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Description

“I might not be big, strong or fast. But if a job needs doing I’m your girl.”

Name: Lady Caroline Rachel Princeton-Grady, Dame of Liverpool
Alias: Cara, Carrie
DOB: 19 September 1887
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 175lb
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
Notable Features: Circular scar on the left side of her waist, about 1/2" across

Current Residence: Liverpool, England

Employer: Cunard Line
Command: RMS Carpathia, hull 274 of C.S. Swan & Hunter, Wallsend, England.

Personality: Cara is a very hardworking girl, willing to press the breaking point if it means completing her job. While she recognizes the dangerous situations she's put herself through over the years, her compassion for others and her protective nature override her better judgement. The North Atlantic has done little to chill her heart, which is protected by her warm kindness, a large stock of hot food and drink, and a thick fur-lined coat. She often fears her work isn't enough, even if the given situation is beyond her control, and tires herself out as a result. She can also have episodes of extreme dejection when she feels like she’s “failed” a given task, self-imposed or otherwise, stemming from how few of Titanic’s passengers and crew survived the liner’s infamous disaster. This huggable heroine deserves the praise she gets, so pet her head for a job well done.

Bio: Not much is currently known of Cara’s life before becoming commander of Cunard steamer ‘Carpathia’ in 1903. In fact not much is known of her life except her career with Cunard, as she was never a stand-out girl like her colleagues Lucy and Maggy Brown, even her own sister Carmen and half-sisters Susan and Elisa Grady had seen elite painters and musicians grace their decks. Cara was, for lack of a better term, more of a working girl than a refined lady - a go-anywhere, do-anything sort that never cared much for the spotlight. However, one night would change this.

Sunday, April 14, 1912.

Cara was headed for the Mediterranean as she’d always done during the winter seasons. She was making good time at a steady 14kn as night fell over the North Atlantic, closing her third day on a ten-day voyage. But at roughly midnight, her wireless set beeped out an urgent message. Harold Cottam, the steamer’s lone wireless operator, rushed onto the bridge. He awoke both her and her captain Arthur Rostron with a chilling bulletin: Titanic, which had been sending passenger messages earlier that night and was interrupted by her brother Calvin's ship Californian, had struck an iceberg and was sinking by the head; she was already putting women and children off in the lifeboats. Cara’s confusion became terrified shock. The distressed ship must have only hours to live, and Carpathia was the only ship closest at hand. The clock struck 12:45 when Cara finished briefing her crew on the situation. They would make all possible steam for Titanic’s position and help the foundering liner’s passengers. A race against time had begun. Cara sent a telegram to Titanic's commander that she was making steam for the stricken girl's position at maximum speed. All of the little ship’s hot water was diverted from the passengers' rooms to the boilers, and the steam heating was shut off to maintain pressure. The two triple-expansion engines were pushed to the redline as Carpathia reached a maximum speed of 17kn. While the engines didn't shake themselves to pieces this sprint would permanently cripple Cara’s vessel in later years.

Cara perched herself at the forecastle peak, scanning the horizon ahead for icebergs while Cottam tapped away at the wireless set to keep in touch with Titanic. The cooks still in the galley began making hot soup and drinks, and set hot lamps near the assembled trays to keep them warm while they waited for the survivors.

The next three hours were a blur of knifing ice-cold water, dodging frozen mountains, and speeding through the darkness. Only a single green flare from one of the lifeboats signaled Cara had reached the Titanic's position, but all was quiet. There was no ship to save, no cries of people in the water. There was nothing but cold, dark stillness. The boats’ occupants had borne witness to the world’s worst peacetime marine disaster, and they were the only ones still alive.

