of Cornelia, Nellie, and William laughing and waving from the deck of Titanic. Where are they now?

  The weather was perfect those first days on Titanic. The sea was very calm; the sky was blue. Life on board a ship, in the days before television and smartphones, was relaxed. A first-class passenger might start the day with a swim in the six-foot-deep heated saltwater pool. Ladies could sew, read, or write letters in the Reading and Writing Room. Passengers spent a lot of time strolling on the decks, wrapped up in furs and coats against the ocean breeze. When they got tired, they could sit on deck chairs and let the steward bring them a hot drink. In the late afternoon and at dinnertime, an eight-piece band provided live music.

  Passengers on the deck of Titanic

  When it was time for harder exercise, passengers could play squash, a game similar to tennis, in the onboard court for a fee of fifty cents per game. Or they could work out in the gymnasium, where the Scottish instructor, Thomas McCawley, would show them how to use the rowing machine or one of the other modern pieces of gym equipment.

  If someone had a message to send to relatives or friends, she could send a telegram via Titanic’s state-of-the-art communications system. Two telegraph operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, would tap out the message in Morse code. The first ten words cost about three dollars and twelve cents, and each additional word was about nineteen cents. That was a lot of money in those days, so only wealthy people sent telegrams.

  On the second-class passengers’ deck, stewards provided deck games such as ring toss and shuffleboard. Board games like chess and backgammon were also played.

  Steerage passengers couldn’t use the pool or the gym, but they could stroll on part of the lower deck, or read and write in the third-class common room. One man brought his bagpipes and played for everyone. Other passengers most likely brought instruments as well, and there was probably dancing. Children and teenagers played jump rope. A gang of eight boys made a game of climbing onto a baggage crane. They didn’t know that it had been greased, though, and promptly fell off!

  No one went hungry on Titanic—in fact, meals were high points of the day. For dinner in first class, men would wear tuxedos with a white tie, the fanciest kind. Women would dress in elegant evening gowns that would shimmer with sparkling beads or drip with lace. First-class children would dress for dinner, too, the girls in their nicest dresses and hair bows and the boys in little suits. But most of the time, children did not eat with their parents. In first class, ships had earlier dinner hours just for the children, where they would eat with their nannies.

  For the adults, first-class dinnertime was six o’clock. Dinner was announced by a bugler marching from deck to deck playing a song called “The Roast Beef of Old England.” The tables would be set with white tablecloths, glittering silverware, and crystal wineglasses. Diners would eat their way through a soup course, a fish course, a meat course, then dessert, followed by cheese and coffee. First-class dinners could last three hours. Of course, everyone would use their very best table manners.

  Third-class food was much less extravagant than the other classes’, but passengers still considered the meals a luxury. It used to be that third-class passengers had to bring their own food on an ocean voyage. But on Titanic, meals were provided. Breakfast might be oatmeal with milk, smoked fish, and potatoes with tea or coffee. Dinner could be codfish, rice, and bread and jam. Many steerage passengers considered the food the best they had ever had.

  As I wait for news of Titanic, I’ve been thinking more about my time on the Queen Caroline. One night, we dined at the Captain’s Table. It was a great honor to sit there. The other people at the table asked the captain how fast we were going. Later, Admiral Beemis explained to me that some of the men made bets on how fast the ship was moving and when she would reach England. He said that new ships want to set speed records, so they compete against one another.

  I hear Grandmary’s voice in my head, saying, “Faster isn’t always better.” And I wonder … how fast was Titanic going when she struck that iceberg?

  Titanic was a very fancy ship—and she had some very fancy passengers. Many of them were both rich and famous, like John Jacob Astor IV. This fabulously wealthy businessman boarded Titanic with his young wife, Madeleine. Madeleine was only eighteen (Astor was forty-seven), and she was pregnant with their first child.

  Isidor and Ida Straus were on the ship, too. Isidor was a co-owner of Macy’s department store. This wealthy couple had been married for over forty years and they were extremely close. They’d been known to write each other letters if they were separated for even one day.

  Isidor Straus

  Many of the people in second class and third class were leaving Europe and emigrating to the United States or Canada to make a new and better life there. One second-class passenger, a French man named Michel Navratil, was fleeing France. He had kidnapped his young sons from their mother. Michel Jr. and Edmond were only three and two when their father boarded Titanic under the false name Hoffman.

  Anna Sofia Sjöblom was leaving her home as well. She was traveling third class from Finland to visit her father, who was working in the forests of Olympia, Washington. But Anna wasn’t even supposed to be on Titanic. She and three friends had actually bought tickets for another ship, Adriatic. But there was a coal shortage and Adriatic couldn’t sail. Anna and her friends were relieved and excited to be transferred to the famous Titanic. But when the ship began moving, some of Anna’s excitement wore off. Her stomach rolled constantly with seasickness. She barely moved from her bed—even on April 14, her eighteenth birthday.

