Colonel John Jacob Astor died a hero and went down with the ship. Had he leaped into the water as she made her final plunge, he might have been picked up by one of the lifeboats, but he remained on the deck and was swept under by the drawing power of the great bulk, bound for the bottom.
All the officers who died and most of the members of the crew upheld the traditions of heroism held sacred by seamen. They did their duty to the end and died with their ship. Not a man in the engine room was saved; not one of them was seen on deck after the collision. They remained at their posts, far down in the depths of the stricken vessel, until the waves closed over what was at once their pride and their burial casket.
A boiler explosion tore the Titanic apart shortly before she sank. This occurred when the sea water, which had been working its way through the forward compartments, invaded the fireroom. After the explosion the Titanic hung on the surface, upheld only by the water-tight compartments, which had not been touched by the collision.
Although the officers of the Titanic had been warned of the proximity of ice, she was steaming at the rate of twenty-three knots an hour when she met her end. The lookouts in the crow’s nest saw an iceberg ahead and telephoned the bridge. The vessel swung slightly in response to her rudder, and the submerged part of the iceberg tore out her plates along the starboard quarters below the water.
COMPARTMENT WALL GIVES WAY.
Water rushed into several of the compartments. The ship listed to starboard. Captain Smith hurried to the bridge. It was thought the ship would float, until a shudder, that vibrated throughout the great frame, told that a compartment wall had given away. Then a definite order was given to man the lifeboats, and stewards were sent to instruct passengers to put on life preservers.
So thoroughly grounded was the belief of the cabin passengers that the Titanic was unsinkable that few of them took the accident seriously. Women in evening dress walked out of the magnificent saloons and joked about the situation. Passengers protested against getting into the lifeboats, although the ship was then sinking by the head.
Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Allison and their little daughter remained on the ship and were lost, after the infant son of the Allison family had been placed in a lifeboat in charge of a nurse.
Isidor Straus and his wife did not appear on deck until an order had been issued that only women and children should be allowed in the lifeboats. Mrs. Straus clung to her husband and refused to leave him. They died in each other’s arms.
Those who escaped in the first lifeboats were disposed to look on their experience as a lark. The sailors manning the oars pulled away from the Titanic. The sound of music floated over the starlit waves. The lights of the Titanic were burning.