The rescue operation began in earnest as dawn broke the next morning. Cara spent it shuttling across the deck with steaming coffee, tea, cocoa and hot soup from the galley, and serving her warm goods to the Titanic survivors. One survivor, a blonde lady in a black coat and red skirt, was half-frozen and bleeding from her leg. Cara took the lady to her ship’s sick bay and stitched the two garish cuts as best she could, wrapping them in bandages to prevent infection. Harold Bride, Titanic’s junior wireless operator, had to have his feet bandaged from frostbite. The lady Cara had on her shoulder, in this moment, was confirmed to be Titanic’s commander Anna Carlisle. Cara gave up her XO suite as well as her thick fur-lined coat to help Anna warm up, and brought hot soup and tea. Throughout the slow plod to New York Anna was silent, her cyan eyes vacant and glassed over, her face pale, blank, expressionless. Icicles hung from her black coat, and like her crimson skirt there was an ugly tear along the right side. Her blonde hair was messy and crusted in frost, her skin deathly white.
Cara couldn’t look at this girl and not feel guilty. She had to turn away another commander, Anna’s sister Olivia, for fear of traumatizing the survivors even more. She couldn’t even save everyone on Titanic, and all she had to show for her efforts were ruined engines, an ice-crusted bow, and twenty wooden lifeboats. While Mr. Rostron tried to assuage the little heroine’s grief, she had a pit in her gut that she could’ve, maybe should’ve, done more to help.
The trip back to New York was a long and slow ride, the first sign of permanent damage from pushing her engines so hard. Anna, after two days of silence, asked Cara if her cousin Tom Andrews (chief architect at Harland & Wolff and designer of the Olympic class liners) came out of the boats. Cara shook her head and apologized, and tried to reassure her icy friend that God would rest his soul. Anna was wracked with grief, and asked Cara for time to herself.

On April 18, a huge throng of reporters and journalists crowded the dock as she pulled into White Star Pier 59. They weren’t there to comfort the survivors, though. All they were waiting for was to hear the full story of the unsinkable ship going down on her maiden voyage. Cara tried keeping the crowd from ascending her gangway and harassing her passengers, and mustered her stokers to act as a bodyguard, but it wasn’t until police were called to the dock that the crowd stood clear and let the survivors disembark. A blue-coated man, later introduced as Marco Plymouth, was found in the XO suite laying hands on Anna. Cara escorted him off the ship despite his protests, and threatened throwing him in the harbor if she found him trying to come aboard against her orders again.

It was about a month before she and Marco met on good terms, and after several conversations became good friends. In the summer she joined him and Anna when they went out to the beach on Coney Island or spent the day walking the streets of New York, and in the winter she’d join them for a nice hot meal or just watch the snow fall outside. Lucy and Maggy were also a part of this group, as well as Anna’s sisters Olivia and Brittany on occasion. But as the summer of 1914 drew to a close the Great War reared its ugly head. Nine months after the archduke of Austria was assassinated Lusitania was torpedoed. Her own little brother Calvin, captain of Leyland Line cargo ship SS Californian, also fell victim to a U-Boat attack and went down with his ship. Britannic was mined in the following year, and on Christmas Day 1916 Carpathia encountered a U-Boat, SM U-101. Cara and the sub’s captain, Lieutenant Adolf Jäger, kept a neutrality agreement in spirit of the holiday and their crews exchanged gifts. From Adolf came a bar of German chocolate, and in return Cara gave an empty journal and a pen, as well as one of her extra coats. They separated after the holiday and never ended up meeting again, though Cara recorded in her log that Adolf was a good bloke.

In early July 1918 Cara dropped anchor in Liverpool on a fuel stop and ran into Marco. Catching up over iced cups of coffee on Carpathia’s forecastle, Marco mentioned he sank two German battleships and damaged three others, while single-handedly holding the line off the Jutland peninsula. His command, battlecruiser HMS John Adams, needed extensive repairs after the engagement. During the battle he had also dueled against a German battleship captain, Hans Burgdorf von Leipzig, and taken him prisoner. Cara mentioned her encounter with Adolf Jäger that previous Christmas.

The next day, July 3, Cara had to bid Marco farewell, and Carpathia left for New York on her next trooping voyage.
Little did Cara know that this trip would be her last.

