Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 14

GAMBLERS WERE POLITE

In one boat were two card sharps. With the same cleverness that enabled them to win money on board they obtained places in the boats with the women.

In the boat with the gamblers were women in their night-gowns and women in evening dress. None of the boats were properly equipped with food, but all had enough bread and water to keep the rescued from starving until the expected arrival of help.

To the credit of the gamblers who managed to escape, it should be said that they were polite and showed the women every courtesy. All they wanted was to be sure of getting in a boat. That once accomplished, they reverted to their habitual practice of politeness and suavity. They were even willing; to do a little manual labor, refusing to let women do any rowing.

The people on that particular boat were a sad group. Fathers had kissed their daughters good-bye and husbands had parted from their wives. The card sharps, however philosophized wonderfully about the will of the Almighty and how strange His ways. They said that one must be prepared for anything; that good always came from evil, and that every cloud had a silvery lining{.}

"Who knows?" said one. "It may be that everybody on board will be saved." Another added: "Our duty is to the living. You women owe it to your relatives and friends not to allow this thing to wreck your reason or undermine your health." And they took pains to see that all the women who were on the life-boat had plenty of covering to keep them from the icy blasts of the night.

HELP IN SIGHT

The survivors were in the life-boats until about 5.30 A. M. About 3 A.

M. faint lights appeared in the sky and all rejoiced to see what was supposed to be the coming dawn, but after watching for half an hour and seeing no change in the intensity of the light, the disappointed sufferers realized it was the Northern Lights. Presently low down on the horizon they saw a light which slowly resolved itself into a double light, and they watched eagerly to see if the two lights would separate and so prove to be only two of the boats, or whether these lights would remain together, in which case they should expect them to be the lights of a rescuing steamer.

To the inexpressible joy of all, they moved as one! Immediately the boats were swung around and headed for the lights. Someone shouted: "Now, boys, sing!" and everyone not too weak broke into song with "Row for the sh.o.r.e, boys." Tears came to the eyes of all as they realized that safety was at hand. The song was sung, but it was a very poor imitation of the real thing, for quavering voices make poor songs. A cheer was given next, and that was better--you can keep in tune for a cheer.

THE "LUCKY THIRTEEN"

"Our rescuer showed up rapidly, and as she swung round we saw her cabins all alight, and knew she must be a large steamer. She was now motionless and we had to row to her. Just then day broke, a beautiful quiet dawn with faint pink clouds just above the horizon, and a new moon whose crescent just touched the horizon. 'Turn your money over, boys,' said our cheery steersman, 'that is, if you have any with you,' he added.

"We laughed at him for his superst.i.tion at such a time, but he countered very neatly by adding: 'Well, I shall never say again that 13 is an unlucky number; boat 13 has been the best friend we ever had.' Certainly the 13 superst.i.tion is killed forever in the minds of those who escaped from the t.i.tanic in boat 13.

"As we neared the Carpathia we saw in the dawning light what we thought was a full-rigged schooner standing up near her, and presently behind her another, all sails set, and we said: 'They are fisher boats from the Newfoundland bank and have seen the steamer lying to and are standing by to help.' But in another five minutes the light shone pink on them and we saw they were icebergs towering many feet in the air, huge, glistening ma.s.ses, deadly white, still, and peaked in a way that had easily suggested a schooner. We glanced round the horizon and there were others wherever the eye could reach. The steamer we had to reach was surrounded by them and we had to make a detour to reach her, for between her and us lay another huge berg."

A WONDERFUL DAWN

Speaking of the moment when the Carpathia was sighted. Mrs. J. J. Brown, who had cowed the driveling quartermaster, said:

"Then, knowing that we were safe at last, I looked about me. The most wonderful dawn I have ever seen came upon us. I have just returned from Egypt. I have been all over the world, but I have never seen anything like this. First the gray and then the flood of light. Then the sun came up in a ball of red fire. For the first time we saw where we were. Near us was open water, but on every side was ice. Ice ten feet high was everywhere, and to the right and left and back and front were icebergs.

