Titanic and Other Ships By Charles Lightoller

Chapter 31 LEAVING Southampton

Before she cleared the dock we had a striking example of the power that lay in those engines and propellers.

The Oceanic and St. Paul (sic) were lying moored to the wharf alongside each other. They happened to be in a position where the Titanic had to make a slight turn, which necessitated coming astern on her port engine. The terrific suction set up in that shallow water simply dragged both these great liners away from the wharf. The St. Paul broke adrift altogether, and the Oceanic was dragged off until a sixty foot gangway dropped from the wharf into the water. It looked as if nothing could save the St. Paul crashing into the Titanic's stern--in fact, it was only Captain Smith's experience and resource that saved her. The Titanic, of course, dwarfed these two ships, and made them look like cross-channel boats, and the wash from her screws had a corresponding influence. Just as a collision seemed inevitable, Captain Smith gave the Titanic a touch ahead on her port engine, which simply washed the St. Paul away, and kept her clear until a couple of tugs, to our unbounded relief, got hold, and took her back alongside the wharf.

To the casual observer the whole incident would have been just a thrill - perhaps not much more even though there had been a collision. For us it would have been something much deeper. It is difficult to describe just exactly where that unity of feeling lies, between a ship and her crew, but it is surely there, in every ship that sails salt water. It is not always a feeling of affection either. A man can hate a ship worse than he can a human being, although he sails on her. Likewise a ship can hate her men, then she frequently becomes known as a "killer," and in the days of sail, would regularly kill a man voyage after voyage.

The greatest care had to be taken whilst threading our way down the then comparatively shallow channel of Southampton Water and eventually out to Spithead. There was a general feeling of relief when at last we got her into her proper element, deep water.

We then went across to Cherbourg - a short run which barely warmed her up. Then a longer leg to Queenstown, and finally, the following day, we opened her up on the long run to New York.

Each day, as the voyage went on, everybody's admiration of the ship increased; for the way she behaved, for the total absence of vibration, for her steadiness even with the ever-increasing speed, as she warmed up to her work.

As day followed day, officers and men settled down into the collar, and duty linked up with duty until the watches went by without pause or hitch. We were not out to make a record passage; in fact the White Star Line invariably run their ships at reduced speed for the first few voyages. It tells in the long run, for the engines of a ship are very little different from the engines of a good car, they must be run in. Take the case of the Oceanic. She steadily increased her speed from 19½ knots to 21½; when she was twelve years old. It has often been said that had not the Titanic been trying to make a passage, the catastrophe would never have occurred.

Nothing of the kind.

She was certainly making good speed that night of April 14th, but not her best--nothing compared with what she would have been capable, in say a couple of years' time. The disaster was just due to a combination of circumstances that never occurred before and can never occur again. That may sound like a sweeping statement, yet it is a fact.

All during that fatal day the sea had been like glass - an unusual occurrence for that time of the year - not that that caused any great worry. Again, there had been an extremely mild winter in the Arctic, owing to which, ice from the ice cap and glaciers had broken away in phenomenal quantities, and official reports say that never before or since has there been known to be such quantities of icebergs, growler, field ice and float ice, stretching down with the Labrador current. In my fifteen years' experience on the Atlantic I had certainly never seen anything like it--not even in the South Atlantic when, in the old days of sailing ships, we used to sometimes go down to 65° south.

These were just some contributory causes that combined and brought into existence, conditions of which the officers of the ship were to a great extent ignorant.

Wireless reports were coming in through the day from various ships, of ice being sighted in different positions. Nor was that anything unusual at this time of the year, and none of the reports indicated the extent of the ice seen. A report would read "iceberg (or icebergs) sighted in such and such a latitude and longitude." Later on in the day we did get reports of ice sighted in larger quantities, and also two reports of field ice, but they were in positions that did not affect us. The one vital report that came through but which never reached the bridge, was received at 9-40 p.m. from the Mesaba stating "Ice report in Latitude 42N to 41-25N. Long. 49 to Long. 50-30 W. Saw much heavy pack ice, and great number large icebergs. Also field ice. Weather good, clear." Phillips, the wireless operator on watch who received the message was not to know the extreme urgency of the warning or hat we were at the time actually entering the area given by the Mesaba, and area literally packed with icebergs, field ice and growlers. He was very busy working wireless messages to and from Cape Race, also with his accounts. The junior operator, Bride, of course, knew noting about this vital warning, being off duty, and turned-in. Later, when standing with others on the upturned boat, Phillips explained when I said that I did not recollect any Mesaba report: "I just put the message under a paper weight at my elbow, just until I squared up what I was doing before sending it to the Bridge." That delay proved fatal and was the main contributory cause to the loss of that magnificent ship and hundreds of lives. Had I as Officer of the Watch, of the Captain, become aware of the peril lying so close ahead and not instantly slowed down or stopped, we should have been guilty of culpable and criminal negligence.