July 17, 1918.

While approaching Liverpool from rounding the northern coast of Ireland, Carpathia encountered a U-Boat, SM U-55. Cara ordered her ship put to full steam and outrun the sub, but the fastest speed her ruined machinery could manage was 11 knots (A U-Boat’s surface speed at this time was around 12-13kn). A torpedo shot towards the steamer’s holds and punched a hole in the port side. The bow quickly settled low as the compartments filled. A second torpedo detonated near the foremost boiler room and quickly flooded the compartment. A third torpedo dealt Carpathia’s killing blow on the starboard side. However, while three torpedoes slammed into her sides, the little hero ship refused to sink in any less than two hours. Sydney Dawes, commander of the nearby destroyer HMS Snowdrop, helped as best she could to ensure Cara's cargo of troops could escape and stayed to take on the surviving crew.

There's more to Cara's story after Carpathia was sunk, but unfortunately her paper trail ends at this. Rumor had it she returned home to Liverpool after the war ended, but it couldn't be confirmed until she made sail in October 1940 to assist the Royal Army with troop carriage for the European Theater of a second War to End All Wars. The new ship, modeled after the wrecked Carpathia and built according to the updated Boart of Trade regulations, was sleek, spacious and fast. The two quadruple-expansion steam engines could push her at a top speed of 23 knots. During the trooping voyages "Carpathia II" sailed in convoy with the very same ship she tried to save all those years ago, which was also rebuilt based on the lessons of April 1912. Anna kept in touch with Cara while Titanic was laid up in Belfast, following an incident in the Mediterranean which was resolved when Marco arrived on scene.

Cara, Anna, her sisters and Marco remain very close friends, and often arrange pleasure cruises aboard Carpathia during the off-season. Her early career made her a celebrity, but as time ticked on she silently faded to obscurity. While she prefers not to mention her wild midnight race, she accepts the fact it was one of her finer hours. However, she also adds it was pure luck that she arrived on scene with her ship intact.

Description

“I might not be big, strong or fast. But if a job needs doing I’m your girl.”

Name: Lady Caroline Rachel Princeton-Grady, Dame of Liverpool
Alias: Cara, Carrie
DOB: 19 September 1887
Height: 5’10”
Weight: 175lb
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Brown
Notable Features: Circular scar on the left side of her waist, about 1/2" across

Current Residence: Liverpool, England

Employer: Cunard Line
Command: RMS Carpathia, hull 274 of C.S. Swan & Hunter, Wallsend, England.

Personality: Cara is a very hardworking girl, willing to press the breaking point if it means completing her job. While she recognizes the dangerous situations she's put herself through over the years, her compassion for others and her protective nature override her better judgement. The North Atlantic has done little to chill her heart, which is protected by her warm kindness, a large stock of hot food and drink, and a thick fur-lined coat. She often fears her work isn't enough, even if the given situation is beyond her control, and tires herself out as a result. She can also have episodes of extreme dejection when she feels like she’s “failed” a given task, self-imposed or otherwise, stemming from how few of Titanic’s passengers and crew survived the liner’s infamous disaster. This huggable heroine deserves the praise she gets, so pet her head for a job well done.

Bio: Not much is currently known of Cara’s life before becoming commander of Cunard steamer ‘Carpathia’ in 1903. In fact not much is known of her life except her career with Cunard, as she was never a stand-out girl like her colleagues Lucy and Maggy Brown, even her own sister Carmen and half-sisters Susan and Elisa Grady had seen elite painters and musicians grace their decks. Cara was, for lack of a better term, more of a working girl than a refined lady - a go-anywhere, do-anything sort that never cared much for the spotlight. However, one night would change this.

Sunday, April 14, 1912.