Some of them were mountain high. This sea of ice was forty miles wide, they told me. We did not wait for the Carpathia to come to us, we rowed to it. We were lifted up in a sort of nice little sling that was lowered to us. After that it was all over. The pa.s.sengers of the Carpathia were so afraid that we would not have room enough that they gave us practically the whole s.h.i.+p to ourselves."

It had been learned that some of the pa.s.sengers, in fact all of the women pa.s.sengers of the t.i.tanic who were rescued, refer to "Lady Margaret," as they called Mrs. Brown as the strength of them all.

TRANSFERRING THE RESCUED

Officers of the Carpathia report that when they reached the scene of the t.i.tanic's wreck there were fifty bodies or more floating in the sea. Only one mishap attended the transfer of the rescued from the life-boats. One large collapsible life-boat, in which thirteen persons were seated, turned turtle just as they were about to save it, and all in it were lost.

THE DOG HERO

Not the least among the heroes of the t.i.tanic disaster was Rigel, a big black Newfoundland dog, belonging to the first officer, who went down with the s.h.i.+p. But for Rigel the fourth boat picked up might have been run down by the Carpathia. For three hours he swam in the icy water where the t.i.tanic went down, evidently looking for his master, and was instrumental in guiding the boatload of survivors to the gangway of the Carpathia.

Jonas Briggs, a seaman abroad the Carpathia, now has Rigel and told the story of the dog's heroism. The Carpathia was moving slowly about, looking for boats, rafts or anything which might be afloat. Exhausted with their efforts, weak from lack of food and exposure to the cutting wind and terror-stricken, the men and women in the fourth boat had drifted under the Carpathia's starboard bow. They were dangerously close to the steams.h.i.+p, but too weak to shout a warning loud enough to reach the bridge.

The boat might not have been seen were it not for the sharp barking of Rigel, who was swimming ahead of the craft, and valiantly announcing his position. The barks attracted the attention of Captain Rostron; and he went to the starboard end of the bridge to see where they came from and saw the boat. He immediately ordered the engines stopped, and the boat came alongside the starboard gangway.

Care was taken to get Rigel aboard, but he appeared little affected by his long trip through the ice-cold water. He stood by the rail and barked until Captain Rostron called Briggs and had him take the dog below.

A THRILLING ACCOUNT OF RESCUE

Mr. Wallace Bradford, of San Francisco, a pa.s.senger aboard the Carpathia, gave the following thrilling account of the rescue of the t.i.tanic's pa.s.sengers.

"Since half-past four this morning I have experienced one of those never-to-be-forgotten circ.u.mstances that weighs heavy on my soul and which shows most awfully what poor things we mortals are. Long before this reaches you the news will be flashed that the t.i.tanic has gone down and that our steamer, the Carpathia, caught the wireless message when seventy-five miles away, and so far we have picked up twenty boats estimated to contain about 750 people.

"None of us can tell just how many, as they have been hustled to various staterooms and to the dining saloons to be warmed up. I was awakened by unusual noises and imagined that I smelled smoke. I jumped up and looked out of my port-hole, and saw a huge iceberg looming up like a rock off sh.o.r.e. It was not white, and I was positive that it was a rock, and the thought flashed through my mind, how in the world can we be near a rock when we are four days out from New York in a southerly direction and in mid-ocean.

"When I got out on deck the first man I encountered told me that the t.i.tanic had gone down and we were rescuing the pa.s.sengers. The first two boats from the doomed vessel were in sight making toward us. Neither of them was crowded. This was accounted for later by the fact that it was impossible to get many to leave the steamer, as they would not believe that she was going down. It was a glorious, clear morning and a quiet sea. Off to the starboard was a white area of ice plain, from whose even surface rose mammoth forts, castles and pyramids of solid ice almost as real as though they had been placed there by the hand of man.

"Our steamer was hove to about two and a half miles from the edge of this huge iceberg. The t.i.tanic struck about 11.20 P. M. and did not go down until two o'clock. Many of the pa.s.sengers were in evening dress when they came aboard our s.h.i.+p, and most of these were in a most bedraggled condition. Near me as I write is a girl about eighteen years old in a fancy dress costume of bright colors, while in another seat near by is a women in a white dress trimmed with lace and covered with jaunty blue flowers.

