disaster, Hichens denied the accounts by the passengers and crew in lifeboat 6. He had been initially concerned about the suction from the Titanic and later by the fact that being a mile away from the wreck, with no compass and in complete darkness, they had no way of returning to the stricken vessel. Later life Hichens served with the Army Service Corps during World War One; by 1919 he was third officer on a small ship named Magpie. Then Hichens moved to Devon sometime in the 1920s where Robert purchased a motorboat from a man named Harry Henley and operated a boat charter. In 1931, his wife and children left him and moved to Southampton. Over the next two years, Hichens traveled the country looking for work, and it is believed that he took to heavy drinking. In 1933, Hichens was jailed for attempting to murder Henley and was released in 1937. Death On 23 September 1940, at age 58, Hichens died of heart failure aboard the ship English Trader, while it was moored off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland. His body was buried in Section 10, Lair 244 of Trinity Cemetery, in Aberdeen. Depicted in fiction Hichens' conduct was featured in the 1997 blockbuster, Titanic, in which he was played by Paul Brightwell. He was depicted as a tall thin man with a cockney accent, when in fact he was 5' 6", had a stocky build and spoke with a pronounced Cornish accent. He was also depicted saying "if you don't shut that hole in your face" to Molly Brown, but in fact those words were spoken by a steward in lifeboat 8. Unused footage from Titanic that featured Brightwell as Hitchens was also used in Cameron's documentary film Ghosts of the Abyss wherein he was portrayed refusing an order to return to the sinking Titanic, stating "It's our lives now, not theirs". Hichens' conduct was also depicted in the 1996 miniseries Titanic, in which he was played by Martin Evans. Hichens is shown telling the survivors in his lifeboat to "pipe down" when they get excited about spotting a flare from a ship on the horizon. He strongly protests when Molly Brown starts encouraging the other women to row towards the light, and she threatens to throw Hichens overboard. This depiction is more accurate than in the 1997 blockbuster. Hichens was portrayed by Arthur Gross who was