LESSON 22

Symbol of a past age

2

Soon critical questions were being asked. 

Why had the Titanic been going at full speed in spite of warnings that there were icebergs in the area?

Why was there lifeboat space for only half the people on board?

Why were some of the boats only partly filled?

Then there were reports that said that a vessel passed quite close to the Titanic when it was sinking and ignored its distress signals.

What vessel was this?

It turned out to have been the Californian, another British passenger liner, which had been waiting with its engines stopped because of the icebergs.

How far away had the Californian been? 

Some witnesses said that the distance was not more than 10 miles, but Californian’s captain claimed that his ship had been more than 19 miles away from the Titanic.

Was it [bad word] that all the people on board the Titanic could have been saved if the Californian had reacted to the distress signals [bad word] to the sinking ship’s rescue?