Logan Marshall - Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters

“Immediately below our boat was the exhaust of the condensers, a huge stream of water pouring all the time from the ship’s side just above the water line. It was plain we ought to be quickly away from this, not to be swamped by it when we touched water.

“We had no officer aboard, nor petty officer or member of the crew to take charge. So one of the stokers shouted: ‘Someone find the pin which releases the boat from the ropes and pull it up!’ No one knew where it was. We felt on the floor and sides, but found nothing, and it was hard to move among so many people—we had sixty or seventy on board.

“Down we went and presently floated, with our ropes still holding us, the exhaust washing us away from the side of the vessel and the swell of the sea urging us back against the side again. The result of all these forces was an impetus which carried us parallel to the ship’s side and directly under boat 14, which had filled rapidly with men and was coming down on us in a way that threatened to submerge our boat.

“‘Stop lowering 14,’ our crew shouted, and the crew of No. 14, now only twenty feet above, shouted the same. But the distance to the top was some seventy feet and the creaking pulleys must have deadened all sound to those above, for down she came, fifteen feet, ten feet, five feet and a stoker and I reached up and touched her swinging above our heads. The next drop would have brought her on our heads, but just before she dropped another stoker sprang to the ropes, with his knife.

“‘One,’ I heard him say, ‘two,’ as his knife cut through the pulley ropes, and the next moment the exhaust stream had carried us clear, while boat 14 dropped into the water, into the space we had the moment before occupied, our gunwales almost touching.

“We drifted away easily, as the oars were got out, and headed directly away from the ship. The crew seemed to me to be mostly stewards or cooks in white jackets, two to an oar, with a stoker at the tiller. There was a certain amount of shouting from one end of the boat to the other, and discussion as to which way we should go, but finally it was decided to elect the stoker, who was steering, as captain, and for all to obey his orders. He set to work at once to get into touch with the other boats, calling to them and getting as close as seemed wise, so that when the search boats came in the morning to look for us, there would be more chance for all to be rescued by keeping together.

“It was now about 1 A. M.; a beautiful starlight night, with no moon, and so not very light. The sea was as calm as a pond, just a gentle heave as the boat dipped up and down in the swell; an ideal night, except for the bitter cold, for anyone who had to be out in the middle of the Atlantic ocean in an open boat. And if ever there was a time when such a night was needed, surely it was now, with hundreds of people, mostly women and children, afloat hundreds of miles from land.

“The captain-stoker told us that he had been at sea twenty-six years, and had never yet seen such a calm night on the Atlantic. As we rowed away from the Titanic, we looked back from time to time to watch her, and a more striking spectacle it was not possible for anyone to see.

“In the distance it looked an enormous length, its great bulk outlined in black against the starry sky, every port-hole and saloon blazing with light. It was impossible to think anything could be wrong with such a leviathan, were it not for that ominous tilt downward in the bows, where the water was by now up to the lowest row of port-holes.

“Presently, about 2 A. M., as near as I can remember, we observed it settling very rapidly, with the bows and the bridge completely under water, and concluded it was now only a question of minutes before it went; and so it proved.”

Mr. Beasley went on to tell of the spectacle of the sinking of the Titanic, the terrible experiences of the survivors in the life-boats and their final rescue by the Carpathia as already related.

ONE of the calmest of the passengers was: young Jack Thayer, the seventeen-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. John B. Thayer. When his mother was put into the life-boat he kissed her and told her to be brave, saying that he and his father would be all right. He and Mr. Thayer stood on the deck as the small boat in which Mrs. Thayer was a passenger made off from the side of the Titanic over the smooth sea.

The boy’s own account of his experience as told to one of his rescuers is one of the most remarkable of all the wonderful ones that have come from the tremendous catastrophe:

“Father was in bed, and mother and myself were about to get into bed. There was no great shock, I was on my feet at the time and I do not think it was enough to throw anyone down. I put on an overcoat and rushed up on A deck on the port side. I saw nothing there. I then went forward to the bow to see if I could see any signs of ice. The only ice I saw was on the well deck. I could not see very far ahead, having just come out of a brightly lighted room.

“I then went down to our room and my father and mother came on deck with me, to the starboard side of A deck. We could not see anything there. Father thought he saw small pieces of ice floating around, but I could not see any myself. There was no big berg. We walked around to the port side, and the ship had then a fair list to port. We stayed there looking over the side for about five minutes. The list seemed very slowly to be increasing.

“We then went down to our rooms on C deck, all of us dressing quickly, putting on all our clothes. We all put on life-preservers, and over these we put our overcoats. Then we hurried up on deck and walked around, looking out at different places until the women were all ordered to collect on the port side.

“Father and I said good-bye to mother at the top of the stairs on A deck. She and the maid went right out on A deck on the port side and we went to the starboard side. As at this time we had no idea the boat would sink we walked around A deck and then went to B deck. Then we thought we would go back to see if mother had gotten off safely, and went to the port side of A deck. We met the chief steward of the main dining saloon and he told us that mother had not yet taken a boat, and he took us to her.

“Father and mother went ahead and I followed. They went down to B deck and a crowd got in front of me and I was not able to catch them, and lost sight of them. As soon as I could get through the crowd I tried to find them on B deck, but without success. That is the last time I saw my father. This was about one half an hour before she sank. I then went to the starboard side, thinking that father and mother must have gotten off in a boat. All of this time I was with a fellow named Milton C. Long, of New York, whom I had just met that evening.

“On the starboard side the boats were getting away quickly. Some boats were already off in a distance. We thought of getting into one of the boats, the last boat to go on the forward part of the starboard side, but there seemed to be such a crowd around I thought it unwise to make any attempt to get into it. He and I stood by the davits of one of the boats that had left. I did not notice anybody that I knew except Mr. Lindley, whom I had also just met that evening. I lost sight of him in a few minutes. Long and I then stood by the rail just a little aft of the captain’s bridge.