A Night to Remember

Captain Rostron’s actions in racing to the Titanic’s aid were universally lauded as an act of brilliant seamanship and heroism, and they (along with the actions of some on the Titanic, including Benjamin Guggenheim, and in the lifeboats, including Molly Brown) exemplify one of the book’s main themes: Status, Duty, Honor, and Expectations During a Crisis. Maneuvering the Carpathia through the ice at the speed she reached in conditions that had already taken down a much safer behemoth was a tremendous risk, but Rostron felt duty-bound to render aid. Rostron demonstrated excellence not only in navigation but also in leadership. He organized his crew with efficiency and care to ensure that those he took aboard would be received with the utmost hospitality and with the greatest amount of preparation possible in case of severe injuries or maladies associated with the tragedy. The reflection by Chief Steward Hughes in speaking to his fellow stewards before they began their preparations speaks to the British dedication to civility and duty expected of crew on the steamships of the era. The Titanic was a British vessel, and the disaster implied by the need to come to her rescue signified the possibility of a serious blight against the British seafaring community. Nationalism was a major component of one’s identity during this period, particularly when one was a citizen or subject of a world power like the British Empire, so Hughes must have realized that their actions had the potential to reflect positively on the British Empire as a whole and presented an opportunity to act according to the highest possible standard and to feel a sense of personal and national pride in their efforts. Rostron was very protective of the Titanic’s survivors. He checked the debris field thoroughly for living survivors before deciding to proceed to New York; he charged the Californian with searching for remains only once he was satisfied that he hadn’t missed anyone alive. In addition, he firmly rejected an offer from the Titanic’s sister ship, the Olympic, to transfer the Titanic’s passengers onto the Olympic. Rostron felt that the Titanic’s passengers shouldn’t be subjected to another transfer at sea—and that the appearance of the Olympic in their vicinity could present a traumatic and frightening image: The two ships were nearly identical, and it may have appeared to them that they were looking at the very vessel from which they’d just narrowly escaped with their lives. He ensured that the survivors would be able to contact their family members to bring them news of survival and heartbreak. He was far less concerned with what the public might learn of the disaster than he was with ensuring that he protected and cared for the survivors in his charge.

Lord makes no presumptions with respect to motive as he shares the wide variety of assertions made by passengers when the Titanic docked, all of which can be compared with the faithful account he presents in the preceding pages. He does acknowledge among the survivors a difference between those whose stories were inconsistent with the factual realities of the event but which the speaker believed to be true, and those accounts were inconsistent but which the speaker appeared to have consciously altered or augmented for reasons only known to them. The global press was salivating for firsthand accounts of one of the greatest disasters in maritime history, and many of the stories of survival came from first-class men or men who had rubbed elbows with first-class passengers in the more egalitarian environment that emerged on deck in the later hours of the disaster. Possibly, men who shared their stories anticipated the shame and guilt that would be associated with men who survived the sinking of the Titanic while their peers, superiors, and women and children of all social classes went down with the ship. This possibility raises the question of whether some of the tales that regaled audiences with the speaker’s courage, heroism, and exhaustive efforts to help others may have been attempts to excuse their survival and establish that they were worthy of their place in a lifeboat because of what they did for others.

In the inquests that followed, management of the lifeboats was a primary focus of those deposing the Titanic’s crew. Only two third-class passengers were brought in for deposition, and members of steerage were rarely mentioned except when someone was described as creating issues on board during the crew’s attempts to perform their duties. References to people’s ethnic and racial identities, particularly those of Asian, Eastern European, and Mediterranean countries, were associated with conduct contrary to what was considered more composed Anglo-Saxon behavior on board. Third-class passengers themselves didn’t voice outrage at having been some of the very few in steerage to have made it to safety or cite the locked barriers and lack of lifesaving information from which they could have benefited had the crew paid more attention to them. They’d internalized the expectation that their position was associated with the kind of disadvantages they expected would put them at this level of risk; it was a product of the sociohistorical context with which they complied.

Countless dives to the Titanic’s wreckage have occurred since the ship’s remnants were located in 1985. Many, however, particularly the descendants of survivors, have asserted that the Titanic, as a grave site, has already granted scientists and treasure hunters plenty of data and booty and argue for every effort to severely limit future expeditions to the site and “recovery” of artifacts belonging to those at quiet rest at the bottom of the sea. The ship itself has become a habitat for a plethora of oceanic species ranging from microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, and coral to larger sea creatures who make their home there. The Titanic is slowly eroding and being reclaimed by the ocean; in National Geographic’s Drain the Titanic, Dr. Lori Johnston, microbial ecologist of Droycon Bioconcepts Inc., observed that the Titanic, made of iron, is simply being recouped by the natural world, as the living creatures surrounding her literally feed on the minerals and nutrients in her structure.