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Early signs of trouble. Sunday, April 14, 1912 at 11:59 p.m.
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Norman Chambers, First Class Passenger:
"... I looked at the starboard end of our passageway, where there
was the companion leading to the quarters of the mail clerks and farther on to the
baggage room, and I believe, the mail sorting room, and at the top of these stairs
I found a couple of mail clerks wet to their knees, who had just come up
from below, bringing their registered mail bags. As the door in the bulkhead
in the next deck was open, I was able to look directly into the trunk room
which was then filled with water, and within 18" or 2 feet of the deck above.
We were standing there joking about our baggage being completely soaked and
about the correspondence which was seen floating about on the top of the
water. While we were standing there three of the ship's officers descended
the first companion and looked into the baggage room, coming back up
immediately, saying that we were not making any more water. This was not an
announcement, but merely a remark passed from one to the other. Then my wife
and myself returned in the direction of our stateroom, a matter of a
few yards only, and as we were going down our own alleyway to the stateroom
door our room steward came by and told us that we could go on back to bed
again, that there was no danger."
