Colonel Astor, Major Butt, C. M. Hays, W. M. Clark and other friends stood together. Astor and Butt were strong swimmers. When the water reached the ship’s rail, Butt and Astor jumped and began swimming rapidly away. There was little suction despite the bulk of the foundering craft.
SHIP DISAPPEARS FROM VIEW.
There was a dreadful cry as the ship disappeared from view. Instantly the water was filled with hundreds of struggling men. The spot just above the grave of the liner was strewn with wreckage. Some tried to climb upon the ice cakes. But the cold air and the cold water soon numbed the fingers of the men in the water. Even the most powerful of the refugees soon gave out. Exhausted by their effort and numb from exposure they dropped one by one.
There are survivors, however, among them Dr. Henry J. Frauenthal, of this city, who said that they heard cries from the water for two hours after the Titanic sank. Amidst the acres and acres of wreckage hundreds of dead bodies floated. Many of them were among the first cabin passengers, still dressed in their evening clothes which they had worn when the ship struck the iceberg.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW SURVIVORS ESCAPED.
Managing Director Accused—Stoker Makes Direct Charge—Supported by Many Survivors—Tells about It—“Please Don’t Knock”—Demanded Food—Brave Lot of Women—First Officer Shot Himself.
One man stands out in a most unenviable light amid the narratives of heroism and suffering attending the great Titanic sea tragedy. This man is J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, who, according to accounts of survivors, made himself the exception to the rule of the sea, “Women first,” in the struggle for life.
Some of these survivors say he jumped into the first life boat, others that he got into the third or fourth. However that may be, he is among the comparatively few men saved, and the manner of his escape aroused the wrath and criticism of many.
A woman with a baby was pushed to the side of the third boat, says one survivor. Ismay got out; he then climbed into the fourth boat. “I will man this boat,” he said, and there was no one who said him nay.
“Mr. Ismay was in the first lifeboat that left the Titanic,” declared William Jones, an eighteen-year-old stoker, who was called to man one of the lifeboats. Jones comes from Southampton, England, and this was his first ocean voyage. He left the Carpathia tottering. “There were three firemen in each boat,” he said. “I don’t know how many were killed in the boiler explosion which occurred after the last lifeboat had put off. I saw four boats, filled with first cabin passengers, sink. In the boat I was in, two women died from exposure. We were picked up about 8 o’clock.”