“I thought we had struck an iceberg when I heard the fearful grinding in the bows. With a cry to the girls who were with me, I stumbled out of the narrow stateroom, and groped up to the deck. Here was chaos. The ship was listing, listing, listing. Every step I took to the uppermost part of the deck, I seemed to be slipping back into that maelstrom of water and falling bodies. Finally, I gained the rail. I climbed up on the rail, and with a prayer in my heart I jumped into the blackness. The water surged over my head. Down, down, I went. I could not swim a stroke. But I remembered that you should keep the air in your lungs, and as I sank I clenched my jaws, determined to stay with the battle as long as strength lasted. After long, long periods of struggle and fainting and renewed struggle, I saw a man, not far off, swimming with a life-belt. I forgot to tell you that I fastened a belt around my waist when I jumped.
“I reached my hand towards this hope of rescue, the man’s belt. It eluded me. Finally I grasped it. Then I saw how the man made the swimming motions, like a frog. I tried to do the same. I used every fibre and nerve to make the motions. I knew this was the chance for life.
“Then, when my energy was going fast, I heard a faint cry. There was a cluster of people. It was a life-boat.
“The next few moments are indistinct in my memory. Some one was lifting me, dragging me over something hard. Now they were speaking to me. They revived me, and I was got aboard the Storstad, the ship that struck us.
“I can’t tell you any more. The scenes on the deck, ah——”
CLIMBED UP SIDE OF LINER AS SHE KEELED OVER
A dramatic escape was related by Major Atwell of the Salvation Army, Toronto. Major Atwell lost all his belongings in the disaster. When he reached Montreal his clothing told of the struggle and its sequel. Peculiarly enough, as was the case with the Titanic, the shock of the collision was scarcely felt by a number of the passengers.
“My experience,” said Major Atwell, “was that the slight shock scarcely worried me at all. I had an idea at the time that we had perhaps struck the tender, so slight appeared the shock. I did not look upon it as anything serious, but my wife thought I had better get up.
“My wife and I went on deck and we found that the vessel was listing and the list was increasing. It was all over in a few minutes. The list grew greater. It was so great that I could see no chance of getting into a life-boat, even if one was launched, and I did not see how one could be launched. So I fastened a life-belt round my wife and put one on myself.
“As the vessel heeled over, we clung to the rail and finally clambered over it on the side of the ship. As the boat sank, we clambered farther and farther along the side in the direction of the keel, until we had climbed, I think, a third of the way.