Stephen A. Dymarcik II

by Titanic of the Dead

  CHAPTER III

  AFTER THE COLLISIONAND EMBARKATION INLIFEBOATS

  After the Titanic struck the iceberg, many people were unaware of the collision and also of the spreading sickness. A "deny or don’t reply" policy was quickly established, to keep all from overwhelming the ship. An elderly man came by the deck and asked "Why have we stopped?" "I don't know, sir," Ismay replied, "but I don't suppose it is anything much." "Well," he said, "I am going back to bed," and started towards the stairs. He smiled indulgently at me as I passed him, and said, "All right, sir, but the wife felt something." I am sure at that time he thought I was rather foolish to stand there with little reason, and I must confess I felt rather absurd for remaining calm; it seemed like he was to walk away, when he turned around and asked, "why are you all painting at this hour?" he was referring to the blood that was apparent on all of us in different locations. He shuffled closer about the deck in a dressing-gown and I heard Ismay cock his weapon, but I was able to redirect the old man back to his room. I was doing him a grave disservice but, also saved, or delayed his life

  Propeller drop seemed sufficient enough a lie for why we had stopped, but more people were going the observation deck. A keen eye and distraction was the method. "I heard gun play," a woman said. "That was a rocket Madam." And the steward, with his honest smile, persuaded her to return to her cabin. Lie after lie was told, making me feel guilty in an undefined way of breaking an Englishman's code. However, the fear of being devoured alive and attacked was present, so I continued to deceive. I needed to keep moving. I thought each person whom walked up was a "Growler". "Growler" quickly became the term to label these horrific, blood thirsty creatures.

  I stepped out into an atmosphere that cut me like a knife. Walking to the starboard side, I peered over and saw the sea many feet below, as black as death itself. Before me, the deck stretched away to the first-class quarters and the blood stained captain's bridge and behind me, the steerage quarters and the stern bridge; nothing more. No growlers on either side or astern as far as we could see in the darkness. There were two or three armed men on deck, and with one, a Scotch engineer was pouring vinegar about the deck and washing himself with vinegar. Over and over he washed his hands. He had said in times of plague, this is known to purify an area of disease. It was so dark and none of us could see anything. I began to walk as if I was being pulled forward. At first it was slow, but then I continued to increase my pace. Where was I going? I did not know, but I hungered for answers to the tragedy occurring before me.

  By this time the plan of Captain Smith was to allow only the healthy into the lifeboats. They would start with the women and children. Growlers and anyone that displayed such aggression would be put down immediately, like dogs. "All passengers on deck with lifebelts on!" was called out, as the crew went below to warn passengers.

  One man wandered up the stairs. He was of the loud sort. "Come here and look at this woman," he laughed, "she won't get up." I looked over, and on the deck lay a woman with her back to me, she was shaking and convulsing and only the back of her head visible. "Why won't she get up? Is she asleep, drunk or both?" the jokester said. "He says…" b ut before he could finish the sentence the woman growled "Sir, leave her be!” I yelled. Then the man leaned over the woman, I suppose to render her help, when the woman took hold of his arm and pulled it towards her mouth. "No!" I shouted. She was like a snake with her aim, taking his thumb and index digits clean off. The man stood there and held up his hand, shaking slightly, but not panicked. It was as if he was watching what had happened to him through another person’s eyes, the shock of the event not fully within his grasp. The woman then grabbed his right leg and pulled him to the deck-floor, she laid open his stomach with two movements, biting a small hole first then working her finger in the opening. I stood in horror as the woman started feasting on the man, whom I was talking to only a moment before, his body ripped open and enjoyed as a meal. The man was sobbing in an eerie sort of way, which sounded somewhat similar to his laugh, and therefore all the more frightening. An armed officer came over and put two bullets in the creature. Then both the Howler and man were thrown overboard; his screams of pain, terror, and free-fall panic quickly grew faint. He was not put down before going over, I do not know why.

