The Loss of the S.S. Titanic | Page 7

Harbour, the brilliant morning sun showing up the green
hillsides and picking out groups of dwellings dotted here and there
above the rugged grey cliffs that fringed the coast. We took on board
our pilot, ran slowly towards the harbour with the sounding-line
dropping all the time, and came to a stop well out to sea, with our

screws churning up the bottom and turning the sea all brown with sand
from below. It had seemed to me that the ship stopped rather suddenly,
and in my ignorance of the depth of the harbour entrance, that perhaps
the sounding-line had revealed a smaller depth than was thought safe
for the great size of the Titanic: this seemed to be confirmed by the
sight of sand churned up from the bottom--but this is mere supposition.
Passengers and mails were put on board from two tenders, and nothing
could have given us a better idea of the enormous length and bulk of
the Titanic than to stand as far astern as possible and look over the side
from the top deck, forwards and downwards to where the tenders rolled
at her bows, the merest cockleshells beside the majestic vessel that rose
deck after deck above them. Truly she was a magnificent boat! There
was something so graceful in her movement as she rode up and down
on the slight swell in the harbour, a slow, stately dip and recover, only
noticeable by watching her bows in comparison with some landmark on
the coast in the near distance; the two little tenders tossing up and down
like corks beside her illustrated vividly the advance made in comfort of
motion from the time of the small steamer.
Presently the work of transfer was ended, the tenders cast off, and at
1.30 P.M., with the screws churning up the sea bottom again, the
Titanic turned slowly through a quarter-circle until her nose pointed
down along the Irish coast, and then steamed rapidly away from
Queenstown, the little house on the left of the town gleaming white on
the hillside for many miles astern. In our wake soared and screamed
hundreds of gulls, which had quarrelled and fought over the remnants
of lunch pouring out of the waste pipes as we lay-to in the harbour
entrance; and now they followed us in the expectation of further spoil. I
watched them for a long time and was astonished at the ease with
which they soared and kept up with the ship with hardly a motion of
their wings: picking out a particular gull, I would keep him under
observation for minutes at a time and see no motion of his wings
downwards or upwards to aid his flight. He would tilt all of a piece to
one side or another as the gusts of wind caught him: rigidly unbendable,
as an aeroplane tilts sideways in a puff of wind. And yet with graceful
ease he kept pace with the Titanic forging through the water at twenty
knots: as the wind met him he would rise upwards and obliquely

forwards, and come down slantingly again, his wings curved in a
beautiful arch and his tail feathers outspread as a fan. It was plain that
he was possessed of a secret we are only just beginning to learn--that of
utilizing air-currents as escalators up and down which he can glide at
will with the expenditure of the minimum amount of energy, or of
using them as a ship does when it sails within one or two points of a
head wind. Aviators, of course, are imitating the gull, and soon perhaps
we may see an aeroplane or a glider dipping gracefully up and down in
the face of an opposing wind and all the time forging ahead across the
Atlantic Ocean. The gulls were still behind us when night fell, and still
they screamed and dipped down into the broad wake of foam which we
left behind; but in the morning they were gone: perhaps they had seen
in the night a steamer bound for their Queenstown home and had
escorted her back.
All afternoon we steamed along the coast of Ireland, with grey cliffs
guarding the shores, and hills rising behind gaunt and barren; as dusk
fell, the coast rounded away from us to the northwest, and the last we
saw of Europe was the Irish mountains dim and faint in the dropping
darkness. With the thought that we had seen the last of land until we set
foot on the shores of America, I retired to the library to write letters,
little knowing that many things would happen to us all--many
experiences, sudden, vivid and impressive to be encountered, many
perils to be faced, many good and true people for whom we should
have to mourn--before we saw land