“‘Every man to his post and let him do his full duty like a true Englishman,’ he said. ‘If the situation calls for it, let us add another glorious page to British history.’
“After that every man saluted and went to his post. There was no confusion. Everything was in readiness for the reception of the survivors before 2 o’clock. Only one or two of the passengers were on deck, one of them, Mr. Beachler, having been awakened by a friend, and the other because of inability to sleep. Many of the Carpathia’s passengers slept all through the morning up to 10 o’clock, and had no idea of what was going on.
“We reached the scene of the collision about 4 o’clock. All was black and still but the mountain of ice just ahead told the story. A flare from one of the lifeboats some distance away was the first sign of life. We answered with a rocket, and then there was nothing to do but wait for daylight.
“The first lifeboat reached the Carpathia about half-past 5 o’clock in the morning, and the last of the sixteen boats was unloaded before 9 o’clock. Some of the lifeboats were only half filled, the first one having but two men and eleven women, when it had accommodations for at least forty. There were few men in the boats. The women were the gamest lot I have ever seen. Some of the men and women were in evening clothes, and others among those saved had nothing on but night clothes and raincoats.
IMAGINE THEIR HUSBANDS PICKED BY OTHER VESSELS.
“As soon as they were landed on the Carpathia many of the women became hysterical, but on the whole they behaved splendid. Men and women appeared to be stunned all day Monday, the full force of the disaster not reaching them until Tuesday night. After being wrapped up in blankets and given brandy and hot coffee, their first thoughts were for their husbands and those at home. Most of them imagined that their husbands had been picked up by other vessels and then began flooding the wireless rooms with messages. We knew that those who were not on board the Carpathia had gone down to death, and this belief was confirmed Monday afternoon when we received a wire from Mr. Marconi himself asking why no news had been sent.
“We knew that if any other vessel could by any chance have picked them up it would have communicated with land. After a while, when the survivors failed to get any answer to their queries, they grew so restless that Captain Rostron posted a notice that all private messages had been sent and that the wireless had not been used to give information to the press, as had been charged. Little by little it began to dawn on the women on board, and most of them guessed the worst before they reached here. I saw Mrs. John Jacob Astor when she was taken from the lifeboat. She was calm and collected. She kept to her stateroom all the time, leaving it only to attend a meeting of the survivors on Tuesday afternoon.”
J. R. Moody was a quartermaster on the bridge beside First Officer Murdock when the Titanic struck the berg. “There is no way of telling the approach of the berg, and, besides, I do not intend to go into that now,” said Moody. “We struck, and we paid dearly for it, and that is all there is to that now. We were running between twenty-two and twenty-three knots an hour. It seemed incredible that much damage had been done at first, we struck so lightly. There was a little jar. Almost immediately, though, Captain Smith rushed to the bridge and took charge. Afterward I saw Murdock, standing on the first deck. I saw him raise his arm and shoot himself. He dropped where he stood.
WIRELESS TELEGRAPHIC APPARATUS.