“Several hundred yards, probably, some of them.”
“Describe the screams.”
“Don’t, sir, please! I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I’m sorry to press it, but what was it like? Were the screams spasmodic?”
“It was one long continuous moan.”
The witness said the moans and cries continued an hour.
Those in the life-boats longed to return and pick up some of the poor drowning souls, but they feared this would mean swamping the boats and a further loss of life.
Some of the men tried to sing to keep the women from hearing the cries, and rowed hard to get away from the scene of the wreck, but the memory of those sounds will be one of the things the rescued will find it difficult to forget.
The waiting sufferers kept a lookout for lights, and several times it was shouted that steamers’ lights were seen, but they turned out to be either a light from another boat or a star low down on the horizon. It was hard to keep up hope.