NEARLY AN HOUR BEFORE RELIEF CAME.
Our men pulled at the oars and after some hours we came in sight of the Cromartyshire. There were two boats from La Bourgogne tied to her stern, but it was nearly an hour before they sent a boat for us. When they did I would not get into one and they towed us to the side, where I was helped aboard.
When wireless telegraphy was discovered I thought that great wrecks would be impossible, but the fate of the Titanic has shown us differently. We must rely upon lifeboats and life preservers. I think every person should learn how to put on a life preserver when he goes on board a vessel. He can not learn when the ship starts to sink. My husband said that nearly all could have been saved from La Bourgogne if they had put on life belts and kept cool.
Adrien Lacasse was greeted as a returning hero. On his trip through Canada to this city, he was besieged by people who wanted to see him and shake hands with him. He pulled down the shade of the window in his car to avoid notoriety. The crowds shook hands with an American woman, who sat behind him, believing that she was Mrs. Lacasse.
Mothers named their babies after him, and from all corners of the earth came letters of praise. He was a hero because he kept cool, and was the only man who did. The heroes of the Titanic can not be counted. They all kept their heads, so far as is known, but their only reward was the knowledge that they had not been cowards in the face of death.
Standing in a circle in the engine room of the Titanic as she went down, with hands clasping those of their comrades and all praying, the gallant thirty-three engine men of the wounded vessel met their death.
The tragic story of their bravery in the face of what they must have known was certain death was told by Thomas Hardy, chief steward of the Titanic, as he left for England, a passenger on board the Red Star Line steamship Lapland.