Why had they not gone to the Titanic during the midnight watch? There must be a reason, but he could not think of it. His left hand slid over to clasp tightly his right and he sat still, head hanging low, waiting, wondering, thinking of the captain and Mr Stone.
It would take but an instant, and the rest would follow in a few seconds more: ‘We saw her distress rockets.’ But he did not send them. Now his friend on the Birma was asking him directly, ‘Did your ship see the Titanic ?’ He sensed the rhythm of ‘yes’ in his hand he felt the tiny ripple of muscle in the forefinger that would send it. The central mystery of the Californian’s inaction is neatly encapsulated the morning after the disaster by Cyril Evans, the ship’s Marconi telegraph operator: History is littered with examples of those who chose not to know (tobacco companies and the link between their products and cancer, for example Nauru). How might we convince ourselves that something dreadful is not happening? Or that we cannot do anything? Or that we do not know? It also asks a larger question about how we respond when we see others in danger. What more could there possibly be to say about that extraordinary story of hubris, the Titanic? Surely we all know how it ends: how, in 1912 the biggest cruise liner in the world foundered on an unseasonal iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of the morning and 1500 people perished.ĭavid Dyer’s triumph in this beautifully observed and gripping story is to illuminate a little-known aspect of the tragedy – that another ship, the Californian, was a mere 20 miles away in the hours before the Titanic finally sank and could have rendered assistance but didn’t – and to do it with sensitivity and a deep understanding of the sea (in his non-writing life he served in the merchant navy and worked as a lawyer specialising in maritime law). This debut novel asks why the Californian, a mere 20 miles away, did not come to the stricken Titanic’s aid.
Tags: Atlantic Ocean/ Australian fiction/ Californian/ David Dyer/ deaths at sea/ Titanic
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