Dangerous Betrayal Read online

  No one suspected, or ever would, that it was part of a deliberate plan formulated to make Titanic invisible to other ships at sea, to make her disappear, vanish until such time as an unknown perpetrator decided to play his final card in a deadly game of vengeance.

  The first step in Viko’s elaborate plan had nearly succeeded. In ten more days he would cause earth-shattering news to be published. But he had made the same mistake as the builders of Titanic; he didn’t consider the power of nature over the feeble power of man. The possibility that a huge chunk of floating ice would turn his plan of salvation for his uncle into a death scenario for 1,517 innocent people had never been considered.

  CHAPTER 4

  April 15, 1912—12:15 AM, Aboard Titanic

  Two Hours Five Minutes to Sinking

  Captain Smith regained enough composure to tell his officers to get people into the lifeboats and to care for the women and children first. At this directive, Officers Lightoller and Lowe took over command of the boat deck. They went from lifeboat to lifeboat telling the crew to start preparing them and repeating Smith’s order that it was to be women and children first. Amid all the confusion, this order was twisted into women and children only, heaping more tragedy onto the already deteriorating situation. Lifeboats, many less than half full, were lowered into the water with spaces that could have been filled with the many men who watched with great anxiety as their loved ones drifted away into the cold dark night. The crew was unwilling to fill the boats to their capacity of sixty-five people because of the unfounded concern that the boats would break in half if they carried that much weight as they were lowered eight stories to the water below.

  The lifeboats had been tested at Harland and Wolff Shipyards with seventy full-grown men in each, but once again, the curse of error stacked on error continued, and many unnecessary deaths occurred because of the lack of the crew’s training. Many of them had been on the ship for such a short time that they were no more familiar with her than the passengers.

  As the first lifeboat was lowered to the boarding location the crowd surged ahead to get on. Lightoller shouted out, “Women and children first!”

  This slowed the surge, but one man, dressed in his tux with a heavy overcoat, rushed forward shouting “Let me aboard. Do you know who I am?”

  “I don’t care if you are Jesus Christ himself, get back and let the women board.”

  The man kept coming, but a hard left to his chin dropped him to the deck. That seemed to knock some sense into the crowd, and a somewhat more orderly boarding process resumed.

  Bruce Ismay was still trying to get the ship underway. This was his ship, or so he thought, and if he said it would survive, then by God it would survive. He returned to the bridge and demanded of Quartermaster Hitchens, “You know who I am, now get this ship’s engines restarted and underway immediately!”

  Hitchens had no such authority. Only the officer in charge of the bridge could give direction regarding heading or speed. Ismay, between his general ignorance of shipboard procedure and his overall expectation that the sun rose and set at his beck and call, continued to bluster about how the ship was unsinkable. What was wrong with everyone? Why didn’t they know this! He screamed to everyone on the bridge, “Get this ship underway; I demand it!”

  He went so far as to threaten everyone on the bridge with immediate dismissal if they didn’t acquiesce to his demands. He was summarily thrown out for the second time with the added assurance that he would indeed be tossed overboard without hesitation if he returned to the bridge or attempted to interfere with ship operations one more time.

  Ismay tried to stop the wireless operators from calling for help. He didn’t want the world to know that Titanic was in trouble. He told Phillips to stop sending the CQD immediately and to resume the transmitting of the passenger personal messages. Phillips just looked at him, unable to believe what he was hearing.

  Ismay’s final threat, that this would be Phillips’s last job on a White Star Line ship if he did not stop transmitting the CQD, fell on deaf ears as the haggard wireless operator turned back to his transmitter key and continued to send the message:

  CQD – TITANIC DOWN AT THE HEAD. WE ARE SINKING COORDINATES 41.46 N, 50.14 W URGENT – CQD.

