“About five seconds after he jumped I jumped out, feet first. I was clear of the ship, bent down, and as I came up I was pushed away from the ship by some force. I came up facing the ship, and one of the funnels seemed to be lifted off and fell towards me, about 15 yards away, with a mass of sparks and steam coming out of it.
“I saw the ship in a sort of a red glare, and it seemed to me that she broke in two just in front of the third funnel. At this time I was sucked down, and as I came up I was pushed out again and twisted around by a large wave, coming up in the midst of a great deal of small wreckage.
“As I pushed it from around my head my hand touched the cork fender of an overturned lifeboat. I looked up, saw some men on the top and asked them to give me a hand. One of them, who was a stoker, helped me up. In a short time the bottom was covered with about 25 or 30 men.
“When I got on this I was facing the ship. The stern then seemed to rise in the air and stopped at about an angle of 60 degrees. It seemed to hold there for a time and then, with a hissing sound, it shot right down out of sight with people jumping from the stern.
“The stern either pivoted around towards our boat or we were sucked towards it, and as we only had one oar we could not keep away. There did not seem to be very much suction and most of us managed to stay on the bottom of our boat.
“We were then right in the midst of fairly large wreckage, with people swimming all around us. The sea was very calm and we kept the boat pretty steady, but every now and then a wave would wash over it.
SANG A HYMN AND SAID THE LORD’S PRAYER.
“The assistant wireless operator was right next to me, holding on to me and kneeling in the water. We all sang a hymn and said the Lord’s prayer, and then waited for dawn to come.
“As often as we saw the other boats in a distance we would yell ‘Ship ahoy!’ but they could not distinguish our cries from any others so we all gave it up, thinking it useless. It was very cold and none of us were able to move around to keep warm, the water washing over her almost all the time.
“Towards dawn the wind sprang up roughing up the water and making it difficult to keep the boat balanced. The wireless man raised our hopes a great deal by telling us that the Carpathia would be up in about three hours. About three thirty or four o’clock some men on our boat on the bow sighted her mast lights.