Voices from the Titanic

by Geoff Tibballs

  (US press, 20 April 1912)

  Miss Sue Eva Rule, sister of Judge Virgil Rule of St Louis, Missouri, was a passenger on the Carpathia.

  Just as day broke a tiny craft was sighted rowing towards us and as it came closer we saw women huddled together, the stronger ones manning the oars. The first to come aboard was a nurse maid who had wrapped in a coat an eleven-months-old baby, the only one of a family of five persons to be rescued. The men and women both seemed dazed. Most of them had almost perished with the cold, and some of them who had been literally thrown into the lifeboats perished from exposure.

  One of the most harrowing scenes I ever saw was the service of thanksgiving, followed by the prayers for the dead, which took place in the dining saloon of the Carpathia. The moans of the women and the cries of little children as their loss was brought home to them were heartrending.

  How those who were saved survived the exposure is a miracle. One woman came aboard devoid of underwear, a Turkish towel wrapped about her waist served as a corset, while an evening wrap was her only protection. Women in evening frocks and white satin slippers and children wrapped in steamer rugs became common sights. Soon the passengers were almost in as bad a plight as the rescued. Trunks were unpacked and clothing distributed right and left. Finally the steamer rugs were ripped apart and sewn into impromptu garments.

  Shooting was heard by many in the lifeboats just before the ship took its final plunge, and the opinion of many was that, rather than drown, the men shot themselves.

  Mrs Astor was one of the first to come aboard. She was taken at once to the captain’s room. Others were distributed among the cabins, the Carpathia’s passengers sleeping on the floors of the saloons, in the bathrooms, and on the tables throughout the ship in order to let the survivors have as much comfort as the ship afforded. One woman came aboard with a six-month-old baby she had never seen until the moment it was thrust into her arms as she swung into the lifeboat.

  Mrs Regina Steiner of New York was also a passenger on the Carpathia. She described the harrowing scene to American pressmen.

  I saw sixteen of the Titanic boats picked up. The poor women were in a frightful state from exposure and anxiety and all of them were holding to the hope that their male relatives whom they had left behind had been rescued by some miracle after the small boats drew clear of the sinking Titanic.

  In one of the Titanic boats a sailor, one of the Titanic crew that was manning one of the boats, was dead from exposure before we picked them up. Later seven of those rescued died aboard the Carpathia. Oh, it was terrible! Four of them, I was told, were sailors, overcome by the exposure of that terrible night, and three were passengers. They were all buried at sea. There was no ceremony for any of them that I saw and we knew of their burial only because we saw the unmistakable canvas sacks dropped into the sea.

  (New York World, 19 April 1912)

  A steward on board the Carpathia gave his version of events.

  Just as it was about half day we came upon a boat with eighteen men in it but no women. It was not more than a third filled. All the men were able to climb up a Jacob’s ladder which we threw over the port side. Between 8.15 and 8.30 we got the last two boats, crowded to the gunwale, almost all the occupants of which were women. After we had got the last load on board the Californian came alongside. The captains arranged that we should make straight for New York, while the Californian looked around for more boats. We circled round and round and saw all kinds of wreckage. While we were pulling in the boatloads the women were quiet enough, but when it seemed sure that we should not find any more persons alive, then bedlam came. I hope never to go through it again. The way those women took on for the folk they had lost was awful. We could not do anything to quiet them until they cried themselves out.

  (British press, 20 April 1912)

  Dr Stanton Coit, President of the West London Ethical Society, was a passenger aboard the Carpathia on the fateful night. Before re-sailing from New York to Europe aboard the same vessel, he gave his impressions of the rescue to a periodical.

  At 5.30 Monday morning last our bedroom steward reported that the ship had stopped to rescue the passengers from the Titanic, which had sunk the night before. I hurried on deck, saw great icebergs about, and looking over the railing, saw some fifteen rowboats approaching us, full chiefly of women. These were drawn up on board and passed us by, most of them so stiff with cold and wet that they could not walk without being supported. Soon the tragic news spread among us that some 1,500 people had been drowned, and for the most part only women had been saved.

  My first and lasting impression was the inward calm and self-poise – not self-control, for there was no effort or self-consciousness – on the part of those who had been saved. I said to one woman, whose dress, but not her face, betrayed that she was one of those who had undergone tragic experiences: ‘You were on the Titanic?’ She answered: ‘Yes, and I saw my husband go down.’ The only hysteria displayed was after the physician had administered brandy to the half-frozen sufferers. The people struck me not as being stunned and crushed, but as lifted into an atmosphere of vision where self-centred suffering merges into some mystic meaning. Everyone reported a magnificent self-possession of the husbands when parted from their wives. Many related the cases of women who had to be forced from their husbands. Touching beyond words was the gratitude towards those of us who gave clothes and our state rooms. More magnificent than the calm of the clear dawn was the unconsciousness of any personal horror, or need to pity, on the part of those who related how they had met their fate.

