TOO OVERCOME TO BE QUESTIONED.
There was a clang of the motor car door, a crashing bang as the gears were shoved into place and the machine was off at top speed for the Thayer residence. Dr. Gamble, whose car was also in waiting, acted as spokesman for all. Mrs. Thayer, he said, was too overcome to be questioned, but he had gleaned from young “Jack” Thayer and from Margaret Fleming, the maid, a few details that brought out in vivid relief the quiet heroism of Mr. Thayer.
The son, also had proven, himself in the critical moment. Shortly after the Titanic crashed into the iceberg, said the doctor, Mr. Thayer had collected his wife, his son and his wife’s maid and gotten them in line for a lifeboat. Realizing that there was not enough room for the men, Mr. Thayer forced his wife and her maid into the boat and then tried to get his son in also.
The lad, however, refused to desert his father. Stepping back, he made room for some one else, said to have been a grown man, and grasping his father’s hand, said he “guessed he would stick by dad.” Before Mr. Thayer could protest or forcibly place his son in the lifeboat, it had been launched and the opportunity was gone.
A few seconds before the Titanic sank, however, Mr. Thayer seemed to grasp the fact that the end was near. Picking up the boy he threw him into the sea. “Swim to a boat, my boy,” he said.
Young Thayer, taken by surprise, had no chance to object. Before he knew what had happened, he was struggling in the icy waters of the ocean. Striking out, the lad swam to a lifeboat, said Mr. Gamble, but was beaten off by some of those aboard, as the boat was already overcrowded.
But the pluck that has made so many Thayers famous as athletes in many branches of sport was deeply implanted in young “Jack” Thayer. Turning from the lifeboat from which he had been beaten off, he swam to another. Once again he was fended away with a long oar. And all this time Mrs. Thayer, safe in another boat, watched her son struggle for life, too overcome with horror to even scream.