Number Four
The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Canada, dedicates part of the museum’s exhibit on the second floor to the victims of the Titanic. A pair of leather children’s shoes—brown, worn-out, and corroded by sea salt—is on the pedestal among other exhibit items.
On another stand of the museum, there is a small round porthole. It is a large peephole that invites you to peek into the history of a hundred years ago. I look into the past and see the ship’s bow, covered in rust and barnacle growths. This is how the world saw the remains of the Titanic, discovered by a Franco-American group of scientists 73 years after its sinking.
The museum’s glazed displays and artifacts are not about what was found at the bottom of the ocean or even the sinking of the Titanic itself. They are dedicated to even more tragedy that followed the terrible event of April 14, 1912, when, a week later, three ships left Halifax, Canada, to collect the bodies of those killed in the wreck. The first ship, the Mackay Bennett, nicknamed the Ship of Death, got the most gruesome job of all: fishing out bodies bobbing in the water and placing them in coffins they brought with them.
Considering the speeds of the time, the journey from Halifax to the wreck of the Titanic was about 1500 miles, or 750 nautical miles, or sailing for three days. But the picture that opened up to the eyes of the sailors of the Mackay Bennett, salted by the winds of the Atlantic and who had seen many tragedies in their lifetime, made even them wipe away a tear.
On the surface of the water within a mile radius, everything that could stay afloat swayed on the waves – wooden deck chairs, fragments of the ship’s interior, clothes and sheets of paper, and the bodies of those who had life jackets, but didn’t have space in the lifeboats.
The Halifax newspaper Evening Mail posted the following eyewitness account: “the horrific testimony of the martyrdom for life was reflected in the distorted faces and crooked hands of the victims.”
Another contradictory testimony from one of the ship’s doctors, Dr. Armstrong, was published in the Morning Chronicle on May 2 and presented a very different picture: “With the exception of ten bodies that had been seriously distorted, the expressions of the others were calm and peaceful. So peaceful that it was hard to believe they were all dead.”
History has never known of such a large-scale shipwreck; therefore, there were no rules for forensic medical examination to identify victims.
The sailors and doctors of the Mackay Bennett ship implemented the first practice of identifying bodies. The victims of the Titanic lay in the water for about a week, swelling and decomposing. Birds and fish fed on the floating bodies. Some faces were no longer recognizable. Taking the body out of the water, the sailors embalmed it, then put it in a coffin surrounded by bags of ice. The body was assigned a number and detailed description—clothes, birthmarks, scars, tattoos, gender, approximate age, nationality, and class status. The content of the pockets was placed in a paper folder-sized canvas bag with a matching number. This system of identifying bodies at the sites of mass tragedies was later introduced in the forensic medical examination of many countries.
The sailors recovered 306 bodies from the water, but no one expected to see something that none of the sailors of the Mackay Bennett would ever forget for the rest of their lives.
The body of an 11-year-old boy was the first to be retrieved from the water, then two women, and finally a baby, who was assigned the number four.
The child was about two years old. He was dressed warmly; apparently, his mother dressed him, fearing a cold night in the lifeboat – flannel pajamas, a jacket with a fur collar, and brown leather boots. But the most shocking fact was that the child was not wearing a life jacket, yet he kept afloat. Later, by the method of assumptions and analysis, it would be established that the drowning mother held him above her head with outstretched arms until she went underwater. Screaming, cold, and terrified, the child filled his lungs with air and stayed afloat until his lifeless body was picked up by sailors a week later. They called him—victim number four, or an “unknown child.”
Shocked by this tragedy, the sailors swore that if no one claimed the child, they would take on the responsibilities and expenses of his funeral. The sailors promised to adopt the poor baby posthumously.
Having finished it’s part of the work, the Death Ship sailed back to Halifax, handing over its sad duty to the second ship, the Minia.
The three-day journey back could’ve been worse. The seaman of the Death Ship, Francis, testified later: “I honestly hope that I will never again have to take part in such an expedition. The doctor and I sleep in the hold in the middle of fourteen coffins.”
The city was waiting for its cargo of death.
The Mackay Bennett, which arrived in Halifax on the morning of April 30, was met by storm clouds. Canadian flags fluttered at half-mast against the dark gray sky. The lingering ringing of church bells resounded throughout the city. The owners of the shops suspended trade and covered the windows with black cloth. Crowds of grieving people filled the streets and rooftops of buildings in anticipation of the mourning ship. Entry into the port itself was allowed only to relatives of the victims and hearses delivering bodies to the Mayflower curling rink converted into a morgue.
The ice rink was divided into 67 compartments, each containing three coffins. There was also an embalming section, a medical aid room, and a separate room for grieving families.
Of course, not all the relatives of the victims could afford to travel by rail and back with a heavy burden. Most of the relatives were immigrants, and even collecting money to send a telegram to the company with a request whether the passenger was on the list of rescued or dead was an impossible expense for many of them.
When the lists of the dead were published in the newspapers, the White Star Line received the first telegram from relatives asking them to send the body to the family. The company calculated the possible costs of transporting the bodies and concluded that it would be cheaper for them to bury the victims of the crash in Halifax. P.V.G. Mitchell, a company representative, bought the burial lots at Fairview Lawn Cemetery for $846.75.
Later, three rows of faceless gray granite gravestones would be installed in the northern part of the cemetery with the same date of death, April 15, 1912. And the number. Over time, many tombstones would acquire names identified by the contents of pockets or personal signs. But back then, in the first days of May 1912, only coffins with numbers were lowered into the ground.
The funeral lasted several days, as the city services could bury no more than 30 people a day. The crew of the Mackay Bennett sailors kept their promise and organized the funeral of the unknown child. With the money raised, the team bought a white coffin, a sea of flowers, and a silver medallion with the words “Our baby” hung around his neck. None of the grieving relatives who arrived identified the baby as a member of their family, and he was buried under the same number four.
The tombstone of the “unknown child” will remain nameless for another 99 years. Only in 2011, when a detailed DNA test became possible, the committee of victims of the Titanic decided to exhume the unmarked graves to give names to those who left this world unidentified, with only a number on a canvas bag.
Merciless time didn’t reckon with the bodies of the dead, and the white coffin of the child was empty due to underground animals plundering the bones. Thanks to the silver medallion with the words “Our baby,” which helped to identify that the jawbone found next to the medallion belongs to that baby. Ninety-nine years later, he would be named Sidney Leslie Goodwin, born on September 9, 1910, in England, and traveling with his parents, three brothers, and two sisters to meet his uncle, who invited the child’s father to work in America.
To this day, this tomb of the unknown child is the most visited place. Near that gravestone, mothers who have lost their children shed tears. Adults and children stand nearby in mournful silence. Toys and flowers are always lying near it. And often, the hearts of visitors are filled with righteous anger because the children of the third class did not even have a chance to be saved.
According to statistics, there were 52 children among the victims of the Titanic. But what age makes a child? A hundred years ago, a 12-year-old boy was considered a man with the right to earn a living and help the family financially. White Star Line hired 11-year-old boys to save on wages and not pay them as adults. These children did the dirtiest work, including throwing coal into the furnace, which was carried out continuously, and worked in three shifts. For all these children, that voyage and work shift was the last.
After twenty years of research, the Titanic continues to haunt me. I’m one of many “Titanic enthusiasts” collecting, ordering books, and wandering around museums. Its story touches souls, makes hearts ache, and brings back memories of people we never knew. And I look again through the porthole of the museum, into the peephole of history, because all the dead remain alive in our memory as long as we remember and talk about them.
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