TGT Desk
You must have heard about the sinking of the Titanic, a ship which people thought, could never sink. Here is the account of Elizabeth Shute, a passenger on board the ship. The account has been taken from Eyewitness to History (2000) and partly revised for simplicity:
On April 10, 1912, the Titanic, largest ship so far, left Southampton, England on her maiden voyage to New York City. The ship had all the luxury she could give. She had become a story even before starting her first voyage, and the passengers were excited.
She was termed the safest ship ever built, so safe that she carried only 20 lifeboats, when the number of passengers were 2200, apart from the crew. This was because they believed that since the ship’s construction made her ‘unsinkable’, more lifeboats were necessary.
Four days into her journey, at 11:40 P.M. on the night of April 14, she struck an iceberg. Her fireman compared the sound of the impact to the tearing of cotton cloth, and nothing more. However, the collision was fatal and the icy water soon poured through the ship.
It became obvious that many would not find place in so few lifeboats. The night was so cold; it was four degrees below freezing. As the forward portion of the ship sank deeper, passengers ran away to the front side. John Thayer witnessed the sinking from a lifeboat: “We could see groups of almost fifteen hundred people still aboard, clinging in clusters or bunches, like swarming bees. They were falling in masses, pairs or singly, as the back part of the ship rose into the sky by two hundred and fifty feet, till it reached a sixty-five or seventy degree angle.” The great ship slowly slid beneath the waters, two hours and forty minutes after the collision with the iceberg.
The next morning, another ship called Carpathia rescued 705 survivors. One thousand five hundred twenty-two passengers and crew were lost. So many people died, because there were insufficient number of lifeboats and inadequate training in their use.
Elizabeth Shutes, aged 40, was governess to nineteen-year-old Margaret Graham who was traveling with her parents. She recalls the tragedy like this: “Suddenly a quivering ran under me, apparently the whole length of the ship. Startled by the shivering motion, I jumped on to the floor. Believing that no wrong would come up with such a ship, I again lay down. Someone knocked at my door, and the voice of a friend said: ‘Come quickly to my cabin; an iceberg has just passed our window. I know it’s just 1 o’clock in the night.’
“No confusion, no noise of any kind. One could believe there was no danger imminent. Looking out into the companionway, I saw people asking questions from half-closed doors. Everything was calm; no excitement.
“I sat down again. My friend was by this time dressed. Still her daughter and I talked on. Margaret pretended to eat a sandwich. Her hand shook so that the bread kept kept falling on the ground. Then I saw she was frightened, and for the first time I was too. But why get dressed? No one had given the slightest hint of any possible danger.
“An officer’s cap passed the door. I asked: ‘Is there an accident or danger of any kind?’ ‘None, so far as I know,’ was his courteous answer. This same officer then entered a cabin a little distance down the companionway. As I listened carefully, I heard someone saying, ‘We can keep the water out for a while.’ I knew now, water had entered Titanic.
Then, and not until then, did I realize the horror of an accident at the sea. Now it was too late to dress. We quickly put on our coats and skirts, and moved in slippers. The stewardess put on our life-preservers, and we were just ready when Mr. Roebling came to tell us he would take us to our friend’s mother, who was waiting above.
Oh, what did we see? Such a gruesome scene! The awful good-byes! We saw the quiet look of hope in the brave men’s eyes as the wives were put into the lifeboats while the men remained back in the ship. We left from the side, seventy-five feet above the water. Mr. Case and Mr. Roebling, brave American men, saw us to the lifeboat, made no effort to save themselves, but stepped back on the deck. Later, they went to an honored grave.
Our lifeboat, with thirty-six people in it, began lowering into the sea. This was done amid a great confusion. As only one side of the ropes worked, the lifeboat, at one time, was in such a position that it seemed we must capsize in mid-air. At last, the ropes worked together, and we drew nearer and nearer the black, oily water. The first touch of our lifeboat on that black sea came to me as a last good-bye to life, and so we rowed away from the Titanic, a ship that had been a safe home for five days.
The first wish on the part of all was to stay near the Titanic. We all felt so much safer near the ship. Surely such a vessel could not sink. I thought the accident was false, and we could all be taken on board again. Surely, the outline of that great, good ship was growing less. It was slowly sinking.
Sitting by me in the lifeboat were a mother and a daughter. The mother had left a husband on the Titanic and the daughter a father and husband. While we were near other boats, those two stricken women would call out a name and ask, “Are you there?” “No,” would come back as the awful answer, but these brave women never lost courage, forgot their own sorrow, telling me to sit close to them to keep warm.
The life preservers helped to keep us warm, but the night was bitter cold, and it grew colder and colder and just before dawn, the coldest, darkest hour of all came and no help seemed possible.
The stars slowly disappeared, and in their place came the faint pink glow of another day. Then I heard, “A light, a ship.”
For a long time, I did not believe there was a ship coming to help us. I thought, the light was nothing but burning of paper or straw by passengers on the lifeboats to keep themselves warm, or to look ahead in the dark sea. But then, as the ship came nearer, I was sure of it. The two—the ship and the dawn—came together, like a living painting. We were saved, finally, but many of our friends went deep down into the ocean, never to come home again.