“I was with father,” said “Jack” Thayer, speaking for himself of his experience. “They wanted me to go into a boat, but I wanted to stay with him. Men and women kept calling to me to hurry and jump in a boat, but it wasn’t any use. I knew what I was doing. It didn’t seem to be anything to be afraid about. Some of the men were laughing. Nobody appeared to be excited. We had struck with a smash and then we seemed to slide off backwards from the big field of ice. It was cold, but we didn’t mind that.
“The boats were put off without much fuss. Mother was put into one of the boats. As I said, she wanted me to go with her. But I said I guessed I would stick with dad. After awhile I felt the ship tipping toward the front. The next thing I knew somebody gave me a push and I was in the water. Down, down, down, I went, ever so far. It seemed as if I never would stop. I couldn’t breathe. Then I shot up through the water just as fast as I went down. I had just time to take a long, deep breath when a wave went over me.
“When I came to the surface a second time I swam to a boat. They wouldn’t take me in. Then I tried another. Same result. Finally, when I was growing weak, I bumped against something. I found it was an overturned lifeboat. It was a struggle to pull myself upon it, but I did it after a while. My, it was cold! I never suffered so much in my life. All around were the icebergs.
“I could see boats on all sides. I must have shouted, because my throat was all raw and sore, but nobody seemed to notice. I guess they all were shouting, too. Every part of me ached with the cold. I thought I was going to die. It seemed as if I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“The time was so long and I was so weak. Then I just couldn’t feel anything any more. I knew if I stayed there I would freeze. A boat came by and I swam to it. They took me aboard. The next thing I remember clearly was when the boat from the Carpathia came and I was taken into it and wrapped up in the coats of the men. They told me I was more than three hours on that raft and in that open boat. It seemed more like three years to me.”
CHAPTER XI.
MAJOR BUTT, MARTYR TO DUTY.
Major Butt Martyr to Duty—Woman’s Soul-Stirring Tribute—Died Like a Soldier—Was the Man of the Hour—Assisted Captain and Officers in Saving Women—Cool as if on Dress Parade—Robert M. Daniel Tells of Disaster and Death of Heroes—Tiny Waifs of the Sea.
Captain E. J. Smith, the commander of the Titanic, was a guest at a banquet which was being given by W. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, when the big steamer plunged into that fated iceberg, according to Robert M. Daniel, member of the banking firm of Hillard-Smith, Daniel & Co., 328 Chestnut street, Philadelphia.
The fourth officer was in charge of the vessel, said Mr. Daniel, when seen at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, to which hotel he went immediately after landing from the Carpathia, accompanied by his mother and younger brother, who had come up from their home in Virginia to meet him.
“We were about fifty miles ahead of our schedule at the time the accident happened,” said Mr. Daniel, “and were running at about a twenty-mile-an-hour rate. Everybody on board had been talking all along about how we were trying to beat the Olympic’s record for the Western trip and many pools were made on each day’s run.