Dangerous Betrayal Page 2

  Andrews could take no more of this claptrap. “Stop the ship, you fool! You’ll kill us all!”

  “Mr. Andrews, may I remind you that you are simply a passenger on this ship and I, as the officer on duty, am in charge. I will not be spoken to in this way. You will stay in your place, and you will do your damned job. Now find out why we have lost rudder control! I have direct orders that this ship is not to stop but is to remain at full speed, unless directly ordered by the captain. Do I make myself perfectly clear, Mr. Andrews?”

  Thomas Andrews did not give a whit about Boxhall’s blustering. He had no fears whatsoever. His only concern was the safety of the ship and its passengers. He walked up to Boxhall, stood six inches from his face, and in a voice that reverberated through the bridge shouted, “Get off your constipated British arse, get Captain Smith on the telephone, and stop this ship RIGHT NOW! Do I make myself PERFECTLY clear, Mr. Boxhall?”

  Boxhall turned white. As he tried to stammer out a reply, a shout came down the telephone line from Fleet in the crow’s nest.

  “Berg! Berg, dead ahead!”

  Lookouts Fleet and Lee, half frozen from the cold wind screaming through the lookout post, were doing their best to stare ahead into the darkness. With no binoculars to shield their eyes they were looking directly into a twenty-four-knot wind with an air temperature of about 25° F. The cold air stung their eyes, and the exposed skin of their cheeks and foreheads had lost feeling. It was difficult for them to speak.

  At first Fleet wasn’t sure what he saw; it was actually more what he didn’t see. The calm glassy surface of the sea had been alive with the reflection of stars from the sky above. Now there was no reflection. He was looking into nothing, a black hole, a shadow almost—a mass that seemed to be growing in size by the second. As he continued to stare ahead, the shadow on the sea loomed up like a mountain, and as he pointed ahead both he and Lee realized they were staring at a huge iceberg about two miles ahead and directly in the path of Titanic.

  “Berg! Berg, dead ahead!” came the shouting voice from the lookout as they continued to ring the bell that meant extreme danger. The huge hulk of the iceberg grew out of the sea like a kraken from the deep preparing to strike. They could see its crags and peaks as the distance between them closed at an alarming rate.

  Boxhall spun away from Andrews. Looking out through the windows of the bridge, he shielded his eyes from the running lights and saw the beast approaching. Hitchens at the wheel stood frozen in place. His hands gripped the wheel awaiting a command to evade impending disaster.

  “HARD A-STARBOARD, HARD A-STARBOARD!” shouted Boxhall. Hitchens spun the wheel as hard and as fast as he could to the left, but the wheel spun freely with no effect. The ship continued straight ahead. They had no control. They were rushing headlong, at the maximum speed as dictated by Ismay, into a floating mountain of impenetrable ice.

  Andrews rushed to the engine order telegraph (EOT) and slammed it from full ahead to full reverse in an attempt to stop the ship. The command was registered immediately in the bowels of the ship. Harold Ostermann, in command of the engine room, rushed over to the EOT, looked incredulously at the “full reverse” position, and after a few seconds of disbelief, acknowledged the command and shouted to his crew, “FULL ASTERN! EMERGENCY! FULL ASTERN!”

  It was impossible to immediately reverse huge steam engines churning out fifty-nine thousand horsepower. To their credit, the crew were able to bring the engines to a complete stop and then start them up in the reverse direction, but this took nearly forty-five seconds. By then the distance between Titanic and the iceberg had been cut in half. It was a heroic move but it did little to save them from the impending collision. There was no steering control, and the massive forward energy created by the speed increase from eighteen to twenty-four knots had nearly doubled the forward momentum of the ship. Titanic didn’t have a chance.

  Boxhall, livid that Andrews would attempt to usurp his authority, tried to shove him away from the EOT but was restrained by other members of the crew.

  Hitchens, still trying to control the direction of the ship, shouted, “Andrews is right! If we can’t steer, we must stop.”

