of the passengers on the Olympic the Hawke swerved in the direction
of the big liner and a moment later the bow of the Hawke was crunching
steel plates in the starboard quarter of the Olympic, making a
thirty-foot hole in her. She was several months in dry dock.

The result of a naval court inquiry was to put all the blame for the
collision on the Olympic. Captain Smith, in his testimony before the
naval court, said that he was on the bridge when he saw the Hawke
overhauling him. The Olympic began to draw ahead later or the Hawke drop
astern, the captain did not know which. Then the cruiser turned very
swiftly and struck the Olympic at right angles on the quarter. The pilot
gave the signal for the Olympic to port, which was to minimize the force
of the collision. The Olympic's engines had been stopped by order of the
pilot.

Up to the moment the Hawke swerved, Captain Smith said, he had no
anxiety. The pilot, Bowyer, corroborated the testimony of Captain
Smith. That the line did not believe Captain Smith was at fault,
notwithstanding the verdict of the board of naval inquiry, was shown by
his retention as the admiral of the White Star fleet and by his being
given the command of the Titanic.

Up to the time of the collision with the Hawke Captain Smith when asked
by interviewers to describe his experiences at sea would say one word,
"uneventful." Then he would add with a smile and a twinkle of his eyes:

"Of course there have been winter gales and storms and fog and the like
in the forty years I have been on the seas, but I have never been in an
accident worth speaking of. In all my years at sea (he made this comment
a few years ago) I have seen but one vessel in distress. That was a brig
the crew of which was taken off in a boat by my third officer. I
never saw a wreck. I never have been wrecked. I have never been in a
predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."

THE CAPTAIN'S LOVE OF THE SEA

Once the interviewer stopped asking personal questions, Captain Smith
would talk of the sea, of his love for it, how its appeal to him as a
boy had never died.

"The love of the ocean that took me to sea as a boy has never died." he
once said. "When I see a vessel plunging up and down in the trough of
the sea, fighting her way through and over great waves, and keeping her
keel and going on and on--the wonder of the thing fills me, how she
can keep afloat and get safely to port. I have never outgrown the w