  Once again, another passenger warning went out, "All passengers on deck with lifebelts on." We found many people assembled the top deck. I noted that there were no armed men watching the stairwell. Had they left? What if the growlers come up? I heard a man call out to his wife. “Over here,” he said, “my love, I’m over here!” His wife looked up, holding a leash in her hand; she was simply walking the dog, as if the events around us had no significance. Then I remembered that we had tried to keep the disaster disclosed, and that she was not the only oblivious person aboard the sinking Titanic. It was a French dog, a poodle finely groomed. As the wife got closer, she passed by the stairway. The dog stopped and she pulled the leash but the dog disobeyed her command and would not come forward past the stairway door. She pulled again, but the dog dug its claws in the deck, resisting, as if led to slaughter. “Come here now,” demanded the woman. She walked towards the dog. Then a man passed in front of my sight, it was only for a second, a split second, but when I located the area that the woman was just in, the woman was gone and the dog was standing in the same spot, whimpering. I tried to keep focus and discover the answer to the mystery, but with so many passengers on deck now, it was hard to stay in one spot. I no longer had independent movement; I had become part of the crowd.

  But if there were any one who had not by now realized that the ship was in danger, all doubt at this point was to be set at rest in a dramatic manner. Suddenly, ten rushes of light from the forward deck, a hissing roar that made us all turn from watching the boats, and many rockets leapt upwards to where the stars blinked and twinkled above us. Up they went, higher and higher, with a sea of faces upturned to watch. Then a number of explosions that seemed to split the soul in two, and a shower of stars sank slowly down and went out one by one. With a gasping sigh one word escaped the lips of the crowd, “Rockets!" Everybody knows what a rocket at sea means, but so many at one time was a desperate plea. It meant that all hope of reaching the New York harbor was abandoned. Suddenly, though the deck was full of people, I felt utterly alone.

  As I stood there, grasping my surroundings, I surveyed everything I could and let my imagination wander. I could see in my head, as if from an aerial view, as if I was above everything, the sixth of a mile long ship, with passengers crowding three decks, open to the sea, and the port and starboard sides to each deck. I grasped the difficulty that was presented to the officers in this current situation; keeping control over such a large area, and the impossibility of anyone knowing what was occurring anywhere but within his own immediate vicinity. Perhaps the whole thing can be summed up best by saying that after we had embarked in the lifeboats and rowed away from the Titanic, the cries of drowning people were heartbreaking, the cries of people being eaten while drowning was nauseating. The growls seemed like a thunderbolt to us.

  All this time people were pouring up from the stairs and adding to the crowd: packed like sardines. We were already in a sea of bodies. Looking across the crowd on deck, you could hear the growlers. Pocket of emptiness would form in that spot, when someone was literally pulled from their feet and devoured. The person standing next to them, had some terrifying idea of what was happening, only they could not see the gruesome events occurring, due to the number of bodies packed on board. I managed to free myself from the pocket of that crowd and was able to move about on the starboard side of the top boat deck; I checked the time to see that it was about 12:20am. I watched the crew at work on the lifeboats, numbers 9, 11,13, 15, some inside arranging the oars, some coiling ropes on the deck, the ropes which ran through the pulleys to lower them into the sea, others with cranks fitted to the rocking arms of the davits. As we watched, the cranks were turned, the davits swung outwards until the boats hung clea
r of the edge of the deck. Just then an officer came along from the first-class deck and shouted above the noise of escaping steam, "All women and children come forward. Men stand back from the boats." Two women refused to leave their husbands at first, but partly by persuasion and partly by force, they were separated from them and sent to the lineup. The separation of men and women impressed on us another dimension of imminent demise, but it made no difference, we were in danger of drowning or being attacked. They were just as prepared to obey orders and to do what came next as when they first came on deck. I do not mean that they actually reasoned it out, they were the average Teutonic crowd, with an inborn respect for law and order and for traditions bequeathed to them by generations of ancestors; the reasons that made them act as they did were impersonal, instinctive, and hereditary; even in the face of madness and disaster.

