Resumo de A Night To Remember (the Titanic)

RMS Titanic was on her maiden Voyage, Southampton-New York which started April tenth 1912. The book has a detailed account of the events of the tragic night. She was the world?s biggest-ever ship. A miracle of twentieth-century technology, the pride of the White Star Line Co. deemed unsinkable, it carried aboard 2,207 passengers, people of all the walks of life. We hear the voices of those with means to travel on the top decks through the many stories that were told by the survivors and we have to imagine the cries of the steerage passengers, below decks, drowning in silence. The night was calm, clear and bitterly cold as reported by lookout Frederick Fleet, high in the crows-nest, beholding the North Atlantic Sea where icebergs had been sighted; 882.5 ft long, 92.5 ft wide, Titanic, her 46,328 gross tons traveling at 22.5 knots collided with the iceberg at 11:40 pm on April fourteenth at latitude 41,46? N , longitude 50, 14? W. Lookout Fleet rang the danger bell three times and reported ?Iceberg ahead?. For thirty seven seconds the course didn?t change and the men on the nest braced themselves for collision. Then the vessel steered to port side the ice gliding along starboard. Quarter Master George Thomas Rowe standing on the after bridge felt a breeze of ice splinters on his face and then saw the iceberg, one hundred feet tall shaving astern along the ship. To some the impact was just a minor jolt, others heard a scratching sound. The Chief night baker was impressed because with the impact a pan of new rolls clattered off the top of the oven and scattered about the floor. Mr. And Mrs. John A. harder in cabin E-50 heard a dull thump. The ship quivered and there was a sort of rumbling, scraping noise along the ship?s side. Looking through the cabin?s port hole, a wall of ice could be seen passing by. After the danger bell rang, orders from first officer William M. Murdoch were given, thirty-seven seconds passed before the impact was felt. Captain Edward John Smith came out of his cabin, and this brief conversation took place: Mr. Murdoch, what was that? An Iceberg sir, I hard-a-starboarded and reversed the engines and I was going to hard-a-port around it but she was too close. I couldn?t do anymore. Close the emergency doors. The doors are closed. Meanwhile, trimmers, engineers and firemen in boiler rooms # five and #six felt a thunderous crash and the water began cascading into the machine rooms, there was little time to escape before the compartment doors were shut. The ship came to a complete stop. It was the silence most of all that disquieted the passengers who started to come on deck looking for answers. On the bridge, Captain smith, the veteran of thirty-eight years on the White Star Line started to recount his damages. He sent scouts to sound the ship. Soon men were running from down below to report: She is taking in water! The mail room was filling fast. Within five minutes water was sloshing around the knees of the postal clerks. The biggest initial fight was in the boiler rooms, to put out the coal-fires without the boilers blowing up having stopped the ship as shw was full steam ahead, had built up pressure. People rushing through the hallways and stairs noticed that the ship was not floating on a level any longer, many cries could be heard : ?Why is she listing?? The answers were clear in the mind of the Titanic builder, himself on board, Mr. Thomas Andrews. He understood every compartment and every reaction of the ship. Captain Smith and Andrews were quick to realize that a 300 ft gash had sliced open the first five compartments of the ship, as they filled with water it was inevitable she would sink. It was 12:05 am when the captain ordered the life-boats on deck to be uncovered and the process of evacuation to commence. This is the part of the story most of us are familiar with. Men of stature refusing to use the space in the boats, dressed in their evening outfits, husbands and wives refusing to part, resignedto stay with the ship and meet their fate. The Music band playing Ragtimes, Tales of Hoffman and according to the most informed, the strains of ?Autumn?, the Presbyterian hymn were buried in a jumble of falling musicians and instruments as she tipped. The last moments of the tragedy brought out the best and the worst in human nature. Some gave their lives for others, some fought like animals for survival. Captain Smith was last seen in the bridge area having given the final order to abandon ship. He appears to have made no attempt to save himself. His body, if recovered, was never identified. The light went out, flashed on again, went out for good. A single kerosene lantern flickered high in the after mast. The Titanic was now perpendicular, her three propellers dripping water in the air, in the cold starry night, at two twenty am she sank to the bottom of the sea. British estimate of lives lost is 1490, the actual figure of those saved is 651 -139 crew members, 119 men passengers, 393 women and children- all crammed into the insufficient space of only twenty life-boats.

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