by Nic Compton
I went up on the bridge and I rigged the Morse lamp. It is only a matter of taking a key out of a locker up there and just putting the plug in. There was no reply whatsoever at first. Then I saw what I took to be a light answering, and I sent the word ‘What?’, meaning to ask what ship she was. When I sent ‘What?’ his light was flickering. I took up the glasses again and I came to the conclusion it could not have been a Morse lamp.
The captain came to the bridge, saw a light flickering, and he said, ‘She is answering you.’ He said to me, ‘That does not look like a passenger steamer.’ I said, ‘It is, sir. When she stopped her lights seemed to go out, and I suppose they have been put out for the night.’ When I remarked about the passenger steamer he said: ‘The only passenger steamer near us is the Titanic.’
On the way to my cabin, I stopped at the Marconi house. The operator was asleep. The only thing I remember asking him was, ‘What ships have you got, Sparks?’ He said, ‘Only the Titanic.’ I may have said a few more words to him, but I have no recollection. When I left his house I went straight to my cabin and went to bed.
Stanley Lord – Captain, SS Californian
When I came off the bridge, at half past ten, I pointed out to the officer that I thought I saw a light coming along. It was a most peculiar light, and we had been making mistakes all along with the stars, thinking they were signals. It was a flat calm, and we could not distinguish where the sky ended and where the water commenced. He said he thought it was a star, and I did not say anything more. I went down below.
I was talking with the engineer about keeping the steam ready, and we saw these signals coming along, and I said, ‘There is a steamer passing. Let us go to the wireless and see what the news is.’ But on our way down I met the operator coming, and I said, ‘Do you know anything?’ He said, ‘The Titanic.’ I said, ‘This is not the Titanic; there is no doubt about it.’
She came and lay alongside of us at half past 11 until, I suppose, a quarter past, within four miles of us. We could see everything on her quite distinctly. We signalled her at half past 11 with the Morse lamp. She did not take the slightest notice of it. We signalled her again at ten minutes past 12, half past 12, a quarter to one o’clock. We have a very powerful Morse lamp. I suppose you can see that about ten miles, and she was about four miles off, and she did not take the slightest notice of it.
When the second officer came on the bridge at twelve o’clock, I told him to watch that steamer, that she did not get any closer to us; and I pointed out the ice to him, told him we were surrounded by ice. At 20 minutes to one, I whistled up the speaking tube and asked him if she was getting any nearer. He said, ‘No, she is not taking any notice of us.’ So, I said, ‘I will go and lie down a bit.’ At a quarter past he said, ‘I think she has fired a rocket.’ He said, ‘She did not answer the Morse lamp and she has commenced to go away from us.’ I said, ‘Call her up and let me know at once what her name is.’ So he put the whistle back, and apparently he was calling. I could hear him ticking over my head. Then I went to sleep.
I have a faint recollection of the apprentice opening the room door. I said, ‘What is it?’ He did not answer and I went to sleep again. I believe the boy came down to deliver me the message that this steamer had steamed away from us to the south-west, showing several of these flashes or white rockets.
We never took them to be distress rockets. The second officer, the man in charge of the watch, said most emphatically they were not distress rockets. He said if they had been distress rockets, he would most certainly have come down and called me himself, but he was not a little bit worried about it at all.
James Gibson – Apprentice, SS Californian
About 20 minutes past one, the second officer remarked to me that she was slowly steaming away towards the southwest. He said, ‘Look at her now; she looks very queer out of the water; her lights look queer.’ I looked at her through the glasses after that, and her lights did not seem to be natural. When a vessel rolls at sea her lights do not look the same. She seemed as if she had a heavy list to starboard. Her lights did not seem to look like as they did before when I first saw them. We had been talking about it together. He remarked to me that a ship was not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing. We were talking about it all the time, till five minutes past two, when she disappeared.
I did not think she was exactly in distress. Just that everything was not all right with her. I thought she was a tramp steamer, and I told him so.
I saw three more rockets at about twenty minutes to four. I reported them to the second officer. I saw the first one, and I reported it to the second officer, and we looked out for more to see if we could see any more – and we saw two more.
I was signalling her continuously. The second officer was taking bearings of her all the time. He asked me if there were any colours in the lights, or were they all white. I know now there are only distress rockets used at sea and private signals used near the shore. He told me he had reported it to the captain and the captain had told him to keep calling her up. He said there must be something the matter with her. I only thought the same that he thought: that a ship is not going to fire rockets at sea for nothing, and there must be something the matter with her.
I saw one more vessel during the night previous to getting to the Titanic’s position. We saw masthead lights quite distinctly of another steamer between us and the Titanic. That was about quarter past three. One of the officers swore he also saw the port sidelight. I saw the masthead lights myself, but not the sidelight; about two points on the starboard bow.
Stanley Lord – Captain, SS Californian
19 and a half miles is a long ways. We could not have seen her Morse code; that is an utter impossibility. It would have been way down on the horizon. It might have been mistaken for a shooting star or anything at all.
