The Other Side of the Night by Daniel Allen Butler Read Free Book Online

all captains enjoyed the social side of their responsibilities, however. Captain William Turner, who was the first captain of both the Lusitania and the Mauretania , cordially detested most passengers, regarding them as overblown bores and busybodies, and he vastly preferred the company of his officers and the surroundings of his bridge to that of the Captain’s Table in the First Class Dining Saloon. Because Turner’s skills as a mariner made him too valuable to lose, Cunard created the position of Staff Captain, a “second” captain, qualified in every way as a ship’s master, who would relieve Turner of some of the burden of the administrative details of the ship’s operations, as well as take over the duty of entertaining the passengers. Apparently it was a successful solution all around, for the position of Staff Captain became a permanent fixture on Cunard’s larger ships, even though most Captains found presiding over their own table at dinner to be one of the more pleasant aspects of their job.
    The Carpathia , however, was not large enough to warrant a Staff Captain, and in any event, Arthur Rostron seemed to enjoy the social side of command as much as any ship’s master. Only rarely would a member of the British, Italian or Austrian aristocracy appear on the Carpathia ’s passenger lists—for the most part their ilk preferred the glamour of the Lusitania or Mauretania , White Star’s Olympic , or the fast German liners. Consequently, the men who, along with their wives, occupied the captain’s table on the Carpathia would be men from the world of business, manufacturing or trades, men with whom Rostron could easily relate, who had attained their affluence and social station through intelligence, hard work, and perseverance.
    On the voyage in April 1912, the first two days out of New York were utterly uneventful, as was expected, and the passengers and crew of the Carpathia settled into a comfortable routine as the ship made her steady progress eastward. The weather was brisk, not particularly warm for April, but not unbearably cold. It would get warmer as the Carpathia made her way southward past the Azores and on through Gibraltar into the Med. Captain Rostron knew that the previous winter had been rather mild in the Arctic, and as a result the amount of ice which was drifting down into the North Atlantic was considerably heavier than usual. However, that was not a worry for him or the Carpathia , as her course would take her more than eighty miles south of the westbound routes, where the ice might be more of a hazard.
    Sunday morning, April 14, was a little different than the previous two days. For the crew, after breakfast was over, there came a faithfully followed Sunday ritual of a passenger ship at sea: the Captain’s Inspection. It was an impressive sight with Captain Rostron leading the way, followed by the Department Heads—Chief Officer, Chief Engineer Johnston, Chief Steward Hughes, Purser Brown—all in their best uniforms. From top deck to bottom, bow to stern, and through all the public rooms, they visited every accessible part of the ship. The inevitable small deficiencies were found—a spotted carpet in one of the lounges, a small spill of oil in one of the engineering spaces, a crewman’s bunk or locker not quite properly squared away. It is as ironclad an unwritten law in the merchant marine as it is in the military that there is no such thing as a perfect inspection. However, of serious deficiencies there were none.
    Next came the Boat Drill. As outlined by the Board of Trade, Boat Drill only required a ship’s officers to supervise a picked crew, mustered beforehand, to uncover a designated lifeboat on each side of the ship, swing it out over the ship’s side, and climb aboard. Some officers would require the crewmen to examine the oars, mast, sail, and rigging that were stowed in each boat, and account for the required kegs of water and tins of biscuit. Others weren’t so