“I shall never forget the sight. There were many boats from the Titanic loaded with women and children wedged among the ice. Even before we got up to the first boat from the Titanic we could see the iceberg which sank her. It looked to be as big as the Rock of Gibraltar. It towered high in the air and it moved very slowly.
AVOIDS CRASHING INTO SHIPWRECKED PASSENGERS.
“I believe it was over 500 feet high, and we can judge by its size by recalling that seven-eighths of an iceberg is submerged. Within fifty yards of the boats in the water Captain Rostrom gave the signal to reverse the engines so our ship would not crash into the shipwrecked passengers.
“‘Ready men—go,’ shouted the captain to me, and McKenna loosened the rope and our boat dropped into the water. We tugged away at the oars with all our strength. We shoved our boat alongside of boat No. 13 from the Titanic. It was filled with passengers. I believe there were about fifteen children in it.
“Poor little things! Some were benumbed with cold; others were apparently lifeless, and several moaned piteously. The women in the boat were scantily clad. Their clothing was grotesque. They had on wraps, night robes, silk shawls over their heads and men’s coats around them. Many had no shoes, and all of them suffered from the cold.
“McKenna and I tied a hawser to the boat and then rowed back to the Carpathia. Harris, the bos’n’s mate, and another member of the crew helped us to lift the unfortunate ones from the boat. Some had to be carried up the ladder to the boat deck of the Carpathia.
“A few could walk, but the majority were so benumbed that they could neither speak nor walk.
“As fast as others of our crew could get the Titanic’s boats they were dragged toward the side of the Carpathia. We rescued twenty boatloads of passengers—710 in all. Our ship resembled a hospital on our way back to New York, for a number of the women and children were ill.
“The three physicians on the Carpathia told me as we were going up the bay that there were sixteen patients for the hospital as soon as the Carpathia docked.”
From a little porthole on the side of the Carpathia a woman passenger told how the wireless call from the wrecked Titanic sent the Cunard liner racing to the rescue; how the fainting, hysterical survivors were taken from the lifeboats, and of the nerve-wrecking scenes that followed on board the rescue ship.