Captain Smith was a very weathered seaman, with many years of experience and to be truthful a very lucky man. He had been in shipwrecks, however, most of his trips accross the atlantic ocean had been uneventful.
He had been married to the same lady for twenty-five happy years and had a twelve year old daughter. This was to be his last trip as he now planned to retire. His first ship had been the Republic and he had just finished being the captain of the Olympic Titanic's twin sister.
As he boarded the largest ship to ever sail the seas Captain Smith looked on with awe, all the equipment that she had. His first officer was Murdock a capable man who had sailed with him before. Next in line would be Charles Herbert Lightoller another capable hand. Because it would be the maiden voyage he would be honored to have on board the ship's builder Thomas Andrews and the chairman of the White Star Line Bruce Ismay.
The ship appeared to be safe and although he did not believe that any ship was unsinkable he felt that the ship could weather any problems that it might encounter upon the sea that fateful April week. It was just past Easter and he had had a nice time at home with his family, now it was time to go back to New York and bring this new ship back to it's home.
As the passengers were embarking Captain Smith made a point of staying on the bridge. As the passengers came aboard it seemed to lessen their worry when they saw the captain for themselves.
Photography, what a nuisance, for it was new and now the men from the newsreal were taking photos of him as he tried to prepare the great ship for it's first run accross the atlantic. He paced back and forth as the man with the camera took his picture. 'I am glad that there is no sound to those pictures' he thought to himself.
This was a very large ship and leaving the docks for the first time would be difficult. They would have to go around many other ships in the area with several tugboats pulling them along. He didn't like not having full control of the helm and hope that the first part of his trip would be uneventful.
Captain Smith looked down at the large crowd of spectatos that had come to see the great ship take it's first voyage and waved. Another photographer stood on the dock and was busy taking more photos of the ship as she started out on her long journey.
As they were leaving the ship came too close to another ship and if not for the quick reaction of the Titanic's crew they surely would have struck each other. 'a warning of things to come' Smith thought to himself.
However, they made their other stop at Queenstown with little difficulty and some passengers left and others came on. Later on that day the great ship was headed out to sea for their long trip to New York in the United States.
Aboard her were over two thousand passengers and crew and Captain Smith was well aware of his responsibilities. If anything happened he and he alone would be solely responsible for their lives and salvation.
Among his many duties he was to make sure that the first class passengers felt that they were special and he would be dining with a different group every night. Lunch was somewhat less formal, however, he would be meeting and greeting passengers each and every day.
He was very impressed with a young lady named Rose who was on the ship with her fiancee Cal. He was a rich first class passenger who was as snobby and nasty as they came. 'I will bet that he will get great pleasure from beating her once she says I do' he thought to himself.
On the second day of the cruise he ran into the young lady Rose and was surprised to see her walking with another passenger she introduced as Jack Dawson. Jack was carrying some paper from which he was doing several drawings.
Jack showed the captain his drawings and Captain Smith found himself quite impressed. "Later before we reach New York you must do a drawing of me." he offered.
"Anytime sir. It would be my honor." Jack replied.
Captain Smith enjoyed walking the deck and observing his passengers, a tip of the hat or a bow was all that most of them required. He petted some of the dogs that had been brought aboard and thought of his own pet. He smiled and checked every door and instrument that he came accross.
It was very important that nothing froze on this ship once they hit the colder part of the north Atlantic and so the temperature gauge had to be checked several times a day. He had a very sufficient crew handling all the engines and he had the best engineer in the business with him on this trip.
He went to his room and hung up his hat. It was warm in his room and his rheumatism was acting up and he placed a heating pad on his sore back. 'This is why I need to retire at sixty-two the cold weather was getting to him.
As he looked into his bag he found some herbs his wife Sarah had placed inside. Those herbs worked well and would help him throughout the trip. 'After all the cold has not come yet. We won't be hitting any cold weather for a few days.
The trip was going well and as he stood at the bridge, he was irritated to see Bruce Ismay come to speak to him. Although, the Captain had the last word on the ship, he knew that if he didn't do as Ismay wished he would feel it when they reached New York.
"I know that this is her maiden voyage and that you feel that we should let the ship gets it's own feel, I think that you should light the last of the boilers." Ismay said.
"It is not in the best interest of the passengers to go rushing through an open sea in an untried ship. There will be danger when we get into the iceberg lane." Captain Smith replied.
