EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF.
“He turned to the men lowering the boat and shouted: ‘Well, boys, it’s every man for himself.’ He then took one of the children standing by him on the bridge and jumped into the sea. He endeavored to reach the overturned boat, but did not succeed. That was the last I saw of Captain Smith.”
Other graphic accounts of the final plunge of the Titanic were related by two Englishmen, survivors by the merest chance. One of them struggled for hours to hold himself afloat on an overturned collapsible lifeboat, to one end of which John B. Thayer, Jr., of Philadelphia, whose father perished, hung until rescued.
The men give their names as A. H. Barkworth, justice of the peace of East Riding, Yorkshire, England, and W. J. Mellors, of Christ Church Terrace, Chelsea, London. The latter, a young man, had started for this country with his savings to seek his fortune, and lost all but his life.
Mellors says Captain Smith, of the Titanic, did not commit suicide. The captain jumped from the bridge, Mellors declares, and he heard him say to his officers and crew: “You have done your duty, boys. Now every man for himself.”
Mellors and Barkworth, both declare there were three distinct explosions before the Titanic broke in two, and bow section first, and stern part last, settled with her human cargo into the sea.
Her four whistles kept up a deafening blast until the explosions, declare the men. The death cries from the shrill throats of the blatant steam screechers beside the smokestacks so rent the air that conversation among the passengers was possible only when one yelled into the ear of a fellow unfortunate.
“I did not know the Thayer family well,” declared Mr. Barkworth, “but I had met young Thayer, a clean-cut chap, and his father on the trip. I did not see Mr. Thayer throw his son from the ship, but the lad and I struggled in the water for several hours endeavoring to hold afloat by grabbing to the sides and end of an overturned lifeboat.