Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  One of these we saw kneeling as if in prayer upon what appeared to be part of a staircase. He was only about twenty yards away from us but it took us half an hour to push our boat through the wreckage and bodies to get to him; even then we could not get very close so we put out an oar for him to get hold of and so pulled him to the boat.

  All the bodies we saw seemed as if they had perished with the cold as their limbs were all cramped up. As we left that awful scene we gave way to tears. It was enough to break the stoutest heart. Just then we sighted the lights of a steamer, which proved to be the steamship Carpathia of the Cunard line. What a relief that was.

  We then made sail and went back to our other boats. By this time day was just beginning to dawn. We then saw we were surrounded with icebergs and field ice. Some of the fields of ice were from 16 to 20 miles long. On our way back we saw one of our collapsible boats waterlogged; there were about eighteen persons on it, so we went and took them off. We left two dead bodies on it, and we were told two others had died and fallen off.

  (The Sphere, 1912)

  Charlotte Collyer, an English passenger travelling to America, lost her husband in the Titanic disaster. She and her young daughter Marjorie survived.

  The first lifeboat was quickly filled and lowered away. Very few men went in her, only five or six members of the crew. The male passengers made no attempt to save themselves. I have never seen such courage, or believed it possible. How the people in the first cabin and the steerage may have acted I do not know, but our second cabin men were heroes. The lowering of the second boat took more time. I think all those women who were really afraid and eager to go had got into the boat. Those who remained were wives who did not want to leave their husbands or daughters who would not leave their parents. The officer in charge was Harold Lowe. Mr Lowe was very young and boyish looking, but somehow he compelled people to obey him. He rushed among the passengers and ordered the women into the boat. Many of them followed him in a dazed kind of way, but others stayed with their men. I should have had a seat in that second boat but I refused to go. It was filled at last and disappeared over the side with a rush. There were two more lifeboats at that part of the deck. A man in plain clothes was fussing about them and screaming instructions. I saw Fifth Officer Lowe order him away. I did not recognize him but from what I have read in the newspapers it must have been Mr Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the Line.

  The third boat was about half full when a sailor caught Marjorie in his arms and tore her away from me and threw her into the boat. She was not even given a chance to tell her father goodbye! ‘You too!’ a man yelled close to my ear. ‘You’re a woman, take a seat in that boat or it will be too late.’ The deck seemed to be slipping under my feet. It was leaning at a sharp angle for the ship was then sinking fast, bows down. I clung desperately to my husband. I do not know what I said but I shall always be glad to think that I did not want to leave him. A man seized me by the arm then another threw both his arms about my waist and dragged me away. I heard my husband say: ‘Go, Lotty, for God’s sake be brave and go! I’ll get a seat in another boat.’

  The men who held me rushed me across the deck and hurled me bodily into the lifeboat. I landed on one shoulder and bruised it badly. Other women were crowding behind me, but I stumbled to my feet and saw over their heads my husband’s back as he walked steadily down the deck and disappeared among the men. His face was turned away so that I never saw it again, but I know that he went unafraid to his death. His last words when he said he would get a seat in another boat buoyed me up until every vestige of hope was gone. Many women were strengthened by the same promise or they must have gone mad and leapt into the sea. I let myself be saved because I believed that he too would escape, but I sometimes envy those whom no earthly power could tear them from their husbands’ arms. There were several such among those brave second cabin passengers. I saw them standing beside their loved ones to the last, and when the roll was called the next day on board the Carpathia they did not answer.