"Oh come now, we have the best lookouts and the safest ship ever built, if we see an iceberg we can slow her right down. If we were to break the speed record, wouldn't that be something for the papers to see?" Ismay requested.
"All ahead full." Captain Smith ordered. 'That man would do anything to make the papers' he thought to himself.
Later on that afternoon the man from the radio room kept coming by irritating him with more ice warnings. "Thank you." Captain Smith said with a smile and put the warnings aside. They would be careful and would keep an extra eye out.
'I wish that the lookouts had some binnoculars' he thought to himself 'that would make it easier for them to see the bergs.'
That night as he prepared for sleep everything seemed clear. It was starting to get very cold, something that had been accepted. He had told the lookout to keep a keen eye out and they were to contact him if anything changed. 'They would make the newspapers on this trip' Captain Smith thought to himself.
It must have been around 11:40 when he felt the shudder of the ship. He sat straight up in his bed and knew that something very bad had just happened. He jumped into his uniform and came straight to the bridge.
The bridge was all a flurry and there was ice everywhere. He looked over the side of the ship but could see no damage. "What happened?" he asked Murdock the officer in charge.
"An iceberg sir, I tried to port around her but she struck us. I closed all the watertight doors." Murdock replied.
"All stop" he ordered. "I need to have the ship sounded go and get Mr. Andrews and tell him to come to the bridge right away.
'How could a seasoned officer such as Murdock make such a fatal error? If they had struck the iceberg straight on the damage would have been minimul.' the captain thought to himself in discust.
Captain Smith looked up to see Bruce Ismay come onto the bridge. He was standing there in his night clothes quite irritated. "What has happened?" he demanded.
"We have struck an iceberg. I have sent for Andrews to come up to the bridge and I will have him check the ship for damage." the captain replied.
"Is it really necessary for the ship to come to a full stop?" Ismay demanded.
"Until we know the extent of the damge I'm afraid the answer is yes." Captain Smith replied. He was very glad to see Andrews approaching him. "We have struck an iceberg. Could you please go and check for the damage?" the captain asked.
Andrews left right away and came back just ten minutes later. It was there that they met in the map room. "I am afraid that the news is not good sir. We are taking water in five of our water tight compartments, unless than keep the water down in number six she will sink.
"Can we shore up?" Smith asked worried.
"They are keeping the water down in compartment six but if that fills with water there is nothing we can do." Andrews replied.
"This is preposterous. This ship cannot sink." Ismay nearly shouted.
"It is made of metal and can sink. That is a mathmatical certainty." Andrews responded to Ismay quickly.
"Can she sail?" the captain asked.
Andrews looked at his figures and shook his head "I think that it is in the best interest of all the passengers and crew that we head back to Ireland immediately."
Captain Smith took the advice and looked up with a silent prayer "All ahead slow. Turn around we are going back."
"I will go and watch for any other problems." Andrews offered.
The ship began the slow long turn to return back to base and all on the bridge prayed that the ship was seaworthy enough to make it back. Everything about her was sluggish, she was definately in trouble.
This wasn't working at all the water was being forced in at twice the rate because of the sailing and Andrews ran up to the bridge with the bad news.
"How much time until this ship goes to the bottom of the ocean?" Smith asked Andrews.
"And this is a certainty?" Ismay asked. He then bowed and walked off the bridge never to return.
"From this time I give the great ship less than two hours. We need to get the passengers up and into the lifeboats." Andrew replied.
It was the last thing that he had ever thought would happen that night. "All stop" Smith ordered. It was an order that he then knew would be the last time that the ship would ever move under it's own power.
Now it was up to him to save as many passengers and crew that were possible. The Titanic had picked up a list, so he ordered some of the water tight doors to reopen. The ship had been set up so that each door had to be opened manually and would take several minutes.
It was time to start sending the passengers to the lifeboats. "There must be no panic. Tell them that all women and children are to go to the lifeboaLightollerts first. I wish to put you in charge of the lifeboats Lightoller." and with that he headed to the radio room.
He opened the door to the marconi room and found Jack Phillips busy doing several messages. "Stop the messages we need a cqd. The ship has struck an iceberg and is going down by the head." Captain Smith ordered.
As he left he saw Phillips waking his partner and going right to work calling for a ship to come to the rescue. As he ran up the bridge he saw that the crew was untying and preparing the lifeboats for launch.
