University of Virginia Library

VIRGINIAN IN DESPERATE HASTE

But the Virginian was nearest, barely 170 miles away, and was the first to know of the Titanic's danger. She went about and headed under forced draught for the spot indicated in one of the last of Phillips' messages—latitude 41.46 N. and longitude 50.14 W. She is a fast ship, the Allan liner, and her wireless has told the story of how she stretched through the night to get up to the Titanic in time. There was need for all the power of her engines and all the experience and skill of her captain. The final fluttering Marconigrams that were released from the Titanic made it certain that the great ship with 2340 souls aboard was filling and in desperate peril.

Further out at sea was the Cunarder, Carpathia, which left New York for the Mediterranean on April 13th. Round she went and plunged back westward to take a hand in

saving life. And the third steamship within short sailing of the Titanic was the Allan liner Parisian away to the eastward, on her way from Glasgow to Halifax.

While they sped in the night with all the drive that steam could give them, the Titanic's call reached to Cape Race and the startled operator there heard at midnight a message which quickly reached New York:

"Have struck an iceberg. We are badly damaged. Titanic latitude 41.46 N., 50.14 W."

Cape Race threw the appeal broadcast wherever his apparatus could carry.

Then for hours, while the world waited for a crumb of news as to the safety of the great ship's people, not one thing more was known save that she was drifting, broken and helpless and alone in the midst of a waste of ice. And it was not until seventeen hours after the Titanic had sunk that the words came out of the air as to her fate. There was a confusion and tangle of messages—a jumble of rumors. Good tidings were trodden upon by evil. And no man knew clearly what was taking place in that stretch of waters where the giant icebergs were making a mock of all that the world knew best in ship-building.