evel of the keel for a length of about three
hundred feet, thereby giving access to the sea in six of her forward
compartments.

The calamity came with dreadful swiftness. In the vivid words of a
stoker, on duty at the time of collision some two hundred and fifty feet
from the stem: "All of a sudden the starboard side of the ship came in
upon us; it burst like a big gun going off; the water came pouring in
and swilled our legs." Within ten minutes the water rose fourteen feet
above the keel in five of the compartments; afterwards it rose steadily
in all six; and by midnight had submerged the lower deck in the foremost
hold. Yet so gentle apparently was the shock of contact that among the
passengers, and probably among most of the crew as well, it was only the
stopping of the engines that warned them of some happening; whilst for
a considerable time, so quietly the great ship lay on the flat sea, such
confidence had all in her strength, and so orderly was everything, that
to many, almost to the last, it seemed impossible that disaster had
come.[6]

[6] Mersey Commission Report; Sir William White's letter to the
_Times_, dated May 14th.

"At first we did not realise," says Mr. Albert Dick,[7] "that the
_Titanic_ was mortally wounded.... I do not believe that anyone on her
realised she was going to sink." Mr. Dick goes on to record that, in his
view, nothing deserved more praise than the conduct of Andrews after the
ship had struck. "He was on hand at once and said that he was going
below to investigate. We begged him not to go, but he insisted, saying
he knew the ship as no one else did and that he might be able to allay
the fears of the passengers. He went.

[7] _New York Herald_, April 20th, 1912.

"As the minutes flew by we did not know what to do or which way to
turn.... Captain Smith was everywhere doing his best to calm the rising
tide of fear.... But in the minds of most of us there was ... the
feeling that something was going to happen, and we waited for Mr.
Andrews to come back.

"When he came we hung upon his words, and they were these: 'There is no
cause for any excitement. All of you get what you can in the way of
clothes and come on deck as soon as you can. She is torn to bits below,
but she will not sink if her after bulkheads hold.'

"It seemed almost impossible that this could be true ... and many in the
crowd smiled, thinking this was merely a little extra knowledge that Mr.
Andrews s