Mr. Duncan paid a high tribute to Dr. Grant. “He stood out as a typical Anglo-Saxon, calm, commanding, looking after the injured. He is a magnificent man.”
FOUR CLIMBED ON UPTURNED LIFE-BOAT; SAVED MANY LIVES
The sensation of sinking with the suction of the leviathan steamship as she went down, of being pulled down for fathoms under water, and of rising on the crest of the reacting swell to catch the keel of an upturned skiff, was the night’s adventure of Staff Captain McCameron, of the Salvation Army, Toronto. The story as told in the Captain’s words is as follows:
“What an unspeakable confusion there was on the listing decks! With every lurch of the steamer we had to take a step higher and higher to the upper side, and finally I gained the rail, and stuck to it. I could swim, but I knew the mad folly of jumping into that swirling cataract at the side of the ship. She was sinking, inch by inch, now faster and faster. In a breathless moment, I felt the last rush to the bottom. A moment we hung on the surface. Then an endless, dreadful force dragged us down. How deep I went I cannot know, of course. It was yards and yards. Then came the cresting of the wave, and I was buoyed up on it. I had clutched tight at my senses meanwhile, and strove not to lose my head. The moment my head emerged, I saw a dark object on the water. I struck out for this, and soon was grasping the keel of an overturned ship’s boat. I clambered aboard, not much the worse, and not very unduly excited.
“Three or four more men also managed to get on the rocking back of the boat, and we then got to another which we righted, and got into. The canvas covering had not been taken from this boat, and a member of the crew, who was of us, ripped this open and enabled us to board it. The oars were intact. Within a few minutes, therefore, we were at work rescuing the people whose bodies eddied about us in circles.
“One man grasped the end of my oar. He slipped. Again I reached his hand with it. Then he sank out of sight. A woman, a foreigner, had better fortune. The third time she did not slip off, and we managed to get her aboard. She was saved. I do not know her name. She was a steerage passenger.
“The ship’s surgeon saved dozens of lives by his work of resuscitation on land. No sooner had we got to shore, than he had us at work manipulating the chests and limbs of the apparently drowned in efforts to save them. He was a Heaven-sent messenger to many stricken souls.”
SALVATION ARMY LASSIE RESCUED WHEN ABOUT TO SINK
Tales of each other’s heroic rescues, and shuddering accounts of their own mishaps and fight for life in the swirling St. Lawrence, were told.
With a blanket thrown round her shoulders, her eyes lit with the wild excitement of the night of horror, Miss Alice Bales, one of the young women Salvationists who was saved, recounted how her struggles finally brought succor and safety. Her cheeks were successively hectic and pallid as she told the hideous story. She said: