And the Band Played On (3 page)

My mother had a clear childhood memory of a postcard of the
Titanic
propped up on the mantelpiece at her home in Buccleuch Street, Dumfries; it stayed there for many years. From time to time it would be taken down to be dusted, or to be shown to a visitor. Jock would have sent it from Southampton on the morning of Wednesday 10 April before the ship sailed.

Jock had found out only a week earlier that Mary was expecting his baby, although she had suspected for a week or more that she might be pregnant. Mary broke the news to him the night before he left to join the ship. They had been saving up to be married at Greyfriars Church, Dumfries in May, after the
Titanic
returned from its maiden voyage and she had been nervous about how Jock would take the news that she was expecting his child. It was a relief to find that he was as thrilled as she was.

Mary went with Jock early next morning, 9 April, to Dumfries railway station where he was to catch a Caledonian Railway train to Carlisle for a connection to Liverpool, the first leg of his journey to Southampton where he would join the
Titanic
. They had left home late and had to run the last thirty yards to the station as they heard the train approach, Jock boarding the train and slamming shut the door as the stationmaster blew his whistle. They kissed briefly through the open window then, as the locomotive built up steam and pulled slowly out of the station, they waved frantically behind a billowing curtain of smoke and steam. It would be the last time they saw each other.

In Liverpool, Jock headed straight for Lord Street where he collected his bandsman’s uniform from J. J. Rayner, the naval outfitters, who had sewed on the brass White Star Line buttons and epaulettes and cleaned and pressed it. From there he walked the short distance to Castle Street to the offices of C. W. and F. N. Black, the musical agents to whom the White Star Line had sub-contracted the employment of the band. Here he collected a rail warrant for the last leg of the journey to Southampton to board the ship. Rayner’s had an arrangement with the Black brothers and would send the bill for the alterations to Jock’s uniform to them. Then it was back to Lime Street station.

Jock caught an afternoon train to London arriving in time to take a late train from Waterloo to Southampton. It was 10 p.m. by the time he knocked on the door of number 140 St Mary’s Road, Southampton, where he was welcomed by his landlady Mrs King. She kept rooms for five lodgers, most of them crew on passenger liners. Jock was one of her regulars and Mrs King was used to late arrivals. The following morning he boarded the
Titanic
early at Southampton’s Berth 44, the dockside already swarming with people. The band were travelling on a Second Class ticket and Jock entered the ship aft on C Deck via the Second Class gangway. Two cabins on E Deck had been made available for the eight musicians.

Jock had never minded leaving Mary before – in truth, he had spent much of the past two years away from Dumfries, playing on passenger ships, and they had both come to terms with separations. But this time it was different. For the first time in his life, Jock’s thoughts were on what he had left behind rather than what lay ahead. He normally waited until he reached his destination before writing a postcard or a letter to Mary but this time he sent a postcard of the
Titanic
with some reassuring, well-chosen words.

Later that day the Astors boarded the
Titanic
at Cherbourg, its first port of call, accompanied by Astor’s valet Victor Robbins, Madeleine’s maid Rosalie Bidois and her nurse Caroline Endres. Astor’s much-loved Airedale dog Kitty, who had travelled with them to Egypt, was with them.

Astor could not have been looking forward to the reception that awaited him and his young bride Madeleine in New York. The couple, who had been on an extended honeymoon lasting several months, had been the focus of fascination and gossip since Astor’s acrimonious divorce from his wife Ava three years earlier, a divorce that had scandalised society and divided loyalties. Aged just eighteen, Madeleine Talmage Force was twenty-seven years her husband’s junior and a year younger than his son Vincent. ‘A rather tall, graceful girl with brown hair and strong clean-cut features’, according to the
New York Times
, Madeleine had only just left finishing school when she had been inadvertently introduced to Astor by her parents, who thought him a suitably wealthy match for their older daughter, Katherine.

Astor had sensibly decided to put time and distance between himself and his critics while showing Madeleine the world. They had spent several weeks in Egypt and France and were now settled in one of the most luxurious state rooms on the ship. But the honeymoon was over; Madeleine was six months pregnant and Astor was bracing himself on his return for a cool reception from his disapproving family and unwelcome scrutiny from investors.

