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.
SCENE THAT HARDY WITNESSED.
His voice breaking with emotion, Hardy told the story of the scene that he and other stewards witnessed from the galleries overlooking the engine room.
“When the order that every man should take his post, as the vessel was sinking, was sent through the Titanic,” said Hardy, “there were eleven men on duty in the hold.
“The twenty others, without the least hesitancy, came hurrying to their posts beside the engines and dynamos. They must have known as well as Captain Smith that the Titanic was going down, for when they arrived in the engine room the water was rising over the floor. There was nothing for them to do but to keep the dynamos running.
“Not one of them moved to quit their posts and not one would have dared to, even they had been willing, in the face of the stern men who had chosen to die there. Yet they could be of no use, for the Titanic was going down then.
“The water was rising about them when I looked down from a gallery. I saw the little circle of Chief Engineer Bell and sixteen of his men standing there in the water with their lips moving in prayer. I pray that I may never see the like of it again; it was real heroism.”
Perhaps one of the clearest stories of the disaster was told by Albert Smith, steward of the Titanic. Smith was one of the number of six members of the crew of the sunken liner who manned boat No. 11, which carried fifty women and no men other than the half dozen necessary to row it to safety.