Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/142

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC fore the Court of Inquiry under Lord Mersey, showed that the Chief Engineer had arranged to drive the vessel at full speed for a few hours either on Monday or Tuesday. Twenty-one of the twenty-nine boilers were in use until Sunday night, when three more were "lighted." It is evident that the engines were being gradually speeded up to their maximum revolutions. Both on the bridge and in the engine-room there was a manifest reluctance to allow anything to interfere with the full-speed run of the following day. This is the only possible explanation of the amazing fact that, in spite of successive warnings that a large icefield with bergs of great size was drifting right across the course of the Titanic, fire was put under additional boilers and the speed of the ship increased.

It was shown in a previous chapter on "The Dangers of the Sea," that one of the greatest risks of high-speed travel across the North Atlantic is a certain spirit of sangfroid which is liable to be begotten of constant familiarity with danger and a continual run of good luck. If familiarity ever bred contempt, surely it must have done so among the captain and officers of the Titanic on that fatal night. One [ 120 ]