Our sense organs 45

a vague grinding sound, not particularly loud at
first, came from somewhere deep within the ship.
The faint jangling of cutlery, laid out for tomorrow’s
breakfast, provided the only other hint of
any disturbance on this so-far-flawless cruise.
Passengers woken by the bump tried to somehow
correlate it with familiar events. Someone said
’That’s funny – we’re docking!’ Another thought
that a heavy wave must have struck the ship. One
woman, awoken by the grinding scrape, said it
was ’as if a giant finger was dragged along the
flank of the ship’. Mrs Astor, the wife of the richest
man on board, thought there must have been
a mishap in the kitchen.
Other than that, there was nothing apart from this
sound, grotesque in its apparent harmlessness.
Some called it a scratching, others a scraping
sound, still others a dragging or even a grinding
noise. Most passengers slept through and heard
nothing. Some leaving the smoking lounge
stepped out on deck just in time to be able to
catch a glimpse of the iceberg scraping alongside.
In the next instant it had disappeared into the
darkness. The momentary excitement soon settled;
the Titanic still seemed as massive and solid as
ever, and it was much too cold to stay outside any
longer. A card game seemed in order.
Till now, it had been a cruise of the purest pleasure
– a liner on its maiden voyage, everything
new and shiny. The confidence which reigned
supreme aboard the mighty vessel had been most
profoundly expressed by one steward to a Mrs
Caldwell: “Even God couldn’t sink this ship.” But
Titanic’s death warrant had been signed. Captain
Edward John Smith didn’t hurry to the radio to
announce the collision, but went first to notify
the billionaire, John Jacob Astor, before anyone
else. This is when Astor is supposed to have
uttered the now-famous words, “I ordered ice,
indeed, but this is ridiculous!”
Over the next two and a half hours, the bow sank
ever deeper, until the enormous weight of the
now-protruding stern caused the vessel to suddenly
break in two. The now-separated bow section
sank first. Shortly after, the stern rose almost
horizontally out of the water, before this portion
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of the ship, too, plunged down towards the floor
of the icy Atlantic, 3,821 metres below. Since boiler
operators and machinists had been instructed
to keep the machinery for power generation
going as long as possible, all the Titanic’s lights
were shining brightly, some even staying on while
already under water. This eerie illumination of the
silent catastrophe continued right up to just two
minutes before the ship sank completely beneath
the ocean surface.
1522 people lost their lives; only 712, barely a
third of those on board, were rescued. The proportion
of those rescued was significantly different
according to their class (first class: 62%; second
class: 42.5%; third class: 25.5%). Almost
anything else might have seemed conceivable –
the champagne running out, an epidemic breaking
out among the third class passengers, perhaps
even the bandmaster falling asleep. But no one
would have dreamt for a minute that this proud
ship would, on the night of the 14 th through 15 th
April, 1912, after contacting an iceberg, simply
sink and plunge 1500 people into an icy grave in
the North Atlantic.
It was precisely 2:20 a. m. on the 15 th April 1912
when the mighty vessel sank into the depths of
the sea. Since that moment, the Titanic has become
a metaphor for pride preceding a downfall.
In 1985, 73 years after the catastrophe, the wreck
was located, at a depth of 3,800 metres, by Robert
Ballard, underwater geologist at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, USA.
Situated south of Newfoundland, it was strewn
over an area the size of the city of London. Resting
in the ocean depths, the Titanic is like some
irresistible emotional powerhouse. Her tragic
story, revisited over and over, has spawned thousands
of books, and some three dozen films –
including the 1997 epic by American director
James Cameron.
Cameron’s blockbuster film “Titanic” turned the
catastrophe into a box-office bonanza. Millions of
moviegoers worldwide shared the experience of
being on board the most renowned passenger
liner of all time during an elaborate cinematic
reconstruction of her sinking. With the largest