  Eva Hart was traveling in second class and was having a much better time than Anna. Her stomach felt just fine, and she spent as much time as she could exploring the ship. She fell in love with a little dog who was traveling on board and rushed through her breakfast every morning so she could play with him. Eva’s father had given her a large teddy bear when they were in London. Eva let her playmate, a six-year-old named Nina Harper, play with the bear, too. Everyone in second class smiled at the two little girls dragging the big teddy bear all over the ship with them.

  Eight-year-old Marjorie Collyer was traveling with her mother and father in third class. The family was going to emigrate from their home in Hampshire, England, to Idaho. Mrs. Collyer had tuberculosis, which affected many people in those days, and the Collyers thought the Idaho climate would be good for her health. The Collyers emptied their bank account and brought all the money they had in the world with them on Titanic. They were full of hope and headed for a new life. Their church in England had given them a beautiful send-off with a bell-ringing concert. Their friends surrounded them, saying good-bye, offering hugs and handshakes. Write to us from America, they urged. And the Collyers promised they would.

  Titanic was also full of workers. Over nine hundred crew members kept the ship running. This included the sailors who operated the ship and the stewards who waited on the passengers. The engineers and firemen kept the tremendous engines and boilers running, and the master
s-at-arms acted as the ship’s policemen. There were cooks, waiters, bellboys, pot scrubbers, laundry workers, cleaning staff, musicians, postal clerks, a butcher, and even elevator operators. Two fourteen-year-old boys were the youngest crew members. Frederick Hopkins was a plates steward—he would clear and wash plates after meals. William Watson was a bellboy—he would run errands for the passengers. Almost all the crew was from England. For most of them, this voyage would be their last.

  Captain E. J. Smith was in charge of the ship and the crew. This veteran ship’s captain had commanded White Star Line’s ships since 1897 and became commodore, a naval officer higher in rank than captain, of White Star in 1904 and had sailed two million miles total! Now he was ready to take the wheel for the last time before he retired—Titanic’s very first voyage. Captain Smith was the ideal man for the job—he was well known, and wealthy passengers loved him. He knew how to guide giant ships through dangerous situations. In fact, Smith demonstrated his skill when Titanic almost collided with another ship, New York, just as she was pulling out of Southampton Harbor. Titanic was so powerful that when she started to move, the ropes that tied New York to the dock were sucked under Titanic. New York drifted toward Titanic and for a moment, the crew thought the two ships would hit each other. But Captain Smith knew what to do. He ordered the port—the left—engine fired up just a little more. This bit of power pushed New York away from Titanic just enough to avoid an accident. Smith’s experience and skill had spared the ship—it seemed like a good omen.

  Captain E. J. Smith

  First Officer William Murdoch had seen Captain Smith’s skill at guiding ships firsthand. Before sailing on Titanic, Murdoch had worked on Titanic’s sister ship, Olympic, under Captain Smith. Murdoch was to assist Captain Smith at steering and navigating the ship. Murdoch was from Scotland and came from a long line of sea captains and sailors. He himself had gone to sea when he was only thirteen and was more comfortable on the deck of a ship than on land.

  Murdoch and the other officers spent most of their time on the upper front deck of the ship—called the bridge—and the wheelhouse, which faced the sea. But other crew members barely saw the sky and water. Down in the bowels of the ship, firemen—or stokers, as they were called—shoveled giant amounts of coal into the furnaces, to fire the boilers that kept the ship running. The boiler rooms could get as hot as 120 degrees Fahrenheit. The firemen often worked only in their undershirts and shorts due to the extreme heat. It was also very dirty and sooty down in the boiler rooms—the firemen were called the “black gang,” because their skin became black from coal dust and smoke. Frederick Barrett was one of the lead stokers on Titanic. He was twenty-eight and was from Liverpool, England. Frederick had worked on ships before. He was used to the hard work of shoveling coal all day.

  Titanic was like a floating town with people from all parts of society on board. Just by boarding the ship, the passengers and the crew were linked together. Their fates were intertwined—for better or worse.

  The newspaper is full of stories of the people aboard Titanic. The paper says that many of the second- and third-class passengers were from Ireland. I can see the pain in Bridget and Jenny’s eyes as they read this. When they originally arrived in America, many people thought that Nellie and her sisters were dirty and had diseases, just because they were from Ireland. In the city, I discovered that many immigrants live in cold, crowded rooms in run-down buildings because that’s all they can afford. Children don’t always go to school—many have to work. Grown-ups have a hard time finding work because people don’t want to hire someone from another country. Before I met Nellie, I didn’t see the prejudice all around me. Nellie opened my eyes to the truth about how immigrants and poor people are often treated by the wealthy, and I’ve never forgotten the lessons she taught me.

