Yang Jian
I just had a hard time not dying, but I became a hero because of it. I didn't make any heroic moves. I just tried my best to save my life. But my rescue fight was covered with a layer of light at the beginning, and I got the title of hero like I accidentally got a piece of candy, and I had no choice but to take all my salvation and heroism. People are always asking me how it feels to be a hero. I never knew how to answer.
—García Márquez, The Story of a Shipwrecked Survivor
Easter Egg on Easter Eve: The boilermaker has found a job again
At 12:00 on April 10, 1912, at the port of Southampton, the Titanic slowly sailed out of Berth 44 under the guidance of two tugboats and began her maiden voyage.
David Blair was thrown on the docks, and for him things were irreparable. He turned and left alone, opening a narrow channel in the tidal crowd of farewells. Looking at the picture literate, you can read a word from his back, called frustration. Blair went to a post office and sent a postcard to his brother-in-law with the words: This is a gorgeous mail ship, and I am very, very disappointed that it cannot go on its maiden voyage.
This trick of fate is indeed a bit excessive. Blair was the titan's first second mate, and a week earlier he had completed a sea trial from Belfast, the site of its construction, to its home port, Southampton. However, on April 9, the day before the Titanic's maiden voyage, the White Star Shipping Company to which the ship belonged, changed the generals, and Blair was transferred to the Sea Nickelodeon. Having been so hasty that he forgot to leave the key to the storage cabinet, locked in the cabinet were binoculars used by the bow lookout. This small detail has become the reason for many subsequent results.
The Titanic set sail at Southampton Harbour
Blair took away not only a key, but also an indignation that was difficult to dispel. As a senior employee of White Star, Blair felt inferior to some of the waiters and boilermakers aboard the Titanic. At the beginning of the month, when he patrolled the new cockpit, the men were still wandering the streets of Southampton, Liverpool or London. Ironically, it was Blair who was finally left ashore, but it was these low-level crew members who had been recruited temporarily.
Georges Beauchamp, a young man from Hull City, is a guy who is the envy of Blair. He was recruited temporarily during the days the Titanic docked in southampton, and the exact time should be April 6. On the same day, Beauchamp arrived at the seafarers' union early, and the chaotic lobby was already crowded with people. At a table with a broken table, he signed a contract with the personnel department of White Star. Mimeograph contract in duplicate, engine department furnace, monthly salary of £6. After signing the contract, he registered the basic information on the company's roster. In the age column, he falsified and understated by 10 years. The roster reads: Georges Beauchamp, 32 years old. The personnel commissioner glanced at the registration information and then at Beauchamp's face—perhaps, people who do heavy physical work always look older. This hesitation made Beauchamp's heart a little hairy, and the counterfeiter muttered", "I am a skilled hand, I am a skilled hand." The personnel commissioner did not have the heart to deal with him, and left the next sentence: 7 p.m. dock to assemble and board the ship.
At that moment, Beauchamp felt that he had been hand-picked by George V. He needed the job too much. A strike of coal miners that began in early 1912 left Beauchampus at his job of firing boilers on fishing boats. What is lost along with the job is a steady income, which is the lifeblood that sustains the Beauchamp family's expenses.
Beauchamp, who grew up in the slums of East London, understood a truth early on. For families like theirs, the premise of solving the problem of food and clothing is that there must be at least one man with a job in the family. When Beauchamp was a child, the man was the father. But There were five Beauchamp siblings, and the father alone could not support a large son. So Beauchamp dropped out of school and went out to work. Beauchamp's first job was as a sawman for the railway, and he followed wherever the rails were laid. Sawmillers have had the opportunity to travel around the world and have gained a lot of insight. The most valuable information he had obtained was that steamship boilermakers were paid much higher than sawmillers, a type of work at the tip of the pyramid in the eyes of the working class. In his early thirties, the sawmiller turned to a boilermaker, on a fishing boat. Boilermaker for ten years, during which time he married and had children and made his home in the city of Hull. It was not until early 1912 that the miners went on strike and the boilermakers lost their jobs. The unemployed boilermaker often sees his father's expression in front of his eyes, loss of concentration, woodiness, exhaustion...
Today, Beauchamp, with a contract in hand, walks the streets of Southampton, where every lamppost seems to salute him. Who would have thought? He had a job again, and on the eve of Easter, God rewarded him with an Easter egg, or a boilermaker, a boilermaker on the Titanic! Yes, not the kind of fishing boats of a few hundred tons that sway in the face of wind and waves.
