On the Titanic there was only one low-keyed warning. This was a mild little insert, planted opposite the first page of the Passenger List:
SPECIAL NOTICE
The attention of the Managers has been called to the fact that certain persons, believed to be Professional Gamblers, are in the habit of traveling to and fro in Atlantic Steamships.
In bringing this to the knowledge of Travelers the Managers, while not wishing in the slightest degree to interfere with the freedom of action of Patrons of the White Star Line, desire to invite their assistance in discouraging Games of Chance, as being likely to afford these individuals special opportunities for taking unfair advantage of others.
Along with the deceptions, the Titanic’s Passenger List had its share of printer’s errors—unintended, but no less misleading to browsers then and now. “H. Bjornstrom,” for instance, was really H. Bjornstrom Steffanson, a wealthy young Swedish businessman, whose father seemed to own all the wood pulp in Sweden. Steffanson was a lieutenant in the Swedish Army Reserve, but his eyes were set on Wall Street. This was his third trip to New York in two years, and already he was well on his way to making a small fortune of his own.
Also on the list as Mrs. Churchill “Cardell”—whose last name should have been spelled “Candee.” In an era when genteel ladies were regarded as helpless creatures to be protected by solicitous males, Helen Churchill Candee had already jumped the traces with a book called How Women May Earn a Living. Published in 1900, it was full of crisp, breezy advice. Mrs. Candee had something to say about almost any subject, and other books soon followed: a western called An Oklahoma Romance; a cultural guide called Decorative Styles and Periods; and a history of tapestry, just finished and due to be published in the fall.
But it was not her literary career that put Helen Candee on the Titanic; it was a personal emergency. Her son had been hurt in an aeroplane accident—a novelty in 1912 that vicariously added to her own glamour— and she was hurrying to his bedside.
Meanwhile she must make the best of things. It was the off-season, and some 87 unattached men were in First Class. It did not take long for several of them to notice the handsome woman traveling alone, who could usually be found reading in her deck chair on the Promenade Deck, forward. For her part, Mrs. Candee always took two chairs—“one for myself and the other for callers, or for self-protection.” No less than six shipboard swains were soon vying for that extra chair.
Of them all, she knew only Colonel Archibald Gracie, slightly. An amateur military historian, he had just finished a detailed Civil War battle history, The Truth about Chickamauga. Now he was crossing the ocean and back, to get it out of his system. Two others of the group had been recommended to her by mutual friends: Hugh Woolner, son of a noted English sculptor; and Edward A. Kent, a well-connected Buffalo architect. The rest were complete strangers, to be fixed in her mind the way one does with shipboard acquaintances. Clinch Smith was the Long Island socialite who kept polo ponies and lived mostly in Paris; Bjornstrom Steffanson was the dashing Swedish reserve officer; E. P. Colley was the roly-poly Irishman who laughed a lot but said little.
They were all dazzled by Mrs. Candee, and she in turn “felt divinely flattered to be in such company.” Coming on deck one day after lunch, she found them already waiting by her chairs. “We are here to amuse you,” one of them gushed. “All of us have the same thought, which is that you must never be alone.” Together, they formed one of those groups that sometimes happen on an Atlantic crossing, where the chemistry is just right and the members are inseparable…at least until last night out. To Colonel Gracie, they were “our coterie.”
The days glided by, one blending into another to form a seamless whole. The weather was always sunny, the ocean calm. In past crossings Colonel Gracie had made a point of keeping in shape, but this time he found “our coterie” so enjoyable that he forgot about exercise.
Sunday, April 14, Gracie decided that he must get back on some sort of regimen. He bounced out of bed for a pre-breakfast warm-up with Fred Wright, the ship’s squash pro. Then a plunge in the swimming pool, and up for a big breakfast. Later he attended divine service, conducted by Captain Smith, and joined the rest of those present in the “Prayer for Those at Sea.”
Early afternoon, the weather suddenly turned cold. Most of the passengers stayed inside, writing letters and catching up on their reading. Gracie finished Mary Johnson’s Old Dominion and returned it to the ship’s library. Later he cornered Isidor Straus, on whom he had foisted a copy of The Truth about Chickamauga. The book strikes one reader as 462 pages of labored minutiae, but Mr. Straus was famous for his tact; he assured the Colonel that he had read it with “intense interest.”