The noise was unbearable as the ship had to let some steam off to prevent one of the boilers from blowing up. Although it was obvious that the passengers were confused there didn't seem to be any panic. 'Not yet' the captain thought to himself.
Captain Smith looked down with a smile as he saw Rose standing next to her fiancee talking to Thomas Andrews. He knew with confidence that Andrews would make sure that Rose and her mother would survive the sinking.
The ship was beginning to go to the other side so Smith ordered more movement to the other side. It was not going to work for long as already there were reports of water coming from the ceiling in some of the compartments.
Also, the ship was very low and the bow was almost completely under water by now. 'I must take care of the first class passengers.' Smith thought. "Do not allow any of the third class passengers up on deck not yet. They would just cause a panic. Lock the gates."
"You do realize that this could cause many passengers to drown as they are on the bottom of the ship and will be the first to go?" Murdock asked him.
Smith couldn't even look him in the eyes, that is how it was to be. After all they had paid for first class service and would be treated with the utmost respect. He looked down at the lifeboats as they left and noticed that most of the boats were only half filled.
" Boxhall, do you know how to run a signal lamp?" Captain Smith asked.
"Yes sir. I can read and send morse." Boxhall replied.
They went over to the outside of the bridge and began sending flares up to try to signal what Captain Smith believed to be another ship about ten miles away. "Keep signaling that ship. Perhaps it doesn't have a radio and send up a rocket every three minutes." he ordered and went back to the other side of the bridge.
The young man from the marconi room appeared on the bridge at this point with good news. "We have reached the Carpathia. She is on the way to our rescue. She will be due to arrive in around four hours." he said with encouragement.
Captain Smith smiled at the young man realizing that this was not good news. The ship had at best one hour left before she would sink and that little stunt of trying to turn around had taken even more precious time. "Keep trying there is a ship over there. There must be someone in the area a little closer." he said in a kind tone.
He thought to himself that it would be a little calming to order the band to come up on deck and play some music for the passengers. He turned to one of men on the bridge and said "Go and get the band and bring them on deck. Tell them to try to keep everything cheerful for as long as possible."
Just then the third class orderly came to the bridge "Is there anyway that we could allow the third class women and children to the deck to get into the lifeboats? There is a panic beginning because water is coming into their rooms. Also the rats are running around like crazy."
"Women and children only. I will allow the men up in just twenty minutes. They must wait their turn." was his reply.
'Twenty minutes, if she is still floating' the orderly thought to himself.
"Water is up to C deck sir." Murdock reported from the telephone.
Once the water reached C deck the ship would lose power. This was very dangerous as it was the middle of the night and without any power one would not be able to see. It was now necessary to get everyone off the ship.
Boxhall came up to the bridge and reported to the captain "all the rockets have been fired sir. I have not as of yet received a reply from the other ship.
"It is ok go down and see if you can be of assistance with the lifeboats." the captain ordered Boxhall.
Andrews had been watching as the water rose higher and higher and just shook his head and said "This is the beginning of the end. You must let all the passengers fend for themselves."
"Andrews why don't you go and save yourself? There is no more that you can do for this ship." the captain told him.
"I am afraid that I will be down with the fish at the end of the night sir. I will not take a seat that some child could use." Andrews said as he lef the bridge for one last time.
As the captain watched Andrews walk toward his destiny to his dismay he observed Bruce Ismay getting into a lifeboat saving himself 'what a coward. if it wasn't for him wanting the ship to go fast we might not be sinking' he thought to himself.
With that the captain turned to Murdock "Go to the pursers office and hand out loaded guns to the officers. If people try to force themselves onto the lifeboats or cause any problems shoot over their heads. If they insist you may shoot to kill. Stay over and help with the loading of lifeboats. God speed."
Captain Smith called down to the third class and had the crew unlock all of the gates. To his dismay he got no answer and hoped that the passengers had been all released. He looked down and saw a large influx of obviously third class passenger and smiled. 'they will have the same chance as all of us' he thought to himself.
Captain Smith watched Murdock leave with a bit of worry. 'he must know in his heart that he is the reason for this disaster, just as much as it is my fault. He should have never tried to steer around the iceberg and I should have not been going through the water with ice at full speed.' He felt a large pinch of guilt as he watch in horror as people were now running up and down the decks trying to find a lifeboat.
Murdock was trying to get some of the passengers on the last lifeboat to be launched wh