  Up in the lookout, Fleet and Lee watched in horror as the iceberg raced toward them. “Turn, turn!” they shouted into the phone as they braced themselves for impact. As she neared the iceberg, Titanic seemed to rise slightly from the water, with a noticeable turn to port. It seemed that the ship was finally turning. In reality the ship had struck a sunken part of the iceberg and was riding up and over an underwater shelf of ice. The force of the impact against the hull pushed her to the left.

  As Titanic ground her way along, the immense lateral pressure on the hull of the ship, magnified as it was by the excessive forward speed, was more than she had been designed to withstand. It caused the ship to be lifted up and shoved to the side, and for three hundred feet, steel plates below the waterline bent inward. Rivets tore loose, and tons of subfreezing seawater poured into the ship.

  Far below, on deck F, the rushing seawater engulfed a few steerage passengers in bed. Luxury cars stored in the forward hold were quickly swallowed in brilliant green seawater, and wooden boxes of cargo and passenger trunks floated around them.

  A few first-class passengers enjoying nightcaps and cigars in the lounge on the promenade deck became aware of the commotion. Several rushed out to see what had happened. The iceberg had passed by, scraping itself along the starboard side of the ship, and ice littered the deck. Some began to play with it, making snowballs and having fun. A few looked aft and saw the iceberg disappearing into the night behind them.

  “We’ve struck an iceberg!” someone shouted.

  On the bridge, Boxhall had come to his senses and was about to order the engines brought to a full stop when Second Officer Charles Lightoller ran onto the bridge, still in his pajamas. Seeing that Titanic seemed quite normal, he ordered that the ship proceed forward but at a reduced speed.

  Thomas Andrews, his mind racing through the possibilities of damage to the ship, objected. “If the iceberg has breached the hull, moving forward will only cause her to take on water at a faster rate. Furthermore, we have no rudder control.”

  Lightoller, remaining calm and professional, stood fast to his decision and suggested that Andrews find out what damage, if any, had been done. A command was sent to the engine room ordering half-speed ahead, and Lightoller went off to get Captain Smith. Andrews organized a group of crewmen into groups of two, sending them to various sections of the ship, with instructions to return in ten minutes. Andrews went to his room to gather his blueprints.

  Captain Smith had been jolted awake. He got out of bed and opened the door just as Lightoller rushed up to waken him.

  “Sir, we need you on the bridge. We’ve struck an iceberg.”

  Captain Smith found everyone standing around the ship’s wheel as the pilot, Hitchens, moved it back and forth.

  “What the hell has happened?”

  “A berg, sir, we’ve sideswiped a berg. I tried to port around it, but the steering mechanism seems to be broken. We have slowed the ship.”

  “Close all the watertight doors. Lightoller, wake up all crewmembers and tell them to stand by.”

  “Shall we alert the passengers, sir?”

  “No, not now, not until we assess the damage. After all, this ship is unsinkable.”

  Fifteen minutes later a stunned group of officers stood around the map table looking at the blueprints before them. Damage reports were in and Andrews had drawn a line along the hull where it appeared the ship had struck the iceberg. Andrews stood in silence, staring at the prints and shaking his head in disbelief. Smith had to ask him three times before he responded.

  “How bad is it?”

  Andrews was pale white. “It is very bad. We aren’t going to make it. It’s a fatal blow, sir. She’s going to founder.”

  “But how? What about the watertight doors and the bulkheads?”

  “Thanks to Light
oller, the doors have been closed, sir, but the bulkheads are useless in the face of this much damage. The rivets are torn out over three hundred feet of the hull. Titanic was designed to remain afloat with any three compartments flooded, but five have been breached. The ship will fill and lower at the bow. As it does the water will reach the top of the first watertight section, spill over to the second, and flood the next and then the next until she goes down. There is no saving her. Of this I am absolutely certain.”