Beauchamp walked to the pier with a number of lampposts, berth 44. How to say it? The world's largest ship still surprised him. The boilermaker standing on the dock could not see the whole picture of the Titanic at all, he was just an ant under the monster. No, it wasn't an ant that gathered around the beast, but a swarm of ants. White Star recruited a total of 724 crew members in Southampton, belonging to the Deck Division, the Marine Division and the Supply Department, all of whom assembled at the docks. The foreman of each department disembarked and roll called and boarded the ship with the people of their respective departments.
With Beauchamp on board was Barrett, the furnace foreman of the Marine Department, who brought the boilermen directly to the workstation. The boiler cabin is located in the middle of the hull, one on the other on two water lines under the waterline. The entire cabin is divided into six boiler rooms, 29 boilers, each of which is huge. In contrast, the boilers on fishing boats are like alcohol lamps. In Beauchamp's view, the space of the boiler cabin alone is enough to accommodate the next fishing boat. 85 years later, when James Cameron was filming Titanic, he arranged a kiss scene for Jack and Ruth here.
Beauchamp was not so romantic, and the poor man's luxury was to see the Corners of the Titanic before setting sail, especially the legendary first class. The first class did not disappoint the boilermaker, everything was beyond the boundaries of imagination, palatial suites, gymnasium, squash room, heated swimming pool, reading and writing room, Turkish bath... Incredibly, first class also has its own walking deck.
Turkish bath on the Titanic
During the few days when Beauchamp walked around the deck, he would most likely come across a girl as beautiful and plump as Ruth, who was the first-class waiter, Velette Jessop. Jessop, born in Argentina and originally from Ireland, died at the age of 16 and returned to England with his mother to settle down. She boarded the ship a few days before Beauchamp, and was transferred from the White Star Company from the Titanic's counterpart, the Olympic. Seven months earlier, she had just experienced a collision between the Olympic and the Royal Navy cruiser Hawker, and the Olympic was put in the dock for overhaul, while Jessop was unscathed. Now, the legend has arrived at the Titanic.
Along with Jessope from the Olympics were Captain Edward Smith the Bearded, who had a special honor as the captain of all the company's new ships, the Titanic, his last flight before his retirement, and john Kofi, a full-bodied boilermaker who was a true skilful who knew all the operations of the boiler cabin but had no interest in his destination, New York. Don't want to go to New York, why come to the Titanic? Besides, the boat was about to sail.
At noon on 10 April, the Titanic set sail for a short stop in Cherbourg, France, that night, heading for Queenstown, Ireland.
After an afternoon in the boiler room, Beauchamp remembered something, and taking advantage of the evening break he went to the post office on the G-deck and sent his contract home. He also pulled a piece of paper in his hand and wrote a few words to his daughter-in-law: "The work was found, Titanic, on the way to New York." The boat is safe and will never sink, rest assured. ”
At noon the next day, the Titanic arrived in Queenstown, anchored for two and a half hours, and a mail bag containing Beauchamp's letters was brought ashore. Also hidden in the mail bag was a man, boilermaker John Coffey. He was from Queenstown, hadn't seen his parents in a while, wanted to go home and see, and he had come to the Titanic just to take a short ride. At the last minute, John Coffey stayed in Europe and let the Titanic run to the sea of stars.
From Queenstown to New York, the Titanic will sail 2,980 nautical miles across the North Atlantic Ocean, estimated to take 137 hours, and arrive on the morning of April 17.
For the first three days, the sea was calm and the clock in the cockpit was always adjusted to "full speed", and almost never changed gears. The 178 boiler workers in the boiler cabin worked in two shifts, day and night. Beauchamp liked the fiery atmosphere in the boiler room, where workers took off their undershirts and shorts at 50 degrees Celsius. Beauchamp sometimes feels a little proud: the world's largest ship, huh, can't rely on me to feed coal into the hearth with one shovel after another?
The Titanic is a moving royal palace on the sea, powered by a swarm of sweating ants under the waterline. The 50,000 horsepower drove the 46,000-ton behemoth to its destination at an average of 560 nautical miles a day.
Every ship has its home, even if it is a maiden voyage.
Fatal Dating: The Titanic failed to circumvent the iceberg
About 500 kilometers southeast of the Canadian island of Newfoundland, 41 degrees 43 minutes north latitude and 49 degrees 56 minutes west longitude, an iceberg 120 meters long, 30 meters high and weighing 1.5 million tons, silently waiting for the Titanic. For this meeting, the iceberg has been brewing for 100,000 years. It originated from a giant glacier off the southwest coast of Greenland, broke off the glacier and drifted down the ocean current to its deadly joint. It was the fourth day the Titanic left Queenstown, April 14.
