TELEPHONE CALL DOUBTED.
The alleged negligence of Murdock, the first officer of the watch, who is blamed, as stated above, by some of the sailors for the wreck in not responding immediately to a telephone call from the lookout giving warning of the iceberg ahead, is doubted by a naval man who has had a long experience on transatlantic liners.
“I cannot help doubting, in fact, absolutely disbelieving, that an officer of the watch could be negligent in either responding to a call from the crow’s-nest or even failing to discover anything in the course of his vessel as soon as the lookout. Especially considering the fact that the vessel had been warned of ice several times.
“The position of the senior officer of the watch is on the windward side of the bridge. He does not depend on the lookout, that man is only a check upon him. Usually any object in the course of the vessel is discovered by both at the same time. The lookout’s signal was not a telephone call when I was on the seas, but a horn blast. Three blasts, object dead ahead; one blast, object on port bow; two blasts, object on starboard bow.
“That Murdock did not see the berg as soon as his lookout, seems improbable; that he did not see it immediately after his lookout, seems impossible; that he did not answer any signal from the lookout immediately is impossible, unless he was dead. Murdock knew his responsibility, and he wasn’t shirking. He wouldn’t have been on the watch, or on the Titanic, if he ever shirked.
“Could a vessel the size of the Titanic change its course sufficiently to avoid the berg within three minutes supposed to have elapsed during which Murdock didn’t answer his lookout’s call? It could. I never sailed a vessel the size of the Titanic, but I unhesitatingly say that the Titanic’s course could be changed in considerably less than a mile. Why, by putting the wheel hard-a-port and stopping the engines on that side the vessel could be turned so quickly that it would list fifteen degrees in swinging around. I have steered a transatlantic liner in and out among fishing smacks and they are easier to hit than an iceberg.”