Logan Marshall - Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters

H. H. Brunt, of Chicago, was at the gangplank waiting for A. Saalfeld, head of the wholesale drug firm of Sparks, White & Co., of London, who was coming to this country on the Titanic on a business trip and whose life was saved.

During the afternoon and evening tugboats, motor boats and even sailing craft, had been waiting off the Ambrose Light for the appearance of the Carpathia.

Some of the waiting craft contained friends and anxious relatives of the survivors and those reported as missing.

The sea was rough and choppy, and a strong east wind was blowing. There was a light fog, so that it was possible to see at a distance of only a few hundred yards. This lifted later in the evening.

First to discover the incoming liner with her pitiful cargo was one of the tugboats. From out of the mist there loomed far out at sea the incoming steamer.

“Liner ahead!” cried the lookout on the tug to the captain.

“She must be the Carpathia,” said the captain, and then he turned the nose of his boat toward the spot on t he horizon.

Then the huge black hull and one smokestack could be distinguished.

“It’s the Carpathia,” said the captain. “I can tell her by the stack.”

The announcement sent a thrill through those who heard it. Here, at the gate of New York, was a ship whose record for bravery and heroic work would be a famuliar{sic} name in history.

{illust. caption = Copyright by G. V. Buck. MRS. LUCIEN P. SMITH

Formerly Miss Eloise Hughes, daughter of Representative and Mrs. James A. Hughes, of West Virginia. Mrs. Smith and her husband were passengers on the Titanic. Mrs. Smith was saved, but her husband went to a watery grave. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were married only a few months ago.}

{illust. caption = MAJOR ARCHIBALD BUTT

Military Aide to President Taft. Of Major Butt, who was one of the victims of the Titanic, one of the survivors said: “Major Butt was the real leader in all of that rescue work. He made the men stand back and helped the women and children into the boats. He was surely one of God’s noblemen."}

IT was a solemn moment when the Carpathia heaved in sight. There she rested on the water, a blur of black—huge, mysterious, awe-inspiring—and yet withal a thing to send thrills of pity and then of admiration through the beholder.

It was a few minutes after seven o’clock when she arrived at the entrance to Ambrose Channel. She was coming fast steaming at better than fifteen knots an hour, and she was sighted long before she was expected. Except for the usual side and masthead lights she was almost dark, only the upper cabins showing a glimmer here and there.

Then began a period of waiting, the suspense of which proved almost too much for the hundreds gathered there to greet friends and relatives or to learn with certainty at last that those for whom they watched would never come ashore.

There was almost complete silence on the pier. Doctors and nurses, members of the Women’s Relief Committee, city and government officials, as well as officials of the line, moved nervously about.

Seated where they had been assigned beneath the big customs letters corresponding to the initials of the names of the survivors they came to meet, sat the mass of 2000 on the pier.

Women wept, but they wept quietly, not hysterically, and the sound of the sobs made many times less noise than the hum and bustle which is usual on the pier among those awaiting an incoming liner.

Slowly and majestically the ship slid through the water, still bearing the details of that secret of what happened and who perished when the Titanic met her fate.

Convoying the Carpathia was a fleet of tugs bearing men and women anxious to learn the latest news. The Cunarder had been as silent for days as though it, too, were a ship of the dead. A list of survivors had been given out from its wireless station and that was all. Even the approximate time of its arrival had been kept a secret.

There was no response to the hail from one tug, and as others closed in, the steamship quickened her speed a little and left them behind as she swung up the channel.

There was an exploding of flashlights from some of the tugs, answered seemingly by sharp stabs of lightning in the northwest that served to accentuate the silence and absence of light aboard the rescue ship. Five or six persons, apparently members of the crew or the ship’s officers, were seen along the rail; but otherwise the boat appeared to be deserted.

Off quarantine the Carpathia slowed down and, hailing the immigration inspection boat, asked if the health officer wished to board. She was told that he did, and came to a stop while Dr. O’Connell and two assistants climbed on board. Again the newspaper men asked for some word of the catastrophe to the Titanic, but there was no answer, and the Carpathia continued toward her pier.

As she passed the revenue cutter Mohawk and the derelict destroyer Seneca anchored off Tompkinsville the wireless on the Government vessels was seen to flash, but there was no answering spark from the Carpathia. Entering the North River she laid her course close to the New Jersey side in order to have room to swing into her pier.

By this time the rails were lined with men and women. They were very silent. There were a few requests for news from those on board and a few answers to questions shouted from the tugs.

The liner began to slacken her speed, and the tugboat soon was alongside. Up above the inky blackness of the hull figures could be made out, leaning over the port railing, as though peering eagerly at the little craft which was bearing down on the Carpathia.

Some of them, perhaps, had passed through that inferno of the deep sea which sprang up to destroy the mightiest steamship afloat.

“Carpathia, ahoy!” was shouted through a megaphone.

There was an interval of a few seconds, and then, “Aye, aye,” came the reply.

“Is there any assistance that can be rendered?” was the next question.

“Thank you, no,” was the answer in a tone that carried emotion with it. Meantime the tugboat was getting nearer and nearer to the Carpathia, and soon the faces of those leaning over the railing could be distinguished.

More faces appeared, and still more.

A woman who called to a man on the tugboat was asked? “Are you one the Titanic survivors?”

“Yes,” said the voice, hesitatingly.

“Do you need help?”

“No,” after a pause.

“If there is anything you want done it will be attended to.”

“Thank you. I have been informed that my relatives will meet me at the pier.”

“Is it true that some of the life-boats sank with the Titanic?”

“Yes. There was some trouble in manning them. They were not far enough away from her.”

All of this questioning and receiving replies was carried on with the greatest difficulty. The pounding of the liner’s engines, the washing of the sea, the tugboat’s engines, made it hard to understand the woman’s replies.

“Were the women properly cared for after the crash?” she was asked.

“Oh, yes,” came the shrill reply. “The men were brave—very brave.” Here her voice broke and she turned and left the railing, to reappear a few moments later and cry: