Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...Mowbray, Jay Henry
History
Sinking of the "Titanic" : $b most appalling ocean horror; with graphic descriptions of hundreds swept to eternity beneath the waves ...
Mowbray, Jay Henry
Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
“Mrs. Astor cried out, and wanted to get out of the boat with her
husband, but the Colonel patted her on the back and said something in a
low tone of voice.”
A nephew of Senator Clark, of Butte, Montana, said Astor stood by the
after rail looking after the lifeboats until the Titanic went down.
Brayton says: “Captain Smith stood on the bridge until he was washed
off by a wave. He swam back, stood on the bridge again and was there
when the Titanic went to the bottom.” Brayton says that Henry B.
Harris, the theatrical manager, “tried to get on a lifeboat with his
wife, but the second officer held him back with a gun. A third-class
passenger who tried to climb in the boats was shot and killed by a
steward. This was the only shooting on board I know of.”
Another account of Captain Smith’s death is as follows:
CAPTAIN SMITH DIED A HERO
Captain Smith died a hero’s death. He went to the bottom of the
ocean without effort to save himself. His last acts were to place a
five-year-old child on the last lifeboat in reach, then cast his life
belt to the ice ridden waters and resign to the fate that tradition
down the ages observed as a strict law.
It was left to a fireman of the Titanic to tell the tale of the death
of Captain Smith and the last message he left behind him. This man had
gone down with the vessel and was clinging to a piece of wreckage about
half an hour before he finally joined several members of the Titanic’s
company on the bottom of a boat which was floating among other wreckage.
Harry Senior, the fireman, with his eight or nine companions in
distress, had just managed to get a firm hold on the upturned boat,
when they saw the Titanic rearing preparatory to her final plunge. At
that moment, according to the fireman’s tale, Captain Smith jumped into
the sea from the promenade deck of the Titanic with an infant clutched
tenderly in his arms.
It only took a few strokes to bring him to the upturned lifeboat, where
a dozen hands were stretched out to take the little child from his arms
and drag him to safety.
“Captain Smith was dragged on the upturned boat,” said the fireman. “He
had on a life buoy and a life preserver. He clung there a moment and
then he slid off again. For a second time he was dragged from the icy
water. Then he took off his life preserver, tossed the life buoy on the
inky waters and slipped into the water again with the words; ‘I will
follow the ship.’”
At that time there was only a circle of troubled water and some
wreckage to show the spot where the biggest of all ocean steamers had
sunk out of sight.
“No,” said the stoker, as he waved a sandwich above his head, holding
a glass of beer in the other hand, “Captain Smith never shot himself.
I saw what he did. He went down with that ship. I’ll stake my life on
that.”
THE SAME STORY REPEATED.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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