Free Titanic: A Survivor's Story by Archibald Gracie Page B

pieces of boarding for paddles with which to help keep clear of the ship.
    John Collins, assistant cook on the Titanic , also gave his testimony before the Senate Committee. He appears to have come on deck at the last moment on the starboard side and witnessed the Engelhardt boat when it floated off into the sea, he being carried off by the same wave when he was amidships on the bow as the ship sank, and kept down under water for at least two or three minutes. When he came up, he saw this boat again – the same boat on which he had seen men working when the waves washed it off the deck, and the men clinging to it. He was only about four or five yards off and swam over to it and got on to it. He says he is sure there were probably fifteen thereon at the time he got on. Those who were on the boat did not help him to get on. They were watching the ship. After he got on the boat, he did not see any lights on the Titanic , though the stern of the ship was still afloat when he first reached the surface. He accounts for the wave that washed him off amidships as due to the suction which took place when the bow went down in the water and the waves washed the decks clear. He saw a mass of people in the wreckage, hundreds in number, and heard their awful cries.
1 Italics are mine. – Author.

CHAPTER FIVE
    All Night On Bottom Of Half Submerged Up-turned Boat
    ‘O God of our salvation, Thou who art the hope of them that remain in the broad sea …’ – Ps. 65:5, 7.
    A ll my companions in shipwreck who made their escape with me on top of the bottom-side-up Engelhardt boat, must recall the anxious moment after the limit was reached when ‘about 30 men had clambered out of the water on to the boat.’ The weight of each additional body submerged out lifecraft more and more beneath the surface. There were men swimming in the water all about us. One more clambering aboard would have swamped our already crowded craft. The situation was a desperate one, and was only saved by the refusal of the crew, especially those at the stern of the boat, to take aboard another passenger. After pulling aboard the man who lay exhausted, face downward in front of me, I turned my head away from the sights in the water lest I should be called upon to refuse the pleading cries of those who were struggling for their lives. What happened at this juncture, therfore, my fellow companions in shipwreck can better describe. Steward Thomas Whiteley, interviewed by the New York Tribune , said: ‘I drifted near a boat wrong-side-up. About 30 men were clinging to it. They refused to let me get on. Somebody tried to hit me with an oar, but I scrambled on to her.’ Harry Senior, a fireman on the Titanic , as interviewed in the London Illustrated News of May 4th, and in the New York Times of April 19th, is reported as follows: ‘On the overturned boat in question were, amongst others, Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of the Titanic ; Col. Archibald Gracie, and Mr. J.B. Thayer, Jr., all of whom had gone down with the liner and had come to the surface again’; and ‘I tried to get aboard of her, but some chap hit me over the head with an oar. There were too many on her. I got around to the other side of the boat and climbed on. There were thirty-five of us, including the second officer, and no women. I saw any amount of drowning and dead around us.’ Bride’s story in the same issue of the New York Times says: ‘It was a terrible sight all around – men swimming and sinking. Others came near. Nobody gave them a hand. The bottom-up boat already had more men than it would hold and was sinking. At first the large waves splashed over my clothing; then they began to splash over my head and I had to breathe when I could.’
    Though I did not see, I could not avoid hearing what took place at this most tragic crisis in all my life. The men with the paddles, forward and aft, so steered the boat as to avoid contact with the unfortunate swimmers pointed out struggling in