Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
Toward morning we tied up to another boat (No. 16) for fifteen
minutes. We said to those in the other boat: “Surely you can spare us
one man if you have so many.” One man, a fireman, was accordingly
transferred, who assisted in rowing on the starboard side. The women
helped with the oars, and very pluckily too.[7]
[7] “An English girl (Miss Norton) and I rowed for four hours
and a half.”--Mrs. Meyer in New York _Times_, April 14th, 1912.
We were to the weather of the _Carpathia_, and so she stayed there
until we all came down on her. I looked at my watch and it was
something after eight o’clock.
* * * * *
Mrs. Candee’s account of her experience is as follows:
She last saw Mr. Kent in the companionway between Decks A and B. He
took charge of an ivory miniature of her mother, etc., which
afterwards were found on his body when brought into Halifax. He
appeared at the time to hesitate accepting her valuables, seeming to
have a premonition of his fate.
She witnessed the same incident described by Major Peuchen, when a
group of firemen came up on deck and were ordered by the officer to
return below. She, however, gives praise to these men. They obeyed
like soldiers, and without a murmur or a protest, though they knew
better than anyone else on the ship that they were going straight to
their death. No boats had been lowered when these firemen first
appeared upon the Boat Deck, and it would have been an easy matter
for them to have “rushed” the boats.
Her stateroom steward also gave an exhibition of courage. After he had
tied on her life preserver and had locked her room as a precaution
against looters, which she believed was done all through the deck, she
said to this brave man: “It is time for you to look out for yourself,”
to which the steward replied, “Oh, plenty of time for that, Madam,
plenty of time for that.” He was lost.
As she got into boat No. 6, it being dark and not seeing where she
stepped, her foot encountered the oars lying lengthwise in the boat
and her ankle was thus twisted and broken.
Just before her boat was lowered away a man’s voice said: “Captain, we
have no seaman.” Captain Smith then seized a boy by the arm and said:
“Here’s one.” The boy went into the boat as ordered by the captain,
but afterwards he was found to be disabled. She does not think he was
an Italian.
Her impression is that there were other boats in the water which had
been lowered before hers. There was a French woman about fifty years
of age in the boat who was constantly calling for her son. Mrs. Candee
sat near her. After arrival on the _Carpathia_ this French woman
became hysterical.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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