Read The Man Who Went Down With His Ship for Free Online

appalled them. Such as: the fact that while within five minutes of the collision most of the lifeboats were safely down in the water, they were occupied almost exclusively by the crew, who having received the command ‘abandon ship’ had done so instantly, following their Captain’s example, without bothering to make it clear to the vast majority of the passengers that they should do likewise. Such as: the fact that within ten minutes of the collision those few lifeboats that hadn’t been appropriated by the crew were also safely down in the water; occupied now, under admittedly somewhat cramped conditions, by ninety-five per cent of the first-class passengers, and those members of the crew who, not having got away with their colleagues, had thought it politic, or found it unavoidable, to order into the boats and save those people on board who would have created the most fuss or would have had the most fuss created about them, had they not been saved. And such as: the fact that but for the action of a portly, shy, young poet who, seeing what was going on, had become so hysterical with anger he had lost control of himself, the loss of life—thirty-five people in the final count—would have been immeasurably greater; amounting perhaps to some eight or nine hundred men, women and children . For it was Alfred who refused to obey when one of the last remaining officers had, without too much conviction, ordered him into a boat. (The officer had shrugged, as if to say: suit yourself.) It was Alfred who had almost physically forced asailor he had found who, thank God, knew how to use the radio, to call the tanker that had sliced the liner in two and tell someone to send their boats over immediately. And it was Alfred who had run around screaming orders like a madman (so much so that afterwards people would say he was a madman, even though they had done what he had said), and practically single-handed organised everyone left on board. So that when the boats from the tanker did arrive, as well as those from another couple of ships that had been nearby, and had steamed full speed to the rescue when they had heard the tanker’s, if not the Chateaubriand ’s, SOS, the evacuation of the liner could be completed with the minimum of confusion, and the maximum of speed. With such little confusion, and at such a speed, that when, an hour and a half after the collision the Chateaubriand sank, the only people who went down with her were those who had been killed when the tanker crashed into her, or those who were trapped in their cabins and couldn’t be cut free in time.
    It was because there was such a relatively small loss of life—and because in the pandemonium that followed the accident very few people were aware of the exact sequence of events, and because the accident itself was entirely due to the negligence of the tanker’s captain—that in the enquiry that followed the captain of the Chateaubriand was praised for the part that he and his crew played in the rescue, and for his courage and coolness and presence of mind; and was elevated by the French press, and to a certain extent by the American press, who found some of the reports just a little too contradictory to be unreservedly enthusiastic, to the status of hero. And it was again because of the relatively minor loss of life that once Alfred, one of the last people off the liner, and one of the very few to fall in the water as they clambered into their lifeboat, had reached New York, and had been swept off to his duplex, and received all sorts of messages from his former fellow passengers in first class inviting him here there and everywhere, that he had thought ‘Oh hell, what’s done is done,’ and had refused to speak toreporters about the events of that night. Maybe later, he had told himself, when I’ve recovered from the shock. Maybe later, when I’ve completely gotten over my hysterical anger, and can think about things—rationally.
    Only Alfred never did