  CHAPTER 3

  April 14, 1912—11:50 PM, Aboard Titanic

  Two Hours Thirty Minutes to Sinking

  Bruce Ismay rushed onto the bridge; he was in his pajamas and slippers and had just thrown an overcoat on in his haste. “What happened, why did we slow down? What is going on, and why wasn’t I informed of this before the ship was stopped?”

  How typical of Ismay, Andrews thought, talking as though all decisions on the ship had to pass through him. “We have struck an iceberg, and we are going to sink. Thanks to the excessive speed the damage is very bad. There is a three-hundred-foot opening in the starboard side of the ship, and seawater is pouring in faster than we can pump it out.”

  “But what about the watertight compartments? This ship is unsinkable!”

  Andrews walked up to Ismay, his voice full of contempt. “I assure you, Mr. Ismay, this ship will be on the bottom of the ocean before dawn. Yes, there are watertight compartments. Titanic was designed to remain afloat with any three flooded, but these openings are allowing water into five of them. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Turning to Captain Smith, Andrews added, “I suggest that we start alerting the passengers and lowering the lifeboats.”

  Recalling the argument he had had when Ismay reduced the number of lifeboats from forty-eight to sixteen, Andrews turned back to Ismay. “And you, Bruce, you might want to think about how you are going to explain to half the people on this ship that they are going to be dead in a few hours. We only have lifeboats for eleven hundred souls.”

  “I will have none of that insubordination on this ship, Mr. Andrews!” Captain Smith said, shocked to hear Andrews speak so critically to the chairman of White Star Line. “I demand that you apologize immediately to Mr. Ismay.”

  Andrews was in no mood to take orders from anyone.

  “That’s rich, Captain Smith, especially coming from you. It is because of you and him that we were traveling so fast. Me apologize? Never! Now, I suggest that you start getting passengers out of bed.”

  Andrews’s words had a chilling effect on the entire room. Several seconds of tense silence followed. Smith knew that Andrews’s stinging accusations were painfully truthful. He knew that his first duty was to his passengers, and he had erred in allowing Ismay to talk him into the excessive speed, but he could still do his best to save as many passengers as possible. Smith openly apologized to his crew for his transgression and gave orders to alert the passengers and get them up on deck.

  Ismay would hear none of this. How could these people be so stupid? This was the Titanic, the unsinkable Titanic. “No, we will not alert the passengers.” Turning to the crew, who were watching this unfolding tragedy, he ordered, “Get this ship up to speed NOW!”

  Captain Smith walked up to Ismay. “You arrogant bastard. You think that your money and your bluster can save this ship—that because you say so this ship will not sink? Well, Bruce, let me be the first to tell you that you are not God. Your position as chairman means nothing on this ship. If you are not out of this room and off this bridge in five seconds, I will have you thrown overboard and you will drown with the supreme knowledge that you were the first victim of Titanic’s sinking—how is that for a first on your beloved Titanic?”

  Ismay bristled. He would not stand for this. He raised his hand and pointed directly into Smith’s face. This was met with a sharp blow to his face as Smith exhibited his supremacy at sea. “Now get him the hell out of here before I throw him into the sea myself,” Captain Smith growled.

  Sharply focused by Captain Smith’s actions, the officers turned back to the table where the blueprints before them spelled their doom. They looked to their skipper for direction. Smith did not hesitate. With forty years at sea under his belt, he knew their best hope lay in an orderly, calm, and organized gathering of everyone on deck as they prepared for the worst. He did not delude himself that the ship would remain afloat; Andrews was much too professional and deliberate to predict such a terrible fate if he did not truly believe it. However, Smith was hopeful that they had enough time for another ship to get to their location and take on the passengers and crew before the ship foundered.

  He sent for Jack Phillips, the head wireless operator, and gave him specific orders to begin transmitting a call for help, and he asked him to use both the standard CQD distress call and the new SOS emergency distress call. He gave Phillips the map coordinates of their location, 41.46 N 50.14 W, with the directive that these should be sent over and over again. Given their powerful transmitter, Smith was certain that other ships would race to their aid in plenty of time.