‘She was going down pretty fast by the bow’
Edward Wheelton – Saloon Steward
I would think, myself, the men took a chance and jumped overboard and swam for it and were picked up by boats. We had very powerful swimmers aboard the ship. Some of the best men I ever saw in the water were on that ship.
Hugh Woolner – First Class Passenger
There was a sort of scramble on the starboard side, and I looked around and I saw two flashes of a pistol in the air. I heard Mr Murdoch shouting out, ‘Get out of this, clear out of this,’ to a lot of men who were swarming into a boat on that side. It was a collapsible on the starboard side. Mr Steffanson and I went up to help to clear that boat of the men who were climbing in, because there was a bunch of women – I think Italians and foreigners – who were standing on the outside of the crowd, unable to make their way toward the side of the boat.
So we helped the officer to pull these men out, by their legs and anything we could get hold of. They were really flying before Mr Murdoch from inside of the boat at the time. We pulled out five or six each. I think they were probably Third Class passengers. Then they cleared out practically all the men out of that boat, and we lifted in these Italian women, hoisted them up on each side and put them into the boat. They were very limp. They had not much spring in them at all.
When that boat was finally filled up and swung out, I said to Steffanson: ‘There is nothing more for us to do. Let us go down on to A deck again.’ And we went down again. It was absolutely deserted the whole length, and the electric lights along the ceiling were beginning to turn red, just a glow, a red sort of glow. So I said to Steffanson, ‘This is getting rather a tight corner. I do not like being inside these closed windows. Let us go out through the door at the end.’ And as we went out through the door the sea came in on to the deck at our feet.
Then we hopped up on to the gunwale preparing to jump out into the sea, because if we had waited a minute longer we should have been boxed in against the ceiling. And as we looked out we saw this collapsible, the last boat on the port side, being lowered right in front of our faces. It was about nine feet out.
It
was full up to the bow, and I said to Steffanson: ‘There is nobody in the bows. Let us make a jump for it. You go first.’ And he jumped out and tumbled in head over heels into the bow. I jumped too, and hit the gunwale with my chest, which had on this life-preserver, and I sort of bounced off the gunwale. I caught the gunwale with my fingers, and slipped off backwards. As my legs dropped down I felt that they were in the sea. I hooked my right heel over the gunwale, and by this time Steffanson was standing up, and he caught hold of me and lifted me in. Then we looked over into the sea and saw a man swimming in the sea just beneath us, and pulled him in.
By that time we were bumping against the side of the ship. She was going down pretty fast by the bow.
Thomas Dillon – Trimmer
When I came up, the last boat was getting lowered. They were singing out, ‘Any more women?’ and there were two more on the well deck, and we chased them up on to the boat deck.
Then I went on to the poop deck. There were a great number of people there, steerage passengers. I waited there about 50 minutes. The ship took one final plunge and righted herself again. When she went down, before I left the ship, the aftermost funnel seemed to cant up towards me and to fall up this way.
I did not dive into the water. I went down with the ship, and shoved myself away from her into the water. I was sucked down about two fathoms, and then I seemed to get lifted up to the surface.
Archibald Gracie – First Class Passenger
Soon after that the water came up on the boat deck. We saw it and heard it. I had not noticed in the meantime that we were gradually sinking. I was engaged all the time in working at those davits, trying to work on the falls to let this boat down. Mr Smith and myself thought then that there was no more chance for us there, there were so many people at that particular point, so we decided to go toward the stern, still on the starboard side. As we were going there, to our surprise and consternation, up came from the decks below a mass of humanity, men and women – and we had thought that all the women were already loaded into the boats. The water was then right by us, and we tried to jump, Mr Smith and myself did. We were in a sort of cul-de-sac which was formed by the cabin and the bridge. We were right in this cul-de-sac on the boat deck.
Mr Smith jumped to try to reach the deck. I jumped also. We were unsuccessful. Then the wave came and struck us, and I rose as I would rise in bathing in the surf. I gave a jump with the water, which took me right on the hurricane deck [above the officers’ quarters]. Around that was an iron railing, and I grabbed that iron railing and held tight to it. I looked around, and the same wave which saved me engulfed everybody around me. I turned to the right and to the left and looked: Mr Smith was not there, and I could not see any of this vast mass of humanity.
Harold Bride – Assistant Telegraphist
When we had finished with the Frankfurt, and we had thoroughly informed the Carpathia of our position, Mr Phillips again went out to look and see how things were going outside. He told me the forward well deck was awash. He told me, as far as I remember, that they were putting the women and children in the boats and clearing off. There was a heavy list to port.
I tried to establish a communication with the Baltic, and it was not very satisfactory, and I judged myself, from the strength of her signals, that she was too far away to do any good and it was not worth taking any trouble, and I told her we were sinking fast and there was no hope of saving the ship.
The captain kept in communication with us; we either went to him or he came to us. He came in and told us at one time she would not last very long, and he informed us when the engine room was flooded. He told us he thought it was time we put on our lifebelts. Mr Phillips told me that things looked very queer outside. Beyond that I knew nothing. The sooner we were out of it the better.
