The Watch That Ends the Night, page 2
And if Jack Astor thinks he’s got it rough,
that’s nothing compared to how bad rich women have it!
We can’t hold a real job: our only employment
is motherhood, social work, and tea parties.
We are judged according to the elegance of our hats,
not the wisdom in the heads upon which the hats sit.
My daughter, Helen, and I were in Cairo with the Astors
when we received the Marconi-gram informing us that
my little grandson, Lawrence Jr., had taken ill in America.
I traveled to Paris at once and booked passage
on the next available steamer back to the States —
they’re calling it Titanic, the world’s largest.
I’m told Captain Smith is in charge of things.
Three months earlier, Smith had brought me east without drowning me.
I imagined he could take me back west the same way.
Helen went on to London to have her fun.
And to tell you the truth,
I was rather glad to have some time alone.
Titanic was due to set sail in two days.
My children were grown. My husband and I rarely spoke.
There were no parties to organize. No rallies to attend.
The entire week lay before me with no one to tend but myself.
The prospect delighted and terrified me.
THOMAS ANDREWS THE SHIPBUILDER
When I was a boy in Comber, I kept nine hives.
The honeybees were a wonder to me.
How they always knew exactly what to do,
each bee’s movements in perfect harmony with the others.
If one queen died, they would make another;
if the hive was threatened, they would swarm,
as if they all shared a solitary mind.
You might call Harland and Wolff a shipyard hive,
with no less than fifteen thousand workers,
and I would not ask any one of those men
to risk a job I would not do myself.
I place myself among the workers as often as I can,
walking the yard, clapping a weary man on the back,
lending a hand to handle a beam, swinging
a heavy hammer here, chalking
a well-driven rivet there. One day a red-hot rivet,
dropped from above, fell fifty feet to splat near my shoe,
missing my head by inches. But that was not my day to die.
You take such events in stride. A shipyard is a deadly place,
and Titanic has seen its share of tragedy.
Such is the life of a shipyard hive —
sacrifice is made for the sake of the whole.
I remember well, as a boy, watching my bees going about their work.
Through endless exertion and industry, they built their honeycomb palaces
much as men make a huge, luxurious ship. I watched the collectors
return with their pollen-laden legs; I watched the sentries defend the entrance;
and I watched, of course, the dead worker bees dragged outside,
their bodies piling up on the ground.
From death, a wondrous buzzing city born.
THE ICEBERG
I am the ice. I watched Titanic’s birth.
I saw the mighty iron keel laid down.
Beneath the gantry and giant floating cranes
it rose, as the limestone pyramids rose
(to transport the souls of the royal and rich)
amid the din of many bustling men.
First they lay down iron Leviathan ribs,
to which workers riveted overlapped seams,
a patchwork quilt of thick metal skin.
And as she grew, I passed down Davis Strait.
I knew what course the Iceberg had to take:
southward toward the ship, the ice goes forth.
Titanic is my compass needle’s North.
For no sooner did this wondrous ship take shape
than it dumbly took its toll of human lives.
I am the ice. I watched the workers die.
The first: Sam Scott, unlucky catch boy
who walks the scaffold high up in the air.
Distracted by some loud, well-meant “Ahoy,”
he steps upon a board that isn’t there.
And at Titanic’s long-awaited launch:
James Dobbins (last to die), not jumping clear,
while he himself Hail Marys and huzzahs,
is crushed by timbers as the people cheer.
Inside Queen’s Island’s massive shipyard cradle,
where men midwifed the mighty ship to life,
where those to whom the job did not prove fatal
send up a raucous roaring at the sight,
the dead add mournful moaning to the roar.
Remember it. You’ll hear that moan again
before the Iceberg’s tale comes to an end.
HAROLD LOWE THE JUNIOR OFFICER
During Titanic’s sea trials in Belfast
it fell to me and Sixth Officer Moody
to test the starboard lifeboats, lowering away
with a bosun and seven able seamen each.
We rowed to the dock and back again.
I was appalled by one of the ABs’ lack of skill with an oar,
and I told him so. And I didn’t tell it gently.
You see, most sailors are not boatmen.
And most boatmen are not sailors.
I happen to be both — at full ease
with the lowliest rowboat or the grandest ship.
Be aware that on these big passenger vessels,
the “crew” are mostly window washers,
waiters, bellboys, and stewards, and most
don’t know a scupper from a teacup. Oh,
they’re nice enough to have around
if you need to have your pillows fluffed,
but they aren’t of much use in a real crisis.
When it came time to report back to Commander Bartlett,
the White Star Line’s marine superintendent,
I said,
“We have tested and inventoried the lifeboats, sir.
And we find them stocked and ready.”
But I was thinking,
God help us if we actually need them,
since half the crew won’t know
which end of an oar goes in the water.
E.J. SMITH THE CAPTAIN
Do not speak to me of lifeboats.
Titanic has twenty lifeboats all told.
Four boats more than regulations require.
The Board of Trade inspectors approved them at once
without so much as a second look.
At least that’s what I understand;
I was home in Southampton at the time.
It was Commander Bartlett who actually ran her through her paces.
And I assure you, lifeboats were far from his mind.
A captain’s main concern must be with his ship,
the ship herself, and how she maneuvers.
For four hours under Bartlett’s hand,
Titanic performed her dance on Belfast Lough.
She executed her massive ballet of S curves and turns.
He rang down Reverse Engines to test her stopping distance:
she took three minutes, fifteen seconds,
and all of eight hundred fifty yards
before she came to a dead stop.
Not so agile as a fish perhaps, but what whale is?
Oh, at forty-six thousand tons, she is a whale, to be sure.
But my Titanic, she is a graceful whale.
I feel that her trials went exceedingly well.
According to what I’m told.
So do not speak to me of lifeboats.
A stable ship like Titanic is lifeboat enough.
Of course I am not so foolish as to call her unsinkable.
But I will say this: it would take a fool to sink her.
I may be many things, but I am no fool.
BRUCE ISMAY THE BUSINESSMAN
For years someone or other in Parliament has attempted
to increase the number of lifeboats required on a ship.
Of course safety comes before all else,
and we’ve got more boats aboard than the present laws require.
So don’t speak to me of lifeboats.
The shipbuilders refer to the uppermost deck as the boat deck.
But I prefer its alternate name: the sun deck.
Let us not forget that our first-class passengers
use this deck as a promenade so they might take in the sun.
Imagine their disappointment when they arrive up top
hoping to experience a spectacular sunrise at sea,
only to find their view blocked by a bunch of boats?
Lifeboats?
Why clutter a ship’s boat deck with lifeboats?
First-class passengers would rather see the sunrise.
JAMILA NICOLA-YARRED THE REFUGEE
We reached Beirut at sunrise. Father sold his cart
to add to the cash he had. Then he had to bribe
an inspection official who “failed to notice” his sick eye.
The ship’s whistle blasted, and finally we got under way.
During the entire boat ride to Marseilles, I worried
that the Turks would be waiting when we arrived.
I worried that I’d be taken from my father.
Though I was frightened, I tried my best not to show it.
But Elias’s knees were not weak, like mine.
My brother is not smart enough to be scared.
He was everywhere at once, exploring our small ship.
He tried to drag me with him.
“You act like an old woman,” he said.
I tried to be polite and patient like Mama would be,
but I wanted to hit him with my shoe!
“ Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!” he yells.
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! His mouth is never shut.
Once we were in France, a man who said he was a travel agent
approached us and offered us lodging at a boardinghouse,
a place to stay while we waited for the next ship bound for America.
Father suspected the hotel man was charging us more than was fair.
Since none of us spoke much French, it was difficult to know.
So we waited. And we waited. Elias ran up and down
the dirty halls of the boardinghouse. “ Yalla! Yalla! Yalla!”
In my heart, I thought,
Perhaps the hotel man charges high rates
because Elias is so loud.
FRANKIE GOLDSMITH THE DRAGON HUNTER
Mr. Theobald says we’ll take a train to London.
Daddy says we’re going to America on a big ship.
Alfred says that nine-year-olds shouldn’t believe in dragons.
Mummy just cries.
I turned nine last year, on the 19th of December.
My parents gave me a cap pistol and a book about dragons.
It was the best birthday ever.
I used to like that my birthday was right before Christmas.
The holiday feeling would go on and on and never stop.
Then last year, just after my birthday, my baby brother, Bertie, died.
Now no one is looking forward to my Christmas-birthday,
and it’s really not fair, since I didn’t give Bertie the diphtheria —
it was God who did that. Isn’t that right?
Sometimes Mum will hug me so hard I can barely breathe —
then she’ll cry and I’ll ask her if I did something wrong.
But she’ll say, “No. You’re perfect, Frankie.”
And she looks at me, but I can tell she doesn’t see me.
Dad says to give ’er time. Dad is a Frank, just like me.
And even though he’s the best tool-and-die man in Strood,
he says, “They’s some things can’t be fixed.”
Dad said we all need a fresh start,
so we’re moving to a city called Detroit in America.
Dad’s friend Mr. Theobald is going with us.
So is Alfred Rush, an older boy who lives nearby.
I asked Daddy if we couldn’t rather take a lad my own age,
but Dad said, “No. Alfred’s the only other lad we’ve got.”
