Over the shoulder of a man in front of her, she saw a newspaper which bore the headline All Titanic Passengers Are Safe; Transferred in Lifeboats at Sea.
Bewildered and with a rising sense of panic, Catherine continued to move through the crowd, towards the front of the office building. It was then that she saw the newspaper stand, bearing the day’s New York Times headline in wide, black, over-sized typeface as always. Usually she would pay little attention to the words, having no real interest in the latest political scandal or news from Wall Street. The headline today was the most shocking she had ever seen, or would ever see again.
NEW LINER TITANIC HITS AN ICEBERG; SINKING BY THE BOW AT MIDNIGHT; WOMEN PUT OFF IN LIFE BOATS; LAST WIRELESS AT 12:27 A.M. BLURRED.
She simply couldn’t comprehend it, looking frantically around the crowd, not entirely sure what she was looking for. Seeing a smartly dressed gentleman standing to her right, she approached him. ‘Excuse me Sir, is it true? Do you know what has happened?’
He turned to her, a look of grave concern and shock on his face. ‘I’m very sorry Miss. I don’t know. I really don’t know. They say she hit an iceberg in the night. Some are saying she’s gone down. Some say she’s returning to Belfast for repairs. We’re waiting for an official from the office to come and tell us the facts.’
‘Gone down?!’ Catherine gasped, her head spinning, her knees feeling as though they would buckle under her at any moment. ‘But everyone’s alright. Aren’t they? My sister is travelling on Titanic.’ Catherine was now desperate to get some sort of confirmation about what had happened to the passengers. ‘The passengers were all rescued weren’t they?’
‘So it seems,’ the gentleman replied. ‘We need to await further news. My wife and young daughter are aboard. I am praying for good news myself.’
At the foot of the stone steps, a woman sat with a young child on her lap and an infant in her arms. Tears streamed down her face, the words of desperate prayer tumbling from her lips. She gazed up and caught Catherine’s eye. ‘It’s gone,’ she wailed. ‘They’re all gone. My husband and my brother, gone Miss. What will I do? Whatever will I do? How will I survive with them gone?’
Unsure of what to say to comfort her, Catherine moved forward and bent down to the woman. Placing her hand on her shoulder she simply said, ‘Courage and faith. We must all try to find courage and faith.’
Unable to process what she was seeing and hearing, Catherine turned then to the other people gathered around nearest to her; women and men, all talking frantically – to each other and to anyone who looked to be in any official capacity at all - trying desperately to get some reassurance that the passengers were alright. It was simply incomprehensible to imagine that anything had happened to the ship at all, let alone that it had sunk. She couldn’t even begin to image what must have happened, or how terrifying the experience must have been. Her poor sister – her poor little sister. She tried to take some small comfort from the fact that at least she had some of the more mature women with her, like Kathleen Murphy and Maura Brennan. They were strong, confident women and at least they would mind Katie and tell her what to do.
Without much thought and barely able to stay upright with the sense of shock coursing through her body, Catherine resolved to stay with the crowds outside the offices and wait for further news. She settled herself on the stone step next to the young woman and her child and infant, pulled her coat around herself and bent her head in silent prayer. The sun began to set behind the towering office blocks and a dark shadow fell across them all.
*
It was nearly midnight when the first wires started to come through, confirming everyone’s worst fears.
From the Marconi radio station on top of the nearby department store, messages were picked up from the steamship Carpathia which confirmed that Titanic had gone down and that there had been a significant loss of life. Survivors were aboard the Carpathia which was expected to arrive in New York on Thursday night. The survivor names were being transmitted from the Carpathia and displayed in the window of the White Star Line offices.
As news of the scale of the disaster became known, an eerie silence fell across the now huge mass of distressed and anxious relatives and friends amassed on the street and the road outside the White Star Line offices, all the way across to Wanamaker’s Department Store. As people filed into the office, praying that the name of their loved ones would be among those listed as having survived, the first tears started to fall. Catherine watched as men and women emerged from the revolving doors, ashen-faced and weeping, falling into the arms of others as they relayed the terrible news that the name they had been hoping to see was not there.