"Many people imagine the lot of a captain and his officers on a modern liner is one round of pleasure and good food. We do mix with the passengers and share with them the luxuries of the ship. We have excellent quarters which make the old berths look like the cheapest kind of doss houses. But that is not all. See these same men on the bridge. It is a wintry night. A gale is sending the spray over as high as the bridge though that may be ninety feet above the waterline. The rain beats into the face, striking like pellets from a gun- one of the penalties of great speed. The visibility is bad. It's bitterly cold. There are other ships somewhere in the vicinity. These officers have no time now for comfort or for laziness. All that luxury, all that sense of safety enjoyed by the passengers dancing below, is in the care of these men. A sudden emergency- a quick decision. Down below no one knows of it, that threat of trouble, but on the bridge a thrill has run up a man's spine, and is followed by a sigh of relief. All's well."
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Arthur Rostron
Sir Arthur Henry Rostron, KBE, RD, RNR (14 May 1869 – 4 November 1940) was a British sailor and a seagoing officer for the Cunard Line. He is best remembered as the captain of the ocean liner RMS Carpathia when it rescued hundreds of survivors from the RMS Titanic after the latter ship sank in 1912 in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.
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