Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
Some of our boatmates on the _Titanic’s_ decks had seen the same white
light to which I have already made reference in Chapter II, and the
argument was now advanced that it must have been a sailing ship, for a
steamer would have soon come to our rescue; but a sailing ship would
be prevented by wind, or lack of facilities in coming to our aid. I
imagined that it was the lights of such a ship that we again saw on
our port side astern in the direction where, when dawn broke, we saw
the icebergs far away on the horizon.
Some time before dawn a call came from the stern of the boat, “There
is a steamer coming behind us.” At the same time a warning cry was
given that we should not all look back at once lest the equilibrium of
our precarious craft might be disturbed. Lightoller took in the
situation and called out, “All you men stand steady and I will be the
one to look astern.” He looked, but there was no responsive chord that
tickled our ears with hope.
[Illustration: PASSENGERS OF THE OLYMPIC AWAITING EVENTS--AN
UNUSUAL VIEW OF FOUR OF HER DECKS]
The incident just described happened when we were all standing up,
facing forward in column, two abreast. Some time before this, for some
undefined reason, Lightoller had asked the question, “How many are
there of us on this boat?” and someone answered “thirty, sir.” All
testimony on the subject establishes this number. I may cite
Lightoller, who testified: “I should roughly estimate about thirty.
She was packed standing from stem to stern at daylight. We took all on
board that we could. I did not see any effort made by others to get
aboard. There were a great number of people in the water but not near
us. They were some distance away from us.”
Personally, I could not look around to count, but I know that forward
of me there were eight and counting myself and the man abreast would
make two more. As every bit of room on the Engelhardt bottom was
occupied and as the weight aboard nearly submerged it, I believe that
more than half our boatload was behind me. There is a circumstance
that I recall which further establishes how closely packed we were.
When standing up I held on once or twice to the life-preserver on the
back of my boatmate in front in order to balance myself. At the same
time and in the same way the man in my rear held on to me. This
procedure, being objectionable to those concerned, was promptly
discontinued.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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