Sunday 14 April was a beautiful starlit night, cold but pin-sharp clear, and it must have reminded Jock of the cold winter nights at home in Dumfries and Galloway. Survivors later recalled their separate encounters with Jock and with Astor, both of whom, before the end of the night, would demonstrate one other thing they had in common – courage. Violet Jessop, a stewardess on the ship, first ran into Jock during the band’s interval during dinner, which was announced every evening at 6 p.m. with a blast on a horn by the ship’s bugler. ‘He was always so eager and full of life was Jock,’ she said. ‘He called out to me in his rich Scotch accent that he was about to give them a “real tune, a Scotch tune, to finish up with”.’

Later that night, after the order to abandon ship had been given, she passed the band as they raced up the stairs carrying their instruments to resume playing on deck. Jock looked pale, she thought. ‘We’re just going to give them a tune to cheer things up a bit,’ he told her.

There were conflicting accounts of Astor’s last moments, as there were disagreements about just about everything that happened that night. But several people independently saw him kiss Madeleine on both cheeks before helping her into lifeboat number 4, and then stand back and salute her. The best and probably most accurate account is that of Colonel Archibald Gracie, one of the last to leave the ship, who wrote a dramatic eyewitness account of the sinking before dying a year later as a result of his exposure in the sea. Colonel Gracie helped Astor lift Madeleine over the 4ft high rail into lifeboat No. 4:

Her husband held her left arm as we carefully passed her to Lightoller (Charles Lightoller, Second Officer) who seated her in the boat. A dialogue now ensued between Colonel Astor and the officer, every word of which I listened to with intense interest. Astor was close to me in the adjoining window frame, to the left of mine. Leaning out over the rail he asked permission of Lightoller to enter the boat to protect his wife which, in view of her delicate condition, seems to have been a reasonable request, but the officer, intent upon his duty, and obeying orders, and not knowing the millionaire from the rest of us replied: ‘No, sir, no men are allowed in these boats until women are loaded first’. Col Astor did not demur, but bore the refusal bravely and resignedly, simply asking the number of the boat to help find his wife later, in case he also was rescued. ‘Number 4’ was Lightoller’s reply. Nothing more was said.

It seems that one of Colonel Astor’s last acts was to go below decks to retrieve his Airedale dog Kitty from the
Titanic
’s kennels. Madeleine never spoke publicly about what happened that night except to say that as lifeboat number 4 pulled away from the sinking ship, the band was still playing and the last thing she saw was Kitty pacing the deck.

Of the 1,497 passengers and crew who died that night, more than 1,000 were never seen again, their bodies disappearing for ever, their families, loved ones and friends left in an eternal state of not knowing, with no body to grieve over.

Yet the bodies of three out of the eight bandsmen
were
recovered and – even more remarkably – were found together. For the next eight days and nights, kept upright and buoyant by their cork lifejackets, Hartley’s violin case still strapped firmly to his chest, they were carried forty miles from the
Titanic
’s last resting place by winds and currents.

We will never know how, in the last minutes of their lives, numb with cold, they managed to achieve this, or how or when the other five slipped away from the rest of the band. But on 23 April the three dead bandsmen had a rendezvous with a ship as remarkable in its own way as the
Titanic
: the cable ship
Mackay-Bennett
. One of the three was my grandfather, Jock.

2

The Agony of Not Knowing

16 April, 35 Buccleuch Street, Dumfries

Two thousand miles away in Dumfries, the Humes and the Costins waited anxiously for news of Jock. In the absence of any statement from the White Star Line, conflicting newspaper reports fuelled hope and despair. The
Daily Mirror
, for instance, assured its readers that all 2,209 passengers and crew on board the
Titanic
had been saved and that ‘the hapless giant’ was being towed safely to New York. The
Liverpool Courier
, whose offices were round the corner from the White Star Line headquarters in James Street, went one further by publishing a photograph of the Allan liner
Virginian
towing the
Titanic
into New York harbour – a miracle of montage and the airbrusher’s art. Underneath the headline ‘ALL PASSENGERS RESCUED
’
was a report of the ‘remarkable rescue’ of all those on board. ‘News of the collision with an iceberg has been received with something akin to consternation,’ said the
Courier
.