Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters Part 12

Further out at sea was the Cunarder, Carpathia, which left New York for the Mediterranean on April 13th. Round she went and plunged back westward to take a hand in saving life. And the third steamship within short sailing of the t.i.tanic was the Allan liner Parisian away to the eastward, on her way from Glasgow to Halifax.

While they sped in the night with all the drive that steam could give them, the t.i.tanic's call reached to Cape Race and the startled operator there heard at midnight a message which quickly reached New York:

"Have struck an iceberg. We are badly damaged. t.i.tanic lat.i.tude 41.46 N., 50.14 W."

Cape Race threw the appeal broadcast wherever his apparatus could carry.

Then for hours, while the world waited for a crumb of news as to the safety of the great ship's people, not one thing more was known save that she was drifting, broken and helpless and alone in the midst of a waste of ice. And it was not until seventeen hours after the t.i.tanic had sunk that the words came out of the air as to her fate. There was a confusion and tangle of messages--a jumble of rumors. Good tidings were trodden upon by evil. And no man knew clearly what was taking place in that stretch of waters where the giant icebergs were making a mock of all that the world knew best in ship-building.

t.i.tANIC SENT OUT NO MORE NEWS

It was at 12.17 A. M., while the Virginian was still plunging eastward, that all communication from the t.i.tanic ceased. The Virginian's operator, with the Virginian's captain at his elbow, fed the air with blue flashes in a desperate effort to know what was happening to the crippled liner, but no message came back. The last word from the t.i.tanic was that she was sinking. Then the sparking became fainter. The call was dying to nothing. The Virginian's operator labored over a blur of signals. It was hopeless. So the Allan ship strove on, fearing that the worst had happened.

It was this ominous silence that so alarmed the other vessels hurrying to the t.i.tanic and that caused so much suspense here.

CHAPTER IX. IN THE DRIFTING LIFE-BOATS

SORROW AND SUFFERING--THE SURVIVORS SEE THE t.i.tANIC GO DOWN WITH THEIR LOVED ONES ON BOARD--A NIGHT OF AGONIZING SUSPENSE--WOMEN HELP TO ROW--HELP ARRIVES--PICKING UP THE LIFE-BOATS

SIXTEEN boats were in the procession which entered on the terrible hours of rowing, drifting and suspense. Women wept for lost husbands and sons, sailors sobbed for the ship which had been their pride. Men choked back tears and sought to comfort the widowed. Perhaps, they said, other boats might have put off in another direction. They strove, though none too sure themselves, to convince the women of the certainty that a rescue ship would appear.

In the distance the t.i.tanic looked an enormous length, her great bulk outlined in black against the starry sky, every port-hole and saloon blazing with light. It was impossible to think anything could be wrong with such a leviathan, were it not for that ominous tilt downwards in the bows, where the water was now up to the lowest row of port-holes.

Presently, about 2 A. M., as near as can be determined, those in the life-boats observed her settling very rapidly with the bows and the bridge completely under water, and concluded it was now only a question of minutes before she went. So it proved She slowly tilted straight on end with the stern vertically upwards, and as she did, the lights in the cabins and saloons, which until then had not flickered for a moment, died out, came on again for a single flash, and finally went altogether.

At the same time the machinery roared down through the vessel with a rattle and a groaning that could be heard for miles, the weirdest sound surely that could be heard in the middle of the ocean, a thousand miles away from land. But this was not yet quite the end.

t.i.tANIC STOOD UPRIGHT

To the amazement of the awed watchers in the life-boats, the doomed vessel remained in that upright position for a time estimated at five minutes; some in the boat say less, but it was certainly some minutes that at least 150 feet of the t.i.tanic towered up above the level of the sea and loomed black against the sky.

SAW LAST OF BIG SHIP

Then with a quiet, slanting dive she disappeared beneath the waters, and the eyes of the helpless spectators had looked for the last time upon the gigantic vessel on which they had set out from Southampton. And there was left to the survivors only the gently heaving sea, the life-boats filled with men and women in every conceivable condition of dress and undress, above the perfect sky of brilliant stars with not a cloud, all tempered with a bitter cold that made each man and woman long to be one of the crew who toiled away with the oars and kept themselves warm thereby--a curious, deadening; bitter cold unlike anything they had felt before.

"ONE LONG MOAN"

And then with all these there fell on the ear the most appalling noise that human being has ever listened to--the cries of hundreds of fellow-beings struggling in the icy cold water, crying for help with a cry that could not be answered.

Third Officer Herbert John Pitman, in charge of one of the boats, described this cry of agony in his testimony before the Senatorial Investigating Committee, under the questioning of Senator Smith:

"I heard no cries of distress until after the ship went down," he said.

"How far away were the cries from your life-boat?"

"Several hundred yards, probably, some of them."

"Describe the screams."

"Don't, sir, please! I'd rather not talk about it."

"I'm sorry to press it, but what was it like? Were the screams spasmodic?"

"It was one long continuous moan."

The witness said the moans and cries continued an hour.

Those in the life-boats longed to return and pick up some of the poor drowning souls, but they feared this would mean swamping the boats and a further loss of life.

Some of the men tried to sing to keep the women from hearing the cries, and rowed hard to get away from the scene of the wreck, but the memory of those sounds will be one of the things the rescued will find it difficult to forget.

The waiting sufferers kept a lookout for lights, and several times it was shouted that steamers' lights were seen, but they turned out to be either a light from another boat or a star low down on the horizon. It was hard to keep up hope.

WOMEN TRIED TO COMMIT SUICIDE

"Let me go back--I want to go back to my husband--I'll jump from the boat if you don't," cried an agonized voice in one life-boat.

"You can do no good by going back--other lives will be lost if you try to do it. Try to calm yourself for the sake of the living. It may be that your husband will be picked up somewhere by one of the fishing boats."

The woman who pleaded to go back, according to Mrs. Vera d.i.c.k, of Calgary, Canada, later tried to throw herself from the life-boat. Mrs.

d.i.c.k, describing the scenes in the life-boats, said there were half a dozen women in that one boat who tried to commit suicide when they realized that the t.i.tanic had gone down.

"Even in Canada, where we have such clear nights," said Mrs. d.i.c.k, "I have never seen such a clear sky. The stars were very bright and we could see the t.i.tanic plainly, like a great hotel on the water. Floor after floor of the lights went out as we watched. It was horrible, horrible. I can't bear to think about it. From the distance, as we rowed away, we could hear the band playing 'Nearer, My G.o.d to Thee.'

"Among the life-boats themselves, however, there were scenes just as terrible, perhaps, but to me nothing could outdo the tragic grandeur with which the t.i.tanic went to its death. To realize it, you would have to see the t.i.tanic as I saw it the day we set sail--with the flags flying and the bands playing. Everybody on board was laughing and talking about the t.i.tanic being the biggest and most luxurious boat on the ocean and being unsinkable. To think of it then and to think of it standing out there in the night, wounded to death and gasping for life, is almost too big for the imagination.

SCANTILY CLAD WOMEN IN LIFE-BOATS

"The women on our boat were in nightgowns and bare feet--some of them--and the wealthiest women mingled with the poorest immigrants. One immigrant woman kept shouting: 'My G.o.d, my poor father! He put me in this boat and would not save himself. Oh, why didn't I die, why didn't I die? Why can't I die now?'

"We had to restrain her, else she would have jumped over-board. It was simply awful. Some of the men apparently had said they could row just to get into the boats. We paid no attention to cowardice, however. We were all busy with our own troubles. My heart simply bled for the women who were separated from their husbands.

"The night was frightfully cold, although clear. We had to huddle together to keep warm. Everybody drank sparingly of the water and ate sparingly of the bread. We did not know when we would be saved.

Everybody tried to remain cool, except the poor creatures who could think of nothing but their own great loss. Those with the most brains seemed to control themselves best."

PHILADELPHIA WOMEN HEROINES

How Mrs. George D. Widener, whose husband and son perished after kissing her good-bye and helping her into one of the boats, rowed when exhausted seamen were on the verge of collapse, was told by Emily Geiger, maid of Mrs. Widener, who was saved with her.

The girl said Mrs. Widener bravely toiled throughout the night and consoled other women who had broken down under the strain.