A Night to Remember

by Walter Lord

Nor did anyone really know what happened to Captain Smith. People later said he shot himself, but there’s not a shred of evidence. Just before the end Steward Edward Brown saw him walk onto the bridge, still holding his megaphone. A minute later Trimmer Hemming wandered on the bridge and found it empty. After the Titanic sank, Fireman Harry Senior saw him in the water holding a child. Pieced together, this picture, far more than suicide, fits the kind of fighter who once said: “In a way, a certain amount of wonder never leaves me, especially as I observe from the bridge a vessel plunging up and down in the trough of the sea, fighting her way through and over great waves. A man never outgrows that.” Seen and unseen, the great and the unknown tumbled together in a writhing heap as the bow plunged deeper and the stern rose higher. The strains of “Autumn” were buried in a jumble of falling musicians and instruments. The lights went out, flashed on again, went out for good. A single kerosene lantern flickered high in the after mast.