  Ismay managed to find another way to interfere with ship operations. He went to the boat deck and decided to help with the loading of passengers. His attempt at helping was just a cover for his selfish plan to save himself. Not coincidentally, he was one of the few first-class men who survived the sinking. He knew that lifeboat capacity was well below that required to accommodate everyone. It was his directive months earlier—over vehement objections from Thomas Andrews—to reduce the number of lifeboats from forty-eight to sixteen. His reasoning was that forty-eight boats limited the space on the promenade deck for first-class passengers to stroll about.

  Fifth Officer Harold Lowe was busy organizing the loading and lowering of lifeboats. But what started out as an orderly process quickly turned into confusion and a near catastrophe after Ismay showed up and attempted to take over. Ismay started shouting “Lower away, lower away!” The crew manning the ropes became confused because as he shouted this, Lowe was telling them to wait until more passengers could board the lifeboat. The aft end of the lifeboat began to lower while the crew on the bow end held fast, nearly dumping its load of passengers into the water sixty feet below. Lowe grabbed Ismay by his collar and gave him a choice. “Get the hell out of here or so help me God I will throw you overboard myself!”

  Ismay slinked away, waited till the last moment, and quietly stepped into the last boat as it began its descent.

  CHAPTER 5

  April 15, 1912—12:45 AM, Aboard Titanic

  One Hour Thirty-Five Minutes Remaining

  Water was splashing over the bow. The slant of Titanic’s deck was noticeable. It was obvious there was no saving the ship. The only hope for survival for the nearly twenty-two hundred passengers and crew aboard was escape to the safety of the lifeboats, or for another ship to come to their rescue.

  Captain Smith ordered distress rockets to be fired at five-minute intervals. The rockets shot up into the night sky like Fourth of July fireworks and exploded in a shower of brightly glowing magnesium—the unmistakable and universally accepted symbol of extreme distress, one that all ships’ crews recognized.

  Smith went to the wireless room. “Mr. Phillips, have any ships replied to our distress calls?”

  “Several ships have replied, but most are just asking for a repeat of the message. Some are reporting trouble receiving us and requesting that we repeat the CQD. I think the transmitter is damaged or has somehow lost power.”

  First the ship’s steering and now her wireless? What else could possibly go wrong? Was Titanic cursed?

  Shortly after the collision, the officers had noticed the lights of a ship off the port side of Titanic, about five miles away. It was stationary. They assumed it had stopped for the night. Why wasn’t it moving toward them? They had been sending wireless distress signals constantly but had received no reply from the nearby ship. Smith was sure that once the rockets were seen, she would come to their aid, and yet the mystery ship remained stationary.

  “Sir, we should try the Morse lamp,” Officer Boxhall suggested.

  Smith concurred.

  They repeatedly sent distress signals that any observer on the other ship should have seen and clearly understood. Nothing. No response. They were either being ignored or everyone was asleep. Surely the ship’s lookouts could see Titanic’s lights burning brightly. No one could miss the rockets’ flash and shower of bright sparks.

  On board the Californian, Viko was watching the scene through binoculars but ignored the rockets and the distress signals of the Morse lamp. From his vantage point, the first step in his plan was working perfectly.

  CHAPTER 6

  April 15, 1912—1:20 AM, Aboard Titanic

  One Hour to Sinking

  The majority of Titanic’s passenger
s could not understand the concern. The request to board the lifeboats seemed unnecessary. The deck was tilting noticeably, but Titanic was still afloat. Electric lights illuminated everything as if it were daylight. The band played popular songs, and some of the men joined in a makeshift barbershop quartet. The ship seemed like the place to stay. Why get into those flimsy lifeboats and be lowered to a freezing ocean when staying aboard was much safer and a good deal warmer?

  Passenger Archibald Butt, an advisor to President Taft who was returning from an official trip to Great Britain, did not really believe the ship would founder. He remained convinced that Titanic was unsinkable. He had heard Captain Smith himself say with firm conviction that the danger of ships going down at sea simply no longer existed.