  One youth of seventeen told, as if it had been an incident of everyday life, that he was hurled from the deck and that as he found himself sinking he took a deep breath. When he came up and found that he was again to be drawn under, he thought it would be well again to breathe deep. Upon rising the second time, he said, he saw the upturned bottom of a canvas boat. To this he clung until he was rescued. One woman in one boat insisted that they should row back and rescue eight men clinging to wreckage, although the oarsmen feared the suction of the great steamer might endanger their lives, and the eight were thus rescued.

  My feeling is that in the midst of all this horror, human nature never manifested itself as greater or tenderer. We were all one, not only with one another, but with the cosmic being that for all time had seemed so cruel.

  On board the Carpathia there was much discussion as to the possible culpability of the captain of the Titanic, but there was no judgement offered. But I return again to what I say was my first and abiding impression – the self-poise that is so because the human soul is not self-centred. One young woman with whom I talked was so calm and full of the stories of the heroism and the suffering of others that I said: ‘How fortunate that you lost no friend!’ Then for the first time her face changed and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she said: ‘My brother, who was my only living relative, went down before my eyes. He scorned to disobey the discipline, so now I am alone.’

  (Outlook, 27 April 1912)

  Maude Sincock, aged twenty-one, was on her way from her Cornish home to see her father who had emigrated to Hancock, Michigan. She travelled second-class on the Titanic with Mrs Agnes Davis, a friend of her mother’s, and Mrs Davis’s two sons, John and Joseph. After being picked up the Carpathia, Miss Sincock wrote to her mother, the letter being published in their local paper.

  I am saved but I have lost everything. I must however be thankful for my life. I have not a penny and no clothes. I was thrown on board a little boat in my nightdress and boots. I had no stockings on. We were in this little boat in the middle of the ocean for six hours, and I was nearly frozen when we were picked up. I shall be a pretty sight when I land. We were rescued by a passing ship, the Carpathia. The Titanic struck just before midnight and was underwater about two o’clock. There were over 1,000 persons on board when she foundered. Mrs Davis and her son John are saved, but we have seen nothing of Joe. We think he is drowned. We have not seen anything of the
other ‘boys’ who left St Ives. We could hear the screams from the men as the Titanic was sinking. I think there are hundreds drowned.

  I don’t know what I shall do when I get to New York. I am frightened to death nearly, and I am afraid I shall catch my death of cold by the time I get to Hancock. I will write again as soon as possible and tell you more news. I don’t know where they are going to put us when we get to New York.

  Your loving daughter, Maude.

  (St Ives Times, 3 May 1912)

  Rescued Titanic passenger Elizabeth Nye, aged twenty-nine, sent a letter to her parents in Folkestone, Kent, from the Carpathia. It was dated Tuesday, 16 April, and was published in their local paper three weeks later.

  My dear mother and dad, I expect you have been wondering whether you would ever hear from me again. You have seen by the papers the wreck of the Titanic, but after the most terrible time of my life, I am safe. My nerves are very shattered, I look and feel about ten years older, but I will get over it again after a time.

  You will like to hear the truth of the wreck from me, for the papers never tell the right news. We were all in bed on Sunday night at about 11.30 when we felt an awful jerk, and the boat grazed something along its side, and the sea seemed to splash right over the deck. The men in the next cabin slipped on their coats and ran up to see what it was, and came and told us the ship had run into an iceberg nearly as large as herself.

  Most of the people went back to bed again, but then came an order to ‘get up and put something warm on, put on a lifebelt and come on deck.’ So I got one underskirt on and a skirt, and stockings, and shoes and coat, and ran up to find a lifebelt, because there were only three in our berth for four of us. A boy from the next cabin stole one from ours, but he went down with it – poor boy. We did not have time to go back to our cabins again to get anything, and we did not dream it was serious. I thought I should get back to get more clothes on and get a few other things, but we were put into the lifeboats, and pushed off at once. They put all ladies and children in first. I guess there were thirty or forty in our boat. It seemed to be the last one lowered with women in it.

  When we got away from the ship we could understand the hurry and the order to get half a mile away as soon as possible. For the Titanic was half in the water. We watched the portholes go under until half the ship, only the back half, stuck up. Then the lights went out, and the boilers burst and blew up. There was a sickening roar like hundreds of lions, and we heard no more but the moaning and shouting for help from the hundreds of men and a few women who went down with her.

  There were not enough boats for so many people. Twenty lifeboats were lowered, and only fourteen boats were picked up. Several men were on a raft that was thrown out, and their cries for help were so pitiful for so long. Only one fellow, about twenty-one years old, is alive from the raft. He says the men were pushed off to make it lighter. This man was on it for six hours and then saved.

  Just before the ship went down the captain, the same Captain Smith of the twin ship Olympic, jumped into the sea and picked up a little girl who was hanging to the ship, and put her on the raft. They pulled him on, too, but he would not stay. He said: ‘Goodbye boys, I must go with the ship.’ He swam back through the icy waters and died at his post.

  We had no drink or provisions. The only thing in our favour was the clear starlight night and fairly smooth sea.

