“I helped fill the boats with women,” said Thomas Whiteley, who was a waiter on the Titanic. “Collapsible boat No. 2 on the starboard jammed. The second officer was hacking at the ropes with a knife and I was being dragged around the deck by that rope when I looked up and saw the boat, with all aboard, turn turtle. In some way I got overboard myself and clung to an oak dresser. I wasn’t more than sixty feet from the Titanic when she went down. Her big stern rose up in the air and she went down bow first. I saw all the machinery drop out of her.”
HENRY B. HARRIS
Henry B. Harris, of New York, a theatrical manager, was one of the men who showed superb courage in the crisis. When the life-boats were first being filled, and before there was any panic, Mr. Harris went to the side of his wife before the boat was lowered away.
“Women first,” shouted one of the ship’s officers. Mr. Harris glanced up and saw that the remark was addressed to him.
“All right,” he replied coolly. “Good-bye, my dear,” he said, as he kissed his wife, pressed her a moment to his breast, and then climbed back to the Titanic’s deck.
THREE EXPLOSIONS
Up to this time there had been no panic; but about one hour before the ship plunged to the bottom there were three separate explosions of bulkheads as the vessel filled. These were at intervals of about fifteen minutes. From that time there was a different scene. The rush for the remaining boats became a stampede.
The stokers rushed up from below and tried to beat a path through the steerage men and women and through the sailors and officers, to get into the boats. They had their iron bars and shovels, and they struck down all who stood in their way.
The first to come up from the depths of the ship was an engineer. From what he is reported to have said it is probable that the steam fittings were broken and many were scalded to death when the Titanic lifted. He said he had to dash through a narrow place beside a broken pipe and his back was frightfully scalded.
Right at his heels came the stokers. The officers had pistols, but they could not use them at first for fear of killing the women and children. The sailors fought with their fists and many of them took the stoke bars and shovels from the stokers and used them to beat back the others.