Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/42

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC Titanic has been due in part to careful seamanship and in part to an amazing run of good luck. Of this there can be no doubt whatever. On a recent occasion the subject was brought up for discussion in the officers' quarters of one of the fastest liners. In answer to the writer's question as to whether the dangers of running at high speed through fog or ice-infested regions were not enormous, one of the officers frankly admitted that, not only were the risks most serious, but the immunity from such disasters as that which befell the Titanic was to be explained on the ground of sheer good fortune. "I well remember," said he, "that the first time I found myself in charge of the bridge on a ship that was running through fog at a speed of over 20 knots, I fairly shivered with a sense of the possibilities of disaster that were involved. To-day—well—familiarity, you know"

Let it not be supposed, from the heading of this chapter, that it is the writer's purpose to draw any lurid picture of the dangers of ocean travel. These are no greater to-day than they were before the Titanic went down. Icebergs have swept down from the Arctic seas from [ 20 ]