mission worker in foreign fields
The Pennsylvania Railroad sent representatives to the pier, who said that the railroad had a special train of nine cars in which it would carry free any passenger who wanted to go immediately to Philadelphia or points west. The Pennsylvania also had eight taxicabs at the pier for conveyance of the rescued to the Pennsylvania Station, in Thirty-third Street.
Among those who later arrived at the pier before the Carpathia docked were P. A. B. Widener, of Philadelphia, two women relatives of J. B. Thayer, William Harris, Jr., the theatrical man, who was accompanied by Dr. Dinkelspiel, and Henry Arthur Jones, the playwright.
Commander Booth, of the Salvation Army, was there especially to meet Mrs. Elizabeth Nye and Mrs. Rogers Abbott, both Titanic survivors. Mrs. Abbott’s two sons were supposed to be among the lost. Miss Booth had received a cablegram from London saying that other Salvation Army people were on the Titanic. She was eager to get news of them.
Also on the pier was Major Blanton, U. S. A., stationed at Washington, who was waiting for tidings of Major Butt, supposedly at the instance of President Taft.
Senator William A. Clark and Mrs. Clark were also in the company. Dr. John R. MacKenty was waiting for Mr. and Mrs. Henry S. Harper. Ferdinand W. Roebling and Carl G. Roebling, cousins of Washington A. Roebling, Jr., whose name is among the list of dead, went to the pier to see what they could learn of his fate.
J. P. Morgan, Jr., arrived at the pier about half an hour before the Carpathia docked. He said he had many friends on the Titanic and was eagerly awaiting news of all of them.
Fire Commissioner Johnson was there with John Peel, of Atlanta, Gal, a brother of Mrs. Jacques Futrelle. Mrs. Futrelle has a son twelve years old in Atlanta, and a daughter Virginia, who has been in school in the North and is at present with friends in this city, ignorant of her father’s death.
There was one man in that sad waiting company who startled those near him about 9 o’clock by dancing across the pier and back. He seemed to be laughing, but when he was stopped it was found that he was sobbing. He said that he had a relative on the Titanic and had lost control of his nerves.
H. H. Brunt, of Chicago, was at the gangplank waiting for A. Saalfeld, head of the wholesale drug firm of Sparks, White & Co., of London, who was coming to this country on the Titanic on a business trip and whose life was saved.
During the afternoon and evening tugboats, motor boats and even sailing craft, had been waiting off the Ambrose Light for the appearance of the Carpathia.
Some of the waiting craft contained friends and anxious relatives of the survivors and those reported as missing.
The sea was rough and choppy, and a strong east wind was blowing. There was a light fog, so that it was possible to see at a distance of only a few hundred yards. This lifted later in the evening.
First to discover the incoming liner with her pitiful cargo was one of the tugboats. From out of the mist there loomed far out at sea the incoming steamer.
“Liner ahead!” cried the lookout on the tug to the captain.
“She must be the Carpathia,” said the captain, and then he turned the nose of his boat toward the spot on t he horizon.
Then the huge black hull and one smokestack could be distinguished.
“It’s the Carpathia,” said the captain. “I can tell her by the stack.”
The announcement sent a thrill through those who heard it. Here, at the gate of New York, was a ship whose record for bravery and heroic work would be a famuliar{sic} name in history.
{illust. caption = Copyright by G. V. Buck. MRS. LUCIEN P. SMITH
Formerly Miss Eloise Hughes, daughter of Representative and Mrs. James A. Hughes, of West Virginia. Mrs. Smith and her husband were passengers on the Titanic. Mrs. Smith was saved, but her husband went to a watery grave. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were married only a few months ago.}
{illust. caption = MAJOR ARCHIBALD BUTT
Military Aide to President Taft. Of Major Butt, who was one of the victims of the Titanic, one of the survivors said: “Major Butt was the real leader in all of that rescue work. He made the men stand back and helped the women and children into the boats. He was surely one of God’s noblemen.'}
CHAPTER XII. THE TRAGIC HOME-COMING
IT was a solemn moment when the Carpathia heaved in sight. There she rested on the water, a blur of black—huge, mysterious, awe-inspiring—and yet withal a thing to send thrills of pity and then of admiration through the beholder.
It was a few minutes after seven o’clock when she arrived at the entrance to Ambrose Channel. She was coming fast steaming at better than fifteen knots an hour, and she was sighted long before she was expected. Except for the usual side and masthead lights she was almost dark, only the upper cabins showing a glimmer here and there.
Then began a period of waiting, the suspense of which proved almost too much for the hundreds gathered there to greet friends and relatives or to learn with certainty at last that those for whom they watched would never come ashore.
There was almost complete silence on the pier. Doctors and nurses, members of the Women’s Relief Committee, city and government officials, as well as officials of the line, moved nervously about.
Seated where they had been assigned beneath the big customs letters corresponding to the initials of the names of the survivors they came to meet, sat the mass of 2000 on the pier.
Women wept, but they wept quietly, not hysterically, and the sound of the sobs made many times less noise than the hum and bustle which is usual on the pier among those awaiting an incoming liner.
Slowly and majestically the ship slid through the water, still bearing the details of that secret of what happened and who perished when the Titanic met her fate.
Convoying the Carpathia was a fleet of tugs bearing men and women anxious to learn the latest news. The Cunarder had been as silent for days as though it, too, were a ship of the dead. A list of survivors had been given out from its wireless station and that was all. Even the approximate time of its arrival had been kept a secret.
There was no response to the hail from one tug, and as others closed in, the steamship quickened her speed a little and left them behind as she swung up the channel.
There was an exploding of flashlights from some of the tugs, answered seemingly by sharp stabs of lightning in the northwest that served to accentuate the silence and absence of light aboard the rescue ship. Five or six persons, apparently members of the crew or the ship’s officers, were seen along the rail; but otherwise the boat appeared to be deserted.
Off quarantine the Carpathia slowed down and, hailing the immigration inspection boat, asked if the health officer wished to board. She was told that he did, and came to a stop while Dr. O’Connell and two assistants climbed on board. Again the newspaper men asked for some word of the catastrophe to the Titanic, but there was no answer, and the Carpathia continued toward her pier.
As she passed the revenue cutter Mohawk and the derelict destroyer Seneca anchored off Tompkinsville the wireless on the Government vessels was seen to flash, but there was no answering spark from the Carpathia. Entering the North River she laid her course close to the New Jersey side in order to have room to swing into her
