“How many wireless operators were there on the Titanic?” “I presume there were two. One is always on watch.”
“Did they survive?” “I have been told one did, but I do not know whether it is true or not.”
Mr. Ismay was asked what he had on when he got into the lifeboat. “A pair of slippers, a pair of pajamas, a suit of clothes and an overcoat.”
Captain Rostrom, of the Carpathia, followed Mr. Ismay. He told Mr. Smith that he had been captain of the Carpathia since last January, but that he had been a seaman twenty-seven years.
The captain told in detail of the arrangements made to prepare the lifeboats and the ship for the receipt of the survivors.
Arriving at the zone of the accident, Captain Rostrom testified, he saw an iceberg straight ahead of him and, stopping at 4 A. M., ten minutes later he picked up the first lifeboat. The officer sang out he had only one seaman on board and was having difficulty in manning his boat.
ICEBERGS ON EVERY SIDE.
“By the time I got the boat aboard day was breaking,” said the captain. “In a radius of four miles I saw all the other lifeboats. On all sides of us were icebergs; some twenty, some were 150 to 200 feet high, and numerous small icebergs or ‘growlers.’ Wreckage was strewn about us. At 8.30 all the Titanic’s survivors were aboard.”
Then, with tears filling his eyes, Captain Rostrom said he called the purser. “I told him,” said Captain Rostrom, “I wanted to hold a service of prayer—thanksgiving for the living and a funeral service for the dead.
“I went to Mr. Ismay. He told me to take full charge. An Episcopal clergyman was found among the passengers, and he conducted the services.”