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

worked a fifteen- to eighteen-hour shift, taking his meals at his desk, other breaks coming irregularly and infrequently. Adding to the problem was that there were no set, uniform procedures for handling messages unless they were specifically addressed to a ship’s captain. Otherwise, Cottam, like his colleagues throughout the merchant fleet, took care of any incoming messages as best he could.
    This Sunday was no exception. In addition to the usual spate of passengers’ messages, there was an unusual number of reports of ice being sent by ships on the northern track. Cottam listened intently, copying down anything that might prove useful for the Carpathia , periodically taking the messages up to the bridge when there seemed to be a lull in the traffic. Cottam, like most of his fellow Marconi men, knew little of navigation, so he used his discretion in regard to what went to the bridge and what did not, but he wisely preferred to err on the side of caution.
    At about 7:00 p.m. that evening, Cottam heard directly from his friend Jack Phillips, who was the senior operator on board the new White Star liner Titanic . Phillips was sending a ship-to-ship message from one of the Titanic ’s First Class passengers to a Mrs. Marshall aboard the Carpathia . The Titanic had been silent for most of the afternoon—Cottam suspected it was equipment problems—and Phillips didn’t seem inclined toward much small talk, as fellow operators would sometimes engage in, so Cottam sat back and listened as Phillips sent message after message to the Marconi station at Cape Race. Phillips would send a message, wait for one minute to give operators on other ships a chance to start sending messages of their own, and if none began, would tap out another. It was during these breaks that Cottam picked up ice warnings sent from the liner Mesaba and the cargo ship Californian .
    It was just before 10:00 p.m. that Cottam gathered up his collection of accumulated messages and went forward to the bridge, where he found Captain Rostron, First Officer Dean, and Second Officer Bissett preparing for the change of watch. Rostron took the messages and thanked Cottam, who then returned to the wireless office. Quickly reading the messages, Rostron paid particular attention to the ice warnings, noting that all of the positions given were well to the north of the Carpathia ’s course. Turning to Bissett, he remarked with a smile, “Wonderful thing, wireless, isn’t it?”
    He would soon find out just how wonderful it was.

Chapter 3
     

THE CALIFORNIAN AND STANLEY LORD
     
    Though the cachet of the North Atlantic run accrued to the big passenger lines–-the power and glamor of Cunard, White Star, or Germany’s Norddeutscher-Lloyd and Hamburg-Amerika, the handsome ships of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, the homeliness of Holland America, or the elegance of the French Line–-most of the real work of the shipping world was done by the multitude of ships that sailed under the flags of the smaller, less glamorous shipping companies that for more than a hundred years, from the middle of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th, ran regular services across the North Atlantic. These were ships that would never compete for the Blue Ribband, never be acclaimed for their opulence or their excesses (although some of them were quite luxurious in their own right), or vie for the title of “the largest ship in the world.” Nonetheless, the role they played and the need they filled sustained the lifeline of commerce and trade which was so vital to the two continents which they connected.
    In the summer of 1901 one of these small, undistinguished ships was ordered by the Leyland Line, a company which prospered in carrying cargo rather than passengers. Leyland commissioned the Caledon Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd., of Dundee, Scotland, to construct the new vessel. Laid down with the builder’s hull number 159, the new ship was something of a point of pride for