  The crew was now in the boats, the sailors standing by the pulley ropes let them slip through the cleats in jerks, and down the boats went till level with B deck; women and children climbed over the rail into the boats and filled them; when full, they were lowered one by one, beginning with number. All this we could see by peering over the edge of the boat-deck, which was now quite open to the sea, the four boats which formed a natural barrier being lowered from the deck and leaving it exposed.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! At first, the sound of gunfire was unsettling, now it was like the voice of a long-lost friend. I was relieved to hear it; it meant that armed men were putting down the dead. About this time, while walking the deck, I saw two ladies come over from the port side and walk towards the rail separating the second class from the first-class deck. There stood an officer barring the way. One of the women approached the officer and asked, "May we pass to the boats?" "No, madam," he replied politely, "your boats are down on your own deck." He pointed to where they swung below. The ladies turned and went towards the stairway, and no doubt were able to enter one of the boats; they had ample time. I mention this to show that there was, at any rate, some arrangement, whether official or not, for separating the classes in the embarking in boats; how far it was carried out, I do not know, but if the second class ladies were not expected to enter a boat from the first class deck, while steerage passengers were allowed access to the second class deck, it would seem to press rather hardly on the second-class men, and this is supported by the low percentage saved. Another steerage man proclaimed, his wife and children were still locked below. He did not know what to do. Where does loyalty and betrayal meet? At some point, self-preservation sets in. I did not see that man aboard the Carpathia.

  Almost immediately after this incident, a young boy of about four years old, turned growler right in front of me. He gnashed about and tried to scratch, yet his child's hands were not capable of inflicting such damage. I did fear he would bite some unfortunate person, if I had been by myself in this situation, I'd have handled it much differently. But I was not by myself, so I simply picked him up and heaved him overboard. It still aches my heart to think about this event. I apologize to his dear mother if she survived; it is a parent’s worst nightmare to outlive their child.

  Screech! Screech! Soon after the men had left the starboard side, I saw a bandsman, the 'cellist, come round the vestibule corner from the staircase entrance and run down the starboard deck, his 'cello trailing behind him, making a horrible screeching that filled my ears as the spike dragged along the floor. This must have been about 12:40 A.M. I suppose the band must have begun to play soon after this and gone on until after 2 A.M. Many brave things were done that night, but none braver than those few men playing minute after minute as the ship settled quietly lower and lower in the sea and the sea rose higher and higher to where they stood. The music they played serving like their own immortal requiem and their right to be recorded on the rolls of undying fame.

  Looking forward and downward, we could see several of the boats now in the water, moving slowly one by one from the side, without confusion or noise, and stealing away in the darkness which swallowed them in turn as the crew bent to the oars. An officer, I think First Officer Murdock, came striding along the deck, clad in a long coat, from his manner and face evidently in great agitation, but determined and resolute; he looked over the side and shouted to the boats being lowered, "lower away, and when afloat, row around to the gangway and wait for orders." "Aye, aye, sir," was the reply; and the officer passed by and went across the ship to the port side. Almost immediately after this, I heard a cry from below of, “any more ladies?" As I looked over the edge of the deck, I saw boat 13 swinging level with the rail of B deck, with crew members, some stokers, a few men passengers and the rest ladies; the latter being about half the total number; the boat was almost full and just about to be lowered. The call for ladies was repeated twice again, but apparently there were none to be found. Just then one of the crew looked up and saw me looking over. "Any ladies on your deck?" he said. "No," I replied. "Then you had better jump." I sat on the edge of the deck with my feet over, threw the dressing-gown (which I had carried on my arm all of the time) into the boat, dropped, and fell in the boat near the stern.

