Moreover, if this was the porthole described by Brown, she would most likely have seen (if it was already open) similar gushing activity at the open D-deck door—and certainly along other open D-deck portholes on either side of boat 6. Thus, she probably saw a gush from one of the lower, E-deck portholes, which were of a different construction and—having to be latched open in order to allow an outward gush if the Titanic began shifting to port—would have been more likely to produce only the single noticeable gush she reported, rather than a row of gushing ports, as would have been seen along D deck: Ken Marschall, census, June 30, 2010, L/P file, pp. 129B–130.
The E-deck portholes near boat 6’s path of descent were occupied by forty-two stewards in a shared, multitiered bunk space, which was the sort of cramped room that often encouraged the latching open of a single porthole (as in the Krekorian account).
The sequence of events therefore favors a gush witnessed through an E-deck porthole, followed by portside flooding of the third-class recreation room through a front D-deck porthole (not much more than a couple of feet above the waterline at this time), followed by flooding through the open D-deck gangway door, during the minutes after boat 6 began rowing away from the Titanic.
8. EVERYTHING WAS AGAINST US
Charles Lightoller tried to defend his inadvisable action of opening a gangway door in the bow of a ship that was sinking by the bow: British Inquiry, May 21, 1912, pp. 314–315. Lightoller, who testified that he did not actually believe the ship was sinking, eventually found proof in a stairwell that the unthinkable really was occurring after alclass="underline" Telediphone recording, Nov. 1, 1936 (transcription stamp dated March 23, 1956), pp. 2–3, L/P file, pp. 576–577; Walter Lord, A Night to Remember (New York: Holt, 1955), 61; Walter Lord, personal communications with Lightoller, 1927–1930, L/P file, p. 576.
Masabumi Hosono’s boat (boat 10) launched at 1:10 a.m.: American Inquiry, p. 604. The portside list created a gap of three feet: Wyn Craig Wade, Titanic: End of a Dream (New York: Penguin, 1979), 292. At the American Inquiry, Apr. 19, 1912, p. 75, Lightoller asserted a belief that third class had no right to be on the boat deck and that boats were not for stewardesses either, an injunction that included Violet Jessop and Maude Slocomb.
Under Lightoller’s and Lowe’s rules, adolescent boys were forced out of the lifeboats: Wyn Craig Wade, Titanic: End of a Dream (New York: Penguin, 1979), 292. John Jacob Astor saved one of the boys, according to Madeline Astor: W. H. Dobbyn, letter to Robert Ferguson (the Astor Trust), May 15, 1912, L/P file, pp. 283–284. Even in the midst of such chaos, Lightoller insisted that lifeboats were being launched “as a precaution”: Charles Lightoller, telediphone recording, Nov. 1, 1936, L/P file, p. 579; British Inquiry, May 20, 1912, pp. 222, 305, and May 21, 1912, p. 322.
The oars of the lifeboats revealed a bioluminescent effect that would have made icebergs visible had the water not been so unusually calm: Henry Sleeper Harper, “The True Story of the Disaster,” Harper’s Weekly, Apr. 27, 1912. Lightoller admitted to an ambition among the officers to see how fast the Titanic could really go: American Inquiry, Apr. 19, 1912, pp. 64, 67.
9. STALKING THE NIGHTMARE
The comparison of historian Don Lynch’s notes with Walter Lord’s mapping of passengers and staterooms, and the extensive Lord and Lynch contacts with survivors, reached its peak during Expedition Titanic XIII, as noted in Charles Pellegrino, written log, Aug. 2001, pp. 18, 19, 21. A possible mutation of memory was pointed out by Lynch with regard to Renee Harris in her interview with Lord, May 31, 1964, p. 1, L/P file, pp. 484, 485–502.
A corollary to the revelation of the sort of prejudice Renee Harris evidently faced from the Cardezas involved the behavior of Harold Lowe, reported by Charlotte Collier to Colonel Archibald Gracie in Jack Winocour, ed., The Story of the Titanic as Told by Its Survivors (New York: Dover, 1960), 195. “Ship of dreams” was a term invented after the sinking—“encapsulating,” Parks Stephenson observed in a personal communication, Dec. 23, 2010, “in three short words: the ‘myth of Titanic.’”
The events surrounding the two-and-a-half-mile swim and the pair of glasses headed down toward the Medusa and the Mirs are recorded in Charles Pellegrino’s written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 2001, p. 26, as well as the video log. Pages 39–40 of the written log indicate that some of the microbes in the rusticle consortium came from hundreds of miles away in the east, at the volcanic vent zones. Conversations with John-David Cameron, and being haunted by the opening paragraphs of Rendezvous with Rama, are personal experiences.
The sample bases from the area of boat 8 breaking into odd shapes and the observations on rusticle biology: Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 2001, pp. 39–70, 44–45 (illustrations and notes), 74. That the growth cycle reaches the approximate halfway mark during the summer and that August 2001 samples represent an interrupted cycle is a finding consistent with growth rings forming through an annual deep-ocean nutrient cycle.
A Russian scientist’s strange response to cross-shaped rusticle substrates and a “rope-draped cross” from the boat 8 location: Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Aug. 2001, p. 58; letters from Rip MacKenzie, reproduced in Charles Pellegrino, Ghosts of Vesuvius (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), 380; Ken Marschall and Lew Abernathy, personal communications, Aug. 2001. Bill Paxton’s creature at the boilers: Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Sept. 2001, p. 70D; unknowns of the deep: ibid., pp. 51, 73.
The continual revelation that much more wood had survived than previously believed, the discovery of strange “worms,” and the fates of the grand stairway and Edith Russell’s stateroom: Pellegrino, written log, Expedition Titanic XIII, Sept. 2001, p. 79; James Cameron, Ghosts of the Abyss, IMAX, 2003 (DVD and supplemental materials).
10. POINTS OF DEPARTURE
Charles Lightoller continued to insist that everything had been against him: Telediphone recording, Nov. 1, 1936, p. 4, L/P file, p. 579. Fred Fleet indicated that if nothing else, confusion was certainly against them: American Inquiry, Apr. 23, 1912, p. 319. Fleet’s replacement in the Titanic’s crow’s nest was left there, completely forgotten, until the foremast on which the crow’s nest was mounted approached the verge of beginning its submergence: George Hogg, American Inquiry, Apr. 25, 1912, pp. 577–578.
Violet Jessop identified the “Mason” in her memoir as Murdoch in a personal communication to Walter Lord, L/P file, p. 535. She noted that he assisted with lowering the portside boats. She also identified musician Jock Hume and the playing of Irving Berlin music along with, at some point, “Nearer My God to Thee.” A further note on the music played was provided by Marjorie Newell Robb, personal communication, 1991, L/P file, p. 132.
Jessop saw Thomas Andrews throwing deck chairs and door rafts overboard with the assistance of a man identified by J. Maxtone Graham as Charles Joughin: Violet Jessop with J. Maxtone Graham, Violet Jessop: Titanic Survivor (New York: Sheridan House, 1997), 129, 131, 132. The L/P file includes Jessop’s first draft of history, with annotations by Lord and Graham. These annotations of Jessop’s recollections include a tabulation of Murdoch’s presence at up to 75 percent of the rescues.