Cara was headed for the Mediterranean as she’d always done during the winter seasons. She was making good time at a steady 14kn as night fell over the North Atlantic, closing her third day on a ten-day voyage. But at roughly midnight, her wireless set beeped out an urgent message. Harold Cottam, the steamer’s lone wireless operator, rushed onto the bridge. He awoke both her and her captain Arthur Rostron with a chilling bulletin: Titanic, which had been sending passenger messages earlier that night and was interrupted by her brother Calvin's ship Californian, had struck an iceberg and was sinking by the head; she was already putting women and children off in the lifeboats. Cara’s confusion became terrified shock. The distressed ship must have only hours to live, and Carpathia was the only ship closest at hand. The clock struck 12:45 when Cara finished briefing her crew on the situation. They would make all possible steam for Titanic’s position and help the foundering liner’s passengers. A race against time had begun. Cara sent a telegram to Titanic's commander that she was making steam for the stricken girl's position at maximum speed. All of the little ship’s hot water was diverted from the passengers' rooms to the boilers, and the steam heating was shut off to maintain pressure. The two triple-expansion engines were pushed to the redline as Carpathia reached a maximum speed of 17kn. While the engines didn't shake themselves to pieces this sprint would permanently cripple Cara’s vessel in later years.

Cara perched herself at the forecastle peak, scanning the horizon ahead for icebergs while Cottam tapped away at the wireless set to keep in touch with Titanic. The cooks still in the galley began making hot soup and drinks, and set hot lamps near the assembled trays to keep them warm while they waited for the survivors.

The next three hours were a blur of knifing ice-cold water, dodging frozen mountains, and speeding through the darkness. Only a single green flare from one of the lifeboats signaled Cara had reached the Titanic's position, but all was quiet. There was no ship to save, no cries of people in the water. There was nothing but cold, dark stillness. The boats’ occupants had borne witness to the world’s worst peacetime marine disaster, and they were the only ones still alive.

The rescue operation began in earnest as dawn broke the next morning. Cara spent it shuttling across the deck with steaming coffee, tea, cocoa and hot soup from the galley, and serving her warm goods to the Titanic survivors. One survivor, a blonde lady in a black coat and red skirt, was half-frozen and bleeding from her leg. Cara took the lady to her ship’s sick bay and stitched the two garish cuts as best she could, wrapping them in bandages to prevent infection. Harold Bride, Titanic’s junior wireless operator, had to have his feet bandaged from frostbite. The lady Cara had on her shoulder, in this moment, was confirmed to be Titanic’s commander Anna Carlisle. Cara gave up her XO suite as well as her thick fur-lined coat to help Anna warm up, and brought hot soup and tea. Throughout the slow plod to New York Anna was silent, her cyan eyes vacant and glassed over, her face pale, blank, expressionless. Icicles hung from her black coat, and like her crimson skirt there was an ugly tear along the right side. Her blonde hair was messy and crusted in frost, her skin deathly white.
Cara couldn’t look at this girl and not feel guilty. She had to turn away another commander, Anna’s sister Olivia, for fear of traumatizing the survivors even more. She couldn’t even save everyone on Titanic, and all she had to show for her efforts were ruined engines, an ice-crusted bow, and twenty wooden lifeboats. While Mr. Rostron tried to assuage the little heroine’s grief, she had a pit in her gut that she could’ve, maybe should’ve, done more to help.
The trip back to New York was a long and slow ride, the first sign of permanent damage from pushing her engines so hard. Anna, after two days of silence, asked Cara if her cousin Tom Andrews (chief architect at Harland & Wolff and designer of the Olympic class liners) came out of the boats. Cara shook her head and apologized, and tried to reassure her icy friend that God would rest his soul. Anna was wracked with grief, and asked Cara for time to herself.

On April 18, a huge throng of reporters and journalists crowded the dock as she pulled into White Star Pier 59. They weren’t there to comfort the survivors, though. All they were waiting for was to hear the full story of the unsinkable ship going down on her maiden voyage. Cara tried keeping the crowd from ascending her gangway and harassing her passengers, and mustered her stokers to act as a bodyguard, but it wasn’t until police were called to the dock that the crowd stood clear and let the survivors disembark. A blue-coated man, later introduced as Marco Plymouth, was found in the XO suite laying hands on Anna. Cara escorted him off the ship despite his protests, and threatened throwing him in the harbor if she found him trying to come aboard against her orders again.