  Titanic had been at sea for four days. The weather had been perfect. And the night of April 14 was no exception. The sea was very calm—in fact, it was the flattest water Second Officer Lightoller, the officer on watch, could ever remember. The black water of the North Atlantic stretched out endlessly until it met the spectacular star-dusted sky. The night was very cold. The North Atlantic was always cold in April, but that night the temperature dropped to just above freezing. The ship was steaming forward, and it was going fast. Captain Smith had been increasing the speed of the ship each day. This was normal practice for a first voyage. Now, the giant ship was plowing through the darkness at a rate of twenty-two-and-a-half knots, which is the equivalent of a car driving twenty-five miles an hour. Titanic was almost at a top speed of twenty-three knots. Since they didn’t have to worry about traffic, ships often operated at full speed, even at night.

  Beep-beep-be-be-beep. Senior Operator Jack Phillips hunched over his telegraph machine, listening through his headphones. He scrawled the incoming messages on slips of paper. Four other steamships in the area had telegraphed ice warnings that day to Titanic, saying that they had spotted icebergs in the area and to watch out. Icebergs were common in that part of the sea, at that time of the year. The crew knew that icebergs could break open the hull of a ship, even a steel hull like Titanic’s. And a ship as big as Titanic could not swerve or turn quickly. Still, no one really thought the mighty ship was in danger, because she was so big and powerful.

  Phillips delivered the warnings to the bridge so that the captain and crew would see them. Then the captain could decide whether to slow down, or change course. But Phillips was very busy—besides the ice warnings, he had a pile of personal messages from the passengers to transmit that night. So when he received one last message that night from the ship Mesaba about a tremendous ice field directly in Titanic’s path, he merely replied, “Received, thanks.” And that was all. Phillips never delivered the message to the bridge. The captain and the crew never saw it.

  Meanwhile, on the bridge, Captain Smith and Second Officer Lightoller were aware of the ice situation. They had seen the warnings and they knew this part of the ocean well. Because of the ship’s speed, they knew they must keep an eye out for the ice—a collision with an iceberg could damage the ship or slow her down. So the captain and second officer agreed that if visibility became reduced, they would slow down.

  Perched high up above the ship in the lookouts’ nest, sailors Archie Jewell and George Symons were doing their job, peering through the dark, looking for ice. If they saw any, they were to use the telephone to call down to the bridge and sound an alarm. Jewell and Symons were watching for a ring of white foam that formed at the bottom of icebergs when the waves crashed against them. Most of an iceberg is hidden underwater, so this was the best way to spot one in the dark. But there were no waves that night—the sea was glassy calm. And Jewell and Symons had another problem—they had no binoculars. No one could find them. Yet the lookouts weren’t terribly worried. Everyone on the crew believed that nothing truly bad could happen to Titanic.

  Elsewhere on the ship, the evening musical concerts ended. The air had become much colder. A few men sat awake, talking over drinks and cigars in the smoking room, and a young couple from Michigan on their honeymoon, Dickinson and Helen Bishop, shivered in the lounge. Most passengers wandered back to their rooms and got ready for bed. A young man named Lawrence Beesley lay reading in his bunk. He noticed the boat vibrating more than usual from the increased speed. Beesley didn’t know why exactly, but he’d an urge to get his life jacket down from the wardrobe in his room earlier that evening.

  By 10:00 p.m., the off-duty crew members went to bed. Captain Smith went to his cabin. Officer Lightoller went to bed. Lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee took over for Jewell and Symons. By 11:00 p.m., the ship was dark and quiet. The powerful engines hummed and the giant propellers churned in the frigid black waters.

  Frederick Fleet

  Operator Jack Phillips was still hard at work transmitting personal messages from the passengers. One more ice warning came in. This time, the message was from the nearby ship Californian. “Say, old man,” the message re
ad. “We are stopped and surrounded by ice.” “Shut up! Shut up! I am busy,” Phillips replied. That was the last communication between the two ships. The Californian operator shut his telegraph down and went to bed.

  Up on deck, First Officer Murdoch was on duty. The temperature outside had dropped below freezing, and the cold air pierced through his woolen officer’s coat. He had to move to keep warm. Murdoch paced about, keeping an eye on the water and on the crew.

  It was 11:39 p.m. The ship steamed ahead. She was going tremendously fast. The lookouts watched the sea. Fleet saw it first: a black hulking thing directly in their path. He picked up the telephone. “Iceberg right ahead!” he shouted.

  Icebergs are huge, with most of the sharp ice hidden below the water

  Murdoch hollered to Quartermaster Hichens, who was manning the wheel, to turn the rudder hard to the right. Then Murdoch telegraphed to the engine room to stop. He needed to turn Titanic out of the iceberg’s path. Could the giant ship respond in time?

  On the bridge, the crew waited. For nearly a minute they watched, tense and anxious. Would the ship turn in time? Slowly, slowly, the nose of the ship eased over to the left. They had avoided a head-on collision! The crew members sighed with relief.

  Suddenly, a tremendous scraping noise, a groaning of metal against ice, reverberated through the ship. In the first-class smoking room, men leapt to their feet as the ship rattled and shuddered. A woman trying to sleep in her bunk later recalled hearing a noise like rocks tumbling together. A second-class passenger who was reading the newspaper in her bunk said later that it sounded like ice skates scraping on ice.