Captain Lord entered a sweeping denial of Gill's accusations and read from the Californian's log to support his contention. Cyril Evans, the Californian's wireless operator, however, told of hearing much talk among the crew, who were critical of the captain's course. Gill, he said, told him he expected to get $500 for his story when the ship reached Boston.
Evans told of having warned the Titanic only a brief time before the great vessel crashed into the berg that the sea was crowded with ice. The Titanic's operators, he said, at the time were working with the wireless station at Cape Race, and they told him to "shut up" and keep out. Within a half hour the pride of the sea was crumpled and sinking.
Members of the committee who examined individually the British sailors and stewards of the Titanic's crew prepared a report of their investigations for the full committee. This testimony was ordered to be incorporated in the record of the hearings.
Most of this testimony was but a repetition of experiences similar to the many already related by those who got away in the life-boats.
On April 27th Captain James H. Moore, of the steamship Mount Temple, who hurried to the Titanic in response to wireless calls for help, told of the great stretch of field ice which held him off. Within his view from the bridge he discerned, he said, a strange steamship, probably a "tramp," and a schooner which was making her way out of the ice. The lights of this schooner, he thought, probably were those seen by the anxious survivors of the Titanic and which they were frantically trying to reach.
WOMEN AT HEARING WEEP
Steward Crawford also related a thrilling story in regard to loading the life-boats with women first. He told of several instances that came under his observation of women throwing their arms around their husbands and crying out that they would not leave the ship without them. The pathetic recital caused several women at the hearing to weep, and all within earshot of the steward's story were thrilled.
ANDREWS WAS BRAVE
Stories that Mr. Andrews, the designer of the ship, had tried to disguise the extent of danger were absolutely denied by Henry Samuel Etches, his bedroom steward, who told the committee how Mr. Andrews urged women back to their cabins to dress more warmly and to put on life-belts.
The steward, whose duty it was to serve Major Butt and his party, told how he did not see the Major at dinner the evening of the disaster as he was dining with a private party in the restaurant. William Burke, a first class steward, told of serving dinner at 7.15 o'clock to Mr. and Mrs. Straus, and later Mrs. Straus' refusal to leave her husband was again told to the committee. A bedroom steward told of a quiet conversation with Benjamin Guggenheim, Senator Guggenheim's brother, after the accident and shortly before the Titanic settled in the plunge that was to be his death.