THE OFFICERS’ REQUIREMENTS DISCUSSED.
The requirement that the officers on the bridge should take temperatures of the water every fifteen minutes to indicate the approach of ice was also discussed.
As to the behavior of officers and crew, not a word of complaint was heard from the men. They were praised as worthy Britons and true seamen. In the same breath the survivors exalted the heroism of the missing men of the first cabin, who had stood calmly waiting for their turn—the turn which, because of scarcity of boats and shortness of time, never came for most of them.
“God knows I’m not proud to be here!” said a rich New York man. “I got on a boat when they were about to lower it and when, from delays below, there was no woman to take the vacant place. I don’t think any man who was saved is deserving of censure, but I realize that, in contrast with those who went down, we may be viewed unfavorably.” He showed a picture of his baby boy as he spoke.
As the day passed, the fore part of the ship assumed some degree of order and comfort, but the crowded second cabin and decks gave forth the incessant sound of lamentation. A bride of two months sat on the floor and moaned her widowhood. An Italian mother shrieked the name of her lost son.
A girl of seven wept over the loss of her Teddy Bear and two dolls, while her mother, with streaming eyes, dared not tell the child that her father was lost, too, and that the money for which their home in England had been sold had gone down with him. Other children clung to the necks of the fathers who, because carrying them, had been permitted to take the boats.
At 4 P. M. Monday the service for the dead was read by Father Roger Anderson, of the Episcopal Order of the Holy Cross, over the bodies of three seamen and one man, said to have been a cabin passenger, who were dead from exposure when received on this ship. Some of the Titanic’s passengers turned away from the rail as the first of the weighted forms fell into the water.
The Titans
By RICHARD J. BEAMISH
“And most who drowned were men.” ’Tis good to read
These strong fair words. They tell of manhood tried.
Of those who saw the weak ones safe, then died.
Rake muck, sneer slurs. You can’t paint black the breed
That smiled at Death in that heroic deed.
Poor men forgot their lot; the rich, their pride.
Like gods, they struggled o’er the rising tide
For others’ lives; their own, they scorned to heed.
Then kindly Night shut out their tragedy.
God send the words to flame their message through
The grieving world: “For inasmuch as ye
Help thus My helpless ones, ye helpeth Me.”
They sleep where Love and Death both found them true,
Their names as deathless as their shrine, the sea.
CHAPTER II.
HEART-RENDING SCENES ON CARPATHIA.
The Next Day—Caring for the Sick—Meeting of the Survivors—Personal Wireless Messages Given Precedence—Marconi’s Appeal Fruitless—Quartermaster Tells Story.
The writer’s narrative continues:
In the hospital and the public rooms lay, in blankets, several others who had been benumbed by the water. Mrs. Rosa Abbott, who was in the water for hours, was restored during the day. G. Wikeman, the Titanic’s barber, who declared he was blown off the ship by the second of the two explosions after the crash, was treated for bruises. A passenger, who was thoroughly ducked before being picked up, caused much amusement on this ship, soon after the doctors were through with him, by demanding a bath.
Storekeeper Prentice, the last man off the Titanic to reach this ship, was also soon over the effects of his long swim in the icy waters, into which he leaped from the poop deck.
The physicians of the Carpathia were praised, as was Chief Steward Hughes, for work done in making the arrivals comfortable and averting serious illness.
Monday night on the Carpathia was one of rest. The wailing and sobbing of the day were hushed as the widows and orphans slept. Tuesday, save for the crowded condition of the ship, matters took somewhat their normal appearance.
Tuesday afternoon, in the saloon, a meeting of survivors was held and plans for a testimonial to the officers and crew of the Carpathia and the survivors of the Titanic’s crew were discussed. It was decided that relief of the destitute should first be considered, and the chairman of the meeting, Samuel Goldenberg, appointed a committee consisting of I. G. Frauenthal, Mrs. J. J. Brown, William Bushnell and George Stone to raise a fund. The first subscriptions were for $100 each, and the amounts were paid largely in travelers’ checks or personal checks, cash being somewhat scarce among the refugees, who had kept their currency in the purser’s safe.
Resolutions were adopted praising the Titanic’s surviving officers and crew and the officers, crew and passengers of the Carpathia, and declaring that a memorial is needed for “those who in heroic self-sacrifice made possible the rescue of so many others.” One speaker suggested that a memorial fund be raised by popular subscription, mentioning the “World” as a suitable medium. This and other suggestions were left to the committee to develop.
Rain and fog marked the Carpathia’s homeward course, and those who were not seasick when New York was reached were none the less sick of the sea.