Marine disaster

“ The greatest marine disaster in the history of ocean traffic occurred last Sunday night, when the Titanic of the White Star Line, the greatest steamship that ever sailed the sea, shattered herself against an iceberg and sank with, it is feared, fifteen hundred of her passengers and crew in less than four hours. The monstrous modern ships may defy wind and weather, but ice and fog remain unconquered. ”

“ Some adverse criticism was directed against the men of the Life Saving corps, for their failure to rescue these sailors, but it was wholly unmerited as the Life Savers did everything in their power or that it was possible to do under the circumstances.
It was one of those terrible marine disasters, of which there are many, where man is a plaything in the grip of the sea when the storm king is abroad in his might. ”

“ Take Carr’s Rock, Angola, Richmond Switch, or any other terrible disaster by rail, and the number killed was a great deal smaller than the number of those who escaped unhurt. But a marine accident may destroy the life of every one on board the ship. This has been the case on several occasions. The steamers President, City of Glasgow, Pacific, City of Boston, Tempest, United Kingdom, Ismailia, and Trojan were lost at sea, and never heard from. ”

“ In the wreck chart which we opened before our readers at the beginning of this article, besides the black dots strewn around the coast, indicative of the sites of marine disasters during the past year, certain red characters, are seen which mark the stations of our life-boats and mortar and rocket apparatus. Where the black dots are thickest, there also the red dots crowd. On the east coast, especially near the fatal Yarmouth sands, these red spots form quite a thick rash upon the seabord. Where the chief danger is, there these means of rescue jostle each other to rush to it. ”

“ It is doubtless true that this precaution ought to have been taken without waiting for a loss of life such as makes all previous marine disasters seem trivial. But the public itself has been inert. For thirty years, since Plimsoll's day, every intelligent passenger knew that every British vessel was deficient in life-boats, but neither public opinion nor the public press took this matter up. ”

“ Of course there have been winter gales and storms and fog and the like in the forty years I have been on the seas, but I have never been in an accident worth speaking of. In all my years at sea (he made this comment a few years ago) I have seen but one vessel in distress. That was a brig the crew of which was taken off in a boat by my third officer. I never saw a wreck. I never have been wrecked. I have never been in a predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. ”

“ The suddenness of the disaster—our being one moment safe, and the next tossing on the sea in a small boat, with the schooner gone, nothing saved but what we stood in, not a morsel of food nor a drop of drink of any kind, the wind blowing fit to freeze the eyes out of our heads, every mother’s son of us soaked to the skin, and drifting fast away towards the Atlantic—took our senses away for a spell. ”

“ CHAPTER VI AN UNFORESEEN DISASTER During the night the storm developed into that elemental chaos which the landsman exaggerates into a hurricane and the sailor logs as a strong northwesterly gale. Passage along the open decks of the Southern Cross became a hazardous undertaking, an experiment just practicable for a strong man clad in oilskins and seaboots, but positively dangerous for one unable to interpret the vagaries of a ship plunging through a heavy sea. ”

“ As is the practice on men-of-war, however, the utmost vigilance was maintained. Only the employment of a boat patrol and the use of torpedo nettings were lacking to give the "Maine" the aspect of a ship in an enemy's harbor.
Then came the disaster that shocked the world. A disaster in which it is impossible not to suspect the element of treachery. A disaster which if purely accidental, occurring to a hated ship in a port surrounded by men who were enemies at heart, was the most extraordinary coincidence in history. ”

“ From each appalling tragedy of the sea we laboriously spell out some lessons which are to teach us how to escape these strokes of fate for the future. Then comes another tragedy, and shows us the futility of these dearly-bought lessons. From the Titanic, we deduced that what is needed is a plentiful supply of life-boats and life-rafts. Given enough of these to easily carry all the passengers and crew, and so terrible a disaster as that which engulfed this peerless ship would, we believed, become impossible. ”

“ He had doubled the beach patrol and now strained his eyes in momentary expectation of seeing the signal to all that coast that a disaster had occurred. It is a thrilling time—waiting and watching to hear the news of a wreck that is certain to p. 10take place; striving to locate the doomed craft in the profound darkness out at sea; hoping against hope that some miracle may avert the impending catastrophe!
Just at dusk that evening, the men at Fourth Cliff Station (a few miles to the south) had sighted a large brig close-hauled and struggling northward under storm sails. ”

“ It appears that 47 boats were
lost by being snagged, 16 by explosions, 4 were burnt, and the others
lost by collision and other mishaps. The greatest number of lives lost
by one disaster was the explosion of the "Saluda," 100. The total loss
of life exceeds 400 persons. ”

“ How others followed—how heartrending stories of partings and of thrilling rescues were poured out in an amazing stream—this has all been told over and over again in the news that for days amazed, saddened and angered the entire world. It is the story of a disaster that nations, it is hoped, will make impossible in the years to come.
In the stream of survivors were a peer of the realm, Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, and his secretary, side by side with plain Jack Jones, of Birmingham, able seaman, millionaires and paupers, women with bags of jewels and others with nightgowns their only property. ”

“ That a human being could live through such a night as that, in that icy water and retain his hold upon any part of those ice covered timbers and sea swept wreck seemed incredible. But the chapter of horrors was not yet complete in this wretched disaster. Piece by piece the sea tore away what remained of the wreck until nothing but the deck house roof remained above the sea; as wave after wave hurled itself against the battered top it was seen to lift from its fastenings that held it to the submerged wreck and the next wave bore it off far into the thrashing sea. ”

“ The boatswain tried to explain; the sounds of a great scuffle surprised them: and the mighty shocks, reverberating awfully in the black bunker, kept them in mind of their danger. When the boatswain threw open the door it seemed that an eddy of the hurricane, stealing through the iron sides of the ship, had set all these bodies whirling like dust: there came to them a confused uproar, a tempestuous tumult, a fierce mutter, gusts of screams dying away, and the tramping of feet mingling with the blows of the sea. ”

“ In those days no life savers patrolled the beach to lend a rescuing hand and the first intimation of the disaster was when, during a temporary rift in the fog the light keeper, from the cliffs, discovered the stranded ship. The alarm quickly spread to all the neighboring farm houses and to the village, from all directions men came hurrying to the beach, hoping in some way to be able to aid the suffering sailors on the wreck, which by this time was fast being smashed to pieces by the thunderous waves which pounded upon her partly submerged hull. ”

“ So long as man shall continue to navigate the ocean, and the tempests shall hold their course over its surface, in every age and on every coast, disasters by sea, shipwrecks, and peril to human life, must inevitably take place ”

“ Much to my surprise there was only slight suction. There were explosions out of the funnels as the cold water mixed with the{87} steam and that added to the horror of the disaster. The mass of wreckage was tremendous. Aside from the people brought out with it, there were deck chairs, oars, boxes, and I can’t remember what. I simply know that one moment one was jammed between large objects, and the next moment one was under the water. There were many people around you who needed assistance, but all one could do was to push an oar or box or a piece of wreckage to each to grab. ”

“ The Titanic disaster is a complete substantiation of the agitation that our guild has carried on for nearly twenty years against the scheme that has precluded practical seamen from being consulted with regard to boat capacity and life-saving appliances. ”

“ The Speranza herself having been in danger while the gale lasted, the captain and crew concluded that they were on the traces of a wreck, and a boat was lowered for the purpose of examining the objects in the water. A hen-coop, some broken spars, and fragments of shattered plank were the first evidences discovered of the terrible disaster that had happened. Some of the lighter articles of cabin furniture, wrenched and shattered, were found next. ”