Despite the cold, Mrs. Candee and Hugh Woolner decided to explore the ship. A door on the starboard side of the Boat Deck was open, and hearing some clicking sounds, they looked in. “Come in, come right in and try your strength,” called a cheery English voice. It was T. W. McCawley, the gym instructor, a bouncy little man in white flannels, eager to show off his domain. For the next hour they raced the stationary bicycles, rode the mechanical horses, and even took a turn on the “camel,” which McCawley said was good for the liver.
But it was getting colder all the time, and they decided to go down to the lounge for tea. They settled into a green velvet settee before a glowing grate, and it reminded Helen Candee of coming back home to a fireplace after a frosty afternoon ride over the fields. Stewards arrived with steaming pots of tea and plates piled high with buttered toast, and she sensed a general feeling of total well-being and contentment—rare indeed since her son’s accident.
The spell was broken by the bugle to dress for dinner. For the next hour, First Class seemed almost empty, as “our coterie” and the others struggled behind closed stateroom doors with hundreds of shirt studs and thousands of hairpins. Every steward and stewardess—every personal maid and valet—was mobilized to help.
Dinner was the social high point of the day. The elite dined in the À la Carte Restaurant, but the main dining saloon on D Deck had glitter enough. The scene might have been the Ritz in London or Sherry’s in New York, with the men in white tie (except for a few daring souls in tuxedo), and the ladies shining in pale satin and clinging gauze. Tonight even the impoverished Mrs. Cassebeer looked superb, resplendent in the only snappy evening gown she had.
There’s no record of what Mrs. Candee was wearing, but it’s a safe guess that she looked irresistible to her six devoted swains. After a dinner of filet mignon Lili, they took a table together in the adjoining Reception Room for coffee and the nightly concert by the Titanic’s band.
The band has become so hallowed in memory that it seems almost blasphemous to say anything critical about its music. Nevertheless, there were those in “our coterie” who did feel that it was poor on its Wagner, while others said that the violin was weak. True or not, Wallace Hartley and his men were immensely popular with the passengers, and always willing to play any request. Tonight they played some Puccini for Mrs. Candee and a little Dvorak for Hugh Woolner.
Colonel Gracie, who never recognized any number the band played now or later, used the concert as an opportunity to circulate among the crowded little tables that filled the room. He was an indefatigable celebrity collector, and liked to mention his Union Club membership and St. Paul’s School background. One can imagine people wincing at his approach but putting up with him anyhow, for he was kind, courtly, and certainly meant well.
Tonight the Colonel had fewer targets than usual, for the truly big names were dining in the À la Carte Restaurant up on B Deck, where the Wideners were giving a small dinner for Captain Smith. Yet there were still plenty of attractive tables, and Gracie felt that the ladies never looked lovelier. Around 9:30 he decided to break off the evening and retire. It was still early, but it had been a long day—all that squash, swimming, and exercises in the gym—and he had reserved the squash court for another session early the following morning.
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p; By 11:00 the rest of the crowd in the Reception Room was breaking up too, and the band finished the evening with the “Tales of Hoffmann.” Soon the big Jacobean room was completely empty, except for one remaining table. Mrs. Candee and “our coterie” were going as strong as ever. But even they felt the emptiness of the room and decided to look for some place cozier.
Somebody suggested the Café Parisien, all the way aft on B Deck. It was the showpiece of the ship, stylish but intimate. Certainly there ought to be some life there. But all they found was one other party, presided over by Archie Butt, President Taft’s military aide.
And it was so cold. Mrs. Candee drew her scarf close, but it made little difference. They ordered hot drinks, and a waiter appeared with a tray of grog, steaming Scotch and lemon, and (for Bjornstrom Steffanson) a hot lemonade. Even these emergency measures didn’t help, and around 11:20 Mrs. Candee reluctantly went below, where there was at least an electric heater in her stateroom.
