Page 118 - British Inquiry into Loss of RMS Titanic Day 32 - 36

Yes. (Q.) Did you tell Murdoch so? - (A.) Yes, my Lord, as I say, when he came on deck. (Q.) What did you say to him? - (A.) That we were up around the ice, or something to that effect; that we were within the region of where the ice had been reported. The actual words I cannot remember; but I gave him to understand that we were within the region where ice had been reported.” Mr. Laing: Your Lordship asked what our view about that was. It was this: that they plot down, or are supposed to plot down, on the chart, these ice messages they get, and that all that was meant by these conversations is, as appears quite clearly here, that at 9 or 9.30 in one case, and at 11 o’clock in the other case, they would be within the region where the ice was reported. That is all it comes to. It says so in terms. The Commissioner: Here, again, Mr. Lightoller’s memory is remarkably accurate. I think the impression he wanted to produce on my mind was that they were making calculations which showed them that they were then about the place where the ice existed, not about the place where it had existed, but about the place where it did then exist. Mr. Laing: May I read that answer again? The Commissioner: Certainly, by all means. Mr. Laing: “What did you say to him? - (A.) That we were up around the ice, or something to that effect, that we were within the region of where the ice had been reported. The actual words I cannot remember, but I gave him to understand that we were within the region where ice had been reported.” That is what he says. The Attorney-General: I am afraid that will not do. I quite agree with my friend that if you take those words alone they would bear at any rate, or are capable of bearing, the meaning which he desires to attribute to them, but there is a lot which has preceded that. The Commissioner: Let us look at page 309. The Attorney-General: I think your Lordship ought to read a little earlier. The only view which it is possible to take from Mr. Lightoller’s evidence - on pages: 307, 308 and 309, not taking isolated passages from them, is that he knew they were approaching ice; and therefore he had a conversation on the point that they were approaching ice, not approaching the region where it was reported, but his view was they were approaching it, and therefore he had this conversation with the Captain and with Mr. Murdoch. Let us see what he says. The Commissioner: I put the question to him (13618): “Then you had both made up your minds at that time that you were about to encounter icebergs? - (A.) No, my Lord, not necessarily. (Q.) It sounds very like it, you know? - (A.) No, not necessarily, my Lord. (Q.) You were both talking about what those icebergs would show to you? - (A.) As a natural precaution. We knew we were in the vicinity of ice, and though you cross the Atlantic for years and have ice reported and never see it, and at other times it is not reported and you do see it, you nevertheless do take necessary precautions, all you can, to make perfectly sure that the weather is clear and that the officers understand the indications of ice and all that sort of thing.” The Attorney-General: If my friend is right in the suggestion that all he meant was he was within the reported region, what is the object of his talking about “it is a pity there is no breeze to create a ripple” to show the ice which he was not expecting to encounter, according to my friend? The Commissioner: There, again, comes in the misfortune of that conversation. The Attorney-General: Why is it a misfortune, with respect? The Commissioner: Misfortune to them. The Attorney-General: I know it may be. It may be it is a misfortune that he has to state the fact. The Commissioner: The Solicitor-General says to him at Question 13480: “Here was a message shown you which referred to ice in latitude 42 N.? - (A.) Yes. (Q.) Do you recollect, or