He was telling some of his experiences and some of his thoughts at a meeting of members of the Salvation Army, at the organization’s headquarters, No. 120 West Fourteenth Street. Mr. McIntyre is well known among Salvationists. His father, Colonel William A. McIntyre, is one of the leading officers in the Salvation Army in New York. Mr. McIntyre himself has been active in the movement for many years and joined the Canadian staff band in the autumn of 1913, when he went to take up electrical work in Toronto.
“When I was nine years old, in Boston, I was at death’s door for months,” he said. “My father and mother never expected that I could live, but in their prayers they said to God that they were resigned and were willing that His will should be done. If there was something in store for me, they told Him, they hoped that I might be spared.
“While I was swimming in the water I thought of this again, and I said practically the same thing my father and mother had said. Now that I am here and alive and comparatively well I want to repeat to you my pledge that I will devote myself and my life to God’s work.
“Somehow or other when I was on the ship I didn’t pray. I don’t know whether I hadn’t time or whether I didn’t think of it. It’s always the other ship that’s going down. You never think that the one you’re on will sink.
SALVATIONISTS BRAVE TO THE END
“Those of the Salvation Army who reached the deck after the collision made no outcries,” he said. “None of them seemed afraid, and I heard only a low moan from one woman. There was no trampling of children on the part of any one on the ship that I saw. Of course, in the rush to the deck every one wanted to get up, but many helped others on the way. There was no great excitement.
“We didn’t know for hours after the wreck how many of our party had been saved. All I had on when I reached the rescue ship was an undershirt and a piece of canvas, and I didn’t have the latter until some hours after the accident. One of our men was upon two different pieces of wreckage before being picked up by a boat. One woman, Mrs. Greenaway, on being pulled into a boat exclaimed, ‘Why did you save me? Tom is gone!’ When she was taken to shore she found that Tom had been saved. Husband and wife were reunited. Tom Greenaway had sent her up to the deck and waited to dress. When he got on deck he could not find his wife, and thinking she was dead said, ‘I don’t want to live,’ He clung to the railing as the ship went down. The water tore him loose and he rose to the surface. A table floated under him. Thinking it was not intended he should die he hung on and was picked up to find that his wife Margaret had also been saved.
MAJOR ATWELL’S EXPERIENCE
“Major Atwell hunted for a life-preserver for his wife and finally found one in a life-boat that was out of commission. He strapped it around her and then went to look for something for himself. He found a water cask, emptied the water out and clung to it as he and his wife went overboard. The waves tore the cask away from him and he, with his wife near, went under three times. On the third rising he found somebody’s air cushion in his hands. It saved his life.
“As I swam away from the ship I heard him calling as he and his wife floated in the water. I thought he was sinking and said to myself, ‘There goes poor Major Atwell.’ When he had seen me go over the side he had said, ‘There goes poor Kenneth.’ I swam a mile and a half before being picked up.