"As the boats came alongside after the first two all of them contained a very large proportion of women. In fact, one of the boats had women at the oars, one in particular containing, as near as I could estimate, about forty-five women and only about six men. In this boat two women were handling one of the oars. All of the engineers went down with the steamer. Four bodies have been brought aboard. One is that of a fireman, who is said to have been shot by one of the officers because he refused to obey orders. Soon after I got on deck I could, with the aid of my gla.s.ses, count seven boats headed our way, and they continued to come up to half past eight o'clock. Some were in sight for a long time and moved very slowly, showing plainly that the oars were being handled by amateurs or by women.

"No baggage of any kind was brought by the survivors. In fact, the only piece of baggage that reached the Carpathia from the t.i.tanic is a small closed trunk about twenty-four inches square, evidently the property of an Irish female immigrant. While some seemed fully dressed, many of the men having their overcoats and the women sealskin and other coats, others came just as they had jumped from their berths, clothed in their pajamas and bath robes."

THE SORROW OF THE LIVING

Of the survivors in general it may be said that they escaped death and they gained life. Life is probably sweet to them as it is to everyone, but what physical and mental torture has been the price of life to those who were brought back to land on the Carpathia--the hours in life-boats, amid the cras.h.i.+ng of ice, the days of anguish that have succeeded, the horrors of body and mind still experienced and never to be entirely absent until death affords them its relief.

The thought of the nation to-day is for the living. They need our sympathy, our consolation more than do the dead, and, perhaps, in the majority of the cases they need our protecting care as well.

CHAPTER X. ON BOARD THE CARPATHIA

AID FOR THE SUFFERING AND HYSTERICAL--BURYING THE DEAD--VOTE OF THANKS TO CAPTAIN ROSTRON OF THE CARPATHIA--IDENTIFYING THOSE SAVED--COMMUNICATING WITH LAND--THE Pa.s.sAGE TO NEW YORK.

IF the scenes in the life-boats were tear-bringing, hardly less so was the arrival of the boats at the Carpathia with their bands of terror-stricken, grief-ridden survivors, many of them too exhausted to know that safety was at hand. Watchers on the Carpathia were moved to tears.

"The first life-boat reached the Carpathia about half-past five o'clock in the morning," recorded one of the pa.s.sengers on the Carpathia. "And the last of the sixteen boats was unloaded before nine o'clock. Some of the life-boats were only half filled, the first one having but two men and eleven women, when it had accommodations for at least forty. There were few men in the boats. The women were the gamest lot I have ever seen. Some of the men and women were in evening clothes, and others among those saved had nothing on but night clothes and raincoats."

After the Carpathia had made certain that there were no more pa.s.sengers of the t.i.tanic to be picked up, she threaded her way out of the ice fields for fifty miles. It was dangerous work, but it was managed without trouble.

AID FOR THE SUFFERING AND HYSTERICAL

The shrieks and cries of the women and men picked up in life-boats by the Carpathia were horrible. The women were clothed only in night robes and wrappers. The men were in their night garments. One was lifted on board entirely nude. All the pa.s.sengers who could bear nourishment were taken into the dining rooms and cabins by Captain Rostron and given food and stimulants. Pa.s.sengers of the Carpathia gave up their berths and staterooms to the survivors.

As soon as they were landed on the Carpathia many of the women became hysterical, but on the whole they behaved splendidly. Men and women appeared to be stunned all day Monday, the full force of the disaster not reaching them until Tuesday night. After being wrapped up in blankets and filled with brandy and hot coffee, the first thoughts were for their husbands and those at home. Most of them imagined that their husbands had been picked up by other vessels, and they began flooding the wireless rooms with messages. It was almost certain that those who were not on board the Carpathia had gone down to death.

One of the most seriously injured was a woman who had lost both her children. Her limbs had been severely torn; but she was very patient.