The Band That Played On (19 page)

Georges Krins with two friends in London, 1911.

He left the Conservatoire in 1908 after again winning first prize in violin and returned to Spa where he joined La Grande Symphonie for the 1908 and 1909 seasons. Then, early in 1910, he was engaged as first violin at the Trianon Lyrique in Paris, a theater at the foot of Montmartre that at the time was specializing in comic opera. It was from Paris that he left for London to join the orchestra at the recently opened (1906) Ritz Hotel on Piccadilly. Here he played in the elegant Palm Court where the celebrated “tea at the Ritz” was served.

Georges Krins with his father and sister at the Promenade des Artistes, Spa, Belgium.

While in London, Krins took a flat at 10 Villa Road, a short walk from Percy Taylor’s home in Fentiman Road. For a while he contemplated joining the army, mainly because he had a deep fascination with the Napoleonic Wars, but his father managed to talk him out of it by telling him how dangerous it was. He should stick to music. It was far safer.

9
“T
HE
T
ITANIC
I
S
N
OW
A
BOUT
C
OMPLETE.
”

I
t would have been with a sense of excitement and relief that cellist Wes Woodward sailed into Liverpool on the
Caronia
on March 30, 1912— relief that such a long journey was finally over and excitement at seeing his family and being able to share his adventures with them. We know that he was in Headington before leaving to meet the
Titanic
, so we can assume that he took a train down to Oxford, possibly after visiting Charlie Black in Castle Street to sort out his contract.

It could be that Woodward was a last-minute replacement for Seth Lancaster, the musician who was first offered the job. Lancaster apparently at this point still thought he was set to sail with the
Titanic
. Maybe Hume or Edgar Heap had pushed Woodward’s name. He was certainly older than Lancaster and had a more impressive track record.

Woodward’s mother was living at the Firs, Windmill Road, with his unmarried brother, Herbert, who was working as a gardener. He would probably have visited his brother Thomas, who was still singing at Magdalen College, and it was maybe through this meeting that the plan was hatched for him to come and play at the college’s May Ball on the night of April 30, when he arrived back on the
Titanic
. He may also have gone down to Eastbourne to meet up with old friends, such as the newspaper advertising executive Syd Wardingly and local musicians Bill Read and Edward Peilgen.

The house (center) in Headington from which Wes Woodward left to join the
Titanic.

The Britain he came back to was enduring a miners’ strike that was threatening to disrupt everything from train services to shipping, so dependent was the country on coal. The
Daily Mirror
was mounting a self-congratulatory campaign to provide milk for children whose fathers had lost employment because of the strike. “Child victim of the coal strike fed with milk by generous readers of the
Daily Mirror
” ran one of its headlines on the day that Woodward got back.

Suffragettes (or “suffragists” as the
Mirror
referred to them), who were upset by the progress of the Women’s Bill, were planning to exert their economic power to show that they were a force to be reckoned with. “The time has now arrived,” said a Mrs. Despard of the Women’s Freedom League, “for us to take deeper and more general militant action. I do not believe in injuring private property, but the commerce of this country depends a great deal for its success on the women of the country. I want all of our women to become a hatless brigade and boycott the male makers of hats. In fact, not to buy anything that is not absolutely necessary. That would more seriously affect tradesmen than the breaking of their windows.”

In Hertfordshire hundreds of women were taking part in mock military maneuvers in readiness for the possibility that a European nation might try to invade. They were marching, camping, digging trenches, and performing rescue operations on “wounded” comrades. A photo of them wearing long dresses and tin helmets appeared in the newspapers along with the observation that women troops were far more cost-effective because they ate less than men.

If there was a fear that women were challenging male domination, there was an equal concern that men were becoming too feminine. The annual Oxford and Cambridge boat race taking place that day would be distinguished by the fact that “for the first time in the annals of the historic contest a long-haired crew will appear on the Thames.” The Oxford crew had apparently gone all tousled and had become the subject of mockery. The
Mirror
caught the mood: “In the dim past, when the boat race was young and innocent, be-whiskered and bearded young gentlemen may have rowed for their respective Varsities, but never, never did they appear with their locks blowing blithely in the breeze.”

But there were still real men around. Men like Captain Robert Falcon Scott who had set off in June 1910 to be the first person to reach the South Pole only to find, when he arrived on January 17, 1912, that he had been beaten by the Norwegian explorer Captain Roald Amundsen, who had arrived a month earlier using a different route. It was a harrowing journey of exploration in the most inhumane of climates without any of the benefits of modern communications. Messages back to civilization took months. One such message appeared in the British newspapers on April 1, 1912. When the British Antarctic Expedition ship arrived in New Zealand, there was an expectation that Scott would be on board, but instead all the commander had was a note from the explorer that read: “I am remaining in the Antarctic for another winter in order to continue and complete my work.”

This stoicism and determination to finish the job in hand turned Scott into a hero. He was a man willing to put his country and the progress of science ahead of his own personal comfort and well-being. His story was also an illustration of humanity’s increasing ability to use nature rather than be used by it. Few places on earth now seemed to be out of bounds and the earth itself was giving up its secrets to determined scientists. “Motor-Cars and telephones at work on Antarctic Ice,” crowed a
Mirror
headline. “Astounding narrative of Man’s triumph over nature.”

What the world didn’t know at the time was that Scott and his comrades were already dead. They had perished through exhaustion, hunger, and extreme cold. Scott made his last diary entry on March 29, the day he is presumed to have died, and left calmly composed letters to his family, the families of his fellow explorers, and a nation he hoped would understand his sacrifice. “Had we lived,” he wrote, “I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.” Their bodies weren’t found for another eight months.

At 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday April 2, the
Titanic
began moving slowly down the Belfast Lough, pulled by the tugs
Hercules
,
Huskisson
,
Herculaneum
,
Hornby
, and
Herald
. Despite the early hour the banks of the river were lined with cheering crowds. This was a big day for the city, especially if you were one of the people who had directly or indirectly helped to bring the great ship into being. As the largest man-made movable object slid down toward the sea, there was the sure knowledge that history was being made.

Two miles off Carrickfergus the tugs withdrew their support and the giant liner had to turn its propeller in the sea for the first time. On board was a skeleton crew of seventy-eight needed to feed the boilers, stoke them, and keep all the wheels greased. There were also forty-one officers, cooks, and storekeepers. Chief radio engineer Jack Phillips was fine-tuning the new Marconi equipment, assisted by Harold Bride. Thomas Andrews, the designer from Harland & Wolff, monitored every movement of the ship he had nurtured all the way from the drawing board to launch and fitting. Most importantly there was Mr. Carruthers, the surveyor from the Board of Trade, whose job it was to decide whether the vessel was seaworthy and could be given an Agreement on Account of Voyage and Crew, which would be valid for the next twelve months.

Olympic
(left) and
Titanic
in the Thompson Graving Dock, Belfast, 1911.

Once the
Titanic
began churning up the sea and it was taken up to a speed of twenty knots, it was time to test its ability to stop, to turn using only the rudder, to turn using only propellers, and then to alter its direction. At 2:00 p.m. it took a straight course out into the Irish Sea for its first uninterrupted journey; at 4:00 p.m. it made its way back to Belfast, where it let off anyone not staying for the transatlantic voyage and checked its anchors; and at 8:00 p.m. it began the six-hundred-mile journey to Southampton, where it would arrive on the morning of April 3 ready to stock up with fuel and provisions.