The Loss of the S.S. Titanic | Page 6

Unpleasant as this incident was, it was interesting to all the passengers

leaning over the rails to see the means adopted by the officers and crew
of the various vessels to avoid collision, to see on the Titanic's
docking-bridge (at the stern) an officer and seamen telephoning and
ringing bells, hauling up and down little red and white flags, as danger
of collision alternately threatened and diminished. No one was more
interested than a young American kinematograph photographer, who,
with his wife, followed the whole scene with eager eyes, turning the
handle of his camera with the most evident pleasure as he recorded the
unexpected incident on his films. It was obviously quite a windfall for
him to have been on board at such a time. But neither the film nor those
who exposed it reached the other side, and the record of the accident
from the Titanic's deck has never been thrown on the screen.
As we steamed down the river, the scene we had just witnessed was the
topic of every conversation: the comparison with the Olympic-Hawke
collision was drawn in every little group of passengers, and it seemed
to be generally agreed that this would confirm the suction theory which
was so successfully advanced by the cruiser Hawke in the law courts,
but which many people scoffed at when the British Admiralty first
suggested it as the explanation of the cruiser ramming the Olympic.
And since this is an attempt to chronicle facts as they happened on
board the Titanic, it must be recorded that there were among the
passengers and such of the crew as were heard to speak on the matter,
the direst misgivings at the incident we had just witnessed. Sailors are
proverbially superstitious; far too many people are prone to follow their
lead, or, indeed, the lead of any one who asserts a statement with an air
of conviction and the opportunity of constant repetition; the sense of
mystery that shrouds a prophetic utterance, particularly if it be an
ominous one (for so constituted apparently is the human mind that it
will receive the impress of an evil prophecy far more readily than it will
that of a beneficent one, possibly through subservient fear to the thing
it dreads, possibly through the degraded, morbid attraction which the
sense of evil has for the innate evil in the human mind), leads many
people to pay a certain respect to superstitious theories. Not that they
wholly believe in them or would wish their dearest friends to know
they ever gave them a second thought; but the feeling that other people
do so and the half conviction that there "may be something in it, after

all," sways them into tacit obedience to the most absurd and childish
theories. I wish in a later chapter to discuss the subject of superstition
in its reference to our life on board the Titanic, but will anticipate
events here a little by relating a second so-called "bad omen" which
was hatched at Queenstown. As one of the tenders containing
passengers and mails neared the Titanic, some of those on board gazed
up at the liner towering above them, and saw a stoker's head, black
from his work in the stokehold below, peering out at them from the top
of one of the enormous funnels--a dummy one for ventilation--that rose
many feet above the highest deck. He had climbed up inside for a joke,
but to some of those who saw him there the sight was seed for the
growth of an "omen," which bore fruit in an unknown dread of dangers
to come. An American lady--may she forgive me if she reads these
lines!--has related to me with the deepest conviction and earnestness of
manner that she saw the man and attributes the sinking of the Titanic
largely to that. Arrant foolishness, you may say! Yes, indeed, but not to
those who believe in it; and it is well not to have such prophetic
thoughts of danger passed round among passengers and crew: it would
seem to have an unhealthy influence.
We dropped down Spithead, past the shores of the Isle of Wight
looking superbly beautiful in new spring foliage, exchanged salutes
with a White Star tug lying-to in wait for one of their liners inward
bound, and saw in the distance several warships with attendant black
destroyers guarding the entrance from the sea. In the calmest weather
we made Cherbourg just as it grew dusk and left again about 8.30, after
taking on board passengers and mails. We reached Queenstown about
12 noon on Thursday, after a most enjoyable passage across the
Channel, although the wind was almost too cold to allow of sitting out
on deck on Thursday morning.
The coast of Ireland looked very beautiful as we approached
Queenstown