after a very much shorter interval would have careened over on that quarter, and a much smaller proportion of lives would have been saved.
CHAPTER FOUR
Struggling In The Water For Life
‘Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord.’ – Ps. 130:1.
I now resume the narrative description of my miraculous escape, and it is with considerable diffidence that I do so, for the personal equation monopolizes more attention than may be pleasing to my readers who are not relatives or intimate friends.
As may be noticed in Chapter II, it was Clinch Smith’s suggestion and on his initiative that we left that point on the starboard side of the Boat Deck where the crew, under Chief Officer Wilde and First Officer Murdoch, were in vain trying to launch the Engelhardt boat B which had been thrown down from the roof of the officers’ quarters forward of the first funnel. I say ‘Boat B’ because I have the information to that effect in a letter from Second Officer Lightoller. Confirmation of this statement I also find in the reported interview of a Saloon Steward, Thomas Whitely, in the New York Tribune the day after the Carpathia ’s arrival. An analysis of his statement shows that Boat A became entangled and was abandoned, while he saw the other, bottom up and filled with people. It was on this boat that he also eventually climbed and was saved with the rest of us. Clinch Smith and I got away from this point just before the water reached it and drowned Chief Officer Wilde and First Officer Murdoch, and others who were not successful in effecting a lodgment on the boat as it was swept off the deck. This moment was the first fateful crisis of the many that immediately followed. As bearing upon it I quote the reported statement of Harold S. Bride, the junior Marconi operator. His account also helps to determine the fate of Captain Smith. He says: ‘Then came the Captain’s voice [from the bridge to the Marconi operators], “Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now, it is every man for himself.”’ ‘Phillips continued to work,’ he says, ‘for about ten minutes or about fifteen minutes after the Captain had released him. The water was then coming into our cabin…. I went to the place where I had seen the collapsible boat on the Boat Deck and to my surprise I saw the boat, and the men still trying to push it off. They could not do it. I went up to them and was just lending a hand when a large wave came awash of the deck. The big wave carried the boat off. I had hold of an oarlock and I went off with it. The next I knew I was in the boat. But that was not all. I was in the boat and the boat was upside down and I was under it…. How I got out from under the boat I do not know, but I felt a breath at last.’
From this it appears evident that, so far as Clinch Smith is concerned, it would have been better to have stayed by this Engelhardt boat to the last, for here he had a chance of escape like Bride and others of the crew who clung to it, but which I only reached again after an incredibly long swim under water. The next crisis, which was the fatal one to Clinch Smith and to the great mass of people that suddenly arose before us as I followed him astern, has already been described. The simple expedient of jumping with the ‘big wave’ as demonstrated above carried me to safety, away from a dangerous position to the highest part of the ship; but I was the only one who adopted it successfully. The force of the wave that struck Clinch Smith and the others undoubtedly knocked most of them there unconscious against the walls of the officers’ quarters and other appurtenances of the ship on the Boat Deck. As the ship keeled over forward, I believe that their bodies were caught in the angles of this deck, or entangled in the ropes, and in these other appurtenances thereon, and sank with the ship.
My holding on to the iron railing just when I did prevented my being knocked unconscious. I
CHAPTER FOUR
Struggling In The Water For Life
‘Out of the deep have I called unto Thee, O Lord.’ – Ps. 130:1.
I now resume the narrative description of my miraculous escape, and it is with considerable diffidence that I do so, for the personal equation monopolizes more attention than may be pleasing to my readers who are not relatives or intimate friends.
As may be noticed in Chapter II, it was Clinch Smith’s suggestion and on his initiative that we left that point on the starboard side of the Boat Deck where the crew, under Chief Officer Wilde and First Officer Murdoch, were in vain trying to launch the Engelhardt boat B which had been thrown down from the roof of the officers’ quarters forward of the first funnel. I say ‘Boat B’ because I have the information to that effect in a letter from Second Officer Lightoller. Confirmation of this statement I also find in the reported interview of a Saloon Steward, Thomas Whitely, in the New York Tribune the day after the Carpathia ’s arrival. An analysis of his statement shows that Boat A became entangled and was abandoned, while he saw the other, bottom up and filled with people. It was on this boat that he also eventually climbed and was saved with the rest of us. Clinch Smith and I got away from this point just before the water reached it and drowned Chief Officer Wilde and First Officer Murdoch, and others who were not successful in effecting a lodgment on the boat as it was swept off the deck. This moment was the first fateful crisis of the many that immediately followed. As bearing upon it I quote the reported statement of Harold S. Bride, the junior Marconi operator. His account also helps to determine the fate of Captain Smith. He says: ‘Then came the Captain’s voice [from the bridge to the Marconi operators], “Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now, it is every man for himself.”’ ‘Phillips continued to work,’ he says, ‘for about ten minutes or about fifteen minutes after the Captain had released him. The water was then coming into our cabin…. I went to the place where I had seen the collapsible boat on the Boat Deck and to my surprise I saw the boat, and the men still trying to push it off. They could not do it. I went up to them and was just lending a hand when a large wave came awash of the deck. The big wave carried the boat off. I had hold of an oarlock and I went off with it. The next I knew I was in the boat. But that was not all. I was in the boat and the boat was upside down and I was under it…. How I got out from under the boat I do not know, but I felt a breath at last.’
From this it appears evident that, so far as Clinch Smith is concerned, it would have been better to have stayed by this Engelhardt boat to the last, for here he had a chance of escape like Bride and others of the crew who clung to it, but which I only reached again after an incredibly long swim under water. The next crisis, which was the fatal one to Clinch Smith and to the great mass of people that suddenly arose before us as I followed him astern, has already been described. The simple expedient of jumping with the ‘big wave’ as demonstrated above carried me to safety, away from a dangerous position to the highest part of the ship; but I was the only one who adopted it successfully. The force of the wave that struck Clinch Smith and the others undoubtedly knocked most of them there unconscious against the walls of the officers’ quarters and other appurtenances of the ship on the Boat Deck. As the ship keeled over forward, I believe that their bodies were caught in the angles of this deck, or entangled in the ropes, and in these other appurtenances thereon, and sank with the ship.
My holding on to the iron railing just when I did prevented my being knocked unconscious. I
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