CAPTAIN SMITH DIED A HERO
Captain Smith died a hero’s death. He went to the bottom of the ocean without effort to save himself. His last acts were to place a five-year-old child on the last lifeboat in reach, then cast his life belt to the ice ridden waters and resign to the fate that tradition down the ages observed as a strict law.
It was left to a fireman of the Titanic to tell the tale of the death of Captain Smith and the last message he left behind him. This man had gone down with the vessel and was clinging to a piece of wreckage about half an hour before he finally joined several members of the Titanic’s company on the bottom of a boat which was floating among other wreckage.
Harry Senior, the fireman, with his eight or nine companions in distress, had just managed to get a firm hold on the upturned boat, when they saw the Titanic rearing preparatory to her final plunge. At that moment, according to the fireman’s tale, Captain Smith jumped into the sea from the promenade deck of the Titanic with an infant clutched tenderly in his arms.
It only took a few strokes to bring him to the upturned lifeboat, where a dozen hands were stretched out to take the little child from his arms and drag him to safety.
“Captain Smith was dragged on the upturned boat,” said the fireman. “He had on a life buoy and a life preserver. He clung there a moment and then he slid off again. For a second time he was dragged from the icy water. Then he took off his life preserver, tossed the life buoy on the inky waters and slipped into the water again with the words; ‘I will follow the ship.’”
At that time there was only a circle of troubled water and some wreckage to show the spot where the biggest of all ocean steamers had sunk out of sight.
“No,” said the stoker, as he waved a sandwich above his head, holding a glass of beer in the other hand, “Captain Smith never shot himself. I saw what he did. He went down with that ship. I’ll stake my life on that.”