Titanic, First Accounts

by Tim Maltin

  All of the harrowing details will have been told by others, so that I need go into them only briefly. Just to say that the two gentlemen who sat with me at the small table in the dining-room, a Mr. W. C. Dulles from Goshen, N. Y., and a Mr. Hoyt of New York City were not saved. The horror of it all is forced upon one by the sight of these poor people who such a short time ago were so happy on board that splendid ship, but who are now mourning the loss of people dear to them. Most of the lifeboats were filled with women, as when it became apparent that the ship was really sinking, and people were anxious to leave, the officers stood by the lifeboats with revolvers, I am told, and would let only enough men get in each boat to row it.

  I feel that I owe my life to the fact that the young lady lost control of herself and went into the first boat, pulling me after her. There is also the fact that at first when we left the ship people hung back and they had difficulty in filling the first two or three lifeboats. My inclination was to stay aboard and wait a while until we saw whether there really was danger of the ship sinking. Later on when they wouldn’t let the men go I could not have left. Many husbands and sons were separated from their women folks by this rule. One young lad whom I knew was with his father on the ship to the last. They were both thrown into the sea by the plunge which preceded the explosion. They clung to a collapsible boat to which fifty or sixty others were trying to cling until his father’s strength gave out and he was forced to let go, leaving his son to be rescued some time later. One family of Canadians from Winnipeg, whom I knew—three girls and a mother—are here, but the father and son are gone, held back at pistol point.

  A poor little lady in the next room to me on the Carpathia last night was hysterical all night and between her sobs I could hear her say: “He said he would shoot him if he followed me.” She lost her husband and I think they had not been long married. The heartbroken people, as they leaned over the rail of the Carpathia looking down into each lifeboat as it came alongside to see if their missing dear ones were aboard, were pitiful objects to behold. It was terrible to look down into these boats as they came alongside, into the upturned faces of these women, in some cases standing in water up to their ankles with dead men lying in the bottom of the boat anxiously scanning our faces at the rail to see if their dear ones were safe on board.

  Some of the rescued people who were the last to leave the ship told me that when they left the orchestra was playing in the “Lounge,” and that it was brave but ghastly to hear them. The stewards and crew were wonderful, and I didn’t hear of anyone who lost his head or nerve. Only those who have been as near to death in a shipwreck as we were can realize the awfulness of some of the scenes which the rescued witnessed, or how thankful they feel to have been saved.

  I can hardly realize now that the great ship and all those brave ladies and gentlemen have really gone down while I am here alive. It was a beautiful night and the sunrise the next morning from our small boat was the most glorious sunrise I have ever seen. Truly the ways of the Almighty are beyond our feeble understanding.

  In finishing this account I wish to give testimony to the kindness and sympathy of the passengers and crew of the Cunard steamship Carpathia, which rescued us. In ten minutes the wireless operator on this ship would have gone to bed and our message would not have reached this vessel. We might still have been on the sea in small boats or swamped and drowned. The stewards and crew have worked ceaselessly to make us comfortable and feed us while the passengers have given up their berths and submitted without a murmur to having their trip terminate in New York when they expected to be in Naples at that time.

  WILLIAM T. SLOPER

  Vera Dick,

  Washington Post,

  APRIL 19, 1912

  The night on which the big steamship Titanic crushed out its life against the iceberg juggernaut was very clear, and there was a tang in the air. I was on deck and was almost thrown from my feet by the shock of the collision. I have heard it said that the sinking of the Titanic was caused by an explosion in the engine room. This is untrue.

  I saw the iceberg that brought down the Titanic. The ship officers saw it, too, and the bells were rung to reverse the course. The boat actually escaped the exposed part of the berg, but grounded on the unexposed part.

  There were terrified screams from all parts of the boat. Women came rushing upon deck with hardly any clothes upon them. Half a score were in their night gowns, and many were in their bare feet. Capt. Smith and a man who was said to be the personal aide to the President of the United States were among the coolest men on board.

  They ordered the men into line, and then the women were called to one side. I saw a number of immigrants rushing up the stairs, yelling and screaming and fighting to get to the boats. Officers drew guns and told them that if they moved toward the boats they would be shot dead.

  There were some terrible scenes. I saw fathers parting from their children and giving them an encouraging pat on the shoulders. I saw men kissing their wives and telling them that they would be with them shortly.

  One man said there was absolutely no danger, that the boat was the finest ever built, with water-tight compartments, and that it could not sink. That seemed to be the general impression.

  One of the most interesting sidelights on the whole tragedy is the way some of the women in evening dress faced the tragedy. It was evident that they did not appreciate the danger.

  One man handed a life-saver to a woman with the remark, “We are wearing these this season. They are most becoming.”

  One woman had a fox terrier in her arms, and the man told her to try a life-saver on the dog.

  “Everybody is wearing them now,” he laughed.

  It was evident that many people thought that there was too much agitation, and that for a boat of that kind to sink was absolutely impossible.