On that day, the sea was still calm and the giant ship was still moving at full speed. But since the morning, Jack Phillips, Marconi's chief telegrapher to the Titanic, has been receiving glacier alerts from neighboring vessels. The warning cable passed to Smith, and the experienced old captain made a customary decision: the course was slightly adjusted to the southwest to maintain speed.
At 10:30 p.m. that night, the California, a transport ship that had anchored overnight in the glacial waters, again raised an alert to the surrounding ships. Phillips on the Titanic replied: I am in contact with Radio Reiss in Newfoundland, do not disturb. California telegrapher Hillier Evans turned off the radio and went to bed. 40 minutes later, three Egfs on duty in the ship's cockpit saw a ship speeding by on starboard, with lights on the deck. Judging by the outline of the light, the tonnage should be surprisingly large. Yes, this is the Titanic that is about to meet the iceberg.
USS California
Inside the Lookout Nest at the bow of the Titanic, Frederick Felid and Reginald Lin were on duty. Since the binoculars were locked in the storage cabinet, the storage cabinet key was taken away by the former second pair of Blair, who could only observe with the naked eye. To the naked eye, the sea is like polished flat glass, the night sky is dotted with stars but the moon is not seen, and the vision is imprisoned in a palpitating silence. Gradually, a trace of mist came over me, ominous omen.
After 10 minutes, the answer was revealed—there was something ahead, darker than the night. It was small at first, only two tables the size, but the tables were expanding rapidly. Felid rings the alarm three times in a row and calls the cockpit: there is an iceberg right ahead, less than 500 yards!
In other words, the Titanic has a 37-second emergency time and can make at least two mistakes. A pair of William Murdoch ordered the helmsman Robert Hitchez: slow down, the right full rudder. Error one is the command itself. Deceleration is not wrong, but it should not be strained, deceleration and hit the iceberg with the bow, at most the bow is damaged, the ship will not sink; the mistake is that the order is executed. Murdoch's right rudder is a "rudder command", but Hitchies executes according to the "tiller instruction", and the result is that the bow of the ship turns not to the left but to the right, and it is too late for Murdoch to find Hitchies's mistake and correct it.
The Titanic finally failed to circumvent the iceberg. At 11:40 p.m. on April 14, the ship's starboard side collided with the tip of the iceberg, and a large 93-meter-long opening was cut under the waterline of the hull. The crashing sound was somewhat muffled, interrupting the steady rhythm of the turbine, and fine ice chips flew through the air, crystal clear in the light of the deck. The old captain received the report and immediately rushed to the cockpit. Bruce Ismay, president of the White Star Company who accompanied the ship, instructed the cockpit: Move on. This is the third mistake, the one that fuels the wave. The iceberg drifted into the night at the stern, and the sea rushed into the hull faster through a huge crack.
At first, most of the passengers were not affected by the impact, perhaps just a shake from the depths of the hull. The waiters in the first-class restaurant chatted with interest about the gossip of the guests, the night chef in the aft kitchen was preparing breakfast for the next day, the young people in the Parisian café played bridge happily, five postmen and telegraphers gathered to celebrate the birthday of her colleague Oscar Modi, the American little girl Ruth Becker helped her mother coax her 22-month-old brother to sleep, president Taft's attendant, Archibald Bart, smoked a cigar before going to sleep...
The boiler chamber below the waterline is another world. Here, the impact is not a faint vibration, but a loud sound. Within 10 minutes, the water level had risen by 4.3 meters from the keel. The first five watertight compartments at the bow have a large influx of seawater, and the fifth watertight cabin is the sixth boiler room, with a water level of 2.5 meters. Barrett, the foreman of the furnace, escaped from Boiler Room Six before the hatch closed, but when he stepped into Boiler Room Five, he found that the water had already soaked under the sealed hatch, and before he could reach his knees, he was waist-deep in the blink of an eye. Seawater and coal shavings are mixed together, a layer of motor oil floats on top, and the cabin is filled with hot water vapor. Barrett ordered: Turn off the boiler throttle valve and turn off the ignition. Bochan responded: Okay. Because the hatch was closed, the boilermakers had to climb up and down the life-saving ladder in the dark, repeat the same action, unscrew the safety valve to discharge the vapor, and then shut down the boiler. At the end of the operation, the ship stopped. This was the most troubling job Beauchamp had ever done, and it was supposed to be the time when he finished his four-hour night shift. Exhausted, he thought that order had been restored and the situation had been controlled. Unbeknownst to Beauchamp, Thomas Andrew, the titanic's chief designer, brought bad news to Captain Smith: the ship would remain afloat for at most two hours.
At 0:05 on April 15, the first distress telegram was sent: MGY CQD. Both frankfurt at 135 nautical miles and The Cappathia, 58 nautical miles away, responded, but the California, 18 nautical miles away, did not respond, and evans, the telegrapher, would not get up until another five hours later.
At 0:45 on April 15, the first lifeboat was placed on the surface of the sea, which was Boat No. 7. The upper deck of the Titanic was thrown out of control and chaos, and people's faces were filled with doubt and horror. Cameron's film has a strong rendering, while Jack and Ruth struggle on the brink of love and death.
Beauchamp was also struggling, and the boilermaker was just trying to keep alive. He left the boiler cabin about half past one o'clock, and everyone understood that the ship was not saved. He climbed from the life-saving ladder to the upper deck, and years of experience working at sea told him which side of the ship should go if it was hit. He was right, starboard. On the starboard lifeboat deck, a pair of Murdoch directs women and children to board the boat. Boat No. 13 was somewhat overloaded and required a few more crew members, and Murdoch asked Barrett and Beauchamp, who were wearing boilermaker undershirts: Do you paddle? Bochamp: Yes. Murdoch ordered: This boat will be handed over to you.
One was to give the chance of life to the boilermaker, who himself was shipwrecked and his body could not be found.
The Titanic's lifeboat
But whether Beauchamp can survive depends on himself. The 13th boat descended to the surface and had to leave quickly, fleeing far enough away to get out of the whirlpool formed by the Titanic's tilt. The boilermaker was paddling desperately, he was paddling desperately, desperately paddling, until he could not feel the pull of the sea and was safe.
When the people on the boat looked back, it was a scene that will never be forgotten. The dying beast was becoming more and more powerless in the sea, and God could not help it. Soon after, with a loud bang, the Titanic's hull broke in two between the third and fourth chimneys. The bow of the ship sank into the water first, and the propellers at the stern of the ship were tilted out of the sea, dripping exaggeratedly. The stern was straightened at a 90-degree angle, and some people grabbed the railings of the tail deck and struggled desperately. Before the world was extinguished, they enjoyed the sea of stars from a height of more than a dozen floors.
Ship that will never sink, sink, April 15, 02:20.
"It's over, it's all at once." On boat No. 13, Reginald Lin, the lookout who first spotted the iceberg, sighed. Posand, sitting at the stern of the boat, shivered, and the boilermaker didn't know if he was cold or scared. An old lady threw him a coat, which he did not wear, and turned to put it on a little girl, Ruth Becker, who had been separated from her mother and brother when she boarded the lifeboat.
Where the Titanic sank, the sea seemed to return to calm, and a heart-rending cry for help came from there. How cold the people in the water must be! Beauchamp suggested to the temporary captain Barrett: Go back and see, you can save a few.
At 04:10 on April 15, the Karpathia rushed to the scene of the accident, and the lifeboats were picked up one after another. On deck, Ruth Becker found her brother and mother on Boat 11, and the family was rescued. At the gangway, Beauchamp saw Jessope, a first-class waiter wrapped in a blanket, and her Boat No. 16 had been hoisted up late on the Karpathia, but fortunately no one was okay. But the saga has not yet ended. In 1916, Jessope was enlisted as a field nurse aboard the Britannia Nick, another of the Titanic's class. Unfortunately, in November of that year, the Britannia Nick was sunk by a German torpedo in the Mediterranean, and she escaped again. This girl was the darling of fate and begged God for earplugs, so she could not hear siren's singing.
In general, the unlucky are still the majority. Of the Titanic shipwreck, more than 1,500 of the 2,224 crew and passengers were killed and only 333 bodies were recovered. The above data grows out of the wrong pit. Mistakes, a series of mistakes, how watertight, tightly sewn, forming a closed loop of error, will lead to the tragedy of the Titanic. Some of the people who made mistakes were saved, such as Ismay, the president of the White Star Company; some did not escape this fate, such as the titanic's old captain Smith, the chief designer Andrew, and a pair of Murdoch. The last impression they left on the survivors was of noble gentlemanliness and heroism.