  Others, however, did not share in this sense of comfort that the great ship would not be lost. They looked around and saw everyone in lifebelts. If they were far enough forward they could see that the bow of the ship was underwater. They watched as lifeboats were systematically loaded and lowered into the sea. They saw the brilliant bursts of the distress rockets being fired every five minutes into the sky. They knew better. There was no question whether the ship was going to sink. It was only a matter of when.

  The icy cold air was nothing compared to the cold they would feel when they had no choice but to jump into the sea and the subfreezing water came in direct contact with their skin. That feeling, that kind of cold, is unimaginable, like the stabs of a thousand sharp knives.

  Men, knowing they would never live through the night, gallantly told their wives and children to enter a lifeboat—they would be getting into a later one, they said.

  Isidor Straus of Macy’s fame and Ida, his elderly wife of forty-seven years, were returning from a long vacation in the south of France. The officer in charge encouraged Ida to board a lifeboat. She refused to leave her husband’s side.

  Jack Phillips and his assistant wireless operator, Harold Bride, continued sending distress signals even as water filled the wireless room. Phillips did not attempt to save himself even after being told to abandon his position. Bride did survive, although he suffered from severe frostbite and exposure.

  Second Officer Charles Lightoller, in his position as an officer, was personally responsible for saving countless lives, but in particular for his actions after the ship’s sinking for his direct assistance in saving twenty-seven men from a freezing death. Initially thrown into the water as the ship went down, and narrowly escaping drowning himself, he was able to swim a short distance to the upside-down collapsible boat D and drag himself up onto its inverted bottom. Several other men were already there.

  His natural leadership abilities took hold. In a feat of creative ingenuity, Lightoller directed the men to stand and arranged them in two lines. Although the boat was upside down, he was able to maintain its balance by having the men shift their weight from side to side as the sea gently rolled the boat.

  Lightoller kept the men busy and alert, despite the fact that they were ankle deep in water and could feel nothing from the knees down. He was dressed only in thin slacks and a sweater, soaked in freezing water and fully exposed to the cold air. He kept the boat upright with his sense of command and duty and his knowledge of sailing. A few of the men eventually died from exposure, but most survived and forever owed their lives to him.

  All told, 1,517 people died that night. Neither the great ship nor any of those unfortunate souls would ever see another dawn. They would never again see another relative, know what warmth felt like, or continue a life on this earth. Titanic, said by many to be the most magnificent ship ever built at any time in the history of shipbuilding, would never carry another passenger, nor awe the public with her beauty and magnificence.

  The world changed at two-twenty on the morning of April 15, 1912. More than Titanic went to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The faith of the modern world in man’s ability to perform any task, overcome the forces of nature that rule this planet, or have any real control over his destiny, died that early morning with her.

  CHAPTER 7

  April 15, 1912—12:15 AM, Aboard SS Carpathia

  Rescue

  Carpathia, fifty-seven nautical miles to the south, was one of the few ships close enough to Titanic to rush to her aid. Like most others who heard the wireless call for help, her captain, Arthur Rostron, did not believe his messenger, Samuel Perkins, who woke him from a deep sleep.

  “Titanic? Impossible! Get back there and confirm it.”

  The message had to be a mistake. There must have been another ship with a similar name, or a simple error in wireless coding. But the message came back the second time, very weak, but unmistakably from Titanic.

  “WE ARE DOWN AT THE HEAD – HURRY”

  Rostron immediately changed Carpathia’s heading from southeast to northerly, which would take them to Titanic’s coordinates. He issued orders to prepare the ship for survivors and went to the bridge to personally take over the rescue mission. Carpathia had a cruising speed of fourteen knots. It would take about four hours to get to the site of the disaster.

  A second message had said “COME AT ONCE – WE ONLY HAVE A FEW HOURS”

  Captain Rostron ordered all shifts of stokers to the engine room. He had all heat and hot water turned off throughout Carpathia, with one exception: make coffee, lots of it, and strong. He directed that all of the ship’s crew be rousted from bed and gather in the main dining room where he explained that they were on the way to the rescue of a sinking ship, none other than Titanic. They were ordered to gather all the blankets, linens, towels, and spare beds and set them up in the main dining room. Carpathia was already at capacity, and room would have to be made for well over a thousand people.

