Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  Later we saw the great ship pitch forward and we heard two explosions and screams. A little later she dove to the bottom. We heard the sucking noise she made. Many had jumped and were sucked into the vortex. With them went my husband.

  We were too excited to feel cold. Many wept all night. When the Carpathia came we were taken on board, given breakfast and clothed. When we were eating, a man who looked like a human derelict and acted like one half mad came into the room crying: ‘I’m Ismay! I’m Ismay!’

  (New York World, 19 April 1912)

  BOAT NO. 3

  This was lowered on the starboard side at 1 a.m. and contained somewhere between forty and fifty people, including ten male passengers and an abnormally high number of crew members – fifteen. In charge of the boat was Able Seaman George Moore from Southampton.

  I went on the starboard side of the boat deck and helped clear the boats. I swung three of the boats out and helped to lower No. 5 and No. 7. When we started lowering the boats all I saw was first-class ladies and gentlemen all lined up with their lifebelts on and coming out of the saloon. When we swung No. 3 out, I was told to jump in the boat and pass the ladies in. I was told that by the First Officer, Mr Murdoch. After we got so many ladies in, and there were no more about, we took in men passengers. We had thirty-two in the boat, all told, and then we lowered away. Two seamen were in the boat. There were a few men passengers and five or six firemen. They got in after all the ladies and children. Mr Murdoch got all the women and children in, and the men started to jump in. When we thought we had a boat full, we lowered away.

  I took charge of the boat at the tiller. The passengers were not anxious to get in the first lot of boats and I myself thought that there was nothing serious the matter until we got away from the ship and she started settling down. You could see her head gradually going down. We were about a quarter of a mile away and I saw the forward part of her go down. It appeared to me as if she broke in half, and then the after part went. I can remember two explosions.

  I made no effort to go back. All the people in the boat wanted to get clear of the ship. They did not want to go near her. They kept urging me to keep away, to pull away from her. In fact, they wanted to get farther away. I heard the cries of the people in the water – everybody did – but they did not last long. I do not think anybody could live much more than ten minutes in that cold water. If we had gone back, we would only have had the boat swamped. Just five or six pulling on that boat’s gunwales would no doubt have capsized the boat.

  We rowed for a bright light, two or three miles away on the starboard bow. It was just one single light. I thought it was a fisherman. We kept pulling for it until daylight, but we could not see a thing of it then.

  At dawn we were surrounded by ice. There were lots of bergs around, and there was a great field of ice, I should say between twenty and thirty miles long.

  (US Inquiry, 25 April 1912)

  Mrs William T. Graham and her daughter Margaret were among the passengers rescued on boat No. 3.

  I counted our fellow passengers. We were thirty-four, including two sailors, two ship’s boys and a half a dozen or more other men. The men didn’t say a word. The women quarrelled a little because some of them didn’t have room to sit down. There was a long argument as to how far we should go out. Some seemed to think that we ought to stay very near, because, they said, the ship wouldn’t sink anyway. Others were in favour of going a way out.

  The trouble was that there was no one in command, and the two sailors couldn’t do much. The men were silent, and that is why the women did most of the talking. There were sixteen oar-locks in our boat, but we lost three oars right off because those who handled them didn’t know anything about rowing. Then I took the oar myself. I don’t think I helped very much. I was cold, and I was dressed very lightly. Everybody seemed rather dazed, but not so very excited. That came later.

  We went out about three-quarters of a mile, I think, following another boat which carried some green lanterns. That was the only thing we had to go by. Behind us the lights on the Titanic went out, and in an hour and a half the big ship went down. It was in that hour and a half that the passengers got their fright. We couldn’t tell what was going on, on the ship – but those shrieks and cries! I’ll never forget them. And there were many shots. I saw many dead. That was frightful.

  (Trenton Evening Times, 20 April 1912)

  EMERGENCY CUTTER NO. 1

  This was launched on the starboard side at 1.10 a.m. Despite having a capacity of forty, it was allowed to leave with just twelve people on board – seven crew and five passengers.