Colley also drifted off and the four remaining members of “our coterie” now went up to the smoking room, just above on A Deck. This was a male sanctuary where the ship’s night owls customarily gathered and which was bound to be warm. Someone produced a pack of cards, and the foursome began to play a rather lighthearted game of bridge. There were other tables of bridge nearby, including one carefully organized by George Brayton and two of his sporting cronies. The fourth at this table was Howard Case, London Manager of the Vacuum Oil Company. Case had been selected as the sharp’s next pigeon.
Several other groups sat around simply talking, and one lone traveler—Spencer Silverthorne of St. Louis— buried himself in a big leather chair, idly reading Owen Wister’s The Virginian. It was now nearly 11:40 P.M., and the hum of conversation blended with the steady throb of the engines far below.
Suddenly an interruption. As Hugh Woolner recalled it a few days later in a letter to a friend, “There came a heavy grinding sort of a shock, beginning far ahead of us in the bows and rapidly passing along the ship and away under our feet.”
It was not severe, but enough to spill gambler Harry Romaine’s drink. Everyone sprang up, and several of the more curious—including Woolner and Steffanson—darted through the swinging doors aft and onto the open Promenade Deck. Steffanson’s eyes couldn’t adjust to the sudden darkness fast enough, but he heard one of the others call out, “We hit an iceberg—there it is!”
CHAPTER VI
“Everything Was Against Us”
THE BRIDGE WAS AS surprised as the gentlemen in the smoking room. How could the Titanic have collided with an iceberg so suddenly, so unexpectedly? Second Officer Lightoller wasn’t on the bridge at the time, but he was senior surviving officer, and at the British Inquiry (technically the Wreck Commissioner’s Court) he had an almost mystical explanation:
Of course, we know now the extraordinary combination of circumstances that existed at that time which you would not meet again in 100 years; that they should all have existed just on that particular night shows, of course, that everything was against us.
Pressed to particularize, Lightoller pointed out that there was no moon, no wind, no swell. The Court did not seem overly impressed, but the notion has persisted that the accident was of the one-in-a-million variety, that it couldn’t have been foreseen, and that the lost liner was, in fact, a helpless victim of fate.
Was she really? To find the answer, we must start back on the afternoon of April 12 as the Titanic—one day out of Queenstown—steamed westward across a calm, sunny sea. Around sunset a wireless message arrived from the French Liner La Touraine warning of ice ahead. Captain Smith gave the position to Fourth Officer Boxhall, and Boxhall noted it on the map in the chart room, but it was over a thousand miles away and far to the north of the Titanic’s track—no need to worry.
The wireless was quiet on the 13th, but late that night the Titanic met the Furness Withy Liner Rappahannock, eastbound from Halifax to London. She had recently encountered heavy pack ice, twisting her rudder and denting her bow. Now, as the two ships passed within signaling distance, the Rappahannock warned the Titanic by blinker of the danger ahead. The great White Star Liner, decks blazing with light, flashed back a brief acknowledgement and hurried on into the night.
Sunday, April 14, and the wireless brought a spate of fresh warnings. At 9 A.M. (Titanic time) the Cunard Liner Caronia reported “bergs, growlers, and field ice in 42°N, from 49° to 51°W.” At 11:40 the Dutch liner Noordam also reported “much ice” in roughly the same position, and at 1:42 P.M. the White Star Liner Baltic reported “icebergs and large quantity of field ice in 41°51’N, 49°9’W”—about 250 miles ahead.
At 1:45 P.M. still another ice message arrived—the fourth of the day. The German liner Amerika reported passing two large icebergs at 41’27’N, 50°8’W. The Amerika’s message was addressed to the U.S. Hydro-graphic Office in Washington, but this was beyond her own range; so, in the custom of the times, she asked the Titanic to relay it. This the Titanic did, thus adding her own voice to the chorus of warnings.
Nothing more till 7:30 P.M.; then a fifth message, this one from the Leyland Liner Californian, position 42°3’N, 49°9’W: “Three large bergs five miles to southward of us.” The ice was now only 50 miles ahead.
Finally, at 9:40 P.M., the Atlantic Transport Liner Mesaba: “Lat. 42°N to 41°25’N, Longitude 40°W to 50°30’W, saw much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs, also field ice.” The Titanic was already in the rectangle blocked out by this warning.
