Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 7

"Just then Mr. Roebling came up, too, and told us to hurry and get into the third boat. Mr. Roebling and Mr. Case bustled our party of three into that boat in less time than it takes to tell it. They were both working hard to help the women and children. The boat was fairly crowded when we three were pushed into it, and a few men jumped in at the last moment, but Mr. Roebling and Mr. Case stood at the rail and made no attempt to get into the boat.

"They shouted good-bye to us. What do you think Mr. Case did then? He just calmly lighted a cigarette and waved us good-bye with his hand.

Mr. Roebling stood there, too--I can see him now. I am sure that he knew that the s.h.i.+p would go to the bottom. But both just stood there."

IN THE FACE OF DEATH

Scenes on the sinking vessel grew more tragic as the remaining pa.s.sengers faced the awful certainty that death must be the portion of the majority, death in the darkness of a wintry sea studded with its ice monuments like the marble shafts in some vast cemetery.

In that hour, when cherished illusions of possible safety had all but vanished, manhood and womanhood aboard the t.i.tanic rose to their sublimest heights. It was in that crisis of the direst extremity that many brave women deliberately rejected life and chose rather to remain and die with the men whom they loved.

DEATH FAILS TO PART MR. AND MRS. STRAUS

"I will not leave my husband," said Mrs. Isidor Straus. "We are old; we can best die together," and she turned from those who would have forced her into one of the boats and clung to the man who had been the partner of her joys and sorrows. Thus they stood hand in hand and heart to heart, comforting each other until the sea claimed them, united in death as they had been through a long life.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

Miss Elizabeth Evans fulfilled this final test of affection laid down by the Divine Master. The girl was the niece of the wife of Magistrate Cornell, of New York. She was placed in the same boat with many other women. As it was about to be lowered away it was found that the craft contained one more than its full quota of pa.s.sengers.

The grim question arose as to which of them should surrender her place and her chance of safety. Beside Miss Evans sat Mrs. J. J. Brown, of Denver, the mother of several children. Miss Evans was the first to volunteer to yield to another.

GIRL STEPS BACK TO DOOM

"Your need is greater than mine," said she to Mrs. Brown. "You have children who need you, and I have none."

So saying she arose from the boat and stepped back upon the deck. The girl found no later refuge and was one of those who went down with the s.h.i.+p. She was twenty-five years old and was beloved by all who knew her.

Mrs. Brown thereafter showed the spirit which had made her also volunteer to leave the boat. There were only three men in the boat and but one of them rowed. Mrs. Brown, who was raised on the water, immediately picked up one of the heavy sweeps and began to pull.

In the boat which carried Mrs. Cornell and Mrs. Appleton there were places for seventeen more than were carried. This too was undermanned and the two women at once took their places at the oars.

The Countess of Rothes was pulling at the oars of her boat, likewise undermanned because the crew preferred to stay behind.

Miss Bentham, of Rochester, showed splendid courage. She happened to be in a life-boat which was very much crowded--so much so that one sailor had to sit with his feet dangling in the icy cold water, and as time went on the sufferings of the man from the cold were apparent. Miss Bentham arose from her place and had the man turn around while she took her place with her feet in the water.

Scarcely any of the life-boats were properly manned. Two, filled with women and children, capsized immediately, while the collapsible boats were only temporarily useful. They soon filled with water. In one boat eighteen or twenty persons sat in water above their knees for six hours.

{ill.u.s.t. caption =

In the darkness and confusion, punctuated by screams, sobs and curses, the boats were lowered after being filled with women, children and a few men. The sketch, drawn from description of eye-witnesses, shows the lofty side of the stricken vessel and the laden boats descending.

THE LIFE-BOATS BEING LOWERED}

{ill.u.s.t. caption = Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

{ill.u.s.t. caption = Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y. LIFE-BOATS, AS SEEN FROM THE CARPATHIA

Photographs taken from the rescue s.h.i.+p as she reached the first boats carrying the t.i.tanic's sufferers.}

heard it, but have forgotten it. But I saw an order for five pounds which this man gave to each of the crew of his boat after they got aboard the Carpathia. It was on a piece of ordinary paper addressed to the Coutts Bank of England.

"We called that boat the 'money boat.' It was lowered from the starboard side and was one of the first off. Our orders were to load the life-boats beginning forward on the port side, working aft and then back on the starboard. This man paid the firemen to lower a starboard boat before the officers had given the order."

Whiteley's own experience was a hard one. When the uncoiling rope, which entangled his feet, threw him into the sea, it furrowed the flesh of his leg, but he did not feel the pain until he was safe aboard the Carpathia.

"I floated on my life-preserver for several hours," he said, "then I came across a big oak dresser with two men clinging to it. I hung on to this till daybreak and the two men dropped off. When the sun came up I saw the collapsible raft in the distance, just black with men. They were all standing up, and I swam to it--almost a mile, it seemed to me--and they would not let me aboard. Mr. Lightoller, the second officer, was one of them.

"'It's thirty-one lives against yours,, he said, 'you can't come aboard. There's not room.'"

"I pleaded with him in vain, and then I confess I prayed that somebody might die, so I could take his place. It was only human. And then some one did die, and they let me aboard.

"By and by, we saw seven life-boats lashed together, and we were taken into them."

MEN SHOT DOWN

The officers had to a.s.sert their authority by force, and three foreigners from the steerage who tried to force their way in among the women and children were shot down without mercy.

Robert Daniel, a Philadelphia pa.s.senger, told of terrible scenes at this period of the disaster. He said men fought and bit and struck one another like madmen, and exhibited wounds upon his face to prove the a.s.sertion. Mr. Daniel said that he was picked up naked from the ice-cold water and almost perished from exposure before he was rescued. He and others told how the t.i.tanic's bow was completely torn away by the impact with the berg.

K. Whiteman, of Palmyra, N. J., the t.i.tanic's barber, was lowering boats on deck after the collision, and declared the officers on the bridge, one of them First Officer Murdock, promptly worked the electrical apparatus for closing the water-tight compartments. He believed the machinery was in some way so damaged by the crash that the front compartments failed to close tightly, although the rear ones were secure.

Whiteman's manner of escape was unique. He was blown off the deck by the second of the two explosions of the boilers, and was in the water more than two hours before he was picked up by a raft.

"The explosions," Whiteman said; "were caused by the rus.h.i.+ng in of the icy water on the boilers. A bundle of deck chairs, roped together, was blown off the deck with me, and I struck my back, injuring my spine, but it served as a temporary raft.

"The crew and pa.s.sengers had faith in the bulkhead system to save the s.h.i.+p and we were lowering a collapsible boat, all confident the s.h.i.+p would get through, when she took a terrific dip forward and the water swept over the deck and into the engine rooms.

"The bow went clean down, and I caught the pile of chairs as I was washed up against the rim. Then came the explosions which blew me fifteen feet.

"After the water had filled the forward compartments, the ones at the stern could not save her, although they did delay the s.h.i.+p's going down.

If it wasn't for the compartments hardly anyone could have got away."

A SAD MESSAGE

One of the t.i.tanic's stewards, Johnson by name, carried this message to the sorrowing widow of Benjamin Guggenheim:

"When Mr. Guggenheim realized that there was grave danger," said the room steward, "he advised his secretary, who also died, to dress fully and he himself did the same. Mr. Guggenheim, who was cool and collected as he was pulling on his outer garments, said to the steward:--

PREPARED TO DIE BRAVELY