The Atlantic Ocean was silent, 3800 meters deep, lying on the wreckage of the Titanic.
Three, bad luck, met again!!
If Beauchamp had only been shipwrecked on the Titanic once, he would have obediently stayed in the witness column of the U.S. Congressional shipwreck investigation report, waiting for the paper to turn yellow. It was also his wish that forgetting it was a top priority. To this end, he even gave up his claim and returned to Hull City in July of that year. He was reluctant to mention the Titanic much, even in front of his family. He was just a boilermaker, on this ship for less than nine days.
But some people are destined to be legendary, even if he is just a boilermaker. What makes Beauchamp a legend is precisely that he is a boilermaker. Boilermakers, of course, are going to get on board, sooner or later. The ship goes to sea, and the natural unevenness will encounter a case, or sooner or later.
The legend of Beauchamp the boilermaker and the legend of Jessope the waiter, only one meeting point for the Titanic, has since diverged. Even on the Titanic, they are only characters in the other legend who rush to receive a box lunch with a flash of face. There is no record of the two people interacting continuously, and it is difficult to say that the two have communicated verbally, and they have at most met and politely nodded their heads. They have their own stories, with Jessope's story set in three titanic ships of the same class, and Beauchamp's story set in the North Atlantic.
The boilermaker returned to his old business two years later. At the end of June 1914, he was attracted by a newspaper job advertisement: the engine department of the Cunard Steamship Company Lusitania urgently hired several boiler workers. The Cunard Company was a pure-blood British company, unlike the White Star Company, which had American capital; the Lusitania was not as luxurious as the Titanic, but it was also a giant ship, 32,000 tons. She is also the fastest cruise ship in the world, nicknamed the Atlantic Fast Dog. Not to mention that the port of departure of the Lusitania is Liverpool, not Southampton. Changed a feng shui, will not be so back.
There are many reasons why Beauchamp applied, but only one reason is fundamental: he has worked as a short-time worker in the past two years, and his family is indeed a bit tight.
The former boilermaker carried his bags on his way, and his legendary road began with the advertisement of that newspaper. The boilermaker did not look closely at the front page, which contained the news of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary. This small news has also become the reason for many subsequent results.
Beauchamp's application went surprisingly well, and the Cuonard Company had no reason to reject him, he was a skilled player. The boilermaker entered the boiler cabin of the Lusitania, without the stunned eyes of the titanic for the first time. He was no stranger to the route of the Lusitania, from Liverpool to New York. After the ship entered the Atlantic, the course was greatly similar to that of the Titanic. A few of his new co-workers occasionally talked to Beauchamp about the Titanic. Three days before the Titanic's accident, Lusitania also passed through the glacial sea, 100 kilometers to the south, unharmed. In fact, the Lusitania went back and forth, back and forth many times, in that area, all without incident. The Titanic maiden voyage was actually planted, which was really a ghost to send God. "Hey, ghosts send God." Beauchamp muttered to himself, his inner drama, the workers did not know.
In the eyes of the workers, Beauchamp was a diligent fellow who never bothered anyone. It's a little strange that he always likes to go to the lifeboat deck when he's okay. The fully equipped lifeboat makes the boilermaker feel at ease. Lusitania has been running the Atlantic route for six or seven years and has never had an accident. The only risk was probably war, which broke out less than a month after Beauchamp boarded the ship— because of the assassination of Ferdinand on the front page of the newspaper that day.
After the outbreak of the war, many of the Cunard Company's civilian ships were requisitioned by the government and converted into auxiliary cruisers, including the Lusitania. Inexplicably, at the end of 1914, the ship was pulled into the dock and changed to the Victorian livery characteristic of British warships. Beauchamp took two more weeks off for Christmas leave. When lusitania sailed into the sea again, at first glance, it looked like an expeditionary warship.
In early 1915, the civilian ship Lusitania, painted by warships, made frequent trips between the two sides of the Atlantic, carrying a large number of passengers and some ammunition. The Germans endured for a long time, and the power of anger was accumulating. In late April, in the United States, in close proximity to the Cunard Company's ticket advertisement, a statement from the German Embassy in the United States was strongly worded: Any ship flying the flag of Britain and its allies entering the war zone (British waters) will bear the consequences.
The target audience is in the United States, the Lusitania has just arrived in New York Harbor, at Pier 54 of the Hudson River. The Germans "don't say it is unpredictable", in the eyes of confident people, it is a vain mouth cannon. The motto of William Turner, the captain of the Lusitania, is "No one can beat us", the captain's underpinning is up to 25 knots, and the "Atlantic Fast Dog" is not a white bark.
