The Voyage

    Fr. Byles's letter was dated April 10, 1912. The next day Titanic set

sail from Southampton, and was immediately threatened with mishap. Upon

leaving her berth, the wake from the great ship broke the moorings holding

another ship at dock. This ship, the New York, headed straight for Titanic,

and only fast work by the crew averted a collision.

    The near accident was soon forgotten. The sun was shining and the

ocean was calm. "I enjoyed 

myself," wrote Colonel Gracie, "as if I were in a summer palace on the

seashore, surrounded with every comfort-there was nothing to indicate or

suggest that we were on the stormy Atlantic Ocean." So calm was the sea

that Captain Smith allowed the engines to open up, and for the next two

days Titanic cruised at 24 knots over the glass-like ocean.

    There was another reason for the increase in speed. Captain Smith was

being badgered by Bruce Ismay, the managing director of White Star Line, to

get Titanic to New York faster than her sister ship, Olympic. Crew and

passengers recalled a conversation in which an animated Ismay repeatedly

told Smith: "The machinery is bearing the test, the boilers are working

well. We will make a better run tomorrow. We will beat Olympic and get into

New York on Tuesday!" Smith nodded without comment.

    Fr. Byles strolled the boat deck in his cassock, reciting his

Breviarium Romanum. Sunday, April 14, was Low Sunday, the Sunday after

Easter. He said Mass for the second class passengers, and another Mass for

the third class. Speaking in English and French, he talked about being

spiritually prepared. He likened their lifebelts to prayer and the

sacraments, and warned them to be on guard against spiritual shipwreck. It

was a likely enough sermon to preach on an ocean liner; whether Fr. Byles's

words came from a premonition of danger about the lives of the passengers

on Titanic will never be known.

    Throughout that day Titanic had been receiving warnings from other

ships about large ice fields. The month of April was notorious for

icebergs, which broke off from Greenland and floated into shipping lanes in

the north Atlantic. The Titanic changed its course slightly southward, but

did not slow down. Sunday night was beautiful, a cloudless sky and

remarkably calm sea. As evening progressed the temperature fell to

freezing, and the air became hazy. Experienced seamen knew these were signs

that icebergs were nearby.

    More reports came in from other ships about icebergs directly in

Titanic's path. Generally, icebergs were hard to see, so the crew watched

for white foam created when water washed against a berg. Up in the crow's

nest the crew noted visibility was worsening, and the horizon was blurring

into the ocean. At ll:40pm a lookout rang the bridge: "Iceberg right

ahead."

    The Titanic turned the bow (front) of the ship away from the berg, but

an underwater spar jutting out from the ice berg scraped the starboard

(right) bow side of the ship under the waterline for about three hundred

feet. Fr. Byles was on deck reading his Breviary, and saw the berg pass by.

Like most passengers, he thought nothing of it. Some passengers in the

lower decks heard a grinding noise that quickly stopped. Later everyone

assumed the ice berg ripped a gaping hole in Titanic. In fact the berg made

several very small holes in the steel plating, and buckled other sections

of plating. The water pressure was so intense, however, that sea water

began shooting through the holes at 7 tons (almost 2000 gallons) a minute.

    The Titantic’s watertight design made it possible for her to survive

if four of the watertight compartments were flooded. The damage had flooded

five. The Titanic's bow began to lower. Captain Smith estimated Titanic

would sink within two hours. He ordered the lifeboats uncovered and

lifebelts distributed.

    This bemused most of the passengers. They did not know Titanic was

sinking and had no intention of leaving the safety of the "ship of dreams"

for a little wooden lifeboat in the cold, dark sea. The band played on, men

smoked, drank, and played cards, and the women refused orders to enter the

lifeboats. No general warning had been given, and many of the crew were not

as yet telling everyone the ship was sinking. When someone asked what was

wrong, a crew member joked: "We have only been cutting a whale in two."

Many passengers scoffed at the danger. "What do they need of lifeboats?"

one woman asked. "This ship could smash a hundred icebergs and not feel it.

Ridiculous!" Consequently, many of the lifeboats were launched only half

full.

    An hour after the collision Titanic launched distress rockets, and a

sense of unreality set in. Stewards were preparing dining tables for

breakfast, and the band was wearing lifebelts and playing lively tunes. The

ship's engines had stopped but the ship was still fully lighted. "There was

a sense of the whole thing being a dream," remembered a survivor. "That

those who walked the decks or tied one another's lifebelts on were actors

in a scene, that the dream would end soon and we would wake up."

  Part II

  Others began to take things more seriously, and willingly boarded

lifeboats. The original plans called for sixty-four wooden lifeboats, but

that was halved, then halved again to sixteen, partly to allow more room on

deck for passengers, and partly from the conviction that lifeboats would

not be needed. Even if the sixteen lifeboats had been filled to capacity,

less than half of the 3,547 passengers could have used them.

    When Fr. Byles realized the ship was sinking, he hurried down to the

third class rooms to calm the people,  bless them, and hear confessions. A

survivor recalled:

    We saw before us, coming down the passageway, with his hand uplifted,

Fr. Byles. We knew him because he had visited us several times on board and

celebrated Mass for us that very morning. "Be calm, my good people," he

said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolutions and blessings.

    A few around us became very excited and the priest again raised his

hand and instantly they were calm once more. The passengers were

immediately impressed by the absolute self-control of the priest. He began

the recitation of the Rosary. The prayers of all, regardless of creed, were

mingled, and all the responses, "Holy Mary," were loud and strong. One

sailor warned the priest of his danger and begged him to board a boat. Fr.

Byles refused.