Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 13

Mrs. William E. Carter and Mrs. John B. Thayer were in the same life-boat and worked heroically to keep it free from the icy menace.

Although Mrs. Thayer's husband remained aboard the t.i.tanic and sank with it, and although she had no knowledge of the safety of her son until they met, hours later, aboard the Carpathia, Mrs. Thayer bravely labored at the oars throughout the night.

In telling of her experience Mrs. Carter said:

"When I went over the side with my children and got in the boat there were no seamen in it. Then came a few men, but there were oars with no one to use them. The boat had been filled with pa.s.sengers, and there was nothing else for me to do but to take an oar.

"We could see now that the time of the s.h.i.+p had come. She was sinking, and we were warned by cries from the men above to pull away from the s.h.i.+p quickly. Mrs. Thayer, wife of the vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was in my boat, and she, too, took an oar.

"It was cold and we had no time to clothe ourselves with warm overcoats.

The rowing warmed me. We started to pull away from the s.h.i.+p. We could see the dim outlines of the decks above, but we could not recognize anybody."

MANY WOMEN ROWING

Mrs. William R. Bucknell's account of the part women played in the rowing is as follows:

"There were thirty-five persons in the boat in which the captain placed me. Three of these were ordinary seamen, supposed to manage the boat, and a steward.

"One of these men seemed to think that we should not start away from the sinking s.h.i.+p until it could be learned whether the other boats would accommodate the rest of the women. He seemed to think that; more could be crowded into ours, if necessary.

"'I would rather go back and go down with the s.h.i.+p than leave under these circ.u.mstances.' he cried.

"The captain shouted to him to obey orders and to pull for a little light that could just be discerned miles in the distance. I do not know what this little light was. It may have been a pa.s.sing fis.h.i.+ng vessel, which, of course could not know our predicament. Anyway, we never reached it.

"We rowed all night, I took an oar and sat beside the Countess de Rothes. Her maid had an our and so did mine. The air was freezing cold, and it was not long before the only man that appeared to know anything about rowing commenced to complain that his hands were freezing: A woman back of him handed him a shawl from about her shoulders.

"As we rowed we looked back at the lights of the t.i.tanic. There was not a sound from her, only the lights began to get lower and lower, and finally she sank. Then we heard a m.u.f.fled explosion and a dull roar caused by the great suction of water.

"There was not a drop of water on our boat. The last minute before our boat was launched Captain Smith threw aboard a bag of bread. I took the precaution of taking a good drink of water before we started, so I suffered no inconvenience from thirst."

Mrs. Lucien Smith, whose young husband perished, was another heroine. It is related by survivors that she took turns at the oars, and then, when the boat was in danger of sinking, stood ready to plug a hole with her finger if the cork stopper became loose.

In another boat Mrs. Cornell and her sister, who had a slight knowledge of rowing, took turns at the oars, as did other women.

The boat in which Mrs. J. J. Brown, of Denver, Col., was saved contained only three men in all, and only one rowed. He was a half-frozen seaman who was tumbled into the boat at the last minute. The woman wrapped him in blankets and set him at an oar to start his blood. The second man was too old to be of any use. The third was a coward.

Strange to say, there was room in this boat for ten other people. Ten brave men would have received the warmest welcome of their lives if they had been there. The coward, being a quartermaster and the a.s.signed head of the boat, sat in the stern and steered. He was terrified, and the women had to fight against his pessimism while they tugged at the oars.

The women sat two at each oar. One held the oar in place, the other did the pulling. Mrs. Brown coached them and cheered them on. She told them that the exercise would keep the chill out of their veins, and she spoke hopefully of the likelihood that some vessel would answer the wireless calls. Over the frightful danger of the situation the spirit of this woman soared.

THE PESSIMIST

And the coward sat in his stern seat, terrified, his tongue loosened with fright. He a.s.sured them there was no chance in the world. He had had fourteen years' experience, and he knew. First, they would have to row one and a half miles at least to get out of the sphere of the suction, if they did not want to go down. They would be lost, and n.o.body would ever find them.

"Oh, we shall be picked up sooner or later," said some of the braver ones. No, said the man, there was no bread in the boat, no water; they would starve--all that big boatload wandering the high seas with nothing to eat, perhaps for days.

"Don't," cried Mrs. Brown. "Keep that to yourself, if you feel that way.

For the sake of these women and chil-dren, be a man. We have a smooth sea and a fighting chance. Be a man."

But the coward only knew that there was no compa.s.s and no chart aboard.

They sighted what they thought was a fis.h.i.+ng smack on the horizon, showing dimly in the early dawn. The man at the rudder steered toward it, and the women bent to their oars again. They covered several miles in this way--but the smack faded into the distance. They could not see it any longer. And the coward said that everything was over.

They rowed back nine weary miles. Then the coward thought they must stop rowing, and lie in the trough of the waves until the Carpathia should appear. The women tried it for a few moments, and felt the cold creeping into their bodies. Though exhausted from the hard physical labor they thought work was better than freezing.

"Row again!" commanded Mrs. Brown.

"No, no, don't," said the coward.

"We shall freeze," cried several of the women together. "We must row. We have rowed all this time. We must keep on or freeze."

When the coward still demurred, they told him plainly and once for all that if he persisted in wanting them to stop rowing, they were going to throw him overboard and be done with him for good. Something about the look in the eye of that Mississippi-bred oarswoman, who seemed such a force among her fellows, told him that he had better capitulate. And he did.

COUNTESS ROTHES AN EXPERT OARSWOMAN

Miss Alice Farnam Leader, a New York physician, escaped from the t.i.tanic on the same boat which carried the Countess Rothes. "The countess is an expert oarswoman," said Doctor Leader, "and thoroughly at home on the water. She practically took command of our boat when it was found that the seaman who had been placed at the oars could not row skilfully.

Several of the women took their place with the countess at the oars and rowed in turns, while the weak and unskilled stewards sat quietly in one end of the boat."

MEN COULD NOT ROW

"With nothing on but a nightgown I helped row one of the boats for three hours," said Mrs. Florence Ware, of Bristol, England.

"In our boat there were a lot of women, a steward and a fireman. None of the men knew anything about managing a small boat, so some of the women who were used to boats took charge.

"It was cold and I worked as hard as I could at an oar until we were picked up. There was nothing to eat or drink on our boat."

DEATHS ON THE LIFE-BOATS

"The temperature must have been below freezing," testified another survivor, "and neither men nor women in my boat were warmly clothed.

Several of them died. The officer in charge of the life-boat decided it was better to bury the

{ill.u.s.t. caption = SURVIVORS OF THE GREAT MARINE DISASTER

The first authentic photograph,...}

{ill.u.s.t. caption = Copyright by Campbell Studio. N. Y.

COLONEL AND MRS. JOHN JACOB ASTOR

Mrs. Astor, nee Miss Madeline Force, was rescued. Colonel Astor who bravely refused to take a place in the life-boats, went down with the t.i.tanic.}

bodies. Soon they were weighted so they would sink and were put overboard. We could also see similar burials taking place from other life-boats that were all around us."