For the last hour of my watch on that never-to-be-forgotten night I had taken up a stationary position on the bridge, where I had an unobstructed view right ahead, and perhaps a couple of points on either bow. That did not signify that I was expecting to see ice, but that there was the possibility of seeing ice, as there always is when crossing The Banks; ice may be sighted. In point of fact, under normal conditions, we should have probed to be well south of the usual ice limit; only in this case the ice limit had moved very many miles south, due solely to the immense amount of ice released in the Arctic.

In ordinary circumstances the cold current carrying the icebergs south, strikes the warm current flowing to the north-east and under-runs in--that is to say the cold current goes under the warm current, on the same principle that warm water always rises. The effect of this is to melt the iceberg around the water line. It soon "calves" or breaks up into smaller pieces, which again break up, continuing to float in the warm surface current for a short time, until completely melted. And so the work of disintegration goes on in an ever increasing ratio, thereby forming the "ice limit."

It is often said you can tell when you are approaching ice, by the drop in temperature. The answer to that is, open a refrigerator door when the outside temperature is down, and see how close you have to get before you detect a difference. No, you would have to be uncomfortably close to "smell" ice that way.

Ten p.m. came and with it the change of the officers' Watches. On the bridge, after checking over such things as position, speed and so forth, the officers coming on deck usually have a few minutes chat with their opposite number, before officially taking over. The Senior Officer, coming on Watch, hunts up his man in the pitch darkness, and just yarns for a few minutes, whilst getting his eyesight after being in the light' when he can see all right he lets the other chap know and officially "takes over." Murdoch and I were old shipmates and for a few minutes--as was our custom--we stood there looking ahead, and yarning over times and incidents part and present. We both remarked on the ship's steadiness, absence of vibration, and how comfortably she was slipping along. Then we passed on to more serious subjects, such as the chances of sighting ice, reports of ice that had been sighted, and the positions. We also commented on the lack of definition between the horizon and the sky--which would make an iceberg all the more difficult to see--particularly if it had a black side, and that should be, by bad luck, turned our way.

The side of an iceberg that has calved or broken away from its parent glacier will usually be black, where the fresh ice is showing, and is consequently more difficult to see at night. After considerable exposure, this side turns white like the rest.

We were then making an easy 22 knots. It was pitch dark and dead cold. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sea like glass. The very smoothness of the sea was, again, another unfortunate circumstance that went to complete the chain.

If there had been either wind or swell, the outline of the berg would have been rendered visible, through the water breaking at the base.

Captain E.J. was one of the ablest Skippers on the Atlantic, and accusations of recklessness, carelessness, not taking due precautions, or driving his ship at too high a speed, were absolutely, and utterly unfounded; but the armchair complaint is a very common disease, and generally accepted as one of the necessary evils from which the sea-farer is condemned to suffer. A dark night, a blinding squall, and a man who has been on the mental rack for perhaps the last forty-eight hours, is called on to make an instantaneous decision embodying the safety of his crew and his ship. If he chooses the right course, as nine times out of ten he does, all well and good, but if on the tenth time his judgment is, momentarily, in error, then he may be certain he is coming under the thumb of the armchair judge, who, a thousand to one, has never been called on to make a life and death decision in a sudden emergency.

Captain Smith, with every other senior officer (apart from myself), went down, and was lost with the ship, and so escaped that never to be forgotten ordeal carried out in Washington; repeated again in England, and finally concluded in the Law Courts.

Murdoch, the First Officer, took over from me in the ordinary way. I passed on the "items of interest" as we called them, course, speed, weather conditions, ice reports, wished him joy of his Watch, and went below. But first of all I had to do the rounds, and in a ship of that size it meant a mile or more of deck, not including a few hundred feet of ladders, staircases, etc.

Being a new ship it was all the more necessary to see that everyone was on the top line. I had been right fore and aft several decks, along a passage known as Park Lane, leading through the bowels of the ship on one side, and bringing me out by a short cut to the after deck. Here I had to look round to see that the Quartermaster and others were on their stations, and then back to my warm cabin.

The temperature on deck felt somewhere around the zero of Canada, although actually, it wasn't much below freezing, and I quickly rolled into my blankets. There I lay, turning over my past sins and future punishments, waiting until I could thaw and get to sleep.

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