Adventures of a Sea Hunter_ In Search of Famous Shipwrecks - James P. Delgado [40]
The ROV climbs the stern, which has a very distinctive shape. There is no mistaking it, and the curving lines before us match what until now we had seen only on black-and-white photos taken in a bygone age. Moments like this remind all of us how privileged we are to relive history, as stories and faded photographs come to life. The ROV is on the deck now, and a pair of davits for a lifeboat comes into view. They are in the right place to help confirm that this is Carpathia, but even as I note that technical fact, my mind is back at Titanic, looking at her empty davits.
Our first disappointment comes when the ROV encounters a mass of wreckage where the superstructure once was. We were hoping the superstructure was not damaged, but it is gone. The ROV passes over an intact bronze porthole lying on the deck, its glass unbroken. After marine organisms consumed the wood that held this porthole in place, then it fell free to lie where we see it. We go back and forth as the robot traverses the deck, revealing fallen bulkheads and electrical wire, broken glass and ship’s hardware. Carpathia’s deckhouses and bridge have collapsed, and I think of those plaques and awards, now buried beneath tons of rusting steel.
The ROV moves off the deck and follows the hull, whose steel plates are torn and mangled, but it is hard to say if the damage came from the torpedoes that struck the ship or from the red-hot boilers exploding as the cold sea flooded them. Gradually, it becomes clear that we’re looking at damage from a torpedo that struck Carpathia on the starboard side. The ROV does not completely survey the port side, but another hole, perhaps from the first torpedo hit, shows up near the area of the vanished bridge. It’s a sad moment as we inspect these wounds of a long-ago war.
When the ROV’S lights pick out a row of portholes along the hull, I am struck again by a voice from the past, recalling Lawrence Beesley’s description of watching from one of Titanic’s lifeboats as the lights blazing from Carpathia’s portholes signaled that help had at last arrived. The ROV climbs back to the deck and passes the steam winches of Carpathia’s forward cargo cranes—there is no doubt now, as we look at their position next to the No. 1 cargo hold, that this is Carpathia. But forward of the hold, the bow is in bad shape, and it is clear that the liner’s final plunge was bow first—like Titanic’s. But instead of falling thousands of feet into the depths, Carpathia sank in water shallower than her own length: the 558-foot ship went down in 514 feet of water. Her bow hit the bottom—hard—before her stern left the surface. It is ironic to see that Carpathia, while not torn in two like Titanic, is in worse shape than the liner she had once rushed to help.
The videotape is nearing the end now, and as we gaze into the murk, John Davis points out the most interesting discovery of all. There, lying on the bottom near the hull, half buried in the sand, is the ship’s bell. It is a riveting sight. We strain our eyes to see if we can make out if the name is there, but marine growth has covered the bell’s surface. More details are filled in: Carpathia’s fallen stack lies off her starboard side, with the ship’s brass whistles lying flat in the sand nearby, and debris blown out of the hull by the blasts is scattered over the seabed. Later, a group of British technical divers descend to the wreck and find some of the ship’s dishes, which they say have the Cunard crest on them.
To confirm that this is Carpathia, I look for ten exact matches between the wreck and the ship’s plans. Not only is this ship the right size but her decks are laid out exactly like those on Carpathia’s plans. The position of the deck gear, the single stack, the twin screws at the stern, are also identical—and then there’s the torpedo damage and the fact that the ship sank bow first. The excitement of the discovery and