  Some of the people on the boat have said I was brave because I wanted to remain on board until the last, and refused to take a seat in the first boat when the captain wanted to put me in. As a matter of fact, there were women older and more nervous than I, and I thought they should have the first chance. I realized the danger, but I am young and felt equal to the situation.

  Capt. Smith, or maybe it was Mr. Moore—I don’t know which—finally insisted that I leave. “This is no place for a woman, and you will have to go in the next boat,” they told me. I then allowed myself to be put off the Titanic, although I would like to have stayed until the last. I could have jumped overboard as some of the men did.

  A band was playing on the Titanic when it went down. The captain had ordered the band to play, and to play continuously, so that the women would not feel that they were in danger. The bandsmen were loyal. They kept on playing jolly, happy tunes. They were playing some American air when the guards shot the jaw off an immigrant who tried to crowd into one of the boats, brushing the women aside.

  They played, and their airs were mingled with the shrieks of terrified women. And as I went over the side, they were still playing—discordantly it seemed—and I guess they kept on until the Titanic was swallowed up by the ocean.

  The boat in which I was placed was rowed quickly away from the Titanic. We kept looking back, like Lot’s wife. It might have cost us our lives, or it might have delayed us, but still we looked back at the great Titanic, with its lines of light indicating the floors like a skyscraper when the occupants are at work.

  It was about 11:45 when we struck the iceberg, and it was 2:20 when the boat went down.

  As we looked back, we saw the lowest floor of lights wiped out by the waterline. Then another floor went out, then another, and another, one floor of lights after another, as the Titanic settled. There was no suddenness about it. It was rhythmic—tragically, heart-rendingly rhythmic.

  In the boat in which I was there were women in their night gowns and bare feet. The night was very clear, starlight, but very, very
cold. Many of them shivered horribly. Some of them talked of suicide—those who had lost loved ones. We drifted about all that night, subsisting on bread and water—that was all we had— and then were picked up by the Carpathia. When we took an account of the people who were saved, we found 44 deck hands, 73 engineers, 210 first-class passengers, 125 second-class, 144 third class, 16 stewardesses, and 38 stewards.

  Some of the rescued passengers died afterward on the Carpathia, and were buried at sea. There were none of the usual formalities. It was desired that no attention be directed to the occurrences. The rescued passengers were frantic enough already.

  Walter Nichols,

  Brooklyn Daily Eagle,

  APRIL 19, 1912

  I’ve been a sailor for twenty years, and I’ve crossed about 300 times, but this!

  We left Southampton on Wednesday, April 10, with fine weather. Everything aboard was ship shape. We got to Cherbourg at about six that night and took on a lot of people there, though not quite so many as we took on at Southampton, counting steerage and all. We only stopped for a little at Queenstown, leaving there between 2 and 2:30 on Thursday afternoon. Our first day’s run was 488 knots. This was counting from the time we left Queenstown until 12 o’clock on Friday. From Friday noon to Saturday noon she ran 544 knots, and the next day 546. She wasn’t trying for a record because she was a new ship, and this was her first trip.

  All day Sunday it was very cold, although the weather was fine. There was ice all around us. There were services on board that day, in the first and second cabins. I was busy with my work and didn’t go. Sunday night was my night off, and I went to bed at about 10 o’clock. I got off at 9, but I fooled around for a couple of hours before I turned in. I didn’t go on deck. On a big boat like that a man working inside doesn’t go on deck often. Sometimes you don’t get a peep at the water for days at a time. It’s just like working in a big hotel. But I knew that it was mighty cold outside and I knew what the reason was, too. I’ve crossed enough to know that when it gets cold like that at this season it’s because there’s icebergs around. And if we fellows down below knew it I guess the navigating officers knew it, too.

  My bunk was amidships on deck E, the main thoroughfare of the boat. There are still two decks below that, F and G. At 11:40 I was awakened by feeling a bit of a vibration. The ship went on for a bit and then the engines stopped. Nobody was frightened and some of the men in the room with me didn’t want to trouble to get up to look out and see what had happened. I put on my coat and took a run out to look. It was all black outside and I couldn’t see anything except that there was some ice on the deck forward.

  Half of the men went back to bed. Nobody believed anything could be wrong. They had such faith in the ship. Everybody believed in her.

  It was bitter cold outside, and I was glad enough to get back into the cabin where I bunked. It’s located not far from the engine room—the engine rooms are just behind and below us—and within a few minutes of the time we struck I could hear the engineers passing along the order to close the watertight doors. One man would tell it to the next and he would pass it on to someone else.

  Well, as I say, some of the men went back to bed. I stayed up and sat around talking with some of the fellows for I should say three-quarters of an hour after the collision, when the second steward in charge of our cabin came in and gave us orders to report up on deck. That meant that we were to report to the positions assigned to us in the lifeboat drill. My place was with lifeboat No. 15. So I went up on deck A, where the lifeboats are. On my way up I noticed some of the passengers about, but no one seemed to be worried or excited. I passed by the gymnasium on my way. Inside were a number of passengers amusing themselves. One man was riding the bicycle, one of those exercise machines, and another was punching the bag.