  As I picked myself up, I heard a shout, "wait a moment, here are two more ladies!" They were pushed hurriedly over the side and tumbled into the boat, one into the middle and one next to me in the stern. They told me afterwards that they had been assembled on a lower deck with other ladies, and had come up to B deck not by the usual stairway inside, but by one of the vertically upright iron ladders that connects each deck with the one below it, meant for the use of sailors passing about the ship. Other ladies had been in front of them and got up quickly, but these two were delayed a long time by the fact that one of the,-the one that was helped first over the side into boat 13 near the middle, was not at all active; it seemed almost impossible for her to climb up a vertical ladder. We saw her trying to climb the swinging rope ladder up the Carpathia's side a few hours later, and she had the same difficulty. As they tumbled in, the crew shouted, "lower away!" However, before the order was obeyed, a man with his wife and a baby came quickly to the side. The baby was handed to the lady in the stern, the mother got in near the middle and looked up expectantly, waiting for her husband to make the slight jump into the boat, when suddenly six growlers rushed the man, causing the wife to scream, jumping up in distress, crying out for her husband. A person with some sense held her back to prevent her from toppling out of the boat in her desperate panic. From out of nowhere, Mr. Bruce Ismay, armed with a ship's axe, ran up to the pack attacking the father. He swung the axe, taking the head clear off one of the creatures, a dull thump reverberating through the air. One of the creatures was attempting to climb in to our boat, causing the majority of the ladies aboard to scream. The creature grabbed hold of my leg, its’ eyes focused on the target of my calf. As I attempted to wrench my leg out of the horrible growlers death like grip, Ismay returned and parted the creature down the middle of its head, splitting its skull into two halves. The lady with the baby fainted, drooping onto the passenger next to her. The deck disappeared from view as the boat returned its slow journey down to the sea many feet below.

  CHAPTER IV

  THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC ASSEEN FROMA LIFEBOAT

  Looking back now on the descent of our boat down the ship's side, it certainly was strange to see the black hull of the ship on one side and the sea, seventy feet below, on the other, or to pass down by cabin windows and saloons brilliantly lighted. As we passed one particular window, I saw a family. The father had a son in hand and his daughter by his side. The wife was blocking the exit. She lashed about with her hands, digging in the air. She was foaming from the mouth with black tar like froth. Her husband and children were pleading with her to allow them to leave. She continued to swat at them wildly. Then we were being lowered again and the horrible vision past from my line of sight. As we descended, we knew nothing of the apprehension felt in the minds of some of the officers who doubted whether the boats and lowering-gear would stand the strain of the weight of our s
ixty people. The ropes, however, were new and strong, and the boat did not buckle in the middle as an older boat might have done. Whether it was right or not to lower boats full of people to the water -and it seems likely it was not, I think there can be nothing but the highest praise given to the officers and crew for the way in which they lowered the boats, one after the other, safely to the water. It may seem a simple matter, to read about such a thing, but any sailor knows, that it is not so. An experienced officer has told me that he has seen a boat lowered in practice from a ship's deck, with a trained crew and no passengers inthe boat, with practiced sailors paying out the ropes, in daylight, in calm weather, with the ship lying in dock, and has seen the boat tilt over and pitch the crew headlong into the sea. Contrast these conditions with those that Monday morning at 12.45 A.M., and it is impossible not to feel that, whether the lowering crew were trained or not, whether they had or had not drilled since coming on board, they did their duty in a way that argues the greatest efficiency. I cannot help feeling the deepest gratitude to the two sailors who stood at the ropes above and lowered us to the sea; It would be foolish to hope that they were saved, but I certainly do.

  Perhaps one explanation of our feeling little fear or doubt of the unusual in leaving the Titanic in this way, was that it seemed the climax to a series of extraordinary occurrences; the magnitude of the whole thing dwarfed events that, in the ordinary way, would seem to be full of imminent peril. It is easy to imagine it; a voyage of four days on a calm sea, without a single incident; the presumption, perhaps already mentally half realized, that we should be ashore in forty-eight hours and so complete a splendid voyage, and then retire to your cabin, fall fast asleep and awaken to the apocalypse. Then it dawned on me, these growlers were really dead. They were deceased and not human. It was the natural sequence, except after they die, they get up again and are hungry.