“ Death’s threatening wave engulfed almost all of them, but we may be sure that whether in the isolation of their cabins or in the crowded confusion of the final plunge [Pg 43] on deck they died bravely. That, indeed, seems to be the outstanding feature of this terrible tale of the sea. To face death unafraid, whether it comes in the sick room, in tempest, fire, or flood, is the supreme test of fortitude. ”

“ The strength of the impulse to build unsinkable ships will be exactly in proportion to our realisation of the dangers which beset ocean travel. The toll of human life exacted in the recent disaster will lose its one possible compensation, if it fails to impress deeply the very serious lesson that since the sea is not man's natural element, he can hold his way safely across its surface only at the cost of most careful preparation and eternal vigilance. ”

“ LOWERING THE LIFE-BOATS FROM THE TITANIC
Fortunately the sea was calm on the night of the disaster, for otherwise the loss of life might have been much greater in the terrible descent of more than 60 feet from the boat deck to the water. As it was, four of the life-boats were wrecked in launching.
While they sped in the night with all the drive that steam could give them, the Titanic’s call reached to Cape Race and the startled operator there heard at midnight a message which quickly reached New York:
“Have struck an iceberg. We are badly damaged. ”

“ Further, they were in imminent danger from sharks, which, as they well knew, might attack them at any moment,—a consciousness which formed a horrible item in that night of dread. Mingling with the roar of the waters and the shrieking of the hurricane, came the crash of falling palms, uprooted, twisted, or snapped by the fury of the gale.
When morning broke, the tempest abated; the waters receded to their accustomed bounds, leaving the island a complete wreck, and its shores strewn with the bodies of the dead. ”

“ Fortunately no lives were lost in this disaster, but it caused many hours of suffering for those men who comprised the crew of the wreck.
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WAS IT MURDER?
Tragedy stalks abroad on the great sea and land always, not only on the wide stretches of the great ocean but all along the bordering coasts and inlets.
A big ship sails away into the mists and fogs of the pulsing deep and never comes back, a fisherman pulls out in his little boat to draw his nets and drops as completely out of sight as though he had never been. ”

“ Later, when he drew nearer to observe the wreck, he had only been able to see the stern of the vessel—the remainder, that is to say, the large opening where the fore-part had given way, having been concealed from him among the masses of rock. [Pg 189]
With that exception, the information given by the captain of the Shealtiel was strictly correct. The hull was useless, but the engine remained intact.
Such chances are common in the history of shipwreck. The logic of disaster at sea is beyond the grasp of human science. ”

“ But such cases are rare in comparison with the vast majority of the disasters; for the greatest peril to a vessel in a storm is the vicinity of a reef or shoal. In the open sea there is comparative safety, even in a considerable gale, for good seamen; but a shoal or rocky coast may be fatal to the vessel striking, even though the wind be but moderate. ”

“ Such was the force of this hurricane of wind that every window pane on the ocean side of our house (the Signal Station at Highland Light) was blown in and smashed into a thousand fragments. Men exposed to the full force of the storm were blown from their feet and hurled about like blocks of wood.
Men of the Life Saving service were exhausted by their exertions in trying to cover their beats, and several of them were completely unnerved by their frequent trying experiences in dragging torn and sea-washed bodies from the surf. ”

“ I hear the hooting of the hurricane, the groaning of the over-loaded vessel, and over all the faint hurrah those brave spirits utter as the last rope is severed and the unwieldly wreck of spars and cordage falls overboard and glides away upon a running sea, and the ship comes to again under my hand, and braves, with her bows almost at them, the merciless onslaught of the huge green waves. ”

“ And yet in ships so rude that the hulls were sometimes bound with hawsers to hold them together these men anchored where black fogs shut them in, where sleet-laden gales were a part of their common life, where bergs and fields of ice assaulted them, and where irresistible hurricanes from the unknown wilds beyond came to overwhelm them. To these real dangers they added others that, though born of the imagination, were still more terrifying. They saw evil spirits in the storm clouds, and demons came shrieking in the gales to carry their souls to eternal torment. ”