  The boat was practically full and no more women were anywhere near it when Fifth Officer Lowe jumped in and ordered it lowered. The sailors on deck had started to obey him when a very sad thing happened. A young lad hardly more than a schoolboy, a pink-cheeked lad, almost small enough to be counted as a child, was standing close to the rail. He had made no attempt to force his way into the boat though his eyes had been fixed piteously on the officer. Now when he realized that he was really to be left behind his courage failed him. With a cry he climbed upon the rail and leapt down into the boat. He fell among us women and crawled under a seat. I and another woman covered him up with our skirts. We wanted to give the poor lad a chance, but the officer dragged him to his feet and ordered him back onto the ship. We begged for his life. I remember him saying that he would not take up too much room but the officer drew his revolver and thrust it into his face. ‘I give you just ten seconds to get back onto that ship before I blow your brains out,’ he shouted. The lad only begged the harder and I thought I should see him shot where he stood. But the officer suddenly changed his tone. He lowered his revolver and looked the boy squarely in the eyes. ‘For God’s sake be a man,’ he said gently. ‘We have got women and children.’ The little lad turned round-eyed and climbed back over the rail without a word. He was not saved.

  All the women about me were sobbing and I saw my little Marjorie take the officer’s hand. ‘Oh, Mr Man, don’t shoot, please don’t shoot the poor man,’ she was saying and he spared the time to shake his head and smile. He screamed another order for the boat to be lowered, but just as we were getting away, a steerage passenger, an Italian I think, came running the whole length of the deck and hurled himself into the boat. He fell upon a young child and injured her internally. The officer seized him by the collar and by sheer brute strength pushed him back onto the Titanic. As we shot down towards the sea I caught a last glimpse of this coward. He was in the hands of about a dozen men of the second cabin. They were driving their fists into his face and he was bleeding from the nose and mouth. We did not stop at any other decks to take on other women and children. It would have been impossible I suppose. The bottom of our boat slapped the ocean as we came down with a force that I thought must shock us all overboard. We were drenched with ice cold spray but we hung on and the men at the oars rowed us rapidly away from the wreck.

  It was then that I saw for the first time the iceberg that had done such terrible damage. It loomed up in the clear starlight, a bluish white mountain, quite near to us. Two other icebergs lay quite close together, like twin peaks. Later I thought I saw three or four more, but I cannot be sure. Loose ice was floating in the water. It was very cold. We had gone perhaps half a mile when the officer ordered the men to cease rowing. No other boats were in sight and we did not even have a lantern to signal with. We lay there in silence and darkness in that utterly calm sea. I shall never forget the terrible beauty of the Titanic at that moment. She was tilted forward head down with her first funnel partly under the water. To me she looked like an enormous glow worm for she was alight from the rising waterline to her stern – electric light blazing in every cabin, lights on all her decks and lights to her mast head. No sound reached us except the music of the band which I was aware of for the first time. Oh those brave musicians! How wonderful they were! They were playing lively tunes, Ragtime, and they kept it up to the very end. Only the engulfing ocean had power to drown them into silence. The band was playing ‘Nearer My God to Thee’. I could hear it distinctly. The end was very close. It came with a deafening roar that stunned me. Something in the very bowels of the Titanic exploded and millions of sparks shot up to the sky.

  I saw hundreds of human bodies clinging to the wreck or jumping into the water. Cries more terrible than I have ever heard rung in my ears. We went in search of other lifeboats that had escaped. We found four or five and Mr Lowe took command of the little fleet. He ordered that the boats should be linked together with ropes so as to prevent any of them
drifting away and losing itself in the darkness. This proved to be a very good plan and made our rescue all the more certain when the Carpathia came. He then, with great difficulty, distributed most of the women in our boat among the other craft. This took perhaps half an hour. It gave him an almost empty boat and as soon as possible he cut loose and we went in search of survivors.

  I have no idea of the passage of time during the balance of that awful night. Someone gave me a ship’s blanket which seemed to protect me from the bitter cold and Marjorie had the cabin blanket that I had wrapped around her but we were sitting with our feet in several inches of icy water. The salt spray had made us terribly thirsty and there was no fresh water and certainly no food of any kind on the boat. The suffering of most of the women from these various causes was beyond belief. The worst thing that happened to me was when I fell, half fainting against one of the men at the oars, my loose hair was caught in the row-locks and half of it was torn out by the roots.

  I know that we rescued a large number of men from the wreck, but I can recall only two incidents. Not far away from where the Titanic went down we found a lifeboat floating bottom-up. Along the keel were lying about twenty men. They were packed closely together and were hanging on desperately but we saw even the strongest amongst them were so badly frozen that in a few more moments they must have slipped into the ocean. We took them on board one by one, and found that of the number four were already corpses.

  The dead men were cast into the sea. The living grovelled in the bottom of our boat, some of them babbling like maniacs. A little further on we saw a floating door that must have torn loose when the ship went down. Lying upon it face down was a small Japanese. He had lashed himself with a rope to his frail craft using the broken hinges to make his knots secure. As far as we could see he was dead. The sea washed over him every time the door bobbled up and down and he was frozen stiff. He did not answer when he was hailed and the officer hesitated about trying to save him. He had actually turned the boat round, but he changed his mind and went back. The Japanese was hauled on board and one of the women rubbed his chest while others rubbed his hands and feet. In less time than it takes to tell, he opened his eyes. He spoke to us in his own tongue; then, seeing that we did not understand, he struggled to his feet, stretched his arms above his head, stamped his feet and in five minutes or so had almost recovered his strength. One of the sailors near to him was so tired he could hardly pull his oar. The Japanese bustled over, pushed him from his seat, took the oar and worked like a hero until we were finally picked up. I saw Mr Lowe watching him in open-mouthed surprise.

  After this rescue, all my memories are hazy until the Carpathia arrived at dawn. She stopped maybe four miles away from us, and the task of rowing over to her was one of the hardest things that our poor frozen men, and women too, had to face. Many women helped at the oars, and one by one the boats crawled over the ocean to the side of the waiting liner. They let down rope ladders to us, but the women were so weak that it was a marvel that some of them did not lose their hold and drop back into the water. When it came to saving the babies and young children, the difficulty was even greater, as no one was strong enough to risk carrying a living burden. One of the mail clerks on the Carpathia solved the problem. He let down empty United States mail bags. The little ones were tumbled in, the bags locked and so they were hauled up to safety. We all stood at last upon the deck of the Carpathia. More than six hundred and seventy of us, and the tragedy of the scene that followed is too deep for words. There was scarcely anyone who had not been separated from husband, child or friend. Was the last one among the handful saved? We could only rush frantically from group to group, searching the haggard faces, crying out names, and endless questions. No survivor knows better than I the bitter cruelty of disappointment and despair. I had a husband to search for, a husband whom in the greatness of my faith, I had believed would be found in one of the boats. He was not there.

  (Semi-Monthly Magazine, May 1912)

  First-class passenger Daisy Minahan, who lost her brother in the disaster, sent a sworn affidavit detailing her escape in lifeboat No. 14 commanded by Fifth Officer Lowe.

  The crowd surging around the boats was getting unruly. Officers were yelling and cursing at men to stand back and let the women get into the boats. In going from one lifeboat to another we stumbled over huge piles of bread lying on the deck. When the lifeboat was filled there were no seamen to man it. The officer in command of No. 14 called for volunteers in the crowd who could row. Six men offered to go. At times when we were being lowered we were at an angle of 45 degrees and expected to be thrown into the sea. As we reached the level of each deck men jumped into the boat until the officer threatened to shoot the next man who jumped.

  We landed in the sea and rowed to a safe distance from the sinking ship. The officer counted our number and found us to be forty-eight. The officer commanded everyone to feel in the bottom of the boat for a light. We found none. Nor was there bread or water in the boat.

