University of Virginia Library

PARTING OF ASTOR AND BRIDE

"As I passed the gymnasium I saw Colonel Astor and his young wife together. She was clinging to him, piteously pleading that he go into the life-boat with her. He refused almost gruffly and was attempting to calm her by saying that all her fears were groundless, that the accident she feared would prove a farce. It proved different, however.

"None, I believe, knew that the ship was about to sink. I did not realize it just then. When I reached the upper deck and saw tons of ice piled upon our crushed bow the full realization came to me.

"Officers stood with drawn guns ordering the women into

the boats. All feared to leave the comparative safety of a broad and firm deck for the precarious smaller boats. Women clung to their husbands, crying that they would never leave without them, and had to be torn away.

"On one point all the women were firm. They would not enter a Life-boat until men were in it first. They feared to trust themselves to the seas in them. It required courage to step into the frail crafts as they swung from the creaking davits. Few men were willing to take the chance. An officer rushed behind me and shouted:

"`You're big enough to pull an oar. Jump into this boat or we'll never be able to get the women off.' I was forced to do so, though I admit that the ship looked a great deal safer to me than any small boat.

"Our boat was the second off. Forty or more persons were crowded into it, and with myself and members of the crew at the oars, were pulled slowly away. Huge icebergs, larger than the Pennsylvania depot at New York, surrounded us. As we pulled away we could see boat after boat filled and lowered to the waves. Despite the fact that they were new and supposedly in excellent working order, the blocks jammed in many instances, tilting the boats, loaded with people, at varying angles before they reached the water.