Voices from the Titanic (21 page)

Dan grabbed me in his arms and knocked down men to get me in the boats. As I was put in the boat, he cried, ‘It's all right, little girl. You go and I'll stay a little while. I'll put on a life preserver and jump off and follow your boat.' As our boat started off he threw a kiss at me.

When we reached the deck after the accident we were in darkness. While on the deck I heard at least ten revolver shots. See, one bullet was fired at my cheek. Here are the powder marks.

The men whom I saw were brave, for they pushed aside others when the cowards made for the boats before the women.

When we pulled away from the
Titanic
I think I saw Maj. Butt, whom I knew slightly, standing near where they were loading the boats, with an iron bar or stick in his hand beating back the frenzied crowd who were attempting to overcrowd the lifeboats.

(US press, 19 April 1912)

All was calm and orderly. An officer was in charge. ‘Women and children first,' he said as he directed the lifeboat to be filled. There were many tearful farewells. We and Uncle Jim said ‘goodbye'. Waiting on deck before this I could hear the ship's orchestra playing somewhere off to first class.

The lifeboat was near the stern. I will never forget that as I looked over my right shoulder, steerage was blacked out. It made an impression I never forgot. The lowering of the lifeboat 70ft to the sea was perilous. Davits, ropes, nothing worked properly, so that first one end of the lifeboat was tilted up and then far down. I think it was the only time I was scared.

Lifeboats pulled some distance away from the sinking
Titanic
, afraid of what the suction might do. I am always annoyed at artists' depictions of the sinking of
Titanic
. I've never seen one that came anywhere near the truth. There might have been the slightest ocean swell but it was dead calm. Stars there may have been, but the blackness of the night was so intense one could not see anything like a horizon. As row by row of the porthole lights of the
Titanic
sank into the sea this was about all one could see. When the
Titanic
upended to sink, all was blacked out until the tons of machinery crashed to the bow. This sounded like an explosion which of course it was not. As this happened hundreds of people were thrown into the sea. It isn't likely I shall ever forget the screams of those people as they perished in the water said to be 28 degrees.

The reader will have to understand that at this point in my life I was being brought up as a typical British kid. You were not allowed to cry. You were a ‘little man'. So as a cool kid I lay down in the bottom of the lifeboat and went to sleep. When I awoke it was broad daylight as we approached the
Carpathia
. Looking around over the gunwale it seemed to me like the Arctic. Icebergs of huge size ringed the horizon for 360 degrees.

When we finally did get into a boat we found that our miserable men companions could not row and had only said they could because they wanted to save themselves. Finally I had to take an oar with one of the able seamen in the boat.

Alongside of us was a sailor, who lighted a cigarette and flung the match carelessly among us women. Several women in the boat screamed, fearing they would be set on fire. The sailor replied: ‘We are going to hell anyway and we might as well be cremated now as then.'

The most pathetic thing I heard was that on one of the boats, a collapsible lifeboat, holding sixteen to twenty persons, the party
were up to their knees in water for six hours, so that one man had his legs frozen and eight died.

The eight were thrown overboard to lighten the boat and keep it from being swamped.

(
New York World
, 20 April 1912)

A little after twelve we heard commotion in the corridor and we made inquiries and they told us we had better put on life preservers. We had only five minutes to get ready. We put our fur coats right on over our night dresses and rushed on deck.

Our lifeboat was already full, but there was no panic. The discipline in a way was good. No one hurried and no one crowded. We waited for the fourth boat and were slowly lowered 75ft to the water. The men made no effort to get into the boat. As we pulled away we saw them all standing in an unbroken line on the deck.

There they stood – Major Butt, Colonel Astor, waving a farewell to his wife; Mr Thayer, Mr Case, Mr Clarence Moore, Mr Widener, all multi-millionaires, and hundreds of other men bravely smiling at us all. Never have I seen such chivalry and fortitude.

Before our boat was lowered they called to some miserable specimens of humanity and said, ‘Can you row?' and for the purpose of getting in they answered ‘Yes.' But upon pulling out we found we had a Chinese and an Armenian, neither of whom knew how to row. So there we were in mid-ocean with one able-bodied seaman.

Then my niece took one oar and assisted the seaman and some of the other women rowed on the other side.

Scarcely any of the lifeboats were properly manned. Two, filled with women and children, capsized before our eyes. The collapsible boats were only temporarily useful. They soon partially filled
with water. In one boat eighteen or twenty persons sat in water above their knees for six hours.

Eight men in this boat were overcome, died and were thrown overboard. Two women were in this boat. One succumbed after a few hours and one was saved.

About dawn we saw a ship in the dim distance, seemingly many miles away. This gave us our first hope, but at the same time the wind began to rise and the waves grew large. Our oarsmen and oarswomen were nearly exhausted. Had the wind increased, as it did a few hours afterwards, we would never have escaped. Shortly after eight o'clock the
Carpathia
reached near enough for us to row to it, we having rowed about nine miles, and being the last lifeboat to reach the rescue ship.

With our frozen fingers and feet it was difficult to climb up the wet, slippery rope ladder, but a rope fastened around our waists protected us from slipping into the sea.

(
New York World
, 20 April 1912)

I rushed on deck and saw them lowering the boats. A gentleman standing by kindly handed me into a lifeboat [No. 10], which contained women and children. After it was launched, full of women, accompanied by one sailor, a foreigner jumped from the boat deck and landed in the boat just before it struck the water.

Our English people were very brave. I am sure they realized the
Titanic
was going down.

