Sixteen boats were in the forlorn procession which entered on the terrible hours of rowing, drifting and suspense. Women wept for lost husbands and sons. Sailors sobbed for the ship which had been their pride. Men chocked back tears and sought to comfort the widowed. Perhaps, they said, other boats might have put off in another direction toward the last. They strove, though none too sure themselves, to convince the women of the certainty that a rescue ship would appear.
Early dawn brought no ship, but not long after 5 A. M. the Carpathia, far out of her path and making eighteen knots, instead of her wonted fifteen, showed her single red and black smokestack upon the horizon. In the joy of that moment, the heaviest griefs were forgotten.
Soon afterward Captain Rostrom and Chief Steward Hughes were welcoming the chilled and bedraggled arrivals over the Carpathia’s side.
Terrible as were the San Francisco, Slocum and Iroquois disasters, they shrink to local events in comparison with this world-catastrophe.
True, there were others of greater qualifications and longer experience than I nearer the tragedy—but they, by every token of likelihood, have become a part of the tragedy. The honored—must I say lamented—Stead, the adroit Jacques Futrelle, what might they not tell were their hands able to hold pencil?
The silence of the Carpathia’s engines, the piercing cold, the clamor of many voices in the companionways, caused me to dress hurriedly and awaken my wife at 5.40 A. M. Monday. Our stewardess, meeting me outside, pointed to a wailing host in the rear dining room and said, “From the Titanic. She’s at the bottom of the ocean.”
THE LAST OF THE LINE OF BOATS.
At the ship’s side, a moment later, I saw the last of the line of boats discharge their loads, and saw women, some with cheap shawls about their heads, some with the costliest of fur cloaks, ascending the ship’s side. And such joy as the first sight of our ship may have given them had disappeared from their faces, and there were tears and signs of faltering as the women were helped up the ladders or hoisted aboard in swings. For lack of room to put them, several of the Titanic’s boats after unloading were set adrift.
At our north was a broad icefield, the length of hundreds of Carpathias. Around us on other sides were sharp and glistening peaks. One black berg, seen about 10 A. M., was said to be that which sunk the Titanic.
In his tiny house over the second cabin smoking room was Harold Cotton, the Marconi operator, a ruddy English youth, whose work at his post, on what seemed ordinary duty, until almost midnight, had probably saved the lives of the huddling hundreds below.