  Rostron directed the crew not to disturb the sleeping passengers. In the morning they would ask passengers to share their quarters. To the credit of the crew, everyone volunteered their berths and for the rest of the voyage slept in small groups huddled on the cold decks of Carpathia. He ordered that all unnecessary lighting be turned off and all steam directed to the engines. With all available power directed to the engines, Carpathia managed to increase its speed to seventeen knots and raced northward to attempt a rescue. In a matter of thirty minutes Rostron had transformed Carpathia, a small luxury liner, into a rescue ship and, by directing all the heat from her boilers to the engines, a fast one at that.

  He took the added precaution of having all the searchlights brought forward and directed at the sea ahead of them. Doubling the lookout watch, he warned them to be especially vigilant lest Carpathia fall victim to the same fate as Titanic.

  Two hours into their rush north, the sea became dotted with small icebergs, growlers, many too small to be of consequence, but then they began to see the big ones, some towering one hundred fifty feet above the water. As the lookouts called out iceberg locations, the helmsman skillfully navigated around them, never losing speed.

  Carpathia arrived at the coordinates of Titanic’s last known location and the ship slowed to a stop. Except for the icebergs, there was nothing there—no lifeboats, no Titanic. The coordinates, 41.46 N by 50.14 W, had been in error. Due to a faulty compass the ship had been five miles farther north than her reported position.

  Captain Rostron was puzzled. Just then, one of the lookouts saw a green flare on the horizon to the northwest. Carpathia fired off a rocket in reply, which was immediately followed by another flare in the same vicinity as the first. He assumed they had found Titanic. As Carpathia moved cautiously in the direction of the flare, Rostron directed the wireless operator to signal that they were nearby and ask for confirmation of the coordinates of Titanic’s location.

  Carpathia’s wireless operator had been trying to contact Titanic throughout their rush north and had not received a single reply after the last weak message that they were well down at the head. A few other ships sent messages back that Titanic’s wireless signal had been lost at two-eighteen a.m. The only sound in his earphones was static. Another green
flare shot up off in the distance. Could it be that Titanic could receive but not transmit? Rostron directed the pilot to steam toward the flare’s location, and once again he cautioned the lookouts to keep a careful watch for the icebergs surrounding Carpathia.

  As the first pink glow of dawn lit the sky, they spotted lifeboat number two. It was the source of the flares they had seen. The pilot pulled Carpathia alongside, and as the ship’s crew tied the lifeboat on, the White Star Line emblem next to the name “TITANIC” could clearly be seen.

  The first officer shouted down, “Where is the ship? Where is Titanic? We cannot locate her, and she isn’t replying to the wireless.”

  The reply he received chilled him to the bone.

  A woman on the lifeboat shouted back, “Titanic is gone, at the bottom of the sea. We have just watched our husbands and children die.”

  Rostron couldn’t believe what he was hearing; surely this had to be a mistake, a terrified passenger speaking of her worst fears. He went to the side of the ship, and as he assisted the survivors on board, he spoke with a group of them, repeating his question. “Where is Titanic, what happened?” As the survivors told of the tragedy he was able to piece together that she had struck an iceberg at about eleven-forty p.m. and foundered at two-twenty a.m., taking most of the passengers and crew with her.

  Carpathia moved through the ice field, located sixteen lifeboats, and brought the survivors on board. A breeze picked up, causing a light chop to develop, making the rescue effort more difficult. Collapsible lifeboat C with twenty-two aboard was practically full of water, and the survivors were in bad shape. One had frozen to death and several were suffering from severe frostbite. With the sea choppy, the chance of capsizing increased alarmingly, and they would have been lost if the helmsman of Carpathia had not moved the big ship to shield them from the waves as they were lifted one at a time in a rope sling.