  Lady Duff Gordon and her husband, Sir Cosmo, left the Titanic on this boat. After the Titanic had gone down, it was suggested that emergency boat No. 1 should return to the scene to pick up survivors but it failed to do so. Sir Cosmo’s behaviour on the night was strongly criticized after the British inquiry into the tragedy heard that he had offered each of the seven crewmen £5. This was widely interpreted as a bribe to ensure that they did not turn back and risk the boat being capsized by taking on more people. Sir Cosmo maintained that the money was simply an act of generosity to replace their lost kit. Lady Duff Gordon told US reporters:

  For two hours we cruised around. We were probably a thousand feet away from the Titanic. Suddenly I clutched the sides of the lifeboat. I had seen the Titanic give a curious shiver. Almost immediately we heard several pistol shots and a great screaming arise from the decks. Then the boat’s stern lifted in the air and there was a tremendous explosion. After this the Titanic dropped back again. The awful screaming continued. Two minutes later there was another great explosion.

  The whole forward part of the great liner dropped down under the waves. The stern rose a hundred feet, almost perpendicularly. The boat stood up like an enormous black finger against the sky. Little figures hung to the point of the finger and dropped into the water. The screaming was agonizing. I never heard such a continued chorus of utter despair and agony.

  The great prow of the Titanic slowly sank as though a great hand was pushing it gently down under the waves. As it went, the screaming of the poor souls left on board seemed to grow louder. It took the Titanic perhaps two minutes to sink after that last explosion. It went down slowly without a ripple.

  Then began the real agonies of the night. Up to that time no one in our boat – nor I imagine in any of the other boats – had really thought that the Titanic was going to sink. For a moment an awful silence seemed to hang over all, and then from the water all about arose a bedlam of shrieks and cries. There were women and men clinging to the bits of wreckage in the icy waters. It was at least an hour before the last shrieks died out. I remember the very last cry was of a man who had been calling: ‘My God! My God!’ He cried monotonously, in a dull, hopeless way. For an entire hour there had been an awful chorus of shrieks, gradually dying into a hopeless moan, until this last cry that I speak of. Then all was silent.

  Having seen his wife leave on an earlier boat, C. E. Henry Stengel joined the Duff Gordons in the emergency cutter.

  After the boats as far as I could see on the starboard side were loaded, I turned towards the bow. There was a small boat that they called an emergency boat, in which there were three people, Sir Duff Gordon and his wife and Miss Francatelli. I asked the officer if I could get into that boat. There was no one else around that I could see except the people working at the boats. The officer said: ‘Jump in.’ The railing was rather high. I jumped onto it and rolled into the boat. The officer then said: ‘That is the funniest thing I’ve seen tonight,’ and he laughed quite heartily. That rather gave me some encouragement. I thought perhaps it was not so dangerous as I imagined. After getting down part of the way, the boat began to tip and somebody hollered to stop lowering. Somebody cut the line and we went on down.

  I think between Sir Duff Gordon and myself we decided which way to go. We followed a light that was to the bow of the boat. Most of the boats rowed towards that light, and after the gre
en lights began to burn I suggested it was better to turn around and go towards the green lights because I presumed there was an officer of the ship in that boat.

  I saw the first row of port lights of the Titanic go under the water. I saw the next port lights go under the water, and finally the bow was all dark. When the last lights on the bow went under, I said: ‘There is danger here, we had better row away from here. This is a light boat, and there may be suction when the ship goes down. Let us pull away.’ The other passengers agreed, and we pulled away from the Titanic, and after that we stopped rowing for a while. She was going down by the bow and all of a sudden there were four sharp explosions. Then she dipped and the stern stood up in the air, and then the cries began for help. I should think that the people who were left on the boat began to jump over. There was an awful wail.

  (US Inquiry, 30 April 1912)

  Fireman Robert Pusey told the Board of Trade inquiry into the disaster:

  I heard one of the men say, ‘We have lost our kit,’ and then someone said: ‘Never mind, we will give you enough to get a new kit.’ I was surprised that no one suggested going back. I was surprised that I did not do so, but we were all half dazed.