We rowed away from her with only two men. I was facing the
Titanic
and could see her going down. I saw the lights go out deck after deck. When the water got into the engine room there was an explosion, and then I saw the leviathan part in the middle. The stern rose high in the air; the bow less high. Then she went down slowly, amid heartrending cries for help of hundreds of doomed men and women.

We were floating in mid-ocean among the icebergs for six hours. The night was bitterly cold but very calm. At last we saw the lights of the
Carpathia
coming to our aid; this was a welcome sight. We were taken on her and treated with every kindness, both passengers and crew doing everything they could for the survivors.

(
Western Morning News
, April 1912)

There were at least a thousand in the water at one time, and most of them died of exposure, but a large number perished when the boilers exploded.

At one time while we were waiting for rescue in the boats every time we moved the oars they would strike a corpse. Two women died from exposure in our boat while we were floating about waiting for the
Carpathia
. We buried them over the side of the boat then and there.

The women in the lifeboats were remarkably calm during the time we were on the water, and the children were very brave. Some women rescued babies which were very small, and a few women voluntarily gave up their lives to protect them.

Luckily the women in our boat did not see the sinking of the
Titanic
. It was too dark, and when the day dawned they saw a few sticks and timber floating on the water, and only then did they realize that something terrible had happened.

The
Titanic
was no longer visible above water, and all around us we could see dead bodies floating.

For the first time the women became terrified, and many wept
bitterly, while others seemed dazed. Fortunately we soon sighted the
Carpathia
, and the survivors were quickly taken aboard.

(
Daily Chronicle
, 20 April 1912)

I was helped into the boat and had charge of a baby, whose father and mother were lost. I nursed the little mite for several hours.

Although the night was starry, it was bitterly cold and everyone was nearly starved. We were all huddled up together. It was awful. We could see the lights of the ship slowly disappearing beneath the waves, one by one, until there alone remained the masthead light. Then suddenly the great ship gave a lurch and disappeared gracefully out of sight.

All this time the people on board were shrieking in their death agonies, and the passengers were under the impression that it was the other people in the boats cheering. Only the members of the crew knew what it was and we dared not say.

After the ship had gone an explosion rent the air. The shrieks of the dying were positively awful. During the time we were in the lifeboat we passed about six or seven icebergs. We could hear the music of the band all the time. They were heroes if you like. They were not asked to play, but did it absolutely on their own initiative.

(
Birkenhead News
, 4 May 1912)

As I heard the cry ‘Lifeboats are ready! The ladies will go first!' a bedroom steward rushed by me. ‘Steward,' I asked, ‘are we
sinking?' He stopped, and with perfect coolness said, ‘We are.' The way he said it left no room for doubt.

When the women were assembled for the boats I was urged to get in with the other women in one of the first boats. My brother Philip was with me, and I wanted him to go along, too, but they said that was out of the question. ‘Very well, then, I will wait until the last boat,' I said. I wanted to be near him as long as I could. Then they called me for the last boat. They told me it was my last chance, so I then decided to go. Fortunately there were no more women left, and they let my brother go with me. I assure you, I am mighty glad I did not go away on the first invitation.

(US press, 19 April 1912)

I stood at the lifeboat helping my babies in. When I got them all in the boat the officer said the boat was filled. I begged him to let me go with my children. He said it was impossible, that there were too many. I pleaded with him. Finally, just as the boat was being lowered, he pushed me, and I landed face down. For a long time I didn't see my children. People told me they were in the other end of the boat. Still I was afraid. And then I saw Richard in a sailor's arms, and the others near him. At that moment I was almost overwhelmed by the gladness. My babies are safe.

I do not know how far away we were from the
Titanic
when she sank. I did not look back. We could see drowning men struggling all around us after the boat went down. Some could not have been very far off. There was no more room in our boat and we had to sit and watch men perish. We were afraid to move for fear of sinking the boat, and the ice grinding against it added to our fright.

It seemed ages and ages before we were picked up by the
Carpathia
– the ship of widows. There were 160 women left
husbandless by the wreck, where I was quartered in the second cabin of the
Carpathia
. The scenes of grief were terrible.

But once aboard the
Carpathia
we were in the midst of the most lavish kindness. The ship's company and the passengers were most kind. We were given comfortable quarters and good food while passengers supplied us with clothing. But oh it was so ghastly.

(US press, 20 April 1912)

Everything was done without the slightest disorder. No one got hysterical and there was no confusion except when a child would be put in a boat and the mother told to wait for another one. I saw several instances of this. The crew and the men passengers all behaved as if everything would turn out all right, and we women thought it would.

When I got in one of the boats I found a baby in my possession without the least idea whom it belonged to. I never found out. When we were picked up by the
Carpathia
the baby was taken on board in a net and I never saw it again. I suppose it was found by the mother.

Before we had been in the boat very long we saw the
Titanic
go down. Then we knew that all the people we had left behind were lost. We saw it go plainly, although it was night. The stars were bright and we could see the lights of the ship. Suddenly those in the bow seemed to go out, and then quickly the same thing happened to those in the stern. The band was in the stern and went down playing. We could hear the screams of those on board and cries of ‘Save us!' But of course we could do nothing.

Everybody on the ship blamed the captain. The sailor who rowed our boat told me that he had followed the sea for 45 years
and had never been in any kind of an accident before, except on the
Olympic
when she rammed the
Hawke
. ‘That was under the same captain,' he said, ‘and now I am having my second experience under him.'

(US press, 19 April 1912)