  What neither Smith nor Phillips knew was that, just as Titanic’s rudder controls had been disabled, the wireless also had been rendered practically unusable. The sabotage was more extensive than anyone could imagine. And as if things were not serious enough, they were now several miles north of the coordinates being transmitted. The compass mechanism had been deliberately altered, also sabotaged, making it impossible for them to know their exact location in the North Atlantic.

  Orders were given to rouse all the crew and to organize some of them into teams that would go from door to door telling people to get up, get dressed, and come out on deck bringing their lifejackets with them. Others were sent to the boat deck with instructions to uncover the lifeboats and prepare them to be lowered to the loading decks where people could more easily board. He asked Officer Boxhall to locate the distress rockets and to stand by for orders to begin firing. In addition to this, Boxhall was to uncover the Morse lamp so that visual signals could be sent to ships as they neared Titanic.

  Everyone had left the map room except for Smith and Andrews. Smith asked quietly across the table, “Tell me, Thomas, in your best professional opinion, how long do we have?”

  “Sir, I pray to God that I’m wrong, but with the number of openings in her side, perhaps no more than three hours before she goes under.”

  Smith’s external air of confidence disappeared. The responsibility that sat on his shoulders felt like the entire tonnage of Titanic was pressing down on him. He buried his face in his hands. “Three hours to get twenty-two hundred people to safety. Three hours to get those people into lifeboats that can only carry eleven hundred. My God, what have we done?”

  His worst nightmare had become a reality.

  Dazed with the enormity of the tragedy unfolding before him, Smith withdrew into himself. The strength and command-presence he had exhibited just a few minutes before evaporated. He left the bridge and immediately encountered a crowd on the deck.

  “What has happened?” they asked. “Why have we stopped?”

  People were beginning to panic. Smith looked without seeing. He walked through the crowd as if surrounded by a personal fog. He was overcome by shock, visibly aged from moments before. It was Thomas Andrews, following Smith from the bridge, who addressed the crowd, his natural leadership ability showing through as everyone gathered around him.

  “The ship has struck an iceberg. We are taking on water and the ship is sinking. Go to your rooms, get your families, and get to the lifeboats. Dress as warmly as possible, and don’t worry about your belongings. Leave them in your rooms and lock the rooms as you leave.”

  Exhibiting surprising self-control, everyone in the crowd grew quiet; Andrews repeated his plea to them: “For God’s sake, go. Be quick about it.”

  In the wireless room, Phillips was sending distress signals, albeit inconsistently. In 1912 there was no international agreement on what constituted a distress
signal. The typical distress call at the turn of the century was CQD, but in 1908 SOS had been adopted as the universal prefix for distress messages. Due to nationality issues, engrained usage, and just plain stubbornness, many operators had continued to use CQD. Titanic’s operators were exhausted and confused. They had been up for over eighteen hours, sending trivial social messages from passengers.

  There was also something wrong with the Marconi wireless set. Jack Phillips was attuned to the various sounds the transmitter made as he keyed in messages, and there was a different sound than there had been just a half hour earlier. Before, when he tapped the key, he could hear a definite “thump” from the large transmit coils within the apparatus. The sound had been explained to him as the surge of current caused by the powerful transmitter as it charged the antenna with each key depression. The machine was an extension of Phillips’s arm, like hearing his own heartbeat, an echo of acknowledgment.

  As he sent the distress signal the sound from the coils was noticeably quieter, only a whisper of its former self. As Phillips thought about this, he remembered the change had occurred just before they struck the iceberg. Perhaps the collision had disrupted some of the power fed from the ship’s electrical generator?

  Receiving stations located on the New England coast began to have difficulty receiving the code being sent by Titanic. The easternmost station on Nova Scotia replied:

  TITANIC – YOU ARE BREAKING UP – HAVING DIFFICULTY READING YOU – PLEASE RESEND

  Stations farther south along the Atlantic Coast lost all contact. They had been receiving and passing on Titanic messages all evening, and the sudden interruption of communication in the middle of a message was causing messages to become garbled.