The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its LessonsBeesley, Lawrence
History
The Loss of the S. S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons
Beesley, Lawrence
Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean; Titanic (Steamship)
With every sense alert, eyes gazing intently at the horizon and ears
open for the least sound, we waited in absolute silence in the quiet
night. And then, creeping over the edge of the sea where the flash had
been, we saw a single light, and presently a second below it, and in a
few minutes they were well above the horizon and they remained in
line! But we had been deceived before, and we waited a little longer
before we allowed ourselves to say we were safe. The lights came up
rapidly: so rapidly it seemed only a few minutes (though it must have
been longer) between first seeing them and finding them well above the
horizon and bearing down rapidly on us. We did not know what sort of a
vessel was coming, but we knew she was coming quickly, and we searched
for paper, rags,--anything that would burn (we were quite prepared to
burn our coats if necessary). A hasty paper torch was twisted out of
letters found in some one's pocket, lighted, and held aloft by the
stoker standing on the tiller platform. The little light shone in
flickers on the faces of the occupants of the boat, ran in broken
lines for a few yards along the black oily sea (where for the first
time I saw the presence of that awful thing which had caused the whole
terrible disaster--ice--in little chunks the size of one's fist,
bobbing harmlessly up and down), and spluttered away to blackness
again as the stoker threw the burning remnants of paper overboard. But
had we known it, the danger of being run down was already over, one
reason being that the Carpathia had already seen the lifeboat which
all night long had shown a green light, the first indication the
Carpathia had of our position. But the real reason is to be found in
the Carpathia's log:--"Went full speed ahead during the night; stopped
at 4 A.M. with an iceberg dead ahead." It was a good reason.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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