  No. 15, my boat, was the after boat on the starboard side. All the odd numbered boats are on one side of the ship and the even numbered boats on the other. There were ten of us to man the boat, which is a big one, holding about seventy to eighty persons. When I got on deck it was still dark, but I could hear the wireless machine sputter. I didn’t see any icebergs or anything. Up on deck A, which is the boat deck, there were only the boat crews. At least that is all I could see. I saw them working away at Boat No. 11 and Boat No. 13. When I looked down I saw that several of the boats were already in the water. The ship was brightly lit and I could see the boats, with people in them, floating about in the reflection of the light from the ship.

  The officer in charge of the boats on that part of the deck had a revolver in his hand. He gave his orders quietly and we didn’t realize even then that anything serious was the matter. The ship was down in the water a little forward but you couldn’t notice it much from where I was.

  We stood in line waiting for orders while boats 11 and 13 were swung out on the davits and lowered. The crews would make them ready and get into them. Then they would lower them to deck B, where the passengers were. The boats are held by three ropes, one on either end and one in the middle. They are cut loose by knocking out a block in the center after she is in the water.

  I guess we waited for some minutes while they were getting the two other boats away. They were mighty careful not to let one boat go before the other had got clear. It’s a drop of some ninety or a hundred feet from the boat deck to the water, and they had to look sharp to keep one boat from fouling the other.

  After we got in our boat and were waiting to be lowered to deck B I heard the band playing. I was looking sharp after what I was doing and I don’t remember what they played. I could just hear a sort of confused sound of the instruments, enough to know that they were playing. Someone told me afterward that the last piece they played was “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” They didn’t have a chance, poor devils. They were cooped up in one of the reception rooms, and they were drowned like rats, every one of them.

  Altogether it took us about twenty minutes to fill our lifeboat and get away. There was no confusion and no rush. On deck B, where we loaded the passengers, First Officer Murdoch was in charge. He saw to the giving of the orders to the men that handled the boats. The order was to take women only, and the officers kept saying, “We can only take women. No man is allowed to get in.”

  But no one seemed particularly anxious to get in. The officer kept on talking to the women, sort of urging them. “Come, now,” he’d say. “Get in or we’ll have to leave you behind. The boat’s going to leave and we can’t wait for you.” Several women stepped back as they saw the boat and refused to leave their men folks when they saw that they would have to go alone. One woman stepped up to the rail against which we holding the boat, looked into it and then stepped back as though she didn’t like it. I saw Colonel Astor kiss his wife good-bye. I knew him because he had been pointed out to me in the saloon. I didn’t know any of the rest.

  All the time we were there the officer kept talking quiet like, urging women to get in. He didn’t say anything about danger. I guess he didn’t want to have any rush and he just talked, quiet like, and kept sort of joking them along, telling them to hurry or they’d be left, and things like that. But they all seemed to think that the ship was a better place to be than in a lifeboat. Many of the boats weren’t full. We only had about fifty people in ours. Some of the men passengers had to urge the women to go, and some of the women whose men folks didn’t happen to be close to them refused to go.

  Our boat was one of the last to get away. We held on until we were sure No. 13 was clear. Then we dropped to the water. None of us was excited and some of the men seemed to take it as a sort of little excursion in the boat. None of us had any idea that the Titanic would sink. We knew that the Olympic was on the way to us and we expected that she would come in the morning to pick up the boats and to take off the people that were left on the Titanic.

  As soon as we struck the water we started to pull away from the ship, so as not to foul against h
er side. As soon as we got a little distance off I could see that she was down a good deal by the head because the propeller was sticking half way out of the water. When we were a couple of hundred yards away from the ship I saw two flashes and heard two revolver shots coming from near the bridge. All the boats had been lowered and I didn’t know what the shots meant. By this time it must have been about 1 o’clock in the morning and the lights were still going on the main part of the ship. The other boats were all about us and we kept shouting to one another to keep close together. After we left the ship about four other boats got away. I kept pulling away at my oar and we rowed around just to keep warm. The women we had on board were huddled down in the center of the boat. Some of them were standing, but most of them were squatting down.

  We saw the ship gradually settling down at the bow, until the forepart of the ship wasn’t visible. Part of the time the band was still playing and we could hear the wireless. About an hour after we left her the fore part of the boat was going under and that was the first time we realized that she was going to sink. Because up to this time the men in the boat had taken the whole thing as a sort of holiday.

  The ship sank slowly and steadily and then we heard a little explosion that must have been the first boiler. After that the lights began to go out in different parts of the ship. Then came a big explosion. We could see a mass of black smoke. The boat seemed to lift right up out of the water and tilt up on end, and then seemed to break and drop back. For one moment she was right up in the air standing on her nose.