“FACT & FICTION”

by Desmond Kelly ‘the Star of eLanka’

An amazing phrase, combining “opposites” that often confound readers, at the same time make for very interesting reading (and watching on television, or, at the movies) As we go through life, there will be many such moments when we will be astonished by what we thought was fact, but, in reality was fiction & vice-versa, of course.

Just to bring the readers of eLanka & Lanka Times right “up to scratch”, the “fact” that the S.S Titanic was sunk by an iceberg in 1912 on it’s way to America is without doubt, one of the greatest tragedies of the time, but, until I watched a documentary on television only yesterday, in 2017, (105 years later), did I realize that the sinking of the Steam-Ship Titanic was only “part-fact”.

It was “part-fiction” because it has now been proven that it was not only “ice” but “fire” as well, that caused the great ship to sink. For my readers who missed this astounding documentary, the story in brief was that, on the day that she left for the U.S.A., this beautiful luxury-liner had a fire, which had already taken hold, in the hull section of the ship, most importantly, right at the bottom, where the “Stokers” were shovelling coal into the furnaces that drove the ship’s engines.The problem was that the mountain of coal in the engine-room itself, had caught fire and the Stokers were shoving spadesful of coal into the furnaces, hoping that, in turn, this would help them to quell the raging fire underneath the coal. We have to remember that all this was happening a few “stories” down, right at the bottom of the Titanic. It would then have been the responsibility of the Chief Engineer to “report” this to the Captain, which he did.

The Captain of the Titanic was, at the same time, under much stress, because it had become his responsibility to get the Ship to America without any further delay for various reasons and decided that, at top speed, the Titanic would “make it”, his “Engineers” would manage to put out the fire beneath the coal & all would be well. This is the reason that this Liner hit the iceberg. The Captain was driving the ship like a huge motor vehicle, headed straight for the iceberg, and, even after being warned of the collision, was travelling too fast to avoid the iceberg. None of it occurred “on purpose”, neither the Captain or his Officers were suicidal, BUT, the Titanic WAS partly on fire & this fire had actually weakened the compartment-walls (there were 10 separate coal compartment walls in the basement of the Titanic), & so, when the iceberg tore a “long gash” in the side of her, sea-water gushing in was aided by the weakened coal storage walls.

Strangely, the sea would have put out the fire, but it was too late to stop the vessel from sinking.

So, there we have a SAD case of “fact & fiction”.

Desmond Kelly
Star of eLanka.