I did not grasp the irony in my choice of reading subject matter until I had already embarked upon my cruise of the southern Indian Ocean. Was it tempting fate to read a book about the most infamous cruise ship disaster in history while I sailed from Mauritius to Cape Town? Our cabin aboard the Norwegian Dawn had a balcony and I chose to read A Night to Remember by Walter Lord with the Indian Ocean and Mozambique Channel as my backdrop.
Lord’s account of the sinking of the Titanic from 1955 is now a classic. The author got down to business from page one, starting the book on the evening of April 14, 1912. Many Titanic books give a (sometimes lengthy) prehistory to inform the reader of the ship’s construction and the White Star Line. They also track the Titanic’s departure on its way before crossing the Atlantic, but Lord kept his story true to the title. Thus when you already know that the iceberg is looming somewhere in the dark, the collision could happen on any page. The read was a can’t-put-down experience from the start since the Titanic struck the iceberg at the top of page four.
The author placed the reader among the passengers, whether sharing their leisurely time in the first class smoking lounges or in the third-class communal rooms. Based on Lord’s personal interviews with survivors, we experienced the collision with the iceberg as well as the oblivious state of unawares from those who did not feel a thing. Lord was well aware of the flaws of eyewitness testimony, and in one case counted no fewer than four different versions of a particular event. Yet the moments immediately following the collision produced a unanimous feeling of wonder and foreboding. Those who were still awake at 11:40 p.m. were puzzled why the ship suddenly stopped:
“The creaking woodwork, the distant rhythm of the engines, the steady rattle of the glass dome over the A Deck foyer—all the familiar shipboard sounds vanished as the Titanic glided to a stop. Far more than any jolt, silence stirred the passengers.”
In less than three hours, the Titanic would be lost. With too few lifeboats for its passengers (and those that were used weren’t filled to capacity), over fifteen hundred would die. Lord captured the chaos, as well as the few examples of order, of the loading of the lifeboats. I liked his simile when describing the sight of the Titanic as its decks slowly sank into the ocean:
“Brilliantly lit from stem to stem, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.”
I take it that this description was Lord’s invention, however I wonder if those sat adrift the lifeboats might have imagined the same thing.
I have seen James Cameron’s Titanic and recall the ship’s final moments as depicted on screen. The ship’s stern half rose, bobbed perpendicular with the ocean, and then plunged straight down. I am not sure if Lord was aware that the ship had broken in two before its stern end sank, as his account of the Titanic’s last moments differ from Cameron’s:
“Two minutes passed, the noise finally stopped, and the Titanic settled back slightly at the stern. Then slowly she began sliding under, moving at a steep slant. As she glided down, she seemed to pick up speed. When the sea closed over the flagstaff on her stern, she was moving fast enough to cause a slight gulp.”
Thus the eyewitness testimony Lord used in relaying the Titanic’s final moments recall a steep sliding descent and not one similar to Cameron’s, akin to dropping a knife into the water handle up.
The Titanic story is familiar to all of us yet I had not heard of the experiences in the lifeboats. Lord must have relied on his own interviews with survivors and the recollections of others, however some of the accounts seem disputable. I acknowledge that I am not a Titanic historian, yet the episode below stretched my credulity:
“Gradually a good deal of squabbling broke out. The women in No. 3 bickered about trifles, while their husbands sat in embarrassed silence. Mrs. Washington Dodge—who wanted to row back against the wishes of nearly everyone else in No. 5—grew so bitter than when No. 7 came by, she switched boats in mid-ocean.”
Lord wrote about the archaic rules that allowed the Titanic to carry fewer lifeboats than her capacity. After the sinking, many changes were made to ship design and passenger safety.
A movie was made based on this book and I would like to watch it to compare it with the text. I can imagine it will not have such an extensive backstory, or an onboard love story, as in James Cameron’s version.
The ship I am on, the Norwegian Dawn, has a large lending library, with one bookcase devoted to books that are free for the taking. I wanted to write this review before our final port of call in Cape Town so that I might leave the book for a future reader. I can only imagine what browsers might feel as they pull out A Night to Remember and recognize the foundering ship on its cover.