The ship's orchestra of eight young men were standing knee deep in water playing. - Steve Turner

Shipwreck was an ever-present possibility in 1912.

[Bandleader Hartley] apparently believed that music could be more powerful that physical force in bringing order to chaos.

In the last moments of the great ship’s doom, when all was plainly lost, when braver and hardier men might almost have been excused for doing practically anything to save themselves, they stood responsive to their conductor’s baton and played a recessional tune.