“Fleet reported the berg, but the telephone was not answered on the bridge at once. A few minutes afterwards the telephone call was answered, but it was too late.
THE SHIP HAD STRUCK.
“The ship had struck. Murdock, after the ship struck the berg, gave orders to put helm to starboard, afterwards he ordered the helm hard to port and the ship struck the berg again.
“Afterwards Murdock gave an order for the carpenter to sound the wells to learn how much water the ship was taking in. The carpenter came up and told Murdock the Titanic had seven feet of water in her in less than seven minutes.”
Keeping on with their narrative the sailors, whose nerves had not been broken by their experiences declared:
“Then Captain Smith, who had put in an appearance, gave orders to get the boats ready.
“There was less than ten minutes between the time the Titanic first struck the berg and the second crash, both of which brought big pieces of ice showering down on the ship.
“Orders came to the crew to stand by the boats. The boats were got out. There were twenty-two boats all told.”
At this juncture the sailors described without apparent prejudice or bitterness how J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the Board of Directors of the White Star Line, was the first to leave the Titanic.
“Ismay,” the sailors asserted, “with his two daughters and a millionaire, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, and the latter’s family, got into the first accident or emergency boats, which are about twenty-eight feet long, and were always ready for lowering under the bridge. The boat in which Ismay and Sir Cosmo left was manned by seven seamen. There were seventeen persons in the boat.