Call Me Ismay by Sean McDevitt Page A

interrogative tone.
     
    “I was.” Ismay felt the energy from the horde of the reporters as they shifted excitedly in their seats, their pencils at the ready.
     
    “You sailed in her as a passenger?”
     
    “I did.”
     
    “You joined her first, I think, at Southampton?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “She carried mail as well as passengers?”
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “I only want to ask you one question with reference to that. Under that contract, are you bound to keep up to a certain rate of speed?”
     
    “No.” Clearly, Sir Rufus was trying to introduce the possibility that commerce might have played a role in the disaster, but Ismay replied with certainty.
     
    “Now, on Sunday, the 14th of April, do you remember dining in the evening?”
     
    “I do.” Ismay steeled himself as he realized the chaos and horror of that night were about to be revisited.
     
    “On this very fateful day?” Sir Rufus called out.
     
    “Yes.”
     
    “Did the captain dine with you?”
     
    “He did not,” Ismay grimaced ever so slightly. The captain Sir Rufus was referencing wasn't a distant figurehead to Ismay; he had a name- Edward James Smith, known as 'E.J.' to White Star Line management. Ismay had known E.J. for decades, and was still trying to comprehend the fact that his old friend had been consumed by the unforgiving sea.
     
    “However, the captain was in the restaurant dining, I think, with somebody else?”
     
    “Yes, I believe he was- in fact, I know he was.” Ismay shifted his weight on his feet for a bit, uncomfortable.
     
    “In any case, you say he was not dining with you that evening?”
    

    “No, I never spoke to him at all, I had nothing to do with him at all.” Ismay, out of the corner of his eye, saw dozens of pencils scribbling away furiously.
     
    Sir Rufus seemed to collect his thoughts for a moment before continuing. “You were a passenger on the vessel, but I suppose you travelled as a passenger because of your interest in the vessel and in the company which owned it?”
     
    “Of course I was interested in the ship.”
     
    “I mean, you had nothing to do once you were in New York- you travelled because you wanted to make the first passage on the Titanic ?”
     
    “Partly, but I can always find something to do.” Ismay cringed slightly, wondering if he'd misheard the question.
     
    Sir Rufus clarified: “You mean to say, you were not travelling on the Titanic because you wanted to go to New York, but because you wanted to travel upon the maiden trip of the Titanic?”
     
    “Yes,” Ismay verified, grateful for the clarification.
     
    “Because in your capacity as managing director, you desired to see how the vessel behaved while at sea, I suppose?”
     
    “Naturally.”
     
    “That was the real object of your travelling on the Titanic ?”
     
    “Yes, to observe the ship.”
     
    “What I want to put to you,” Sir Rufus intoned, seeming to build his questioning as a bit more forceful, “Is that you were not there as an ordinary passenger?”
     
    Ismay seemed to answer a bit too quickly. “So far as the navigation of the ship was concerned, yes.”
     
    As some of his colleagues on the Board of Trade stole suspicious glances at each other, Sir Rufus replied, “I will ask you some questions later on about all that. I am not suggesting you controlled the navigation, but what I suggest to you is that it would not be right to describe you as really travelling on that ship as an ordinary passenger, because of the interest you had in the Titanic , and because of your natural watchfulness as to the behaviour of the Titanic on her first voyage?”
     
    “I looked upon myself simply as an ordinary passenger.” Ismay cut his eyes from side to side for about for a moment, startled, as he thought he could make out exclamations of disbelief coming from the spectators.
     
    The Attorney General chose his words carefully. “You have told us in what capacity you were travelling across the