In ordinary circumstances the cold current carrying the icebergs south, strikes the warm current flowing to the north-east and under-runs in — that is to say the cold current goes under the warm current, on the same principle that warm water always rises. The effect of this is to melt the iceberg around the water line. It soon “calves” or breaks up into smaller pieces, which again break up, continuing to float in the warm surface current for a short time, until completely melted. And so the work of disintegration goes on in an ever increasing ratio, thereby forming the “ice limit.”
It is often said you can tell when you are approaching ice, by the drop in temperature. The answer to that is, open a refrigerator door when the outside temperature is down, and see how close you have to get before you detect a difference. No, you would have to be uncomfortably close to “smell” ice that way.
Ten p.m. came and with it the change of the officers’ Watches. On the bridge, after checking over such things as position, speed and so forth, the officers coming on deck usually have a few minutes chat with their opposite number, before officially taking over. The Senior Officer, coming on Watch, hunts up his man in the pitch darkness, and just yarns for a few minutes, whilst getting his eyesight after being in the light’when he can see all right he lets the other chap know and officially “takes over.” Murdoch and I were old shipmates and for a few minutes — as was our custom — we stood there looking ahead, and yarning over times and incidents part and present. We both remarked on the ship’s steadiness, absence of vibration, and how comfortably she was slipping along. Then we passed on to more serious subjects, such as the chances of sighting ice, reports of ice that had been sighted, and the positions. We also commented on the lack of definition between the horizon and the sky — which would make an iceberg all the more difficult to see — particularly if it had a black side, and that should be, by bad luck, turned our way.
The side of an iceberg that has calved or broken away from its parent glacier will usually be black, where the fresh ice is showing, and is consequently more difficult to see at night. After considerable exposure, this side turns white like the rest.
We were then making an easy 22 knots. It was pitch dark and dead cold. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sea like glass. The very smoothness of the sea was, again, another unfortunate circumstance that went to complete the chain.
If there had been either wind or swell, the outline of the berg would have been rendered visible, through the water breaking at the base.
Captain E.J. was one of the ablest Skippers on the Atlantic, and accusations of recklessness, carelessness, not taking due precautions, or driving his ship at too high a speed, were absolutely, and utterly unfounded; but the armchair complaint is a very common disease, and generally accepted as one of the necessary evils from which the sea-farer is condemned to suffer. A dark night, a blinding squall, and a man who has been on the mental rack for perhaps the last forty-eight hours, is called on to make an instantaneous decision embodying the safety of his crew and his ship. If he chooses the right course, as nine times out of ten he does, all well and good, but if on the tenth time his judgment is, momentarily, in error, then he may be certain he is coming under the thumb of the armchair judge, who, a thousand to one, has never been called on to make a life and death decision in a sudden emergency.
Captain Smith, with every other senior officer (apart from myself), went down, and was lost with the ship, and so escaped that never to be forgotten ordeal carried out in Washington; repeated again in England, and finally concluded in the Law Courts.
Murdoch, the First Officer, took over from me in the ordinary way. I passed on the “items of interest” as we called them, course, speed, weather conditions, ice reports, wished him joy of his Watch, and went below. But first of all I had to do the rounds, and in a ship of that size it meant a mile or more of deck, not including a few hundred feet of ladders, staircases, etc.
Being a new ship it was all the more necessary to see that everyone was on the top line. I had been right fore and aft several decks, along a passage known as Park Lane, leading through the bowels of the ship on one side, and bringing me out by a short cut to the after deck. Here I had to look round to see that the Quartermaster and others were on their stations, and then back to my warm cabin.
The temperature on deck felt somewhere around the zero of Canada, although actually, it wasn’t much below freezing, and I quickly rolled into my blankets. There I lay, turning over my past sins and future punishments, waiting until I could thaw and get to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
COLLISION WITH AN ICEBERG
I was just about ready for the land of nod, when I felt a sudden vibrating jar run through the ship. Up to this moment she had been steaming with such a pronounced lack of vibration that this sudden break in the steady running was all the more noticeable. Not that it was by any means a violent concussion, but just a distinct and unpleasant break in the monotony of her motion.
I instantly leapt out of my bunk and ran out on deck in my pyjamas; peered over the port side, but could see nothing there; ran across to the starboard side, but neither was there anything there, and as the cold was cutting like a knife, I hopped back into my bunk.
In any case, to go dashing up to the Bridge in night rig, or even properly clothed, when not on duty, was bound to ensure anything but a hearty welcome. Another thing, to be elsewhere than were you are expected to be found, in a ship like that, would result in the man who is sent to call you, being utterly unable to find you. So I just waited.
The time we struck was 12:00 p.m., April 14th of tragic memory, and it was about ten minutes later that the Fourth Officer, Boxall (sic) opened my door, and , seeing me awake, quietly said, “We’ve hit an iceberg.”
I replied, “I know you’ve hit something.” He then said, “The water is up to F Deck in the Mail Room.”
That was quite sufficient. Not another word passed. He went out, closing the door, whilst I slipped into some clothes as quickly as possible, and went out on deck.
The decks in a modern liner are lettered from the boat deck downwards, A,B,C,D,E, and so on. The fact of the water having reached “F” deck, showed me she had been badly holed, but, at the time, although I knew it was serious, I had not a thought that it was likely to prove fatal; that knowledge was to come much later.
Up to this time we had had no chance for boat drill, beyond just lowering some of the boats in Southampton. In any case, officers and men in the Mercantile Marine are always impressed with the vital importance of using their own heads, thinking for themselves, and acting on their own initiative in an emergency.
Discipline in a Merchant Ship calls for the highest display of individual intelligence and application. Each man must think for himself. Whereas in the Navy, the Bluejacket must do as he is told, nothing more and nothing less. All perfect in its own way where a man is required to act with machine-like precision, but that won’t work in the Merchant Service. If a man does no more than he is told, and makes that an excuse for leaving something undone, unseen or unattended to, he is quickly asked, “What the hell are your brains for?”