Page 19 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 14 - 18

give me the time? - (A.) It was 9.5 p.m. (Q.) New York time? - (A.) Yes, 11 o’clock ship’s time. (Q.) What did you say? - (A.) I said, ‘We are stopped, and surrounded by ice.’ (Q.) Did you get an answer from the ‘Titanic’? - (A.) They said, ‘Keep out.’ (Q.) Just explain to us, will you, what that means? - (A.) Well, Sir, he was working to Cape Race at the time. Cape Race was sending messages to him, and when I started to send he could not hear what Cape Race was sending. (Q.) Does that mean that you would send louder than Cape Race to him? - (A.) Yes; and he did not want me to interfere. (Q.) That would interrupt his conversation with Cape Race? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) So that he asked you to ‘Keep out’? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) In ordinary Marconi practice is that a common thing to be asked? - (A.) Yes. And you do not take it as an insult or anything like that. (The Commissioner.) What did you say? (The Solicitor-General.) ‘You do not take it as an insult or anything like that.’ (To the Witness.) Do I understand rightly then that a Marconi operator, like other people, can only clearly hear one thing at a time? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) Have you any means of knowing - do you judge that he had heard your message about ice? When you say you sent this message and he said ‘Keep out,’ did he say that after he had got your message? - (A.) The very minute I stopped sending. (The Commissioner.) You cannot tell, I suppose, whether he heard what you said? - (A.) He must have heard it, my Lord, but I do not know whether he took it down.” The Commissioner: That is, whether the Marconi man took it down? Sir Robert Finlay: Yes. “9003 (Q.) Would he hear what you said, or would he merely hear that you were speaking? You see, as I understand, he was getting messages from two points - from Cape Race and from you. He could not hear both, I suppose, at the same time? - (A.) No, my Lord. (Q.) And he may not have heard what you said, though he may have known that you were trying to speak to him. I do not know, you know; I am only asking? - (A.) Well, my Lord, my signal would be much stronger than Cape Race’s.” Then there are a few questions and answers which I will read if desired. I was going on to Question 9014: “(Q.) And then you gave him this message, spelt it out, that you were stopped in ice; and then he replies to you, ‘Keep out.’ How do you know he was talking to Cape Race? - (A.) I heard him beforehand. (Q.) You could hear him? - (A.) Beforehand, and directly after that. (The Commissioner.) What was it you heard? - (A.) Before that, my Lord? (Q.) No. What was it that you heard which conveyed to you that he was in communication with Cape Race? - (A.) Directly afterwards he called upon Cape Race - a few seconds after. (Q.) After he had said to you, ‘Keep out’? - (A.) Yes, my Lord. (The Solicitor- General.) Could you overhear what he was saying to Cape Race? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) What was it he said? - (A.) He said, ‘Sorry, please repeat, jammed.’ (Q.) That means that somebody else had interrupted? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) After that did you hear him continuing to send messages? - (A.) Right up till I turned in” - that was 11.30 “(Q.) It was not your business, and I have no doubt you did not listen in detail to what they were, but could you tell, as a matter of fact, whether they were private messages? - (A.) Yes, all private messages. You can tell by the prefix. (The Commissioner.) That means messages for the passengers. (The Solicitor-General.) Yes, business and private messages for the passengers. (To the Witness.) You can tell that by what you call the prefix, the sound that is sent first of all? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) And that continued, you say, till you turned in? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) When was it that you turned in? - (A.) Eleven-thirty p.m., ship’s time. (Q.) You had been at work since 7 o’clock in the morning, except intervals for meals? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) Was it your regular course to turn in about that time? - (A.) As a rule. It all depends where we are.” I do not think I need read further. 16256. (The Solicitor-General.) That is quite right. Just that we may see the bearing of that, that message that Sir Robert Finlay has been referring to is a message sent at 9.5 p.m., New York time. That is what we have been told? - Yes. 16257. What is the time of the “Mesaba’s” message, New York time, on the “Titanic,” 7.50? - Yes.