those who were not on board the Carpathia had gone down to death.
One of the most seriously injured was a woman who had lost both her children. Her limbs had been severely torn; but she was very patient.
In the first cabin library women of wealth and refinement mingled their grief and asked eagerly for news of the possible arrival of a belated boat, or a message from other steamers telling of the safety of their husbands. Mrs. Henry B. Harris, wife of a New York theatrical manager, checked her tears long enough to beg that some message of hope be sent to her father-in-law. Mrs. G. Thorne, Miss Marie Young, Mrs Emil Taussig and her daughter, Ruth, Mrs. Martin Rothschild, Mrs. William Augustus Spencer, Mrs. J. Stewart White and Mrs. Walter M. Clark were a few of those who lay back, exhausted, on the leather cushions and told in shuddering sentences of their experiences.
Mrs. John Jacob Astor and the Countess of Rothes had been taken to staterooms soon after their arrival on shipboard.
Before noon, at the captain’s request, the first cabin passengers of the Titanic gathered in the saloon and the passengers of other classes in corresponding places on the rescue ship. Then the collecting of names was begun by the purser and the stewards. A second table was served in both cabins for the new guests, and the Carpathia’s second cabin, being better filled than its first, the second class arrivals had to be sent to the steerage.
Mrs. Jacques Futrelle, wife of the novelist, herself a writer of note, sat dry eyed in the saloon, telling her friends that she had given up hope for her husband. She joined with the rest in inquiries as to the chances of rescue by another ship, and no one told her what soon came to be the fixed opinion of the men—that all those saved were on the Carpathia.
“I feel better,” Mrs. Futrelle said hours afterward, “for I can cry now.”
Among the men conversation centered on the accident and the responsibility for it. Many expressed the belief that the Titanic, in common with other vessels, had had warning of the ice packs, but that in the effort to establish a record on the maiden run sufficient heed had not been paid to the warnings.
“God knows I’m not proud to be here,” said a rich New York man. “I got on a boat when they were about to lower it and when, from delays below, there was no woman to take the vacant place. I don’t think any man who was saved is deserving of censure, but I realize that, in contrast with those who went down, we may be viewed unfavorably.” He showed a picture of his baby boy as he spoke.
As the day passed the fore part of the ship assumed some degree of order and comfort, but the crowded second sabin and rear decks gave forth the incessant sound of lamentation. A bride of two months sat on the floor and moaned her widowhood. An Italian mother shrieked the name of her lost son.
A girl of seven wept over the loss of her Teddy bear and two dolls, while her mother, with streaming eyes, dared not tell the child that her father was lost too, and that the money for which their home in England had been sold had gone down with him. Other children clung to the necks of the fathers who, because carrying them, had been permitted to take the boats.
In the hospital and the public rooms lay, in blankets, several others who had been benumbed by the water. Mrs. Rosa Abbott, who was in the water for hours, was restored during the day. K. Whiteman, the Titanic’s barber, who declared he was blown off the ship by the second of the two explosions after the crash, was treated for bruises. A passenger, who was thoroughly ducked before being picked up, caused much amusement on this ship, soon after the doctors were through with him, by demanding a bath.
Storekeeper Prentice, the last man off the Titanic to reach this ship, was also soon over the effects of his long swim in the icy waters into which he leaped from the poop deck.
The physicians of the Carpathia were praised, as was Chief Steward Hughes, for work done in making the arrivals comfortable and averting serious illness.
Monday night on the Carpathia was one of rest. The wailing and sobbing of the day were hushed as widows and orphans slept. Tuesday, save for the crowded condition of the ship, matters took somewhat their normal appearance.
The second cabin dining room had been turned into a hospital to care for the injured, and the first, second and third class dining rooms were used for sleeping rooms at night for women, while the smoking rooms were set aside for men. All available space was used, some sleeping in chairs and some on the floor, while a few found rest in the bathrooms.
Every cabin had been filled, and women and children were sleeping on the floors in the dining saloon, library and smoking rooms. The passengers of the Carpathia had divided their clothes with the shipwrecked ones until they had at least kept warm. It is true that many women had to appear on deck in kimonos and some in underclothes with a coat thrown over them, but their lives had been spared and they had not thought of dress. Some children in the second cabin were entirely without clothes, but the women had joined together, and with needles and thread they could pick up from passenger to passenger, had made warm clothes out of the blankets belonging to the Carpathia.
The women aboard the Carpathia did what they could by word and act to relieve the sufferings of the rescued. Most of the survivors were in great need of clothing, and this the women of the Carpathia supplied to them as long as their surplus stock held out.
J. A. Shuttleworth, of Louisville, Ky., befriended Mrs. Lucien Smith, whose husband went down with the Titanic. Mrs. Smith was formerly Miss Eloise Hughes, daughter of Representative and Mrs. James A. Hughes, of Huntington, W. Va., and was on her wedding trip. Mr. Shuttleworth asked her if there wasn’t something he could do for her. She said that all the money she had was lost on the Titanic, so Mr. Shuttleworth gave her $500.
Two of the rescued from the Titanic died from shock and exposure before they reached the Carpathia, and another died a few minutes after being taken on board. The dead were W. H. Hoyte, first cabin; Abraham Hormer, third class, and S. C. Sirbert, steward, and they were buried at sea the morning of April 15th, latitude 41.14 north, longitude 51.24 west. P. Lyon, able seaman, died and was buried at sea the following morning.
An assistant steward lost his mind upon seeing one of the Titanic’s rescued firemen expire after being lifted to the deck of the Carpathia.
An Episcopal bishop and a Catholic priest from Montreal read services of their respective churches over the dead.
The bodies were sewed up in sacks, heavily weighted at the feet, and taken to an opening in the side of the ship on the lower deck not far above the water line. A long plank tilted at one end served as the incline down which the weighted sacks slid into the sea.
“After we got the Titanic’s passengers on board our ship,” said one of the Carpathia’s officers, “it was a question as to where we should take them. Some said the Olympic would come out and meet us and take them on to New York, but others said they would die if they had to be lowered again into small boats to be taken up by another, so we finally turned toward New York, delaying the Carpathia’s passengers eight days in reaching Gibraltar.”
There were several children on board, who had lost their parents—one baby of eleven months with a nurse who, coming on board the Carpathia with the first boat, watched with eagerness and sorrow for each incoming boat, but to no avail. The parents had gone down.
There was a woman in the second cabin who lost seven children out of ten, and there were many other losses quite as horrible.
Among the rescued ones who came on board the Carpathia was the president of the White Star Line.
“Mr. Ismay reached the Carpathia in about the tenth life-boat,” said an officer. “I didn’t know who he was, but afterward heard the others of the crew discussing his desire to get something to eat the minute he put his foot on deck. The steward who waited on him, McGuire, from London, says Mr. Ismay came dashing into the dining room, and throwing himself in a chair, said: ‘Hurry, for God’s sake, and get me something to eat; I’m starved. I
