Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/143

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC looks in vain for evidence that the situation was regarded as highly critical and calling for the most careful navigation;—calling, surely, for something more than the mere keeping of a good lookout—an imperative duty at all times, whether by day or night. Yet the fate of that ship and her precious freight of human life hung upon the mere chance of sighting an obstruction in time to avoid collision by a quick turn of the helm. The question of hitting or missing was one not of minutes but of seconds. A ship like this, nigh upon a thousand feet in length, makes a wide sweep in turning, even with the helm hard over. At 21 knots the Titanic covered over a third of a mile in a minute's time. Even with her engines reversed she would have surged ahead for a half mile or so before coming to a stop. Should she strike an obstruction at full speed, the blow delivered would equal that of the combined broadsides of two modern dreadnoughts.

And so the majestic ship swept swiftly to her doom—a concrete expression of man's age-long struggle to subdue the resistless forces of nature—a pathetic picture both of his power and his impotence. As she sped on under the dim [ 123 ]