The Band that Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic by Steve Turner

Author:Steve Turner [Turner, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

11

“A SOLEMNITY

TOO DEEP FOR WORDS.”

It was 11:45 at night according to ship’s time when the Titanic grazed along the iceberg that would send it to the ocean bed. The musicians would have been in their cabins probably having a smoke before retiring. They would have felt the collision more sharply than those higher up because E Deck on the starboard side was close to the point of impact. Lawrence Beesley, above on D Deck, only sensed an increased vibration: “Nothing more than that. No sound of a crash or anything else. No sense of shock, no jar that felt like one heavy body meeting another.” Lady Duff-Gordon’s maid, Laura Francatelli, who was on E Deck, felt a distinct shudder and when she left her cabin twenty minutes later noticed that the corridors were flooding. E Deck was already below the waterline.

Ice fields were an ever-present threat to transatlantic ships at this time of year and after only two days at sea the Titanic had begun to receive warnings from eastbound ships. On April 14 alone, it had heard from the Caronia, Noordam, Baltic, Amerika, Californian, and Mesaba. One message wasn’t passed to the bridge, one was passed on but ended up in J. Bruce Ismay’s pocket, and yet another was ignored as the Titanic’s wireless operators struggled with the volume of messages needing to be sent on behalf of passengers. When the iceberg that would do the damage was first spotted, it was only around five hundred yards away. The engines were consequently cut and the ship turned toward port by the helmsman, but there wasn’t enough time to sufficiently navigate so large a vessel and therefore, although the bow avoided the ice, the starboard side rubbed along it in what at the time seemed like a glancing blow.

Passengers out on the open decks initially thought the worst that could have taken place was damage to the paintwork. Ice fragments from the towering block had tumbled onto the decks and some people were picking them up in handfuls and starting snowball fights. But, in fact, the damage had been more wounding than if the ship had rammed the berg head on, crumpled the bow, and been spun around. Projections from the wall of ice had acted like tin openers, slicing into the steel plates and allowing water to seep into the much-vaunted bulkhead compartments. These had been designed on the premise that only one or two of the compartments were ever likely to be penetrated. If more than two were allowed to flood, of course, the weight of water taken on would eventually drag the ship down.

According to passenger Laura Francatelli, the potential gravity of the situation was recognised earlier on E Deck than on the upper decks where men continued to drink, read books in the library, and play cards. Shortly after the impact she was informed that the ship had hit an iceberg but was told that it was nothing to worry about. By 12:05 the situation was

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