“Captain Rostrom said: ‘Can’t you get her?’ ‘No,’ replied the operator, ‘she doesn’t answer.’
“‘She’s going down,’ said Captain Rostrom, and he ordered the engineer to put on full speed.
SPEEDED FASTER THAN USUAL.
“I don’t know how fast we went, but the speed of the Carpathia at that time was greater by far than the way we had been traveling on our way across the ocean. You can imagine the excitement aboard the Carpathia. Everyone was dressed and on deck before we got to the Titanic, or rather what was left of her.
“I guess it was about 3.30 o’clock when we got near the boats of the Titanic. The Carpathia had all her boats hanging on the davits and Captain Rostrom was ready. I heard women scream as the Carpathia approached the Titanic’s boats. I shrieked with them because every one was saying, ‘Oh, oh, it’s awful, awful.’ I saw the first boat of the Titanic taken from the water.
“I saw the icebergs all around the boats. I wonder now how they kept afloat. Before the Carpathia had slackened speed much a lifeboat from our ship was in the water and the men were pushing toward the other boats.
“They tied a rope to the Titanic’s boats and then moved back to the Carpathia and the first boatload of survivors were taken from the water only a few minutes after we saw it.
“There were about fifty women and children in it; some had fainted and lay motionless. Others were screaming and were hysterical. There were no men in the boat and none of the survivors were dressed properly.
“They had on night robes, furs, evening gowns, anything they could find. Some were almost frozen. A little girl, they called her Emily, was shrieking, ‘Oh, mama, mama, I’m sick. Oh, mama, mama!’
“Her mother could not comfort her, because she collapsed as soon as she was lifted to the deck of the Carpathia. All the women on our boat got their heavy clothing and threw it around the survivors. Captain Rostrom told us to take them to our staterooms, and we did all we could to make them comfortable.