The Other Side of the Night by Daniel Allen Butler Page A

group of porpoises.
    Captain Lord knew better. One look was all he needed before he strode to the bridge telegraph and rang for FULL SPEED ASTERN on the engines. The white patches were ice—growlers and small bergs that were the fringe of a huge field ahead. Within minutes the Californian ’s screw was biting hard into the water at it began churning in reverse, and the ship shuddered its entire length, pitching forward slightly, as she came to a stop. As always, prudence was Lord’s watchword, and as the Californian came to a stop, he decided that he would rather deal with the problem of negotiating a passage through the ice in daylight. Another masthead light was illuminated, so that the Californian now showed two of them, the international visual warning of a ship “not underway.”
    At 11:00 p.m. Captain Lord went below to the chartroom, intending to pass the night stretched out on the settee there. He left specific instructions with Groves to be called if anything was sighted, although any disturbance seemed unlikely. “Absolute peace and quietness prevailed,” Groves later recalled, “save for brief snatches of ‘Annie Laurie’ from an Irish voice which floated up from a stokehold ventilator.” The ship drifted quietly on the current, her bows slowly swinging round until she was pointed almost due east. The sea was amazingly calm and the visibility was exceptional, the stars standing out in the night sky with diamond-like intensity.
    At about a quarter past eleven, Groves noticed the glare of a ship steaming up over the horizon from the east. Ablaze with lights from bow to stern, the newcomer rapidly came abeam of the motionless Californian , passing along her starboard side some ten miles away. Groves, who knew the look of a passenger ship well, could soon see that she was a large liner, with brightly lit decks piled one on top of the other. Around 11:30 he went down to the chartroom, knocked on the door, and told Captain Lord about the newcomer. Lord suggested that Groves try to contact her by Morse lamp, which he did, but gave up after a few moments when he received no reply.
    About 11:40 Groves saw the big liner suddenly seem to stop and put out most of her lights. This didn’t seem unusual to Groves; as an old hand of the Far East trade he was familiar with the P. & O. custom to dim their lights around midnight to encourage the passengers to take to their cabins and get to bed. It didn’t occur to him that the stranger’s lights might have disappeared because she had made a sudden, sharp turn, and was now sitting bow-on to the Californian .
    Captain Lord too had been watching the new arrival from the port hole in the chartroom, but unlike Groves, who was standing one deck higher and had a much clearer view of the other vessel, Lord didn’t believe the ship was much larger than his own Californian . He had stepped over to the wireless office at 11:15 and asked his operator, Cyril Evans, if he knew of any other ships nearby, but he made no specific mention of the ship to the south. When Evans replied, “Only the Titanic, ” Lord told him to warn her that the Californian had stopped and was surrounded by ice. Now, just a few minutes after the stranger had made that sharp turn, he was back on the bridge, peering intently at the distant ship through his glasses. When Groves informed him that the stranger was a large passenger liner, Lord remarked casually, “That doesn’t look like a passenger steamer.”
    “It is, sir,” Groves replied. “When she stopped she put most of her lights out—I suppose they have been put out for the night.” Carefully Groves ventured his opinion that he thought her to be not more than ten miles off. Lord gave a noncommittal grunt, then announced he was returning to the chartroom, where he was to be informed if any other ships were spotted, the other ship changed bearing, or anything else unusual occurred.
    Meanwhile, in the wireless office, as soon as the Captain had