  The Titanic was fast sinking. After she went down the cries were horrible. This was at 2.20 a.m. by a man’s watch who stood next to me. At this time three other boats and ours kept together by being tied to each other. The cries continued to come over the water. Some of the women implored Officer Lowe, of No. 14, to divide his passengers among the other three boats and go back to rescue. His first answer to those requests was, ‘You ought to be damn glad you are here and have got your own life.’ After some time he was persuaded to do as he was asked. As I came up to him to be transferred to the other boat he said, ‘Jump, God damn you, jump!’ I had showed no hesitancy and was waiting only my turn. He had been so blasphemous during the two hours we were in his boat that the women at my end of the boat all thought he was under the influence of liquor. Then he took all of the men who had rowed No. 14, together with the men from the other boats, and went back to the scene of the wreck. We were left with a steward and a stoker to row our boat, which was crowded. The steward did his best, but the stoker refused at first to row, but finally helped two women who were the only ones pulling on that side.

  (US Inquiry, 10 May 1912)

  Born in Newlyn, Cornwall, twenty-nine-year-old Mrs Addie Wells was travelling second-class with her two young children – Joan, aged four, and Ralph aged two – to join her railway conductor husband Arthur in Akron, Ohio. They were originally due to travel on the Oceanic but the coal strike necessitated a switch to the Titanic. Mrs Wells escaped in boat 14 and nestled her children in her skirts to keep them warm through the bitter night.

  When the crash came I took the children and went on deck. I hadn’t more than got there when someone grabbed me, saying, ‘This way,’ and hustled me and the children up to the lifeboat.

  An officer was shouting, ‘Come on here, lively now, this way, women and children,’ and before I knew what was happening we were in a lifeboat, and the boat was going down the side while the men stood back serious and sober, watching us.

  I thought even then it was some sort of a drill or something, except that just as we went down I saw a revolver in an officer’s hand.

  A Mrs Davis and a little boy were in the boat with us, and she asked me what it was all about.

  As soon as the boat struck water, the seamen began pulling away with all their might. As we got away, we saw a lot of wild-eyed men come rushing up from steerage, but they were met by a man with a gun who pushed them back into a crowd of men and said: ‘Stand back there now, the first word out of you and I’ll …’ I didn’t catch the rest. Some of the men from the first and second-class cabins were standing beside the officer.

  There were forty or fifty in our boat and I couldn’t get a chance to sit down, but stood up keeping the babies warm and dry in my skirts. The sailors pulled at the oars for all they were worth, but the boat kept drifting back against the ship. Finally we got away a hundred feet and we didn’t have any more trouble. We spent the night in the boat and were picked up at daybreak.

  (Akron Beacon J
ournal, 20 April 1912)

  Passenger Nellie Walcroft, accompanied on the journey by her friend Miss Clear Cameron, detailed the events of the night in a letter to her local paper in Berkshire.

  There was room for two more in boat 14 which, I think, was the last but three to leave the ship. Immediately the order was given to lower the boats, we began to descend. There were fifty-eight women and children but only about three to row when going down. There was no man in charge and Fifth Officer Harold Lowe jumped on our boat and gave the orders. Some men in the steerage were going to spring in and he threatened them with his revolver to shoot the first, knowing that another one would buckle up the lifeboat. He shot twice, but only at the side, so that the men who were panic-stricken in the steerage should know it was loaded and that he meant what he said.

  The men lowered our boat. One side worked better than the other and the ropes on one side did not act so the officer gave the order to cut the ropes and the boat fell some distance. Then we got away safely from the ship’s side. It was a lovely starlight night, but not light enough for us to see who were in the boats.

  The officer told the men to lay on their oars so as to be handy later on. We did not seem to be long on the water. We could see the ship gradually going down, but all the lights were on, when suddenly two terrible explosions took place. The ship seemed to go forward and then split in the middle, and then there were two more explosions that seemed from underneath the water. No more could be seen of that grand ship. All was silent for a moment and then the cries of 1600 men. All were crying for help: it was terrible. I should think the cries must have lasted two hours, or even more, and then the day dawned and we could see six large icebergs. Each looked as large as a house and all the time the cries of the drowning were getting fainter.