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

Captain had been able to reach this boat. They had pulled him on, but he slipped off again.’ Still another witness, the entrée cook of the Titanic , J. Maynard, who was on our boat, corrorborates what I heard said at the time about the inability of the Captain to keep his hold on the boat. From several sources I have the the information about the falling of the funnel, the splash of which swept from the upturned boat several who were first clinging thereto, and among the number possibly was the Captain. From the following account of Bride, it would appear he was swept off himself and regained his hold later. ‘I saw a boat of some kind near me and put all my strength into an effort to swim to it. It was hard work. I was all done when a hand reached out from the boat and pulled me aboard. It was our same collapsible. The same crew was on it. There was just room for me to roll on the edge. I lay there, not caring what happened.’ Fortunately for us all, the majority of us were not thus exhausted or desperate. On the contrary, these men on this upset boat had plenty of strength and the purpose to battle for their lives. There were no beacon torches on crag and cliff; no shouts in the pauses of the storm to tell them there was hope; nor deep-toned bell with its loudest peal sending cheerily, o’er the deep, comfort to those wretched souls in their extremity. There were, however, lights forward and on the port side to be seen all the time until the Carpathia appeared. These lights were only those of the Titanic ’s other lifeboats, and thus it was, as they gazed with eager, anxious eyes that:
‘Fresh hope did give them strength and strength deliverance.’ 2
    The suffering on the boat from cold was intense. My neighbour in front, whom I had pulled aboard, must also have been suffering from exhaustion, but it was astern of us whence came later the reports about fellow boatmates who gave up the struggle and fell off from exhaustion, or died, unable to stand the exposure and strain. Among the number, we are told by Bride and Whiteley, was the senior Marconi operator, Phillips, but their statement that it was Phillips’ lifeless body which we transferred first to a lifeboat and thence to the Carpathia is a mistake, for the body referred to both Lightoller and myself know to have been that of a member of the crew, as described later. Bride himself suffered severely. ‘Somebody sat on my legs,’ he says. ‘They were wedged in between slats and were being wrenched.’ When he reached the Carpathia he was taken to the hospital and on our arrival in New York was carried ashore with his ‘feet badly crushed and frostbitten.’
    The combination of cold and the awful scenes of suffering and death which he witnessed from our upturned boat deeply affected another first cabin survivor, an Englishman, Mr. R.H. Barkworth, whose tender heart is creditable to his character.
    Another survivor of our upturned boat, James McGann, a fireman, interviewed by the New York Tribune on April 20th, says that he was one of the thirty of us, mostly firemen, clinging to it as she left the ship. As to the suffering endured that night he says: ‘All our legs were frostbitten and we were all in the hospital for a day at least.’
    ‘Hagan’ also adds his testimony as to the sufferings endured by our boatmates. He says: ‘One man on the upturned boat rolled off, into the water, at the stern, dead with fright and cold. Another died in the lifeboat.’ Here he refers to the lifeless body which we transferred, and finally put aboard the Carpathia , but which was not Phillips’.
    Lightoller testified: ‘I think there were three or four who died during the night aboard our boat. The Marconi junior operator told me that the senior operator was on this boat and died, presumably from cold.’
    But the uncommunicative little member of the crew beside me did not seem to suffer much. He was like a number of others who were possessed of hats or caps – his was