Today I do not have to
quiet my students once. Not a single
class. Not any of the nearly one hundred
students disrupts my lecture today. I
don’t speak at them very often, but today is the one day when I really need to
tell them some important information, facts and details that will fill in the
blanks that the recent nonfiction essay they read happens to leave out.
Today is the day I tell
them about the contributing factors that led to the sinking of the Titanic.
The students are rapt with
attention. When I ask them leading
questions, they are tentative, almost afraid to tell me the gruesome thoughts
crossing their minds about why the lifeboats didn’t go back to rescue people
from the icy water. Okay, one did, but
no others.
They listen in horrified
fascination how one side of the mighty ship let down lifeboats half-full
because the crew insisted it was women and children only rather than first. Semantics killed hundreds who could’ve gotten
into those boats had it not been for their gender. If only they’d wandered to the other side of
the ship. If only.
They are angry that the
ship’s architect drowned while one of the owners managed to get himself into a
lifeboat and away from the bloodcurdling death-screams of those he left behind;
in awe of Ida Straus who chose to get out of the lifeboat and die with her
husband, and chilled by the newly eighteen-year-old boy who proclaimed he was
an adult now and would stand with the men on the dying ship.
We share our outrage at
Mrs. Becker who tried three times to separate herself from her twelve-year-old
daughter, even leaving her on deck to fend for herself into a lifeboat while she
clung to her other children. We root for
Jack Thayer and radio operator Harold Bride who both clung to an overturned
lifeboat, nearly freezing to death waiting for help to arrive.
And what of the mystery
ship that may or may not have been the Californian? Was it truly a European fishing vessel afraid
to be caught poaching in international waters?
Why didn’t the Titanic answer the Morse code lamp that was flashed at
them? Where were the crow’s nest
binoculars?
Worst of all, had the ship
hit the iceberg head-on, she’d still remain afloat. The attempt at turning her had proven to be
the fatal mistake of them all.
There is a five-minute
silent film with footage of Captain Smith’s last inspection ten minutes before
the Titanic set sail. The film includes
the people on all decks waving excitedly to the throngs of well-wishers on the
dock. It is an eerie sight, and we joke
darkly, “Hope you brought your swimsuit!
Don’t get that fancy hat wet!
Brush up on your rowing skills!”
Deep inside we wonder if any of the people we see in the film made it
into lifeboats.
We will never know, and
this detail fascinates us and mortifies us all at the same time.
Today I am the
storyteller, weaving together the gaping holes of facts that are missing in the
article. The details are horrifying,
gruesome, and disturbing, and each class sits silently, absorbing the history
that for this brief moment in time is alive once more.
