Titanic (25 page)

(Preceding image)
A group of
Titanic
survivors on board the
Carpathia
, including Mr. and Mrs. G. A. Harder and Mrs. Charles M. Hayes.

For Jack, his mother, and the other survivors, the trip back to New York was “one big heartache and misery.”

The only bright spots were the kindness of the crew and passengers on the
Carpathia
. Captain Rostron had given his own cabin to Jack’s mother, as well as two other ladies: Mrs. George D. Widener and Mrs. John Jacob Astor, the young widow of the millionaire. Jack slept on the floor for the next two nights.

“The passengers and crew of the
Carpathia
were wonderfully good to us, looking to our every need and comfort,” he recalled. “. . . It seemed as if there were none but widows left, each one mourning the loss of her husband. It was a most pitiful sight.

“All were hoping beyond hope, even for weeks afterwards, that some ship, somehow, had picked up their loved one, and that he would be eventually among the saved.”

Charlotte Collyer was one of these searching desperately for her husband.

“We could only rush frantically from group to group, searching the haggard faces, crying out names, and endless questions. No survivor knows better than I the bitter cruelty of disappointment and despair. I had a husband to search for, a husband whom in the greatness of my faith, I had believed would be found in one of the boats. He was not there.”

Captain Rostron had found all the lifeboats. “By the time we had the first boat’s people it was breaking day, and then I could see the remaining boats all around within an area of about 4 miles,” he reported.

“I also saw icebergs all around me. There were about 20 icebergs that would be anywhere from about 150 to 200 feet high and numerous smaller bergs; also numerous what we call ‘growlers.’ You would not call them bergs. They were anywhere from 10 to 12 feet high and 10 to 15 feet long above the water . . . We got all the boats alongside and all the people up aboard by 8:30.”

Captain Rostron arranged for a memorial service to be held, “a short prayer of thankfulness for those rescued and a short burial service for those who were lost.

“While they were holding the service, I was on the bridge, of course, and I maneuvered around the scene of the wreckage. We saw nothing except one body.”

Captain Rostron had wanted to have one more look for survivors, just in case. Then the
Carpathia
set out to return to New York, the port she had started from.

The time was 8:50 a.m. on Monday, April 15, 1912. It had been nine hours and ten minutes since the most magnificent ship on the seas had struck the iceberg.

The
Carpathia
left the scene with the 712
Titanic
survivors on board. There would be no more.

The ocean was empty.

(Preceding image)
Survivors of the
Titanic
rest on board the
Carpathia
.

Junior radio operator Harold Bride had suffered terribly from exposure and from having his feet crushed, frozen, and wrenched during the long hours on Collapsible B. When he finally reached the deck of the
Carpathia
, he could barely walk. He was helped below to a doctor’s care.

But on Monday night, word came that the
Carpathi
a’s radio operator, Harold Cottam, whom Bride knew, was overwhelmed by the number of messages he was being asked to transmit from survivors. Would Bride lend a hand?

Though he was still exhausted and in pain, Bride couldn’t refuse. “After that I never was out of the wireless room,” he recalled. He realized it was important for survivors to connect with family and friends. “I knew it soothed the hurt and felt like a tie to the world of friends and home . . .”

There were also inquiries and messages from reporters and newspapers. Bride ignored most of these. “Whenever I started to take such a message I thought of the poor people waiting for their messages to go — hoping for answers to them. I shut off the inquiries, and sent my personal messages.”

It was, he thought, the right thing to do.

(Preceding image)
A Marconi telegraph that was sent by a survivor of the
Titanic
from the SS
Carpathia
.

(Preceding image)
Titanic
survivors gather on the deck of the
Carpathia
.

On the crowded
Carpathia
, survivors slowly warmed up and came back to life. And with that came the realization that many had lost everything. Several people formed a committee to take up a collection to help those in need.

Margaret Brown, also known as the “Unsinkable Molly Brown,” who had spent the night rowing in Lifeboat 6, was active in these efforts. Once on shore, she also organized the presentation of a silver cup to thank Captain Rostron.

Lawrence Beesley volunteered to help document the names of survivors and assist those who had lost all their money and possessions. “On the afternoon of Tuesday, I visited the steerage in company with a fellow-passenger, to take down the names of all who were saved.

“We grouped them into nationalities — English, Irish, and Swedish mostly — and learnt from them their names and homes, the amount of money they possessed, and whether they had friends in America . . . ,” he said. “There were some pitiful cases of women with children and the husband lost; some with one or two children saved and the others lost. In one case, a whole family was missing, and only a friend left to tell of them.”

Third class passenger Emily Goldsmith, who had lost her husband and all her possessions, didn’t wait until they docked to begin helping others. Concerned about women and children who had only their nightclothes, she decided to take action. Frankie Goldsmith remembered that his mother approached the crew with a plan. “. . . she asked the men if they could round up any cloth or ship’s blankets, scissors, needles, thread, and buttons so she and some of the other ladies could make emergency clothes.”

While his mother worked, Frankie was befriended by Samuel Collins, a surviving fireman from the
Titanic
. He tried to keep Frankie’s hopes up and took him “all over the ship — from up on the captain’s bridge to down into the boiler rooms. I spent time with the cooks, the bakers, the engine room crew, all who tried lots of ways to cheer me up.”

Frankie would never forget this experience. “Then it all came back to me — those wonderful sights we young boys aboard the
Titanic
had looked down upon, and that wonderful singing we listened to as the firemen were doing their job — and down here I was —
down there with ’em
!!!”

(Preceding image)
A list of drowned passengers who died when the RMS
Titanic
went down.