Reverend Bateman, God bless him, volunteered to oversee the rite — the deboning, the roasting, the thanksgiving, the consecration — a procedure in which he was assisted by his Catholic confreres, Father Byles and Father Peruschitz. Not one word was spoken during the consumption phase, but I sensed that everyone was happy not only to have finally received a substantive meal but also to have set a difficult precedent and emerged from the experience spiritually unscathed.

14 May 1912

Lat. 27°41’ N, Long. 54°29’ W

Another wreck, another set of medical supplies, another trove of cooking fuel — plus two more legible newspapers. As it happened, the Philadelphia Bulletin for 22 April and the New York Times for 29 April carried stories about the dozens of religious services held earlier in the month all over America and the United Kingdom honouring the Titanic’’s noble dead. I explained to our first-cabin and second-cabin passengers that I would allow each man to read about his funeral, but he must take care not to get the pages wet.

Needless to say, our most illustrious voyagers were accorded lavish tributes. The managers of the Waldorf-Astoria, St Regis, and Knickerbocker hotels in Manhattan observed a moment of silence for Colonel John Jacob Astor. (Nothing was said about his scandalously pregnant child bride, the former Madeleine Force.) The rectors of St Paul’s church in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, commissioned three Tiffany windows in memory of the dearly departed Widener family, George, Eleanor and Harry. Senator Guggenheim of Colorado graced the Congressional Record with a eulogy for his brother, Benjamin, the mining and smelting tycoon. President Taft decreed an official Day of Prayer at the White House for his military adviser, Major Butt. For a full week all the passenger trains running between Philadelphia and New York wore black bunting in honour of John Thayer, Second Vice-President of the Pennsylvania Railroad.