  It does occur to me now that we might have gone back and rescued some of the strugglers. I heard Lady Duff Gordon say to Miss Francatelli, ‘You have lost your beautiful nightdress,’ and I said, ‘Never mind, you have saved your lives; but we have lost our kit.’ Then Sir Cosmo offered to provide us with new ones.

  (British Inquiry, 20 May 1912)

  BOAT NO. 8

  This boat was launched at around 1.10 (although some sources state that it was the first to be lowered on the port side) and was the setting for one of the most touching moments in the whole drama when elderly New York department store owners Isidor and Ida Straus refused to be separated. Instead they both stayed on the doomed liner where they died together.

  Philadelphia banker Robert W. Daniel witnessed the scene before making his own escape.

  I was dictating some letters to my stenographer when a steward came to my door and said that the ship was in danger. The idea of the big Titanic sinking seemed to me ridiculous. I simply went back to my state room and to bed. All the while I could hear running and scampering on the upper decks.

  Soon a steward came to my door and yelled at me the ship was sinking. Then I did put on a lifebelt and went to deck B. On the rear of the deck I met Mr and Mrs Straus. I heard him say to her: ‘Now, dear, I want you to do as I say and get on that next lifeboat.’

  Mrs Straus replied: ‘I have been begging you to get into one of the small boats since the first one was lowered and you have refused. I will get into this one if you will.’

  Mr Straus shook his head. It was very plain he had made up his mind to drown rather than take a place in the lifeboat and there were not enough boats to go round.

  He had an arm about Mrs Straus and hers was about him. They were in plain view of everyone in that part of the ship.

  The last lifeboat had gone and the Titanic was sinking fast. When the boat began sinking everybody seemed to have gone insane. Men and women fought, bit and scratched to be in line for the lifeboats. Look at my black eye and cut chin. I got them in the fight.

  I dived into the water. Keeping afloat, I came upon a lifeboat. There were thirty-seven persons on this boat and I had no right to ask to be picked up, but I was picked up.

  Every one of the persons rescued was on the open sea for hours. We had not a bite to eat. The wind, coming over the sea of ice and the great bergs, chilled us to the marrow. Several persons in the boats were frozen to death.

  (New York World, 19 April 1912)

  The Countess of Rothes was on her way to Canada to join her fruit-farmer husband. She virtually took command of lifeboat No. 8 when the seamen placed in charge proved inadequate rowers, and was one of the passengers who spotted a mystery ship on the horizon.

  It was pitiful, our rowing towards the lights of a ship that disappeared. We in boat number eight saw some tramp steamer’s mast headlights and then saw a glow of red as it swung toward us for a few minutes, then darkness and despair.

  There were two stewards in boat number eight with us and thirty-one women. The name of one of the stewards was Crawford. We were lowered quietly to the water and when we had pushed off from the Titanic’s side I asked the seaman if he would care to have me take the tiller, as I knew something about boats. He said, ‘Certainly, lady.’ I climbed aft into the stern and asked my cousin to help me.

  The first impression I had as we left the ship was that, above all things, we mustn’t lose our self-possession; we had no officer to take command of our boat and the little seaman had to assume all responsibility. He did it nobly, alternately cheering us with words of encouragement, then rowing doggedly. Then Signora de Satode Penasco began to scream for her husband. It was too horrible. I left the tiller to my cousin and slipped down beside her, to be of what comfort I could. Poor woman, her sobs tore our hearts and her moans were unspeakable in their sadness. Miss Cherry stayed at the tiller of our boat until the Carpathia picked us up.

  The most terrible part of the whole thing was seeing the rows of portholes vanishing one by one. Several of us wanted to row back and see if there was not some chance of rescuing anyone that had possibly survived, but the majority in the boat argued that we had no right to risk their lives on the bare chance of finding anyone alive after the final plunge.