Put together, the six messages indicated an enormous belt of ice stretching some 78 miles directly across the big ship’s path.
But the messages were not “put together.” If the recollections of the four surviving officers are any guide, most of the warnings went unnoticed on the bridge. Fourth Officer Boxhall, who was always Captain Smith’s choice for marking the ship’s chart, could only remember pricking off the La Touraine’s sighting on April 12.
Of the six ice messages received on the 14th, the day of the collision, there is firm information about only the first two. The Caronia’s sighting, received at 9 A.M., appears to have been noted by Boxhall. Third Officer Pitman distinctly remembered seeing him jot the single word “ice” on a slip of paper, with the Caronia’s sighting underneath, and then tuck the slip into a frame above the chart room table. Other officers recalled seeing the same sighting pricked off on the chart—also Boxhall’s work. And around 12:45 Captain Smith showed the complete Caronia message to Second Officer Lightoller, senior officer on the bridge at the time.
About an hour later Captain Smith had the Baltic’s warning, too, but there’s no evidence that he showed it to anybody on the bridge. Instead, he took it with him as he started down for lunch about 1:30. On the Promenade Deck he ran into Bruce Ismay, who was taking a pre-lunch constitutional. They exchanged greetings, and the Captain handed the Managing Director the Baltic’s message as a matter of interest. Ismay glanced at it, stuffed it in his pocket, and went on down to lunch.
He still had it late in the afternoon when he ran into Mrs. Thayer and Mrs. Ryerson, two of the most socially prominent ladies aboard. Ismay, who liked to remind people who he was, lost no time producing the Baltic message and reading them the titillating news about icebergs ahead.
Coming out of the smoking room that evening just before dinner, he again met Captain Smith. The Captain asked if Ismay still had the message, explaining that he wanted to post it for his officers to read. Ismay fished it out of his pocket and returned it without any further conversation. Then the two men continued down to the Á la Carte Restaurant—Ismay to dine alone with the ship’s surgeon, old Dr. O’Laughlin; Smith to join the small party the Wideners were giving in his honor. There’s no evidence that the Baltic’s information was ever noted on the bridge before the whole affair became academic.
As for the four other ice messages received on the 14th—those from the Noordam, Amerika, Californian, and Mesaba—none of them were remembered by any of the survivi
ng officers. The Noordam’s warning was acknowledged by Captain Smith, but what he did with it nobody knows. The Californian’s message was received by Second Wireless Operator Harold Bride, who testified that he took it to the bridge but didn’t know whom he gave it to. The Amerika and Mesaba warnings were received by First Wireless Operator John Phillips, but what happened to them remains a mystery.
Almost any student of the Titanic knows by heart the famous scene where a weary Jack Phillips tucks the Mesaba’s warning under a paperweight and goes on working off his backlog of commercial traffic. Yet there’s very little evidence to support the story. Lightoller said Phillips told him so while they were clinging to an upturned collapsible boat after the sinking, but nobody else on the collapsible remembered such a conversation. Even Lightoller never mentioned it at the hearings, although it was vitally important and would have helped White Star, which he was trying to do. Nor did Lightoller mention the incident to Fourth Officer Boxhall, while they were on the Carpathia going over together every detail of the disaster. Boxhall never heard of the Mesaba until he reached New York. The story first emerged in Lightoller’s memoirs, 25 years later, where it should be accorded the latitude normally granted an old sea dog reminiscing.
The Mesaba message remains a mystery. Perhaps it did end up under the paperweight, but it seems equally possible that sometime after Lightoller went off duty Phillips passed it on to the bridge, where it received the same attention given the warnings from the Noordam, Amerika, and Californian—which was none at all.
What went wrong? To begin with, there seems to have been little coordination between the radio room and the bridge. The procedure for handling incoming messages was fuzzy at best. Any message affecting the navigation of the ship was meant to go straight to the bridge, but Phillips and Bride were no navigators; the jumble of longitudes and latitudes meant nothing to them. Their method of handling a message really depended on how it was addressed, rather than what it was about.