ally never left the room until he left it to jump into
the sea, and his knowledge of what was going on was the vivid, partial
knowledge of a man who was closely occupied with his own duties and only
knew of other happenings in so far as they affected his own doings.
They had been working, you will remember, almost all of that Sunday at
locating and replacing a burnt-out terminal, and were both very tired.
Phillips was taking the night shift of duty, but he told Bride to go to
bed early and get up and relieve him as soon as he had had a little
sleep, as Phillips himself was quite worn out with his day's work. Bride
went to sleep in the cabin which opened into the operating-room.

He slept some time, and when he woke he heard Phillips still at work. He
could read the rhythmic buzzing sounds as easily as you or I can read
print. He could hear that Phillips was talking to Cape Race, sending
dull uninteresting traffic matter; and he was about to sink off to sleep
again when he remembered how tired Phillips must be, and decided that he
would get up and relieve him for a spell. He never felt the shock, or
saw anything, or had any other notification of anything unusual except
no doubt the ringing of the telegraph bells and cessation of the beat of
the engines. It was a few minutes afterwards that, as we have seen, the
Captain put his head in at the door and told them to get ready to send a
call, returning ten minutes later to tell them to send it.

The two operators were rather amused than otherwise at having to send
out the S.O.S.; it was a pleasant change from relaying traffic matter.
"We said lots of funny things to each other in the next few minutes,"
said Bride. Phillips went stolidly on, firmly hammering out his "S.O.S.,
S.O.S.," sometimes varying it with "C.Q.D." for the benefit of such
operators as might not be on the alert for the new call. For several
minutes there was no reply; then the whining voice at Phillips' ear
began to answer. Some one had heard. They had picked up the steamer
_Frankfurt_, and they gave her the position and told her that the
_Titanic_ had struck an iceberg and needed assistance. There was another
pause and, in their minds' eye, the wireless men could see the
_Frankfurt's_ operator miles and miles away across the dark night going
along from his cabin and rousing the _Frankfurt's_ Captain and giving
his message and coming back to the instrument, when again the whining
voice began asking for more