Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
“When we finally were ready to move the order was called from the deck
to go to the stern hatch and take off some men. There was no hatch
open and we could see no men, but our crew obeyed orders, much to our
alarm, for they were throwing wreckage over and we could hear a
cracking noise resembling china breaking. We implored the men to pull
away from the ship, but they refused, and we pulled three men into the
boat who had dropped off the ship and were swimming toward us. One man
was drunk and had a bottle of brandy in his pocket which the
quartermaster promptly threw overboard and the drunken man was thrown
into the bottom of the boat and a blanket thrown over him. After these
three men were hauled in, they told how fast the ship was sinking and
we all implored them to pull for our lives to get out from the suction
when she should go down. The lights on the ship burned till just
before she went. When the call came that she was going I covered my
face and heard some one call, ‘She’s broken.’ After what seemed a long
time I turned my head only to see the stern almost perpendicular in
the air so that the full outline of the blades of the propeller showed
above the water. She then gave her final plunge and the air was filled
with cries. We rowed back and pulled in five more men from the sea.
Their suffering from the icy water was intense and two men who had
been pulled into the stern afterwards died, but we kept their bodies
with us until we reached the _Carpathia_, where they were taken aboard
and Monday afternoon given a decent burial with three others.
“After rescuing our men we found several lifeboats near us and an
order was given to tie together, which we obeyed. It did not seem as
if we were together long when one boat said they could rescue more
could they get rid of some of the women and children aboard and some
of them were put into our boat. Soon after cries of ‘Ship ahoy’ and a
long low moan came to us and an officer in command of one of the boats
ordered us to follow him. We felt that we were already too crowded to
go, but our men, with quartermaster and boatswain in command, followed
the officer and we pulled over to what proved to be an overturned boat
crowded with men. We had to approach it very cautiously, fearing our
wash would sweep them off. We could take only a few and they had to
come very cautiously. The other boat (No. 12) took most of them and we
then rowed away.”
This rescue, which Mrs. Stephenson so well describes, occurred at
dawn. Her story now returns to the prior period of night time.
“The sea was smooth and the night brilliant with more stars than I had
ever seen.
“Occasionally a green light showed which proved to be on the Emergency
boat, and our men all recognized it as such. We all prayed for dawn,
and there was no conversation, everyone being so awed by the disaster
and bitterly cold.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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