Just at this moment the captain came into the cabin and said, ‘You can do nothing more; look out for yourselves.’ We did not leave the cabin immediately. Mr Phillips resumed the phones and after listening a few seconds jumped up and fairly screamed, ‘The —— fool. He says, “What’s up, old man?”’ I asked, ‘Who?’ Mr Phillips replied the Frankfurt, and at that time it seemed perfectly clear to us that the Frankfurt’s operator had taken no notice or misunderstood our first call for help. Mr Phillips expressed his opinion of the Frankfurt and then told him to keep out of it, to stand by.
To the best of my recollection he told the Carpathia the way we were abandoning the ship, or words to that effect. Mr Phillips called CQD once or twice more, but the power was failing us and I do not think we were getting a spark, as there were no replies. We could hear the water washing over the boat deck, and Mr Phillips said, ‘Come, let’s clear out.’
On Mr Phillips’s request I started to gather up his spare money and put on another coat, and made general preparations for leaving the ship. Someone was taking the lifebelt off Phillips when I left the cabin. I presumed from the appearance of the man that he was a stoker. I forced the man away, and Mr Phillips came and assisted me; I held him and Mr Phillips hit him. I regret to say that we left too hurriedly to take the man in question with us, and without a doubt he sank with the ship in the Marconi cabin as we left him.
There were other people on the deck; they were running around all over the place. Several people looking for lifebelts and looking for refreshments. We had a woman in our cabin who had fainted. We set her down on a chair, which she wanted badly, and were giving her a glass of water, and then her husband took her away again.
We climbed up on top of the Marconi cabin and the officers’ quarters on the port side of the Titanic. They were trying to push off a collapsible boat that was up there, and I went to help them. Just as the boat fell I noticed Captain Smith dive from the bridge into the sea. It would be just about five minutes before the boat sank. He had no lifebelt on. Then followed a general scramble down on the boat deck, but no sooner had we got there than the sea washed over. I managed to catch hold of the collapsible and was swept overboard with her.
Harold Cottam – Marconi Officer, SS Carpathia
It was 11.55pm New York time [1.45am ship’s time] when I received the last message from the Titanic. He said, ‘Come as quickly as possible, old man, the engine room is filling up to the boilers.’ That was the last I heard of the Titanic. I tried calling at frequent intervals; I did not know that the ship had gone down. The signals were good right away to the end.
Charles Joughin – Chief Baker
I went down on to B deck. The deck chairs were lying right along, and I started throwing deck chairs through the large ports. It was an idea of my own – I was looking out for something for myself. I should say I threw about fifty chairs out. There was other people on the deck, but I did not see anybody else throwing chairs over.
She had gone a little more to port. I did not notice anything. I did not notice her being much down by the head.
I went to the deck pantry, and while I was in there I thought I would take a drink of water, and while I was getting the drink of water I heard a kind of a crash as if something had buckled. It was like as if the iron was parting, as if part of the ship had buckled. Then I heard a rush overhead – a rush of people overhead on the deck. When I got up on top, I could see them clambering down from those decks. Their idea was to get on to the poop. Of course, I was in the tail end of the rush.
I kept out of the crush as much as I possibly could, and I followed down towards the well of the deck. Just as I got down towards the well, she gave a great list over to port and threw everybody in a bunch except myself. She threw them over. There were many hundreds piled up.
I eventually got on to the starboard side of the poop, and got hold of the outside of the rails. I did not see anybody else besides myself. I was just wondering what next to do. I had tightened my belt and I had transferred some things out of this pocket into my stern pocket. I was just wondering what next to do, when she went.
I do not believe my head went under the water at all. It may have been wetted, but no more. I
should say I was in the water for over two hours. I was just paddling and treading water. It was just like a pond. I did not attempt to get anything to hold on to until I reached a collapsible, but that was daylight.
The lifebelts were a new patent, better than the old ones. You slipped it over your head, and it was like a breastplate and a backplate, and you tied two straps. Everybody knew how to put them on, it was so simple. There was no necessity to show. You had to assist it in the water. It is only a case of keeping your head with one of those lifebelts. Just paddling, and you keep afloat indefinitely.
John Collins – Assistant Cook, First Class Galley
We saw the collapsible boat taken off of the saloon deck, and then the sailors and the firemen that were forward seen the ship’s bow in the water and seen that she was intending to sink her bow, and they shouted out for all they were worth we were to go aft, and word came there was a boat getting launched, so we were told to go aft, and we were just turning around and making for the stern end when the wave washed us off the deck. The wave was caused by the suction which took place when the bow went down in the water. It washed the decks clear. There were hundreds on the starboard side; they were all washed off into the water. The child was washed out of my arms, and the wreckage and the people around me kept me down for at least two or three minutes under the water.
Olaus Abelseth – Third Class Passenger
I was standing there, and I asked my brother-in-law if he could swim, and he said no. I asked my cousin if he could swim, and he said no. So we could see the water coming up, the bow of the ship was going down, and there was a kind of an explosion. We could hear the popping and cracking, and the deck raised up and got so steep that the people could not stand on their feet on the deck. So they fell down and slid on the deck into the water right on the ship. Then we hung on to a rope in one of the davits. We were pretty far back at the top deck.