  This boat, the Carpathia, of the Cunard line, was going from Halifax to Berlin. She was the only ship near enough to catch the wireless message for help from the Titanic, and then the operator says he was just leaving and closing the door when he heard the clicking of the wireless. So it was taken just in time, for they never sent another message, and it was an hour and a quarter after that before the first lifeboat got to the ship. Of course, she stood still, and waited for us all to come up. They were all in but two when we got in.

  We were in the little boat for just five hours and a half before being rescued. They lowered bags for the babies to pull them up, and we sat on a kind of swing and were drawn up by a rope to safety. They have been most kind to us. They led us one by one to the dining room, and gave us brandy. I drank half a glass of brandy down without water. We were all perished, and it put life into us. The ship is, of course, filled with its own passengers. But they found places for us all to sleep, but none of us slept well after going through such a horrible nightmare. This ship stood right over the place where the Titanic went down, and picked us up. Two small boats were picked up later. They were floating. One had seven dead bodies in it, and the other just a dead boatman. They sewed them up in canvas here, weighted them, and gave them a Christian burial at sea. Two small boats filled with passengers capsized. They all went down but two or three who clung to the upturned boat and were saved.

  We are told that the SS Baltic picked up about fifty men, and the poor women here are hoping their husbands are among the fifty. It is supposed there are 160 more widows through this wreck, and most of them have children. It was so heartbreaking to see and hear them crying for their husbands.

  We were all gathered together, and our names taken for the newspapers. Of course, they cannot tell how many are dead, but we have on this ship only 200 hundred crew out of 910 and 500 passengers out of 2000. I am amongst the fortunate, for God has spared my life when I was so near death again. I have lost everything I had on board. The only thing I saved was my watch Dad gave me eleven years ago. But all my treasures and clothes and some money have gone. I have only the scanty clothes that I stand up in, including my big coat, which has been a blessing.

  We expect to land on Wednesday night, or the next morning. I shall be so thankful, for I feel so ill on this boat. The boat is not so nice, and we have to sleep in the bottom of the boat. But still, I thank God I am alive.

  I could tell you much more of the horrors of Sunday night, but will write again later on land. I can’t bear to think of it all now. Will you let Auntie and Edie see this letter, and tell my friends I am safe. You must have all been anxious.

  With fondest love to all, from Lizzie.

  The previous narrow escape to which Mrs Nye (who is well known in Folkestone) refers, was a serious illness from appendicitis. Her life has been full of sad and trying experiences. Her first sweetheart was washed off the Harbour Pier and drowned. She married a few years later, but had the misfortune to lose her two children by death, and also her husband.

  (Folkestone Herald, 4 May 1912)

  Steerage passenger Daniel Buckley, of Kingwilliamstown, Ireland, wrote a letter to his mother from the Carpathia, dated 18 April. He appeared remarkably well informed although details of his escape did differ slightly when he subsequently gave his evidence to the Senate Inquiry.

  Dear Mother, I am writing these few lines on board the Carpathia, the ship that saved our lives. As I might not have much time when I get to New York I mean to give you an account of the terrible shipwreck we had. At 11.40 p.m. on the fourteenth our ship Titanic struck an iceberg, and sank to the deep at 2.22 a.m. on the fifteenth. The present estimation is 1,500 lost, 710 saved. Thank God some of us are amongst the number saved. Hannah Riordan, Bridgie Bradley, Nonie O’Leary, and the Shine girl from Lisrobin are alright. There is no account of Patie O’Connell, Michael Linehan, from Freeholds, or Jim O’Connor, Hugh’s son from Tureeavonscane. However, I hope they were taken into some other ship. There were four of us sleeping in the same apartment. We had a bed of our own, and in every apartment there were four lifebelts, one for each person. At the time when the ship struck I heard a terrible noise. I jumped out of bed and told my comrades there was something wrong, but they only laughed. I turned on the gas, and to my surprise there was a small stream of water running along the floor. I had only just dressed myself when the sailors came along shouting: ‘All up on deck unless you want to get drowned.’ We all ran up on deck. I thought to go down again to my room for a lifebelt and my little bag. When I was going down the last flight of stairs the water was up three steps on the stairs, so
I did not go any further. I just thought of Den. Ring’s saying: ‘Stick to your lifebelts, and face a tearing ocean.’ We were not long on deck when the lifeboats were prepared. There were only sixteen boats, and that amount was only enough to carry a tenth of the passengers. The third boat that was let down I went on it. There were about forty men in it. An officer came along and said half the men should come out of the boat and let some ladies in. When I heard this I hid in the lower part of the boat. We were only fifteen minutes in the boat when the big ship went down. It was a terrible sight. It would make the stones cry to hear those on board shrieking. It made a terrible noise like thunder when it was sinking. There were a great many Irish boys and girls drowned. I got out without any wound. There were a lot of men and women got wounded getting off the steamer. There did a good many die coming out on the lifeboats and after getting on the Carpathia. It was a great change to us to get on this strange steamer as we had a grand time on the Titanic. We got very good diet and we had a very jolly time dancing and singing. We had every kind of instrument on board to amuse us, but all the amusement sank in the deep. I have no more to say at present. I will write a lot when I get to New York. Goodbye at present. – Dannie.