On the morning of 1 May, the Atlantic Fast Dogs set sail for Liverpool. Thousands of people were sent off on the docks, and everyone rushed to witness a good man with a water gun set out to challenge the Special Forces, which were German submarines. The photojournalist was taking pictures of the passengers, and did not forget to say the auspicious words, "If something happens to you, at least we have your picture." This was Lusitania's 202nd transatlantic journey, her last.
On the last leg of the journey, Beauchamp was a little uneasy, but he did not believe in his heart that the ship would really have an accident. The boilermaker said that "one cannot step into the same river twice", and he still understands similar reasoning. The six-day Voyage to the Atlantic also seems to prove that Beauchamp's uneasiness is purely a psychological shadow left by the Titanic. On the morning of 7 May, the Lusitania arrived off the coast of Ireland. As far as the eye can see, the coastline of Europe is full of shadows. Beauchamp's heart let go, yes, after all, the Germans' warning had just been issued, and it would not be so fast and so fierce to do it. Thinking that he was going to Liverpool at night, the boilermaker's mind drifted a little.
In the morning, the fog was thick and the Lusitania was forced to reduce its speed and adjust its course appropriately. The fog cleared at noon, and the majestic hull of the Lusitania was somewhat abruptly clear on the surface of the sea. Not far away, in the command tower of the German U20 submarine, captain Walter Schweiger with a telescope made the following description of the enemy situation: large ships, with a speed of 22 knots, did not fly any flag, and could not distinguish between the nationality and type of ships.
Because of the lack of fuel, U20 is about to end its mission and return home. On this attendance, the Germans killed three small tonnage British ships, and the record was mediocre, and they did not expect to catch such a big fish at the end. Strictly speaking, Lusitania took the initiative to send itself to the U20 table, if it were not for the former slowing down in the fog and adjusting the course, there would be no meeting point in space-time. Old Tianyu became the encounter between the good man and the special soldiers, and all that remained was for the special soldiers to pull the trigger. At 2:09 p.m. on May 7, 700 meters from Lusitania, Schweiger ordered: torpedoes were fired.
In a minute, the torpedo drew a sharp line under the water. In the last few seconds of approaching the target, the Lusitania lookout could see the line with the naked eye, but they could only see it. The torpedo exploded a large hole in the lower starboard side of the bridge, causing the ship to tremble and the panicked people to throw themselves into a mess.
When the torpedo hit the Lusitania, Beauchamp was feeding coal into the hearth, and the ship's speed-up order increased the boilerman's burden. Suddenly, there was a rumble and a strong shaking, and the boiler room was dim and filled with choking smoke. Beauchamp was a little confused, he didn't know what was going on outside, hit the boat, hit the reef, hit the iceberg? Impossible! Physical sensations told him that the damage suffered by the Lusitania was far beyond that of the Titanic— the only person in the world who could compare the intensity of the damage to two ships.
The New York Times report on the sinking of the Lusitania
Bo Shang was stunned by the boiler and smacked his mouth: "Bad luck, I met again!" The workers couldn't understand what Beauchamp meant. Just then, it exploded again. This time it was louder, more shocking, and closer, and it should be a coal pile cabin near the boiler room. This time, the Lusitania was gone. Schweiger saw it from the periscope, and the hunting effect far exceeded the hunter's expectations. The second blast cloud rose above the lusitania's chimney, and the prey leaned to the right at great speed. Schweiger guessed that it must have been the explosion of ammunition brought with it on the ship. Civilian boats smuggled arms and sat down.
The Germans were mistaken, and the second explosion was the explosion of dust from the coal tank. The waves of air set off by the martyrdom were like a giant hand lifting Boshan into the air and throwing it on a pile of broken coal chips. By the time he got up and eased up, he could already clearly feel the tilt of the ship. It's too late to run.
Beauchamp climbed out of the boiler room along the life-saving ladder and ran desperately to starboard, where he was right again. The starboard lifeboat deck is even more chaotic than the Titanic, but there are still a few lifeboats that can be used. Beauchamp didn't think much of it, and got into one of the panicked crowds. Counting the boats, only 6 of Lusitania's 44 lifeboats were successfully launched.
At a very close and very close distance, Beauchamp witnessed the capsizing of the Lusitania. From being hit by a torpedo to sinking, 18 minutes before and after. People who didn't have time to board the lifeboats struggled in the cold waters with everything they could float, and some didn't even wear a life jacket. The vast majority of them, after struggling for a while, stopped moving and died of drowning or hypothermia. Lifeboats turned their heads to rescue, just 6, and how many were saved?
In the end, of the 1,959 passengers and crew of the Lusitania, 1,195 were killed.
If God had given the Lusitania some more time, such as the Titanic's two hours, I believe the numbers would not have been so shocking. The site of the accident was so close to land, 10 nautical miles away was Queenstown, Ireland, the last port where the Titanic docked. The problem is that history does not sympathize with his people.
The sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine was widely regarded as a world war-changing event, and the United States was dragged into the water. Of course, winning or losing the war was something Churchill and Wilson should worry about. For the little man Beauchamp, he worries about life and death. Surviving two shipwrecks on the Titanic and Lusitania, a boilermaker is a legend without replicas. Twice in a row, he was abandoned by God and dragged to kiss again. For the rest of his life, the words hanging on his lips were: "I have had enough of giant ships, enough of shipwrecks." "He's had enough, and the Atlantic can hear his complaints.
Fourth, there is always someone quietly drawing red on your handwriting
A few days after the Titanic sank, the American writer Theodore Dreiser,took the Crolan, passing through the accident. What he thought and felt at that moment, included in his autobiography "The 40-Year-Old Traveler," published the following year, "The fear of the sea hit everyone directly, and everyone had a strange feeling." Thinking that a bright, brand-new ship like the Titanic would sink into the deep waters, 2,000 people sprang out of their cabins and floated in vain for miles of water praying and howling. I thought of the pain and fear that those 2,000 people were destined to endure, and my heart was filled with anger at the impermanence of life. ”
Dreiser was supposed to be a passenger on the Titanic, but a British publisher persuaded him to change his mind. He was a lucky man, and perhaps he should be called Lucky Father. In April 1912, luck favored him twice. Before the Titanic's maiden voyage, he was able to book a ticket; after the Titanic shipwreck, he was found not to be on board.
There were seven passengers with tickets in hand who did not board the ship for various reasons, including heads and faces. In addition to Dreiser, there are john Morgan, the financial giant and american controlling shareholder of White Star, John Morgan's friend and steel giant Henry Frick, the chocolate king and Hershey candy owner Milton Hershey, the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize winner and YMCA missionary John Matt, the 1909 Nobel Prize winner in physics and the father of radio, Guillermo Marconi, the heir of the second-largest wealth family in American history, the sportsman Alfred Vanderbilt.
At least two of the above people are worth mentioning: Marconi and Vanderbilt. If possible, Beauchamp would have been interested in their affairs. Boilermakers have become legends because of two shipwrecks, and they are stories written with legends, people who quietly paint red on legendary handwriting. Yes, Marconi and Vanderbilt are not only associated with the Titanic, but also mark themselves on the Lusitania. However, they belong to the third category of boilermaker cognition: not knowing what they don't know.
London newsboy and the "news of the sinking of the Titanic" in their hands
When it first boarded the Lusitania, the workers told Beauchamp that three days before the Titanic accident, the Lusitania had passed through the same glacial sea. When talking about this, the co-workers would certainly not mention another thing to him: there was a big man on the Lusitania, the Nobel laureate Marconi. Presumably, the workers themselves do not know about this file, they are ants in the boiler cabin, and they do not know much about things above the waterline.
Marconi has tickets for the Titanic's maiden voyage, White Star's free tickets, and first class. His practical wireless communication technology was a lifesaver for ocean-going ships, and his Marconi Ship Communications Company was responsible for the straw. At that time, almost all the telegraphers on the steamship were Employees of the Marconi Company. The reason why Marconi abandoned the Titanic in favor of the Lusitania was not prophetic, but his secretary was on the Lusitania. His thesis required the secretary to verify the data and transcribe the text. Sharing two boats with the secretary meant that a week's time on the road was wasted.
Three days before the Titanic set sail, Marconi boarded the Lusitania to join the Secretary, also with luck. The Lusitania arrived in New York, and on the day of arrival, he learned that something had happened to the Titanic. Four days later, he personally went to the docks to meet the Cappassia carrying survivors of the shipwreck. Of the two Employees of the Marconi Company stationed on the Titanic, only one survived, Assistant Telegrapher Harold Bullard. Chief telegrapher Phillips was killed, and three minutes before the ship sank, he remained in the telegraph room. The first Morse code rescue signal in human history was sent by him: SOS.
