WIRELESS OPERATOR DIED AT HIS POST
On board the Titanic, the wireless operator, with a life-belt about his waist, was hitting the instrument that was sending out C. Q. D., messages, “Struck an iceberg, C. Q. D.”
“Shall I tell captain to turn back and help?” flashed a reply from the Carpathia.
“Yes, old man,” the Titanic wireless operator responded. “Guess we’re sinking.”
An hour later, when the second wireless man came into the boxlike room to tell his companion what the situation was, he found a negro stoker creeping up behind the operator and saw him raise a knife over his head. He said afterwards—he was among those rescued—that he realized at once that the negro intended to kill the operator in order to take his life-belt from him. The second operator pulled out his revolver and shot the negro dead.
“What was the trouble?” asked the operator.
“That negro was going to kill you and steal your life-belt,” the second man replied.
“Thanks, old man,” said the operator. The second man went on deck to get some more information. He was just in time to jump overboard before the Titanic went down. The wireless operator and the body of the negro who tried to steal his belt went down together.
On the deck where the first class passengers were quartered, known as deck A, there was none of the confusion that was taking place on the lower decks. The Titanic was standing without much rocking. The captain had given an order and the band was playing.
CHAPTER XXIII
“Women and Children First!”
COOL-HEADED OFFICERS AND CREW BRING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS—FILLING THE LIFE-BOATS—HEARTRENDING SCENES AS FAMILIES ARE PARTED—FOUR LIFE-BOATS LOST—INCIDENTS OF BRAVERY—“THE BOATS ARE ALL FILLED!”
ONCE on the deck, many hesitated to enter the swinging life-boats. The glassy sea, the starlit sky, the absence, in the first few moments, of intense excitement, gave them the feeling that there was only some slight mishap; that those who got into the boats would have a chilly half hour below and might, later, be laughed at.
It was such a feeling as this, from all accounts, which caused John Jacob Astor and his wife to refuse the places offered them in the first boat, and to retire to the gymnasium. In the same way H. J. Allison, a Montreal banker, laughed at the warning, and his wife, reassured by him, took her time dressing. They and their daughter did not reach the Carpathia. Their son, less than two years old, was carried into a life-boat by his nurse, and was taken in charge by Major Arthur Peuchen.