HAROLD BRIDE THE SPARK
.... .- .-. --- .-.. -.. / -... .-. .. -.. .
That’s my name, Harold Bride, in Morse code.
I’m the kind of fellow who wants to be heard!
And I’ll bet they heard me shout as far away as Egypt
the day the Marconi office issued my latest assignment:
Assistant Telegraphic Operator Second to Jack Phillips RMS Titanic
I didn’t care so much that Titanic was a floating palace
or that it was the largest ship in the world;
what excited me most was that Titanic was equipped
with the most powerful wireless system on the sea!
Add to this an opportunity to work with Jack Phillips,
and I just couldn’t believe my luck.
So I boarded Titanic in Belfast, where Phillips showed me around
the wireless shack: the operating table, where we sit at the apparatus,
the system for logging in messages and calculating sender fees.
And the apparatus itself! What a jewel:
a 5-kW installation with synchronous rotary spark discharger
connected to a huge twin T aerial running mast to mast.
And she’s never been used!
I have no idea how Titanic’s sea trials went.
Phillips and I were bent over the equipment the whole time.
But that’s the way of it: with our earphones and key,
we can converse across a thousand miles
and never leave our seat!
All the way from Belfast to Southampton
we tested the apparatus — sending messages
to the Liverpool and Malin Head wireless stations.
We even reached Port Said, three thousand miles away.
Phillips allowed me to send my own personal message:
I couldn’t help but tap out a boast to my friend Harold Cottam,
wireless man on the steamship Carpathia.
To H. Cottam, S S Carpathia
... .- -.-- / --- -- /
-... .-. . .- -.- / --- ..- - /
-.-. .... .- -- .--. .- --. -. .
Say, Old Man. Break out champagne.
New orders.
Second to Phillips. Sailing Titanic.
Bet you wish you had my luck.
Bride
OLAUS ABELSETH THE IMMIGRANT
Miss Marie Stene
Ørskog P.O.
via Ålesund, Norway
3 April 1912
Wednesday
My dearest Marie,
I have secured my return to America on the maiden voyage of the largest and the grandest ship on the sea.
They call her Titanic.
I beg you to join me.
Once a fellow has made his fortune, he can even try for president. Perhaps you might one day be a president’s wife.
Most humbly,
Olaus
THE SHIP RAT
scuttle scuttle
sniff sniff . . . rats?
scuttle scuttle
sniff sniff . . . food?
scuttle scuttle
sniff sniff . . . food
scuttle scuttle scuttle
scuttlescuttlescuttle
follow the food
follow the food
follow the food
CHARLES JOUGHIN THE BAKER
Do you want to know who runs things?
Do you want to know who is in charge of Titanic?
The president? No.
The prime minister? No.
Captain Smith? Wrong again!
Bruce Ismay or Thomas Andrews?
Wrong and wrong!
To find out who’s really in charge,
just look to whoever is making the food.
It is food that makes everything run,
be it a country or a steamship,
an army of soldiers or a convent of nuns.
And I should know. I’m chief baker.
I boarded Titanic in Belfast for the delivery trip
to shake down the ovens and kitchen appliances.
As Titanic sailed away from Belfast Lough,
we fed what little crew there was.
As Titanic navigated the Irish Sea,
I took an inventory of my riches in the flour room.
As Titanic turned up the English Channel,
I was standing at the ovens, watching the bread.
Remove the pans too soon, the center undercooks.
Leave them in too long, the crusts are tough.
Miscalculate the heat, you get black-encrusted mush.
As I stood there, watching the loaves turn to gold,
Isaac Maynard (a third-class entrée cook) stopped in
on his way to the service lift. He brayed like a jackass.
“Cheers, Charlie. I see you’re nursemaiding the muffins again.
Well done, old chum. I’d love to stay and chat
while you stand guard, but I’ve got real work to do.”
With wooden spoon, I banged upon a metal mixing bowl —
my attempt to scare him from the room like the rat he was.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Then, in a flurry, Maynard was gone.
Maynard was all flash and speed. Maynard was all sizzle and flip.
Him and his showy ways. Him and his dapper waxed mustache.
But where was I . . . ?
Oh, yes. I was watching the bread.
You cannot rush the bread.
JAMILA NICOLA-YARRED THE REFUGEE
Yalla! Yalla! Yalla! Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!
I had begun to feel the same as my brother.
I wanted to join him in singing his yalla song.
It seemed we would never leave Marseilles,
cooped up like chickens in our dirty little room.
I kept my brother out of trouble by reading to him.
I can read a little French, much better than I speak —
enough so I understood the newspaper advertisement:
RMS TITANIC
The Queen of the Ocean
46,000-Ton Triple-Screw Steamer
