XVI
The Californian had come up while the Carpathia was taking the survivors on board, and it was arranged that she should remain and search the vicinity while the Carpathia made all haste to New York. And the other ships that had answered the call for help either came up later in the morning and stayed for a little cruising about in the forlorn hope of finding more survivors, or else turned back and resumed their voyages when they heard the Carpathia’s tidings.
In the meantime the shore stations could get no news. Word reached New York and London in the course of the morning that the Titanic had struck an iceberg and was badly damaged, but nothing more was known until a message, the origin of which could not be discovered, came to say that the Titanic was being towed to Halifax by the Virginian, and that all her passengers were saved. With this news the London evening papers came out on that Monday, and even on Tuesday the early editions of the morning papers had the same story, and commented upon the narrow escape of the huge ship. Even the White Star officials had on Monday no definite news; and when their offices in New York were besieged by newspaper men and relatives of the passengers demanding information, the pathetic belief in the Titanic’s strength was allowed to overshadow anxieties concerning the greater disaster. Mr. Franklin, the vice-president of the American Trust to which the White Star Company belongs, issued the following statement from New York on Monday:
“We have nothing direct from the Titanic, but are perfectly satisfied that the vessel is unsinkable. The fact that the Marconi messages have ceased means nothing; it may be due to atmospheric conditions or the coming up of the ships, or something of that sort.
“We are not worried over the possible loss of the ship, as she will not go down, but we are sorry for the inconvenience caused to the travelling public. We are absolutely certain that the Titanic is able to withstand any damage. She may be down by the head, but would float indefinitely in that condition.”
Still that same word, “unsinkable,” which had now indeed for the first time become a true one: for it is only when she lies at the bottom of the sea that any ship can be called unsinkable. On Tuesday morning when the dreadful news was first certainly known, those proud words had to be taken back. Again Mr. Franklin had to face the reporters, and this time he could only say:
“I must take upon myself the whole blame for that statement. I made it, and I believed it when I made it. The accident to the Olympic, when she collided with the cruiser Hawke, convinced me that these ships, the Olympic and Titanic, were built like battleships, able to resist almost any kind of accident, particularly a collision. I made the statement in good faith, and upon me must rest the responsibility for error, since the fact has proved that it was not a correct description of the unfortunate Titanic.”
And for three days while the Carpathia was ploughing her way, now slowly through ice-strewn seas, and now at full speed through open water, and while England lay under the cloud of an unprecedented disaster, New York was in a ferment of grief, excitement, and indignation. Crowds thronged the streets outside the offices of the White Star Line, while gradually, in lists of thirty or forty at a time, the names of the survivors began to come through from the Carpathia. And at last, when all the names had been spelled out, and interrogated, and corrected, the grim total of the figures stood out in appalling significance—seven hundred and three saved, one thousand five hundred and three lost.
It is not possible, nor would it be very profitable, to describe the scenes that took place on these days of waiting, the alternations of hope and grief, of thankfulness and wild despair, of which the shipping offices were the scene. They culminated on the Thursday evening when the Carpathia arrived in New York. The greatest precautions had been taken to prevent the insatiable thirst for news from turning that solemn disembarkation into a battlefield. The entrance to the dock was carefully guarded, and only those were admitted who had business there or who could prove that they had relations among the rescued passengers. Similar precautions were taken on the ship; she was not even boarded by the Custom officials, nor were any reporters allowed on board, although a fleet of steam launches went out in the cold rainy evening to meet her, bearing pressmen who were prepared to run any risks to get a footing on the ship. They failed, however, and the small craft were left behind in the mist, as the Carpathia came gliding up the Hudson.
Among the waiting crowd were nurses, doctors, and a staff of ambulance men and women; for all kinds of wild rumours were afloat as to the condition of those who had been rescued. The women of New York had devoted the days of waiting to the organization of a powerful relief committee, and had collected money and clothing on an ample scale to meet the needs of those, chiefly among the steerage passengers, who should find themselves destitute when they landed. And there, in the rain of that gloomy evening, they waited.