It was about a month before she and Marco met on good terms, and after several conversations became good friends. In the summer she joined him and Anna when they went out to the beach on Coney Island or spent the day walking the streets of New York, and in the winter she’d join them for a nice hot meal or just watch the snow fall outside. Lucy and Maggy were also a part of this group, as well as Anna’s sisters Olivia and Brittany on occasion. But as the summer of 1914 drew to a close the Great War reared its ugly head. Nine months after the archduke of Austria was assassinated Lusitania was torpedoed. Her own little brother Calvin, captain of Leyland Line cargo ship SS Californian, also fell victim to a U-Boat attack and went down with his ship. Britannic was mined in the following year, and on Christmas Day 1916 Carpathia encountered a U-Boat, SM U-101. Cara and the sub’s captain, Lieutenant Adolf Jäger, kept a neutrality agreement in spirit of the holiday and their crews exchanged gifts. From Adolf came a bar of German chocolate, and in return Cara gave an empty journal and a pen, as well as one of her extra coats. They separated after the holiday and never ended up meeting again, though Cara recorded in her log that Adolf was a good bloke.

In early July 1918 Cara dropped anchor in Liverpool on a fuel stop and ran into Marco. Catching up over iced cups of coffee on Carpathia’s forecastle, Marco mentioned he sank two German battleships and damaged three others, while single-handedly holding the line off the Jutland peninsula. His command, battlecruiser HMS John Adams, needed extensive repairs after the engagement. During the battle he had also dueled against a German battleship captain, Hans Burgdorf von Leipzig, and taken him prisoner. Cara mentioned her encounter with Adolf Jäger that previous Christmas.

The next day, July 3, Cara had to bid Marco farewell, and Carpathia left for New York on her next trooping voyage.
Little did Cara know that this trip would be her last.

July 17, 1918.

While approaching Liverpool from rounding the northern coast of Ireland, Carpathia encountered a U-Boat, SM U-55. Cara ordered her ship put to full steam and outrun the sub, but the fastest speed her ruined machinery could manage was 11 knots (A U-Boat’s surface speed at this time was around 12-13kn). A torpedo shot towards the steamer’s holds and punched a hole in the port side. The bow quickly settled low as the compartments filled. A second torpedo detonated near the foremost boiler room and quickly flooded the compartment. A third torpedo dealt Carpathia’s killing blow on the starboard side. However, while three torpedoes slammed into her sides, the little hero ship refused to sink in any less than two hours. Sydney Dawes, commander of the nearby destroyer HMS Snowdrop, helped as best she could to ensure Cara's cargo of troops could escape and stayed to take on the surviving crew.

There's more to Cara's story after Carpathia was sunk, but unfortunately her paper trail ends at this. Rumor had it she returned home to Liverpool after the war ended, but it couldn't be confirmed until she made sail in October 1940 to assist the Royal Army with troop carriage for the European Theater of a second War to End All Wars. The new ship, modeled after the wrecked Carpathia and built according to the updated Boart of Trade regulations, was sleek, spacious and fast. The two quadruple-expansion steam engines could push her at a top speed of 23 knots. During the trooping voyages "Carpathia II" sailed in convoy with the very same ship she tried to save all those years ago, which was also rebuilt based on the lessons of April 1912. Anna kept in touch with Cara while Titanic was laid up in Belfast, following an incident in the Mediterranean which was resolved when Marco arrived on scene.

Cara, Anna, her sisters and Marco remain very close friends, and often arrange pleasure cruises aboard Carpathia during the off-season. Her early career made her a celebrity, but as time ticked on she silently faded to obscurity. While she prefers not to mention her wild midnight race, she accepts the fact it was one of her finer hours. However, she also adds it was pure luck that she arrived on scene with her ship intact.