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)
Looking towards the Carpathia in the faint light, we saw what seemed
to be two large fully rigged sailing ships near the horizon, with all
sails set, standing up near her, and we decided that they must be
fishing vessels off the Banks of Newfoundland which had seen the
Carpathia stop and were waiting to see if she wanted help of any kind.
But in a few minutes more the light shone on them and they stood
revealed as huge icebergs, peaked in a way that readily suggested a
ship. When the sun rose higher, it turned them pink, and sinister as
they looked towering like rugged white peaks of rock out of the sea,
and terrible as was the disaster one of them had caused, there was an
awful beauty about them which could not be overlooked. Later, when the
sun came above the horizon, they sparkled and glittered in its rays;
deadly white, like frozen snow rather than translucent ice.
As the dawn crept towards us there lay another almost directly in the
line between our boat and the Carpathia, and a few minutes later,
another on her port quarter, and more again on the southern and
western horizons, as far as the eye could reach: all differing in
shape and size and tones of colour according as the sun shone through
them or was reflected directly or obliquely from them.
[Illustration: THE CARPATHIA]
We drew near our rescuer and presently could discern the bands on her
funnel, by which the crew could tell she was a Cunarder; and already
some boats were at her side and passengers climbing up her ladders. We
had to give the iceberg a wide berth and make a détour to the south:
we knew it was sunk a long way below the surface with such things as
projecting ledges--not that it was very likely there was one so near
the surface as to endanger our small boat, but we were not inclined to
take any risks for the sake of a few more minutes when safety lay so
near.
Once clear of the berg, we could read the Cunarder's name--C A R P A T
H I A--a name we are not likely ever to forget. We shall see her
sometimes, perhaps, in the shipping lists,--as I have done already
once when she left Genoa on her return voyage,--and the way her lights
climbed up over the horizon in the darkness, the way she swung and
showed her lighted portholes, and the moment when we read her name on
her side will all come back in a flash; we shall live again the scene
of rescue, and feel the same thrill of gratitude for all she brought
us that night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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