Lusitania was a province of the Roman Empire, and the ships named after it treated the Italians well. I don't know if Marconi will have this idea, but in the subsequent transatlantic travel, Marconi will generally choose the Lusitania. One of the landmark departures was from 17 April to 24 April 1915 from Liverpool to New York. Marconi went to New York to fight a radio patent lawsuit against another scientific superman, Nikola Tesla, on May 13. This voyage was Lusitania's 201st transatlantic voyage, the last safe voyage. On the journey of seven days, the tiny ant Bochamp crossed with Marconi, the father of the great radio, one in the boiler cabin and one in the first class cabin. Needless to say, they don't know anything about it.
The next voyage is the desperate return of the Lusitania. On 7 May, Marconi learned that the Lusitania had sunk and that he was preparing for trial. This damn lawsuit, his next voyage, which ship should he take?
By the time Marconi's radio patent lawsuit began, the trial of Vanderbilt's fate had ended. On the way home from the Lusitania, he traveled with Beauchamp, one in first class and one in the boiler cabin, unaware of each other.
The rich second generation of athletes went to Liverpool this time to buy hunting dogs. On 1 May 1915, the Lusitania set sail. At the grand party on the docks, Vanderbilt was a striking guy. He was driven to the berth by chauffeur, his luggage carried onto the ship by an accompanying servant, and he posed under the direction of a photojournalist. The reporter's nonsense of "if something happens to you, at least we have your picture", Vanderbilt heard it and laughed. This time there was nothing unusual, unlike the titanic's maiden voyage three years ago, when he booked a ticket, but his family discouraged him from boarding the ship.
This time, Vanderbilt boarded the ship, walking briskly and without hesitation. Unfortunately, he didn't get to Liverpool, didn't get to buy hounds, and didn't find time to watch a Derby Marseille. The U20 submarine undermined his plans. Before the lusitania capsized, Vanderbilt gave up her life jacket to Nattie Michel, an Irish woman with her baby in her arms. The athleticist of good build forgot that he couldn't swim. 10 nautical miles outside Queenstown, on the surface of the hellish sea, the praying and howling crowd included Vanderbilt, who could not swim or wear a life jacket, and after a few futile thumps, the sea closed and buried him.
He couldn't wait for the Irish fishing boat that was still on the road, or even for Beauchamp, who came back to rescue him.
*** *** ***
The class differences of man exist in any country in any era, and even death cannot be erased. If the two shipwrecks of the Titanic and Lusitania are counted as a tragedy, one will find that Marconi and Vanderbilt, who have little drama, stand on the stage. For a long time, the protagonist of the tragedy, the boilermaker Beauchamp, did not enter the public memory.
Inside the red circle is Beauchamp
It wasn't until 2019, 75 years after Beauchamp's death, that his descendants told the world his story. People suddenly realized that he was the real legend. How much people snubbed him and ignored him.
Thanks to Beauchamp, because his appearance gives people the opportunity to connect those messy clues, scattered details, inexplicable props, dialogue with a pair of pairs and characters who seem to run the wrong set, and restore them to a complete stage. In the North Atlantic at the beginning of the twentieth century, the boilermaker Beauchamp single-handedly completed two adventures in his life. A hundred years later, he no longer looks so lonely.
bibliography:
Shipwreck, edited by Tao Hongliang, Ocean Publishing House, February 2017
Titanic: The Historical Truth of a Century of Love, by Stephanie Barchevsky, Economic Science Press, April 2012
"Documentary of the Shipwreck of the Titanic Shipwreck", compiled by Jiang Yinzhong, Xuelin Publishing House, September 2015
The Story of the Scientific Giants: Marconi, by Song Ying, Hope Press, August 2014
"Marconi, Radio King", edited by Zhang Fuguo, Jilin People's Publishing House, April 2011
The Buried Genius: Scientific Superman Nikola Tesla, by Margaret Cheney, Chongqing Publishing House, December 2010
Maritime RadioCommunication (2nd Edition), by Yang Yongkang and Mao Qihuang, People's Communications Publishing House, April 2009
"A Hundred Years of World War I", edited by Qi Shirong, World Knowledge Publishing House, August 2016
The First World War, by Förk Beckhann, Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore, October 2018
The Deep Blue Empire: The Rise and Fall of the British Navy, by Ben Wilson, Social Sciences Academic Press, January 2010
The Story of a Shipwreck Survivor by García Márquez, South Seas Publishing Company, June 2017
Editor-in-Charge: Zang Jixian
Proofreader: Shi Gong