  Indeed I saw – we all saw – a ship’s lights not more than three miles away. For three hours we pulled steadily for the two masthead lights that showed brilliantly in the darkness. For a few minutes we saw the ship’s port light, then it vanished, and the masthead lights got dimmer on the horizon until they too disappeared.

  Roberta Maioni was maid to the Countess of Rothes.

  An elderly officer, with tears streaming down his cheeks, helped us into one of the lifeboats. He was Captain Smith – the master of that ill-fated vessel. As the lifeboat began to descend, I heard him say: ‘Goodbye, remember you are British.’

  We dropped over sixty feet down the side of that huge vessel and it seemed an eternity before the lifeboat reached the water. There were about thirty-five of us in the boat including three of the crew – a seaman, a steward, and a cook. These men had been told to get away from the Titanic as quickly as they could, lest the lifeboat be drawn under by the suction of the sinking vessel.

  When we were at a safe distance they stopped rowing and we watched the Titanic sink rapidly into the black depths. She was ablaze with electric light until the last minute.

  Then I heard the terrible last cries of the twelve hundred men, women, and children left aboard her, rising above the din of the explosion of the boilers. For a moment the sky was lighted up, with black masses thrown up into the air, and we saw that dreadful iceberg towering above us, like some grim monster about to devour its prey. Then came the awful silence – more terrible than the sounds that had gone before.

  The sea was calm, otherwise no one would have been saved, but by now it was studded with the wreckage and with bodies of the dead and dying. Some poor souls reached the lifeboats, only to be pushed back into the relentless ice-cold sea, for the boats were full and in grave danger of swamping.

  We had one loaf of bread in our lifeboat and this had been trampled upon. There was neither drinking water, compass nor clock and our single lamp would not light. Because of this, we drifted away from other lifeboats.

  We rowed all through the night, taking turns at the sweep. I took my place and remember that my long hair was very much in the way for it often caught between my hands and the oar and caused me terrible pain. They steered our boat towards the lights of a tramp steamer in the distance, but we had no means of attracting attention and the steamer’s lights slowly passed out of sight. The disappearance of the tramp steamer seemed to leave us alone on the ocean – a handful of people in an open boat – and we were faced with a worse fate than drowning. To add to our misery, the sea b
ecame rough and our boat was pitching and tossing helplessly.

  At last the morning came and we saw several icebergs around us, grim spectres that would crush our frail craft like an eggshell. As our eyes became accustomed to the light, however, we saw that one of the objects that we had taken for an iceberg was a ship – the Cunard liner Carpathia – called to our rescue by the heroic wireless operator of the Titanic, Mr Phillips, whom we left behind to perish. He stayed in his cabin to the very last, directing vessels to the scene of the disaster.

  We soon reached the Carpathia and were taken up her great side one more time in a kind of cradle – just a piece of board, strong hands, and willing hands at the top. This was no easy operation, for the lifeboat was being dashed along the Carpathia’s side and, while waiting to be taken up, we were jerked backwards and forwards by the fury of the waves.

  As soon as I reached the deck, kindly hands put a rug around my shoulders and pressed brandy to my trembling lips. I was safe, thank God, and little the worse for my adventure.

  Caroline Bonnell of Youngstown, Ohio, took a turn at the oars.

  As the boat was being loaded, the officer in charge pointed out a light that glowed dimly in the distance on the surface of the sea, and directed our sailors to row to that, land their passengers and return to the Titanic for more. As we were rowed away we saw that the great liner was settling. We kept our boat pointed towards the light to which we were to row. As a matter of fact there were two lights, one red and the other white. Sailormen on the Carpathia told us subsequently that the lights might have been those of a fishing boat caught in the ice and drifting with it – but who can tell?

  After a while our sailors ceased rowing, saying it was of no use to keep on. Then we women tried to row, with the double light our objective. We rowed and rowed, but did not seem to gain on the light, which, like a will-o’-the-wisp, seemed ever to evade us. Finally we gave up and sat huddled in the lifeboat.